Torchwood: Miracle Day - The New World

Writer: Russell T Davies
Director: Bharat Nalluri

Two years after the miniseries format of Children of Earth, designed to conclude the events of the previous two series with a bang, Torchwood finally returns with a new start. This proper full-length story effectively resets the Torchwood Institute, with new characters and new locations, in a joint UK and US production. Most interesting perhaps is that Doctor Who series reviver Russell T Davies has now become a full-timer on the show, no longer distracted by that meddling Time Lord.

A mysterious email is sent to members of the intelligence agencies in the US, bypassing the standard security protocols by simply mentioning the name “Torchwood”.  The same day, no one dies. People get sick, but they don’t die. The next day, no one dies. The next day, and the next day, no one dies. After the disbandment of the Torchwood Institute, surviving member Gwen (Eve Myles) has retreated with husband Rhys (Kai Owen) to raise their child in the arse end of nowhere, suspicious of any and all travellers who appear on their doorstep. Alerted by the activity, Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) appears in the US and attempts to erase any and all mention of Torchwood to protect the only remaining member. CIA agent Esther Drummond (Alexa Havins) however discovers the identity of Gwen Cooper, and sends her boss, agent Rex Mathison (Mekhi Phifer) to Wales to interrogate her.

The real questions on people’s minds are: Can the show survive Americanisation? How could Torchwood possibly remain interesting without the gay smoochy smoochy times? On paper it can. Although no homosexual action so far, with an interesting presence full of potential, and the idea of hopping between continents in a worldwide mystery that not even Doctor Who has managed, it seems fool proof. In execution however, it is sadly quite bad. It’s nowhere near the depths of alien whale meat harvesting or evil fairies, but it’s still quite bad. Even excusing the numerous Wales jokes (because Americans don’t know what whales is) Davies’ script is particularly heavy-handed and dumbed down, and Nalluri’s direction lacks zazz. The scenes with Gwen and Rhys playing fugitive especially take way too long to get to wear they’re going, making sure to remind the new American audience of the events of the previous three series, through extended scenes of exposition. And then there is a scene in which Captain Jack Harkness remembers his previous lover, and thus is sad. You’d think that after The End of Time Davies would be good at writing tear-jerkers, but no, it’s just too deliberate. The green ooze flowing into Oswald Danes’ arm, Bill Pullman’s convicted paedophile is similarly just too blatant. Green = poison. Poison = death. Do you get it yet?

The cinematography also has some stupefied moments. Starting on a wide shot of the Raiders-inspired document library kills any and all sense of endlessness and futility in searching by defining the space. After this stage, no matter how many times you re-dress the same set, you’ve still lost the illusion.

The joint production between the UK and America promised a big budget. Clearly that was spent on the multiple plane tickets between continents, forgetting about one of the most important elements of Science Fiction: the visual effects. These effects are terrible even for Torchwood standards. Initially I considered that they might just appear terrible, because previous efforts have been much greater in terms of spectacle, for instance Abaddon, a giant menacing demon stalking over Cardiff (End of Days). But no. The 3D models of the flying rockets and the broken helicopter are really quite lacking, perhaps more so than the flames coming out of them. Similarly, being able to see the mask lines around the eyes of the destructed “corpse” is such an anti-climax. Suspension of disbelief: suspended.

Hopefully this was just a shaky start, and the series will find its footing soon. The potential of the concept is certainly very high, especially the philosophical debates inevitably generated by the released paedophile escaping execution when the rules of the game are changed. It deserves the benefit of the doubt until at least a few more episodes into it.

2 / 5

The Tree of Life (2011)

Writer and Director: Terrence Malick

Few films are truly ambitious enough to go down a path never before tread, and create something truly unique, and dare-I-say it, perfect. The Tree of Life is one such film. Auteur Terrence Malick is known for his experimental and artistic works, attempting to create works of art that challenge mainstream cinema conventions. Here he has managed to do this. Never have I seen a more polarised audience. In the moderately full cinema, no less than nine people stormed out in the first half hour (“pretentious wank!”). Of those that stayed, about the same amount had their minds blown. The nervous laughter as the end credits finally appeared onscreen signified the visceral and spiritually confrontational onslaught we had just experienced.

