2011 Christmas Special: The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe

OK, off to Narnia my friends as our intrepid Time Lord takes on CS Lewis' classic tale of might and magic.  What gave me pause was the fact that the show was listed in the program guide as being two hours and twenty minutes long.  A little excessive if you ask me, but then reports were that the episode was only 60 minutes in length and the rest I would assume is commercials.  I didn't watch it on Christmas day, so now, with remote in hand, I embark on this tale of Christmas courtesy of the Doctor.

He starts out falling from an exploding space ship, struggling to pit on a space suit as he hurtles towards the earth.  Post-theme, he crashes to earth with the suit on and the helmet on backwards.  He is assisted by  Madge Arwell to find the TARDIS.  Flash forward to Madge's husband dying in the War, and Madge and the children planning for their annual trip to a country manor owned by Uncle Digby.  The Doctor is in the house posing as the caretaker, having made lots of zany modifications to the house.  Madge then informs the Doctor that she is withholding the information about their father from the children until after the holidays.

The children discover a lavishly decorated tree with a large blue box (TARDIS blue no less) underneath which Cyril sees glowing when nobody else is looking.  Lily visits the Doctor in his room and as they are talking, Cyril opens the blue box, revealing it to be a time portal and he steps through, shortly followed by the Doctor and Lily.  The Doctor becomes concerned that something is wrong and they go looking for Cyril.  All of them are soon followed by Madge as Cyril finds a lighthouse.

All of them are in the forest, Cyril enters the lighthouse and discovers a giant wooden statue of a king on a throne which turns out to not be a state at all and Madge is confronted by a group of soldiers.  The scenes keep jumping from character to character which is typical of Steven Moffat's storytelling style.  The soldiers are from Androzani Major (a nod to the classic series) and they are planning to burn the forest with acid rain and melt it down for battery fluid..  At the top of the lighthouse, another wooden creature puts a golden circlet on Cyril's head, and Madge pulls a gun on the soldiers and tries to use their platform to find her children.  The circlet is a device to allow Cyril to hear the trees and hold their life force.  Madge pilots the Androzani platform to the lighthouse.

Madge puts on the circlet, and the forest enters her, and the top of the lighthouse is a pod and launches into the time vortex.  Madge pilots the pod through the vortex with her thoughts of her late husband, and they see her husband's plane going down.  The pod lands back on earth, and the children confront their mother about their father dying.  The Doctor excuses himself and discovers him waiting outside for them, having followed the light of the pod home.  The Arwell family spends Christmas together and Madge encourages the Doctor to not spend Christmas alone.  He departs and goes to spend Christmas with Amy and Rory.

"The Space Museum", Part 4

As the episode opens, we find that Ian has fund the Doctor in the midst of being processed into a display.  He is told that the Doctor is "as good as dead".  Then we find Vicki aiding the rebels in starting their revolution.  She returns to the Museum accompanied by one of the rebels, and Barbara comes to in the midst of the gas.  The Doctor comes to after the processing was reversed, and he claims he understands what is going on, and he and Ian are recaptured.  Barbara leaves the museum and is captured, but quickly rescued by Vicki, only for the two of them to be recaptured.  The companions discussed whether or not their actions have been enough to change the future and the Zeron rebellion manages to free them, and the Doctor remarks that the future doesn't look too bad at all.  The Doctor took a souvenir of the museum ... a time and space visualizer and Vicki departs reluctantly.  The episode ends with a Dalek reporting the movements of the TARDIS ....

The Space Museum, Part 3

The episode picks up where we left off, with the Doctor being taken to the preparation room and the museum staff gathering around the TARDIS.  Ian and Barbara discuss the relative merits of making changes to the future.  They listen at the door as the soldiers discuss their capture outside and they are found by a soldier who approaches them from behind.  Ian confronts the soldier and attacks him and Barbara and Vicki run.  Ian overcomes the soldier and another soldier who tried to help capture him as Barbara and Vicki get separated while running from their pursuers.  Vicki is grabbed by the rebels as Barbara is inadvertently locked in a storage room.  One of the rebels finds Barbara and the two of them encounter a gas released into the building to flush them out.  Vicki goes to the armory with the rebels and tries to help them overcome the electronic lock. Barbara and her companion are overcome by the gas.  Ian captures the governor and forces them to take him to the Doctor.  The episode end with us seeing Ian's reaction when he sees the Doctor, but we don't see the Doctor ... yet.

The Space Museum, Part 2

It has been a while since I watched part 1 of this story, and sitting down to part 2 was a welcome diversion from my hectic days.

The second episode starts with two staff persons discussing their jobs, when they are told of the arrival of the TARDIS.  A group of rebels discusses the arrival of the TARDIS travelers.  The Travelers discuss their course of action, and they start trying to find their way out of the museum.  The Doctor is grabbed by the rebels and taken away from the others.  Barbara, Vicki and Ian argue what to do in the Doctor's absence, and the Doctor escapes from the rebels by hiding inside a Dalek display, but is captured by the museum staff.  He is questioned by the governor who uses thought projection device to read the Doctor's mind.  The Doctor resists the questioning and the governor decides that he would be more useful as an exhibit.  As the episode ends, the guards arrive to take the Doctor to the preparation room ...

