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If you thought a summer hiatus between the halves of the sixth series was bad, wait until the seventh series. It is going to be divided between 2012 and 2013.

That sucks, but it does by necessity promise one heck of a cliffhanger to tide viewers over in the interim.

Short and bitter. It looks like the powers that be want to leave the final six episodes of the sixth series completely up to the imagination.

Creepy, though.

Daleks or Cybermen?

The Daleks have had more interesting stories over the years, but the Cybermen have a more horrific premise. They hold a lot more promise as compelling villains. The Daleks are xenophobic killers, but the Cybermen take away your humanity. They desperately need a good writer to come along and do them justice. With only a few minutes of screen time, Steven Moffat has already fized much of the damage done by Russell T. Davies, for whom the Cybermen were nothing more than cannon fodder.

Considering Moffat’s repeated statement he does not like bringing back old villains, I imagine it will be a while before the Cybermen get their due.

"Demons run when a good man goes to war.
Night will fall and drown the sun when a good man goes to war.
Friendship dies and true love lies,
Night will fall and the dark will rise,
When a good man goes to war."

The sixth series of Doctor Who is being split in half. “A Good Man Goes to War” serves as the mid-series finally. It is a big enough story to tide us over until the second half in September. It is safe to say the episode was over hyped, but it is still very good.

The episode begins right where the cliffhanger reveal of Amy as a Ganger left off. The real Amy is being held captive by a paramilitary group who want to use her baby as a weapon against the Doctor. Melody, as Amy named her, is half Time Lord because she was conceived in the TARDIS.

The Doctor and Rory enlist the aid of various characters from the last three series in order to locate Amy and melody in order to rescue them. Rory asks for River song’s help, but she mysteriously refuses. The assault on the paramilitary space station is not a success. Melody is revealed to be a ganger. The Eye patch lady made off with the real Melody some time before.

River shows up at what the BBC’s public relations department called the Doctor’s darkest hour to finally reveal her true identity. She is Amy and Rory’s daughter, Melody. I really cannot say that was a huge shock. The idea river was going to be the grown up version of Amy’s baby was the most commonly guessed game changer upon which the mid-series would end. In spite of the lack of surprise, I am not disappointed.

“A Good Man Goes to War” is very exciting. It is particularly good considering how little a role the Doctor plays in it. Certainly, he gets a few moments to shine, but right up until the end, it is Rory and the guest stars who take the lead. The Doctor is sent reeling at the realization the only child of his closest friends has been put in danger because of his destructive reputation. The villains want her because she is the only way to stop him. It is fantastic how he lights up at the reveal that River is future Melody. It is all he needs to regain the confidence to rescue the infant melody.

I am going to assume having the child is the way to get Amy and Rory out of the TARDIS without any drama like his last few companions have suffered. I have to confess melancholy at the thought. Amy and Rory have grown on me. Seeing them depart so quickly is a bummer.

Like I said above, “A Good Man Goes to War” was over hyped for what was actually in it, but it is still very good. I am anxious for September to roll around to see what is next. This in spite of the goofy “Let’s Kill Hitler” titls for the next episode.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

When do you think the real Amy was switched with her Ganger?

Considering that at some point in the near future, perhaps even the next episode, we are flashing back to Rory watching over the Pandorica while Amy was inside, I imagine it will be revealed the switch was made last season. I am not certain how that could have been pulled off, however, considering how vital her memories were to the series arc. If she was a Ganger part way through, that would add a very confusing element to a story that already needed a diagram to explain it.

The only other onscreen bit we have seen where the switch might have taken place is when Amy was kidnapped by the Silence. But by that point, she had already seen the Eye Patch Lady randomly appear, so she had to have already been taken by that point. I doubt her kidnapping by the Silence was the moment, but they do seem to be involved in the overall plot somehow.

The easiest answer--and that is generally never the kind Steven Moffatt presents--is that Amy was switched out between her honeymoon with Rory and their reunion with the Doctor in the sixth series premiere. At the moment, that would sound anticlimactic since we have no clue what happened during that period, but there is still half a season to go. Maybe more will be revealed to make the switch then interesting.

