The Husbands of River Song (time shift)

My [insert relative] gave me an empty box for Christmas and told me it was an Action Man deserter.
- Lots and lots of people take credit for this.  All but one of them are liars.

Or, if you want to be all obvious about it:

It doesn't much signify whom one marries, for one is sure to find out next morning that it was someone else.
- Samuel Rogers

Me:  You'll notice there wasn't a next time trailer.

Him:  There wasn't anything.

Me:  No. 

Him:  Just cold.

Me:  Okay, I-

Him:  It was better than Sleep No More though.

Me:  It was better than Sleep No More.  It could've been forty-five minutes without a problem.  It didn't need to be an hour.

Him:  What would you have cut?  And don't just say, "All of it".

Me:  A lot of the comedy scenes were unnecessary.1  Although, I know that they're there to be-

Him:  It's not your show.

Me:  It's not my show.

Him:  It's not your show.

Me:  I think we can also tell that, as far as Steven Moffat's concerned, at the end of that one it wasn't going to be his show any more either.  The Husbands of River Song really does wrap everything up.  That's...  Y'know, good luck to him for the next series - which doesn't look like it's going to be next year - because...  There were so many tropes revisited in that, so many things that we've seen before, so many...  Stuff done again-

Him:  'So many stuff done'?

Me:  So many stuff done, yeah.  It was just, kinda, right...  The snow in the titles.  Well, that was money well spent, wasn't it?

(The sea badger makes what'll, almost certainly, be its final appearance in 2015.)

Him:  Murray well spent.

Me:  Oh!  Murray?  Murray?!  Murray Gold!?!  Oh, my God. 

Him:  "I playa da spoons!"

Me:  Every so often-

Him:  Why was he playing the spoons in that one scene?

Me:  I don't know, but-

Him:  He was playing the spoons!

Me:  I'm sure this must just've been an oversight on someone's part...  You'd think they'd spend more time getting this right, but every so often I could actually hear some of the dialogue.

Him:  That was weird.

Me:  Being able to hear the dialogue?

Him:  Oh, hush.  It was only that one scene.  But still, why couldn't you hear the dialogue?

Me:  Because the music was so blinking loud.

Him:  That's not what I mean by 'why' and you know it. I mean as in, "WHY?"

Me:  Ha!  Well, it was nice to see that Robot of Sherwood getting edited really hasn't affected Steven Moffat in any way whatsoever, hence the Zygons-

Him:  You're right, you're right.  Just let it go.

Me:  Diagon Alley?  Nice to be back there?

Him:  Lovely.  Same alleyway, yeah.

Me:  It looked totally different with Christmas decorations on it. 

Him:  No.

Me:  And it was nice to-

Him:  Although the series has just ended.  We saw that alleyway, what, two months ago?

Me:  Less than that, it was November. 

Him:  Face the Raven.

Me:  Face the Raven, yeah.  Say, five weeks?  Right...

(Surprise sea badger!)2

Me:  Murray Gold is never going to be Danny Elfman, so he should stop...  TV isn't the place to be doing that type of music.  Christmas is-

Him:  So many people complain about Murray Gold, and you don't really focus on the things he does right.

Me:  He's done some stuff right, but the problem is he's hung around... about seven years too long, to be honest. 

Him:  And, you know what?  I don't think it's fair to blame him.  He's probably the person who's got the least control-

Me:  Over what they play?

Him:  Yeah!  Basically, he's recorded a tape for them-

Me:  Ha!  He just sends over a cassette?

Him:  Yeah, and then Steven Moffat says, "Okay, play The Sun's Gone Wibbly.  Yeah, that's good.  We'll go with that.  Now make it louder.  Yeeeeah."

Me:  You can always tell when there's a comedy scene coming up because someone starts plucking away at strings.

Him:  That music with the spoons was new though.  "Since itsa Christmas, I playa da spoons."

Me:  There was another nod to Prometheus.  There's been quite a few of those in the last series, but that one was a definite nod to the film rather than the legend or Doctor Who Comic version.  The head in the bag.  That's a story for another day.  Peter Capaldi and Alex Kingston looked like they were having a whale of a time and were probably really good together.  It'd have been nice to hear them.  I'm also going to say that the guy playing the Hydroflax body, Peter Capaldi and Alex Kingston were the best performers in that.  And pretty much everybody else was...  I dunno.  Performing for their Amazing Moms, who they knew would be watching.  Because it's Christmas.3  It felt really overblown and over the top and...  It was very Russell T. Davies.

Him:  Lots and lots and lots of Russell T. Davies.

Me:  Voyage of the Damned, End of the World...

Him:  Yeah.

Me:  Russell T. Davies with better dialogue.  Possibly.  Deep Breath too.  In the scene in the...  where everyone turns out to be...  The irritable bowel bit was funny.  Still, at least it wasn't called 'Sex Storm'.

Him:  Was that its original name?

Me:  Near enough, yeah.  It was nice to see a really subtle tribute to Jon Pertwee as well.  When the TARDIS did its wobble and the stuntman wearing an unconvincing wig and dressed as the Doctor fell over...  Quite good.

Him:  Once again, because I don't go to a puppet show and watch the strings, I didn't notice that.

Me:  Fair enough.  I'm going to ruin some things for people now.

Him:  You do go to the puppet show and watch the strings.

Me:  With CGI...  The artists who do CGI backgrounds or scenery, need to stop putting in birds. 

Him:  Ha!

Me:  This has been going on since The Phantom Menace.  Every bloody CGI shot of a landscape of some description needs to have something flying across it.  I understand that it gives it movement, but-

Him:  I didn't see the birds.  Makes you wonder why they put them in.  How much money will that've cost for something I didn't even notice?

Me:  They could've spent it putting more snowflakes in the titles.

Him:  Oh, it's Christmas.  You've got to let them have that.

Me:  I suppose so.

Him:  There're many other things you can actually complain about that're worth complaining about as opposed to picking out things that aren't worth complaining about.3

Me:  And the shot that was like Titanic.

Him:  Titenic.

Me:  The towers're based on a couple of statues - I think, in Egypt - and with the way that one's eroded, when the wind blows through it, it screams.

Him:  Oh, those towers.  Those towers.

Me:  Do you want to do the Matt Smith stuff now?

Him:  Even though you'll say it wasn't canonical, Steven Moffat seems to think those little shorts he releases are canonical.

Me:  They're not.

Him:  In one of them, Matt Smith talks to Matt Smith and tells him that he's just taken River Song to the singing towers.

Me:  They don't count.

Him:  Whether they count or not, Steven Moffat treats them as counting.  And he shouldn't then go back on them.  It doesn't even make sense. 

Me:  It seems a little bit harsh that Matt Smith had actually specifically requested that the story of River Song be over and done with.

Him:  You could pull all the stuff together, provided you took in that bit that you say that isn't canonical.  It still fills in the story.  I don't remember which one it was.

Me:  It was in the Last Night and First Night - and things like that - series of VAM.

Him:  One of those ones.

Me:  Jim the Fish was in one of those too, I think.

