What’s dead should stay dead.
That’s the theme of this episode (which was named after a 1972 movie [external link]), and it applies to a lot more than lost loved ones. Memories, relationships, emotions—if it’s over, just move on. According to Dean, anyway.
Entropy means a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system’s thermal energy for conversion into… actually, we don’t need the physics explanation. In the context of human life, the word is used to represent decline into uncertainty and disorder. As Tara says in her beautiful little speech at the end, things fall apart.
This is an episode about what people do when their lives become entropic. Xander tries to put things back together, but one of the pieces doesn’t fit. He is still afraid of commitment. Anya sums him up with bitter cruelty but accuracy. Continue reading
This episode gave me an interesting thing to consider. I’ve been struggling recently with this series because I remember liking it a lot more than I do now. My chief complaint is that so many episodes deal with jerks. But along comes Living Doll and I realize I have to rethink things. There are jerks and there are JERKS, if you catch my meaning. Some are just annoying, and you want to get away from them, go shopping, or head off to your proctologist just to get away from them. But then there are the ones who you despise. That’s a different kettle of fish when you’re asked to watch 25 minutes of those kinds of jerks getting what’s coming to them. Continue reading
We are getting ready for the return of Doctor Who with Nguti Gatwa on May 11th. Last week, we revisited the second story of Doctor Who’s 60 year history, so this week we go back to the second-to-last story. Stick with us as we approach the new season. But first, let’s talk about the Toymaker…
If you’re wondering why I read The Giggle before The Star Beast or Wild, Blue Yonder, I confess, it was for one reason alone: I disliked what Chris Chibnall did with the Doctor, effectively negating William Hartnell as the first Doctor, Jodie as the first female Doctor, and taking Gallifrey away from us all in one fell swoop. In the televised version of this episode, the Toymaker says he made a jigsaw out of the Doctor’s past. I wanted to know if they built up on that in the novel. So while I went on to read the others, I was hoping for confirmation that others disliked Chibnall’s writing. Maybe everything about his past and his home world were made up by the Toymaker to break the Doctor’s psyche. Continue reading
The Avengers often seemed to be a series that couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. It started off as fairly gritty espionage thrillers, and soon became a show that wasn’t taking itself very seriously. It’s perfectly normal for a series to change as it finds it feet, but there is still a weird sense that it is still trying to find its feet during the sixth and final season, and has never quite settled down into much of a pattern. It has never really been one thing rather than another. During the Emma Peel era, when the silliness really kicked in, it was sometimes a sci-fi show, but frequently not. The Tara King episodes so far have been an odd mix of stories that would have fitted perfectly into the Cathy Gale era, with Tara the equal of Steed, and Emma Peel episodes with a damsel in distress to be saved by Steed, the comedy fun turned up to eleven and the realism turned down to zero. I suppose variety is the spice of life, but it’s hard to believe this is actually the same show as last week. You couldn’t find two more different episodes if you tried, and they are consecutive. The reason for that, as is often the case when things get weird in a television show, is behind-the-scenes turmoil. Continue reading
At the start of Medusa, I was a little annoyed. This season hasn’t grabbed me at all and it really ignores a lot of the good work done by seasons 1 and 2. The mere notion that Medusa is living in the Land of the Lost, with a stone garden that’s never been seen before, and a river that has never been explored… it’s all too much! Rick, Will and Holly stood on a mountain top in season one and saw the closed universe so much that they saw themselves at the other end. When they explored the river, they met Jefferson Davis Collie, the revolutionary war veteran. You can’t tell me that they overlooked, not just Malak from Survival Kit, but Medusa and her garden too? I just don’t buy it. It’s pretty clear that the writers are ignoring the past. Continue reading
Babylon 5 was the first show that I encountered from the 90’s that really used continuity well. To my surprise, Buffy came along much later for me personally, but I can tell the writers understood they were building a bigger world. Angel continues that tradition and I am very happy indeed. I love this kind of complex storytelling. But frequent readers would probably wonder why I felt the need to bring up B5 in this review. Fair question. It’s down to something Holtz says. Continue reading
I wasn’t expecting to see vampires again so soon after the last time, but I can’t say I was disappointed.
