Dr Who Impossible Astronaut Review

I knew I'd seen those Silents somewhere before...



Utah location - I saw almost all of it in the trailers
Pre-titles "clues left through time" - I've seen The Pandorica Opens
Letters sent to summon you to a desert road - I've seen Back To The Future 2
Men In Black that make you forget you've seen them - I've seen Men In Black (and Torchwood)
The Doctor dying and not having time to regenerate - I've seen Turn Left
Funeral pyre for someone who comes back later - I've seen Last Of The Time Lords
The Doctor reappearing when you thought he was dead - I've seen The Big Bang
Child's voice on tape - I've seen The Empty Child
Mysterious child who you don't know who they are yet - I've seen Silence In The Library (and The Empty Child)
Amy pregnant - I've seen Amy's Choice
Forgetting things that have just happened, over & over - Flesh & Stone
Scary alien encounter in a bathroom - I've seen Boom Town
The Tardis from The Lodger - I've seen The Lodger

The Doctor not being allowed to know his future - I've seen it (Silence In The Library), but then I've seen it contradicted (Time Crash, Space & Time). Most of the time wouldn't it save a lot of trouble if he just found out then dealt with it? Doesn't seem to be a problem telling everyone else about their futures, Michael Gambon for instance?

Too many things happening, and not enough of them gripping or interesting. The characters are still too unreal, unsympathetic, even superficial. Who is the viewer supposed to relate to? And didn't the first ten minutes require too much inside knowledge of the show to be in the slightest bit interesting?

Okay, I like it being grown up and ambitious and clever, but I'd like it to entertain people from the start and I'm not sure that, in those stakes, this episode competes with The Eleventh Hour. Or Partners In Crime. Or Smith & Jones. Or New Earth - okay, it's better than New Earth. I could go on. But I'll wait till next week. (It wasn't the Twin Dilemma, so there's something)





PS: Here's the continuing debate from Facebook notes:

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Dave Spence Yeah - I didn't have a clue what was going on!
18 hours ago ·
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Ollie Hardaker I've come to the conclusion that Moffat has been planted by Michael Grade to destroy DW. Last series bored me to tears 95% of the time, this series has achieved the impossible after just one episode - after nearly 40 years of being a fan, I shall be switching over next week and watching something else (possibly paint drying)!
17 hours ago ·
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David Edward Knight It didn't hold my attention. It's fair to accuse Moffat of trying to be too clever as a reaction against Russell T Davies trying to be too dumb.
17 hours ago ·
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K A Costigan I'm still trying to get my head 'round it all. :/
15 hours ago ·
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Ollie Hardaker
Moffat needs to realise that he is not writing great drama, DW is entertainment. Yes, the scripts have to be good, but the success of DW has always been that it appeals to all levels, from doctors and solicitors to people with severe learni...ng difficulties and even Down's Syndrome. Please explain to me how the latter group is supposed to enjoy a story where there is lots of talking and nothing goes on? RTD was not to dumb, he created a show that entertained. He did not bog himself down in pointless continuity and got on with telling a fun story and entertaining the audience. So it didn't always hang together, but neither did the original series (Atlantis destroyed 3 times in 3 different ways!!!), but his stories were memorable. I remember very little of Moffat's first series! I'm switching off DW now for the first time since I was 3 because I am BORED See More
15 hours ago ·
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Doug Adamson I understand how some people aren't "getting it" when it comes to Moffat's take on the show. But I am really enjoying it, there's plenty of fun, an attempt to make it really scary and loads of "rules" of time travel to stick to.
12 hours ago ·
Jason John Lythgoe-Hay
I'm beginning to think I was watching a different episode to everyone else? I thought it was thoroughly engaging, intriguing and entertaining, the performances from the leads we brilliant, the script sparkling and fun and I love the idea of... a story that makes you think about what is happening/has happened/will happen. I was far from bored, but then I have an attention span greater than that of a goldfish. For years people complained that RTD's style of writing seemed to be all style and no content, now we have content... Can win all of the people! See More
12 hours ago ·
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David Edward Knight The trouble with Moffat's Dr Who is that unlike the first three decades of the programme he's neglected to keep it simple. Regardless of any impression RTD's helmsmanship may have given, keeping it simple doesn't mean you have to keep it stupid.
11 hours ago ·
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Ollie Hardaker
Here, here David! To others who would insult someone they have never met, I may in your opinion have the attention span of a goldfish (the length of which has never been scientifically proven and is therefore still open to challenge), but a...t least I have the intellectual capability and proof-reading skills to use the English language correctly i.e. grammar and spelling. If I had wished to be cerebrally stimulated in they same way all the time, I would watch the same kinds of programmes all the time. However, I keep my brain active by using a variety of different media stimuli. DW I use to stimulate the imagination and for that you need something more interesting than a group of people crawling about in the dark - that is just so last season (Time of the Angels)See More
10 hours ago ·
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Alan Mitchell
The story was pretty straight forward to me. One of the biggest things that the Moff is exploiting is the fact that this guy is a time traveller, something most other producers and writers have generally avoided. Instead they treat the TARD...IS as a starship travelling through time like a scheduled airline from and too destinations. The Moff confronts the fact that, if anything, the Doctor's life is non linear and is the main reason why he is immortal. He can exist before he was born and after he has died. Producing stories that make you think is a brave and brilliant way to go instead of the spoon fed narratives that proliferate in TV land. As the Doctor would say, Keep up, back there!See More
10 hours ago ·
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Kev Sutherland I watched it a second time and enjoyed it more. Also reading the reports on Gallfrey Base of how young kids and not-fans had reacted reminded me to relax and enjoy and stop being a hyper-critical 40-something. Criticisms aside (and if I'm so clever I should be writing new Who stories, not criticising existing ones) can you think of anything better on telly? See.