The film inevitably draws comparisons with Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the visual methamphetamine Baracka. But these links are tenuous at best. The films are entirely different execution. Sure they share the extended visual montage, but their reasons are entirely different.  The fragmented and non-linear narrative in The Tree of Life convey vast leaps in human evolution and the history of the universe, compared to the non-narrative montage of Baracka. The notorious “trip” sequence in 2001: A Space Odyssey represents a character’s journey through the infinite cosmos, his mind effectively blown by ascended technology, whereas the sequences in The Tree of Life represent the birth of life and the universe. The comparisons are only there because these films transcend definition, and there is nothing else to compare them to.

The non-linear narrative stretches from the creation of the universe, to the beginnings of life on earth (yes, it even has dinosaurs), to the reproduction of human cells, to us: humanity as we are here and now. Revealed throughout is the development of a 1950’s American family. Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien’s three sons are desperate to grow up and discover who they are. Mrs. O’Brien (Jessica Chastain) loves, cares for, and understands her children. Mr. O’Brien (Brad Pitt) attempts to raise them how he was raised, bestowing on them ideals that he thinks are right. His disciplines appear harsh. Their eldest son Jack (Hunter McCracken) begins to resent his father’s teachings, as any boy would do. Interspersed with these scenes is an older, 50-something Jack (portrayed by a grumpy-faced Sean Penn), as he works in a nondescript office, and goes about his mundane life.

The scenes of the American family are punishingly tense, Malick carefully building the balance of tension as high as it could possibly go. Jack’s distaste against his father grows inch by inch until his life is consumed by it. The awkward dialogue at the dinner table plays like a ticking time bomb before the theatre finally explodes in bursts of high drama. These scenes are difficult to watch due of their confrontational nature. The perfect execution of the carefully moulded build-up all the way to the dramatic climaxes shows a master director at work, striving to construct his Magnum Opus. These scenes would have been tough on the actors, especially the children, but the resulting performances wrung out of them are astounding. When Jack’s father finally goes too far and leaves the family because of it, Jack’s sudden freedoms result in his rebellious nature overflowing, untapped and unrestrained. Hunter McCracken outacts veteran Sean Penn (though to be fair, Penn wasn’t given much to work with).

Extended montages link the fragmented story together. The camera captures the exquisite beauty of the universe. In one moment it will show the world around us through experimental angles: shadows on the road, a field of flowers, waves of the desert, complex organisms dancing through the currents in the ocean; the next will feature flawlessly composed visual effects: cells dividing, the universe sparking into life. These montages, although occasionally punishingly long, give a much deeper and universal feel to the film. Humanity is part of a beautiful ecosystem.

The obvious religious connotations of children betraying their creators, choosing a separate path from Father God and Mother Nature heavily influences the narrative structure. At first they are used subtly, according to one’s interpretation, as a guide to explore our protagonist’s lives. Towards the end of the film the metaphors become gradually blunter, ending with literal interpretations of progressing into the afterlife.

This film is near perfect. Not as entertainment (it’s a very difficult watch), but as a work of art that challenges, influences and inspires the viewer, something that very few films are able to do nowadays.

5 / 5

Super (2011)

Writer and Director: James Gunn

After the breakaway success of James Gunn’s debut feature film Slither, he returns to his first script, Super, a violent and esoteric look on the concept of superheroes as applied to real life. Conceived back in 2002 but quickly falling into production hell, Super suffers grievously due to irrelevance, finally seeing the light of day in an era of superhero fatigue, and shadowing a much more high-budget Kick-Ass. For the rare few who actually witnessed it however, it provides a rather unique and stunning piece of cinema, with a much more blatant and disturbing agenda than Kick-Ass ever intended.

Fast food cook Frank (Rainn Wilson) has only ever had two perfect memories in his life. The first was when he married his wife Sarah (Liv Tyler), recovering from a terrible drug addiction. The second was when, as a child, he directed a police officer in his pursuit of a fleeing robber. These two events have been transformed into crayon drawings that Frank has hung over his bed in order to wake up to them each day.

Frank returns home one day to find his wife has left him for cult-leader-like Jacques (Kevin Bacon in a warm-up role for X-Men: First Class), a charismatic strip club owner, who has initiated her relapse into drugs. Distraught, Frank becomes a wreck of a man, resorting to daytime television. Whilst watching hardcore Christian programming, he witnesses The Holy Avenger, a masked Nathan Fillion smiting teen pregnancy and peer pressure-provoking demons in an American High School, complete with an inspirational message about the triumph of good over evil, invoking nostalgic memories of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. It is here that he proclaims to have been touched by God, if God can be described lucid visions of tentacle rape and a lobotomy.

