“This has got to stop.”
-Ralph
First of all, I ought to apologize for the lateness of this post. I moved to a new apartment over the weekend, and then a few days later hosted a dear friend from college who had a job interview in the area. So not a lot of time for blogging! Anyway, “The Middle Men” had some high highs and some very low lows. A high point was a distinct lack of Oswald and Jilly. Another was Gwen getting to be super badass again like she was in the season premiere. A low point was the continued ridiculousness of Colin Moloney and the borderline torture porn in which is plot line resulted. There was also a distinct lack of anything substantial for Jack to do, which is a problem considering, at least in my view, that Torchwood should really be all about Jack. It was a very uneven hour, definitely with more bad than good. Despite the optimism with which I began this season of “Torchwood,” I’m about to write it off as one of those Russell T. Davies works, like much of Series 3 of Doctor Who (except for “Gridlock,” “Human Nature/Family of Blood” and “Blink), that happened when he was just plain off his game.
The episode opens by introducing us to two new characters, Stewart Owens, Chief Operating Officer of PhiCorps, and his administrative assistant, Janet. It’s obvious that there’s more going on than just an employer/employee relationship between Owens and Janet. When Janet leaves his office, Owens places a call to a contact in Shanghai. He wants to know more about a deal PhiCorps made for some land there through a shell company. The contact agrees to investigate, and we see him break into a locked compound. We then see a news report about something called the “45 Club,” which is a group of people who believe that jumping from 45 floors up is the closest someone an come to death. Next thing we know, Owens has called the Shanghai contact to learn the results of his investigation, and the contact says he found nothing before leaping off a very tall building. I guess whatever he found was too horrible to live with having seen.
We then shift to the San Pedro Overflow Camp, where Rex is still making a video about the horrors happening there. He does a little narration about Vera being killed, which I guess is supposed to remind us where the last episode left off. Although that would be hard to forget. Elsewhere at the camp, Esther’s shift is ending. On her way out of the camp, she sees Colin returning in his golf cart without Vera, and she starts to get concerned. She tells her coworker that she needs to go back to the office for her cell phone, and she heads back inside to investigate. Inside Colin’s office, Ralph is freaking out about Colin shooting Vera and placing her in one of the modules. He really wants to know the purpose of the module. Colin is kind of freaking out too, but more under the surface. Esther interrupts their panicking, and she gets shoed off. Colin wants Ralph to drive Vera’s car to a “car park” at a nearby shopping center. The use of British slang in this context doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. To cover their tracks even further, Colin calls for a lockdown of the camp.
In Wales, Gwen confronts Dr. Patel, the doctor who labeled her father Category 1. Gwen tries to reason with Dr. Patel and get her to change Gwen’s father’s categorization, but Dr. Patel won’t budge. It also turns out that Dr. Patel knew the Module was full of incinerators. Gwen is really pissed about this, especially when Dr. Patel says it’s necessary because the health care system is on the verge of collapse. Gwen makes the very good point that it’s always possible to say “no.” Gwen then finds Rhys and informs him that they are going to get her dad out of there ASAP. The nurses change shift at 5 AM, so that seems like the option with the most chance for success.
Back in Los Angeles, Jack finds Janet at a bar waiting for Owens. Jack mentions that Owens is currently having dinner with his wife, which makes Janet not especially happy. The fact that Jack knows a lot of details about her life doesn’t make her especially happy, either. Jack shows Janet a bunch of e-mails from Owens, including a few related to Owens trying to get her transferred to Ohio. Now Janet’s anger is directed towards Owens, and she agrees to help Jack get information out of him. Jack confronts Owens at a restaurant, where he’s still eating dinner with his wife. Jack pretends that he’s abducted Janet, and he hands over the phone to Owens, where Janet continues the con. Owens tells Jack that he doesn’t know how/why the Miracle happened, but he’s been looking into it. He’s figured out that someone has been gaming the system in such a gradual way that nobody would notice, and the plan has been in motion for years. The most important thing he’s found is multiple references to something called “the Blessing.”
At the San Pedro camp, Rex is trying to figure out his next move as lockdown hustle and bustle is happening around him. He plays unconscious, and when a soldier notices him, Rex knocks out the soldier and takes his uniform. The uniform doesn’t provide especially good cover, though. Rex leaves the compound, claiming he needs a cigarette, but on the other side he’s promptly met by a bunch of soldiers who don’t recognize him. Oops. Next thing we know, Ralph is bustling into Colin’s office to say the camp has been infiltrated. Colin immediately rushes off, leaving a kind of dazed Ralph in his office. Esther is very concerned, because she heard Ralph mention Torchwood. She tricks Ralph into saying where they’re holding Rex by saying she needs to call Colin.
Rex is chained up in a generator room, and when he arrives on the scene, Colin tells the soldiers that he’ll take over. Rex mentions Vera to Colin, which makes Colin jittery. Rex doesn’t know Colin killed Vera, but he wants Colin to find out who committed the crime. Rex says he has video evidence of what happened to Vera, which makes Colin even more jittery. Rex shows Colin the video, and Colin completely flips out when he sees it. He starts poking at Rex’s wound with a pen, which is just plain cruel. At this point, Rex realizes that Colin is the person who killed Vera. The whole bloody debacle is interrupted by Esther. She says she has a phone call for Colin, but she messes up big time when she says the phone call is from Vera. Rex yells that Colin killed Vera, and Colin attacks Esther as she tries to run away. Esther fights back, and she successfully chokes Colin until he appears to be dead. Esther goes to where Rex is chained up and freaks out that she killed someone. Rex reassures her that he’s not dead, just Category 1, and he says that she needs to go back to Colin’s body to find the keys to unlock the chains. Esther gets the keys, but Colin regains consciousness and attacks again as she’s walking away. Colin is choking Esther when Ralph appears in the doorway and shoots Colin, determined that all this killing to hide things needs to stop.
Over in Wales, Rhys is in his lorry all ready to go for Operation: Rescue Gwen’s Dad. The scheme hits a snag, however, when a higher-up bureaucrat-type notices Rhys and gives him trouble about how movement orders have been stopped until 6 AM (aka, he shouldn’t be transporting any patients in the lorry at 5 AM). While the bureaucrat is on the phone, no doubt stirring up trouble for Rhys, Rhys just drives off. Gwen is a bit concerned that Rhys isn’t going to show up, but she wheels her father outside anyway. Rhys arrives, and warns Gwen that they need to load her dad up quickly, because the bureaucrat has likely sounded the alarm. Once her dad is safely in the Lorry, Gwen says she’s going back to LA to continue the fight against PhiCorps. Rhys doesn’t seem especially happy about it, but he knows he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter. Some military guys approach and start shooting, and Rhys has to drive the lorry right through a gate to escape them. Before she leaves Wales, Gwen has one last thing to do. She puts on her contacts and communicates with Jack, then she goes totally badass, pulls up to the Module on a motorcycle, and blows the whole thing up as Jack records it for the media.
Esther and Rex are in a car, presumably now outside the San Pedro camp. Esther is totally freaked out that her real name is now associated with such a horrible place. I want to know what the heck she was doing using her real name for an undercover operation. Couldn’t she have used all those analyst skills to craft herself a solid fake identity? I’m sorry, but using her real name was just plain dumb. Anyway, Rex tells Esther to get herself together, because the fight isn’t over yet, and he needs her in the fight. At Torchwood HQ, Rex, Esther, and Jack watch TV coverage of their overflow camp footage. There is apparently public outrage, but a White House spokesman shows absolutely no remorse. Jack says that they need to go higher than PhiCorps to win this thing. They need to find out what the Blessing is.
Gwen lands in LAX, and there’s an announcement over the PA system saying that she has a phone call on a courtesy phone. Gwen picks up a courtesy phone, and a mysterious voice just says “lenses” repeatedly. She goes into a rest room and puts in the hidden camera contacts. A very sinister message appears. Whoever is behind this has Gwen’s mom, Rhys, and Anwen captive. That doesn’t seem to faze Gwen overly much, really. She just yells and demands to know what the powers that be want. They say they want Jack, and that’s when Gwen finally decides to look shocked and horrified. Go figure.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
Summer DVR Dump: Doctor Who 6.04: "The Doctor's Wife"
“Look at you pair. It’s always you and her, isn’t it, long after the rest of us are gone? A boy and his box off to see the universe.”
-Amy
We’re continuing our Summer DVR Dump of “Doctor Who” with what I think was my favorite episode of the first half of series 6, “The Doctor’s Wife.” This episode was written by genre legend Neil Gaiman, who showed a real command of the characters and especially the universe. He not only got the minutiae of the mythology, but he got the tone as well. As you know if you read the checking in with series 6 post Sarah and I wrote a few weeks ago, I’m not familiar with much of Gaiman’s other work. I’ve read the book and watched the movie of “Stardust,” but that’s it. So I didn’t have great expectations of this episode going into it based on the Gaiman name alone. I mean, much of the fandom was freaking out with joy, but I didn’t have much personal experience upon which to base any expectations. Whatever expectations I had were most certainly exceeded. I found “The Doctor’s Wife” to be a beautiful, thoughtful, well-structured episode. I also liked that it was a meditation on the relationship between the Doctor and his TARDIS. I learned a lot of backstory that, not being familiar with Classic “Who,” I never would have known otherwise, and my modern “Who” viewing is the richer for it.
The episode opens on a small, desolate, backwoods planet of some sort. We see a disheveled woman named Idris led into a scary looking machine. She’s going to have her soul drained, but her captors tell her not to worry, because soon she’ll be getting a new one. Meanwhile, in a more familiar corner of the universe, the Doctor opens up the doors to the TARDIS and plucks a blinking box out of deep space. The Doctor is excited because it’s a message from another Time Lord, a friendly one named the Corsair, to be precise. It’s an emergency transmission, but the Doctor is so excited at the prospect of other friendly Time Lords still being alive that it doesn’t faze him. The transmission originated from a “bubble universe” (or the stopper in the drain of the universe, as the Doctor puts it), and as the TARDIS approaches, her soul is transferred into Idris.
As the Doctor, Rory, and Amy leave the confines of the TARDIS, we see that the place where they have landed looks like a big scrap heap. They’re met by a very rough looking couple and Idris, who is not speaking very coherently. She also tries to kiss, then bite, the Doctor. There’s also an Ood called Nephew who plays a whole bunch of Time Lord distress calls using his communication device. At this point, the Doctor starts to realize that something isn’t quite right. The planet’s inhabitants inform the Doctor that their world is called “the House,” and it is a living creature. It also talks, which is really freaking creepy. The House is voiced by British actor Michael Sheen (no relation to Charlie, thank goodness), who does excellent work here.
The Doctor wants to find the Time Lords who belong to all those distress signals. There’s a really nice conversation between the Doctor and Amy where Amy suspects the Doctor wants to find them because he wants to be forgiven, and the Doctor doesn’t see anything wrong with wanting that. Amy and Rory go back to the TARDIS because the Doctor says he needs Amy to get his sonic screwdriver, but that goes downhill quick. As soon as they enter the phone box, green smoke starts to swirl around it. It turns out that the errand was just to get Amy and Rory out of the way so the Doctor could investigate, but the green smoke definitely wasn’t part of the plan. Amy and Rory become locked inside the TARDIS, and things get so bad that the Cloister Bell, which signals a very serious emergency, starts to go off. The House, who I guess is responsible for the green smoke, starts to talk to Rory and Amy. He asks why he shouldn’t kill them right away. Rory comes up with a good reason- that it wouldn’t be any fun. House responds that Rory is right, and they should start running.
Oblivious to what’s going on with Rory and Amy, the Doctor continues his investigation. He finds a cabinet full of distress signals just like the one he received from the Corsair, only these are from many other Time Lords. Then the Doctor realizes that the House has put other people’s body parts into Auntie and Uncle, including Time Lord/Lady body parts. He describes them as “patchwork people,” which is a very apt description. Although it’s a whole lot more gross than it sounds. Auntie and Uncle don’t seem upset by the knowledge that many of their body parts came from other people who were unfortunate enough to be lured to close to the House.
Earlier in the episode, Idris had told the Doctor that “the boxes would make [him] angry,” so the Doctor pays her a visit to get some clarification. Idris reveals that she is the TARDIS, and she and the Doctor have a beautiful conversation about their history. The Doctor reminisces about how he stole the TARDIS, which was a Type 40 TARDIS and already a museum piece. The TARDIS/Idris disagrees. She says she stole the Doctor. The Doctor lets the TARDIS/Idris out of her prison cell. She explains that the House feeds on the rift energy of TARDISes. That’s why he’s been luring Time Lords into the bubble universe. The Doctor and Idris then talk to Auntie and Uncle They think it’s time to die because there will be no TARDISes to provide them with new body parts. The House has apparently gone to the main universe to look for more- I guess he didn’t believe when the Doctor said he was the last of the Time Lords. Idris is in pain while this conversation is happening. Human bodies weren’t meant to hold the TARDIS, and she is dying.
