Author: Michael Falkner

Timestamp #40: The Enemy of the World

Michael Falkner12 Comments

Doctor Who: The Enemy of the World
(6 episodes, s05e17-e22, 1967-68)

Timestamp 040 The Enemy of the World

This was one of the best in the season so far, especially that action-filled pulse-pounding opening sequence.

The TARDIS arrives (in stealth mode, nonetheless – no VROOP!) in a near future dominated by a rising world dictator named Salamander. The twist? The Doctor looks just like him. Despite all the confusion, The Doctor explains that he and his companions don’t know of current world events because they’ve been out of touch for a while… “on ice” if you will. That callback was a nice touch considering the theme of the first three serials in this series.

Since it’s the only way out from between the rock and a hard place, The Doctor agrees to impersonate Salamander. Patrick Troughton, an actor with whom I have no experience outside of Doctor Who, is amazing in this serial. He portrays three distinct characters in this – the Doctor, Salamander, and the fake Salamander – and his acting ability is superb.

Jamie stages an attempt to save Salamander to gain the dictator’s confidence, and as a result gets himself and Victoria hired onto Salamander’s staff. This introduces the crotchety chef, a character that I love, who provides a great humor break in the seriousness of this story.

Benik is deliciously mustache-twirlingly evil and creepy, even though it’s over the top, and the refugees hidden underground are another nice twist. The Doctor also understands the internet: “Strange isn’t it? People spend their time making nice things and other people come along and break them.”

This was an excellent political thriller with a small sci-fi twist, especially since the Doctor refuses to personally act against Salamander without concrete proof that the man is evil. It was a good break from the “defend the base from the invading alien” stories, even with an abrupt ending. Salamander meets a fitting end.

I watched the reconstructed version. It’s now a mission to watch this in the recently recovered full version.

 

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Web of Fear

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

 

 

 

Timestamp #39: The Ice Warriors

Michael Falkner9 Comments

Doctor Who: The Ice Warriors
(6 episodes, s05e11-e16, 1967)

Timestamp 039 The Ice Warriors

 

Traveling through time and space, and it’s like they never left. Except this time, the TARDIS is sideways.

Come to think of it, I’m a little surprised that the TARDIS doesn’t have its own gravity. I mean, sure it makes for great comedy to have the ship fall over and everyone topple, but it seems rather unsafe from the materialization aspect. Imagine that the ship lands, falls off a cliff, and the Doctor wastes a regeneration because he snapped his neck by crashing into the library wall at full speed.

Anyway… I digress.

It’s an ice age in the far future, and people are dependent on computers to such an extent that they can’t even make simple decisions on their own. It’s so bad that the team’s leader, Clent, makes the Doctor prove his qualifications after the Time Lord saves the base and their lives. Part of me wanted the Doctor to just walk away and let this civilization freeze. It seems that the Doctor is a better man than me.

This future came about because of artificial crops, which minimized the need for real plants. As they died off, less carbon dioxide was produced and the Earth’s heat was no longer retained. I’m going to stop here and quote another good doctor: “Now wait just a damn minute!”

It’s been a few years since my high school biology class, but I seem to remember plants consuming CO2 and producing O2. The science was a bit lacking in this episode. I understand that they corrected it in the novelization, which is technically canon, but I’m not pursuing the books or audio dramas at this point.

These humans have discovered something called an Ice Warrior. Long story short: It wakes up and explains that it hails from Mars and has been frozen for millennia, and he needs his warriors to decide whether to invade or leave. It forces Victoria to find a power pack and goes to thaw his compatriots. After Victoria is kidnapped, Jamie and Arden set out to rescue Victoria from the Ice Warriors, but they get ambushed and left for dead. Luckily, Jamie is rescued by scavengers.

The Doctor develops a plan to use ammonium sulfide to incapacitate the Ice Warriors – I loved how he tested the chemical dispenser, since he’s been so skeptical of this civilization, by having it create water – and ventures off to the Martian ship. Of course the humans protest because they can’t afford to lose anyone else, but the Doctor was right: He was superfluous at the base.

