{"id":18658,"date":"2010-09-21T12:31:36","date_gmt":"2010-09-21T18:31:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=18658"},"modified":"2010-09-21T12:31:36","modified_gmt":"2010-09-21T18:31:36","slug":"doctor-who-and-the-series-5-finale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/21\/doctor-who-and-the-series-5-finale.html","title":{"rendered":"“Doctor Who” and the Series 5 finale"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"So I’m months behind the rest of the BBC America viewing audience of Doctor Who.\u00a0 I’m not sure why we left the last two eps of the series (really a two-parter) — “The Pandorica Opens” and “The Big Bang” — sitting on the DVR for so long. But I finally turned them on last night and watched.<\/p>\n

I’ve kvetched a bit about this particular series of the show.\u00a0 It’s been appropriately quirky and dramatic by turns.\u00a0 The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) has had his moments.\u00a0 Amy Pond (and the returning River Song) have been alternately fun and annoying. Rory was an improvement on ol’ Mickey, but not by much.<\/p>\n

While the final two eps don’t turn this into THE MOST AWESOME DOCTOR WHO EVAH, they do pay off a lot of the problems.\u00a0 We get a bit of quirky, but a lot more spooky and dramatic.\u00a0 And Smith does his best work of the series, going from antic to tragic smoothly and easily.<\/p>\n

I’ve been in discussions about Amy Pond earlier in the series being a “Mary Sue<\/a>” character. That’s still in effect here a bit — Amy is not as uber-competent a plot-driver as she was earlier on, but everything still circles around How Amazingly Special She Is. Granted, we actually get a justification for it, but that doesn’t help a lot.<\/p>\n

That said, Amy is a less annoying (if no less Preciously Beloved by All) than earlier days.\u00a0 Actually, it almost feels like the pendulum has swung too far the other direction — Amy does a lot more standing around and getting saved than actually acting to move the plot forward.\u00a0 Her biggest role seems to be to use her Magical Willpower Memory Crack-Powered Magic to make things All Better. Um …<\/p>\n

(If there was any question, btw, that Doctor Who is actually fantasy with a light veneer of science fiction on it, this series (and these episodes) answers the question in a bold affirmative.\u00a0 Things happen, often without even a convenient hand-wave of explanation. It’s the Doctor, so Things Happen! Or it’s Amy, so Things Happen!)<\/p>\n

River Song plays her increasingly frequent supporting role here.\u00a0 Her hypercompetence (Nobody else can pilot the TARDIS … except her! Nobody else gets Doctor calls transferred to them … except her! Nobody else casually flits around time … except her!) wears more than a bit.\u00a0 I’m less inclined to call her a second Mary Sue, but there are similarities.\u00a0 I want to like her (and her escape shtick was priceless), but I find I like her more when she’s not the smirking super-woman.<\/p>\n

Rory … has grown on me.\u00a0 He’s gone from the Everyman Slacker Dude who is clearly not up to Amy’s standards (which is why the Doctor rather nastily picks on him all the time) to someone worthwhile to have on an adventure. I’m almost sorry that his, um, change of nature was not permanent (as it would give him even more to distinguish himself by), but I’m glad that his relationship with Amy has more or less gelled.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>All that said, there’s some triffic stuff in these eps.\u00a0 The whole secret of the Pandorica was nice. The Doctor offering his advice to the various races coming to (it seemed) steal the Pandorica was also nice.\u00a0 The altered Earth was nice. The wedding was nice. Seeing Amelia again was nice (though not as nice as her first appearance). The time loops were nice. The return of most of the key characters of the whole season just to deliver a message to the Doctor was nice. The final wrap-up and “good-bye” were nice.<\/p>\n

(Did BBC really get permission to film at Stonehenge? Or was that a standard Stonehenge model they use for various productions?)<\/p>\n

