DOCTOR WHO-CLOSING TIME

 

DOCTOR WHO-the brave re-watch: CLOSING TIME

 

“You can’t help who your mates are.”

 

Now, I must admit I loved THE LODGER. I loved it when it was a 10^th Doctor/Mickey story but Smith and James Corden (whose late night show is awful and not funny) made it even better to be honest. I loved it. SO…when they announced a sequel, I knew that I would love it, right? Right?

 

Wrong. This was awful. Maybe now I’ll feel different. Matt Smith shows up as the Doctor but acts as he…well, it is really the poor script doing it to him, the poor actor…the Doctor here acts as if he does not know how to be social. Now, fans might scream that the Doctor resets every regeneration but we know that’s not true. The episode starts off awful with the Doctor acting awkward as if he’s forcing himself to act social and care about Craig Owens, which clearly he doesn’t as he is about to leave right away with a cold, “Bye.” What a jerky dope.

 

Shona, being a black woman in modern WHO, has to die as she sees a Cyberman. Her white co worker wanted to go home. She mentioned she almost missed Top Model the other night due to power outages.

 

A word about the US opening credits TALK by Amy: it’s not needed and ruins the entire ambiance of the opening credit music. WTF? “When I was a little girl…” We know! We do not care! Get the theme music!

 

I usually like Gareth Roberts’ stuff but this is poor. Okay, the idea of a “brave rewatch” is to try to keep an open mind and find out if my opinion has changed. So far it hasn’t and this episode is particularly painful because I loved THE LODGER so much and all of this is forced humor that’s not funny.

 

Okay the scene in the kitchen that follows is nauseating, ALL of it. The dialog is so unreal, so NOT funny, and out of character for the Doctor. The Doctor’s not listening to Craig; Craig should know how to take care of the baby somewhat so that’s not real either though I suppose it is a real dilemma for some fathers. The quick turn over in Craig’s “I can; I can’t” might be mildly amusing but the Doctor’s reactions are unlikable, making HIM unlikeable, and the whole baby talk thing is like the Stormageddon  Dark Lord of All, another one of those “jokes” that is not only NOT funny but makes no sense and is given in expense of character development and realism, all of which goes out the window. BEWITCHED and I DREAM OF JEANNIE had more realism but were both funnier than this nonsense. How can the baby Alfie speak to the Doctor? How can the Doctor speak baby talk? It’s another of those Moffat era thinks it is funny gimmicks that fail the series.

 

Sophie’s gone away with Melina for a rest.

 

The Doctor tries to not notice things but does and so gets a job in a toy store. No, really. Furthering the unreality of this, the Doctor is given a name badge of the Doctor and he claims it is in case he forgets who he is and admits that does happen (hope he means regeneration crisis).

 

SO…the Doctor “fixes” a DANGER! Broken down Elevator and brings the baby and Craig into it. More jokes by the baby at dad’s expense and the Doc thinks it is funny and they’re off. The news doesn’t report about the three missing people on the front page because of some reality contest show TOP TALENT or something.

 

In the elevator Craig brings up STAR TREK to talk about the huge teleport the Doc thinks is operating under the store and while it was FUNNY in the cleverly written (ironically and supposedly written by Moffat) EMPTY CHILD, here, it just smacks of bringing us out of the DOCTOR WHO universe and not even in our own but in some fairy tale world which is striving to be like our own by mentioning STAR TREK in the first place. If Craig did live in the real UK, he might as well have mentioned BLAKE’S 7 or even DOCTOR WHO classic. Gosh.

 

The next scene is even worse. To keep Craig looking at him and not behind at what (?) we’re not privy to…a big sci fi base (?), the Doctor declares his love for Craig, “It’s always been you,” and Craig asks if the Doctor is going to kiss him and the Doctor says yes and embraces Craig. Now, this is NOT funny but actually offensive. WHY should the Doctor, who has had plenty of experience with humans seeing wild things, feel the need to do this with Craig. Is Craig about to freak out more than any other human he’s ever known? Just poor and offensive. The Doctor actually puckers up to kiss Craig, who yells, “I’m taken!”  Gosh.

