Demons Run – With Good Reason?

River Song. Spoilers...

Finales on Doctor Who, the cult British television show, are a mixed bag. For example, who can forget the tenth Doctor, played by David Tennant, breaking down at the controls of his TARDIS, telling us ‘I don’t want to go’. Yet just the season before, we had been forced to endure the terror of the TARDIS triumphantly dragging the earth across the universe, with no thought for safety, sense, or most of all science.

However sometimes, the quality of a finale can be foreshadowed by the quality of the series that preceded it. And this was the case with the ending to the sixth series, a fifty-minute episode entitled ‘A Good Man Goes To War’.

It started excitingly. The Doctor was going to war against those who wished to destroy him. Such a noble cause, such a noble Doctor. And thus he summoned his allies, which was exciting also. A lesbian Silurian*, a Sontaran medic, a big, blue, fat thing. Those flying WWII Spitfire spaceship things as well, if I remember correctly. To war! Then, just over halfway in, not only has the Doctor cleanly defeated all of his enemies, he’s also managed to save Amy’s baby, explain a load of plot developments, and generally act suspiciously goofy around certain questions in order to allow us to work out what the next episode will be about. Now what?

And that was the problem. As River Song said, he has never flown so high, and well, despite the fact that nothing actually happened, there was no suspense, and hardly a plot to string two developments together, it was very exhillarating. However, after that with the suspense still refusing to arrive, and still not much at all actually happening, things started to get a bit dull. Yes, there was a fight scene, but it was a short one, and there was no excitement in it. The allies managed to fend off the headless monks, while also running around like headless chickens, and the fat blue guy died. Then the Doctor arrived just in time to see the baby disintegrate and to chat to some girl who he never knew. A nice reference to there being no pond in a forest (But you can still get stagnant pools of water, and surely that represents a pond more than a river?) came slightly too late, and, well, I really can’t reveal the final secret, although yes, River Song is exactly who you guessed she would be.

And sadly this has been the case through much of the series. It began so well, the Silence were amazing, Song was fantastic, the Doctor was funny, the plot was intriguing, and then where did it go? Well, seeing ‘Sexy’, the TARDIS was nice, but it had little to do with the overall series. And the flesh episode was imaginative, although the ending seemed slightly stilted, as if two people were trying to write it – the episode writer and the series writer together, but not together enough.

But overall what was there? That creepy woman, yes, she kept on popping up, but, like the crack in the wall, she didn’t add anything to the story. It was almost like a game of where’s wally. Where’s Wall Woman? Oh, she’s there. But don’t let it worry you, her existence has no meaning.

However, I admit, despite my dislike, I am drawn in by the, as a certain character would put it, ‘spoilers’. And I’d like to put forward my guess as to what is about to happen.

The Doctor leaves Amy and Rory, but leaves behind his flesh counterpart, reborn as was foreshadowed as the two Doctors went their seperate ways. As with the people in the original flesh story, the effect of the TARDIS is to stabilise this Doctor into the real Doctor – the other real Doctor.

The Original real Doctor travels in time and space, lives to be 1300 and whatever, and then returns to earth, gathering his companions, to the events that took place in the first episode of this series. He is shot by a young River Song – the child we saw in the first episode – and burned. The other Doctor is then the only Doctor, and he reveals himself to the Wall Woman. She is furious, ’cause she thought she’d got rid of him, so she imprisons River Song. Not for killing anyone, as was originally thought, but for not killing anyone.

This would nicely tie up any loose ends, and would make for a coherant plot, although how this is revealed is up for question, and I’m only half certain that I’ve got all the plot features the right way round. And, as I’m sure the case may be, it’s probably far too obvious.

* Yes Silurian, because being as Homo Reptillia is wrong as well, I thought I’d just pick my favourite. Homo Reptillia is wrong because this would suggest that the Silurians were a part of the ‘homo’ genus, which they can’t be, on account of them being reptiles that evolved thousands of years before the first apes evolved. Equally, they are clearly from a completely different branch of the animal kingdom, being cold-blooded, covered in scales, etc. Taxonomy isn’t that hard to understand…