The Doctor gets the idea to use the TARDIS parts that are strewn around to build a makeshift TARDIS and go after the House. The Doctor and Idris work on building their TARDIS, and they bicker quite a bit while they do. I thought that was pretty amusing and adorable. The Doctor complains that the TARDIS never takes him where he says he wants to go, and Idris explains that she takes him where he needs to go. She also makes a comment about how he’s always “picking up strays,” which I thought was cute. The makeshift TARDIS doesn’t work at first, but Idris puts a little of her energy into it, and they’re off.
Meanwhile, Amy and Rory get separated in different corridors while running from the House. It’s quite the horror sequence. Amy sees a really old version of Rory who is ranting about how he had to wait for her yet again. The next time she sees him, he appears to be dead, and he has scrawled on the wall in blood how much he hates Amy. Thankfully, the “real” Rory soon shows up, and he hasn’t been waiting at all. I’m getting kind of frustrated with the fact that the show’s creative team seems to be faux-killing Rory in every episode now. It stopped being a joke a long time ago.
The shield for the real TARDIS phone box needs to be taken down so the Doctor and Idris can get on board, and Idris sends Rory a telepathic message saying that he has to go to a copy of an old control room to do so. We learn that the TARDIS considers Rory to be “the pretty one” of the Doctor’s companions, which I thought was adorable (seems to be a theme with this episode). There’s a little bit of a hiccup when Rory and Amy get separated (again), and Amy follows what she thinks is Rory’s voice only to find out that she was following the Ood called “Nephew.” Rory finds her and rescues her just in time yet again. When they arrive at the door to the old control room, Idris sends Rory the passcode. Amy figures out that you can’t just say the passcode, you have to think it. One of the words is “delight,” and I loved that Amy thought of her wedding to illustrate that word. The door opens, and lo and behold, they’re in the Russel T. Davies-era control room! I recognized the glowing, green central column, and I most certainly got a little teary and nostalgic. I wished there was a bit more light in that scene so we could see it properly, although I understand that the creepy green light is meant to signify the House’s possession of the TARDIS. Once Rory and Amy enter the control room, the House instructs Nephew to kill them.
Just in time to save Rory and Amy, the Doctor and Idris arrive in the old control room. The Doctor has to explain to Rory and Amy who Idris is, and I love Amy’s reaction. She asks the Doctor if he “wished really hard.” The Doctor’s affection or the TARDIS has been a long-standing joke on the show, so I definitely appreciated that bit. And it certainly doesn’t help the Doctor’s case when Idris reveals that the Doctor calls the TARDIS “Sexy.” The House starts playing with everyone on board the TARDIS, first getting rid of gravity, then air, and so on. The Doctor tries bargaining, because that’s what he does, but obviously it doesn’t go well. Finally the House says he’s going to delete the old control room. My reaction is pretty much summed up as “Nooooooooo!” I wanted to get a good look at my beloved old coral-themed control room, and we never really did. Luckily, deleting the room didn’t kill the Doctor and crew. They just rematerialized in the current day control room. Idris is pissed at the House, and she throws all her TARDIS energy back into the actual TARDIS, complete with dramatic threats to the House by the Doctor.
Idris is really not doing well by this point, so she and the Doctor have to say goodbye. It’s really incredibly sad. Idris says that all the TARDIS really wanted to say when she first got the chance to speak to the Doctor was “hello.” After Idris’ death, we see the Doctor busily making repairs to his TARDIS. He’s in his element, which I guess is how he’s coping with not actually being able to speak to the TARDIS anymore. Rory mentions that before she died, Idris kept saying “the only water in the forest is the river,” which has big implications in the mid-season finale, “A Good Man Goes to War.” The Doctor announces that he has created a new bedroom for Rory and Amy (Amy is hoping this one doesn’t have bunkbeds), so Rory and Amy wander off to check it out. After they’ve gone, the Doctor tries talking to the TARDIS. She responds by making one of the levers on the control unit move, and the Doctor is jubilant, realizing she’s not really gone at all.
-Amy
We’re continuing our Summer DVR Dump of “Doctor Who” with what I think was my favorite episode of the first half of series 6, “The Doctor’s Wife.” This episode was written by genre legend Neil Gaiman, who showed a real command of the characters and especially the universe. He not only got the minutiae of the mythology, but he got the tone as well. As you know if you read the checking in with series 6 post Sarah and I wrote a few weeks ago, I’m not familiar with much of Gaiman’s other work. I’ve read the book and watched the movie of “Stardust,” but that’s it. So I didn’t have great expectations of this episode going into it based on the Gaiman name alone. I mean, much of the fandom was freaking out with joy, but I didn’t have much personal experience upon which to base any expectations. Whatever expectations I had were most certainly exceeded. I found “The Doctor’s Wife” to be a beautiful, thoughtful, well-structured episode. I also liked that it was a meditation on the relationship between the Doctor and his TARDIS. I learned a lot of backstory that, not being familiar with Classic “Who,” I never would have known otherwise, and my modern “Who” viewing is the richer for it.
The episode opens on a small, desolate, backwoods planet of some sort. We see a disheveled woman named Idris led into a scary looking machine. She’s going to have her soul drained, but her captors tell her not to worry, because soon she’ll be getting a new one. Meanwhile, in a more familiar corner of the universe, the Doctor opens up the doors to the TARDIS and plucks a blinking box out of deep space. The Doctor is excited because it’s a message from another Time Lord, a friendly one named the Corsair, to be precise. It’s an emergency transmission, but the Doctor is so excited at the prospect of other friendly Time Lords still being alive that it doesn’t faze him. The transmission originated from a “bubble universe” (or the stopper in the drain of the universe, as the Doctor puts it), and as the TARDIS approaches, her soul is transferred into Idris.
As the Doctor, Rory, and Amy leave the confines of the TARDIS, we see that the place where they have landed looks like a big scrap heap. They’re met by a very rough looking couple and Idris, who is not speaking very coherently. She also tries to kiss, then bite, the Doctor. There’s also an Ood called Nephew who plays a whole bunch of Time Lord distress calls using his communication device. At this point, the Doctor starts to realize that something isn’t quite right. The planet’s inhabitants inform the Doctor that their world is called “the House,” and it is a living creature. It also talks, which is really freaking creepy. The House is voiced by British actor Michael Sheen (no relation to Charlie, thank goodness), who does excellent work here.
The Doctor wants to find the Time Lords who belong to all those distress signals. There’s a really nice conversation between the Doctor and Amy where Amy suspects the Doctor wants to find them because he wants to be forgiven, and the Doctor doesn’t see anything wrong with wanting that. Amy and Rory go back to the TARDIS because the Doctor says he needs Amy to get his sonic screwdriver, but that goes downhill quick. As soon as they enter the phone box, green smoke starts to swirl around it. It turns out that the errand was just to get Amy and Rory out of the way so the Doctor could investigate, but the green smoke definitely wasn’t part of the plan. Amy and Rory become locked inside the TARDIS, and things get so bad that the Cloister Bell, which signals a very serious emergency, starts to go off. The House, who I guess is responsible for the green smoke, starts to talk to Rory and Amy. He asks why he shouldn’t kill them right away. Rory comes up with a good reason- that it wouldn’t be any fun. House responds that Rory is right, and they should start running.
Oblivious to what’s going on with Rory and Amy, the Doctor continues his investigation. He finds a cabinet full of distress signals just like the one he received from the Corsair, only these are from many other Time Lords. Then the Doctor realizes that the House has put other people’s body parts into Auntie and Uncle, including Time Lord/Lady body parts. He describes them as “patchwork people,” which is a very apt description. Although it’s a whole lot more gross than it sounds. Auntie and Uncle don’t seem upset by the knowledge that many of their body parts came from other people who were unfortunate enough to be lured to close to the House.
Earlier in the episode, Idris had told the Doctor that “the boxes would make [him] angry,” so the Doctor pays her a visit to get some clarification. Idris reveals that she is the TARDIS, and she and the Doctor have a beautiful conversation about their history. The Doctor reminisces about how he stole the TARDIS, which was a Type 40 TARDIS and already a museum piece. The TARDIS/Idris disagrees. She says she stole the Doctor. The Doctor lets the TARDIS/Idris out of her prison cell. She explains that the House feeds on the rift energy of TARDISes. That’s why he’s been luring Time Lords into the bubble universe. The Doctor and Idris then talk to Auntie and Uncle They think it’s time to die because there will be no TARDISes to provide them with new body parts. The House has apparently gone to the main universe to look for more- I guess he didn’t believe when the Doctor said he was the last of the Time Lords. Idris is in pain while this conversation is happening. Human bodies weren’t meant to hold the TARDIS, and she is dying.
The Doctor gets the idea to use the TARDIS parts that are strewn around to build a makeshift TARDIS and go after the House. The Doctor and Idris work on building their TARDIS, and they bicker quite a bit while they do. I thought that was pretty amusing and adorable. The Doctor complains that the TARDIS never takes him where he says he wants to go, and Idris explains that she takes him where he needs to go. She also makes a comment about how he’s always “picking up strays,” which I thought was cute. The makeshift TARDIS doesn’t work at first, but Idris puts a little of her energy into it, and they’re off.
Meanwhile, Amy and Rory get separated in different corridors while running from the House. It’s quite the horror sequence. Amy sees a really old version of Rory who is ranting about how he had to wait for her yet again. The next time she sees him, he appears to be dead, and he has scrawled on the wall in blood how much he hates Amy. Thankfully, the “real” Rory soon shows up, and he hasn’t been waiting at all. I’m getting kind of frustrated with the fact that the show’s creative team seems to be faux-killing Rory in every episode now. It stopped being a joke a long time ago.
The shield for the real TARDIS phone box needs to be taken down so the Doctor and Idris can get on board, and Idris sends Rory a telepathic message saying that he has to go to a copy of an old control room to do so. We learn that the TARDIS considers Rory to be “the pretty one” of the Doctor’s companions, which I thought was adorable (seems to be a theme with this episode). There’s a little bit of a hiccup when Rory and Amy get separated (again), and Amy follows what she thinks is Rory’s voice only to find out that she was following the Ood called “Nephew.” Rory finds her and rescues her just in time yet again. When they arrive at the door to the old control room, Idris sends Rory the passcode. Amy figures out that you can’t just say the passcode, you have to think it. One of the words is “delight,” and I loved that Amy thought of her wedding to illustrate that word. The door opens, and lo and behold, they’re in the Russel T. Davies-era control room! I recognized the glowing, green central column, and I most certainly got a little teary and nostalgic. I wished there was a bit more light in that scene so we could see it properly, although I understand that the creepy green light is meant to signify the House’s possession of the TARDIS. Once Rory and Amy enter the control room, the House instructs Nephew to kill them.
Just in time to save Rory and Amy, the Doctor and Idris arrive in the old control room. The Doctor has to explain to Rory and Amy who Idris is, and I love Amy’s reaction. She asks the Doctor if he “wished really hard.” The Doctor’s affection or the TARDIS has been a long-standing joke on the show, so I definitely appreciated that bit. And it certainly doesn’t help the Doctor’s case when Idris reveals that the Doctor calls the TARDIS “Sexy.” The House starts playing with everyone on board the TARDIS, first getting rid of gravity, then air, and so on. The Doctor tries bargaining, because that’s what he does, but obviously it doesn’t go well. Finally the House says he’s going to delete the old control room. My reaction is pretty much summed up as “Nooooooooo!” I wanted to get a good look at my beloved old coral-themed control room, and we never really did. Luckily, deleting the room didn’t kill the Doctor and crew. They just rematerialized in the current day control room. Idris is pissed at the House, and she throws all her TARDIS energy back into the actual TARDIS, complete with dramatic threats to the House by the Doctor.
Idris is really not doing well by this point, so she and the Doctor have to say goodbye. It’s really incredibly sad. Idris says that all the TARDIS really wanted to say when she first got the chance to speak to the Doctor was “hello.” After Idris’ death, we see the Doctor busily making repairs to his TARDIS. He’s in his element, which I guess is how he’s coping with not actually being able to speak to the TARDIS anymore. Rory mentions that before she died, Idris kept saying “the only water in the forest is the river,” which has big implications in the mid-season finale, “A Good Man Goes to War.” The Doctor announces that he has created a new bedroom for Rory and Amy (Amy is hoping this one doesn’t have bunkbeds), so Rory and Amy wander off to check it out. After they’ve gone, the Doctor tries talking to the TARDIS. She responds by making one of the levers on the control unit move, and the Doctor is jubilant, realizing she’s not really gone at all.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Summer TV Rewind: Robin Hood 1.09: "A Thing or Two About Loyalty"
Our frequent guest blogger Sarah is back again to recap another episode of the BBC's "Robin Hood." Enjoy!
