Author: Michael Falkner

Culture on My Mind – Remote Control

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind

Culture on My Mind
Remote Control
July 11, 2022

This week, the Dragon Con American Sci-Fi Classics Track visits a classic MTV game show. You know, back when MTV actually played music videos. 

On June 30th, Joe Crowe and Gary Mitchel were joined by Kevin Eldridge and Kornflake (The Flopcast), Chris Cummins (Sci-Fi Explosion), and Tom Morris (The Good, the Bad, and the Nerdy Movie Podcast) to play the board game version of Remote Control.

The original Remote Control ran on MTV from 1987 to 1990 and was MTV’s first original non-musical program and first game show. Three contestants answered trivia questions on movies, music, and television, and selected the topics from lounge chairs using remote controls.

These Classic Track Quarantine Panels will be held once every two weeks (or every fortnight, if you will). If you want to play along at home, grab your internet-capable device of choice and navigate the webs to the YouTube channel and/or the group on Facebook. If you join in live, you can also leave comments and participate in the discussion using StreamYard connected through Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch.

If you want to connect with the track, Joe, and/or Gary on the socials, you can find them on Twitter (ClassicTrack, JoeCroweShow, and sneezythesquid) and Instagram (SciFiClassicTrack, JoeCroweShow, and Gary_Mitchel). And, of course, to celebrate more pop culture awesomeness, you can find Dragon Con all year round on the internet, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

The next panel will be on July 14th. The future of these panels includes TV mashups, an anniversary, and more as the track careens like a train on fire toward Eastwood Ravine and live-action panels at Dragon Con 2022. You can find all of this and more every other Thursday as the American Sci-Fi Classics Track explores the vast reaches of classic American science fiction.

The episode art each week is generously provided by the talented Sue Kisenwether. You can find her (among other places) on Women at Warp: A Star Trek Podcast.

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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 #254: Robot of Sherwood

Michael Falkner4 Comments

Oo-de-lally?

Whilst in the TARDIS, the Doctor writes some equations on a blackboard while offering Clara the opportunity to take them anywhere and any time. She gleefully chooses Robin Hood but the Doctor tells her that the legend is not real. The character is made-up. He offers up alternatives such as the Ice Warrior hives of Mars or the Tumescent Arrows of the Half-Light, but Clara is adamant. She wants to visit Sherwood Forest in 1190.

The Doctor is sure that she’ll be disappointed but relents. While Clara changes into appropriate attire, the Doctor steps outside and surveys the area, but is surprised when an arrow pierces the TARDIS door. He’s even more surprised to find that the archer is none other than Robin Hood.

The Doctor extracts the arrow – the TARDIS heals immediately – and confronts the archer. The testy interaction is interrupted by Clara’s arrival. She is enthralled and the archer is smitten, however, Robin wants to take the magic box from the Doctor. He and Robin duel spoon-to-blade until the archer is knocked into the river, but Robin gets the last laugh as he pushes the Doctor into the water as well.

In a nearby village, knights are abducting prisoners as Master Quayle pleads with them not to take his young female ward. The Sheriff of Nottingham appraises the gold that the knights have gathered, tosses a ruby aside, and kills Quayle as the master confronts the sheriff. The woman is taken away for labor at the castle.

Clara is introduced to Robin’s merry men while the Doctor intrusively investigates the party. She meets Will Scarlett, Friar Tuck, Alan-a-Dale, Walter, and John Little, then pulls the Doctor aside to chastise him for his rudeness. The Doctor has confirmed that the men are real people, but questions if the surroundings are a Miniscope. When he asks when Clara began to believe in impossible heroes, she reminds him that it was the day they met.

As the Doctor continues his scans, Robin talks with Clara about her friend and his own history. While the king is away, the sheriff has been causing nothing but misery. Robin spoke out against the tyranny but was stripped of his title – Earl of Loxley – and forced into hiding. He fights against injustice in order to end the sheriff’s campaign and reunite with his love, Marian.

Robin announces the sheriff is holding a contest to find the most skilled archer in the land. The prize is a golden arrow, and Clara immediately warns that it is a trap to capture Robin. Robin knows it is, but enters anyway since he is the best archer in Nottingham. Under the guise of Tom the Tinker, Robin enters the contest and wins the prize but the Doctor immediately shows him up. Robin and the Doctor duel until the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to blow up the target. The sheriff orders the protagonists to be apprehended, but Robin, Clara, and the Doctor fight back, eventually revealing the knights to be robots. They are soon apprehended and taken to the dungeons as part of the Doctor’s plan to unravel the mystery.

The robots readily execute any of the peasant workers who don’t perform adequately. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Robin continue to spar until Clara has had enough. She gets them back on track, but the plan for escaping hits a snag since the sheriff has taken the sonic screwdriver. Luckily, one of the sheriff’s lackeys arrives and demands to know who the true ringleader is. From the arguments he has overheard, he selects Clara and leaves the other two behind.

While the peasants continue to toil, melting down the gold they have seized for extraterrestrial purposes, Clara is taken to dine with the sheriff. The sheriff is intrigued by the Doctor’s possessions, including the sonic screwdriver, and asks Clara if she is from beyond the stars. She is able to goad the sheriff into revealing that he witnessed a spaceship crash and has been trying to repair it by collecting gold to repair the circuitry. Planning to seize the kingdom and the world, he offers to make Clara his consort, but she vehemently rejects his advances.

In their cell, Robin and the Doctor execute a plan to attract the guard. The Doctor eventually suggests that Robin carries a vital message for the king that promises a large bounty. Robin headbutts the guard but they are unable to retrieve the keys due to their bickering. They uproot their posts and break their chains at a blacksmith’s forge, then locate the spacecraft in the castle. The Doctor examines the logs and finds that the ship was en route to the Promised Land. Every anachronism that the Doctor has seen is being caused by the ship’s presence, including (he presumes) Robin’s very existence, but Robin rejects the notion as the Sheriff blasts open the door and orders the robots to kill the men. Robin escapes by jumping with Clara into the moat, leaving the Doctor with the sheriff. The Doctor is soon knocked out and taken to join the peasant workforce.

Clara, meanwhile, awakens in Robin’s camp. Much to her confusion, the archer demands to know who the Doctor is, what he knows about Robin Hood’s life, and what his plans are.

The Doctor meets the woman from earlier, escapes his chains, and arms the peasants with reflective platters to defeat the robots and their energy beams. This angers the sheriff, who arrives as the Doctor frees the peasant workforce. The Doctor tries to dissuade the sheriff’s plan, which cannot succeed due to a lack of sufficient gold. They also discuss Robin’s status as a robot, but the sheriff denies it. When the Doctor realizes that he’s been wrong and that Robin is a legend, the archer and Clara arrive to finish the battle.

