Doctor Who: Nightmare in Silver

Okay. So I've failed at doing weekly review on the spring series of Doctor Who, as evidenced that you're getting this review shortly before the finale airs. I accept your disdain, I mean I have TONS of excuses, but I know none of you care about them, so let's just move right on from there shall we? Instead let's focus on how Neil Gaiman, and his newest episode of Who, is pretty fantastic. Exhibit A? This kickass poster! CYBERMEN! Eeep! 

After the outcome of last week's episode, with Clara's clever charges, Angie and Artie, finding lots of pictures of her jaunts through time, the Doctor and Clara take the kids to Hedgewick's, a whole planet that's an amusement park....or at least that's what it seems like on the surface, classic Neil Gaiman.(I love this man, seriously, if you haven't read any of his books, short stories or graphic novels, well, shame on you!)
While playing on the moon that's not the moon the gang runs into Webley, a squatter who's been waiting to be taken off-world, but his ride's six months late. Webley's a collector and has bits of junk from all over space and time, which normally the Doctor would love, but he can tell something's a bit off and then they run into a Cyberman! The Doctor has a bit of a freakout, but Webley assures him that it's been deactivated and re-purposed to play chess. Well, not so much re-purposed but manned by Porridge, played by Warwick Davis, the star of one of my favourite 80s movies, Willow!
While all this has been going on the Doctor has been noticing things, as the Doctor is known to do, and goes off in search of the 'funny insects' to add to his funny insect collection.(To be quite honest, I wouldn't put it past the Doctor to have one of these) Before he and Clara go off to do some serious investigating he tells the kids not to wander off. I love it, nothing sums up Doctor Who more than that line for me. He tells everyone he meets not to do it, it's his number one rule, and no one ever follows it. But what would the fun of the show be if everyone always stayed where the Doctor told them and didn't get into trouble?! Needless to say, in typical defiant teenager style, Angie immediately sets off to explore and leaves her little brother Artie, alone in the dark...clearly you can tell things are going to work out great for both of them. (You can hear that sarcasm right? I thought so.)
Inevitably both Artie and Angie get snatched by the Cybermen, the latter by a super fast one that we never see again, I'm assuming it used all its powers to catch her...*shrug* oh well, it looked cool. Well, we all know how the Doctor feels about kids in trouble, so he goes off and finds the cybermites, aka the funny insects, and transmats himself into the heart of Cyberman headquarters to save the kids. But not before putting Clara in charge of the Punishment Unit of army guys who've been relegated to Hedgewick's for being generally bad at being soldiers. He instructs her, in no uncertain terms, to not blow up the planet.
Arriving in Cyber-headquarters the Doctor is confronted by creepy half-Cyberman Webley, who informs him that they Cybermen need children, they use their creative minds to help build the new Cyberplanner, which would allow them to restart their reign of terror throughout the Universe. However they've been observing the Doctor and have decided to make him the new Cyberplanner. The Doctor finally thinks he has a leg up, as Cybermen can only convert humans. But it turns out these Cybermen have been upgraded and can now convert any life form, Time Lords included.
All this leads up to the most epic showdown in Doctor Who: the Doctor vs himself. Welll, the Doctor vs the Cyberplanner that's trying to take over his body. All of our new Doctors, Nine, Ten and Eleven, have been quite capable of treading the line between silly and serious, but Matt Smith makes a full turn to sinister as Mr. Clever, which is what the Cyberplanner dubs himself once entering the Doctor's body. He is absolutely amazing, and quite terrifying at times. If he decides to play villains after his stint as the Doctor is over I wouldn't be surprised at all, because he was spectacular at it and looked to be having an absolute blast.
While the Doctor is having a crisis of self, Clara, Porridge and the Punishment unit have taken up a defensible position in Natty Longshoe's Comical Castle. "Real castle, drawbridge, moat?" Clara asked the platoon Capt. to which she replied, "Yes. But comical." Amazing, and again classic Gaiman.
Doctor/Mr. Clever make their way to the castle with Webley and the cyberkids and the showdown continues over a game of chess, the winner getting control of the Doctor's body. I'm not going to spoil too much of the ending here for those who, for some silly reason, have yet to see this episode, but yes, a battle does ensue, and yes, the Doctor will, of course, find a way to defeat the Cyberplanner, and the Cybermen, but perhaps not in the way you expect.
I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. It made the Cybermen a much more frightening villain then they've ever been in the new series, in my opinion. Before they were just robots who wanted to take over mankind, but Neil Gaiman made them a little bit sneaky and just a little bit clever and that put them over the edge into scary. One of the other things I loved about this episode were two little words: 'Fantastic' and 'Allons-y', if you're a bit Who fan (and if you're reading this, I'm assuming you, either that or you're indulging my rambliness, either way THANKS!) then you recognised the Ninth and Tenth Doctors' catchphrases, both were said by Mr. Clever, I'm not sure what that signifies, but I certainly got a fangirl kick out of it.
My only quibble, which is one that I've been noticing over the entire seventh series, is the whole 'impossible girl' thing. It happened in the first half of the season with it taking all those episodes for the Ponds to leave, but being able to wrap it up neatly in one episode. Then here we are in the second half of the season with the Doctor being asked over and over again by Clara by what that means, 'why am I impossible?' and everytime he says he'll explain later. The previews for the finale lead me to believe we're going to figure out that mystery at last and yet again it will be wrapped up in one episode. I miss the days of the overarching threat, 'Bad Wolf,' 'Torchwood', the Crack in Time! If it's glossed over episode to episode it's not an arc, it's an annoyance. ANYWAYS! Enough rambling for now!
okay one last quote, 'cause it's perfect:

Clara: I trust the Doctor.

Captain: You think he knows what he's doing?

Clara: I'm not sure I'd go that far.

The Greatest Weekend of All!

This past weekend [author's note: I did actually start writing this shortly after Easter weekend] was the holy triumverate if you are a fan of awesome television. I kid you not. On Saturday the hotly anticipated spring premiere of Doctor Who and then on Sunday we got the finale of the third season of The Walking Dead and (FINALLY!) the premiere of the third season of Game of Thrones. If there was ever a weekend to just hangout and watch TV, this was most certainly it. But then again, it was also the Easter long weekend. And if you, despite being a mega-geek, decided to perhaps enjoy some sunshine and hang out with your family, then you may have had to delay some of the watching of these shows until the weekend was over....like I did.

BE WARNED! SPOILERS AHEAD!

Doctor Who: The Bells of Saint John
I have to admit, while I was REALLY excited for the spring premiere of Doctor Who, I was kinda disappointed with this episode. Don't get me wrong, I am intrigued with the new villain, the Great Intelligence, and what his (its?) whole deal is, however, I am a bit tired of being introduced to Clara. I like her. Heck! I've liked her since she was unofficially introduced in the season opener "Asylum of the Daleks", I would've been happy for us to get to her WAY sooner. Instead we went on this long, kinda boring, goodbye to the Ponds. Before my fellow Whovians get all attacky, let me just say I was fond of Amy and Rory and really think about that 'arc' of episodes. In all the past series we've had an overarching theme to tie the episodes together, Bad Wolf, Torchwood, the Crack in the Wall, etc, you get my point. The adventures ran around them. Then, for the first six episodes of this season we got 'aren't we all sad that Amy and Rory are leaving'? Granted there were relationship-y things in there with the Ponds which were interesting I guess, but, at least for me, that's not why I watch the show. I love the far off adventures, the aliens, the awesome planets...I digress!
What do we get in the spring premiere? London. Again. I honestly never thought I could be sick of London, but I am,. Migrating back to my original point, we meet Clara Oswald again (and hopefully for the last time), and this time the Doctor is able to rescue her from the point of almost death, while she's being uploaded. Yup, uploaded. People all over the world are having their consciousnesses uploaded via wi-fi into 'the cloud'. It is a clever way of commenting on our dependency on the internet and the mobile devices through which we access it. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if we possibly come back to this later in the season, since it featured 'The Great Intelligence" the creepy baddy with Ian McKellan's voice from the Christmas special, who I'm thinking may be the 'big bad' for this season of Who.
Anyways, the Doctor saves Clara, they banter cleverly, the villain grandstands, shows their hand, and manages to fool our new companion, which means the Doctor has to save her again, but this time using his superior computery-technology-y ways. All this and we still have to wait until next episode for her to agree to travel with the Doctor. As I said the episode is a bit 'meh'.
SO! It was a bit of a soft premiere for me, but I'm sure things will pick up! I mean Neil Gaiman wrote another episode this season, so it has to right!?!