Him:  Not personally, Jim the Fish was in the series.

Me:  Right.

Him:  Jim the Fish is a running gag.  Everyone knows Jim the Fish.

Me:  Steven Moffat wanted to wrap everything up with the kind of script that he can do in his sleep and-

Him:  But, he's done it.

Me:  And it's another one about why marriage is great and...  I'm not convinced.  I'm afraid that I'm a little bit with Lawrence Miles on this one.  I think that River Song is an incredibly unpleasant person.  I'm stunned as to why the Doctor even hangs around with her.  She should be a villain.

Him:  She is kind of a villain, that's the thing.  She's the anti-hero.  If anything, she's like the chaotic neutral.  She's not particularly good.

Me:  She's deeply unpleasant.  She's not a nice person at all.  Anyway, never mind.  At least Steven Moffat's got that out of his system so, hopefully, next year we won't have to-

Him:  Next year we'll have Murray Gold as the companion.  He'll be the love interest.

Me:  He near enough was the companion.  He's in the show more than bloody Kamelion was.  Good luck with the next series...  The problem is that we've heard this song so many times - and I don't just mean River - I think Doctor Who needs a year off in order to try and come up with something new.  We're just seeing the same stuff over and over again.  I know it's for Christmas...

Him:  It's a weird Christmas special.  Why can't a Christmas special be as ridiculous as Feast of Steven?

Me:  Yeah.  Well.  I don't know.  Next year it'll be Daleks anyway.

Him:  Steven Moffat Christmas specials have always been part of the plot.

Me:  The Husbands of River Song was too.  The plot being that Moffat was leaving, so that's him wrapping everything up and having a laugh. 

Him:  Last year you had the Christmas miracle.

Me:  And this year you had the Christmas miracle too. 

Him:  God.

Me:  I mean...  Yeah, it's great and everything, but...  Nah.  I don't know.  I'm a bit fed up with it now.

Him:  With Doctor Who as a whole?

Me:  I've...  I think they need a break.  In order to come back and...  be... refreshed.  And to have a bit more energy.  Even though it was set in all these different locations, it still felt really cheap.  It's weird.  It's supposed to be expensive and it's supposed to look expensive... 

Him:  Well, they spend all the Murray...

Me:  On Money Gold, yeah.

Him:  Ha!

Me:  And on that bombshell.  Thank you for reading us, Lady and Gentleman, and we'll be back next year.

Him:  Maybe.

Me:  Maybe.

Him:  Well, we probably won't.

Me:  I don't think Doctor Who's going to be on until next Christmas at the earliest.  Unless they do a special or something.

Him:  Do you think they'll do a year of specials again?  'Cause it went so well last time.

Me:  I don't think they will.  Who knows?

Him:  Waters of Mars...  That was...  Hanukkah?  Kwanzaa?

Me:  Ha!  It was Hallowe'en.

Him:  Oh, right.

Me:  And on that bombshell.  Ho ho ho.

1.  As with most of Moffat's work, the actual story is hidden behind the scenery.  Last year folk got flustered about Missy, Seb and the Cyberbrig (now getting his own Classesque spin-off) - whilst totally missing the conversations that the series was actually about.  With The Husbands of River Song, we're not watching a farce of Ortonian beauty, but a(nother) retread of The Curse of Fatal Death, including flirting with the wife and bribing the architect.

This series feels like Moffat's last.  With the exception of the copy-and-pasted 'Minister of War' reference, there's been nothing much obviously seeded for the next series - whenever that's actually going to turn up.  Gallifrey's back - or isn't - because it just is - or isn't.  Steven Moffat obviously doesn't care much for it - unless he feels compelled to bang the Valeyard's trap door shut before finally leaving - and it only serves as the scenery for fan-baiting supporting characters to chew on, whilst the conversation that this series is actually about takes place.

To quote the mighty Therapy?, "The road ahead is shorter than the one behind." 

2.  Some of you might be avoiding spoilers, so, even if you're a professional writer trying to shamelessly self-promote yourself, please just shut the spack up, yeah?  Speaking of which.3

3.  Mugging actors have form in Doctor Who stories directed by Douglas Mackinnon.  I'm guessing he's more of a visual director...

David Van Day's Diddly Squat Series 35 Vivisection

One way to prevent conversation from being boring is to say the wrong thing.
- Frank Sheed

Ah, Lady and Gentleman.  You look like you've been good, so here's a winter solstice present for you.  It's been a while since the Rev (yes, that one) and myself have had an unfettered natter about things and stuff, and so here's our most recent one.  There's been an awful lot of toot typed and talked about the thirty-fifth series of Doctor Who - calling it 'season nine' is a basic error for a start - so here's our chance to point out a few of the mistakes pundits may, or may not, have been making.

Also, it finally answers the question that nobody seems to've been asking about which of Missy's statements back in The Magician's Apprentice was a lie.  Spoiler: it's not the one you thought it was.

So, sit back, pour yourself a warm lemony drink (or tear open an old speckled hen) and wrap your ears around two chums having a fine old time.  Or don't.  Completely up to you.

Play nice now.  See you soon.

Hoe, hoe, hoe.

David Van Day's Diddly Squat Series 35 Vivisection

David Van Day's Diddly Squat Series 35 Vivisection

Hell Bent (time shift)

When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell.
- Brian Aldiss

Or, if you want to be all obvious about it:

About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends.
- Herbert Hoover

Him: WHY ARE THEY CALLED THAT?

Me:  Well, it's because Clara had to descend into the Underworld with a god - as we predicted last year - who would then save her and bring her back.   

Him:  But, the names!

Me:  I know, I know.

Him:  The names!

Me:  The Doctor became the Man With No Name, because it was a Western, and we had stand-offs and back to the barn, and echoes of the Doctor/Donna, and four knocks and back to Listen and...

Him:  Well, that's because it was meant to be Steven Moffat's last one.

Me:  Yeah, that's what he said.  That was kind of his final statement, and then the Christmas special was going to be the epilogue.  Hell Bent wraps up the last ten years.  As much as anything.  Clara's now, basically, the Doctor.

Him:  It's even got a decent picture on iPlayer.

Me:  The shot of him walking away from Gallifrey, with the guitar?

Him:  In fact, Gallifrey very much represents a Gungan bubble, doesn't it?

Me:  The underwater one?

Him:  Yes. 

Me:  Ha!  'Space Glasgow' was alright, I suppose.  The 'get off my planet,' line, which is from Battlefield, was...  pretty good.  There's an echo of Rory the Roman with the waiting forever.  Steven Moffat does like...   And there was a quote from Terrance Dicks in there: 'Never cowardly, never cruel'.  That was paraphrasing Terrance Dicks.  Telling Clara she has to go off and be a Doctor.  Once again, that's Steven Moffat's final statement on the series.

Him:  We've still got the Christmas special.

Me:  Yeah, but it wraps everything up.  It's not the conclusion to this particular series, it's the conclusion to the last fifty-two years.

Him:  How do you think he'll reboot it?  Again.

