May 2011 – News on Shuffle

Doctor Who 6×5 – The Rebel Flesh

As River Song would say, spoilers! Read on at your own risk.

No, seriously.

Last chance to turn back.

Look at all the space I gave you.

Alright, for those who are left, this is my review/recap of the latest Doctor Who episode “The Rebel Flesh”. I was originally going to wait so I didn’t have to deal with the cliffhanger, but I was convinced otherwise. So here it goes.

We start this episode in true, creepy, Doctor Who fashion. Not sure where events are taking place this time, we are left with the mystery of what we are seeing and where it will lead us. Whatever happens, we know the Doctor will become involved somehow.

Cut to the TARDIS, and our heroes our listening to Muse’s “Supermassive Black Hole” – something that excited me greatly. Two of the best things to come out of the UK in one place. Gotta love it.

Back to the real story, the Doctor predictable lands himself right in the middle of our latest mystery. We’re introduced to our title creature, an acid that can take the form of a living organism. Of course this is something that fascinates the Doctor. There’s a bigger problem on his mind though, and that is the solar storm that is going to hit the planet they are on.

The scene where we first see the storm coming is visually stunning. We know we should be scared of what will happen next, but it is hard to not be in awe of this massive yet beautiful surge of energy. We have heard how this show has to work with a low budget, but it is hard to tell in moments like this. It’s one of the many things that make this show so good.

Of course we’re not going to drop one story for the sake of another. The rebel flesh have been given life after the last storm, and are now wandering around the facility somewhere. The flesh have the same memories as the people they were originally based on, which will have its own consequences in the future. They may not be real to us, but in their minds they have lives of their own, and will put up a fight to keep them. They’re scared and angry and just want to survive. They don’t see themselves as monsters; they see themselves as people. It brings about an interesting question about humanity and where the line is drawn between innocent and dangerous creature.

The episode ends with the originals and the copies declaring war against each other. It’s hard to completely blame anyone for wanting to survive, but this clearly leaves the Doctor and company in a tough spot. Just when you think things can’t get any messier, a flesh copy of the Doctor appears, and we are left waiting till June 4th to see how it all ends. I look forward to the conclusion, and especially look forward to seeing two Doctors interact with each other and the repercussion that will result from this.

Doctor Who 6×4 – The Doctor’s Wife

Warning, spoilers, blah blah blah

For many, this may very well be the most anticipated episode of Doctor Who ever (or maybe I’m over exaggerating due to the crossing of fandoms). Personally, I have been waiting to see this episode since Neil Gaiman announced he would be writing one. Originally his episode was supposed to be part of season 5, but it had to be pushed to this season due to budget issues. You can follow the whole story on Neil’s blog. But enough backstory. It is time for the actual review/recap of this episode.

First off, this episode brings us back the Ood AND sets up a great story. It takes us to the end of the universe after getting a message from another Time Lord. It takes the soul of the TARDIS and puts it in someone’s body. And all of this happens before the title music starts.

After just about the best cold open I can remember seeing on this show, things progress even further. (Side bar: can I just say how exciting it was seeing the words “by Neil Gaiman” where the writer’s name goes? Because it was fantastic!) Sorry, but a lot of this review is just going to be why Neil Gaiman is amazing and how much I love his writing. I’m not sure how many guidelines he was given for this, but the storyline was absolutely brilliant. Not only that, but the characters who inhabit this world-beyond-worlds are all mad and wonderful. Something else great about this episode is the dialogue, which is also brilliant.

Amy: You want to be forgiven
Doctor: Don’t we all?

Followed by a very funny line about the Doctor being a Time Lord not actually meaning he knows what he’s doing, which is delivered perfectly by Karen Gillan as Amy Pond. I couldn’t even begin to produce all of the brilliant quotes I loved here in this review, but this is an example.