The Ice Warriors are fighting the scientists because they think the ionizer, which is used to melt the ice, is a weapon. They’ve decided to leave (good!), but first have to invade the base (bad!) to get fuel for their ship. That plan begins with trying to shatter the base’s protective dome with a sonic gun. After the Doctor incapacitates the Ice Warrior gunner with the ammonium sulfide mix, he and Victoria change some settings and make the sonic gun more likely to hurt the Ice Warriors.

I would have had sympathy for the Ice Warriors because they were trying to leave somewhat peacefully, but then they started being violent to get the fuel. I had no problem with their (probably not so) final fate. The computer can’t help because it’s built to preserve itself and the society, so it short circuits and the scavengers save the day by firing the ionizer at the ship and disintegrating it.

Victoria really did a good job in this episode of carrying her own. Sure, she was a bit of a damsel in distress, but she also was great in moving the plot. I especially loved how she couldn’t describe the specifics of the Ice Warrior ionic engine, not because she was stupid, but because she didn’t have the words based on her temporal reference. I can forgive the earlier scientific snafu for that brilliance.

I can also forgive the generated apathy for the humans. They were supposed to be frustrating in their dependence on a self-serving computer. What’s harder to forgive is the plot convenience of the Ice Warriors actually having enough fuel to start lifting off. That negates any intelligence I attributed to the Ice Warriors because they attacked for no reason. It’s also lazy plot continuity.

Overall, The Ice Warriors is a fun enough story, but the plot and scripting are all over the place. I’d give it a 3.5, but the scoring method is based on whole numbers, and I follow the trend of John and Paul at Cyborgs: A Bionic Podcast by being optimistic when in doubt.

 


Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Enemy of the World

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

 

 

Timestamp #38: The Abominable Snowmen

Michael Falkner9 Comments

Doctor Who: The Abominable Snowmen
(6 episodes, s05e05-e10, 1967)

Timestamp 038 The Abominable Snowmen

 

The Doctor is excited to be back in Tibet, has a Holy Ghanta to return to the local monastery, and the adventure begins with murder. The Doctor’s warm furry coat gets him confused with the real monster of the week, the Yeti, who is actually pretty convincing for the 1960s. Meanwhile, the local monks are battling the Yeti, who is a robot being controlled by Padmasambhava, the High Lama of the monastery, who is himself being controlled by The Great Intelligence.

The Great Intelligence… wait, I know that one! This nemesis has something for the cold, doesn’t it?

It’s a pretty simple story from there: The Great Intelligence wants to take over the world and our heroes unlock the puzzle to stop it. Cue the big explosion at the end to wrap it all up. Victoria continues to grow on me with her desire to explore and strength of character. Jamie is still doing his thing as the vocal compass of the team.

Overall, it’s a good story and an entertaining time.

Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Ice Warriors

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

 

 

 

 

Culture on My Mind – A Symbol, for Which it Stands

Michael Falkner3 Comments

Culture on My Mind

Culture on My Mind
A Symbol, for Which it Stands
June 23, 2015

The power of symbols is not lost on me, and I often find myself divided between two camps. On the one hand, symbols can carry a tremendous amount of weight and history. On the other, symbols can be repurposed and reclaimed to support anything.

The most obvious historical example is the swastika, which originally was a sign of luck across various cultures that became a symbol of oppression and hatred. Unfortunately, negative connotations often carry more weight than positives, easily rendering the positive meaning impotent. Now, the swastika is avoided in Western culture because of its connection to the Holocaust.

In the United States, the Confederate Battle Flag is a prevalent symbol south of the Mason-Dixon Line, and is used to rally southern pride. Developed during the American Civil War as a distinctive symbol (since the Confederate States of America’s official flag was confusingly similar to that of the United States), each star signified a member state in the new nation, and was indicative of the unified drive for states’ rights that sparked the rebellion. It has two visually similar cousins, the Second Confederate Navy Jack and the battle flag of the Army of Tennessee.

