The Oncoming Hope

 I agree 100% with the Cybermen issue (and, of course, with the Daleks).  Davies did such a great job bringing them back it's almost painful to see how far they've fallen - though I'll admit I got suckered by the entire "beat 'em with love" thing.  Like Moff, I do have some Dad issues.

And in defense of Amy Pond (might have to wash my mouth out with vodka for that statement - even though I typed it), I think it's pretty clear given the name and tagline that she was more than just the model for that fragrance, and that says something for being slightly more than a mere sexpot.  Instead, she's reinforcing stereotypes on a much broader scale!  It's like she's her own Bad Wolf now.

Great post. This was such a terrible episode.

agreed this is a mediocre episode, but there definitely a lot of layers to it.

http://planetarbitrary.com/2011/09/spoiler-heavy-review-doctor-who-s6e12-closing-time/

Ah, I miss Turlough.  We need more companions like him, conflicted by something other than romance.

I didn't mind the episode overall - it at least had a nice Doctor/Craig dynamic.  But the plot itself was nothing but background to the season theme of Angsty Doctor thinks he Fails Everyone.

How about the time when 10th Doctor wiped out Cybermen by giving them their emotions back? Emotions killed them, so why not love? Love is also an emotion, something they can't bear.

I think you mistook Amy for something that she's not. If she was that vain, she wouldn't have signed the autograph the little girl was asking for.
The very tagline: "For the girl who is tired of waiting" implies that she wanted everyone to stop waiting for their "Raggedy man" to find them, but to seek him instead...

Thanks! A Lot of people really loved it...

"Methinks the Moff has serious daddy issues."

How so?  He didn't write or direct this episode.

"Just when you thought Amy Pond couldn't get worse, she does"

I didn't think she was bad to begin with....and, given her looks, modeling would be a logical career choice for her.  There's no shame in being a model and it's a lot less demeaning than being a kiss-o-gram, don't you think?
"If River doesn't know she's a weapon, why did she try to kill the Doctor?"

She does know she's a weapon (or rather knew that she was a weapon).  The Doctor's compassion for Amy and Rory trapped in the Tessalecta even as he was dying broke her mental conditioning (it's why she brought him back to life with her remaining regens).

Karen Gillian (aka Pond's actress) actually has done some modelling in the past, so I can actually forgive the use of her as model in the episode for that reason. I'm no great Amy fan myself - she's a fun character, but lacking in development to the point it's getting annoying - but criticism seems a wee bit unjustified.

I liked the episode when I accepted it for what it was - pointless filler. It's surprisingly witty and well written filler, you see, and like you've mentioned, the dynamic between Doctor and Craig is very genuine and seems to work well.

Of course they totally wrecked the cybermen. I don't think Moff knows how to work serious episodes - he can do scary, and funny, and entertaining one-offs, but I think he's rather clueless when it comes to dealing with old nemeses. There's two tricks to it: treating the enemy seriously (giving them respect when due, adding fear when necessary, ensuring they're intelligent enough not to die by deus ex), and trying to show them in an original light. The only good Dalek episode was the first one, 'Dalek'. The rest were riddled with deus ex machinas and cliché and attempts to be 'epic' - even RTD struggled with them.

Honestly, I can't wait for Doctor Who writers to discover the fact that the most interesting episodes were never the grandest and traditionally 'epic', but the smaller, shorter, quieter episodes with a moment for brief introspection.

Also, please, 'angsty doctor'? Have you ever HEARD of David Tennant?

Another defense for Amy, this episode was set prior to the events of The Impossible Astronaut. So the Amy and Rory we see at the shop are the couple who the Doctor left behind after their honeymoon. They have no idea of what's ahead yet: the pregnancy, the separation, the impending death of the Doctor.

Though, I do have an issue with Amy becoming an endorser/model without it ever being mentioned before. Which, I think, is what made people think that this happened after the Doctor left the two behind in The God Complex.

