Weekend viewing (with spoilers)
Apr. 24th, 2005 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khaosworksDoctor Who: World War Three
Last week, I mentioned (more or less) that this was the first dud of the season, and this second half, World War Three, redeems the story slightly, but not by much. Points scored for characterisation, which is Davies' strongest suit as I said before - Mickey the Idiot and Jackie are much better fleshed out in their second outing in the series, and Mickey has gone from annoyance to somewhat endearing, and Jackie shows some actual maternal instinct for once. I've heard that Noel Clarke (Mickey) has signed up for Series 2, and if this is how he's going to be used, as an emotional anchor for Rose to remind her of the life she's left behind, I'm all for it.
Plot wise, World War Three is basically Terror of the Zygons meets The Dominators. It doesn't help that I've just watched Zygons again as well (and I have to say that the Hinchcliffe-Holmes era is even better than I remember it). In The Dominators the titular alien nasties want to turn Dulkis into a radioactive fuel dump for their fleet of warships, which is basically the same plot here, except the Slitheen are more mercenary than, um, dominating.
In a Lawrence Miles vein, where this comes from is the Iraq War, and if we didn't already get it with the idea of a sinister family (instead of a race) seeding upper levels of government with their own brethren all in an effort to invade a place with the intent of exploiting its fuel resources... Davies anvils us over the head by having the lead Slitheen announce to the world that the "aliens" have "massive weapons of destruction" which can be launched in "45 seconds", urging the UN to pass a resolution allowing the UK to take pre-emptive action. While I'm as eager for satire as the next guy, and regular readers of this journal know exactly how I stand on Bush & Co., it's treading close to being very heavy-handed. Then again, so was Robert Holmes's The Sunmakers.
3 out of 5. Next week: YOU - ARE - THE - DOC - TOR - YOU - WILL - BE - EX - TER - MI - NA - TED!!!
Enterprise: In A Mirror, Darkly
Well, I bit the bullet and actually watched it. It was well-produced, and everyone was clearly having fun. Hell, Hoshi in a slinky nightgown will save an episode for me anytime.
But there was something nagging at me that was not quite right, and a bit of the way through, I figured out what it was. It's generally because while it's celebratory fanwank, like most fanwank (even well-produced fanwank) it misses the larger point - in this case, what the Mirror Universe episodes were all about.
In Mirror, Mirror the big idea was that the Enterprise crew gets shunted into an evil universe. The underlying theme was not just dealing with that problem, but how they dealt with that problem, by masquerading as their evil counterparts. The point made at the end of the episode was that while it was easy for a civilized man to revert to barbarism, it was impossible for a barbarian to pretend to be civilized, which is why "our" Spock managed to see through the mirror Enterprise crew immediately and stick them in the brig. Put it another way, it explored the idea of how thin the veneer of our civilization is.
Here, without the contrast of a "real universe" crew to interact with the Mirror Universe, the point kind of gets swallowed up. There is a hint of it in the beginning, when Cochrane (nice reuse of footage from First Contact) chooses to shoot the first Vulcan rather than extend his hand in friendship - that history, and our own better impulses, are fragile enough that one act of intolerance can change everything - but it's rapidly shoved aside as we enter a story which is basically putting our characters out of character with no larger purpose than because it's cool.
And while it is cool, well... it's shallow. And the original Mirror, Mirror was not shallow, even if the subsequent treatments of the Mirror Universe in DS9 were a bit thin on the ground.
That may be what people like - I don't begrudge them that. And it may very well be that the second half of the story will reveal a larger theme, so final judgment is reserved till then, but I came out of the end wondering what the point was all about.
Don't get me wrong. It wasn't bad. It was even good overall. But it certainly wasn't the greatest since Best of Both Worlds or whatever superlative episode you care to name, like some fans are saying it is.
And as I said some time ago when I first heard of this idea, the fact that this episode is good precisely because it recycles an old, iconic concept from the original series, shows how imaginatively bankrupt Enterprise is and continues to be. Let it die, and hope that something comes out from the ashes.
