Why Jingle All The Way Is My Favorite Christmas Movie

A very happy holiday to all of you at home! This constitutes a little bit of a holiday gift for you all. Usually on this blog, we run radio silent from Halloween to New Year because I do November words and by the end of that I'm wiped out. This year's Non-Specific November Writing Month was actually not that taxing, and the words flowed like wine, so I'm not completely burnt out. That and I've had a few weeks of rest. 2026 is going to be bumpin' with content, hopefully. There were two big things I wanted to write about and then just didn't get to. Maybe if there's time I will revisit them and do it again, they're very heady pieces. For now, here's a gift to you. Something I've threatened for a long time and am now finally doing at long last. It's time to talk about my favorite Christmas movie. Surely you have one as well that you hold near and dear to your heart. A beloved nostalgia classic like It's A Wonderful Life or A Christmas Story? A comedy classic like National Lampoon? One of those buckwild ones that merge the holiday with horror and action, like Die Hard or Gremlins? Here, then, is mine.

Jingle All The Way is my favorite Christmas movie, and I'm about to justify that.

On the face of it, 1997's Jingle All The Way is completely absurd. It is an all-ages family Christmas comedy in which 80's action star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, bumbles about a series of hijinks in order to get his son a cool new action figure for Christmas. It is corny, it is ridiculous, and the entire film operates on live-action cartoon logic in some nonsensical version of reality where bombs leave you covered in cartoon soot and functional jetpack technology is used to entertain children at a goddamned Minnesotan holiday parade. It is all of these flawed things and more. Nevertheless, I love this movie. I love it not in spite of what it is, or even because of what it is. I love it because of what readings get opened up by this movie being absolutely stupid as all fuck. I understand that I am going full Death Of The Author here, but it's Christmas. The curtains may have been fucking blue here, but let me cook. What is the purpose of the madness on display here, beyond providing seasonal slapstick that the whole family can enjoy yearly? What is this movie actually about, under the hood?

It is about the hyperexcess of Christmas capitalist consumerism, and with the right lens it utterly skewers this by drowning the proceedings in the aesthetic of a live-action Looney Tunes cartoon, dragging it right down into the briny depths of anticapitalist critique. Jingle All The Way is stupid as fuck, but by portraying the commercialization of Christmas it makes that look stupid as fuck as well. There's a lot going on here, and this is not meant to be a play by play of every scene in the film. Rather, I want to highlight some interesting things it does in key scenes and character arcs, just get in there and really analyze it. A basic primer of the inciting incident is in order, though, just in case you have not been blessed enough to have this fucking thing in your holiday cinema rotation. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Howard Langston, a workaholic husband and father who frequently misses key events in his family's life due to overworking. This is apparent from the opening which shows him working through the office Christmas party, a barrage of calls where he always claims that the person on the phone is his #1 customer, before reflexively saying the same to his wife when she calls to remind him of their son's karate class, which Arnold will miss. He misses this due to trying to drive through a traffic jam and getting pulled over by a cop, who forcibly detains him when Arnold mentions he's in a hurry. This cop, played by Robert Conrad, is a recurring nemesis for Arnold throughout the film. Every other time Arnold is in the wrong, but here it's interesting; yes, Arnold is in the wrong for speeding, but the cop is blatantly abusing his authority by being offended that Arnold would sass him and thus forcing him to do tests for drunk driving. Structures of authority abusing their power to screw over the little guy? We won't be seeing that in the film again, will we?

Arnold (and I have never in my life called this character "Howard Langston", he is just Arnold to me) comes home to try and make it up to his boy. If I may tangent, his child is played by... Jake Lloyd. You know, who was in that other thing two years later. You know, the kid whose life was fucking ruined because a legion of ghoulish motherfuckers made him out to be the Antichrist for hammy acting when he was fucking nine. Sure, there were a lot more factors at play that we can't get into, but that can't have fucking helped. Cesspool fandom. The crux of the film is thus, however: Arnold wants to make it up to his son, and so the boy excitedly asks for the hottest new toy of the holiday season: Turbo Man. The film actually opens with the Turbo Man TV show, which looks like a cross between Power Rangers and a 90's Marvel production. Arnold vows to get the toy, but it is now Christmas fucking Eve and the thing is sold out everywhere. Hijinks ensue, and a character arc is begun. Over the course of 90 minutes Arnold is going to learn how bullshit the capitalist chase is, and how to better be a family man. Put a pin in the family man stuff when we get to talk about the late Phil Hartman's role in this picture, but we should probably get into some of that lampooning of commercialism at Christmas.

This comes with Arnold waiting outside a toy store with other last-minute parent shoppers, the store clerk behind the glass abusing his authority and not opening until it's 9 on the dot, taunting Arnold and the parents and dangling his pocket watch and keys in front of them. It is here we also meet Arnold's costar for the film: a mailman named Myron Larabee played by the comedian Sinbad. (Like Arnold, I only ever refer to this guy as Sinbad. He is just Sinbad.) Sinbad is such an interesting character in this film. Like Arnold, he is also searching for a Turbo Man toy last minute for his son. He seems friendly enough, and yet there is an edge festering underneath him. Within two minutes of meeting Arnold he is ranting about how the rich and powerful toy cartels use subliminal messaging to brainwash children and make fathers like them suffer trying to get some hunk of plastic. It's played off as a joke from a raving lunatic, but everything Sinbad is saying here is based and correct. When the store opens, everything goes fucking haywire. Store clerks are trampled, people are shoved into shelves as toys fall over everywhere, and it is absolute pandemonium. In the midst of this (and getting laughed at by the entire store for not knowing that Turbo Man is the hottest Christmas toy of all), Sinbad and Arnold slip into competition with each other, knocking each other to the ground in order to get to a layaway Turbo Man first. This will be a running trend over the movie: these two alternate between being civil to each other, and at each other's throats when an opportunity to get Turbo Man arises.

It's worth noting how art reflects life here. The supposed inspiration for the mania that grips not just these two, but every adult willing to beat the shit out of someone for a plastic jetpack man, is the Cabbage Patch Kid craze of the 1980s. (Who should appear as one of the mascot characters in the final act's holiday parade but... a Cabbage Patch Kid?) In a bit of shocking synchronistic prescience, however, this movie came out in 1996. The same year saw the release of Tickle Me Elmo, a little Elmo plush that giggled when you tickled it. Parents went absolutely fucking berserk trying to get this little red shit. Scalpers made bank, stores were scoured, rampages and riots ran rampant, and people actually died over this shit. This sort of manic madness over things never went away, either: nowadays we have Black Friday, where adults try to kill each other over cheap plasma TVs. This is a very real thing that grips us as a capitalist society, and here's fucking Jingle All The Way turning it into cheap slapstick. Clerks with boot marks on their faces, Arnold getting slapped with Sinbad's mail bag, Arnold retaliating by making Sinbad slip and fall on a remote control car. It's silly! It's stupid! SO IS BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER FOR GREAT VALUE CAPTAIN AMERICA HERE! This is what I see whenever I watch the shenanigans between Arnold, Sinbad, and any number of other folks in the film. It's dumb as fuck, but so is the entire system which predicates these people hurting each other for our entertainment.