Models aren't brainless sexpots. :(

I love that Amy's gone from The Girl Who Waited (for a fairytale figure to save her) to the Girl Who Is Tired Of Waiting (for a fairytale figure to save her). She's sucessful, rich, a good businesswoman (you need to be to have your own perfume, I imagine), still happily married and generally awesome. I think her ending's almost as good as Martha's at this point.

Actually, this can't be the case.  The "girl who's tired of waiting" can only come post-God Complex, and Amy didn't even know what Petrichor meant until after The Doctor's Wife.

You could stick anything on 0.5 second animated loop and they'd look stupid. Models aren't brainless. And a less-than-satisfying Cyberman encounter, in no way makes less of older stories.

To use popular internet slang, fail article is fail.

Are you a complete imbecile?

Insulting question I know but the way you feel about that question is the way I feel about this review.

You talk like Stephen Moffat personally writes every story, that at the very least he feels the need to script edit writing greats like Mark Gatiss and Gareth Roberts, and thus any problems you have are down to him.

Secondly Amy has gone from exploiting her body to exploiting the power of smells to evoke memories. You see Amy on a billboard and think she's exploiting her body again but really she's using what she learned with the Doctor, the power of memories.

And I think the billboard itself is a message to the Doctor, wherever he is, that she's had closure on their time together.

Also shittest cyberman story ever? Have you not seen Revenge of the Cybermen. A story about gold killing evil.

I liked this episode because of the relationship of Craig and The Doctor.  I thought it was a great way to show him preparing for his death.  However, the Cybermen plot was not the best.  Like the Daleks, they go down in scare factor for me each time they are shown. 

I must admit that I was sure River wasn't going to be in that suit because I felt it was too obvious.  Although, I am better knowing she is forced to do this by the suit or whatever is going on and not of her own accord.  I am extremely excited for next week and I truly have no idea what to expect, especially with what the title is about.    

Well the thing is, I don't mean to disrespect models, but models are not generally known for being in control of their own destinies. If she is rich and a good businesswoman that's fine, but people who appear in perfume adverts are never the people who design them. They're just the face and the name, a la Paris Hilton.

I have seen Revenge of the Cybermen. Gold has repeatedly be proven to be toxic to the cybermechanics. Thats a chemical reaction. That makes a sort of sense, if you believe in science.

And she can't really have had closure if she feels the need to tell everyone she had closure.

I didn't say it made less of older stories. I wish it were as good as older stories. I think referring to older stories highlights the weaknesses of the current episode.

You're right. I think it's easier to criticize Moffat because he's so close to making the perfect series. To me, Matt Smith is one of the best Doctors, so I just wish the material matched his performance.

No but he does plan out the story threads for the season. That's what a showrunner does.

I agree. I far prefer that she's fighting it.

What Rinny said.

It's certainly less demeaning, but it still involves surrendering everything to make a career based on looks.

I think Turlough was great in theory, but the actor overracts so much...

There are, that's fair.

Lol. I'd love to see that on a slogan: "I'm my own Bad Wolf now!"

I don't really agree with this post. Especially your point about Madame Kovarian. I think her actress is really good and the character is interesting. Anything can look stupid when you stick it on a loop like that. 

"Methinks the Moff has serious daddy issues." I think this is more to set the theme of having more mothers "leaving" in the series, possibly foreshadowing something about Amy and Rory. 

Also, I like that Amy's development of her character from the Girl who Waited to the Girl Who is Tired of Waiting. And she seems quite successful and a good businesswoman if she has her own perfume. It doesn't seem annoying to me.

As soon as I saw the perfume advert, I thought back to your excellent post about the Ponds and imagined how enraged you would be! I would argue that the amount of Doctor-related stuff (Girl who waited; Petrichor, which is surely a terrible name for a perfume?) hints that she's more in control of her campaign than the average model.

I can't imagine what other job she could have been given, really: she started as a kissogram and we haven't seen her demonstrate any specialised skills during the series, unless being a flame-haired Scottish amazon counts. And speaking as a male with something of a crush on the lovely Karen, I believe it does!

