Doctor Who: Vincent and the Doctor

Things have been a little quiet here of late again... haven't they? I've been quite busy over the last few weekends and have caught Doctor Who at very strange times. With the heat and various projects on the go, I've also struggled to find motivation.

But I didn't want to let the opportunity to contribute my views on tonight's episode (written by Richard Curtis), pass. So without further ado, here are some of my meanderings:

The important thing to remember about tonight's episode was that it was character driven and not monster driven. There was nothing particularly amazing about the Krayafis (space cockerel), it's presence on Earth served primarily as a menace to the already tortured mind of Vincent, and a plot device to bring the worlds of van Gogh and The Doctor crashing together.

Having said that, I do wonder about the space poultry... there is some ancient Alcester folklore concerning such a creature that is said to prowl a wooded hill near where I live... protecting the ill-gotten gains of a robber.

I think there were a couple of visual references to Clash of the Titans in the episode - The Doctor using a mirrored device to observe the monster (plus a nice touch with the visual nods to Hartnell and Troughton as well), and with the statue of Perseus and Medusa in the gallery. I also wondered if the shot of George and the Dragon on the church entrance was a reference to the Primeval episode that featured Tony Curran (the actor playing van Gogh); the episode in question concerned a medieval knight stranded in the modern world, pursuing a prehistoric beast.

While Curran's accent as the painter was questionable (blatantly slipping into his native Scottish twang), this I can easily forgive as his portrayal of the character was immensely sympathetic and emotional. Production-wise, Dutch accents can be hard to take seriously if not portrayed well by a non-Dutch actor, so he may have just decided to leave well enough alone. In universe you could easily attribute this to Amy understanding him with a Scottish accent through the TARDIS translation abilities.

There were some nice touches in the character interaction. Vincent perceiving that Amy was still grieving for Rory even though she could not even remember even him consciously herself; Vincent visibly struggling with his personal demons - constantly facing the rejection and lack of understanding dealt to him by his peers, and writhing with deep depression and anxiety during the night the Doctor and Amy needed him (reasserting himself by morning in bipolar fashion).

The final 10 minutes seem to be the crux to the whole episode... everything that has gone before leads up to this epilogue. If I am to believe the Twitterverse, you either love it or you hate it. I think this has a lot to do with where you are emotionally as an individual. Personally I loved it... and was quite upset that my viewing was disturbed during the sequence where van Gogh finally learns how his art has been received in hindsight. The tearful eyes of van Gogh as Bill Nighy's curator relayed just how much his personal struggles and how he translated them into some of the world's most beautiful art... had affected the generations since his death, elicited a similar response from me. Here is what he said:

"To me, van Gogh is the finest painter of them all. Certainly the most popular, great painter of all time. The most beloved. His command of colour, the most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world... no-one had ever done it before. Perhaps no-one ever will again! To my mind, that strange wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world's greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived."

It reminds me very much of Don McLean's song "Vincent", and i offer it for your consideration now:

Van Gogh died with little in the way of either wealth or critical recognition. I think as human beings we all have a need for acceptance and recognition on some level. It doesn't have to be artistic recognition... but we all need to feel that our time on Earth is of some worth to the people around us. So in this respect, I think van Gogh's story and this episode of Doctor Who can resonate with us on an extremely deep level.

On the evening of broadcast, the BBC issued a post transmission statement saying that anyone affected by issues raised by the episode should contact a provided helpline. It was fairly obvious to me that this was referencing the mental health issues and not the fantasy elements. I cannot say how appalled I am at the cynical and mocking response from some quarters, towards a genuine attempt at the BBC to do some good.

A couple of thoughts occurred to me with regard to my faith tonight. They concern how we relate to one another as human beings... and how we can make a difference to others. It stems from the Doctor's words to Amy when she feels despondent after returning to the present and realising that van Gogh hadn't been saved from his early grave his experience in the modern world:

"The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things but vice versa the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant... and we definitely added to his pile of good things... and if you look carefully maybe we did make a couple of little changes..."

