SquirrellyFries

So it's been over a year since my last DA journal entry. High time I posted another one.

A lot has happened over the past year. Here are some of the things that have occurred in my life since May 2013:

I moved out of my parents' house

 I registered as a TV extra and have been on a number of shows including The Mindy Project, Parenthood, and Parks & Recreation. It was pretty fun.

I started watching Supernatural and breezed through the first 8 seasons in a month before joining the rest of the SPN family in watching season 9. Now I have a Sam Winchester cosplay on standby in my closet. I think I might have a problem.

 I finally got to see the two films I worked on at Warner Bros, Justice League: War and JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time.

 I started making a Pokemon nuzlocke storyboard-comic in Flash (and have yet to finish the first episode after about a year, so we'll see how that goes.)

 I took a temp-to-hire job at a phone company processing orders from their telemarketing department. A few feet away from where I worked was a customer service representative who regularly had heated conversations over the phone. They let me go within the week because I sucked at the job, and I was so happy.

 I attended the wedding of one of my best high school friends, and it was another moment in my life when it dawned on me that I was actually sort of an adult.

 I participated in last year's CTN Expo as a volunteer, and it was a great experience. I got to meet tons of artists, get my portfolio looked at, and recharge my creative passion.

 I finally got a full-time job as a graphic designer at a computer company called ACME. Yes, that's right, I work for the company that supplies Wile E. Coyote with his roadrunner-catching equipment.

First of all, May the Fourth be with you!

Doctor Who has a tendency to get me excited. Passionate, even. So of course as a passionate Whovian I have OPINIONS!! *bangs fist on the table* So here's some of my opinions on this week's episode.

Frankly, it sucked. Everything was just sort of Meh.

It had no idea what it's focus was or how they wanted the protagonists to play a part in it. Not to mention the plot of the episode itself, which may have been decent enough if they had bothered to build anything up properly (seriously, it seemed like ALL the plot-related exposition was glossed over). I don't consider myself a great screenwriter by any means, but I feel like even I could have done this one better.

Most of the time when I dislike movies/tv shows, it's difficult for me to pinpoint what exactly was off to me. But not this time! Nope, this time I have a list of things that bugged me. And here it is. (If you haven't seen the episode and care about spoilers, I suggest you stop reading now.


Two elements dropped into the story almost exclusively for the sake of a single not-very-funny joke - The fainting guy and Thomas Thomas. The fainting guy I suppose was able to provide some exposition, but really he was basically there to faint when he saw the aliens. And he does it three times, none of which really hit the comedic nail on the head. Thomas Thomas on the other hand, has a short scene with Strax solely for the purpose of that GPS joke, which is only mildly funny and really makes no sense, and is never mentioned afterward.
The first quarter of the episode has us following Vastra, Jenny, and Strax doing their own investigations before meeting up with the Doctor. But after the Doctor comes in, he becomes the star of the episode and we sort of ditch the Victorian Alien Detective Agency to follow the Doctor and Clara again. (They even go so far as to then provide a flashback of how the Doctor and Clara started out their adventure, leading me to wonder why they didn't just show THAT as the beginning.) It would have been just fine to make it a full-on Doctor-Lite episode and have Vastra, Jenny, and Strax be the characters we follow while they do what they do to help out the Doctor.
The whole thing about the iris holding the image of the last thing it saw before death didn't really have anything to do with anything...
Clara did nothing of importance, and the fact that she had survived the 'preservation' process only served as a temporary damsel-in-distress moment for the Doctor to break her out.
Strax didn't get much of a chance to shine. I like Strax.
The Doctor just sort of sweeps in on Jenny and makes out with her. I mean, one could make the case that he was just overly happy to be back to normal again, but that just seems really out-of-character for the Doctor. I would have been fine with it if it was a kiss on the cheek or forehead as per Eleven's tendency to do that to everyone, but full-on making out? And with a "married" woman? Seriously out-of-bounds there. And I'm glad he got slapped for it, but it was a dumb moment in the first place.
Similar to the point above, the penis joke they did when Jenny changed into her black leather ninja suit. The Doctor? Really??
The villain's motivations weren't very clear. Then again, the whole villain's evil plot wasn't very clear either. It was all just so very.. vague.
The scene with Clara at the end was nice, but it felt completely disconnected from the rest of the episode and also provided some extra confusion. Why did the Doctor drop her off back home? Does he drop her off after EVERY adventure? Because that's an interesting way to handle the Doctor/companion relationship and it really makes a difference to the dynamic between the Doctor and Clara. They should clarify that and focus on it more. Also, WHEN IN BLAZES did they have time to take those photos of themselves?
They're facing off against the villain lady but they basically have her cornered and they've already sabotaged her masterplan. She's pointing a gun at Ada and them, but then Strax shoots her (or the railing, it wasn't clear which) and she falls to her death. And the Doctor's reaction is pretty much, "Oooh, that's gotta hurt!" And even the parasite-worm, when Ada smashed it with her cane; the Doctor just sort of stared and went. "So much for that then." What the frig has happened to the Doctor's respect for all life, even the lives of pretty despicable people?!? Remember back in the day when the Doctor completely turned on Harriet Jones after she destroyed the retreating Sycorax ship? Can you imagine if he just watched the Sycorax ship blow up and go like "Ooooh, that's gotta hurt. Oh well"? The Doctor may have to kill the bad guys out of necessity, but he shouldn't ENJOY it as much as he seemed to in this episode. I feel like this problem isn't limited to this particular episode, either.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaah.

