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newnumber6The short version... oh, Moffat, you made a couple big, avoidable mistakes. :(.
It was okay, I guess. The performances were generally good. But the episode faltered because of two big mistakes by Moffat. One is perhaps not a mistake at all, if there's a deliberate subversion coming (I really really hope there is), the other may need to be heavily retconned if the Weeping Angels are to remain a threat.
The first mistake, the one that could not be a mistake, is River Song. She veered close to that in the first two parter she was in, enough to be annoying, but here she became full on Mary Sue territory. I think Moffat needs to learn not all of the audience is as fond of River Song as he is, and to those of us who aren't, ramming her down our throats is going to make us dislike her even more. Such ramming is done by things like having her know how to fly the TARDIS perfectly, knowing High Gallifreyan, and all the "Wait, did they just confirm she waswillbe his wife?... No, wait, they're pulling back from it and leaving it a mystery." moments. (yes, I just invented waswillbe as a new tense to describe discontinuous time situations as crop up in time travel tales. I'm sure others have invented it, or similar, before). It's just annoying. I could get to like River Song if she wasn't designed to both show up the Doctor and force the mystery of their future together. (I hope the next time we see her, since it's inevitable, that it's early in HER relationship with the Doctor.)
Now, this COULD be a subversion, as I said. We've already got a big plot with cracks in the universe, and potential timeline alteration (with Amy not remembering the Daleks, which might be because now they no longer invaded the Earth at that time, and hints from the Doctor about 'time can be rewritten'). We COULD be setting up a situation where because Time has cracks in it, his future's not set, and at some point the Doctor has to make a choice, sacrifice the potential future he hasn't yet felt with River Song, or risk the universe (or something else, like the life of Amy). That would be an excellent subversion, and may even be poignant (and she could still show up again, just with the knowledge that they might never be together, maybe every time they meet from that time on she only barely knows him, not the weird time-displaced closeness. I really hope that's the case, because I really don't like River Song as she's portrayed here... knowing more about things like the TARDIS than the Doctor, knowing way too much about him, knowing High Gallifreyan, etc. It's like textbook Mary Sue. (The classic definition being smarter than Spock, braver than Kirk, more Compassionate that McCoy, and sleeps with all of them... except in Who, Spock, Kirk, McCoy are all the same person).
As an aside... River Song mentions knowing what 'all his incarnations' look like. Except, we know she didn't meet all his incarnations, since he met her the first time as Ten. Well, she might well have pictures of them, but she seems way too familiar with the idea of him changing face, as though she's seen many of them. But he's only got two faces left.
Maybe this is a hint. I mean, we all know it's going to happen... when we get to the 13th Doctor, SOMETHING will happen that will give him a whole host of new regerations. Who is an institution and they won't let it lapse just because of the pesky 12 regeneration limit. So maybe when she says "I got pictures of all his incarnations", she means because she's interacted with him in LOTS of them... in his future. It would also explain her surprise upon meeting Ten that he didn't know her at all. I mean, if she's met say, 9 or 10 versions of him, a new face wouldn't be a surprise. But if she only met 4 of them then it would mean she'd previously only met 3. (It could also be a hint that she's someone we knew from the Classic Who with a new name and identity, like Romana or the Rani, or even Donna Noble who regenerated from her infusion of Time Lord DNA, but I think that might be a little cheesy and hard to pull off).
Anyway, the other problem, the bigger problem, is the Weeping Angels. They were great in Blink. And it's natural to want to bring them back to make them an ongoing enemy of the Doctor's. But, Moffat, you made the classic mistake of long-term series writers. You decided you needed to make them scarier by adding new powers to them. And end up making them a little ridiculous. So, now in addition to the simple, elegant rules from Blink, apparently.
1) Despite the fact that the whole point of their defense mechanism is that when you look at them they turn into 'lifeless stone', now if you look into their lifeless stone eyes, they put the mental whammy on you.
and worse
2) "the image of the monster becomes the monster". Now that's just crap. I mean, it might be an okay gimmick for a new monster, but not for the weeping angels. The beauty of them is that they could be around us at any time. But now, any time somebody makes a video of an angel and distributes it around the world, there can be billions of them. Why bother coming to this planet to rebuild it's brothers? Just steal a digital camera and an e-mail and you have a ready made army. I guess you might refine it so that it's not actually a new angel but a medium through which the angel who's taped can act (he did say it's "a projection") if it chooses, maybe teleport through, but the episode was altogether unclear on the issue and leaving it unclear is a bad thing (heck, sometimes it being clear isn't enough... remember how the Cybermen went from 'gold is non-conductive so it interferes with their inner workings to get gold inside' to 'cyberman have a werewolf like weakness to gold, hit them with a gold bullet and they die instantly'?)
