The Pyramid at the End of the World

Dear Gary— 

I don’t want to do this anymore. You have probably guessed that from how long it is taking me to write each new entry. One of the telltale signs for me is when I hear the first few deep, solemn tones of the Doctor’s voice near the beginning of The Pyramid at the End of the World and I realize how sick I am of these Peter Capaldi monologues alone in his TARDIS as he strums his guitar imparting some cryptic wisdom to the air. Hooray for Bill for interrupting him mid-thought. 

However, what Bill interrupts him with is just as wearisome. Instead of the Pope, this time it is the UN who has barged into the middle of Bill’s date in order for her to take them to the office-bound Doctor. Not UNIT mind you, but the UN Secretary-General himself has arrived for the President of Earth (AKA the Doctor) to aid in this time of crisis. And what is the earth-shattering crisis that calls for such high level attention? A pyramid has suddenly appeared in Turmezistan. Apparently the Secretary-General has read ahead in the script and knows that this mysterious pyramid is in fact an alien spaceship full of menacing monks and not, say, an advertising gimmick for a new Egyptian food chain or the latest David Copperfield illusion.

First, let me get a few minor points of irritation out of the way. When the UN Secretary-General says Bill is the one person to contact the President she responds with an extremely racist comment: “I mean, I wouldn't even have voted for him. He's orange.” There are a multitude of reasons not to have voted for the man; why does she choose skin color as hers? It’s funny—ha, ha—unless, of course, she changes the color and speaks of his predecessor. Then there is the pyramid of our title. Does anyone else realize that the monks have their very own TARDIS? “It's something disguised as a pyramid, that just appeared out of thin air, and that's all way beyond human technology, so it's got to be alien. It's an alien space ship.” New Who has increasingly blunted the powerful notion of the TARDIS, but this renders that beloved blue box run-of-the-mill.

Now let me get to the fundamental flaws of the story.

First, why in the world does everybody trust the monks about the end of the world? They grab hold of some glowing strands and see a vision of a dead planet and take this as the gospel of Earth’s future. How do they know that this isn’t some sort of parlor trick on the part of the monks? The UN Secretary-General and the military leaders give in far too easily. How did they ever get to positions of power since they clearly don’t have any solid leadership qualities? But then everyone knows that Earthlings in the Doctor Who universe are idiots, so whatever. (As a side note—the Doomsday Clock has been in existence since 1947 and scientists have been warning about global catastrophe for years, yet there has never and will never be consensus as to accuracy or action. Why do the monks have any more persuasion than decades worth of scientific knowledge?)

Next, the biohazard. How did this Douglas guy get to be a scientist working in such a high-level watch-list worthy lab to begin with? A lab, apparently, with very little oversight or crisis management. A decimal point error? Really? A day in which an important experiment is set to go to stage two and Douglas goes on a drinking binge the night before and shows up barely functioning and is allowed to punch in the numbers and makes such an elemental error? Really? With no double checks in place? And at such a critical time in the experiment and there are only these two present? And an air-filtration cycle that can’t be turned off? Surely there is some way to stop it. If Erica can’t do it there must be someone she can call. But apparently there is no failsafe in this high-level, watch-list worthy lab.

Then there is the Doctor locked in the room set to blow up and he can’t get out because he can’t see the lock in order to set the right number sequence. OK, he has some magic sonic sunglasses and Bill has a phone. Can’t he FaceTime her so she can be his eyes for him? Surely his magic sonic sunglasses have the functionality to send video to Bill’s phone. Erica probably has a phone of her own as well.

All of this pales, however, in the face of the central conceit of the episode.

“Does power consent?” The monks ask this over and over. The Doctor asks the most pertinent question: “You could take this planet in a, in a heartbeat. Why do you need consent?” Yet the monks persist, “Is your consent pure?” And finally, by way of explanation, “Love is consent.” The Doctor’s question goes unanswered. All we get is the monks’ reply: “We must be wanted. We must be loved. To rule through fear is inefficient.” But this never really answers any questions—the monks could “take this planet and its people” at any time they want. There is no valid reason for the consent/love. And in the end, they never get it. All of this is just an exercise in something; I’m sure the author thinks it is all very clever. However none of it makes sense.

