From The Boss Dungeon Vaults: Doctor Who Series 8 First Impressions (Episode 4: Listen)

(By now I think you all know the drill, but I'm absolutely still going to keep doing this so I have something beyond just launching into the old writeup. These first impression writeups of Doctor Who Series 8 were originally posted last year on a website called Boss Dungeon, and I am now rehosting them here as I rewatch S8 in anticipation for Series 9. The old writeups are accompanied by shorter hindsight talks about what I think now, but here is what I thought then.)

That sure was different. Well then. Let's talk about fear, and Doctor Who. Let's talk about Listen.

Fear has been a part of Doctor Who ever since December 1963, when a woman screamed at an incoming plunger. Ever since, it's become ingrained within the show's history. All sorts of men in rubber suits masquerading as monsters have terrorized the Doctor and his companions over 51 years, as well as us. Hell, England even has a pop culture term based on the fear of Doctor Who monsters: "behind the sofa". Young children freaked out at a Dalek or a Cyberman... or, hell, an Axon, darting behind a garish-looking couch from the '70s. Because the monster can't get you if you're not looking. One could argue that the master of horror when it comes to Doctor Who was Phillip Hinchcliffe, the producer of the show in the mid-70's. Under his tenure we had several classic episodes of the show that scared the pants off of kids. The Ark In Space, Pyramids Of Mars, The Brain Of Morbius... real classics. Steven Moffat, to his credit, has taken up the torch of keeping England's children awake at night. This is the man who created the Weeping Angels. This is the man who wrote the episode we're looking at today; Listen. At its core, Listen is a study of the Doctor and fear. There are lots of things going on here, so let's dive in.

The opening is just a thing of beauty. We have the TARDIS suspended in space, and the Doctor sitting atop it in a meditative pose before going into a monologue about evolution. The shot of the TARDIS underwater, with the door open and the Doctor looking out? Incredible. The Doctor theorizes that some creatures evolve to be good at hunting, and others evolve to be good at defending themselves from predators. What, then, of a creature that evolves to be good at hiding? Would we even know such a thing exists? Right out of the gate, the episode becomes its own predator, preying upon the paranoia of both the characters and the audience. The idea that we're never truly alone, that something is always stalking you, hiding, watching, waiting... that's unsettling stuff. It's the seed of an idea, and Moffat knows that the audience will water it and grow their own trees of fear and paranoia. This is the kind of horror Moffat deals with; the existential. Whereas Hinchcliffe and his Gothic era of Doctor Who were content with showing alien bugs taking over people, or alien gods who burn people with a touch, Moffat's Doctor Who is more of a Lovecraftian thing, with cosmic horrors teeming just at the corner of your eye. I love it.

The only sour notes for me personally in the episode come early on; the date scenes between Clara and Danny Pink. It's light romantic comedy, with two people being really awkward on their first date and saying inappropriate things to each other before one storms off in a huff. This happens twice in the episode, and while it does have its place, I didn't care for it that much. To the show's credit, it does do some interesting things with Danny Pink. In between the date scenes, Clara and the Doctor accidentally travel back in time and meet Danny as a child. This gives us perhaps the best scene in the episode, where someone (or something) under a bedsheet terrorizes Clara, the Doctor, and the young Danny. Everything about this scene just sings. Clara's maternal instincts, perhaps stemming from her being good with kids due to being a teacher. The Doctor flipping on the light in the middle of a scary scene to complain about not being able to find Waldo in a book about trains. That wonderful speech Capaldi gives about fear being a superpower. Then you've got the three turning their backs on the thing under the bedsheet, and telling it to go away. That they won't compromise the perfect evolutionary camouflage or whatever. Whatever's under there takes off the sheet, and we see a blur of something. It's ambiguous, and we never actually see what it is, though we know it's something. Some may say that showing even that much ruins the ambiguity, but I don't think so.

The other major thing to talk about, barring the final sequence (which I can't really get into for fear of spoilers) is Orson Pink. Danny Pink's great-grandson from the 22nd century, and Earth's first time traveller who accidentally jumped ahead to the end of the universe. He was stranded there for six months, and paranoid of things trying to get into his time machine. The Doctor tracks him down thanks to timeline shenanigans, and sticks around in further pursuit of his perfect camouflage monster. He goes so far as to open the door, giving us a scene where Clara refuses to abandon him to his own stupid curiosities until the Doctor yells at her to do as she's told. The ambiguity is present here as well, thanks to a well-timed glitch in the TARDIS viewing screens... but it should be noted that something breaks the air shell of Orson's time machine when the Doctor opens the door. It could have just been the Doctor making a mistake, or it could have been... something else.

Right, let's address the ambiguities and then call it a day here. The main takeaway from this episode, after all of its tense scenes and reveals, is a simple question; Was there or wasn't there some sort of monster? The final scene definitely hedges more in one direction, but regardless of that evidence the question can still be raised. If there was a monster, then what the hell is it? Why didn't it just kill Clara/The Doctor/Danny? If there wasn't a monster, then just what the holy hell was under the bedsheets? Who wrote "Listen" on the Doctor's chalkboard when only he was in the TARDIS? Who or what was trying to get into Orson's time machine? There are some who will be upset that these questions aren't answered. I, personally, am not one of them. An unexplained thing out there somewhere in the universe, lurking and hiding and keeping to itself... I'm enamored with that idea. It fits well with the existential horror Moffat is going for, and I don't want this to ever be explained as some alien thing like the Silence, or a Zog from Zarquon IV or whatever. Some things are best left unexplained, and it would resonate with the somewhat running theme of the Doctor not knowing everything in the universe. At the end of the day, he's just like the rest of us; afraid of something under the bed.

God, what a spooky episode. It takes a rewatch to really appreciate what it's doing and think it over with the knowledge of what happens, but it's a great one. It might be the best Capaldi-era Doctor Who episode so far. Well done, Moffat. You scared the pants off of me.


Next week: TIME HEIST. Oh my god, this sounds so high-concept and cheesy and just plain fun that I'm excited for it.

 AND NOW WHAT I THINK... NOW

(Spoiler alert, yo. I mean, anyone who's reading this has probably seen Series 8 by now, but I'm covering my ass here.)