Donning the homemade mask, Frank becomes the Crimson Bolt! A superhero without powers, brutally clubbing people to death with a wrench. Commit a crime? Crimson Bolt will stop you! Molest a child? Prepare to meet your doom! Cut in queue? Smash your face in! Together with his 22-year-old kid sidekick Boltie – sadistic comic book store clerk Libby (Ellen Page), the Crimson Bolt vows to fight crime, get back his wife, and foil Jacques’ drug circle.

The realism in Super is both gruesome and compelling, setting the film apart from any other superhero story so far, even the ones that claim super realism like Kick-Ass and Watchmen. With no real abilities, Frank initially struggles to defeat anyone, until he begins his sneak-attacks, embedding his wrench in people’s skulls multiple times beyond their deaths. The Crimson Bolt and Boltie unleash judgement without mercy or restraint, breaking spines, smashing glass eyes, immolating people, and ramming a thug against a wall with their “Bolt-mobile”, leaving him to slowly writhe in agony until death. Their motivations are clear: Frank because due to his ineptness and social retardation, he doesn’t know any other way to get his wife back; and Libby because she enjoys it, laughing sadistically as she lacerates an already-dead thug’s body with homemade Wolverine claws.

Super also alludes to what happens “between the panels”. Kick-Ass stirred up a storm with its portrayal of underage kid sidekick Hit-Girl. Super goes beyond, and although Boltie is 22-years-old, wearing her costume during her rape of Frank as The Crimson Bolt, proclaiming that this is now what she needs to get off, comes off as disturbingly paedophilic in nature.

Super is a unique take on the now mundane concept of what it would be like to be a superhero in real life. However, it sets itself apart by going further than any other similar film, not shying away from what it could be like to kill someone with a homemade weapon, or the psychopathic and sociopathic thoughts that might drive a modern-day vigilante. Its low-budget nature means that it doesn’t have the luxuries of other blockbuster superhero films, but this charm parallels nicely with the homemade nature of The Crimson Bolt. “Take that crime, you shit!”

4 / 5

Super 8 (2011)

Writer and Director: J.J. Abrams

There are those films we saw growing up that captured our hearts, and the hearts of children everywhere, inspiring a wave of children to become filmmakers. Films like E.T. and The Goonies made entire families come together for an experience they would never forget, all thanks to Steven Spielberg’s genius storytelling. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a family film of the same calibre that can capture that special kind of magic, where relatable kids can overcome their issues, fight the government and save the day. Super 8 by J.J. Abrams attempts to reclaim this magic for a new generation of children. With Steven Spielberg producing, the night sky is filled with lights, kids solve mysteries on bicycles, and an alien fights to return home, very much channelling the magic that happened in the early 80’s, whilst updating it with modern-day production values.

1979, suburban Ohio. After the accidental death of his mother, 12-year-old Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) assists his intense friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) in creating a zombie film, shot on a Super 8mm camera, for the local film festival. Keeping it a secret from his single father, Deputy Jack Lamb (Kyle Chandler), because that’s what all filmmakers do, they scout for locations, improve costumes and break numerous lines to create their masterpiece. The beautiful Alice (Elle Fanning) is roped into playing the femme fatale, but goes so far as to steal her drunken father’s car to drive the crew to their location, the train station. When Charles hears a train coming, it’s all hands on deck to get the shot in the bag, for expert “production value”. As they’re taking the shot, a truck merges onto the tracks, heading straight for the oncoming train. The film continues rolling during the massive explosion which flings carriages and debris through the air, to land inches away from the fleeing children, and causing more explosions in the climactic chain reaction. In the aftermath, the children find the gun-toting brutalised body of the truck-driver, their biology teacher. He warns them to never tell anyone about what happened that night, and their interview is cut short by the arrival of the U.S. air force, to clean up the mess and any witnesses.

The next day, the gang discovers mysterious goings-on all throughout the town. The Sheriff is missing, replaced by the Deputy; the cars at a sales lot all have their engines vanished; a shop is missing twenty microwaves. The adults are slow on the uptake, as they always are, but the children are on the case. After getting the footage of that fateful night developed, they uncover what was really on that train, and why the Air Force is trying to wipe the town clean: an alien, stranded on earth, captured and experimented upon by the government, trying to build a ship to carry it home.

