We All Fall Down

Who 5.02 – The Beast Below

  • Reading time:5 mins read

Well, good grief. What was that?

I feel like I’m missing something important. Or several important things. Matt Smith continues to be excellent, and is on a progressive trend in that regard. Karen Gillan is… fine. As for the story, though… what?

I just don’t understand how the elements go together, or why. The Smilers are a neat piece of design, but why are they there? The whole premise of the episode seems… It feels a bit forced. And there’s not much to it beyond the analogies the script insists on whacking around like a mallet toward the end.

During the mid-’80s, when the show was almost canceled the first time, there was supposed to be a story about a star whale. Maybe it had been delayed from the late Tom Baker era. My chronology isn’t what it once was. Steven Moffat would have known this, and this episode is probably a reference to that unmade Colin Baker serial. And I guess that’s… nice. In an irrelevant way. It’s like the Macra. Before this episode aired, I was thinking it looked a bit like “Gridlock”, maybe crossed with a Cartmel-era political allegory. And in that sense, I guess I was right.

I’m rambling. I’m perplexed. That episode… it feels like it hid how little it had to say under a confusing structure and sense of pace. Alternatively, it feels like a much longer script that was cut down to forty-five minutes and no longer makes any sense.

Vapid, fast-forward, obvious, complicated, cloying, disjointed.

I’m going to have to watch it again later, and see what I can take from it. Right now… that is one of my least favorite episodes since the show has returned. I do appreciate the way the end trails into the following story, much as with the 1960s serials.

The superficiality at play here — it reminds me a bit of Neil Gaiman. Which is appropriate enough. Maybe I’m just not seeing something, but from my impression of other Moffat scripts, I doubt it.

See, back when Davies was in charge I liked Moffat’s episodes about as well as Davies’. The difference was, I felt that Moffat put everything interesting on the surface. There wasn’t really much to get out of a second or third viewing, beyond appreciating the same cleverness over again. With Davies, even his worst episodes, every time I watch them I feel I’m watching a new script. I see levels I had missed before, and make now connections. There are all of these buried, subconscious themes in his writing, that allow his scripts to work even when they don’t actually work at all.

Say, “Last of the Time Lords” — a lousy episode. Yet when you consider the thematic interplay it’s depicting, with the Doctor representing hope and the Master representing despair, each one struggling all these years to bring the other to his own level, and to make him see the world through the other’s eyes, suddenly the bizarre plot falls to the side and you can see the broad strokes of the character interaction and the story machinations. Then when you think about the threads woven through the season about the power of faith, the strength that even misguided hope brings to people, and the innate power of words — yeah, there’s a bit more meaning. The episode makes a little more sense still. And then if you imagine the whole story as a fairy tale, perhaps with a narrated introduction, rather than thinking of it as a literal depiction of events, it almost becomes a demented kind of genius. Almost.

The shriveled Doctor is still nonsense, of course. And it doesn’t forgive establishing the Archangel network as a purely psychological phenomenon — hypnosis — then suddenly building on it as a psychic one. But if you ignore the details and the plot, you can see how the story fits together as a machine. And on a few levels, it does actually work.

Even Moffat’s best episodes, I’ve never gotten anything like that. And this is not one of Moffat’s best episodes. At least… I don’t think it is. I’m terribly confused. Maybe I’ll have more to say later.

I can’t believe I’m more looking forward to a Mark Gatiss episode than the next two Moffat ones.

Oh, The Eleventh Hour? It had its nonsense. Several scenes went on too long, the story was a bad caricature of Davies-style handwave (minus the glee), and the pre-titles sequence was unnecessary. Yet tonally, it was just great. And though it’s a bit trite to say now, I rather wish the Doctor had taken little Amelia with him instead of Amy. What a lovely little actress. She’s probably the best thing out of the last two episodes.

Well. We’ll see where this goes.

Mobility (Tangent)

  • Reading time:1 mins read

The last few days I’ve been playing through old Castlevania games – first Harmony of Dissonance, then Simon’s Quest, then Castlevania. Now I’m working on Aria of Sorrow.

The structure to Simon’s Quest – I’d never noticed before, as the game is so obtuse in directing the player around; if you know what you’re doing, the game has some genius level design, both within the mansions and in the overworld. The game is always directing you where you need to go next, and unless you’re a dunderhead and fight the obvious clues the game goes by very quickly, and rather elegantly. The only catch is in how well the game obscures some of its “keys” – the crystals and Dracula’s Heart, in particular.

The elegance here shows up Dracula’s Curse all the more. I should really finish cursing that game out. So to speak. I wonder if anyone would be interested in publishing my manifesto.

The Playlist / Those Tenuous Twos

  • Reading time:23 mins read

by [name redacted]

You may have read the first part of this column in the December 2009 Play Magazine. It was intended as a single article, and the start of a whole series of such lists. In the event, I was asked (due to my incorrigible verbosity) to break the article into three pieces; only the first found its way to print. Here is the column in full.

