TV: SUMMER TIME AND REPEATING IS EASY

All the good series (we're talking genre drama here) are coming to an end. It's as if the planners have all gone on holiday, clicked the repeat icon on a computer and let it do the programming. Oh well, I thought, at least I'll have time to catch up with the ever growing pile of DVDs, like Game of Thrones Season 2 and recorded from Sky Season Three.

But wait!  What's this? New series are starting. Interesting series. Favourite series. Surely not! But yes, it is true.

There's Top of the Lake on BBC2 on Saturdays, New Zealand's answer to the glum Nordic crime sagas. But interesting. In English. Written and directed by Jane Campion. With a good cast.

And from the semi-sublime to the quasi-ridiculous there's my old favourite (trans: I own Seasons 1-7 on DVD) Supernatural Season 8 on Sky Living on Wednesdays. And not just one episode but two. And they're preceded by Castle which is coming to then end of its current run so I'm not sure if I can count that.

The Bro's are back!

Tuesday nights are just as good with new seasons of Falling Skies (S.3) and Body of Proof (S.3).  FS is okay (aliens conquer Earth, resistance fights back) but I wouldn't shed a tear if it wasn't renewed.  BoP falls into the I like it but not enough to buy the DVDs I mainly like it for its attractive mature star Dana Delany. This season her previous love interest, a younger man, is no longer on the scene and the police team of black woman cop and fat balding male cop (both likeable characters) have been replaced by hip handsome intelligent young ethnic cop and grizzled vet who has a past with our heroine. Only two episodes so far, judgment reserved. These are on at the same time.

The bearded hero is back!

The bitch is back!

Following them on Sky Atlantic at 10pm is th eponymous Ray Donovan starring Liev Schreiber. Ray is a tough Hollywood fixer -"You think you're only client to have woken up next to a dead body?"- but with a deeply hidden soft side. It's as much a family story as seamy Hollywood drama. Brother Butchy is a substance abuser. Brother (forget his name) is an ex-boxer turned trainer who has Parkinsons. He's played by Eddie Marsan the British character actor who is in just about every drama on British tv; it may be one of Equity's rules, or maybe it's just because Marsan is so good although the characters he plays tend not be. An odd choice for a Hollywood drama perhaps but this never occurs to you while he's actually on screen. And then there's Donovan's hated father Mickey just out of prison after twenty years and one of the first things he does is murder a priest. Donovan wants him well away from his family for reasons not stated, though it's implied he drove his own daughter to suicide, and Donovan doesn't get his wish. Daddy Dear is played with frightening skill by John Voight and may be the vilest character on TV this year.

And then there's the Hollywood coverups like the macho young male actor who likes sucking the cocks of shemales, one of whom is blackmailing him. Underused so far is Katherine Moenig as his lesbian researcher, hardly a stretch for her.

Only two episodes and I'm hooked. Ten more to go.

Daddy's back!

Summer's looking good.

TV: DEFIANCE (2013)

This is the new Science Fiction series on Sy-Fy (or however they spell it this week, stupid name that it is). As it's only one double and single episode in I'm not going to review it yet as such. Just a brief outline and one pedantic grumble.

It's set about 30 years after a motley collection of several alien races arrive on Earth and ask us to share our planet with them. This doesn't go down too well with us humans who tell them to sod off back into interstellar space. This doesn't go down too well with the several alien races who are going to make Earth their new home and sod the what the humans (us) think. After fifteen years of conflict (or something like that -there's so much going on, not all of it revealed, that it's hard to be sure) we're stuck with them and the humans have to adapt to a changed environment as well as living with several alien (but all humanoid) races. Fifteen years later (or something like that, et cetera) our story starts.

A starship crashes and our mature hero and his adopted alien daughter (well played by British actress Stephanie Leonidas, I forget his name) attempt to loot it but disturbed by a bunch of aggressive aliens who want to loot for themselves. Hero and adopted alien daughter have to run away, get menaced by monsters in a forest but are saved by the sheriff of Defiance (the new name for the remains of St.Louis and you can guess where the rest of this series is going to be set) where several alien races and human live in relative (relative being the important word) harmony. There are two rival families, one human and one alien (husband and wife played by British actors Tony Curran and Jaime Murray which gives the show some class). Also giving the show some class is Julie Benz as the newly appointed mayor.

It's actually all very promising, the special effects are good as is the acting (and not just by the British cast members) and there is quite a bit of scope in the scenario. Of course it is early days and it could fall flat on its face. I hope not because, although I'm still uncertain about it, there's enough good stuff that I want it to succeed.

