The Husbands of River Song

“Why is everything sexy now?” - the Doctor

I don't like River Song. Let's do that first, before getting into the episode as a whole.

A lot of the problem is never really believing in the relationship. River's a cool character, but the Doctor's wife? I'm really not sure.

I'm not inherently averse to the idea of a married Doctor; I really like Patience, for example.

I also don't mind romantic relationships period – Jo, Rose, Romana, the Master – makes sense. Even love more broadly with somebody like Ace. But River is a flighty, amoral murdererous show-off - I'm not sure she's his type. I don't buy it. I think you can have that character, but not really as a romance. She'd be brilliant as the Doctor's tearaway daughter. I would watch that!

(in before "...but those are all characteristics describing the Master", hush my kitten, hush.).

Another part of the problem, probably the biggest part: the story is all out of order, so the viewer never has any context for what they are seeing. How can I even *begin* to understand the relationship if I don't know where it came from?

Especially because we've never seen what, surely, is the most important times in their relationship - the heart of it – the bit where they are together. Dating. Romancing. So far, we've only ever seen them out of sync, with the Doctor evidently always before they were together, and lukewarmedly fond of her.

Finally, I was always frustrated by River's soppiness. She's a time-travelling, sharp-shooting, quick-witted archeologist, and I want more for her than abandonment issues and intergalactic clinginess. We see it again here: under pressure, cool-customer River is being threatened, and decides to spill out her feelings about how she can never hope for the Doctor to love her, because he's like a star and she is but a lowly mortal. Jesus, woman, get a grip!

It occurs to me that this episode really goes to the heart of what's wrong with the whole River storyline. The problem isn't, as I always suspected, that I'm defensive of a huge canon-defining figure like the woman the Doctor is in love with. The problem is that he isn't and it makes for truly horrible viewing.

Moffat has never fully committed to his own storyline. God, give me that intergalactic romance. Wouldn't it be wonderful? I would watch that. Dazzling each other around the stars, laughing a lot, going for chips, listening to jazz on a hillside, risking time itself to get each other back.

Instead we get...he likes her enough to get jealous of people she's dating, but not enough to reassure her when she says she feels unloved? Classic noncommittal behavior. When we see her first, in Silence in the Library, that heartbreaking sorrow makes sense. She loves him, and he does not – he's never met her and is somewhat bemused by the whole thing. But that's always the tone of the relationship, every time. I guess I assumed at some point they had a relationship, and that's what gave Silence its poignancy. Apparently not. That's awful. He's cold, and she's a drip. God, this is horrible.

OK, so I understand the relationship now. Now, I want to know why this is a story or a character we should care about. We've spent a lot of time on this plot since 2008: is this it? Is this all? 

For a moment, I thought that this would be the episode where the Doctor finally said - “no River, River Song I adore you”, and maybe she'd be the new companion. All it did was confirm that there would be no development, again. The Doctor's still unwilling to be there, and River is still weepy, and I don't know what I'm supposed to think about any of this.

If this is the plot we're going with, it plays back into Moff's weird gender essentialism very badly indeed. I don't understand, and I really don't like straight-person relationship humour. “ho ho ho, isn't the wife a drag!” “ha ha ha, isn't the old man a nuisance!” ha ha ha. “marriage: can't live with em, can't live without em.” Funny jokes for people who can legally marry one another! The core of all these jokes about “the wife” or “the old man” is that all straight couples, at heart, hate one another, and I find it profoundly depressing.

Here we go: The Doctor getting all straight-man possessive of her other beaux, but then all flighty when she wants commitment. River is the Wife, incarnate: all these inconvenient, uncomfortable feelings, wanting to drag the Doctor down and trap him into marriage, quite literally in that episode where she blackmails him into marriage. River's like the cool, sexy, independent girlfriend who turns into an awful nag as soon as she gets a wedding band and you can't get away from her.

I'm just gonna leavethis clip from Doomsday here.

Back to the key question: why this is a story or a character we should care about? Where do you see this relationship going next? I can't see Twelve “No-Hugs” as the Doctor who finally makes it happen for her, do you? Which means it's going nowhere.

