A Doctor Who Review – Hide

This is the first television episode review I’ve done. Probably because I don’t watch a lot of television. Also because I feel like just reviewing one episode is a bit odd. But I have a lot of thoughts on this week’s Doctor Who, and I feel like sharing. So here goes.

I haven’t really liked season 7.2. I’ve found the three episodes so far kind of boring, and I don’t hesitate in calling them mediocre. The Bells of Saint John, I was expecting good things from, it being the first episode back after a break. It was a solid ok at best. I toned my hopes down a little for The Rings Of Akhaten, and was still disappointed.  I had very high hopes for The Cold War – I really enjoy reading about that period of history – and was let down immensely. But Hide absolutely blew my expectations out of the water.

One thing I am loving about this season though, is the movie-style episode images

It starts off pretty typical. Some ghostly things going on, some vaguely bemused locals. A bit less bemused than usual though. If anything, quite the professionals. Not the typical locals either. In fact, disregard everything I just said. The Doctor and Clara stumble upon two people investigating the appearance of a ghost in an old haunted house. They mooch around for a bit,  The Doctor sonics some things, rattles off the rather impressive history of ghost hunter number one, and all before the plot is actually revealed.

I’m not sure what made this episode so good. It just felt more like Doctor Who than the past few have. The side characters were excellent, Professor Alec Palmer, and Emma Grayling, a war hero and a psychic, trying to catch a ghost. Or figure out a ghost at least. They had their own story, and were somewhat of a parallel to The Doctor and Clara, though only in certain areas.

And now for Clara.
I don’t like her. It’s an unpopular opinion, I know. I do have an actual reason for not liking her, it’s not just that she isn’t the Ponds. She comes off as almost insultingly nonchalant about being a companion, and really disrespectful to the TARDIS. That being said, I am looking forward to the unravelling of her mystery. Who she actually is and all that.

Something I found very interesting to note in this episode was how, almost passive The Doctor is becoming. In this episode we saw how he went to the same spot geographically, but in different points in time, so he and Clara effectively saw the lifespan of Earth from that one spot. And that affected Clara. She saw her planet from start to finish, and it dawned on her that when she was standing in the far future, she was probably buried somewhere at the same time, dead. It hit her quite hard, but it’s the Doctor’s reaction that shocked me. He just sort of waved it off, rather than the heart warming speech/metaphor I was expecting. This sort of thing has happened before – the second episode of the new series springs to mind, when the Ninth Doctor takes Rose to the destruction of the Earth. I may not be spot on, having not seen that particular episode in quite a while, but I’m pretty sure The Doctor was a lot more understanding then. I’m not sure why this intrigued me so much, perhaps because it shows how much the Doctor has changed since then, and the effect his companions have had on him.

My favourite thing about this episode though, was a quote.

“Every lonely monster needs a companion”

I don’t think I need to explain why I love it, it’s not exactly a hidden meaning.

Overall I have no hesitation in giving Hide 4.5/5 stars. It was the best episode of Doctor Who I’ve seen in a long while, and I honestly think that it deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Blink, and other such iconic episodes.

A bit more than an author

Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of going to see John and Hank Green when they came to Dublin on “The Fault In Our Stars” tour, which for those who have been living under a rock, is the multi-award winning book by John Green.

John and Hank are the Vlogbrothers on YouTube, and they run several other channels as well, such as Crash Course and SciShow. John writes books, such as Looking For Alaska and The Fault In Our Stars, and Hank makes music, about topics such as Harry Potter and Angler fish mating techniques (Don’t be put off, they’re actually really good songs).

The event was in the RDS, and due to the fact that I got there two hours before it was due to start to queue, I was only a few rows from the front, and managed to get a view unobstructed by the dreaded columns.

I find myself wondering how many people showed up to the event thinking it would be like a normal book tour, especially if they were unaware of Nerdfighteria, and even Hank for that matter.

You may be wondering what a Nerdfighter is.

A Nerdfighter is a fan of John and Hank. Contrary to popular belief, Nerdfighters don’t fight nerds, but rather fight for nerds, and for intellectualism. From personal experience, I find Nerdfighteria as a whole, quite a pleasant group of fans, or at least as pleasant as a group of fans can be, when your demographic is age 13-17.

So on to the event itself.

To start off John talked for a while about how he came up with the idea for The Fault In Our Stars (TFIOS). He talked about how he used to work in a children’s hospital, and how he was absolutely terrible at working in said children’s hospital. He explained how since then he had always wanted to write a book set in that environment, but how it never seemed to work until TFIOS. He talked about Esther Earl, and how she inspired him. For those who don’t know, Esther was a Nerdfighter who died of cancer in 2010 at age 16. She was and continues to be a large influence on Nerdfighteria, TFIOS is dedicated to her, the charity This Star Won’t Go Out, was established in her memory, and her birthday, August 3rd, has become a Nerdfighter holiday, a time to celebrate family.

He then read from the first chapter of TFIOS, and answered some questions about the book, and the writing process.

Then Hank came out and played some songs, before they both answered some questions on a timer, and John slapped Hank, for answering when the timer went off to signal the end of question time. They attempted to speak some Irish, commented on the weather and posed for Photoshop.

Then Hank sung some more songs, including Rebecca Black which was fun, and wore a horse head because why not eh?

I wasn’t lying. The horse head happened.

The entire hall (it was actually a society library, but you get the gist) sang along to a bit of the Proclaimers, and then most people queued for another hour or so (or two or three probably by the end of the night) to get things signed, which to be honest was worthwhile queueing for.

Signed with a Hanklerfish.

I think the best thing about events such as this, is the sense of companionship. You’re in a room packed full of people who love the same thing as you, and to me that’s one of the best feelings. The amount of people in Harry Potter or Doctor Who shirts, or really any other fandom was lovely to see, because it sometimes feels like these things aren’t as popular in Ireland, and it’s lovely to see that this really isn’t true.

I genuinely can’t fault this event, it was completely amazing.

So until next time, DFTBA.