Doctor Who on Roxana-Mălina Chirilă

Love Don't Roam [recomandare muzică]

Thu, 24 Apr 2014 07:30:02 +0000

O melodie de dragoste în care nimeni nu moare pentru celălalt, nu suferă cumplit și nu se perpelește de dor.

Doctor Who – Christmas special 2013 review [spoilers]

Thu, 26 Dec 2013 19:39:04 +0000

Warning: this review contains spoilers. And it also doesn’t make any sense if you haven’t seen the episode. Or the series. If you don’t watch Doctor Who, or if you haven’t seen „The Time of the Doctor” yet, go back. I mean it.

To start this off: I am not mad at Steven Moffat. I remember all the cool episodes he wrote for Doctor Who, I remember Sherlock and Coupling and Doctor Who and the Curse of Fatal Death and hell, even Press Gang. But sometimes I can’t help but feel that he’s bitten off a bit more than he can actually chew. Some episodes of Doctor Who are sheer brilliance and they make me jump around in excitement and shout „This! This is Doctor Who, dammit!” while others make me nearly apologize to people.

There might be something about Doctor Who and that show’s writers. They all try so damned hard, you can feel it. They know they’re making history. They don’t want to ruin it. They want it to be Epic. And sometimes Epic means ‘Bad Wolf’ with its subtle hints all over the place and that wonderful ’the drums, the never-ending drums’ (saying nothing of ‘don’t even blink’)… while at other times we get Jesus!Doctor resurrected by good thoughts from the whole of humanity or something like that.

That being said… I liked the way in which „The Time of the Doctor” started. I really did. My buddy Linda said she was really disappointed with the episode, but I couldn’t see it: Clara was having Christmas dinner with her family, the Doctor was off investigating a mystery with a Cyberman’s head by his side… Sure, all sorts of alien ships gathered around a planet had the potential for corny plots, but it wouldn’t be like that, right? Right? Wrong.

Problem number one: too many things. The Cyberman’s head. The Church of the Silence. Clara’s family. Time Lords. The answer to the crack in the universe (what’s behind it). The answer to what caused the crack in the universe. Weeping angels. Supposed nudity. Tasha. Tasha flirting with the Doctor. The fact that the Doctor is at his thirteenth incarnation. Do I go on?

Look, I don’t mind a lot of details in my stories. I’m a fan of details! But too many things thrown in at the same time make things messy. And do you know why? Because of Problem number two.

**Problem number two: **Rushing. Ruuuuuuuuuushhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing. Was I supposed to feel sad at the Cyberman’s head dying? Because I didn’t. Do you know why? Because he was introduced this episode and got five minutes of screen time, at most. I know that the Doctor spent hundreds of years with it, but… no. I can’t bring myself to care.

What about the answer to the crack in the universe? It’s just thrown in there! Seriously, I was very curious about that, but the show went all „Yeah, it’s because we tried to blow up your TARDIS so you wouldn’t get here, and the Time Lords are on the other side.” Really? It sounds like something Moffat thought up after a day of pondering how to write this episode. There’s nothing much leading up to this.

Problem number three: forgotten plot threads. We were led to believe there’s something very scary on the other side of the message. But Time Lords? What the hell, are they chanting that message in Tolkien’s orc language for ominousness? Also, the Weeping Angels. You know they’re there because they have fans. There isn’t much of a reason for them to be there otherwise. You get a scare, you think you know where all this is going… and then the Weeping Angels vanish.

The truth field is another problem of the sort: it serves very little purpose except having the Doctor tell the truth a few times. Why’s it there? In-universe, not story-wise, I mean. Story-wise it’s there to further the plot. But why the hell would the presence of the Time Lords create a truth field?

Problem number four: running gags outstaying their welcome. You know them – Doctor Who, Doctor Who? Yes, we know! It’s the bloody name of the show! Move on!

Or the thing about the Doctor snogging people. He’s doing it with everyone these days – it’s gotten to the point where if I were a random sexy woman in the Doctor’s world, my expectations of Doctor-snogs would be at about 50%.

Problem number five: cheap storytelling. The narrator’s voice is meant to be magic and stuff, but it really kind of isn’t. I suppose this might be more of a director-thing than a writer-thing, but it doesn’t work so well. We don’t really get sucked into the Doctor’s life and aging process because it’s all too fast (see problem number two). I understand 60 minutes aren’t enough to really show everything you want to show, but here’s an alternate way of doing it: no narrator’s voice. Follow Clara, follow her back home, then she puts the key in the TARDIS and flies back. When she gets there, the Doctor is old. We felt that just a minute passed, too. We can empathize with Clara much more than we can with him. Yes, we miss the part with the Doctor kicking ass with that ‘reversed polarity’ thing, but maybe that time is best spent elsewhere? Eh, whatever. There are many ways of telling a story. I’ve already gone too far with the speculation here.

Also, the Time Lords are calling to the Doctor through the time crack? As my friend Linda pointed out, we’ve kind of heard that one before, but they were doing it to the Master, with the sound of drums. Except it worked better in that episode.

