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.

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 5 (The Story And The Engine)

Buckle up, friends. We've got a lot to tackle with this one.

The Story And The Engine is the best debut Who script from a writer we've had since... god, Sarah Dollard with Face The Raven? There have been some highlights since in the Chibnall years like Vinay Patel or Ed Hime or Nina Metevier, but those are mired in that trouble of an era. This? This radiates with a confidence rarely seen on this show. Inua Ellems has crafted pure gold here, and I want to luxuriate in that space and sing the episode's praises. It's handily my favorite of New Doctor Who Season 2 so far, finally dethroning Lux. It pulses with the heartbeat of other cultures, other people, other stories than the ones we've seen on Doctor Who thus far. It does this with immaculate fucking beauty, delivering some of the most potent vibes ever given to me from the phone box show. There's a power to stories, all stories, and this story is glowing with it. Let us take care, and examine it for what it is and why I love it.

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 4 (Lucky Day)

Well, I'll say this: It was better than I was expecting.

Conrad Clark does not get a screencap on my blog.

Lucky Day sees the return of Pete McTighe to televised Doctor Who, which is a bit of cursed knowledge that gave me pause. McTighe, of course, debuted during the Chibnall era with Kerblam, an episode which took me on a bit of a critical roller coaster ride in the fall of 2017. I remember watching it with the friend I was visiting, and enjoying it quite a bit. It had an energy and a drive to it that the Chibnall episodes up to that point had been lacking. It really felt like some solid Doctor Who. It really didn't sink in, what it was doing (and I confess to a naivety on my part back then, but I was on vacation and riding on high vibes then, give me a bit of a pass) until I read some more critical reviews and gave it a think myself. Ah. Oh dear. It completely upended itself into centrist neoliberal horseshit in the last ten minutes, famously stating that the problems with its world weren't the rampant unchecked excesses of hypercapitalism and space Amazon, but the revolutionary leftist trying to Do A Bad To Change The Status Quo. Bad. Very bad, but we will circle back to this unfortunate sentiment when we get to the climax of Lucky Day, and see just what's changed. This is an improvement from McTighe, but in some ways it's much of the same. For better or worse, McTighe has his distinct style and vision, and it bristles against my tastes somewhat.

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 3 (The Well)

Oh yeah, second episode in a row with a big
MIRROR ALERT. And mercury, too. Based.

 I guess you could say... Well well well, another banger from New Doctor Who Season 2. Look, I'm not a dad but I'm middle-aged, what do you want from me? A Doctor Who first impression, probably, but lucky for you my fingers are currently crafting one for your eyeballs to scan. Ain't that a bit of serendipity? The Well is an odd one, in that it is once again one of those cowritten episodes, and the usual pitfalls and cautions apply. You can't just blindly speculate which parts of this script are newcomer Sharma Angel-Walfall and which are RTD. This was a problem back in the Chibnall years as well, where it was tempting to look at every cowritten episode and delineate who wrote which part based on if you liked it or not. I have a guess as to what happened here, with a prior episode to cite as evidence, but if the actual basic concept here was all Angel-Walfall? Keep her the fuck on, she gets it.

I say that, of course, while liking but not loving The Well. My podcast pals, whom I could not join for reasons of being in a basement hundreds of miles away, really loved this one. It is a strong episode and I will have much praise for it, but it is very much a sci-fi horror Gun story. There's more than a bit of Aliens in it, and that's all done very well, but it's not my absolute favorite mold of Doctor Who, y'know? At least it's better than Earthshock, but that's damning with faint praise so we will try a different tact. Let's talk about Aliss Fenly. I fucking love her. It should not have taken Doctor Who another literal decade to get some good deaf representation, but they did it and she's miles ahead of that girl from Toby Whithouse's Flood two-parter. I just wanted this poor girl to get out of it safe, and she did. Arguably, but we'll get to that. I love how her deafness is used in the story to add to the world and the plot, from the holographic screens that translate speech to her fears about people turning their back on her: both because she can't lipread and know what's being said, and because of that thing on her back.