Used to be, when a game was successful enough to demand a sequel, the design team would do its best to avoid repeating itself. Though I’m sure they mostly wanted to keep their job interesting, the practical effect was that if the games were different, they would both remain relevant. In an arcade, Donkey Kong Jr. could stand handsomely by its father, each shilling for its own share of the coin. You might call them companion pieces, rather than updates or replacements.

When home consoles hit, design teams were even more modest, and were generally left to do their own thing. So starting on the NES, you will see a certain trend: successful game spawns weird, only tenuously related sequel; fans of the original scratch their heads; a greatly expanded dev team releases a third game, which is basically just the first again, on steroids; fans think it’s the best thing ever, because it’s exactly the same, except better! And to hell with that weird second chapter.

Thing is… usually the second game is the most interesting you’ll ever see.

Bee Gears

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Drinking tea with honey and the rest of half of a lemon squeezed into it, and another slice of lemon, with the rind sliced away in a hexagonal pattern, leaving just the white tissue around the pulp.

Having stirred the tea, the lemon slice spirals around and around in the center of the mug, the points of the hexagon whizzing around like cogs of a mill wheel.

This is pretty good honey. Forgot I had it. I wonder what kind of honey it is. It smells a bit of plums and lavender.

Catharsis Is Not Enough

  • Reading time:2 mins read

by [name redacted]

Originally published in, I believe, the October issue of Play Magazine.

A new study of gamer health, conducted by the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory and Andrews Universities and published in the October issue of the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, observes a correlation between extensive videogame use, obesity, and depression.

The expectation going in was that gamers would tend to have a higher body mass index, and “a greater number of poor mental health days” than non-gamers; after studying 552 adults in and around Seattle, that assumption looks pretty much true.

Tea Bread

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Do this.

3 cups flour, 1 cup warm water, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/8 cup oil, about 2-1/4 tsp yeast (one packet, if that’s your style), dash of salt, spritz of molasses.

Dissolve the sugar in the water, and add the yeast. Let it bloom and fizz, then mix in the salt and oil. After that, add one cup of flour at a time until you’ve got a nice clump of bread dough. Then proceed as usual: get out a floured board, knead until it’s kneaded, stick it in an oiled bowl with a cloth for an hour. Then pull it out and beat it up some more (it’s got a great, fleshy texture by now), shape it into a rough rectangle, and flump it into an oiled bread pan. Try to make sure any folds are hidden underneath. Let that sit until it has risen impressively enough above the rim, use a knife to cut a slit down the center, drizzle a miserly line of molasses down the cut, and stick it in a 350-degree oven for half an hour.

Serve toasted, with boysenberry jam.

Not complex, but it’s a winner!

The Numbers Game

  • Reading time:1 mins read

My problem with math is always the arithmetic. I don’t have the short-term memory for it. I have the calculator here, and I think, “one and a quarter.” By the time that message gets to my fingers it has morphed to “one and a half.” Which in this case makes six inches of difference.

Brütal Irony

  • Reading time:2 mins read

by [name redacted]

Originally published in, I believe, the September issue of Play Magazine.

Remember last year, when the newly-merged Activision Blizzard decided to shuck itself of properties unlikely to lead to a major franchise? Suddenly several high-profile one-off projects like Ghostbusters were left without a publisher. Though most quickly found a new host, Tim Schafer and Double Fine’s heavy metal adventure Brütal Legend was left grasping. In December the recently progressive Electronic Arts stepped up, and all seemed back on track.

Or maybe not.

Needs a hat.

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Yeah, this is sort of Top of the Pops with your host Pat Troughton as John Smith. Simultaneously very much like the First, Second, Fifth, and Seventh Doctors’ outfits; just a mild shuffle into dorkitude from Tennant, and, curiously enough, with elements of Eccleston.

Anyway, yes. About right. In retrospect, it’s fairly obvious; a take on your stereotypical dusty British professor. Curious that the character hadn’t quite hit it before.

I wonder if tweed will be back in, next year.

EDIT: So, with a day to reflect.

From his body language and the look in his eye, filtered through some of Moffat’s old comments, Matt Smith’s Doctor seems more investigative than action-oriented; like an actual traveling scientist, perhaps with a student in tow. In a way it harks back to the show’s original remit: Peter Cushing as Ian Chesterton as the Doctor, showing you the way it is.

I already had a good feeling about Matt Smith. Now this outfit, in its deliberately uncool way, is straight on its way to my favorite Doctor getup. If anything, it brings into relief the sharp style and extraverted yippiness of Tennant’s Doctor. David Tennant has been probably the best ambassador the show has had, or could ask for. And with thirteen masks, the Doctor can be trendy and sexy and dynamic sometimes; sure. But this, here — it peels away the layers and reveals the affably awkward teacher and researcher that, in my mind, the character is supposed to be.


George McFly … Matt Smith
“Would you still love me if I were no longer cool?” this depiction asks. “What if I weren’t so sure of myself?” And dude, yeah. I’d rather you weren’t, frankly. Just do your thing. Sincerity trumps all.

Considering what Moffat has said about his idea of the Doctor’s personality, and what he did in his earlier scripts, this all seems intentional.