The battle flag of the Army of Tennessee, commonly displayed as the Confederate flag.

As it signified “states’ rights,” I supported the South’s continued use of the flag, even with the understanding that the Civil War was also partly driven by the topic of slavery.  I had no concrete proof that slavery was the prime reason for the tensions, but was instead a secondary concern. Even in 1860, a year or so before the Civil War began, slavery was treated as a states’ rights issue; Southern Democrats endorsed the practice, Republicans denounced it, and Northern Democrats said democracy required the people to decide locally, state by state, territory by territory.

It should go without saying that I do not personally support slavery, but to understand the motivations of the time, I also need to consider the era. It wasn’t necessarily a moral issue, but rather a political one.

Then I found the Cornerstone Address.

The Constitution of the Confederate States of America was adopted on March 11, 1861. Ten days later, Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the new nation, delivered a speech in Athens, Georgia that outlined the fundamental differences between the CSA and the USA. Among those differences was what he called the “immediate cause” of secession and rebellion: Slavery.

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

Deeper into the address, Stephens elaborates on this fundamental difference, lamenting that the United States was “attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.”

After applying the lens of modern society to this revelation, I had no choice but to step back from my support of the states’ rights argument: It’s plain as day that the core point of contention between the Blue and the Gray wasn’t state autonomy at all, but instead a policy of oppression and subjugation that we deplore in modern times. In fact, this nation fights against such policies and regimes in foreign countries all the time. Why is it any different when the conflict is here at home?

Historians often ignore this speech, and detractors suggest that it was only one speech by one man over a century ago, so it shouldn’t matter. The problem lies in the man who delivered the address. The Office of the Vice President was nearly identical between both the United States and the Confederate States, and therefore held the same authority when speaking with the power of the position. Consider if any sitting Vice President in the modern era made a similar speech about using executive or legislative policy to enable subjugation of a race. He or she would be castigated, repudiated, and likely forced to immediately resign.

The articles of secession provide further evidence: Four of the states issued additional declarations of cause that strongly defended slavery as a reason to secede. Those four states – Georgia, Mississippi, Texas, and South Carolina – were among the first seven to leave the Union. Texas and two other states – Alabama and Virginia, the fourth and eighth states to secede, respectively – mentioned slavery in their secession acts. Of the six states with slavery as a declared priority, five of them were among the seven state signatories to the Confederate Constitution. That’s a clear majority of the founders of the Confederacy.

It’s clear with respect to history that the Confederacy stood for racism to achieve states’ rights, and the ends cannot justify the means.

I certainly don’t suggest that anyone who uses the symbols of the Confederacy is a racist or supports slavery, but I do believe that the motivations of the past should be considered when voicing support. Boldly proclaiming that “the South shall rise again” takes on a whole new tone when the true aims of the defeated Confederate States are added to the mix.

I believe citizens and governments should honestly deliberate over state-sponsored use of Confederate symbols. These symbols have power and history, and as mentioned before, the negatives tend to outweigh the positives. States speak for their citizens, and should not wave the sins of the past over the families of the oppressed.

I don’t support a full ban of the symbols, as bans create an allure of mystery and taboo. We as a people need to learn from our history and mistakes, and never forget the past. To that end, I believe that the southern states should seriously consider removing the Stars and Bars from flagpoles, and to paraphrase Indiana Jones, place them where they belong – in a museum.

cc-break

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Culture on My Mind – Best Day of Television

Michael Falkner1 Comment

Culture on My Mind

Culture on My Mind
Best Day of Television
June 5, 2015

A meme has been making the rounds on Facebook about getting children into nature, claiming that kids “don’t remember their best day of television.” Thankfully, many of the people in my geeky circles have torn it apart with their best life-changing television memories.

Photo originally posted by the Children & Nature Network page on Facebook

Mine was May 23, 1994. The episode was “All Good Things…”, the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was the first time I had ever seen a television show do what is now considered a proper wrap-up of story lines from the series, and it still ranks up there with “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen” from M*A*S*H as one of my favorites farewells in television history.