I will continue watching and blogging on this episode in the not too far future.

The Space Museum, Part 1

Since there will be such a long wait for more new Doctor Who, I have decided to watch the odd classic episode here and there and then watch and comment on the odd new series eisode as well. In that vein, I am watching an episode I have never seen before, The Space Museum. The DVD restoration of this episode is phenominal. The video and sound quality are great, approaching modern digital quality.

The TARDIS materializes and Ian is concerned because they are n longer in the clothes that they dematerialized in. Vicki gets a glass of water for the Doctor and drops it, and the glass returns to her hand intact. The travelers realize they are at museum, and they are baffled by the fact that they are not leaving any footprints in the dust. They are further baffled by a lack of soounds, and a pair of guards walk within a few feet of them and don't take notice of them despite Vicki sneezing loudly as they walked by.

Inside the museum two museum staff walk by talking, but the travelers did not hear any sound. Vicki discovers that they can't touch any of the displays, and a cuple more museum staff walk by and look right at the travelers but don't see them. They find a display containing the TARDIS and their bodies. Vicki realizes that they are out of time, ahead of their own time track. The Doctor deduces that they should wait for themselves to arrive, and then they will be back in synch. Once they are in synch, they need to prevent whatever occurance end with them as a museum display. Suddenly, the display vanishes, and they are back on track with the time stream...

The Wedding of River Song

Time for a new episode, and I am actually going to watch it live.  Woohoo!  I am watching the final few minutes of Closing Time, and something just hit me, when River sees the Silence, she says who are they and eye-patch lady tells her that they are "her owners."

Wow, what is with time being all mixed up?  WTF?????  The Doctor?  OK, this will be an interesting trip!  OK, so the Doctor goes on a quest to find out why the Silence want him dead.  OK, talking to Dorium Maldovar's head ...  weird.

OK, the mention of the Brig dying ... that was great, kind of a tribute to Nicholas Courtney.  Amy with the eyepatch?  And she shoots the Doctor in the head??? Moffatt is starting to piss me off.  OK, stun gun!  I am not that pissed any more .... The eyepatch is actually a time filter (?) ... interesting.  And the Doctor REALLY needs a haircut!  OK, so it is an eye-drive.

So the Doctor is trying to fix time by getting back to the moment where River kills him and make it happen.  Looks like the Silence are about to break free ... and the eye-drives start to zap the hell out of people.  The Doctor and River get married!  Booyah!

Then my screen froze and I missed everything until Rivere and Amy are drinking wine.  The Doctor Lives!

OK, waiting for Christmas!  Maybe I will go back to my idea of watchign classic Who until it comes back in the Fall (less the specials).  Christmas and from what I hear, an Easter special, then new Who in the fall of 2012.

"Closing Time"

So today I am doing a Doctor Who double feature to get caught up and hopefully be able to stay live to wind up the season.  The flickering lights are never a good sign, and the Doctor showing up at Craig's house and finds that Craig is now a stressed out father.  Meanwhile, a shop girl discovers a Cyberman in the dressing room ... I wasn't aware that they were known for their keen fashion sense.

The Doctor starts working in a shop to investigate the strange power fluctuations, and he and Craig end up in the Cyber-ship via a teleport hidden in a shop elevator.  The Doctor and Craig get mistaken for "partners."  The Doctor is doing well investigating, but Craig ... not so good at it.  I like the alien "shhh power."  They are looking for a "silver rat," in actuality, a cybernate (another nod to the old series).  In the shop, the Doctor sees Amy and Rory shopping and sees a little girl ask Amy for her autograph.  He turns around and discovers that Amy has become a model.

The Doctor captures a Cybermat, and whoa, I have never seen a Cybermat with teeth before.  While the Doctor is talking to the baby, the Cybermat reactivates and starts stalking the Doctor.  Craig gets attacked, and the Doctor manages to deactivate it again.  The Doctor is feeling alone and melancholy.  He feels like his life is coming to a close and he is questioning wether or not having companions is a wise choice.  He goes off on his own to face the Cybermen, and Craig hurries off to help him, because the Doctor NEEDS his companions (Think back to "Turn Left" in series four).

The Doctor discovers that the Cybermen were on a ship that crashes centuries ago, and they were trying to rebuild.  They are defeated by the power of a father's love and instinct to protect his crying baby.  The Doctor swans off tidys up the house for Craig before Sophie returns and he takes some TARDIS blue envelopes from Craig's house, and as a partaking gift, Craig gives him a stetson hat.  This leads me to wonder how much time has passed in-between "The God Complex" and "Closing Time" because remember that the Doctor who died in "The Impossible Astronaut" was 200 years older than the current Doctor.

The Episode ends with the eye-patch lady and the Silence coming for River Song and encase her in the astronaut suit to set up the events of "The Impossible Astronaut."  The Season Finale is next week, and I can't wait!  Of course, then we have to wait until autumn 2012 before the next season begins.