It "might" be the best Capaldi-era episode so far? Past me didn't drive the flag all the way down into the soil, so allow me to do so. This is easily the best Capaldi-era story of S8 out of the four we've done so far. It's in my top three, without question. Holy shit what an amazing episode this is, and I even discovered a new nuance to it. In the old writeup my only hangup was Clara and Danny's awkward date. Watching it again, it absolutely slots into the theme of the episode. This episode is about fear, and Clara and Danny's date goes wrong. Twice. Rupert, Orson, and the Doctor's fears in this one are entirely fears that stem out of childhood; the monster under the bed, or the monster outside the room, in the darkness beyond time. Clara and Danny are experiencing adult fear; the fear of a date gone wrong. An anxiety cloud hanging over you, making you worry that you'll say the wrong thing. They both end up doing it, and they both end up beating themselves up over it. Orson Pink, on the other hand... it's tough to figure out how the hell this works with what we know now. On transmission we can assume Danny and Clara got together, had a happy life, passed down Dan the Soldier Man to their kids until it ended up with Orson. Now we know Danny Pink is dead as all hell, so... huh? I guess the easiest fix is that time can be rewritten, and that Danny and Clara did have a happy life together pre-Dark Water. Then that happens, and time gets changed or something. See? See what I just did there? I used my head and came up with a plausible in-universe explanation for a dreaded plot hole rather than just yelling at Steven Moffat for being a bad writer haha what do you mean I'm bitter, I'm not bitt

Where were we? Oh, right. Two more big points to make, and more flags to plant and divisive Doctor Who opinions to have. The ambiguity is something in this episode, alright. Watching it again, it appears to not make any sense at all. I raised most of these questions in the original writeup, and I had them all over again. Once again, you can play Creative Writing Department Of Highways and fill in all those plot holes with a little bit of brainpower shovelled into your pavement melter. This metaphor is getting away from me. The episode definitely is batting at the assumption that there's jack shit out there and it was just the Doctor trying to figure out what the hell spooked him in that barn two millennia ago. Thing under the bedsheets? Easily could be an orphanage kid playing a prank. The Doctor's chalk thing? Scatterbrain. The thing outside at the end of the universe? Was there a thing? We didn't see one. Something seemed like it was knocking, but it could be anything! That's what fear and paranoia does to you, it gives you the goddamn willies. Back to the thing under the sheets, though, cause now I gotta tread carefully. In the original writeup I did make mention to people who were less than happy with not knowing what's under the sheet. Said people might even have the opinion that Moffat should actually go back and explain what it was in a later episode, and I have to fight my urge to yell at that. Doctor Who opinions flaring strong here, but holy shit does that miss the entire point of the episode. Listen thrives based almost entirely on its sense of atmosphere and ambiguity. The mystery of the thing under the sheet falls into two categories; either it was a kid pranking, or it was some unknown eldritch horror. If we believe option 1, it falls in line with everyone just being paranoid and spooked, which is an amusing little bit of shaggy dog story from Moffat. If we take option 2, however, we fall into a line of thinking that many horror stories and movies thrive on; your imagination, your creativity sparked by the onrushing superpowers granted by your fear, is more powerful than any concept or creature design that some monster maker at the BBC can cook up and stick onto the screen. It's far far far more effective, and preferred in my Doctor Who opinion, if we never come back to this again. I said as much in the writeup, but explaining it away would absolutely cheapen it. It goes from "oh my god, what the hell is that?" to "Oh. That's what it is. Okay then.".

Followed probably by a "Fuck Moffat" for not coming up with something scary enough.

Last but not least, and right alongside the "Fuck Moffat" Shining Time Station, is the ending, in which Clara, Stevie Moff's Special Little Snowflake, goes back to the Doctor's early childhood while he's having a bad dream and tells him it will all be okay and maybe even inspires him to go off and become a Time Lord. BUT BUT BUT THE TIME LOCK-- all the safeties on the TARDIS were off. BUT GALLIFREY'S COORDINATES-- telepathic malarkey. The potholes have been filled. They're just a little bumpy. Hell, with it possibly maybe being the same goddamn barn where the War Doctor dragged the Moment at, there's no guarantee that the damn planet is even Gallifrey. We know that little about the Doctor's past (as well we should, again, ambiguity!) that you have plenty of wiggle room for things like this. I guess Clara was just thinking about the Doctor 'cause he was knocked out when she stuck her hands in the telepathic thing. As for her being the one who comforts the Doctor's bad dream after she accidentally causes it? I don't mind. She's his carer. She cares. He's her friend so why wouldn't she try and make him feel better? It also parallels with her soothing Rupert. One wonders if Capaldi still has Dan The Soldier Man lying around somewhere. Maybe he gave him to Susan and she's got him in 2140 AD or wherever she ended up.

Either way, that's Listen. I love it, and I planted all these flags around about what Doctor Who is for me; an ambiguous and nebulous thing that often times doesn't make sense unless you wrap your head around the doublethink to make it make sense, but is a fun and scary ride all the same. This third or fourth rewatch has me more on the side of there not being a monster, but I'm fine with that. The other interpretation is just as valid, and if that's the case, I would love if we never had a callback to it again. Leave it alone, Steve. Leave it alone.

Next time is a TIME HEIST. That should be fun.

From The Boss Dungeon Vaults: Doctor Who Series 8 First Impressions (Episode 3: Robot Of Sherwood)

(Once again, just a sentence of context: these are old writeups I did for Series 8 of Doctor Who as it was airing, on a website called Boss Dungeon. I'm rewatching the series in anticipation of Series 9, and adding new commentary in. Today, Robin Hood. Tomorrow, THE WORLD.)

Doctor Who, since it's come back, has often dabbled with what some have called "the celebrity historical"; an episode set in Earth's past, wherein the Doctor meets some famous historical figure. We've had Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill, and Richard Nixon... among others. These episodes also involve some sort of science-fiction element, be they Daleks or the Silence or who knows what else. This week's celebrity historical has Robin Hood and robot knights in it... and you know what?

This is a really fun one.

After two episodes that show the "darker" side of the Doctor, and question his status as a hero and a good man, we take a bit of a step back into lighter territory for this episode. The Doctor here isn't so much a flawed hero here as he is a comedic grump. While Clara is enamored by Robin Hood and his merry men, and having the time of her life, the Doctor spends most of the episode in disbelief that Robin Hood even exists. He's just a folk legend, and the Doctor is convinced that some sort of outside shenanigans are afoot. Holograms? Robots? A miniscope? He's even more of a smug know-it-all than he was in Into The Dalek, and that doesn't even get into his interactions with Robin Hood. He squabbles and argues with Robin constantly, and the pair don't get along at all. Whereas a previous incarnation of the Doctor might cooperate with Robin, Capaldi doesn't even consider it. For better or worse, we have a more acerbic Doctor this time around. I think it works better in this episode because it creates great comedy.