Me:  Well...

Him:  For the third time in the last two years.

Me:  I think it'll depend on what the new companion's going to be. 

Him:  You don't think it'll be River?

Me:  No.  I've got... other sorts of ideas.  So, the Hybrid?

Sea badger!

Him:  Maybe it'll be the Hybrid.  Whoever the hell the Hybrid was.

Me:  It was the Doctor.  We got it right.

Him:  That was so vague. 

Me:  I've got to say something about the whistling Murraycone-

Him:  You had this weird back and forth, where the Doctor and Ashildr were both trying to convince each other that the other one was the Hybrid.

Me:  I think that was a bit of Steven Moffat having a go at the audience again. 

Him:  Yeah, that's what I said before.  "So that means it's him.  But wait, that's a double-bluff.  No, it's a triple-bluff because he never calls her that.  No, no, no. Wait.  But, it's Steven Moffat, so..."  Until you reach the point where you're, y'know...

Me:  And then it's really impressive, but you still don't get your watch back. 

Him:  Ha!

Me:  It's a good trick, but you don't get your watch back.  I think that we were also right that a lot of the talky scenes in the preceding eleven weeks were in order-

Him:  I don't remember any scenes being set in Torquay.

Me:  "Madam!  That is Torquay!"  Don't you remember the herds of wildebeest and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?   It felt quite expensive.  So, the Time Lord who got lost in the Cloisters was the William Hartnell Doctor, I would've said.  Would you agree with that?

Him:  What was up with the Cloisters?

Me:  I don't know.

Him:  What was up with the terrible firewalls?

Me:  Well...

Him:  The Shufflers.

Me:  The Sliders.

Him:  Oh.  'The Sliders'.

Me:  Yeah, not 'the Smilers'.  It was done as a Western.  I thought that Peter Capaldi was excellent throughout that.

Him:  Yeah, but has there been any point where you can fault Peter Capaldi's performance?

Me:  I think he's got better and better as it's gone on.  I think he really enjoyed doing that.  Turning it on its head so that it was Clara who remembered...  Do you like the idea that Clara's got a TARDIS?

Him:  It's like the DARDIS.

(I missed the opportunity to call it a CLARDIS here, so we've got that to be thankful for.)

Me:  Both Clara and Ashildr...  That's the end of their story now, because it's been pointedly stated that neither of them will age.  So they can't come back.

Him:  They could come back...  But they'd have to do it soon.

Me:  Ha!  Right, the other question is, do you think Hell Bent was a success?

Him:  Do I think it was a success?

Me:  Yeah.

Him:  What do you mean?

Me:  Was it good?

Him:  It was okay.

Me:  It held your attention.  Was it as good as Heaven Sent?

Him:  No.

Me:  Right.

Him:  But it was better than Sleep No More.

Me:  It was, wasn't it? 

Him:  I don't think it was quite as good as Face the Raven.

Me:  Really?

Him:  Really.

Me:  The bit that made you grin and made me think, "Oh, go on.  Please, please, please, please."  When the Doctor stole the TARDIS and it was the original TARDIS interior.  "Please keep that one."  Your face just lit up in a massive grin.

Him:  He couldn't keep that one though, because the broken chameleon circuit makes the other one iconic.

Me:  Yeah.

Him:  Why did it turn into a diner?

Me:  'Cause the chameleon circuit works.

Him:  Is that what blends in?

Me:  Yeah, it's over the hill from Lake Silencio.  It's the same diner.

Him:  Is that what blends in?  In the desert?  Diners?

Me:  I dunno.  The diner's in the middle of nowhere and the barn's in the middle of nowhere, but people still seem to turn up at it.

Him:  The barn...  Initially, it's this tiny little space and he climbs up and then there's a woman.  "Oh, I wonder where she came from."  And then there's fifty people.  Where did they come from?

Me:  Interesting pronunciation of 'Shabogan' as well.  Okay.  And on that bombshell-

Him:  Do you not have anything else you want to say about it?  Do you not have any complaints?  You've always got complaints.

Me:  Murray Gold pushed his luck.

Him:  I saw a little grimace from you at one point.

Me:  It was when he started whistling. 

Him:  Oh, right.

Me:  That was the bit I tried mentioning earlier as Murraycone.  Which, you probably won't get.

Him:  No.

Me:  And on that bombshell, lady and gentleman.

Him:  You don't have any complaints at all?

Me:  It did what it did.  Good luck to Steven Moffat next year.  I do feel he's probably been 'persuaded to stay', because that felt like it was the end of what he wanted to say. 

Him:  What did the Shufflers do?

Me:  The Sliders?  They wrap you up in wire.

Him:  I felt sorry for that Dalek.  I genuinely did.  Why was it there?

Me:  Missy's Theme was in it, but Missy wasn't.  Although she didn't come back-

Him:  Are you sure it's not just 'Murray Gold Track Twenty-Three'?

Me:  Ha!  "What's this song called?"

Him:  "Track Nineteen."

Me:  Rather than 'Clara'!  And on that bombshell, lady and gentleman, thank you very much for reading over the last twelve weeks, and we'll see you...

Him:  On the flip-side.

Me:  Ooo.

Him:  Oooo.  Let's make more camp owl noises.

Me:  Ha! 

Him:  Oooo.

Me:  'Camp owl'?

Him:  Oooo.

Me:  Do an owl emitting a pellet.

Him:  No.

Me:  Bye!

Him:  Oooo.

Heaven Sent (time shift)

We are what we repeatedly do.
- Aristotle

Or, if you want to be all obvious about it:

"Just you think about it," said Crowley relentlessly.  "You know what eternity is?  You know what eternity is?  I mean, d'you know what eternity is?  There's this big mountain, see, a mile high, at the end of the universe, and once every thousand years there's this little bird-"
- Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens

Me:  What did you think?

Him:  I think it's a terrible name.  What did you think?

Me:  About the Doctor's descent into the Underworld?  I thought it was really good.

Him:  Yeah.

Me:  Even having seen Cube, Triangle, The Prestige, Timecrimes and Dark City.1

Him:  Oh, you'd already written down The Prestige?

Me:  Yeah.

Him:  Before I told you it?

Me:  Uh huh.  I think if we're just going to say positive stuff we need to talk about Peter Capaldi's performance...

Space Badger!

Him:  It was...  Yeah...  I can't even put it into words.  He...  He just had to talk to himself.  But he did it really well.  

Me:  It was great.  The moment-  Oh!  Groundhog Day. 

Him:  It gets away with the Groundhog Day element though, because it uses it in a different way.

Me:  Yeah. 

Him:  It uses it in a really clever way. 

Me:  It was good, wasn't it?

Him:  Yes. 

Me:  I think Steven Moffat should get...  Well.  Some praise, or maybe an award, for that. 

Him:  Really?

Me:  Yeah.  That's the one he's been building towards.  It's the one he wants an award for, isn't it?  And next week, with Gallifrey being back and everything...  So, the Hybrid.  Did that come as a shock?

Him:  That was a very big surprise.