Regardless, I am betting the switch occurred between the Christmas special and the series premiere when Rory and Amy were playing house.

“The Almost People” was a big improvement over its first part for a lot of little reasons, but I still feel it was padded well beyond reason. There was no compelling reason to make this a two part story. But no matter. The last three minutes could have saved just about any lackluster episode. Steven Moffat managed to slide a huge secret under our collective noses, and he is totally awesome for it.

The story is an old staple for Doctor Who--a base under siege. That particular plot dates all the way back to the Second Doctor era. Things get a wee bit confusing as Gangers and humans switch places constantly. There is a lot of claustrophobic running from gangers and a monster and some pretty disturbing Ganger corpses. It all gets wrapped up conveniently--ridiculously in some cases, such as the holophone call from the kid. There was plenty of room for more exciting twists, but we got none. What the script really needed was someone to edit it down to one episode instead of two. It would have been tighter and more fast paced. More compelling tension that way.

I did enjoy the all to brief interaction between the Doctor and his Ganger. They played off each other in the perfectly manic manner you would expect from Matt Smith’s interpretation of the character. They completed each other’s sentences, particularly the jokes, as the two ran along the same train of thought. There was a moment of Tenth Doctor angst as Almost Doctor took a moment to dwell on the memories of his past selves and their extreme actions. Those more enamored with David Tennant’s troubled Emo Doctor might have been more thrilled. While I thought the scene was necessary considering Ganger Jenny’s behavior last episode when her memories came flooding back, it reminded me how tiresome Emo Doctor’s moping became after five years.

But the last few minutes, presumably written by Moffatt, made up for all shortcomings. I am going to spoil the heck out of it, so skip the next paragraph if you do not want to know. I will not mention the revelation again after.

We learn why the Doctor wanted to go to the 22nd century in the first place--Amy is a Ganger! The Doctor destroys her in the final few minutes, then it is revealed a very pregnant Amy has been held captive by an eye patch wearing woman. She is about to give birth, but to what? I had not seen this twist coming even though I have been inadvertently exposed to faux spoilers over the last few weeks. Exactly when was Amy replaced is a good question, too. Moffatt has a way of hiding things in plain sight. Our Amy may have been gone since sometime in the first season. With the next episode ending on a cliffhanger which will not be resolved until at least September, expect much nail biting frustration from me.

The surprise ending made the episode. Otherwise, it was run of the mill fluff stretched out about thirty minutes beyond it material. Nothing was technically bad, but Wholigans have seen all of it before. The interaction between the Doctor and Almost Doctor could have elevated the episode if there had been more of it. But no such luck.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

First things first. Yes, Matthew Graham is the writer of the two part story, for which “The Rebel Flesh” is the first installment. Yes, Graham also wrote "Fear Her,” the worst episode of the revived series. Yes, “The Rebel Flesh” operates on a glacially slow pace until the last few moments. However, Graham also co-created Life on Mars, sets up an intriguing premise, and presents a fantastic cliffhanger to tide us through the week. So I give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he has redeemed himself.

The TARDIS crew visit’s a 22nd century monastery that has been converted to a factory. The factory is run by humans who have created clones of themselves called Gangers to perform the most dangerous tasks to keep the place operating. The doctor halts a solar tsunami--just go with it--before it can kill everyone, but the tsunami causes the gangers to become self-aware and xenophobic, setting up a confrontation between them and the humans. Rory bonds with a particularly sensitive Ganger who is fighting off her aggressive instincts with the memories of her human version. While barricaded inside the chapel, the humans discover the doctor accidentally created a ganger of himself when he touched the fluid used to make them earlier in the episode. To be continued.

