Don't tell him your name, Alfred!

(With apologies to Lethal Weapon).

This is actually a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine post. Having just moved back to Blighty and with a new job to occupy my days, I've decided that I enjoyed the last rewatch so much that I'm going to start again. After all, I stopped the last one about… three months ago. I was just into season seven but Ezri annoyed me so much (for so many reasons I shall bang on about another time) that I've decided to go back to the good old days. And so to season one.

The pilot and its second part, 'Emissary', will always have a special place in my heart for the way they get the band together in the first place. It begins by ripping your heart out and eating it in front of you (Jennifer), making you agonise over which side to take (Sisko's or Picard's - in one of the best scenes ever filmed), before bringing you a bit of fun (Julian's first lines), and then some mystery and non-Starfleetness (the Kai). I liked it way more than I remembered. Some memorable meetings (Kira's "Oh… hello") and some great moments (Sisko manipulating Quark to get the promenade on its feet again), and the feeling that this is going to be a very different Trek. I grew up on Star Trek: The Next Generation, and there's nothing wrong with the series. But toward the end I was a little tired of the alrightness, of the way most things were settled, or a giant reset button was punched so people could be brought back to life, or healed, or helped so they were better off than when the episode started. Over time, it began to make the series feel a little dull. So this new series, this DS9, piqued my interest. This bloke in charge, this Starfleet commander - he uses Ferengi tradition to get what he wants out of local barkeeps. He requested a local as his liaison officer - and although he's already had a few fights and rough patches with Major Kira, he also seems willing to trust her, given enough reason. He is Starfleet, underneath it all.

And then came episode 1x03: Past Prologue. Excellent episode about trust, new beginnings, and the meaning of life. Well, the meaning of present time life, anyway. Major Kira meets a colleague from her terrorist days and vouches for his request for asylum, getting him to give up and be a force for Bajor - only to find out he lied and used her, to put his latest terrorist plot into action. (And we get Lursa and B'Etor! Yay!) Kira has terrific scenes with both Sisko and then Tahna, as she has to decide who she goes to, to reveal what the other side knows. It's only when she confides in the only person she trusts - Odo, another non-Starfleet bod - that she has time to take stock. Odo's advice that it doesn't matter who she betrays, as long as it's not herself, puts her on the right track. We're treated to a slice of sci-fi life that TNG didn't seem to give us; two non-humans, non-Starfleet personnel, talking over a murderously sticky problem. And they work it out - Kira finds her footing and goes with her instincts. She's right - but she could so easily have been wrong. That's what makes DS9 different for me - she could have got it very wrong. She very nearly did - but that's another episode in the future. By the time we get to the end of the episode, two very disparate, very forthright people are walking together in silence, united by the feeling that they accomplished something together, even if they really didn't want to. Prickly, difficult, hard-won and easily breakable, these two have a long way to go. But it's fascinating to think how shaky anyone's decisions really are. 'Your choices are half chance - just like everybody else's.' Indeed.

And here we are, at 1x04: A Man Alone. At first glance, it's about Julian and his constant friendly, if slightly annoying, chasing of Jadzia. But hold on - now we have Sisko and Jadzia having lunch because Sisko has been friends with this 28-year-old woman for two lifetimes. He calls her his mentor, his friend - "like a father" to him. That dynamic - such a young woman being a father figure to a strapping great rugby prop of a man like Sisko - is again fascinating. But wait - now it's Chief O'Brien and his wife Keiko arguing about what she's supposed to do on the station to be useful, productive. And Jake Sisko, trying to make friends with the only other lad his age - Nog the Ferengi. And oh look, now it's Odo and Ibudan, the adversary of the week, having a spat over some bad history from years before.

So it's all about relationships - some are family, some are spouses, some are old friends and some are lonely kids wanting to make friends.

Then we get a murder. Odo is suspected but Kira stands up for him - she doubts there's a "more honourable man on this station" (more old friends business). Odo begins the investigation himself - finding Ibudan departed 'Alderaan Spacedock' the day before. Well he had a lucky escape, didn't he? Even Quark has a go at defending poor Odo - he rattles off a list of his problems, but then says he knows Odo isn't a killer. Old enemies? Everyone's relationships are laid out for us to see.

Julian does some vacuuming-up of forensic evidence and we actually get to see him do some doctor science in the background. A bunch of pissed-off Bajorans, stirred up by some other Bajoran bloke, go to Ops and actually complain to Sisko about how Odo is still chief of security. Sisko is polite in telling them he's heard them, but it's Kira who tells them in no uncertain terms to piss off and take their suspicions with them. (The look Sisko gives her when she's staring down the head of the peaceful posse is suspiciously like gratitude - or admiration, perhaps.) While Julian is onto something big and plot-worthy, Sisko has the unenviable task of relieving Odo of duty, due to a conflict of interest. Kira and Jadzia Dax take over the investigation, but obviously Odo can only take this to mean Sisko thinks he did it. Whether he gets the idea of 'conflict of interest' or not, or how it pertains to him, he's still royally pissed off. When he finds the security office vandalised, including racial slurs on the wall, it's obvious he's hitting his personal rock bottom. Quark drops by and, quite curiously, gives out free information. Feeling sorry for his old enemy? Or missing him already?