Yes, we'll get to what that thing is supposed to be, but let me continue to jam and praise the everything around it that isn't that. As far as horror/monster concepts go, this thing is fucking genius. I love that we get these brief jumpscare glimpses of a something, and I forbid myself from going back and checking the screencaps to get a closer look. The concept of this thing latched onto the back that kills you if it is perceived is so damn effective, and I love the shot where the metaphor of the clock face is brought up and you then see the aerial shot of the huge circular room the action plays out in. The massacre in the second act is so goddamn macabre while still remaining safe enough for an all-ages sci-fi show that's doing a spooky one this week, and less is more in this case. Just like the mysterious monster on Aliss's back, not seeing shit often adds to the tension and scare. The fear of the unknown, and all... Ah, but then we do get a little of the known with this being. Yes, let's rip the bandaid off and talk about that, hmm?

So. This is Midnight 2. This is a sequel story to an old David Tennant tale from 2008. Now, there's a lot to be said about that from all sides. You have people who were floored by this, and excited at how this accentuates a really spooky David Tennant classic. You have people who are lamenting the fact that we're pissing away one of our precious Doctor Who slots on a sequel to a story that came out when current high school graduates were born, and worrying what this means for the rumours that Doctor Who Is Dead Forever #RIPDoctorWho. I'll be honest with you. If this were four years ago, I'd be in the latter camp. Go search through this blog for anything to do with Season 4 of Enterprise and you will find a version of me frothing at the mouth about this kind of shit. That version of me would rail and scream and shout about the lack of creativity at play, and wondering why this just couldn't be its own fucking thing instead of tying in to Midnight to light up a fan's brain. This is all true. That version of me is also six years in the past. I'm several critical regenerations ahead of that, so what do I think now?

I'm on the fence about it. I can see the arguments for how this choice enhances the episode, and how it also detracts. Eh. It does nothing for me. It sparks no particular joy to make the episode better, tying it to a Tennant classic, but it also doesn't fuck it all up for me like 2019 me would be screaming about. Settle down, you old dork. What we have here is a very strong original idea that gets a tie to Midnight, and this is my best guess as to how the thing was constructed. I could be wrong, but perception is everything. I think Sharma Angel-Walfall came up with this amazing horror monster concept, a thing on the back that kills if someone gets between it and other people like a clock face. I also think RTD went something like "Oh, that's rather like that episode Midnight I did" and then made the connection with his cowriting credit. It's not the first time he's done something like this: Cast your mind back to The Giggle, where RTD came up with that creepy puppet thing at the dawn of television, thought up a puppet master for it, and then went "Hey, doesn't Doctor Who have an evil gamesmaster weirdo in its canon already?" before dredging up the Toymaker. I think that's what happened. I could be wrong. Point is, I'm much more mellowed out and this doesn't help nor hinder things for me.

I will dock RTD a little for the ending, though. It is a strong ending, and really could have had a fun ambiguous horror vibe to it. Are they paranoid, or did the monster really escape? That ambiguity could fit really well with the idea of this being a sequel to Midnight, that episode being all about how paranoia and mistrust turns ordinary people into mob mentality monsters. Then he has to have that shot of the airlock occupancy. Prominently. If it had been a background detail for someone to notice and speculate on, great! The fact that it's right there is a bit much for me. It's the same as RTD actually trying to give an explanation to 73 Yards. Take a page from David Lynch, buddy, and don't go saying the answers. Let us come up with them! That being said, there is still plenty of speculation about that ending, so I guess things aren't all doom and gloom. The Well, then. A very strong Doctor Who episode that isn't hurt by its flirtations with the past, but not my favorite mode of the show. Lux remains my favorite of the season thus far, but this is a close second. Not bad at all. 