Travel diary

Active Hotels have just informed me that "Unfortunately the review process is no longer available for Active Hotels. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause".

This is such a shame. Though it remains my first-stop website for booking hotels (and I book an awful lot of hotels) it's just lost one of its major attractions, the ability to leave your own review and votes on each hotel. These aggregated votes, giving a final mark out of 10, and the reviews from various punters then enabled one to book hotel rooms with greater certainty of what was on offer. With this function removed, I am going to be reliant on what the hotel has to say about itself rather than the more honest views of people who've paid to stay there.

If anyone knows of a website where one can book hotels based on punters reviews, I'll happily try that and drop Active Hotels like a stone (until I discover some other reason they were so good, maybe the prices?)

But I've stayed in so many hotels in the last month, I must review them. I'll keep it brief.


Me outside my furthest flung venue of this season's tour, Woodend Barn, Banchory, Aberdeenshire

Holiday Inn Express, Glasgow Airport. Meh. Short walk from airport, not a bad breakfast.

Hotel St George, Dublin. Good. Free wifi, good price inc breakfast, good location.

Aberdeen Douglas Hotel, good location....

And it's at this point I suddenly realise there's no point in reviewing these hotels. Unless someone is using these reviews to base their hotel booking on, the best I can say is that medium priced hotels in cities and towns in the UK and Ireland are about what you'd expect. Okay, the Grassmarket Hotel in Edinburgh may be pokier and a little less clean than some other places, and may cost more because it's a popular city, and I may have got a real bargain deal at Lawlors Hotel in Dungarvan (gorgeous view, free wifi, great breakfast, ideal location, good room, and all for 39 euros), but more than that I can't really add much.

Here, have some more holiday snaps and we'll move on. (But take the praise, in general, Ballantrae Hotel Edinburgh, Cabinn Hotels in Aarhus, Stansted Airport Lodge (crazy keys, odd breakfast), Charles Stewart Guesthouse Dublin, Hussar Hotel Margate, and anywhere I've forgotten).

W-AV-ering

Coming up we have the vote on AV, and I have to confess I'm torn. The choice is to change the UK General Election voting system from "First Past The Post" to Alternative Vote. (I put First Past The Post in inverted commas because I'm sure no-one's formally named it that, same as the Impressionists didn't choose their own name, and I'm pretty sure Tory is a rude word in Irish if you look it up).

But how to vote? At first it looks simple. I'm a knee-jerk liberal lefty, and voting reform is a knee-jerk liberal lefty thing, isn't it? Well not quite, because AV is just one sort of voting reform, and not the one that anyone really wanted as a first choice.

PR, Proportional Representation, is the method of voting that would, to my mind and to the mind of many who campaign for voting reform, be the best choice. This method would take every single person's vote, for whichever party from whichever part of the country, and add them up on a national level so that it registered and counted. So a vote for the Tories in Glasgow, or for Labour in rural Somerset, would actually count, rather than being wasted.

On a purely selfish level PR would mean that, for the first time in my voting career, my vote would signify (I've always voted Labour, except for one embarrassing vote for the LibDems which we won't talk about, and have always lived in a safe Tory seat, my MP for the last 20 years being Liam Fox).