That's what this episode is; somewhat lighthearted comedy. The actor playing Robin Hood nails it. He's filled with bravado and overconfidence, and a great foil to the Doctor. He's a braggart, but he's also incredibly skilled. There's plenty of swashbuckling and sharp wit in the episode, and it really reminded me of something like The Princess Bride. (Funny, that, considering the dread pirate Roberts would later play Robin Hood in the Mel Brooks parody film.) The Sheriff of Nottingham is also quite marvelous. He's threatening, but also a bit of an incompetent buffoon. Clara is easily able to turn the tables on him when he attempts to interrogate her. This is no half-faced man with a flamethrower for a hand; this guy is just a ham who wants to TAKE OVER ZE WORLD. Speaking of Clara, she's once again a voice of reason. The Doctor and Robin Hood bicker like children when they and Clara are captured, and it's Clara who eventually yells at them to both shut up and try to think of a way out. This is the second episode in a row with Clara challenging the Doctor and calling him out on acting up. Clara-as-schoolteacher again. Boy, I really love this new Clara. She's great.

Of course, this being a celebrity historical, we have the sci-fi element of robotic knights. Visually, they look great. They remind me a lot of Megatron from Transformers, and they have a forehead laser that's used to great effect. That's about all they add to the episode, aside from being the impetus for the plot. They're visually imposing, but nothing all that scary. They're not Daleks or Cybermen or anything with name-brand power like that; they stomp around and do bad things and get blown up. The only other thing to say about them is the mention of the "Promised Land" from Deep Breath. It once again reeks of setting up the big season-long mystery, but here it's less of a pander than Missy's appearance last episode. It actually adds a clue; the Promised Land will be important to the season's end, whatever it is. Missy showing up last week appeared to add very little except re-iterate that she exists.

In the end, Robot Of Sherwood is a fun 45 minutes of Doctor Who. It's lighthearted and filled with plenty of little moments to make you grin like an idiot. It's just plain fun, which is something Doctor Who needs to do every so often. It's easy to lose sight of that with episodes that deal in series-long mysteries or outright horror. The closest analogy would be Dinosaurs On A Spaceship, from Series 7. That wasn't the best episode, but it was much like Robot Of Sherwood in that it was just a bunch of fun to watch. Robot Of Sherwood is better than that episode, thanks to its character interactions and tone. Even the cynical can enjoy something that just revels in being a bit silly and over-the top. For goodness's sakes, it has the Doctor sword-fighting Robin Hood using a spoon! Who can't find joy in that?

Next week: Oh boy, this one looks like it's going to be scary. Don't get spooked.

AND NOW WHAT I THINK... NOW

I don't think there's too much in-depth commentary to have here, really. This is a Mark Gatiss-penned bit of lighthearted fluff set in the past. Not quite as good or essential as his Series 7 episodes (those would be Cold War and The Crimson Horror [aka DA CRIMSON 'ORRAH]), but still a great way to spend your 45 minutes. Doctor Who is a show for everyone, and that does include the kids. It doesn't all have to be pants-shittingly terrifying concept monsters that can only get you on a set of rules based on autonomous bodily functions. Sometimes you can just let your hair down with this show and watch Doctor Who have a swordfight with Robin Hood, using only a spoon. Then you go from that to a lady getting dragged off to slave labour and the Sheriff of Nottingham running his sword through her father. So yeah, Doctor Who doesn't entirely keep the unpleasantness away, even in their fluff episodes. I mean, watching this again, it is fun. It's just the kind of thing I don't have anything else to really add. The original writeup mentions everything good about it already. The bantering, Capaldi being some sort of grouchy belligerent fusion of William Hartnell and Jon Pertwee, Clara taking charge of her own interrogation like the "bossy control freak" she is. I can tell you right now, I latched onto Clara and her initiative in a lot of these writeups. I love it, and while it doesn't seem to play much into the arc of the Three of this series, look again. Clara is doing what the Doctor would do. She's taking control of things, figuring out the Sheriff's evil plan. She's becoming more like him, and that becomes really problematic right around Mummy On The Orient Express. "Clara Who" is definitely a thing that has started happening. The more angry in the fandom decry this, yelling about how Grand Moff Tarkin's special little Snowflake ended up not only saving every Doctor ever with that timestream jump... thing... but also gave him the idea of retconning the Time War. You may agree, you may disagree. I disagree myself, but I know plenty of people who won't hesitate to call the Moff out on what they see as a slight. We'll get into this tomorrow and I get to try to be as concise as possible in a particular rebuke without going into Outright Callout Mode. Fun! Regardless, Moffat is playing some sort of meta game with Clara here, and he damn well must have heard the complaints because he pulls a real cheeky move in Death In Heaven. Oh yeah! The peasants use shiny plates and stuff to reflect the lasers back at the Megatron Knights! The mirror theme came back! We also got another mention of the Promised Land, and I still don't know why robots from the 29th century have anything to do with Missy's thing, which is quite obviously centered on 2014 Earth. Aside from that, I think that's all I can say about Robot of Sherwood. It's fun, it advances plotlines and symbolism and whatnot, and it's 45 minutes of lighthearted action swashbuckling fluff. Sometimes that's all you need.

And then tomorrow, we get to talk about gettin' spooked and ambiguity. Ohhh boy.

From The Boss Dungeon Vaults: Doctor Who Series 8 First Impressions (Episode 2: Into The Dalek)

(In case you missed it, these are old writeups I did as Series 8 of Doctor Who was airing. Originally hosted on a nice website called Boss Dungeon. I've been rewatching the series as I archive this stuff onto my own blog, and below my original thoughts are new thoughts! Hooray! With that done, let us see what the me of 2014 thought of Daleks.)

Well. That's more like it.

Doctor Who debuted in November of 1963. It wasn't until the end of the year that it introduced an element that would send England into a fever. By January 1964, the Daleks were named, and the whole of Britain was beginning the throes of Dalekmania. Over the next 50 years, they would become the iconic foe of the Doctor across time and space. Multiple Dalek stories have become absolute classics in the annals of fandom, such as Genesis Of The Daleks or Remembrance Of The Daleks (both suggested if you're curious about classic Doctor Who). Into The Dalek isn't quite on par with those stories, but few stories are. What we have here is an above average story that has cleared up any nagging doubts I had about the Capaldi era post-Deep Breath.

The premise is almost like a greatest hits of Doctor Who for any anorak familiar with the program's history. You have a possibly broken Dalek chained up by some people, and the Doctor arrives to check it out and all hell breaks loose from there. It bears some resemblance to the 2005 episode, Dalek... but only some. The main crux of the episode involves the Dalek having "gone good", and the Doctor and friends being miniaturized and injected inside the Dalek to figure out what in the world went wrong with it. There have been stories dealing with a shrunken Doctor before, like Planet Of Giants or The Invisible Enemy, but none have combined that concept with Dalek iconography. The story beats are familiar, yes, but when mixed together they create an interesting brew.

