TV REVIEW: Game of Thrones - The Door

Spoilers...

With the eventual denouement seemingly edging closer, it seems all bets are off concerning character survival, something which was underlined this week with the heartbreaking death of a fan favourite. It was a powerful ending to the episode, and the ripples will be felt in more ways than one.

But first, an important meeting between Sansa and Littlefinger (with Brienne in tow), where Sansa beautifully called him out for selling her to Ramsay and her making it explicitly clear what he did to her - "he knew he needed my face so he left that, but he committed horrors to the rest of me" (a paraphrase, but you get the idea). Baelish was in begging mode, but Sansa would not accept his please to allow her to have the army of the Vale, but cleverly keeping information from him for her own use. It turns out Brynden the Blackfish (hooray!) has been gathering forces to rally to the Stark cause, and with many other houses joining Bolton, they need all the help they can get.

Arya's story continues to make me sad, with her being given an assignment to assassinate an actress. No ordinary actress however; she is actually playing Cersei in a comedy dramatisation of the first couple of seasons, with Richard E. Grant as Robert Baratheon and the amazing Kevin Eldon as a supremely dimwitted Ned Stark. Arya is forced to watch this while in recon mode, and it's a heartwrenching moment, not least because she's seeing these events replayed but because it reminds her of her family in a time where she's trying to forget to be Arya Stark. And she may not be her, but I still want her to be, to fight with her sister and brother (half-brother).

In Mereen, Tyrion and Varys met up with Kinvana, another red priestess who believes Dany is the promised one. She agreed to help spread the word of Dany's involvement in the current state of peace, but had a lovely spar with Varys, who brought up Melisandre's role in Stannis' downfall. But it turns out she knows a lot, especially about Varys, and he seemed surprisingly unnerved considering his usual constitution. In Vaes Dothrak we saw a probable farewell to another character, as Jorah revealed his greyscale to a distraught Dany. She ordered him to find a cure and return when he did, but it felt more like an excuse for not saying goodbye, almost like an honourable discharge. Will we ever see Jorah again?

The Greyjoy story took an interesting turn at the Kingsmoot, where Euron won the salt throne thanks to a plan to meet up with Dany and offer her support and his fleet. Yara wasn't too happy about this, so scarpered with all the good ships, probably a good idea since Euron's post coronation words were "Where are my niece and nephew? Let's go murder them."

And then it came to Bran, the most consistently interesting story that here took an even more intriguing turn, with lots to unpack. Vision questing all over the place, he discovered that the children of the forest created the white walkers to protect their world against man, and went on a solo warg only to find himself in front of the Night's King. Unfortunately, he grabbed Bran and left his mark on him, allowing him to lead his army straight to the raven's lair, resulting in a fantastic action sequence reminiscent of Aliens, with a child of the forest doing a straight Vasquez to save an escaping Bran, Meera, and Hodor.

Hodor. Hodor. Poor Hodor. What a tragedy. In order to grab Bran to escape, Hodor needed a helping hand, but Bran was deep in a vision at Winterfell, seeing Ned sent to the Vale. But while Meera was able to get through to Bran, he didn't wake up, so warged into Hodor while being back in the past. While this was happening, we saw past Hodor drop to the ground in warg mode, and when they got out of the tree, Hodor needed to stop the remaining wight horde. Meera's words "hold the door" echoed through time, and were repeated by past Hodor to a point where they stopped being the phrase and simply became "Hodor". Thus we had an origin story and a death scene simoultaneously, but a heroic yet tragic ending for Hodor.

Bran's actions introduce a new dimension, something only hinted at previously, namely being able to affect the future through the past. It remains to be seen just exactly how this will come in to play from here on, but it was a fascinating cap to a great episode. There was excellent action, with a wonderful display of actual magic of a kind, with the children of the forest versus the white walkers (fire versus ice), as well as character moments like Sansa standing up to Littlefinger. But still no Lyanna - hopefully with the season at the halfway point they won't wait until the end to return to the Tower of Joy, but there's one question - will Bran be able to have the visions without the Raven?

Hodor, Hodor. Hodor.

- Charlie

You can read Charlie's look at previous episode, Book of the Stranger, here.