You're also utterly correct about the Mme. Kovorkian actress. Where on earth did they find someone so monumentally hammy, let alone employ her? Has she been directed to 'act' that way? That's this season's real big question!

My review: http://xandermarkham.blogspot.com/2011/09/so-old-doctor-who-review.html

Even if you disagree with the review, calling someone an imbecile is no way to behave and only makes you look bad. You make a few good arguments in your post, so it's a shame you resorted to name calling to start with.

On the other hand, if you know science, you know that gold is almost completely inert, so it really doesn't make sense that it would be toxic to a machine with a human inside.

Has no one mentioned that this means that there are TWO Rivers at the lake?

fair point. but in the doctor who universe gold is the thing that reacts badly with cyber metal (which is not an earth metal, so it's fair to assume it reacts differently).

even if i could buy that love would save Craig, this is the 5th time in the past 2 seasons where that's been the resolution.

that is interesting, bc then river is actually shooting at herself!

Okay, so we'll just throw science out the window.  No problem, but you did invoke it.  The period table is full up until the transuranic elements, and good luck getting something stable in the higher numbers.

lol. i assume they have a completely different periodic table on Mondas.

you forget, the original Cybermen are not from Earth, and Moffat said in Confidential that these are the original Cybermen, not the Cybus ones.

This is the first time we've disagreed since we took notice of each other's posts.:) 

I loved the episode. Was it a game changer? No, but it was just what this season needed - a story that both stands on its own and works for the larger story/themes. It's exactly the kind of story that most viewers want and expect to see given the long history of the show - a Doctor centric episode that has him balancing his insatiable, child-like curiosity with his ancient, long-lived weariness, that also gives the Companion his own arc to complete. I thought the interplay between Craig and the Doctor was fantastic, and the Doctor's "translation" of Stormy was a wonderful way for him to help Craig out with his fatherhood issues on the sly.The simple look of joy, surprise, and pride on Craig's face when the Doctor tells him Stormy now prefers to be called Alfie was so much more gratifying than all of the sturm und drang fireworks of The Girl Who Waited.

I agree, to a point, about Amy's modelling. Since this is all we see, it shows that Amy has gone from using her looks to kiss dudes at parties in fetish wear to using her looks to try and get you to buy perfume. Being a model is fine, but they could have established this same scene by having the Doctor turn around to find Amy and Rory on the cover of the day's paper for saving a life or contributing to charity, or something to show that she's grown as a character. 

All in all, though, I thought it was a highly enjoyable episode. As always, I wrote way, way too much about it. :)

http://atomicanxiety.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/doctor-who-burp-stormageddon-because-its-closing-time/

Yes, but then she realizes something because she says, "of course not." Also, while the future River can't see the past River (in the suit), the past technically could see the future River.  Is this one of those paradoxes?  

Alright, a couple of points. First, I can't believe people are arguing over how realistic the idea of gold being toxic is in a programme about A TIME TRAVELLER. Who has a box that's BIGGER ON THE INSIDE.

Anyway, that aside, I don't have a problem with the emasculation of cybermen and daleks. Terrifying as they were when we were kids, looking back makes me realise how ridiculous they looked, espcially with RTD's insistence on the "DELETE, DELETE" mantra (which I have to admit I'm glad didn't make an appearance on Saturday). I mean, come on, sarcastic daleks ("YOU ARE BETTER AT DYING" FFS)?

The real scares in New Who come from the unknown and unseen - the disembodied voice in The Doctor's Wife, what the Weeping Angels do when you're not looking at them, which of the people in The Almost People were gangers, etc. I think Moffat has recognised that people are more savvy these days and while it's still nostalgic to see a Dalek or a Cyberman, the fact is they're just not as scary to look at any more.

Thanks Nick!

I suppose you have a good point about pyschological fear vs. fear of actual aliens (I still hold out hope that the latter can be done well, as they were in Blink, but Moffat clearly prefers the more emotionally rooted fears to physically present fears).
That said, I'm not sure this episode did a great job at even making them threatening. It would have made sense for Craig's emotion to short out the systems, but only if he died as well. That's a threat, that's a real consequence. And that would illustrate the two-edged sword of human compassion.

