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Diary of a Doctor Who newbie

Revival Series 1, Episode 2-The End of the World

And I’m back with the second episode of the series!

We start with Rose and The Doctor talking in the TARDIS, with Rose wanting to know what that sucker can do.

She first asks to go 100 years into the future, but that is small potatoes for The Doctor, so he brings them 10,000 years forward.  Rose lays the smackdown, and tries to knock some of that cockiness out of him, so The Doctor takes them 5 billion years into the future.

Rose is wondering why they went there, and The Doctor informs her that the earth is ending.  Sucks for humans, I guess.  We see a menagerie of different alien species, all aboard the observation station to watch the destruction of a planet.

There are standard meet and greets, until the last human comes on board, and boy, is she ugly.  As Rose would later describe her, she looks like a giant trampoline with a mouth. 

It’s soon after, and we have our conflict for the evening:  spider-bots are attempting to sabotage the observation ship.  First, it get really hot, then the sun filters go up, and finally, the solar shields go down, threatening the entire ship, and all it’s passengers.

The Doctor manages to figure everything out on his own with no assist from Rose tonight, though he did have help from a sentient tree named Jabe.  Unfortunately, the spider-bots were not the culprit, only the executioner. 

When The Doctor goes to find out who was really in charge of the takeover, he find it out to the Cassandra, the last human, and it was all for the money.  Of course.  She teleports away, and The Doctor and Jabe go to fix the mainframe before Earth is destroyed, destroying the ship with it.

They together manage to find the manual override, but in doing so, Jabe, who is composed fully of wood, gets blasted with extreme heat, and burns completely away.  This leaves us with a PO’d Doctor.

He returns to the rest of the guests, and knows exactly what to do.  He finds the transmitter, and recalls Cassandra back, without her precious team of moisturizers, and without whom she dries out and disintegrates in a matter of a couple of minutes.

Danger completely taken care of, The Doctor discusses, and Rose laments, the fact that the earth is gone, and no one was watching.  He brings her back to present time, giving her the option to stay there, but Rose puts on a cheeky grin, and says she’ll stay, if The Doctor will get her some chips.

I liked this episode.  The action was fast paced, but spread through the entire show, The various aliens had many different forms, though most did stick with the standard bipedal hominid, and I’m beginning to see the dynamic I’m assuming the show will go with for The Doctor and his companion. 

Rose will be our conduit, our way into this world that we have no way of knowing.  Kind of like Harry in Harry Potter, or Arthur in Hithchiker’s Guide.  If we don’t have a person that can ask our questions for us, the completely foreign world would be utterly inaccessible, so we get Rose.  But that’s not her only function.  She also exists to humanize The Doctor, who would be completely sterile, and subjective in his view if it weren’t for her.  She has already had to call him out several times in terms of him not thinking about the consequence of various actions on her, or those close to her.  I’m hoping/assuming she will continue to do that, and that he will start to get there on his own as well.

The Doctor, on the other hand, is our guide through the galaxy and through time, and with him, Rose, and in extension, we, will learn various things about herself and the universe.

I really enjoyed the campiness of the show as well.  It’s clear they have a budget, but it also seems like something a person could almost do on their own, with enough time an effort.  An example would be the slide through time mechanism:  a spinner set into the dashboard.  Simple, elegant, and awesome for the possibilities it gives to fans to play, cos or otherwise.

As always, feel free to comment below, but please avoid spoilers, thanks!  

Glee: Makeover(S4E3)

This week, we jump right into a Blaine monologue, where he pines for Kurt, and tries to find his place at McKinley without him.  Blaine tries out a bunch of different clubs, and it is rather amusing, though it really does accentuate how old Darren Criss is.  I know Hollywood doesn’t like to cast actual teenagers in teenage roles, but he was a 23 year old with a 30+ year old face playing a 15 year old when he started in season 2, and now is a ridiculously old looking 26 year old playing an 18 year old…it really takes it person out of the scene, I’m saying.

Anyway, his arc for this episode is that finding himself without Kurt around, and so decides to run for student council president against our special Brit-Brit.  She has chosen Artie as her running mate, and encourages Blaine to choose Sam as his running mate.  He does, so we have a full glee club ticket for the student council president position.  Both Blaine and Artie decide they need to fix their running mates a bit, and they do a musical montage to makeover Brit and Sam.  Brittany looks terribly sharp in her new ‘do and dress, and Sam is a handsome little trouty mouth, for sure.  The four decide to have a debate, and Artie and Sam go first.  Artie give a long winded introduction, and as a rebuttal, Sam reminds everyone he was a stripper for like, a day, and started a striptease.  We then cut to Blaine and Brittany, and Blaine has a good opener, while Brittany calls for year-round school, including Saturdays and Sundays.

