When a show has been running for over 52 years, it’s not necessarily a bad idea to make an episode that shakes up the format once in a while. Breaking with the traditional format prevents a series from becoming stale. That’s what writer Mark Gatiss tries to do with “Sleep No More,”an episode that takes the form of found footage put together by Gagan Rasmussen (Reece Shearsmith), inventor of Morpheus and sole surviving crewmember on the Le Verrier lab in orbit around Neptune. Morpheus is a device that replaces a month’s worth of sleep with just five minutes spent inside the Morpheus machine, invented primarily to allow laborers to work longer shifts. The Doctor’s response to Rasmussen’s Morpheus machine is characteristically flamboyant: “Congratulations, Professor! You’ve revolutionized the labor market! You’ve conquered nature! You’ve also created an abomination.” Our response to “Sleep No More” parallels the Doctor’s response to Morpheus. Congratulations, Gatiss! You’ve revolutionized the episode format! You’ve conquered repetition! You’ve also created an abomination.
Category Archives: Reviews
War! What is it good for?
What would you do if any of your friends or family could be a shapeshifting alien who wants to kill you and your species? What would you do if you were a shapeshifter whose homeworld was destroyed and who just wanted to blend into an alien society and live peacefully, but you knew if your true identity was ever revealed to the xenophobic inhabitants of that alien world you would surely be shunned, persecuted, and likely killed? These questions drive the conflict in Doctor Who’s “The Zygon Invasion” and its sequel “The Zygon Inversion.” This brilliant two-part episode explores such contemporary (and in some ways timeless) issues as terrorism, immigration, xenophobia, and war. It features witty writing, breathtaking acting, and a villain whose plan and motivations actually make sense (something a bit too rare in Doctor Who). This two-parter is the highlight of an above average season, which has yet to have a bad episode but also has yet to have a standout one. “The Zygon Inversion” in particular is the best episode of Capaldi’s Doctor thus far and undoubtedly one of the top ten episodes of Nu Who. Continue reading War! What is it good for?
Memories, Innovations, and a Whole Lot of Snoopy
The opening scene of Blue Sky Studios’ The Peanuts Movie begins with four black lines outlining the edge of the screen, magically creating the borders of a comic strip. Inside this box several small circles are drawn. From these simple lines, it seamlessly transitions to a 3D winterscape, somehow maintaining the look and feel of a comic strip. The characters are painstakingly replicated, staying true to the five-decade comic strip from which they originate. I was consistently surprised by how accurately the characters’ expressions were reflected in 3D. In short, the movie remains ‘authentically Peanuts,’ from beginning to end.
Continue reading Memories, Innovations, and a Whole Lot of Snoopy
Over-Seasoned and Undercooked
Start with a charismatic ‘bad boy.’ Add a dash of troubled past. Sprinkle in former enemies, and simmer in some old flames. Fill to top with food close-ups. Mix vigorously. With an all-star cast and an established director, Burnt should have been a recipe for success. Instead, this predictable redemption story is a disappointing flameout.
Twinsters: Truth Is Stranger (And More Heartwarming) Than Fiction
Imagine finding out that you have an identical twin. She lives halfway across the world from you and has grown up in a completely different culture with a family you’ve never met. For 25 years, you had no clue she existed. That’s what happened to Samantha Futerman and Anaïs Bordier. Their story was captured in a documentary called Twinsters, which was released on Netflix in early November after the twins raised over $40,000 in funding through Kickstarter.
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The White American Man in the High Castle
Television has long ceased to be a regional form of media. One would think that Amazon Studios, a purely online broadcasting platform owned by a global company, would be conscious of the international reach of American television. One might also think that, when tasked with producing an alternate history drama in which the Axis powers win World War II, measures would be taken to be inclusive of contemporary international audiences. Or at least, not to offend them.
South Park and Satire’s State of Affairs
Trey Stone and Matt Parker are now, without argument, American television’s foremost satirists. With Colbert gone the way of national late night and Stewart the way of retirement, we’re left with a crude cartoon about 4th graders to poke fun at an entire nation’s hypocrisy. Aptly, this season, the show’s 19th, is preoccupied with the function and relevance of its own genre: satire. With the national climate becoming growingly politically correct, the show asks: where does satire–thriving on the impolite or the outright offensive–fit in? And South Park, an equal-opportunity offender, answers with its unique brand of irreverent, sharp comedy.