Robin and the sheriff duel, resulting in the archer using the Doctor’s earlier footwork to send the sheriff to a fiery demise. The survivors rally outside the castle as the spacecraft takes off, and the Doctor realizes that the golden arrow may provide enough fuel to reach orbit. From there, the spacecraft can harmlessly explode. The former rivals work together – the Doctor and Clara hold the bow while Robin fires the arrow – and the kingdom is saved.

At the TARDIS, Clara says her farewells and asks Robin to stay safe if he can. Robin is pleased that history will forget that he was a real person. After all, history is a burden but stories can help people soar. Robin sympathizes with the Doctor and they part on good terms.

As the TARDIS departs, the Doctor reveals that he left Robin a gift. The woman he met in the dungeon was none other than Marian, and she reunites with the legendary archer as the travelers move on to the next adventure.

This story is hit and miss with me. The moral at the end is the best part as it reflects upon what makes Doctor Who great. Between “A man born into wealth and privilege should find the plight of the oppressed and weak too much to bear… until one night he’s moved to steal a TARDIS and fly amongst the stars, fighting the good fight.” and the concept that both men should continue to pretend to be heroes to inspire others to rise up, the episode touches on the heart(s) of the franchise itself.

But the journey to get there is often weighed down by bickering and one-ups-manship. Instead of something inspiring or uplifting, we get the “privilege” of watching the equivalent of a penis-measuring contest. The novelty of that wore off after the first duel on the river.

Quite frankly, the legends of the Doctor and Robin Hood deserve better.

I did find joy in the Doctor explaining that he was taught fencing by the best – Richard the Lionheart, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Errol Flynn – particularly since this story intersects with two previous adventures. During this tale, King Richard is fighting the Crusades, and met the First Doctor during The Crusade. About twenty-five years down the road, the Fifth Doctor met Kamelion masquerading as King John in The King’s Demons.

Also fun was how the spaceship was disguised as a castle (see State of Decay) and escaping a prison cell by feigning a possession (see The Smugglers). We also saw the TARDIS struck by arrows in Silver Nemesis and The Shakespeare Code.

Finally, we continue the Third and Fourth Doctor comparisons as this brash Time Lord uses all sorts of scientific toys to analyze the goings-on. I just wish this adventure better aligned with one of those predecessors instead of being filled with pettiness and meaningless feuds.

Rating: 2/5 – “Mm? What’s that, my boy?”

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Listen

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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 – Independence Day 2022

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind

Culture on My Mind
Independence Day 2022
July 4, 2022

Today is a big holiday in the United States, and it gives me a lot to think about 246 years after the event that it commemorates. On this date in 1776, the United States Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress.

Two days earlier, the Lee Resolution for independence was passed by Congress with no opposing votes. The Committee of Five – John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston – had drafted the Declaration to be ready when Congress voted on independence. John Adams, a leader in pushing for independence, had persuaded the committee to select Thomas Jefferson to compose the original draft of the document, which Congress edited to produce the final version.

The Declaration explained why the Thirteen Colonies at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain regarded themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule. With the Declaration, these new states took a collective first step toward forming the United States of America.

In particular, the preamble is at the front of my mind. It is the section that sells the general philosophy of a government that justifies revolution when government harms natural rights. That governments should derive their power from the consent of the governed, and that when governments prioritize tyranny over consent, it is the right of the governed after due consideration to alter or abolish that government in favor of one that prioritizes safety and happiness.

Nearly 250 years ago, the people of a nascent country stood up against tyranny that prioritized the will of the governor over the consent of the governed. It gave birth to a nation and is a philosophy that remains relevant in more ways than one to this day.

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness of his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The first and most famous signature on the engrossed copy was that of John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress. Two future presidents (Thomas Jefferson and John Adams) and a father and great-grandfather of two other presidents (Benjamin Harrison V) were among the signatories. Edward Rutledge (at age 26) was the youngest signer, and Benjamin Franklin (at age 70) was the oldest signer. The fifty-six signers of the Declaration represented the new states.

  • New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
  • Massachusetts: Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
  • Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
  • Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
  • New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
  • New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
  • Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
  • Delaware: George Read, Caesar Rodney, Thomas McKean
  • Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
  • Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
  • North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
  • South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward Jr., Thomas Lynch Jr., Arthur Middleton
  • Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

However you choose to spend the day, I hope that you do so safely.

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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.

STEAM Saturday – Peeing on Your Produce

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

STEAMSaturday

STEAM Saturday
Peeing on Your Produce
July 2, 2022

In this edition, we see massive wind turbines, a hammerhead worm in Tennessee, bone loss in space, and… yes… fertilizing your crops with urine.

STEAMHeadlines

IFLScience – New Massive Offshore Wind Turbine Can Power A Home For 2 Days With A Single Spin (Jun 29, 2022)
A new offshore wind farm will utilize some absolutely massive turbines to produce power – so massive that just one spin will power the average home for two full days. The turbines have recently been improved from the best in the world to even more so, and the development will be the US’ first utility-scale wind farm.

Tennessee Valley Authority – Watch for Hammerhead Worms in Your Garden (Jul 1, 2022)
A 12 to 15-inch slimy flatworm with a weird half-moon head, and toxic skin sounds like we are describing a new variation of a Demogorgon from Stranger Things. Believe it or not, this creature is not just found in the Upside-Down, but in Knoxville, TN!

ScienceAlert – A Large-Scale Experiment Used Human Pee to Fertilize Crops. Here’s What Happened (Jun 23, 2022)
These days, peeing on your food plants may be considered a gross and wacky gardening hack, despite the practice having been proven beneficial for thousands of years. But our modern squeamishness has meant gardeners and farmers alike must resort to expensive fertilizers to provide their crops with the much-needed nutrients found free in our pee.

ScienceNews – Six months in space leads to a decade’s worth of long-term bone loss (Jun 30, 2022)
During space missions lasting six months or longer, astronauts can experience bone loss equivalent to two decades of aging. A year of recovery in Earth’s gravity rebuilds about half of that lost bone strength, researchers reported June 30 in Scientific Reports.

Science Daily – Ice Age wolf DNA reveals dogs trace ancestry to two separate wolf populations (Jun 29, 2022)
The Francis Crick Institute: An international group of geneticists and archaeologists has found that the ancestry of dogs can be traced to at least two populations of ancient wolves. The work moves us a step closer to uncovering the mystery of where dogs underwent domestication, one of the biggest unanswered questions about human prehistory.