So, it’s no surprise the winner is Blaine, but we get a cute little thing with Sam and Brit telegraphing a romance in future episodes.

Also at McKinley, Mr. Shue is in a rut.  He is bored, and has no ideas for the glee club, beyond rehashing old ideas from previous years.  He has a meeting with the regional planning committee, which include an old bird named Birdie, the deaf school glee club director, and KURT(!) from Gilmore Girls, sans stupid goatee he was sporting in Bunheads.  It’s here that he has the brilliant idea to apply for the ‘Blue Ribbon Panel,’ which is some sort of national committee, maybe?  I’m not really sure, they glossed over it pretty quickly.  Anyway, the only obstacle in his way is Emma, but she is nothing but supportive, and Mr. Shue send in his application.

But of course, we can’t forget New York, because the one thing we really want out of a show named Glee is a solo performer and friend act based in New York City.  Kurt has decided he needs a job, amazingly enough, and applies for one at Vogue.com.  He interviews with none other than Sarah Jessica Parker playing SJP(not really), and he hardcore brownnoses, and manages to get hired on the spot, because that’s obviously how interviews work. 

Anyway, Kurt and SJP hit it off right away, and she continuously overshares her entire life with Kurt, including her suffocating lack of confidence, and asks Kurt to be more involved than just getting coffee.  Of course.  Meanwhile, Rachel gets rightfully mocked for her terrible wardrobe, and Kurt suggests a makeover.  They go into the Vogue vault, and just as they are about to start, SJP comes in all angry-like.  They tell her what they are doing, and per SJP, they ‘had her at makeover.’  They do a musical montage makeover(anyone sensing a theme?) and make a music video of it as well.

Kurt suggests SJP use the music video as a thing on the website, and she loves it.  They even send it to ‘Anna,’ who loves it as well.  I think I’m supposed to be impressed, but I have no clue who that is, so no dice.  Rachel meets her little boytoy Brody, and they have ANOTHER musical montage of them having a fun time around town, and Rachel invites him over for her to cook dinner.

Rachel fails at the cooking, and so they have to order pizza.  They sit on the floor, eat pizza and drink what I hope is sparkling wine, SHOW!  Anyway, they flirt, and are terribly twee, and then they kiss as there is a knock on the door.  And it’s none other than our favorite FINN!  Dun dun DUUUN!

So this was a decent episode.  The NYC parts didn’t overwhelm the stuff at McKinley as it has been, and the character arcs were (mostly) believable.  I like that they are finally setting up a change to the status quo for the next bit of the season, even if it really should have happened in the first or second episode.  We really didn’t need a full episode of Brittany having a breakdown and pretending she would still be president before tonight.

To end, I give this show a C+ for effort.

Featuring:

“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” as sung by Blaine

“Celebrity Skin” as sung by Brittany and Sam

“The Way You Look Tonight”/“You’re Never Fully Dressed” as sung by Rachel, Kurt and SJP

“A Change Would Do You Good” as sung by Rachel and Brody

The Funny stuff: ALL THE SHOWS!(CBS/NCS Thursday, 9/27)

Oh, my goodness, all the shows are on this week, save 30 Rock, so I’m just going to get right to it.

Big Bang Theory

I haven’t really watched this show regularly, but I am not too concerned, you can usually jump right back into sitcoms even if seasons, plural, were missed, and BBT is no exception.

So, Howard and Bernadette got married, and then Howard went to the International Space Station.  It looks like they used the gravity planes, because he was really floating, and it looked pretty cool.  Anyway, Howard didn’t mention to his mother that he and Bernie would be moving out.  Mom is mad, followed by Bernie being mad, followed by Howard growing some balls with his mom, and that story line is over.

Sheldon and Amy are having the first anniversary of their first date, and Penny is helping Amy get ready.  I had my first laugh of the episode when they were discussing Leonard’s spontaneous wedding proposal in bed, and Amy responded with this:  “If Sheldon proposed to me in bed, my ovaries would grab hold and never let go.”  Unfortunately, it kind of went downhill from there.  Sheldon invited a lonely Raj on their date, and Amy was not impressed.  Even worse?  Sheldon did it to ‘outsource’ his relationship agreement obligation to an Indian.  You can’t see it, but I made this face: >.< .  Amy rightfully got pissed, and nearly left, except Sheldon told her something from the heart, which he 100% cribbed from Spiderman.  Oh, Sheldon, you so oblivious.