The real highlight of the episode is Peter Capaldi. With no post-regenerative heebie-jeebies to deal with, this is our first extended look at the new Doctor. Confronted with the Daleks and their hatred of everything, we have a Doctor who is somewhat questioning of his own moral standing. This is nothing new for Doctor Who, not really, but the 12th Doctor definitely stands in more of a shadow than previous Doctors. He's less likely to grieve over a bad situation, and more likely to turn a victory from it... or attempt to. The moment that stands out in this episode is the death of a secondary character; the Doctor has him swallow something, and we're meant to think it will save the man from peril. He then dies, and the Doctor declares the man was "dead already" and his actions were done to save everyone else. A few moments later, and he's making offhand remarks about the man's death, and then witty puns. It sounds callous, but here is a Doctor who is committed to getting the job done.


Even better is his dynamic with his companion. There's no abandonment issues here; the Doctor and Clara are in this together. We get something we rarely see from Doctor Who; the Doctor is not a know-it-all. Oh, sure, he may know how the insides of a Dalek work, or how to operate a complex piece of space-time machinery... but he's flawed like the rest of us. His own prejudices against the Daleks leave him declaring the situation hopeless once things take a turn for the worse, and it's Clara who reminds him that there's another way. Clara, the schoolteacher, teaching a centuries-old alien to let go of his own preconceptions and remember what he's learned from his interactions with the "broken" Dalek. The writing for Clara has generally improved with this new series; instead of the blank cipher "mystery girl" to be solved at the end of the series from last year, we have a proper equal to the Doctor. Someone who can learn from him, and help him learn. What a great team.

Those are the main takeaways from Into The Dalek, so let's finish off with a few asides.

-The Danny Pink character seems interesting enough. He may even become a companion, if gut feelings are correct. Not sure how I feel about that, as Clara's growing on me now. Nevertheless, change is a part of the show.

-More mystery and intrigue with "Missy". I'm not fond of having a mystery waved in the audience's face to keep everyone speculating until the big reveal in the finale; it's sort of old hat after having it be a major part of every one of Matt Smith's series. The theories are all over the place, and I'm not sure how I feel about them. I'm pulling for her being an original character, as opposed to some returning foe.

-I had a friend who wasn't happy about the lack of Dalek exterminations in the previous two Dalek stories of Matt Smith's run. Considering Into The Dalek has them by the bucketload, I'd say he's pleased right about now.

-Boy, the Daleks were an effective scary force this episode. A far cry from the "million billion Daleks" model of their previous appearances. Just one saucer and a squad of them are what suffice.

And that is Into The Dalek! It's very very good, and if we get more episodes with this quality of innovation and Doctor/companion interaction, then this series will be a real treat. All of my worries following Deep Breath are cleared. I like this new Doctor. I like his relationship with his companion. I'm excited for what will come next.


...Which is "Doctor Who meets Robin Hood", apparently. Sounds fun!



AND NOW WHAT I THINK... NOW

Wow, that didn't take long, did it? Deep Breath had wobbled its landing for me, but I suppose if we go with the narrative of all those meta references and pleas to the audience, Moffat knew that we'd be on shaky ground. So the second episode is a Dalek episode! Which, there's no guarantee of that being good, but the Doctor and the Daleks are tentpoles of this show so it's a pretty safe bet. Then you've got the moral quandries and ambiguities surrounding Capaldi, which became sort of a running thing in this series. With the show on stable ground again now, at least, Moffat starts throwing in things that will run through the undercurrents of Series 8. Danny Pink is officially introduced, and I thought he would be a companion. Not quite. Really, the hints were right in this episode with the Doctor's dislike of soldiers... which we will get to. It's a strange dissonance. We go from a broken Dalek and a shocked Doctor... to romcom awkward flirting between Danny and Clara. Here's where I'm going to plant another gonzo theory-flag; Danny and Clara are the season arc of Series 8. Not Missy. Missy's the bait, essentially. Something for all us Doctor Who fans online to debate and theorize and ponder for eleven weeks. Except we're way too good at that, and the first answer we came up with was the correct one. Besides, it's not like Moffat gave us much to work with other than the name and that whatever she was doing had to do with dead people. Really, if Missy was supposed to be the season arc, she would have shown up more. Off the top of my head, I think she makes two more little cameo appearances before the finale, and then the next episode makes mention of the "Promised Land". Let's be real, more of her showing up and giggling about while Steven Moffat all but CGIs in neon signs around her head that say THIS IS THE SEASON ARC PLEASE SPECULATE THIS FOR ELEVEN WEEKS ON TWITTER would be bad. I and many others would get sick of it. Unless of course, he revealed a little more about the mystery each time, which is almost what he did.

Again, though, that doesn't matter! Steven Moffat was playing another shell game, and doesn't that just make the blood of the "Fuck Moffat" crowd boil? No, Series 8 is not about Missy and her plan. It's important to the finale, but what Series 8 is about is shown in this episode; it's about Danny and Clara and the Doctor, all trying to find out what kind of people they are. The first one up is the Doctor, and he ponders if he is a good man or not. As I said a year ago, he knew that guy was dead the second he shot those grappling hooks at the Dalek. There was nothing he could have done. David Tennant would have pulled an "I'm so sorry" right out of his head and said that a bunch, as he often did. Capaldi just had a plan and he stuck to it. Clara is his carer here, so he's focused and doesn't need to. Then there is Clara herself, who takes the sensible role as she did way back in Day Of The Doctor. It's her caring that snaps the Doctor out of his funk (or slaps him out of it, tee hee hee) and makes him realize the age old tradition of a Doctor Who story; when you're faced with a choice between a bad thing and another bad thing, an impossible choice... well, you're the Doctor and you say "to hell with it", rewrite the rules of the narrative, and make the third choice that fixes everything. That's what the Doctor tries here... but of course, it goes wrong, and the very prejudices that make the second choice of killing the Dalek bad end up tainting and twisting the mind of poor Rusty. The Doctor is a madman with a box who likes to show twentysomething English girls the wonders of the universe, but he's also the Lonely God, the Oncoming Storm, Centuries of seeing what those Daleks can do in killing everything has him hating them to his core, and just as he's trying to figure out if he's a good man or not, it's all reflected right back at him. Hey, like all those mirror shots in Deep Breath! Symbolism! Then there's the final ambiguity, when Rusty calls the Doctor "a good Dalek". Does he mean it in a moral sense, or a sense of identity. A Dalek who is good, or good at being a Dalek? Killing and hating? I think he meant the second one, but it's up in the air. Things being up in the air will be important soon.

Okay, see y'all tomorrow for Robin Hood shenanigans.

