Review of Warehouse 13: Personal Effects

Still writing for The Geek Girl Project (and I really need to write more about that, soon!), so the main review is up over there.

Short version: It was ok. Entertaining and a good show to watch while I was tired & needing to relax in front of the TV (ok, computer), but not one of their outstanding shows either way.

And I really, really want to know where H. G. Wells is! They said they'd take Artie's opinion into consideration, and that's the last we've heard of her.

Once Upon a Time: The Return, a Review

Short version: Now that’s more like it! A Rumpelstiltskin story is always a win, and his motivation I believe!

Full version: Here, at The Geek Girl Project.

Review of Eureka: Lost

Short version: No, the "twist" did not make up for the frustration of thinking they had hit the reset button again(1).

Longer version: Up on The Geek Girl Project.

(1) I actually like the Season 4 reset, since they had the guts to keep the changes, and the sense to make sure the core characters traveled together & kept their relationships, but things can be carried too far, and this would have been. "It was all a dream" is almost never a workable solution.

Review: Once Upon a Time, The Stable Boy

I have my review of Once Upon a Time: The Stable Boy written & posted. The full version is up on The Geek Girl Project. The short version: For the first time ever for an episode of Once Upon a Time: "Meh."

Once Upon a Time: That Still Small Voice, a Review

You know, it's harder to review a series I really like than to review one I dislike or just tolerate. I'm thoroughly enjoying Once Upon a Time, with only a couple of very mild protests based on where they might go. The heroes are likeable, the villains properly villainous, the acting is good, the story keeps unrolling and developing interesting new wrinkles, and the creators really are making use of the fairy tales, embroidering and altering the familiar in fun, fascinating ways. What's not to like?

That Still Small Voice gives Jiminy Cricket's past in the fairy tale land.

Meanwhile, in Storybrook, the plot threads are multiplying. A mysterious hole opens up. The mayor wants it closed. Her son wants to it explored. After Regina pushes Archie Hopper to completely destroy Henry's delusion, denying the reality of the tales, he heads down there on his own. Meanwhile, Margaret Mary and John Doe are continuing to spend time together, though his wife/fiancee continually interrupts them. Sheriff Graham officially deputized Emma whose first case turns out to be rescuing Henry and Archie from the sinkhole. We never quite see what is down there, not for sure, but enough is shown to indicate that Henry was right: It should be looked at.

I like the way the two strands, Storybrook and fairy tale are being intertwined. There is usually enough of a tale in the fair-tale side to give a finished story while the Storybrook side moves forward more slowly. Yes, there's always an element of "To be continued..." even in the fairytale side, but still, it's a good balance between the single and the ongoing story, a have your cake and eat it too situation. Also, the two sides usually comment on one another as we see different aspects of the characters and their continuing difficulties. Here we learn more about what kind of person Archie/Jiminy is, and see that he's had a long struggle with the whole matter of conscience.
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Story-related wonderings:

Does all magic have a cost? Rumplestiltskin is certainly fond of saying so, but he's not precisely a reliable source. The Blue Fairy makes no such demand on Jiminy when she shows up to answer his wish. On the other hand, she turns him into a cricket, which strikes me as doom enough, even if it is what Jiminy wished for (And he can't have been thinking clearly at the time. Crickets are prey to just about every bird, frog, and toad out there, even if they carry really good umbrellas, plus there's the whole "Being a conscience" deal, which sounds decidedly un-fun).

Why are the couple who got turned into dolls in fairy-tale land still dolls in Storybrook? Shouldn't they be, I don't know, paralyzed, or in a coma or something? Does their presence mean Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold remembers who he is and where he is from?

Regina looked pretty unhappy about Emma showing up as a deputy. I guess it wasn't on her orders, after all. She does seem to be losing control of the town fairly quickly. Also, she seemed genuinely worried about Henry. Does this mean that one of the shifts Emma's arrival has caused a shift in the Evil Queen as well? Near as I can tell, she gave up the ability to love as part of her price for the curse. Is she getting it back? If so, what will that mean? (It's not like having the ability kept her from killing her father, pre-curse).

If the curse is broken, will everyone want to return to fairytale land? There doesn't seem to be anything fundamentally wrong with Storybrook as a place to live. The problem is the loss of memory and, in many cases, established relationships. As the series shows more of the fairytale land, it also shows that there were plenty of problems there, as well. If it had truly been perfect, Rumplestiltskin would never have been able to sell his curse.

Where did Henry get that story book, anyway? It is not just any old book of fairy tales. The stories in it do not run the way the fairy tales on my bookshelf run. So--who gave it to him? When? Why?
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The mild caveats: Still the same ones I mentioned back in my review of The Price of Gold. I really don't want the "Who is sleeping with whom?" aspect to eat the show. I'm watching the Mary Margaret/John Doe line with equal amounts if interest and uneasiness. It could work out just fine. It could turn into a tiresome tangle. We shall see. The same goes for the possible triangle with Regina, Emma, and the sheriff (Possible. The show could head in that direction. It could not).

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Random Thoughts and Observations:

1)Bright green crickets that sing in the rain? Guess that goes along with dark red Honeycrisp apples.

2) My, the blue fairy certainly is busty, isn't she?

3) Who is the sheriff, anyway? In fairytale terms, that is.

As of this writing, That Still Small Voice is up on hulu.  There's now a note there saying it will remain up until January 9.

Grimm: Lonleyhearts, a Review

At its heart, Grimm remains a show about plastic people and synthetic monsters, a show that promises a creepy, off-beat look into the fairy tale world and instead delivers a vaguely plotted, predictable procedural.

This week's episode, Lonelyhearts, combined "Bluebeard" with the legend of satyrs, in what I admit was a clever touch--one of two bright ideas in the interminable forty-three minutes of show.

The episode opens with a woman running(1) down a lonely road. She swerves into the path of an oncoming car and is (surprise!) hit. A bystander comes out of nowhere, barks at the driver to call 911 because she's still breathing, turns to the woman, and for no particular reason, smothers her, thus giving us our obligatory opening murder. It's never really clear why he does this since subsequent events make it clear he lets women go all the time, once he's through with them, and that she would be quite unable to identify him if he did.

Somewhere in there, a Reaper comes to town to kill Nick. Unfortunately for the Reaper, Captain Renard doesn't want Nick killed, and makes that quite clear, in French, no less, with the additional fillip of cutting off the Reaper's ear, just to help him remember. And here we have the show's second clever touch(2). Renard is shaping up to be an intriguing antagonist, and I find myself curious about who he is and what is he up to. Another Grimm? But the Reaper recognized him as something fearful and not-Grimm. A different creature? What sort? Why does he want Nick "on our side"? Where is he on the sliding scale of evil? When will Nick learn? What will he do?