“What’s to stop you from using the Greek fire for your own ends?”
“Nothing. Other than I am Robin Hood and I give you my word.”
- Lambert and Robin
We begin this week with a man pouring black powder in a line in a deserted field. We soon learn that it’s a demonstration of a new explosive charge. The Sheriff is quite bored by the whole thing. He just wants to see it go boom. And when it does, he’s quite thrilled. The creator, Lambert, says if he is to make more of the powder, there are conditions (he can sell it to other mining ventures, he gets a bonus for his work, and it is never used as a weapon). Unfortunately, he knows the Sheriff can’t be trusted and he makes a break for it. He runs into Little John and Robin (literally) and uses a small charge to try and get away. He doesn’t get far. Gisborne’s men catch him, and Gisborne demands the ledger with the formula. He claims the formula belongs to both of them since Gisborne commissioned Lambert to do the work. Lambert refuses, and he’s hauled off to Nottingham. Robin and company are traipsing through the forest, discussing Greek fire (the black powder). Robin says it will be disastrous if the Sheriff gets his hands on it. Allan thinks it’s quite funny, but the rest of the gang isn’t amused. Djaq is annoyed that it is called Greek fire when her people have been experimenting with it for years. So they need a plan. Robin says someone needs to intentionally get arrested to get into the dungeons to Lambert. Much volunteers and he ends up in Nottingham shouting about how Prince John is running a campaign of terror in King Richard’s absence. It works….sort of.
He makes it to the dungeon (after actually hitting a couple guards) and tries to get out of his manacles (claiming he’s there to rescue Lambert, who looks rather defeated and unimpressed) when Gisborne appears. Gisborne orders the guards to take Much up the great hall while he (Gisborne) tries to reason with Lambert. He is after all, Gisborne’s friend. And from here, things get a bit weird. Gisborne gets taken “off the case” as it were. The Sheriff thinks Gisborne is being too soft on Lambert. And then, the Sheriff decides to make an example of Much… by making him Earl of Bonchurch. Yeah, have to admit, I didn’t see that coming. At about the time the Sheriff is making Much a noble Robin, Djaq, Little John and Allan are on their way to Nottingham, wearing matching cloaks. I kind of want one to be honest.
Just as Robin and company start to head off around the castle to see if they can find Much, they see him riding off in a carriage all dressed up. They follow. Meanwhile, Marian confronts Gisborne and tries to talk him into helping Lambert escape and win back his trust. He appears to be going for it, but Lambert isn’t interested at all. He can’t trust that Gisborne won’t use the black powder for war. Robin and company watch as Much arrives at Bonchurch and is greeted by his servant girl, Eve. So long as they aren’t seen, Much should be fine. Of course, he has no clue what happens at the Council of Nobles. But that’s what he has Eve for (and taking off his boots and putting on his slippers). He does say that he thinks she’s a spy and his being made an Earl is a trap, which is probably true. Robin’s off to Nottingham to have a word with Lambert. He finds Lambert to be in a pretty bad state. They’ve broken both his legs, and he seems rather out of it. But eventually, he tells Robin that the Sheriff has two or three barrels of Greek fire hidden somewhere. He does give Robin the location of the ledger, and Robin plans to hide it elsewhere.
Back at Bonchurch, Marian arrives for a visit, mainly looking for Robin. Much tells her that Robin has yet to show, and she leaves a note with Much for Robin. They, of course, must speak in code with Eve around. Robin and company manage to retrieve Lambert’s ledger ,and Robin makes a trip to Bonchurch to visit Much. Robin thinks it’s going to be good that Much is now an Earl. They now have a noble on the inside. And with a little more teasing, Robin’s off to see Marian. He really does get around quite a lot in short spurts of time. Their conversation quickly devolves into Robin being jealous that Gisborne is involved in Marian’s plan to get Lambert to safety, and they end up having yet another fight. And then things go from bad to worse. The Sheriff convinces Gisborne to forgo his loyalty to Lambert when Lambert clearly didn’t have any towards him. He told Robin where the ledger was but not Gisborne. So the Sheriff goes down to teach Lambert a thing or two about loyalty and ends up killing him.
So Marian is rather worried to see Gisborne at the Council of Nobles in the morning. Much isn’t really fitting in with the rest of the crowd, especially when he’s asked his opinion on taxation policies. The Sheriff manages to humiliate both Much and Marian by the end of the Council. Marian is upset enough to run to Robin in the forest and share the news of Lambert’s death. They share a touching hug together and get back to the camp in time to stop Will from burning the ledger. Djaq begs Robin to let her study it but Robin says no. They need to keep it safe and focus on destroying the black powder. And for that, they’re going to need Much. So Marian goes to Bonchurch that night, where Much his having a feast in his house for all his peasants (similar to what Robin did in “Will You Tolerate This?”). She tells Much he must let slip to Eve that the ledger is in the third barrel of black powder. Much is unsure about lying to Eve. He likes her, even if she is a spy.
A short while later, Much and Eve seem to be bonding. She’ in the bath with him (well more accurately next to him) and they’re singing (Much very poorly). Much ends up trying to feed her the line about the ledger being in the barrel of black powder. Eve says she is working for the Sheriff but that she will tell the Sheriff what Much wants her to. In short order, she’s relayed the information quite convincingly to the Sheriff, and he summons Gisborne to hunt it down. But not before Marian runs into him. He’s unhappy that she’s not wearing his ring. She feeds him a line about feeling dishonest wearing it after he broke his promise to her. She really does know how to manipulate him.
So Gisborne takes some men and rides off to wherever the barrels of powder are hidden with the intent of getting the ledger. They don’t realize they’re being followed by Robin and company. And the outlaws have a plan. Gisborne checks the barrels but finds no ledger, so he rides off back to Nottingham to tell the Sheriff. Meanwhile, Much leaves Bonchurch and is grateful for Eve’s help. It seems they’ve swayed one servant of the Sheriff’s away from his power. When Gisborne and the Sheriff return to the cave where the barrels are hidden, Robin makes quick work of them. He sends a flaming arrow into the cave and destroys all of the powder, sending Gisborne running (and flailing and crashing to the ground). It was kind of a cheesy moment but it served its purpose. Back in the forest, Robin decides to burn the ledger and they gang gives Much a hard time when he keeps demanding they still call him My Lord. Djaq doesn’t partake of the fun, though. When she thinks no one is looking, she pulls the ledger from the fire.
***
“What’s to stop you from using the Greek fire for your own ends?”
“Nothing. Other than I am Robin Hood and I give you my word.”
- Lambert and Robin
We begin this week with a man pouring black powder in a line in a deserted field. We soon learn that it’s a demonstration of a new explosive charge. The Sheriff is quite bored by the whole thing. He just wants to see it go boom. And when it does, he’s quite thrilled. The creator, Lambert, says if he is to make more of the powder, there are conditions (he can sell it to other mining ventures, he gets a bonus for his work, and it is never used as a weapon). Unfortunately, he knows the Sheriff can’t be trusted and he makes a break for it. He runs into Little John and Robin (literally) and uses a small charge to try and get away. He doesn’t get far. Gisborne’s men catch him, and Gisborne demands the ledger with the formula. He claims the formula belongs to both of them since Gisborne commissioned Lambert to do the work. Lambert refuses, and he’s hauled off to Nottingham. Robin and company are traipsing through the forest, discussing Greek fire (the black powder). Robin says it will be disastrous if the Sheriff gets his hands on it. Allan thinks it’s quite funny, but the rest of the gang isn’t amused. Djaq is annoyed that it is called Greek fire when her people have been experimenting with it for years. So they need a plan. Robin says someone needs to intentionally get arrested to get into the dungeons to Lambert. Much volunteers and he ends up in Nottingham shouting about how Prince John is running a campaign of terror in King Richard’s absence. It works….sort of.
He makes it to the dungeon (after actually hitting a couple guards) and tries to get out of his manacles (claiming he’s there to rescue Lambert, who looks rather defeated and unimpressed) when Gisborne appears. Gisborne orders the guards to take Much up the great hall while he (Gisborne) tries to reason with Lambert. He is after all, Gisborne’s friend. And from here, things get a bit weird. Gisborne gets taken “off the case” as it were. The Sheriff thinks Gisborne is being too soft on Lambert. And then, the Sheriff decides to make an example of Much… by making him Earl of Bonchurch. Yeah, have to admit, I didn’t see that coming. At about the time the Sheriff is making Much a noble Robin, Djaq, Little John and Allan are on their way to Nottingham, wearing matching cloaks. I kind of want one to be honest.
Just as Robin and company start to head off around the castle to see if they can find Much, they see him riding off in a carriage all dressed up. They follow. Meanwhile, Marian confronts Gisborne and tries to talk him into helping Lambert escape and win back his trust. He appears to be going for it, but Lambert isn’t interested at all. He can’t trust that Gisborne won’t use the black powder for war. Robin and company watch as Much arrives at Bonchurch and is greeted by his servant girl, Eve. So long as they aren’t seen, Much should be fine. Of course, he has no clue what happens at the Council of Nobles. But that’s what he has Eve for (and taking off his boots and putting on his slippers). He does say that he thinks she’s a spy and his being made an Earl is a trap, which is probably true. Robin’s off to Nottingham to have a word with Lambert. He finds Lambert to be in a pretty bad state. They’ve broken both his legs, and he seems rather out of it. But eventually, he tells Robin that the Sheriff has two or three barrels of Greek fire hidden somewhere. He does give Robin the location of the ledger, and Robin plans to hide it elsewhere.
Back at Bonchurch, Marian arrives for a visit, mainly looking for Robin. Much tells her that Robin has yet to show, and she leaves a note with Much for Robin. They, of course, must speak in code with Eve around. Robin and company manage to retrieve Lambert’s ledger ,and Robin makes a trip to Bonchurch to visit Much. Robin thinks it’s going to be good that Much is now an Earl. They now have a noble on the inside. And with a little more teasing, Robin’s off to see Marian. He really does get around quite a lot in short spurts of time. Their conversation quickly devolves into Robin being jealous that Gisborne is involved in Marian’s plan to get Lambert to safety, and they end up having yet another fight. And then things go from bad to worse. The Sheriff convinces Gisborne to forgo his loyalty to Lambert when Lambert clearly didn’t have any towards him. He told Robin where the ledger was but not Gisborne. So the Sheriff goes down to teach Lambert a thing or two about loyalty and ends up killing him.
So Marian is rather worried to see Gisborne at the Council of Nobles in the morning. Much isn’t really fitting in with the rest of the crowd, especially when he’s asked his opinion on taxation policies. The Sheriff manages to humiliate both Much and Marian by the end of the Council. Marian is upset enough to run to Robin in the forest and share the news of Lambert’s death. They share a touching hug together and get back to the camp in time to stop Will from burning the ledger. Djaq begs Robin to let her study it but Robin says no. They need to keep it safe and focus on destroying the black powder. And for that, they’re going to need Much. So Marian goes to Bonchurch that night, where Much his having a feast in his house for all his peasants (similar to what Robin did in “Will You Tolerate This?”). She tells Much he must let slip to Eve that the ledger is in the third barrel of black powder. Much is unsure about lying to Eve. He likes her, even if she is a spy.
A short while later, Much and Eve seem to be bonding. She’ in the bath with him (well more accurately next to him) and they’re singing (Much very poorly). Much ends up trying to feed her the line about the ledger being in the barrel of black powder. Eve says she is working for the Sheriff but that she will tell the Sheriff what Much wants her to. In short order, she’s relayed the information quite convincingly to the Sheriff, and he summons Gisborne to hunt it down. But not before Marian runs into him. He’s unhappy that she’s not wearing his ring. She feeds him a line about feeling dishonest wearing it after he broke his promise to her. She really does know how to manipulate him.