Lastly, Penny and Leonard are all sorts of awkward, and go exactly nowhere.  I’m not even going to mention Raj’s last night visit with Stuart.

I feel like this show has gone downhill a bit.  For a season opener, it was pretty low on the laughs.  Gay subtext does not automatically equal funny.  I still enjoy the characters, so it isn’t off my watch list yet, but I really hope BBT moves forward from lowest common denominator humor.

Up All Night

This was not a complicated episode, but I was laughing through a lot of it. 

Ava had a run-in with a former coworker, one that she screwed over.  He didn’t seem to mind, and invited her to coffee, where we had this bit of glorious roommate living:

Walter: “I am 41 with a  roommate…”*strums guitar*

Roommate: “SHUT THE HELL UP!”

Walter: “I’m allowed to make noise until 9PM!”

I was rolling, for real.  Anyway, he invites her to make a jingle with him, and then, while they are making it, is totally passive-aggressive with her.  In the end, he was screwing with her the same way she did with him, and it was glorious.  I’m really hoping this Ava peg-knocking continues, and sticks.  It’s pretty fun.

Reagan, on the other hand, was getting used to being a stay at home mom, and pretty much failing miserably.  Chris was attempting to backseat parent, and Reagan was having none of it.  That is, until she locked herself out of the house with Amy locked inside.  Amy ran amok…

…painting the house purple.  It was super adorable.  Reagan nearly has a major meltdown, “what if one night I leave the back door open, and we have a house full of hobos?”  but Chris brings her back from the brink, and we end in the same place the entire series started:  in the bedroom, incredibly exhausted, but feeling accomplished.

This was a great episode, with a nice subversion of the dumb dad trope, and a bit of Ava ego deflation.  I’m looking forward to the arcs all the different characters are going to go through in this season, I just hope NBC lets it go all the way.

The Office

There were a lot of misses this week in the office.  They really are trying to go off into the sunset gracefully, but I don’t know that it’s working all too well.

We start off with the cold open, where Pam tells us that the janitor is on a month long(!) vacation.  She has come up with the chore wheel, but everyone wants it to spin, and not have chores.  After several iterations, she comes up with a fun wheel, and everyone is happy!  There is even a space for a tiny wheel spin, and the tiny wheel does have chores, so Pam is all sneaky and whatnot,and no one minds that there are chores, so win-win say the rat that is eating the garbage on the floor.

Jim and Pam then talking head that they are going to Roy’s wedding.  Yes, that Roy.  Pam brings a banana because she is certain there is going to be no actual food.  They get there, and holy crap, Roy grew up.  His house is amazing, and Jim is still going on to the new business opportunity without Pam’s knowledge.  When they see Roy, they find out he made a gravel business, and is loaded.  His now wife owns a restaurant, and they are both terribly successful.  They apparently still surprise each other every day, so Jim and Pam wonder if all the surprise is out of their relationship, and Jim does his patented head tilt to the camera.  They spend the rest of the episode trying to figure out if they have any secrets, and Jim procrastinates telling her.

In other office news, creepy Clark hits on Erin, and then tries to get her to be in a porno, maybe?  He tells her that he has a hot shot news anchor friend, and she should make an audition tape with him for the news anchor.  Erin tells Andy and he storms into the customer service annex…to give Clark his credit card, and tells him to, essentially, sex Erin up. 

Ok.  I’m just gonna stop there, because, while Erin may be dumb, Andy certainly isn’t, and there is no reason for character assassinations, SHOW.  Anyway, the other Pete totally cockblocks the whole thing, and he and Andy accompany Erin to a silk robe-clad Clark’s apartment. Creepy.

Lastly, with the rest of the bullpen, Nellie is trying to commence her first special project, a charity…thing, where DM will give money to charities of employee’s choice.  Dwight takes this to be a serious affront to his freedom or whatever, and chooses an organization that is really a front for the Taliban.

Nellie has a plan, though.  She has Dwight sign a contract saying he will follow Taliban law, and proceeds to steal his pen, necessitating Dwight to chop off her hand with a continently around cleaver.  Dwight hems and haws for a long, until Toby brings them a laptop with 127 hours, where they argue about that for the rest of the episode.

Like I said, this episode tried to throw a bunch of ‘funny’ things at the wall, and only a couple stuck, but even then, they were mostly middling.

I guess it’s a good thing I’m in this for the characters, and not the laughs, cause I didn’t have very many tonight.

Parks and Rec

Parks and Rec, on the other hand, has me rolling throughout the episode, as well as caring about the characters.