And, overall, it felt like a good resolution.\u00a0 The romantic tension, the Mystery of Amy, the cracks in the wall, the various nasties the Doctor has torqued off (this series and previously), odd conversations and events along the way explained — Moffat did a solid job wrapping up the season with a somewhat tidy bow, but with enough dangling bits (the Silence Falls plot, and, of course, River Song) to carry us into the Sixth Series.<\/p>\n

Good stuff.\u00a0 Not fabulous, but enough to for me to forgive some missteps earlier in the series.\u00a0 I look forward to what comes next …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I’m months behind the rest of the BBC America viewing audience of Doctor Who.\u00a0 I’m not sure why we left the last two eps of the series (really a two-parter) — “The Pandorica Opens” and “The Big Bang” — sitting on the DVR for so long. But I finally turned them on last night … Continue reading ““Doctor Who” and the Series 5 finale”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media-tv-doctor-who"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/09\/tardisblowup.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11087,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/04\/13\/more_hugo_nominations_for.html","url_meta":{"origin":18658,"position":0},"title":"More Hugo nominations for Doctor Who","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 13-Apr-07 12:01pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Three Hugo nominations this year for short dramatic presentation (i.e., TV episodes). \u00a0The three eps are \"School Reunion\" (the return of Sarah Jane Smith), \"The Girl in the Fireplace\"...","rel":"","context":"In "Doctor Who"","block_context":{"text":"Doctor Who","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-doctor-who"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/tardis.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":30670,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/17\/catching-up-with-the-doctor.html","url_meta":{"origin":18658,"position":1},"title":"Catching up with The Doctor","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 17-Oct-12 11:50pm","format":false,"excerpt":"We finally watched the final ep, to date, of \"Doctor Who\" -- \"The Angels Take Manhattan.\"I will say that, as someone who never much cared for Amy Pond in the early days, it was a very well crafted and engaging tale. Further deponent sayeth not, for the somewhat-spoilery-time being.(Except to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9350,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/07\/24\/the_doctor_is_i.html","url_meta":{"origin":18658,"position":2},"title":"The Doctor is In","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 24-Jul-06 6:42am","format":false,"excerpt":"Been making steady progress through my\u00a0Doctor Who series 1 DVD set -- slowed by basically watching each episode twice (once to rewatch it as-is, once with the commentary track...","rel":"","context":"In "Doctor Who"","block_context":{"text":"Doctor Who","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-doctor-who"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39899,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/12\/05\/the-writing-of-steven-moffat.html","url_meta":{"origin":18658,"position":3},"title":"The Writing of Steven Moffat","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 5-Dec-13 4:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Moffat writes great stand-alone \"Doctor Who\" eps*. When it comes to producing the series, his arc writing just isn't up to snuff**. In some ways, he's a good example of the Peter Principle.(*Except for \"Girl in the Fireplace,\" which I've never understood the attraction of.)(**Granted, I'd rather watch a Moffat\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45227,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/15\/the-twelfth-doctor-three-episodes-in.html","url_meta":{"origin":18658,"position":4},"title":"The Twelfth Doctor, three (er, four) episodes in","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 15-Sep-14 10:28am","format":false,"excerpt":"[DERP WARNING: \"Listen\" was, of course, the\u00a0fourth episode of the season, not the third. D'oh!] So we've seen three four eps of the latest Doctor, Peter Capaldi -- which means its probably enough data to draw some broad conclusions. First off, unless they are pulling their punches for later in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/doctor-who-season-8-1280jpg-c71470_1280w5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/doctor-who-season-8-1280jpg-c71470_1280w5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/doctor-who-season-8-1280jpg-c71470_1280w5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10587,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/12\/18\/catching_up_with_doctor_w.html","url_meta":{"origin":18658,"position":5},"title":"Catching up with Doctor Who","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 18-Dec-06 7:01am","format":false,"excerpt":"Our TV watching sort of got knocked for a loop a month or so back. We went from staying caught up with Doctor Who, Heroes, and (for me) Battlestar...","rel":"","context":"In "Doctor Who"","block_context":{"text":"Doctor Who","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-doctor-who"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/tardis.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}