However I shall attempt an exception to this rule given that this weekend brought us two of my favourite episodes of two of my favourite shows - Doctor Who and The Thick Of It.
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| I completely agree, Liam Neeson. Completely agree. |
Now. Doctor Who. I feel that I should perhaps explain the chronology of my love for this programme to give a bit of context to what I'm about to say. I didn't watch the classic Who back in the day. I'm not entirely sure why, I'm sure it was the sort of thing that kid-me would've liked, but I have zero recollection of it being on tv. I was aware of it existing as a kid, but I don't remember it ever being actually on. Maybe that's cos my mother tended to control the tv (as I was the only kid in the house at this stage, my teenage/young adult siblings being grown up and off to university by the time I was 5 or 6) and she is so not a sci-fi fan. So, I came to DW new somewhere during the Tenth Doctor's run, immediately fell in love with it (David Tennant 4eva!) and became an obsessive fan. I don't think I've ever cried at a tv show in my life as much as I did at Doomsday when Rose gets trapped on the alternate universe, never to see her Doctor again (well, except that she does, and even gets a clone of him for good measure but sure nevermind that now).
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| I got something in my eye while watching this one. Both eyes, in fact. |
When Matt Smith was taking over the role I was skeptical, but I have to say that he won me over fairly quickly. I think he does a fabulous job, and I've very much enjoyed the direction that Steven Moffat has taken the show in, but it never got me in the grief bone quite the way the era of Nine and Ten (and more specifically, Russell T Davies) did. Until Saturday night, that is, when Rory and Amy left.
Note that I order them Rory and Amy - that says a lot. Whilst I tried to like Amy, and certainly don't hate her or anything, I always found her a bit blah. Even the ginger sisterhood couldn't keep me entirely on her side. She came on leaps and bounds over the last few series but I never really connected with her all that much. But then again I'm probably always going to find it hard to relate to a six foot tall model, so maybe there's that. But I always liked Rory more. Partly cos Arthur Darvill is just a much better actor than Karen Gillen, and cos he's funnier and cos I actually think he had better chemistry with Matt Smith, but for whatever reason, he was always my favourite of the two.
Which is why I was taken aback at his abrupt departure care of the Weeping Angels. I mean, I knew they were both leaving so when they woke up in the graveyard after jumping off the roof to create the paradox obviously something else had to happen, but I was sort of just hoping that they'd choose to give it up. Or that at least we'd get some build up. But Rory disappeared almost in mid-sentence and it literally made me gasp.
But what really made me start bawling like a baby was when Amy decided she was going after him. Going back in time (hopefully, if it even worked), to be stuck there forever. I didn't cry because I was sad for the Doctor and/or Amy that they'd never see each other again, or sad for River who would never see her parents again, but rather because of the deep but utterly simple connection between Amy and Rory. After all the faffing around about whether or not it was really him that she loved and if she really wanted a life with him, it's been clear for a long time that she honestly loves him. But there was something so completely basic and fundamental about the way that she immediately wanted to leave everything behind to go after Rory. That she wouldn't let him be alone and wouldn't be without him. It wasn't all that soppy to me - RTD would've ramped up the emotional angle a hell of a lot more - rather, it was just there. It just was as it was. The idea of a love and relationship so simple seemed so much more touching to me than the sort of emotional torture that could have been inflicted upon us, but then that's just not Moffat's style. And I suppose that fits in with my own ideas of love and family and marriage - that it's not all dramatic and epic and spanning across the ages, tearing worlds apart, it just is. It becomes as much a part of you as breathing.
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| Just noticing now that Amy's down here as Williams, rather than Pond, which is a nice little tribute to the fact that maybe without the Doctor they were able to be a bit more normal, and he didn't have to share her so much. |
So I liked it, is what I'm saying. There were flaws, of course, but I'm not going to get into them now. One thing I will mention, though, is that I'm a bit disappointed that we never got to have more interaction between River and her parents, once they all knew they were her parents. Seeing them try to navigate the awkwardness of having a child older than them, not to mention the potential for sheer comedy value, would have been both interesting and fun, so I'm sort of sad we didn't get to see more of that, but if they had to go now, then the leaving was well done.
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| Words to live by, my friends. Words to live by. |
And onto The Thick Of It. Bloody hell, my love for this show knows no bounds. I am slightly concerned, however, that either I'm a psychopath or so shallow that I love it mostly for the swearing. Because this week's episode, with Malcolm at his most evil and Machiavellian, filled me with pure glee. Not only were there some devilishly delicious lines, but everyone seemed to come to life that bit more with all the insanity of a party political coup d'Malcolm taking place. The thing is though, I was totally on Malcolm's side. Perhaps there could have been a less deceitful way to go about things, but it is politics and he is dealing with politicians who are delusional, idiotic and ego maniacal all at the same time. At the end of the day, I believe that he did the right thing, and I was on his side. Although I could understand Ollie's distaste at 'embracing his inner bastard', Malcolm did get rid of a completely incompetent party leader and replace her with someone who at least seems like he doesn't have to practice walking. And he did make sure that Ben Swain didn't get anywhere near the Chancellor's red box. To quote Glenn, "he'd get us in debt every time he passed a sweet shop".
