Are the Disney Princesses a Problem?

The Merida makeover kerfuffle has mostly blown over, but I wanted to put in my two cents, not just on this particular controversy, but the existence of the Disney Princess brand in general. During my last trip to the Disneyland theme park, it was hard to escape the princesses. Everywhere you looked, there were little girls dressed up as Merida from "Brave," Rapunzel from "Tangled," Tiana from "The Princess and the Frog," and a smattering of Belles and Ariels and Jasmines. I caught a glimpse of the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique near Sleeping Beauty's Castle, a salon where girls could be transformed into their favorite princess for the day. (Contrary to a recent episode of "The Big Bang Theory," grown ups aren't allowed to wander the park in costume, for fear of confusing the kids).

The cynical part of me thought that all the little girls in their color-coded princess gowns were awfully generic looking. Sure, they were obviously having fun and they looked adorable, but it reinforced for me that the bulk of this whole Disney Princess branding business is tied to selling traditionally gender-coded merchandise for girls like dresses and accessories and dolls. And the shinier and sparklier, the better, which is why Princess Merida was redesigned with a fancier gown, better groomed hair, and it looks like she's wearing eye make-up. If you look at the other princess characters, you'll notice that they've all been redesigned like this to an extent. However, Merida's makeover is especially jarring because it's so contrary to her character. PIXAR did a great job of creating a princess who valued her individuality over tradition, and was more interested in adventuring than being cooped up at home, learning to be a proper lady. In one scene, she rips her way out of the constraining, pretty dress that her mother has stuffed her into, in order to win an archery tournament.

I don't have any issues with the individual Disney Princesses as role models. I think this generation's Merida and Tiana and Rapunzel are great examples of well-rounded, interesting animated heroines. Even the older, more traditional princesses like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella have their good points. However, the Disney Princess branding insists on presenting all of them as these slightly differentiated variations on a very generic, ideal princess type, where the emphasis is all on looks and clothes. It's notable that the more action-oriented heroines who are part of the Princess brand, Mulan and Pocahontas, don't appear nearly as often as their more passive contemporary, Princess Jasmine. If you like Merida because she broke a lot of the rules, it's very strange to see her being shoehorned back into the role of the pretty princess character who is being used to sell more dresses and dolls. Fortunately, there's plenty of "Brave" merchandise that features the more recognizable Merida, with her messy hair, bow and arrows, and plainer clothes - even action figures and some toy weapons! However, they don't appear under the Disney Princess label.

Was making Merida a Disney Princess a mistake? Adding Merida to the lineup might have been viewed as a positive decision if you see it as an attempt to shake up the princess image a bit, and try to broaden what being a Disney princess means. However, when Disney started right off by giving Merida a glittery redesign to make her fit in with the other princesses, it was apparent that this wasn't the case at all. No, Merida became the eleventh official Disney princess because she's popular, she appeals to the same audience, and she makes for good crossover synergy with the PIXAR brands. And it's no wonder that the decision ended up becoming a perfect flashpoint for all the criticisms that have been levied against the Disney Princess brand in the last few years - chiefly that it promotes problematic gender roles and perpetuates all the regressive, shallow, antiquated ideas associated with princesshood. Concerned parents can try to keep their girls away from the princess merchandise, but the brand is so pervasive, that it can be difficult.

For the record, Belle was always my favorite Disney heroine, but not because of the pretty yellow dress. I liked her because she was a bookworm and a social oddball. Also, "Beauty and the Beast" coming out when I was still in the target audience for animated kids' film probably had a lot to do with it. The Disney Princess brand wasn't around in my day, and I wonder if that would have made any difference. It wasn't until the year 2000 that Disney started treating their princesses as a collective entity, and created this incredibly lucrative brand that now moves everything from bedding and toys to consumer electronics. So the Disney Princesses are not going away any time soon, but surely there's room to improve the message a bit. They have this wonderful set of characters that they aren't really using to their full potential. I'd love to see Disney make some adjustments to help the princesses be a little less Barbie and little more Dora the Explorer or American Girl.

