Change Your Image
Chaophim
Reviews
Me Time (2022)
Mixed reaction
This movie made me wonder what would happen if you put Micheal Keaton's "Mr. Mom" and "Hangover III" in a blender and pressed puree.
It seemed like it didn't know what it wanted to be at times and a lot of the jokes seemed to have a huge build-up only to either be forgotten or to have the punchline casually mentioned after a scene transition.
I mean, take the back scratches for example. Those looked deep. No hospital visit, no field stitches, nothing... just shake it off like a cartoon and go back to drinking. And never...mention...it...again. Not even a "Baby, what happened to your back?" callback.
Same with the hand...crushed finger treated like a paper cut and only barely mentioned in a head nod of an apology.
Not to mention the Dash storyline... All that build-up for him to just re-hash two jokes said moments earlier and not him busting out a secret set he's been working on instead of practicing piano? Not getting any of it.
Doctor Who: The Crimson Horror (2013)
Do they have a "Save for later" file at BBC?
Asking because most stories seem to be part of a building overall arc, but a lot of the Moffat/Matt Smith-era stories, specifically, seem to be disjointed, as if they were rough drafts that were dropped into the arc when writer's block struck on the 'real' arc stories. This one, for example only references the main arc during what I call 'dead space' in the story that, if edited out, would have zero effect on the episode's story.
And on the subject of 'dead space', I'll look to the gratuitous elephant in the room. Thomas Thomas. The writers misssed a golden opportunity with his scene because they could have had Strax reward him with a product-placed Coca-Cola, or a product-placed candy bar, or something as this scene wasn't a humorous 'nod' to the Tom Tom GPS system, imho, but a product shout-outs. The only other time I've groaned this badly at "Obvious reference is obvious" was the Weakest Link/Big Brother/Etc., tie-ins on "Bad Wolf", but even those weren't as flop-hard as Thomas Thomas.
All that aside, this episode felt very weak, rushed, and empty with the Doctor and his companions discovering things a bit too easily, guessing or 'just knowing' answers all too readily, and things wrapping up far too nicely (or not at all...did he rescue anyone other than Clara from the poison? What were their reactions?, etc.,) in order to get this episode on the virtual shelf ASAP.
There are far beter episodes out there - you can easily skip this one and not miss anything of the overall arc except how the kids got onto the TARDIS in the next episode.