Joy Meets World
Have you been wondering when someone would finally make a film about the inventor of the Miracle Mop? This reviewer certainly hasn’t. A comedy-drama loosely based on the life of single mother and entrepreneur Joy Mangano, David O. Russell’s third and most recent collaboration with Jennifer Lawrence tackles a subject few, if any, would consider prime material for a big-budget Christmas film. While I remain somewhat skeptical of her ability to believably portray a mother of three in her late thirties, Lawrence is predictably charming and magnetic as she introduces the film via monologue. For all the enigmatic appeal of its principal actor, however, Joy’s trailer commits the familiar fault of dragging on a little too long and giving away a little too much. Upon watching the trailer one may as well have seen an abridged highlights reel of the film, complete with the most memorable lines and moralizing subtext. If only for a strong performance by Lawrence already receiving Oscar buzz, Joy will likely still be worth your time. That said, the choice to not only cast but purposefully create roles for Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and Robert DeNiro alongside one another again so soon seems questionable at best. With Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle both fresh in recent memory, a palate cleanser may have been in order.
Grade: D
Joy’s trailer is no masterpiece, but it doesn’t have to be. People will watch the film for its star-studded cast even if Russell can’t seem to move on.
The Lion’s in the Cradle and the Sonic Spoon
What could be bad about living forever? Most of us mortals don’t even get to contemplate immortality in the first place. But in the latest season of Doctor Who, two back to back episodes—“The Girl Who Died” and “The Woman Who Lived”—grapple with this question. Naturally, we assume it would be better not to die. In “The Woman Who Lived,” however, we get a less than rosy picture of what an eternal life might hold; of what it might drive any reasonable person to do. As the Doctor eloquently puts it, “Immortality isn’t living forever. That’s not what it feels like. Immortality is everybody else dying.”
Continue reading The Lion’s in the Cradle and the Sonic Spoon
Not-So-Supergirl
Despite Jeb Bush’s commentary, there is more to “Supergirl” than the fact that Melissa Benoist is “pretty hot.” “Supergirl,” CBS’s newest Monday night attempt to capture a young adult audience, is far from super. But the mere fact that it has a female lead, in a genre where they are about as common as quality Nicholas Cage movies, makes it culturally significant. We spent much of our childhoods watching cartoons like “Superman: The Animated Series,” “X-men: Evolution,” and “Batman: The Animated Series,” as well as movies like Christopher Reeve’s Superman (and unfortunately all of its sequels). Later on we enjoyed Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy and even watched a bit of “Smallville,” before it turned into a soap opera. Yet throughout our superhero-filled childhoods we personally never once saw a superhero movie or TV show with a female protagonist. Why?
Master of None Is a Jack of All Trades
The first season of Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang’s new comedy series Master of None has just premiered in its entirety on Netflix for your binge-watching convenience. And binge watch you will. Following the misadventures of Dev Shah (Ansari), a thirty-something small-time actor struggling to make the leap from Go-gurt commercials to feature films, the offbeat comedy addresses the idiosyncrasies of millennial love and life in the Big Apple. In a pilot aptly titled “Plan B,” we watch as Dev holds priceless conversations with friends (single and otherwise) in a desperate effort to confront the existential crisis of his generation: to breed, or not to breed. In a series of stylized silent film montages, we become privy to Dev’s hilariously absurd imaginings of life as a family man, both idyllic and nightmarish. Ultimately, we come to suspect, as Dev does, that the reality probably lies somewhere between the two extremes. Continue reading Master of None Is a Jack of All Trades
Steve Jobs’ Overvalued Celebrity
We have a cultural obsession with Steve Jobs. We quote Jobs like we do philosophers or poets. And now, we have another movie about him. This newest biopic, uniquely structured and well written, tackles Jobs’s inflated celebrity and corrosive personality, only to prop it all back up at the end. Admittedly, deeper commentary on celebrity is a peculiar issue for a biopic. After all, it’s a movie that hopes to sell as many tickets as possible by exposing us even more intimately to Jobs—an approach which only feeds his already mammoth celebrity. But by showing us a broken, albeit brilliant, Jobs, Danny Boyle takes us well past idolatry.