Julian and Sisko chat about the lives of Dax - just to hammer home how Jadzia might be the same, but different to Dax's last host. But even Morn leaves when Odo tries to sit at Quark's bar. I'd expected better of you, Morn. On a bright note, Keiko sets up a new school and its only classroom, and Miles turns up with little kid Molly to present her with a new school bell. Trouble is, Odo is trying to walk down the promenade when an ugly mob turns up to hound him into the security office. Kira grabs a few security dudes and off they go, before someone does the poor shapeshifter some damage. It's Sisko who asks them to think about what they're doing, who asks them how they'll feel in an hour when they've all cooled off. Luckily, Julian discovers the truth through science (because SCIENCE!), and it doesn't take long to wrap up the episode.

So what do we get from this? Relationships make the most interesting stories? Hate, revenge, loyalty, faith and treachery. Lovely. Some ace acting and good writing. The season is still getting better, but it's not bad to begin with. Sisko's end log, about how Odo hasn't even received any apologies for how half the people on the station treated him, bodes well for the future. I know it has a good one.

It's one of those shows - you can't do just one. Think I'll stick around for the next one.

Soopytwist.

Tags:

~ Star Trek ~ DS9

Doctor Who’s 50th Episode

You, dear single solitary reader, know that I like Doctor bloody Who. I’ve done posts on the subject of the show, and once upon a time, this blog had a weekly vent as to how the ongoing series was doing.

Over time it trickled to a stop. Why was that? Was it really that I didn’t have enough time? Or was it the episodes that changed? The writing, perhaps?

Now we get to it. Some of the time, the writing and the episodes are pretty good. They do a good job of keeping me interested in the franchise as a whole. Rarely (these days), the episodes are brilliant and they match the energy and acting skills of Matt Smith, and are worthy of his time. I’m not saying he’s a better actor than David Tennant, or any of the other Doctors. I’m saying the episodes have been lacking, and he’s been wasted. Put him up against David Tennant and I guarantee you would find reasons for calling each of them better at some point. Strengths and weaknesses, swings and roundabouts, then.


Which brings us to the 50th anniversary episode, ‘The Day of the Doctor’. Those who haven’t seen it, look away now.



Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!
Here be SPOILERS for the DOCTOR WHO 50th ANNIVERSARY EPISODE!


Where do we start? Let’s start with something like 10.6 million people watching the episode live on Saturday, 23rd November. It was the same day that it first aired, albeit 50 years before, which was why half of us were there. It started well - the original opening from 1963 played and it all seemed fab. Then we get Billy Piper back as Rose - except she’s not. She’s just the voice of the WMD of the plot (that will seem ironic, in that ‘Rose Tyler’ is telling the Doctor to have a conscience, when in fact the Doctor that would have listened to her could neither see nor hear her). The actress is brought back sheerly because of her face. She’s not Rose, she’s a GUI for John Hurt’s use. Billie Piper is not a poor actress and I was happy to see her again - she played the part well enough for me to realise in the first few moments that she wasn’t Rose at all.

Then in comes John Hurt as ‘The War Doctor’. When I went to the official celebration on Sunday 24th November in the ExCel, London, I got to hear Steven Moffat’s reaction to the fans and the episode - and hear his reasoning behind it. And a few things grated. First, there was his idea that we shouldn’t be sticking to the whole ‘silly’ 12 regenerations and out, idea. Second, that he felt Tom Baker’s appearance at the end was just for fun and ‘for the fans’. Then there was his assertion that John Hurt’s ‘War Doctor’ doesn’t count as a ‘Doctor’ because he didn’t apply that name to himself - he considered himself not a Doctor at all, because he was apparently fighting in a war, not healing or fixing things.

BOLLOCKS, Mr Moffat. He’s ‘the War Doctor’. Three words, one of which is ‘Doctor’. This whole thing about his real name, this whole side trip to hype DW up to the point where it’s something more mythical and fantastic that it is, just so you can burn it down by eradicating all the mystery, is ridiculous. When you’re a child and you’re making up stories, and you escalate it more and more but then realise that you can’t finish it because you just can’t pull out that one aspect that would top everything and be mind-blowing and genius because THERE IS NOTHING IN THE STORY TO DO THAT - that’s where Moffat is, most days, I’m sure.

