Not Britain's Finest Hour

[captainsblog]

Before I even started the episode, the non-spoliery previews on the Flist included one Bah and one Hmph. Given that, plus my own generally negative reactions to building time-travel episodes around real-life events, my expectations came in low and pretty much stayed there.

Underneath it all, it was not a bad basic story: Doctor chooses (again). Doctor makes right choice (mostly). The worst of creations can have the humanity in them pound out the worst of their other tendencies (see Peter Boyle in bed reading the Wall Street Journal next to Dr Frahnkensteen's former fiancee). Plus, it wouldn't be a Who season without some new, improved and evil Daleks about.

But cmon. Did they have to inject it all into the middle of the feckin' Blitz and confuse the storyline with all that Hope and Glory British Patriotism shit?

I get it, guys. I've been to the cabinet war rooms. I've seen a tonne of films with the zeppelins and the all-clears and the brave men and women in uniform giving all for King and Country. Piling the Doctor's worst war of racial purification on top of our worst war of that ilk just produced a jumble-sale of plot lines and emotions that the basic story had to overcome, rather than embrace.

All that, mind, even before you get to the bizarre moments like the Union Jack re-enactment of the Iwo Jima flag raising at the end- or the X-wing fighter scene that was practically ripped off whole from the sixth reel of Star Wars: A New Hope. (I swear, I saw Chewbacca riding behind Danny Boy in one of those scenes.)

Meanwhile, the Daleks went from being so drab and obsequious to Eleven virtually introducing the New 1942 Dalek model line at something resembling the Detroit Auto Show. As whyaduck so eloquently put it, "I tell ya, if anyone was going to turn the Daleks into a bag of Skittles I would've thought it would have been RTD."

(Btw, both you, Pete, and her, Mel, made reference to "jammy-dodger." I SORTA know what you mean by that, but please to explain.)

Churchill was fine, once you accept the premise that he had to even BE in this episode, but what is it with British fantasy characters always needing to get chummy on a regular basis with the PM?  I'd have reacted far more like the Muggle one did at the start of HBP. (I know, there've been a dozen times where I through X met WSC in prior series. You will explain those to me now, yes?)

And Yes I Saw The Crack This Time. Plus the wonky time-continuum thread is becoming clearer- or at least more obvious.

Emily tells me that next week's Special Guest Villains make the Daleks seem like fuzzy little mogwais (before you feed them after midnight). Maybe I won't have a 20-inning baseball game to delay that viewing into a worknight like yesterday's events kept me from watching this one on time.

KBO (I thought Olbermann's middle initial was T, though. It's the crack! Messing with names now!)



And my one non-spoilery observation that at least some of you will get:

Amy, especially this week?



Meet our Friend Kim:



(Kimmy's had some adventures of her own, not nearly as fun, in the past week or so. Prayers went out today and continue to.)

Comments

[whyaduck.livejournal.com]

Jammy Dodgers are those little cookies sandwiches where one side has a hole in the middle through which the jam filling shows. i.e. a Tardis self-destruct button.

[thanatos-kalos.livejournal.com]

Jammy dodgers are yummy little cookies with raspberry or strawberry or whatever jam in the centre of the bottom cookie, which shpows through the centre hole in the top cookie. It's like a vanilla/berry oreo with a porthole. :P

WWII is a BIG THING, not just in UK but in DW, it has a lot of connections with a lot of overarching themes (i.e., victory of the underdog, (im)morality, (im)mortality, Total War = Time War, etc). It's a metaphor going back to Daleks = Nazis and Terry Nation dystopias in Genesis of the Daleks. The DFaleks and the Doctor bvoth carry a lot of the WWII symbolism with them...which makes me wonder a bit if that's not one of the erasons the Doctor has such an archetypal resonance with the British? hmm...that's a thought for autumn.

[targaff.livejournal.com]

Mmmm, Jammy Dodgers.

[(Anonymous)]

Palme champagne and large wine glasses?

[(Anonymous)]

Rhohan.