Me:  Ha!  How long've we been predicting that now?  Eleven weeks?2

Him:  I think I'm going to have a heart attack and die from that surprise.

Me:  And that's why he left Gallifrey, and it'll turn out he's half-human on his mother's side...  Do you think he's going to regenerate next week?  Who's regenerating, do you think?

Him:  Probably Clara.

Me:  Ha!  Also...  Fair play to Murray Gold. 

Him:  Do you think he did well in that one?

Me:  I thought the music was really good, yeah.  I liked the little tiny moment that sounded just like-

Him:  That sounded like Peter Davison stuff?

Me:  Yeah, that callback.

Him:  Sort of keyboard, synthesiser type music.  As opposed to the orchestral music.

Me:  So, I suppose technically I was right, and it was a multi-Doctor episode. 

Him:  Yes, with many, many, many, many Doctors.  I liked the way that episode starts about a third of the way through. 

Me:  Seven thousand years in-

Him:  Seven thousand years, but...  It doesn't start at the start. 

Me:  No, it doesn't.

Him:  Because it wouldn't have been as effective. 

Me:  But then, the film Triangle doesn't start at the start either. 

Him:  No.  But you said the trailer spoils everything with that.

Me:  Yeah, it does.  I'm looking forward to next week now.  There's not much else we can say beyond that, other than that it was great.

Him:  Yeah.  Something...  I'm glad they didn't show it as well. 

Me:  The Veil?

Him:  The Veil.  Because...  there's something a lot scarier about the unknown. 

Me:  The thing you don't show is more frightening.

Him:  And I loved the concept of being able to see what it sees, but not being able to see it.  There's a boss in Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass that does that, but for such a short period of time that you wonder why they even did it.  It's an invisible crab thing, but you can see what it sees on the top screen-

Me:  Oh, right.

Him:  -and you have to try and line it up.  I really liked it, but it lasts, like I said, for about ten seconds.  Heaven Sent did it quite effectively, because he's got to spend ages figuring out how it all works, where it is at all times, how you can get away from it for the maximum amount of time...

Me:  Yeah.  You don't remember the butler from Tomb Raider training levels?

Him:  Sadly not.

Me:  Okay.  I don't think there's much else we can say here.  We'll have to wait until next week now really.  It's the middle part of a three-parter. 

Him:  What was with the bit with all the arrows pointing to the sand? 

Me:  I'm not hundred per cent sure about that.  He didn't seem to do anything with it, did he?

Him:  No.

Me:  And we didn't see him drawing the arrows.  And we don't see who wrote 'I am in 12' either.3

Him:  Well, he must've written it. 

Me:  And then buried it?  'Cause it resets, doesn't it?

Him:  Yeah.  But...  Which is weird, because why did it reset and leave that written under there?  If that room with the arrows reset, why are the arrows still there?

Me:  I dunno.

Him:  And why...  It doesn't entirely reset, because, for instance, the clothes were still there.  And like I said, at one point, the very first Doctor to've gone there must've been wandering around naked after leaving his clothes there.  It's the only way they could've been left by the fire.  But it was cool how they repeatedly traded them off, so it does explain why they didn't rot or anything like that.

Me:  Yeah.  It's an ongoing process that just goes on and on and on and on.

Him:  I feel that falling into the lake would... not exactly have been a terrifying experience for the first twenty or so of them.  Until the skulls started becoming visible.

Me:  Yeah, it was clever.  Steven Moffat's kind of declared that the one he's written for Christmas was going to be the final story he was going to write.  So, I think what we're going to see here - even though he's still going to carry on, because he's been 'persuaded to stay' or whatever -

Him:  This is going to be what he's always been building up to.

Me:  Yeah, this is wrapping it up.  This is really the end of the Time War. 

Him:  Well, that was...  That was brilliant.

Me:  It was, wasn't it.  It was excellent.  I'm hoping next week's is as good.  And seeing as -  You were saying about the magic beans and...  I think the money's being spent on next week's episode.  And I think that's why this series has had so much talking and everything. 

Him:  The talking's been effective though.

Me:  It has.  It's good.

Him:  We haven't even commented on the harder-than-crystal wall.  That is... amazing.  It's really clever.

Me:  Just bashing his way through it over time.  Speleogenesis: making a cave. 

Him:  And after seven thousand years, there's still been no dent in it.

Me:  And on that bombshell.

Him:  Yeah.

1.  And Moon - forgot about Moon - amongst many, many others. 

2.  It's ten.  It could still turn out to be Ashildr, but I think that's thinking too small for Moffat.  The half-human and Valeyard trap-doors still need to be shut...  

3.  Who's in 12?  Gallifrey?  The Hybrid?  The Valeyard? 

Face the Raven (time shift)

For three days after death, hair and fingernails continue to grow but phone calls taper off.
- Johnny Carson

Or, if you want to be all obvious about it:

Everybody has got to die, but I've always believed an exception would be made in my case.
- William Saroyan

Him:  Your notes are very sparse.

Me:  I'm interested in your take on it.  I found it really... 

A Long Day's Journey Into Space Badger.

Me:  I thought it was really good.

Him:  Yes.  It had...  It had a good effect.

Me:  Mmm?

Him:  And, once again, the speech...  It tends to be the speeches that make these episodes.

Me:  Yeah.  A lot of what we've been predicting's there.  It's the start of the three-parter that'll conclude the series; Ashildr kills Clara because she had to.  I don't think we'll see Missy next week - I think she'll be back the week after that - 'cause it's obviously been set up by Missy.  The whole thing.  Y'know?  To get the-

Him:  Obviously.

Me:  Obviously.  The weird thing is that the TARDIS landed in 'London' in the same location that Danny Pink was killed, which I thought was an interesting nod.  Some of Steven Moffat's voice was in that.  There was a little bit of rewriting, I think.  But I thought that Sarah Dollard's script was really good. 

Him:  It was a lot better than you thought it would be?

Me:  There's a lot - again, as we had last week as well - there were an awful lot of Neil Gaiman references, amongst other things.  You've also got the Harry Potter thing - the city that's next to us that we don't see-

Him:  Yeah.

Me:  But there's two, specifically...  Two...

Him:  I thought actually it was just a sad little alleyway, and that was it.

Me:  That was all that was there.  There's a Neil Gaiman story - a Sandman story - that's about a bloke that wanders down a street that he's never seen before and gets lost in the dreams of the city.  So that's one.1  Also, there's Neverwhere:2 London Above and London Below; the London that we don't get to see.  You haven't watched that one.  There were similarities with that in it.  Also, there were echoes of Clive Barker's Nightbreed and Night of the Demon - once you get a curse you can't pass it on.3  That was alright.  Because they couldn't go full-Adric anymore - although Clara's death is basically the same as Adric's-

Him:  Yeah.  I was actually thinking that.  I was wondering if this was the same sort of effect that Adric's death would've had on the audiences back then?4

Me:  Well, the thing is that back then we didn't know it was going to happen and we got a silent credit sequence at the end.  It was a shock, because the Doctor couldn't save him and he just... died.  Adric 'faced the raven' by himself, as it were.  Or 'faced the Earth' as it came up to meet him.