However, this isn't what I wanted to write about here. What's happened is that the several alien races have altered Earth's environment introducing new species (presumably) animals and plants and also altering it physically -most of the original St. Louis is now underground. This is consistently referred to as terraforming. Sorry, let me emphasise that a little more-

Terraforming

Now, as I understand it, terraforming actually refers to altering conditions on an alien world so as to transform into conditions that make it into an earth-like environment.

This is exactly the fucking opposite of what has happened on Defiance!

Earth has partially been transformed into an alien environment. There may or may not be a word for this but I do know it isn't fucking terraforming.

Okay, here are some pictures taken, from as always, Google Images.

Jaime Murray (alien)

Tony Curran (ditto)

Stephanie Leonidas (alien), Hero (human) (I can't be arsed to look up the actor's name but he's American. Or Canadian).

Defiance (city).

Julie Benz (one of my favourite American tv actresses, see Buffy, Angel, and a shitload more. She's wonderful, beautiful, okay I have a crush on her.)

Group shot of the main characters.

This may not be the last you read about this TV series in this blog. Hopefully not as a major disappointment.

TV: IAN'S TWO TV TREATS OF THE WEEK.

They aren't Dr Who, though it's pretty darn close, or Game of Thrones -I'm about to watch Season 2 on DVD and am recording Season 3. They aren't Casualty or Holby City though I never miss an episode. They aren't Dexter, which is running out of steam, or The Good Wife (ditto), though I still watch them. They aren't Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, a sharp and sexy series set in Australia in the 20's, or the supernatural thriller series Grimm which I find fun for very different reasons, or Arrow the superhero series that isn't. And the excellent three part BBC zombie series didn't last long enough to quality.

They aren't profound and they aren't particularly serious. In fact they both have a lot in common. Let me see: two different protagonists who nevertheless like each other, one is a cop and the other isn't, the cop has two supporting likeable junior cops, the cop is female, there is a small but good supporting cast as backup, there is a lightness of touch which doesn't preclude darker elements, both are police dramas (though I suppose that's obvious by now). They are both on Alibi.

Anyone familiar with cop shows will have guessed what I'm writing about and that's assuming you haven't noticed the incredibly glaring images below.

There are more images of these two than you can shake a stick at and it was really hard to pick one. I almost went, out of sheer awkwardness for this piece of fan art-

The show is very popular with lesbians -see the websites After Ellen and Dorothy Surrenders- and while there's no doubt there's a lot of shipping (Kirk-Spocking for SF fans), it's just wishful thinking as the two characters are totally straight. It's more The Odd Couple meets police procedural. Coincidentally, there was lesbian sub-plot in the most recent episode shown in the UK. The out of town lecturer-professor mother of the young sharp black cop and her female younger lecturer professor roomie (plus young son) have come to visit him and as soon as I saw them I went roomie, yeah shure, and winked sardonically. I don't know why I did that as I was on my own. They'd come to try and tell him that they were partners and were getting married. The subplot weaved in and out of the murder something about a retired-injured athlete murdered by his best friend for reasons I can't be arsed to go into) before the son finally finally admitted he'd known about them for ages and he was delighted.

Anyway, (Jane) Rizzoli is a senior homicide cop with a large Italian family some of whom work for the police. He mother is played by Lorraine Bracco whom I last remember seeing as the female lead in a 1980's movie with Sean Connery (Medicine Man?). She's tough, competitive, and funny. (Dr Maura) Isles is a forensic pathologist who goes out to every murder scene then dissects the body later. She's quirky with a dark past she only recently discovers (gangster father, mother who thinks she's dead, neither of which she knew when the show started. They're best friends and the chemistry between the two actresses is terrific.

L-R: cop, brother, Rizzoli, Isles, cop.

The main supporting characters are the young black computer expert cop and the gruff but good-hearted older cop who form her team. Then there's her younger naive beat cop brother who wants to be a detective and her mother. There are several others who weave in and out of the storylines. The acting all round is of a high standard and the dialogue is sharp and funny. The murders they have to solve are almost a distraction.

NB It's based on very different in tone books by Tess Gerritsen.

Currently on its fourth season (still showing) and if I can get them cheap enough I'll pick up the box sets to keep me warm while waiting for the fifth to start.

It came as no surprise to me that the next one should be a success seeing as it stars the one and only -

And if you don't know who this is go and get hold of Buffy Season 7, Firefly the complete series, and Serenity. For starters.