 

Then as if Craig knows what he’s talking about or just  a fan fic writer’s idea of what the Doctor is, the Doc declares he and Alfie are safest by his side. People that don’t know the Doctor die because they were not near him. What? The Doctor, the sociopathic 11^th Doctor, smiles in pride at this. It’s sickening dialog, sickening acting, sickening character development that flies in the face of realism, the Doctor we knew/know, and even smacks of Craig being a delusional BAD father. AND shouldn’t the Doctor contact UNIT or TORCHWOOD about a Cyber ship overhead?

 

If things can’t get worse, they do: the Doctor tells Craig that he usually takes humans with him because people will talk to someone with a baby and the humans are his babies. WOW. This makes the Doctor even more of a sociopath. Craig is his baby.

 

More ha-ha non laughs as the Doctor talks to Val and mentions she is happy that the Doctor is so happy with his baby and partner. The Doctor doesn’t really understand and thinks it is another word for companion. This makes him incredibly stupid or insensitive at best. With a teleport in the lift and a Cyber ship above, he asks her if she’s noticed anything unusual. What?

 

He doesn’t want to hear gossip and cheek kisses Val (another sociopathic move) and isn’t happy or smiling UNTIL she mentions the silver rat thing. Okay, any other Doctor wouldn’t be smiling happy about that but fearful and scared that cybermats are in the store (a great idea btw).

 

Apparently, Craig’s a moron, too. In what is supposed to be funny, Craig spooks the white salesgirl into calling the security man George. He says things that if he thought about them before he said them, he’d realize what a dope he sounded like and what a creep he was being. It makes him unlikable, too.

 

Val works in the store but thinks that the silver rat thing is a toy. Sigh.

 

So we have a dumb toy store worker, an unlikable Doctor who smiles at the invasion of cyber rats in a toy store full of kids, a baby who insults his father and thinks of himself as a dark lord, and a stupid creep in Craig who does not know how to talk to people…at all. Bad script is what this all equals up to.

 

Shame really as the CyberMat in the store is a wonderful idea, wasted here.

 

If you thought the episode couldn’t get any worse, it does. The Doc sees and hides from Rory and Amy. Amy is signing an autograph for a little girl named Ellie. Ellie saw her on an ad for perfume, FOR THE GIRL WHO IS TIRED OF WAITING. OMG, I think this episode is going to make me throw up. This scene feels shoehorned in and contributes nothing to the characters or the premise. In fact, it makes the premise worse: the Doctor is going to die he thinks…when did he find out? ….so he wants to save them the pain of that? Or something? I find I don’t care. I didn’t care then when this aired and I care even less now. What a tired episode in a tired, silly era. Everything here feels mismanaged and ill thought out. Amy’s a perfume model?

 

George doesn’t see the hiding Doctor and Craig in the store after hours…he might be seeing impaired. Or hear the loud sonic screwdriver. No matter, George is cannon fodder anyway so not to worry that he might get killed by a cyber rat or a cyber man standing there (which IS rather creepy, I’ll admit).

 

Craig’s reaction to the Cyber Mat is all of our’s at first, he thinks it is cute. Then it shows its teeth ---literally-- in an effective moment and effect.

 

Ha ha. Alflie needed his baby sitter to be a hot one.

 

WHY didn’t the Cyberman kill the Doctor rather than just knock him out and LEAVE HIM THERE?

 

The Doctor’s left alone with a crying Alfie at home. Yes, they go home, with Earth under threat. The Doctor’s talk to Alfie becomes Moffat or maybe Gareth chat: he’s old, he’s crabby, he’s cynical, and he’s just NOT the Doctor. Smith goes into Pout Pout Mode that the New Series loves via THE X FILES and especially BUFFY. Again, this might be a valued story option had not RTD milked it dry in his four years and a few months era. Moffat has two trick ponies: child like humor that’s not funny and most of it from a child like innocent unknowing, unknowledgeable Doctor (who should know better and NOT be a fish out of water figure at all---it makes him look stupid and belies any science fiction) OR the Mr. Pout Pout over “I’m going to die” or “all my people and my planet are gone.” It doesn’t work here at all.