So Gisborne takes some men and rides off to wherever the barrels of powder are hidden with the intent of getting the ledger. They don’t realize they’re being followed by Robin and company. And the outlaws have a plan. Gisborne checks the barrels but finds no ledger, so he rides off back to Nottingham to tell the Sheriff. Meanwhile, Much leaves Bonchurch and is grateful for Eve’s help. It seems they’ve swayed one servant of the Sheriff’s away from his power. When Gisborne and the Sheriff return to the cave where the barrels are hidden, Robin makes quick work of them. He sends a flaming arrow into the cave and destroys all of the powder, sending Gisborne running (and flailing and crashing to the ground). It was kind of a cheesy moment but it served its purpose. Back in the forest, Robin decides to burn the ledger and they gang gives Much a hard time when he keeps demanding they still call him My Lord. Djaq doesn’t partake of the fun, though. When she thinks no one is looking, she pulls the ledger from the fire.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Summer DVR Dump: Doctor Who 6.03: "The Curse of the Black Spot"
“If this is just because I’m a Captain, too, you know, you shouldn’t feel threatened. Your ship is much bigger than mine, and I don’t have the cool boots or a hat, even.”
-The Doctor
We continue our journey through the first half of Doctor Who series 6 with a fairly entertaining pirate-themed one-off. This episode has a title (and music) that are rather blatant “Pirates of the Caribbean” rip-offs, but I’m a big fan of Captain Jack Sparrow and company, so I’m good with that. Even though everyone was complaining that the preview for this looked cheesy, I figured I’d like it anyway because it was about pirates. I was half-right. I didn’t love this episode when it first aired. I thought it was rather unimaginative after the opening two-parter blew me away with its production values. I must say that I enjoyed it significantly more on rewatch, though. I appreciated that it wasn’t a two-part episode, and I appreciated that it was a fairly simple story. Yes, I like television-as-art and shows I really have to think about, but sometimes, what’s great about Doctor Who is the simplicity and the ability to get lost in fantastical stories. Those types of episodes have been rather few and far between in the Moffat era.
The episode opens on the pirate ship before the TARDIS even arrives. The crew are doing their pirate thing, when all of a sudden, they start to hear singing. It’s a siren, and they all start to freak out. It turns out the pirates have good reason to be afraid. One of the pirates, who was unfortunate enough to be marked with a black spot on his hand, up and disappears. Not long after the pirate disappears, the TARDIS materializes, bringing the Doctor, Amy and Rory to the ship. Needless to say, they don’t exactly get a warm reception by the pirates. Amy is taken below decks, and the Doctor and Rory are positioned to walk the plank. The Doctor tries to talk his way out of trouble, but the pirates aren’t taking kindly to his trademark wordplay.
Surprisingly, it’s Amy who comes to the rescue. While below decks, she found a bunch of pirate garb and swords, and she decides to use it to save the boys. She manages to hold her own swordfighting against the pirates, which kind of surprised me at first. The Doctor covers his eyes at one point, when Amy has decided to swing across the deck on a rope, which I found pretty adorable. Amy crashes into one pirate and scratches him. The pirate says that Amy has killed him, which probably starts to explain why Amy was having so much success with her swordfighting. The pirates are petrified of sustaining any injury at all, because that’s what causes them to be marked with the black spot and draw the Siren. The pirates aren’t fighting aggressively because they think any minor scratch equals death.
In the middle of the chaos, Rory gets scratched and gets a black spot. The siren song starts, and Rory starts acting really strange. Giddy, almost. It’s a very entertaining performance by Arthur Davrill. The only way I can think to describe it is to say that it reminded me of the series 2 episode “New Earth” where Cassandra is inhabiting the Tenth Doctor’s body and checking him/herself out in the mirror. Rory is held back by Amy from getting to close to the Siren, but the Siren does take the pirate Amy scratched. The Siren doesn’t like Amy at all for keeping Rory from crossing over, and she turns red and sort of hisses at her before vanishing.
Everyone moves down to the ship’s hold, but it doesn’t provide any additional safety. The Siren appears again and takes yet another pirate. The Doctor figures she must be using water as a portal (there were puddles in the hold), so the safest place is probably the ship’s armory. Gun powder needs to be kept dry to work, after all. The group hears a noise in the armory, and it turns out that a young boy had stowed away in a barrel. The boy is the Captain’s son, named Toby. He’s coughing like crazy, so he’s clearly very sick. The Doctor thinks everyone should get in the TARDIS and leave to escape the Siren, but the Captain disagrees. The Captain thinks there’s a curse on the ship and leaving won’t do any good. The Doctor states several times throughout the episode that he doesn’t believe in curses, because curses mean you’re helpless. I found that philosophy pretty interesting. The Doctor in all three of the incarnations I’ve seen definitely does have control freak tendencies.
The Doctor takes the Captain to the TARDIS, and it’s fun to watch the Doctor show off. He does the whole “bigger on the inside” routine, of course. The Captain is somewhat impressed, but probably not as much as the Doctor would like. The Captain says that a ship is a ship, and he would probably be able to figure out how to fly the TARDIS easily. The TARDIS starts going wonky, so the Doctor and the Captain abandon it and return to the pirate ship. To make things even worse, the Siren takes the TARDIS. While the Doctor is showing off, mutiny is brewing back aboard the pirate ship. The crew breaks the news to the Captain’s son that his dad is a pirate, but he doesn’t want to believe it. His mother, who passed away recently, always told him that his father was a respectable Naval officer. The crewman who is being the most troublesome to the Captain’s son ends up with a back spot after a scuffle.
The Doctor and the Captain find the mutiny in progress, but before it has a chance to go very far, the Siren comes for the chief mutineer. The Doctor then figures out that it isn’t just water the Siren uses as a portal, it’s any kind of reflection. Of course, just as the Doctor is realizing that, the Captains son is polishing a piece of metal nice and shiny. The Doctor and the Captain get into the armory just in time and take the metal away. The Doctor starts trying to get rid of anything potentially reflective, forcing the Captain to start throwing his treasure overboard and breaking out the glass in the windows. The Captain really is not at all happy about the throwing treasure overboard part of the deal, especially when the Doctor wants to throw away a fancy crown. While this is going on, Amy sees a quick flash of the creepy lady from the window in the orphanage door in “Day of the Moon.” At the time, it was rather confusing and bizarre.
The Doctor and the Captain have a chat about whether the Captain can possibly change his pirate ways to take care of his son. The Captain doesn’t seem to think he can. He loves treasure too much. There isn’t much time to dwell on this, though, because a big storm brews up and the crew has a hard time sailing. The ship lurches, and the crown the Captain didn’t want to give up goes rolling across the deck. That provides enough of a refection for the Siren to arrive and take the Captain’s son (he got the spot because of the sickness that is making him cough). In all the chaos, Rory falls overboard. The Doctor releases the Siren by letting the reflection of the crown shine, and she goes after Rory. The Doctor figured that was the only way to possibly save Rory from drowning. The Doctor wants to follow the Siren, so he has everyone prick their fingers. Sure enough, the Siren appears.
The group has now traveled to wherever the Siren wanted to take them. The Doctor hypothesizes that they are now in a parallel universe, with a space ship occupying the same space as the pirate ship was in our universe. He goes on this lecture about how gateways can sometimes form between parallel universes, and I was a little peeved that there wasn’t a mention of Rose here. Considering the Doctor loved her and locked her away in a parallel universe and all. Seems like it would be relevant. Anyway, they find the space ship’s sickbay, and everyone runs to their loved ones, who are all on life support. Amy runs to Rory, the Captain runs to his son, and the Doctor runs to the TARDIS. It’s hilarious. He hugs the TARDIS and everything. It turns out that the “black spot” was actually the space ship taking a tissue sample.
Rory regains consciousness, and the Siren appears to put him back to sleep. The Captain tries to shoot at the Siren, but that just makes her red and hissy again. The Doctor sneezes, which provides a distraction for the Siren. She starts shooting out fire as a sterilization measure. That makes the Doctor realize that the Siren is actually an automated doctor for the space ship. Amy wants to help Rory, but the Siren won’t let her anywhere near him. The Doctor tells Amy to show the Siren her wedding ring, and when she does, the Siren presents Amy with a consent form. Now the gang is on their own to try to save Rory. If he is taken off life support, he’s going to retroactively drown. Rory decides that the best course of action is to teach Amy CPR, then be taken off life support with the hope Amy can revive him. The Captain and his son choose a different solution. The Captain and the crew are going to stay on the space ship so the Captain can stay with his son. Amy does the CPR, but it doesn’t seem to go well at first (Rory is seriously to this show what Kenny is to “South Park”). Because it’s television, though, Rory does eventually come back after an appropriate amount of suspense. Making up for that melodrama is the fact that we get to see a quick scene of the new crew of space pirates before the episode ends.
True Blood 4.07: "Cold Grey Light of Dawn"
“Since when has any fanatic been held back by the improbability of their righteous mission?”
-Bill
I don’t think I would say that “Cold Grey Light of Dawn” is one of my favorite episodes of “True Blood,” but I wouldn’t say it was bad either. The plot moved long very, very slowly, but there was some good character work. Pretty much the entire episode was everybody waiting for Antonia!Marnie to make a serious move against the Vampires. As people waited, they talked, which is what allowed for the character work. I’m ready for the plot to get moving again, which, judging from the end of this episode, looks to happen for sure next week. Several characters definitely ended this episode in serious jeopardy. I do like when “True Blood” tries to have a bit of depth, but I think this episode might have gone a touch too far in that direction. I like “True Blood” for the campiness, too. There really wasn’t a whole lot of campiness in this episode. Just a whole lot of dread. And character-revealing, but sedate conversations among several pairs of characters.
The episode opens in the prison cells at Bill’s house (which sounds vaguely dirty, but it’s not). One of the guards is trying to keep a Sheriff from hurting Antonia!Marnie. The Sheriff glamours the guard, and it appears that he is under Antonia!Marnie’s control. Antonia!Marnie makes the Sheriff kill the guard, but he has to do so without spilling any blood. I guess she wants to deny him a feed from this mess. The upshot of this is that Antonia!Marnie escapes, and she’s free to terrorize the vampires of Bon Temps. I know, we probably shouldn’t have too much sympathy for the vampires, but I’ve spent a lot more times watch their antics, so I’m pretty much on their side in this mess.
We then pick up Tara’s story, where she and her girlfriend are about to be attacked by Pam. Pam moves in for the kill, but suddenly there’s a huge commotion. People are playing paparazzi and taking video and photos of the attack with their cell phones. To put on YouTube, presumably. Pam leaves the scene without finishing what she started. Probably because the penalty for attacking humans is so steep, and she knows Bill will enforce it. Tara is freaked out about this, and as she and her girlfriend are driving down a road, Tara makes her girlfriend stop and leave her by the side of the road. Tara doesn’t want to have to worry about her girlfriend’s safety in the middle of all this vampire attack craziness. She starts calling out for Pam, wanting her to finish the job, but she meets Antonia!Marnie instead, who promises a way to be safe from vampires. But she needs Tara’s help.
Debbie and Alcide are out in the woods, participating in a ceremony to join the Shrieveport pack. Alcide doesn’t seem too thrilled about it. He’s worried about Sookie being out in the woods on a full moon, and that pisses Debbie off big time. They go searching for Sookie after the ceremony, and they find her still having sex with Eric in the woods. Awkward! Later, Alcide and Debbie are having sex, but Debbie isn’t very into it. She apologizes, and she wants to know if Alcide is still thinking about Sookie and Eric. She also wants to know if Alcide is in love with Sookie. And she turns on the waterworks. It’s really annoying, because Debbie is such a pathetic character. Although I could just be biased by how horrible Debbie is in the books. Alcide tries to reassure Debbie, and he says that he wants to be with Debbie forever. That can’t end well.
At Jesus’s grandfather’s house in Mexico, a major argument is going down between Lafayette and Jesus on one side and Jesus’s grandfather on the other. Jesus’s grandfather reveals that the whole deal with letting the snake bite Jesus was to prove that Lafayette is a medium to Lafayette himself. I guess he can’t argue he’s a medium after becoming his boyfriend’s uncle! Later, at a restaurant, Lafayette and Jesus have a very nice conversation about Jesus’s uncle and what exactly it means to be a medium. Lafayette still doesn’t seem especially thrilled with the idea of being a medium, but he does seem grateful that Jesus’s uncle decided to help them out. Back in Bon Temps, as Lafayette is cooking and Arlene is doing something nearby with Mikey strapped to her, he sees the ghost that has been haunting Arlene and her family all season. The ghost speaks French and sings to the baby. Lafayette is really freaked out. I guess he can see her because he’s a medium. While this is going on, Andy is having the most awkward date with Holly ever during Holly’s break. He’s going through serious withdrawal from V, and he ends up walking out on the date after about 30 seconds.
