5 Favorite Stand-Alone Doctor Who Episodes: Countdown to the 50th Anniversay 4...

I was asked yesterday what my favorite episode of Doctor Who is. It wasn't a question that I could answer right away. There have been over one hundred episodes since the show restarted, the bulk of which are made out of undistilled awesomesauce. How do you pick just one favorite episode out of that? Even trying to began to melt my brain. So I thought I'd pick five... but even that became too difficult. Do multi-parters count as one episode or two? What about the specials? Where does it end? WHERE DOES IT END???

Okay, I'm better now. So I decided to tackle my problem by dividing my answer into three separate lists, one each for the stand-alone episodes, the multi-parters, and the specials; one per month between now and November when the 50th Anniversary Special airs, culminating in a blog post to go along with it. This entry, then, is for the stand-alone episodes. I'm also going to do my best to encompass all three Doctors and most, if not all, of their companions as they all have their merits, but just to get this out of the way...

Eleven and Amelia Pond. They win. The end.

And because even five episodes wasn't enough for me, we're starting with an...

Honorable Mention: The Rings of Akhenaten (Series 7.2)
It's always fun when the Doctor takes a new companion to the stars for the first time, and Clara Oswald's first trip was no exception. She woofed at an alien who spoke in barks. She befriended a child fated to die to save her world. And she saved the Doctor with, of all things, a leaf. And the Doctor? What was he doing that made this episode so great? He was just raging against an ancient, hungry planet ready to devour everything, with nothing to back him up but a song and the aforementioned leaf...

5. Father's Day (Series 1)
Despite the fact that the monster of the week is just a glorified reject from The Langoliers, this episode touched me. In the episode, the Ninth Doctor takes Rose Tyler back to the day her father died so she can be there for him, and despite the Doctor's warnings about paradoxes, Rose tries to change history. The episode has a touching ending and reveals both sides of the Doctor: the caring and compassionate friend... and the Oncoming Storm.

4. The Eleventh Hour (Series 5)
The first appearance of the Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond, and Rory Williams, this episode begins not just the season-long story of the cracks in time, but really the two-and-a-half-seasons-long story of the entire Pond family. With his new friends, the Doctor must hunt down a shape-changing alien before another race of aliens destroy the Earth looking for it. The Doctor is, of course, successful and the Earth-threatening aliens leave, but he calls them back for a chat...

I do enjoy when Eleven gets all ornery.

3. Vincent and the Doctor (Series 5)
This episode doesn't seem to be one of the most beloved generally, probably on account of the lameness of an invisible monster... but it's got Bill Nighy and Tony Curran as guest stars as the Doctor and Amy hang around with Vincent Van Gogh, my personal favorite painter. A lot of his art is showcased, and there's an absolutely brilliant moment at the end when they bring the depressed Van Gogh to the future so he can see just how beloved and appreciated his talent eventually becomes. And if nothing else, the episode led to this absolutely stunning image:

2. Midnight (Series 4)
Away from his companion (at the time the horrible Donna Noble, the only companion I can't stand), this episode features the Doctor on a train on a distant planet. Doesn't sound so great, right? But there's something else on the train possessing passengers, and it's working its way towards possessing the Doctor. The whole episode is a study in tension, claustrophobia, and paranoia, and it all just plays out brilliantly.

1. A Good Man Goes to War (Series 6)
There are so many ways I could tell you how great this episode is. It's the first appearance of Vastra, Jenny, and Strax. There's the whole "Demon's Run when a good man goes to war" poem and what it means, or how "he'll rise higher than ever before, and then fall so much further," or how "the only water in the forest is the river." I could tell you about  the three minute, forty-two second victory, or the fate of Colonel Runaway. There are one or two clips of Eleven getting ornery again that could speak for themselves, we know I love those, but instead, I'm just going to leave this here.

Rory Williams. The Last Centurion.

Next month I'll be back with the list for multi-part stories. Until then, feel free to share your opinions on these and/or any of your favorite episodes, people.

Goodreads Book Review - The Dark Legacy of Shannara: Bloodfire Quest

The Bloodfire Quest by Terry Brooks

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Surprise, surprise, I loved a Terry Brooks novel. I'm sort of like a broken record when it comes to my reviews of his books, but he's been my favorite author since I was, like, twelve, so you'll have to forgive me. What I really like about this novel is that it has a harried pace that moves the action and plot along a lot faster and more frenetically than most of his novels, but that in no way detracts fro the amount of characterization going on here. Honestly, and I say this all the time, but if you're a fan of fantasy novels, this is another must-read from Mr. Brooks.



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Goodreads Book Review - The Dark Legacy of Shannara: Wards of Faerie

Wards of Faerie by Terry Brooks

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It's hard for me to fairly review a Shannara novel because going back to the seventh grade, so much of who I am and who I want to be is due to the writing of Terry Brooks. I usually love all his characters, as I do here. I usually love all his plots, despite some people's complaints that they can be formulaic (come on, all fantasy novels are formulaic, it's how the genre works), and this novel is no different. Yes, I love the characters and the plot that advances the world while hearkening back to its history, and I love the action. So why then the four stars instead of five? Some of the twists were predictable, and I felt the novel had some pacing problems; the set-up takes quite a long time but the climax races. Still, the last page put a smile on my face and made me want to dive right into the second part, which I'm just about to do now.