In Red Lodge, Montana, a young woman is running from something in the woods (with all the typical looking back and tripping that make these scenes so annoying). She hides behind a tree until it seems as though she might be safe. But when she emerges from her hiding spot, a man is waiting for her with a sickle in hand. A moment later, her body and her head go their separate ways.
There have been many examples of novels and television dramas that challenge the nature of reality. It’s an idea that was popularised by Descartes, but goes right back to Plato: can we trust our senses to tell us the difference between reality and illusion? Both Descartes and Plato used the “dream argument”, a philosophy that dreams indicate that we cannot truly believe what our senses tell us when we are awake, and it’s that basic form of questioning reality that is probably the most popular in fiction, in examples ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Doctor Who via The Twilight Zone. But the most interesting iteration of the idea is when we are shown two possible realities and both are given equal weight. In the case of fantasy or sci-fi, when the two realities are equally possible, the one with fantastical elements therefore becomes the least likely, and that happens to be the show we have been watching all along. That’s a brave thing to do. Continue reading
I realize that Rod Serling lived during a different era from the one I grew up in. I recognize that in 2000 years, we’ve seen more progress in the last 100, than in the previous 1900 and if you really think about that, you realize Rod Serling was writing just as that technological advancement was getting off the ground. Before that, acting was of the variety that Shakespeare was known for: the stage play. No one was thinking of the summer blockbuster back then. Marvel and Disney were a long way from giving us those massive series that were as cinematic as anything in the theaters. So, when Rod Serling penned some of these television episodes, you could see the stage play being acted out. We get a small room that gets smaller over time as our lead is meant to be getting bigger. That’s not Rod’s fault; in fact, that was exactly the right thing for the time. Mickey Rooney in one small room might work really well in the format of a stage play. Rooney was a well-respected actor and having his name on the cast list of a play would be a draw for many viewers. But we’ve come a long way since then and things age and when that happens, opinions shift. Continue reading
We are getting ready for the return of Doctor Who with Nguti Gatwa on May 11th, so why go back to the second story of the 60 year history? Possibly for the same reason that next week will be visiting the second-to-last story to date. Stick with us as we approach the new season. But first, let’s talk Daleks…
The Daleks is arguably the most important story in Doctor Who’s long history. That doesn’t mean it’s the best but it changed what might have been a one-season show into a 60-year phenomenon. The moment that Dalek plunger appeared onscreen, history changed. But why go back to it now? Because the great Russell T. Davies decided that with his return to Doctor Who, he was going to modernize a classic to bring in a new audience. Will it work?
“Red noses – what does that conjure up?”
“Inebriates.”
It also conjures up an image of clowns, source of a common phobia called coulrophobia. The first link on Google suggests that it is not a well understood phobia, but I think it’s simple enough. They are all evil. Ok, no they aren’t (probably), but I think it’s fairly obvious why a lot of people have a negative reaction to clowns. They play havoc with the uncanny valley response. I wouldn’t say that I’m a sufferer of coulrophobia as such, but at the same time I don’t actually like clowns. I recently found a photograph showing myself as a child providing the piano music on stage for a clown performer. I had blanked that completely out of my memory, for some reason, so it seems my brain was pretty determined to forget the fact that I had ever been in the same room as a clown. Continue reading
Let’s talk about things that really get under the skin, shall we? Things like… splinters, airline flights with someone kicking your chair over and over, and writers who have one track minds. Jon Kubichan is back after last week’s lame story and he’s got a new idea: “The Marshall’s are really a problem for us, so what, Oh Wise Guy Skull, can we do about them?” “Here’s an idea I’ve never had before…There is a pylon that controls the sun…” Continue reading
The writers of Angel and Buffy have a good grasp on storytelling, and I regret ever doubting them, even if I will undoubtedly fall into that same trap again in the future. As season 3 of Angel has gone on, I’ve flip-flopped with the series. I’ve loved the stand-alone episodes, but really couldn’t give a toss about the arc ones. When Couplet started, I could see that they were bringing some of the arc elements in to what looked like a standalone episode. By Loyalty, it’s confirmed and I’m excited to see where the story goes. Good storytelling is where it’s at! Continue reading
Warning: this review contains clowns. Walk away, while you still can.