After all, there's no reason you can't put an emphasis on good role models and good stories, and still hawk plenty of pastel-colored merchandise at the same time.
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A Superhero Turf War

If you're a fan of superhero media, chances are you've run across the issue of characters from the same universe having their various movie and print rights owned by different companies. This is particularly true of Marvel characters, where rights to make movies for some of their biggest headliners were sold to companies like Twentieth Century FOX and Sony in the days before Marvel got into the business of making movies itself.

Now that superhero properties have turned into a hot commodity, those rights are more valuable than ever, and have spurred a lot of the decisionmaking about what films are getting made and how. Sony currently owns the rights to Spider-man, but those rights revert back to Marvel if a new Spidey film isn't made every few years. That's why we got the rebooted "Amazing Spider-man" so quick, and a second film is already being fast-tracked. Even if the movie franchise isn't as successful as it once was, it's worth it to Sony to hold on to those Spider-man rights. Over at FOX, the X-men and Fantastic Four franchises are getting new movies, but the studio let the Daredevil rights revert back to Marvel a few months ago, because they weren't ready to commit to a new reboot.

There are a couple of places where these rights might overlap. The exact language of who owns what isn't public, but fans have long pointed out that there are two significant characters associated with both the X-men, controlled by FOX, and the Avengers, controlled by Marvel. These are the Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, a brother and sister pair with mutant powers who were also occasionally Avengers in the comics. He can run really, really fast. She's kind of witchy and causes chaos wherever she goes. And now both the "X-men" and "Avengers" movie series are laying claim to them. Joss Whedon has confirmed that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are going to be in " Avengers 2," and Bryan Singer not only announced that both characters will appear in next year's "X-men: Days of Future Past," but he's cast "American Horror Story" heartthrob Evan Peters as Quicksilver.

Now the details of how this is going to work are only a matter of speculation, and "Avengers 2" is still firmly in the pre-production phase. Some hopeful Marvel Universe fans are wondering if this could be a chance for an official cross-over between the two universes. If these two characters can be shared, maybe that will open the door to more collaborations in the future. Big studios certainly can play nice on occasion – "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" wouldn't exist otherwise. The cynics, including yours truly, are worried that the two movie studios aren't interested in playing nice, and may be on the verge of embarking on an epic legal battle to decide whether "X-men" or "Avengers" has dibs on Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. The worst case scenario is that we end up with disrupted productions, compromised quality, and possibly delays in these films reaching theaters.

Personally, I don't like these two characters much from what I've seen of them in other media. The "X-men" always seemed to turn into more of a soap opera whenever they were around, so I find it ironic that they seem to have a similar ability to stir up drama in the real world. Still, they do have a lot of potential as characters. The reason they're in this unique position in the Marvel Universe is because they've traditionally gone back and forth between hero and villain roles. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, also known as Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, started out as villains in the "X-men" series and were eventually redeemed. However, their father is the villain Magneto, and because of his influence they never manage to stay on the side of angels entirely.

If it were up to me, I'd rather see them in "The Avengers 2." "X-men: Days of Future Past" is already going to be a very crowded movie, juggling multiple versions of many familiar characters and introducing a gaggle of new ones into the mix. I don't see how Singer is going to be able to fit in Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch for more than cameos, and I suspect that is exactly what we're going to get. In "Avengers 2," however, Joss Whedon seems to want the pair to be front and center, and I think he's in a better position to do something interesting with them.

Keep in mind that however this turns out, both movies are going to be massive, and make oodles and oodles of money. This is a fight that's mainly of interest to the comic book nerds and the studios. Nobody else knows who these characters are, and if it all goes south, and things get so contentious that they get dropped from both movies (it could happen!) then I doubt most people will care too much that they're gone.
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What's a Mindf**k Movie?

Warning: This post contains language, because I'm not going to keep censoring the term "mindf**k movie." Got it?