STEAMSci

The Science & Entertainment Exchange – The Science & Entertainment Exchange is a program of the National Academy of Sciences that provides entertainment industry professionals with access to top scientists and engineers to help bring the reality of cutting-edge science to creative and engaging storylines.

Jhnny Harris – Johnny Harris makes videos about maps… and other things.
[Note: This video is about human reproduction and male birth control. YouTube has limited it to age-verified accounts.]

 

STEAMTech

Jerry Rig Everything – Zack Nelson has used his love of repairing, simple explanations, and brief tutorials to help millions of people with repairs of their own. Outside of YouTube, his ‘to-the-point’ style of teaching has created instructional and informational videos for manufacturers and factories around the world.

Today I Found Out – Today I Found Out is a place to learn something new and interesting every day, brought to the internet by a host of various scientific contributors.

STEAMEng

Practical Engineering – Grady Hillhouse is a civil engineer in San Antonio, Texas. His channel aims to increase exposure and interest in the field of engineering by highlighting the connection between the world around us and the energy, passion, and thought that goes into making it a nicer place to live.

 

STEAMArt

Nick Zammeti – A woodturner and artist based in the United Kingdom, Nick Zammeti thrives in funky and creative projects fueled by a healthy love of pop culture, especially Back to the Future.

Shop Time – Peter Brown is a geek with a full set of power tools, and he uses that knowledge to experiment, craft, and have fun.

laymonsterms – Denise Lhamon is an artist who presents history for short attention spans. She also takes commissions as Candy Cane Studios.

Art Deco – All things art and art history, digital art exhibitions and art analysis and discussion!

 

STEAMMath

8-bit Music Theory – This YouTuber loves music, video games, and analyzing and talking about music from video games. He promises that if you are a big nerd, you’ll love it too!

 

STEAMMulti

Smarter Every Day – Mechanical engineer and aerospace engineer Destin Sandlin explores the world using science in this series. He was one of three YouTube personalities chosen to conduct a one-on-one interview with President Barack Obama after his final State of the Union address. His secondary channel provides additional details and interviews to supplement his primary channel’s videos.

Mark Rober – An engineer and inventor, Mark Rober presents popular science concepts and do-it-yourself gadgets in easy-to-understand terms. He was previously a NASA engineer (where he worked on the Curiosity rover) and a product designer at Apple’s Special Projects Group (where he authored patents involving virtual reality in self-driving cars). One of his best-known series involves the development of a glitter bomb to combat porch pirates and internet scammers.

 

If you have any suggestions for STEAM Saturday, please leave them below in the comments. If your suggestion is used, your name will be credited.

Disclaimers: Any sponsored content or advertising presented in videos and/or links highlighted in STEAM Saturday are not necessarily endorsed or supported by Creative Criticality. Pursue such content and offers at your own risk. The links and videos attached to this post were publicly available at the time of publication, but there is no guarantee of availability after publication.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope that something inspired you to get out there and explore the universe.

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STEAM Saturday is a celebration of curiosity and imagination through science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics, the very building blocks of the universe around us.

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

Timestamp #253: Into the Dalek

Michael Falkner5 Comments

A fantastic innerspace voyage.

A pilot and her wounded co-pilot desperately fly away from an attacking Dalek ship. The pilot, Journey Blue, calls for help but her ship explodes around her. She awakens in the TARDIS console room and pulls a gun on the Doctor. He tries to explain that he saved her life by materializing the TARDIS around her at the moment of her death, and he waits for her to ask nicely before taking her back to her command ship.

The vessel was once a hospital ship, but the Doctor does not receive a warm welcome when he emerges on the hangar deck. Journey Blue saves his life when she tells her shipmates that the visitor is a doctor. The crew takes the Doctor to his new patient. Unfortunately, it is a Dalek.

Back on Earth, Danny Pink trains the Coal Hill Cadet Squad before returning to his duties as a mathematics instructor. He’s quite the bit of eye-candy for the women at the school and an object of intrigue for the students since he served as a soldier in the army. The kids are curious if he’s ever killed anyone and if he’s ever killed someone who was not a soldier.

Danny eventually meets Clara, but he turns down an opportunity to join her for a drink. When he later verbally berates himself (supposedly in private), Clara offers again and he accepts. Clara leaves Danny and enters a supply closet to find the Doctor and the TARDIS. The Doctor offers some coffee, which he was supposed to fetch three weeks ago, and asks her for advice.

The Doctor wants to know if he is a good man.

Since Clara isn’t familiar with this Doctor, she replies that she doesn’t know the answer. Sadly, neither does he, and he sets a course for Aristotle. It turns out that the Dalek has asked for help and has offered to destroy its own kind, and the Doctor cannot quite wrap his head around the concept. Once they return to the command ship, they realize that they have to get into the Dalek’s head. Luckily, Aristotle has a gizmo that will shrink people.

The Doctor, Clara, Journey, and soldiers Ross and Gretchen are miniaturized and injected into the Dalek’s eyestalk. The soldiers are there to kill the travelers if they turn out to be Dalek spies. The team encounters the Dalek’s artificial memory drive which filters out good memories and reinforces bad ones, essentially refining evil. They are also attacked by antibodies when the soldiers attach grappling hooks to the Dalek’s internals. Ross is killed, but the Doctor is able to track his remains to a place of relevant safety. Unfortunately, that’s a pool of protein that feeds the Dalek, which the Doctor has named Rusty.

The team escapes through a hot tunnel to an irradiated battery room. The radiation is affecting Rusty’s memory core and allowing his morality to leak through. The damage is related to Rusty watching a star being born, an event that spoke of beauty and divine perfection. It also reinforced that life prevails and resistance to that is futile.

The Doctor fixes the battery leak, but that causes Rusty to revert to his murderous ways. He then breaks free of his restraints and begins exterminating the ship’s crew. Rusty opens a communication channel to the Dalek ship and reveals Aristotle‘s secret location.

The Doctor uses this as evidence that there is no such thing as a good Dalek, but Clara is not satisfied with the result and slaps him back into sense. Following Clara’s inspiration, the Doctor instructs her, Gretchen, and Journey to make their way back to the memory drive and try to restore Rusty’s memories of the star while he reasons with Rusty.

Gretchen sacrifices herself to get Clara and Journey to the memory core. When the antibodies kill Gretchen, she ends up meeting Missy in the garden called Heaven. Meanwhile, Rusty continues his rampage as the Daleks reach Aristotle.