The monks want love, yet everything they do is done to inspire fear. They do not do one thing that would inspire the least glimmer of love. How do they expect to get it? And why even bother? If fear is so inefficient, why is that the tactic they rely on throughout? How is love any more efficient? None of this is explained.

In the end, Bill consents. She consents in order to save the Doctor. The Doctor has saved the planet, but now the Doctor is in danger and Bill makes a deal with the monks in order to save the Doctor. But it is not love for the monks, it is love for the Doctor. “We must be loved” is what the monks said. They are not loved. The Doctor is loved. Bill consents out of love for the Doctor. So what was all of this for? Why didn’t the monks just take control and skip all of this unnecessary nonsense?

All of this aside, the story is tense and exciting. Many a time I have excused the ridiculous because of the Doctor Who factor; overlooked the bad for the goodness sake of Doctor Who. Not this time. Maybe it is once too often. Maybe it is the time in life I have come to. Or maybe it just is not good any more. Maybe, just maybe, the good no longer justifies the bad; maybe, just maybe the good exaggerates and exacerbates the bad. Maybe the show is relying on the good in order to get away with the bad; maybe the show just isn’t even trying any more; or worse, maybe the show thinks the bad is good, or that the good makes the bad good. Worst of all, maybe the show just doesn’t care any more; or thinks the viewers are too stupid (like the Earthlings in the New Who universe) to realize how bad the bad really is.

Bill makes the deal; the Doctor gets his sight back; the lab blows up but the Doctor is not. “Enjoy your sight, Doctor. Now see our world.” A few minor tweaks and this could have been a decent episode. I could forgive the stupidity of the humans; I could forgive the stupidity of the lab; I could forgive the stupidity of the Doctor. However I cannot forgive the stupidity that is the monks. And the entire story hinges on that.

I don’t know, Gary. I plod along. I hope this finds you enjoying some Classic Who (perhaps indoctrinating Mark now that he has joined you) and blissfully unaware . . . .

Extremis

Dear Gary—

Here we go again; another Black Mirror plot and yet another adventure that never happened. “I need to know what’s real and what isn’t real;” well, Bill, what isn’t real is this story. (Matrix tampering anyone?) Extremis is simply a set-up for the episodes to follow; it introduces the idea that there is (surprise) an alien threat to Earth that is looming, and it reinforces (to death) the fact that the Doctor is blind. As a side bonus, we finally get the reveal of who is being detained in the vault. Drum roll . . . it’s . . . Missy! (As if we hadn’t guessed that already.)

The execution sections of the story are well done but also annoying. This storyline deserves a dedicated episode; instead it is used as filler. As a result, Missy is shortchanged.

We never get to know what led to Missy’s arrest and trial (assuming there was one); we only get the end result of execution. The Master/Missy has such a rich history of evil; how did he/she finally come to face a reckoning? Then there is this: “On this planet we are proud to serve as executioners to every living thing.” What planet? Who are these executioners? How did they come to be involved in Missy’s life/death? The show doesn’t think this is important for us to know; therefore, I really don’t care. Ho hum. Missy has been sentenced to death and the Doctor (not these professional executioners) is to carry out the penalty. This mysterious and never before mentioned and probably never again referred to planet of killers is merely acting as a go-between. And since we know the Doctor, we know the Doctor will never actually murder Missy. (There was only one time, to my knowledge, that the Doctor had the will to go through with the deed, and that effort failed in traditional Doctor Who obfuscation. And, I might add, it was done in the heat of the moment after the Master—as he was calling himself at the time—had been particularly dastardly. In our present story there is no context to ascertain why the Doctor would go through with it in the cold light of day. So I repeat—ho hum.) 

The introduction of Nardole into the mix as a pseudo River conscience is welcome but unnecessary; we know the Doctor doesn’t need any prodding to do the ‘right thing.’ Even so, Nardole’s quotation from River’s diary—“Goodness is not goodness that seeks advantage. Good is good in the final hour, in the deepest pit without hope, without witness, without reward.”—is hauntingly beautiful; and those words—“without hope, without witness, without reward”—are rightfully echoed throughout the episode, lending some poetic depth.