 

In what seems like endless dialog, the Doctor tries to expound on what RTD would do in a few lines or a few sentences of dialog: Alfie’s life ahead, a normal life. RTD did this and conveyed his brilliantly without hitting us over the head with it and he only did it briefly with each of his Doctors (9 once and 10 once).

 

In a series of more dopey moves…is this ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET THE CYBERMEN and CYBERMATS?...the Doctor leaves the Cyber Rat alone to check on Alfie, is unaware of it coming back to life even when he hears it’s sinister beeping, drops the sonic after using it to stun the Cybermat (could it really do that?), and locks himself out of the house at the same time…as Craig returns and is now in danger thanks to the dumb Doctor.

 

It’s hard to fault the resulting action sequence where the Doctor smashes through a glass door to save Craig (the baby looks petrified in the Doc’s arms) and Craig uses a lap top to hold it down so the Doc can…find his app on his sonic to stop it again. Well, some moments have to have something to commend. And during it there’s that I AM THE DOCTOR music so that’s all good.

 

The Doc uses his eyeglass in his left eye.

 

Craig falls asleep as the Doctor tells him about the Silence Will Fall and that he will die tomorrow and the first question (which is all BS anyway).

 

BTW the DARK SHADOWS Afghan blanket appears here and it is what the Doc uses to cover up Craig and Alfie.

 

The Doc goes off to the store to stop the Cybermen. He doesn’t know why he’s talking to Val. Craig wakes up AND TAKES Alfie with him into danger, going after the Doctor. It’s already established that he has others that might have watched Alfie and yet he doesn’t use them. He stupidly promises Alfie nothing will happen to him.

 

To make things worse, while the Doctor was just leaving and returning, he missed the idea that the Cybermen didn’t teleport down as he’s told us the entire episode…he NOW finds a tunnel down through a secret door he didn’t find until now.  I guess using the Cybermat helped him discover this. Sigh.

 

Craig does a smart thing and gives Alfie to Val for her to watch.

 

In rapid fire, the Doctor storms into the Cyber Ship which has been here for a long time and built over by the humans, the Doctor is held (he gives them a choice to deactivate or he will do it…some choice…did he really think that would work either way?), and Craig comes in with no plan and is ready to be converted into the Cyber Controller. What? WHY would six Cybermen use a new human converted into a Cyberman as their controller? That makes no sense.

 

Craig looks fully converted. Only…he’s not.

 

No one ever felt anything who was ever being converted by these Cybermen before? This never happened before? Just because he could hear his baby? And it blows up the Cybermen and their ship?

 

One thing that is interesting is the Doctor uses up his time left to straighten up the house for Craig. The show’s never done something like that to my knowledge. It’s a nice touch in the near epilog. Alfie prefers the name Alfie now and is proud of his dad.

 

Craig gives the Doctor a cowboy hat “from Sean’s dad.” Are we supposed to know who Sean is? Well, I looked that up on TARDIS wikia and Sean is one of the team mates on the soccer team.

 

When Sophie returns, Alfie says, “Doctor Who.”

 

This whole end scene with the children is badly written, illogical and not thought through. The Doc introduces himself to three children and explains he is the Doctor and he is here to help. How do they know what he means? Worse? How do their thoughts and words about this get into an account that River reads in a journal in the future.

 

The worst parts of the season come now: Kovarian tells River, who meets the Silence monster faced suit men who are her owners (?) and that they messed with River’s memories. River was made a doctor today. What?

 

River never really escaped them? Kovarian made her what she is: the woman who kills the Doctor. They inject her and put her into the suit. Where are they? Does this plan make any sense? Where in River’s time line is this? How did she go from the girl to the friend Mel to this?

 

Shock of shock! River’s under the lake and waiting to shoot and kill the Doctor. It’s boring, it’s stupid and illogical. I hate it.

 

Okay so this wasn’t the total disaster I thought it was but it’s still not very good. I’d give it maybe a 3/10 or a 2/5. It’s lame, pathetic and boring in parts and makes almost no sense throughout and nothing about it takes anything seriously until the script requires everyone to be dour and rant on about love and fatherhood and things. It’s forced, cliché, and ultimately not very satisfying….in other words …all the things GOOD Doctor Who should not be. And the next episode is even worse.