I suppose there were a couple more additions... 3 is 'regenerates from radiation', but that's one addition I have no problem with and 4 is mystical 'turn out the lights and close doors even if you already are looking at them', which I do... 5 is rip out people's voice boxes to speak, but that seems more like a technology thing than a 'power'.)
Come on, you should have learned from the Daleks. When you make an enemy TOO powerful, it makes it just ridiculous for your hero to defeat them all the time. You give your villains power but also weaknesses and firm limits. When you're writing a long term series you HAVE to think long term about what you add to the lore. Don't make them too powerful, and don't give them very nebulously defined powers that let anybody write them in any way they want. Nail them down early on, what their limits are, and let those limits define the stories that they appear in. You can even subvert those limits at times, if you're aware you're doing it and make it clear to your audience (like for example, with Dracula having powers other vampires don't in the Buffyverse... it doesn't change how vampires work there, it just means he's a special case who uses magic). But if all vampires in the Whedonverse started being able to turn into bats or mist and immune to sunlight it would be a big change that would turn them from the low level cannonfodder type creatures into a species where every single one is Big Bad level.
And worst of all, at least in this episode, it doesn't really seem to NEED it. The 'image of an angel' thing was thrown out for a brief scare with Amy, but could have been done in dozens of way without adding that to the lore (though I suspect there's a line in the episode that suggests where Moffat may be going with this... and it COULD be pulled off, but it could easily not be. To avoid potential spoilers, I'll mention it in my review of part two whether he does go where I'm thinking or not). The hypnotism thing could have been done in another way (maybe abducting Amy doing things to her mind in ways that aren't spelled out, and then shoving her a few hours back in time so it doesn't look like any time had passed?)
It was okay, I guess. The performances were generally good. But the episode faltered because of two big mistakes by Moffat. One is perhaps not a mistake at all, if there's a deliberate subversion coming (I really really hope there is), the other may need to be heavily retconned if the Weeping Angels are to remain a threat.
The first mistake, the one that could not be a mistake, is River Song. She veered close to that in the first two parter she was in, enough to be annoying, but here she became full on Mary Sue territory. I think Moffat needs to learn not all of the audience is as fond of River Song as he is, and to those of us who aren't, ramming her down our throats is going to make us dislike her even more. Such ramming is done by things like having her know how to fly the TARDIS perfectly, knowing High Gallifreyan, and all the "Wait, did they just confirm she waswillbe his wife?... No, wait, they're pulling back from it and leaving it a mystery." moments. (yes, I just invented waswillbe as a new tense to describe discontinuous time situations as crop up in time travel tales. I'm sure others have invented it, or similar, before). It's just annoying. I could get to like River Song if she wasn't designed to both show up the Doctor and force the mystery of their future together. (I hope the next time we see her, since it's inevitable, that it's early in HER relationship with the Doctor.)
Now, this COULD be a subversion, as I said. We've already got a big plot with cracks in the universe, and potential timeline alteration (with Amy not remembering the Daleks, which might be because now they no longer invaded the Earth at that time, and hints from the Doctor about 'time can be rewritten'). We COULD be setting up a situation where because Time has cracks in it, his future's not set, and at some point the Doctor has to make a choice, sacrifice the potential future he hasn't yet felt with River Song, or risk the universe (or something else, like the life of Amy). That would be an excellent subversion, and may even be poignant (and she could still show up again, just with the knowledge that they might never be together, maybe every time they meet from that time on she only barely knows him, not the weird time-displaced closeness. I really hope that's the case, because I really don't like River Song as she's portrayed here... knowing more about things like the TARDIS than the Doctor, knowing way too much about him, knowing High Gallifreyan, etc. It's like textbook Mary Sue. (The classic definition being smarter than Spock, braver than Kirk, more Compassionate that McCoy, and sleeps with all of them... except in Who, Spock, Kirk, McCoy are all the same person).
