Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Doctor Who - "The Beast Below" Review

So, we're now moving right along into the new Doctor Who season, with "The Beast Below". In some aspects it was a bit of a disappointment, but in many more aspects it worked quite well. I dare say it worked better than many other immediately-after-the-premiere episodes, which routinely introduce the companions formally into the world of the Doctor.

Our episode begins with an introduction to the Smilers, the robotic, booth-dwelling entities overseeing various aspects of life on the massive ship that is apparently Britain. They lump praise onto every child in the class except for one, Timmy, who gets a zero after the Smiler's head spins, changing the face to an unhappy one. Timmy is told by Mandy (his sister?) that he's not allowed to ride the lift back to London due to getting a zero, but he jumps onto another lift instead. What follows is a slightly creepy poem recited by a mysterious girl on a small monitor on one of the lift walls, after which the lift descends rapidly as the head of the Smiler in the lift spins to reveal blood red eyes and an angry, snarling mouth before the floor opens to drop Timmy into what appears to be a fiery pit.

Let me stop here for a moment to address the Smilers. One of the things I think Doctor Who has done especially well over the years is crafting villains and creatures that are simple but very much evil and/or surprisingly creepy, and the Smilers certainly fit into the 'creepy' category. Am I saying that they scared me? Not at all. But I can appreciate the creepiness in the fact that, when you think their heads only have two relatively normal faces, they suddenly turn around and reveal that they somehow have another one that you simply know would really freak you out if you saw it in person. It's like the Weeping Angels from the Series 3 episode "Blink" and the upcoming "The Time of Angels" and "Flesh and Stone". The concept is so simple: Extremely fast creatures with a taste for killing (though "killing" might not be an entirely correct term), but with the weakness that instantly turns them to stone the moment anyone looks at them, meaning that as long as someone is looking at them, you're safe. But that means that there cannot be a moment when someone is not looking at them, and you cannot even blink. THAT is frankly incredibly creepy, and WORKED as a concept.

Back to things...we then get to see a light-hearted moment of the Doctor holding Amy by the ankle as she floats outside the TARDIS doors in the middle of space. Afterwards, she somehow ends up outside the TARDIS again, except now holding onto the ship for dear life, and that's when we first spot the huge ship carrying all of the UK except for Scotland. The Doctor explains to Amy that they never get involved in the affairs of the people living wherever and whenever they land (I'd like to call bullshit right now, please), before slipping out unnoticed by Amy until she sees him bump into the crying Mandy on the screen. Amy and the Doctor then wander through the hall they've landed in, with the Doctor telling Amy to be more perceptive about everything around her, meanwhile testing a few random things. The Doctor observes: 1.) There is no characteristic rumbling in the floors that would be felt if there were engines propelling the ship, 2.) Nobody is comforting the upset Mandy because they all likely know why she's crying to begin with, and 3.) People are making actual efforts to stay away from the Smiler booths. The Doctor sends Amy off to follow Mandy while he does what he "always does: stay out of trouble...badly". (That's more like it!) Meanwhile a man in robes alerts a grey-haired man in a control room somewhere about the Doctor's actions, and he alerts a woman, clad in red and carrying a mask.

Amy follows Mandy (who knew she was being followed by Amy and the Doctor due to the four clumsy attempts by the Doctor to get Mandy's wallet by bumping into her and the fact that they were watching her in the station), and ends up not only getting attacked by a strange, stinger-like appendage coming from a hole in the floor covered by a tent but also being taken away by more people in robes. Meanwhile the Doctor meets the woman who was alerted to his presence, who introduces herself as "Liz 10" and points out that he knew to check for the rumble of engines by setting a glass of water on the floor, confirming that there cannot be traditional engines propelling the ship. We return to Amy, who is in a room where she's informed that she will be told the truth behind what is happening, with the choice to "Protest" or "Forget". We don't actually get to see what the truth is yet, but in a wonderful bit of foreshadowing, we're flashed forward to the moment after Amy hits the "Forget" button, which is when she watches a video she recorded before hitting the button, frantically insisting that she take the Doctor and get him off the ship before he can investigate too much further. She's then joined by the Doctor, who hits the "Protest" button, sending them falling down the same sort of hole in the floor as Timmy. They end up in a gigantic mouth, and after some physical comedy involving their escape, they find themselves in a hallway with a door that only allows them to select "Forget" in order to open it, and at the other end, we see two Smilers actually leave their booths, increasing their creepy factor, but the door opens, revealing Liz 10 and Mandy. Liz 10 pulls a gun and shoots both Smilers.