After tackling the term "chick flick" a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to follow up by trying to pin down a working definition of the "mindfuck movie," a term I've been seeing used more and more on social network sites, particularly by young male moviegoers. To me, the term brings to mind movies featuring warped perceptions, the ones you'd expect from David Lynch and David Cronenberg. However, psychological genre thrillers like "Inception," "Shutter Island," and "Primer" seem to be the usual examples of mindfuck movies, stories that present you with one baseline reality and then find ways to subvert or twist that, calling into question what you think you know about what you've seen.

Lately, the term has been getting even broader, and covers movies with big narrative twists ("Old Boy," "Matchstick Men"), movies with psycedelic imagery or dream sequences ("Jacob's Ladder," "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas"), conspiracy stories ("Pi," "Eyes White Shut"), mental meltdowns ("Repulsion," "Black Swan"), unconventional narratives ("Memento," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"), unconventional storytelling ("Waking Life," "The Fountain"), and some films that feature prominent fantasy elements juxtaposed with the real world ("Pan's Labyrinth," "Heavenly Creatures"). Pretty much anything that would have worked as a "Twilight Zone" episode or anything that feels like a "Twilight Zone" episode, qualifies to be a mindfuck movie.

So where are the boundaries? I think it's easier to rule out what a mindfuck movie isn't. Mindfuck movies are not straightforward. There's always some major element of the characters' reality that isn't what it initially seems or has significant ambiguities. At some point the viewer should question whether what they're witnessing is really happening in film's established reality. There's no particular genre that a mindfuck movie is limited to, but they do tend to be more prevalent in science-fiction and fantasy. Also, because the story has to set up some kind of big twist or multiple levels or versions of reality, they tend to be fairly complex, at least on the surface. Mindfuck movies are almost always high-concept, meaning that it's difficult to describe the basic premise in a simple sentence, the way you're supposed to these days with original material.

What I've found that what draws people to these movies is that they are at least a little bit unconventional and offer some surprises. Many of these films are still fairly formulaic, despite a few narrative detours, and don't get nearly as screwy and ambiguous and weird as I think they could be, but I can see how your average moviegoers could have their world shaken enough by the ending of "Oldboy" or the wacky visuals and apocalyptic vibes of "Donnie Darko" to declare them examples of really daring and edgy filmmaking. Movies like "Holy Motors" or "Certified Copy" technically should count as mindfuck movies, but they're way too highbrow for the people who are generally asking for movies in that category. So, while mindfuck movies have ambiguities and lingering questions that require interpretation, like "The Shining," we're not talking about the movies that go so far into avant-garde territory that they lose mainstream appeal.

People who watch mindfuck movies aren't looking for the really smart or challenging movies, but the movies that offer a certain kind of experience. The puzzle or the mystery of these stories may hold a lot of the appeal, but I think the most important element is the revelation moment, when the rug is pulled out from under the viewer's feet, rules are changed in an instant, and the world is turned upside down. I've noticed that whatever subversion of reality is employed in these movies, it has to be presented in a more visceral, threatening manner, to really give the reveal some punch. So a thriller like "Primer" is much more likely to be called a "mindfuck" than a contemplative existential film like "Stranger Than Fiction," or a gentle romantic-comedy like "Groundhog's Day." The "Narnia" movies don't count, because the fantasy world is exactly what it appears to be. In "Coraline," the fantasy world is really an elaborate trap, that the heroine doesn't discover until the third act, so it does.

I count myself as a fan of this emerging little genre, because the movies are usually more cerebral and creative than the norm. However, I dislike the term "mindfuck," which is a descriptor only a teenage boy could have come up with. I'm pretty sure it's a variation of an older name for them, "mind-bender" movies, which I don't like much either. "Psychological thriller" seems to be closer to what these movies actually do for viewers, though that name comes with a different set of connotations, and it's too broad. If these movies become more popular, I expect we'll figure something out eventually.