However, the entire execution sequence is by way of giving a sketchy back story to the Vault that has been hanging over the season so far.  And it is only offered at this point because the show has decided that it is time to reveal Missy and get her involved in the ensuing scripts. Missy involvement is always appreciated, but her usage is so often mishandled.

Now let’s tackle this main adventure that never happened.

At this point, Gary, I want to point out that I am not necessarily a fan of sci fi. I am more of a ‘fi’ fan; that is, a fan of fiction that is well done (or if not well done, at least entertaining), ‘sci’ or not. As a Black Mirror plot, Extremis would have been some fine fiction. As a Doctor Who plot, however, it is not. It is not because it is forced; it is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It just doesn’t work.

Where to start? First there is the Pope. As an extremely secular—and one might argue anti-religious—show, the use of the Roman Catholic Church as the instigator of events is bizarre to say the least. I suppose Bill’s date-that-wasn’t being interrupted by the entrance of the Pope is meant to be amusing; instead it is merely head scratching. There is no reason for the Pope to consult the Doctor (much less his companion—the Doctor can easily be found in his office these days) or for the Doctor to accommodate the Pope. The story would have been much better served with the utilization of UNIT. I have to wonder if Doctor Who isn’t trying to conjure up images of The Da Vinci Code, and if so I have to say that using that particular piece of mediocre preposterousness is acutely misguided.

Then there is the Veritas. As a rule I am indifferent to these types of tropes—the ominous ‘thing’  that no one can ever know about because if one does discern the ‘thing’s’ secret one is immediately dead by some means or another. I do have to admit that the resolution of this conundrum in Extremis is about the only one that I find convincing, and once more I state it would make a fantastic Black Mirror installment. If used correctly, it could also make for some very fine Doctor Who. However Extremis shoe horns the Veritas in as a means to an end.

The ominous Veritas is a book that when read results in the suicide of the peruser. The author of the book, why and how the book came into the hands of the Pope, why the Pope is so concerned about it, why the Pope hasn’t read it himself, why those who have read it don’t warn others—none of this is expanded upon. The Pope calls in the unbeknownst-to-him-or-anyone-else-other-than-Nardole blind Doctor to read the book. And so the Veritas reinforces the blind Doctor angle. How can he read the book when he can’t see? (I’m not sure why he doesn’t use some of his regeneration energy, which he uses indiscriminately to heal, for example, River’s wrist; but that wouldn’t serve the present purpose.) The Doctor relies heavily upon his sonic sunglasses to feed him the information he needs to get around and deceive others into believing he has sight. (As a side note, why, if he is so desperate to keep his blindness a secret, why oh why would he confide in Missy of all people? He can’t tell Bill but he can tell Missy. Missy, the one being in all the universe who is so dangerous that she has to be kept hidden away in a vault that the Doctor has pledged to guard for a thousand years.) Then the Doctor pulls out some heretofore unknown Time Lord technology the show has never revealed before and probably never will use again in order to provide the Doctor with some temporary vision so that he can read the Veritas. But wait—the Monks appear to menace him before he can read the Veritas and he again loses his sight.

Oh yes, the Monks. Yet another alien race intent upon invading the Earth in the most convoluted way possible. Don’t use your apparently superior intelligence and technology to conquer the planet. No, spend endless time and energy and resources on creating countless simulated realities to study and algorithm your way into a plan of action. If the cyber Doctor hadn’t brilliantly outwitted them by recording all of the fake events and by emailing a copy of the cyber Veritas to himself, thus forcing their hand, the Monks probably would have wasted all of eternity harmlessly pouring over the data from their video games without ever actually doing anything.

Despite the ridiculous outer trimmings of the story, the events, fake or not, are compelling. The simulated reality, in and of itself, is not a bad idea; Bill and Nardole stumbling upon the inner workings of the machine and accessing the various facsimiles is interesting to witness; the use of non-random generation of strings of numbers as a means of identifying unreality is clever; the imagery of “Super Mario figuring out what's going on, deleting himself from the game because he's sick of dying” is about the only explanation for the Veritas suicides that I find acceptable. If only all of this was not simply serving as a bridge to the episodes to come. If only the reason for the simulation was not as lame as it turns out to be. If only the threat of the Monks was not blunted by their obtuseness.

