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The Sarah Jane Adventures: “Death of the Doctor”

Oh, no! Now it's Matt Smith's turn for a crossover. And it's almost as memorable as David Tennant's appearance. Granted, it didn't help that the aliens in this particular episode are so obviously intent on evil deeds that they might as well be wearing sandwich boards advertising that fact. However, the episode managed to work quite well despite all that.

Special kudos go to screenwriter Russell T. Davies who actually managed to make me sympathize with a character that I had often found quite annoying in the past: Jo Grant. Davies obviously has a lot of affection for the Ms. Grant character and it showed. Plus he had a way of making her character relevant to today's Doctor Who viewers that I didn't quite expect and he managed to do it with stealing any thunder from our beloved Sarah Jane.

Indeed, the whole episode worked best as a shout-out to anyone who had ever received any positive influence from any of the various incarnations of Doctor Who and there is a bit towards the end which managed to become must-see viewing for any hardcore DW fan. Plus our beloved Sarah Jane Smith comes out very nicely as well. But then you all probably expected that.

Anyway, I doubt that we'll be seeing any more crossovers on this show for a while. But then after an episode like this, we really shouldn't need another crossover for a long time to come.

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The Sarah Jane Adventures: “The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith”

Oh, no! It's the last appearance of David Tennant as the Doctor ever! And for what it's worth, it's a doozy.

Plus there's some funny business involving Sarah Jane and the mysterious gentleman she is planning to marry -- and no, she isn't marrying the Doctor but I can't say more than that without revealing -- you know -- spoilers.

However, I will admit that it was nice that the writers for this series found a way to get K-9 out of that black hole. Surely that doesn't count as a spoiler, right?

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “A Christmas Carol”

Well, I'm glad to see that my sister and I aren't the only ones who ever read Kate Douglas Wiggin's The Birds' Christmas Carol though I had no idea our Scholastic Books club had an outlet in Steven Moffat's country.

Anyway, it would have nice if Moffat had been available to come up with a happier ending for Carol Bir -- er -- Abigail if for no other reason than the fact that actor Dave Tennant officially used up all the "I'm sorry, so sorry" scenes one can reasonably tolerate in this series.

That said, this wasn't really a bad episode. More kind of a "eh?" episode. I did like all the Dickens references and the movie references -- even the shout-out to Jurassic Park III -- and I didn't think it was possible for me to like a shout-out to that movie.

I also must confess that I could have done without the Marilyn Monroe reference if for no other reason that Ms. Monroe seems to be the only American actress British sci-fi shows ever reference. Granted, a reference to an old-time British actress like, say, Diana Dors or Barbara Shelley would probably go over most younger TV viewers' heads but even that would be a bit more imaginative than another MM reference.

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Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: “Gnothi Seauton”

The title of this episode is Greek for “know thyself” and is derived from an old quote by the Greek philosopher Socrates. Sarah Connor mentions it at the beginning of the episode and then goes on to note how difficult it is to know one’s self when one is continually changing one’s identity to survive.

Shortly afterward, the cyborg Cameron Phillips gives Sarah a lead as to where to acquire new fake I.D.s for herself and her son and for a change, it does not involve the Hispanic community. Instead it involves a group of kindred spirits sent back by the future to help out the anti-Skynet resistance. Unfortunately, someone meets up with them before Sarah does and that someone succeeds in doing away with all but one member, who is not to be found.

So instead Sarah ends up going to an old connection in the local Hispanic community after all, only to find out that her contact is officially retired. The contact, however, does suggest that Sarah contact his nephew who has taken over the family I.D. business. This nephew proves to be more mercenary than his uncle and Sarah is forced to break into a safe left behind by the dead time travelers in order to find funds with which to pay him off.

Along the way, Cameron learns to imitate the posture of the nephew’s Latina look-out, proving -- among other things -- that it is just not white Anglo-American humans that the young cyborg learns from. In addition, Sarah learns from the nephew about the infamous 9/11 incident of September 2001 -- and her reaction to that proves to be most interesting. Moreover, both Cameron and Sarah prove to be multilingual, giving both of them an unexpected break when their knowledge of Spanish allows them to eavesdrop on the nephew’s bodyguards. As a result, Sarah soon realizes that her old connection is not quite the reformed felon he claims to be but rather an informant who may or may not be giving info to the feds. Sarah confronts him with this information and he comes up with a convincing alibi, but Cameron kills the guy before Sarah has a chance to verify it.