An Exploration of the Physics of the Starwhale

So, stupidly late, I realise, but I fear that I may have to say a few words on the subject on yet another incarnation of the nation’s favourite Time Lord, the Doctor. However, we’ve already moved on to episode six – yes, really, that quickly – so I have a lot of subject matter to talk about. There are the new daleks, now even more sexy, stone angels that aren’t nearly as scary as before, another visit from River Song, and vampires, without even starting on the hero and heroine of the entire thing. However, the thing that caught my attention the most so far this season is the starwhale. I was entranced by the idea of it – an enormous creature that drifts through space, floating this way and that, and saving worlds in between.
So this blog post is going to be based solely on it. More specifically, it shall be based on how the starwhale might have come into existence. Scientifically of course. I’m talking about its evolution.
We will assume – for the sake of simplicity – that the starwhale is a carbon-based organism, much like the ones on Earth, that breathes in x gas, breaths out y gas, and eats z. This would suggest that it probably evolved in some sort of low-gravity region of a planet, such as high in the atmosphere, or on an asteroid or such like.
My most likely theory is that it probably was born as a single-celled being on a distant gas giant type planet. Floating around, high above the rest of the world, it would probably have been resistant to much of space’s radiation, if this is possible. Maybe, over time, it – and the rest of its particular evolutionary strand – floated up from nearer the centre of the planet to the edges, gaining, as it developed into a more complex organism, a thick layer of dead matter to stop the deadly rays. I’m not sure. I would imagine the starwhale would absorb gas somehow while in a suitable atmosphere and then exhale it as a method of propulsion. This would suggest that, in its original environment, our hypothetical planet, it would fly, probably constantly, using excreted wind to propel itself around. It would, quite literally, fart itself around.
So our proto-starwhale is flying around happily, but we still don’t know why it started flying through space. I presume that, as it moved further and further out from the planet’s centre, it started leaving the planet’s atmospher for short periods of time. Over millions of years, for some reason or other, it became a space-dwelling creature that dipped into atmospheres such as the one of its original home.

So, plausible? I have no idea. There are lots of holes that need filling, and lots of other possibilities, I’m sure. However, I think I’ve done quite well. I would like to thank the nice people at The Doctor Who Discussion Thread and Fan Club for their role in the ideas I have written about above. (The link shows the part of the topic that discusses the above matter.)

Doctor Who – A Small Complaint

Did anyone see Doctor Who on Sunday? I watched it on catch-up (Just one of the many reasons that I would recommend Virgin over Sky any day) last night (Monday). I was impressed with the ending – well thought out if a little OTT on the emotion side – but watching the enemy, I felt nothing but pity. Pity, not for the Collonists, but for the actors, that they could have been humiliated by playing such low-grade, simplistic characters.
The start was clever – I admired the flashes of the website that interspersed the action. Then suddenly we flashed to two the two gardeners. One of them takes a bite of a carrot, starts shaking uncontrollably, and what do you know? We’ve just found our enemy. That was quick. No surprises in this episode then…
Then, and I’m sure I’m not the only person to have noticed this, the plot unfolded to become almost exactly like the episode where we see the Doctor and Martha trapped on a spaceship that apears to be on a collision course with the sun. (42) We have a group of humans that have been taken over by some type of living organism (a sun and water, the juxtaposition is quite ironic…) and forced to destroy or transform the rest. Is the BBC running out of ideas? The captain was played with dexterity, but we saw the same level of commitment in 42. And the heroic destruction of the spaceship by the pilot? Please! While everyone else (except the woman, but that’s explained away somewhere) gets transformed in moments, he had time to switch on the auto-destruct, moan about his abuse, and then press a big red button that just happens to be by his hand?
I will concur that the ending was well played, and the Doctor’s sudden realisation in his own self-importance was fair enough, although the plot device behind it – suddenly deciding that he could change time just in time to save the colonists and make for dramatic viewing – was a bit simplistic. I wish it could have been extended – what would have happened if that turmoil had taken place over an entire series. Never mind, it was not to be. Artistically, I enjoyed the flashes of news that we saw, especially the contrast between them and the first time we saw them. The suicided was incredibly predictable, but I don’t actually think that I minded that. It was enough to see the Doctor re-discover himself.
The worst thing about the episode was definitely watching, and experiencing, the deterioration of the TV show from the well-written, thought-provoking episodes like the episode that took place on almost entirely on a tiny hover-ferry in the middle of a strange Midnight desert, to this, and worst, the last episode of the previous series, where we see the stars going out. Not even in some twisted imaginary universe is it possible for the Doctor to drag an entire planet across a galaxy. And bees???
Never mind. Perhaps (We must hope against all odds) the new Doctor will bring something new to the series. Or perhaps he will be just another David Tenant. And a slick, hair-gelled tacky one at that. I’m not holding out much hope…
However, news about the Christmas episode looks fairly promising. Apparently, Freema is back as Martha, and, according to one source, all eleven Doctors will be apearing in some form on the show.

In a completely unrelated twist, I’d like to apologise for my prolongued absence. I have been away due to exams, but I should be back for good now.