Jayne Gudkov Review: Series 6 Overview!

Wow, where to begin? Do I go on about how the whole “Doctor inserting himself in history to get our attention” thing made no sense? Why is a couple of relatively newlyweds catching up on history anyway as opposed to what newlyweds usually do, silently cursing each other's relatives for the goofy and somewhat useless wedding presents they were given and, of course, making babies. Was there no pub darts championship on the telly to keep them occupied?

Doctor inserting himself in history. He wishes.

Do I ask when the Doctor dropped Rory and Amy off after their wedding night on the Tardis and how they got on to their honeymoon on the Spaceliner – and what was up with the costumes?? (a little “Good Cop/Bad Centurion” anyone? Sounds like fun. “Where were you on the Ides of March big boy, while Caesar was being made a pin cushion of? Tell me before I . . . . . ”) We'll leave that scene for your imagination.

The real question here is when did Madam Kovarian lose that eye? Kidding, the real question is when did Madam K swap Amy out for her 'ganger? Hopefully the second half of this season will answer that.

All of that covers the time before we even get into the events of this season. And here we get into why I am really wondering about why I am still watching this show (an earth shattering thought since I have seen every episode available out there.

It seems as if Mr Moffat, etal, have been infected with what I call the “Lost Virus”. The “Lost Virus” being a malady where writers of TV series have to have a season long “mystery” or story arc that just has to be part of the production. While I applaud Mr Moffat, and Mr Davies before him, for lifting Doctor Who above the muck and mire of regular TV offerings, I think that Moffat has gone a little too far. Doctor Who under Steven Moffat has become a show that requires too much thought about the overall mysteries. I like a show that you can chat about what happened and I wish there was a little more of that at New London, but Doctor Who is not a show that should require a great deal of thought.

It's become that.

Under Mr Davies tutelage we haven't really had, outside of the Bad Wolf references of the 1st season and the references to the thing on Donna's back in Season 4, season long arcs where we had to keep track of everything that was going on. From the second that Prisoner 0 carried on about “The Silence will fall” we were all looking for clues, and then nothing happened. OK right at the end of “Vampires of Venice” everything went quiet, but it had nothing, as far as we know, to do with Prisoner 0. That all came to fruition in this season and I'm not all that sure that The Silents have fallen totally.

River? Water of a Doc's back.

River did a number on them when they rescued Amy, but did they really “fall”? Something tells me they will be back despite their death sentence at the hands of the Doctor. Yeah the Silents fell on the floor after she shot them, but the way it was said it made it sound more like an empire or a civilization would fall.

My point in all of this is that Doctor Who is supposed to be simple and escapist, there was almost no mythology involved in the show as there is with a lot of today's shows. You could plop down, watch an episode and be entertained without needing to know why the Master has drums going on in his head or that Time Lords could turn themselves into humans, or that there were cracks in the Space/Time Continuum following the Doctor around.

OK, there were the Time Lords and The Master and the whole Dalek and Cyberman histories, but other than those, pretty much every “Dr Who” story could stand on its own (OK except the “Key to Time” series and maybe the whole “Trial of a Time Lord” silliness with the Valeyard turning out to be a future evil incarnation of the Doctor).

Even at the beginning of 9's series, there were hints of the Time War with the Daleks and what he had had to do to save the Universe from both the Daleks and his own people, where I took it to mean that he was a much darker and more introspective and brooding time traveller (even his wardrobe seemed to reflect that), but there wasn't supposed to be anything to actually think about. It was just background information that, to be honest, made the character of The Doctor more appealing.

Don't get me wrong, I have been looking for a replacement for “Lost” and there is part of me that likes the “mythology” that has been built up since Mr Moffat has taken over, but when it comes to “Doctor Who” this really is not Saturday night television, not any more.

Score one to me Smithy boy.

Saturday night television, if you're even home watching it, is meant to be light and something you just enjoy, not something you have to watch every frame of to see who might have actually stolen Amy's baby or where she was swapped for her 'Ganger.