Not that it matters in the long run. Before the episode is over, it becomes quite evident that the contact really was not quite the guy he claimed to be and even in death, his existence proves to be quite inconvenient to the Connors. Which proves -- among other things -- that knowing herself wasn’t Sarah’s biggest problem this time out after all.

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Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: “Pilot”

Heh. The robot’s first name is Cameron. As in James Cameron, the director and co-writer of the original Terminator movie that introduced us all to Sarah Connor in the first place. At least that is the first name given by the robotic bodyguard Summer Glau plays in this series. If that is not ironic enough, there is a FBI agent named Ellison as in Harlan Ellison, the guy who once wrote a short story which may or may not have inspired the original Terminator.

Apart from that, there are relatively few shout-outs to the creators of the original movie as far as names are concerned. For that matter, the third and fourth movies have been ignored altogether for obvious reasons. After all, you cannot very well have a TV show with The Sarah Connor Chronicles in its title if you’re going to base it on a movie in which Sarah Connor is already dead. Of course, we get an inevitable repeat of the classic line: “Come with me if you want to live,” delivered this time out by Cameron.

But there are no references to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s characters and no flashbacks to Michael Biehn’s character’s -- though he is mentioned in passing in a scene in which John refers to his real father having been a soldier who died on a mission. Although Sarah and John Connor seem familiar with the concept of killer robots, the rest of the world still sees their past experiences from the first two movies as just one long zany story told by a pair of crazy people. And indeed, Ms. Connor is still being treated as a dangerous fugitive by the above-mentioned Ellison.

So once more Sarah and John Connor are on the run from the law. And they once again has a robotic protector -- the above-mentioned Cameron. The terminator this time out does not even get to be played by a famous actor but that is besides the point.

This first episode emphasized the sacrifices Sarah makes for John -- for example, running away from a boyfriend who has known Sarah long enough to feel comfortable buying her an engagement ring -- and Sarah’s inevitable fear that said sacrifices are not enough to keep John safe. Plus towards the end, Sarah acknowledges her fear that John may eventually pull away from her. That the more she tries to protect him from an admittedly clear and ever-present danger, the more she will end up alienating him.

A key plot point in the episode involves Cameron using a time travel device to relocate the Connors away from the path of a killer robot. Of course, the Connors and Cameron end up clothes-free as a result of said relocation and we get yet another shout-out to a scene from the original film as Cameron proceeds to procure a wardrobe for the self-conscious fugitives.

The final scenes shows the trio making plans to locate the mysterious Skynet which will supposedly set off World War III in April 2011. Given how close that date is, I guess I should either wish them Godspeed and good luck or pray that they truly are fictional characters. Because if they existed in the real world, that would be most inconvenient.

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Dollhouse: “Epitaph One”

Apparently “Omega” was not the season finale of Dollhouse's first season. This episode was. And what a episode it was, indeed.

Unlike the other episodes, this episode didn't even try to stick to the season-long formula which asked the perpetual question: “Who is Eliza Dushku playing this week?” Instead, it fast-forwarded the action to the year 2019 and introduced a new set of characters who just happened to stumble across the now-abandoned Dollhouse. Through flashbacks, we learned bits and pieces of how the Dollhouse came to be abandoned and through bits of dialogue, we learned how the world as the characters knew it came to be.

Apparently the world had undergone a social meltdown thanks to a technological mindwipe. Only a handful of people called “actuals” (short for “actual-minded people”) survived and the characters we met in this episode were among them. Perpetually fleeing from groups called “butchers,” the group came across the underground dollhouse and the former doll once known as Dr. Claire Saunders. Unfortunately, a killer appeared to be stalking their group and as a non-actual, Dr. Saunders seemed like the most likely suspect. But, of course, one hardly needed to be psychic to guess that things weren't quite that simple.

