Chapter Five of Doctor Who: Flux, Survivors of the Flux, returns to the frenetic jumping between settings seen in chapters one and three. A greater sense of urgency is balanced by disconcerting shifts in relative time. Yaz, Dan and Jericho have to cover more ground across more time than anyone else. The Doctor’s experience en route to and at Division is brief, but Bel’s journey takes very little time. Swarm and Azure require minimal screen time to achieve their goal, revealed as reaching Division by means of a psychotemporal bridge tethered to the Doctor. It’s only the humans who have to take the slow path. The Grand Serpent might take over sixty years to see his plan come to fruition, but Kate suspects he’s taken several short cuts.

Read more of my thoughts on this episode at The Event Library...
Some remarks by me on last week's episode, before its context is changed by Survivors of the Flux later today:

I’m not able to offer reviews of every episode in this current series of Doctor Who, but Flux Chapter Four: Village of the Angels captivated with its grim sense of inevitability, its subversion of the Doctor’s control of events, and its group of well-defined lead characters. Remarks follow on some aspects of an episode I found highly successful and the strongest chapter, so far, of Flux. I’ve neglected the Bel-Vinder arc even though it might have something thematic to say about family which complements the theme of the main episode plot.

Read more at The Event Library.
sir_guinglain: (Default)
( Oct. 23rd, 2021 05:54 am)
After a very long night last night I'm not able to sleep tonight, so have finished watching Mike Flanagan's Midnight Mass on Netflix. I'm not sure whether it was the towering work of art its admirers have hailed, but I don't think it was the damp squib its detractors have pointed to either. I could sense that it was full of references to other works even if I didn't know the works themselves, as it had the taste of something cooked from cherished ingredients, but suspect it displayed its citations with flair. Its low-key blend of horror strands and likeable performances was winning, dialogue varying the kitchen sink with the prophetic to the deadpan realisation of self-delusion. Satire's claws are out too, for church and congregation and for capitalism and its critics alike and they are cold; though I fear cat-lovers might be the most distressed.
Thoughts over here on the first issue of Lytton, the limited comic series about the mercenary created by Eric Saward for Doctor Who in the mid-1980s, written by Saward himself and drawn by Barry Renshaw, published by Manchester-based Cutaway Comics.
Picture as it appeared at The Event Library, where this post first was made )

My review of The Timeless Children, like that of Ascension of the Cybermen, appears at Space-Time Telegraph, the blog which is the successor of its writer-editor John Connors's fanzines, which included Top, Faze and This Way Up. I wrote it having only seen the story once and much of my initial enthusiasm was qualified by other people's reservations. Having rewatched some of the episode since, I was reminded of the focused performances throughout and minimizing of languor. Jodie Whittaker's portrayal of the Doctor's fury and disgust at the Master was electrical, combined with eye-rolling expressions of frustration at just how tedious her old friend can be.


I wrote in the review that there had been no indication in Ascension of the Cybermen that the Doctor was periodically experiencing chapters in the saga of Brendan the Irish policeman - 'Gallykissangel', as I've called it, the term having been suggested by Paul Dumont. Ian Bayley has pointed out that there are odd lines of dialogue in Ascension which might suggest that the Doctor is being surprised by new Brendan scenes, but if so I still find them very understated.


As for the review itself:


So it was about authorship after all. Ascension of the Cybermen turns out to have been undermined throughout by a streaming hacker who couldn’t resist introducing it himself at the end and boasting of his reinterpretation of the ensuing acts, of which the Doctor was both audience and unwitting star. The Timeless Children was visually engaging television and I was surprised by some of the resolution it presented, if only because I was expecting something more complicated. Performances were very strong, and as with Ascension of the Cybermen, I felt an energy in the production which I’ve rarely experienced in the Chibnall era. There were a few moments when it seemed The Timeless Children did not marry so well with Ascension of the Cybermen, however, and in hindsight the episode left lingering doubts about the wisdom of the decisions therein.


Read more...



(Apologies for the large spaces between paragraphs, but this must be what happens when you copy across another site's code.)
Image as shared on The Event Library, where this post first appeared )

Back to reviewing this week, this time for John Connors's Space Time Telegraph site. Go there to explore the thoughts of John and occasional guests on matters Doctor Who present, past and future, including valuable reminiscences of the early years of British Doctor Who fandom. So what did I think of Ascension of the Cybermen?


Ascension of the Cybermen is ‘about’ narratives and their ownership. It teases with an opening narration through which Ashad, the Lone Cyberman, frames the story which follows as his. The discovery of the title sequence within the eyehole of a detached Cyberman head might suggest the Doctor’s victory over the dead Cyberman, or alternatively that only the Cybermen, in their undeath, survive to tell this tale. As the episode unfolds, this question of ownership of the narrative is raised again and again. Whose story are we watching? Whose story is Brendan’s, from its mythically golden morning to its dully nightmarish twilight? It’s left uncertain where his reality lies. The Doctor and friends arrive specifically as visitors to the end of the Cyber Wars, there to make sure the last humans survive and frustrate the recreation of the Cyber Empire, but are swept forward in a small, final refugee wave as their scheme is frustrated, struggling to retain possession of their destinies. 


Read more...

Finally, a few minutes before Praxeus started, I completed my write-up of Fugitive of the Judoon for the Doctor Who News Page.
I didn't manage to review Orphan 55, which I found very variable - a weak set-up, strong but overearnest middle and solid conclusion with a final speech which wasn't quite earned and some odd choices throughout - I did enjoy Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror, and some of what I thought is set out here.
I undertook the review of the second part of Spyfall for the Doctor Who News Page even though time was much more limited this week. The changes in the way I recalled the episode over the few days in which I wrote it are probably apparent! I enjoyed it, but I had a few concerns about some crucial moments.

Doctor Who 12.2 - Spyfall: Part Two, at Doctor Who News Reviews
I hadn’t intended to review any of Spyfall until after the broadcast of the second part, but the steady ratcheting of tension, the joyous manipulation of borrowed elements, and a by now well-known revelation led me to volunteer to write something for the reviews section of the Doctor Who News Page within a few minutes of transmission having ended. Read on at Doctor Who Reviews.
My review, this week at the Doctor Who News Page's reviews section.

Afterword on my review, at The Event Library

---
Also, news on the publication of issue 42 of the Oxford-based Doctor Who fanzine, The Tides of Time.
No considered review this time, but some quick reflections and links to some other reviews, set out at The Event Library
Another Series Eleven review from me, back at The Event Library. Compassionate ethics and the shadows of Malcolm Hulke, Robert Sloman and Eric Saward, and a project manager in the time machine trade.
A new season, a new Doctor, a new showrunner, and lots of newness. So it's no surprise that there was a touch of light familiarity to this new season. I've written more about the symbolism and more at Space-Time Telegraph.

Two other reviews with different opinions:

James Cooray Smith at Hero Collector

J.R. Southall at Starburst
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