I'm beginning to wonder why you watch Doctor Who still, since you seem to dislike it so much.

Also irritating that once again, any job that smacks of someone being feminine and *gasp* attractive is degraded and insulted. God, I'm so sick of all the "feminist" bullshit. I mean, we get it. You hate Amy, and apparently women can only make choices if they're choices you approve of. Bravo, very open minded. It gets old, really. 

I've watched Doctor Who since I was born, so I suspect I'll always watch it! We have never seen Amy make any choice of any kind, which is my central problem. Had she said she'd always wanted be a model or a perfume maker, fine. But her character each week seems to be just whatever the writers want her to be that week.

Thanks Xander! Those are all fair points about Amy and Petrichor (I agree though, it's an AWFUL name for a scent).

It still troubles me that she'd do all that just to send messages to the Doctor, which just suggests she hasn't even learned the lessons she pretended to learn in the previous episode.

Thanks Mark! I understand what you're saying, but I can't help but think the episode would have been better off had it not even tried to fit continuity in. As others have pointed out, that "petrichor" reference is an explicity contradiction to continuity, given that these Ponds must be pre-Impossible Astronaut Ponds.

I think the fatherhood storyline was dealt with much better here than in Night Terrors, but it's still fundamentally the same story (again, a million times better).

Oooh interesting point. We should compile a list of paradoxes before this saturday.

I recommend Mark's piece here, as it expresses the same problems I had, but perhaps in a way you might find more palatable. http://atomicanxiety.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/doctor-who-burp-stormageddon-because-its-closing-time/
And in future, any comment insulting feminists will be deleted.

Really? I think you just have selective memory. Amy, who saved the star whale, by making a choice. There's even an episode called "Amy's Choice", jeez. I think she makes no more or no fewer choices than the other companions. Some people are just determined to dislike  anything she does.

I'm not entirely sure that "what I want to be when I grow up" is a common topic of discussion on the Tardis. Does something really have to be explicitly stated to be believable? If she had decided to become, say - a teacher, or something like that - would you be complaining that she hadn't said she'd wanted to be a teacher? No (though I'm sure you'd find something wrong with anything she ended up doing) - the problem isn't with Amy not saying what she wanted to do, it's with the fact that you stereotype and dislike anything feminine.  

You seem to be the same way about Moffat - even if he doesn't write an episode, you're so determined to hate him, you'll blame him for things he didn't even write.

Yes, and in "Amy's Choice," she chooses that she loves the guy she already knows she loves!
Moffat is the showrunner, so he absolutely guides the character through-lines.
Had she said she wanted to be a teacher, that would at least be a logical result of travelling with the Doctor: a desire to help people.

I may be alone in this, but my headcanon is that Amy is doing the modeling/perfume career (cause she had to have been the one to create it) on the side, because it probably brings in a lot of money.  They don't have to worry about paying for the house or car, so what if she does that for awhile and then uses the money to, I don't know, go TRAVELING or give it to people who need it?    We got such a tiny slice of the story that I think it's hard to judge.

That's a good point. But as Mark pointed out, if that's the case, why not show that side of their life? As he said, you could just have easily shown her in the news article the Doctor reads, where he learns that, as you say, she's using the modeling/perfume to make money to do something else.

That River Song timeline in part:

Born, hangs out in the Dr's cot

Stolen and swapped for a goo baby

Presumably raised somehow by a) an insane orphanage guy b) memory wiping aliens and/ or c) an insane eyepatchy woman. Brainwashed.

Calls for help while in a super anti doctor space suit of dubious use except as plot device, despite/ because of said brainwashing.

Escapes (or as is now probably clear, is let loose)

Dies + regenerates

????????

At some point ends up as Rory and Amy's constant companion as they grow up, while they spectcularly fail to notice that she has no parents of her own and must be living in the woods or something as how the f could she rent a house? Presumably still brainwashed?