In any event, this episode seemed like a breath of fresh air. Eliza Dushku did make an appearance in the flashbacks but since the episode didn't revolve around her, her appearance seemed more bearable. A number of philosophical questions were raised that the show did not even attempt to answer but for once, the lack of answers seemed more realistic than annoying.

Prior to this episode, I was a bit pessimistic about Dollhouse's second season because the first season seemed all too often a waste of a good premise. But now I'm a bit more optimistic. While I doubt all upcoming episodes will be good as “Epitaph One,” it would be interesting to see if and how the subsequent episodes deal with the ideas raised there. Of course, there's always the chance that I'll be disappointed. But then there's always the chance that I won't.

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Big Bang”

Oh, wow! I really didn't see that coming.

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Pandorica Opens”

Oh my! Things do not look good for our heroes.

Amy Pond has just had an unfortunate reunion with Rory -- or at least someone whom she thinks is Rory; River Song has discovered something horrendous on board the Tardis; the Doctor apparently has every one of his enemies lining up against him. And I thought former producer Russell T. Davies had a thing for big finales!

Should I be alarmed that one of my female acquaintances regularly addresses me by the same term of endearment that River Song likes to use? And that as a result, “hello, sweetie” has officially become one of my favorite terms of endearment? Of course, if it was not a favorite before this episode, it definitely should be one now. Now if they could only get a character to say, “Hola, Sweetie”...

Anyway, it seems obvious that we are not going to get the answers to any of these questions before next week. Heck, we may not even get the answers then. We may not get the answers until next year. Or perhaps we may never get the answers!

Oh my, indeed.

I did like that they referenced one of my favorite Greek myths. And referenced one of my favorite periods of histo -- Wait a minute! Maybe they are getting this whole storyline from my imagination!

Yeah, right.

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Lodger”

If last week's episode was one of the most ambitious episodes of the season, this one is sorta like in the opposite direction. No real specialized knowledge required here unless you're the type of person who has no idea what a call center is and how the game of soccer is played. Or you're the type of person who is stumped by the fact the British use the word “football” to describe the same game that we call “soccer.” (And if you are that type of person, you're probably not likely to be watching this series for very long.)

Anyway, the whole story involves the Doctor “accidentally” getting locked out of the Tardis and having to board with an apartment dweller who lives downstairs from a mysterious alien. At first, the alien seems awfully similar to the monster of this season's first episode but in the end he proves to be quite different.

As for Amy, she isn't in this episode much. Make of that what you will.

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Vincent and the Doctor”

This was obviously one of the most ambitious episodes of this season and the first one written for the series by former Blackadder writer Richard Curtis.

You don't have to know a whole lot about Vincent van Gogh or art to appreciate this episode. But it helps. Even if you did not know anything about van Gogh apart from the old story about him cutting off his ear, I suspect you would still get a lot out of it. After all, you don't have to know a lot about art to know what it's like to be depressed. Or to feel unappreciated. And it is a credit to Curtis that he manages to make van Gogh's feelings in that area more believable than one would expect to find in a science fiction show.

Of course, I can't help but wonder what would have happened if the Doctor has not found something wrong in a van Gogh painting like he did at the beginning of this episode but if instead he had found something wrong in an Escher print. Or a Hopper painting. Or a Picasso portrait. Or...You get the idea.

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Cold Blood”

Well, that did not seem like such a happy ending.

And it started off so well too.

Of course, if one were a spoilsport, one might wonder what might become of the two human characters who chose to be awakened again in the far-off future in a nest of ali -- er -- non-humans. Especially non-humans who have considerable reason to be mad at humans given the fate of the one of them who had been in human custody.

But perhaps it is better to think of this episode as being one of those episodes that works just right if you think about it provided you do not think about it too much.

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Hungry Earth”

So does it still count as a cliffhanger if the climax occurs underground?

Somebody on the writing staff has obviously seen his or her share of Val Lewton films. And read a bit of Arthur Conan Doyle, to boot. And yes, I have apparently made my life's mission to try and guess the inspiration for each Doctor Who episode this season. Hopefully, this next episode will be too imaginative for me to do that.