Getting back to John Hurt, Moffat seems to regard him as the 9th Doctor. I have no issue with that. The little webisode that was released (not very fairly, considering some people won’t have seen it before the 50th) showed me that Paul McGann - who SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE WAR DOCTOR IN THE ANNIVERSARY EPISODE - regenerated into John Hurt. I saw it. He had a new face, a new body. What wasn’t clear was whether he started as John Hurt with 12 new regenerations (seeing as the elixir he drank supposedly brought him back to life - or gave him new life?). I’d like to think… no. Because John Hurt was the 9th Doctor. Sorry, 9, 10 and 11 - you’ve all been bumped along one. Which makes Peter Capaldi the 13th Doctor, and therefore the last.

Oh don’t look at me like that. Yes, I believe there should be 12 regenerations, otherwise the programme would go on and on until it turned into Smallville, A.K.A. the series that wouldn’t die. Have a spin-off all about Romana (seeing as it was never confirmed or even mentioned where she was during this ‘Time War’). Have a spin-off with the Doctor’s Daughter. Have a spin-off about Donna Noble. Have a spin-off about Martha Jones and Mickey Smith working for U.N.I.T. Bring back Torchwood, but with more Gallifreyans in it. I don’t care - but don’t piss about with the 12 regenerations theory, just so Moffat can keep on doling out substandard shite and passing it off as ‘something the fans will love’.

And while we’re on that subject, pack it in, Moffat. Making shit up and then trying to justify it afterwards when people point out how it made no sense is no way to run a series. Bringing out a Sherlock trailer the day after DW airs, just to distract us with something else shiny, does not work. Sherlock is a completely different animal, and it bears no relation to the whole furore surrounding DW right now.

When I was at the ExCel in London on Sunday to hear the panels and see the fallout from ‘The Day of the Doctor’. I really enjoyed listening to everyone - but I wanted to punch Moffat. Everything out of his mouth made me want to stand up and ask him why, or how, but most especially WHY THE BLOODY HELL HE INCLUDED TOM BAKER AT THE END, WHEN IT MADE NO SENSE. I’m all for including Doctors, but when one of them is significantly aged more than when he was dying and regenerated, how can he be there like that? And don't go ‘wibbly wobbly, timey wimey’, Moffat, because that’s just pathetic. Explain it. Don’t expect that we’ll be so dazzled by a JJ Abrams-bomb that we’ll blindly find it hilarious and a ‘touching’ end to a so-so episode. It was stupid, and it stuck out like a sore thumb. I really do think Moffat just whacks this stuff in there as in-jokes and ‘look at me, I can bring you all this’, when in fact it doesn’t make sense and it shouldn’t be there. It’s not big and it’s not clever, Moffat. It just invokes Fridge Logic and enrages fans.

Tom Baker could have been just a curator. He could have been someone a little bit eccentric who the Doctor met and liked. But implying so heavily that he was the Doctor? Bollocks. Wrong. Annoyingly so.

In short, I did enjoy a lot of the episode. It’s always good to see David Tennant as the Doctor, and this was no exception. I liked how they got along. I liked the door argument, I liked how they brought in other Doctors, and that we saw more of Gallifrey (and, by the by, how the head Gallifreyan said he saw ‘all 13’ Doctors at the end in the TARDISes). There was a lot to like. But there were points where Moffat, again, brought his own indulgence into it. Forget Russell T. Davies' efforts to squeeze in things he liked - Moffat does it like it’s owed to him. And I really, really despise that. I hope with Peter Capaldi coming in, the tone changes slightly, and we get good stories to really ground this new Doctor. After all, we now have a new Doctor and a companion whose back-story and Being Very Speyshall moment has passed. There is so much potential here for a fantastic series - and hopefully, Capaldi will stay for a few years.

More than anything, I hope Steven Moffat hands the show over to someone who isn’t all about the shiny things they can flash in our faces, in the hope that we won’t notice the plot holes and his failure to finish off a decent story.

Rant over. I need a cup of tea.



Tags:
~ Doctor Who ~ Steven Moffat ~ Matt Smith ~ David Tennant ~ Peter Capaldi

On Returning to Blighty After an 11 Year Absence

How to relocate to a country you left behind 11 years ago:

1. Close all accounts, utilities and communication channels in your life, related to where you are leaving.
2. Change addresses for local government and council registries in the country you will go to.
3. Un-learn everything you have come to accept as normal in the last 11 years.
4. Learn how to operate in a country of a different continent. WARNING: things that you thought you knew will all have changed. No, you will not be able to pick up where you left off. No, the protocols and methods of local government or utilities that you knew will no longer work like you remember. Good luck.
5. When people say “but you know that, you’re from here and you did it for 25 years before you left”, gently remind them that you’ve been away for 11 years - the length of time many people spent in education in their life.