Six months later

  • Reading time:2 mins read

The whole of Children of Earth is riddled with this awful futility.

The aliens had no need to be there. Had they needed the kids to eat or breed, it would have been horrible yet in some way reasonable: everything needs to try to survive somehow. As it turned out, there was no need for Frobisher to take his final actions. There was no need for the government to seek out and destroy Torchwood (with all the collateral damage involved there — Rupesh, etc.).

Just about every problem in this story is a result of vanity or weakness of character. It’s just plain stupid chaos. Gwen’s taped message in episode five puts a bullet point on that. And that’s pretty interesting!

Something else to point out, thematically — it’s only Jack sacrificing his own that solves the problem. This, after five episodes of everyone saying “it’s okay; take theirs, but not mine!” Earlier even Jack had his moment, with Ianto. Until then effectively no one is willing to make a sacrifice, no one is willing to take the burden. Even for the best characters, on some level it’s someone else’s problem.

Which I think illustrates what a strong character Frobisher is meant to be through most of this — he takes on all the responsibility that no one else wants, and he handles it. Much of that responsibility is awful, and poorly judged, but he absorbs it anyway, and takes it all to heart. He kind of fails the final test, but by that point it’s hard to much blame him.

This all, I assume, ties back into most of the characters being civil servants. Sort of a sci-fi Ikiru, except with less annoying structure.

Here comes Jack on a ruddy great tractor

  • Reading time:1 mins read

These last two episodes of Torchwood have been pretty brilliant about stealthily establishing elements that will be important later. Usually this business is fairly transparent. Here, it’s all so offhanded and apparently pragmatic that you don’t question; it doesn’t occur to you that these items or themes will come up again. The first scene in Cardiff, for instance, is Gwen at the ATM. Ah-ha, yes? That first child-event, each of the scenes they show serves several purposes, not least of which introducing characters. The only arbitrary kids given much screentime are those around Gwen’s ATM and the line not-arbitrarily blocking Rhys’s way.

So far, this is not only well-structured; it’s elegantly done. You’re so distracted by the characters and dialog that you don’t see the gears moving at all. However well-designed the machine, you still lose if it’s obviously mechanical.

Boom Boom Room

  • Reading time:2 mins read

Well. I had wondered why no one had gotten especially creative in killing Jack.

So far, it’s good. I know the rapturous noise people have been making, but this is simply the level that I’ve always expected from the show. It’s not exceeding expectations; just meeting them. That’s not such a bad thing, in that the show rarely has done so. Occasionally it’s done some neat things. But this is good.

This sort of feels like it should have been episode two of the first season. For most practical purposes, you can ignore everything from the second episode (also called, er, “Day One”), and plug this in, and you’re not missing much. It’s not too different a leap from “Invasion of the Bane” to Revenge of the Slitheen. Tosh and Owen are gone, and Gwen is cozier. That’s about it.

But yeah — this is Davies-style high-level writing. You know how every time the TARDIS turns up in one of his episodes, he has to screw with it? Take some bit of logic to a ridiculous extreme, to see what happens? Okay, here it’s going to fly on the freeway next to a car. And here it’s going to do this other thing you’d never thought about but, heck, I guess it’s plausible, given what we know.

Here, again, he’s not exceeding expectations. It’s more like he’s living up to three years of “why don’t they do X?” Which are the kinds of questions Chibnall never thought of asking. You never got that conceptual glee from him.

This feels kind of out-of-date in that respect, because if he’d done this in 2006, it would have been great. But at least the show’s finally getting around to it. If it keeps on at this rate, catching up, by the end it should be pretty interesting.

So there are a few things this episode does. One is, it says, okay, nobody ever used any of these toys I set out here. HERE is what I had in mind. And the other big one is concluding, “Oh, screw it. This didn’t work. Let’s tear it down and start again.” Though it only gradually gets around to that.

So. Okay. It’s doing a good job of fixing the show. We’ll see how this rolls on.

Crowded Field, Modest Diversity Slowly Implodes Industry

  • Reading time:3 mins read

by [name redacted]

Originally published in, I believe, the August issue of Play Magazine, split into a few blurbs across a two-page spread. I thought it rather worked in that format.

While everyone is freaking out about the economy, some trends are older and more reliable. Over the last decade, as the game industry has become big business and budgets have skyrocketed, yet everyone has continued to produce more less the same material, more and more groups and individuals have had to compromise.

Reminiscence

  • Reading time:1 mins read

Ah yes, Badart; one of the preeminent degenerate painters.

Tedium at the Core

  • Reading time:1 mins read

How many Doctor Who stories have at the heart of them a Problem Bureaucracy? I’m talking about a horrible central power, usually run by a paranoid and irrational old man who won’t listen to anyone, that serves mostly to string out the story’s run time or give it a reason to exist at all, by creating unnecessary and often unnatural conflict?

Often in these scenarios, everyone else in the story’s world seems more or less reasonable; it’s just this one bad apple, with a few of his puppets, who causes all the problems that allow the story to wheeze along.