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TV REVIEW: Doctor Who - The Name of the Doctor

As has been the case with many Moffat –led pivotal Doctor Who finales, ‘The Name of the Doctor’ promised not so much a titbit of information as a huge chunk of home-made baguette, complete with a side order of cheese board and assorted meats. Naturally, as has also frequently been the case, we received nothing of the sort, at least not in terms of the informational morsel we were anticipating. Happily, however, the televisual feast that we did receive, tasted much, much better.

Having received an ill-tasting piece of information herself, the episode opens on Madame Vastra (Neve McIntosh) returning from visiting a convict, urgently needing to psychic link with Jenny (Catrin Stewart), Strax (Dan Starkey) and Clara (Jenna Louise Coleman). The informant told of ‘the Doctor’s biggest secret’, which transpires to be the co-ordinates of his final resting place- his grave at Trenzalore.  Naturally, then, given the magnitude of this information, it isn’t long before- after three everyone, SPOLIERS!- Professor River Song (Alex Kingston) is called upon, to join the psychic- link-anxious-worry-party. It seems the prophecy, "On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a Question will be asked, a question that must never, ever be answered” is to come back to haunt The Doctor. Unfortunately for him, as a time traveller, is grave is somewhere he must never, ever go. Even more unfortunately, after his friends are attacked by the Great Intelligence’s whisper men (Richard E Grant), and with visiting said grave presented as the only way to buy their freedom, he has little choice.

Uncharacteristically, disarmingly frightened of the consequences of his actions, The Doctor must prepare to cross his own timeline, risking his own life, not to mention the majority of time and space, in order to save his friends. Not a bad little premise for a series finale. Add to that the revelation about what made Clara, ‘The Impossible Girl’, quite so impossible, a discovery revealed through a winning combination of poignant scenes and actual real-life, totally not usually how Doctor Who normally operates sense, and you’ve got the makings of a brilliant episode. A memorable performances from Jenna Louise Coleman as the self-sacrificing girl who discovers she was born to save The Doctor, as well as the palpable chemistry between Matt Smith and Alex Kingston in their characters’ final moments together really cemented it as one of the all-time, as it were, greats. They were simply two people saying goodbye, the fact that they are both time travellers on a bizarre unpredictable backwards trajectory didn’t matter a jot.

The whole episode was a welcome departure from the atmosphere of total bafflement usually created by a Doctor Who series finale, with the exception of course of the superb ‘The Angels Take Manhattan’, as everything slotted cosily into place.  That said, however, none of this was a patch on the show’s last 30 seconds, a clip allegedly removed from all press copies of the episode. In an introduction to November’s 50^th Anniversary special, we were treated to a sort of icing on the caked dessert, as we caught glimpses of various previous Doctor’s jogging around on their own timelines, going about their business being saved by Clara-Impossible.  Not only that, but a cherry on the top too, as we meet the one version of our beloved hero who broke the rules, the one who doesn’t go by the name of The Doctor, a version to be played by none other than John Hurt. John Hurt!

It seems the 50^th special will feature three versions of The Doctor, Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt, as we traverse The Doctor’s timeline back to pre-Eccleston times. I haven’t the foggiest what this will be like, but I think my excitement is best demonstrated by the fact that I know it was exactly 6 months on Thursday, to the date, that we will be finding out.

For what we are about to receive, may we be truly thankful.

I have an inkling we will be.

Jen

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TV REVIEW: Doctor Who Christmas Special: The Snowmen

For those of us not overly enamoured with the idea of The Snowman and the Snowdog, there were other snow creatures afoot (adrift?) this Christmas. ‘The Snowmen’, this year’s festive Doctor Who episode, had it all. Scary Christmas monsters, fantastic guest stars, at least half of a sensible plot and it was set in the heart of all things considered by TV land to be appropriately festive – Victorian London.