While the Children & Nature Network has a point in unplugging kids and getting them into the world around them – I spent a great deal of time in nature and away from tech in my youth over many years working on my Eagle Scout award and as a volunteer Trail Patrol member at Antelope Island State Park – this meme easily glosses over the effect that good television has on people. Good stories, regardless of medium, transport your imagination away from the burdens of reality and allow you to dream and hope, and fosters creativity.

Yes, even kids can understand the burdens of the real world and create imaginative wonders to solve them. Anecdotally, I know a successful filmmaker and writer who escaped abuse at home through the wonders of Star Wars. A more concrete example is the duo of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the high school teens who created Superman to battle the social injustices of the 1930s.

My love of speculative fiction stems from being introduced to Star Trek and Lost in Space by my father, and the plethora of action, adventure, and science fiction that dominated the 1980s television landscape. My imagination is still fueled by those memories to this day.

In the end, kids will remember their best days so long as those days are spent seeking their bliss. The trick is finding out what fuels their passions while guiding them into the world at large. All things in moderation.

cc-break

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Timestamp #37: The Tomb of the Cybermen

Michael Falkner9 Comments

Doctor Who: The Tomb of the Cybermen
(4 episodes, s05e01-e04, 1967)

Timestamp 037 The Tomb of the Cybermen

The fifth series starts right where the fourth left off with Victoria joining the crew.

The travelers arrive on the homeworld of the Cybermen to find an archaeology team researching the titular tomb. It’s a nice parallel to the previous serial, which briefly (re)visited the homeworld of the Daleks. As they explore, they unravel more of the enemy’s background. I had seen the cybermats before on the recent series episodes, so it’s good closure on my end to see where the mechanical caterpillars originate.

The team restores power to the complex and awakens the tomb, but the rocket ship is broken and the pilot is distrustful, so the team is stranded. Of course, the Doctor can leave anytime, but he chooses to remain, and the story continues with members of the exploration team belonging to the Brotherhood of Logicians, who want to add the Cybermen’s power to the Brotherhood’s intelligence.

I like the design of the Cybercontroller with the semi-transparent brain cavity, but those voices are still hard to understand at times. We also discover that these Cybermen are related to those from the assault on the moon base.  Once again, without explanation, they recognize the Doctor despite his new persona, but they do explain that the moon base attack was motivated by fear of becoming extinct thanks to the First Doctor’s actions toward Mondas.

An artifact of the 1960s are the stunt wires, which are plainly visible during the fight on my plasma screen, but were probably easily hidden on CRTs half a century ago.

The companions get some nice beats in this serial. First, Victoria reflects on her family and the terror of the Daleks with counsel from the Doctor. She’s very innocent, but very loyal. Jamie also gets to exploit his very well-developed relationship with the Doctor, especially in one exchange that made me guffaw. When discussing the minds of the cybermats:

“You might say they’ve had a complete metal breakdown.”

“Oooh.”

“Sorry.”

In another mythology-building moment, The Doctor advocates using a firearm to kill as he has no other choice, but then rejects it moments later when he enters the tomb to finish off the Cybermen. He also wraps up this serial with a refusal to make predictions about the end of the Cybermen, even though he was really really sure about the Daleks just days earlier. Spoiler alert, Doctor: They both come back.

I think Series Five has set a high bar with an excellent adventure.

 

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Abominable Snowmen

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

Timestamp: Fourth Series Summary

Michael Falkner4 Comments

Doctor Who: Fourth Series Summary

Timestamp Logo First

 

This only contains the reviews for the Second Doctor since the First Doctor episodes in the fourth series were average as part of the First Doctor’s summary.

I was really skeptical about this season after The Power of the Daleks and The Highlanders came out so strong, and then The Underwater Menace took a nose-dive. The gradual climb back to the 3 and 4 range with the final four serials was rough in some spots, but a welcome return to what I came to expect from the first three seasons.

Looking back, I shouldn’t have been worried: This season earned higher grades than all but one of the First Doctor’s years, and has been just about as even as I look back over the spreadsheet I’m using to keep track.