As an aside... River Song mentions knowing what 'all his incarnations' look like. Except, we know she didn't meet all his incarnations, since he met her the first time as Ten. Well, she might well have pictures of them, but she seems way too familiar with the idea of him changing face, as though she's seen many of them. But he's only got two faces left.
Maybe this is a hint. I mean, we all know it's going to happen... when we get to the 13th Doctor, SOMETHING will happen that will give him a whole host of new regerations. Who is an institution and they won't let it lapse just because of the pesky 12 regeneration limit. So maybe when she says "I got pictures of all his incarnations", she means because she's interacted with him in LOTS of them... in his future. It would also explain her surprise upon meeting Ten that he didn't know her at all. I mean, if she's met say, 9 or 10 versions of him, a new face wouldn't be a surprise. But if she only met 4 of them then it would mean she'd previously only met 3. (It could also be a hint that she's someone we knew from the Classic Who with a new name and identity, like Romana or the Rani, or even Donna Noble who regenerated from her infusion of Time Lord DNA, but I think that might be a little cheesy and hard to pull off).
Anyway, the other problem, the bigger problem, is the Weeping Angels. They were great in Blink. And it's natural to want to bring them back to make them an ongoing enemy of the Doctor's. But, Moffat, you made the classic mistake of long-term series writers. You decided you needed to make them scarier by adding new powers to them. And end up making them a little ridiculous. So, now in addition to the simple, elegant rules from Blink, apparently.
1) Despite the fact that the whole point of their defense mechanism is that when you look at them they turn into 'lifeless stone', now if you look into their lifeless stone eyes, they put the mental whammy on you.
and worse
2) "the image of the monster becomes the monster". Now that's just crap. I mean, it might be an okay gimmick for a new monster, but not for the weeping angels. The beauty of them is that they could be around us at any time. But now, any time somebody makes a video of an angel and distributes it around the world, there can be billions of them. Why bother coming to this planet to rebuild it's brothers? Just steal a digital camera and an e-mail and you have a ready made army. I guess you might refine it so that it's not actually a new angel but a medium through which the angel who's taped can act (he did say it's "a projection") if it chooses, maybe teleport through, but the episode was altogether unclear on the issue and leaving it unclear is a bad thing (heck, sometimes it being clear isn't enough... remember how the Cybermen went from 'gold is non-conductive so it interferes with their inner workings to get gold inside' to 'cyberman have a werewolf like weakness to gold, hit them with a gold bullet and they die instantly'?)
I suppose there were a couple more additions... 3 is 'regenerates from radiation', but that's one addition I have no problem with and 4 is mystical 'turn out the lights and close doors even if you already are looking at them', which I do... 5 is rip out people's voice boxes to speak, but that seems more like a technology thing than a 'power'.)
Come on, you should have learned from the Daleks. When you make an enemy TOO powerful, it makes it just ridiculous for your hero to defeat them all the time. You give your villains power but also weaknesses and firm limits. When you're writing a long term series you HAVE to think long term about what you add to the lore. Don't make them too powerful, and don't give them very nebulously defined powers that let anybody write them in any way they want. Nail them down early on, what their limits are, and let those limits define the stories that they appear in. You can even subvert those limits at times, if you're aware you're doing it and make it clear to your audience (like for example, with Dracula having powers other vampires don't in the Buffyverse... it doesn't change how vampires work there, it just means he's a special case who uses magic). But if all vampires in the Whedonverse started being able to turn into bats or mist and immune to sunlight it would be a big change that would turn them from the low level cannonfodder type creatures into a species where every single one is Big Bad level.
And worst of all, at least in this episode, it doesn't really seem to NEED it. The 'image of an angel' thing was thrown out for a brief scare with Amy, but could have been done in dozens of way without adding that to the lore (though I suspect there's a line in the episode that suggests where Moffat may be going with this... and it COULD be pulled off, but it could easily not be. To avoid potential spoilers, I'll mention it in my review of part two whether he does go where I'm thinking or not). The hypnotism thing could have been done in another way (maybe abducting Amy doing things to her mind in ways that aren't spelled out, and then shoving her a few hours back in time so it doesn't look like any time had passed?)
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Date: 2010-04-25 10:21 pm (UTC)Looks like we disliked the same things about this episode. I was totally thinking that River was teetering on the brink of Mary Sue-dom.