At which point in my musings, everything crashes into one of the show's biggest problems: Nick has all the personality of a Ken doll. The strongest emotion on screen so far has been mild frustration, which is probably what he'll display whenever Renard reveals his Cunning Plan.

Meanwhile, the Lonelyhearts mystery plays out. Monroe, who is starting to catch Nick's emotional excess, looks mildly annoyed when is called away from his quiet, cultured life to once again serve as Nick's walking encyclopedia and spare sidekick. With his help and Hank's fairly liberal interpretation of "probable cause" to enter someone's house, the three narrow the field of suspects down from one to  one. Yes, their first suspect is also their last, a rapist-abductor who lures women to him with the help of pheromones and then keeps them locked in his basement under the influence of hallucinogenic gasses until they are pregnant, after which he releases them. Oh, and he also eats rare toads to boost his abilities. Quite why this works no one knows or cares. I strongly suspect it has more to do with the viewer's expected response of "Oh, gross! Toads!" than any well-thought-out plot point.

The pacing is pathetically slow. With only one suspect and only three minutes' worth of subplot, no one has anything to do. The villain strolls to a bar. Nick strolls after. Monroe has a beer. Hank climbs through a window. The music and lighting do their valiant best to make all of this exciting, but with nothing much at stake, it doesn't work. Even some character development might have changed things: Does Hank climb through the window because he's  a constant risk-taker and bender-of-rules? Is he breaking his first rule out of concern for the women he believes trapped inside? Is he as bored as I am? With no real facial expression, I can't tell and I'm fast ceasing to care(3).

The show also managed to be offensive. Hank and Nick have just rescued three women who have been held captive in dog kennels and raped. The two seem appropriately horrified, (within the range of their designated emotional spectrum), but then Hank asks how the rapist managed to attract women in the first place, Nick suggests it's the toads, and Hank remarks that he needs to get some. Um--what? I suspect it's supposed to read as "Cops letting off tension after a horrific case" but--it doesn't. It reads as "People making tasteless jokes at exactly the wrong time."

And, yet again, Grimm wastes its fairy tale premise. Sure, the idea of combining Bluebeard and the satyr is moderately clever, but the execution leads to a tawdry, sordid, horrible tale of a man luring women into his house and raping them. That doesn't need special pheromones (unfortunately), and once the villain has them in his house, he no longer uses the pheromones, turning to cages, cellars, and gas (How did he get his house fitted up with those? And does he have permits for keeping an endangered exotic loose on the property? Doesn't that make it hard to change identities when he moves? How many people apply for permission to keep rare toads? And if he hasn't applied, shouldn't one or the other of his visitors fuss?), so why bother with a separate species bursting with super-pheromones in the first place?

The creative team behind Grimm seems to have put lamentably little thought into their fairy tale creatures in general. It's not clear what they are, where they come from, or why they are different from regular human people, or to what extent. It's also not clear that anyone has thought of this. They can breed with humans (as we just rather regrettably saw this episode), so why haven't they bred themselves out? Can they breed with each other? Can they help what they do? If so, how much? Monroe calls himself reformed and plays musical instruments etc, but he also casually tosses off information about other fairy tale beings as though he were discussing the breeding of foxes or toads ("Oh, he's a herder. They're very rare."). The bears beasts had a clear culture and choice, but they also had bear faces--so what's going on? And the show creators really should have thought very, very carefully before they set up a story where a whole race of beings had the nearly irresistible urge to rape people. Or, earlier, an entire race dedicated to kidnapping and killing little girls. Are they saying something about criminality as a whole? Are they thinking at all about text and subtext? Are they thinking?

Less vital to the show's function but still part of the not-thought-out process is the uneven use of technology. The bee-beasts used cell phones. Nick's aunt, on the other hand, keep all of her stuff in a locked trailer? Oh, yes, the book really looks cool, but, come on, she was a librarian, she knows all about scanning books into computers and uploading them onto the internet where she or her nephew could look them up quickly and easily on those phones we keep seeing the camera display ever-so-lovingly.  Sure, those ancient weapons look cool, but a gun seems to work just as well, so why is she keeping them?

One more episode. Just one, and I'm through. Maybe not the next episode, either. Maybe I'll give it a week or three to mature a bit--or wait till after the holidays. Maybe I won't get back to it at all. I'm wildly bored, mildly offended, and thoroughly frustrated by their waste of a good premise.

Edit to add: A friend who hasn't watched the show read the review and asked, "Is it even remotely possible they're trying to bring visibility to violence against women?" Sadly, no. Those weren't women, those were plot tokens. I actually considered writing about the way dehumanizing the women made things even worse--When I said there was nothing at stake, I meant just that: The women were null objects, standing in for the "at stake" element. This adds to the offense value, given how serious rape is(4). Then I decided that, given how lackadaisical the show was in its entirety, and how bland every element was, it wasn't worth spending more time on it. But she asked, so now I am elaborating.
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(1) Jogging, really. Raw panic is not one of those things Grimm excels at portraying. There is creepy music playing, though, and the lighting is doing strange things. Lighting and music are asked to make up for a lot in this show.
(2) No, not having the monsters speak French. That was just so-so. It did give the conspiracy an international flavor, which can be good, but it also added subitles which seemed, frankly, precocious and overly cute.
(3) Between Hank and Sergeant Wu (I looked his name up), Grimm ought to get points for being multicultural, but since the all came out of the same Sears catalog, it hardly seems to matter.
(4) It's not that I like to watch grim and gritty shows about the emotional and psychological impact of rape. I don't. However, if a show does decide to deal with a serial rapist, then they should deal with it, not make it part of some glossed over blandness. There is no good way to tell a "light" tale about rape. Grimm either needs to grim up or lighten up.

Once Upon a Time: The Price of Gold, a Review

The Price of Gold was, once again, gold. I'm really enjoying this show, and I hope they can keep this up.

Again, the focus is on interpersonal relationships and how they have been affected by the move into our world.

This time, the flashback reveals that Cinderella was not sent to the ball by her fairy godmother. Instead, Rumplestiltskin killed the fairy godmother and took her place. Cinderella was so desperate to escape her life of drudgery that she accepted the substitution fairly quickly and signed a deal with Rumplestiltskin: He'd get her to the ball, she'd pay him back in some unspecified way at some point in the future.