Hoyt goes over to Jason’s house, ostensibly to check on him, but he really wants to whine about how Jessica is being distant. Jessica, meanwhile, is with Bill, who is explaining about Antonia!Marnie and how she wants to make all vampires meet the sun and experience the true death. Bill calls a meeting with his Sheriffs and tells them to evacuate all their vampires from the state. Any vampire who stays behind needs to bind themselves with silver so they will stay in their coffins and not be compelled to go outside in the daylight. The Sheriffs, understandably, don’t love this idea. They don’t want to hide from Antonia!Marnie, they want to take the fight to her. On the one hand, I see their point. Hiding isn’t going to work forever. On the other hand, I see Bill’s point too. Antonia’s a necromancer, so it’s going to be really difficult to figure out how to defeat her when she has the power to control the vampires.
While the other vampires are preparing to go to ground all silvered up, Sookie and Eric are having massive amounts of sex. As you do. Then they have some pillow talk, which kind of rehashes their dilemma for the umpteenth time (and it won’t be the last time in this episode, either). Eric wants to know if Sookie wants him to ever get his memories back. Sookie is conflicted. She says she wants his memories back, but she also doesn’t know if she’ll want that Eric. She knows that even the Eric who has done horrible things for 1000 years is good at his core, and she hopes she’ll still want him, but she can’t be sure. Later (when both Sookie and Eric are decent, thankfully), Bill shows up at their house. He tells Sookie and Eric about Antoinia!Marnie and leaves silver chain that Sookie is supposed to use to bind Eric.
In the only substantial plot that’s really separate from the vampire/witch war drama this week, Sam has to take Tommy to the hospital after finding him passed out following his skinwalking adventure. The doctor says Tommy probably had food poisoning, and he wants to keep him for observation because he seems to be running a fever. Tommy wants to leave, so he tells the doctor that everyone in his family has a temperature that runs a little hot, and Sam backs him up on that. I think Sam’s going to regret that. Sam calls Luna to chat and flirt, but she’s pissed because she thinks Sam (who was actually Tommy impersonating Sam) kicked her out of bed. Poor Sam has no clue why he’s in the doghouse, so to speak. Sam gets a bit stalkerish and goes to see Luna at her workplace. The eventually work out that Tommy must have been skinwalking, and Luna confirms that Tommy’s earlier symptoms jive with her experience post-skinwalking. They both just kind of look at each other awkwardly, which was kind of amusing. Sam’s not so kind to Tommy, though. He chokes (but doesn’t kill) him, and he kicks him out of the trailer.
We then see all the vampires silvering themselves in for the day. Jessica is not taking well to the silver at all. It’s extremely painful for her, I guess because she’s a baby vampire. Once she and Bill are all tied in, they do have a rather nice chat. Bill is upset that he’s caused Jessica so much pain in both her lives, but Jessica is grateful. She much prefers being vampire to being human. They also talk about Jessica’s problems with Hoyt. She thinks she doesn’t love him as much as he loves her Bill tries to convince Jessica that just because things aren’t working out with Hoyt doesn’t mean that she doesn’t still have a heart. Bill is down about how bad things have gotten under his reign as King of Louisiana, and Jessica tries to convince him he’s doing a good job.
Pam undergoing treatment to try to look how she used to.
Eric’s not taking well to the silver, either, and it’s Sookie who has to tie him down with the chain. Eric wants Sookie to stay with him after the job is done, and she obliges. When there’s still half a day of sunlight left, Eric wants out of the silver chains. Sookie refuses, because she doesn’t want to risk losing him. She’s reminded of a time (in season 2) when pre-Amnesia Eric offered to die to save her. It was the last time he was bound in silver. This makes Sookie realize that Eric wasn’t all bad, but Eric is still not so sure. He tells Sookie that he really does not want his memories back.
It turns out to be a good thing Sookie kept Eric in the silver, because Tara’s been trying to recruit others to help Antonia!Marnie. She’s successful in recruiting Holly, and they have a plan to get a large group together. They all congregate, and Antonia!Marnie has to make a big entrance by having some candles spontaneously light before she enters the room. I thought that was pretty hokey. Antonia!Marnie gives a big speech asking for help and tells the other witches they can leave if they want. A few do leave, but not many. Those who are left start chanting, and Antonia!Marnie stands in the center of the circle, hovering. Literally. That was also quite hokey.
Jason goes to Sookie’s house to give her the good news that he’s not a werepanther. Sookie tells him she already knew that, but before the conversation can go any farther, the wind picks up. Sookie knows this must be the big spell, so she runs off to help Eric. Jason decides to run off as well to help Jessica. The spell makes all the vampires go completely nuts. They all desperately want to get out of their chains and into the sunlight. The people watching over them mostly manage to keep them from doing just that. Although there’s one vampire next door to Maxine Fortenberry who walks outside and promptly bursts into flames. Maxine’s reaction made me chuckle. Things are not so jovial at Bill’s house thought. Jessica manages to get out of her chains, then she kills the guard and takes the key to the prison cell. Meanwhile, Jason is running towards the house full steam, but he’s stopped by a guard. Before anyone can stop her, Jessica starts to open the doors to Bill’s house and steps out into the sun.
-Bill
I don’t think I would say that “Cold Grey Light of Dawn” is one of my favorite episodes of “True Blood,” but I wouldn’t say it was bad either. The plot moved long very, very slowly, but there was some good character work. Pretty much the entire episode was everybody waiting for Antonia!Marnie to make a serious move against the Vampires. As people waited, they talked, which is what allowed for the character work. I’m ready for the plot to get moving again, which, judging from the end of this episode, looks to happen for sure next week. Several characters definitely ended this episode in serious jeopardy. I do like when “True Blood” tries to have a bit of depth, but I think this episode might have gone a touch too far in that direction. I like “True Blood” for the campiness, too. There really wasn’t a whole lot of campiness in this episode. Just a whole lot of dread. And character-revealing, but sedate conversations among several pairs of characters.
The episode opens in the prison cells at Bill’s house (which sounds vaguely dirty, but it’s not). One of the guards is trying to keep a Sheriff from hurting Antonia!Marnie. The Sheriff glamours the guard, and it appears that he is under Antonia!Marnie’s control. Antonia!Marnie makes the Sheriff kill the guard, but he has to do so without spilling any blood. I guess she wants to deny him a feed from this mess. The upshot of this is that Antonia!Marnie escapes, and she’s free to terrorize the vampires of Bon Temps. I know, we probably shouldn’t have too much sympathy for the vampires, but I’ve spent a lot more times watch their antics, so I’m pretty much on their side in this mess.
We then pick up Tara’s story, where she and her girlfriend are about to be attacked by Pam. Pam moves in for the kill, but suddenly there’s a huge commotion. People are playing paparazzi and taking video and photos of the attack with their cell phones. To put on YouTube, presumably. Pam leaves the scene without finishing what she started. Probably because the penalty for attacking humans is so steep, and she knows Bill will enforce it. Tara is freaked out about this, and as she and her girlfriend are driving down a road, Tara makes her girlfriend stop and leave her by the side of the road. Tara doesn’t want to have to worry about her girlfriend’s safety in the middle of all this vampire attack craziness. She starts calling out for Pam, wanting her to finish the job, but she meets Antonia!Marnie instead, who promises a way to be safe from vampires. But she needs Tara’s help.
Debbie and Alcide are out in the woods, participating in a ceremony to join the Shrieveport pack. Alcide doesn’t seem too thrilled about it. He’s worried about Sookie being out in the woods on a full moon, and that pisses Debbie off big time. They go searching for Sookie after the ceremony, and they find her still having sex with Eric in the woods. Awkward! Later, Alcide and Debbie are having sex, but Debbie isn’t very into it. She apologizes, and she wants to know if Alcide is still thinking about Sookie and Eric. She also wants to know if Alcide is in love with Sookie. And she turns on the waterworks. It’s really annoying, because Debbie is such a pathetic character. Although I could just be biased by how horrible Debbie is in the books. Alcide tries to reassure Debbie, and he says that he wants to be with Debbie forever. That can’t end well.
At Jesus’s grandfather’s house in Mexico, a major argument is going down between Lafayette and Jesus on one side and Jesus’s grandfather on the other. Jesus’s grandfather reveals that the whole deal with letting the snake bite Jesus was to prove that Lafayette is a medium to Lafayette himself. I guess he can’t argue he’s a medium after becoming his boyfriend’s uncle! Later, at a restaurant, Lafayette and Jesus have a very nice conversation about Jesus’s uncle and what exactly it means to be a medium. Lafayette still doesn’t seem especially thrilled with the idea of being a medium, but he does seem grateful that Jesus’s uncle decided to help them out. Back in Bon Temps, as Lafayette is cooking and Arlene is doing something nearby with Mikey strapped to her, he sees the ghost that has been haunting Arlene and her family all season. The ghost speaks French and sings to the baby. Lafayette is really freaked out. I guess he can see her because he’s a medium. While this is going on, Andy is having the most awkward date with Holly ever during Holly’s break. He’s going through serious withdrawal from V, and he ends up walking out on the date after about 30 seconds.
Hoyt goes over to Jason’s house, ostensibly to check on him, but he really wants to whine about how Jessica is being distant. Jessica, meanwhile, is with Bill, who is explaining about Antonia!Marnie and how she wants to make all vampires meet the sun and experience the true death. Bill calls a meeting with his Sheriffs and tells them to evacuate all their vampires from the state. Any vampire who stays behind needs to bind themselves with silver so they will stay in their coffins and not be compelled to go outside in the daylight. The Sheriffs, understandably, don’t love this idea. They don’t want to hide from Antonia!Marnie, they want to take the fight to her. On the one hand, I see their point. Hiding isn’t going to work forever. On the other hand, I see Bill’s point too. Antonia’s a necromancer, so it’s going to be really difficult to figure out how to defeat her when she has the power to control the vampires.
While the other vampires are preparing to go to ground all silvered up, Sookie and Eric are having massive amounts of sex. As you do. Then they have some pillow talk, which kind of rehashes their dilemma for the umpteenth time (and it won’t be the last time in this episode, either). Eric wants to know if Sookie wants him to ever get his memories back. Sookie is conflicted. She says she wants his memories back, but she also doesn’t know if she’ll want that Eric. She knows that even the Eric who has done horrible things for 1000 years is good at his core, and she hopes she’ll still want him, but she can’t be sure. Later (when both Sookie and Eric are decent, thankfully), Bill shows up at their house. He tells Sookie and Eric about Antoinia!Marnie and leaves silver chain that Sookie is supposed to use to bind Eric.
In the only substantial plot that’s really separate from the vampire/witch war drama this week, Sam has to take Tommy to the hospital after finding him passed out following his skinwalking adventure. The doctor says Tommy probably had food poisoning, and he wants to keep him for observation because he seems to be running a fever. Tommy wants to leave, so he tells the doctor that everyone in his family has a temperature that runs a little hot, and Sam backs him up on that. I think Sam’s going to regret that. Sam calls Luna to chat and flirt, but she’s pissed because she thinks Sam (who was actually Tommy impersonating Sam) kicked her out of bed. Poor Sam has no clue why he’s in the doghouse, so to speak. Sam gets a bit stalkerish and goes to see Luna at her workplace. The eventually work out that Tommy must have been skinwalking, and Luna confirms that Tommy’s earlier symptoms jive with her experience post-skinwalking. They both just kind of look at each other awkwardly, which was kind of amusing. Sam’s not so kind to Tommy, though. He chokes (but doesn’t kill) him, and he kicks him out of the trailer.
We then see all the vampires silvering themselves in for the day. Jessica is not taking well to the silver at all. It’s extremely painful for her, I guess because she’s a baby vampire. Once she and Bill are all tied in, they do have a rather nice chat. Bill is upset that he’s caused Jessica so much pain in both her lives, but Jessica is grateful. She much prefers being vampire to being human. They also talk about Jessica’s problems with Hoyt. She thinks she doesn’t love him as much as he loves her Bill tries to convince Jessica that just because things aren’t working out with Hoyt doesn’t mean that she doesn’t still have a heart. Bill is down about how bad things have gotten under his reign as King of Louisiana, and Jessica tries to convince him he’s doing a good job.
Pam undergoing treatment to try to look how she used to.
Eric’s not taking well to the silver, either, and it’s Sookie who has to tie him down with the chain. Eric wants Sookie to stay with him after the job is done, and she obliges. When there’s still half a day of sunlight left, Eric wants out of the silver chains. Sookie refuses, because she doesn’t want to risk losing him. She’s reminded of a time (in season 2) when pre-Amnesia Eric offered to die to save her. It was the last time he was bound in silver. This makes Sookie realize that Eric wasn’t all bad, but Eric is still not so sure. He tells Sookie that he really does not want his memories back.