Yes, I’m using a spreadsheet. Yes, I’m a nerd. But you knew that, since I’m devoting the time to watch Doctor Who from the very beginning.

Anyway, this start for the Second Doctor is very promising as we head into the fifth season.

 

The Power of the Daleks – 5
The Highlanders  – 4
The Underwater Menace – 2
The Moonbase – 3
The Macra Terror – 3
The Faceless Ones – 4
The Evil of the Daleks – 4

Series Four (Second Doctor) Average Rating: 3.6/5

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Tomb of the Cybermen

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

Culture on My Mind – Cleaning Up After the Storm: Reflections on Black Widow in the Age of Ultron

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind

Culture on My Mind
Cleaning Up After the Storm: Reflections on Black Widow in the Age of Ultron
May 14, 2015

scarlett

Natasha Romanoff, better known as Black Widow, is a strong female character and role model in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe.

Throughout the movies so far, she has held her own as an agent of SHIELD and as an Avenger. She has capably stopped threats both on a planetary and galactic scale, ranging from Justin Hammer’s robot army and HYDRA to Loki and the Chitauri. In the aftermath of Avengers: Age of Ultron, her status remains unchanged.

Both critics and audiences have responded phenomenally to the newest installment in the record-breaking franchise, but complaints have still arisen about how Black Widow has been treated by marketing and the film itself. Chief among those grievances is the phenomenon of “Mommy Widow,” a claim that writers and directors are betraying the character by spotlighting her maternal instincts.

In the film, Romanoff and Bruce Banner (human alter-ego to the Incredible Hulk) have developed a relationship. During a peaceful interlude at Hawkeye’s pastoral farmhouse, Romanoff and Banner are discussing their future together, and Banner laments that they can’t have the life that the archer does: a happy nuclear family. The roadblock, he claims, is the Hulk, which is always one angry moment away and, in all likelihood, is now a genetic curse.

To defend her position – a woman who is proactively seeking companionship instead of being the lustful target of the male gaze – Romanoff shares the details of the backstory the audience discovered minutes before thanks to the induced hallucinations of the Scarlet Witch’s mental sorcery.

Natasha became the assassin she is today in a place called the Red Room. In the flashback, we see that her training was intense (to say the least), and that part of that training was taking human life. Romanoff’s graduation ceremony was her own mutilation.

“You know what my final test was in the Red Room? They sterilized me, said it was one less thing to worry about. You think you’re the only monster on the team?”

Romanoff wasn’t calling herself a monster because she couldn’t have children. She simply wasn’t. The agency behind the Red Room, presumably the KGB, cut her apart in an effort to create the perfect killing machine. As seen in Iron Man 2 and The Avengers, Romanoff is trained to use her sexual allure as a weapon. One can assume that this makes KGB assassins similar to secret agents like James Bond, a man who is famous for having sex in every one of his nearly 25 films just to get to the target.

This is the origin of all that “red in the ledger” that Widow wants to erase. She’s not lamenting the loss of her motherhood, but rather the lack of free agency that chains her to her work. She considers herself a monster that was created the moment her freedom was taken away.

The “Mommy Widow” argument continues in a discussion of her role on the team. In Age of Ultron, she’s racing to the rescue and picks up Captain America’s discarded shield, stating, “I’m always picking up after you boys.”

That snarky line is more of a window to her role on the team than it seems. Since her debut in Iron Man 2, Romanoff has been saving the Avengers or delivering a critical hit in every film. In Iron Man 2, she pretty much single-handedly took out Justin Hammer’s guards and helped to shut down his robot army. In The Avengers, she brought Hawkeye back from his Loki-induced stupor and wielded the scepter to shut the Chitauri portal. In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, she literally guided Captain America to not only avoid capture by Hydra but was also instrumental in stopping their genocidal plan. She is, in every sense of the phrase, always picking up after the team. She’s the deal closer.