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Amy's Choice”

So not only does the Doctor dance, the Doctor also -- well, you'll see.

And who knew Amy was such a closet polygamist?

And judging from the abundant bird noises during this episode, I suspect someone on the writing staff has seen The Innocents.

Poor Rory Williams. As much as I hate to admit it, I really felt for the dude during this episode.

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Vampires of Venice”

Oh my. I finally got my memory back.

Anyway, this episode was one of my favorites of this season despite a ton of goofy plot logic.

Somebody on this show's writing staff is definitely up on their Hammer movies. Paging Kate Bush! Paging Kate Bush!

I am starting to get sick of how every other alien tries to give the good Doctor a guilt trip. I know it is an easy way for them to get away with pulling his chain but it is also a hoary plot device.

Nor do I care too much for how the good Doctor humiliated Amy's friend and husband-to-be Rory Williams in the pre-credit sequence. Maybe I am just sentimental because a friend of mine has a grandson who habitually mispronounces the name “Roy” to sound like “Rory” -- and I have more than a few relatives named Roy -- but I always thought poor Rory got the short end of the stick in this episode -- and that the Doctor proved himself to be a twit.

Oh, well. It is not like they killed off poor Rory, right?

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Flesh and Stone”

Wait a minute! Who's this Doctor fellow you mention?

Who's Amy?

What's this Internet?

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “The Beast Below”

Here we have yet another episode proving the creepiness of British schoolgirls. Which is odd considering that the ending of this episode is more child-friendly than most other episodes.

Kudos to the writer for not using such obvious jokes as, say, a reference to Jefferson Starship.

I'm not sure I buy the believability of the central gimmick -- a large alien creature which apparently has no need to breathe and which can negotiate the cold vacuum of space and the dense atmosphere of a planet with equal ease. But it was nice to see an episode that seemed fated for a tragic ending come up with a comparatively pleasant ending without negating its own story logic.

And the machines that gave voters a choice between “protesting” and “forgetting” seemed all too believable in today's political world. I guess it was a good thing that this was meant to be a fictional story, right?

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Blink”

This is very easily one of the creepiest episodes of the second series -- apart from maybe “Midnight” -- to air thus far.

It was so good it could very easily have produced a spin-off involving its main character (the one who is not the Doctor). But it never got one.

It was also so good that it did not really need a sequel. But it got one anyway.

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Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Victory of the Daleks”

That Winston Churchill was a bastard. A bastard, I say. First there was that foolishness at Gallipoli, then he tried to steal something from the Doctor. In addition to that, he authorized the use of a special secret weapon which will help Great Britain hold out against the Nazis, if not win the war. The weapon in question: Daleks.

Granted, this is an alternative history version of Churchill -- which might explain why the actor who plays him looks so little like the traditional image of Churchill nearly all American schoolchildren grew up seeing in our history books.

And this, of course, is an alternative history version of Doctor Who, whose writer dares to ponder the question: if use of the Daleks had been offered to Churchill during World War II, would he had accepted it? (Of course, I cannot help wondering what would have happened had the Daleks been offered to Stalin or Roosevelt instead, but then that is just me.)

Okay, I must confess at this point that I have gotten pretty sick of the Daleks. Yes, they were a memorable enemy in the first series, but they tend to be most effective when they are underused. The Daleks are supposed to be the Doctor's worst enemy -- so bringing them up every time one of the second series' writers is stuck for a story idea diminishes their impact.

Thus, while I found it neat to see Moffat and company stumbling across an alt history idea that has yet to be used by Harry Turtledove, it is hard for me to pretend that a whole lot happens in this episode beyond the opening sequence that was not predictable.

Will the Doctor confront the Allied Daleks? Yes, he will.

Will trouble come of said confrontation? Yes, it will.

Will the Daleks prove to have a secret plan? Are you kidding? The Daleks would not be Daleks if they did not have a secret plan.

Will the Doctor's assistant, Amy Pond, play a key role in defeating the plans of the Daleks? Of course.