Moving on to:
The Walking Dead: Welcome to the Tombs
This episode starts off pretty freakin' intense, but ends on a bit of a whimper, which is a bit of a bummer for a season finale that features 27 (non-zombie) deaths! Quick rundown! The folks at the prison prepare for battle, Carl's mad he has to go to the woods. The Governor stabs Milton and leaves him to die and come back to kill Andrea who's still strapped to that chair in Woodbury. Tyreese and his lady decide to stay behind and not go fight at the prison, as they're starting to see through Woodbury's veneer. After the battle, a kid's running away from the prison, and Carl shoots him while he's trying to hand over his gun, Hershel's worried, so is Rick.
Let's just get this out of the way first and foremost, thank GAWD Andrea's gone! Seriously, there aren't a lot of characters with my name on the big or little screen, but never have I yelled "Come on! Andrea, jeeeeeesus!" while doing a Picard-style facepalm while watching her run around and try to 'save everyone' this season. She got a nice send-off, despite doing almost nothing to save herself (not getting the pliers faster, and stopping to chat to Milton while he's dying, COME ON ANDREA! Jeeeeesus!) and also doing practically nothing to obtain her goal. In fact, it would seem her reluctance to kill the Governor DEFINITELY led to all 27 deaths this episode.
Speaking of the Governor, the man has gone completely off the reservation. After his 'army' of citizens run (like any non-warrior would) away from sure defeat at the prison, he just guns them down. He recognises that he's lost control of them, and decides to mow them down, instead of dealing with them. Except for poor Martinez and other black guy (I'm sorry, I really don't know his name, if you do, let me know in the comments). Watching them give each other "You get in" "No, YOU get in" while the Governor waits behind the wheel was hilarious. That's going to be an extremely awkward road trip.
Carl's definitely not the kid we all wanted to strangle last season (GET IN THE HOUSE, CARL!). He's actually turning into a bit of a badass...or a psychopath. I'm not sure which. He kills that kid, but when Rick confronts him about, the logic he's uses to justify it is surprisingly sound; on all the previous occasions when they've allowed someone to live, it comes back to bite them in the ass. He's not wrong, but still, it's a tad disturbing.
Finally we get to end, after Rick & Co decide to take the battle to Governor, they find that he hasn't returned to Woodbury. He's left all those women, children and old people to fend for themself. So what does Rick do? He brings them back to the prison, much to Carl's dismay. And that's where the season ends. With the sun shining warmly on the shambling zombies outside the prison.
I'm curious to see where they're going to go with this next season. I feel like there's going to be a lot of Carl/Rick tension, along with more crazy Governor and many moral decisions that come with living in a community during the zombie apocalypse.