For the first hour, this film is brilliant. It perfectly unites a team of fantastically-acted and emotionally ripe children (including a next generation Sean Astin), and conjures up brilliantly the nostalgic feel of E.T. and The Goonies. Shooting their film on an obsolete camera adds to the effect. But then somewhere in there, Cloverfield happens. Super 8 quickly becomes E.T. without the loveable Extra Terrestrial, replaced by a mysterious and illusive monster, preying on hapless victims from behind. The heart is replaced by terror, and bloodshed. There is a surprising amount of violence for something meant for children. The alien works on the less is more theory, the audience glimpsing shadows, the occasional arm, and the standard flash-frame as it lunges towards its terrified victim. Such a dark contrast to the previous scenes leaves a disconnection between the two worlds, and they never really mesh.

There is also an extreme amount of lens flares in the film, no doubt left over from Abrams previous film, Star Trek. Almost every second shot is adorned with a blue streak stabbing across the frame, including flares from lights that don’t even exist. There is an appropriate time and place for flares. A time where they are not appropriate however, is when the lead character descends into a pitch black series of underground caves, where there is absolutely no possible light source, ergo no possible flare. But there one is, gracing our screen with its majestic presence.

Nevertheless, Super 8 remains a quality film, nostalgic for a style that has long since been left behind in favour of big stupid blockbusters. True, the film does have some blockbuster elements based in it, and these tend to detract from the magic, but they’re well made up for by the emotional depth to the characters. It looks and feels identical to a Spielberg film of three decades ago, which inspired a generation to become filmmakers. Hopefully this film will do the same.

The end credits are the highlight of the film, showing the results of the crew’s hard labour, complete with line breaks, jump cuts, and crash zooms.

3½ / 5

Doctor Who - A Good Man Goes to War

Director: Peter Hoar

Writer: Steven Moffat

The Doctor travels throughout space and time raising an army, an army to reclaim Amy and her newborn child, Melody, stolen from her husband and the Doctor by the mysterious Eye-Patch Lady. The raging Time Lord calls in the favours due to him by Sontarans, Silurians, Judoon and a blue Jabba the Hutt, infiltrates the Headless Monks' base at Demons Run and defeats the Order and General Manton’s Cleric Army. But was it too easy? Eye-Patch Lady has one last trick up her sleeves. And what does all this have to do with River Song?

Finally. This is what we have been waiting to see. After three years and oh-so-much build-up, we finally get the pay-off. Steven Moffat, you clever, clever man. River Song has been the subject of so much speculation over the last few years. Viewers have formed a love-hate relationship with the afro warrior; Love in that her charms and chemistry with the Doctor weighed perfectly against the mystery surrounding her, always carrying the story onwards; and hate in that nothing about her made sense, with more and more riddles to deduce after every appearance. There are still plenty of riddles left, and more created by this episode, but her character arc has received a generous update. And the Doctor’s reaction to this is just pure genius.

This episode more than made up for the dreadfully average episodes this Series, The Curse of the Black Spot and The Rebel Flesh / The Almost People, tipping the balance well in favour of good. It simply got almost everything right. Even though the entire episode was building up to the great twist at the end, it was still incredibly entertaining. Through its lyrical montages, and constant build-up, it gave Moffat a chance to explore a different side his characters. 

The Doctor terrifies with his newfound rage, first glimpsed briefly aboard the Starship UK in The Beast Below. His flawless disarmament of his helpless foe makes his downfall all the more devastating, as he becomes what he denounces and is forced to pay the consequences.

Rory takes control, finally standing up for himself and not letting anyone get in his way. His character finally reaches greatness, silhouetted by the Doctor’s chain exploding of an entire Cyberman armada. His beta status to his wife is finally inversed, as Amy becomes Mrs Williams, a distraught mother, a far cry from her strong female persona.

The side characters too are a joy to watch. The unfortunate and humiliating situations Sontaran Commander Strax finds itself in are progressively less honourable, climaxing with the long fall to wet-nurse. The innuendo-fuelled adventures of Silurian Madame Vastra and her “man”-servant both confound and entice (particularly the notion of a poison-tongued cunnilingus). Is everyone in the future homosexual? It seems Moffat is intent on making it so.