We can never fully know what effect our actions will have on the lives of others... but I truly believe that we need to strive to add to other people's "pile of good things" if we want to better their lives and our own. It is an attitude that I believe is fundamentally at the heart of Christ's command to love our neighbour as ourselves... and his appeal to us that the circle of who our neighbours are... is actually a lot wider than the people we take mutual comfort in.

People have free will and sometimes we can't pull them back from the precipice. Mental illness is actually a pretty good example of this. One of the reasons there has been a stigma attached to it for so long, is that we fail to properly acknowledge irrational behaviour. We look at it from a perspective and we try to rationalise the actions of those who suffer... which isn't really helpful. In these cases, I believe we should do our best to try and bear with those who suffer instead of trying to explain away or callously dismiss what they are going through. 

Going back to my general thought... a perceived negative outcome isn't a reason for us not to do our best to save people. Every one of us, if we just took a little more time to add to other people's "good pile" instead of obsessing over our "bad pile", we might be surprised at what a difference all those small changes make to the big, big picture.

Finally I want to make an appeal to people who may feel their contribution in life is minimalist, worthless and futile. Lately I myself have had thoughts along these lines, and so I'd like to invite you to walk with me on a meditation  I have based on tonight's episode of Doctor Who:

I would like you to close your eyes and imagine that you are in walking through an art gallery. As you pass by the masterpieces and works of your favourite artists, you notice an alcove to the side. Entering the alcove you see that the artist exhibited within is actually... you.  Take a good look at the paintings... maybe some of the scenes depicted are areas or times in your life that have been painful to you. Look closer though. I'd like you to imagine images of the people you care about, and who... even if you may struggle to accept it... care about you.

It might be helpful at this point to imagine that the curator of the gallery is here... and he is describing you in a similar vein to how Vincent was described. Perhaps the curator is someone important to you that you know. For me, the Curator is Jesus. Finally I want you to imagine there is an inscription on the wall. It is a passage from the Bible and it speaks of how God is always around us and how intimately he knows us:

"O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there;  if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you."

Psalm 139:1-18

You may feel deeply alone, unloved and not very special. However, I assure you that is not the way God sees you.

You are NOT alone and you ARE loved.

A Room Full of Elephants

You've no doubt heard the expression about there being an "elephant in the room".

It refers to the awkwardness/awareness of a topic or situation that is obvious but taboo/uncomfortable to speak of, and so all mention of it is avoided.

Well I feel like I have an entire herd of elephants in my room at the moment. It's a very strange feeling. It's almost as if a cosmic Bruce Forsyth has paraded an exhibition of thoughts, ideas, emotions and situations from my past... Generation Game style before me.

It's bad enough trying to wriggle your way past the elephant(s) in your room as it is... but if you are unlucky, sometimes your elephants take notice of you and start moving in your general direction.

That's what it has been like for me... I've been minding my own business, when all of a sudden three or four things crop up from the past that clamour for a review.

All I want is to get my fair slice of cheese... but it seems I'll have to traverse a room full of mousetraps to get anywhere near it. I kind of feel a lot like this mouse:

There is one major difference however, in life what sometimes looks like the cheese can often turn out to be the mousetrap (and the reverse is also true).

So should I run from my pachyderm problem? Or should I let one or more of these emotions/situations gravitate into my personal comfort zone, or even embrace one?

Who knows?

Life's full of mysteries... consider this one of them!

Doctor Who: The Time of Angels - Faith in the Dark

So... the Weeping Angels are returning with a vengeance....

I honestly didn't think I could be terrified any more by them... it's bad enough they have forced me to develop a phobia of stone statues in a churchyard... now I'm terrified of them coming out of the television!

There was certainly a lot to take in during the course of this episode... Moffat has certainly tossed a lot of cards onto the table.

