Uncategorized – JG Judgementally Comments…

Doctor Who Season 15/2 Episode Seven, “Wish World”

The Rani’s (and also the Ranis) have an evil plan! Who would have guessed?

What’s The Episode? Wish World

What’s It All About, JG? Discovering RTD has seen Wandavision (or maybe Pleasantville) for the most part. But story-wise, we start off with the Rani (Panjabi version) in Bavaria, stealing a baby who can make wishes come true. We then find ourselves on a version of Earth where the Doctor and Belinda are married with a child, Poppy, and the Doctor works at UNIT, now an insurance company. Every so often, when someone doubts something, a cup will fall through a table. This is because the Rani is trying to measure doubt (can one assign a number to such a nebulous concept?). Conrad, from “Lucky Day“, has wished this world into existence, so it’s enforced heterosexuality, disdain for the disabled etc. – the typical right-wing fascist fantasy. Eventually, to get the plot moving, Rogue turns up on telly to give the Doctor a push in the direction of something interesting and he ends up confronting The Two Ranis (Panjabi and Dobson). The “current” version reveals she is trying to find…. Omega. Oh good. Then the Doctor plummets to his apparent death while screaming about Poppy being actually real while the world disintegrates.

Doctor Who Season 15/2 Episode Four, “Lucky Day”

Back to Earth with a bang and a catch-up with Ruby. But can a “political” thriller land its politics?

What’s The Episode? “Lucky Day”

What’s It All About, JG? The Doctor and Belinda land on Earth in 2007 to try and get another Vindicator reading and encounter Conrad Clark, a small boy the Doctor gives 50p to. An adult Conrad (Jonah Haeur-King) has another chance encounter with the Doctor and Ruby as they hunt down a Shreek, which he’s marked by as prey. We then move forward to reacquaint ourselves with Ruby Sunday as she is now. She’s decided to appear on a Doctor-related podcast hosted by Conrad and they start dating. Going to a village in the countryside for a romantic date, it seems like the Shreeks are attacking. Rubby calls in Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) and UNIT but in fact, it’s all just actors in costume. Conrad thinks aliens, the Doctor, and UNIT are all fake because he’s a conspiracy nut and he’s trying to out them. This results in a scandal as he tries to discredit UNIT so UNIT are on the back foot. Conrad breaks into that flippin’ great UNIT HQ in London with the help of an inside man and tries to livestream the event and get Kate to admit it’s all fake. Instead, Kate sics an actual Shreek on him and he ends up with his arm bitten off (and reattached) before getting sent to jail. Where the jailer is Mrs Floor (of course). The Doctor bothers to turn up at the end to give a speech about how awful Conrad is and Conrad basically tells him to fuck off, then Mrs Flood apparently lets him out. The end.

Barbie

What’s the Movie? Barbie

What’s It All About, JG? Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) lives a perfect life in Barbieland with lots of other different Barbies and Kens. One day she has strange, rather existential thoughts about dying and her world slowly moves away from its perfect state as she becomes more human. To correct this, she visits Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) who advises her to go to The Real World and figure out who’s playing with her and fix the problem. Travelling to the real work (well, LA) with Ken (Ryan Gosling), Barbie is shocked to discover that men run the world, feminism hasn’t been solved and that the girl she thought was playing with her, Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), in fact hates her. Turns out it was the girl’s Mum, Gloria, (America Ferrera) that loved playing with the doll and, after escaping from Mattel, they all return to Barbieland. However, Ken has learned about the patriarchy and tries to overthrow the rule of the various Barbies by having men – men! – take control. With guile, cunning and intelligence, the various Barbies defeat the men and “our” Barbie chooses to leave the perfection of Barbieland behind for the real world and becomes human.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

A cracking adventure for Indy’s final outing?

What’s The Movie? Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

What’s It All About? The film kicks off with a digitally de-aged Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford, as if you need to be told) going through a typical punching-Nazis adventure/backstory towards the end of World War II. After shenanigans, he ends up retrieving the titular Dial of Destiny (or Archimedes Dial or Antikythera) which he leaves with fellow adventurer (sort of) Basil Shaw (Toby Jones). We then move to the present where Jones is old, divorcing Marion, retiring from teaching, and very much alone. But that can’t be it, so in waltzes Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Action Hero) to spice things up. She’s his Goddaughter and child of Basil Shaw, who was driven mad by his obsession with the Dial. Indy took it back off him to spare him his obsession but, rather than destroying it as he promised, hid it. Helena persuades him to reveal its continued existence so she can nick it and sell it.

An Introduction…

In which I will, as the title suggests, do a general write-up of a bunch of TV shows and movies (or maybe one or two other things – that’s just how exciting it is) as and when the fancy takes me, and give this whole “brevity” thing a try. I watch way too much television and far too many films, so might as well scrawl something about it. This time I shall be dispensing with my usual redemptive reading approach and just rabbiting away. Spoilers, if I make it far enough into the show for that to be relevant.