TV Review: Doctor Who 7.04 - The Power of Three

Atrocious puns aside, this is a truly powerful episode...

Being the penultimate adventure featuring two of Doctor Who's most beloved and loyal companions since the reboot of the show way back in 2005, it's fitting that The Power of Three is something of a swansong for a certain Amelia Pond and her never-staying-dead husband, Rory Williams. This particular ballad is sung beautifully, too, which is more than welcome from the point of view of a reviewer who has felt nothing but feelings of under-use for the two characters over the course of the series, bar the second episode. Coincidentally, The Power of Three is also penned by the writer of that particular inclusion, and while Amy came across as a brilliant feminine caricature of a certain Christopher Eccleston in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, which also saw Rory from a new angle thanks to the introduction of his dad, Brian, writer Chris Chibnall absolutely excels in fiddling with the companionship's threads throughout his second contribution to the series. And what a contribution it is, as long as you can ignore some slightly beguiling errors on a few other fronts.

While Chris Chibnall's latest ultimately emphasises the relationship between Amy, Rory and The Doctor, it is mainly pushed along by a very interesting plot thread, involving one of the oddest Earth invasions that the last of the Time Lords has ever come across over the past near-fifty years. Quite literally overnight, countless identical small black cubes arrive seemingly out of nowhere, to the surprise and intrigue of the human race. And what is it that these perfectly formed, indestructible shapes do, you ask? Absolutely nothing, and they continue to do so for months throughout the episode. Following in the footsteps of 2010's The Lodger and its spiritual 2011 follow-up, Closing Time, this story sees The Doctor in wait, because that's all he can do. While it reflects the aforementioned stories of past series', this Chibnall-penned tale plays the waiting game pretty much perfectly, and it wholly engages the audience as well as the characters you see on screen, and most importantly it isn't boring thanks to the key aspect of the episode, the companionship. When the cubes eventually showed signs of activity in the story's final act (that's not a spoiler, by the way) I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what exactly the cubes are for and who or what has been pulling the strings all this time. Heck, I almost spilled tea all over my crotch when this was supposedly about to be revealed. As for the pay-off to all this waiting... Well, allow me to hark back to that later.

Film Review: The Dictator

Given my recent hiatus from publishing any new articles here on the blog, I figured now would be a good time to set free the beast that is my review of Sacha Baron Cohen's latest attempt at comedy, The Dictator. It's worth noting that I wrote this piece at the start of the year under something of a deadline as it had to be out of the oven in time for the first issue of Stream, so don't expect it to be the best thing I've ever written in the event that you didn't check it out on its original publication. Anyway, without further ado, enjoy this slice of filler while you wait for the oh-so nearly completed articles soon to be let out of their draft-enclosed cages...

Scripted fiction makes for a curiously inoffensive escapade from Sacha Baron Cohen... But is it funny?

Sacha Baron Cohen's past potentially offensive caricatures of political incorrectness were undignified, but on many occasions outrageously funny. The actor's latest attempt at portraying a character many wouldn't dare to act out might be right up your alley depending on your preferences when it comes to comedies. Possibly due to the deprivation of the formula that was born with Cohen's most successful film, Borat, which went stale with the later released Bruno, himself and director Larry Charles have returned to the actor's feature length, scripted roots (Ali G Indahouse: The Movie) with The Dictator. However, this film still follows in the footsteps and success of Cohen's last two character portrayals, despite being scripted, leading to the question of whether it holds up against those releases or not. The answer is simple, like the mind of Admiral General Aladeen himself; It very much depends of whether you found Bruno funny or utterly atrocious.

TV Review: Doctor Who 7.03 - A Town called Mercy

Is Series 7's third installment good, bad or ugly?