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Goodreads Book Review - Star Wars: Crucible

Crucible by Troy Denning

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This novel, one of the few in the later books in the EU series to focus almost exclusively on Luke, Leia, Han, and to a lesser extant, Lando, has its ups and downs. The story moves at a brisk pace, there are some thrilling and amazingly well-written action scenes, and it goes a long way towards reminding us why we love these characters and why they are the ones who are always saving that galaxy far, far away. One of the downs, however, is that in order to make these characters look as formidable as they are, characters that for the last dozen or so books we've been told are truly threats to be taking seriously are pretty much nerfed. Mandalorians are reduced to redshirts; sure, the characters say they should be feared, but then they're easily dismissed like they're nothing more formidable than ROTJ-style stormtroopers. Worse than that, though, is the surprise return of a character (I won't say who to avoid real spoilers) that ties this book more tightly to the overall story than I expected whose character is pretty damaged by showing some cowardice never displayed before. Overall, though, this is a decent enough adventure meant to take the "Big Three" off the board for awhile so upcoming novels (not that there are any scheduled at the moment as far as I know, despite interesting seeds being planted) can focus fully on the next generation.



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Goodreads Book Review - Gun Machine

Gun Machine by Warren Ellis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I've always loved Warren Ellis as a comic book writer, but this novel is so good it sort of makes me wish he'd give up comics and just write novels full-time. It's a fresh take on the police procedural, a genre that has been popular for years now, complete with its own CSUs (Scarly and Bat, two characters so fresh and entertaining that they deserve their own spin-off immediately) to go along with the traumatized cop protagonist. The plot is suitably warped and tangled to keep you interested and a little mystified, but not so obtuse that you can't figure it out along with, if not ahead of, Detective John Tallow. The prose is well-written, filled with Ellis' trademark bizarreness as well as his penchant for technology; simultaneously though it manages to be an almost classic look at the detective genre with an appreciation for history. I thoroughly loved it. The only thing that kept me from giving it five stars is that I wasn't thrilled with the twist at the end. It wasn't necessarily a bad twist, and it doesn't ruin the story or anything. I'd just have been happier without it. Still, I can't recommend this book enough.



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The Halfway Point: The 10 2013 Movies I'm Most Looking Forward To

Towards the end of the year in 2012 I continued a tradition of mine here at SSTS and posted a list of the movies coming out in the next year that I was most looking forward to seeing. As July is just a little bit past the halfway point of 2013 and as I realize I haven't posted anything other than a book review in a few weeks now and as I sit her entirely bored by the 2013 MLB All-Star Game, I figured it's a perfect time to take a brief look at the movies on the list that have come out so far...

...and to admit just how wrong I was about everything.

Sorry, Sheldon. I was wrong.

But I'll get to that in a minute.

I organized the list by month, so that's how we'll do the happy recap. In January, I was waiting for Mama, a Guillermo Del Toro-produced horror movie that wasn't scary at all but I still enjoyed enough to give three stars to, and Gangster Squad, which was, well, pure and utter garbage. Sorry, but it had to be said. The movie is so bad that even Emma Stone can't make it watchable.

And that's saying something, because I'd watch her watch paint dry.

Things rebounded in February, though, as Stand-Up Guys came out. Christopher Walken, Al Pacino, and Alan Arkin played retired gangsters in a movie that was as downright hysterical as you'd expect it to be. While nothing came out in March, the good momentum continued into April with the remake of Evil Dead, a movie I enjoyed enough even if I didn't think it loved up to the hype of calling itself the most terrifying movie of all time.

Really?

The fifth and final movie in the first half of the year I was really looking forward to was Iron Man 3, which was certainly as awesome as I expected it to be and more.

So you may be asking yourself what I mean when I say I was wrong about everything. After all, out of the five movies I mentioned, only one was bad. Sounds like a win, right? Well...

For some completely inexplicable reason, I left Much Ado About Nothing off the list. It's not like I wasn't looking forward to it; I've known about it for a year now and I've been dying to see it since I first heard about it, even going so far as to predict that it'll win my "Favorite Movie of the Year Award" for 2013. After all, it's my favorite playwright (Shakespeare) directed by one of my favorite writer/directors (Whedon) starring a boatload of actors I love. I honestly have no idea what I was thinking not including this on the list.

However, while leaving a movie I knew I'd love off the list was stupid, it wasn't my biggest mistake. No, my biggest mistake was dismissing a movie when I first heard about it last year. A movie that I became totally fascinated by when I saw the trailer and a movie I fell in love with when I finally saw it.

Yeah. I dismissed this movie out of hand and as it stands now, it's neck and neck with Much Ado for the award I mentioned above. So yes, I was wrong. Very, very wrong. And I'm admitting it for the world to see.

Mark this shit on your calendar, because we'll probably all be dead before it happens again.

Goodreads Book Review - Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi - Into the Void

Into the Void by Tim Lebbon

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I'm torn. On the one hand, I want to like this book. A story set thousands of thousands of years in the past of the universe we know, back when the Jedi were called Je'daii, used swords because lightsabers hadn't been invented yet, and believed the power of the Force's light and dark sides were controlled by two moons sounds interesting as hell, and seeing some of that in action is enjoyable. But, those differences aside, it doesn't really explore much. The alien species are mostly the same; there are Sith, Noghri, Ithorians, Wookies, and Twilek's, but not much we haven't seen before. Likewise, while the history of the Je'daii is teased, nothing is really explained. I don't know how much of that I can blame on the writer and how much was editorially mandated, so I'm trying not to hold that against the story. So instead, what I'll hold against it are the completely unlikable main characters and the hackneyed, repetitive writing. It's worth a read if your a Star Wars completionist, or if you're hoping the story might go further in a future installment, but other than that, it isn't all that great a read.



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