I’ve watched bits and pieces of the new Doctor Who series. I watched all of Christopher Eccleston’s run…and most of David Tennant’s. I didn’t watch much of Matt Smith’s and only saw a few episodes with Peter Capaldi in. And I didn’t see any of Jodie Whittaker’s run. But since this special had the return of both David Tennant, along with Donna…who was a much better character than I initially thought she’d be…I decided I wanted to watch the new special.
It was a bit confusing to see the return of David Tennant as the Doctor, despite it being hinted at back in the anniversary special with a comment about revisiting ‘the old favourites’. I was really happy to see a reappearance of Donna, though. She was one of my favourite companions in the new Doctor Who series and had such a heartbreaking ending…so it was really awesome to see her make an appearance again, complete with her husband and daughter.
I loved the relationship between Donna and Rose, and her easy acceptance of her daughter. I also really liked the fact that Wilf was still alive in the universe, despite the actor having passed away. Given the relationship that formed between David Tennant’s Doctor and Donna’s grandfather, I thought it was really good that he was still around, albeit in more shared housing.
I thought it was really interesting to see that Donna forgetting everything also apparently included her being blind to everything going on…even though she knew she’d lost her memory, and her mother seemed to be doing her best to ‘help’ that forgetting along.
I do have to be honest that I didn’t trust the Meep from its very first appearance. I can’t deny that the alien was really very cute, though, even as I distrusted it.
Anyway, I really liked being able to see Donna and the Doctor meeting up again…and I especially liked seeing Donna’s family, with her husband and her daughter. There were a lot of emotions raised from watching this episode…and while I haven’t been watching the more recent series of Doctor Who, I’m interested in seeing how things go after the cliffhanger of this episode.
Okay, so I was interested when I saw this movie advertised, due to always having a strong interest in dreams and how the subconscious works, at least in fiction. And the idea of a whole lot of people randomly dreaming about a completely random person (a completely average person, in the words of many characters) was a really intriguing one.
I do have to say that I found Paul to be quite a bland, uninteresting character. The most interesting part of him was the fact that he kept on appearing in random people’s dreams…and it was especially interesting to see just how weird people’s dreams were, although a lot of them were still real-world based. I don’t know about other people, but I personally have had a lot of dreams that are far more fantastical in nature. This movie could have done a lot with the strange and fantastical, instead of having dreams that drew a lot from the real world. The only time the confusion you sometimes experience in dreams came through was when Paul himself had a dream! Other than that, all of the dreams just seemed written by people who were basing everything off of the real world. Where were the dreams where people are superheroes, or can fly?
One thing that I did think this movie did quite well was in showcasing how quickly someone can not only lose fame…but become a disliked figure in the public eye. While I did find Paul to be bland and uninteresting, since he seemed to have very little interest in changing his life (he talked a lot about his book he was writing, but made no attempt to actively do anything with it for most of the movie), I did feel some empathy for him. After all, even when the dreams turned to nightmares, he wasn’t responsible for that…though it quite clearly had something to do with his mental state, given the dreams did change as a result of his life getting worse.
I would have liked to see Paul take more of an active role in his own life. I really didn’t feel like he was that interested in changing things for himself, which was part of what made this film not as entertaining as it could have been.
On the whole, I felt that this movie was kind of entertaining…but there was a lot more that could have been done with it. And I would have liked to see a main character who actually did something, instead of just…well, stading there and watching like an awkward observer. I wouldn’t watch this film again, to be honest.
All right, so…I watched the TV series of Alice in Borderland. I binge-watched it, actually, because it was so good. So when I went into the Forbidden Planet store in Southampton, I didn’t really have a choice but to buy the first in the manga series. (That’s not exactly true. I did have a choice. I just ended up giving into that part of me that really just wanted to buy the book).
So, obviously, I was already aware of what was going to happen in Borderland, when Arisu, Chota and Karube found themselves in that world. But I still found it interesting to see the manga’s version of them appearing there. The fireworks held a much higher significance than they seemed to in the TV series…and it made me wonder just what the fireworks signified in the manga version.
I found the first game they ended up playing to be quite interesting. I didn’t quite understand the whole fortune reading thing, but it was obvious that the worse fortune they drew, the harder a question they would receive. And, of course, the final question required an almost impossible answer of how big is the Earth’s population. Considering that burning arrows had been shot at the group every time a question was answered wrongly, that threat made the game feel so much more intense. And Arisu figuring out the answer to the actual game, even if he didn’t know the answer to his question, worked really well, as the clues he picked up on made sense as soon as he put voice to what he’d realised.
I did find that the artwork for Chota’s character made him seem very juvenile…almost childishly so. He also fit a stereotype that I often see in Japanese manga: that of a perverted man (though it’s normally an older man) more interested in chasing after women than anything else. Honestly, out of the three of them (Arisu, Chota and Karube), I felt he did come across as the weaker character (sorry, Chota).
The second part of this manga was the game of Tag…which the TV series had clearly followed from this book. I enjoyed the inclusion of a familiar character, who was my favourite in the series. And it was particularly interesting to see his gameplan, in comparison to the rest of those caught in the game. And it was great to see Usagi appear in the book, too, even though she and Arisu didn’t have that much interaction.
I would like to read the next books in this series, as I’m really interesting to see how the characters were first written and how they compare to their TV counterparts. Plus, the different medium will probably allow me to learn more about the characters than I was able to see in the series.