I also don't like the idea that the Doctor is such a monolith, such a sunset, that he doesn't feel something as “small and ordinary” as love. The Doctor's defining characteristic, the thing that set him apart from his people, is that he does.

Apart from that, I liked it. Time heists are fun. Lots of good lines (“I'm going to take your organs out in alphabetical order” “Which alphabet?”; “Archaeology is just theft with patience”; “I've got a bad back. It's aching under the weight of carrying a whole stratum of society”)

And the Doc is doing his professorial thing again – expressing his delight in the TARDIS in terms of its technical perfection (“euclidean geometry has been destroyed!”), and his delight in the singing stones in terms of unusual crystals.

But overall, this episode is about that relationship. I certainly understand it now, but I'm demoralised that's what they've gone with. As they both say throughout this episode: “it's really sad”.

Other Thoughts

You could more charitably rewrite this review to say that the Doctor/River's relationship is more mature and unusual than a straightforward sweethearts romance. This would be true -if there had ever been any love or enthusiasm there on the Doctor's part. But if this is truly River towards the end of her timeline saying "he's never loved me", then...this isn't a mature relationship which has stabilised into fondness over time. It's a depressing mess. 

I'm thinking, uncharitably, of Bagpuss. 

I like the idea that future-earth colonies also have crappy Christmas lights.

I like the idea of a cruise liner specifically for the genocidal rich.

Face the Raven

Four word review: contrived and emotionally false.

It's amazing how an episode like Under the Lake can fit in so much, then there's an episode of the same length where nothing happened at all.

The single goal of fiction is to convince you that characters are real, and then make you care about them. I didn't care about Riggsy. I don't care about Me. I didn't even care about Clara, because I could feel the author manouvering them into place. Example: The shadow lock can be moved from person to person! But only once! And there was a deal with the shadows which means Riggsy would have been fine but Clara can't be, because we can't make a new deal. For reasons.

I can feel the author making it up as they go along. It's lazy plotting, and I don't accept it. The Doctor can say "There's something very wrong here...!" but I don't care unless I can feel it.

So many good ideas in here. The tattoo was creepy and cool. The street which looks like you expect it to, and of course a London hidden street would appear Victorian to people - even if the set was lousy. I liked mentioning Jane Austen again. I loved the scene of glasses over London.

But the whole thing lacked momentum, weight, depth.

Just go shuffle those pieces around so they're in the right place for the finale.

Other thoughts
"Infinite life, finite memory" - that's a lovely line of dialogue. That whole conversation where Clara is trying to grapple with a person who has entirely forgot their meeting, but knows they had one, was charming. The bit where Me pointedly assures Clara she is under her personal protection is less good. Oooooh! Foreshadowing!!!

"The Doctor is no longer here and you are stuck with me" - the one part of this whole episode which I believed. #valeyard

Also, the first time any Doctor has ever attempted to threaten someone with his huge reputation and I've believed it.

I think Masie Williams has been very cleverly cast in this role. We all know her as Arya, who is a little girl, even as we know that the actress is much older. That strangeness and double-seeing over her age works really well to suggest an ageless creature.

Season 9 titles????

What is with the beautiful, spooky, vaguely literary Doctor Who episode titles this season?

The Magician's Apprentice
Reminded me immediately of Narnia, but that's the Magician's Nephew. It's not quite the Sorcerer's Apprentice either (you know, with Mickey Mouse)

The Witch's Familiar
Doesn't remind me of anything, but it's beautiful. And what bearing does either have on the episode????

The Girl Who Died/The Woman Who Lived
Is, of course, from Harry Potter: The Boy Who Lived 

Sleep No More
Is the title of the Punchdrunk Macbeth production in New York;  the full quote is 

I thought I heard a voice cry, “Sleep no more! Macbeth is murdering sleep.”

Face the Raven
Poe, obvs. For the rest of time, there can be no other raven which won't remind someone of Edgar Allen Poe's poem.