Mr Moffat has come out to say that kids watch every frame and get it. I seriously doubt that. Maybe we are looking too deeply into it, maybe this is a game between us, the viewers and Mr Moffat to see who lasts the longest. I hope not because I love this show and I would hate to see it become a “Lost” where it ended lamely after such a great beginning, middle and almost the end.

That's my commentary on the 1st half of Season 6 other than to say that I, like most, am not happy with the games that the BBC is playing with splitting the season (another game “Lost” played), or do I like the rumored extension of Season 7 into 2013 so they can celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the show.

I get the celebration and it should be celebrated, but there is a more “organic” way that it can be done without stretching Season 7 over 2 years, like having a Season 8 (in 2012) and a season 9 in 2013 that ends on November 23rd (A Saturday Night – Woo Hoo)

OK – no more rantings, next week we get into the real muck and mire of Season 6.

Jayne :)

Jayne Gudkov Review: A Good Man Goes To War

Demons run when a good man goes to war,

Night will fall and drown the sun,

When a good man goes to war,

Friendship dies and true love lies,

Night will fall and the dark will rise,

When a good man goes to war.

Wow, where to start with this mid-season finale? This episode had all kinds of craziness, from the physical manifestation of the Headless Monks, what I (and I am sure most everyone else) thought was a quite funny throw away line at the beginning of “Time of the Angels” about their final resting place being the Delerium Archives, to the Doctor basically destroying the 12th Cyber Legion (lots of death and destruction there – even if it's cybernetic – unless all of those exploding ships were empty) to Sontaran nurses with breast feeding capabilities to the solution of the mystery of why Jack the Ripper stopped killing the prostitutes of White Chapel in 1888 (who would have known there was a Silurian stalking the streets of Ye Olde London Towne?) to both an in your face gay couple (one member of which was sacrificed to the Headless Monks – some sort of statement Mr Moffat????) and a suggestively lesbian inter-species relationship between human and Silurian (OK – maybe not so suggestive).

Which is where we'll start this week - with what I liked:

Vash “Was I being insensitive again? I don't know why you put up with me?” (tongue flick knocking out cleric). Jenny just (suggestively?) smiles. That and there is just something hot about a woman dressed in a Victorian shirt, tie and vest. For more on that check out H G Wells in an American show "Warehouse 13" (purrrrrrr)

The Papal Mainframe of the Headless Monks is a chick.

Pirates! And Spitfires!!!!

The sound of the Tardis in Vash's drawing room harkened back to the old series sound of the Tardis console room. That good old console room hummmmmmmm.

Rory to the Cybermen - “Don't give me those blank looks!” Sorry, but that totally cracked me up.

Stevie Wonder singing under London Bridge in 1814. “But don't tell him.” I guess he was singing his version of “Happy Birthday” - a very cool version.

River calling the guards to tell them she was breaking back in.

Now onto what I didn't like:

The Doctor participating in mass murder (of the Cybermen) then making a point of defeating those who were holding Amy without bloodshed using simple logic.

That the reveal of who River Song was – it was such a non-surprise – I think most of us had it figured out just based on putting 2 and 2 together at the end of “The Day of the Moon”.

The Doctor takes off to go after the baby, leaving everyone else to be dropped off in their own time zones by River, my point being that he knows how River turns out, to the point that he knows how she dies, but he still goes off after her. What's the point??? Granted, he doesn't know that this kid supposedly kills him in the future, but still, as I said, he knows what will happen to River, so why fly off to save her? (More on the basic “essence” of River later in my “Halftime Report”)

The whole description to the baby by Amy who her father was, the misdirection making it sound like she was talking about The Doctor – when it was really Rory - that was silly.

Silly

Calling a baby crib a “cot”. A cot is barely a bed – basically a bunch of sticks with some material stretched over it that boy scouts sleep on in a tent out in the woods. What the Doctor provided for baby Melody was a proper crib (yeah – I know it's a battle between the Queen's English and the language now known as American) which brings me to . .