Okay, what's next-- OH FOR FUCK'S SAKES PETE MCTIGHE AGAIN? GOD WHY COULDN'T WE GET VINAY PATEL BACK I HATE THIS--

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 2 (Lux)

(With thanks to Lena Mactíre for some magical consultations)

I got you, moonlight, you're my starlight...

I'll echo what I said a year and a half ago, in a brief 5-star review of Wild Blue Yonder: RTD, holy fuck. With Lux, we have something we've not had in a long time: an episode I really love which other people actually agree with me on. It was a harsh period there where I thought the pervasive toxic stink of fandom was poisoning this show to death in the public opinion. I almost wrote a hit piece about how the true Empire Of Death were the fans who were convinced this shit was going away forever. I did not do that, but I have a very different piece simmering in my mind. A piece about the new RTD era, and about how its more magical elements let not just gods and goblins into the world of Doctor Who, but open holes in the fourth wall for our own perceptions and assumptions to seep in and affect the program. Boy howdy am I glad I waited until this season concluded to write that, because RTD just fucking goes for it here. Let me gush about Lux for an amount of words, and give my praises as the magic returns to Doctor Who (not that it left, but it did for a lot of nerds!). 

New Doctor Who Season 2 First Impressions: Episode 1 (The Robot Revolution)

OOOOOOOOOOOOOORB

God damn it, I went and did it again. Two solid damn months of procrastinating on writing anything. I had this really neat show that fascinated me I was going to write about, and after than an anime, and then after that another anime for the summer. Now look at me, in goddamn April with five months of time left before the double fall whammy of Screams marathon and Non-Specific November Writing Month take up all my spoons. Frezno Inferno, you dingus. Well, at least I played some good computer games. Oh yeah, and also time has forced me to get back into the writing mode because there's a new season of Doctor Who, so let's talk about the opener to that for a while like we do. I have taken to joking around whenever this season comes up, calling it The Last Ever Season Of Doctor Who because of all the doomscrollers and naysayers who didn't like Empire Of Death and are thus convinced that that big dumb Welshman RTD has run this time travel show into the ground, that Gatwa is leaving at the end of this, that we're not renewed into 2030 so the show is clearly cancelled forever, and that we'll all have to go back to reading Wilderness 2 era books and hearing Big Finish plays while yelling loudly that Doctor fucking Who has been worse than it's ever fucking been. DON'T YOU JUST FUCKING LOVE MODERN FANDOMS? I fled to Quantum Leap to get away from shit like this, Christ.

Frezno's Comics Challenge: One More Final? (Tokyo These Days)

Well, here we are. The end, I think. It will be very embarrassing and there will be egg on my face if Sean in fact had more comics planned after this, but those are the breaks. That would almost be a shame, though. Not because I would be grumpy about doing more comics critique, to be clear, but because this feels like a true and fitting ending place for the Comics Challenge. A comic about making comics, with this elegiac finality to its proceedings. Taiyo Matsumoto's Tokyo These Days isn't our first dance with manga, or even the longest: I actually think it's the shortest manga I had to cover, considering that I covered mammoths like Pluto or Kamen Rider. Let's go for one more burst of brevity, then. Let's talk about the vibe of this comic, and what it's bringing to the table.

Frezno's Comics Challenge: Final (Britain A Prophecy)

And now, near the end, we come to the Comics Challenge post most likely to get me in trouble, because it's the most likely one to be read by the actual people behind the comic. Yeah, a handful of the other ones got the post on Twitter announcing them liked, but this is different. This is Britain A Prophecy by Elizabeth Sandifer and Penn Wiggins, among others, and already we have to stop and pause. As Sean put it when giving me this entry, "WE OWE THEM". I don't know what precise debt Sean has to repay, but I know how it's true for me. As I have stated before, this space would not exist without Elizabeth Sandifer. She inspired me not just with her TARDIS Eruditorum, but with her old defunct Nintendo game blog, and when I decided in a pique of madness to ask to resume it, she gave me the equivalent of a "Yeah, sure". Eleven and a half years later, here we are. I feel like I am what you'd call thriving creatively, but now here's a daunting one. Analyze the work of a mentor figure. Scary stuff. If you are here, El, thanks for everything. I hope this is up to par, and if it's not... Well, apologies.