Nathan Fillion has more charm than any actor since Cary Grant and could probably charm his way out of Hell itself. Anything he's in is worth watching but especially-

 

The premise is this: he's a popular crime writer who, through the influence of his good friend the mayor, gets attached to a three-person murder detective team lead by Kate Beckett (Stana Katic who had a quick cameo in Skyfall recently). It works so well that he's now been on the team for five seasons. This one is a will-they, won't they police procedural. Katic is a real find who can hold her own against perennial scene-stealer Fillion and, as with Rizzoli and Isles, it's the chemistry between the two leads (plus good dialogue and good supporting cast) which has made it so successful. 

Castle is so inspired he writes a series of novels about Detective Nikki Heat based on Beckett. You can actually buy Nikki Heat novels by Richard Castle. I tried one and it read too much like a novelisation of a series episode.

The dark aspect to this series is Beckett's attempt to find out who murdered her mother some years earlier and it gets murkier and more complex the more she discovers.

Here's some of the main cast. A number of supporting characters arrive, leave, come back, or never come back.

L-R: Boss Cop (gone), mother (over the top self-absorbed actress), daughter (student), Castle, Becket, pathologist, team cop (Latino), team cop (white) good buddies.

In the current season (5), the question -will-they? won't they?- has finally been answered. They will, as often as possible. But it has to be kept secret as people on the same team can't be on the same team.

In the most recent episode, they manage to get away to Castle's place in the Hamptons. (Beckett (amazed): "How rich are you?" Castle: "Not James Patterson but I get by.") When a man staggers onto the grounds and dies the police are called in. The local police chief thinks Beckett is a hooker which is a very fun scene. Castle can't resist investigating, dragging an unwilling Beckett alone with him and he has to liase with the two guys back home without them finding out their boss is with him. They've been trying to vainly to track down Beckett's mystery boyfriend.

(Yes, one episode was a noir set mostly in the 1940's.)

If you aren't watching either of these two series, you are depriving yourself of enormously enjoyable slick light entertainment. Fuck art, let's dance.

DVD/TV: DOWNTON ABBEY SERIES 1, SERIES 2, CHRISTMAS AT DOWNTON

Me? Watch Downton Abbey? You're joking of course. I'm way too cool to watch some sentimental jingoist nostalgia-trip claptrap.

Regular readers of this blog (hi, you two) know my taste in film and TV: a large helping of cult movies, usually horror ( From Beyond, Evil Dead, Reanimator, Slime City Massacre, and their ilk), science fiction and fantasy taking up the rest: for TV you can add cult borderline-SF series like Chuck and Eureka; okay, I admit to like Rizzoli and Isles but that has a massive lesbian subtext and everyone knows what it's really about; then there's Castle which stars the legendary Nathan Fillion, a cult actor on the same level as Bruce Campbell; I admit to watching The Voice but that's just to keep my wife company -I have to spend some time with her- and at the weekend there were the two knockout shows where Susan and I said which one we thought should go through and found ourselves in agreement almost all the time which means she's either hipper than I realised or I'm not as... 

No, that isn't possible. Let's not go there. (Aside: Reading readers comments on a  piece about the show at a daily newspaper website -all right, it was the Daily Mail, usually a good site to arouse my socialist ire- where some of the readers were calling the judges useless because they didn't pick their favourites. Listen, idiots (that's them not you), these judges know a massive amount about singing and songs than the average punter does which is why they are the judges and you aren't and they can pick up on things, especially after having worked with the singers for hours, that the average punter can't. They may get it wrong, but it'll be for a good reason.) But anyway...

I must have been at a loose end, just not in the mood for any of the backlog of DVDs I have to watch; not even the X-Files Complete Box Set (but for the second movie) where I was up to Season 6 appealed; and lots of people and even respectable critics (i.e. not those who wrote for the tabloids) were saying how good it was and it was cheap and I could always sell it on, so...

I'd got up the the penultimate episode and had come to the conclusion that it was perfectly competent mainstream entertainment when something just clicked and, like Paul on the Road to Damascus and just as powerfully I'm sure, received the revelation that it was brilliant compelling television and one of the best things that ITV has shown in years. I knew then that I'd be ordering Series 2 and after that the Christmas special and indeed I did just that and now I'm counting the days (how long, lord, how long) until Series 3 graces our screens.