Suddenly remembers/ always knew that she has to kill the doctor.

Tries and fails to kill the doctor, regenerating in the process and having her brainwashing (apparently) removed by the power of... I can't actually remember.

Falls in love and decides to go to archaeology school to study/ find the Doctor

Is re-brainwashed by team eyepatchy.

??????

Dear Madame Kovarian: THAT IS ONE CRAZY PLAN.

Didn't find that the cyberpeeps were de-scarified too much because (and this came as a big surprise to me) I got so emotionally invested in the Doctor-Craig-Alfie relationship that I was genuinely and completely afraid for Craig's life. Plus I'm pretty sure Tennant did blow a cyberperson up by removing it's emotional inhibitor chip at some point before. Also Rory holding up an entire Cyberfleet on his own has got to count as a minor de-scarification pror to this episode

fair point, i was pretty invested in Craig living. Though I am a sadist, and I would have loved to see the Doctor be all emoey around Alfie after seeing Craig die
But I assumed that when Rory was threatening the Cybermen, the Doctor was actually blowing them up in the background?

You know what? I COMPLETELY forgot about the insane orphanage guy. Do you think that's where NY baby River goes before she turns into Melody? Yeah Amy doesn't seem to know her "best friend Melody" too well. That was a stupid twist.

And you're right, as plans go, that's about a million times more convoluted than Jonathan Pryce in The Curse of Fatal Death.

There ought to be a reason why there's a kid's room in that dormitory with a picture of Amy and a baby in, and they do find Melody there as far as I remember. But what I mean is I think that's where they raise her the FIRST time, ie after they switch her for goo baby but before she becomes kid in the suit in the first episode of the season.

Actually, adding to arguments against Plan Stupid, why did it even have to be an orphange that they set up camp in???

I hate the fact that it seems like River falls in love with the Doctor using some form of twilight-esque 'imprinting' rather than by a natural progression of events.

Also I took the fact that bitter alternate future Amy was kick-ass and could build a sonic screwdriver to mean that she might be a secret technology genius. Then again we don't know what's in that perfume/ how it's made, so maybe she still is/will be.Seeing kick ass future Amy is the only thing that has convinced me that she has anything in common with River.

While I agree completely on the models not being brainless sexpots, Sarah, and I agree that it appears Amy is a successful businesswoman, which is certainly fantastic, I have 3 issues with this scene. The first is that it's all we see of Amy and Rory's new life, so the visual reinforcement most strongly suggests that Amy's gone from poorly paid pretty face to handsomely paid pretty face. I'm sure there's more to her and I'm sure we'll see it next season, but the scene still defines Amy mostly by her physical looks, which is a shame. Why not do this scene showing Amy negotiating with the manager instead of signing an autograph for the little girl? We already know Amy's nice but we don't know she's a good businesswoman. That would have given us a stronger indication of character growth, which is what we needed to see.

The second issue is that little girl asking for the autograph. We might be able to tell that Amy is a successful businesswoman, but that girl isn't asking for her autograph because of that. She's asking for her autograph because her face is on an advertisement. Why not have Amy, the Successful Businesswoman, signing an autograph for making a big charitable donation?

The third issue is that it would have been nice to see Rory be something more than the smiling, supportive sidekick. Which, again, is fantastic when taken as part of a larger whole, but when it's all we see ...

I loved the episode, but this scene didn't work for me.

Mark

I'm not following what you surrender? Really if you can make money standing next to a product and smiling why not do it, Everyday people make choices on what they buy male or female on the looks of who is selling it. It is who we are as a human being and denying it also denies our collective humanity.

Ultimately Dr Who is a child's show, and my 4 and 11 year old loves it, and that what is really matters. When you watch a show as a child and then again as an adult it never measures up. My favorite show as a child was Buck Rogers, and I recently bought it on DVD and it stunk, it was awesome as a child.