This is Rumplestiltskin we're talking about: In return for providing gold, he wants Cinderella's first child. She doesn't want to give it to him, and with the help of her husband, Prince Thomas, and Snow White's husband, they set a trap. Rumplestiltskin is imprisoned, but he warns that, unless his price is paid, Cidnerella will never see Prince Thomas again.

In the Maine world, Cinderella is Ashley, an unmarried young mother about to give birth. One thing has not changed: She has still signed a contract with Gold agreeing to give up her baby in return for money.  Trying to leave the city, she is brought back by Emma, who in turn makes an agreement with Gold: Cinderella keeps her baby and is reunited with her prince, and Emma will owe him a favor.

Not even Henry, who has contrived to travel with her, warns her against this. So--oops. Emma's won a short-term victory, but what is it going to cost?

I do like Rumpelstiltskin as a villain. He seems so careful about covering all the angles in a bargain and so open about his machinations. I wonder, though, is he telling the truth when he says that all magic has a price? If so, what price is he paying? And, how can he be defeated? This is going to be very important as the story moves on--say, a season or three down the line. It is possible that it's as simple as knowing his real name (which, then, can't be Rumpelstiltskin since everyone in the fairy tale world knows it), since the guard mentioned names having power back in the pilot. However, that's long-term stuff, so we'll see.

As far as Emma's mistake: I like the fact that it's a very in-character mistake. It doesn't seem likely that her upbringing gave her much exposure to fairy tales, and she doesn't really believe yet that she's living in one, not even one gone wrong, so shes' not thinking in terms of promises being absolute, unbreakable, and unpredictable. Also, she's vulnerable to families in need and so just might have made that promise anyway.

The sour note in this comes with Regina and the sheriff. I really, really hope the show is not going to start focusing to much on who is sleeping with whom. On the one hand, I like the idea that deputizing Emma might be part of Regina's long-term plan; I'd like to see the queen as a capable plotter in her own right. On the other... who is sleeping with whom can get so tiresome. On the whole, I hope that what we saw was careful misdirection with the camera, not the beginnings of some strange triangle with the sheriff, Regina, and Emma.

Until next week!
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As of this writing, several episodes, including The Price of Gold, are up on hulu. Actually, they're up on ABC as well, but on the whole, I've found hulu slightly easier to stream than any of the networks.

Grimm: Beeware, a Review

Ah yes, Beeware, the punnily titled episode in which Nick finally does some detecting, we meet the worlds' worst best communicators, and the tradition of needlessly cryptic warnings is rigorously kept.

I continue to like the idea of Grimm without being attracted to its execution. Nick is still reading as painfully generic, and sadly, so is his partner (Hank?) and the uniformed-guy (Sergeant? Somebody) who provides them with information. So, sadly, is Juliette, though she got one reasonably amusing line--addressed to the wrong person(1).

The bright spot: It is, finally, looking a little bit at the detective side of things: Nick and his partner are investigating two murders by bee-venom carried out during flash mobs.

Of course, the murderer turns out to be a fairy tale creature, and Monroe turns up very briefly to provide some encyclopedic information: The murderer is one of a group of beings called mellifera, whose main ability is to communicate.

Nick figures out that there is a third planned victim, also a fairy tale creature, this time it is Adelind, the same hexenbiest who tried to kill his aunt earlier. He is now responsible for protecting her from her would-be attackers.

And this is where the story starts to implode: No one tells anyone anything, even when it would make sense to do so.

Nick recognizes Adelind, but for no reason at all, does not tell either Renard or his partner. This is the woman who tried to kill his aunt and him. The fact that she is a hexenbiest does not, so far as Nick knows, have to intrude on the police aspect of it. I can't say whether or not this secrecy is in character because I don't know yet that Nick has a character.

Then the mellifer prove to be very poor communicators after all. Nick catches up with the lead (queen?) mellifer while she is trying to kill Adelind. Despite having an entire room full of bees at her command, the mellifer is trying to stab Adelind with a syringe while trying to persuade Nick to let her. As the women fight,  she explains that the hexenbiests she had been persecuting her and her fellows in order to keep them from warning the Grimms, and so Nick should just stand aside (3). After fumbling with his gun for a while and dodging curtains of bees, Nick opts to shoot her rather than let her kill Adelind.

Nowhere during the rather long conversation does she actually give this all-important warning, not until she is dying, at which point she manages several sentences all of which add up to letting Nick know that "He" is coming and Nick should "be prepared." What is wrong with "John Black is coming. He'll be wearing a red jacket, and he'll be trying to steal your soul"? Or some other, similar, clearly-worded message?

Oh, and Nick gets stung at the end. Guess he just made a whole host of new enemies. Oops.

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(1) Really: Wouldn't that scene about bee stings and dogs have worked better with Monroe? Wouldn't it have been more likely with Monroe? I mean, why was Hank going to his partner's fiancee, a vet,  for first aid instead of stopping by a clinic or something? As an aside, I find myself wondering: Why is Monroe helping Nick at all? In the first case, he had some motive: There was a girl whose life was immediately in danger, and he, arguably, had some personal stake in it, since it was his species causing the mischief. What's his motive now? He doesn't particularly like Grimms as a race. Monroe remains a bright spot in the show, but I'd like to know why he's hanging around with the plastic people.

(2) By the next day, so far, but it's anyone's guess whether it will stay that way. Stations have a tendency to make deals with iTunes etc. that push the airtime back later. Whether that will be true of Grimm or not, I don't know.

(3)  Let me repeat: This woman has an entire room full of bees at her command. All she needs to do is have them sting Adelind and then she and Nick can chat cozily. No one would believe him for one minute if he tried to explain that she'd used the bees as a murder weapon.

Once Upon a Time: Snow Falls, a Review

Snow Falls is another solid, entertaining episode in Once Upon a Time's developing series.

The show continues to set the stage for the conflict to come, moving the fairy tale story back in time to Snow White and Prince Charming's(1) first meeting and pushing the plot forward to the first real struggle between Emma and Regina in Storybrooke.

In Snow Falls, Emma and Regina make their first moves directly relating to the curse and breaking it. Emma has found a place in town and, with Henry's help, she and Mary Margaret have wake John Doe/David Nolan/Prince Charming, a step toward reuniting the separated pair. Regina countered by bringing in David's wife--if, that is, Kathryn is his wife. In the flashback, she shows up as his fiancee just prior to Snow and Charming's first meeting. How this relationship played out in Storybrooke is open to question. The interwoven stories and relationships kept the tale moving quite nicely.