If only, Gary. As Dad would say, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, my what a merry Christmas we would have. 

Oxygen

Dear Gary—

Oxygen is yet another base under siege episode. This type of story can work if it is at least interesting, compelling, and/or amusing. What it cannot afford to be is mundane and/or irritating. Unfortunately Oxygen is alternating parts both. And both parts are a result of laziness.

It starts from the opening sentence delivered by a voiceover from the Doctor: “Space, the final frontier.” Immediately I think, great—instead of Black Mirror this time we’re getting Star Trek. Then we are treated to a domestic little scene between two astronauts we have never met before and care little about. In shorthand version we learn that the two are sweethearts and that the woman (Ellie) wants to have a baby with the man (Ivan). Except Ivan can’t hear Ellie as she pours her heart out and she knows that perfectly well; this is simply the author’s attempt to inject some pathos into the story. And while the Doctor’s voiceover speaks of the void and how it is out to get us despite our tiny efforts of protection, it is some zombie space walkers who end up killing the two lovers. Ho hum. Mildly annoying, mildly forgettable, and a mildly paint-by-numbers sequence to set up the episode. Not a promising beginning.

“What’s this got to do with crop rotation?” Wrong question (as the Doctor/Clara dynamic duo would state). The real question is, why would the Doctor be scheduled to lecture on crop rotation in the first place? That he got off topic and started blathering on about space and the void and not holding your breath is perfectly natural; but this whole Doctor-as-professor-at-university schtick is wearing thin. At least the show treats us to a rare TARDIS adventure in space for a change.

“I’m a bit cross with you, sir.” Nardole finally gets to tag along with the Doctor and Bill, and as the three of them wander around the standard-issue space ship they find themselves on after answering a distress call, Nardole injects the one bright note into the proceedings. (“Space doors are supposed to go shk-shk, not urrrrr. “) “Are you going to be like this all day,” the Doctor asks of Nardole. I for one certainly hope so; Nardole’s running commentary, and especially his observations about Velma who is voicing Bill’s space suit, are welcome additions to this otherwise grim and plodding tale.

The plot in a nutshell: the human crew of a space mining expedition are expendable components who are forced to pay for the oxygen they breathe and when they become less and less efficient they are murdered by their space suits and a fresh crew is sent to take their place. The Doctor et al arrive to save the day.

Now, the laziest part of this preposterous scenario is the villain of the piece: The Company. The story would have been far better served if it followed the Classic Who example of The Sun Makers and given The Company a face. But no, we are given only the vague outline of a supposedly all-powerful Company with no conscience and no accountability; and we are provided no explanation as to how or why or where or when this Company came about and maintains power. We never see any decision making by this Company; we never see anyone giving commands; we are never given any physical presence to hate. Instead we get the Doctor theorizing and the manifestations of Company Policy in the form of deadly suits and computer codes.

Next come the gullible employees of this mysterious Company. There are some off-hand remarks about a mythical Union, but this obviously has no clout. Union or not, I can’t imagine any workers willing to hand over their breathing rights with no questions asked. But we are not supposed to ask any questions; that would make the script writer have to think about answers. And so we are to swallow this premise hook, line and sinker. Perhaps if we were given some context, like galaxy wide economic depression forcing people to take any jobs available; or indentured servants or slaves compelled to work for the Company after an interplanetary war. But no, the crew seem to be willing participants, blindly stepping into the path of their own destruction.

