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tardis_stowawayI am somewhat baffled by the almost universally positive reviews I'm seeing for "Closing Time" so far, because I wasn't a fan.
Possibly the sound of crying baby for so much of the episode put me in a bad mood (reason #137 why I never intend to reproduce), because I found this episode somewhat dull and irritating. Part of it is that I wasn't wild about seeing Craig again. I liked "The Lodger" okay, but that was more in spite of Craig than because of him. I love the concept of the Doctor going on a farewell tour of people he cares about, but there were so many others I would rather have seen. Even just picking people from the Eleven era, visits to Liz Ten or Vastra and Jenny would have allowed for much more interesting adventures. A visit to Jack would have been timely given Jack's recent brush with mortality, but that clearly wasn't going to happen.
So you can avoid being converted into a Cyberman by the power of love and really, really not wanting to be converted? That makes NO FUCKING SENSE. Continuity of monster powers and logic in general have never been strengths of Doctor Who, and I'm resigned to that, but this was just ridiculous. Are they saying that all the other people who have been cyberconverted just didn't have enough love in their hearts? What the hell? That's just insulting. The cyber-rat (or whatever that little scooty thing was called) was okay as excuses to make new Doctor Who toys go until it displayed a mouthful of teeth. That doesn't really fit into the cyberman aesthetic.
There were surprise Ponds! The Doctor having to hide from them broke my heart a bit, but I'm not sure how I feel about the rest of it. When the little girl asked Amy for an autograph, my first thought was that maybe she had written a book about her experiences with the Doctor. Then the camera pointed up and we find out that she's...a model with a perfume line? Huh. I'm glad that she has a successful career rather than, say, pining away or immediately getting pregnant with a more linear baby. The Petrichor name and the tagline make it clear that she has a role in the marketing concept of the perfume rather than just being the face of the ad. I'm not wild about model/perfume entrepeneur/however she defines herself as a career choice as opposed to other possibilities (like going to university or becoming a non-kissogram policewoman or something else where her mind is more important than her looks), but I guess I can see it for her.
All the Doctor Who fans with babies have now nicknamed their offspring Stormaggedon. All of them. Also, I suspect that the majority of Doctor Who fans who listened to radio in the late nineties now have Semisonic's "Closing Time" stuck in their heads. I certainly do.
I thought it was odd to have such a small story for the next to last episode of the series. Judging by all the unanswered questions we've got and all the stuff in the preview, there will be a lot of shit happening in the finale. If the previous arc episodes of this series are any indication, it might have been better to do a two-part finale to actually allow the story to breathe. We'll see how it turns out next week. CT did address some of the Doctor's melancholy about going to his death, and that provided some of the episode's better moments.
Other good things included Alex Kingston's acting when Madame Kovarian came for her. Eek! Having apparently shaken off her youthful brainwashing and getting her doctorate only to immediately be kidnapped and forced to kill the Doctor just adds to the list of reasons why River has the most tragic life ever. I'm a bit disappointed that we're going the obvious route of having River in the spaceuit, but whatever.
The Doctor has a time machine. He knows the date in linear time when he's at Lake Silencio, but why exactly does that have to be his tomorrow? Also, what happened to all the years between the ages of the younger Doctor who showed up in TIA and has been traveling with Amy and Rory all series and the age of the older Doctor who died in TIA? Was there a massive gap between The God Complex and Closing Time? I'm confused.
There were some funny moments and some touching moments, but overall I thought this was a weak episode. Sorry for being the rain on the parade!
On the subject of Doctor Who and things that don't quite work,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
netgirl_y2k wrote some excellent commentary (written prior to Closing Time) about the problems of Moffat's DW, especially S6.
Possibly the sound of crying baby for so much of the episode put me in a bad mood (reason #137 why I never intend to reproduce), because I found this episode somewhat dull and irritating. Part of it is that I wasn't wild about seeing Craig again. I liked "The Lodger" okay, but that was more in spite of Craig than because of him. I love the concept of the Doctor going on a farewell tour of people he cares about, but there were so many others I would rather have seen. Even just picking people from the Eleven era, visits to Liz Ten or Vastra and Jenny would have allowed for much more interesting adventures. A visit to Jack would have been timely given Jack's recent brush with mortality, but that clearly wasn't going to happen.
So you can avoid being converted into a Cyberman by the power of love and really, really not wanting to be converted? That makes NO FUCKING SENSE. Continuity of monster powers and logic in general have never been strengths of Doctor Who, and I'm resigned to that, but this was just ridiculous. Are they saying that all the other people who have been cyberconverted just didn't have enough love in their hearts? What the hell? That's just insulting. The cyber-rat (or whatever that little scooty thing was called) was okay as excuses to make new Doctor Who toys go until it displayed a mouthful of teeth. That doesn't really fit into the cyberman aesthetic.
There were surprise Ponds! The Doctor having to hide from them broke my heart a bit, but I'm not sure how I feel about the rest of it. When the little girl asked Amy for an autograph, my first thought was that maybe she had written a book about her experiences with the Doctor. Then the camera pointed up and we find out that she's...a model with a perfume line? Huh. I'm glad that she has a successful career rather than, say, pining away or immediately getting pregnant with a more linear baby. The Petrichor name and the tagline make it clear that she has a role in the marketing concept of the perfume rather than just being the face of the ad. I'm not wild about model/perfume entrepeneur/however she defines herself as a career choice as opposed to other possibilities (like going to university or becoming a non-kissogram policewoman or something else where her mind is more important than her looks), but I guess I can see it for her.
All the Doctor Who fans with babies have now nicknamed their offspring Stormaggedon. All of them. Also, I suspect that the majority of Doctor Who fans who listened to radio in the late nineties now have Semisonic's "Closing Time" stuck in their heads. I certainly do.
I thought it was odd to have such a small story for the next to last episode of the series. Judging by all the unanswered questions we've got and all the stuff in the preview, there will be a lot of shit happening in the finale. If the previous arc episodes of this series are any indication, it might have been better to do a two-part finale to actually allow the story to breathe. We'll see how it turns out next week. CT did address some of the Doctor's melancholy about going to his death, and that provided some of the episode's better moments.
Other good things included Alex Kingston's acting when Madame Kovarian came for her. Eek! Having apparently shaken off her youthful brainwashing and getting her doctorate only to immediately be kidnapped and forced to kill the Doctor just adds to the list of reasons why River has the most tragic life ever. I'm a bit disappointed that we're going the obvious route of having River in the spaceuit, but whatever.
The Doctor has a time machine. He knows the date in linear time when he's at Lake Silencio, but why exactly does that have to be his tomorrow? Also, what happened to all the years between the ages of the younger Doctor who showed up in TIA and has been traveling with Amy and Rory all series and the age of the older Doctor who died in TIA? Was there a massive gap between The God Complex and Closing Time? I'm confused.
There were some funny moments and some touching moments, but overall I thought this was a weak episode. Sorry for being the rain on the parade!
On the subject of Doctor Who and things that don't quite work,
netgirl_y2k wrote some excellent commentary (written prior to Closing Time) about the problems of Moffat's DW, especially S6.