One problem though was the lack of development in the Headless Monks. What are they exactly? How do they sustain themselves without a head? What are these Ringwraiths after? Why do they feel the need to have both a lightning sword and lightning balls? Surely one will suffice. Brandishing their broadswords with menace only to exude a puny ball of energy comes off as a disappointing anticlimax. Their lack of depth resulted in them appearing more comical than scary, paling in comparison to the host of much meaner scum and villainy appearing in the episode. Their silence only functioned to highlight the evil that their human counterparts were partaking in.

Finally, Doctor Who has wafted through the string of lacklustre episodes of the Series, and everything is coming together. Years old mysteries are coming to fruition, the fanservice is flying high, and the tension is becoming close to breaking point. Whoever thought that it would be a good idea to split the Series in half? Waiting another three months for a resolution to this stunning cliff-hanger is torturous. Until then we’ll just have to make do with this:

and KBO.

4½ / 5

Doctor Who – The Almost People

Director: Julian Simpson
Writer: Matthew Graham

So it took two episodes to explain that Gangers are sentient. Continuing on from The Rebel Flesh, The Almost People concludes war between human and Flesh. As the events come to fruition, it somewhat makes up for the shaky, uneven start, but, disregarding the twist at the end, never manages to exceed expectations.

The Flesh has decided it can take no more of it, and are rising against their original forms. Flesh!Jennifer fools Rory into assisting the worker’s downfall. Meanwhile, the Doppel-Doctor faces fear and prejudice from his nervous captors, as they await extraction via rescue chopper.

The Almost People seems like it does not know what it wants to do, and comes off as a not quite committed rip-off of The Thing. In trying to avoid numerous doppelganger tropes, it seems half-baked, failing to fully explore the themes and the concept it presents. At least if it went through the well-worn series of clichés, it might have been more fulfilling, and maybe could have even managed to do it with style or originality. It ventures out slightly in this direction with the double Flesh!Jennifer trick, but this is as far as it goes. Never does it reach the gripping height presented at the end of The Thing, with Kurt Russell staring down Keith David in the oncoming polar climate.

The two-parter suffers from a top-heavy three-act structure. The first part takes too long to set things up. It was obvious they were holding out for the Doppel-Doctor to be revealed as the cliff hanger, but instead it just dragged out the introduction leaving the complication and the climax underdeveloped. The subplot involving sentient eyes fizzles out without a climax or a real impact, managing only to waste precious time. The Almost People needed to launch into action much earlier than it did. As a result, the episode devolves into the Doctor and companions fleeing from a monster through some corridors, the climax almost identical to the Series 3 story The Lazarus Experiment. It simply took too long between Flesh!Jennifer’s flying fist and snake-like head halfway through The Rebel Flesh, and her monstrous mutations at the end of this episode. A much more dynamic and progressive, Akira mutation would have serviced the body horror much more suitably.

There are some nice moments though, such as the part where Rory didn’t die. It’s always surprising when that doesn’t happen. His venture out from behind his wife last episode redeemed him marginally, even if it ended without much emphasis.

Similarly nice is the scene when Flesh!Jimmy overcomes his jealousy after seeing his son, Adam, on his birthday, and betrays Flesh!Jennifer. This was the highlight of the doppelganger moralities being thrown about, which is a shame. The chase through the corridors at the end conveniently disposes of all the remaining duplicates, dodging the more difficult question of who inherits the roll on the outside. Could Cleaves, a woman who has poured her entire life into her job, be able to walk away from it to allow the other version to take her place? Would Jimmy and Flesh!Jimmy coexist or compete for Adam’s affections? Would Adam having two fathers in the future count as political commentary?

This had the potential to become a very interesting morality study, but its inability to choose between SF survival horror and character piece, instead doing both averagely, results in a mildly enjoyable yet run-of-the-mill Doctor Who adventure which can sit with all the other adventures of its kind. The final stunning minutes however more than make up for this. The show has often been referred to as being sexist since it’s recent turnover (although how said haters explain Mr Pond…). Moffat seems to have embraced these claims in his latest scheme, and dived headfirst into one of the biggest defining aspects of womanhood. Just what is Moffat planning for his mid-series finale?  After all these years, River Song’s identity will be finally be revealed. The anticipation is overwhelming.