The Doctor meets Rusty eye to eye, facing off against the organic creature at the heart of the Dalekanium shell. As the Doctor forms a psychic link with the Dalek, Clara crawls through its core and restores the hidden memories. The plan is mostly successful but falters when Rusty finds the Doctor’s intense hatred of the Daleks. Despite the Doctor pleading with Rusty to look beyond that hatred, the Dalek uses it to fuel a mission of destruction against his own kind.

Rusty destroys the rest of the Daleks on the ship and the team is restored to their proper size. Rusty leaves to join his own kind, promising to work against them from within. He also shakes the Doctor to his core by proclaiming that the Time Lord is the good Dalek that he was searching for. As the travelers prepare to leave, Journey asks to travel with the Doctor but he refuses because she was a soldier.

Clara changes clothes for her date as he takes her home. She tells him that she doesn’t know if he is a good man, but she does give him credit for trying to be one. She then leaves for her date with Danny, trying not to adopt the Time Lord’s policy against soldiers.

Welcome to the origin of the “Don’t be lasagna” meme. It’s such a funny example of this Doctor’s quest to find his bearings, reflecting the whimsy of the Ninth and Tenth Doctors. His ruthlessness also reflects the Ninth and Tenth Doctors – note that he’s not bloodthirsty, but he is direct – and his views on the military reach back to the Third and Fourth Doctor eras.

Importantly, the military stereotypes get subverted with the reinforcement that people can evolve beyond their roles and/or training.

The Doctor’s hatred of the Daleks is generally universal, but it is amplified by the events of The Day of the Doctor. This level of hatred reminds me of the Ninth Doctor in Dalek – another time when the Doctor would make a good Dalek – though I do appreciate the attempt at defusing the hatred while persuading Rusty. The imagery used in that persuasion comes from The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End.

There are obviously elements of the classic “go inside the body” films Innerspace and Fantastic Voyage. We also have a callback to another shrunken Doctor adventure in Planet of Giants. I also love the breaking out of a morgue callback to the TV movie.

But it is the exploration of the Doctor at this point after his regeneration in the face of his greatest enemy that intrigues me, followed closely by Clara using the Doctor’s lessons learned in her own life outside the TARDIS. It’s a good journey into his personality during an otherwise straightforward narrative.

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

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Robot of Sherwood

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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 – To the Blue Grotto Batcave

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind

Culture on My Mind
To the Blue Grotto Batcave
June 27, 2022

This week, the Dragon Con American Sci-Fi Classics Track talks Batman ’66 with essayists who thought deep thinks about the Caped Crusader.

On May 19th, Gary Mitchel was joined by author Michael Bailey (The Fortress of Baileytude), John S. Drew (The Chronic Rift), and Keith DeCandido (on the internet and available wherever fine books are found) to discuss the third season of the 1966 Batman series and how they were inspired to craft OOOFF! BOFF! SPLATT! The Subterranean Blue Grotto Essays on Batman ’66.

 

These Classic Track Quarantine Panels will be held once every two weeks (or every fortnight, if you will). If you want to play along at home, grab your internet-capable device of choice and navigate the webs to the YouTube channel and/or the group on Facebook. If you join in live, you can also leave comments and participate in the discussion using StreamYard connected through Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch.

If you want to connect with the track, Joe, and/or Gary on the socials, you can find them on Twitter (ClassicTrack, JoeCroweShow, and sneezythesquid) and Instagram (SciFiClassicTrack, JoeCroweShow, and Gary_Mitchel). And, of course, to celebrate more pop culture awesomeness, you can find Dragon Con all year round on the internet, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

The next panel will be on June 30th. The future of these panels includes a game show, TV mashups, an anniversary, and more as the track careens toward live-action panels at Dragon Con 2022. You can find all of this and more every other Thursday as the American Sci-Fi Classics Track explores the vast reaches of classic American science fiction.

The episode art each week is generously provided by the talented Sue Kisenwether. You can find her (among other places) on Women at Warp: A Star Trek Podcast.

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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 #252: Deep Breath

Michael Falkner6 Comments

The last chance for the Paternoster Gang to play Sherlock Holmes.

A tyrannosaurus rex stomps through London as the Paternoster Gang responds to investigate. Madame Vastra assumes that the dinosaur traveled through time, a suspicion that is confirmed when she coughs up the TARDIS. The blue box, which Police Inspector Gregson mistakes for an egg, lands on the bank of the Thames.

Vastra orders the inspector to place sonic lanterns along the river’s banks to confine the tyrannosaur while the Paternosters make contact with the Doctor. Strax knocks on the door and briefly meets the Twelfth Doctor. The Time Lord, still dressed in his predecessor’s clothes, is experiencing confusion and memory issues after his difficult regeneration.

With a bong of the cloister bell, the Doctor collapses on the river bank as Vastra remarks, “Here we go again.”

Everyone moves to Vastra’s house where the Doctor is overstimulated by the concept of a bedroom. He also remarks that the mirror looks “absolutely furious”. When the Doctor reacts to typical British accents, Vastra adopts a Scottish accent like the Doctor’s new persona and uses his telepathy to put him to sleep. When Clara demands to know how to change the Doctor back, Vastra retires to her study with a request for her veil. After all, she realizes, there is a stranger in the house.

As the Doctor sleeps, he murmurs translations of the dinosaur’s moans. The tyrannosaur is alone and laments the lost world. Clara leaves the Doctor’s side as Strax arrives to escort her to Vastra’s study.

On the streets below, people look upon the dinosaur as a man named Alf wonders if it is a government conspiracy. He chats with a mysterious clockwork man who admires Alf’s eyes to the point of taking them.

Vastra interviews Clara about the events of and following Trenzalore. Vastra challenges the companion about her impressions of the Doctor, alluding to her veil as an analogy for the Doctor’s faces: She wears it to be accepted among those who wouldn’t understand her life and values otherwise. She also suggests that the veil is a judgment upon the character of those she meets. The Doctor trusted Clara enough to regenerate in her presence, showing her his weakest side and moment, and this revelation spins Clara into a fury. Vastra is amused by the anger, and explains that the Doctor needs all of them – especially Clara – to anchor himself as he finds his identity again. In the exchange, Vastra has removed her veil, remarking that it disappeared when Clara stopped seeing it.

The Doctor wakes up and finds a piece of chalk. He then proceeds to write Gallifreyan calculations around the room. He scrambles onto the roof and promises to return the dinosaur home, but the tyrannosaur spontaneously combusts and collapses into the river. The Doctor leaps from the roof and liberates a horse from its carriage before riding off into the night. The Paternoster Gang pursues him to the river’s edge.

The Doctor is apologetic toward the dinosaur’s remains and furious at everyone else around him, but his detective mind raises questions. First, have there been any similar murders? Second, who is the one man not gawking at the spectacle? The Doctor dives into the river with a mind to investigate.