The story progresses and take the TARDIS away with it – along with Amy and Rory. The Doctor is left not knowing what to do, which is a “new feeling” for him, and I am left with chills literally running down my spine. As the Doctor calls the human form of his TARDIS “sexy”, I am left wondering who had more fun in this process – Neil while he was writing this episode or the viewers who got to enjoy one of the maddest and most wonderful episodes of Doctor Who that only the mind of Neil Gaiman could create. It’s something I can only describe as “Alice in Wonderland wonderful”. The whole episode felt like a fairy tale that had jumped down the rabbit hole and taken as for a ride across the universe. It was certainly an adventure I won’t soon forget.

Something else magical we get here comes in the form of a blast from the past. We get to see the TARDIS console from back during David Tennant’s run as the tenth Doctor. It was a nice little trip down memory lane, albeit a brief one.

Final note – I know we’ve said before that the TARDIS was a living thing but it was magical to actually see her come to life and get to interact with the Doctor (and save the day in the end). I’m sure it was a dream come true to write this episode. He also wrote a dream in itself in that he gave the TARDIS life and a voice and let her say hello to the Doctor.

Jukebox the Ghost/Wakey Wakey Tour

Last week I was lucky enough to make it to both the Brooklyn and NYC dates of Jukebox the Ghost tour with Wakey Wakey. The Brooklyn show was at Rock Shop, and the other was at Bowery Ballroom. This was my first time at Rock Shop, and it might be one of my new favorite venues. It was a nice space with good sound and just enough room to dance. Highlights from this tour included a very memorable fan at this venue and three new songs performed by the band (two new songs + a tasteless cover). The cover was of Huey Lewis’ “The Power of Love,” which fans seemed to respond well to. The two new songs sound great, and have me very excited for future new material and hopefully a new record. There’s eight videos from the Rock Shop on my YouTube page, but I will post the new stuff below.

Here are the two new songs:

and the tasteless cover:

Like I said, I love the new stuff, and I even caught myself singing them after two nights in a row of seeing them performed live. The complete set list was as follows:

Mistletoe
Half Crazy
Hold It In
Interlude/The Stars
Empire
Summer Sun
new song
Nobody
new song
Good Day
Static
Power of Love (Huey Lewis cover)
Schizophrenia

Be sure to check out the other videos I took, as well as a few pictures from the two shows.

Doctor Who 6×3 – Curse of the Black Spot

Arr, matey. There be spoilers ahead. Proceed with caution.

This week’s episode of Doctor Who takes us on a pirate adventure. When I heard there were going to be pirates in this one, I immediately started making references to Paul & Storm’s “Captain’s Wife’s Lament” in my head. (Warning: that link has a bit of foul, piratey language in it)

This episode brought us pirates and curses and a siren out for blood. Of course the Doctor and his companions end up right in the middle of it all.

“Ever look in the mirror and think you’re seeing a whole other world. Well this time it’s not an illusion.” – the Doctor

The story: There is a siren attacking the pirate ship. We eventually see that she is not really attacking the crew, but is actually a doctor looking after the sick and injured. She travels from another dimension using reflections. The reflections act as portals between the two worlds.

This episode is a lot more fun than the previous two. True there’s still danger, but we also get some of the playful fun back in this one as well. The Doctor having a contest of whose ship is better and joking with the captain of the pirate ship brings us back to a lighter version of the Doctor that we were missing for most of the two part premiere.

Of course there were some serious moments as well. For one, my heart nearly stopped when Amy was trying to resuscitate Rory. Note to the writers – you’re not allowed to even joke about killing him again for the rest of the season!

Another serious note comes with the secrets Amy and the Doctor are keeping from each other. For Amy, she is keeping the knowledge of the Doctor’s future death. When the Doctor says “We’ve all got to go sometime,” you can see the look on her face and the weight this knowledge has placed on her. As for the Doctor, he is keeping his own secret about Amy’s unusual pregnancy.

Our recurring theme for this season seems to be the one-eyed lady that Amy keeps seeing. First we see her in the orphanage during “Day of the Moon” and now on the ship in this one. She seems to be trying to communicate with Amy, but any concrete explanations will most likely be saved until either the midseason cliffhanger or the finale.