The most promising points, however, came right at the end: Regina informed Emma that Storybrooke is "bigger than you know" and the teaser for next week introduces Cinderella. This means that, yes, more fairy tale characters and plot strands can move into the series, making for a much richer and more tangled storyline(2) and also leaving open the possibility of Emma winning some rounds in the ongoing battle. A good, long fight can be fun, but not if it consists solely of the heroes losing over and over and over again while the villain gloats(3). This way, there can be minor victories and defeats along the way, which is much more interesting.

I am, I admit, concerned by the introduction of the Rotten Fiancee/Wife. Bad Fiancees all-too-often are merely bad. They are often so shrill, unsuitable, and annoying that one wonders what possesses anyone to keep them around at all, much less stay engaged/married. So my inner alarm went off when she showed up in our world. It's early days yet, though. Kathryn/Annette has only just appeared. With luck and good writing, she could turn out to be a multifaceted character with her own agenda that may or may not line up with Regina's.

It will be interesting to learn just how much Regina remembers about being queen. She certainly remembers power, and she remembers hatred. Does she remember her former life? After all, she's trapped herself in Maine along with everyone else. And Rumpelstiltskin/Gold(4)--How much does he remember? What is he after?

The character writing continues to be strong, overall. Snow, in the backstory, slides a bit toward cliche from time to time, but we haven't found out yet what happened between her and the queen. I have a feeling that will be worth seeing. Regina remains a complicated character. Wicked, yes, but in a complicated, interesting way. Emma was almost hidden behind her, these last two episodes, but she has a strong enough personality to be able to carry the lead role comfortably. Henry, wonder of wonders, remains a likeable and believable precocious kid.

Things I hope to see:
More fairy tale characters (That's coming, so hurray!) and more of everyone's back story (almost certainly coming)
Fairy tale characters from different traditions. Right now, we've got the Grimm lot plus Pinocchio. There are tales Disney never touched, and a few of those characters could add some variety and interest.
A better sense of what and where fairy land--or whatever it is called--is in relation to here. I'd like some sort of name for it, too, just for convenience sake.
More Maleficent(5). If one Evil Queen is good...
More of the show. I'm glad it at least gets a full season. I like having a show that I want to watch at the earliest possible moment, while it's on.

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(1)He has a name, you know.
(2)Just so long as the creators can keep track. I don't mind being lost myself--I kind of enjoy it--but I hate it when the creators have clearly lost control (Just how many basements did the Centre have in Pretender? Did anyone know? By the end, did anyone care?)
(3)See the most recent V for an example. Or, rather, don't. Not even the fact that Anna gloats wonderfully well saves the show.
(4)I'm still trying to get figure out how to deal with this two-name deal. It's not a problem watching the show. Writing about it, however, is a whole 'nother deal. Do I use both names? Or do I stick with the our-world name for Maine and the fairy tale name for--fairyland(?)--whatever-it-is the characters call their real world.
(5)Yep. They have Disney's permission to use the name--plus a few others you may have noticed along the way.

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As of this writing, the episode is up on hulu. I'm guessing it'll be there for another month.

Grimm, Bears Will Be Bears, a Review

A story blending the police procedural and the fairy tale should not be this bland.

Bears Will Be Bears is a small step up from the pilot episode. The product placement has been toned down considerably to the more usual long, loving shots of gleaming items rather than the extensive name-brand referencing of last week.

Generic Cop, aka Nick, is still pretty much the fresh-faced, standard-issue honest cop. There's little else to say about him. Other characters remain equally bland. Beautiful fiancee has red hair. Dubious but supportive partner/best friend is dubious.

The exceptions to this rule are Monroe, the former Bad Wolf, and Aunt Maria. Bad Wolf is, I admit, a pretty common brand of snarky, but any glimmer of humor is welcome, and it is, at least, a more recent mold. Though--I do predict his "dark past" is going to come back to haunt him and Nick at some point, possibly in an interesting fashion, possibly not (I also suspect some variant of the line "I told you I used to be a murderer, what did you expect?" will come up. I rather hope it doesn't, but it's hard to see the writers resisting).

Aunt Marie had by far the most potential of the bunch. She seemed a person, and a fairly complex one at that, but, as she's dead, we'll never learn more about this librarian/monster-hunter/adoptive mother.

Like the pilot, the plot Bears Will Be Bears has a definite paint-by-numbers feel. The events happen, but there's little real energy behind them. It's a loose take on "Goldilocks," which I think was an unfortunate follow up to the pilot's "Little Red Riding Hood." Last week the show featured snarling wolves who hunt people; this week it featured snarling bears. If this is going to be a monster-of-the-week show, let it at least provide unique monsters!

In their favor, the bears had a better and more understandable motive than the Bad Wolf. He just didn't like red (Or was driven mad by it? Seems the race would have died out by now, if they really, literally could not help themselves around what is a very common color).  The bears actually do have a culture and reason behind their actions, giving them some credibility and some slight indication of personality. The monster pairing, however, remains unfortunate.

So far, the overall bland feel of the show comes largely from the astonishingly poor use the show's creators have made of their source material. They are drawing from three powerful genres and doing little more than skimming off the top of any of them.

I know relatively little about the monster-hunter sub-genre, so I cannot comment too extensively on it. I will say this, though: I know there is a tradition of the monster-hunter being kept in the dark until the last possible moment (usually when he or she is confronting a monster), and Grimm is sticking to this--for no readily apparent reason. It seems this trait runs in the Grimm family. Why, then, are they not raised to it? Told the tales, trained in fighting and weaponry, and prepared for the day when their designated mentor dies? Also, while I'm at it: Archaic weapons are also a tradition, and one Marie apparently kept, also for no apparent reason. Plain lead bullets work just fine.

Police procedurals: I'm more into the detective story side of things, being more an inconsistent viewer of Masterpiece Theater, or at one point Monk than a CSI fan, but I thought they were supposed to feature actual detecting and shows of skill and mystery. Nick has now, twice, stumbled over the perpetrators, and just by coincidence, they've been monsters with fancy German names (Do they have a collective name, these beasts? The "Them" the Grimms hunt?). The intelligence and skill required has been negligible. There's never been any real chance that the perpetrator was an ordinary, evil human, nor has Nick been called on to use much of his training as a policeman. He's a homicide detective. Let's see him detect!