It's well made with the attention to detail being impressive. The various storylines are interesting. The magnificent cast create believable involving characters about whom you want to know what happens. Maggie Smith's Dowager gets the best lines and relishes every syllable to come out of her mouth. Joanne Froggat, as the lady's maid involved in a May-September romance with the dignified Valet who has secrets, confirms what I've thought for a while that she has the potential to be a character actress as good as Leslie Sharp and that's impressive.

It would be very easy to talk about the various subplots and the characters and go on and on but I'd rather take a broader view. While talking about the show with my brother in law yesterday, we agreed that one thing which was good about was that it portrayed the attitudes of the time accurately but without overlaying them with a patronising 21st century morality as, apparently, BBC revival of Upstairs Downstairs did (and badly as it's just been cancelled). It plays it as it was which is how it should be. We also agreed, as the discussion widened, that to do otherwise is as pointless as left-wing historians critiquing the British Empire for all its many sins. It was of its time and, for all the brutalities it committed, it was certainly better than the other European colonial powers -France, Holland, Spain, and Portugal. I was reminded of a question posed in Life of Brian: what have the Romans done for us? Apart from roads, aqueducts, etc came the answer. The British killed far less than the various indigenous inhabitants would have done to each other; abolished slavery; provided an industrial base, in particular railways which revolutionised India; established bureaucracy and a judicial system, etc. But I digress, again.

The timeline of the series is cleverly worked out by writer/creator Julian Fellowes, starting in 1912 with the aftermath of the Titanic sinking, here a harbinger of change, the First World War (Series 2), and the aftermath up to 1920. It's a period of great change in which people reassess their lives and their values, some voluntarily, others having it forced upon them. Two daughters of the house represent a paradigm of this. The eldest, unwisely, has sex with a charming handsome Turk, son of a diplomat, who has a heart attack in her bed and carried back to his own. A venal servant spreads the word which threatens her reputation and the secret must be protect at all costs. In other words, Victorian values of a world which is about to be changed. The middle daughter, meanwhile, trains as a nurse in order to perform a useful role in the Great War and falls in love with socialist and Irish chauffeur. Still scandalous but emblematic of the new order that is about to dawn.

There is much more besides. Yes, it is often overly sentimental and romantic and some of the characters tend toward caricature. But the series possesses a great charm and warmth, the result of a skilful script and fine acting. This is popular British drama at its best and I'm not too cool to say so.

 

TV: AMERICAN HORROR STORY (FX)

It's not too late to catch up on this new brilliant series of which three episodes have so far been shown in the UK. It isn't what I expected at all and is one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen on television.

A dysfunctional family buys an old house on the west coast. He is a psychiatrist who had an affair with a student. She can't forgive him. Their teenage daughter is a mess.  Here they are.

What they don't know is that the house has a murderous history. But whether it is actually haunted is so far unclear, though that is suggested.

 There are four other characters of note so far. Jessica Lange plays, and absolutely brilliantly too, their malign neighbour. She is absolutely the most scary woman you have ever seen. 

She has an adult daughter who suffers from Downs Syndrome, who tells everyone who enters the house that they are going to die, and is impossible to keep out of it. (I couldn't find any photos of her on Google Images)

Mustn't forget the middle aged housekeeper who seems to go along with the house. To the husband, she looks different from the way others see her. Jessica Lange's character remarks to her that she wouldn't want to have to kill her again.

The psychiatrist husband is treating patients in the house. One of them is a male teenager who is dangerously psychopathic which the husband does not realise.

I'm not going to give away anything that actually happens as it really would spoil it. You may be able to find previous episodes on the net on on catch-up TV. You should because this is a brilliantly done piece of television: great acting, great script, great cinematography, suspense by the bucketload, some gore, plus an overall sense of deep unease and uncertainty. It really is unmissable.

TV/DVD: LOST IN AUSTEN (2008)

I'm a bit late writing about this show which appeared as a 4-part serial on ITV back in 2008, which is when I first saw it. I bought the DVD a year or so later and watched part of one episode before putting it back on the shelf in favour of.. I can't remember really but it was probably something with entrails and blood in it. Now I've just watched it over the last two evenings because I decided I needed a fix of the lovely Jemima Rooper.

The above image is appropriate because it's a still from Lost In Austen, the cover of the DVD of which is immediately below this sentence. And, yes, that is Gemma Arterton on the right and Alex Kingston, currently beloved of all SF geeks because of her role as River Song in Dr Who, on the left.