Firstly there was the return of the mysterious and enigmatic River Song. Moffat certainly teased and tantalised us with tidbits. There were playful hints (again), as to exactly what the nature of her relationship with the Doctor is/will be. We also know now that she has a shady past... something that at this stage of his life, the Doctor may not be ready to accept. We also know that she has had flying lessons in a TARDIS... and appears to be more proficient than the Doctor (although I suspect he "leaves the brakes on" for dramatic flair), but the question remains... who exactly taught her? I'm also personally curious as to whether or not there is a link between Amy and River... they both used the exact same term of phrase to describe the Doctor's reason for museum visits.

Next we have the militaristic clerics led by their bishop, Father Octavian. Being a Christian I took special interest in this faction of soldiers. At a guess I'd have to say that their presence and the name of the crashed starship (the Byzantium), are a nod back to both the Roman Empire and the militaristic Roman church of old. Octavian was the original name of the Emperor Augustus and Byzantium was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Whilst they appear both pretty conservative and militaristic (particularly Octavian), I don't think they came across as negative. Quite how their involvement figures into the big picture I'm not certain... but lets not forget they were on a mission to protect the human colonial inhabitants of Alfava Metraxis and were sent to "neutralise" the angel. Curiously Octavian appears to be aware of who the Doctor is.

Then finally of course we have the angels themselves. As I said... terrifying as they were in Blink, Moffat has expanded on their background and abilities and made them much more formidable. Just as the daleks eventually neutralised the "staircase escape technique", the angels have a workaround for their quantum lock weakness. If you don't blink... and you look them in they eyes, they begin to turn you into one of them. The same goes with technical equipment or anything used to record their image.

"That which holds the image of an angel itself becomes an angel"

Amy inadvertently finds herself staring at the image of the angel onscreen... as it projects itself through a television screen and starts to attack her. This has dangerous repercussions for her as she herself finds herself (through psychological manipulation), turning slowly into an angel. The Doctor temporarily saves her from this fate by biting her hand which she believes to be stone.

Furthermore, the angel the clerics were sent to neutralise was a creature of incredible cunning and infinite patience. It bided its time, lying dormant for centuries until it sensed an opportunity to revive others of its kind on the planet. I thought it was curious that the characters were referring to the native Aplans as double-headed creatures when none of the statues had two heads... and then  in a marvellous twist we found out why! The statues were not Aplans but deteriorating angels who were now slowly being restored by radiation leakage from the Byzantium's engines.

As the Doctor, Amy, River and the surviving clerics run to the Byzantium crash site, they find themselves closed in by the angels (now communicating with the Doctor having killed cleric Bob and used his cerebral cortex to fashion a means of communication - this I thought was very similar to the way in which the Vashta Nerada communicated with the Doctor in Moffat's previous River Song story). As the lead angel boasts of its imminent victory and the characters' impending doom, it also tries to provoke the Doctor tino rage. The Doctor responds by stating the one thing you shouldn't put in a trap if you have any sense... is him. He then fires a cleric's pistol into the gravity globe... the sole source of light and protection from the nearing angels... and the show ends on a cliffhanger.

I think the name of the globe is a hint at how they might escape their initial peril (gravity globe... by destroying it, my guess is they will float or fall out of harms way), but this is pure speculation.

A couple of things stood out for me in this episode with regard to spirituality. The first unsurprisingly is the nature of angels - or more specifically... fallen angels. in the episode, the Doctor talks of the power of the angels being in their image. This is so true. One of my major concerns about the modern world's obsession with the occult, is the mistaken belief that all spiritual forces that make themselves out to be benign or benevolent... are exactly what they pertain to be. I'll be focusing on this in a later post that has been brewing for quite some time in my head.

In one passage, the Bible speaks of Satan masquerading as an angel of light. By wooing us with what appears to be kindness, he lowers our defences and opens us up to his more nefarious plans. In the Narnia stories, the White Witch appears to be benevolent in some scenes... until her dark schemes are revealed. When Jonathan Ross criticised the film version, for "confusing the audience" about who was good and bad between Aslan and the witch I had to break out with a wry smile. He was missing the entire point!

