This review is FULL OF SPOILERS. Actually, it's not so much a review as a rant about the individual episodes of the season, lol. If you want to avoid spoilers go read my spoiler-free season 6 review here.
Season Overview:
Steven Moffat and Matt Smith's second season is not a bad one. It's certainly better than the fifth season, and there are many great episodes and great worlds introduced. The characterization of companions Amy and Rory is much better here, but by this time I was personally growing tired of them and wanted to move on. Also, River Song, a divisive character in the Fandom becomes a focus of the Season.
SPOILERS AHEAD
SERIOUSLY YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
Episode 1: The Impossible Astronaut and Episode 2: Day of the Moon
This was an excellent opening to the season and, unfortunately, none of the others lived up to its awesomeness. We get the season opening with the Doctor's death and this creates a driving force for the rest of the season as well as a focal point for a lot of the characterization that goes on throughout. It creates a lot of questions and not all of them are answered this season. Excellent stuff.
Episode 3: The Curse of the Black Spot
You know what this sounds like, but to be quite honest I didn't mind it as much as some fans. It wasn't the ordinary Pirates tale and the monster threat in the episode was cool. Not for the first time we see the eleventh Doctor turn out to be completely wrong in his assumptions about the danger/threat they are facing, which is cool.
Episode 4: The Doctor's Wife
This is an amazing episode exploring the Doctor's character. Amy and Rory were there, but the real focus was the Doctor as he dealt with his role and the loss of the Time Lords and his relationship with the TARDIS. It was wonderful. I also love how they built another TARDIS out of old/discarded parts and how it didn't have a case! Excellent stuff.
Episode 5: The Rebel Flesh and Episode 6: The Almost People
The premise behind this story and some of the acting was wonderful. It also seemed to be setting the stage for the Doctor's escape from death - because who actually expected his death to be final? I do think it dragged on a bit and could easily have been one episode. I loved the characterization we got for Rory, but I would have done without the mutant!flesh version of Jennifer. Her sinister, vicious acting was enough without all the gooey stretching and so forth.
The best part about this episode, however, was the whole trick that the Doctor and his Ganger played on Amy and the reveal that it was the Doctor's intent to do a little experiment with the Flesh. His cold-blooded blowing up of her Ganger at the end kind of spat in the face of his earlier insistence that humans should treat them well and consider their lives/souls, but it was a very close to home blow to him as she was a close friend and the Doctor hasn't been known to be exactly kind, so I guess it fit his characterization fine.
Episode 7: A Good Man Goes to War
This episode, unfortunately, had far too much of everything in it. It was a mini-finale as this season had been split into two parts, so I guess they wanted to give it an epic scope, but to be honest with all the characters introduced it just felt too crowded. Also, we got the reveal about River Song's identity here. I really did not enjoy the fact that she turned out to be Amy and Rory's child, part human, part time-lord because she was born aboard the TARDIS in the vortex, bla bla bla. I did love the Doctor's expression, though, when he realized who she was and then was like "and we...?" and looked over at Amy and Rory with that grin. Hilarious.
In my opinion if they hadn't rushed this story-line it could have been a lot better. We didn't need to get the reveal so suddenly. We already knew that Amy's child was running around with regeneration powers and that she was somehow involved with the spacesuit that killed the Doctor (and I personally suspected River Song of being inside that spacesuit when it killed him) but we didn't need to connect the two characters so abruptly.
The other thing I didn't like was the repeated plot point of "everyone who hates the doctor is now out to kill him" from last season finale. Not among the best episodes, to be honest.
Episode 8: Let's Kill Hitler
This episode didn't have anything to do with Hitler, but instead focused on River and her psychotic personality. We got even more infodump on River here and while I didn't hate Mels like everyone else did, I still felt like this episode was a huge wasted opportunity. My greatest regret is that the stupid countdown of minutes the Doctor had to live didn't end up amounting to very much in the end. Glad to see River get rid of her regenerations because to be honest, River Song with powers of regeneration would have been an even bigger train wreck than her story is already. I also really don't like the whole backwards time lines things. I mean, I'm sure it made sense inside someone's head, but I just can't enjoy it. Also, I feel like an episode taking place within Hitler's Germany really shouldn't have been as psychotic as this... there's a solemnity to the historical setting that was missing...
Episode 9: Night Terrors
A great episode which kind of stagnated in the middle. Could have been ten minutes shorter quite easily. It was a decent episode with a fun little self-contained plot although I was one of the people who really didn't buy Amy and Rory letting go of baby River that easily. I mean, yes, they see what she's become and they did know her as she grew up, but how could they just accept that they won't be the ones to raise her as a baby? Especially with Amy there should have been more made of baby Melody just for realism's sake, but this episode made no mention of it.
Episode 10: The Girl who Waited
This was an outstanding episode built on a less outstanding premise. I didn't buy the whole stupid two streams things where Amy was trapped and they couldn't get to her proper stream, but I loved what they did with this. From the preview I had thought it was going to be ninja!Amy, but it really just focused on Amy and Rory's relationship in a very well-written and brilliantly executed way. Older Amy did, at some points, remind me of John Smith, and the comparison doesn't really help Amy much, but overall it was wonderful stuff.
Episode 11: The God Complex
This episode was a stand-alone that felt very lonely in a series full of interconnected stories. It wasn't bad, and there were many aspects which I enjoyed, but I really didn't like the fact that they ended up saving no one but themselves at the end. Amy's great and everything, but I really wanted that nerdy kid and the smart medical student to make it. I also think it's disappointing that the one time this show has a Muslim character (to my knowledge, anyway) it ends up robbing her of her faith at the end. The Minotaur looked cool, though, and I liked the last exchange between him and the Doctor. They could have made his talking a little more obviously intelligible, though, because at times I was thinking it sounded more like breathing than anything else.
Episode 12: Closing Time
I thoroughly enjoyed this episode despite the fact that it brought back Craig and the Cybermen. It was well-written and had a Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium kind of feel to it. Overall, not bad.
Episode 13: The Wedding of River Song
There have been much worse finales than this one, but there have also been better ones. It tied up a lot of loose ends, but there are still many questions to be answered. The main focus of this episode was the way in which the Doctor's death, seen in Episode 1, would be prevented. The entire Season I was waiting for it to be Flesh-related, and to be quite honest, I didn't by the Tesselecta thing.
Whereas with the Flesh we had a lot of background to suggest that Flesh were living breathing people in their own right, with memories and thoughts and feelings, the Tesselecta doesn't do that, so how, exactly, did the doctor "die"? Why didn't the world fall apart/continue to be stuck at that one point? If it was really a fixed point in time, I personally don't see how the Tesselecta were any better than River just not killing him... This central issue prevented me from liking it, but to be honest there wasn't much else in the episode to like. The Amy and Rory interaction with River is awkward and stupid and doesn't feel... real and the Silence and their motives aren't really explored at all in this episode.
Christmas Special: The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe
This was a fun little story without all the timey wimey nonsense we've been overloaded with lately. It's a simple tale with some very interesting moments and thoughts such as the tree spirits and all that. While a little cheesy it is, at least, devoid of all the plot holes and issues present in the rest of the series. It's a very well-contained story.
Overall, this isn't a bad season and there were certainly some great moments, but the River Song story-line was wasted and not very well handled. Moral of the season should be that we need to get rid of the whole timey-wimey concept and focus on space. Also, the fixed point nonsense it getting a bit much. You either can or can't change it. Make up your minds, writers!
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