This leads us to fairy tales, which I do know, and which is what drew me to Grimm in the first place. Fairy tales are strange things, full of unexpected twists and a strange logic. Help comes from unexpected places, so does harm. Baba Yaga may show you the way to the next castle--or she might eat you. Or she might come into your house and count the spoons. The simpleton wins. The loudmouth wins. There are rules, but they are hard to keep. There are monsters and evil stepmothers and blessings from beyond the grave. They are horrible and wonderful and mysterious.

And Grimm is using them as a monster-trove.

Fair enough. They can be that, but what a waste.

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For the moment, Bears Will Be Bears is up on Hulu. I'm guessing it'll be there for another month, but they haven't posted the schedule yet.

Once Upon a Time: Review

I finally watched both the pilot episode and The The Thing You Love Most (both currently available on Hulu, though I don't know how long they'll be up as that's not posted. Five episodes at a time seems fairly standard, though, so I'd guess another month). Anyway, I really enjoyed them, and I'm looking forward to Snow Falls, the third episode, this Sunday.

The basic premise is that the Evil Queen from Snow White took her revenge on all the other fairy tale characters by exiling them to "someplace terrible" that is, our world. They do not remember their old lives, nor do they notice that time has stopped in their new town of Storybrooke.  Only Henry, the adopted son of the mayor, Regina--the Evil Queen herself--suspects something is wrong, and he persuades his birth mother, Emma Swann, to come to town to try to save everyone. That's one strand of the story. The other strand, being told backward, are the events that led to the Evil Queen casting her curse in the first place.

Complicated? Yes. Also intriguing and full of fascinating characters. Emma Swann, who is probably Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter, has grown up without parents and supports herself as a bail bondsperson. She is very good at tracking down people who don't want to be found and, though out of her depth in the current situation, is stubborn enough, and already attached enough to Henry, to agree to spend a week in the town trying to sort things out. Henry is a likeable kid, determined to prove that his crazy claim is real. Rumplestiltskin aka Mr. Gold is devious, probably playing both sides, and looks to be all kinds of awesome. Even the Evil Queen has her, well, not exactly good--in fact, quite exactly not-good--um, multidimensional? aspects to keep her interesting.

Anyway, the interpersonal element is strong. The story element has a lot of potential; I'm enjoying the flash-back and present-day intertwining, and it will be interesting to see  how making and breaking the curse plays out. There's the added fun of seeing the fairy tale characters (and I do love fairy tales) in new roles here in our world.

I'm also pleased by the show's apparent desire to focus on the possibility of happily-ever-after. I get tired of "darker and edgier" claims.

My one major doubt is that it is really hard to see how this is going to play out in a series format. I can see it easily working as a miniseries with a clear beginning, middle, and end and known length. A (potentially) multi-season show with no clear end in sight. That's going to be a lot harder. Still, it is off to a good, strong start.

Minor doubt? Not so much of a doubt as a gripe: There's a scene where Snow White (now a school teacher), is teaching her kids to build cages. She has some nice spiel about birds and freedom, and in the course of this lecture, puts out her hand. A bird hops onto it and then is released back out into the wild. My problem? They actually focus in on the bird and it's little hooked beak. It's not a wild bird. It is a parrot--either a lovebird or a parrotlet--and should not be being released to live in little birdhouses in Maine, where it will die in the winter. Totally unfair of me to gripe about it, and I love the show otherwise, but I hope they won't do that again!

Grimm: The Pilot, a review

Let's see, what was that about again? Oh, yeah. A girl wearing a pair of pink Nikes and listening to "Sweet Dreams" on her pink iPod goes running in the woods. She is killed by someone wearing Nike boots and her pink iPod, still playing the same song (by Eurythmics, as one cop tells another), is left in-camera. We never see her face until her roommate pulls out an iPhone to show us who she was. The iPhone gets plenty of screen time. So do the Nikes (both pairs), and the song plays again, more than once.

Oh, and, um, yeah, there's something about a fairly generic detective guy who finds out he's a monster hunter, a former murderer who has reformed,a kidnapped girl, and the hunt to find the killer/kidnapper.

The pilot also features generic-policeman's partner, product-placement guy (he gets to name things for us) and a wistful fiancee with long hair.

To be fair, dying mentor-woman (who tells generic-policeman about his heritage as monster-hunter) and reformed bad-wolf-person have some inklings of personality, but not nearly enough to pull this out of the "meh" category.

Yes, the product placement was that bad and the story surrounding the ads was that forgettable.

It wants to be a police procedural with fairy tale elements, which is a kind of cool idea, but when the products (did I mention the Iphone? And the Nikes?) are the most memorable aspects of a show, there are problems.

I'm sort of trying to convince myself to watch the second one, but... eh.

Doctor Who: The Doctor's Wife, a short review with spoilers

Now this is more like it! The Doctor's Wife has all the insanity, fun, adventure, and character moments one could possibly ask in an episode. And it's by Neil Gaiman, and it's a nicely balanced stand-alone that probably has bits of arc in it without interfering with the story.

Best bit: We get to meet the TARDIS! She's every bit as crazy, tense mixed, up, and opinionated as we always knew she was.  The Doctor and the TARDIS get to talk, sort of, for a while, and that is both happy and sad, as it should be.

There are lots of good lines, by which I mean lines that are fun in themselves and lines that actually advance the plot, not something that always happens.

Rory: He’s a timelord. He’ll be fine!
Amy: Rory, that’s just what they’re called. It doesn’t mean he knows what he’s doing.

TARDIS: "I wanted to see the universe, so I stole a Time Lord and ran away."

TARDIS: Borrowing implies the eventual intention to return the thing that was taken.

And so on...

The setting, an alien junk yard, is effective and creepy. House is a great villain, and the jeopardy is nice and limitted: Amy, Rory, the Doctor, and the TARDIS are in danger--lots of danger--without any hyperbole about the whole universe being at stake or any such.

Specially liked: Rory as "The pretty one." And I loved the fact that Amy's mental image of "delight" is her wedding day.

Less effective: Amy and Rory's running around the interior of the blue box (not really the TARDIS at that point). True, we get to see more of the interior (mostly corridors), which is nice, but the silly pair kept separating from one another even when they knew that was a bad idea. And Rory died, again. Or maybe he didn't--maybe Amy only thought he did. It's a bit timey-wimey. Still, while this may all be adding up to something in the long term, it's getting a bit much in the short term.

And can people please stop kissing the Doctor? Idris had reason, more reason than anyone else, and it was both funny and, in retrospect, somewhat sad, but enough is enough.

Side note: Eleven certainly is more angry, pushy, and violent, than Ten, isn't he? "Go get her, Girl!" Not that he doesn't have cause, but it's certainly a change from Mr. "No Second Chances" Ten and his "Let me help you" offers to various and sundry villains.