That whole Tardis Translation Matrix thing. Evidently either the baby's name or the Doctor's (which River has said she knows) had been inscribed on the sides of the crib. I get that the Tardis won't translate Gallifreyan into English (actually it's a bit of a stretch since it translates every other bloody language in the known universe into English – but I guess they need an excuse to either not give away the Doctor's name or the fact that it would have said “Melody Pond”). Anyway, the whole scene didn't really make any sense. If the viewer of said Gallifreyan language's normal language was English it should have shown itself in English.

Maybe, since River knows that the bunch of circles inscribed in the sides of the crib are Gallifreyan script, that's how she found out the Doctor's real name.

Granted, this is a season long arc, but I guess it would have been nice to have had a bit of an ending instead of having it drag out over the summer.

Anyway, To Be Continued in “Jayne's Season 6 Halftime Report”. What, you thought it would be titled “Let's Kill Lowtide”???? Actually . . . . . . . [Well I wouldn't have been that surprised - Editor Lowtide]

Jayne Gudkov Review: The Almost People

The Jayne Review - “The Almost People”

Well, now it all makes sense, and yet, it doesn't. I am just going to get into this weeks likes and dislikes (even some hates) – starting with . . . . .

What I hated:

That it took 2 episodes to explain that the Amy we've seen since “Day of the Moon” was not our Amy, but a doppelganger swapped for the real Amy by the Crazy Eye Patch woman and possibly other unknown entities.

This is not to say that I didn't enjoy the episodes, I did, but I just got the feeling at the end that we could have just had that scene with Amy at the end of “The Curse of the Black Spot”. I know that's nit picking , but hindsight, that's how I feel.

Added to that, as much as we all loved “The Doctor's Wife”, in this season of Amy's pregnancy/The Crazy Eye Patch Lady, it sticks out like a sore thumb. You can tell that it was thrown into this season's schedule where it was for some unknowable reason. This is a one-off episode, so to speak, that would have been better served if it had been rolled out as a Valentine's Day special (in keeping with the BBC's penchant for holiday episodes), for if nothing else it was a love letter to the series by Neil Gaimon, and a love letter from the Doctor to the Tardis (that I still get teary eyed at while re-watching – it's my second favorite episode ever after “Blink”).

What I didn't like:

Seems like there are sonic screwdrivers all over the place. The Doctor throws his to his 'ganger before taking off, yet he has another with which to undo Amy-ganger's physical being. Does Sexy just spit them out when needed from the Tardis console?

There really was no reason for Cleaves' and the Doctor's 'gangers to stay there – they could have made it to the Tardis well before The Flesh would make it through the door. I mean I get that they really needed to make sure that The Flesh never made it off the island, but the company they worked for could have done that.

The 'gangers on the Tardis are “stabilized for good, they're people now.” So why doesn't this apply to Amy's???? And for all that the Doctor carried on about the 'gangers being people too, he just kills her??? Not to mention leaving Cleaves' and his own to perish, a little more on that later. Was he just BSing them???

OK – What I liked:

That we finally have an explanation of Amy's lack of wardrobe changes. Evidently, as we saw with The Flesh, it just copies everything about its original, including its clothes, and here we all thought the BBC costume budget was low (kidding).

That we have an explanation as to why The Crazy Eye Patch Lady has been appearing. Seems that the Amy-ganger has been having some sort of a psychic overflow from Amy proper, she seeing the Crazy Eye Patch Lady peering in on Amy while in her incubator/delivery room/really white place, for lack of a better way to explain?

The Eyes Have It! That wall full of eyes was too funny.

On a personal note, I used to chat with a couple of Welsh lads on a “LOST” message board and they hailed from Caerphilly, it was nice to see Caerphilly Castle used as the main setting for this episode.

Thanks for reading,

Jayne :)

Jayne Gudkov Review: The Rebel Flesh

The Rebel Flesh – Episode 6.5

Episode 5 of Season 6 (I am American – we have seasons – as is natural), on the face (no pun intended) of it, seemed like a straight forward ripping off of a story that's been done over and over, in my mind I think of Heinlein's “Starship Troopers”, the story being that of “natural” humans versus clones and whether clones are actual beings or merely easily disposed of copies. I mean in the opening scene we see what they think of clones when they let D C Chris Skelton, I mean, Buzzer's clone just melt away in a vat of acid while making jokes about his lack of balance.

