We are in no way what's wrong with this country

[alexsarll]

Another Britpop OD at Nuisance on Friday, then on Saturday a pre-Solstice trip to the Heath to catch Sunday's sunrise - an experience captured in alarming stop-motion form here, minus only the encounter with a group of louts who were apparently accompanied by Effie from Skins, and who asked us if we were a hen party, or on heroin. Interesting point on which to be uncertain, I felt. A wonderful time, equal parts mystical and ludicrous (and nicely counterpointed by catching the post-Solstice sunset from Greenwich Park's hill yesterday). The only problem was that after, when we wanted breakfast, it was Sunday so none of the cafes were open. We ended up in McDonalds, with which I don't have as much of a problem as some - except it wasn't doing fries. Or vegeburgers. Or milkshakes. And if a McDonalds doesn't do fries, vegeburgers or milkshakes, then what exactly is the point of it?

After that all-nighter, Sunday was inevitably a bit of a write-off. Read the paper and some C-list superhero comics from the library, ate, and finally watched Gone Baby Gone. Initially I thought that like so many much-praised films it was going to be a middlebrow let-down, because the opening montage-with-voiceover is a bit trite, a bit pat, a bit Hollywood - which is especially frustrating when the DVD includes an extended alternative with no such problem, at the cost of only a few extra minutes. But even before I knew this, I was soon won over. Casey Affleck really does make a very good Everyman lead, because he looks like someone you know - you don't know who, but someone. Michelle Monaghan, as his partner in both senses, combines a little of Liv Tyler and something of Zooey Deschamel without being as distractingly luminous as either. The rest of the cast is dotted with people who - like the writer of the book on which it's based - have done time on The Wire (and seeing Omar as a cop is especially startling). And the story works both as a nicely ambiguous thriller, and a meditation on society's obsession with child abduction cases, and indeed with children in general. I think Ben Affleck's move behind the camera may have been a very smart one.

Needless to say, I am still reeling from 'The Pandorica Opens'. Speaking as someone who watched Tom Baker's classic The Talons of Weng-Chiang the day before, I can still quite happily say that 'Pandorica' was top-notch Doctor Who. Something which may or may not hold true once we've seen how it's resolved, of course - but if Who has taught us anything, it's the importance of hope. Part of me is wondering whether Amy was a trap all along ("doesn't it worry you that your life doesn't make sense?") - but if so, whose? 'Curse of Fatal Death' style, I suspect the post-Pandorica Doctor - the one we saw with his jacket on talking to Amy in the forest in the bottle on the starship in the maze - may have gone back further than the Alliance, set his trap before they set theirs. And that older Doctor, with so much time to plan and think, who comes out - that's going to be River's Doctor, isn't it?
I had problems flicker through my mind while I was watching, but unlike a Rusty episode where they loom larger afterwards, these ones go away with a little thought. How dense was the Doctor being not to realise what "the most dangerous thing in the galaxy" was? Well, we've seen already that this incarnation has massive gaps when it comes to self-awareness, most dangerously at the climax of 'The Beast Below'. What were sensible races like the Earth Reptiles and Draconians, or space cops the Judoon, doing allied with Daleks and Cybermen? No more nonsensical than the UK and USA allying with Stalin.
And didn't River Song as Cleopatra look like Kate Bush?

Comments

[mooism.livejournal.com]

I find myself wondering whether the Daleks, Cybermen et al will let the Doctor out of the Pandorica when they realise he's not the cause of the crack, assuming that he can save them from it.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

It would be the sensible thing to do, but they're not sensible races, and after that cliffhanger "WE MAY HAVE BEEN SOME-WHAT HAS-TY" would be a terrible anticlimax!

[mooism.livejournal.com]

It would probably take them a while to realise. Lots of time for the crack to dramatically threaten something first.

And, why put the Doctor in a box unless you want the option of letting him out of the box? Otherwise, why not just kill him?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

But we saw all the suns go supernova (yet somehow leave Earth intact, albeit hanging alone in the dark) as soon as it was sealed.

As to why they don't just kill him...well, they've never done that before, so why start now? Fiendish traps are just their culture, OK?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Also he would, er, regenerate?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Depends what you kill him with, and you'd think between them they'd be able to come up with something that can permakill a Time Lord, especially given the Daleks fought a war against Gallifrey.