I don't know if you've ever seen the Usual Suspects, but there is an excellent line in it which is very telling:

"The greatest trick the devil pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

In the latest episode of Doctor Who, Amy has been put in personal peril because she was drawn into the gaze of an angel. Similarly if we become enamoured with the occult, we too can be drawn in and find ourselves in great physical, psychological and spiritual danger.

The other spiritual point I wanted to make was with regard to the Doctor himself; it's from the cliffhanger:

"There's one thing you never put in a trap if you're smart. If you value your continued existence, if you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there's one thing you never, ever, put in a trap: me."

That to me sums up the relationship between Jesus and Satan. In Gethsemane, Satan must have thought he'd got the ultimate one over on God... killing his Son in mortal form. He put Jesus in a fatal trap... but what he failed to anticipate was the fact that Jesus being in the trap was actually part of God's plan. When the lights went out on Good Friday, it was the ultimate cliffhanger.

However on Easter Sunday... Satan got utterly owned. Jesus may have subjected himself to The Law... but because there was no sin to be found in him, it had no power over him.

The Doctor asked his companions whether they trusted him, whether they put their faith in him... and they responded positively.... this was just before he plunged them into darkness and risk.

Similarly, God can ask us to put our faith in him whilst we find ourselves in the midst of very strange or nerve racking circumstances. I suppose the question we have to ask ourselves is when these times come... are we prepared to put our trust in him?

Doctor Who: Victory of the Daleks and the Supremacy of Love

I had mixed feelings about this week's Doctor Who episode, Victory of the Daleks:

Firstly, on the plus side I feel it has to be said that Matt Smith continues to hold his own as the last of the Time Lords. He echoes multiple Doctors of the past and channels his own unique energy into each performance.

There were brief glimpses of genius in the script: The Doctor using a jammy dodger biscuit as a fake TARDIS destruct button, Spitfires in space, and of course the creepy apparently subservient Daleks (which of course were nothing of the sort). There's just something a little darkly kinky about a Dalek drifting around proclaiming "I am your sooooooooooldier!"

"Would you care for a cup of teeeeeeaaaaaa?!???"

Most... hilariously surreal Dalek line... EVER!

All this is the kind of stuff that makes Doctor Who unique... that the amazing, fantastic, wonderful and terrifying things can all be found or suggested in the everyday mundane.

On the negative side it has to be said that the newly reincarnated Daleks look foul. The angles are all wrong and they look like they have been made out of cheap vacuum sealed plastic. It's almost as if they've been cross bred with a cheap Nissan Micra or Smart Car. I suspect they've been bulked up for the comfort of the operators. The mixed paint jobs are probably a nod back to the 60's film versions, but I don't think a variety of bright colours really work on Daleks. They are supposed to be a totalitarian supremacist race bent on destruction of all non-Dalek life, it seems fitting to me that their colour scheme should be restricted and repressed. Still... at least they didn't have fire extinguishers for extermination beams.

When they emerged in formation and confronted the Doctor, I wondered what they reminded me of... and then somebody hit the nail on the head on Twitter:

No wonder the poor Doctor looked so bemused!

I also felt the pacing was a bit off. When the Power Rangers new Daleks were revealed, it felt like there should have been a "To Be Continued" after the Doctor's reaction. It really could have benefited from being a two parter as some important elements were left rushed or unexplained. You could really tell the difference in quality between Moffat's episodes and this one.

In the climax of the story we discover that Bracewell - the Daleks' sleeper android, is a walking Oblivion Continuum bomb capable of destroying the Earth. The Daleks trigger his countdown mechanism as part of their exit strategy, and the Doctor has to abandon his plans to thwart them in a desperate bid to diffuse Bracewell as he builds up to critical mass.

The Doctor quickly realises that  the way to disarm Bracewell is to break the Daleks control over him... and to do that he has to help Bracewell reassert his sense of humanity. In trying to elicit an emotional response, The Doctor appeals to Bracewell's sense of sadness, despair, hurt and loss... all of which have no effect whatsoever.