3½ / 5

Doctor Who - The Rebel Flesh

Director: Matthew Graham
Writer: Julian Simpson

Back in 2006, Matthew Graham was granted a single episode of David Tennant’s first year, Fear Her, in which an alien-inhabited terrified young girl captures the essence of the things she draws, and causes them to come to life, due to the bent up feelings of rejection from her father. It also happened to be one of the worst Doctor Who stories of all time. Time travel forward to 2011 and Graham is at it again, but this time instead of one episode, he’s been gifted two.

The Doctor and companions arrive on an isolated island in the future with a converted monastery acting to pump highly corrosive acid out of the ground and back to the mainland. The skeleton crew that operates the factory use a specifically manufactured flesh which can be programmed to take the shape of anything, in order to birth a surrogate version of themselves to harvest the high risk acid. Referred to as Gangers, these disposable bodies are operated wirelessly through the use of control beds. Whilst scanning the intangible gooey mass of flesh in the spawning pool, the Doctor sticks his hand in, stating ominously that it feels like it is scanning him. Initially posing as an inspector, the Doctor warns of an imminant  solar tsunami which will cause the facility significant damage. The foreman, Miranda Cleaves (Raquel Cassidy), refuses to shut down the operation without corresponding orders from her higher ups. Things go wrong as they usually do when people refuse to obey the Doctor, and the solar flare damages the monastery, spewing forth acid everywhere, and knocking the entire crew unconscious. When they come to they find their Doppelgangers are moving freely, infiltrating the crew and plotting their independence by any means necessary.

The Rebel Flesh is said to have a very Classic Who feeling. Although it’s not entirely awful, Graham declines to truly do anything unique or particularly interesting, and the episode is dismissed as more of a superficial Monster-of-the-Week affair. The chameleonic maliciousness haunting the occupants of the lone building on the isolated island reminds strongly of Horror of Fang Rock, in which an alien disguised as a human hunts the Doctor and the workers in an old lighthouse in the middle of a raging storm. The bio-hazards caused by the exposed and ruptured pipelines recall the eco-friendly message from the Jon Pertwee adventure The Green Death. The creation turning against its creator mimics Frankenstein and an organic I, Robot.

This episode shares many traits with The Hungry Earth, exploring themes of segregation and coping with those who are not necessarily evil, but are merely different from humans. It also feels incredibly similar, in that the entire episode merely buys time until the inevitable cliff-hanger. The obvious foreshadowing of the event means that in the downtime scenes tend to drag on and on, and several shots linger awkwardly as the pieces are manoeuvred into the position the audience has envisioned much earlier. Bar the final moments of the episode, what is presented here, like most part ones, is 100% build-up, and the sequel will be make-or-break, determining if the wait was worth it or not.

Probably the best thing about this episode is the part where Rory did not die. However, one must not get one’s hopes up; there will surely be multiple opportunities for his demise in the concluding 45 minutes. Instead of dying, Rory goes through a much more offensive character development, as he recalls his previous life living as a clone of himself, and empathises with the Rebel Flesh. This is obviously a poorly disguised attempt to redeem his ineptness, and make him seem a valuable part of the team before his predicted upcoming death, but only manages to steal screen time away from the much more deserving Amy. How out of character for Rory to betray his wife, who up until this point he’s followed blindly like a lovesick sheep.

The most disappointing part of the episode comes after an amusing scene involving the death of the Doctor’s well-worn boots, the writers missing the perfect opportunity for the Doctor to save the day in some kind of humorous footwear, similar to the Doctor saving the world in his jimmy-jams in The Christmas Invasion.

Similarly disappointing, the scenes between Doctor and companions lack a punch line, with characters rambling on without anything to say until it cuts to the next shot.

The climax brings new speculation as to the true identity of the future Doctor who was last seen when the Impossible Astronaut shot him dead at the beginning of the series, but all theories so far prove unsatisfying, and based too much on chance rather than a single thread holding all stories together. Hopefully everything comes together next week, and Moffatt hasn’t just wasted two of the precious little episodes. 


It’s interesting how this series they negate the usual balance of multi-episode stories, with the third two-parter airing in a couple of weeks’ time, getting them over and done with by the middle of the series. This means that for the first time the finale will consist of a string of consecutive stand-alone episodes. Will there be enough time? Only time will tell.

2 ½ / 5