TV Review: Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials (2023)

Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials (2023) written by Russell T. Davis and directed by Rachel Talalay, Tom Kingsley, and Chanya Button

The Fourteenth incarnation of the Doctor has the same face as the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant)! A series of specials for the sixtieth anniversary of the show features Tennant and Catherine Tate returning as Donna Noble. Three fun episodes?

The Star Beast--The Doctor lands on present day Earth where he nearly runs into Donna. He does not want to do that because if she remembers him, she will die (because of entirely fabricated complications, the usual Doctor Who blather). He tries to avoid her as everyone except Donna sees an alien spaceship crash in London's outskirts. Donna has a daughter named Rose (Yasmin Finney) and a husband and a supposedly happy life. Rose winds up finding a cute alien creature, The Meep, which she tries to protect from the hostile aliens that have also landed on Earth and want to capture The Meep. The show has the usual dramatics and action of a Doctor Who episode with a very cinematic visual flare. There's a nice twist for the third act and a great deal of fun leading to the Doctor and Donna going for one last adventure in the TARDIS. There are some clumsy woke moments in the show, e.g. it is hard to tell whether they are mocking or affirming a character choosing a pronoun.

Wild Blue Yonder--Of course the TARDIS goes off course, landing the Doctor and Donna at the edge of the known universe in a seemingly empty, gigantic ship. The TARDIS suddenly transports out, leaving them stranded. Donna panics and the Doctor realizes the TARDIS only leaves when extreme danger is nearby. They investigate the ship, hoping to stop the danger and thereby let the TARDIS return. The adventure is fun, along with a little bit of character development and revelation. Not the best Doctor story, but good enough.

The Giggle--Neil Patrick Harris guest stars as The Toymaker, a villain who wants to play games and win. He's used a puppet to drive human beings crazy, forcing the Doctor and Donna to team up with UNIT to stop him. The mechanics of the plot are very nonsensical which could have been okay if the cast was up for a bit of whimsy. For me, they played it a little too straight to make the fun outweigh the logical inconsistencies and incoherences. The new Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) has a nice introduction, though I hope he gets a pair of pants in the Christmas special. Tennant's Doctor gets a nice coda and a huge opening to come back at any time. Donna gets the ending that she deserves, which made me very happy.

Overall, these are okay. I didn't see anything really great here but I was entertained. I want to go back and watch the Donna Noble episodes. She is the best of the modern companions, maybe the best one from the whole sixty year history.

As I write (December 2023), the episodes are available streaming on Disney+ in America and other countries outside of the UK (where it is available from BBC).

TV Review: Andor (2022)

Andor (2022) created by Tony Gilroy based on Star Wars by George Lucas 

In this prequel to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) is a down-and-out guy on an obscure planet that is more or less comfortable under the heel of the Galactic Empire. He does some black-market deals and winds up killing some Imperials who stumble onto his trail, bringing the wrath of the Empire down on the planet. At the same time, he is recruited by Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgard), a shadowy figure who wants to fight back against the Imperial Government. Andor reluctantly joins Luthen's latest plot--a plan to steal millions from the government when raiding a payroll stockpile. Nothing quite goes according to plan, forcing Andor to make some tough decisions and decide where his future really lies.

While the plot focused on Andor is central and fascinating, there's a lot of other stories going on around it. The Empire's secret intelligence agency reacts to various rebellious activities with interesting political intrigue among the agency higher ups. One of them, Dedra Meero (Denise Gough), seems to be following the right leads but others on the agency are wary of her working outside of protocols to get things done. Another very intriguing plot line involves Imperial officer Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) who tried to catch Andor for the initial killings; he loses his job but the story keeps following his downfall. He loses his job, moves back home with his overbearing mother, and gets a bureaucratic job, all the while hoping to prove he was right. On the capital world of Coruscant, Mon Mothma (Genevieve O'Reilly) works with the Imperial Senate and with Luthen, hoping to get the rebels advanced enough to become the Rebellion.

The overall plotting and characters are very interesting and not the same old space opera of the Skywalker storyline. This show feels fresh and mature, with new ideas and exploring new corners of the Star Wars. Cassian Andor's origin story is well-told and I am looking forward to more. Or at least, rewatching Rogue One.

Recommended, highly for Star Wars fans.

TV Review: Werewolf by Night (2022)

Werewolf by Night (2022) directed by Michael Giacchino 

Ulysses Bloodstone, a famous monster hunter (at least, famous in the covert monster-hunting community), has died. His main weapon is the Bloodstone, an artifact of incredible power that would normally have passed on to his daughter Elsa (Laura Donnelly). She left the family long ago and only comes back to the funeral to claim what's hers by birthright. Ulysses had other plans--he organized a hunt with the greatest monster hunters from across the Earth. They gather at the funeral and are ready to do whatever it takes (including fighting each other) to win the Bloodstone. All they have to do is defeat a monster who has the Bloodstone attached to him.