Him:  "I wonder if it'll be friends with me."

Me:  Ha!  He didn't get an eight minute speech, and then a slow-motion walk out to-

Him:  The slow-motion was...

Me:  It was really funny.

Him:  Yeah.  It was not necessary.  But the speech was good.

Me:  The speech was really good.

Him:  And the fact that - that she wasn't crying, but that her eyes were really shiny...  Worked as well.

Me:  I thought Jenna Coleman's performance was brilliant.

Him:  Yes.

Me:  And Peter Capaldi was fantastic in that one.

Him:  He always is.

Me:  I'm really looking forward to next week, and then I'm looking forward to the conclusion-

Him:  What if the conclusion's terrible?

Me:  I don't think it will be.  It's going to be the Time War, isn't it?  It's going to turn out to've been Missy and the Daleks.  Or Missy at least.  And the Time War conclusion'll bring it back to...  This time as well, I thought...  I thought it was a bit rushed, killing her off.  Having her hanging out of the TARDIS, doing all the...  She's become more of a thrill-seeker this episode-

Him:  Of all the characters to bring back, why Rigsy?  I guess they had to bring someone back.

Me:  He was very good as well, actually. 

Him:  Yeah.  Maybe that's why they brought him back.

Me:  I thought that the chap with the Harry Potter glasses wasn't terrific, but...  Maisie Williams was good in this.  There's a bit in Sandman as well, where a character called Thessaly saves another character - I think it's Lyta Hall - and it's a similar kind of thing.  The warning that...  "I might've saved you, but you better run."

Yeah, it was competent.  It was nicely done.  The music was...  Some of the music was really good, but we're a long way on from Doomsday. 

Him:  Whatcha mean?

Me:  Well, Doomsday had an original and... quite gutsy way of using the music to accompany the scene.  That-

Him:  I thought you hated Doomsday.

Me:  No.  Doomsday was great.  The music was brilliant.  Y'know, when Rose gets stuck beyond the wall and everything, and you've got the single bass guitar going, and then it builds up and runs over minutes...  That was...  This time it's more orchestra again.

Him:  It wasn't bad in Face the Raven though.  It wasn't as bad as...  It wasn't DUM DE DUM DUMM MURRAY MURRAY DUM DE DUM DUM DUMMM!

Me:  Ha!

Him:  It wasn't that.

Me:  No, it wasn't.  And, I think the term 'retcons'...  I reckon that might've been suggested by Steven Moffat.  Other than that...  yeah, I thought it was really good.  But then, it's been building to this. 

Him:  With such classics as...  The Zygon Invasion.

Me:  Yeeeeah.  Oh, grief, yeah.  And Sleep No More.

Him:  Before the Flood.

Me:  Before the Flood was alright.  And Under the Lake was brilliant.

Him:  Sleep No More was best of the series.  Ten out of ten.

Me:  Oh, you!  Anyway...  Go on.  Make some more dust noises then. 

Him:  No, I've got to make a raven noise.

Me:  Make a raven noise.

The Him makes a raven noise.

Me:  And on that bombshell.

Him:  You've got to make one too.

The Me makes a noise.

1.  Yeah, yeah, Danny the Street too.  But we don't talk about Alan Moore's Scottish Tribute Act here.

2.  And that's the one that conspiracy theorists should latch onto.  Especially after Nightmare in Silver.

3.  Okay, that's not quite right, but you know what I mean.  Rigsy's tattoo serves the same purpose as Karswell's 'Three months were allowed'.

4.  I want to answer this in proper detail, but first I'll have to explain why this 'review' was delayed.  Ready?

HICKS IN THE CITY: THE NEXT GENERATION

Yes, yes it is.

Since Saturday, lots of people have been expressing lots of opinions about Face the Raven.  Some of them are rational, some of them aren't; some of them are reasonable, some of them aren't; some of them are objective, most of them aren't.  Here's mine.

The Him and myself don't venture out of the Arctic very often.  In fairness, we don't venture out of the Hut that much either.  We spent the first part of day of the Raven in a helicopter flying the cold and clear Type-40 blue skies hanging over Britain.  Snow lay across the anorak-shouldered hills like dandruff.  I forgot to take any pictures, so you'll have to take my word for it.  We landed in Euston but our guide Bev was trapped elsewhere - in what Jaques 'Jaques' Liverot memorably described as a 'conspiracy' - so we had to amuse ourselves, like bumpkins down the ages, by pretending not to be tourists. 

It's a tradition, or an old charter, or something.

I showed the Him where Comics Unmasked used to live, before we walked by the massive abandoned dolls house guarding King's Cross.  We soon found the queue to the Hogwarts Express.  I embarrassed taught the now-shivering Him the poached savant variation rules of Mornington Crescent using only a wall-sized tube map and over-enthusiastic hand gestures.  Bev arrived soon after and treated us to some traditional London cuisine (mostly so we could all warm up whilst sneakily recharging our phones using the sockets under the seats).  After that, the Him encountered the Underground in colour for the first time on the way to Trafalgar Square to meet our second guide of the day, Kev.  

Somewhere, there's a daguerreotype, probably hidden in a linty drawer, that shows the person I used to be perched between the paws of one of the lions that was stunt-cast for In the Forest of the Night.  Seemed only polite to try to recreate the image while we had the chance.  Well, it was that or lunchtime arsing about, dodgy salutes, hide-and-seek or Osgood's cover story.5

Photo: Bev

Our two guides led us through the chilled crowds, into the labyrinthine sensory overload of Covent Garden.  Someone else I used to be, performed here a century ago.  I didn't see him, so he's probably died in the meantime. 

After stopping for an exquisite vegetarian curry, we were guided through more bewildering and overcrowded Blade Runner sets until we arrived at our early Christmas present. 

Everything's connected.5

The audience had to sign NDAs, so I'm forbidden from telling you any more details.  Can't even confirm or deny whether Mr Brown wears a massive clock mask (as the photo above unfortunately seems to suggest).  I'm largely convinced he's the Devil.  It's the only explanation that fits all the facts.  Hell of a show.

Kev treated the four of us to an afterhours ice-cream in Leicester Square and then we headed back to his secret lair where we spent the rest of the night playing with cats.

Following an astonishing cooked Sunday breakfast courtesy of the wonderful Penny, we all watched an (extremely) time-shifted Face the Raven.  This was the first time since Deep Breath that me and Him've watched Doctor Who in company, and it was an agreeable experience.  As soon as it finished, the two of us dashed off to record our thoughts.  If a 'warts and all' reaction is good enough for Tom Baker, then it's good enough for me.  We all played with the cats some more and then said goodbye to Penny and the secret lair before Kev drove us back to the Euston helipad. 

Which brings me back to the Him's initial question: "I was wondering if this was the same sort of effect that Adric's death would've had on the audiences back then?" 

Clara's death scene's hilarious.  It`s so cheesy that it teeters on parody.  Adric's death was sudden and shocking. 

