Day Three Hundred and Fifty-eight - Dr.Who: Series 5, Episodes 1-7, "And it's Matt Smith and Karen Gillan for the win... sortof! Win-ish? Win-ny? Win-like? Win-adjacent?"

With David Tennant bowing out of his role as the Tenth Doctor and Matt Smith tagging in, it's a whole new Doctor, TARDIS, and companion as the fifth series of modern Doctor Who visits old enemies and new, all with a brand new face.

The first episode of the series picks up where the poignant finale of the last left off, with Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor crashing the TARDIS post regeneration. He winds up landing in a small English village where a young Scottish girl (the difference is important) is praying for help dealing with a strange crack in her wall. This crack is the series arc dilemma for this season, but we'll get to that. The main thing is new Doctor, new companion, new everything!

Getting his face on The Doctor briefly (from his perspective) leaves young Amy Pond to rough in his new TARDIS and meets her again in the same spot twelve years later where she has become a fetching lass with a humdrum life... and is still in danger from what escaped the crack in her wall, a multiform alien who is being chased by jailers who have no problem razing the Earth to get it.

This is a very fun episode mostly due to the cooking scene at the beginning where child-Amy fixes the brand new Doctor almost everything she has in her cupboard one after another while he rejects them comically. It drags on a good five minutes or so and is cute and funny. The alien menace itself is rather boring, be it Prisoner Zero or the Atraxi. There is one moment, though, at the end, where The Doctor rolls a natural 20 on his intimidation roll against the Atraxi that almost gives me chills and references all of the Doctors through the ages on up to him.

The world saved once more, The Doctor and Amy travel to a far-flung future where the United Kingdom is a ship soaring through space, but something sinister lurks in the shadows (and has an appropriately creepy series of faces). Along the way, they meet Queen Elizabeth the Tenth, who is very fetching, and managed to save both the last Space Whale and the entire United Kingdom.

The memory gimmick in this episode is by far the most interesting aspect, though I do love the Winders' plastic heads. There's something very Bioshock about this episode that really appeals to my aesthetic sensibilities. Plus, Karen Gillan in PJs... even chaste-cover-everything-PJs... rawr!

From there they go back in time to World War 2 where Winston Churchill (played by Ian McNeice, whom I last saw in Doc Martin) is fighting off the Nazi Blitz with the help of one of The Doctor's oldest enemies... of course, The Daleks. I suppose it could've been The Cybermen, but seriously? Did we need more Daleks? Isn't it so convenient that ANOTHER set of Daleks survived the apocalypse that supposedly destroyed them all the previous season?

Ugh.

Honestly, the only thing to like about this episode is McNeice's Churchhill, which is surprising less grumpier than I ever imagined him, and Amy's bouncy attitude, despite being in the middle of the Second World War.

Moving on, we get to something I really liked... a two-parter that features both my favorite villain, The Weeping Angels, and my favorite companion, River Song. Set in the future, The Doctor comes to River's rescue and joins a team of religious soldiers who are tasked with neutralizing a single Angel but find themselves facing an army of them.

River (Alex Kingston) is a delight, as always, but I do find myself disappointed a bit with the Angels. While the device of "Angel Bob" is pretty catchy, one of the things I really liked about the Angels is that they never moved in our sight because the act of observing them turned them to stone. This was a device that applied to the Fourth Wall as well! They never moved in the VIEWER'S sight... which was a brilliant nod to quantum mechanics. Sadly, this device is betrayed late in the second half of the two-parter when the Angels start moving to chase Amy. So disappointing.

Still... River Song. Love her sooooooo much.

Two more episodes for the day and the first is a trip to historical Venice after picking up Rory, Amy's fiance. Seems that Amy's a little confused thanks to all the adventuring and has a bit of a jones for The Doctor, now, that he is eager to nip in the bud with a romantic trip for the young couple to Venice... which is being dominated by not-vampires.

For the most part, this episode is a throwaway. The villains are boring (and occasionally CGI) and the problems/solutions are your typical Whovian nonsense. I do, however, like the competition between Rory and The Doctor. The pseudo-love triangle at play here is the only real fun to be had.

Lastly for the night, The Doctor, Amy, and Rory are trapped in dreamworlds being tormented by a Dream Lord who has it in for them for some reason. In one world, Rory and Amy are married with a bun in the oven and in the other they're falling into a "cold star." The trick is only one world is real and they have to choose which one to abandon via death. Choose right, they die in one world and wake in the real one. Choose wrong? Well, I think you get the idea.

It's a silly premise that is supposed to add emotional weight to the characters, but I don't think we've had enough time with them for the sort of deep, personal epiphanies that Amy and Rory are having here. That said, the Dream Lord is being played by Toby Jones, an actor whom I quite like (check out Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and his other works when you get a chance).

All in all, an uneven start, I think, for Matt Smith's Doctor... but he's still better than Eccleston and has almost as much charisma and pluck as David Tennant. Speaking of, The Tenth seemed to have more fire and wrath to him that The Eleventh just doesn't seem to engender just yet. I do like the sexier TARDIS and opening theme song, though, so there's that.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

7!

Day Two Hundred and Thirty-nine - Doc Martin: Season 1, Episode 1, "Now THAT'S the Doc that I remember!"

It's been a little while since the last time I watched Doc Martin for Couchbound. If you'll recall, I was originally interested because the British production was one of several shows that I hoped to share with my mother, her tastes running a bit more dry and... well, British, in comparison to my own (I don't think she's ever enjoyed a movie that I've brought over).

Still, it was weird having the Doc be all goofy and generally amiable as opposed to the snippets of short antipathy that I'd become used to when visiting the folks over many weekends, catching a random episode or two of the series as opposed the the prequel movie that I saw on the Stream last time.

As mentioned before, the movie Doc Martin is much different in terms of personality (and last name) than the series Doc Martin, even though they're both played by the same man, Martin Clunes.

There he was escaping a failed marriage whilst inadvertently solving a village mystery. Here, in the first episode of the series, he's escaping a blood phobia (thought you'd only get that from the description as it's only mildly implied in the first episode) whilst exposing infidelity and leering at the town's schoolmarm.

I must say, I definitely like this version better, as he's much more succinct and terse... closer to Gregory House than Patch Adams and, being the grouchy American that I am, you can certainly tell which way I would lean.

I also like how the clues for the weekly mystery are laid out nicely but not thrown in your face. Sure, the quirky medical problem is a bit of a lark, but it's not bandied about across the screen in gratuitous fashion. Instead, there's a certain modicum of, well, tact... that I very much appreciate.

While, yes, you can immediately tell who Doc Martin's love interest is going to be as she is pretty much the only woman in town the right age and challenging and intelligent enough, the implied attraction and social awkwardness is subdued enough so as to be rather pleasant as opposed to the constant Moonlighting syndrome that most (American) television shows have.

Come to think, that's something that I believe most British shows have on their American counterparts, credit that I can even give to Rose Tyler and whichever Doctor she is on during her run as a Companion.

Quick shout out to Ian McNeice who plays a supporting role in the series. He's a funny guy and plays his well meaning jack of all trades with a keen sense of comedic timing that reminds me of John Goodman... or, maybe it's just that they're both large men? Either way, I love them both dearly, most especially McNeice here in Doc Martin, though I think that my favorite role of his was in the update of Dune where he was the Baron Harkonnen.

In any case, the first episode is a fairly decent start for the series and I look forward to seeing more from the characters. Sure, it's a bit awkward seeing the transition from the film version to the television one, and that's something that will probably never leave my mind, but even so the changes that were made work really quite well.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~