There's a duet of scenes near the middle of the movie which crystallize this reading near perfectly. The first is set in, of all places, the Mall Of America. The largest mall in the USA. There is no more perfect place to set such an accidental satire of capitalism then in its very heart. So much shit happens in this scene. A toy store has a small shipment of Turbo Mans, and plans to use a lottery system based around colorful bouncy balls to decide who gets a toy. The manager, speaking into a goddamn Speak And Spell as a PA, smugly announces that due to supply and demand, the price for the dolls just doubled. ABUSE OF AUTHORITY AGAIN, HAHA FUCK YOU, GIMME MORE MONEY! And, of course, rather than turn on the system itself and beat the shit out of this guy, the customers all turn on themselves when the balls are let loose. People slammed into the grounds, hands being bitten, folks throttling the life out of each other for a goddamn chance to get the Turbo Man. Arnold and Sinbad are not immune, Sinbad fucking macing Arnold and stealing the ball he managed to grab. That's when Arnold succumbs to these same forces, weaponizing the pandemonium against Sinbad in a genius way.

He yells that Sinbad got two of the balls. It's fucking crab bucket mentality as revenge, and it works in getting everyone to want to GET THAT FUCKING MAILMAN HE'S GOT MORE THAN HIS FAIR SHARE! The real enemy, the capitalist excess of this toy store owner, is never challenged. We don't even see who got the toy as Arnold then chases down the runaway ball in the movie's worst sequence. Sure, the owner gets tackled in all the madness and it's funny because man fall down, but presumably there's no comeuppance to this. Someone paid out the ass for the things, they made money hand over fist exploiting these poor shoppers who just want to make their kids happy for Christmas, and there are going to be a hell of a lot of hospital bills for the people who got the shit kicked out of them in a fracas for a fucking rubber ball. Arnold is unsuccessful in getting the ball, in a scene I don't want to talk about, but then the movie goes for broke. We've already showed how corrupt capitalism can be, so why don't we have it corrupt the secular icon of the holiday itself? That's right, kids, the putrefaction has come for none other than motherfucking Santa. (Copyright Kat.) 

Shenaningans lead Arnold to a fucking Santa-themed counterfeit toy ring led by Jim Belushi as a shitty mall Santa. As always, it is simultaneously absolutely ridiculous and fucking genius. The level of themed coordination for this scheme would never happen in reality and is like something out of Adam West Batman. I mean that as a compliment, as it's a perfect lampooning of what Christmas has become under capitalism's thumb. Santa, the altruistic joyous man in red who just gives gifts to all the children of the world every year, now shaking Arnold down by 300 bucks for a shitty disassembled Turbo Man that speaks Spanish. I'm not even reading that hard into it this time! This is text! Jim Belushi goes on and on about the noble service they provide for the innocent children of the world who deserve joy and toys at this time of the year, and then turns on a dime with the whole "Well why can't we make a profit off of it too?". As always, this results in incredible violence between Arnold and a bunch of fucking themed mall Santas. 

It is worth noting the nature of Arnold's competence at incredible violence in this movie. In the 1980s, an Arnold Schwarzenegger-portrayed character was an unstoppable bastion of incredible violence: think the Terminator, John Matrix, or Dutch McDick or whatever he was called in Predator. In the 90's, putting this man in comedies like Kindergarten Cop, Twins, Junior, or this? The very nature of the casting of Arnold is itself a joke, and Arnold gets to use that physicality in interesting ways in the movie. Every time, it does not go the way you would expect it to compared to 80s Arnold characters. So here, when a giant wrestler Santa played by The Big Show promises to deck Arnold's halls, you know he is not going to be the best at incredible violence. Every aspect of this is heightened reality slapstick, right down to the casting. In any normal world, Arnold could beat the living shit out of Sinbad. In this movie's cartoon logic, they are both equally effective foils at making the other fall down.

Speaking of Sinbad, some brief thoughts on the most genuine moment of sincerity to be had from his character in the film. We're firmly in the second act low point of the three act structure, and Arnold has tried to reach home but has yelled at his son who has answered the phone because he keeps going on and on about Turbo Man instead of getting his mom. You know, like an excited little kid would. As Arnold sadly muses to Sinbad while they drink spiked coffee in a diner, not getting the toy doesn't make him a bad dad but yelling at him over nothing does. Sinbad then shares a story of his childhood, where his dad let him down and didn't get him some 1970s toy gun for Christmas. His neighbor did, and that led him to become a billionaire. It's here the movie gets dangerously close to swallowing its own poison, as the thought that Arnold will ruin his son's life if he doesn't get a jetpack action figure makes him panic. As is the notion that Sinbad is a loser and his neighbor a billionaire because of toy guns and how good a father each had, rather than all the other circumstance. You don't just become a billionaire solely by your bootstraps, Sinbad. He is wrong here, of course... but maybe we can salvage this. This scene, and some ensuing hijinks at a radio station that we don't need to cover, are the last we see of Sinbad until the climax. By the climax, Sinbad is fully in antagonist mode. It is here that Arnold and Sinbad diverge, but what drives Arnold towards the path of being not such a shitty dad? What drives him back to being present in his family?

Now we get to talk about the other antagonist of the movie, Ted. Ted is Arnold's neighbor, played by the late Phil Hartman in what may well be his last truly great role. Ted is a divorcee single parent lavishing material wealth towards his son, not only getting him Turbo Man but also a pet reindeer for the holidays. (The reindeer hates Arnold and, predictably, leads to more shenanigans later.) Ted is also a major womanizer and every housewife around absolutely wants to fuck him. This is an all-ages Christmas movie where people fall down trying to get a toy, so they don't say that, but you can feel it. (The film never goes into the circumstances of Ted's divorce, but given his ulterior motives of fucking all the women in this movie, I can hazard some guesses as to whose fault it was.) Now, with Arnold being such an absent father, it's Ted who is slowly slipping his shoes into that role. Consider one of the funniest scenes of the whole movie, where Arnold calls home only to find Ted on the other end, and Phil Hartman absolutely mugging while eating freshly baked cookies. If you have not had the pleasure of witnessing this scene, I can only describe it as Phil Hartman practically orgasming on screen over how good they are while Arnold yells at him to PUT THAT COOKIE DOWN NOW. The allusions almost write themselves. Arnold is absent, and in that absence this fuckboy of a man is in his house, eating his goddamn fucking cookies. 

So Ted sucks, but also Arnold absolutely sucks too, because the true second act low point is Arnold attempting to steal Ted's son's Turbo Man from their house, getting caught due to shenanigans involving the reindeer and fire, and now his wife is pissed at him. Ted gets a killer line in the form of "You can't benchpress your way out of this one" and then takes Arnold's wife to the parade, where the first chance he gets alone with her he comes on to her. It doesn't work because, from the first scenes of the movie, Rita Wilson just has this look of being polite but extremely over Ted's bullshit. So she beans him over the head with a Thermos of eggnog, as you do when you're fucking married and your neighbor starts coming on to you because he took you asking for a recipe one time as an invitation to fuck. Back to Arnold, though. This is the diverging point between him and Sinbad: not wanting to steal from a child for Christmas. Arnold almost gets away with it but then has a moment of conscience, and this is what sets off the aforementioned reindeer shenanigans. In his wallowing, he decides to step up and finally be a good dad, and this is what gets us to the climax.

Holy fuck, the climax to this movie. The Minneapolis Holiday Wintertainment Parade is like the second coming of fucking Christ. Jingle Bells blasts at you from a full marching band, every costumed character the movie could afford is roaming around, and the parade is going to end with an elaborate live-action tokusatsu float devoted to Turbo Man. I thought most Christmas parades usually ended with Santa, but the capitalist excess has taken full sway here. Santa's nothing but a sleazy con man, remember, and it's Turbo Man who's the true hero. The capitalist product, that which Sinbad correctly read as focus-tested bullshit from the toy cartels to make shitloads of money from every parent whose child gets suckered into watching this shit. That swirling vortex of pure capitalism has had Arnold and Sinbad in its sway the entire movie, as they've repeatedly slapped each other around over Turbo Man. Now they finally fall into the dark maw of the capitalist machine and become the product. Through further shenanigans, Arnold is assumed to be the parade float actor for Turbo Man and suited up. Before he can give the ceremonial limited edition parade float edition of the Turbo Man action figure (which he holds with absolute triumph after all the shit he's been through), Sinbad shows up as Turbo Man's archnemesis Dementor. Forget action figures. These deadbeat desperate dads have become the toys. Their parade float fight is even a direct mirror of the actual Turbo Man show footage which opens the movie. Arnold has won the war against himself. He now loves Turbo Man.