Happy watching.
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"Star Trek" Into Derivativeness (With Spoilers)

Spoilers for "Star Trek Into Darkness" ahead. Lots of them. I mean it.

Whatever happened to boldly going where no one has gone before?

Now, I understand wanting to bring back one of the most infamous villains of the "Star Trek" series. I understand all the song-and-dance about trying to keep him out of the marketing, and J.J. Abrams prevaricating around the bush about who Benedict Cumberbatch was actually playing. However, I cannot for the life of me understand why you wouldn't use the opportunity of the alternate timeline to do something different with Khan. I don't understand why we had to have such a shameless rehash of the ending of "Wrath of Khan," especially one that never had any hope of having remotely as much emotional impact as the original.

I have to wonder what viewers unfamiliar with "Wrath of Khan" thought of these developments, whether they bought Kirk's sacrifice instead of being distracted by the parallels to the previous film like I was. It was hard to watch what I consider one of the most iconic moments of the "Star Trek" films essentially turned into a cheap fake-out death akin to too many others in modern action films. Was the reversal of Kirk and Spock's roles clever? Not very, since that was a pretty obvious way to play it. I'd have been much more impressed if Khan switched sides and was the one who made the sacrifice, as he seems far more morally ambiguous in this timeline. Or if they really had been gutsy enough to kill off Captain Kirk and left Spock or Sulu in charge. However, the moment I saw that dead tribble, I knew they were just going through the motions. And there was way too much of the nudge, nudge, wink, wink, aren't-we-being-clever attitude, plus a totally unearned "KHAAAAAAAN!" callback.

I've heard the charge that J.J. Abrams and the team of writers he's working with do not understand "Star Trek," and I don't agree with that. I think they have a perfectly good grasp on the themes and the ideas at the heart of this franchise. The new versions of the characters are perfectly fine and worthy creations. The trouble is that "Star Trek Into Darkness" was obligated to be a summer blockbuster tentpole aimed at a mainstream audience. To that end, they seem to have banished all the brainier, more conceptually challenging ideas that make "Star Trek" distinctive. In the 2009 reboot, Abrams managed to introduce all these new characters and ideas at a breakneck pace, and that worked because it was a first outing, and you could get away with substituting potential for substance. Trying to repeat that trick failed, because it revealed that the creators weren't willing to explore any of these ideas that they were evoking in any real depth.

What really boggles me is that "Into Darkness" follows nearly the same beats as the first movie. You have Kirk introduced as a rebel, a massive crisis gives him a chance to prove himself, and then Spock and Kirk do some bonding. The difference is that this time Khan is the threat, reimagined as yet another in a long line of recent terrorist villains. I was also very aware that other than the fairly simple concepts of super-soldiers and cryogenics, there's nothing in "Into Darkness" that doesn't have obvious analogs to a typical non-science-fiction action movie, like "Mission: Impossible" or "James Bond." The 2009 reboot at least had parallel universes and time travel for us geeks, but "Into Darkness" takes special pains to avoid anything remotely complicated or nerdy.

Instead, it was lots of big action sequences, lots of fantastic eye-candy, and the obvious villains: Khan and a quick glimpse of the Klingons. I get that the writers were trying to pay homage to the series' roots, but this time out they leaned far too heavily on the mythology and didn't take the kind of creative chances that would have pushed the franchise forward. When you have this kind of talent involved, the possibilities are endless, and I thought that the success of the 2009 movie would have given Abrams and company the clout to do something more ambitious, instead of another generic action picture grafted to a replay of the last half of "Wrath of Khan."

I appreciate that the new "Star Trek" is a series of movies that can't operate the way that the old ones did, but tribbles and namedropping do not make a "Star Trek" movie, and I needed to see more effort. In the end, I found myself wishing for a new "Star Trek" series or miniseries featuring these versions of the characters, just so they could stop running and yelling and fighting long enough to have real conversations with each other, and maybe go on the kind of cheesy, but inspiring adventures that the old crew of the Enterprise used to.
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"Star Trek" Into Derivativeness

This one's going to need a double review, one without spoilers, which I'm posting today, and one with spoilers that I'll be posting tomorrow. This is the one without the spoilers, so if you're planning to watch "Star Trek Into Darkness," go right on reading.