While inspired by the classic Universal horror films of the 1930s and 1940s, the movie wobbles between serious and silly at the beginning. The set-up scene for the hunt unfortunately invokes Young Frankenstein rather than Frankenstein, making the proceedings hard to take seriously. The 54-minute running time does not give enough space to set up tension and horror, only a few gory moments and maybe two thrilling scenes. This show looks like it's just another Marvel action show, albeit shot in black-and-white. The labyrinthine garden where the hunt takes place is not used to any great effect, a lost opportunity. The show does have one interesting twist, some character revelation, and one menacing scene with the titular monster. But overall, it doesn't satisfy.

Barely recommended, this is more like cheap Halloween scares.

Currently (October 2022) only streaming on Disney+.

TV Review: Moon Knight (2022)

Moon Knight (2022) adapted for television by Jeremy Slater from the comic by Doug Moench and Don Perlin

Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac) is a lackluster British museum gift shop employee with an expertise in Egyptian mythology. His real problem is two-fold: blackouts that lead to bizarre circumstances and dreams that show a different life as an American soldier of fortune. He also has unsettling encounters with Harrow (Ethan Hawke), a man with some sort of connection to the Egyptian gods. Harrow is building a collection of disciples to enact whatever plan he has. Steven has a hard time keeping track of reality. Viewers quickly discover that his American version, Marc Spector, is sharing the body with Grant. Spector has a lot more ambition and drive. He is the avatar of Khonshu (voiced by F. Murray Abraham), a minor Egyptian deity obsessed with avenging people wronged in the middle of the night. If the wrongs happen during daytime, that's okay too. Spector transforms into Moon Knight, a cloaked superhero who rights wrongs, though mostly in this show he's fighting with Harrow and his minions.

The effort to navigate their dual lives and their conflicting goals make Steven and Marc interesting characters. Isaac gives a good performance, flipping between the characters with ease and making both of them sympathetic. The show uses reflections to show the other character trapped inside, giving the two personalities a way to dialog with each other. Harrow comes off as a less compelling character and only a mildly interesting villain. He wants to release a goddess who will punish evildoers before they even commit their crimes. Hawke tries to give Harrow some creepiness but it doesn't really work too often. 

The use of Egyptian mythology is uneven. The show starts acknowledging the basics and has mostly museum-type mythology, which does not get into a lot of detail. Then they go fully into it for the last half of the show, an unexpected and happy shift. Some bits worked less well than others because blending modern sensibilities with ancient mythology is tricky. The show became much more challenging to follow and think about, which I liked. 

The ending was a typical big battle. The show suffers from the worst post-credits sequence since Legion. That last scene presents a surprise twist that makes very little sense with the rest of the story and brought up the wrong sorts of questions a viewer wants to be left with.

Mildly recommended. 

TV Review: Hawkeye (2021)

Hawkeye (2021) created for television by Jonathan Igla based on the Marvel Comics character

Clint Barton aka Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) is enjoying a little Christmas time with the kids in New York City when he gets dragged into a problematic situation. Some organized crime types hold an underground auction that includes items from the ruins of the Avengers Tower in Manhattan. Some of those items are compromising materials for Clint. Worse yet, an arrow-shooting Hawkeye fan named Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) happens upon the auction during a swanky party and she steals the costume that Clint used after The Snap when he went a little AWOL and was killing off criminals as Ronin. She puts on the suit and is mistaken for Clint's other alter ego, engaging the ire of some local criminals, including the "Track Suit Mafia," a group of Russian ne'er-do-wells who start gunning for Kate. 

Kate has her own problems as she discovers that her mom (Vera Farmiga) is romantically linked with a smarmy and potentially criminal guy (Tony Dalton). So she's dodging bullets from the Track Suit Mafia and investigating her maybe-future-father-in-law. She's also so new to the hero business that she makes lots of mistakes. As if the holidays weren't already tough enough.

The show is definitely a product of the Marvel Formula. It has humor and heart and drama well balanced. It connects with the continuity of the other Marvel films and TV shows (happily, even with Netflix) without being inscrutable or just a cog in the wheel of the greater Marvel narrative. The actors are well cast and no one is phoning in a performance for a paycheck. The new hero (Kate) has a lot of challenges to overcome in learning to be a hero. 

One of the challenges with the character Hawkeye is that he has, other than preternatural marksmanship, no superpowers. He doesn't have invulnerability or flight or magical healing. He even has a hearing aid because of the extremely noisy lifestyle he leads. The villains are appropriately scaled back to his level, giving him plenty of challenge without him being ridiculously overmatched. His main goal is to make it home for Christmas, though being a just man he can't leave people like Kate Bishop, who in many ways is her own worst enemy, in jeopardy. His heroism is that he does the right thing regardless, a message that is often repeated because it always needs reinforcement.

Recommended, highly for Marvel fans.

Currently (January 2022), the show is only streaming on Disney+.