The next morning, Strax has the TARDIS delivered to Vastra’s home. Clara dresses in Victorian fashion after being knocked out by a newspaper thrown by Strax and meets up with Jenny. It seems that Madame Vastra is having the Camberwell child poisoner for dinner… after interrogating him, of course. Strax gives Clara a medical examination as a prelude to her joining the Paternosters in case the Doctor never returns.

The Doctor is wandering about in an alley, obviously freezing in his wet state. He finds a homeless man and asks about his own face, musing about how it seems familiar, including the “attack eyebrows”. He wonders who did the frowning to wrinkle his new face so. He is delighted by his Scottish accent and how it relates to his cross-looking face.

He then remembers reading about a case of spontaneous combustion in the newspaper. Vastra is also following the leads as Jenny inexplicably poses in her underclothes. The Silurian remarks that burning the bodies would be a great way to hide what was missing from them, but this train of thought is derailed when Clara enters to show them an advertisement in the paper addressed to the Impossible Girl. After some puzzle-solving, Clara figures out that she should meet the Doctor at Mancini’s Family Restaurant.

When Clara arrives at the restaurant, she is confronted by a terrible smell. It is the Doctor, who soon joins her at a table in a coat he pawned off a homeless man. They discuss Clara’s reaction to his regeneration through his response to her advert in the paper. They soon realize that they’ve both been tricked into coming to the restaurant.

The Doctor measures the air disturbance using one of Clara’s hairs. They watch the other patrons and realize that they’re not actually eating. They’re also not breathing. When the duo stands to leave, the other patrons rise to block their exit. The Doctor and Clara sit down again and the patrons follow suit.

They are soon met by a clockwork waiter who categorizes the organs that the newcomers have to offer. The Doctor rips off the waiter’s face, noting that an automaton lies beneath, and the duo is locked into their chairs and lowered into a tunnel below. The Doctor notes that it appears to be a larder and, after some cooperative hijinks, is able to free them with the sonic screwdriver.

The Doctor and Clara tour the larder and find the Half-Faced Man – the eye thief from before – recharging in a chair. The automatons are stealing body parts to appear more human piece by piece. The cases of spontaneous combustion hide the butchery conducted upon the victims.

The Half-Faced Man begins to wake up, so the Doctor and Clara attempt to escape. The Doctor thinks that he’s seen something like this before, but the escape is thwarted as a door slides between the duo. The Doctor leaves Clara behind and she evades the automatons for a little while by holding her breath. As she walks to the exit, she’s confronted by a memory from the past and collapses as her body rebels.

Captured by the automatons, she awakens to the sight of the Half-Faced Man. Clara refuses to tell him where the Doctor is, calling the automaton’s bluff. After all, killing her will leave him without information, which is the same place he is now. Instead, she offers an information exchange, question for question, and finds out that the automatons killed the dinosaur specifically for parts so that they can reach the Promised Land. They have been working toward this goal for millions of years.

When the Half-Faced Man threatens to torture Clara for information, Clara declares that the Doctor will always have her back. Sure enough, he has been hiding as an automaton, and with a keyword – Geronimo! – the Paternoster Gang arrives as backup.

He also determines that the Half-Faced Man did not post the advert summoning the travelers to the restaurant.

The Half-Faced Man retreats upstairs with the Doctor in pursuit, attempting to leave via an escape capsule. Vastra had summoned the police, but the automaton chases them out and leaves an opportunity for the Doctor to pour two drinks for a discussion. He now remembers that the automatons are from the 51st century and continues to extract information as the escape capsule is deployed. It is powered by a hot-air balloon made from human skin.

The Doctor examines a control button and finds that the pod belonged to the SS Marie Antoinette, sister ship to the SS Madame de Pompadour. The ship fell through time and crashed into England millions of years earlier. The only survivors, the service robots, began their cycle of repairing themselves over and over again. The Doctor assures the Half-Faced Man that humans are never small to him. That he will always fight for them.

As they struggle, Clara and the Paternosters finally defeat the robotic warriors in the larder by holding their breath as Clara uses the sonic screwdriver to open the door. Meanwhile, the Doctor and the Half-Faced Man reach an impasse. Suicide is against the automaton’s programming, but murder is against the Doctor’s nature.

Only one of them is lying, and they both know who it is. In the end, the automaton falls from the capsule and dies impaled upon the spire of the Clock Tower.

Clara and the Paternoster Gang return to Vastra’s home only to find the Doctor and the TARDIS are gone. Clara offers to join the household, but Vastra points out that Clara has already dressed in her modern-era clothing in preparation for continuing her travels. Sure enough, the TARDIS returns and Clara joins the Doctor in a revamped console room.

The Doctor tells her that he’s not a boyfriend, noting that it was his mistake to lead her on in his previous life. He’s also made many mistakes over two thousand years and is keen to do something about them. He places the TARDIS in flight and asks about the advert in the paper. The Doctor ties it back to the strange woman who originally gave Clara the TARDIS’s phone number as a computer help line, deciding that someone really wants the two of them to travel together.

The TARDIS lands at Clara’s home time, and she expresses regret that she doesn’t know who the Doctor is anymore. At that moment, Clara’s mobile rings, and she steps out to head the Eleventh Doctor in the line. He leaves her a message from Trenzalore – before she found the exterior phone dangling – imploring her to put aside her fear in order to help the Doctor find his way. With that, the Eleventh Doctor says goodbye.

Clara returns to the Twelfth Doctor’s side. The Time Lord asks her to look beyond the appearance and just see him. Clara examines him before giving him a hug, thanking him for the guidance. This Doctor’s not a hugger, but he offers to go for chips and coffee. They’ll work through the change together.

The Half-Faced Man awakens in a mysterious garden. He is greeted by a woman named Missy who refers to the Doctor as her boyfriend. She tells the automaton that he has reached his goal. He is in the Promised Land.

Paradise.

Heaven?

This episode is a rough start to a new era, but it plays well because it reflects the rough regeneration and the turmoil in the relationship between the Doctor and Clara.

On its face, Clara’s reaction to regeneration doesn’t seem reasonable. One could argue that she doesn’t remember her fragmented trip into the Doctor’s timeline in The Name of the Doctor, however, she readily recognized the War Doctor in The Day of the Doctor and remembered the salvation of Gallifrey during The Time of the Doctor. Therefore, she obviously knows about regeneration having directly interacted with three distinct incarnations of the Doctor during her travels.