There is about 22 minutes of material stretched into 45 here at such a pace hardly any tension can build up until the last few minutes when the Gangers whole-heartedly get their war on. I think the slower pace was supposed to give us a chance to appreciate Rory more, as there is a heavy emphasis on his budding friendship with Jenny, a Ganger who has more of her true self’s essence than the others appear to possess. He even throws in a self-aware line regarding how many times he has ’died” in order to empathize with her I confess no particular attachments to Rory, so other Wholigans may have gotten more out of that than I did. I would have appreciated less of that and more emphasis on the claustrophobic sense of being trapped and stalked by relentless Gangers, a tension which should have been felt throughout with Rory and Jenny breaking the tension periodically instead of the other way around.

I sensed a lot of homage, though I am unsure how much is intentional. The concept of technology both creating and degrading sacred life simultaneously is directly from Frankenstein . Even the monastery’s conversion to a factory represents the science versus religion theme which exists in the novel, though few ever analyze it seriously. Kudos to graham for recognizing it is there. The vats of fluid the gangers are created in look much like those the Cylons used to create new skin jobs. As you can see from the above photo, the make up job on the Gangers looks a lot like the Changelings from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. If you want to get right down to it, how often have the concepts of cloning and unusual solar activity caused problems in science fiction? I do not know if they have ever been combined before, but throw in some elements of a zombie attack, and you have ’The Rebel Flesh.”

It is tough to fairly judge the first part of a two part story because the big picture is not there yet. “The Rebel Flesh” is all set up. Very, very slow set up. But it has potential. In spite of its stew of elements from other science fiction, I am still interested in seeing if it has a unique resolution. With Graham responsible for the script, it takes a lot of optimism to do so.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

She has a bazooka:Rather humorous the first time the BBC sets the show in the united States, its main characters are packing heavy firepower. Appealing to the trigger happy Americans, no?

“The Doctor’s Wife” is the long-awaited episode penned by Newberry award winning novelist and comic book writer Neil Gaiman. Fans have hoped Gaiman would bring his peculiar fantasy/science fiction sensibilities to a Doctor Who episode since the revival of the series. “the doctor’s wife” does not disappoint either fans of Gaiman’s previous works and Wholigans. It is also interesting to note that while Gaiman is British, he currently resides in Minnesota, so we have at least a kinda sorta American writing for the show. A little, at any rate. The BBC does not like the filthy colonists handling their property.

The great part the having a high profile freelancer pen an episode is the virtual guarantee it will not come across as filler. “The Doctor’s Wife” deals with some time lord history, shows us more of the TARDIS interior than we have ever seen before, and establishes there exists an emotional connection between the doctor and the TARDIS. Certainly not filler.

The doctor receives a distress call from a Time Lord he once knew well. Answering the call, the TARDIS arrives in an alien junkyard and immediately shuts down. It has been captured by an entity known as House. House has trapped and killed many time Lords over the centuries. The Doctor tricks Amy and Rory into locking themselves inside the TARDIS so he can investigate the fate of the Time Lords alone.

He discovers Idris, a woman who is the living embodiment of the TARDIS, though she is slowly fading away. The two banter about as they attempt to piece together another TARDIS from scrap parts of previously trapped TARDIS of other Time Lords. Meanwhile, House toys with Amy and Rory by forcing haunting visions on them as they flee through the corridors.

In the end, the Doctor makes it to his TARDIS in time to save them. Idris sacrifices herself to repower the TARDIS and defeat house. Before she goes, she leaves a message--the only water in the forest is the river. I assume that is a reference to River Song. If so, it may hearken back to “The Forest of the Dead,’ the episode in which she sacrifices herself. As obtuse as Steven Moffat likes to be, one assumes there is a less obvious implication.

Did Idlis remind anyone else of Helena Bonham Carter? She did me. As an ugly American, I am not familiar with actress Suranne Jones, so I may very well be insulting the heck out of her. Unintentional, if so.