On the positive end, I really liked the character of Ada and her relationship with the Doctor. There were a few good moments between the Doctor and Clara. And of course, I always love Classic Series references. "Brave heart, Clara."


But at any rate, next week's episode is looking very promising indeed!! It looks like the Cybermen are finally going to get the Doctor -- I'm calling him "Docutus of Borg."


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ALSO I WATCHED IRON MAN 3 LAST NIGHT AND BASICALLY IT'S PRETTY AMAZING AND YOU SHOULD ALL GO SEE IT AND BE SURE TO STAY UNTIL AFTER THE CREDITS BECAUSE .

Got the game on Sunday. Also got awesome Oswald Ears. Waiting for KimBeee to be able to come over and play it co-op with me, but I couldn't help playing a bit through the beginning. So this isn't really a review so much as  a ramble. I can't very well review the game if I haven't played very much of it.

So far? It seems cluttered, unintuitive, and actually a bit irritating. Like, there was one time where I had to press A to grab onto a spherical object and pull it to another location, but said location was at the top of an incline so if I let go of it it would start rolling downhill, and I'd try to run after it but when you're moving and press A it turns into a jump so I had to wait until it settled down in the river at the bottom, but then whenever I walked into the river the whole game seemed to slow down for some reason. I don't know if the game meant for me to move slower in water (which is weird) or if something else was slowing down the system (which is also weird).

Plus, Gus is turning into Navi. There was literally a time when I had just started talking to a civilian on Mean Street and Gus INTERRUPTED them to repeat the objectives he had told me a few minutes ago. But even with Gus telling me what to do all the time, I was still kind of lost.

Will I keep playing it? Yes.

I want to see all those beautiful 2D cutscenes all the way through to the end. Granted, they're not QUITE as pretty as the first Epic Mickey's because they're not really using that spongebrushed-painted look, but this time around we get characters that talk. Which I approve of. Oswald's voice is great. Ortensia's a tad annoying, but I forgive it because she sounds exactly like a 1920s cartoon girl would talk, a la Betty Boop. Gus is Cary Elwes, so he's automatically awesome (I really hope Gus' Naviness doesn't convince me otherwise). And Mickey.. Well, Bret Iwan's still a newbie, but he'll get the acting down in due time.

Besides the preliminary plot of "Earthquakes are happening, the Mad Doctor says he's a changed man and does so in song, and something's definitely wrong so let's get Mickey down here," so far the cutscenes have been pretty much "We need to get from here to this other place! Could you tell us how to get there?" So I'm assuming I haven't gotten to the thick of the story yet. I'm optimistic, because for all the bad reviews I've read of this game so far there aren't very many that have said the story sucks. That's a good sign, right?

Anyway, I'm sure I'll enjoy this game plenty if I play it with a friend. So from now on I'll wait patiently for Kim to finish doing her silly things like Thanksgiving with her family and stuff.