[icecoldinalex.livejournal.com]

"WHOOPS SORRY"

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

"DON'T MIND US"

[icecoldinalex.livejournal.com]

"WELL THIS HAS BEEN EMBARRASSING"

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

[WHISTLES AWKWARDLY]

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was wondering something like that about Amy. Hmm. Thermaland said something about Amy's back door** being familiar, what with being blue and panelled.


*'back door'.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

A very good point. This season is definitely going to need a rewatch to pick up all the clues seeded throughout it.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

There's certainly something funny about Leadworth, I just hope Amy doesn't turn out to be something too similar to Dawn/The Key. Definitely will have to rewatch, along with LoM/AtA and, and, and...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

She is very different from Dawn if only in so far as she is not insanely annoying.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Fair point. (Finally started S8, I notice she is now literally a giant pain, ha ha I bet nobody ever came up with that before)

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

No ducks in the duck pond because the pond is AMY POND do you see oho

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Also her name is an anagram of DO MY NAP!!!!! Um.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I'd do her nap anytime, &c.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Not if I get there first.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

10/10 also is it fed by the River Song?

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

TARDIS OVARIES = RIVER IS A DATE!

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Also, what's this about Rory's hospital pass having been issued in 1990, and all the cars and that? But the night before Amy's wedding night is definitely, you know, shown on screen as this coming Saturday.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

With anyone else I'd say balls-up, but with Moffat I'm really reluctant to believe that.

[puzzled-anwen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what I thought, he seems very good at the hiding things in plain sight, I approve.

IODWN, I have given up on Genesis of the Daleks as it was dull, am watching Talons of Weng-Chiang, much better.

[whizzerandchips.livejournal.com]

What he needs to do is get a time machine, as if one existed, and then go back in time and stop all the baddies doing the thing to him. In the past.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I predict this is pretty much what he will do (or rather, be seen already to have done) - not stop, because that would unravel space-time around the causality violation, but build flaws into their plan before it even existed, flaws of which he can then take advantage.

[whizzerandchips.livejournal.com]

Flaws such as having the key to the Pandoracolonononon.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I don't think he can let himself out, but River or Amy certainly can. Assuming Amy's not dead, but then we already have reason to believe she might have 'cheat codes'. Autonproof vest, perhaps?

[exliontamer.livejournal.com]

If you manage to pinpoint anyone in particular you know who looks like Casey Affleck please be so kind as to forward me his contact details. Ta.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Commendably blatant. Will do.

[(Anonymous)]

If we had headed for your respective homes we wold have caught 'spoons Holloway or even 'spoons SGR for breakfast. I CANNOT BELIEVE I FORGOT. In fact we should have just walked to the 'spoons Camden. Booze AND brekker.

[perfectlyvague.livejournal.com]

That was I obv.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

ARGH! I'm not sure they serve booze that early but still, that would have totally worked! I should also have recalled as much - you'd almost think we were none of us in our right minds at the time or something...

Additionally:
There is something quite boringly diagonal about Tufnel Park Road, isn't there? It was only after you objected to it that I realised I had unwittingly been taking a route which minimised how long I spend on it.

And - related to the above route - you know the specialist Greek and Latin bookshop in Kentish Town? In their window is a book boldly entitled PANDORA'S BOX - sat right above MINOTAUR.

[(Anonymous)]

Would it be a spoiler to say that the Minotaur gets placed in the Pandorica?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

If the Pandorica is in fact a McDonalds not serving any of their signature products, then the Doctor's enemies are even more fiendish than we thought.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh and re Tufnell PR, yeah, it's probably the road I walk down the most because no other road goes where it goes (heath, my gym, ale meat cider) and it is featureless apart from St Georges - and characterless - no people, no places, no interestimg gardens - and because of the railway and road layout it's next to impossible to meander efficiently along its side roads. I have deffo had a guinness in a 'spoons at 7.30am. Not on a sunday though.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

See, for me I can generally get on to it as late as the Tufnell Park Tavern, and if I'm headed for Camden, off again at Lady Margaret Road. And for that length of it, the light and the trees are enough to do me. But for the whole length of it, no, not nearly enough.