Ear-Cuttingly Good!

This week’s episode of Doctor Who, Vincent and The Doctor, (the tenth of the current Doctor’s tenure) deals with depression, Vincent Van Gogh (which is pronounced Hock but they either didn’t know that or they didn’t want to confuse the kids at home) and a preposterous monster. Put this into an episode with continuity nods and genuine laugh-out-loud moments and you have the recipe for an excellent Doctor Who episode.

The titular Vincent Van Gogh was portrayed well, not showing only the ‘pretty pictures’ side of his personality, but also the side that had depression and self worth issues that led him to take his own life. It was interesting to see what happened at the end and showed for all that The Doctor and Amy help, there are some areas where they don’t do a bit of good and change hardly anything. Having said that, it would be pretty good to see The Doctor fake Gogh’s death and take him on as a companion throughout time and space.

Convention seems to be that Doctor Who is best when the monster goes unseen (case in point: Midnight), which gives it an element of mystery, and this episode is no exception. An invisible monster is a great concept for an episode (how much more terrifying would the Daleks be if they were invisible as well?) so naturally they had to show the monster at some point. As stylophone-enthusiast Rolf Harris says: “Can you guess what it is yet?”

Turns out it’s a Giant Invisible (except when it’s not) Killer Space Chicken From Space. Which may join the Ugly Space Fish Of Venice as one of the funniest sounding monsters in New Who.

I spoke earlier of continuity nods, the main one could’ve cleared up some confusion on the part of fanboy geeks. Basically, the confusion is that we have seen all of the Doctor’s known incarnations on screen, yet back in the 70’s we saw faces representing The Doctor’s numerous incarnations, which were more than he’d had at the time (8 faces at the time of the Fourth Doctor). Logically, the other four are the faces of the Time Lord he was Brain-Battling against at the time, but since when has logic stopped the fans from coming up with crazy explanations?

The writer for this episode is one Richard Curtis, who film geeks will recognise as the writer behind, well, quite a lot of everything Hugh Grant has ever done. He is known for his romantic comedies (Four Weddings and A Funeral, Bridget Jones, among others) and it shows here that he still can be funny when he wants to be. In a way, he has gone back to the Doctor’s roots here by giving us an educational historical story with a touch of the fantastic (yet stupid, because of the Preposterous Invisible Giant Killer Space Chicken). Just think how many kids will feel like they know much more than they did about Vincent Van Gogh.

This episode was one of the better ones in this series so far, only really let down by a monster that The Colonel could catch and deep-fry.

“I’m Cold Blooded, Check It And See! Got A Fever In The Minus Degree…”

This review contains a punny title and spoilers, as usual.

Why, oh why do I surf the internet before watching Doctor Who? I went on one of my favourite websites (people on Facebook have gotten better at not letting stuff leak in their statuses…I wonder if I have anything to do with that?) and immediately learned what happened at the end of the episode. This, coupled with the opening narration, made actually watching the episode itself unnecessary for me.

In a way, this episode reminded me of a farce, such as Fawlty Towers. Many elements were planted throughout the episode so they could come back later to bite the main characters in their collective arses. Fawlty Towers uses much the same formula for comedic effect, and this two-parter conclusion for The Doctor, Amy and Rory does the same. Every element that makes the ‘stinking apes’ (which The Doctor calls them indirectly; Homo Reptilia would imply they evolved from apes like we did*) look bad comes into play at the worst possible time.

I will say this in the writer’s favour though: the characterisation for the episode was top notch. One of them was written to be the Resident Idiot (how do you say that in Welsh?) but the thing is, I think that any one of us could easily see ourselves in her situation. All she was doing was trying to help her family…in absolutely the worst way possible. Just when things are looking up, Drigiannydd Idiot (yes, I looked it up…what of it?) comes blundering in and sounding like the most racist human imaginable (I would say Hitler is the most racist human imaginable, but he didn’t know about the Underground Space Reptiles From Space).

I don’t like any story where the characters are forced to be stupid for the sake of the story, but sometimes (as appears to be the case here) it is unavoidable. I just wish it wasn’t, but it is hard to see how the writer could have done it any better when the characters were firing on all cylinders mentally. As it is, this show made me want to punch the gung-ho lizards (good name for a rock band) through the screen.

All in all, this was an okay episode. Nothing particularly spectacular, but it was an interesting piece on how reasonable people can go to pieces in an unfortunate set of circumstances. If I might draw on my vast nerdish leanings, I’d almost say that this episode was meant to share something with The Killing Joke (I bet that’s a comparison that you don’t hear every day), as it proves the point that the Joker was trying to make in that publication. And the ending was pretty surprising and effective (I can’t think of a more horrible fate for anyone to suffer, it’s literally a fate worse than death). Or it would have been if I could take my own advice and not spoil myself before I see the actual episode.

*Science Bonus!

Spirits, Sootballs and Mr Miyagi…

Hayao Miyazaki’s 2001 Spirited Away is, to put it in the oft-quoted words of Oscar Wilde, “fuckin’ weird!”

It chronicles the tale of a spoiled girl named Chihiro who stumbles upon an abandoned theme park with her parents. They explore, but then darkness falls, and Chihiro must grow emotionally to save her parents from a piggy fate…

This tale of spirits seems like it was written when Miyazaki was really, really high. There are a whole bunch of really bizarre events and characters, such as the arachnid boiler-man and the little soot people carrying the rocks. Which is understandable, because it is a film about spirits and the growing obsession with wealth and power.

The thing I love about the film though is the little details, such as what the big baby looks like later on in the film, along with the little bird helping him fly. I also love when her parents are turning into pigs, and you can still see the trousers and how they look vaguely human in a way. Also, it’s probably just me, but I found my heart stopping when it was intended to and I really found myself laughing at the antics of the little balls of soot. Any film that makes you genuinely intrigued as to what happens next and makes you care about the characters has done its job well.

The vocals seem to be pretty well done (although not being an expert on anime I wouldn’t know, for all I know the English dub is reviled among the die-hard anime community), with the voices suiting the characters. The only other anime I’ve seen is Death Note, which was pretty good and lent itself to some truly epic moments (chips, anyone?).

The bathhouse for the spirits seems really authentic to how such a place would work in real life, with the stresses of working so hard showing in everyone’s manner and so on. I thought that the characters were really well done and the character development, not just for Chihiro but for everyone else as they come to respect her was done superbly. Okay, the character development was also formulaic in places but that’s only really obvious to the hardened movie-goers such as myself, and it’s really a fairy tale in some ways.

This is the kind of movie that everyone should watch when they’re young, as it’s definitely a coming of age movie and one that could help mould a young person into the adult they will shortly become.

Although I think that Miyazaki looks like Thunderbirds villain The Hood in disguise (seriously, have you seen that guy?), he has created a fantastic movie that will stand the test of time (which grossed more than Titanic in its native Japan when released). I for one would not be averse to watching more of his works, although I’m not the kind of person who will actually go looking for it. Much like music, I don’t explore, but I let the ones I like come to me.

Mr Miyazaki (almost called him Mr Miyagi), I was truly Spirited Away. Well done, sir.