Her confusion, therefore, seems to be linked to how the Doctor appears after regeneration, which makes her appear shallow. This is an unfortunate change of character for Clara that only gets a bit of smoothing over by suggesting that the Eleventh Doctor led her to believe that their relationship was more romantic and/or intimate. There is a point to be made here, of course, because the Eleventh Doctor was pretty obsessive over Clara’s “Impossible Girl” mystery, but her knowledge of regeneration should have overridden that.

The smoothing at the end of the episode also gives a bit of promise to the new somewhat antagonistic dynamic between the Doctor and Clara. She has been requested specifically by the old Doctor to help the new Doctor find his footing, and I can get on board with that as long as the transition doesn’t take too long. I am eager to have a Doctor that doesn’t have romantic entanglements with his companions.

The roughness of this episode also results from smashing elements of three previous adventures into one: Invasion of the Dinosaurs, The Snowmen, and The Girl in the Fireplace. To that end, it plays as a “greatest hits” story in the background of this Doctor’s character introduction. It works, but it is awkward, especially with some of the more slapstick comedy elements like the boing effect when the Doctor is put to sleep, the car alarm on the Paternoster carriage, and the strange underwear modeling by Jenny while Vastra works. These comedic beats fell flat for me.

On the upside, I love this Doctor’s outfit and mannerisms once he returns to pick up Clara. Between these elements and Vastra’s “here we go again”, Steven Moffat is obviously trying to tie the Twelfth Doctor to the Third Doctor.

Speaking of the Doctor’s return, this is typically seen as the moment where the Twelfth Doctor joined the Siege of Gallifrey.

Peter Capaldi’s eyebrow cameo in The Day of the Doctor has never been explicitly placed within his run on the show, but the visual clues point to this moment. The console room in the cameo clearly shows the Series 7 console room coloring (which has changed upon the Doctor’s return here) and Capaldi has his shorter haircut. The piece that seals it for me is the chalk equations, which aren’t explained within the story but make sense if he’s still processing the plan put in place by the Tenth, Eleventh, and War Doctors.

There is a possibility that the Twelfth Doctor’s inclusion in the Siege of Gallifrey is a paradox that takes place outside of time, which typically happens when multiple Doctors appear in the same story – see The Five Doctors and Time Crash for prime examples – but the effects of The Day of the Doctor have shown to be pretty significant, so I’m keen to side with the theory that the Twelfth Doctor’s role in the 50th anniversary special happened here.

Finally, this episode brings us the final appearance (to date) of the Paternoster Gang, and Steven Moffat really hammed up the Sherlock Holmes connections (which we started seeing in The Snowmen). Inspector Gregson, “the game is afoot!”, the Conk-Singleton forgery case, the Camberwell poisoning case, and Vastra’s use of the agony column are all significant in the universe created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

(Though I did learn that “the game is afoot” originated with Shakespeare’s Henry V.)

While this story was rough and awkward, it was far more engaging than The Time of the Doctor and lays some groundwork for the adventures to come. Recall that, per the rules of the Timestamps Project, regeneration episodes pick up an extra point. That pushes Deep Breath from above average to top marks.

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Into the Dalek

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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 – TV Vampires and Saturday Cartoons

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind

Culture on My Mind
TV Vampires and Saturday Cartoons
June 20, 2022

I’m playing a little catch-up this week, so here’s the Dragon Con American Sci-Fi Classics Track talking about TV vampires and Saturday morning cartoons.

On June 2nd, Joe Crowe and Gary Mitchel were joined by Tom Morris (The Good, the Bad, and the Nerdy Movie Podcast) Lacee Aderhold (on Twitter), and author Lucy Blue (official site) to discuss Forever Knight, Dark Shadows, Kindred the Embraced, and more. They might even mention that famous California cheerleader…

On June 16th, it was Funshine Saturday time! There was once a time when cartoons and weird live-action shows defined Saturday mornings, complete with drum-playing sharks, snickering dogs, sentient buggies, superheroes, and more. Joe was joined by Kornflake (The FlopCast) and Sherman Burris (on Twitter) as they poured a bowl of cereal and sat way too close to the television screen.

These Classic Track Quarantine Panels will be held once every two weeks (or every fortnight, if you will). If you want to play along at home, grab your internet-capable device of choice and navigate the webs to the YouTube channel and/or the group on Facebook. If you join in live, you can also leave comments and participate in the discussion using StreamYard connected through Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch.

If you want to connect with the track, Joe, and/or Gary on the socials, you can find them on Twitter (ClassicTrack, JoeCroweShow, and sneezythesquid) and Instagram (SciFiClassicTrack, JoeCroweShow, and Gary_Mitchel). And, of course, to celebrate more pop culture awesomeness, you can find Dragon Con all year round on the internet, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

The next panel will be on June 30th. The future of these panels includes a classic game show, some television mashups, and a 30th anniversary celebration. We’re entering the home stretch of livestreams before all of these panelists convene in person at Dragon Con. You can find all of this and more every other Thursday as the American Sci-Fi Classics Track explores the vast reaches of classic American science fiction.

The episode art each week is generously provided by the talented Sue Kisenwether. You can find her (among other places) on Women at Warp: A Star Trek Podcast.

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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: Series Seven, Specials, and Eleventh Doctor Summary

Michael Falkner2 Comments

Doctor Who: Series Seven, Specials, and Eleventh Doctor Summary

Timestamp Logo Eleventh 2

The Eleventh’s senior showing was a good wrap to the run.

For the purposes of the Timestamps Project, Series 7 and the specials that wrapped up Matt Smith’s era are treated as a single group, and among them were very few disappointments. In fact, of the normal episodes, only Hide and Nightmare in Silver scored average or lower – Nightmare in Silver was the big loser there – and they were accompanied by the collective mini-episodes that were in-universe bonus material.

I’m not a big fan of the mini-episodes or the prequel shorts. They’re fun, but they don’t really add much to the narrative. The prequels really could be added to the episodes that they supplement, or they could be left out overall since the information that they convey is already part of the story.

This set did explore some fascinating territory, from the emotional departure of the Ponds to the introduction of the “impossible girl”. The downside to the Pond story was the disjointed timeline, a problem that carried over into Clara’s tenure as a companion with odd jumps and missing adventures in time between episodes. That latter offers plenty of room for novels, games, and audio adventures, but doesn’t play well for audiences who only pay attention to the television side of Doctor Who.

The big highlight, of course, was the 50th-anniversary celebration. The major milestone provided a big reason to pull out all the stops with a multi-Doctor story that added new context to the adventures that we’d seen since 2005.

The series comes in at an average of 4.1. Over the Eleventh Doctor’s run, that marks a steady decline year-to-year, down from 4.3 in Series Five and 4.2 in Series Six. Also notable is the increase in story quantity year-to-year which might point to the reason for the sliding scores. That said, the era still remains over 4.0 overall.