*I was recently chastised for using the word "spoilers" about an episode that has already aired. It's not a habit I plan on stopping. Just so you know, my reasoning is that it is perfetctly acceptable to wait to watch an episode and to go looking for a non-spoilery review to help you out in deciding whether or not you want to view it.** This isn't that review.

**Though by now, this season of Doctor Who, watching should be a given.

Doctor Who: The Curse of the Black Spot, Review with Spoilers

Ah yes, I almost forgot to review The Curse of the Black Spot, the episode in which we learn that wedding rings are universal and that Starfleet isn't the only organization to build Invader Friendly Operating Systems(1).

There really isn't a whole lot to say about The Curse of the Black Spot. I found it amusing enough, on the whole, but definitely could have done without Rory's prolonged and pointless "death" scene.

Mostly, it was a light and amusing show. The Doctor and the Captain played off each other well for the first half and a bit, sharing some sharp back and forth dialog as they out-captained one another. Amy's sword fight, while implausible, was fun, and I was ready to buy it.

So, yes, I was reasonably entertained.

Even though...

It never quite pulled through. The evil pirate captain suddenly developed a son and with him a conscience (sort of), and Rory was "killed." Again. He got to lie there unconscious to the strains of heart-rending music while Amy tried some of the least-convincing CPR ever. And, really, if the problem was water in his lungs, shouldn't he have done some gagging and throwing up on reaching consciousness?

The minor silver lining here was the Doctor's distress. He really does seem to care for Rory, which puts the ex-Roman in better shape than poor Mickey-the-idiot (Whom I liked but who never really got to belong on the TARDIS).

The siren was a reasonably creepy villain who turned out to be a holographic doctor, just doing her best for the new crew she'd found. On the one hand: I didn't see that coming, so it was a surprise twist (for me. I think everyone else had it figured out). On the other... Please explain to me just how she realized Amy was allowed to take Rory out of her medical care? Are wedding rings the new mauve? Universal symbols? And, if so, what did the pirate captain (whose name I'm afraid I never caught) show to get all of his men and his son out of sick bay? And was she really bored, grabbing everyone who had even a minor scratch? Or was the crew of the original ship a bunch of hypochondriacs who programmed her to treat the slightest sniffle?

Then again, the Doctor did say they died of a cold, so maybe they needd to be.

And then the ending. Are we supposed to believe that the pirates are reformed? Because I don't. This captain was willing to hold onto a shiny crown, just in case, after he'd been told to get rid of all shiny objects (though to be fair, muffling it in something dark was really quite sensible; it was forgetting where he'd put it that was stupid) lest they bring the siren in. Why would he have changed his ways simply because he'd had a bit of a scare? And even if he had become a reformed character, what about all the others? So: Now we have pirates in space.

On the other hand: The eleventh doctor, the one who just casually condemned the Silence to death, is the Doctor I'd vote most likely to hand a bunch of pirates a spaceship(2) without really thinking about it.

So, in summary, a slight show, not one of New Who's best, though far from its worst(3).

Signing off...and eagerly awaiting my chance to see The Doctor's Wife(4)


(1)Also known as IFOS. Thank you Nitcentral!
(2)The ship running the aforementioned IFOS, since it took the Captain no time at all to figure it out.
(3)That would be The Lazarus Experiment, in case you were wondering.
(4)Which is by Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman and Doctor Who. Enough said.

Doctor Who: The Dayof the Moon, a Review with Spoilers

I have mixed feelings about Day of the Moon. On the one hand, I enjoyed it(1). It was face-paced, exciting, and featured one of the Doctor's more convoluted and clever plans for defeating the aliens.

On the other hand, the aliens as the Silence don't quite match the Silence we were hearing about all last season. Remember The Vampires of Venice, where the city literally fell silent for a while(2)? Remember the Evil Voice in The Big Bang? The Silence were scary, but they weren't Fifth-Season scary, not mind-bogglingly, universe-imperiling scary. Also, while I like lean storytelling that doesn't spell anything out, I'd have liked a little more explanation here and there.

The rest of this review is going to have spoilers, mostly for The Impossible Astronaut, by the way. You have been warned.

Why did I enjoy it? Like I said, it was fast-paced, really, really fast paced, and clever. It's not so much that fast-paced by itself is a virtue(3), but this story earned its pacing. It was always on the edge of tipping over into too much and almost always righting itself just at the last moment.

It was visually gorgeous. I mentioned in my review of The Impossible Astronaut how much I admired the film crew for treating Utah as an alien planet visually. They continued this with all the American scenes in Day of the Moon, and it effectively adds to the off-balance, off-kilter nature of the story.

The memory marks Amy, River, and Rory were making on their bodies were chilling. Reminiscent of The Satan Pit, true, but chilling all the same.

Rory is shaping up nicely as a member of the TARDIS crew.

It's not done yet.

We're not even close to finished with the astronaut (who is probably but not certainly) the little girl. The Doctor's death hasn't been addressed. The deep voice in The Big Bang hasn't shown up (I don't think Moffat has really forgotten it). We don't know why the machine in The Lodger was abandoned--and since the Doctor just reminded everyone of it again, it's probably not a loose end. The Silence may now be more-or-less neutralized, but they aren't finished, and they are furious. And there is Amy's maybe pregnancy to factor in.

On the other hand.

I mentioned that I'd like more explanation. I would dearly love to know how Rory and River got from being trapped by a mob of the Silence, not even knowing they were there, to being fugitives on the run. The Silence had every reason to stop them down in the corridors, and they had (to all appearances), every opportunity. So--why didn't they?

How did our heroes manage to remember the Silence long enough to start to put together a coherent plan? We never saw them look at Amy's phone, and even if they had, they'd have forgotten the minute they looked away. So--did they stare at it fixedly as they planned? Possible, but I'd have liked at least a few seconds of explanation.

The aliens themselves only work in the shadow. I think the heads are supposed to look somewhat skeleton like, and there were a couple of closeups where you could see deep-set eyes. Unfortunately, when they step into the light, it still looks like someone forgot to fill in the eye-holes on a rubber mask(4). They're eerie as half-seen shadows, but they should never step into the full light.

Minor note of happy: I love it that the TARDIS data base has Amy listed as "Amelia." It, and the Doctor, still think of her by her fairy-tale name, even if she doesn't, quite.

Minor note of unhappy: I'm trying to get my mom hooked on Doctor Who. Unfortunately, the very qualities that give Day of the Moon its brilliance make it nearly incomprehensible for a new Who viewer(5).