From The Boss Dungeon Vaults: Doctor Who Series 8 First Impressions (Episode 1: Deep Breath)

(Hello! Long time no see, kids! Sorry, this isn't about Nintendo games. We're shifting gears to talk about old British people in magic space boxes for a bit. With Series 9 of Doctor Who looming over us, it's finally time I got to some archival business. A year ago or so at this time, when Series 8 was airing, I was given the opportunity to post First Impressions articles on a website called Boss Dungeon. Said website eventually went under due to a bunch of reasons, and though that's tragic, I'm still very grateful to its webmistress, Andrea Ritsu, for giving me the chance to talk about new Doctor Who as it was coming out! Though Boss Dungeon is gone, I still have all the writeups right here. What we're doing here is reposting them, mostly as they were... but the really fun part? I'm rewatching Series 8 again, right here and now, in anticipation of the next series. As we go along our archival journey, I'll be posting my current thoughts on these episodes. This is gonna be a thing. Alright, let's start with Deep Breath. A primer for anyone who doesn't know a thing about Doctor Who: this show is about a very old man with a big blue box that's bigger on the inside, and it can travel anywhere in time and space. He goes around time and space with ordinary humans, showing them the wonders of the universe and usually running away from scary monsters in the process. If he is mortally wounded, he can revive himself by changing his face and personality, becoming a totally different actor incarnation. That has just happened in the leadup to the first episode of Series 8, and the Doctor has just become Peter Capaldi. From there, this is what I thought in late August...)

New series. New opening. New Doctor. Once again, Doctor Who has changed everything by recasting its lead actor. After nine months of shivering with anticipation, the world got its first extended glimpse and glimmer of Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. How was it?

It was okay.

Deep Breath invokes both the method used to avoid the monster of the week, and the average fan's nervous reaction as they dive in to the unknown depths of a new era of Doctor Who. Over 50 years, the show has done this song and dance several times before. It's a guaranteed part of being a Doctor Who fan; one day the lead actor you've grown to adore will suffer some mortal wound, and in a flash of bright light there will be some other fellow running around acting weird. Such is the concept of regeneration. That's the secret to Doctor Who's success, but with the birth of one era comes the death of another. Since 2010 we've had Matt Smith running around all of time and space as the Doctor, and now he's mostly gone. Let's try to make sense of this confusion, and take things objectively.

We're in Victorian London this week, and immediately we have a touch of the fantastic when we see a T-Rex walk on screen and roar. That's not a thing that belongs in Victorian London! Nor is a blue box, or a deranged alien with a Scottish accent. As far as I can tell, this is the first regeneration story Doctor Who has done that's set in the past. Really, the T-Rex is just a spectacle to raise eyebrows. The real threat of this episode involves scary clockwork robots who steal organs from people. Those of you with a keen memory of past Doctor Who stories will echo the Doctor here; there's something familiar about all of this. Writer Steven Moffat also adds in a "rule" for avoiding the scary robots; they can't see you if you hold your breath and move like a clockwork robot. Writing it out sounds silly, but it does create some tense scenes where characters struggle to hold their breath and walk past stationary clockwork half-people. It bears similarity to the infamous Weeping Angels, where they can't get you if you stare at them and don't blink. Turning automatic bodily responses into the only way to avoid getting killed by a monster makes things somewhat scary, though the clockwork robots have nothing on the Weeping Angels.

The Paternoster gang from the previous series return, giving this new and weird show starring Peter Capaldi a link to the previous show called Doctor Who that most viewers remember. They add a definite element of physical comedy to the episode that's well appreciated, for the most part. (There's one cartoonish sound effect that's a bit TOO silly, but we'll let that slide.) Their other role is, as stated, adding some familiarity to this strange show called Doctor Who. Part of the appeal of Doctor Who is the way it can use its open setting of travelling through time and space to create madcap ideas. Frankly, if you can't get excited about a show that has a scene where a Victorian lady and her lizard-woman-from-the-dawn-of-time wife fighting off clockwork half-people robots with swords, the show might not be your thing.

The crux of this episode, and the most important part, is the interaction between the new Doctor and his companion, Clara. At first, Clara seems incredibly put off by the fact that an old Scottish man is the Doctor now... even though from a series standpoint she should be aware of the concept of regeneration and the Doctor being mostly old people in his incarnations. Over the course of this episode, she's feisty and not afraid to talk back to the Doctor. It gives her a bit more character than she had before, and brings back memories of Donna Noble from just a few years ago. Good memories, too. The Doctor and Clara's new relationship is still up in the air, but as it is now it reminds me of the Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown, from way the hell back in 1985. Theirs was far more acerbic, however, so that's welcome.

As for the man himself, Peter Capaldi? Well, we have the old "post-regenerative crisis" malarkey wheeled out again, causing our leading man to act like a madman, babble on about things and misremember people's names, and spend a bunch of time passed out or wandering around London in his dressing gown. He appears to settle down by the midpoint of the episode, but he still has a bit of an angry spark (Scottishness?) to him. The only real sour note is when he appears to abandon Clara, running off and leaving her at threat from clockwork robots. He does return to save her, but dismisses her complaints of abandonment with a "sorry-not-sorry". The other possible odd moment is when it's left ambiguous as to whether or not he kills the villain. This one doesn't ruffle me as much because the whole "man who never would" angle doesn't hold much weight. He might have done it, and he might not have... but I can buy it either way.

All in all, this episode was okay. It wasn't a standout hit like the Eleventh Doctor's debut episode, but barring a few eyebrow-raising moments I can get behind this new Doctor/companion dynamic. There's a cute moment near the end that I won't spoil, and the possible seeding of a new season-long mystery. Now that makes me groan a little, because this is the third season in a row to have a "season-long mystery" that will probably just amount to a cryptic lady or phrase popping up over eleven episodes, and then the reveal near the end. Perhaps this one will actually seed clues as the show goes on instead of just teasing, but we'll see. It's not the best, but one can be excited for what's to come.


Next week: Daleks! How can you not be excited for new angry eyebrows Scottish Doctor vs. the Daleks?

AND NOW WHAT I THINK... NOW

(I'm gonna be writing these parts with hindsight and knowledge of how the series turns out, so... spoilers for the rest of the Series 8 episodes will probably crop up, as I compare stuff. Be warned.)