Last week, I mentioned (more or less) that this was the first dud of the season, and this second half, World War Three, redeems the story slightly, but not by much. Points scored for characterisation, which is Davies' strongest suit as I said before - Mickey the Idiot and Jackie are much better fleshed out in their second outing in the series, and Mickey has gone from annoyance to somewhat endearing, and Jackie shows some actual maternal instinct for once. I've heard that Noel Clarke (Mickey) has signed up for Series 2, and if this is how he's going to be used, as an emotional anchor for Rose to remind her of the life she's left behind, I'm all for it.
Plot wise, World War Three is basically Terror of the Zygons meets The Dominators. It doesn't help that I've just watched Zygons again as well (and I have to say that the Hinchcliffe-Holmes era is even better than I remember it). In The Dominators the titular alien nasties want to turn Dulkis into a radioactive fuel dump for their fleet of warships, which is basically the same plot here, except the Slitheen are more mercenary than, um, dominating.
In a Lawrence Miles vein, where this comes from is the Iraq War, and if we didn't already get it with the idea of a sinister family (instead of a race) seeding upper levels of government with their own brethren all in an effort to invade a place with the intent of exploiting its fuel resources... Davies anvils us over the head by having the lead Slitheen announce to the world that the "aliens" have "massive weapons of destruction" which can be launched in "45 seconds", urging the UN to pass a resolution allowing the UK to take pre-emptive action. While I'm as eager for satire as the next guy, and regular readers of this journal know exactly how I stand on Bush & Co., it's treading close to being very heavy-handed. Then again, so was Robert Holmes's The Sunmakers.
3 out of 5. Next week: YOU - ARE - THE - DOC - TOR - YOU - WILL - BE - EX - TER - MI - NA - TED!!!
Enterprise: In A Mirror, Darkly
Well, I bit the bullet and actually watched it. It was well-produced, and everyone was clearly having fun. Hell, Hoshi in a slinky nightgown will save an episode for me anytime.
But there was something nagging at me that was not quite right, and a bit of the way through, I figured out what it was. It's generally because while it's celebratory fanwank, like most fanwank (even well-produced fanwank) it misses the larger point - in this case, what the Mirror Universe episodes were all about.
In Mirror, Mirror the big idea was that the Enterprise crew gets shunted into an evil universe. The underlying theme was not just dealing with that problem, but how they dealt with that problem, by masquerading as their evil counterparts. The point made at the end of the episode was that while it was easy for a civilized man to revert to barbarism, it was impossible for a barbarian to pretend to be civilized, which is why "our" Spock managed to see through the mirror Enterprise crew immediately and stick them in the brig. Put it another way, it explored the idea of how thin the veneer of our civilization is.
Here, without the contrast of a "real universe" crew to interact with the Mirror Universe, the point kind of gets swallowed up. There is a hint of it in the beginning, when Cochrane (nice reuse of footage from First Contact) chooses to shoot the first Vulcan rather than extend his hand in friendship - that history, and our own better impulses, are fragile enough that one act of intolerance can change everything - but it's rapidly shoved aside as we enter a story which is basically putting our characters out of character with no larger purpose than because it's cool.
And while it is cool, well... it's shallow. And the original Mirror, Mirror was not shallow, even if the subsequent treatments of the Mirror Universe in DS9 were a bit thin on the ground.
That may be what people like - I don't begrudge them that. And it may very well be that the second half of the story will reveal a larger theme, so final judgment is reserved till then, but I came out of the end wondering what the point was all about.
Don't get me wrong. It wasn't bad. It was even good overall. But it certainly wasn't the greatest since Best of Both Worlds or whatever superlative episode you care to name, like some fans are saying it is.
And as I said some time ago when I first heard of this idea, the fact that this episode is good precisely because it recycles an old, iconic concept from the original series, shows how imaginatively bankrupt Enterprise is and continues to be. Let it die, and hope that something comes out from the ashes.