To sum it up: I’m sorry to see the Time Lords show up again so fast. We didn’t get to wish for them for too long. We didn’t get any buildup. They’ve technically been there since the fifth series (or the first, if you think about it), but now they’re up and kicking as if they knew that everything was fresh for the Doctor, that he’d only just saved them and it’s time to pop back into his life.

The whole episode is rushed and it answers questions in what I feel to be unsatisfying ways. Moffat seems to want to cram the world into an episode sometimes, but it doesn’t always work. Several things seem to not be very well thought through.

The most disappointing part, to me, is that I feel that it all started in a good, fun way.

Doctor Who – The Day of the Doctor [first impressions, no spoilers, no coherence]

Sat, 23 Nov 2013 21:32:25 +0000

…and it was everything that I remembered Doctor Who being, because it was awesome and plot-filled, humor-filled, and with loads of adventures and running about through time and some aliens and huge decisions to make.

And several Doctors!

Really, I missed David Tennant and it’s wonderful to see him interacting with Matt Smith.

And Billie Piper! I mean, sure, at some point most of us thought that Rose Tyler was getting a bit too much of a ditzy blonde, although she was nice, but right now Billie is just perfect and I was, like, wow. Hello, you. Missed you and didn’t realize it until now! You are FANTASTIC!

Clara was nice, but somehow I feel like she’s getting the short end of the stick as a companion now. But seriously, with three Doctors around, everything else was bound to be in the background. But she was still useful and cute and she reminds me of a sparrow, as always.

Which reminds me that we did get cheesy aliens and some cheesy lines, but somehow that’s part of Doctor Who. Good ol’ British cheese, different from American cheese because it’s less pompous and more in good humor.

Which, in its turn, reminds me that they didn’t miss the chance to throw in a joke at the expense of the US XD They keep doing that. But, hey, of course they would.

I’m just squeeing and running around like a proper fangirl now and going „Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!” all over the place.

Tomorrow I might actually catch my breath (and my brain) and write a proper damned review.

Google face un joculeț pentru Doctor Who

Fri, 22 Nov 2013 10:15:39 +0000

Doctor Whoooooo! Doctor Who! Doctor Whooooo! Doctor Who!

Ok, ok, hai să nu mai sar în sus și-n jos pe aici. Pe Google.com se sărbătoresc azi aaaaproape 50 de ani de când a apărut primul episod din serialul britanic Doctor Who. Pe 23 noiembrie 1963, imediat după asasinarea lui Kennedy, când toată lumea avea alte probleme, BBC a lansat un serial nou SF, a cărui idee e „Un extraterestru care arată ca un om normal călătorește prin timp și spațiu într-o navă spațială mai mare pe dinăuntru decât pe dinafară, care arată ca o cutie albastră.”

Și mamă, ce a prins. În curând toată Marea Birtanie știa de serial. Tradiția spune că copiii din UK se ascundeau după canapea când se speriau prea tare 😀 (ok, nu tradiția, clișeul, dar hai să-l ridicăm la rang de tradiție)

A rulat până în ‘89, când l-au întrerupt. În ‘96 au făcut un film cam fără succes. Între timp, zeci de cărți bazate pe idee, cărți audio, teatru audio.

În 2005 l-au relansat, cu buget mare, un stil nou de abordare a problemei… și în curând a crescut și mai mare decât era înainte. Deci, e genul de serial care merită. Uneori mai dă rateuri, și uneori îmi cresc speranțele incredibil de mult și mă gândesc că mamă ce o să mă uit la Doctor Who și ce mișto o să fie și ce o să bloguiesc toată experiența (ca în primăvară), după care sunt ceva gen „Oh :-(”, dar per ansamblu stau de fiecare dată cu sufletul la gură. Că urmează Doctor Who. Și eu țin minte cât de mișto e. Și concept fain. Și ce momente memorabile. Și…

Doctor Whoooooo! Hey! Doctor Who! Doctor Whooooooo! Hey! The TARDIS!

(videoul de mai jos reprezintă spiritul în care sar în sus și-n jos când e câte un episod nou)

A, da, joculețul. Simplu, cu Doctorul încercând să ia toate literele din „Google” fără să se ciocnească de dușmanii lui cei mai memorabili: daleks, cybermen și un weeping angel.

Prietenii știu de ce

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:46:17 +0000

De câteva zile încoace mi se pare că aud chei târșâite pe corzi de pian. Solnițele par să se plimbe pe mese ca niște extratereștri psihopați, preocupați doar de exterminare. Și dintr-un motiv sau altul mă tot aștept ca șurubelnițele să funcționeze de la distanță.

Și e ciudat, dar aș putea să jur că de fiecare dată când mă uit la dulapuri par mai mari pe dinăuntru.

Mai urmează doar să descopăr că ceva ciudat se petrece prin wi-fi. Poate pe 30 martie. Poate prin UK. Oare regina Elizabeta are aceleași trăiri?