From the very beginning, Romanoff and Coulson have been the guardians of the Avenger Initiative. They were the front line, courting and babysitting Tony Stark, pushing the right buttons to incorporate Banner, investigating Thor’s arrival, and integrating Captain Rogers to the current era. In essence, they were the parents of the movement, always working for and reporting directly back to Fury. That is a huge amount of development for two characters who started out as secondary non-solo-film roles. They may not have major leading roles, but they are the heart of this universe, and continue to be in their respective roles as team leaders in different branches of SHIELD.

Part of that character development comes back to the relationship with Banner, a pairing that critics claim is Mommy Widow’s arrival at motherhood with a bouncing baby Hulk to nurture.

In The Avengers, it was plainly obvious that Romanoff had only met Banner on paper. She respected the man and outright feared the power of The Other Guy. She set up a typical martial sting operation, complete with a strike team, to take Banner down if necessary. Admittedly, that’s a 180-degree spin from where they stand in Age of Ultron.

However, the film clearly establishes that the Avengers haven’t just been sitting around waiting for the next movie premiere since we saw them last. They explicitly mention that it has been a long hunt for Loki’s scepter, and that means that the team has been working together for a significant time off-screen. The Avengers have developed a great sense of teamwork, as evidenced in the film’s opening gambit at the Hydra base, as well as a way to tame the Hulk when they need him to “Code Green” against a threat.

This wasn’t the only development that occurred off-screen: Stark built more suits after he “Clean Slated” his entire line in Iron Man 3, and overcame his PTSD from the Battle of New York; Rogers and Stark developed a new uniform for the captain, including a short-range retrieval system for the iconic shield; Stark Industries built at least one new model Quinjet (since SHIELD no longer has the capability) and a series of automated armor-bots; the world has come to resent the Avengers and the havoc they wreak; and Hawkeye had a family.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is so vibrant and alive that it continues to breathe and evolve even though the cameras are off.

The fact that this team picked Romanoff, the character who feared the Hulk the most, to be his handler speaks volumes about her character and role on the team. It is reasonable that the Romanoff/Banner relationship has grown beyond Widow being petrified of the Big Guy because their lives have continued between the films. That makes Widow more than just a swooning love interest with mommy issues and even more than just an ass-kicking blunt instrument to deploy in battle.

Romanoff is three-dimensional, and therefore a truly strong, living and breathing female character instead of the typical comic book trope of a pair of absurdly large walking breasts in spandex waiting for a fridge to fall into.

Even without a solo film outing (which is no excuse for her not to have one), Natasha Romanoff’s status as a strong female character and respectable role model in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe remains intact and promises to remain that way for the foreseeable future.

Cross-published to RevolutionSF on May 13, 2015

cc-break

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Culture on My Mind – Thoughts on Gotham

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind

Culture on My Mind
Thoughts on Gotham
May 11, 2015

I’m not the typical comic book property fan. I don’t care about canon from book to screen – I’m able to read, and if I wanted to experience the adventures in the pages, I’m more than capable of consuming them – but I do care about consistency within the story itself.

That’s where Gotham has failed. The first season of the show started with such promise, but the weaving plot threads stumbled along the way and betrayed that potential.

The pilot episode premiered back in September with a bang, introducing squeaky clean Lieutenant James Gordon to the gritty and grimy of Gotham City. His first case is the Wayne murders, and we get the clear dichotomy between lawful good Gordon and his partner (and embodiment of the city) Harvey Bullock. The further dynamics established with Oswald “Penguin” Cobblepot defying his employer, up and coming crime boss Fish Mooney (a new character to the Bat-Catalog), and the city’s officials being beholden to the Falcone and Maroni crime families intrigued me.

In the first couple of episodes, the threads were clearly established. I wanted this show, billed as an origin for Jim Gordon, to succeed.

Jim Gordon has always been a great supporting character in my opinion. He’s typically portrayed as a paragon of law whose methods of cleaning up Gotham won’t work, but he can’t violate his moral fiber to personally use methods that will work. Hence, he turns to the man who can do what the law cannot, and we get a vigilante called Batman.