Anyway – onto my likes and dislikes.

What I liked:

A dart board in the Tardis. There seems to be an effort to make the Tardis more of a home, from the bunk beds in Amy and Rory's room to

Crazy Eye Patch Lady!!!!!!!

“What are you doing down there?” to the Tardis slowly sinking into the acid soaked ground.

Rory finally finding a damsel in distress that he could be a knight in shining armor for (Jennifer). I mean Amy has totally emasculated Rory from making him take her surname at their wedding (not that there's anything wrong with that) to her boldly going wherever she wants to go and dragging him along no matter how dangerous the situation. It was in interesting study in their roles versus the standard roles of women and men (men defenders of women).

What I didn't like:

That this story has been done 1000 times, but it does set up a moral dilemma for the Doctor, so maybe the story will redeem itself in Part 2, “The Almost People”. The moral dilemma here is whether, after making his stand that Clones are People Too, does he allow the clone of himself to live? (more on that in the Theory section).

That I knew from the second that the vat of “Flesh” blathered on with a “Trust Me” I knew that a clone of the Doctor would be showing up.

“I have very wide feet.” Something tells me that that statement was the Gallifrey version of the “Big Shoe Theory”, that if a guy has big feet he is well endowed in other areas. Wide feet on Gallifrey meant the same thing???? For a guy who's not all that into kissing, he's making penis size jokes?? This would have been funny from Captain Jack, not the Doctor.

The Overall Story of the Season:

We had a “blink and you missed it” appearance by the Crazy Eye Patch Lady, the story starting with The Doctor wanting to drop Rory and Amy off for some fish and chips so that he could go do things, evidently I assume, related to either Amy's pregnancy or The Girl In The Space Suit.

I am going to go out on a limb here, and this is NOT based on any spoilers that I have read. I have actually been trying to stay away from spoilers for a change this season, so this is totally supposition on my part.

My going out on a limb is that I am going to make a prediction here, the prediction being that The Doctor that we saw being killed in the very first episode, “The Impossible Astronaut” is the clone we saw made in “The Rebel Flesh”.

THE CRACKPOT THEORY

I'm sure that like most of the theories and predictions I made over the course of the run of “LOST”, where 99.8 percent were wrong (the one I got right was that Hurley would eventually become the “Jacob” of the island), this will probably be wrong, but I have a strong feeling about it. Something down the line, be it nature, the universe, the Guardians, whatever, may manipulate the companions to Utah and the killing of the clone, for while the universe is a better place with The Doctor, having two is a problem.

So the basic theory is that the clone of the Doctor we saw at the end of “The Rebel Flesh” was the Doctor that was killed in Utah.

Yes, I know this raises questions, like why did Canton Everett Delaware III need to be there to identify the Doctor and assure River, Rory and Amy that it was actually him is a bit of a mystery, and how the clone was about 200 years older than the real Doctor. It's just a gut feeling, but I think that with all of the effort that River, Amy and Rory are making to be sure that they don't tell the Doctor about his future, I get the feeling that it's the Doctor who is actually holding out on them and Delaware is in on the scam.

That's my theory and I'm stickin' to it (probably until next week LOL).

Jayne Gudkov Review: The Doctor's Wife

Doctor Who – 6.4 – The Doctor's Wife

Wow, where to start on this one? I had my misgivings when I had heard that Neil Gaiman was writing an episode of “Doctor Who”, I always have misgivings when established television series have episodes written by people better known for their novel writing skills than their TV skills. I call it “Stunt Writing”, a way to boost the show's ratings for an episode. It's like fan-fiction by established writers who happen to be fans of the show they wrote the episode for. Granted, it would be better written, grammar wise at least, but fan fiction nonetheless.

That's what I was expecting with “The Doctor's Wife”, but I was , if I am being totally honest, when I really shouldn't have. This is Neil Gaiman we're talking about, someone who is weird enough to treat “Doctor Who” with the reverence that it deserves and still write a story that abounds, at times, with total silliness, while being totally scary in some sections.