Okay, that's not quite what's happening, given how the movie ends, but I couldn't resist. No, let's get back to the diverging point between Arnold and Sinbad. What happens to make Arnold more heroic and Sinbad more of an antagonist here? Simply put, it's the willingness to steal from children. Arnold refused to, in the end, but Sinbad has dressed himself up as a tokusatsu villain specifically to steal Jake Lloyd's Turbo Man doll from him, going so far as to chase him up a tall building and onto a Christmas light display which leaves them dangling for dear life above the street. He has officially gone too far with this shit, and remember also that Arnold accidentally lucked into the parade float thing, whereas Sinbad actually accosted and stripped down the awaiting villain suit actor. This is where jetpack shenanigans ensue (how many fucking times have I said "shenanigans" in this piece?) and incredible film scholars of our modern arge will point out how implausible it is that functioning jetpack technology is being used for a fucking American Kamen Rider at a Minnesota Christmas parade, and how as scientists they're very offended by this. Ding. Alright, that's catty of me, but let's do a little reach. 

In a movie that's had that undercurrent of authority abusing its power at the expense of the ordinary citizen, like with Robert Conrad's cop or the toy store managers or the counterfeit Santas, I fully buy that the use of jetpack technology in this movie, which could change the world, is solely used for the purposes of entertaining little kids at a parade. Also the jetpack doesn't even work right, as the guy Arnold is replacing is fucking brain dead due to a freak accident. Still, in Arnold's hands it leads to silly shenanigans followed by saving his son just like Turbo Man saves a kid in the show from falling off Vasquez Rocks. And now, having seen the absolute capitalist excess of this movie... we at last get a rejection of it. Now, that rejection is in favor of the nuclear family unit, so let's not go crazy and call this movie a full-on middle finger to Ronald Reagan or anything. With all the Turbo Man stuff done, little Jake Lloyd is bummed because his dad couldn't see it. He's not thinking of his hero. He's thinking of his dad. Of course, both are one and the same now, and the family is together again. Jake Lloyd even gives away his Turbo Man, the source of all this fucking strife, to Sinbad as he's being carted away in cuffs. Something to bring a little bit of joy to another kid. 

The exchange that follows is memed on a little, mostly because of Arnold's delivery, but it's the key to the film. When Arnold protests because the Turbo Man is what the kid wanted most, he responds that he doesn't need the doll: he's got the real Turbo Man at home. Awww, it was about being a good dad all along. Or a less shit one. Maybe this will lead to Arnold being a better dad next year. Maybe it won't. I choose to be optimistic, though. When we started this movie, Arnold was all about that capitalist grind. Having spent an entire movie being beaten, broken, and buffered by the absolute hell that capitalist excess can throw at him? Yeah, ease off on the work and hang out with your wife and kid. Playing Turbo Man is a lot easier than going out and finding the toy one. That, then, is Jingle All The Way. It contains multitudes. Yes, it's dumb, but poking around at it a little you can use how silly this slapstick of a movie is as a strength and not a weakness. Maybe I reached a little here and there, but I would like to think that at the end of this massive rambling that I have delivered something resembling a coherent thought. Something that says that the movie about beating the shit out of each other for a plastic doll has something to say about the systems which lead stressed fathers to trying to kill each other on Christmas Eve over said plastic doll. Something that says that maybe you should chill out and just be present in your kid's life instead of trying to buy back his forgiveness with a dorky action figure.

And really, isn't that what the holiday's all about? Celebrating the love and affection you have for those closest to you as another year draws to a close? Yes, part of showing that is with material goods, but another part of it is just being there for them, showing you thought of and think of them, spending time with them as we head off to another year. I wish that for you all here during the holiday. Whatever you celebrate, I hope it's good, and I hope you get to be cozy with those you love and do things that spark joy. Who knows, maybe it might be sitting down with a 90's comedy where men fall down fighting over a toy. If you do, you might just have a new appreciation for it thanks to me. I'd love that. Okay, I'm out, happy holiday all.

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 16 (Halloween: The Curse Of Michael Myers)

Boo.

Happy Halloween! I hope the ghosts and/or goblins are good to you and that many a child came to your door searching for the treats, which you will have provided of course. 'Cause you're good like that. I had a good few at the door, and possibly more now that the sun is down. Of course, the kids knocking were a welcome distraction, because it gave me a reprieve from engaging with GODDAMN FUCKING HALLOWEEN SIX THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS. Perhaps I gave the game away a little early in this review, but oh my God. Oh my good God this is dire. It's been a long time coming, after going through this series in a strange order (and detouring for the David Gordon Green trilogy), but here we are. The end of the Jamie Lloyd trilogy. That which Halloween 5 was building up to with its strange glimpses of the man in a coat and hat. And it's shit. It's a complete and muddled clusterfuck fired on screen in 90 minutes, it killed whatever the hell these folks were planning, and only by the good graces of Wes Craven making Scream a year later and causing people to go "hey these slasher things sure are popular" did we get Halloween H20 from that. Let's go wild into this thing and what it does wrong.

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 15 (28 Years Later)

It's another curious place I'm in here, as the astute among you will note I've not actually talked about anything from this series before. I know it by reputation, mostly by the fact that it bucked the usual zombie trend by having the zombies be able to run really fast at you to get you. Also not traditional undead zombies, but people infected by a plague. Kay. I knew all that going in, and didn't quite know what to expect. The result is a strange film, but one with a lot of artistic merit and thematic weight. I'm not sure if I get all of it, or if my read is correct, but as always I'm going to take a stab at it. Let's talk about some fast and spooky British zambabinos, I guess.

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 14 (Anatomy)

 As we wind down here, let's branch out a bit from the cinema before the final push and talk about a spooky video game. Previously when I've done this sort of thing, it's been a focus on mainly retro titles like Splatterhouse or Sweet Home. Brief and short little experiences from the olden days of gaming that nonetheless tried to add the spooks and scares of horror cinema to the interactive medium. Anatomy is not one of those, but rather is an indie horror game from one Kitty Horrorshow, which you can purchase here for a couple of bucks. It's about an hour long and has some spooky atmosphere which I'm going to talk all over, so if you're interested then by all means check it out before I go into that. Which I will do, right about now.

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 13 (Pearl)

It's been a strange road which has led me here to this motion picture, and it's all thanks to Scream. TO make a long story short, last year the two stars of the recent Scream pictures getting shitcanned because one said pro-Palestine things and the other protested her costar getting shitcanned. That led to me swearing off new Scream, but also doing a duo of films each starring those girls as my tribute in solidarity. Those films were Abigail with Melissa Barrera, and X with Jenna Ortega. Ignoring for the moment that X wasn't the best Ortega tribute because A) She's a supporting character and B) she doesn't make it through the film, it nevertheless remained a pretty good motion picture. I had a bunch to say about old age, sex, and the notion of sexhavers in horror movies when I covered it. What I didn't know then was that this was only half the story. That movie has a companion piece, which is what we're covering here today. I only had the vaguest memories of X, given that it was literally a year ago when I watched it. I recognized some of the geography from the prior movie, but went in with only the notion of "Mia Goth, who was in X, is now playing a young version of that creepy old bitch who killed everyone in X". I was not ready for what was about to transpire.