All of the unimaginative, bullet-point plot elements lead us to an equally sloppy conclusion. The Doctor rigs it so that if the walking suits of death kill the crew the space station will self-destruct. Fine, but how does he communicate this to The Company? He says it to the animated space suits. How in the world does this message make its way back to The Company? As soon as the Doctor says the words, “Above all, suits, our deaths will be . . . expensive,” the suits stop dead in their tracks as if the suits themselves were making the decisions. They are not. The suits are acting based on programming from The Company. How did The Company get the news that the space station would self destruct upon the death of the crew, process this information, make the determination to spare the crew, and translate this back to the suits in a split second? Not only spare the crew but supply them with additional oxygen? If oxygen is as priceless as we are led to believe, I can imagine that there would be considerable debate over this command back wherever The Company calls home.

To top it all off, the Doctor drops the surviving crew members off at Company headquarters to lodge a complaint. Given the little we know of this Company, those workers are dead the moment they walk through the doors. What makes the Doctor think The Company will listen to or care anything about those disgruntled employees? Obviously no-one has ever cared about them; obviously there is no such thing as workers-comp, insurance companies, or family members to regulate, investigate, or protest when space miners routinely die at the end of their shifts.

“What if there never was a hack? What if this is just business? Business as usual.” Unfortunately, Oxygen is business as usual for New Who—a hack job. A bare bones outline of what could be a half-way decent script if fleshed out. This is where Classic Who serialization has the advantage over New Who. Instead we are given short cuts in service to season arcs.

And so the lesson of Oxygen: The Doctor is blinded during the course of saving some idiotic space crew and thus endangers his all-important mission of guarding The Vault.

A stray note, Gary, before I sign off. In Oxygen the Doctor states: “Fear keeps you fast. Fast is good.” This is similar to the Doctor’s observations about fear throughout his many years. However, I have to go back just one episode to Knock Knock when the Doctor tells Harry that being scared does not help. That line stood out to me at the time, but I didn’t mention it then. Now I am glad to see that the Doctor has returned to form with regards to fright; but I can’t help but wonder at the lack of consistency in the series recently; yet another sign of the slovenliness the show has tended towards.

Breathe deep, Gary . . . .

Knock Knock

Dear Gary—

Knock knock.

Who’s there?

“Nothing weird. Nothing Alien. Just an old house and a dodgy landlord.” 

If only. An old house and a dodgy landlord with a mishmash of weird and alien added to the mix—that is what Knock Knock boils down to.

How disappointing. Thin Ice ended with the promise of some TARDIS adventure. Instead the very next story is set on present day Earth, only a stone’s throw from the University. To compound this letdown, the episode itself is pretty awful. I recall that the first time I viewed Knock Knock was also the first time the thought struck me that Doctor Who was turning into a poor man’s Black Mirror. I’m not sure if that is accurate, Gary, since I have only seen a handful of Black Mirror episodes; all I know is that Doctor Who during this period is very distinctly non Doctor Whoish and Black Mirror is the closest comparison that comes to me. (Not to dismiss Black Mirror, but Doctor Who is not Black Mirror—there already is one of those—so could Doctor Who get back to being Doctor Who again please?)

But back to our present story of Knock Knock.

Bill is moving out of her foster mother’s house with a group of five students, only one of whom she knows. We have never met Shireen before, but apparently she is a friend of Bill’s. These six youngsters are having a hard time finding a suitable and affordable place to rent, until they meet the “dodgy landlord” who is offering a too-good-to-be-true deal of a lifetime. This is when I begin to wonder—six young people looking for a place to live, and not one of them has at least one hovering parent or adult relative or friend displaying even mild concern? None that is, except Bill. The Doctor shows up as the only interested party—exhibiting all of the human characteristics apparently lacking in the absent family members of the other five. But this is only the beginning to the many questions that pile up as the episode progresses.

My next question is, why is Bill so ashamed of the Doctor? Why does she insist on introducing him as her grandfather? And if these five students are from the University, why doesn’t at least one of them recognize him? The TARDIS is relegated to the role of moving van and the Doctor is passed off by Bill as an interfering old man; an embarrassment who needs to be shooed out. Thankfully, the Doctor sticks around—he is the only bright spot in this confusion of mediocrity. 