They also seem to be really into their clever pairs:

The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar
Under the Lake; Before the Flood
The Girl Who Died; The Woman Who Lived
The Zygon Invasion; The Zygon Inversion
Hell Bent; Heaven Sent

Look, I know fans can build a theory out of old string and something Christopher Tolkien found on the back of a fag packet, but...

This is unusual and new. Is it meaningful?

The Zygon Invasion(s) Review!

That feel when you are watching media from the 50s/60s/70s/80s, and its a heavy-handed Cold War allegory.

I sometimes wonder at what point we will begin to eyeroll over media from the 90s/00s/10s and the War on Terror. Fascinatingly, I don't think Who has done it before.

I'm not entirely sure what the point of allegories are - to teach? for catharsis? just because it's in the zeitgeist, and the author was inspired? In any case, I can think of no nobler cause than shoving one in a kids TV show. Children are smart and brave, but often scared by the news, and I hope if nothing else this started some conversations with parents or each other, and got them thinking and asking questions.  

Also, nice timing there by the BBC, to get this out there before big terrorism news stories; later in the season and it would likely have been cancelled out of respect, which would have been sad indeed as these are stories we sorely need. Unfortunately for myself, I am several weeks behind, and upset.

*********************

It is at times like these that I love Doctor Who very much. It's all about being better than you are now. What a lovely message too. Just like last week, Zygon Invasion Part 2 starts with a thesis: the Osgoods, proposing the ideas which this episode will explore. They say that all races, and all people, are capable of the best and worst.



I liked that this episode had so many competent women. I *love* that they reimagined the Zygons as psychological horror. Doctor Who has enough Invadey Alien Races to last for the rest of time; they are scary and they shoot people and they're strong, or whatever. This is a smart, forward-looking choice, differentiating them from other Invadey Alien Races and opening up great new story ideas for future.


But there's quite a lot of poor plotting here:

Like, why when Sandeep said he didn't know where his parents were, did Clara just look straight in their flat? Surely Sandeep is smart enough to have done that already. Surely you start by asking "when did you last see them?"

Like when the army commander insists that they don't know the Zygon's movements or numbers, while standing in their headquarters which is stuffed with intel, and a map of their movements, which she is proposing to blow up without taking so much as a selfie.

And too many scenes with a bunch of soldiers standing around! Like when the cute captain is talking with his mother, and decides to go inside. No response from the other soldiers? No questions? Or when evil-Clara kills those UNIT people. Again - the soldiers are just standing there, not responding until it is their time to die.

And generally the pace was lumpy. I think I would have liked it less if not for the sense of occasion; those are not small complaints, I hate when I feel an author is railroading characters towards the next set piece. You can thank the international terrorist fraternity that this episode is 8/10 rather than 7/10, and I anticipate being less forgiving in future.

But it also had so many cool ideas. I liked the two Osgoods and their insistence that no one tell them apart; the terrified Zygon in the mart; I always love a good spooky dreamspace. Lots of good dialogue. As for the end - I have been waiting for this. You've had Peter bloody Capaldi for two whole seasons. Use him! 

It all comes back to the cold war. UNIT fought the cold-war every week. Week after week of alien invasions on earth, half of them explicitly about Russians, and the other half at the very least about loss of Empire, about England's colonial history coming to get it, about the machinations of a swarthy Oriental gent being foiled by men called Lethbridge, Benton, Sullivan and Yates. It's truly fitting, and rather cool, that the UNIT-Invasion story is reimagined in this way for the next generation.


**********

OTHER THOUGHTS

Doctor Disco is a Latin pun, I presume. Disco, discere - to learn; doceo, docere, doctum - to teach; doctor - teacher.

"In the 70s, 80s..." woo hoo UNIT dating controversy

Bit intense for a Saturday. Note that the Zygon commanders turn back from little girls to monster form before they are killed on screen.

"This is your fault"
"No it's not."

I love how the British Zygons then become an allegory for Mexican immigrants in the American border town.

"You said that the last 15 times."

NEVER USE THE GAS - PSA FROM SEABASE 6.