This was, to use an American-ism, fan fiction on steroids and I loved it. The only down point is that you can tell that this story just didn't fit into the current overall story arc, with the Crazy Eye Patch Lady popping up, but they had to throw that line in about the river in the forest, which, to me, harkens back to River Song in the Forest of the Dead. Was Idris/The TARDIS reminding him of River's death for some reason? It's interesting that both the Doctor and River both know how each other will die but, quite obviously, can't tell each other.

What I Loved:

That this was obviously a love story, the love between the TARDIS and The Doctor and that love, of course, triumphs over all, even maniacal disembodied former asteroid sized spirit known as “House”. Hmmmm, I wonder if that's some sort of reference to fellow Brit Hugh Laurie's character on American TV.

Yeah I got kind of teary eyed near the end as the Doctor said his “good-bye” to Idris/TARDIS

Sexy! Only Neil Gaiman would have that as the Doctor' secret name for the old girl. Dare I hope that there will be an episode where the Doctor brings Sexy back??? (sorry - just had to).

Bunk Beds!!!!! That was too funny and totally believable that the Doctor would give a married couple a room with bunk beds because, of course, they are cool. I had them as a kid for when my cousin would come for sleepovers.

That the TARDIS chose the Doctor as much as the Doctor chose the TARDIS

Type 40's were museum pieces 700 years ago, meaning that the Doctor was about 200 years old when he “borrowed” the TARDIS.

The last, we assume, appearance of the “Eccleston/Tennant Era” console room. It was VERY cool to see that again. It would have been an old series fan's wet dream if Idris/TARDIS had directed “the cute one” (evidently the TARDIS is a heterosexual lady LOL) to maybe the Sylvester Mc Coy console room (no, not the one from

the movie, though that evidently laid the groundwork for a non-white, full of roundels, console room)

The reference to “Time Crash” and the “desktop themes” of the TARDIS console rooms, knowing that even the concept of a “desktop theme” when the original series ran would make almost no sense to the audience at that time.

“I take you where you're needed.”

Almost coming full circle, he landed in a junk yard, granted a TARDIS junk yard, but there is a poetic sort of symmetry there.

I saw a comment on the message boards today that some one was disappointed that the

TARDIS halls all looked the same. I'll grant you that I was a little disappointed that we didn't see the now legendary TARDIS swimming pool, but the TARDIS hallways have always had that “sameness” about them. Go look at Peter Davison stumbling around in the halls of the TARDIS, letting out the famous 23 foot long Tom Baker scarf as he stumbled around trying to get his head together after his regeneration in “Castrovalva” while roaming halls that all looked exactly the same.

The Doctor tricking “House” into getting them all back

into the Console Room and then sicking Idris/TARDIS on him, showing that he still has a bit of a mean streak in him.

There's not much more I can say about this episode other than:

What I hated:

Actually, there was nothing I hated in this episode, other than it was too short and we have to wait another week for more

I didn't see any kind of trailer for next week's episode, “The Rebel Flesh” another 2 parter.

See you next week,

Jayne

The Gudkov Review: The Curse of the Black Spot!

Dr Who 6.3 Review - “The Curse of the Black Spot”

I think I have decided to keep these reviews simple and to the point, specifically, what I liked, what I hated and “The Ongoing Mystery of the Little Girl and The Crazy Eye Patch Lady”.

So avast ye mateys and sail with me into this week's episode, “Curse of the Black Spot”.

What I Liked:

The Tardis once again referred to as a ship (I think that not since the William Hartnell days has the Tardis been referred to as a “ship” - I could be wrong though).

“Where is it (the Tardis)?”

“It was towed.”

To be totally honest, aside from the Doctor satisfying his ongoing hat fetish by wearing a tri-corner pirate hat for a little bit. There really wasn't too much to like about this one. It was an OK episode, not horrible and not great either.

What I hated:

Evidently it (along with the Doctor's 11's hat fetish) is to be a running joke this season, but the Doctor not knowing how to fly the Tardis, or at least not knowing how to fly it very well works fine when River is there to throw the right switch, but a 17th century pirate captain? A 17th century pirate captain who doesn't seem all that overwhelmed with what he just walked into? A compass is a compass and an astrolabe is an astrolabe huh? I mean they are making it look like the only one who can't fly the flippin' Tardis is the Doctor.