It turns out to be a good thing Sookie kept Eric in the silver, because Tara’s been trying to recruit others to help Antonia!Marnie. She’s successful in recruiting Holly, and they have a plan to get a large group together. They all congregate, and Antonia!Marnie has to make a big entrance by having some candles spontaneously light before she enters the room. I thought that was pretty hokey. Antonia!Marnie gives a big speech asking for help and tells the other witches they can leave if they want. A few do leave, but not many. Those who are left start chanting, and Antonia!Marnie stands in the center of the circle, hovering. Literally. That was also quite hokey.
Jason goes to Sookie’s house to give her the good news that he’s not a werepanther. Sookie tells him she already knew that, but before the conversation can go any farther, the wind picks up. Sookie knows this must be the big spell, so she runs off to help Eric. Jason decides to run off as well to help Jessica. The spell makes all the vampires go completely nuts. They all desperately want to get out of their chains and into the sunlight. The people watching over them mostly manage to keep them from doing just that. Although there’s one vampire next door to Maxine Fortenberry who walks outside and promptly bursts into flames. Maxine’s reaction made me chuckle. Things are not so jovial at Bill’s house thought. Jessica manages to get out of her chains, then she kills the guard and takes the key to the prison cell. Meanwhile, Jason is running towards the house full steam, but he’s stopped by a guard. Before anyone can stop her, Jessica starts to open the doors to Bill’s house and steps out into the sun.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Torchwood 4.05: "Miracle Day: The Categories of Life"
“Well that’s the point. People don’t fit categories.”
-Vera
Russell T. Davies’ “Doctor Who” had some very high highs and some very low lows, and I assume that holds true for his other work as well, including “Torchwood.” This episode, and indeed “Miracle Day” overall, appears to be one of the lows, unfortunately. There were some redeeming characteristics to the episode, such as the fact that it’s getting dark and twisty, and the stakes are being appropriately raised. There was quite a lot of bad that isn’t quite outweighed by the good, though. The worst offender was the character of Colin Maloney, the head of an overflow camp in San Pedro, California. Not only is he a “soulless bureaucrat” (I’d argue that bureaucracy actually has quite a lot of talent, even if it isn’t always used to its full potential), but he’s racist, sexist, and a Southern “good old boy,” too. It felt like a blatant pile-on to make it necessary for viewers to hate him, and it was overkill (pun not intended).
The episode opens with Juarez walking into City Hall for another day of medical panels. She’s surprised to find the place mostly abandoned. Juarez questions a staffer about what happened to the medical panels, and the staffer says the panels are over. A report has already been sent to Congress, and legislation in response to the report is pending. Juarez, of course, wants to see this report ASAP. It turns out that the report contains the new three category system for classifying human life. Juarez is rather appalled by this, and she calls Rex to tell him that she’s in on whatever Torchwood is planning to do about PhiCorp.
Meanwhile, Gwen arrives in the Cardiff airport. She uses her Yvonne Pallister fake identity, and she meets Rhys in baggage claim. He’s dressed as a chauffeur, which is kind of adorable. The family has a pow wow at Gwen’s mother’s house. It’s obvious that the relationship between Gwen and her mother is a bit strained to begin with, and the situation with Gwen’s dad has only made it worse. Gwen’s mother is every demanding about rescuing her husband. She has a sort of conspiracy wall set up at her house and everything. Andy drives Gwen to the Cowbridge Overflow Camp, where Gwen’s father is being held, and they are met by a massive crowd of people demanding news about their loved ones. Gwen manages to cut ahead of them and gets into the tent where people are filling out forms to try and contest their relatives’ placement in the camp. Andy tries to pull rank by telling the military guards that Gwen’s father is to be moved on police business, but the military folks won’t care. Gwen pitches a fit and almost manages to get arrested, but Rhys diffuses the situation. As they all leave the camp, Gwen decides a break-in is their only option.
In LA, Jack and Esther are walking along the beach, and Esther starts prying about Jack’s past. Lucky for Jack, he’s saved by his and Esther’s phones ringing. Both received texts from Rex because Dr. Juarez (Vera) has arrived. Rex introduces Juarez to Jack and Esther, and Jack manages to make an ass of himself by asking about Vera’s sleeping arrangements. It looks like the whole thing was for Esther’s benefit, but it still didn’t work for me. It was extremely awkward and not like Jack at all. Once Vera is settled, the team holds a mini briefing with Gwen participating through video phone. It turns out that the overflow camps are spreading beyond the US and UK to other European countries. Vera is brought up to speed, but it turns out that she already knew a lot, including about morphic fields. I guess Jack is suitably impressed, because he officially welcomes Vera to Torchwood.
In the next part of the briefing talks about how they need to know who is above PhiCorps and why they might need overflow camps. My guess is aliens. With “Torchwood,” it’s always aliens. There’s also a presentation about the new “categories.” Category 1 is pretty much brain dead, Category 2 is persistent illness/injury, and Category 3 is everyone else. Esther reveals that there is a section of each camp called “the Module” that is on the blueprints but can’t be seen on the aerial photos. It turns out the photos were doctored to hide them. Category 1 folks are supposed to go to the module, and the team wonders what PhiCorp might be doing with them there. The team’s first instinct is that it must be some sort of experiment. Gwen and Rhys are going to infiltrate the Cowbridge camp as a nurse and a truck driver, and Esther, Vera, and Rex are going to infiltrate the San Pedro, California camp as a clerk, medical panel observer, and patient. Jack calls an ambulance to take Rex to the camp, and I love the sendoff Jack gives him. He makes the paramedics think Rex is his boyfriend, and it’s hilarious. What’s not so hilarious is that Esther and Vera leave for the camp, too, leaving Jack behind. I thought that was just plain wrong, because Jack should be at the center of anything Torchwood.
The Torchwood “team” (minus Jack and Gwen who are actually, you know, Torchwood), enter the San Pedro camp with gusto. Rex learns about the concept of “pegging” from the nurse checking him in. There are red, white, and blue pegs, and blue are for category 2 and red for category 1. Rex is given a blue peg. Esther meets a fellow clerk, who seems rather listless and doesn’t really care about anything going on at the camp. Vera is greeted by Colin Maloney, the camp’s director. He manages to be both racist (remarking that Vera must not be bothered by the hot weather) and sexist (not realizing that she was actually Dr. Juarez) all in the space of a few sentences. As I said in the introduction, he’s a seriously obnoxious cliché. And he has a customized golf cart where the horn plays “Dixie.” Seriously. It’s.That.Bad. Ralph, Colin’s “personal escort” seems a little more interesting, but he doesn’t really do much as Colin and Vera tour the camp and repeatedly argue about whether efficiency or care for patients is most important.
Meanwhile, Esther changes Rex’s category and gets him taken away to the Module. Esther and Rex have a little scene right before he’s taken away that might have been touching if I actually cared about either of them. When Rex is locked in one of the Module buildings, he turns on a flashlight and starts taping what he’s seeing. There are people stacked up on bunks, all unconscious. Rex can’t tell if they’ve been experimented on or not. Lucky for him, he manages to get out of the Module building, and he starts filming the outside as well.
Juarez is having much worse luck. She demands to be allowed to see a “storage” building, and she is appalled at what she sees inside. People are lying all over the place. Colin claims that they are “pending” status at the camp because they don’t have insurance. The final straw for Vera is when she sees someone who is clearly conscious tagged with a Category 1 red peg. That essentially means he was declared dead when he shouldn’t have been, so it’s a big deal. She is really, really pissed, and when she goes into a laundry room and is overcome by the stench, she goes completely off the rails. Colin tries to brag about how he’s under budget, but Juarez threatens to have him prosecuted for mistreating the patients, using more of this show’s patented pseudo-but-not-really legal mumbo jumbo. Ralph tries to diffuse the situation, but it’s gone too far. Colin shoots Vera, and he has Ralph get a car to take her to the Module. Then Colin leaves her on the floor of one of the buildings. He tries to rationalize it by saying there can be no more murder in a world without death.
In Wales, Gwen and Rhys are able to infiltrate Cowbridge pretty easily thanks to Rhys working for a trucking company. It also doesn’t seem to take Gwen very long to find her dad among the many, many Category 2 patients. She tells her dad that the camp isn’t safe, and she and Rhys bundle him up and head for Rhys’ lorry. As they try to hoist Gwen’s dad up into the cab of the lorry, he has yet another heart attack, and this one is even worse than the first two. Gwen has to admit defeat, and she screams for a doctor. One rushes over pretty quickly. We later see Gwen and Rhys sitting around the camp, waiting for news. Rhys has to go to work, and soon after he leaves, Gwen is told by a nurse that her father is now Category 1. Gwen doesn’t believe he fits the definition, but the nurse says that Gwen has until the morning to get it changed. At dawn, all the new Category 1 folks have to be transported to the Module.
Oswald and Jilly have arrived in Los Angeles for the big Miracle Rally. I’m not really sure what the purpose of the rally was supposed to be. Later, we see a bunch of people in “Dead is Dead” t-shirts, so maybe it is to show support for the overflow camps? Anyway, Jilly gives Oswald a pre-prepared speech, and she tells him that the key word in the speech is “revelation.” When he says it, the PhiCorp logo will pop up on a screen behind him. Oswald is not happy about this- he wants to use his own words. When they arrive at the stadium, Security has to hold back people who are jeering at Oswald, which makes him even surlier. He starts bitching about not having a dressing room, and Jilly walks away from him to take a phone call. Jack appears down the hallway, trying to look iconic, which cracked me up. Oswald tries to follow him, but he doesn’t catch up.
Jilly gives Oswald a new, even shorter speech, and quickly rushes off, probably to avoid more of Oswald’s temper. She is stopped by a man who says she is doing a good job and is being noticed by the right people. I assume he’s part of the “higher than PhiCorp” folks. Just before he’s supposed to go on stage, Oswald finally talks to Jack. Jack has an alternate speech for Oswald to deliver. He wants Oswald to expose PhiCorp. Jack thinks that what Oswald really wants is to die, so he expects Oswald to go along with the plan. Oswald defies everyone’s expectations, though. He doesn’t deliver either of the speeches he’s been given- he gives his own. He says that man has evolved into angels, and the crowd loves it. I’m not really sure why. What he’s saying isn’t all that profound. I also want to know why nobody’s hauled his ass off to an overflow camp yet. Anyway, despite going off-book, Oswald still uses the word “revelation,” and the PhiCorp logo shines brightly behind him.
Rex is outside, still filming, when he sees a light turn on outside one of the module buildings. We see that Colin is behind the building, flipping a switch. Rex rushes up to the building and sees that Vera is inside, begging for help. Esther has also noticed Vera’s absence, and she’s desperately trying to call her to no avail. Then the flames start, and Rex sadly films the proceedings (heartless jerk) as Vera burns to…sort-of-death, I guess. In Wales, Rhys calls Gwen to say he’s been told that the workers at the camp call the modules “burn units.” He figures this means they must be for burn victims. Gwen somehow miraculously, spontaneously puts the pieces of the puzzle together. The Module buildings are all ovens, burning people alive.
-Vera
Russell T. Davies’ “Doctor Who” had some very high highs and some very low lows, and I assume that holds true for his other work as well, including “Torchwood.” This episode, and indeed “Miracle Day” overall, appears to be one of the lows, unfortunately. There were some redeeming characteristics to the episode, such as the fact that it’s getting dark and twisty, and the stakes are being appropriately raised. There was quite a lot of bad that isn’t quite outweighed by the good, though. The worst offender was the character of Colin Maloney, the head of an overflow camp in San Pedro, California. Not only is he a “soulless bureaucrat” (I’d argue that bureaucracy actually has quite a lot of talent, even if it isn’t always used to its full potential), but he’s racist, sexist, and a Southern “good old boy,” too. It felt like a blatant pile-on to make it necessary for viewers to hate him, and it was overkill (pun not intended).
The episode opens with Juarez walking into City Hall for another day of medical panels. She’s surprised to find the place mostly abandoned. Juarez questions a staffer about what happened to the medical panels, and the staffer says the panels are over. A report has already been sent to Congress, and legislation in response to the report is pending. Juarez, of course, wants to see this report ASAP. It turns out that the report contains the new three category system for classifying human life. Juarez is rather appalled by this, and she calls Rex to tell him that she’s in on whatever Torchwood is planning to do about PhiCorp.