The feel of the episode is pure, surrealist gaiman at his best. There are some elements that come across as a darker Alice in Wonderland, which may explain my Carter connection, and a lot of gothic horror elements that brought back fond memories of Gaiman’s Sandman from the early ’90’s. If I have any lament, it is how the limited budget stifled potential. When I saw Amy and Rory running down a corridor, I knew it would be the same one conspicuously over and over again. I am not complaining too much, mind you. I appreciate what the creative team does with the resources it has. But still, it is bad when I am not absorbed enough in what is going on to ignore the budget saving elements.

‘tis a small gripe, however. “The Doctor’s Wife” is the best episode so far in the sixth season, narrowly edging out the sophomore effort in my mind. Hopefully Gaiman will get another turn at the series with a period piece or one dealing with mythology like American Gods, my favorite of his novels.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

“The Curse of the Black Spot” looks at first to be a cashing in on the popularity of the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. It definitely shares much of the fun and fantastical elements, as well a few silly ones. How exactly does Amy know how to properly fight with a cutlass? She makes a cute pirate, so I suppose it does not really matter. The story bounces from plot to plot, each more absurd than the previous, but the fun generally outweighs the implausible elements.

The TARDIS lands on a 17th century pirate ship that has been stranded for days. The crew is being terrorized by a Siren, played both frighteningly and enchantingly by Lily Cole (Bikini photo from two weeks ago) who makes any person with a bleeding wound disappear with her touch. Anyone with a bleeding wound receives a black spot on his hand. Hence the title.

After some brief pirate movie staples, including a sword swinging Amy rescuing the Doctor from walking the plank, the siren’s motif is established. Eventually, Rory and the captain’s young son get the black spot on their hands. It is the doctor theorizing how to keep them both from coming into contact with the ghostly siren the plot meanders. At first, the doctor surmises she comes from out the water, so they all need to stay away from the wet stuff. Subsequently, he decides she comes out of any reflective object, so they have to destroy anything that might cast a reflection. In spite of the efforts, rory and the kid are eventually taken. To go after them, the doctor decides all three should cut themselves and be taken as well. How emo of him. You would think with the flock of Seagulls hairdo, he would be new Wave instead.

They wake up on a space ship. The Siren is actually a holographic nurse taking care of the wounded. Why she has been observing the pirate ship is never established. The doctor convinces the siren to let them take Rory. There is a dramatic moment when he is taken off life support that feels like it is added solely to make the resolution more dramatic. It feels tacked on and forced. The pirates awaken onboard the alien ship. They decide to take it for their own and explore space. If Amy can be a swashbuckler, 17th century pirates can fly a spaceship.

There are a lot of hard to accept elements even for an episode of Doctor Who, but “The Curse of the Black Spot” is a good enough romp to overlook them. Watching is definitely a good time. The only element from the overall story arc is the doctor covertly scanning Amy’s womb yet again. The scan alternates between displaying positive and negative. Ominous, even if it is not clear exactly what it means for her baby yet.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

“Day of the Moon” sounds like someone might be dropping breeches before the end credits. Those of you with your fingers crossed for Karen Gillan will be disappointed. So will anyone else holding out hope for another character. The title actually refers to the Apollo moon landing, which plays heavily into the resolution of the silence story. For now, anyway. I assume we are not done with them this series.

Right off the bat, I liked this episode far better than part one. But it was still enormously overcomplicated and trying too hard to be clever. Steven Moffat is obviously dropping in all sorts of subtle points which will become more important in the overall series, but feel out of place at the moment. I can appreciate a writer attempting to make a deeper than usual show, but it does feel strange when the future repeat value when a viewer understands everything that is happening is a richer experience than watching the first time around. Some bits are too obtuse, I guess is the best way to put it.

The episode is the darkest we have seen in a long time. It begins months after the end of the previous story. The cliffhanger is resolved in such a blink and you will miss it manner that one has to wonder why it was set up in the first place. The real story begins with Team TARDIS being hunted down by Canton Delaware after they have spent all this time doing recon on the Silence. They are are “killed” by Delaware and taken to Area 51 where the Doctor has been held prisoner in the interim. It is all a ruse to get them together so they can surmise a way to defeat the Silence, who have ruled the Earth since the Stone Age through the power of suggestion.