Before the Flood

Quite masterly.

That beginning: the Doctor, unexpectedly addressing the camera, with his ferocious intelligence - teaching, because Twelve is the discovery Doctor. He wants to know, and today he wants you to know too. More than that: this episode is structured like an essay, and this is its thesis.


Before the Flood doesn't *quite* manage to keep up with its predecessor, Under the Lake. But that's OK. I can't remember the last time I was quite as excited by any Doctor Who, or indeed any television, as I was about Under the Lake. Before the Flood doesn't hit all the beats, but it hits enough to be a satisfying sequel.

One of the biggest problems is that the pace drops - immediately. Under the Lake was so freakin exciting - thrilling both to the pulse and the brain. Before the Flood is slow to get going, and that's a shame. The Doctor says "quick, back to the TARDIS" at least three times, like it's still the 1980s and they have two hours of story to pad out.

The cold war village is a cool concept. So is a space hearse (one wonders if they have seen Blake's 7: Sarcophagus, another cool episode about a hearse in space; it also reminds me of Mawdryn Undead). I was less excited by the Tivolians and the Fisher King.



Clara/Doctor now reminds me of Ace and Seven in many ways. But I like that Clara is smart enough to call him on his bollocks; the Doctor always needs that, and Twelve more than anyone. He trusts her, like he trusted Ace - competent, equal, life partner, whatever. I love the way she switches between referring to the ghost as "him" and "you", depending on whether she perceives it as the Doctor or not.

Here, he is more invigorated than scared by the idea of investigating his own murder; doesn't understand that it's creepy; and especially, that it's creepy to let other people die to test a theory. "You didn't try very hard," as Bennett points out.

As for Clara - this exchange? This is what I wanted from Rory:

DOCTOR: Listen to me. We all have to face death eventually, be it ours or someone else's.
CLARA: I'm not ready yet. I don't want to think about that, not yet.
DOCTOR: I can't change what's already happened. There are rules.
CLARA: So break them. And anyway, you owe me. You've made yourself essential to me. You've given me something else to, to be. And you can't do that and then die. It's not fair.
DOCTOR: Clara.
CLARA: No. Doctor, I don't care about your rules or your bloody survivor's guilt. If you love me in any way, you'll come back. Doctor, are you?

When Rory and Amy discover they had a baby, and that baby was stolen from them, this is what I wanted to hear. I wanted the episode where they knock the Doctor out and attempt to go rescue their child, damn time and all else. At the very least, I wanted them to have this conversation. Instead, they shrugged and accepted Eleven's logic, and off they went for more fun.


I'm looking forward to what sort of damage a thrill-seeking, newly bereaved companion and an analytical Doctor who both have a casual relationship with smashing up time can do.


OTHER STUFF

This review written from four-week-old notes, hence the choppiness and lack of detail.

O'DONNELL: So, pre-Harold Saxon. Pre-the Minister of War. Pre-the moon exploding and a big bat coming out.
DOCTOR: The Minister of War?
O'DONNELL: Yeah.
DOCTOR: No, never mind. I expect I'll find out soon enough.

I loved the silent argument.

VALEYARD TIME: My hypothesis for the Valeyard, which exists between the Twelfth and Thirteenth incarnations, is based in the Time War. The Doctor's guilt would eventually weigh him down so far that he longs for Gallifrey, and even comes around to thinking Gallifreyan dispassion is right, and that's how he becomes such a pretentious council toady. And he would become increasingly cold, logical, meddling in time as he chooses, and seeing the big picture over the small - like Seven writ large, or Rassilon. Making unconsciable changes to suit his own cold agenda. Like: "I'm going to save Clara and no-one's going to stop me". Twelve even looks Valeyardy, all drawn and wan.

The Magician's Apprentice

What a promising mess.

The new series has constantly, constantly suffered from this sort of flabby, indulgent plot. Moff and RTD both. It's contrived, and charcters behave bizzarely just to navigate the plot to the BIG EMOTIONAL MOMENTS which the writer wants to steer to. I'll be happy if there was never a prophecy about the Doctor's death never again. No more "his time has come", no more cryptic "Davros remembers". For what it's worth, I don't buy a Doctor who would go gentle into that good night. Coward - every time.