It's at this point that Doctor Who continues to show it's great love of continuity. Liz 10 reveals herself to know of the Doctor, and reveals that she is, in fact, Queen Elizabeth the Tenth, making several cracks about past events involving the royal family (referencing the Doctor being knighted AND exiled in the same day by Queen Victoria in "Tooth and Claw", being chased by Elizabeth the First's men in "The Shakespeare Code", and apparently marrying Elizabeth the First prior to the events of "The End of Time"), which I thought were excellent. The Doctor and Amy are taken to the Queen's chambers for fresh clothing, before more men in robes appear and insist on everyone coming with them. It is of course at this moment that we find out that at least one of the men is also a Smiler, as out of nowhere his head spins to the creepy Smiler face and informs the Queen that they are acting under her orders. They are taken to the "Tower of London", the lowest point on the ship, where the Doctor and Queen are outraged to find that the ship is actually flying on the back of a massive "Star Whale", which is being tortured with electrical blasts to it's exposed brain to keep it moving. The Queen then learns that she undergoes essentially the same procedure as her people every ten years, learning of the truth and then being given the choice to "Forget" and allow everything to continue as normal, or "Abdicate" and free the Star Whale, destroying the ship in the process. The Doctor knows that Amy was trying to keep him from reaching this point and having to make such a difficult moral decision, and becomes very much enraged, finally showing what appears to be a hint of Sixth Doctor ("Nobody talk to me. No human has anything to say to me today!"), and even goes so far as to threaten to take Amy home immediately when the situation is resolved.

And here is yet another thing that makes Doctor Who such a strong show at times: Moral decisions that are not as simple as being black or white. We see them all the time. The Doctor has to choose between different outcomes where not everyone can be happy. The Eleventh Doctor finds himself with three tough choices: Allow the innocent Star Whale to continue being tortured for human survival, force the Queen to abdicate and save the Whale at the cost of all the human lives on the ship, or deliver a mercy killing to the Whale, killing it but ending it's suffering and allowing the humans to continue living. And at this point, we see Amy already growing as a character, noticing the Whale's tender treatment of the children and piecing it together with the bits of story given by the Queen's associate, Hawthorne, about the Whale's refusal to eat children. She realizes that one of the choices will have different results than expected, and forces the Queen to abdicate. But, instead of the Whale leaving and the ship being destroyed, the Whale moves faster. Amy reveals that, much like the Doctor, the Whale was the last of it's race and, witnessing the tragedy of solar flares destroying the Earth, couldn't bear to see the human children in such a situation and had actually volunteered itself to the humans, negating the need for the torture. The episode ends with the Doctor and Any reconciling, and with Amy about to tell the Doctor about the wedding set for the day after she left in the TARDIS, but she's interrupted by a phone call from Winston Churchill, asking the Doctor for help, with the silhouette of a Dalek in the background.

Overall, the episode felt rushed, but was still quite good. I have to wonder why Timmy was dropped into the mouth of the Whale simply because he rode a lift after getting a zero in class. But the episode was still filled with some great quotes and humor, some character development, and more of Moffat's creepy creations. Plus, it did have a certain "Classic series" feel to it, with the reduced emphasis on action and a greater emphasis on problem solving. As much as I'll definitely miss Tennant as the Doctor, I certainly think I could get used to Matt Smith's version.

I may write up a review of "Victory of the Daleks" in the next day or two, but I'm not sure. I've got a few things in my head I'd like to write about, so it'll be a battle of priorities.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

New Doctor. New TARDIS. New Sonic Screwdriver. Same fun!

DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVE YET TO SEE THE EPISODE, BUT INTEND TO. IT'S VERY SPOILERIFIC!

Like many Doctor Who fans, I was initially apprehensive about David Tennant's replacement as the Doctor, Matt Smith. We had been given three absolutely fantastic (to steal the Ninth Doctor's favorite word) seasons with Tennant, followed by a chain of specials ending with the two part "The End of Time", which for me redefined "Epic Doctor Who", with Timothy Dalton guest starring as Rassilon and the return of the Master. How could any Doctor, especially an extremely young one wearing a very questionable outfit, compare with someone as deeply loved in the fandom as David Tennant?

Of course, in the months between "The End of Time" and "The Eleventh Hour", there was no shortage of leaked information, and being as deep of a fan as I am, I followed it all and ate it up like a madman. And while I was very much entranced by the lovely new red-headed companion, Amy Pond (played by Karen Gillan), and absolutely loving the new designs for both the TARDIS and the Sonic Screwdriver, I still had my doubts about Matt Smith. Thankfully, as the premiere day drew closer, more and more clips of Matt as the Doctor surfaced, and I genuinely found myself liking what I saw. I especially enjoyed the clip from the upcoming "Vampires in Venice", with the Doctor playfully quipping with five lovely vampire women. (*Doctor looks back and forth between the vampires and a mirror* "How are you doing that? I...am...LOVING IT. You're like Houdini, only five slightly scary girls.")