Hindsight is a hell of a thing. Now I know how Peter Capaldi turns out. Back when this aired, he was just some angry Scottish asshole and I wasn't sure if I liked him or not. It took a few episodes, but I was sold on him. I remember being bummed out at the time, though. The Eleventh Hour so solidly sold me on Smith, and Deep Breath just didn't do that for me with Capaldi. Doctor Who had changed, and I wasn't sure who the Doctor was any more. Much like Clara Oswald in this episode. Much ink has been spilled on the inconsistency of her being aware of different incarnations of the Doctor in the Series 7 finale... and yet being written here as if all of a sudden the Doctor has "totally changed". I'm gonna stake my territory here and say that nitpicking out inconsistencies and plot holes in Doctor Who is really boring and far too easy to do. I don't do it when I talk about Doctor Who. My friends often do. I guest star in Doctor Who review things a lot, because I'm part of a little group. Some of them are of this school of thought, and again, many deep breaths have been taken before launching into a tiny rant about how this or that don't make no sense and god damn it Moffat et cetera et cetera. So, that's boring to me. It's been done and I don't agree with it, but the Moffat era is basically Marmite at this point. You either love it or you hate it and want him to just move on to Sherlock full time. Or something. Here's what I think Moffat is doing with Deep Breath; he's playing the meta game. Not really tongue-in-cheek, but more self aware. There are little things and hints that suggest to this in the episode. Clara not being sure who the Doctor is any more? That's holding a mirror up to the audience. It's commentary on the assumed reaction of the public when these regenerations happen. Some people... a lot of people, are going to be unsure about it. I was! Rewatching it now, in hindsight, and remembering how I felt... that's the vibe I get. Meta-commentary on the audience not being so hot on Capaldi. Moffat is just the kind of clever TV-savvy fellow to attempt to pull such a trick, too. Then you have things where the Doctor doesn't get his own references. Ranting about his face looking familiar as a callback to Peter Capaldi's past roles in Doctor Who stuff, or the whole thing with the reveal of the villains being related to the villains from Moffat's Tennant-era story, Girl In The Fireplace... and the Doctor not connecting the dots there. The section of fandom who cares about lore consistency and the callbacks will get it and light up, but the 2000 year-old Time Lord doesn't remember.

And then, of course, that final scene. Not the one with the lady, but the one where Matt Smith calls up Clara and asks her really nicely to give this new guy a chance. The cynical among us will call this pandering to the fangirls, pleading and begging them to stay despite the fact that the Doctor isn't a good-looking twentysomething in pinstripes or a bow tie. The Doctor was never anyone's "boyfriend", and now we've gone back to how it was 40 years ago, like when he was your kooky uncle with the ridiculous scarf. Again, this is metacommentary, but it's the only part I have no real defense of. Matt Smith asking me to give the Doctor a chance didn't change my mind any. I was giving him a chance already, and Capaldi eventually proved himself over the series. It was unneeded, I think. Same with a lot of the gags and physical comedy and whatnot. It padded the episode out, and the only real chuckle I got out of it was Clara getting whapped in the face with a newspaper. That's base level humor, though. There's a fellow who goes by the name of Whoflix that does fan edits of the show, both classic and new. He cut Deep Breath down to about a 45 minute episode, and I thought it worked a lot better. Well. Deep Breath. We took the plunge, we kept the air in... and the episode is still okay. There are things that don't work, but on some level I can understand what Moffat was trying to do. As always, he was being clever with his narrative and how he expected the audience to perceive it. On other levels... it doesn't work. It's an okay episode, but that's the thing. A regeneration episode needs to really punch it in order to sell people on your new Doctor. The show, with rare exceptions, has faltered when it comes to this. The Eleventh Hour was a great intro to Matt Smith. Deep Breath left me unsure if I liked Capaldi or not, and it bummed me out. It honestly soured my mood a little. Then there's Missy. In hindsight, I'm not sure how her scheme is supposed to work if she's also nicking people from the future, and people who aren't even people but half-faced robots. Whose goddamn body is she going to put the half-faced man into in 2015? Now I'm getting into lore inconsistency. See? It's easy and kinda boring to do. The Moffat era, especially, doesn't quite stand up to this sort of "Whoniverse" critique. You end up picking at it and picking at it until nothing's left. I don't know how it makes sense, but given time my brain could think up some sort of explanation for how it could make sense. If one were to be optimistic, they'd say that Moffat is challenging you and making you think about the plot rather than just spelling it out... but that's a rabbit hole we won't jump into.

Instead, let's shrink down and go play inside a Dalek.

Press "B" To Blow (The 10NES Lockout Chip)

Every now and then, I like to pull my old NES out from its resting place in a drawer somewhere. I hook the bad boy up, and I get ready to play some Nintendo games. Then... the eternal struggle. You younger kids out there may have your own gripes with the fancy-schmancy technomancy of the future. Constant updates and patches, tutorials everywhere, et cetera. Don't worry. It's nothing new. Back in the NES days, it was a hassle to get the damn things to work. The struggle of physical media was real, and I feel like writing about what made the NES struggle what it was. I'll probably drench it in terms of a magical war based on my own invented mythology, too, because that's just what the Nintendo Project is or was or will be now. So, let's flap open those dusty old books about the material history, and see what we've got.

Oh. It's Atari's fault again. Of course.

Yeah, the Video Game Crash is why your Nintendo tapes are so goddamned hard to get to work. We've worn out this ley line a little, I'm afraid, but once more for old time's sakes. I mean, every so often I drag my NES out of retirement. Seems fitting we do the same for this line of history. The Atari years were a lawless frontier, and anyone and everyone was shilling out carts. Add to that the one-two punch of ET and Pac-Man, and you've got a disaster. I already yapped about ET a year ago when the AVGN movie came out, so I won't tread that ground again at least. Still, when you pair it with Pac-Man it reveals a certain arrogance going on at Atari HQ. ET will obviously be a hit for Christmas, so make that coder do it all in six weeks, quality be damned! That pales in comparison to the thought process of Pac-Man. Here they have the rights to the home conversion of a hot arcade title. It'll probably sell well! It will probably even move more Atari systems! Great! Let's produce more cartridges than Atari systems we've sold. Surprising many, the Atari Pac-Man was kind of a bad port and they were left just a bit overstocked. Thus, video game crash, Famicom is born in a land that doesn't exist, it crosses the boundaries that divide one world from another and here we are, Valya be praised.