Once again it is Amy who has an epiphany about how to resolve the situation. She copies the Doctor's strategy of appealing to Bracewell's emotions but instead appeals to his positive emotions... principally love.

Although perhaps not the most scientific of resolutions, I liked it. To quote William Hurt's character in The Village: "The world moves for love, it kneels before it in awe."

When she was still alive, my grandmother's favourite Bible verse which she knew from memory was this:

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

1 Corinthians 13

As powerful as negative emotions are, love (in it's many forms), is supreme. Perhaps that's why we prize the emotion so greatly when we are enthralled by it, covet it when we are deprived of it... and grieved so deeply when we are robbed of it. That is why when, like the Doctor we are at the end of our resourcefulness, love in its supremacy will have the final word.... especially God's love.

In a dark world it's often very easy to lose sight of this truth and so I'd like to finish by quoting another doctor... namely Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr:

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

Terminators Have It Easy

Lately I've been pondering the frustration caused by the lack of "surface information" available to me in daily life. This is a general thing but I must confess that it probably has a specific root... 

Girls.

Being flesh and blood and heterosexual in nature, from time to time I find myself encountering what I perceive as beauty and being drawn inexorably in by it  (oh come on... how many times has it happened before and I've blogged on it here).

Most men would just go with the internal girly whirly detector in their head... however, I am not most men. I find that I don't have the luxury of just going with my instincts.

Annoyingly.

You see there are two important things you need to know about me in respect of this. The first thing, is that psychologically and emotionally, I find it a little too easy to fall in love... don't ask me why it is... it just is. The second thing you need to know is that I recognise the need for spiritual responsibility and accountability in my own life both with regard to myself and to others.

If I commit myself to a romantic cause of of action (however innocuous), in the past it generally hasn't taken me too long to get in over my head... and I find myself caught in a tug of war between the giants of romantic love and spiritual well-being.

What happens when an irresistible force hits an unmoveable object?

If I go out with someone who doesn't put similar stock in their ethics and beliefs, one of two things (usually both in tides and seasons, depending on how long things pan out)eventually happens:

1. I get emotionally attached and conflicted and tend to get melancholic, miserable and spiritually ineffective.
    
2. The other person can't cope with the importance I put on my faith and it becomes a source of friction and argument.

Having this knowledge makes it a great burden for me to carry. I am naturally more acutely aware of it at this time of year as all my hormones tend to kick into overdrive as we emerge from winter.

In fact there are potentially as many as 4 girls (5 if you include Fliss Walton's appearance in this Halifax advert), who I semi regularly run into who catch my eye in this manner... but for the reasons stated above, I won't do anything about it.

When I get thinking like this, I start to think how easy life could be if we were all like the Terminator. No, I don't mean that I'd like us all to be pathological cyborg killing machines. I'm referring to "Terminator Vision"...

Imagine how much simpler the dating game would be if you could just walk into a bar or town square, scan the individuals there... and be presented with a list of pointers with regard to "surface" compatibility with those people (just pointers mind... nothing should take away from the fun and stimulation that comes from getting to know a person one to one).  Oh and before you ask... another essential divergence from the Terminator films - we shouldn't have to walk into those places naked in the first instance lol.

If the word "Christian" popped up on any one of those girls heads while scanning.... I'd lock on and totally go for it... but as it stands I'm somewhat of a reluctant hermit.

In fact, whilst I may be joking... we potentially in the future may have this very ability. Advances in the field of augmented reality are bearing fruit along these lines. Last month I read this article in the Guardian. I was particularly drawn to this segment: 

"A prototype application demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February took things a little further again. Point the phone at a person and if it can find their details, it will pull them off the web and attach details – their Twitter username, Facebook page and other facts – and stick them, rather weirdly, into the air around their head (viewed through your phone, of course)."

Naturally whilst this is exactly the kind of technological advancement I need to overcome my ethical romantic problems... I recognise that the issues of privacy and data protection are immensely important and perhaps this needs to be thought through a bit before we start walking down that road.

Until then, I guess I'm stuck trying to work this out by developing telepathic powers.