A Tribute To David Lynch

I wasn't supposed to be writing this today.

No, today should have been one of the last posts of the Comics Challenge which started a year ago. It's this comic and then one more, and then that's all done. The Comics Challenge, which I started on the urgings of my friend Sean Dillon in exchange for getting the answer to a burning question. A question that became a bit of a meme between us, held over my head like a funny little tease. Why is The Straight Story the best Star Trek movie ever? Sean has an answer, a legitimate one, and their word count is ballooning. I should have had a post on this comic up yesterday, but I was delayed in running my errands. That's fine, I thought. I could put it off for one more day, it wouldn't hurt. So there I was, on Thursday afternoon, scrolling Bluesky, when I saw a funny thing. A little thing about David Lynch, the story about his Woody Woodpecker dolls. Cute story. Then I saw another David Lynch thing. I copied the link, about to send it to my pal Joe. My pal Joe, who watched Twin Peaks in near tandem with me, who bought me a copy of Mulholland Drive for us to watch together because he wanted to share one of his favorite films with me. A friend whom I bonded with over many things, but the works of David Lynch among them. It was there in those DMs that I saw the link, that I learned that such a sadness had occured.

It was there that I learned David Lynch was no longer with us.

What can you say about David Lynch? I have to say something, as I feel it's only right. Here is a man whose strange vision and esoteric filmography literally rewired my brain, shuffled me about and changed me for the better. Here is a man who was so good at imbuing his work with a specific surreal vibe that his own name has become a shorthand for other works of media which share that energy. There never was a filmmaker quite like David Lynch, and I fear there never may be one again. I can tell you all about my brushes with him in the past. I have spoken of the day my old neighbor gave away old books to me, and how I came across and read The Secret Diary Of Laura Palmer and was haunted by it. I can talk about taping the movie themed around that book off of TV, not engaging with it, and having that tape come back like a phoenix from the ashes once I had truly understood its source material. I can talk about the fall of 2005, the dying days of one phase of my life, and being in the city with the man who would become my roommate as he showed me a strange and bizarre adaptation of that sci-fi novel he turned me on to. I could talk about all these things and more, but I have one clear focus. One thing I need to thank David Lynch for, as I say farewell to him.

David Lynch helped me to open my eyes and see. His work challenged you to a different and deeper sense of understanding, where what happened was not as important as how it made you feel. Trying to explain the plot progression of something like Eraserhead, Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, or Inland Empire will leave you with something functional but lacking a certain totemic power. Explaining how it made you feel, the vibe you get from those films, is the key to that deeper understanding. It's fitting that the Comics Challenge had that essay in comic form called Unflattening, the book about perspective and understanding the relation between word and image that only comics can convey. David Lynch helped unflatten me and make me a better media critic. When I finished Twin Peaks, I wanted to cover it on the blog. I could have gone through every little weird thing which happens in that show, but I didn't. I went for the brevity. Instead of telling you what happened, I told you how it made me feel. It resulted in a fresh new lease on life for me and my writing, a new way to express myself. It made my words better. I lost the plot a little here and there in the intervening posts since, but I got it back. The Bocchi The Rock post was of that ilk. I talked about a few things that happened, yes, but only to give greater context to how that show made me feel, how it resonated with me. People I look up to praised it as some of the best writing I've ever done, and it truly humbles me. I could not have done it without David Lynch and his work, and now he's gone.