The Doctor decides to use the moon landing and a highly unfortunate statement by a captured silence that humans “ought to kill them on sight” to broadcast that message to the whole world watching on television. Human do rise up to kill every Silence they see. The aliens are forced to flee Earth or face their own genocide.

The silence kidnap Amy in the middle of it all. Her kidnapping serves no real purpose other than some character development for Rory. His vow to find her anywhere harkens back to his guarding her inside the Pandorica for 2,000 years. His dedication makes his eavesdropping discovery Amy is pregnant and appears to hint it might be the doctor’s rather than Rory’s more painful. Rory is almost as put upon as Mickey Smith used to be.

The Doctor may very well have something to do with the baby. Any discovers photos of her with the same little girl in the space suit while searching a nest of Silence. The very last scene of the episode shows the little girl months later claiming to be dying, then regenerating like a Time Lord. Since the Doctor performs a discreet medical scan on Amy, he surely suspects something is up.

“Day of the Moon” is entertaining, but very little of it has to do with defeating the Silence. If more than ten minutes of screen time is devoted to their defeat, I would be shocked to know it. The bulk of screen time is hints at what is to come in the future. I am anxious to find out, mind you, but what an odd way to resolve a two part story. It is unusual to cast aside the main story in order to ask more questions.

Nitpick for old school Wholigans: When the Team TARDIS members are being “killed,” River Song actually does die by plunging out of a skyscraper. With the rest of the team assembled, the TARDIS travels back in time to position itself under her in order to break her fall. Although she died originally, the Doctor changes events to save her. But wait--he has said in the past that is against the rules of time travel. More specifically, he refused to travel back in time to save Adric after he sacrificed himself to destroy the Cybermen back in “Earthshock.” Can this be reconciled? Perhaps the doctor no longer cares about the rules of time since the Time Lords are gone. The Tenth Doctor was keen to break the rules there towards the ends of his tenure. The Eleventh Doctor maybe more so.

“Day of the Moon” is more exciting than the premiere. It can be puzzling in parts with the knowledge you do not know how long you will have to wait for a pauoff, but anticipating that you need to know this stuff to appreciate the impending payoff nakes it a must see.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

It has been a long wait, but the sixth series of Doctor Who has finally attired. “The Impossible Astronaut” is the first episode of the show to be filmed in the United States, though some establishing shots have been filmed here sans actors. There has been a big push as of late to get Americans more interested in Doctor Who. BBC America will now air the latest episode hours after the BBC, not months as before. Matt Smith, Alex Kingston, and Karen Gillan have made promotional rounds stateside. One would think all the stops would have been pulled out for the series premiere to be approachable and exciting for new, American viewers. One would be wrong.

Which is not to say “The Impossible Astronaut” is a bad episode. It is, however, bogged down in a lot of backstory from recent series that the audience is expected to automatically know. I do, mind you. Most fans are. River Song has been introduced before, we know she is traveling backwards in time so that the doctor is less familiar with her each time until he does not know her at all in the fourth season’s “Forest of the Dead”. We are familiar with something dangerous out there called the Silence. We know it is eventually going to destroy the TARDIS. We recognize a control panel discovered in this episode as being identical to the one in “The Lodger.” We know all these things, but a new viewer does not, and the poor guy or gal has to be scratching his or her head right now.

River, Amy, and Rory receive invitations to meet in Utah in 2011. When they all arrive, they encounter the Eleventh Doctor, but he is 200 years older. He is there to meet with someone rising out of a lake wearing an astronaut suit. He warns the three not to intervene in the meeting no matter what happens. Intervention becomes difficult to resist as the astronaut, whom the doctor recognizes, murders him, then disappears. The three sadly create a funeral pyre as the Doctor wished. They are joined by a fourth invite---a retired former FBI agent.