The argument against PR is that minority and radical parties would get seats, and that is true. For every Green MP, and there would be a lot of those, we would get a BNP MP, and I fear there would be a lot of those too. But so be it. It is ignorant of us not to acknowledge the diversity of opinions held by the public, and I feel it right that they should be represented. There should be Islamist MPs and Nazi MPs if enough people feel strongly enough to vote for them. Then those MPs should take their place in the chamber, side by side and face to face with their fellow MPs and slug it out on the political battlefield. That, I think, is how democracy should work.

But that idea, PR, is not being proposed in the current referendum. What is being proposed is AV, something that the LibDems last year were all calling a shoddy compromise, a messy halfway house, and other clearly damning phrases. In AV what happens is you vote for your choice, the person you want, the team you support, then there is the opportunity to vote for a 2nd choice.

Who generally actually has a second choice? If you're voting for your Favourite Doctor Who then okay, everyone's got a second favourite there. But say you're a football fan (which I confess I'm not) and you're asked to vote for who should win the big match? Are you going to put "City" on the ballot and then, just in case, back it up by putting "United" as your second choice? I don't think so.

And when your second choice vote does get to be counted, what do you get? Well, Ed Miliband is the cautionary tale for everyone there. Poor guy, well intentioned, I share his politics, but he was very clearly not the person the Labour party really wanted or needed to lead the party into the next election. By First Past The Post, his brother David would have won. As it is, under the AV system that was used in the leadership ballot, Ed got the job and is now the uncharismatic face of the Yes to AV campaign.

So, how should I vote? It has been joked (by a number of comedians and Private Eye) that one should vote Yes to AV as your 1st choice, and No to AV as your second. But is even that satirically brilliant option satisfactory?

I actually think AV is flawed and I really want PR. But if I vote against AV I'm siding with the Tories who want to oppose all electoral reform because of their own vested interests (and quite a few Labour MPs who are also opposing reform for the same reason). But if I vote for AV, which I don't wholeheartedly support, am I selling out to compromise? (Says he who voted LibDem last year, oh the shame).

And if AV were to win the vote (it won't, by the way) then we try AV and it turns out to be the unsatisfactory shambles that I think it might, mightn't we end up with the situation where we retreat to First Past The Post and are stuck with that for longer than if we hadn't tried to change things in the first place?

Here's a solution. This is the solution I've used with many decisions before: Tribalism. Yes, as a spineless weedy craven coward, why don't I just do what my mates are doing? Why don't I follow the lead of the people whose opinions I respect and the paper I read? I did that in the election last year. Remember? That time that me and David Mitchell voted LibDem cos The Guardian told us to? Well I've learned my lesson there.

So why don't I do the opposite? The Guardian is campaigning for AV, so I should vote against. But look at the writers I admire - Paul Cornell is voting for AV, I should do like he does. Oh, but Mark Millar is campaigning against AV, and I like his stuff too. Mind you, he's voting SNP and, until we get PR, there's no point in me doing that (unless the SNP choose to stand in North Somerset) so my role model's giving me mixed signals there.

What to do? I think I'll continue my survey. The more of my respected Tweeters vote one way, I'll be swayed, the more people I hate vote one way, I'll be swayed against their view equally. And if I happen to settle on an opinion of my own in time for the big day, all the better.

Now, here's a photo of a Tardis with a big chunk taken out of it:







PS: Since writing this I have found Yes to AV: Tim Minchin, Charlie Brooker, David Schneider and lots of other comedians. While a tweet from @DaveMedlo tells me: Joining the TaxPayers Alliance in #NotoAV are the Murdoch Empire, the BNP, UKip, The Star, Express and Mail. Who'd want to be at that party? . So now siding with the cool kids in the playground. The debate continues.

PPS: Just did quick survey of who has come last in UK byelections in recent years (these being the parties whose voters second choice would then be added to the others to tweak the result). They seem to be equally split between Independent, Green and LibDem. This tells me absolutely nothing and may well have been a total waste of time, thanks.

Hands Off (Royal Wedding Song) - Scottish Falsetto Socks

A song for the wedding of Prince William & Kate Middleton, from a special admirer. Written and sung by the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre.

Royal Wedding Commentary - Scottish Falsetto Socks

The Socks try doing the commentary on the Royal Wedding of Wills & Kate

Wills & Kate Royal Tribute by the Socks

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre pay tribute to the Royal couple's Royal wedding with a wee video.



Don't forget the Socks are playing Inverness this Friday 22nd April, don't let anyone miss it!

Socks designs by other people

I love it when someone else does the design work:







Apr 15 - Barnfield Theatre, Exeter
Apr 22 - Eden Court Inverness
May 6 - Farnham Maltings
May 7 & 8 - BlogThis!Share to XShare to FacebookShare to Pinterest