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 12 (Godzilla Vs. Hedorah)

It wouldn't be a Halloween marathon without a little bit of kaiju posting. Having done a whole bunch of Heisei Gamera, and a whole bunch of the really stupendous Godzilla films, I didn't have any actual recommendations on where to go from there. So I went with this film, which I happened to have laying around. Oh. Oh my good God what in the fuck is happening here? Godzilla Vs. Hedorah is many strange and inscrutable things, all at once. It is a profoundly ambitious film, attempting to mash together dissonant styles and tones. It is a film with a ton of attempted meaning, wanting to make a claim on the effects of pollution circa the early 70's. It is a film that, at times, just gets weird as fuck. It is also a film with several jarring missteps that just crater the thing into the ground, over and over again. Within the last 30 minutes of the film I grew to hate it. I was feeling a deep-seated disappointment. I had to cool off, reconvene, talk to folks about it, and let that sludge settle and simmer. I no longer want to torpedo the film into the sun, and I admire that it had its heart in the right place... but holy fuck is this a goddamn mess. Let's dig into that.

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 11 (Sinners)

Well, holy god damn. Every once in a while you come across a film that just floors you. Surprising nobody who read the previous two sentences, Sinners is the latest film to do that for me. Yet here I sit, baffled about what to say regarding it. It is at once vast and infinite in its intricacies and meanings, and also exactly what it says on the tin. There are angles I can come at the movie, but we have to deal with the main thing upfront: I'm white and this isn't my story or struggle. It's why I did not cover a movie like Get Out on this here marathon, despite it also being spectacular and having a lot to say. That aspect is hugely vital to Sinners, anyone can see it, and I have. I'm just putting the disclaimer here so you know that if I missed something, it's out of privilege and not malice. With that out of the way, let me try and do this film justice.

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 10 (V/H/S 94)

Alright, here we go, another deadly dance with the found footage franchise. So far, me and the VHS series (I'm not typing it out with all those slashes in the post, deal with it) have had up and downs. The original VHS film was one I did not care for, being real sicknasty towards women with a particular cruelty and straight up just doing one as a goddamn Skype call in a haunted VHS tape movie. VHS 85, on the other hand, kinda ruled. A nice variety of segments, spooky and gross and intriguing, and a movie that did not overstay its welcome. This is a movie with Mexican death gods, technopaganism, and dreams about a serial killer recorded onto analog tape. It's kind of crazy but kind of fun. I was going to give the newest entry, VHS Halloween, this slot. Unfortunately that one is getting sort of mixed reviews, so maybe another year. For now, we picked VHS 94. How is it? It's pretty good. Not quite as good as 85, but nowhere near as dire as the original. Let's talk about it a bit.

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 9 (The Monkey)

It's shocking how good 2025 has been when it comes to the tried and true Stephen King cinematic adaptation. This along with The Long Walk already out, and a new version of The Running Man due out in the cinema soon. That and a goddamn It spinoff series coming some... time? Too spooky for me. Which leaves us here, with an adaptation of an old short story from the 80's done by that guy what done Longlegs. That was one hell of a movie, as is this. I actually read The Monkey before sitting down with the picture, just as a curiosity. It's a simple enough concept, and King uses the fear and dread of this toy that kills people when you wind the key well. A nice 30 pages of scares and frights and trying to get rid of this cursed object. Osgood Perkins takes that idea and runs with it in different and exciting directions, and the result is one hell of a horror picture.

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 8 (Dolores Claiborne)

(TW: discussion of CSA)

I'd like to tell you a little story. It's one I've told on the blog before, but we're coming at it from a different angle this time, sort of a road not taken. Sometime in the late 90's our neighbor was getting rid of a bunch of old books and offered me first dibs on anything I wanted. That led me to be in their basement going through these things. The standout I remember taking back with me was The Secret Diary Of Laura Palmer, which led to its own odyssey. I've told that part before, but let me tell you about one of the books I passed on. I lifted up this hardcover novel to see a woman in a red dress looking down at me with what I assumed was malice and menace. I was looking at Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King, and I put that down right away because it was Stephen King and Stephen King is too scary. Never mind that, with hindsight, Laura Palmer's diary is just as harrowing. There's a deep synchronistic meaning to the fact that I should encounter both of those books in the same basement. In a mad way, they deal with the same story, but from different worlds. So, even though it's not a typical Stephen King movie with ghouls and blood and scares, fuck it, it's my blog and I get to talk about whatever I want. (Okay, you'll get the typical Stephen King stuff next time. I'm nice like that.) Let's talk about Dolores Claiborne.

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 7 (The Substance)

 Boy howdy, sometimes you just get blown away by a motion picture. That happened with me this afternoon watching The Substance. I went in expecting "something something body horror picture", and by God did I get that in spades. There is much of the body horror to be had, grotesque morphings of the human form and lots of ichor and orifices and bloody stuff. You will not be disappointed in that respect should you choose to view The Substance. What's shocking is the "something something" at the heart of it all: it isn't just set dressing to get you to the gross shit. No, it has some actual (and I do apologize) substance behind it, and some actual complex and heady layers to delve into. It requires a little bit of good faith and active imagination to really plunge in; not so much as, say, a David Lynch picture, but an amount certainly. That's what I've been spending not just the run time of the film, but the hours since, doing. So. Here we go. What's going on in between the lines here?

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 6 (The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: Transylvania)

Indiana Jones vs. Count Dracula. That's what this is, on the tin. It feels pertinent to start with that pitch, and wonder just how in the hell we got here. The answer is my pal Mike, who asked for this. It turned out to be 45 minutes long, so what the hell, a little quickie to bang out on an off day because yesterday was full of six parts of Classic Who and then two hours of talking about it for the Internet. Where this comes from is a little bit interesting, though. The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is, again, exactly what it says on the tin. A prequel Indiana Jones series done on a TV budget, and from a brief glance at the Wikipedia episode summaries it seems like it does a lot of Quantum Leap-style kisses with history where the young Indiana Jones will meet some famous historical dude or lady. That kind of sort of happens here, except the historical dude is the actual Vlad Tepes who is an immortal vampire. From what I gather, this show was a fun little side gig for George during the 90's wherein he got to push special effects forward a little bit more to the digital age, before he went back to Star Wars near the end of the 90's. Let's not re-litigate that, I have enough horror to last me the month. Instead let's talk about INDIANA JONES AND THE VAMPIRES.

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 5 (Phenomena)

The lady who loved insects.

We all deserve a little giallo, as a treat. Dario Argento is not a filmmaker I have seen much of, this film marking only my second encounter with him. That being said, my first brush with Argento was Suspiria, and that movie fucking ruled. Just a sea of bright colors, lurid murder, ancient witches, and 70's progressive rock. Better times with horror movies are few and far between. This isn't even my first time seeing Phenomena, as I was drawn to watch it back in May or so because of its lead and its premise, about which more in a second. It lurked in the back of my mind since then, it has just as much incredible power as it did in May, and now we get to talk about it.

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 4 (Trap)

Oh, and this shot was cinema.

