On TV last night...

There was excitement, tension, action, and joy at excellent performances. What a pity I am not talking about Doctor Who. What a load of shite! (And I feel I am being kind, at that.)

On the other hand, the Argentina-Mexico match was much better than I had expected, because Mexico went out there and did their best to win rather than try to hold tight against Argentina. Their tactics meant that Argentina could not properly get into their preferred rhythm for a while, but as the game went on in was clear which side was the superior. In extra time, Argentina got the winning goal, and it was another beautiful example of stunning expertise delivered with little time for thought.

(Meanwhile, I have not seen much of the Portugal-Holland match, but on the basis of the couple of minutes I have seen, they seem to be trying to work themselves up into a re-enactment of the infamous Battle of Santiago.)

But Who... What were they on when they commissioned that story? It was not so much that it was derivative, much of Who could be described like that, some of the best of it too; it was that it was really not well done, not at any level. If you want a story of psychological tension, you need to take some time to build it up, not simply present a situation and have the Doctor say that the mother is scared. If you want to have an evil child, you need to have an actress who can actually make you believe that she is (possessed by) evil, and the one last night simply could not. (The less said about the silly deep voice, the better.) If you are going to use a fairly unoriginal idea like people being trapped in drawings, you need to do something interesting, or at least fun with it.

( Still, the trailer for next week looked interesting... )

Ah! Antici.....pation!