The problem with Cold Blood lies not with the story but with ourselves.  When a story, inadvertently or otherwise, steps all over cherished remembrances of stories and monsters past, it wrong-foots itself into a hole which is hard to climb out of.  Last week in this space we lamented this occasion, at least for the THT Brain Trust, with regard to the Silurians.  Perhaps the worst part of all for those of us plagued with long-term memory, it that this has all happened before. Back in 1984 when JN-T was hip-deep in needless continuity with the past, Peter Davison's final season led of with Warriors of the Deep, one of the few stories in classic Who which often elicit visceral negative reactions amongst long-term fans. 

It's certainly unfair to visit the sins of Warriors of the Deep upon The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood.  For a start the latter is simply a much better story in concept and execution than it's distant cousin, but as we started with in this post, the memory simply does not cheat in this case.  This story was probably tasked with the charge of being "the one to evoke Classic Who," but for anyone familiar with The Silurians the societal breakdown in Cold Blood seemed all-too-familiar, and needless.  Matt Smith channeled his inner-Pertwee as best he could, but he seemed a little too-distant in this story.

And then there's Rory, who's happily did not turn out to be Adric in any sense of the word.  The little bit with the engagement ring in The Hungry Earth should have been a dead-giveaway (pardon the pun) about what was to come, and while it seemed rushed in terms of it's abruptness it also book-ended the crack-o-doom appearances quite nicely.  Thank you Arthur Darvill. Perhaps we'll be seeing you again when the Pandorica opens.

Images and caps for Cold Blood are now online.

Amy's Choice is a sneaky, sneaky beast.  Quite likely not tilting towards the populist end of Doctor Who stories and instead into more of the esoteric, the first viewing of this story with it's laconic pacing and lack of the "monster" per se was merely "whelming."  A second, and it has to be said, more alert viewing, brought all sorts of revelations, most notably the nifty plotting and the amazing performances of Toby Jones and Karen Gillan.  Perhaps what satisfied most wholly was the revelation that Dream Lord was in fact the Doctor himself, admittedly under the influence of "psychic pollen."  Since this is becoming a season for callbacks, both obvious and oblique, we loved this variation on The Ultimate Foe, Robert Holmes' last contribution to the series was the idea that the Valeyard was a dark distillation of the Doctor, somewhere between the last and next to last incarnation.

The joy in this story, owing to Toby Jones' performance, is what a mean-spirited imp the Dream Lord is, always being derogatory and yet playful as well to the Doctor at the same time.  The story also advanced, in a much more satisfying way, the Doctor-Rory-Amy triangle, begun in The Vampires of Venice.  Last week we said Rory was fairing better than the Tin Dog, and he's certainly no Adam either, this is a threesome that has the dynamics that, at least for this fan, go back to Season 12 and Sarah Jane and Harry.  High praise indeed.

As a result of all this we've put this episode at the top of the 2010 Dynamic Ratings Table.  How 'bout you?

Images and caps for Amy's Choice are now online.

It's a curious thing, this continuation of The Time of Angels is. While it certainly provided the back half of this story, the pacing and segmentation of the story (Escape, Forest w/Dr, Forest w/o Dr, bridge, and coda) made it feel, at least in the minds of the THT Brain Trust, to be equally interested in setting up the season-long storyline as resolving the plot involving the Weeping Angels.  There's been a fair amount of discussion out there (you know… THERE) about the parallels between this season and the Eccleston season in 2005 in terms of story choice and underlying running story. But whereas the clues planted in 2005 were quite, quite subtle (for those who even knew to be looking for such things at the time) there's no subtlety this time around. 

It's a bit of a surprise to see the "crack" motif taken on head-on, though not unwelcome it has to be said…  But one wonders if this will begin to exclude casual viewers should it feature too prominently from here on out.  We suspect Moffat is too canny for that.  As for Amy, Moffat seems determined to put this character through the ringer, but it should also be noted that half of the Moffat scripted episodes are now out of the way.  Will other writers be as determined to put Amy through her paces? 

Paces and pulses also quickened at the end of the episode with the Smoochie, Smoochie Time (as described by Smith and Gillan).  At the risk of sounding die-hard traditionalist, we 're always a but discomfited by overt sexuality in Doctor Who.  Amy seems to switch into this mode in odd ways and odd times–but it also seems this ties back to the overall theme for the season.  As for timing–she's getting married during the World Cup!  But because June 26th, 2010 is also a Saturday, what will be the schedule implications for the rest of the Season?  Should the season run uninterrupted, June 26th would be when episode 13 airs.  Hmmm.

Images and caps for Flesh and Stone are now online