The Doctor walks into a trap, and is surprised when it's traumatic? He's smarter than that - he ought to have a plan. My favourite Doc-Villain confrontation of all time is in Timelash, that well-known stinker of an episode. In that episode, Six also willingly walks in to appeal to a villain's better nature. But by god he has a plan in case that doesn't work. Believe the best, and plan for the worst - that seems like the only logical course of action for a 900 year old genius to take. Now I liked self-hate as a Nine and Ten thing, but I don't think willingly walking to his death for no good reason bar angst is an innately Doctorish quality. It's not just out of character, though - it's unsatisfying for the audience. So far in this series, our hero has had no agency. I'd really rather watch the Missy-And-Clara show.

Clara continues to be the best damn thing in this show. I loved her last series, and continue to do so. She is the hero I want. I continue to struggle with Capaldi's performance - he's too prickly, too cold. But Clara is smart, compassionate, enthusiastic, bursting with life and generally proactive. I feel safe with her on screen, in a way I don't about the Doctor - and that is a serious flaw.

Last night I caught some Sylvester McCoy, and it just hit home what is missing. Doctor Seven is arguably the most terrifying and chilly of the incarnations. Doctor Seven saw everything on an infinite scale, and was constantly crushing butterflies to prevent them flapping their wings and causing hurricaines down the line. Time's Champion - the Oncoming Storm - the Destroyer of Worlds - the Cosmic Chessmaster. He's small and unassuming, and you underestimate him at your peril because there's a chance he's already defeated you before you start your war. He's also manipulating his companion, Ace, constantly pulling strings behind her back for her own good. Yet Seven and Ace's relationship is one of the warmest, one of the sweetest in the whole series. He loves jazz; he plays the spoons; he whistles like a bird. I feel safe with Doc Seven - even though he does some lousy things, you do like him and you can see why Ace flies with him. Not so Twelve - I wouldn't trust him not to ditch me on a planet on a whim, without looking through all the other options first.

With that in mind, I loved his introduction this series. You have no idea how important seeing this Doctor rescue someone is to me - I have yet to see enough hero. "You have a thousand to one chance of living. So concetrate on the one." is a template for how this Doc ought to be written going forward. He can be pessimistic and blunt, but that must be tempered by hope and heroism somewhere down the line.

Of course - he didn't save the kid. But we live in hope.

Ohhh, and Missy. When UNIT figured out that the schtick with the planes was someone looking for attention - I should have guessed. This episode was such a gift to Master fans. I like her. I think she is potentially the greatest Master ever - or at least, certianly a worthy successor, a clear part of what came before. She's goofy, dangerous, cold, anarchic, and she manages to capture
the kiss-you-or-kill-you relationship with the Doc with perfect ambiguity. When they are plonked on the floor in the Dalek cell, Missy doesn't sit like a woman - or even an adult. And she doesn't move or sit like she knows she's wearing a dress (if you've ever worn a full skirt and a corset, you know it changes your entire posture and bearing - Missy might as well be wearing a hologram). The way she moves is indefinably alien, uncanny valley in a bustle and boots. Like the best Doctors and Masters both, you forget at your peril that they are not human.

I've always liked the idea of the Master travelling with a companion, and Clara is a perfect foil. That scene in the square as the Master takes tea makes canon the things which were long subtextual.

Of course the Doctor let the Master survive and didn't tell anyone; and "of course" the Doctor's will was delivered to her too. "Since always" is probably the best encapsulation of their friendship that could be (childish and insistant, in defiance of all the facts). I have always privately believed that Timelord sexuality is considerably more weird and cerebral than ours, so the Master's comment "don't be disgusting, we're Timelords, not animals" makes perfect sense. Timelords, in the books at least, are birthed in looms - and when you see them, they are cold and staid. You can tell that indulging in emotions and the senses is unbecoming. The Doctor, in contrast, is so passionate - he loves good food, and wine, and humans with all their funny emotions, and probably sex too. One imagines the Timelords are embarassed by how far he's gone native - getting involved when he should merely watch and record, and drinking fine red wines and buying a car and all manner of unmentionable indulgences. With all that already in my mind - I like an onscreen clarification that the Master-Doctor's relationship is canonically important, but also far huger and weirder than Clara can really wrap her head around.