“Nobody just does anything.” The Doctor is the only one to question the mysterious disappearing act of Pavel. Not one of Pavel’s roommates wonders why he has shut himself away in his room for the entirety of their first day together in their new home. I can accept this except for one thing—the fact that his record is stuck in a groove playing the same few strands of music over and over and over and over and over, and not one of these scholars has thought to pound on his door to at least make this repetitive annoyance stop. Not to mention that not one of them has the wherewithal to worry about poor Pavel who is locked away with this never-ending loop of insanity.

Without the Doctor these six youngsters would be dead and forgotten with no-one to mourn or question their sudden demise, just as the multitude of those who went before them in this house of doom and gloom. Then again, without the Doctor there probably never would have been any alien beings to bring doom and gloom into the house to begin with. Because that is the nature of a Doctor Who script at this time—the mere presence of the Doctor, no matter the time or place on Earth (always Earth), means there is an alien menace lurking. Subtract the Doctor and you subtract the menace. But I am digressing again. It must be the Pavel repetitive effect.

Another aspect of a present day Doctor Who script is that there is no need to explain the alien presence. Doctor Who historically whisks any questions away with the action, but lately Doctor Who doesn’t even make a pretense of asking any questions. The closest we get in Knock Knock is the Doctor trying to come up with a name to call these aliens—“wood nymphs, tree spirits, dryads; anything’s possible.” Because quite literally, anything is possible in a New Who script. Don’t even bother asking who, what, when, where, or why, not to mention how.

So let me summarize Knock Knock: because Bill is moving into a new house, and because Bill is the protégée of the Doctor, some cockroach insects creep out of the walls and eat people in order to keep a wooden woman alive so that her son can remain a momma’s boy all his life.

“No, wait. Doctor, that doesn’t make sense.” Finally Bill is beginning to question; finally Bill realizes the nonsense. But wait. What is it that Bill can’t make sense of? Is it that a woman is made of wood? Is it that cockroaches are eating her friends? Is it that cockroaches eating her friends is somehow keeping the wooden woman alive? No, what Bill wonders is why a man would bring an insect into the house to amuse his ill daughter. Of everything happening in this cockeyed tale, that is one thing that does make sense. So what that Bill doesn’t like bugs; it is very possible that a sick little girl stuck in bed would get a kick out of seeing an unusual looking insect that her father brings in from the garden. Of the many things to question in this story, that is the very least of them.

And the information that this one question provides is the very least of the facts that are sorely lacking in this plot. What we learn from this is that the landlord is not in reality the wooden woman’s father but rather he is her son. So what? How does this explain the alien cockroaches? How does this explain her turning to wood? How does this explain how the mother and son are controlling the alien insects or how or why the alien insects are keeping the woman alive? How does this explain why the cockroaches need to eat people to accomplish all of this? Or why no one has ever noticed that people are walking into this house never to be seen again? 

And the information that this one question provides—that the father is in fact the son—raises a slew of new questions that are never even considered by anyone connected with the story. Like how has the son survived all of these years? How has he paid the bills? How did he avoid social services or interfering adult relatives all those years ago? What did he tell the mother’s doctors to keep them from treating her? (Unless he fed those doctors to the alien cockroaches in which case—how did he keep anyone from questioning the disappearance of those doctors?) When did the mother forget that this man was her son and decide that he was her father—when he was 15? 18? 21? 50? . . . .

And the biggest question of all—why does knowing that this man is her son and not her father enlighten the mother? Because he is her son and not her father, she suddenly wants to open the shutters? Because he is her son and not her father, she suddenly mourns the deaths at their hands? Because he is her son and not her father, she suddenly feels the unending boredom of her life?

And then, in a flash of a New Who second, the alien insects devour the mother and son and what—are gone for good? Never seek to devour anyone else? Have gotten at long last what they sought? What did they seek? What did they want? Why were they there? Where have they gone? Nobody cares anymore, least of all the Doctor.

“Oh, the questions, the questions, the questions. Just remember Time Lords. That’s enough for now.” That is the Doctor talking to Bill. It is an amusing little scene—one of a few in the episode. Unfortunately it applies all too broadly these days. Oh, the questions, the questions, the questions. Just remember _______ (insert alien of the day here—AKA, “woodlice from space”). That’s enough for now.

That’s enough, Gary. That is enough.