Doctor Who: Series 7 Finale Thoughts

If any of you know me well enough then you will already know that I am a massive Doctor Who fan, so much so that I would consider myself a 'Whovian'.  I will sit there some evenings reading through the Facebook comments getting angry at how some of the people who comment, as "fans", clearly have no clue what they are talking about.  This angers me and just shows to those of you do not know me the level of love I have for The Doctor and his adventures.  Anyway on with the blog.

Series 7 has been split into two parts; the first half saying goodbye to Rory and Amy and the second half being the introduction of Clara and the mystery surrounding this 'impossible girl'.  On a personal note I believe that Jenna-Louise Coleman has been a brilliant companion to the Doctor.  She is smart, funny, feisty and more than a match for The Doctor which is what he needs in one of his companions.  She has died twice  in two different periods of history and is back again for a third run at it and this being the mystery of how a seemingly normal human girl can be around in different periods of time and space.  For a while now I've had the thought train that she was a ploy set up by the Great Intelligence to lure the Doctor to Trenzalore and his foretold death.  This however has been thrown out of the window by the trailer for the finale where Clara says:

"I'm Clara Oswald and I was born to save the Doctor."

Now I don't believe that she is a Timelord because in both previous incarnations she has not regenerated when dying, nor do I believe she is any relation to Captain Jack Harkness because if you've watched Torchwood you'll know that he has a daughter who does not have his regeneration from death ability.  If Clara was indeed born to save the Doctor then I now no longer believe that she is the doing of the Great Intelligence, but instead the creation of someone/something that we do not yet know.  Obviously this whole story has been created by the disturb, mental and downright brilliant mind of Steven Moffat so the likelihood of anyone guessing correctly is next to none.  I will say that this story-line and the enigma behind it has captured me so much more than any of the past curiosity filled story-lines.

Now we come to The Doctor, his name and his downfall at Trenzalore.  There is a wildfire of debate raging around the internet regarding the revealing of his name and that it would ruin everything that Doctor Who is.  I feel that revealing his name would make the title of the show obsolete, and that the name will never live up to the expectations of the fans.  It will certainly turn away some fans with some maybe even going so far as to boycotting the show as long as Moffat is in charge.  On the other hand is probably the longest running mystery in Television and fills me with a level of curiosity that make a considerable part of me want to know the answer.  I hope that if Moffat is definitely going to reveal the name that it won't be something completely boring and that maybe it is something that will shock beyond a level we have yet to feel.

Obviously all the theories, thoughts and discussions will be redundant in two weeks time when the 2nd part of the finale has aired and we then know the answers to all the things we have been thinking about and debating for the past few months.  But remember this is Steven Moffat and I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't answer one important piece of the puzzle and teased us with more questions.

Check out the prequel and the trailers for the upcoming finale at: BBC Doctor Who Homepage

And on a final note when are Strax, Vastra and Jenny going to get their own show?

Why you should be watching Game of Thrones

Or

If you don’t like Game of Thrones, you are worse than Hitler.

Oh my. I’m really putting my cards on the table where I stand on this subject aren’t I? I suppose I’d better back this rather grand claim up without too much hyperbole.

If you haven’t heard of Game of Thrones, it is a fantasy series set primarily in the Kingdom of Westeros. There are noble families dotted around the kingdom which will get into a bit of a kerfuffle because this is a drama and without conflict there is no drama. There are a number of families dotted around but there three particularly important families.

You have the noble Stark family who guard the north from the creatures beyond the wall, except that they don’t because nothing nefarious has been seen for hundreds of years. The Baratheons who are the current royal family with Robert Baratheon on the Iron throne, except he’s not a very good king because he’s mostly pissed all the time and doesn’t like the reality of ruling. Then we have the Lannisters who are the richest family and whom lust for power and are generally the “bad guys”.

Oh I almost forgot, there are two remaining Targaryans, an exiled family who were almost wiped out in a bloody revolution to take the throne from them.

Except things aren’t clear cut in this universe, there is no Lord of the rings moment with Aragorn facing down Sauron’s minions in an epic battle of good versus evil. There are bad people and there are good people but no evil force is coming to wipe them out just because it is an evil force. People fight for power because they are greedy for it, or because they believe it is their right, or because they need the power to protect their loved ones from those who would do them harm.

This is a fantasy series for people who, like me, generally don’t like fantasy series. All the pomp and circumstance of the fantasy is replaced with gritty reality. There are no white wizards with eagles to save the day. Good people are killed, evil can win and nothing is certain.  That isn’t to say that fantasy doesn’t play a part in this series, in fact it is an background note of a song that is slowly growing to a tremendous roar. One phrase echoes through the series “Winter is coming”, meaning that years, maybe decades will go on through the winter and with the winter, things from the icy north come with them threatening everyone.

I’m being deliberately vague at this point because I absolutely love this series and I wish to engender you to watch it without any spoilers, because, and I believe I am quoting Nietzsche when I say “Shit goes down hard”.

When I first recommended this series to my friends, family, strangers online, in person and on the bus, my first one line description was “As if Lord of the Rings was directed by Quentin Tarantino, but better” and I think that still sticks. The drama is intense; the battle scenes are truly epic and brutal. There is fucking, swearing and brutal violence. Almost every line of dialogue is beautifully written and snappy, you’ll want to memorise them in vain hope that you can use them in every day talk with the people around you.

If you ever lived through that moment when everyone was telling you “You have to see The Wire! It’s the best cop show ever” well HBO has done it again and Game of Thrones is the new series you have to see. As time of writing, both the first two series are available on DVD and Bluray, it is not a purchase you will regret because you will end up watching them more than once, lending them to a friend to get them into it, just so they can understand the fervour that has possessed you about this television program.  

As a final note. I’m going to leave you with the first minutes of this fantastic series. Hopefully that will whet your appetite

Hey I’m Stuart Robinson.

This is my first guest contribution to The Social Gamer and with any luck it should be one of many. I have my own blog but it’s not as stylish as this, nor is it as refined. I tend to write whatever comes to my mind, whether that be fiction, non-fiction or a general ranty style of essay with liberal amounts of swearing and analogies involving sexually transmitted diseases from swine corpses. It can be found at 

Toe Nail Dirt.

I’m also on Twitter @Stueymon where I can be found either posting pictures of cats with captions on them, making observations about pop culture, movies or videogames, swearing or swinging vaguely at some lefty liberal political point and failing completely. Go read the blog and follow me or I’ll come into your house and stare lecherously at your house pets. 

Utopia

In case you have been living in a bubble for the past fortnight you should have seen the above image floating around somewhere.  It's the main poster image for the advertising of Channel 4's new six-part provocative drama Utopia; written by playwright Dennis Kelly.

Utopia started last night and I won't be going into much detail because I don't wish to spoil for people who have yet to see it.  The story starts off with two assassins who work for an outfit known as 'The Network', on the hunt for the manuscript of the sequel to a graphic novel called The Utopia Experiment & a woman called Jessica Hyde.  The story carries on from her, following the assassins in their hunt, introducing a wider area of characters some of whom are linked in ways to the novel, and some who it would appear are not.

The show is very dark, at times brutal with an overlaying cloud of paranoia & conspiracy flowing throughout the whole show.  There are also many nods to big-screen thrillers that the eagle eyed viewers will notice & appreciate.

Without spoiling vital points on the story I can't write to much but if the rest of the series follows the example set by the first episode, this is going to be one of the drama's of the year.

Watch the trailer below & do get onto 4oD to watch it, it'll be well worth your time.