Downton Abbey review: Series 3 Episode 1

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“Have you done something jolly with your hair?”

I’m going to write that on a card, laminate it and stick it to my mirror to cheer me up on those cold, dark, Northern Irish winter mornings.

Ahem. Anyway. Downton Abbey is back, and it’s as nuts as ever. Thankfully, it’s also as glorious as ever, too, and now  with added Shirley Maclaine.

The main story was, always and forever, Matthew and Mary. After a ridiculous, beautifully cheesy Christmas proposal in the snow, our return to the Abbey saw their wedding day almost upon us, actually, really, honestly. Of course, even from beyond the grave, St Lavinia of Ginger managed to nearly screw things up. Due to a series of unfortunate deaths (one of which was attributed to the same epidemic that killed Lavinia, in a moment of deliciously lazy plotting), Matthew discovered that he may inherit all her father’s money. Which is lucky, as a poor investment on Lord Grantham’s part has wiped most of Downton’s money, so a large fortune would come in handy right about now. But Matthew, being the noble soul that he is, refused to even consider using poor St Lavinia’s money to save Downton, as he still feels responsible for her death. Mary took this as proof that he would never truly care about the Abbey the way she did, which once again left their wedding in doubt. Thankfully, a wee eve of the wedding, across the bedroom door, talk put paid to this final obstacle, and they actually managed to make it to the altar. My goodness, they are lucky that Dan Stevens and Michelle Dockery are so great – these characters would be insufferable in less capable hands, but they pull it off.

The loss of most of Downton’s money also allowed Hugh Bonneville to make use of his ‘sad loser’ face, which is always welcome. I sat internally applauding Julian Fellowes for not dragging out Lord Grantham’s decision to tell Lady Grantham about the money – I hate it when programmes do that, as it always feels like a cheap way to drum up some tension. Unfortunately for poor Robert, the loss of most of his wife’s fortune neatly coincided with the arrival of his mother-in-law for the wedding. And the arrival of a rich American played by Shirley Maclaine was every bit as wonderful as you could have hoped, as she questioned Edith’s marital status, gave Sybil advice about giving birth and was generally rude about the English – all before she even got into the house. Of course, the real thing everyone was waiting for was Martha vs Violet, and the two dames did not disappoint. Before Martha had even arrived, the claws were out: “I’m so looking forward to seeing your mother again. When I’m with her, I’m reminded of the virtues of the English.” Of their many, many delicious exchanges, my favourite (for its sheer simplicity) was Martha saying, “Oh dear, I’m afraid the war has made old women of us both”, to which Violet replied, “Oh, I wouldn’t say that, But then I always keep out of the sun.” Maggie Smith’s name should just be engraved on that Emmy now.

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The other big news above stairs (and below) was the return of Mr and Mrs Branson from Dublin. A mystery donor sent them the money to come, which allowed Branson to be all haughty and righteous as he refused to bow to conventions. Well, until Violet and Isobel teamed up against him (with a little help from dear old Molesley), that is, at which point he bows to convention and gets kitted up with a morning suit. The whole “oh, old flame of Sybil spikes his drink” scene was a bit ridiculous, but it was saved by Matthew stepping up and asking Branson to be his best man (bless). Sybil’s return to her family home, with her fab new haircut and sexy Irish husband, was nicely played by Jessica Brown Findlay, as was her feeling of being split between her old and new lives. Violet sending them the money secretly was a nice touch, as was the line, "She's a lady's maid, she lives for intrigue." And Edith, finally released from the shackles of being boring, flirted for all she was worth with Sir Anthony Strallen, who I’ve decided she must marry because he really is quite sweet and lovely. Look, if a man asked me if I’d done something jolly with my hair, I’d marry him on the spot.

Remember the time when Anna and Bates weren’t insufferable and boring and, in the words of some random criminal, pious? No, I don’t either. Anna was such a great character in the first series, before they got bogged down in the star-crossed lovers stuff, and Bates was pretty great then too. Now, she just mopes around the house and then goes to visit him, where he tells her to live life for both of them or some pile of boredom like that. We all know he didn’t kill her, so just let him out of prison now and onto a new storyline now. Please.

Thankfully, the dream team of Mrs Patmore and Daisy continued, as Daisy’s frustration at still being on the lowest rung in the kitchen spilled over into a protest, fuelled by Thomas. Mrs Patmore was having none of this: “Oh dear! Have you swallowed a dictionary?” More of this, Julian Fellowes, please, thanks. Thomas and O’Brien seem to have had some sort of major falling out, and her insistence on pushing her nephew Alfred for the job of footman and then hoping to have him jump straight into valet training most certainly did not help. Thankfully, Alfred is pretty pretty, so he’s all right in my books.

All in all, a rather great start to the new series. Long may it continue.

Doctor Who review: A Town Called Mercy

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“We all carry our prisons with us. Mine is my past, yours is your morality.”

Ah, yes, the story where the Doctor looks into the abyss/another character, and finds himself staring back. Or something like that.

Which isn’t to say that ‘A Town Called Mercy’ doesn’t have something interesting to say. But this is a well that they definitely have to be careful not to go back to too often, or it could certainly become a bit expected. Here, it was pretty likely that the opening monologue was talking about someone other than OUR Doctor, although having another alien doctor was a nice touch. As soon as Jex did appear, it was really obvious what sort of thing we would be dealing with here; just like Oswin and her ability to do exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment, Jex was just too good to be true. And when people are too good to be true on Doctor Who, they usually turn out to be extremely not too good. Certainly, there was a little too much ‘let’s stand around and debate this moral issue’ in the middle part of the episode for my liking, especially when it has an added touch of ‘two characters arbitrarily taking opposing sides to make the debates smoother’, à la Rory and Amy here.

Thankfully, this slightly forced debating was surrounded by some absolutely joyous and brilliant scenes. Being Human maestro Toby Whithouse brought plenty to the table, starting from the opening moments of the cyborg killer being narrated by an old-timey Western narration. The whole opening section was great fun to watch; I especially enjoyed the look of quiet delight on Matt Smith’s delicious face as he delivered some of the lines, like “Anachronistic electricity, keep out signs, aggressive stares... has someone been peeking at my Christmas list?” and my new coffee shop ordering line, “Tea. But the strong stuff. Leave the bag in.” Good work, Whithouse.

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For all my gripes, the arrival of Jex did bring an interesting dynamic; the fact that his wonderfulness was so overplayed made it clear that we were meant to expect something awful about him. And how awful it was. His crime, the use of people from his home planet to make cyborgs to end an unwinnable war, played right into the ideas that make the Cybermen such a terrifying idea: humans with their emotions removed, killing machines to be turned against their own kind. And, as with Toby Jones back in ‘Amy’s Choice’, it seriously helped that the Doctor’s counterpart was played by a great actor. Jex’s brutal honesty after the revelation of the truth, and his unflinching arguments that he can be both the monster that created the cyborgs and the great doctor who saved Mercy, were given a realistic edge by the sheer brilliance of Adrian Scarborough.

The final climax, Jex’s final sacrifice and the installation of The Gunslinger as the town sheriff, was fun to watch and tied the rest of the episode together nicely. As for the overall arc, the idea that the Ponds are weaning themselves off the Doctor came into play once more, as did the recurring notion that a Doctor who’s travelling alone is a very dangerous Doctor. This is an idea that’s come into play again and again since the start of new Who, especially in the post-Rose ‘Runaway Bride’. His lack of mercy last week, coupled with his initial brutality towards Jex, definitely confirmed Amy’s words.

Interestingly, despite these words, Amy and Rory chose to go back home instead of travelling on with the Doctor. Things are definitely coming to a head between the Ponds and the last of the Time Lords.

Doctor Who review: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

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"Sorry, sorry, are you saying dinosaurs are flying a spaceship?”

“Brian, please, that would be ridiculous. They’re probably just passengers.”

The Doctor and Brian Williams/Pond: TOTAL BEST FRIENDS 4 LYF!!!

Seriously, though, the combination of the two Williams men and the last living Time Lord is easily the best triple act I've seen all summer. That's right, even better than Clare Balding, Ian Thorpe and Mark Foster poolside at the Olympics.

Writer Chris Chibnall certainly had a lot of fun with the concept of 'Dinosaurs on a Spaceship'. Or, rather, he enjoyed the concept a lot but didn't do as much with it in reality as he could have, beyond the Doctor's inevitable excitement, a few good lines and a cool dinosaur ride. There was really too much going on in this episode - Spaceship! Dinosaurs! Depressed robots! Queen Nefertiti of Egypt! Rory's dad! A random hunter dude! - for it all to get enough time, and the titular dinosaurs were a very definite casualty of that.

The other main casualty was lovely Sherlock hunk Rupert Graves. Honestly, I love Benedict Cumberbatch as much as the next girl, but give me a grumpy Inspector Lestrade over the impressively cheekboned hero any day of the week. In fact, with the sheer brilliance of the other trio, Amy, Riddell and Nefertiti really struggled to command as much interest as they may have done at another time (although Amy accidentally calling herself Rory's queen wasfunny). Riddell in particular felt like he was mostly there for the role he would play in the finale - like Chibnall has come up with the climax, decided it would be nice to have Amy shooting dinosaurs with someone and added Riddell in accordingly, forgetting to give him a character beyond "sexist" and "likes to kill stuff". Still, a million bonus points to the Doctor Whoproduction team for casting Rupert Graves.

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But really, apart from a few problems with overstuffed and slightly contrived plotting ("Oh, bother, it needs people with the same genes to make it work...") 'Dinosaurs on a Spaceship' was an enormous amount of fun to watch. David Bradley as a creepy villain is always,always good value, and here was no exception. Pair him with a Mitchell and Webb voiced pair of bickering robots (50% Battlestar Galactica Cylons, 50% Marvin the Paranoid Android) and things were always going to be good.

Of course, the real star of this episode, now always and forever more, was Mark Williams as Brian. From the moment he appeared, fixing a light in the Pond house in his wee body warmer, telling Rory off and treating Amy like a queen, to his final scene, sitting at the door of the TARDIS, looking down on Earth with his legs dangling out and a cup of tea in his hand, he was just an utter joy to behold. And he brought another depth to lovely Rory, as we got a return of Rory the comedy goldmine, bouncing off Brian and reacting to his inherent Dadness, but without any of the "oh, isn't he rubbish" undertones that characterised his initial time on the show. As a nerd, the idea of Rory collecting supplies related to his nursing passion and carrying them around in his pocket really tickled me, and seemed absolutely in character. The whole thing was just perfect casting and writing. Bravo, all concerned.

And to top it all off, we got a rare glimpse at one of my favourite iterations of the Time Lord: the Merciless Doctor. Solomon represented everything the Doctor hated: his mercenary motivation, viewing the whole of time and space not as a giant playground but instead a scrap yard to be picked at and stripped for profit, was a complete antithesis of everything the Doctor represents. Add the massacre of the Silurians, Solomon's casual use of violence and the manipulative kidnapping of Nefertiti, and the Doctor's decision to have him and his grumpy robots blown up by a missile made total sense.

All in all 'Dinosaurs on a Spaceship' had a lot more going for it than a fun title; probably toomuch in fact. Thankfully, a couple of the many elements were done to absolute perfection, leaing a fun and interesting episode that was worth seeing for Brian Pond and his pocket trowel alone.

Doctor Who review: Asylum of the Daleks

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“Is it bad that I’ve really missed this?”

“Yes!”

“Good.”

“I know.”

Oh, Doctor Who. I’ve really missed you, you know that? I feel like I always say that when a new series starts, but it’s especially true this time. Apart from a brief, lovely respite at Christmas in the form of ‘The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe’, we’ve had no new Doctor Who on our screens for a whole 11 months, which is even longer than we had to go during the specials year. Thankfully, ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ was, in rather fact, worth the wait.

Things were both exactly as you’d expect, but also completely not at all what you’d expect, right from the get-go. Eerie woman who’d summoned the Doctor to a desolate place to ask for help turning out to be a trap? Exactly what you’d expect. The woman sprouting some Dalek appendages and capturing the Doctor? Not so expected. The Daleks nabbing Amy and Rory in a similar manner? Pretty standard. The Daleks then dumping them all at the Parliament of the Daleks and asking them for help? Pretty darn unexpected, actually.

In fact, this particular twist didn't affect the events of the episode all that much; rather, it just set the episode up. Once they'd arrived on the planet, ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ was just what you’d want from a top-notch opening episode of Doctor Who: fast, fun and thoughtful, with more twists and turns than you could shake a stick at.

Not least of these twists was the arrival, several episodes earlier than expected, of new companion Jenna-Louise Coleman as Oswin. And not just a little cameo; she was an integral part of the episode, driving the plot forward by guiding the Doctor and the Ponds around the Asylum. But the twists with Oswin didn’t end there. I should have seen it coming; there was something slightly unreal about her from the beginning of the episode, the way she had exactly the right comeback and exactly the right ideas at exactly the right moment to save the day. Of course she wasn’t what she seemed, but the image of a character we’d seen as so bright and vivacious speaking in a Dalek voice was still pretty heartbreaking. I have no idea how Moffat is going to bring her back (or if it will even be Oswin coming back), but based on Jenna-Louise Coleman’s performance in this episode, I can’t wait to see how they pull it off.

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That’s not to say I won’t miss the Pond/Williams crew. We’ve had two full series of them as companions with the same Doctor; I know they’re not everyone’s favourites, but the way they’ve developed over the longer time period has surpassed any other new Who companions. All this made the one bum note in the episode, the revelation about the reason for their divorce, even more difficult to swallow. Sure, I believe that Amy would think divorcing Rory because she can’t have children would be the kind thing to do, and I can even consider that she would try to avoid telling him. But I don’t believe that Rory would take it so easily; that, after just a couple of months (as implied by the timeline in Pond Life), he would have the divorce papers ready to sign. This is the man who waited 2000 years while he was plastic outside a box to keep her safe; Amy kicks him out without explanation and he just takes it? No way. Still, even if the first part of their scene together felt far too much like an info dump, the reunion was sweet and the Doctor’s quiet smugness at saving them was really quite lovely.

Ah yes, the Doctor. Matt Smith, with his gloriously glorious face, running around, saving the day, fixing marriages and playing the triangle and adjusting his bow tie and wondering about the eggs and milk. It still amazes me just how much he fits into this role, just how much he completely convinces as an ancient alien, who’s at once the most mature and immature person in any room. His joy at being back adventuring, his heartbreak when he realised the truth of Oswin’s state, his delight as he realised just what she had done for him with the Daleks: it was all beautiful to watch.

And Oswin wiping the collective Dalek memory of the Doctor was an absolute stroke of genius. It certainly implies that the makers of Doctor Who are planning to stick with the universe thinking the Doctor is dead, at least for a while, and allows him to encounter the Daleks again in a fresh way, without the baggage of nearly 50 years of Doctor Who hanging over the story. In one moment, Steven Moffat has proved he can do the big strokes just as well as he can do the little strokes.

The moment Rory said, “What colour? Sorry, there weren’t any good questions left”, I thought, “Doctor Who is back.” And by the time all the Daleks were screaming "DOCTOR WHO?!", I knew it.

Why, hello there.

So, after several very happy years blogging Doctor Who and many, many other TV programmes for The Yorker, I'm striking out on my own here at TV and Pink Lemonade, so named because they are two of my very favourite things ever. My first real post will be about tonight's episode of Doctor Who, 'Asylum of the Daleks'.