There's another moment I was proud of in my media analysis journey on this blog, and it was in 2023 again. It was during the Criterion Challenge, when I was covering the film Carnival Of Souls. I remember selecting it for that slot at the start of the year because of what a critic's list had to say about the way they understood that film, a different way of seeing which I wanted to learn for myself. By the time I finally got to watch Carnival Of Souls, I had seen most of David Lynch's filmography. I knew how to analyze those films, and so in watching Carnival Of Souls I realized that I had already taught myself this different way of seeing. It was gratifying and rewarding, and made me incredibly pleased with myself. The worlds David Lynch crafted, worlds full of the darkest things but also the blindingly beautiful light of empathy and kindness, will stick with me for years to come. I could gush about his films for ages, but in the spirit of brevity let me say a few things about what I've seen.

I love Eraserhead's use of grinding industrial noise mixed with the fervent cries of an infant which combine to form this oppressive soundscape that feels like what it must be to be awoken by your newborn child every night to care for them. I love The Elephant Man for how it takes that same industrial vibe and turns back the clock by a century to its own origins in Victoriana, and the way it shines that light of empathy and tragedy onto John Merrick. I love Dune for retaining that spark of strangeness and mystery, despite attempts by those that did not understand Lynch to sanitize it. I love Blue Velvet for being David Lynch's thesis statement on the heart of America, a beautiful candy shell with a festering darkness lurking at its core. I love Twin Peaks for being a dream, equal parts ethereal beauty and nightmarish id lurking within the subconscious. I love Wild At Heart for being a movie that burns with a fury and a passion, a raging fire of equal parts love and violence. I love Fire Walk With Me for perfectly balancing that and escalating both halves of the show, it being one of the most harrowing and haunting films I have ever watched but also one of the most beautiful and moving. I love Lost Highway for the way it reframes the act of seeing and perception, asking questions about who sees themselves as the hero of their own story. I love Mulholland Drive for taking that strangeness and duality and applying it to the world David Lynch knew, the world of Hollywood. I love Inland Empire for just how far Lynch pushes it, it looking and feeling utterly unique in the world of motion pictures with its offbeat storytelling and filmic style. I love Twin Peaks: The Return for truly interrogating what it means to be a legacy sequel, and what we expect of such a return.

That's David Lynch. The only film of his I have yet to see is The Straight Story. I was saving it until I finished the Comics Challenge. Sean even sent me a VHS copy of the movie for maximum aesthetic. I will watch it at some point, probably late in the month or early February. As I understand, the film is heartbreaking and moving on its own. Knowing it is the last motion picture from David Lynch I will ever see, and knowing that he is gone now, will only add to the heartbreak. I am not one to get choked up over famous people deaths. It's sad and tragic and I have empathy, yes, but I don't end up personally shedding tears over it. Not so with David Lynch. I have wept for the loss of this man, this artist, and even now as I write this I'm getting misty-eyed. I owe him so damn much, and seeing the outpouring of support and sadness from the community has shown me that David Lynch mattered to so many people who I call friends and colleagues. Not just the ones who I have discussed his work with, but others whom I never knew were Lynch fans have mourned his loss. I want to close this by sharing the one piece of tribute which did break me, which is breaking me right now thinking about it (I'll be okay, don't worry):

He just wanted us to have fun. I did have fun, David. I had a lot of fun watching your work, analyzing it, becoming better at critique and expressing myself. I have fun when I get to do that, and I enjoy working on my favorite projects. I enjoyed watching Bocchi The Rock and getting to tell everyone what that meant to me. I'm currently 1/3rd of the way through another show, one which has a dreamlike and ethereal vibe that resembles Lynch's work, but has its own quirks and whatnot. I'm excited to talk about that too. Then there are other Japanese cartoons I want to talk about, and who knows where 2025 will take me? It will take me to wondrous places, I'm sure, but they will be places in a world with one less genius auteur in it, and that's tragic. Still, I must move forward, but not without paying tribute to someone who inspired me so much, whose work truly helped me get better at getting my thoughts out on the page. I'd like to think I did that, and in keeping with the ways in which Lynch inspired me.

This is not a post about what happened to David Lynch. This is a post about how it made me feel.

Goodbye, David.