“Everybody Loves a Clown” opens on a typical scene at a carnival or circus: rides, balloons, happy people, clowns. One little girl is having a great time, especially with the clowns. When she sees one off to the side of all the action, she waves and the clown waves back. But when she tries to point him out to her parents, he’s disappeared. Fine, he walked off—whatever.
It doesn’t get creepy until she sees him standing on the side of the road as they’re driving home. And then it gets really bad.
Welcome to the latest instalment of Buffy the Miserable Slayer, although this week it’s somebody else’s turn to be really miserable, with the collapse of Xander and Anya’s relationship, in the most spectacular way. There aren’t many more dramatic ways to end a relationship than the groom leaving the bride on the wedding day.
It’s hard not to hate Xander by the end of this episode, because he destroys Anya, emotionally. She comes across so much as an innocent, with almost childlike bewilderment at what’s happening to her, and her motives for getting married do seem to be sound: Continue reading
I used to love The Twilight Zone. In fact, it’s one of the very few series my mom and I ever shared because she had watched this series in her younger years. I also shared it with my cousin, often staying up late over our summer holidays to watch it together. I have fond memories of this show, and remember liking most of the episodes. This one was no exception in my memory, but I do think watching something with your mind in an idle state is a lot different than analyzing a show. The concept of A Kind of Stopwatch stuck with me all my life. There’s a hint of Time Enough at Last in that we have a protagonist who is struck down by his own folly and left in a world devoid of life. But as I watched this episode, it took precisely 6 minutes for me to check how much time was left. 6 minutes for McNulty to make me want to turn off the television. That’s got to be a new record! Continue reading
You have to give credit to these guys on almost every conceivable level. There’s definitely something to the idea of the fans making the series. It’s the same thing that happened when Doctor Who came back in 2005 – the fans that loved the show growing up, were the ones who were making it. The two SF giants have both benefited from this sort of craft. To Boldly Go is the final chapter in the story of James T. Kirk and the 5 year mission. It brings us right up to the start of the movie franchise and closes out the 5 year mission admirably. It does it with an action packed adventure too.
This is the second time the title is used to give us a hint to where we are in the series. This is a sequel to Where No Man Has Gone Before. We open up with Kirk being sent to explore a mystery that’s been bothering him since the destruction of The Hood 2 episodes ago. It turns out, Starfleet has a top secret base near there where they are experimenting with espers. Remember what happened to Gary Mitchell and his awesome, glowing eyes and telekinetic powers? The latest guest star has the same powers and things are going to get dicey.
If it weren’t bad enough having to watch an episode written by Terry Nation last week, Noon Doomsday is another Nation episode, but it’s also trying to be a Western, the genre of television I will cross the road to avoid, and then switch off all the neighbours’ television sets on that side of the road too. Luckily the Western influence doesn’t extend far beyond some annoying incidental music, a couple of villains arriving on horseback for some inexplicable reason, and some stylistic choices for the fight scenes. Oh, and it’s also a parody of a film which I’ve never seen and almost certainly never will, because it hails from the genre that glorifies machismo, guns and whiny music. Continue reading
Well damn it all. I was really hoping that the last episode was a fluke and season 3 would surprise me, but we’re tackling another senseless episode that doesn’t fit with established ideas thus making season 3 feel more like a drudgery than I thought. And to think, the first episode actually had me excited.
I sort of figured it was the result of putting a new writer into the mix who perhaps didn’t know all of what came before. This was long before the idea of a series showrunner like on Doctor Who, so I’m assuming no one told Jon Kubichan what happened last season. Without the foundation, what can you expect. If you don’t know what happened before, you end up writing an idea that sounds good on paper but in practice, falls flat. In The Orb, the Skulls of Infinite Wisdom tell the Sleestak their “new” idea: get the Orb that’s been down in the pit with their god all this time and they can make night fall eternally. You know, the way they tried to do in the season 2 finale and found out that eternal night would kill them also… Yeah, you’re thinking “that is not logical”, aren’t you?
The View from the Junkyard 