The little boy being killed. Yeah yeah yeah I know he wasn't killed, but at the time that “The Siren” touched him and he disappeared everyone who had done that was assumed to be dead.

Pirates in Space!!!!!!!!

The whole Rory almost dying thing. Was there really any chance that he was actually going to die?????? I almost had a flashback to “Lost” when Jack Shepard went crazy and started beating on Charlie Pace's chest in his effort to bring him back to life. I was waiting for Amy to start the same thing. Maybe it was the fact that both dead guys had British accents. It was not a good flashback.

Anyway, onto The Ongoing Theory of the Little Girl and the Crazy Eye Patch Lady

Here's my theory at this point. The Crazy Eye Patch Lady is Amy and the Little Girl is her daughter. OK, maybe the little girl being Amy's daughter is not that big of a surprise, I mean that was a picture of her in that bedroom surrounded by pictures of that little girl. But I think that the Crazy Eye Patch Lady is being generally supportive of Amy in a way that, to me, seems like she is talking to her younger self. It's pretty obvious that she knows where/when Amy is.

What scares me is this:

That the Crazy Eye Patch Lady will turn out to be the daughter. That she is what the daughter looks like after the regeneration and 1000 years in the future (my time frame of choice). How this fits into the killing of The Doctor back in Utah 2011 I haven't even begun to try to figure out. But here's what she has said so far:

Episode 2

No, I think she's just dreaming (seems like she is telling someone who is behind her).

Episode 3

It's done (slightly garbled and I could be wrong). You're doing fine. Just stay calm.

It could go either way, Amy's Daughter or Amy, I am really thinking it's the little girl by her reference to Amy as “she”.

I am getting a VERY weird feeling that, much like The Master was able to turn off his regeneration process after being shot by his wife, the Doctor did much the same thing, but instead of actually dying, he put himself into a state of suspended animation and will be able to wake up, even with the fire burning all around him. This leads to a very silly joke with him jumping up off of the pyre and into the Tardis swimming pool, which we will finally get to see.

As to who actually kills the Doctor, I think it's Amy's daughter, but in adult, eye patch wearing form. He just went about that whole thing a little too knowingly. The apology, to me , felt like he was apologizing for what they were about to go through, but he had a bigger purpose behind his charade.

I know that only one thing will make me almost give up on Dr Who and that is this, that somehow this entire season is nothing but “The Dream of the Fetus”. I just have this sneaking suspicion, and I am not the only one, that what we are seeing is Amy's fetus' “time head” for lack of a better way to explain it, getting into the heads of our heroes, much the way that the Dream Lord messed around with the in “Amy's Choice” and that we are witnessing he dreams.

If this season turns out to be that I will personally go to England and revoke Steven Moffats's BBC Writer's membership card – and that will take a lot since I loved “Coupling”, “Hyde” and “The Curse of the Fatal Death” LOL.

The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon Review!

The Jayne Gudkov Review – The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon

The Doctor and crew come to the United States once again, but this time they are actually running through the Utah Desert as opposed to reanimating a Dalek in a museum beneath Salt Lake City... jumping out of a building in Manhattan instead of fighting off Daleks in the sewers beneath the island. Our heroes are visiting Cape Kennedy, the former (and present) Cape Canaveral - renamed in honor of the American President who had the vision that America could put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960's.

In fact, the Doctor had visited America on a few other occasions throughout the show's history. The first Doctor visited Tombstone in the Arizona Territory just in time to witness the famous Gunfight it the OK Corral, as well as the Seventh Doctor landing in San Francisco on the eve of the new Millennia only to be shot in another gunfight and regenerate into the Eighth Doctor in San Francisco.