It's that crossing over that I don't think we've talked about. To survive in a world where video games were dead, the Famicom had to adapt. Thus, the Trojan Horse gambit of ROB the Robot. See? It's not a video game! It's an interactive television toy, with a robot friend and a clicky gun! And you slip the fun tapes inside just like a VCR! That's where the first trouble came in. The weird insertion method of NES carts didn't really work right for sustained use. Connectors got bent from repeated insertion, and the communications were broken. The alchemy was imperfect, and thus instead of your colorful and fun gateway into an emboited space... you got a blue screen. So that's charming. Especially when paired with the other thing. Nintendo can't be faulted entirely for this. They didn't want a lawless dystopia where just anyone could huck out a Nintendo tape and oversaturate the market... so they embedded a lockout chip in their system. The 10NES chip. They may have gone too far with this, being general dragons to their licensees in the name of Lady Capitalism... but that's a whole other story. In practice, it didn't really work. Tinkerers like Tengen managed to get around the 10NES chip... and for us honest Nintendo fans, the 10NES created another problem for reading games. The connection issues would compound things, and sometimes they would confuse the 10NES chip. Thus, you could have a game that's connected right... but 10NES is active and resetting the console every second. Your game is unplayable. Pull it out and try again. At this point, between all the fiddling with connectors and 10NES, people ended up just blowing in the damn carts. I've no idea how that monomyth got started, but trust me; I know of it. Everyone knows of it.

These issues combined to make playing authentic Nintendo tapes a disaster for me. Entire swaths of games in my collection were avoided because the hassle to get them to work wasn't worth it. In particular, the nice Zelda carts I took pictures of for that gonzo post. They're beautiful artifacts, steeped in history and lore of dozens of kids playing and enjoying them before I stepped in and got them. They also didn't work. It was a shame. Then, a few years ago, a breakthrough. I went and bought myself a brand new 72 pin connector. You can see me testing it out on video here. The sheer catharsis of loading a Nintendo tape into the system and having it work first try is a joy that is rivalled by only a few things in this world. It worked great... for a handful of games. Things like the Zeldas or Startropics were still stubborn, however. I could jiggle around all I wanted, but the basic fact remained that the 10NES chip was in there and making the thing blink and preventing my readjustment techniques from working. The last straw came recently, while I was attempting to get a copy of Solar Jetman to work. Sitting in a far too warm room while this son of a bitch kept resetting on me? I was fed up. The next day, I took my NES apart, and I did some adjustment of my own. With a set of instructions and a tiny screwdriver, I plied back a single connector on Nintendo chip, designation 3193A IC. Otherwise known as the NES10. Oddly enough, given how much I've talked about Zelda here, the instructions felt like finding a secret in that game. Snap the 4th pin from the left off, and 10NES will be disabled, allowing you entry.

Well, I did it. I did it and now I'm pleased to say that just about every cart I have works with some minor fiddling. Some require more than others, but I got almost everything to work right. Maybe cleaning the carts themselves would make them all work, but I'm happy for now. I thought my copy of Zelda would never be played again, but I managed to get it working and it was glorious. The battery's still kind of doomed on it, but that's its own problem. Gaze, then, at the corpse of the great beast. This tiny little bit of circuit ruled the world for Nintendo. It kept the licensees at bay with its power. Tengen defied it and Nintendo struck them down for it. An entire generation huffed air into their Nintendo tapes, in the vain hope that they could best it. Now, I have defeated it, and it lays here on my desk, impossibly small. With its defeat, I have conquered even more strange alien worlds. Power Blade has fallen. Code Name Viper has completed his mission. I am a puzzle master with the dinosaur Yoshi.

Good game, 10NES. Good game.

A Tribute To Satoru Iwata

One of the great microchip alchemists of our time is dead. No. More than that. Satoru Iwata might have started as a tinkering programmer, weaving vast formulas and concepts throughout various experiences over the history of Nintendo. Then something else happened entirely. He became a businessman, the President. The face of this company that launched a thousand words about alchemy and Valya and destruction, a second-in-command to Lady Capitalism. Here, as Jim Sterling put it, was a man in charge of one of the most popular and powerful video game companies on this planet... and yet he was not afraid to have a little fun. To wear Luigi hats, to hold bananas on camera, to have a dancing Muppet of himself made in his absence. He was a fun man who livened up Nintendo Directs or E3 announcements... and his legacy will live on. Not just in the company that he helmed to massive profits, but in the games he worked on. Let's take stock in some of them, in tribute of him. Here are the ways in which Satoru Iwata, a tinkerer from Japan who I never met, changed my life for the better.

ARCANA

My cheat sheet says Iwata was a "technical advisor" on this one. I suppose that means that, as a HAL Laboratory employee, he oversaw other programmers and helped them crunch out difficult programming tricks. Arcana, then, is HAL's take on a dungeon crawler. It's very linear and it has its problems, but it was my first real introduction to the genre. Having a guide book with all the maps certainly helped, too. It isn't perfect, but I love it. I was going to suggest it for the next SnS Plays, which is where I also got the idea of playing The Final Fantasy Legend. Maybe we can still do it.

KIRBY'S ADVENTURE

Iwata produced this one, and a slew of other Kirby games. Kirby as a series just exudes charm... but this one? This is the finest moment that the NES had in its post-SNES days. It's beautiful, innovative, technically impressive... and then it also had to inspire the old Nintendo blog, huh? This, combined with two people getting engaged, are what really sent me tumbling into the Gonzo Age of the Nintendo blog, with the Goddess Valya lighting up the world with her grace. I paid tribute to the one source of inspiration in those engaged kids, and now that Iwata is gone, I am only now just paying tribute to another. Maybe, in some distant land in a 1993 long past, he came up with that cool spinning Butter Building trick. I'd like to believe that.

DONKEY KONG COUNTRY SERIES

Well, now I pay my proper respects. This is getting into Super Nintendo Project territory, but this is no magical exorcism. This is gratitude to a ghost. The Donkey Kong Country games were a cornerstone of my childhood. My SNES was packed in with the first game, and I remember Christmas morning... being WOWED by the amazing graphics being played on my television screen. After staring at Bayou Billy and Simon's Quest for five years, it was like looking at the face of God. It took me a week to beat it. That's nothing compared to what happened when the sequel came out. Donkey Kong Country 2 is a contender for my absolute favorite game of all time. Something about its platforming, its clever use of stage hazards, and its collectables being plentiful but not overwhelming sold me on it. Totally and completely. The third one... well, it's my least favorite. It's the start of Rareware being more obsessed with collecting all the things, and I never liked Kiddy Kong. Still, I had fun, and I got everything in that game in a pre-Internet world. Those three games are a solid series with its ups and downs, and Iwata was right there at the end of them all. Executive Producer. Thank you.

EARTHBOUND/POKEMON GOLD AND SILVER

The soul of Earthbound is the result of Shigesato Itoi. The chassis, the machine code body that the soul pilots? Iwata and friends. I have also lumped in Pokemon Gold/Silver here, because both of these are examples of how Iwata was a goddamned wizard when it came to programming. Legends say he worked out most of the kinks in Earthbound, and made the game actually work... to say nothing of Gold and Silver. Their big surprise claim to fame, the revisitation of the lands of Pokemon Red and Blue? That would not have been possible without Iwata coming in and creating elaborate compression algorithms. He made Johto compact, code-wise, so that Kanto could be slotted in. One of the secret joys of my childhood, and one of the hidden joys discovered via my days as a teenage ROM fiend. Iwata, behind the code of both. Wow.