Well, this was unexpected. I'll be upfront and say that it isn't really a horror movie and more of a thriller, but like... Fuck it, it's got a serial killer protagonist and it's my blog so I get the final say on what belongs. There's at least one other film on my list this year that doesn't fall under the traditional horror umbrella, so I am breaking all the rules. Ooh, I'm a rebel. The other unexpected thing for me was that I really enjoyed Trap. M Night Shymalan and I, we have a rocky history. A couple of years ago I watched Old for one of these. I really didn't like it, for reasons I forget but wrote down in that blog post. In contrast to that, earlier this year since my pal Joe did a whole marathon of all of Shymalan's films, I rewatched The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, and those movies kind of rule. Trap is not quite as good as those, but nor is it shit. It was actually pretty fucking good and had me engaged at all times. Yes, even the back half. It seems like this is sort of a Marmite movie, with lots of mixed opinions. All I can do is share mine, and I enjoyed it, and here's a little of why.

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 3 (The Craft)

As above, so below.

In contrast to what we've covered so far, this is something I've seen already. I've lost count of how many times I've mentioned, but I was not a horror fan in the 1990s. I was scared shitless of the genre after encounters with Stephen King and the like. That being said, at some point I do remember The Craft. I couldn't tell you if I'd watched it within the last 25 years, and yet portions of it were seared into my memory. That was long ago, and now here I am a little older and wiser, and a little more attuned to the magical side of things. Also I have witchy friends, so there's that. I'm more an alchemist, in some respects, but I also respect the actual craft. As it turns out, I respect the motion picture The Craft a lot too. Let's see what sort of magic is in store with it.

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 2 (Weapons)

Mood, Josh Brolin (but affectionately)

This one has been a long time coming. Ever since I saw the first trailers for Weapons, I knew it was a must-watch for this particular scary season. It was brilliant marketing, revealing just enough to intrigue and entice but not so much that it gave any of the game away. A movie you just go into and try to understand as it unravels before you. For a bit near the beginning I worried that this would be a more run of the mill thriller, and that I would have to cook a bit with some metaphor for horror. I could do that, but I don't have to. Weapons firmly belongs in the horror camp, and it is a staggering masterpiece of recent cinema in that camp. That's a fucking accomplishment considering some of the other horror films that have come out recently, but by fuck does Weapons accomplish it.

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween: Day 1 (Gnome Cave)

 ooooOOOOoooo!!! Here we are, once again, on the dawn of another October! Spooky season is upon us! The last embers of summer have burned away, there's a chill in the air, I need a sweater and a blanket, and so it is time to once again begin with our spooky marathon. When building the lineup this year, it was quite interesting. There were a few shoo-ins, a few recommendations, and then just a few choices which kind of fell into my lap. Like this getting announced a short while ago; the debut horror novel of one James Rolfe. I trust that the man needs no introduction, but let's just say his reputation precedes him. That's complimentary, by the way. I know that reviews of this book came out from the usual Youtubers orbiting Rolfe, but I did not pay them any heed. It's difficult to trust the Internet on him when he has, for lack of a better term, a cult of haters. Not every critic of his is acting in bad faith, but holy fuck are the ones who are fucking organized. In a mad way, that becomes sort of relevant for what this book is doing.

Coming Soon: Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween

(Stream screenshot from dot_lvl )

Hello! It's been a little bit, and my summer didn't end up as productive as I hoped for on the blog. C'est la vie, but perhaps someday I will get the spoons to talk about the things I experienced this summer. In the meantime I've been keeping busy with other things, like twice-weekly streams and joining an amateur fighting game league playing Super Street Fighter II Turbo. It's been very fun and there's likely an image on the side of me beating something with a super move. That was the match of my fucking life, but I've rambled about that elsewhere. Nah, we should probably get down to the usual business. It's the middle of September, and the summer is all but faded. We are in fall's full grasp, things are getting colder, the leaves are just starting to turn, and the Spooky Season once again approaches. Which means, of course, the end of year super busy season for me. December brings my stream marathon. November my foray into Non-Specific November Writing Month. But October? You know what that brings... and if you don't, I'm about to say it.

Sixteen Further Screams For Halloween are coming to your Blogspot dot com soon. My annual Halloween marathon wherein I will discuss something spooky every other day. It used to be every day, but goddamn doing 31 of these would kill me now. I'm middle-aged, what do you want from me? 16 is enough. I have some plans, as there are definitely a few pieces of spooky media on my radar that I've been saving especially for this... but I do not have 16 planned yet. That's where YOU come in! That's right, you get to sound off in the comments and suggest some spooky media that you think I'd like, or that you like and want me to take a crack at, and I'll likely do one or more. I only ask a few things of you, and they are as follows:

-I think at this point I know my way around the Internet and can get my hands on most cinematic material, but for obscure edge cases keep that in mind. If we know each other I may ask for your help in tracking such things down.

-My only real trigger/phobia, beyond a very specific case, is wrist or throat slashing. If such scenes are signposted in the movie such that it's obvious they're going to happen, I can avert my eyes in time. If there's only one or two such scenes in the movie, it's fine with a warning. If it's something where such things are the main method of murder, that's a hard pass.

-I am open to other media, like brief forays into TV shows or comics or what have you, but it's not my main area of expertise and I'll need a relatively affordable or even cost-free way of access to cover it. This part I may be able to handle on my own, but it's a case-by-case basis and depends on context.

-Keep your suggestion to something that I can experience within a few hours: the runtime of a motion picture, or a short read that's about double that. This isn't a precise science, but don't drop a heavy tome on me that will take ages for me to experience and digest. I've got 15 more of these little shits to do on top of your choice, after all.

I think that does it. I look forward to your suggestions, and HAPPY SPOOKY SEASON WELCOME TO FALL MOTHERFUCKERS. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to bully gently persuade Rain into letting me practice my Chun-Li on him.

Doctor Who Capsule Reviews: Season 18

(UPDATE: In terribly sad news, some hours after I published this post the news came out that Christopher Bidmead, script editor for Season 18 of Doctor Who, has passed away. Consider the following a tribute to him. Rest easy, sir: you had one hell of a vision.)

It certainly is shaping up to be a summer of interesting views for me, with plenty of things for me to talk to you about, because they moved me. Naturally, instead of doing that I'm here talking about Doctor Who again. But in like, a fun way that's got a lot of me just being totally extra. Let me introduce you to a fun summer ritual I came up with last year. Even though I'm up here in Canada, it still gets what I would call hot in the summer. Temps past 20 degrees Celsius with lots of humidity. It's not fun, and so I like to think of ways to cool off. A good way of doing that tends to be retreating down into my basement where things are a lot cooler since it's all underground and stuff. That's nice and all, but I need something to do down there. 

Enter, then, a mainstay of my absolutely going extra nonsense. A Playstation 3 using the AV cables of a Playstation 2 to plug into my VCR and display content on a boxy old CRT from about the turn of the millennium. I use this to record either Blu-Rays or digital media files onto VHS in an increasing chase of aesthetic, but as it turns out you can just watch the Blu-Rays on that thing. So that's what I did last summer, and what I chose to go through was my classic Doctor Who Blu-Rays. I'd pick a set, and watch a story a night from that season, splitting six-parters up over two nights. This led to some interesting results and whatnot, particularly my viewing of Season 15 with Tom Baker; I fell asleep during Underworld and nearly went fucking mad with how off the rails the last two parts of The Invasion Of Time went. Amidst that, though, I also rewatched what is not just my favorite season of Tom's, but perhaps my favorite of Classic Who as a whole: Season 18.