I have to say that I was proud that the BBC, in conjunction with BBC America, came here to the US to film this story. To the best of my knowledge (and that of Wikipedia), this is only the third time that the show has been filmed outside of the UK, the first being the Fifth Doctor story “Arc of Infinity” filmed in Amsterdam and the second being the 10th Doctor story “The Fires of Pompeii”, filmed in Rome [Tom Baker's "City of Death" is another, Planet of the Death another again - congratulations Wikipedia - Ed].

OK, enough of that and on to the story.

What I loved (other than the story being filmed in the US):

- An enemy that is forgotten as soon as they are out of sight

- Canton Everett Delaware III (the home of the American Football Hall of Fame, Canton, Ohio, the State of Delaware, no sure about what the “Everett” means) - the character played in 2011 by William Morgan Sheppard, father of Mark Sheppard, who played him in 1969 – very cool

- Stetsons – always cool – even when being shot off of your head.

- A 9 year old girl regenerating in the streets of New York in January, 1970, thus setting up the BIG MYSTERY for this season as in “Who is this little girl”?

- That the cell they were building for the Doctor in Area 51 was made of Dwarf Star Alloy, something not heard of since the 4th Doctor's travels in E-space

- River's line about being quite the screamer – VERY saucy

- The Doctor telling Richard Nixon that he needed to tape everything that went on in his office, which he did, as history tells us

- Slipping in the subliminal message in the static burst in Neil Armstrong's historic “That's one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind” quote. It does explain why there was static break in the middle of his famous quote

- That they used actual American TV footage from the broadcasts of the moon landing featuring iconic American news anchorman Walter Chronkite


What I hated:

- After all the build-up last season with the “Silence will Fall” silliness with Prisoner 0 and Rosanna Calvierri spouting about it in a threatening way, it ended up being a prediction that the Doctor would defeat The Silents, at least that's how I take it now, in hindsight

- Yet another appearance by the Tardis-like console room first seen in “The Lodger”. I don't think The Silents in 1969 had any more to do with it than whoever dropped it on top of Craig Owens' flat in 2011, both alien forces trying to use it for their own means.

- That the Doctor tells everyone that The Silents need a spacesuit and that the only place to get it is in Florida in 1969 – what do they need it for and why only then? And what did they use it for? Spacesuits built like that are still being used by American astronauts to this day and the whole thing with trapping the little girl in there, what's that all about?

Here's what I think:

- There has been much speculation out there in Internet Land that The Rani, last seen during the Seventh Doctor days, is set to make a comeback, much the same way The Master did during the Tenth Doctor's time. What with the Universe basically being re-created last season, I guess it's possible for The Rani to be re-created, or some other Master-like female enemy to come on the scene.

- At first I thought that maybe Amy was River's mother. That would have been cool in a kind of timey-wimey, yet symmetrical way. Things seemed to be heading that way, for me at least, until the girl goes on regenerating (6 months later and in an alley in New York City, some 930 miles away) something she evidently has some sort of knowledge of since she says, “I'm dying, I have to fix that, it's easy really. See?” To me that tells me she has some previous knowledge of regeneration, not something that we have ever heard River talk about in relation to herself.

- I think there was a huge clue about the nature of the little girl when Amy was babbling about being afraid of the effects the Tardis could have on the embryo, something about having a “time head”. I think that the Doctor's scan of Amy lends credence to this one theory of mine, that her unborn child is time traveling as a result of its exposure to the Tardis. Remember that the Tardis is a living being and might be reaching out to this new life in some way we don't know yet and it would explain why she has a knowledge of regeneration

- Whoever this child is (the lady with the eye patch????), it will not become evident until the very end of this season, some time in the Fall

Two last points to make you all nuts, if you are into trying to figure out the bigger mysteries of the season. In a “Confidential”-like special shown after the second episode called “Dr Who in America” there were two statements made regarding the upcoming season:

1) that the crew who came over here were given a scene to shoot that made no sense, but they were told it would make sense later...

and

2) there was something that happened in “The 11th Hour” that would be explained in either the 11th or 12th episode this season.

That's one serious story arc!

Review: A Christmas Carol by Jayne Gudkov

“A Christmas Carol” - the 2010 Doctor Who Christmas Special – a review

By Jayne Gudkov

A poor family who “just wanted one day” to enjoy Christmas with an ailing relative and who enjoyed Christmas even though they were poor – check.

