{"id":1242,"date":"2013-01-15T23:55:48","date_gmt":"2013-01-15T23:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1242"},"modified":"2013-01-15T23:55:48","modified_gmt":"2013-01-15T23:55:48","slug":"so-what-did-i-think-about-the-snowmen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/01\/15\/so-what-did-i-think-about-the-snowmen\/","title":{"rendered":"So\u2026 What Did I Think About The Snowmen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/01\/15\/so-what-did-i-think-about-the-snowmen\/rsz_doctor-who-the-snowmen-christmas-pics-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1243\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"1243\" data-permalink=\"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/01\/15\/so-what-did-i-think-about-the-snowmen\/rsz_doctor-who-the-snowmen-christmas-pics-2\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/rsz_doctor-who-the-snowmen-christmas-pics-2.jpg?fit=500%2C333\" data-orig-size=\"500,333\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;\\u00a9BBC\/BBC WORLDWIDE&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"rsz_doctor-who-the-snowmen-christmas-pics-2\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/rsz_doctor-who-the-snowmen-christmas-pics-2.jpg?fit=500%2C333\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1243\" alt=\"rsz_doctor-who-the-snowmen-christmas-pics-2\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/rsz_doctor-who-the-snowmen-christmas-pics-2.jpg?resize=500%2C333\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/rsz_doctor-who-the-snowmen-christmas-pics-2.jpg?w=500 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/rsz_doctor-who-the-snowmen-christmas-pics-2.jpg?resize=300%2C199 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I have neglected my post shamefully and will try and rewatch the episode soon to give some more cogent thoughts, but here are some quick observations\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>New title sequence and music seem to lack focus and drive, although the glimpse of Matt Smith\u2019s face is welcome and stylish.<\/li>\n<li>Moreorless everything in the set-up is great \u2013 Jenna-Louise Coleman acquits herself splendidly, and Matt Smith is excellent as this darker, more lonely version of the Doctor.<\/li>\n<li>The nods to the Patrick Troughton Yeti stories are lovely and to have Ian McKellan and Richard E Grant is almost spoiling us<\/li>\n<li>Welcome returns too from Vastra, Jenny and especially Strax<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t like the new TARDIS much. Too small, too boxy. I thought the previous version was the best since the series returned and possibly the best ever. I remember hating the Eccleston version when it debuted and I got used to that, so maybe this will grow on me too (mind you, they did adjust the lighting when Tennant took over).<\/li>\n<li>Fantastically bold to actually kill off Clara, although the storytelling was a bit wobbly there. If she\u2019s dead, kill her off. If she\u2019s not dead yet, then give her a line or two at least.<\/li>\n<li>Resolving the plot with \u201ctears at Christmas\u201d is almost unforgivably nonsensical and rather makes me wonder if the resolution to the <i>Sherlock<\/i> cliff-hanger will be that Watson closed his eyes and wished <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">really hard<\/span> that Holmes wasn\u2019t dead.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I\u2019m shortly turning this blog over to movies and especially The Oscars, but before I do a quick word about the New Yes Prime Minister which began on Gold tonight. As a writer myself of a satirical play about the, and called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.coalition-play.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\">Coalition<\/a>, I was duty-bound to take in the recent stage version of the venerable 80s sit-com which I found very disappointing. Trapped in a single set and playing out in real-time did the storytelling few favours, but worse was the way that the elegant wit and supple characterisations had desiccated over time, becoming hack imitations of their former selves. Naturally, the new actors couldn\u2019t help but be compared to their progenitors, but the writing never added anything new, while simultaneously failed to resurrect glories past, and the plotting was glacially slow, and rarely managed to raise the stakes appreciably.<\/p>\n<p>Putting this new incarnation back on the television seems scarcely wise, but I was stunned to realise that the first half hour\u00a0installment\u00a0is essentially the first thirty minutes of the play, with all attendant faults and compromises, and several jokes made appreciably less funny in the minimal rewriting. Too see such good actors as Henry Goodman and David Haig struggle with this third-rate material, while spectres of Nigel Hawthorne and Paul Eddington loom over their shoulders is a very discomfiting sight. I shan\u2019t be watching any more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have neglected my post shamefully and will try and rewatch the episode soon to give some more cogent thoughts, but here are some quick observations\u2026 New title sequence and music seem to lack focus and drive, although the glimpse of Matt Smith\u2019s face is welcome and stylish. Moreorless everything in the set-up is great [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[23,18,19,309],"class_list":["post-1242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-coalition","tag-doctor-who","tag-reviews","tag-yes-prime-minister"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-k2","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1242"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1248,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1242\/revisions\/1248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}