I've mentioned that I bore a striking resemblance to Matthew Waterhouse back around when the Doctor was still wearing Tom Baker.  The years've been kinder to Mr Waterhouse than they have to me.  I've written about how heartbreaking I found the death of a character that I identified with on a personal - and largely narcissistic - level several times before.6  And it was.  It was totally unexpected.

A lifetime later, I learned that I was wrong.  The correct opinion is that Adric was, after Zombo, the least-loved boy genius companion.  Of course, you can't help what you look like any more than what you like.  Having endured years of derision for loving comics and the wrong bands, dressing like a weirdo and hating sport (despite being naturally better at it than a lot of my detractors were), apologising for being me was a piece of piss.  There's a lot of it about.  Always has been.

Clara's slow-motion yomp to face her death?  Well, Dean Learner'd be proud.7  And then, Murray 'Itsa Me' Gold hits the 'Weep Now!' orchestral strings setting and takes it to a whole new level of scenery-gorging.

There's a lot made of John Nathan-Turner's decision to keep the return of the Cybermen (and Adric's noble end) from the Radio Times.  Currently, the BBC release spoilerific updates so freely that anyone with Doctor Who as a special interest would've known Clara's death was inevitable.8  It wasn't even a matter of when, but how.

Since Father's Day 2005, Doctor Who's been dealing with death in a way unavoidably influenced by the Petri dish of popular culture that it grows in.  The outside world's now a completely different shape to the one that spun through a lonely void a generation ago.  Communication's made it much smaller for a start.  And...

And, I don't think everyone's going to like what I'm about to type.

The only way that a companion's death in current Doctor Who is going to have the same effect on the original viewers of Adric's demise that his death did, is if it follows the Spooks storyline that The Zygon Invasion so wanted to be, to its logical conclusion.  "You want your grown-up Doctor Who?  Here's your grown-up Doctor Who!"

I blame the Wilderness Years (and people who misread - and continue to misread - Alan Moore) for this.

Doctor Who is a relay baton.  This gets forgotten.  It has to be handed on.  Yes, it belonged to you for a brief period of your life.  But that was your section of the race.  And now it's over.9

On the return helicopter journey, I checked some of the messages I'd been ignoring until after I'd watched Face the Raven.  One of them was from a chap who'd performed in Covent Garden the same lifetime ago.  His personal version of the Him's younger than mine, and therefore still part of Doctor Who's target audience.  I'm envious of the way this chap gets to watch Doctor Who through the eyes of someone it's supposed to be aimed at: someone who doesn't read forums or gossip sites or the Radio Times or Twitter or Facebook or magazines.  But that's entropy for you.

And, through those eyes: Clara's eight minute speech was essential.  Brave, important, truthful and - in a way that's kinder to Terry Nation's tropes than last week - justifies a truly noble self-sacrifice.  Clara's a hero to thousands and thousands of children.  Complaining about it won't change that.  She's a hero to them in the tradition of Greek Tragedy.  Yes, she is.

Clara's slow-motion walk to face the Raven is an astounding piece of bravery.  For thousands and thousands of children.  It's an astonishing lesson in taking responsibility for your actions; in doing the right thing, whatever.

The me that stood next to the lion in Trafalgar Square laughed at the artifice of Face the Raven.  I hope that the me that sat between its paws would be immature enough to appreciate the honesty.

This is still very funny, mind.

5.  None of this means anything/Synchronicity's a wonderful thing.  (Delete to confirm bias.)

6.  Here's one.  Here's another.  The second one's royalties go to Children in Need, but I know both of you already have a copy, so this is just blatant self-promotion.  Bah.

7.  This observation lovingly lifted from Bev.

8.  We've been predicting it since last year.  Not to be smug, but it was obvious.  Name one companion Steven Moffat hasn't killed under his watch.  I've made some comments in the past that suggest Mr Moffat reads the blog - and I'll do it again every time something I've suggested turns up in the show - but I don't really think he does.  It's a mixture of Apophenia (I can't keep covering for you - everyone knows you've met), confirmation bias and detachment.  Y'see, I know Doctor Who isn't - and should never be - made for me.  Or the fans.  Not any more anyway.9

9.  Big Finish make Doctor Who for Doctor Who fans, and do an excellent job of it.  So I'm told.   

Sleep No More (time shift)

With such an honest and inflexible openness to evidence, they could not fail to receive any real truth which might be manifesting itself around them.
- H.P. Lovecraft

Or, if you want to be all obvious about it:

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
- T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

Me:  Where shall we start?

Him:  How late on was that one?  Like, at night?

Me:  It was the same time.  2010 until 2100.

Him:  Do you think that the name was, y'know...?

Me:  I think that what we saw there was Mark Gatiss attempting to write a Steven Moffatesque script.  And, what he actually produced has the same problems - almost exactly - as Nightmare in Silver.  A lot of that would've looked great on paper, but just didn't work.  With the exception of Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman, the performances weren't up to the script.  That might be a directing issue.  So...

A Space-Badger drifts by...

Me:  The found footage conceit...

Him:  Oh, it wasn't.  Let's just...  No.  It couldn't decide whether it wanted to be found footage or not, and I feel like it ended halfway through.

Me:  Well, that's 'cause it's set up things to come, hasn't it?  It's the first part in the-

Him:  In the 'Dust Saga'?

Me:  The 'Dust Saga'.  Yeah.  Okay.  I thought...  Reece Shearsmith brought his other performance to it, of the two that he usually delivers - with the exception of the third one he managed to get out in A Field in England.

Him:  I get it.  You don't like him, you don't like Mark Gatiss. 

Me:  It's not that I don't like them, it's just that I think that their best work is an awful long time behind them and that there's nothing actually very new taking place with what they do.  As far as pastiches go, which is what we usually see from Mark Gatiss, that episode referenced: Flesh and Stone, The Invisible Enemy, Predator, Alien, Judge Dredd, Sandman - and I can tell you which issue if you like1 - Oliver, Journey to the Center of the TARDIS, Spider Man 3, Event Horizon, Aliens, Peep Show, Prometheus, Macbeth, Sunshine, 42, Monty Python, Doom, Quake, Pertwee-era Doctor Who, Ring, The Space Pirates, a little bit of Inception and involved Mark Gatiss taking the mick out of Terry Nation while at the same time proving he's no Steven Moffat, because the author's voice throughout that was a bit too loud and far too smug.  It's not a found footage film either.

Him:  Spider Man 3?

Me:  Yeah, it's got Marvel's Sandman in it.  And similar effects when he all falls apart.

Him:  Right.  Was that really a reference?

Me:  Yeah.  Probably.  The way Rassmussen fell apart at the end was very reminiscent of the way that the Sandman falls apart in Spider Man 3.  It's also - oddly enough - not the first found footage Doctor Who.  It's just the first one that's canon.  Do you remember back to the flurry of VAM before Day of the Doctor?

Him:  Yeah, I do remember that. 

Me:  We had one then.  The Last Day.

Him:  The intro was reminiscent of that.  Very.