It being warm again, I have restarted this tradition. Having just finished Season 8 with Jon Pertwee (it was fine), I get to pick another... and I'm feeling my old favorite again. Then an idea struck me. Why don't I talk about it for the blog? So, here it is then. Over the next week or so, I will be watching a serial a night from Season 18 and writing about it in this little document the next day. When it's all done, you get my retrospective on why I think this season rules. As a special challenge to myself and an attempt at brevity, I'm imposing a limit on myself: 500 words per serial. That may not sound like a lot, but there's seven of the things. Pair that with the intro I just done, and the overall summation, and that's easily 4 to 5k in words. Not bad. Well, let's get on with it. I'll set the scene for you. It's half past eight on a weekday, the sun is just about to set over the hills to the westward, directly facing me, and I am down here cooling off. I have my drink, my snacks, and on this old console hooked up to a slightly older TV, we're going to watch the finale to the most popular of the Doctor Whos before that David Tennant chap came along. 

Welcome, dear friends, to a chill summer evening. Welcome... to Season 18.

A Patriotic Celebration Of Obscure 90s Canadian Nostalgia (Street Cents)

Hey, kids! Happy Canada Day! Assuming I got this right and banged out all these words on time, it should be the start of July and thus the celebration of my funny little maple leaf country. 158 years of Canadian sovereignty, yay! Have some maple syrup, a donair, a poutine, a Nanaimo bar, whatever! We are going to celebrate here, in my own way. It's a party at this coffee shop we call a blog, and you are invited. So, let me set the scene. As of last weekend, I finished a work of media that has absolutely shifted my internal landscape in new and exciting ways, a work with such pure power and symbolism as to rival Twin Peaks and the work of David Lynch. It's gonna be a whopper to untangle in my mind, but I will do it and write about it.

This is not that post. We're not ready for that yet. Instead, I want to talk about something I watched in tandem with this work. I watched that thing in the mornings, but in the evenings? I was playing about with pure Canadiana nostalgia... and it being so close to Canada Day, I decided, what the hell? Let's talk about it. That's what we're gonna do here today, then. We're going to talk about a show I watched up here in Canada in the 1990s. It is a show that has slipped through the cracks, so to speak, but I remember it and am here to discuss it on this auspicious day. Start blasting your Rush or Shania Twain or whatever, and let's get Canadian.

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 8 (The Reality War)

Goodness, we have a lot to talk about here, don't we? Well, let's roll up our sleeves and fucking get in there.

The Reality War is not just the end of New Doctor Who Season 2, but the end of Ncuti Gatwa's time as Doctor Who. It could even be The Last Doctor Who Episode Ever. I do not usually engage in such doomposting, and baseless speculation on any potential mess behind the scenes is not my jam. I'm here to give you the vibes, to tell you how the episode made me feel, and whether or not it succeeded. It must be said, however, that the end result of an episode here feels messy. You can feel a sense of a production fraying at the edges, one that has 66 minutes to do its thing but still feels like it's rushing. A production juggling about its Ruby Sunday, its Belinda Chandra, and its huge UNIT supporting cast with wildly disparate results. A production where it feels like our Doctor Who could have gone on for longer, but has burned out like a star twice as bright and is now replaced with... Well, whatever's going on with that regeneration. It's a messy finale. Here's the thing, though: I can appreciate a messy Doctor Who finale. I did so with the Empire Of Death last year. I did so in 2011 with The Wedding Of River Song. I do this here, with The Reality War. I enjoyed this episode. Many did not, and we can try and bring up how they feel as we go, but I had a lot of fun. Let's give the 15th Doctor Who a sendoff that he no doubt would love. For our last go round with Ncuti Gatwa, let's have a fucking jam.

Let us begin with the big shit that RTD chucks in the bin after the first half: the Ranis and Omega. The Rani's scheme is at last revealed here, and it's a Time Lord superiority complex. Also we're doing some absolutely wild shit with Time Lord sterilization that recontextualizes the Dhawan Master's destruction of the Time Lords again as this thing that comes dangerously close to being Looms lore again. RTD's vibe is that of a cackling madman, flying close to the sun with his alchemy and threatening to lorebomb us all. He might bring Susan back! He might use Poppy to explain it! He might canonize the looms or finally explain UNIT dating or bring back Omega as Peter Davison like in Arc Of Infinity! It's daring, it's dangerous, it pisses more than a few people off, and I find it fascinating. The reveal of Omega as a decayed and corrupt myth given sentience, just this massive piece of sentient LORE that wants to consume all? It could be a powerful salve of anti-nostalgia, a lesson to be learned to not hang all of your hopes on sci-fi baddies from the 1970s. A sentiment to touch grass and to focus on the human drama of the back half, and not the idea of lore bombs exploding into canonized confetti all around us. I do not know if I entirely buy this reading, given the extremely nostalgic read of Gatwa's successor... But lord is it a more interesting explanation than just "Old man's brain is broken and stuck on obscure 70's villains". So Omega is a big skull boy, one Rani gets eaten and the other escapes to get you next time, Gadget, next tiiiime. Least interesting part of the episode for me. Let's jam with other shit.

Ruby Sunday fascinates me in this. I have continued to threaten to do a Ruby Sunday Arc Post, in line with my passionate defense of why the Silence Arc from Matt Smith's time is brilliant. I don't want to give too much away for that, and I can't really since I only have the broad strokes of what I want to say in my head. Plus I've not rewatched New Doctor Who Season 1 yet for it, I was waiting for this to finish first. Good thing I did. Anyway, Ruby and Conrad. For all that Ruby would be well within her rights to punch this doofus in the back of the head (and for how satisfying it would be), I like that in the end she takes pity on him. Pity is not the same as forgiveness, mind. Conrad, this Conrad, is nasty. Consider the horrific fact that what I said about Wish World and the trans people was proven right this episode, when Rose Noble appeared back into existence. (To give a fair bit of critique, I do wish Yasmin Finney was actually in the episode past the halfway point, in a bigger role.) As cathartic as it would be for him to become an Omega snack... I am okay with this. Our Ruby Sunday makes better things possible with a wish, a wish for a boy she did kind of love. A complex figure who contained equal parts sweetness and malice in his heart, given another shot at life. Freedom from the hate in his heart. Ruby does that in this episode, and it's sweet. Then she does it again.

The sheer gobsmacked horror of Ruby realizing that the Doctor's efforts failed, that baby Poppy has ceased to be and everyone's laughing and joking and having a good time as if this horrible thing hasn't happened, hit like a ton of bricks. That, along with everyone insisting that no, Ruby, all is well and right with the world, what are you on about? is a culmination point for her. Ruby, the forgotten foundling who herself ceased to be for a moment there. Ruby, the girl touched by fae and cursed to have her deepest fears of abandonment made manifest for the rest of her days, in a timeline that once was. Ruby, betrayed by the man she loved and forced to live in a world of his making. This is her line in the sand, her Doctorish moment. No more. If the price paid for this world is the abandonment of baby Poppy, then this world must be broken. Because she was real. Everything about not just Ruby Sunday, but the metafictional concepts being played with for all this era, coalesce into this one moment of drama. She was a construct of that other world, yes, but Conrad's narrow thinking should not condemn her to nonexistence. Ruby Sunday, in her last moments on this show, stands up for the baby who is much like her. She stands up for the lost forgotten child, and in those moments becomes almost Doctorish in her defiance of the status quo. Like an impossible girl before her, Ruby Sunday stands up to Doctor Who, and Doctor Who blinks.