First of all, let me get some general review-ish type things out of the way: I liked the episode, it had some great emotional moments between Amy and Rory and between the Doctor and River (a relationship I'm always keen to see more of because I wasn't really convinced of it in the beginning). Angels still aren't as freaky as they were in "Blink" but at least they're sticking to their original concept this time and aren't snapping necks or invading brains through retinal afterimages. Like the other episodes in season 7 so far, I'm extremely satisfied with the emotional pacing in this one which makes me happy because I've been extremely disappointed with Moffat's emotional pacing in the past. HOWEVER, Moffat promised me heart-breaking tragedy in this episode and I didn't tear up once! What's up with that, huh?

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I break for spoilers.

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Okay, so after finishing the episode I couldn't help but ask, "Um, so, why is it exactly that the Doctor can't see Amy and Rory again?" They're just sent back in time, after all. And I know that the Doctor had a bunch of trouble landing to get to Rory after the first Angelbite, but wasn't that because it was around the Angels' Time Energy Factory? That was a large-scale operation. But I figured that just kept the TARDIS from landing in New York during a time when the Time Energy Factory was in operation. Judging from Amy's Afterword he read at the end, it doesn't sound like the Angels were keeping Amy and Rory prisoner during the remainder of their lives, so... Couldn't they easily meet up with the Doctor OUTSIDE New York? Like, "Hey gaiz, take a trip to Washington DC in a few months and I'll meet you there to pick you up and at least take you back to London in 2012 so you can be with Arthur Weasley your friends and family.

'Cause seriously, is the timestream distortion going to somehow follow Amy and Rory around and prevent the TARDIS from parking in a place that would allow the Doctor to fetch them? I guess the Plot Convenience Fairy deemed it so..

Yeah yeah, I know, I'm overanalyzing and this is stupid because Doctor Who doesn't exactly have a plothole-free history (hoo boy). But if you're going to write out characters due to a contrived "could blow a hole in the fabric of space and time" plot device, it should be something a lot easier to handwave. Perhaps they could've done it this way - considering the treatment the Doctor gave in this episode to pre-learned events as somehow being fixed, Amy's afterword could have included something about how she and Rory never saw the Doctor again. Then the Doctor would know that he couldn't go back to see them because he didn't, and the audience could be convinced that doing so could create some sort of paradox. See? That takes care of the above issue.

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Another point I'd like to make is that I really don't consider this to be a Companion Death, as was teased/promised by Moffat. Amy and Rory didn't really die that episode, they just settled down in a different place/time than their own like many Classic Companions have done with no fuss. They spent many decades alive, well, and happy before their natural deaths, the same as what would happen if they just had the Doctor drop them off at home (as he did at the end of the God Complex. Come to think of it, that would've been a good end for the Ponds right there..). Getting sent back in time in a show about time travel isn't exactly a big deal. This whole thing is really only a tragedy for the Doctor, who won't be able to see his two best friends again, and because of the reasons described above I have a hard time buying into that.

So as far as I'm concerned, the only official Doctor's Companion to have been killed in action is still Adric, and no one really liked him anyhow.

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Oh oh, and other thing, the whole "getting sent back in time in a show about time travel isn't exactly a big deal" thing is probably what's been keeping me from ranking the Weeping Angels as my scariest Doctor Who monster. That honor still goes to the Gas Mask Zombies. I'm really not typing this journal entry in any logical order. I apologize. I'm just sort of ranting about everything now.

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And while we're on the subject of plotholes, remember how Amy and Rory said they were married for 10 years in the last episode? When exactly did they spend those ten years? They've made it clear that "modern day" for the Ponds corresponds to the audience's current year, but since "The Eleventh Hour" took place in 2010 and "The Angels Take Manhattan" starts out in 2012... Did Amy and Rory seriously travel around with the Doctor for a total sum of 8 years? Does the rest of their family think they've only been married 2 years? What about all that time that was shown passing or having passed in episodes like "Closing Time" and last week's "The Power of Three"? I call shenanigans on that.

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Good things about this episode, though - I LOVED the scene with Rory and Amy's "double scuicide", especially since Rory got to die one more time before he left the show. xD Must be Saturday. Anyway, I really loved Rory in this scene because it highlights how far he's come since being that adorkable nurse with an inferiority complex we saw in season 5. Now he's so clever and brave and even a match against the Doctor, and he's really one of my favorite companions. I've loved his time on the show, but I must admit I feel like his story's been told and I'm not all that sad to see him go.

I'm now just really excited for Jenna Louise Coleman. Give me a vortex manipulator, I need to go to next Christmas!