Series Seven comes in at tenth all-time for the Timestamps Project, tied with Series Two, the Eighteenth Series, and the Fifth Series. It comes in behind the Eleventh Series, Series Six, Series One, Series Three, Series Five, the Tenth Doctor’s specials, the Eighth Doctor’s run, Series Four, and the Ninth Series.

The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe – 5
Good as Gold & Pond Life – 3
Asylum of the Daleks – 5
Dinosaurs on a Spaceship – 5
A Town Called Mercy – 4
The Power of Three – 4
The Angels Take Manhattan – 4
The Snowmen – 4
The Bells of Saint John – 5
The Rings of Akhaten – 4
Cold War – 4
Hide – 3
Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS – 4
The Crimson Horror – 5
Nightmare in Silver – 2
The Name of the Doctor – 5
Clara and the TARDIS & Rain Gods & The Inforarium – 3
The Day of the Doctor – 5
The Time of the Doctor – 4

Series Seven and Specials (Revival Era) Average Rating: 4.1/5

Timestamps Eleventh Doctor

Following tradition…

The First Doctor was a wise grandfather, the Second a sly jester, the Third a secret agent scientist, the Fourth an inquisitive idealist, the Fifth an honorable humanitarian, the Sixth a squandered cynic, the Seventh a curious schemer, the Eighth a classical romantic, the Ninth a hopeful healing veteran, the Tenth a bargaining humanitarian…

…and the Eleventh Doctor is an irascible runner.

The Eleventh Doctor readily displayed his desire to forget his place in the Last Great Time War. He just wanted to move on from the horrors he perpetrated as the War Doctor, and when things did not go according to plan, his fury was right at the surface and ready to burn.

Death and defeat reminded him of his failure at Gallifrey, something that he finally came to terms with when he met his predecessors on that same battlefield. Following the Kübler-Ross model of grief that each of the revival era Doctors has followed in its very real non-linear manner, this Doctor finally found acceptance thanks to his weary warrior forebearer.

To that end, he truly found happiness at the end of the race he ran.

Series 5 – 4.3
Series 6 – 4.2
Series 7 – 4.1

Eleventh Doctor’s Weighted Average Rating: 4.17

Ranking (by score)
1 – Eighth (4.50)
2 – Tenth (4.34)
3 – Ninth (4.30)
4 – Eleventh (4.17)
5 – Third (4.00)
6 – Second (3.67)
7 – Fourth (3.67)
8 – Seventh (3.54)
9 – First (3.41)
10 – Fifth (3.20)
11 – Sixth (2.73)
N/A – War (No score)

Ranking (by character)
1 – Tenth Doctor
2 – Second Doctor
3 – Ninth Doctor
4 – Eighth Doctor
5 – Third Doctor
6 – Fourth Doctor
7 – War Doctor
8 – Eleventh Doctor
9 – Seventh Doctor
10 – First Doctor
11 – Fifth Doctor
12 – Sixth Doctor

As I’ve mentioned before, the top nine spaces on the character ranking are really, really, really close. I’m always tempted to simply rank them all as a first-place tie, but I find the real challenge to be actually thinking it through and ranking them.

Next up, we change Doctors but keep the same showrunner in charge.

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Deep Breath

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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 #251: The Time of the Doctor

Michael Falkner13 Comments

Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor
(1 episode, Christmas Special, 2013)

Timestamp 251 Time of the Doctor

Death and birth in Christmas.

A fleet of ships respond to a tri-tone signal echoing in the cosmos from a seemingly unimportant planet. The Doctor is among the respondents and transports aboard a Dalek ship. When they start shooting, he transports back and scolds a disembodied Cyberman head named Handles.

His rant is interrupted by a ringing telephone. Unfortunately, it is routed to the handset on the outside of the TARDIS, but fortunately, the caller is Clara. She invented an imaginary boyfriend and needs the Doctor to pose as him at Christmas dinner. He materializes the TARDIS on a newly arrived ship, this time a Cyberman ship, and then scampers off as Clara calls again.

Clara’s trying her best to host Christmas dinner, but she’s having difficulty with the turkey and her family. When the TARDIS arrives, she runs down to meet the Doctor but finds him naked. It seems that he’s going to church. He puts on some holographic clothes and runs up to meet the family, but failed to extend the holographic projection to the family. Clara explains her issues with the turkey and the Doctor takes her to the TARDIS to cook it in the temporal engine.

Meanwhile, Handles has calculated the planet’s identity: Gallifrey. The Doctor refuses to believe the analysis even though he has recently saved his homeworld. His thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of Mother Superious Tasha Lem and the Papal Mainframe. Clara dons holographic clothing – nudity is the order of the day at church – and the pair board the new ship.

Tasha is pleased with the Doctor’s new body and offers a private consultation while Clara waits outside the chapel. While Tasha and the Doctor confer, Clara encounters the Silence, repeatedly forgetting the confessors once she looks away from them. She interrupts Tasha and the Doctor in a panic, forgetting why she did, and then joins the Doctor as he teleports to the planet surface. Tasha demands the TARDIS key so he can’t summon the time capsule and requests that he return in one hour.

Once the travelers arrive on the surface, they find a group of Weeping Angels buried in the snow. The Doctor summons the TARDIS by removing a surprise wig and revealing a key hidden beneath. The TARDIS materializes in a nearby village where the freshly re-dressed travelers meet the residents and a field that forces people to tell the truth.

The town, by the way, is called Christmas.

As the Doctor and Clara explore, they find a glowing crack in the wall, something he hasn’t seen for some time. The Doctor detects evidence that someone is trying to break through this weak point, and Handles suggests that it is Gallifreyan in nature. The truth field and the signal are coming from the Time Lords, and the signal is a question being transmitted through time and space.

It is the oldest question. You know, that inside joke about the show’s title. If he answers the question with his name, the Time Lords will know that it will be safe to return. Unfortunately, that means that everyone in orbit will open fire to destroy their enemy. The Time War will begin again.

The Doctor sends Clara to the TARDIS as Tasha reveals the true name of the planet. Turns out that Christmas is on Trenzalore. As the Doctor negotiates the problem with Tasha, the TARDIS returns Clara home. The Doctor places the planet under his protection, forcing Tasha to begin the Siege of Trenzalore and order the Doctor’s silence to fall.

The Doctor defends against Sontarans, Weeping Angels, and even wooden Cybermen as the years march onward and begin to show on the Time Lord’s body. The town celebrates every victory and comes to love the man who stayed for Christmas.