However I do worry a bit about this - that I at least am siding with Malcolm. I can't quite tell if this is a development in the series, or if it's just me. Or is it just that I side with him a bit more now that Labour are in opposition? Or maybe it's because we know Nicola and can see how utterly crap she is, whereas a lot of Malcolm's machinations in the past related to a Prime Minister we never saw.
As much as I love and adore everything about Malcolm Tucker and Peter Capaldi who deserves every award on the face of the earth for his performance, props must also go to Rebecca Front. She manages to be both relatable and almost likeable, yet inconceivably shit as Nicola Murray. You feel sorry for her as she's surrounded by fuckwits, seems to have an utterly horrible family and marriage, and is generally the face of despair. But at the same time, you don't want her to be in charge of changing a lightbulb. She has zero useful ideas or initiatives, little political courage, nothing in the way of diplomatic or negotiating skills, is crap when speaking in public, and hyperventilates at every emergency. Thus we can't help but agree with Helen when she responds with an incredulous "Did you?!" when Nicola sadly and regretfully sighs that she really thought she could be Prime Minister.
Another bright spark of this episode was the very welcome return of Miles Jupp as the even more useless John Duggan. I very much hope we see more of him in the rest of the series. He's just so awful, yet completely hilarious, in every single word that he utters. It's just pure delight watching him at work.
And with that, here's a list of my favourite lines from this week's episode. Warning - this might end up being basically the entire script.
Malcolm (ordering flowers to be sent to Nicola post-resignation): "Have them delivered to her home this evening with a card that reads 'Sorry you had to go, but let's face it, you're a waste of fucking skin'. Yeah, waste of skin"
Ollie: "Did you actually buy me flowers, Malcolm?"
Malcolm: "No, no, it's one of the many advantages of living close to an accident blackspot."
Ollie: "Is this it then? Is she fucked?"
Malcolm: "Like Caligula's favourite watermelon."
Malcolm: "It's on. It's on like Fat Pat's thong."
Nicola: "The Guardian seem to hate me more than the Prime Minister. What's next, am I going to get spat at on the street by Michael Palin?"
Malcolm: "That's unlikely, he's really a very nice man."
Duggan: "I come bearing broadcast journalists. Sounds almost sexual, doesn't it?"
Duggan: "It's alright drinking on trains, isn't it? It's one of those places where it's acceptable to drink at any time of day, isn't it? Like a casino. Or Cardiff. What? It's not racist, I could've said Glasgow, or Dublin."
Malcolm: "I need you lot to make like a tree and go fuck yourselves."
Malcolm: "I can't leave while we're getting fucked in the polls, and we're getting fucked. Heavily and repeatedly. Like a horse in the Hebrides."
Swain: "And you mean Foreign Secretary, that isn't code for Northern Ireland? I'm not fucking going there."
Ollie: "How is Terri?"
Glenn: "She's entering her dog in Britain's Got Talent."
Glenn: "Ollie, come on, this is the shittiest lunch break I've had since Stewart took us all out for sushi."
Swain: "Might head in the direction of confection. Any snackage, anyone?"
Dan Miller: "I'm offering him Chancellor but I may as well be offering him bass player in the Wurzel's because that burly haemorrhoid's getting nowhere near any Cabinet of mine."
Ollie: "Anytime a decision has to be made about anything, she just starts flapping about like Christ in a crucifix shop."
Nicola: "You're not gonna try and talk me off the ledge, are you? Because I've got to say, I'm really tired and the pavement looks like a nice, warm, splatty bed right now."
Nicola: "Can you ring James, actually? Cos he'll just be all smug on the phone and then I'll end up asking for a divorce and that's exactly what he fucking well wants me to do and I just know I'll end up with the fucking kids."
Malcolm: "Somebody get me a fucking Fanta!"
Dan Miller: "Please, please, I'm not Christ. He was quite a scruffy man."
Like I said, practically the whole script. It's that good. And in writing up these lines, I'm reminded of an absolutely fucking fantastic scene from the last opposition episode a few weeks ago:
Malcolm: "It's time for you to step up, Ollie. What's that film that you love?"
Ollie: "What film?"
Malcolm: "The one about the fucking hairdresser, the space hairdresser and the cowboy. The guy, he's got a tinfoil pal and a pedal bin. His father's a robot and he's fucking fucked his sister. Lego, they're all made of fucking lego."
Ollie: "Star Wars?"
Malcolm: "It's like that, alright, you want to fucking kill all the bad guys. And you'll be able to blow up the big..."
Ollie: "The Death Star."
Malcolm: "The Death Star thing. Then you can go and live happily ever after on the planet of the teddy bears."
That might be the best description of Star Wars ever.
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