With this in mind, I was excited for this show. Gotham’s Jim Gordon had everything stacked against him from the very beginning: The crime families are in a cold war, and everyone including the police are afraid to go against the status quo and either lose their power or bring that power down upon them. I wasn’t expecting him to clean up the city, since that’s Batman’s job in the next decade, but rather make enough of an impact (and survive long enough) to become the commissioner who enables Batman’s crusade.

The first quarter of the season led me to believe that the season arc would revolve around the mob cold war. Instead, it focused on a considerable deal more, including trying to establish origins for all of the Bat-Villains. Trying to develop all of those threads killed the momentum of the first season, especially in the middle third.

How would I have approached it?

The overarching story should have been about the mob cold war, culminating (as it partially did in the finale) with Fish Mooney having played both sides against each other and Cobblepot having played her, sought his revenge, and stolen her victory to become the new boss of organized crime. Falcone could survive and slink into retirement as he did, and Maroni could remain dead. The entire Dollmaker subplot could have been completely excised, as it just felt like filler to stretch the season and remove Fish from the playing field until the finale.

Under that umbrella, the first subplot could have been Gordon’s efforts to stem the corruption in the police force. I loved his defiance of the mayor and commissioner, and his outwitting them when they tried to silence him by demoting and reassigning him. I loved the commissioner’s attempt to discredit and/or remove Gordon’s threat to his power by setting the Ogre on the detective’s trail.

What I didn’t like was the Barbara Kean subplot.

If the writers follow the comics, which I don’t expect, Barbara is eventually supposed to marry Gordon and start a family with him. The problem is that they have removed any sympathy I have for the character by stripping away the promise of her being an emotional anchor and support for Gordon in a city that stands against him. If they wanted to make her more complex, the troubled backstory they provided sufficient complexity, and they could have removed Gordon’s support by sending Barbara off to work through her issues but still remain sympathetic to the audience and Gordon.

As it stands with this multiple personality/nonsensical drugged-by-the-Ogre-fugue-state storyline, if they choose to reunite them later it will feel artificial. She may or may not have killed her parents in cold blood. A lawful good character like Gordon wouldn’t settle for that. Even if she’s dead after attacking Leslie Thompkins, who should not have been counseling someone with a conflict of interest, she’s still not someone that Gordon would name his daughter after.

Also, where did Renee Montoya and Crispus Allen go? These two could have been fantastic allies to help rally behind Gordon as he stems the police department’s corruption. Instead, they are wasted. So is the subplot about the commissioner’s illegitimate daughter, which Gordon could have used to topple Commissioner Loeb after the Ogre storyline started.

This subplot could have been resolved with a power vacuum in the Mayor’s office after Gordon reveals the corruption and mob ties. District Attorney Harvey Dent, Montoya, and Allen stand with Gordon, and the next season is set up for a subplot with a now scared commissioner secretly teaming with Bullock to find a way to stop Gordon’s crusade. This also opens the door for the typical “Penguin runs for Mayor” storyline.

The second subplot could have been Bruce Wayne’s quest for the truth, which was actually one of my favorite parts of the season even though it was only tangentially related to Gordon’s story. Both he and Gordon know that Pepper was a scapegoat in the pilot, and the investigation could have been handed off to Wayne as Gordon got pulled into the first subplot’s machinations. The investigation could have proceeded pretty much the way that it did, but tightened up with less involvement from Gordon. Bruce earns his “world’s greatest detective” stripes by unraveling the secrets, digging into Wayne Enterprises, and going through the cloak-and-dagger that he and Selina Kyle performed. Sure, have Bruce discover the cave and how his father also fought against the corruption in his own corporate house. But Bruce Wayne’s story should be minimized in a series about Gordon’s origins, and as such, he should have been involved for about only 60 to 75 percent of the entire season’s episodes.