This TV series was one that immediately caught my attention when I saw it advertised. The whole premise was an intriguing one, with a dead body being found by four different detectives…in four different time periods. I’ve always been interested in fiction that’s a little bit out of the ordinary, so this immediately piqued my interest.
I did think that all four of the time periods were really well-developed. It was very unclear how the storyline all fit together, though, and at first my working theory was that the body had been dropped by aliens. Since the series was advertised as being science fiction, I figured that at least was an explanation that made sense…though I still didn’t know how the same naked body, with a bullet wound in his eye (and no bullet in his skull) had cropped up in four different places.
The series was set in four different time periods: 1890, 1941, 2023 and 2053. Despite the large gap between all four of the time periods, they each felt as ‘real’ as the others. While I was watching the series, I didn’t feel like all of this had already happened…even when Shahara finds the old case files that indicate the body’s appeared twice before. The switching between the four different timelines didn’t really feel confusing at all…and I was able to form an emotional connection with each of the main characters and what was going on in their personal lives, as well as dealing with the mystery of the body that had suddenly appeared.
Real representation is something that is sadly lacking in so many films, TV series, books, etc. When I first started watching Bodies, I wasn’t expecting to connect to the four main characters…and even a couple of the minor characters…on a deep and emotional level. However, the forbidden love story between Alfred Hillinghead (the detective from 1890) and Henry Ashe (a journalist from the same time period) was done so extremely well that I’m still thinking about it a few weeks after finishing the whole series. Given that in 1890, homosexuality was treated much worse than it is now (and society is still not perfect now), seeing these two come together and develop feelings for each other, in spite of everything going on…and against the backdrop of the rest of the plot…was really powerful. And there was a deep connection between Hillinghead and the main ‘villain’ of the series.
In the 2053 timeline, with Iris Maplewood as the detective who finds the body, it’s clear that something devastated the world back in 2023. There’s a news story where survivors of whatever happened talk about the effects of it…of the world going dark. And as Iris’ storyline develops, it’s obvious that she too feels the effects of whatever occurred back then. When she meets her brother, he’s in a wheelchair…and it transpires that Iris herself wouldn’t have the ability to walk if it wasn’t for a piece of technology called a SPINE.
Throughout all four of the timelines, there’s a mysterious shadowy organisation that seems to be behind a lot of what’s going on. Those involved in the organisation greet each other with the phrase, ‘Know you are loved,’ which is also used as a codephrase. This organisation is around even in 2053, with Iris being employed by them. But their whole purpose and reason for actually being around isn’t made clear until the last couple of episodes of the series.
Shahara Hasan, the detective from 2023, is a really big focal point of the series, something that doesn’t become obvious until towards the end. She was an easily relatable and likable character who clearly wanted to do right for the two young men who were caught up in everything that was going on. When she went under the table to talk to Elias, who was so clearly an abandoned, frightened person in need of someone who loved him, that was a really powerful scene.
On the whole, I did think this series was really well done. It was a ‘limited’ series (which in Netflix’s terms means a ‘short’ series), but I felt that I was able to get to know about and care about the characters. All four of the detectives had their own lives, families and problems going on outside of the dead body they’d found…which was actually only a small snapshot of what was actually going on in the series.
I watched all eight episodes of this series in one day…and I would definitely watch a series two, if one was made. If you’re a fan of science fiction, I’d say that this series is definitely worth watching. By the end, things do make sense and are connected together…and there’s a lot more going on than just a random dead body showing up in four different time periods.
I can’t really say this movie was hugely different to others I’ve seen with the same plot of humans and AI (or robots) at war with each other. I will say that I haven’t seen many similar movies that show all of the robots as obviously having feelings and emotions, not just the one/s who the main plot focuses on.
The movie did start out in a fairly stereotypical way, showing advertising and clips about how good AI was before things went so horribly wrong. I was a bit confused by how old-fashioned the adverisments came across as, though. In a more advanced (at least technology wise) society, I would have expected to see advertising that was more futuristic, even if the wholesome family moments were kept.
The strongest part of this movie was definitely the relationship that formed between Joshua and Alphie. That was hinted at in the trailer, but the movie definitely did a good job with that. By the end, that relationship was definitely pulling on my heartstrings, and I did actually cry at two separate moments. Unfortunately, I didn’t find the relationship between Joshua and Maya to be quite as believable. In the flashbacks, it was difficult to tell what Joshua really felt about her and what was only part of his mission. I don’t think that was helped by the fact that the flashbacks felt very disjointed and weren’t very linear.
I did feel like this movie drew a lot of parallels to how society acts now towards other people. I liked the fact that I was able to see both sides of the conflict, since that meant I could not only understand both better, but also that it was obvious neither side was truly evil…even though I didn’t like how the humans were behaving towards the robots. I was strongly biased against the humans, considering they were invading another country who was on peaceful, friendly and even familial terms with AI. As one of the villagers said, “They have more heart than you!” Or words to that effect, since I don’t remember the exact quote.
I mentioned above that this movie actually made me cry. There were also some great elements of humour, particularly when it came to the translator using using far more polite language than the reality was, given the person was screaming at the invading army.
On the whole, I’m glad I watched this movie. It pulled at my heartstrings and made me think seriously about what it means to be human. Plus, given the way society is now responding to AI, the events of this movie might yet occur in the future.
Ink of Blood 