There's a satisfying sense of emotional throughline here for the Doctor as well. All season he has been mirrored by shitty toxic men: Alan, Conrad, the Barber, Kid. There has been a foreboding sense, wondering if our party Doctor has a meaner streak to him. Here we see that challenged and refuted. This Doctor gives his life because a child no longer exists, despite their efforts to try and save her. It is a selfless act, one without hope or witness or reward, other than the satisfaction of having done the right thing before giving up this face for good. Better things are possible, and redemptions can come from anywhere... as demonstrated when Jodie Whitaker wanders back onto the show for a moment. You know how the Chibnall era wounded me. This era wounded many just as badly, if not worse. Not me, though. That mad alchemy of healing and redemption does one hell of a magic trick here. It almost heals the wound of Thasmin. It has the 13th Doctor admit she never said that to Yaz, but she should have. Better things are possible, and while Yaz deserved more... This is nice. It's genuinely nice to have that track for a companion who was... shall we say, underappreciated by the writing.

Which brings us to Belinda, the big sore point of this episode. I understand her motherly instinct here towards Poppy, I really do, but the companion being locked in a box while the grand finale happens is... a bit much, shall we say. We can go full Pepe Silvia and compare to Ruby, who gets to confront Conrad in tandem with the Doctor confronting Omega. We can weave a web of conspiracy around Millie Gibson leaving last year, and whether or not Varada Sethu was a Hasty Replacement, and all this other stuff. I don't want to do that. The biggest debate against this episode is Belinda and the new timeline where she becomes a single mother raising a human Poppy. There has been all sorts of critique in front of my eyes over this. Is it validating the traditional family values the Wish World was built upon, those which we decried last time? Is it giving the independent and prickly Belinda a smoothing-over at the expense of her agency? I don't know. It helps, for me, that Belinda wants to save Poppy and recognizes her realness even after Wish World is done away with. It helps that we had Poppy appear in The Story And The Engine, a vision which suggests that the new timeline is the original and that what we saw all season was a fractured one. More of the focus is on the Doctor's sadness, over him not being able to have a family and be a parent in the traditional way. A lot could be said about focusing on how sad the man is while the woman is just left aside to play mommy. Look, I don't have a valuable take on it. I'm not appalled, nor am I in love with it. If it's a dealbreaker for you, I get it.

The end of Gatwa, then, and the rise of... who's next. I do love the callback to Joy (furthered by Anita showing up to bail the Doctor out of the cliffhanger... even if her job thereafter is holding open a door.) and this Doctor's last words being about joy. That's what he was, in the end. A joyous soul set loose from the frazzled veteran 14th, to allow that man to retire and find his own joy in quiet therapy. A joyous, imperiously queer Doctor who rocked a skirt, who kissed men, who saved the world with an infectious energy and used his last breaths to ensure the happiness of one child. He was a fun Doctor, his era was just plain fun, and I will miss him. Cut, then, to who's next. Billie Piper is... the 16th Doctor Who? Okay, look. Billie Piper is not credited as The Doctor at the end, which suggests that shenanigans could potentially occur in a followup and we have yet to see the true 16th Doctor. I don't know any of that for sure, so until it happens I'm just going to call her the 16th Doctor? Okay. Okay. So, the 16th Doctor is an actress who played a past companion. Wild. I would have killed for Jenna Coleman in this role, but Billie. I'll take it. Is there a nostalgic cynicism behind this stunt casting, a desperation to remind people of the olden days when the show was good (and a sentiment which cuts against that Omega reading from earlier)? Maybe. The funny thing is, I didn't feel it this time. Somehow, I had killed that reflexive cringe in my mind without knowing. Have I gone soft in my middle age? Would I give the likes of Ready Player One or Enterprise Season 4 a pass now if I were coming to them for the first time today?

Probably not. Let's not say things we can't take back here, Frez. I don't know! I'm excited for a Girl Doctor Who, okay? Just like I was last time in 2017 when they cast Jodie Whitaker! This time they might even have better writing, and I'm excited for that too! There'll probably be an explanation in-universe for why it's Rose's face as 16, but if Capaldi can do it so can she! We could have a cool and good Girl Doctor Who! I don't give a shit if it's trying to make me remember 2006 when the show was good, if it makes the show good in 2026 then fuck it! Give it to me! There are a lot of exclamation points in this paragraph, but I am excited for this. I really hope she is Sweet 16 proper and not just some placeholder cooked up for a year of specials to be going away at the end. Time will tell. It always does. Time also leaves this, the Gatwa era, behind. Thanks for everything, Ncuti. You were indeed a great Doctor Whomst. May you go on to better and brighter things in your future. May there be a bright and shining future ahead for this dumb phone box show I love, now with a cool blonde girl as our mysterious physician. 

As for me, I know where I'm going next. You'll see. Probably.

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 7 (Wish World)

Once again, we find ourselves haunted by those two little words: Temporal flux...

It's an easy enough term to reintroduce. Temporal flux is that specific state that extends out, in this case, from May 24th to May 31st of 2025. The week-long gap between part 1 and part 2 of a Doctor Who finale, in which we only have half a story to ruminate on. The gap in which opinions and takes are fully up in the air, uncertainty hailing in this madcap realm where anything could happen in the back half to change your mind on things. It is a hellish place to be in, especially when done poorly. In recent memory, there was Chibnall's Ascension Of The Cybermen and last year's The Legend Of Ruby Sunday, both episodes feeling to me like 45 minutes of wheel spinning, of keeping things Just So until a cliffhanger Big Reveal, of being glorified teaser trailers for the Next Exciting Episode. Wish World threatens to be that again, and has been critiqued as such by some. The Rani's (oh god, I do have to talk about her at some point in this, huh?) scheme of making Doctor Who doubt this false reality so that it cracks like an egg and lets her see down into the void where Omega lurks? Why did she do it at 40 minutes in and not minute 1? Why don't the characters have more agency in setting themselves free from the delusion of this fake world? I am somewhat sympathetic to these concerns and readings of the episode... but I'm not going to bash Wish World on those terms. No, let's take a different approach. Let's unflatten our way of thinking from the mode of narrative contrivance critique, and look at Wish World with a different eye. Yes, Wish World is part 1 of 2 and setting up some dominoes for The Reality War... but it is not sitting in place for all of that time. It's doing some shit I found interesting, so let's talk about that instead.

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 6 (The Interstellar Song Contest)

Oh Christ this is going to be a hard one to write.

Listen to my song...

I say that, but I do have a comparison and throughline with which to tackle some coverage of the episode. This episode, this Interstellar Song Contest, is a mess. That may sound like a pejorative, but I promise it's not. What I mean is that it is a tangled and complex thing, a Schrodinger's episode which is constantly shifting between quantum states of being tonedeaf centrist horseshit and an inspiring story about oppression and song. The reaction to it online has been all over the place, and now my dumb ass has to try and plant a flag somewheres. I haven't felt this politically confused about an episode since The Zygon Inversion, over a decade ago. Back then I did plant a flag somewhere, and since then I constantly waffle back and forth on whether I was wrong or not: whether that famous Capaldi speech is a passionate plea against thoughtless revolutionary revenge, or an infantalizing reduction of someone's legitimate grievance with the status quo. I don't know, y'all! I still don't know, and to that point I do not know about this fucking Space Eurovision episode! I'm going to do what I can, though, tough as it may be. Let us begin.