As this subplot ends, Wayne gains an ally against the corporation in Lucius Fox, he and Alfred grow much closer as he recovers from the trauma of the murder of his parents and discovers his new life’s calling, and Selina departs just as she did to join Fish Mooney (in a more meaningful capacity than the twenty minutes in the season finale) before slinking into the shadows after Fish’s death. This sets up a smaller subplot for Season Two where Bruce discovers his heritage, Wayne Enterprises potentially endorses Cobblepot for mayor, and Bruce and Alfred decide to travel abroad and start rallying allies against the corporation. Bring back Sean Pertwee from time to time, but leave Bruce to evolve into the cape and cowl. There are also opportunities for Falcone to return in a limited capacity to provide information (for a price) regarding the Wayne murders.

Finally, each season should focus on evolving one (and only one) Bat-Villain, with the Penguin and possibly (and minimally) Selina Kyle as common threads. The second season could start showing cracks in the good façade of Harvey Dent or perform a longer and more realistic slip into schizophrenia for Edward “Riddler” Nygma. Nygma was best when he was subtly creepy, and by the end of Season One, he lost that quality in the sudden 180 spin into complete supervillain mode, which also removed some of the magic in the series. Even better, remove the schizophrenia and simply make him completely sane and malevolently intelligent. Not every villain needs to have some kind of psychological break.

Overall, Gotham is a mess, but I don’t think it’s unsalvageable. I’ll be tuning in for the first part of Season Two, but I can’t guarantee much more beyond that if it doesn’t start pulling together. The show needs a clear roadmap for every season to help it reach the potential that I still see. The acting is great from many of the starring roles, and they deserve the chance to shine in a tight and coherent story.

cc-break

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

Timestamp #36: The Evil of the Daleks

Michael Falkner11 Comments

Doctor Who: The Evil of the Daleks
(4 episodes, s04e37-e43, 1967)

Timestamp 036 The Evil of the Daleks

 

Grand Theft TARDIS.

Thematically, this one is about human greed and how easily the Daleks manipulate it. Human innovation inadvertently allows the Daleks to invade Earth to kidnap the Doctor and conquer humans by decoding the “Human Factor”. The Doctor forced to cooperate with the Daleks or lose the TARDIS forever.

I did like the trials with Jamie and Kemel as they attempt to rescue Victoria, and how they were used to decode the Human Factor. Jamie’s courage, mercy, instinct, and self-preservation assist the Doctor in turning the tables on his foes and overcoming the new electronic control the Daleks have over people. That brainwashing and (for lack of a better term) assimilation sheds some light on the Dalek agents from the newer episodes, which seemed to come from nowhere.

While I thought that the Factors were silly, it was neat to see the Daleks imprinted with the Human Factor to make them act like innocent children.

Of course, when the Daleks have what they want, they they return to Skaro and destroy the laboratory (and presumably the humans as well). Upon returning to the familiar tunnels and city, I wanted to know where the Thals were hiding. We do get to meet the Emperor Dalek (who was presumably hiding during The Daleks?) and Human Factor MacGuffin is its downfall.

Maxtible and his quest for the secret of alchemy made some sense from the Victorian time era, as did the desire to imprint all of humanity with the Dalek Factor (the Dark Side to the Human Factor’s Light?) once I got past the silliness of the Factors. The entire imprinting technique doesn’t work on the Doctor, because, well, he’s alien.

We get some more teases about what’s inside a Dalek can, and we get a new companion on the TARDIS. There was also an error in the serial reconstruction: The black domed Dalek confronts finds a clearly marked Alpha in the corridor, but the Dalek is referred to as Omega.

The big negative is right back to the problem of The Macra Terror: The Doctor’s actions precipitate what he presumes to be the “final end” of the entire Dalek species. We’re talking genocide for the second time in almost as many serials. That doesn’t seem like something he would do except as a last and final resort, and certainly not without significant remorse, and I can’t help but wonder if this is a hallmark of producer Innes Lloyd or something else.

Overall, this serial could have been an episode or two shorter, but it was still an enjoyable tale with a favorite (if sometimes uneven) enemy.

 

Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

UP NEXT – Fourth Series Summary

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.