Eventually, the TARDIS returns to Trenzalore. It has been gone for 300 years, but it has returned Clara as she clung to the outer shell through the temporal vortex. They yell at each other and then embrace. Clara learns about the Doctor’s exploits and joins him for sunrise. Sadly, it is the last sunrise for Handles as the Cyberman head has developed a fault over time and succumbs to inevitability. The Doctor and Clara discuss the nature of his work on Trenzalore. Everyone gets stuck somewhere eventually. Everything ends.

The Doctor also reveals that he’s out of regenerations. Eleven Doctors, the War Doctor, and the Tenth Doctor’s vanity regeneration mean that this regeneration is the end of the line, but every life saved is a victory for him. His musings are interrupted by a request for a parley from Tasha. The Doctor and Clara take the TARDIS to Papal Mainframe. As Tasha and the Doctor negotiate, she reveals that everyone aboard has been replaced by Dalek puppets in order to snare their greatest enemy. The Daleks also know who the Doctor is thanks to information downloaded from the mainframe.

The Daleks try to use Clara as a bargaining chip, but he’s able to restore Tasha’s memories so she can fight back. The Doctor and Clara take the transmat back to the TARDIS. The turkey is finally done and Clara forces the Doctor to promise that he’ll never send her away again. Of course, the Doctor lies – rule number one, right? – and he tricks Clara into returning home while he stays on Trenzalore.

The years continue on as the fleets above continue the siege and the Doctor continues the fight. On Earth, Clara’s family consoles her as they celebrate Christmas. She hears the TARDIS returning and rushes to meet it. Inside, she finds Tasha, who then returns her to Trenzalore so the Doctor doesn’t die alone.

Clara returns to the room with the crack, marveling at the Doctor’s exploits and advanced age. They share a Christmas cracker and find a poignant message inside. The moment is broken by the arrival of the Daleks, and the Doctor ascends the belltower to make his last stand. This is how it ends.

Clara promises to remain behind as the Doctor bids her farewell. She turns to the crack and begs the Time Lords for assistance, offering the Doctor’s reputation as proof of who they seek. They respond by sealing the crack.

The Doctor faces the Dalek ship from the belltower. He admits that he has nothing left to offer, but the Dalek assault is disrupted by the crack opening in the sky. A burst of regeneration energy floats down to the Doctor and he begins to glow in a familiar golden light.

A bit of advice: Never ever tell the Doctor the rules. Regeneration number thirteen begins as the Time Lord uses the power rushing through his body to tear through the Dalek forces and Clara shepherds the villagers to safety.

After the battle, Clara returns to the TARDIS as she searches for the Doctor. She hangs up the phone and enters the time capsule to find the Doctor’s clothes on the floor and a bowl of fish custard on the console. He appears to her with his restored face, claiming that this is the reset. He sets the TARDIS in motion as he prepares to regenerate.

He talks to Clara as he begins to glow, seeing visions of Amelia Pond running around the TARDIS. He promises never to forget when the Doctor was him, then says farewell to a vision of Amy Pond.

He drops his bow tie, which he donned on his first day, then regenerates in a snap. As the new Doctor – an older Scottish man with familiar attack eyebrows – muses about the color of his kidneys, the TARDIS begins to spin out of control. Unfortunately, he doesn’t remember how to fly it.

This story bounces all over the map, and that is truly unfortunate. It was an attempt to tie everything off for Matt Smith’s era, including the Silence, the cracks in time, Trenzalore, and the fate of Gallifrey, but it was just too much and the sheer volume of concurrent story elements made for a muddled send-off for the Eleventh Doctor.

The mystery of the time crack was pretty well wrapped up back in Series 5, and the Silence arc came to a suitable end in Series 6. Bringing both of these elements back for this story seemed more of vain conceits than meaningful plot threads, particularly trying to redeem the Silence as religious confessors when they previously served as murderous foot soldiers.

The fate of Gallifrey was handled quite well in The Day of the Doctor, and while their minor influence here was welcome, I feel like the ending wasn’t quite earned. It’s Clara who begs the Time Lords for help, and historically the Time Lords have looked down on the Doctor’s interference in universal affairs. They even forced him to regenerate as punishment at one point, remember?

Sure, he saved them from utter annihilation, but is that enough to look the other way? I don’t know. The stakes seem awfully high since they’re perfectly safe in the pocket dimension… unless the goal is to ensure that the Doctor is indebted to them and obligated to free them.

The final element – the Doctor’s regeneration limit – takes a few turns here. This story firmly establishes that the limit is purely arbitrary, dictated at a whim by a higher power. Similar to the Master’s offer in The Five Doctors and the brand new set of regenerations gifted to him before The Sound of Drums, the Doctor’s potential is unleashed by the Time Lords with a snap.

The regeneration limit itself was mentioned three times before this point – The Deadly Assassin, Mawdryn Undead, and the TV movie – and given how regenerations are treated by other Time Lords like Runcible (The Deadly Assassin), the Council (The War Games, wherein the Time Lords didn’t even bat an eye at what was effectively capital punishment), and Romana (Destiny of the Daleks), I have long considered the limit to be very flexible if not completely artificial. The Doctor and the Master may believe it (at this point in the series progression), but others have shown us that the limits of regeneration are capricious at best. They are a way for the Council to keep the lesser Time Lords in line.

By extension, this also adds more credence to the Morbius faces being those of the Doctor before the First Doctor, but we’ll get there soon enough. (Breaking the Timestamps Project timeline, this story is exactly why I didn’t have an issue with the Timeless Child revelation during the Thirteenth Doctor’s run.)

It seems that this regeneration was the first in a whole new set of twelve, provided that the Eleventh Doctor didn’t burn all of them off with that over-the-top light show. It also offers a reset, so in that way, it was suitable for Steven Moffat to tie everything off in a sloppy bow. I have already talked about how this whole regeneration limit discussion could have been pushed into the next era by replacing the War Doctor with the Eighth Doctor, but again, Moffat and vanity conceits.

Taking a look at other elements of series mythology, we saw a nice list of “guest” aliens in orbit of Trenzalore, including the Judoon, the Silurians, the Terileptils, and the Raxacoricofallapatorians. In the Doctor’s hall of fame, there is also evidence that the Sycorax, the Monoids, the Racnoss, the Pyrovile, the Ood, and the Adipose also came to play.

It’s one hell of a finale for this era of Doctor Who. I only wish it was better. The ending was emotional, but the rest of the story was uneven. It definitely needs to take advantage of the Timestamps Project’s +1 handicap for regeneration episodes.

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

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Series Seven, Specials, and Eleventh Doctor Summary

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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.