Me:  Yeah.  It's a cut scene.  Sleep No More comes across more like Peep Show than an actual found footage film.

Him:  But it's not found footage.  It kept cutting to bits that shouldn't have been recorded and perspectives that couldn't have been recorded.  And it was all edited together, which is...  What?

Me:  The only way they're going to get away with that is if it turns out we're still inside someone's dream. 

Him:  We are, aren't we?  We're still inside Clara's dream.2  But that's what I mean.  It ended half-way through.  It was never resolved.

Me:  I think that's going to turn into Clara's doom.3  She's going to turn into a great big pile of walking snot.  Which is Swamp Thing, so he can have that one too.  I thought that Peter Capaldi was really good.  We've got to come up with something positive we can say about it.  Was it scary?

Him:  I feel like it would've been better had we not seen them, 'cause they were essentially just giant humanoid things that were just mouths all the way down, and I've seen that kind of thing...

Me:  Yeah, it was in Nemesis the Warlock back in...  around about 1980?4

Him:  Yeah, there's an enemy in Digital Devil Saga 2 that looks like them as well, but it's orange and has teeth in the mouth. 

Me:  This all felt like...  There was nothing new there.  Nothing we haven't seen before.5  It wasn't brave.  It wasn't adventurous.  It wasn't challenging.  It was...  It was...

Him:  It was weird.

Me:  Yeah.  Again, I thought Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman performed really well, and I think that the supporting cast did the best they could, but...  It just goes to show why we don't get found footage stuff on TV. 

Him:  It wasn't found footage, this is the thing.  I think it would've been really good as found footage, 'cause you wouldn't have seen the dust-snot monsters. 

Me:  It's a straight lift - well, near enough - it's a straight lift from Sunshine.  Oh, I don't know.5

Him:  I never did finish watching Sunshine.

Me:  No.  So, on that bombshell...

Him:  Oh, I dunno, do you want to talk about next week's-

Me:  Face the Raven?

Him:  Is that what it's called?

Me:  Well, it's all about facing ravens, innit?

Him:  I've been trying to think of a pun involving Edgar Allan Poe and dust, but I just can't do it.

Me:  Well, you've got, "I will show you fear in a handful of dust,"6 which was used as advertising for Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, but that's not from Poe.  Which is a shame.

Him:  I've just been trying to think of... a Poen, if you will.

Me:  Ha!

Him:  But I can't.

Me:  Alright then.  D'you want to make a noise like a raven?  Or just some dust?

The Him makes the noise of just some dust.

Me:  And on that bombshell.

TL; DR:
Nightmare in Silver 2: Electric Bogies - BOO!

 
1.  Sandman #3, March 1989.  But, seriously...

Sleep No More is an odd thing.  It's much less than the sum of its parts for a start, many of which're outlined above.  The story's sloppy, the acting quality haphazard and the directing not quite as tight as something like this needs to be.  It's also not found footage, did we mention that?

Whether you think found footage began in The Blair Witch Project rather than The Last Broadcast or Cannibal Holocaust - both of whom have much better claims - it's fair to say that Sleep No More fails the most basic format test by neglecting to kill off all its characters.  Nope, the 'found footage' label is just the high-concept tag, or gimmick, slapped on this episode to make it quicker to explain.  It's a shorthand for something that would've worked much better in almost any other medium.  It's a shame it wasn't pitched to a publisher or even Big Finish instead. 

Sleep No More's also far too pleased with itself to be let off lightly.  The final speech delivered by Rassmussen/Gatiss breaks through the already shattered fourth wall with its self-congratulatory - Kroll save us - attempts at metatextualised post-modernism.  And completely falls on its arse whilst doing so.  If the preceding forty-two (or so) minutes had earned such self-indulgence then fair enough, but they blatantly hadn't.  It also has the unfortunate effect of turning the opening speech about not watching this because you won't be able to unsee it, from story set-up to actual viewer advice.

Still, we should be thankful for small mercies.  Murray Gold barely made his unnecessary presence felt. 

And at least it wasn't the two-parter the Baker Street Boys'd originally planned.

Well, not yet anyway.

2.  Okay, we're not.  But I don't think this time the audience can be blamed for not getting what was going on. 

And if it's anyone's dream, then it's Barbara's.

3.  I don't really.

4.  Actually it was August 1981, in 2000AD Prog 223.  Can't blame a guy for trying.

5.  I'm nearly convinced that the bits that looked like Reece Shearsmith was reading his lines from a board hidden just off-camera were an homage to The Three Doctors.  Perhaps to make up for the one that was, thankfully, left in the cutting room bin following the final edit of An Adventure in Space and Time.

6. 

The Zygon Invasion (time shift)

The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it's the same problem you had last year.
- John Foster Dulles

Or, if you want to be all obvious about it:

In communities where men build ships for their own sons to fish or fight from, quality is never a problem.
- J. Deville

Me:  Right.  Well.  What did you think it should've been called?

Him:  'Schrödinger's Zygon'.

Me:  Yeah, I'd agree about that.

Him:  I said that right from the start as well.

Me:  You did.  Well...

Him:  I don't know where you're going to start, there's no obvious ordering to your notes.  It's just been written in a frenzied rage.  In blood.SEA BADGER

Me:  Yeah. 'Zed.  Sixty-seven.'  "This plot-point lifted from Warriors of the Deep," which is nice.  It's The Poison Sky all over again.  For a start.  We've got that going on...  The music didn't help.

Him:  It was more subtle than it usually is, 'cause I could hear the dialogue.  Usually, you can't hear the dialogue, it's, "DUM DE DUMM DUMM MURRAY MURRAY DUMM DE DUM DUM!"

Me:  It's interesting that as the music gets, somewhat, more subtle-

Him:  I don't know if he's not even that bad, right, or if I'm just so used to him now that I don't really even notice it any more.

Me:  Yeah.  Well.  Hmmmm.  Okay.  Filming that in Cardiff might've been a bit touchy, for various reasons.  It's... painted with very broad strokes which doesn't leave it much room for subtlety.  I'm not sure that Doctor Who's the place to attempt to do Spooks storylines but, there we go.  It's all over the shop.  That was a mess.

Him:  It's three stories.

Me:  Yeah. 

Him:  I'm guessing they were all supposed to come together by the end. 

Me:  All of which move at the wrong speed.  Things contradict other things that've been in it.  Y'know...  The old Zygons wouldn't have fitted into the story that the current production team wanted to tell so, rather than create an entirely new species that doesn't have any built-in nostalgia bonus-

Him:  No.  It's probably that the Zygons look quite effective.

Me:  They've never looked more like men in suits than they do this week.

Him:  That's not what I meant, but okay.

Me:  Even in the 1970s they looked more convincing than they do here.

Him:  Yeah, but you're the man that thought that KKLAK! was an effective sound effect-

Me:  Ha!

Him:  Along with 'ROOOAR!'

