![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Well.
While I'm wondering how to begin, I'll ask: have you seen the prequel for this episode? Or Strax's pre-episode field report? Because hey, although neither of them are essential, you going and watching them gives me time to figure out how I'm going to start this review.
...
Back so soon? Damn.
Well, traditionally, I start these things out with a non-spoilery summary of how I felt about the story/episode. As I've mentioned over the course of this half-series, the show has felt...inconsistent, to say the least. Clara's "mystery" has felt underdeveloped, and her character has also been a little inconsistent. My explanation--that each writer was only given a very limited amount of information and kind of had to decide what they wanted the character to be for their script--was basically confirmed by Neil Gaiman in an interview a short while ago. Which doesn't answer the question of: where was Steven Moffat, arguably the producer-script editor-showrunner, who's supposed to smooth those rough edges out?
To be frank, it didn't feel like he really had a handle on this 33B series. It felt a bit like he'd checked out, writing a light-weight script ("The Bells of St. John") and then going off to work on his own scripts and leaving things in other hands. I don't know how true that is, nor do I know how true the rumors of his departure might be. (Matt Smith has, thankfully, confirmed he'll be in series 34/8.) [EDIT: Steven Moffat has also apparently been confirmed to be returning for series 34/8.]
At any rate, after the non-build-up of the "mystery" of Clara Oswald, I wouldn't have expected the climax of this series to have been all that satisfying. I was wrong. If I were a bit more uncharitable, I'd have said that Moffat specifically made the first few episodes of 33B feel off and less than great, just so the last three weeks could get progressively better...but I don't think that's at all fair to Gatiss, Cross, and Thompson. What would be fair to all of you, though, would be a spoiler space...right....about....( now. )
COMING ON 23RD NOVEMBER, 2013: We know who and what the Impossible Girl is. And now we will discover the Doctor's darkest secret--the Doctor! It's the big one, folks, the as-yet-unnamed 50th Anniversary Special, by Steven Moffat! It's going to be a long six months...!
Click here for my previous Doctor Who reviews.
While I'm wondering how to begin, I'll ask: have you seen the prequel for this episode? Or Strax's pre-episode field report? Because hey, although neither of them are essential, you going and watching them gives me time to figure out how I'm going to start this review.
...
Back so soon? Damn.
Well, traditionally, I start these things out with a non-spoilery summary of how I felt about the story/episode. As I've mentioned over the course of this half-series, the show has felt...inconsistent, to say the least. Clara's "mystery" has felt underdeveloped, and her character has also been a little inconsistent. My explanation--that each writer was only given a very limited amount of information and kind of had to decide what they wanted the character to be for their script--was basically confirmed by Neil Gaiman in an interview a short while ago. Which doesn't answer the question of: where was Steven Moffat, arguably the producer-script editor-showrunner, who's supposed to smooth those rough edges out?
To be frank, it didn't feel like he really had a handle on this 33B series. It felt a bit like he'd checked out, writing a light-weight script ("The Bells of St. John") and then going off to work on his own scripts and leaving things in other hands. I don't know how true that is, nor do I know how true the rumors of his departure might be. (Matt Smith has, thankfully, confirmed he'll be in series 34/8.) [EDIT: Steven Moffat has also apparently been confirmed to be returning for series 34/8.]
At any rate, after the non-build-up of the "mystery" of Clara Oswald, I wouldn't have expected the climax of this series to have been all that satisfying. I was wrong. If I were a bit more uncharitable, I'd have said that Moffat specifically made the first few episodes of 33B feel off and less than great, just so the last three weeks could get progressively better...but I don't think that's at all fair to Gatiss, Cross, and Thompson. What would be fair to all of you, though, would be a spoiler space...right....about....( now. )
COMING ON 23RD NOVEMBER, 2013: We know who and what the Impossible Girl is. And now we will discover the Doctor's darkest secret--the Doctor! It's the big one, folks, the as-yet-unnamed 50th Anniversary Special, by Steven Moffat! It's going to be a long six months...!
Click here for my previous Doctor Who reviews.