(1)Even though I ended up watching it in green-white and purple because, as it turns out, what I thought was the "bright" control on Amazon Unbox was the "color adjust" and moving it even a little bit does very, very strange things to the view.
(2)Though a friend tells me that if I am patient, and if the force behind the Silence is the being he thinks it is (Omega), it will all make sense. If it does, I will applaud wildly and praise Moffat's genius. I, however, only just heard the Omega rumor and have only the vaguest memories of the Classic Who story with Omega, so for the moment, I'm still on the vaguely dissatisfied side of things.
(3)See any number of mindless action films (Speed, for example), as a caution against fast-paced for its own sake.
(4)Even in full color. I rewatched The Impossible Astronaut right before Day of the Moon, and the color was fine for that.
(5)No, I didn't start her on Dayof the Moon; I'm not quite crazy.

Doctor Who: The Impossible Astronaut, Part One, a sort of review that is almost spoiler free

So I'm continuing my tradition of behind-the-times reviews with The Impossible Astronaut.

This one's tricky to review in all kinds of ways. It's tricky because it's the first part of a two-parter, tricky because it's a season opener, and tricky because it left me all off balance.

This is not to say I didn't like it. I was glad, glad, glad to see the Doctor back and was kept wondering "What's next?" the whole time, and the aliens, while not quite as creepy as everyone kept telling me they were (Sorry, but that honor still goes to the original Weeping Angels), were plenty unnerving.

In fact, so long as Day of the Moon delivers (and I expect it will), the whole "off balance" thing will be good. It's just hard to say yet...

Why off-balance? Plenty of unexpected events, for one thing, but this episode also is a complete change of tone from last season's end or from the Christmas special. The Impossible Astronaut is a far more somber story, weightier somehow, even (or perhaps especially?) without the universe at stake and with the minimum of running through corridors. Amy, Rory, and River are also much more serious than previously. Also, the pacing was different, though I have a feeling that relates to it being a genuine single story told in two parts.

A random list of elements I found notable:

The pairing that really shines this time is the unexpected one of Rory and River, especially as Rory demonstrates that he knows very well what it means for someone to imprint on the Doctor. He's been dealing with the results for most of his life, after all.

This aliens were a mixed bag. Moffat can do creepy when he wants to (which is often), but he's done it so often and so well now that I was expecting something, well, creepier. Their modus operandi is scary enough and their unknown goals might be even more so, but... but there is a close up, and in close-up, they just don't work.

The picnic. I loved the picnic. It was so relaxed and friendly and in such beautiful scenery and so wonderfully shot that it's only looking back on it now that I realize that it was also filmed as though it were on an alien planet. Kudos to the team; it was perfect.

The control room from The Lodger. Moffat remembers the unanswered questions from The Lodger. That was not a loose end! Mind, he hasn't answered said questions, yet, but he remembers them.

Theories? I don't have any theories. I'm too confused.

Well, ok, I do wonder about possible links between this and Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead, but that has a lot more to do with name and image similarities than any real, concrete clues or clue-finding.

I think I'm going to watch the episode again while I wait for Day of the Moon.

*wanders off humming happily

*pops back in for a moment to say:
There. A review that is almost entirely spoiler free. That was hard. I don't know if I can do it again.

V: Serpent's Tooth, a Review

Boring.

V finally came back. Given the phenomenally long break between one half of the season and the next, I wasn't too surprised to find that I'd missed the premiere episode.  I was surprised to find that ABC has, without announcing it at all, stopped putting full episodes online, so I couldn't catch up, but, not to worry. I figured I'd catch up with Serpent's Tooth and, hopefully, find it more gripping than last time (I never did watch the last few episodes. IIRC I petered out after Heretic's Fork). Also, Jane Badler was on, and I did want to see her again.

Cue a confused plot, cliched dialog, and mild boredom.

Confused plot: Random examples: I was paying attention, and I still don't know how we went from everyone sneaking around in the warehouse to the whole FBI descending and both our double agents denying ever having been there. I have no idea why our intrepid foursome who have accomplished nothing whatsoever on the stopping-V front think they'll be able to co-opt the services of a highly-organized, highly-effective, much larger group capable of blowing up 29 healing centers simultaneously. I get that Our Heroes can't be Icky Terrorists (Except for scowl-guy (Hobbes?) who is our token Moral Grey Area), but do they have to be downright stupid about it? What is Erica planning on doing--looking earnestly at them until they agree to stop blowing things up? Why, if Anna can contact Ryan, can't she just catch him, probe his memories, and find the other three people who are, inexplicably, so important to her.

And Erica.. I had such high hopes for Erica when I first watched. And here she, the trained FBI agent, does not even notice when her "ally" picks up a massive paperback book and tucks it into the back of his super-tight jeans (which, of course, is exactly what a trained mercenary would do with something he wanted to hide).

Oh, and then there is dialog. TV shows generally don't do well when they get to talking about souls, but this was even worse than usual--terribly, terribly stale and cliche ridden.

How many members of the little band have divided loyalty now? Let's see.... There's Chad, Ryan, and scowl-guy. From a summary, it seems that new scientist-guy isn't too thrilled about being co-opted, either. Three out of--what, five? Six?  The human race is doomed.

You know, I think I'm through.

I'll stick with the original--Yes, I know exactly how bad the original TV series got. It's still better than this.

Doctor Who: The End of Time, a review

Finally watched The End of Time and am (after a slight delay) catching up on my Doctor Who reviews, bringing them up to date and to a close (unless and until I watch the Christmas Special or check out an old Doctor Who).  There are spoilers ahead and some quite thorough ranting, so be warned.

Short response: Ick. Ack. Ptooey. AAAUGGH!

I waited to see this until after I'd finished the fifth season, and I still don't know if that were wise or not. On the one hand, I had the assurance that there was a Doctor in my future and one that I like very much indeed. On the other, it was a crashing come down.

The specials have never been my favorite episodes, and this one is worse than most. The plot makes no sense and  utterly fails to cohere.  Part One: The Master is back! Don't ask how. It involves some sort of memory left on his wife's lips, some implausible planning on his part, some strange foresight on hers, makes even less sense than Who science usually does, and is silly without being amusing. Anyway, he's back, and he's suddenly super-powered, bouncing all over the place and shooting out sizzling bolts of lightning when the Doctor tries to chase him down.  And then the Master manages to replace every human except for Wilf and Donna with himself (Kind of, sort or replaces them--they all look like him & act like him, but they aren't thinking with a group mind and aren't quite him because they take orders from the central him and wouldn't if they were really him because he doesn't take orders and...I'm over-thinking this, aren't I?). Conveniently, there are two aliens-pretending-to-be-human hanging out in the self-same building, and they help the Doctor get away/work to foil the Master's Evil plans, even better: Donna is on the loose.