Doctor Who 6×2 – Day of the Moon

Before I begin this review, I just want to say I’m sorry for the delay in posting. I’m finishing my last couple weeks of school, and trying to balance keeping everything up to date here. This is my review of the conclusion of the 2-part season premiere of Doctor Who. As usual, there are massive spoilers included. Read at your own risk.

The last thing we see in part 1 is Amy shooting at the astronaut. We start this episode 3 months later. The Doctor has been taken to Area 51 and everyone else is running from Canton. It’s all very confusing until we realize it’s part of a plan Canton has worked out with the Doctor and everyone.

Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor comes up with another brilliant idea and implants things in each of their hands that will record what goes on around them to remind them when they encounter a creature and warn them of past incidents they will have forgotten. Between the jump in time and all the issues characters have with memory loss, this episode does a fantastic job at making the viewer question what is real and what is an illusion. One is never sure if they can trust what their senses are telling them.

One thing we can trust in this episode is in Rory and Amy consistently making me cheer for them. When Rory says that Amy can always hear him and knows that he is coming for her, it reinforced my belief that they are the best couple EVER. Rory is especially great now that he’s lived all that time as the “last centurion”. It gives him something in common with the Doctor, which is an extra long past trailing behind him. The difference is that Rory did that all for the love of a woman. How can you not love someone for making that big a sacrifice?!

Speaking of couples, Matt Smith and Alex Kingston have fantastic chemistry in this episode! Their banter when they drop in on the Silence and Amy is absolutely priceless. This is the first time I can really picture the two of them becoming a couple, as is suspected will be the case eventually.

Going back to the actual episode, how the Doctor solves the problem of defeating the Silence and the memory issues is one of the most brilliant yet simple ideas ever. Canton records a Silent saying that humans should kill their kind on sight, and the Doctor inserts it into the broadcast of the moon landing. This is a brilliant idea, and also brilliant on the part of the writers. For one thing, the entire world was watching this broadcast, so there is no worry about someone missing this. The other bit of brilliance is that it “explains” the gap that the broadcast we are familiar with had.

The “end” of this episode isn’t really the end though. We are still left with many questions. First up – Amy’s pregnancy. She thinks it was a false alarm, but the Doctor’s scans are confusing. At times it showed positive, at other times it was negative. What’s up with that? We also seem to be hinting that the little girl in the space suit might be Amy’s daughter. There is a lot of mystery here, because she also seems to be a Timelord, based on the fact she regenerates at the end of the episode. My best guess is that traveling in the TARDIS for so long will have had some effect on the pregnancy. I highly doubt we’re going to try to say Amy had a child with the Doctor, not after all the work they’ve done making Amy and Rory into the strong couple they are now.

The other two mysteries left unsolved involve the Doctor. One is that River obviously remembers a timeline that has been altered some. This is based on the fact that the Doctor was surprised when they kissed because it never happened before, even though River seems to believe this should not have been a first occurrence. The other mystery revolves around the Doctor’s death at the beginning of the season. It looks like my theory was off and it was really the girl in the space suit that did it. What was her motive though? And is this event still going to happen after all the other changes that have been made to the timeline?

That concludes my review/recap of this episode. Feel free to comment on anything here, or ask your own questions that I may have overlooked.

Edit: I was reading the review of this episode over at Nerdist, and we both have the same thoughts about Amy and Rory as a couple, so I decided to share.

“A lot of attention was paid this episode to Rory still feeling inadequate when compared to the Doctor and believing still that Amy would rather be with the Doctor than him. By the end of the episode, Amy proves twice that she loves Rory and Rory alone and THAT, my friends, had better be the end of it. I suppose it was necessary that Moffat address the issue, but I’ll be very happy to not have to deal with a perceived love triangle anymore. Rory is awesome and has more than earned a place in both the TARDIS and Amy’s life. So there.” – Kyle Anderson, Nerdist.com

I agree that it was good to address this issue in the beginning, but this really needs to be the end of it. I would add that when Rory and Amy finally leave the show, it needs to be them going off to some countryside together and living happily ever after. No more love triangles, and NO MORE DYING. That is all.