After an unusual introductory sequence involving a small boy talking to some snow, The Doctor descends on the snowy streets of London, moping about on his own and generally being very Scrooge like, barely showing a cursory interest in Richard E Grant's Dr Simeon and his Great Intelligence institute. Naturally, of all the gin joints in all the world, he happens to walk past the tavern worked in by Jenna Louise Coleman’s Clara, who would have ‘new companion material’ written all over her frock even if we hadn’t already seen her in ‘Asylum of the Daleks’. The two deduce that a nearby snowman has somehow managed to build itself, and must consequently have some sort of intelligent mind. Utterly disinterested in all matters timey-wimey as The Doctor is at this point, he attempts to run away, pursued back to the cloud on which he’s parked the TARDIS by the feisty Clara, who then runs away herself after knocking on his door.

Eventually, and all in the nick of time as usual, The Doctor realises that the Earth is in grave danger from the evil snowmen, and arrives at the house Clara works in as a governess just in time to save the family from a huge, walking ice-cube in the shape of a woman emerging from the garden pond. Battle then ensues, with Clara injured and the Doctor fighting for her, the planet, and above all – Christmas.

Speaking of Clara, I cannot heap enough praise onto Jenna Louise Coleman, and believe me I’ve been trying to for the last couple of days. She’s every bit as fiery as Amy, although without a Rory equivalent in tow, she’s a lot freer to be her own person, a character in her own right rather than a part of a whole. Mind you, the whole itself is worth a mention. The return of Madame Vestra and her wife Jenny not only provides us with some gloriously, hilariously simple Moffat-ian lines such as “Good evening. I am a lizard woman from the dawn of time and this is my wife”, but gives a modern, relevant angle to the story. In fact the theme of old and new ran throughout, with new companion Clara innocently quoting ‘Pond’ as the reason The Doctor should get down from his cloud and save the world, as well as a re-vamped looking Tardis and theme tune managing to look cheerfully retro.

Sad as I am that the flirty Clara doesn’t seem likely to star alongside the equally sexually charged Captain Jack Harkness anytime soon, the chemistry between her and Matt Smith’s Doctor is plenty enough to be going along with. Not since the days of Rose has there been such an obvious attraction between the two characters, and it’s a lot of fun to watch. Now on to his second lot of companions, Smith seems to be more at home in the role than before. Having gone through the rite of passage that all Doctors must, the loss of a companion, the part is now truly his.

That said, The Doctor’s moping at the start of the episode did begin to feel a little too routine. We’ve seen it all before with David Tennant’s Doctor. We know the format. It certainly makes for a good ‘will he step in or won’t he’ plotline, but in terms of character, might it be nice if he coped with things slightly differently for a change? Perhaps The Doctor on the rebound could work? He jumps straight into the TARDIS with another companion and then has a hissy fit and breaks down a few episodes later? Unlikely to catch on as a plot but I thought it worth suggesting.

The only other thing potentially throwing snowy spanners into the works of this Christmas special were the references to Moffat’s other TV franchise, Sherlock. I for one enjoyed The Doctor’s useless attempts at deduction, as well as the suggestion that Vestra and Jenny were the true inspiration for Conan Doyle’s Holmes and Watson, but both references felt a little shoe-horned in. Not necessarily an issue, but when you find yourself wondering whether or not Moffat has linked Sherlock to strong female leads in another show in order to dispel the vicious whisperings that he in fact can’t write strong female leads at all – you realise that you’ve been taken out of the immediacy of the story in front of you. You’ve escaped the escapism. And funny as the references were- that’s not good.

All concerns aside though, this was a fantastically funny and pleasantly scary episode- perfectly placed in the schedules for post-lunch sofa collapse. There’s fun to be had guessing which high profile actor played the part of the snow itself, which took me far longer than it should have to figure out, and Richard E Grant is as much of a joy as ever, especially when he’s being evil. The episode continued the tradition of festive themed monsters, the beasts behind the baubles, as well as setting up the next series’ on going mystery arc, namely, who on Earth or otherwise is Clara/Oswin?

Several critics have pointed out that this episode was unlikely to appeal to the casual Who viewer. Fair point, but I think it more important that it managed to satisfy the dedicated fans whilst still leaving them hungry for more.

Which is not bad going really, considering the majority of the audience were still stuffed full of turkey and roast potatoes at the time.

- Jen

You can read more of Jen's writing here: https://memyselfandtheothers.wordpress.com/

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