This was an odd sort of drama for me to watch at the time, and still is, as I've never read a Jane Austen novel in my life and have no desire to do so. Neither have I watched any version of Pride and Prejudice on tv or DVD and have equally no desire to do so. Put it down to the fact that I think Rooper is an underused and talented actress who has that special factor I've rabbitted on about in recent posts -that of likeability. I'll watch her in anything and first noticed her as a lesbian ghost in the short-lived Sky supernatural Buffy-cash in Hex, though she'd been in plenty before that as a child actor. She was also in an episode of Sugar Rush   as lesbian singer with a love-the-one-you're-with attitude. At one point in LIA she declares herself (as does another character much to Amanda's surprise) to be a follower of Sappho.

For some reason, until I rewatched LIA this week, I'd had the impression that Rooper was a physically large (as in big, not fat) young woman so it was a surprise to realise that she's actually quite small, only 5ft 3ins. Probably because the roles I've seen her in give her a big personality which she expresses well and it's the same in Lost In Austen where she plays Amanda Price, a modern woman, who walks through a door and is trapped in the world of Pride and Prejudice at the beginning of the story because Elizabeth Bennett (the novel's heroine played by Gemma Arterton) wants to sample the delights of modern London.

Accepted as a friend of Elizabeth's, Amanda tries to keep the plot of the book (which she loves like no other) on track on to find her modern attitudes derail it completely. What happens next is an alternate universe version of the book which is probably better for people who know the story well than someone like me with only a vague awareness of it. Which isn't to say I didn't enjoy it because I did, a lot. But then it had a great cast which also included great British character actors like Hugh Bonneville (delightful as Mr Bennett) and Lindsay Duncan as Lady De Bourgh, the spider at the centre of her web. And Elliot Cowan is terrific as the brooding intolerant Darcy who profoundly dislikes the troublesome Amanda. Let's not forget the excellent Arterton, whose small but key role as Elizabeth displays the skills which has made her a new British superstar.

Rooper, a competent but not great actor herself, nevertheless has the prescence (and good dialogue) to hold her own in this company. I hoped that his would be the first of many leading roles for her but, although she always seems to be working (at least on stage if not on tv), this hasn't really happened. Some casting director should have the sense to put her in key role in a sitcom because I think she'd be brilliant in that kind of environment.

As for Lost In Austen itself, it's a charming romantic fantasy played with humour, written with faux-Austen dialogue, acted superbly by the talented cast. What's not to like? The DVD is available from Amazon for under seven quid and contains a 40 minute making of.

Here are a few pics from it.

Told you she was small.

Guy Henry, who currently stars in Holby City suddenly seems to be everything I watch including the penultimate Harry Potter movie.

Bennetts assemble!

 Gemma & Jemima

TV/DVD: HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER

Okay, so I bought a box set of Seasons 1 & 2 of this show for £15.00  and last night I started watching Season 2. This morning I ordered a bigger box set of Seasons-1-5 for £27.95 which is cheaper by a third than buying 3-5 separately, plus I can sell the S.1-2 box on Amazon Marketplace and probably recoup about £10.00 making it even cheaper.

So I think it's fairly safe for you to assume that I like this show. A lot. 

It's a massive hit in the States but only a cult show over here which surprises me as it's the natural successor to Friends, except that it's better. If you want all the details, check out the entry on Wikipedia because I'm not going into them here as this is just a first impression.

It's a warm-hearted adult show -adult in that it's about the concerns of a group of adults in their mid-late 20's- which isn't to say that the humour can't be childish. The macguffin is that the older (unseen and voiced by a different actor,) Ted is telling his teenage children how... well, that's fairly obvious. But it's actually about his life (young Ted being played by Josh Radnor) and the lives of his friends, a settled couple (played by Alyson Hannigan and Jason Segel), the woman he wants (Cobie Smulders), and a completely insensitive unscrupulous sex-mad jerk brilliantly played by Neil Patrick Harris. Plus a series of terrific guest stars, several of whom, like Hannigan, have links to Joss Whedon. But rather than being just episodic comedy it has ongoing plot threads and story arcs so to watch indvidual episodes at random (which is how I discovered the show) is to miss much of what's going on and is actually better watched pigging out on it on DVD as I'm currently doing.

I'm not entirely sure I'm convinced by Hannigan's mannered performance except that she steals nearly every scene she's in, she's completely charming (if vaguely irritating at the same time) and sweet and devastatingly effective on the rare occasions when her character Lily loses her temper going from calm to ballistic in a microsecond. Needless to say the rest of the cast are good as well and the group dynamic works well with Neil Patrick Harris (who has won several awards for his role as Barney) in full obnoxious sexist flow an absolute delight even as you want to shove his head down the toilet and flush.