Coming out of the theater after my screening, I asked myself a question I find helpful to judge certain movies: who was this made for? "Star Trek Into Darkness," the follow-up to the 2009 movie reboot of the franchise, has lots and lots of references to "Trek" lore for fans of the original incarnation of the series. It brings back a few familiar concepts and ideas, reinterpreting them in intriguing ways. However, it's clear that director J.J. Abrams, and writers Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof were not trying to make a film that would appeal to the usual "Trek" fans at all. In fact, I'm pretty sure that "Into Darkness" is going to end up disappointing many of them. Instead, their intended audience is the broader summer blockbuster crowd, and the emphasis is all on action and mayhem and special effects. Of course, that was also true of the 2009 "Star Trek" to a large degree, but it's much more apparent this time out and harder to ignore. "Into Darkness" doesn't feel like a "Star Trek" movie. It feels like a much more generic space adventure that is using the most famous and recognizable elements of the old "Star Trek" as window dressing.

Take the opening sequence, for instance. Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) violates the Prime Directive, that states the Federation cannot interfere in the development of emerging alien species, by rescuing Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto) from certain doom and allowing a primitive civilization of aliens to see the Enterprise in the process. The consequences are severe for Kirk. He's removed from command, and the Enterprise returned to Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood), Kirk's mentor. However, all the discussion is focused on Kirk's recklessness and Kirk's lack of appreciation for his responsibilities. We fail to see any of the negative consequences that affect the aliens, and there's no mention of how the damage to their society is going to be addressed. The Prime Directive has created many serious moral quandaries that have been at the center of multiple "Star Trek" episodes, and easily could have been the basis of an entire film by itself. However, "Into Darkness" immediately ducks the whole matter, skips the hard questions, and moves on to introduce the villain of our story: John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), a terrorist who has a serious bone to pick with the Federation.

And so, "Into Darkness" quickly becomes a breathless action spectacular as the Enterprise crew goes on the hunt for Harrison, giving us one impressive set piece after another, and stopping only long enough for a few lines of tense exposition here and there before running off again. The movie is exciting and it is visually impressive. I think most people who go to see superhero and disaster movies are going to be perfectly happy with it. Casual viewers who liked the 2009 "Star Trek" movies should enjoy this one just as much. The characters are a lot of fun to watch, and the whole gang's back from the first film: Karl Urban as Dr. Bones McCoy, Zoe Saldana as Lt Uhura, Simon Pegg as Chief Engineer Scotty, John Cho as Lt. Sulu, and Anton Yelchin as Ensign Chekov. No matter who your favorite is, they all get their little moments to shine. And casting Cumberbatch as Harrison was a great choice, because his performances gives that character all these interesting ambiguities, suggesting that there's more to him than there really is.

Also, it's not fair to call "Star Trek Into Darkness" a mindless CGI action movie, because the writers did attempt to give us some semblance of a deeper story to go along with all the thrills. There's a new character, Admiral Alexander Marcus (Peter Weller), who can be interpreted to be a commentary on current American military policies. And there's some groundwork being laid for some specific future conflicts that might yield interesting things in the future. However, it's hard to give the writers much credit when so much of the material for "Into Darkness" is taken from previous "Star Trek" stories, and the new approach to them just isn't very creative or interesting. The execution feels so half-hearted, and comes off as underwhelming at best. There's so much impact lost, because the characters never slow down enough to have the important conversations, and to feel the impact of the events we witness. Instead, the pace is relentless, pushing on from one spectacle to the next like a "Die Hard" movie in space.