Lets start with Leslie, as hers was the main story.  She has decided that her first act as a city councilwoman is to impose a tax on sugary drinks, to help fight obesity in the city.  Leslie has a powwow with a service industry rep about it, and they have child-size pops!  It’s 512 ounces of amazing, and called that because it’s about the same size as a liquefied two yearold.  Also: “The zero on the label refers to the amount of water in the bottle.”  And the rep drops a bombshell:  if the tax act passes, they will have to lay off about 100 workers, and a press release will be sent out saying it’s Leslie’s fault.  Next, at a public forum, half the people are for it, and half are against, so Leslie is completely torn.  Leslie gets ready for the council meeting by staying up all night and drinking a full gallon of pop, which leads to the expected conclusion: she yaks in the trashcan, and asks for a recess.  In that recess, she talks to her mentor, Ron, and he tells her that he tried to have her fired four times, but her dogged determination and conviction convinced him to withdraw the termination.  Leslie gains her confidence back and votes for the tax bill, and it passes.  Service industry rep is pissed.

Ben, on the other hand, is having issues in Washington DC: font is not uniform, and ’12 point, 13 is just obnoxious.’  April ironically helps, but Ben doesn’t really get it.  Then, there is a funny caricature of Ben, and he decides to fire the interns, except whoops!  They are all seriously connected, so Ben’s going to smooze like a mofo, and how. Ben is a complete dork and tries to get them to like him, by buying pizza and giving them the day off to play Frisbee.  “Someone please tell me we Kodak’d that moment.”  When they get back to the office, he finds another picture, and finds out that the artist is April.  He gets pissed, she stays apathetic, and fun times are had by all.  Oh, and Ben begs for 15% effort out of her, and she gives it.  Ellis gets the result, and she basically tells him to work or she will straight up murder him.  It was funnier when she said it.

Andy has to get in shape to get into the police academy, and Chris and Tom are going to help him.  Andy is terribly out of shape, and it is amazeballs. 

He and Chris work out a bout over what appears to be the course of a couple of day, but what is more likely at least a couple of weeks, seeing as Tom had time to completely pimp out his pace cart.  Chris helps Andy find his motivation, but realizes that he(Chris) has only physical motivation, and thus, heads into a downward spiral, culminated in a complete breakdown .  Tom finally tells him he should see a therapist, and Chris takes it as a revelation.  So, therapy, yay!

So, not only does this show bring the funny every time, and the characters are great to boot.  Quipy retorts but believability is a great combination, and makes me want to come back for more every week.

The Guild Season 6 is four days away!

Enjoy season 4 to tide you over!

How had I not heard of this series before?

Cause it is awesome

The Funny Stuff: ABC Wednesday night(9/26)

We only have one show to start with on this night, but another will be added next month.

Tonight, though, we have The Middle, but we do get a full hour.

The Middle

Frankie and Mike have decided to make it an awesome summer for their family, and to do so, they try to get the kids to do the things they found fun when they were kids: being outside, hitting a tennis ball against a wall, and go to drive in movies.

While at the drive-in, Mike tells the kids that Axel is his favorite, so Sue spends the rest of the summer trying to make herself the favorite.  She makes up activities for her and Mike, and since she is such a sad sack all the time they are pretty lame.  To give you an idea: one of the activites was making a collage about collages.

Brick spends most of the summer nursing a sickly tomato plant, and manages to grow a hugemongous tomato.  Axl, on the other hand, has managed to fail 11^th grade English, and has to take summer school so he can stay in the running for the scholarships at two(!) separate schools that have expressed interest.

The summer goes on, and basically everyone fails at making it a summer to remember.  The 4^th of july fireworks get ruined by poor park choice, Sue incessantly nags Mike to like her better, and Brick grows that tomato.

Finally, Sue realizes that Axl gets all the attention due to the fact that he’s a troublemaker, and negative attention is attention, so she tries to be bad…and fails miserably at that too.  The worst she can do is not wear her head gear as her dentist recommended, that rebel.  The family then goes to a county fair to have Brick’s huge tomato.  Axl enters a demolition derby, mostly by accident, and his car is ruined, and his final paper for summer school took a ride to the dump…without him.

The whole family, sans Sue, who has decided to be a rebel again by ‘disappearing,’ tries to get the paper back, and fail miserably, again.  They reacquire Sue, who disappeared by going to the lost and found, and get into a massive argument.  It is finally quelched by the fireworks show, which they lucked into good seat for.  And that was that.

I really enjoy this show.  It reminds me of Roseanne with a bit less vitriol.  The family dynamic is believable, and   the situations they end up in are not so far out of left field that it doesn’t make sense, like some sitcoms I know.  It’s a bit of inoffensive humor to lighten the day, and in the end, everyone needs a little of that.