Unusual for an American TV show, the same director has been in used for all but a handful of episodes and the creators/producers (who based the show on their own lives) are still in charge with massive creative input. This allows for a consistency of tone and character. The structure of episodes is also well done with a frequent use of flashback to replay scenes from different perspectives to great effect.

I may even like this more than The Big Bang Theory.

Oh yes, almost forgot: it's the funniest show on TV right now.

TV: DR WHO EPISODE 7, THE MID-SEASON FINALE (JUNE 2011)

(Okay, publicity photo from the beginning of this season because I couldn't find one of Saturday's episode.)

Let's start with this:

The mid-season finale was the best episode ever of Dr.Who.

No, I'm not exaggerating, I really believe it is. I've watched it twice in two days and really want to make it three in three. Absolutely brilliant and I'm going to tell you why.

In a nutshell, it was a human story about people relating to the Doctor. It was a terrific ensemble piece from a range of actors who gave it their all in their well-written supporting roles. The Doctor is hunting down the kidnapped Amy Pond and the TARDIS is spinning through space and time picking up allies who have reason to help him. It opens with Amy talking to her newborn baby, telling her how her father is coming to rescue her. This intercuts with Cybermen on a warship panicking as an intruder gets through their defences. The language Amy uses suggests someone powerful and unstoppable and it is. "I have a question and I have a message from the Doctor. The question is: where is my wife?" Yes, it's macho centurion sword-wielding Rory and he's standing in front of a bank of screens showing the Cybermen's fleet. They prevaricate and ask what the message is. Rory glares at them as, behind him, their fleet is blown apart. "Now, shall I ask the question again?"

Whoah, what an opening. Incredibly, it gets better. Amy is being held by some sort of religion-based army assisted by a group called (with good reason it turns out) the Headless Monks. One soldier is a young woman who was saved by the Doctor as a child on a forest world and has joined the army, not to fight him, but in hopes she'll meet him again. In her spare time she crafts a piece of cloth, a prayer leaf, with the baby's name on in her language and she attempts to make friends with an angry Amy.

Meanwhile the TARDIS is picking up allies and what an amazing bunch they are. Found on a future battlefield is the warlike Sontaran who is doing penance as a nurse (he can even lactate) and whose dying words are: "I've had a good life. I'm twelve, you know." No, that isn't a tear in my eye, honest. Then there's the bluff burly blue wheeler and dealer, employed by the bad guys, who thinks he can wheel and deal his way out of anything. In Victorian London a female Silurian has just killed Jack the Ripper with a katana. When asked by her maid/assistant/(by a look and oblique dialogue) lover, how he was, the reply is, "Stringy but quite palatable." (I demand a series about these two!) Rory turns up to enlist River Song who says she won't come until the end as this is the day he learns who she is. (Have you guessed who she is yet? I did.)

The Doctor arrives with allies and an army (including Spitfires) and sweeps all before him to rescue Amy and her baby Melody. It is the hour of his greatest triumph and, it's been prophesied, his greatest failure. He gives Amy and Rory a cradle which was his own and we finally learn not only the identity of River Song but the Doctor's true name. 

But now we find out he's been tricked again and the same way. Even as he learns of it,the Headless Monks return and hack their way through his allies. The Monks lose but at a cost and only a handful are still standing to pick up the pieces. While the Doctor jumps in the TARDIS to hunt down the missing child, River Song shows Amy Lorna's prayer leaf and the translated name of her baby. They had no word for 'pond' so it was translated as 'river' and 'melody' as... Yes, even though I'd guessed it I was still tearing up.

This is an enormously rich episode containing several of the most powerful themes of literature: power and downfall; the abduction of a child; sacrifice; role reversals (a nurse becoming a warrior and a warrior becoming a nurse) and more. It's also an episode full of minutiae, of brief but affecting character beats. It really is just amazing.

And then there is the unanswered question: the bad guys stole the baby (who is also the young girl from the season's beginning) to use as a weapon against the doctor -why? Something implied is that maybe they aren't the bad guys. Perhaps the Doctor's greatest fall is yet to come. And what's happened to baby Melody/River Song (and we may know her identity now but we don't know who she is).

This is the best episode of Dr Who yet. And this series of Dr Who has been the best ever. A major cult TV landmark without question.

This is the ending:

River Song stands, holding out her arms (hopefully, expectantly?) to her younger mother, and says, "It's me, Melody."