All of which promptly doesn't matter because by Part Two, Donna faints before she can do anything at all and it turns out that really, the story is about the Return of the Time Lords who were only mostly dead and not even a little bit nice.

They try to take over the universe, or maybe just the earth, and everyone is terribly interested in the Doctor's psychology to the point where both the Master and the Lord of the Time Lords (High Chancellor? President? Dictator? I forget) stand around discussing which of them he'll shoot rather than doing the sensible thing and hitting him over the head before proceeding with their respective evil schemes.  This gives the Doctor time to do something clever, foil the time lords, and let the Master slip away to scheme again another day.

After which, the Doctor thinks he's off the hook and doesn't have to die after all, but Wilf was stuck in a radioactive chamber and knocks four times to get someone to let him out (What would have happened if he'd stopped at three? Or gone ahead and rapped five times? He could've--he knew the prophecy--the Doctor specifically told him that bit), and the Doctor gives up his life to save Wilf, does a quick trip through time and space to see his friends and distribute a few final gifts (1). Then, having found out he could not live, he dies.

Have I pointed out yet that the plot of this particular Special makes no sense and  utterly fails to cohere? Just in case: The plot makes no sense and utterly fails to cohere. It's a self-indulgent bundle of "scenes" designed to be shocking and/or pathetic that often descends to bathos. Donna does nothing. Mystery lady who pops up to warn Wilf of unspecified things remains a mystery and is even more useless than the usual "mysterious figure with strange warnings." The Master's return is pointless, which is a pity; I like the Master, on the whole.

I also hate the "Obi Wan school of truth" more than I can say. All through the last several seasons, anyone who asked and a good many people who didn't were told, with no qualifications, that the Time Lords were dead. Really dead. All dead. All of them. Then, with no warning, it turns out that this was only true "from a certain point of view." Now what do I do when I rewatch Dalek? It's already been weakened by the infinite return of the Dalek race, but the thought that the Ninth Doctor really believed that his people had died to eliminate the Daleks still remained powerful. Now...we find out that the Time Lords were never really dead and were really just as bad or maybe worse than the Daleks and the Doctor knew both facts and has known them all along--that makes several of his statements all through the first four seasons strange and suspect, and makes me very unhappy.

Did this pair of shows have any redemptive features? Gotta say, the villains were pretty good. The Master's actions and plans make no sense whatsoever, but John Simm tears up the scenery wonderfully well and almost makes the silly superpowers work. And, of course, Timothy Dalton is an expert scene-chewer, and extremely good-looking to boot, so it was good to see the two of them on screen together, even though I kept wishing that the script was up to the actors' quality.

Liked the bits with Wilf, mostly, and I did enjoy seeing Donna again, though I wish she'd actually been allowed to do something.

Yeah, I think I've said enough about that particular episode.

Time, perhaps, to go rewatch The Lodger or maybe Vincent and the Doctor or maybe even Rose. I still like Rose. 

(1) I keep hearing Gonzo's voice saying, in true Christmas Carol style "And to Donna, who did not die..." whenever I think of the lottery ticket.

Doctor Who: The rest of the Fifth Season, reviews, kind of

"You do have a plan, don't you?" "No... It's a thing; it's like a plan, but with more greatness." Vincent and the Doctor

Spoilers abound.

Victory of the Daleks: M & M Daleks. Crunchy.

I have to say, this episode wasn't as bad as I feared. Sure, the Daleks "surprised" everyone by coming back from the dead again, and they threatened to destroy earth again, and the Doctor had to hesitate and look agonized again, but at least they served everyone tea first. Really, the metal beasts were beautiful running around with the tea things. Almost justified their existence.

Amy was good this episode--loved her asking the Doctor how waiting for him in the middle of the London Blitz was "safe." Churchill had some reason (from his perspective) for wanting to use them, no matter how terrible the Doctor claimed they were. Some good character moments, and I was agreeably entertained throughout the episode--not one of my favorites, but not going on my black list, either.

And, thank goodness, the Daleks have not been "obliterated." Not that I particularly want to see them show up again, but at least the next time won't be a "surprise." I might not mind them so much if they get downgraded to the status of ordinary monster.

Vincent and the Doctor I really loved this one. There's a real focus on the historical figure, a sense that he is a real person (unlike in, say Unicorn and the Wasp which was more about a caricature of Christie rather than about the woman herself (yes, I loved it, but that's not the point)).
Amy's much more in focus here, feels like a real person herself. And the invisible monster rampaging through the countryside was classic Doctor Who, though crying about its death is a bit much (It was randomly killing people for no particular reason, remember?). And the Doctor being both sympathetic with Vincent Van Gogh while simultaneously being impatient with the normal, boring passage of time and the unpunctual alien attack was fantastic.

Is it "Van Goff"?

The Lodger Very funny. I can believe the Doctor has never had to cope with being an "ordinary" person on earth. He does it so charmingly, though!

Pity the menace then had to threaten to blow up the planet. The danger was convincing enough before that. Who built this machine, anyway?

This ties with Vincent for my favorite "ordinary" episode this season.

The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang Wow!

These two really tie the season together. All of the sudden, all sorts of odd things, including Amy's never-quite-in-focus character make sense. Really an amazing finale. Oh, and Amy and Rory are married now? Great!

Rory's return is beautifully managed and his two thousand year wait which, by some jiggery-pokery he remembers, has done wonders for his character. Can't really cite a favorite moment from this, I too busy being sucked into the story and admiring the way all of the season had led up to this, often in ways that were obvious only in retrospect.

And I am glad that not everything got tied up this season. There's still the matter of the silence, and the question of who is behind all of this to deal with next season.

Wrap up thoughts: Matt Smith may well become my favorite Doctor. He's got the same alien quality Eccleston had, and that I've missed.

Still not sure yet what I think of Amy and Rory; Amy's character wasn't very firmly established, for reasons that are now clear--she was, after all, living in a strange sort of overlap between two realities. Now that that's fixed, hopefully she'll be more definite. Rory, I like, but he's not been on enough to firmly be established.

I still miss Donna. She may well remain my favorite companion.

I'm looking forward to next season.

"Makes you wonder what could be so bad that it doesn't mind you thinking it's a vampire." Vampires of Venice