Me:  Nothing wrong with 'ROOOAR!'  The Zygon Invasion's attempting to deal with things that're incredibly complicated-

Him:  Yeah, but it was-  I feel like it's got good potential to it.  But... No.  I did disagree with you when we were watching it, but I do think you're right.  It doesn't belong as a... Doctor Who episode...

Me:  Well, in the 60s and 70s Doctor Who discussed mining and issues surrounding rights and things like that, but it didn't go full-on about the IRA. 

Him:  This does have a lot of potential, but, yeah, for varying reasons it-  It's supposed to be a sort of psychological thriller.

Me:  Yeah, but it's not.  It's too-

Him:  It doesn't work because-  I guess this is what Steven Moffat meant by, "Here's your grown-up Doctor Who." 

Me:  Ha!

Him:  But it still doesn't come across as that, as it can't be grown up Doctor Who.

Me:  Because they're not making it as grown up Doctor Who.  It's still got to be a case of, "Well, this is this character and they're like this-"

Him:  But sometimes you've got to remember that it's not for you.

Me:  Yeah, I know it's not for me, but I'm not sure who it's being aimed at.

Him:  Well, that's true.

Me:  Maybe it'll all pull together next week.  We'll see.

Him:  No, it all pulled together at the end.  That's what I mean.  That's when it's supposed to all pull together seamlessly, at the end. 

Me:  But it doesn't.

Him:  No. 

Me:  And it's not just that, it's the fact that-

Him:  Well, it does, it's just not that... seamless.

Me:  Here y'go.  What time-scale was that story told in?  Bearing in mind how long it takes to fly from one place to another.

Him:  Oh, but it's a secret super plane.

Me:  Yeah.  It's all over the place.  It's really messy.  And some of the stuff that's supposed to be subtle, y'know, 'No British.  No Dogs.'  It just doesn't-

Him:  'No Visigoths'.

Me:  Groovy.  It looked nice.  Looked like they'd spent some money on it.  Problem is, with these two-parters, if you get stuck with a clunker, you're stuck with a clunker for-

Him:  Yeah, why do they keep doing the two-parters?  Why? 

Me:  It's to allow the story to breathe more. 

Him:  With The Girl Who Died and The Woman Who Lived or The Lady That Almost Lived and all that stuff.  I guess that wasn't technically a two-parter, that was supposed to be "two separate episodes with an interlinking character."

Me:  There's a lot of really good ideas in this that, for whatever reason, they just haven't had the chance to pull together. 

Him:  Yeah, I do think that had a lot of potential, like I said.

Me:  Yeah.

Him:  It bothers me when I see something with a lot of potential that doesn't work.  As opposed to, say, something with no potential that doesn't work.  Something with a lot of potential can't be done again.

Me:  Gotta be said though, that episode did contain possibly the funniest scene in this series of Doctor Who so far...

Him:  Ha!

Me:  Which was the scene outside the church... Ha!

Him:  It did remind you of-

Me:  It was terrible! 

Him:  It reminded you of Garth Marenghi's version of On the Sidewalk Bleeding...

(I'm in fits at this stage, just remembering. 
This is probably quite an important moment, lady and gentleman.  When me and the Him were working our way through the traditional ascent of the Classic series of Doctor Who, we laughed a lot.  Mostly, this was as a direct result of something intentionally funny happening in the script or the performance.  Every now and again it was because the production team had tried something that hadn't been as successful as it looked in the script or director/producer's head. 
However, the thing that reduced us to hysteria last night wasn't on the same scale as a stagehand dropping a bird on a lizard - it was, I'd argue, a fundamental stumble in the production itself. 
That scene on the the steps should've been heartbreaking. 
It wasn't, because we didn't care. 
For more on this, see: SEA BADGER.) 

Me:  That bit was...  Oh, dearie me.

Him:  "Laura.  Laura.  Laura."

Us:  "And bits of sick." 

SEA BADGER

That was a mess.  Too many ideas and plotlines from other shows - Battlestar Galactica, Spooks and even bloody Torchwood, may Kroll have mercy on our black souls - and not enough time.  Which is rich, seeing as this is another two-parter. 

I'm sure that Harry was only hinted at in order to offer plausible deniability to any fans of the character, but seeing as the Brigadier got a go last series - and this one does feature Zygons -  it's to be expected. 

So.  It looks as though the real-world events that deleted that scene from Robot of Sherwood had the misfortune to pop up on a producer's radar.  I say 'producer' in order to offer plausible deniability to anyone who fancies it.  Bet it sounded fab in tone meetings.  I bet it also looked great on paper.  Unfortunately, to me, it stunk on the screen. 

The Zygon Invasion falls into the usual potholes of fan fiction - most obviously the ones involving Returning Characters and the law of diminishing returns.  This felt like the sort of thing that might be pitched to Big Finish: lots of familiar faces and a 'gritty' real-world problem to be addressed.  Unfortunately, it's less about the real-world problem than pleasing the fans - which is a shame because, to quote Dez Skinn again, "...the fans'll buy it anyway."

There was an opportunity to address something relevant there, to address a problem that's as much political as it is religious.  Battlestar Galactica had the guts to go for the religion, The Zygon Invasion barely mustered any commentary at all - not even reaching the less-than-dizzying heights of 'massive weapons of destruction'. 

The Clara story was done better when it was Fleshy Amy Pond, Osgood's story doesn't make sense, and not just going on what we know about Zygons, but within Doctor Who itself.  Lines are thrown in to explain away continuity errors, but I'm guessing that's down to budget restrictions, Steven Moffat used to patch things like that up with 'prologues', 'preludes' and other VAM.  Of course, VAM can't be canon, so those plot-holes still gawp open like unshut trapdoors for the majority of Doctor Who's actual audience.

As to an audience, who was that aimed at?  It sails close to some really unpleasant things - things that would often cause an episode to be edited (or pulled completely) for reasons of taste and compassion if they coincided with an event with a bodycount that'd made headlines.  It sails close, then...  Nothing.  In many ways, it came across as gutless.  If these things are going to be addressed by the BBC's flagship family-entertainment show, then at least have the courage to actually do it.

Personally, I think that would've been better served in one of two ways.  Either do it properly - and have it as the backbone for the entire twelve-episodes, exploring nuances, contradictions, the motivations behind these things - whilst taking welcome potshots at manipulative nonsense like 24 or Fox News - or...  Pitch it to Big Finish as something that'll slot in one of the gaps they've found sitting between TARDIS jaunts for their Russell T. Davies era of box sets.  Simply swap Osgood for Martha and you're good to go.

Maybe this'll turn out to be the greatest story in Doctor Who's history.  I hope so.  So far, each of the two-parters has had an uneven balance: one is superior to the other.  As to which way round that is, well, personal taste, innit?  Like what I'm saying here. 

I really hope that The Zygon Inversion is as good as it possibly can be.  And that better not involve the Doctor just going back in time and changing the goalposts, because that isn't an option for any of the people caught up in the real world issues that this story 'addressed' as a piece of Saturday entertainment for the family.  I'm very willing to have the rug pulled away, and be blind-sided by something really special.

Right now, anything less than that would be just plain rude.