I have been meaning to write about something other than Doctor Who but keep losing my motivation. I have some game stuff half-written but I don't know if I'll finish anything. Maybe something in the week? Maybe not?
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I read Sandman, okay. I read it. It was okay. You heard me: It was okay. It was certainly better than, say, having your eyes gouged out with a sharp implement. It was better than stubbing your toe. Also: burning toast, leaving your flies undone, and forgetting what you walked into a room for. It was also worse than a lot of things, like finding a pair of shoes you thought you lost, putting crisps on the top slice of bread in a ham sandwich, or anything I have read by Alan Moore.
I don't want to turn this into a discussion of who's better, him or Neil Gaiman, because I don't think I've read enough of the latter to make broad generalisations of his quality. However, things Moore have written have blown me away and personally affected me; The Doctor's Wife is okay.
How amazing would an episode written by Alan Moore be? Like, if he hadn't gone crazy and alienated himself from the people who adore him in the process of alienating himself from those that seek to exploit him? I assume there'd be lots of sex, probably between Amy and some kind of horrible alien or supernatural being (those Ood tentacles look like they'd be good for something...). There'd be a scene where the Doctor finally recognised the sonic screwdriver as a phallic implement: 'It opens doors, but sometimes it doesn't. That makes me feel sad for some reason. What a horrible human being I am'. And at the end of it all there'd be a 20 minute speech where the Doctor would make references to all the books that Alan Moore had read, soaring over the entire audience's head in an amazing spectacle because, like, fuck them, Am I right? It would be glorious is what I'm saying.
Spoilers, again.
So Idris is the Tardis. They come up with an explanation but it's typical Doctor who fluff, and Suranne Jones spoke so fast I couldn't quite catch it. All you need to know is that the Doctor and the Tardis run around having an adventure together for once. I'll give Gaiman the credit here, it's an interesting take on the mythos, and it makes for some great scenes between the two. Especially when she explains why she stole him to take her around the universe. It's great seeing the Doctor's adventures from a different perspective, especially from someone, or something, that's been there since the beginning. The final scenes, in particular her final line, were simultaneously interesting, heart-warming, and profoundly sad. There's an irony in the fact that the Doctor goes to the junk planet looking for time lords, but the episode ends up with the Doctor and the Tardis, the core of the show, being the principle focus. There are so many nerdy references to Doctor Who canon that the symbolism can't be accidental: Fans have craved the return of the Time Lords for years, and here Gaiman makes the case that they aren't important. Kudos to you sir.
However, you are redacted points for trying to write the Time Lords, of which there are none left living in the entire universe, back into the show by going 'outside the universe'. The Doctor hangs a lampshade on the absurdity of the conceit, but it's not funny, it's just dumb. A slap on the wrist to you sir.
Doctor Who can be smart, but it also has to be entertaining. The Auntie and Uncle characters aren't. If I had to point to the most Gaiman-esque thing in the episode it would be these two - they weae sewn together rags for clothes, they speak in strange accents, and they perform immoral acts without quite realising that they're doing it. It's a Gaiman trifecta! They're never a threat and we never care enough about them for their deaths to be meaningful. In fact, we never quite learn where they came from either, but whatever, I'm not the continuity police. There's an Ood that shows up to menace people at one point as well, but the episode still can't escape the fact that it's villain is a disembodied voice with unclear intentions.
What does The House want? Tardis'. So it wants to get to the universe, right? Okay, so it traps the Doctor outside the universe and then puts Amy and Rory through some psychological torture. I think I've got that understood. What I can't understand is why it needs servants like Auntie or Uncle, or how it moves into the Tardis, or why it wants to kill the Doctor, or where it came from, or why it was outside the universe, or... At one point it shows it could just suck all the air out of a room, but that doesn't really create tension, because the only way for the Doctor to get around it is to have The House not do it. The House is just kind of... there, in the background as a disembodied threat, literally and figuratively.
I should also mention, because I do so every week, that Matt Smith is still brilliant. He quips, he walks up and down all funny-like, and he gets real mad and real sad at different points. Once again, he's absolutely electric to watch, and even though I kind of couldn't engage with the plot, just seeing Matt Smith running around trying to do something or other goes a long way. He's starting to remind me of Tom Baker - he always looks like he's having fun, even if he doesn't have much to do or the episode doesn't demand the kind of effort he's putting into it. I'm hoping Matt is sticking around for a while, because I'm not sure I could sit through an entire series any more without someone similarly energetic flying the Tardis.
The main draw of the episode was seeing the Doctor have an adventure with the Tardis, which is why it perplexes me that they've tried to keep that fact a secret so long. Yeah, it's a twist part-way through the episode, but the central plot thread isn't very interesting in comparison. The Doctor's Wife is a very clever episode that just isn't engaging. A bit like Sandman then.
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