I think that's all I need to say. Certainly, according to this page, he tinkered and worked on so many other things. Hell, he's even credited for working on the Famicom Mini port of Ghosts n Goblins. The man's even involved in one of my favorite hard game series. Dare I say that Iwata is a Nintendo god in his own modest way? He is the secret history, his name in the credits of many of Nintendo's greats. The threads of fate cross between Kirby, between Donkey Kong, between Animal Crossing and Fire Emblem and Star Fox and Mother and Yoshi. I could go on forever about all of the games he's worked on that have touched me personally... but it's here I leave Satoru Iwata to rest. In 55 years of life on planet Earth, you helped create computer video games that resonate with a billion video game players across the world. I can't thank you enough for it. I suppose I'll close by talking about Mother, since Shigesato Itoi posted a lovely farewell to you. Satoru Iwata did not work on Mother... but just a few weeks before he died, it finally arrived on our shores. Earthbound Beginnings exists now. I close with two things. Lyrics from Catherine Warwick... and this image of a rainbow over Nintendo HQ in Kyoto.

'Cause I still believe in miracles,
I swear I've seen a few.
And the time will surely come
When you can see my point of view.
I believe in second chances,
And that's why I believe in you!

Rest in peace, Mr. Iwata.

Ten Years Ago: Tales Of Symphonia

(Hi! This has nothing to do with NES, sorry! Instead it's me being an old nostalgic fart and thinking about things that happened ten years ago. Please enjoy me remembering old Gamecube RPGs. Thanks.)

I never got to beat Tales of Symphonia.

We are casting the net back quite a ways here. Wikipedia, which did not exist back in the time I'm thinking of, says that Tales of Symphonia came out over here in July 2004. I would have been on the Summer Works Program, doing odd jobs for my town council. Cutting down overgrowth around playgrounds on hot summer days, planting the first seeds of what would eventually become my NaNoWriMo winning empire. And, oh yes, playing multiplayer Gamecube games with my pals. There was Super Smash Bros Melee, which I always got creamed at but still enjoyed. Then came the glut of FPS games, which... I was even more terrible at. Those three other pals I played with, the crew, they were all army cadets. One of 'em even did join the army. They knew their way around the militaristic. I did not, and as such my soldier or my British secret agent was frequently headshotted. That's fine. I had yet to discover my latent talent as a Hard Game Beater, a Beast In The Shape Of A Man. That was fine. What I ended up becoming good at, or had the most fun with, rather, was Tales of Symphonia.

It would have been the end of my Summer Works when I first heard about it. That lovely lady who captivated my late nights on dial-up Internet mentioned it. Said it was awesome, as I recall. Who knows, it's ten years ago. The saga of me and that lovely lady spread on through the rest of 2004, but that has nary a lick to do with Symphonia. The holidays approach. I return on Christmas break, and now my friends have Symphonia. I see the final boss battle, without context. A translucent winged boy attempts to murder a party of four as they battle, a kinetic frenzy of rhythm, positioning, and panache. Game looks pretty cool. Matt made a good purchase here. It's not the last good purchase he'll make, either. Meanwhile, bad decisions have left me mighty high and stranded for most of 2005. Ding dong, the new year approaches and I am banished to the dark reaches of small-town Newfoundland. This is oddly cyclic, as the end of 2005 will lead to much the same thing. Again, that saga has naught to do with Tales. The upshot? Lots of time to spend playing video games with my pals, after their own school times are said and done. Most of it is spent on the weekends. The same fun times. Smash Bros. Shooter games. Card games, who could forget those? Then comes the decision to replay Tales of Symphonia, with the four of us. That's the exciting bit. It is an RPG where multiple folks can join in, a souped-up Secret of Mana for the Gamecube age. The PS2 may have a billion Japanese RPGs, but here and now? The Gamecube gets its best one.

I take my character selection. Matt is the leader, Lloyd Irving with his dual blades. Blazey takes on summoner Sheena. I forgot who our third pal took, but I went with Genis. The small child who casts the spells that makes the peoples fall down. I blame Brian Clevinger and his comics for turning me into a mage-lover when it comes to these sorts of games. Hurling all sorts of things arcane and elemental at your foes. What's not to like? I took to my role well. While the others rushed in, melee ready and hacking away with their Sonic Thrusts and Demon Fangs, I stood back. I charged and concentrated, and then unleashed my power. The rest of it, the out of battle exploration and plot twists and whatnot, I only watched unfold. The leader piloted Lloyd through all of that. I was only needed for battle, and I assisted in battle well. I liked this role. I liked being a support. I enjoyed watching the tale, and was eager to beat the game.

It never happened. Matt made another good purchase in the spring of 2005. Resident Evil 4. Another achievement for the Gamecube, sure. I remember watching the opening cutscene with them all. Everyone was amazed at how good it looked, but I scoffed that it was just pre-rendered. Then the game started, and it looked the same. You were playing a game that looked that good. Holy shit. We petrified poor Blazey. I got him to shoot the lake. Matt got him with the Regenetators. It was a game they all flocked to, and I loved to see...but it wasn't Tales of Symphonia. We never picked up our file again, and now it is lost to time. As good as Resident Evil 4 is, I am inclined to resent it a little for taking away the climax to the RPG for me. Ten years ago, we were playing a lovely little RPG that I enjoyed playing a passive role in. Survival horror came and took it away. What a shame.

If we look further ahead into the future, we see some fun things. Blazey getting me a copy of Resident Evil 4 for my birthday, once I owned my very own Gamecube. On a later visit to his new home, he spied a copy of Tales of Symphonia for 15 bucks. He snagged it first. I was inclined to be a bit envious at him for this, but only for a while. Matt returned home for Christmas, having sold all of his Gamecube collection for new hi-fidelity Xbox 360 things. All but one. "Merry Christmas", he said to me, handing me Tales of Symphonia. The same copy that we had played all those years ago, and now I own it. Tragically, though, I still have not beaten it. My passive magic skills are naught in single player. I lack the know-how to use Lloyd properly. The end of the game still eludes me. I eventually did get a sort of catharsis, however. Summer 2012. Over three weeks, the three of us were back again. On the Playstation 3 we went non-stop, playing Tales of Graces F. Me as Pascal, a lady with fabulous hair and magic power for days. We did it. We actually beat the damned thing. It was glorious, and it was fantastic... but it still wasn't Tales of Symphonia.

Maybe someday, I will get to beat it.