Finally, the episode premiered in England on Saturday night (afternoon here in the US), and by that night I had the episode in my possession. But, I was waiting to watch it as I was intending on screening it for friends of mine when I returned to school after my short Easter weekend at home. Sunday night I sat down with my friends and we started the episode...and we were quite satisfied.

The first time we see the Eleventh Doctor (at least after his first appearance at the end of "The End of Time"), he's hanging out of a barreling, dying TARDIS that's flying through London. After the new opening sequence (which I actually like, though I know some people who aren't exactly happy about it), the TARDIS coincidentally crashes outside of Amelia Pond's house (of course, she later becomes Amy Pond) just as she's praying to Santa for someone to come and fix a huge crack in her wall. What follows is some wonderfully lighthearted fun with Amelia/Amy cooking up various things for the Doctor to try so he can find a food he actually likes ("You're Scottish, fry something."), which gives us a nice introduction to our new Doctor without immediately forcing him into action. Of course he does take action and discovers that the crack Amelia is worried about is actually an opening in the fabric of space and time, through which "Prisoner Zero" has escaped from some sort of prison. But before he can investigate further, the cloister bell rings, signaling impending disaster, and the Doctor rushes off to "jump five minutes into the future to stabilize the TARDIS", and we're treated to the heartbreaking moment of him vanishing and Amelia packing a suitcase and returning to the garden to wait, as the Doctor naturally overshoots.

Flash forward twelve years, and the TARDIS finally reappears, with the Doctor sprinting out and into Amy's house because he claims to have figured things out, only to be hit with a cricket bat. Ouch. Of course, the Doctor doesn't realize upon waking that the police officer who knocked him out was in fact Amelia/Amy, but then again she's not really a cop. It's discovered that Prisoner Zero has been hiding in Amy's house since she was little, and has the power to impersonate people. But then the fun really starts when the Atraxi show up and start announcing that they will incinerate the Earth if Prisoner Zero doesn't surrender himself over every electronic device on Earth, Vogon-style (and if you don't get this last reference, go out and immediately start reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, NOW). What follows is a race to hunt down Prisoner Zero and stop the Atraxi within a window of 20 minutes. Using not much more than a Blackberry Storm and a laptop with a very questionable internet history (because of the terrible loss of the Sonic Screwdriver), the Doctor manages to return the creature to the Atraxi, halting the destruction of Earth. They then fly off.

But does the Doctor leave it at that? No, and this leads to his true complete-and-total-badass-moment of the episode, where he literally calls the Atraxi on the Blackberry and ORDERS them back to Earth, not happy that they were so ready to burn a Level 5 protected planet. He proceeds to steal clothing from hospital lockers in a move we've seen from the Third and Eighth Doctors, and meets the Atraxi on the roof, where he asks if the Earth is a threat to the Atraxi or if humans have broken any Atraxi laws, and then asks "Is the Earth protected?" which causes the holographic sphere being projected by the huge Atraxi eyeball to show a montage of Doctor Who enemies (including some from classic series and many newer ones), to which the Doctor then continues "You have to ask yourself, what happened to them?". This yields a projection of all ten previous Doctors in a beautiful nod to the past, which the Eleventh Doctor steps through before delivering a beautiful line: "Hello, I'm the Doctor. Basically: RUN."

The episode ends with the Doctor running off to perform test flights with the newly regenerated TARDIS, and returns later to find that he has overshot AGAIN, returning two years after the Atraxi's appearance. However, he still convinces Amy to join him, though she tells him that she must be back the next day. We then get a shot of a wedding dress, implying that the next day is Amy's wedding day.

This episode is a wonderful example of what Doctor Who is. It's funny, it's heart-warming, it's heart-wrenching, it's tense. It has it's moments when your heart is tugged on, it has it's moments when you laugh out loud, it has it's moments when you're watching the events unfolding, wondering how it's all going to be fixed in the end, often with a moment where that happens in such a way that you can't help but exclaim "Yes!" while pumping a fist into the air. "The Eleventh Hour" provided so many awesome quotes, and gave us a solid introduction into what kind of Doctor Matt Smith is going to be portraying for at least two series. You can see hints of the Ninth and Tenth Doctors in him, and maybe even some of the earlier Doctors (unfortunately, my experiences with the earlier Doctors are limited so I can't say much for exactly who he's like, but perhaps a touch of the Fourth?). He's manic yet incredibly sharp and intelligent like the Ninth and Tenth, but he doesn't seem nearly as troubled as they did. The Ninth and Tenth were very clearly carrying a huge chip on their shoulders due to the Time War and the Doctor's direct responsibility for the destruction of Gallifrey, but so far we haven't really seen it with the Eleventh. So far he's more light-hearted, which is quite lovely.