I did think it was a neat touch that one of the characters in Churchill's military headquarters had a lady friend named Dorabelle. Is that Dorabelle as in Adora Belle Dearheart, the golem expert in Terry Pratchett's Discworld Series? Not necessarily but it would be a nice touch if it was. So let's pretend it is until we find out otherwise.

Edited to add: No, wait, the lady friend's name is Dorabella. Still close enough for government work, though.

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Doctor Who (The First Series): “Remembrance of the Daleks”

Wow! Who ever knew that British schoolgirls could be so creepy? And that they all dress like Catholic schoolgirls? (Or do Catholic schoolgirls dress like them? Inquiring minds, yadda, yadda, yadda.)

Seriously, this episode was best known as being one of the better Doctor Who episodes of the Sylvester McCoy era and definitely the most memorable one since he acquired would-be punk rocker Ace (an Earth-born girl exiled to outer space) as an assistant. Not that the other McCoy episodes were all that bad but most of them were not really my cup of tea and I always felt a bit sorry that an actor as likable as McCoy was stuck playing the Doctor in such episodes. I suspect if he had better scriptwriters, the show would have lasted a lot longer. But, alas, it did not. Anyway, if it had continued, we might never have got the second series.

In any event, the show opened up with the Doctor and Ace landing in 1963 London, just in time to get involved in an alien invasion of Daleks. It turned out that the city of London was not just being invaded by one faction of Daleks, but two -- the second being less racially pure by Dalek standards than the first. The result was a civil war between Dalek factions that just happened to involve the human race.

It was up to the Doctor and Ace to help sort things out -- in part by combining Ace's gift for explosives and the Doctor's gift for troubleshooting into an united front. Along the way, Ace and the Doctor stumbled across the creepy British schoolgirl mentioned above who seemed to know a lot more about the Doctor than one would expect. The Doctor also stumbled across a British military man who was a younger version of the Brigadier, a character who played a key role in the Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker eras. Not much was made of this encounter. Indeed, for all the interaction that occurred between the Doctor and Brigadier, Jr., the writers might as well have named him John Smith. And despite the fact that much of this episode took place on locations used in the show's first episode, there were surprisingly few nostalgic in-jokes in this episode.

One thing that was noticeable in this episode was the use of a racial subtext usually not employed in the first series -- perhaps because most racial conflicts on the show tend to be more of an alien versus terrestrial variety. Not only did the episode have the racial differences between the two Dalek factions play a key role in the plot, but one human Dalek sympathizer in this episode (a bad guy, natch) revealed himself to be a former Nazi sympathizer (and thus, a racist) and yet another revealed himself to be a white supremacist who, unlike Ace, had no problem with the segregated restaurants of 1963 London. Ace and the Doctor, needless to say, were against both racism and both factions of the Daleks and in the end, the Doctor managed to play the two factions off against each other until both were destroyed and the surviving human sympathizers were either killed or vanquished.

Was this a perfect episode? No, and I have seen many episodes in earlier seasons that I liked way better. But it is not bad and if I ever had a chance to see it again, I would.

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Doctor Who (The First Series): “Genesis of the Daleks”

If you see just one episode of the original Doctor Who series, it probably should be this one, which took place in the Tom Baker era. Granted, if you do see it, you run the risk of finding out how addictive watching Doctor Who episodes can be. And how hard it is to go cold turkey. (Why, you would almost have to wait until the show went off the air.)

Seriously, this is one of the more memorable episodes of the Tom Baker era. Elisabeth Sladen's Sarah Jane Smith makes a great Girl Friday for Tom Baker's Doctor and Davros, the evil alien scientist who invented the Daleks, makes a great villain.

If I had to choose the most memorable scenes of this episode, it would not be the endless action scenes that play up the similarities between the Daleks and the Nazis -- or for that matter, the scenes that play up the similarities between the Daleks' opponents and the Free French resistance movement. It would be the scene in which the Doctor tries to talk Davros into destroying the Daleks by likening their creation to that of a deadly virus -- only to find to his horror that Davros is fascinated by the concept of such a virus. But then Davros is a villain so the good Doctor really should not have been surprised.