OK, let's talk about the Daleks and Davros now.

Who else guessed that was Skaro? A radioactive wasteland with bows and arrows, bombs and weird mutated things. The hand mines are one of the first Moff gimmick monsters I've loved in ages - very scary, but kinda camp and pun-full at the same time. How brilliantly 80s Who.

Stories about the Doctor wiping out the Daleks - especially ones where he wipes them out before they are created - is an old, familiar tale. Some might say, too iconic to touch again. But you could also say that it is an important part of the Dalek trope, and it's as impossible to do Daleks without that conversation as it is to do it without "exterminate". Moff acknowledges this hallowed ground by incorporating the old Doctor quotes - especially Four in Genesis of the Daleks, which is the touchstone for this plot. I liked Davros' reintroduction - tired and old, almost Vaderlike in his coccoon.

I'm not sure how far the Doctor's choice not to save baby Davros made sense - not least because maybe the name "Davros" is like Smith, Khan or Singh on Skaro. Did he think that Davros would die there...? Seeing as, presumably, the Daleks were always going to be created anyway - wouldn't it be better to do the right thing and save him? Maybe I have such a feeble sense of this doctor's personality because his leading trait is vacillation - neither saving nor killing a child, but opting out of responsibility or interest.

This was a deeply continuity-based episode, and I wonder how that was recieved by the Not-We. Clearly, Davros backstory + Skaro + revisiting Genesis + the relationship counselling with the Master is ortolans and caviar to the We, but for a casual fan those things lack emotional depth and significance. If you haven't seen Genesis of the Daleks, and don't already know who Davros is, and didn't squeal over the old-style Daleks - there's not much for you here. Nevertheless, I loved the ambition - hopping from planet to planet and time to time to knot one huge plot together. Brave and brilliant.

I am looking forward to seeing where this goes, but my expectations are quite low - I expect part 2 will suffer from the same fluffy, angst-driven plotting as part 1 was.

A lot will depend on the Doctor - especially now Missy and Clara are out of action. What I need to see is a sense of person, of an inner man - I still can't do you a thumbnail sketch of either of Moff's Doctors, they seem too diffuse, too much a collection of ideas that never quite come together to form a complete personality. I would also like to see, as I said, some heroism. Doctors have always been dangerous, petulant, abrasive and able to make tough choices. But that's only half of it. Give me the other half.


Great lines
"I spent yesterday in a bow tie. I spent the day before in a long scarf."
"How scared must you be to seal your own kind in tanks"

"Jane Austen - phenomenal kisser"

"tread softly"

Miscellany

• Massive unbelieveable plothole - the moment Clara says "Quick, kids! Turn on your phones!". What sort of secondary school allows students mobile phones?!
• Did you see them include a Sixth Doctor quote? I say this because when they do "old-Doctor-montages", they inevitably cut the Sixth Doctor out.
• Kate! 
• Anyone else spot they are playing Nick Cave in the cantina in the future?
• I loved the idea of a character who is, in fact, a Colony. That's a pleasing bit of future-writing. 
• When i wrote my master spinoff, he liked the song Micky.
• The Master and Clara stepping out into the stars is a 100% Fiona Cummings moment, and no one will tell me otherwise. 
• I love the title. Does anyone know why they chose it? I love it because I've no idea what it means, and that reminds me of the enigmatic Fifth Doctor episode titles. Enlightenment. Four to Doomsday (four what?!). Castrovalva. 

Timanov's Ongoing Count Of Times The Master Mentions Burning: 2
Steve Moffat Tropewatch: important children: 1
Number of people the Doctor has rescued: 0