So, with my reservations towards Matt Smith mostly demolished, I have to say I'm really looking forward to Series 5. With what I've been hearing about the upcoming "Victory of the Daleks" and the fact that we get a two-parter featuring both River Song AND The Weeping Angels, I think this series is going to be an absolutely fun ride. To quote our new Doctor: "Geronimo!"

Thursday, April 1, 2010

GameCrush Gives Gamers a Chance...To Look Creepier

Yesterday I first heard about GameCrush through Penny Arcade, and I just had to take a look to see if it really existed. A video game "dating" service where you pay to video chat with a girl while she plays video games with you as a "Play Date". I was immediately floored by the concept, the execution, and the sheer fact that enough people wanted in that they managed to crash the servers in five minutes. Great idea, or yet another reason why I'm sometimes ashamed to be considered a gamer? Well, I think it's a little of both.

In essence, the site is nothing more than a webcam "dating" site, where you purchase points and use those points to purchase time (10 minutes for every 400 points, with pricing supposedly being somewhere between $6-$7 for 500 points) that you spend video and voice chatting with women as they play any number of games with you, from basic online flash games to more "hardcore" games on consoles like Call of Duty or Halo. You then rate your "Play Date" afterwards and have the option to tip them additional points. The women get some of the points, while the remainder goes to GameCrush itself (it does have to pay for things like hosting, after all). Probably the weirdest part of the whole thing, though, is the choice of whether you want the girl to be "Flirty" or "Dirty".

Does it make sense from a business standpoint? Most definitely. Just look at what happened when they opened up shop online for their "beta": at least 10,000 people hit them in five minutes, overloading their servers with traffic and forcing them to shut down. Of course we can't guarantee that all 10,000 of those people, if not more, were there with the immediate intention in joining and using the site, but assuming for a moment that at least that many were there at some point and using a flat $6 as the price point for enough points for 10 minutes of play, the site is looking at $60,000 before giving the female members their cut of the money. And that's being conservative and assuming that each person pays for no more than 10 minutes. If they were to purchase enough for just a half hour each, GameCrush would be close to breaking $200,000. Clearly this is a potentially unbelievable gold mine for those who came up with it. Provided they can upgrade their equipment to be better able to handle the traffic in the future, they could be looking at a good cash flow.

But do I otherwise think it's a good idea? Oh God no. It gives me another reason to be ashamed of being a gamer for life. Are we REALLY so desperate that we'd spend almost $50 an hour just to have a girl talk dirty to us while playing Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox Live? Don't get me wrong, finding a significant other who would be happy to hop online with me and snipe a bunch of enemies side by side would be a hell of a lot of fun. But paying a stranger to be "flirty" or "dirty" while gaming with me just seems so wrong. When all is said and done, will this girl care? Will she look forward to the possibility of playing with me again specifically? Not likely at all. In the end, it was all just a business transaction, a way for her to make some quick cash. I know that there are plenty of people out there who could feel satisfied with such an arrangement, but that's just not how it works for me, and I really wish it would be the same for more people. Why shouldn't we be trying for something that provides a deeper connection and a better chance at long-term happiness? I think we also have to ask ourselves: Is it also a moral dilemma? Are we demeaning these women, even if they claim to be okay with it, by requesting that they specifically be "flirty" or "dirty"? Some people would probably laugh at me for posing such a question, but I feel it's a necessary one given what this site is actually selling.

Do I fully regret starting down the path of gaming roughly eighteen years ago (and God, that makes me feel really freaking old, even though relatively I'm not)? Absolutely not. I have fun with it, and have done so for all those years before. And we live in a world where we're being given so much more, like the creation of professional gaming as something no longer just a joke (seriously, if you can find it, look at the kinds of contracts that Major League Gaming is signing people to, you'll see some pretty legit money there), for example. However, I think that GameCrush just shoves gaming culture back several steps. If it was more like a traditional dating site like eHarmony or Chemistry.com, then I don't think I'd be so opposed. As it stands, GameCrush feels like it's something maybe just a step below a sex webcam site, targeted specifically at those who are stereotypically bad with women otherwise. Can gaming culture please not make this as much of a success as it appears it could be? I know that I won't ever be touching this site, and I hope that others will avoid it as well. C'mon guys, do things the old-fashioned way. I'm sure in the end it'll be so much better that way.

And if that appeal doesn't work, then I'll just have to try and appeal to you on a geek level and point out that Microsoft recently went on record saying that GameCrush (somehow) violates the Xbox Live ToS. Are you willing to take those risks as well? I do hope that it doesn't end up being the only reason for some, but if that's what it takes to make sure the site doesn't become yet another very visible blemish on gaming culture, I'll accept it.

I think Penny Arcade commented on it best with their comic: