Closed for the Season

Hello Everyone :-)

The penultimate episode of Doctor Who, series 6 sees the return of James Corden (who incidentally, I’m going to see in a play on Saturday) from last series’ ‘Companion Lite’ episode ‘The Lodger’. We return to Mr Craig Owens in ‘Closing Time’.

The Doctor is on a farewell tour before his pre-ordained demise at Lake Silencio and rocks up in Colchester to visit Craig Owens (James Corden). Our favourite Timelord finds Craig living with girlfriend Sophie and new baby Alfie. The Doctor notices strange electrical disturbances and investigates. He traces the disturbances back to a new department store and soon finds that it’s been built over a crashed Cyberman spacecraft upon which Craig and The Doctor discover that they have been siphoning off the store’s electricity to reactivate the crew of the ship.

This episode is in a bit of a unique position in this rebooted age of Doctor Who; we’ve not had a standalone penultimate episode before. On the surface it’s a story about fighting the Cybermen (more of them later) but really it’s about Craig overcoming his trepidations about being a Father.  This idea of parents and children has been the glue that binds the series together; we’ve had gangers made human to fulfil their fatherly responsibilities, we’ve had Captain Avery accepting his son Toby, Alex and George worked through their issues in 'Night Terrors' and not to mention the Amy, Rory and River saga.

I like James Corden, although I’m aware he divides opinion. I think he’s a great comic actor and he shows that in this episode. Corden and Smith have an excellent on-screen chemistry; they bounce off each other really well. I had to giggle at the misunderstanding with the shop assistant as to how they’re involved with each other.

There are some lovely references to previous episodes in ‘Closing Time’. The Doctor speaks baby again (I’m totally calling one of my future children ‘Stormageddon: Dark Lord of All’), we see Amy’s post-Doctor career as a model (a reference to Gillian’s career prior to ‘Who’?) for Petrichor perfume harking back to ‘The Doctor’s Wife’ and we finally find out where the Doctor got those blue envelopes and that Stetson. Not only that but our suspicions are confirmed and in the last few minutes of this episode we discover it’s River in the Astronaut suit from Episode 1.

Let’s deal with the big Cyber-Elephant in the room. My main gripe with this episode (and I’m not alone in this) is that it makes a mockery of the Cybermen.  The Cybermen are supposed to be one of the most formidable races in the universe but they are defeated when a bloke hears his baby crying. WHAT?!?! In one fell swoop Gareth Roberts has removed the Cybermen’s Cyber-balls which is a crying shame because when they’re given a good enough story they can be proper scary. Think back to ‘The Next Doctor’ (my favourite Christmas special), in that the Cybermen are bloody terrifying. You’re telling me that in the space of a Series they’ve gone from trying to take over the world to hiding under a shop and nicking their electric? Pull the other one.  Captain Moff needs to have a serious think about the Cybermen, I know they’ve been defeated time and again but they deserve better than this.

I’ll put my hands up and say, I don’t think this is as good as ‘The Lodger’. There’s a lack of threat due to the metallic castration of the Cybermen and it’s just a bit too soft for my liking. That said there are some nice comic moments (I want the Doctor to work in a toy shop near me!) but ultimately I felt that this episode was using the central relationship between Craig and the Doctor as a crutch for its lack lustre storyline.  

And just so you know, the entire time I’ve been writing this I’ve had the song ‘Closing Time’ by Semisonic in my head.

Join me next time for  the Series finale, 'The Wedding of River Song'.

Now I want some

Reasons to be Cheerful :-)
1. Bumper ‘Being Human’ news! Damien Molony has been cast in series four of ‘Being Human'. He’s set to play a thoroughly upper class Vampire called Hal. I’ve never seen any of his work so he’s a bit of an unknown quantity but I like the idea of having the dynamic of the group shaken up. Also Craig Roberts is reprising his role as Adam for at least one episode of series 4! No word on ‘Becoming Human’ yet (which is a shame because I really liked it). I love Craig Roberts and having Adam’s character back in the show for however short a time can only be a good thing

2. Anne Hathaway joins the cast of ‘Les Misérables’! She’s playing Fantine, a woman who is forced into prostitution when she loses her job. She joins Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe, who will portray Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert respectively. This is so exciting! I LOVE Les Mis, it’s wonderful. I’ve got the 25^th anniversary DVD with Alfie Boe, it makes me cry every time! I’m glad it’s getting its own film adaptation because the story is a great one and it’s sad that people that aren’t fond of musical theatre are missing out on it. The film is due for release on 7^th December 2012.

3. Zachary Quinto has come out as gay! It’s great, out and proud is the way to go if we’re going to change attitudes and stop tragedies like Jamey Rodemeyer happening in the future. Hopefully the courage Quinto has shown in publicly coming out will make it easier for others to do the same. Respect, acceptance and equality for all!

That’s it for today.

Goodbye till next time :-)
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