Last, but most definitely not least, let's get back to Westeros, with:
Game of Thrones: Valar Dohaeris
The folks at HBO are geniuses, or crazy...probably a little of both. The fact that they can make 12 episode seasons that we clamber over each other to watch is evidence of this. When season 2 ended last spring my friends and I were already moaning about waiting for the next season...and there wasn't even a release date yet!! A YEAR later, we've finally returned to Westeros and all the drama that that entails.
Let's start in the North. It looks like some men of the Night's Watch managed to survive the White Walkers that arrived at the end of Season 2. Surprisingly, one of them is Samwell Tarly, not so surprisingly he's let his brothers down by not sending the ravens to (presumably) warn the rest of Westeros of what they'd seen. It wouldn't be so bad if he had his buddy Jon Snow around to have his back, but Jon's off on a whole new adventure. You gotta feel for the guy, his dad's dead, the rest of the family's spread out across the land getting into all kinds of trouble, and here he is freezing his ass off Beyond the Wall. But then again Ygritte is totally gonna pop his cherry this season, so don't feel too bad for him. (It's gonna happen, I guarantee it!) On the less salacious side of things he's convinced Mance Rayder to let him fight on his side of things. The conviction with which Jon told the story of (horrible) Craster, the baby boys and the Lord Commander doing nothing makes me think that this 'joining the Wildlings' is more than just an act. "I want to fight for the side of the living. Did I come to right place?" Good question Lord Snow, I sure hope so. Maybe you won't have to frown so much this season, that would be a nice change...'cause you're one of my favourites...'cause you're a Stark.
Across the Narrows Sea Danaerys and her motley band of Dothraki have traveled across the 'poison sea' to try and muster up an army so our fiesty Mother of Dragons can take back the Iron Throne. Although, with the rate her dragons are growing, is it really that important? Can't she just hop on one of those, fly over there and burn her enemies to the ground? I mean it worked with that creepy purple lipped warlock. Speaking of which, after a surprisingly funny presentation of a slave army, Dany was almost killed by a 'gift' from one of them. Only to be saved by ex-gold cloak Barristan Selmy! Take that Joffrey! Now the people you've pissed off are actively searching out your opponents!
We take a quick jaunt to Dragonstone, where, after just barely surviving the Battle of Blackwater Bay, our buddy Davos 'the Onion Knight' Seaworth, returns to finally put an end to Melisandre. Moron. I like this guy, but he's got the same amount of sneakiness as Ned Stark (I loved the man, but there's a reason he died in book one), and Melisandre is all about the sneaky and mysterious, it's her jam. Needless to say, she's been whispering in sour Stannis' ear, so when he tries sloppily to take her out, he's sent to the dungeon. I suppose he should feel lucky she didn't summon a creepy smoke baby to take him out then and there....but I guess that could come later.
There's all kinds of drama happening in Lannisport, but we're not surprised are we? Tyrion wins for scene of the night in the showdown against his father. (And second place, for the one with his sister shortly before).Tywin clearly knows very little about his youngest child. I mean, honestly, who in their right mind would think that Tyrion has no mind for politics? But then again, he really hates the child who killed his wife and then had the audacity to be so 'disformed' You can see the fury as Tyrion leaves the room, he'll show his father that he's much more than drinking and bedding whores!
While Sansa's busy making plans with Little Finger (IT'S A TRAP!) her replacement is busy getting on the bad side of her new future mother-in-law. Margery makes a trip to an orphanage, which endears her to us, but pisses the royal hell out of Cersei. As she, Joffrey, Loras and Margery are sitting at the dinner table later that night you could see how much Cersei wanted to just jump across the table and throttle Margery's throat. This storyline is going to be thouroughly entertaining to follow.
Last but not least we come to Harrenhal where Robb and Lady Stark come across massacred Stark troops courtesy of the Mountain. Robb, still trying to live up to the title of King in the North, is disgusted, and even though it's not really her fault, has his mother sent to a dungeon. Sure, she set Jamie Lannister free with Brienne (PS: THAT was the storyline I wanted to see this ep!) but it's not like she conspired with the Mountain to murder her family's bannermen. Alas, kings trying to maintain power need to garner respect from those around him, and there aren't any people from the opposing side for him to imprison, so his mother it is.

That's all for now!! I know, super later, and now I'm behind for last week's eps of Doctor Who and Game of Thrones, but I'll get caught eventually....before the end of the season....probably. Thanks for putting up with this extremely long post and go out and enjoy some great TV!