A curmudgeonly old rich guy who had no time for Christmas and those who celebrated it – check.

Victorian outfits – check.

Delving into the curmudgeon's past to see why he was the crabby bastard that he was – check.

At it's root, it's a love story – CHECK!

All those plot points of the classic Dickens story, “A Christmas Carol”, were there and then some, in this year's Doctor Who Christmas special, which shared its name with Mr. Dickens' classic.

Some things that I am sure that Dickens never thought of were a planet with a foggy/crystalline atmosphere where fish and sharks swam and got down to Christmas tunes, even with his having met the Doctor in a previous incarnation.

I laughed, I cried, I thought that it was cool that we over here in America actually got to see the Christmas special actually on Christmas, like our fellow British fans.

After a long day of traveling to see a friend in the hospital and back again (with a stop for some Chinese food thrown in) this very Christmas Day, I sat down to watch the Doctor Who Christmas Special and, I have to say that “A Christmas Carol” might just be Stephen Moffat's best story since “Blink”.

All in all it was, in some ways, a typical Doctor Who Christmas special. The story started with a crisis and ended with snow, but this was different. I didn't cry when Astrid gave her life to save the few left alive on the Titanic, I didn't cry when Torchwood blew up the Sycorax at the end of “The Christmas Invasion”. I came close to bawling in “The Next Doctor” when the Doctor recreated what had happened to Jackson Lake at the hands of the Cybermen and I remained totally dry eyed during “The Runaway Bride” (which I think may have been the weakest of the 5 Christmas specials story wise – effects wise it was great – with the TARDIS chase scene) but I did cry twice during “A Christmas Carol” and if you didn't you're either a guy or just not human.

I am not going to go into a total recap of the episode – you've seen it and you can recap it for your own self.

To see the look of amazement on Abigail's face as she stood in the TARDIS doorway and seeing her standing at the end of the story singing into the broken half of the Sonic screwdriver while looking lovingly into the eyes of the older Kazran, knowing that it was her last day of life. Katherine Jenkins, in her television acting debut, was incredible. While I am sure she has wowed audiences with her amazing voice in an opera setting, pulling it off in a TV show is totally different. And pulling in Michael Gambon in, as far as I know, in his first post “Harry Potter” role, total genius, he was amazing as both the older Kazaran and Kazaran's bitch slappin' father, not to mention the young man who played the youngest Kazaran.

The cynical side of me looks at the guest stars in these specials and think that the BBC, as well as Moffat (and Russell T Davies before him), pander to their American audience a bit too much... and I am American!

While we had no clue who Catherine Tate or David Morrisey was, we knew Michael Gambon and Kylie Minogue and their little stop in California for the Doctor's duet with “Frank” and his heading off to Vegas with “Marilyn” for a quickie wedding was, if I am being honest, a bit much. I get it, but I like Doctor Who for it's British-ness, if you will. That and it kind of didn't make sense – do Time Lords not know how to kiss????? (“How do you breathe?” - come on!!!!)

I took a bit of a poll at The Traveller's Rest in New London and the general consensus from the people there was that the episode deserved an 8 out of 10.

I know that a lot of the fans out there have had a hard time in this, the 5th season (series), since the return of the Doctor - what with the change in show runners, a change from an amazingly popular Doctor (Tennant) and the previous year's run being not quite a real season due to Tennant's commitments to the Royal Shakespeare Company.

On top of that, Amy has taken quite a beating from fans as well. While I don't find her as annoying my British counterparts, I think both Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill did nicely in their limited appearances in this episode.

Just a bit of trivia as I close, in the preview for Season 6 – which starts its adventures right here in the good old USA - we learn that Stetsons are "cool"... and they are. I own one in real life, a genuine, blue fitted in Texas, Stetson, but the original Stetson factory, where they made more classic fedoras as well as cowboy hats, was right here in Philadelphia, where I am writing this review. So yeah Stetsons are cool, that's right mo fo – Stetsons are cool!!!!

Jayne OUT!!!!!!!

Make of this what you will.