A short time later, they encounter the 900 year old version of the Doctor in a diner. He is headed to 1969 after being prompted to strange goings on involving aliens. The three opt to keep his eventual death a secret from him. (yikes. He was very cross at Amy last season for keeping a secret from him. She has not learned.) In 1969, they wind up at the White House. Richard Nixon, who looks more like Bob Dole, has been receiving phone calls for the past week from a mysterious little girl begging for help against aliens. Nixon called in Canton Delaware, a younger version of the FBI agent mentioned above, to handle the matter.

Yes, Canton Delaware. Just to let you know he is an American. I guess Jimmy Applepie would have been too contrived. Delaware is played by the great Mark Shephard. I am always happy to see him show up to play the anti-hero characters he does so well. Maybe it is because I am in an X-Files mindset, but I cannot help but think his outcast status with the FBI and apparent expertise with aliens makes Delaware a Fox Mulder homage.

There are aliens afoot. They are big-headed, black suit wearing critters all over the place. One can only remember them when looking directly at them, so they remain a secret even though Amy, Rory, and River encounter one or more at several points. Following clues, our heroes wind up in an abandoned warehouse in Florida where the little girl’s phone calls allegedly originate. There is an alien spaceship below the warehouse. It has been there for centuries. River and Rory are captured by the aliens as an astronaut appears to the Doctor and Amy above. There is a little girl inside the suit. Amy, believing if she kills the astronaut, she will save the Doctor from the future, shoots the little girl with Delaware’s gun as the cliffhanger.

A couple points. One, amy reveals she is pregnant. I assumed that would be the eventual case. Her giving birth would present an easy way of getting her and rory out the TARDIs without any drama once their time on the show is up. But now I assume the child is significant to the plot. I have mixed emotions about the possibility of a ’special’ child being at the center of a storyline. Two, the Silnce aliens shtick of being forgotten once a person is not looking at them feels like a variation of the Weeping Angels. Has Steven Moffat lost his sense of originality? I certainly hope not. I am holding out for big surprises in the remainder of the sixth series.

“The Impossible Astronaut” is decent, but unusual for a series premiere. There is very little action. The script is dialogue intensive, yet still fails to explain much of the backstory a new viewer really needs to know in order to get up to speed. There is obviously much set up for the series arc to add to the confusion. I am going to stick around for the payoff, but I am curious how many less dedicated fans will. There is not a heck of a lot of reason offered up here to do so.

Rating: *** (out of 5)

Elisabeth Sladen, who played Sarah Jane Smith, the companion to the Third, Fourth, and Tenth Doctors, as well as had an adventure with the Eleventh, has succumbed to cancer. She was only 63.

Sladen’s Sarah Jane Smith was the first companion I saw when I began watching Doctor Who. both PBS back in the day and the Sci Fi Channel a little later aired the mid-’70’s episodes with Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. Being the first, she set my expectations for what a companion is supposed to be. As a longtime comic book fan, I viewed her as the British Lois Lane. She was an intrepid journalist who was more than just a damsel in distress. She was a capable assistant in times of trouble in her own right.

I knew she was battling cancer as of late, but had no idea she was reaching the end. She was still spry and young on the last season of The Sarah Jane Adventures not too long ago. Very sad, but good memories of her from better days.

Godspeed, Ms. Sladen.

They are the same design as the alternate universe Cybrus Industries version, but without the stylized “C” chest emblem. Presumably, that means these are the real univere’s Cybermen. I will bet you there will be no explanation offered as to how they concurrently upgraded to be identical to the other race of Cubermen. Slim BBC budget, so we re-use costumes will have to do for an answer.

Does this mean we will be spared Daleks for at least one series/ I have yet to hear anything about them, but the murderous pepper pots tend to sneak in unannounced quite often. Rainbow colored pepper pots these days. Drat.

With Rory in his Roman Centurion outfit, one wonders if this is a trip to the series five finale setting? The new series will re-visit “The Lodger” episode, so why not others?

Is that Lily Cole 40 seconds in? I believe so.