If you dont like the current Doctor because he isnt the same as the last Doctor I dont know what to tell you. The difference in Doctors is what makes Dr Who great if you are looking for Baker/Tennant clone then you may not be happy with Mr Smith but i really enjoy him as a doctor. I do enjoy the doctor have a relationship with his companion without the sexual tension of pass season.

I find it Ironic that you have as one of your favorite Dr Who episodes which involves the Doctors worse companion Teegan who had two gears whining and stubborness.

I love Matt Smith! He's actually one of my favorites. And I don't think I've ever made the slightest comment to suggest otherwise. I find him infinitely superior to the whininess at the end of David Tennant's era.
I for one would never buy anything based on the looks of the person selling it, but that's certainly your prerogative to do so!
And I'm not defending Tegan's character, I'm just saying that at least she has well-defined character traits. Even if, as you say, those traits include stubbornness and whining.

I honestly love that we can see such different things when watching these episodes. You make a lot of points that wouldn't have immediately occurred to me here.

While the name of the perfume certainly doesn't make sense, I really think we see Amy and Rory from a point before The Impossible Astronaut and the start of this season. When the Doctor says he dies tomorrow, I thought that was relative to his own timeline not that closing time was taking place on April 21st, 2011. Then I stopped and took a good look at the newspaper he hands to Craig about nine minutes into Closing Time:

http://www.mylatestdistraction.com/mylatestdistraction/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/20110926-B_MG_3854.jpg

That's what I'm going with for now and I'm thinking the perfume ad may have been another crop circle to get the Doctor's attention.

http://www.mylatestdistraction.com/?p=9965

Eagle-eyes! I love it. I think we must be pre-Impossible Astronaut, and the writers made a continuity mistake. Actually, there have been a number of continuity mistakes, which makes me wonder whether something timey-wimey is going on.

Interesting.

Though I see the flaws, I think I've enjoyed this season more than you have. Most of the problems, in my opinion, have been around the fact that the arc simply hasn't had the episodes needed to develop naturally, and too much stuff has been glossed over. The whole stretch from The Impossible Astronaut to A Good Man Goes to War really should have been the totality of season six, with Let's Kill Hitler through to The Wedding of River Song taking up season seven, and important episodes added to the mix to fill in the gaps and make things work better. But, oh, well.

I think we're dealing with the limitations of the medium, here. Even the best-produced arc shows like "Battlestar Galactica" couldn't handle the stresses of building a series by committee, and flaws showed up. Look also at "Babylon 5", and J.M Strazinsky actually wrote two whole season's worth of episodes, straight through, to try and make the thing work.

As fans, I think we like engaging "Doctor Who" in an arc format; it gives us more to invest in. However, I am less sure as I go on whether "Doctor Who" is really built to sustain an arc. Really, at its core, it's about a wizard with a magical cabinet that can take him to any place in the universe at any time. He's a portable hero that can be dropped into any story of any genre. It is the most flexible format in fiction, period. And by engaging in this heavy arc, we're limiting that flexibility, and the series cracks a bit.

But I am still enjoying the ride. You can read my take on "Closing Time" here: http://bowjamesbow.ca/2011/09/29/it-looks-like-f.shtml

I was also surprised to read you describing the last three episodes as "rage-inducing". Reading over your review of The Girl Who Waited, you seemed a lot more complimentary about the episode. Did you change your mind? My own review can be found here: http://bowjamesbow.ca/2011/09/15/im-going-to-pul.shtml

Thanks James!

I think you're right about the "arc" style narrative. I'd like to think Doctor Who can handle this sort of storytelling, and I do believe you would only need to make minor tweaks in order to make it work. I suppose I'm less thrilled that there isn't even emotional continuity. Even RTD managed that quite effectively, despite many other problems in his tenure.
I haven't seen Babylon 5, so the only other show I've watched that has really pulled off story arcs is Angel, in season 2 and season 4.
As for The Girl Who Waited, I've really soured on that one in retrospect. Many of the shows problems with Amy would have been solved if they'd taken Old Amy along. And given that there was only one episode to go with the Ponds, it wouldn't have blown the makeup budget to age her up.