In simple terms, the third episode of Doctor Who's seventh series left me in a mental jumble. It made me wonder how Toby Whithouse, writer of such fantastic episodes as last year's The God Complex and the Russell T. Davies-era nostalgia fest School Reunion, could screw up something so badly to the point that even a casual viewer could rectify the flaws he creates in series 7 episode 3, A Town called Mercy. Yes, it pains me to say it, but this episode - one that had so much going for it judging from the trailers and such that preceded it - was pretty mediocre to say the least. It's kind of ironic to state that, however, because so much about this Western-themed 'epic' was executed to near-perfection, namely the direction, music, acting and the overall tone that these three things create. It's evidently clear that too much of the focus with this episode was on shoehorning in typical Western flick cliches as opposed to actually writing a sensical, brilliant tale, something that I know for a fact Whithouse is perfectly capable of doing both in Doctor Who and his own series Being Human (which, going off-topic slightly, you should all check out). It's when he overcoats a botched tale with historical or cult themes that he creates his own monstrosities - You only have to watch 2010's Vampires in Venice to see this theory in motion. At least that story made a lick of sense, though, 'cause this one's chock full of plot-holes and continuity errors the size of several Grand Canyons.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory enter a certain town called Mercy, unbeknownst to the badly-composed and ultimately pointless tale they're getting themselves into.

I'm actually in some way glad that this episode was terrible, because it makes it all the more easier to synopsise it. On each subsequent occasion I watched A Town called Mercy (for review purposes, that is) I found more and more errors as well as rectifications for said errors, to point out in this review. I'll save all of that for the following paragraphs, though, because believe it or not there are good things to be said about A Town called Mercy despite all the justified hate I've brought upon it in the last paragraph. If you haven't guessed already, Whithouse's latest is a Western, which fits the 'blockbuster' theme of series 7 nicely. It's also dealt with perfectly, mainly thanks to the staging and the absolutely phenomenal musical score from Murray Gold (seriously, this episode and this episode only contains some of the best music the guy has ever produced for Doctor Who, adding a Western twang to his usual epic antics). Mercy was filmed at Almeria province in Spain, the exact same site in which the likes of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and many other classic westerns were also once in motion. The site looks all the more iconic in this episode thanks to Saul Metzstein's phenomenal direction - Yes, the director of Dinosaurs on a Spaceship returns to direct his second episode in a row, and I must say he's rising up in the pantheon of great Doctor Who and indeed TV directors judging from his work on the show thus far. Some of the shots in this episode, ones involving the apparent antagonist The Gunslinger in particular, look absolutely gorgeous.

TV Review: Doctor Who 7.02 - Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs, why do you Love Brian's Balls?

Yes, as you may have guessed from the quite frankly farcical title, the second installment in Doctor Who's seventh revived series is a light-hearted one. A romp, one could refer to it as. Don't go speeding down assumption junction just yet, though, because it may surprise you to hear that Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, the fourth Doctor Who story penned by Chris Chibnall (His previous works being 42, The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood) is actually a very solid episode. One of the best of its kind, in fact. It might also surprise you to hear that the 45-minutes this episode presents also packs some pretty serious drama, fantastic direction from newcomer Saul Metzstein and a perfectly handled mix of CGI and animatronics for the titular dinosaurs. On top of this, brilliant casting choices for the vast range of characters, as well as an at times snigger-inducing script, can also be added to episode 2's list of merits. Oh, and there's a balls joke in there, too.

One thing you definitely have to keep in mind while watching Chris Chibnall's latest (at the time of writing, at least; He's also penned episode 4 of this series) is that it isn't trying to do anything groundbreaking in its 45-minute time-frame, despite the fact that a particularly controversial, fan-splitting decision from the Doctor takes place towards the end. More on that later, though. As aforementioned, Dinosaurs certainly fits under the category of 'light-hearted romp', as it combines a fair few elements; a considerably larger set of companions as opposed to previous adventures, a stellar variety of locales (at least in the episode's pre-credits sequence; One that zooms by even swifter than that of Asylum of the Daleks) and most importantly, a multi-layered plotline that takes place almost alongside the kind of narrative one expects from the title of the episode. Yes, Chibnall has pulled the same trick showrunner Steven Moffat did with last year's divisive story 'Let's Kill Hitler' by misguiding the viewer's expectations through means of an intentionally specified title. Thankfully, though, Chibnall manages to combine the unexpected elements of this story with the dinosaur action that was to be expected judging from the title, even going so far as to give a superb, fan-pleasing explanation as to why the dinosaurs reside in such unfamiliar terrain.