Meanwhile, Gwen arrives in the Cardiff airport. She uses her Yvonne Pallister fake identity, and she meets Rhys in baggage claim. He’s dressed as a chauffeur, which is kind of adorable. The family has a pow wow at Gwen’s mother’s house. It’s obvious that the relationship between Gwen and her mother is a bit strained to begin with, and the situation with Gwen’s dad has only made it worse. Gwen’s mother is every demanding about rescuing her husband. She has a sort of conspiracy wall set up at her house and everything. Andy drives Gwen to the Cowbridge Overflow Camp, where Gwen’s father is being held, and they are met by a massive crowd of people demanding news about their loved ones. Gwen manages to cut ahead of them and gets into the tent where people are filling out forms to try and contest their relatives’ placement in the camp. Andy tries to pull rank by telling the military guards that Gwen’s father is to be moved on police business, but the military folks won’t care. Gwen pitches a fit and almost manages to get arrested, but Rhys diffuses the situation. As they all leave the camp, Gwen decides a break-in is their only option.
In LA, Jack and Esther are walking along the beach, and Esther starts prying about Jack’s past. Lucky for Jack, he’s saved by his and Esther’s phones ringing. Both received texts from Rex because Dr. Juarez (Vera) has arrived. Rex introduces Juarez to Jack and Esther, and Jack manages to make an ass of himself by asking about Vera’s sleeping arrangements. It looks like the whole thing was for Esther’s benefit, but it still didn’t work for me. It was extremely awkward and not like Jack at all. Once Vera is settled, the team holds a mini briefing with Gwen participating through video phone. It turns out that the overflow camps are spreading beyond the US and UK to other European countries. Vera is brought up to speed, but it turns out that she already knew a lot, including about morphic fields. I guess Jack is suitably impressed, because he officially welcomes Vera to Torchwood.
In the next part of the briefing talks about how they need to know who is above PhiCorps and why they might need overflow camps. My guess is aliens. With “Torchwood,” it’s always aliens. There’s also a presentation about the new “categories.” Category 1 is pretty much brain dead, Category 2 is persistent illness/injury, and Category 3 is everyone else. Esther reveals that there is a section of each camp called “the Module” that is on the blueprints but can’t be seen on the aerial photos. It turns out the photos were doctored to hide them. Category 1 folks are supposed to go to the module, and the team wonders what PhiCorp might be doing with them there. The team’s first instinct is that it must be some sort of experiment. Gwen and Rhys are going to infiltrate the Cowbridge camp as a nurse and a truck driver, and Esther, Vera, and Rex are going to infiltrate the San Pedro, California camp as a clerk, medical panel observer, and patient. Jack calls an ambulance to take Rex to the camp, and I love the sendoff Jack gives him. He makes the paramedics think Rex is his boyfriend, and it’s hilarious. What’s not so hilarious is that Esther and Vera leave for the camp, too, leaving Jack behind. I thought that was just plain wrong, because Jack should be at the center of anything Torchwood.
The Torchwood “team” (minus Jack and Gwen who are actually, you know, Torchwood), enter the San Pedro camp with gusto. Rex learns about the concept of “pegging” from the nurse checking him in. There are red, white, and blue pegs, and blue are for category 2 and red for category 1. Rex is given a blue peg. Esther meets a fellow clerk, who seems rather listless and doesn’t really care about anything going on at the camp. Vera is greeted by Colin Maloney, the camp’s director. He manages to be both racist (remarking that Vera must not be bothered by the hot weather) and sexist (not realizing that she was actually Dr. Juarez) all in the space of a few sentences. As I said in the introduction, he’s a seriously obnoxious cliché. And he has a customized golf cart where the horn plays “Dixie.” Seriously. It’s.That.Bad. Ralph, Colin’s “personal escort” seems a little more interesting, but he doesn’t really do much as Colin and Vera tour the camp and repeatedly argue about whether efficiency or care for patients is most important.
Meanwhile, Esther changes Rex’s category and gets him taken away to the Module. Esther and Rex have a little scene right before he’s taken away that might have been touching if I actually cared about either of them. When Rex is locked in one of the Module buildings, he turns on a flashlight and starts taping what he’s seeing. There are people stacked up on bunks, all unconscious. Rex can’t tell if they’ve been experimented on or not. Lucky for him, he manages to get out of the Module building, and he starts filming the outside as well.
Juarez is having much worse luck. She demands to be allowed to see a “storage” building, and she is appalled at what she sees inside. People are lying all over the place. Colin claims that they are “pending” status at the camp because they don’t have insurance. The final straw for Vera is when she sees someone who is clearly conscious tagged with a Category 1 red peg. That essentially means he was declared dead when he shouldn’t have been, so it’s a big deal. She is really, really pissed, and when she goes into a laundry room and is overcome by the stench, she goes completely off the rails. Colin tries to brag about how he’s under budget, but Juarez threatens to have him prosecuted for mistreating the patients, using more of this show’s patented pseudo-but-not-really legal mumbo jumbo. Ralph tries to diffuse the situation, but it’s gone too far. Colin shoots Vera, and he has Ralph get a car to take her to the Module. Then Colin leaves her on the floor of one of the buildings. He tries to rationalize it by saying there can be no more murder in a world without death.
In Wales, Gwen and Rhys are able to infiltrate Cowbridge pretty easily thanks to Rhys working for a trucking company. It also doesn’t seem to take Gwen very long to find her dad among the many, many Category 2 patients. She tells her dad that the camp isn’t safe, and she and Rhys bundle him up and head for Rhys’ lorry. As they try to hoist Gwen’s dad up into the cab of the lorry, he has yet another heart attack, and this one is even worse than the first two. Gwen has to admit defeat, and she screams for a doctor. One rushes over pretty quickly. We later see Gwen and Rhys sitting around the camp, waiting for news. Rhys has to go to work, and soon after he leaves, Gwen is told by a nurse that her father is now Category 1. Gwen doesn’t believe he fits the definition, but the nurse says that Gwen has until the morning to get it changed. At dawn, all the new Category 1 folks have to be transported to the Module.
Oswald and Jilly have arrived in Los Angeles for the big Miracle Rally. I’m not really sure what the purpose of the rally was supposed to be. Later, we see a bunch of people in “Dead is Dead” t-shirts, so maybe it is to show support for the overflow camps? Anyway, Jilly gives Oswald a pre-prepared speech, and she tells him that the key word in the speech is “revelation.” When he says it, the PhiCorp logo will pop up on a screen behind him. Oswald is not happy about this- he wants to use his own words. When they arrive at the stadium, Security has to hold back people who are jeering at Oswald, which makes him even surlier. He starts bitching about not having a dressing room, and Jilly walks away from him to take a phone call. Jack appears down the hallway, trying to look iconic, which cracked me up. Oswald tries to follow him, but he doesn’t catch up.
Jilly gives Oswald a new, even shorter speech, and quickly rushes off, probably to avoid more of Oswald’s temper. She is stopped by a man who says she is doing a good job and is being noticed by the right people. I assume he’s part of the “higher than PhiCorp” folks. Just before he’s supposed to go on stage, Oswald finally talks to Jack. Jack has an alternate speech for Oswald to deliver. He wants Oswald to expose PhiCorp. Jack thinks that what Oswald really wants is to die, so he expects Oswald to go along with the plan. Oswald defies everyone’s expectations, though. He doesn’t deliver either of the speeches he’s been given- he gives his own. He says that man has evolved into angels, and the crowd loves it. I’m not really sure why. What he’s saying isn’t all that profound. I also want to know why nobody’s hauled his ass off to an overflow camp yet. Anyway, despite going off-book, Oswald still uses the word “revelation,” and the PhiCorp logo shines brightly behind him.
Rex is outside, still filming, when he sees a light turn on outside one of the module buildings. We see that Colin is behind the building, flipping a switch. Rex rushes up to the building and sees that Vera is inside, begging for help. Esther has also noticed Vera’s absence, and she’s desperately trying to call her to no avail. Then the flames start, and Rex sadly films the proceedings (heartless jerk) as Vera burns to…sort-of-death, I guess. In Wales, Rhys calls Gwen to say he’s been told that the workers at the camp call the modules “burn units.” He figures this means they must be for burn victims. Gwen somehow miraculously, spontaneously puts the pieces of the puzzle together. The Module buildings are all ovens, burning people alive.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Summer DVR Dump: Doctor Who 6.02: "Day of the Moon"
“Oh, Dicky. Tricky Dicky. They’re never going to forget you. Say ‘hi’ to David Frost for me.”
-The Doctor
“Day of the Moon” was a continuation of the story that began in “The Impossible Astronaut,” with the Doctor and crew in the United States in 1969. This episode doesn’t hold together quite as well as “The Impossible Astronaut,” probably because I was expecting questions from the first episode to be answered in the second, and that didn’t entirely happen. There were still some good moments and characterization, however. I found President Nixon to be entertaining, even if he was a rather Disney-fied version of the real thing. There was a good sense of camaraderie between the Doctor, Amy, Rory, and River. I think the Doctor works well as a character when he has a lot of friends around. It kind of reminded me of the end of series 4’s “Journey’s End” where the Doctor reveals to his group of friends at the time that the TARDIS was really meant to be piloted by multiple Time Lords at once, and he kind of revels in having enough friends around to actually use it properly. While I think building a good relationship between the Doctor and his primary companion is important, the group dynamic in these sorts of situations can also be a lot of fun.
This episode, although the second part of a two-parter, picks up three months after the end of the first part. And it opens with a massive, rather frustrating fake-out. Amy is running through the desert until she can’t run any more. When she stops, Canton and a bunch of FBI agents catch up to her, and Canton appears to shoot her. The Doctor is at Area 51, and the folks there are building a beyond state-of-the-art prison sell to contain him. River is in New York City, and when Canton catches up to her, she jumps off a high floor of a sky scraper. Rory is the last to be found. He’s at Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona, and for obvious reasons, he can’t run any farther. Canton appears to shoot him, too. The bodies (in body bags) of Rory and Amy are brought into the Doctor’s Area 51 prison. As soon as Canton shuts the door (with himself inside the cell, too), it becomes apparent that all is not as it seems. The show of building the prison and appearing to kill the Doctor’s companions was all an elaborate ruse to give the gang a place to talk out of range of the Silents. Everyone gets in the TARDIS, and the first order of business is rescuing River by positioning the TARDIS swimming pool to break her fall. Then the gang is off on a return trip to Kennedy Space Center.
Before everyone begins their specific missions, the Doctor injects nanorecorders into everyone’s hands. They’re supposed to use them if they have an encounter with a Silent so they can remember it. The recorders will blink if there’s a message. The Doctor tests is by having Canton look at a hologram of a Silent. We don’t know that’s what’s happening at the time, though. All we know is that Canton’s recorder suddenly starts blinking. The whole concept is really creepy, because it’s easy to imagine living in dread of seeing the recorder suddenly blinking and wondering what horror you experienced that you now can’t remember. We also learn at this point that not only can the Silents make you forget you saw them, but they can plant post-hypnotic suggestions, too.
Amy and Canton, in their search for the little girl who was in the space suit, find themselves at a really, really, Southern Gothic-style orphanage. The caretaker at the orphanage has a really warped sense of time, convinced that it’s not even 1967 yet. This should have been a big honing clue that Silents were about making him forget things. Beyond that, creepy messages are written all over the walls in what looks like possibly blood. Because this episode is pretty true to horror tropes, Amy decides to go upstairs to investigate on her own while Canton tries to question the caretaker. She gets locked in a room, and the recorder in her hand starts blinking. She looks up to see a whole mess of Silents hanging from the ceiling like bats. It’s really, really gross.
The Doctor is found by some NASA bigwigs inside the Apollo 11 command module, and not surprisingly, he gets in a bit of trouble for it. Nixon shows u to rescue the Doctor just in time, and he even gets a little “Hail to the Chief” music cue as he strolls into the scene. I have to admit that was pretty funny. With this episode as with the last, it’s always amusing to see what the Brits really think of us. Rory arrives with Nixon and almost breaks a model of the Lunar Excursion Module, looking pretty darn cute dressed up in 60s nerd attire, complete with slicked back hair and thick glasses. I actually didn’t recognize him right away the first time I saw this episode because he looked so different.
Meanwhile, all sorts of creepiness is still going down at the orphanage. Canton is talking to the caretaker about the little girl, and the caretaker tells him that “the child must be cared for.” Locked in the upstairs room, Amy sees a small slot window suddenly appear in a door, and she sees a woman looking through that window. When Amy gets close to the window and tries to touch it, it disappears. Amy opens the door and finds a small child’s room. The room belonged to the little girl they’re searching for. Amy looks at all the pictures on the bureau, and she sees one of herself holding the baby. There’s all sorts of hubbub going downstairs at the orphanage by this point, and Canton ends up shooting a silent. After taking Canton’s distress call, the Doctor tells Nixon to record everything. I love the little jokes they include in this episode to appeal to us American history nerds.