And if you like "Die Hard," that's fine, but I wanted to see a "Star Trek" movie. "Into Darkness" included a lot of references that only fans would appreciate, but in a way that played very badly for anyone who knew enough about "Star Trek" to get those references. I was disappointed by "Star Trek Into Darkness," and now I'm very worried about where this franchise is going.
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Kindle Worlds and Legal Fanfiction

I figured that after "50 Shades of Gray" became a success, we'd get more attempts to monetize fanfiction, but I didn't see this latest one coming. Kindle and Amazon Publishing announced today that they're going to offer a service called Kindle Worlds, that will publish fanfiction for certain licensed properties. Submissions will be vetted to ensure that they follow a set of content guidelines (no erotica, no crossovers, etc.) and that they measure up to some baseline of quality. Authors won't get to retain the rights to their work, but they will get a cut of royalties, either 20 or 35% depending on the length of the story. It's a smaller percentage than they would for get for self-publishing original material through Amazon, where the cut is around 70%.

Still, the idea of making any money at all through writing amateur fanfiction is a big change in how the fan community has traditionally operated. It used to be a cardinal rule that you never, ever monetized fanfiction, because that would be stepping on the toes of the original content creators, and their right to create derivative works like sequels and spinoffs. Now three Warner Brothers television shows aimed at young women, "Vampire Diaries," "Gossip Girl," and "Pretty Little Liars" are the first franchises to grant licenses to create legal fanfiction for sale though the Kindle Worlds platform. There have been officially sanctioned fanfiction and other fanworks for quite a few different properties over the years, particularly for contests, but this is the first time I've heard of anyone granting permission to go try and make a profit with them.

Now, is this a good thing for fandom? As always, it's very hard to say. The big worry is that if Amazon and Kindle do make money with this service, they'll have a better argument that non-licensed fanfic is infringing, and be more motivated take steps to shut down everyone else's fanfiction that isn't being written for profit. The worst case scenario is that your "Vampire Diaries" fanfiction, posted on Tumblr or Archive of Our Own, becomes viewed as a competing product, and suddenly there's going to be a real incentive to end the benign neglect that has allowed the fanfiction community to flourish online over the years. However, the argument can be made that it's in the best interest of the properties involved to keep turning a blind eye. Fanworks essentially operate as free advertising, and they're a part of the fandom experience that has become much more visible and accepted over the years. Also, enforcement has always been notoriously difficult, and risks alienating fans.

Fanfiction writers aren't the only ones who are going to be affected. A couple of years ago, I remember there was a notorious published author who would write up these spectacular, hyperbolic tirades against the existence of fanfiction. Lots of people poked fun at him, especially since his name was on several tie-in novels for television shows. Tie-in novels and fanfiction are essentially the same thing, except that tie-in novels are licensed and they're written by professionals. If Amazon and Kindle can start making money off of work that's being generated by amateurs, and get away with paying them less, where does that leave the pros? A lot of notable science-fiction writers depend on the money from tie-ins to keep them going during lean periods. Is the market for this kind of work still going to exist after legal fanfiction? The delineation between fanfic and pro-fic is going to get even blurrier.

Of course, this is all assuming that Kindle Worlds is going to take off, which is not certain at all. Fanfiction has been around for a long, long, time, and the readership is used to getting it for free. The culture around it has often been strongly anti-commercial, and that may be difficult to change. Personally, I can't imagine paying for fanfiction, especially the kind of safe, friendly fanfiction that Amazon and Kindle seem to be the most interested in. I prefer all the subversive, weirdo, boundary-crossing stuff that would never make it into print in a million years. As far as I'm concerned, that's the appeal of these amateur stories.

I may be the exception though. The nature of media fandom has changed considerably since I first got involved, over a decade ago. Fanfiction is slowly but surely becoming more legitimate content, and eventually people are going to find ways to use it to make money. Kindle Worlds may not be successful, but it's a pretty bold idea. Unlike past efforts, such as the short-lived for-profit Fanlib Archive, Amazon and Kindle are actively addressing some of those thorny legal issues and they're willing to share a piece of the revenues too. I never thought I'd ever see this happen.