The big detractors of this episode are taking the plight of the Hellions as a 1:1 allegory for Palestinians, and taking great offense in how they get portrayed in this light. On the most extreme ends of things you have folks who were already soured on this new era going apopletic, calling RTD and Juno Dawson Zionist propagandists and declaring that they Quit Doctor Who Forever over this neoliberal horseshit. Even more reasonable people who aren't screaming to the high heavens in rage are still down on the show, citing that this is about the worst time to make the worst point. Now I have to critique that. Oh God help me. We'll start upfront with a statement that should not be controversial, but sadly is: Free Palestine. Unequivocally. Even if I get it wrong and defend this dumbass episode too much for your liking, I want you to know that I believe in and support that statement. With that out of the way, the question remains. Are the Hellions, displaced from their home planet by maximalist capitalist greed, with two of them becoming violent revolutionaries planning the deaths of trillions in revenge, a perfect 1:1 allegory for Palestine? I don't think so. I will admit that things are not helped by this happening in the space Eurovision episode; I am across the pond and know little about Eurovision, but I know that Israel's involvement in it has sparked its fair share of controversy recently. Yes, the episode was written before October 7th, but it's not like the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a new thing. Seen one way, this Schrodinger's episode has some unfortunate connotations that really ought to have been polished somewhere along the way in production to prevent things from being such a mess.

On the other hand, Cora. As my BFF Lena Mactire (see, I can do it too!) pointed out, or will point out whenever her coverage of the episode goes out, there are other readings to apply to the Hellions. The scene where Cora reveals how she had to cut off her horns to hide her Hellion nature, and her coworker or manager or whatever reacts with revulsion, a HOW YOU COULD HIDE THIS HORRIBLE SECRET FROM ME I NO LONGER TRUST YOU moment? That's trans shit. It's hard not to read that as extremely trans, given that a trans woman wrote this. The prejudice against the Hellions is ingrained into this episode, and it feels frankly ridiculous. Just like transphobia. The shit with the little person in the control room when her Hellion coworker reveals she's part of the evil scheme, for instance. I TOOK A CHANCE ON YOU! I HIRED YOU, A HELLION! YOU SHOULD BE GROVELING AT MY FEET FOR THE JOB! Gross shit. We are dealing with a fucked up society here. This anti-Hellion bigotry is deep-seated, and it's awful. What has been done to Hellia is a war crime, their home destroyed to bring back the goddamn honey and sell it back to the people. Fuck capitalism. It should be burned to the ground... ah, but then we get to Kid, and shit gets messy once again.

We're really doing that trope again, aren't we? The one where the revolutionary leftist is using violence, and has to be stopped, and we don't interrogate further any of the points being made? I watched a video essay about this trope the other day, but I won't cite that: what kinda dumbass amateur would just cite the most recent video essay they saw about a thing to defend mid Doctor Who? All that being said, we just did this kind of thing two weeks ago in Lucky Day. It's a risible trope, it makes the blood boil when it gets included in capeshit, and it should do the same here. Kid isn't trying to change the world, though. It has been noted that, practically, his plan makes no goddamn sense. If the capitalist Corporation razed Hellia to ashes and your solution to this is "mass murder", surely you kill them and not just 3 trillion dorks who want to watch aliens sing pop songs? Look, Schrodinger, the episode shifts again. There's a twisted sense of mirroring happening here in Kid's mind to justify this act as poetic justice. The Corporation committed a terrible crime and then demonized the Hellions to the point that what's left of their species is seen as monstrous. Kid, then, is trying to use the weapon of the enemy against them. Commit a terrible crime and then pin it on the capitalist bastards, so they are demonized. So they know how it feels. This has a similarity to the antagonist's plot in, God help me, Kerblam, but I don't think Kid is trying to change the world for Hellia's sake. It's a cycle of violence. Hurt people hurt people, and there's none more hurt than a disenfranchised minority. 

This applies to the Doctor too, in that really spiky scene where he zaps Kid over and over as a sense of cathartic justice. This is what set off at least one person to quit forever, the idea of DOCTOR WHO TORTURING A GENOCIDE SURVIVOR, and... Hmm. This is not meant to be a good thing. As Doctor Who notes, there's ice in his heart now because of what Kid did to the crowd and what he's planning to do. The debate will ever rage on over whether or not having Doctor Who be a bastard is a good idea, and it continues to rage here. The fact that he does this because he's raging over the memory of the Time Lords all being killed, the fact that he excuses it to Belinda as being triggered... There's an edge here. I genuinely cannot pin down if it is a good idea or not. Certainly I do agree that there should be more consequences, more distance between the Doctor and Belinda over this. The idea of Susan (oh hey, they got Carole Ann Ford back and put her in the show, WILD) being his conscience is an interesting one. Point is, it's an odd beat. Hurt people hurt people, and we want our beloved icon Doctor Who to be better. Valid.

Let's jam a little, then. Let's talk about that ending, in which Cora sings the beautiful song of her people while we see footage of Hellia burning, the poppies continuing to grow (which I took on first watch as, they still grow despite the razing, Hellia and her Hellions will survive this), and using the platform of the biggest song stage in the galaxy to call attention to the plight of her people, before we get silence and then slow claps until everyone claps. It's RTD as fuck, maximalist twee emotional resonance in which The Power Of Space Eurovision brings us all together. People are not happy about this. They point out, realistically, that this should not work. You can't really break prejudices with one sad song, you can't solve the plight of an oppressed people by platforming them on an event sponsored by the product that they were oppressed to profit from. The real Eurovision doesn't work this way, why should the space one? Fair enough. Absolutely fair enough. There is a limit to how much material social progress we can expect from our mass media sci-fi entertainment, and I can understand not being swayed by such twee hugboxing. Sometimes, you have to be practical. Let me give you one last alternate perspective in our little Schrodinger's episode, though.

Let me talk to you about Symphogear. OH GOD HERE FREZNO GOES AGAIN--

Symphogear, my favorite Japanese cartoon ever, is all about song and the power it has to help people gain a deeper understanding of one another. How it can transcend language, connecting hearts and minds in beautiful utopic harmony. Horrific things happen in Symphogear, just as they do in this episode. Both Symphogear Episode 1 and The Interstellar Song Contest have concert massacres within their opening minutes. In later seasons we delve into the perspectives of oppressed peoples, violent revolutionaries, and people willing to kill for their ideals. Always, without fail, a hand is extended. The idea of mutual understanding, that we don't have to fight, don't have to hold hate in our hearts. That we can connect and understand each other, and that this power can manifest in the form of a song. I believe in that wholeheartedly. So, when I sit down for my Doctor Who and I see a disenfranchised person of a demonized minority take the stage and sing the song of her people, in the hopes that it will get them all to understand, to open their eyes and see that the Hellions and their plight matter? I want to believe in that idealism. I want to believe that this society can take the first steps to grow and change for the better. Notably, the one who first starts the slow clap is not the Doctor or Belinda. It's Gary, the ISC's biggest fan in the episode. A member of this society, this world which has villified Hellions, who begins to see. It's fitting that he's the first to get it: He's a huge fan of the contest, so connected to the songs and performances, so attuned with the power of music. I can be miffed that nothing is really done against the capitalist hellscape here, but also come away from this episode thinking that change has begun in this world thanks to that song. 

No, it's not realistic at all. Yes, it's naive and idealistic. But, if I may? There's no point in living with total cynicism in this world. Our media can't be a total reactive force that brings about societal change, but it can be a start. It can imagine a better tomorrow, and then it's up to us to transmute that imagining into real and material social progress. That's my takeaway from this mess. Not adding to the fuel of hate, taking things as poorly as possible and railing against the sins of the production team. Not Quitting Doctor Who Forever. My Symphogear-addled brain saw, just for a moment, a true connection occur. As messy and as tangled as this episode is, there was a spark of something that resonated. It's up to us to take that spark and do something with it, to make this world just a little bit better. So, yes. Trans rights are human rights, and free Palestine. What a weirdo episode. As much as I have a distance towards it, it gave me that little spark, and for that I have to give it a solemn little nod. Okay.

Oh yeah, and the fucking Rani or something? I'm too tired for fanbrain. We'll deal with that in Wish World.