Since Canton has raised the alarm, the whole crew has a mission to rescue Amy. All they can find in the upstairs of the orphanage is her nanorecorder (that has somehow been taken out of her hand). Rory holds on to it for the rest of the episode because while he can’t communicate to Amy through it, he can somehow hear everything she’s saying. Most of the time she’s babbling about loving a guy, and of course Rory’s worried she’s talking about the Doctor and not him.Which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if she doesn’t have the recorder in her hand anymore. Is it magically tuned to her brainwaves across the miles or something? Another thing I don’t love about this scenario is that Amy is a total damsel in distress. I prefer companions who can take care of themselves somewhat. Rose was scrappy and Donna was mouthy. Both occasionally needed to be rescued, but not with the frequency that Amy has, and they also both were sometimes able to rescue themselves. The only thing that makes the Amy as damsel in distress bit at all palatable in this episode is the presence of River, because she can more than take care of herself
River and the Doctor spend some time looking at the space suit and speculating about the little girl who was once inside it. The Doctor reviews the fact that the Silents have shaped almost all of human history and hypothesizes that the Silents only let humans go to the Moon because they needed a space suit to keep the little girl alive. I guess that begs the question of why the little girl is so important, other than the fact that she may have killed the Doctor farther down the line in the Doctor’s personal timeline. Meanwhile, Canton’s paying a visit to the Silent that was shot. He uses Amy’s videophone (and amusingly says he doesn’t know what a video phone is) to tape the Silent saying menacing things. Canton asks the Silent how humans should react to the Silents, and the Silent helpfully says that humans should kill Silents on sight.
Amy wakes up restrained in an unfamiliar room full of Silents. She doesn’t have much time to freak out, though, even though the Silents are trying to play mind games with her about how long she’s been imprisoned, because the Doctor and River show up. There’s some fun banter where the Doctor threatens the Silents by proudly stating how many of them River could easily kill. Then he reveals his big plan to defeat the Silents. We see a TV screen that is broadcasting the lunar landing. In the pause in the middle of Neil Armstrong’s famous line, “That’s one small step for man…one giant leap for mankind,” the video Canton shot of the Silent saying humans should shoot Silents on sight is broadcast. Since Silents can do post-hypnotic suggestion, the broadcast is a call for all humans to actually start killing the Silents. The Silents are understandably unhappy about this, and a battle breaks out. River gets to be kickass and kills them all in this spinning motion. The scene is a little silly with its use of Matrix-style filming.
With everybody properly rescued and safe on the TARDIS, Amy confirms that when she was talking about the person she loves over the nanorecorder, it was Rory. It’s good to have that 100% out of the way, considering Amy and Rory are married and all. There’s also some wrap-up where Nixon talks to Canton about how Canton was kicked out of the FBI for getting married. Nixon wants to know if Canton was kicked out because he wanted to marry and African American, and Canton responds that yes, he is. Nixon seems to be cool with letting Canton back into the FBI despite this, but he’s not cool with the marriage taking place. Baby steps, I suppose. It is the 1960’s and Richard Nixon, after all. The Doctor then has to drop River off at Stormcage. They say their goodbyes, and River moves in to kiss him. The Doctor is surprised, but he goes with it, albeit rather awkwardly. River is devastated to learn that in the Doctor’s timeline, this is the first time they’ve kissed. Since their timelines are roughly opposite, she’s convinced this is the last time she will ever kiss the Doctor.
Back on the TARDIS, Amy and the Doctor talk about Amy saying earlier that she was pregnant. She says she’s really not, and she made a mistake earlier. The Doctor wants to know why Amy told him and not Rory, and of course Rory is using the nanorecorder to listen in on this because he’s still insecure. He rushes in and assures Amy that because he’s a nurse, he’ll be just fine with a pregnancy. The Doctor doesn’t buy Amy’s “I made a mistake” story, so he runs a scan on her. The results vacillate between saying she’s pregnant and not pregnant, which is most definitely odd. Speaking of children in general, we end the episode with another look at the mysterious little girl. She’s slumming it in New York City, and someone asks her if she’s okay. She says she’s dying, but that’s okay because she knows what to do. All of a sudden, she starts shooting out regeneration energy like a Time Lord.
-The Doctor
“Day of the Moon” was a continuation of the story that began in “The Impossible Astronaut,” with the Doctor and crew in the United States in 1969. This episode doesn’t hold together quite as well as “The Impossible Astronaut,” probably because I was expecting questions from the first episode to be answered in the second, and that didn’t entirely happen. There were still some good moments and characterization, however. I found President Nixon to be entertaining, even if he was a rather Disney-fied version of the real thing. There was a good sense of camaraderie between the Doctor, Amy, Rory, and River. I think the Doctor works well as a character when he has a lot of friends around. It kind of reminded me of the end of series 4’s “Journey’s End” where the Doctor reveals to his group of friends at the time that the TARDIS was really meant to be piloted by multiple Time Lords at once, and he kind of revels in having enough friends around to actually use it properly. While I think building a good relationship between the Doctor and his primary companion is important, the group dynamic in these sorts of situations can also be a lot of fun.
This episode, although the second part of a two-parter, picks up three months after the end of the first part. And it opens with a massive, rather frustrating fake-out. Amy is running through the desert until she can’t run any more. When she stops, Canton and a bunch of FBI agents catch up to her, and Canton appears to shoot her. The Doctor is at Area 51, and the folks there are building a beyond state-of-the-art prison sell to contain him. River is in New York City, and when Canton catches up to her, she jumps off a high floor of a sky scraper. Rory is the last to be found. He’s at Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona, and for obvious reasons, he can’t run any farther. Canton appears to shoot him, too. The bodies (in body bags) of Rory and Amy are brought into the Doctor’s Area 51 prison. As soon as Canton shuts the door (with himself inside the cell, too), it becomes apparent that all is not as it seems. The show of building the prison and appearing to kill the Doctor’s companions was all an elaborate ruse to give the gang a place to talk out of range of the Silents. Everyone gets in the TARDIS, and the first order of business is rescuing River by positioning the TARDIS swimming pool to break her fall. Then the gang is off on a return trip to Kennedy Space Center.
Before everyone begins their specific missions, the Doctor injects nanorecorders into everyone’s hands. They’re supposed to use them if they have an encounter with a Silent so they can remember it. The recorders will blink if there’s a message. The Doctor tests is by having Canton look at a hologram of a Silent. We don’t know that’s what’s happening at the time, though. All we know is that Canton’s recorder suddenly starts blinking. The whole concept is really creepy, because it’s easy to imagine living in dread of seeing the recorder suddenly blinking and wondering what horror you experienced that you now can’t remember. We also learn at this point that not only can the Silents make you forget you saw them, but they can plant post-hypnotic suggestions, too.
Amy and Canton, in their search for the little girl who was in the space suit, find themselves at a really, really, Southern Gothic-style orphanage. The caretaker at the orphanage has a really warped sense of time, convinced that it’s not even 1967 yet. This should have been a big honing clue that Silents were about making him forget things. Beyond that, creepy messages are written all over the walls in what looks like possibly blood. Because this episode is pretty true to horror tropes, Amy decides to go upstairs to investigate on her own while Canton tries to question the caretaker. She gets locked in a room, and the recorder in her hand starts blinking. She looks up to see a whole mess of Silents hanging from the ceiling like bats. It’s really, really gross.
The Doctor is found by some NASA bigwigs inside the Apollo 11 command module, and not surprisingly, he gets in a bit of trouble for it. Nixon shows u to rescue the Doctor just in time, and he even gets a little “Hail to the Chief” music cue as he strolls into the scene. I have to admit that was pretty funny. With this episode as with the last, it’s always amusing to see what the Brits really think of us. Rory arrives with Nixon and almost breaks a model of the Lunar Excursion Module, looking pretty darn cute dressed up in 60s nerd attire, complete with slicked back hair and thick glasses. I actually didn’t recognize him right away the first time I saw this episode because he looked so different.
Meanwhile, all sorts of creepiness is still going down at the orphanage. Canton is talking to the caretaker about the little girl, and the caretaker tells him that “the child must be cared for.” Locked in the upstairs room, Amy sees a small slot window suddenly appear in a door, and she sees a woman looking through that window. When Amy gets close to the window and tries to touch it, it disappears. Amy opens the door and finds a small child’s room. The room belonged to the little girl they’re searching for. Amy looks at all the pictures on the bureau, and she sees one of herself holding the baby. There’s all sorts of hubbub going downstairs at the orphanage by this point, and Canton ends up shooting a silent. After taking Canton’s distress call, the Doctor tells Nixon to record everything. I love the little jokes they include in this episode to appeal to us American history nerds.
Since Canton has raised the alarm, the whole crew has a mission to rescue Amy. All they can find in the upstairs of the orphanage is her nanorecorder (that has somehow been taken out of her hand). Rory holds on to it for the rest of the episode because while he can’t communicate to Amy through it, he can somehow hear everything she’s saying. Most of the time she’s babbling about loving a guy, and of course Rory’s worried she’s talking about the Doctor and not him.Which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if she doesn’t have the recorder in her hand anymore. Is it magically tuned to her brainwaves across the miles or something? Another thing I don’t love about this scenario is that Amy is a total damsel in distress. I prefer companions who can take care of themselves somewhat. Rose was scrappy and Donna was mouthy. Both occasionally needed to be rescued, but not with the frequency that Amy has, and they also both were sometimes able to rescue themselves. The only thing that makes the Amy as damsel in distress bit at all palatable in this episode is the presence of River, because she can more than take care of herself
River and the Doctor spend some time looking at the space suit and speculating about the little girl who was once inside it. The Doctor reviews the fact that the Silents have shaped almost all of human history and hypothesizes that the Silents only let humans go to the Moon because they needed a space suit to keep the little girl alive. I guess that begs the question of why the little girl is so important, other than the fact that she may have killed the Doctor farther down the line in the Doctor’s personal timeline. Meanwhile, Canton’s paying a visit to the Silent that was shot. He uses Amy’s videophone (and amusingly says he doesn’t know what a video phone is) to tape the Silent saying menacing things. Canton asks the Silent how humans should react to the Silents, and the Silent helpfully says that humans should kill Silents on sight.
Amy wakes up restrained in an unfamiliar room full of Silents. She doesn’t have much time to freak out, though, even though the Silents are trying to play mind games with her about how long she’s been imprisoned, because the Doctor and River show up. There’s some fun banter where the Doctor threatens the Silents by proudly stating how many of them River could easily kill. Then he reveals his big plan to defeat the Silents. We see a TV screen that is broadcasting the lunar landing. In the pause in the middle of Neil Armstrong’s famous line, “That’s one small step for man…one giant leap for mankind,” the video Canton shot of the Silent saying humans should shoot Silents on sight is broadcast. Since Silents can do post-hypnotic suggestion, the broadcast is a call for all humans to actually start killing the Silents. The Silents are understandably unhappy about this, and a battle breaks out. River gets to be kickass and kills them all in this spinning motion. The scene is a little silly with its use of Matrix-style filming.
With everybody properly rescued and safe on the TARDIS, Amy confirms that when she was talking about the person she loves over the nanorecorder, it was Rory. It’s good to have that 100% out of the way, considering Amy and Rory are married and all. There’s also some wrap-up where Nixon talks to Canton about how Canton was kicked out of the FBI for getting married. Nixon wants to know if Canton was kicked out because he wanted to marry and African American, and Canton responds that yes, he is. Nixon seems to be cool with letting Canton back into the FBI despite this, but he’s not cool with the marriage taking place. Baby steps, I suppose. It is the 1960’s and Richard Nixon, after all. The Doctor then has to drop River off at Stormcage. They say their goodbyes, and River moves in to kiss him. The Doctor is surprised, but he goes with it, albeit rather awkwardly. River is devastated to learn that in the Doctor’s timeline, this is the first time they’ve kissed. Since their timelines are roughly opposite, she’s convinced this is the last time she will ever kiss the Doctor.
Back on the TARDIS, Amy and the Doctor talk about Amy saying earlier that she was pregnant. She says she’s really not, and she made a mistake earlier. The Doctor wants to know why Amy told him and not Rory, and of course Rory is using the nanorecorder to listen in on this because he’s still insecure. He rushes in and assures Amy that because he’s a nurse, he’ll be just fine with a pregnancy. The Doctor doesn’t buy Amy’s “I made a mistake” story, so he runs a scan on her. The results vacillate between saying she’s pregnant and not pregnant, which is most definitely odd. Speaking of children in general, we end the episode with another look at the mysterious little girl. She’s slumming it in New York City, and someone asks her if she’s okay. She says she’s dying, but that’s okay because she knows what to do. All of a sudden, she starts shooting out regeneration energy like a Time Lord.
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