Kindle Worlds launches in June.
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"Doctor Who" Prepares For a Milestone

Spoilers ahead for the latest season of "Doctor Who."

The much-anticipated 50th anniversary of "Doctor Who" is coming up in November, and a star-studded special has been commissioned to mark the happy occasion. This most recent series of "Doctor Who," however, particularly the back half that featured Jenna-Louise Coleman as the newest Companion, Clara Oswald, often felt too much like it was setting things up for the big event. There was a lot of time talking up the big, plotty mysteries and series mythology, and not as much on the individual adventures. I liked fewer episodes this series, and didn't feel like I'd gotten to know Clara very well, but whenever we have any kind of format change on "Doctor Who," that's normal in my experience. I didn't like Amy much until Rory became a regular companion, and the last two Doctors each took nearly an entire series each to grow on me.

It wasn't a bad stretch of episodes at all, though understandably not as emotionally charged as the goodbye tour of the Ponds that came before it. My favorites included "The Bells of Saint John," "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" and "The Crimson Horror." "The Name of the Doctor," which left us on a big cliffhanger going into the special, was kind of a mess, but also a really fun and tense installment that neatly answered all the questions about Clara and will hopefully give her character a chance to grow from here on out. It's not that Jenna-Louise Coleman isn't doing a perfectly good job, but there really hasn't been much to Clara except being "The Impossible Girl." I'd like to see her given more substance, or at least her current situation as a live-in nanny fleshed out more. The point of Clara may be that she's ordinary, but she shouldn't feel so generic.

Matt Smith continues to impress. He's gotten so well situated into the role of the Eleventh Doctor, that I'm having trouble imagining anyone else in the role now. I've really grown to like this version of the character, who can get emotional and dark and lose control of himself, but there's always something a little otherworldly and a little inhuman about him. Where the David Tennant and Christopher Eccleston Doctors were very good, they always seemed to be very advanced humans instead of truly alien creatures. There's something about Smith that is always off-kilter in just the right way to remind us that he's an alien being doing his best impression of a human, and not the genuine article. And even though he's the youngest actor to play the part, he comes across as having a much higher mileage on him. He's the only reason that some of the weaker scripts worked this year.

This series also brought to the forefront a trio of new sidekicks who won me over in a very short time: the reptilian Silurian detective, Madame Vastra (Neve McIntosh), her plucky wife Jenny (Catrin Stewart), and their butler Strax (Dan Starkey), the potato-shaped Sontaran warrior. The three of them have been hanging out in Victorian England, meeting up with the Doctor whenever he happens to be in their time period. Aside from Madame Vastra, I don't remember how these characters were introduced, but they make for wonderful secondary heroes, and Strax is especially good comic relief. I love that he continually screws up genders and still retains a love for carnage that keeps getting him scolded. I've been hoping for a little more variety in companions, and this is the next best thing. I'm firmly with those who have been calling for a spinoff series to feature this trio.

Disappointments? There weren't any major ones that stuck out on the level of some of the episodes from previous series and previous Doctors. I can't point to anything specific that outright failed, but a few things I was hoping would be really exceptional, turned out to be just all right. The Neil Gaiman episode with Warwick Davis and the Cybermen? All right. Richard E. Grant as this year's Big Bad, the Great Intelligence? Sorely underused, but all right. The return of Alex Kingston's mysterious River Song? All right. The mystery of The Impossible Girl? Fine. It's likely that the anniversary special is going to turn out the same way, even with the promised appearances of so many past actors plus a bonus John Hurt.

However, I've got to say that I'm really impressed with where Stephen Moffat left us with the big cliffhanger. It may end up being a tease, as so many of these things are, but there's the potential for some really serious delving into the show's mythology coming our way. Even if the special in November doesn't deliver, it'll be fun to watch them try. And I'm happily attached enough to this particularly grouping of characters that I don't mind if we hit a few more bumps in the road going forward.
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