From the Tamagotchi to Nintendogs, the care of virtual pets has always been big business, spawning no end of variations on the theme- some sophisticated, some simplistic, but all sharing the common theme of forcing the player to carry out repetitive tasks in the name of caring for a simulated animal. Purr Pals is, of course, no different, giving you the opportunity to look after up to five kittens and see to their day-to-day needs- should you so desire to chain yourself to such a task.

Getting started

Unsurprisingly, the first order of business is to adopt a kitten, so, equipped with the starting money the game kindly gives you, it’s time to pick one of forty different breeds of cat, customise its gender, markings, collar and so forth, and then take it back to its new home. The good news is that the different breeds of cat aren’t just alternate skins- they’ve all been programmed to have their own distinctive personalities, from lazy types with large appetites to active cats who demand boundless amounts of attention. The bad news, however, is that the customisation of a particular breed is not particularly extensive- you get about four or five similar looking colour schemes for the fur and some rather ridiculous colour choices for the whiskers (think lime green and pink) that ensure you’ll have to stick with plain white if you want a vaguely realistic looking cat.

Once you’ve paid for your new kitten, it will be sent to your home, a rather unexciting location consisting of four rooms- kitchen, bathroom, living room and garden. Your cat will wander between these rooms, but if you want it to go somewhere specific, you can pick it up with a disembodied hand and put it there. Just note- kitty likes to sleep between 11pm and 6am, and although you can still tend to it at these times, it will be more than a little disgruntled to be woken up.

Needs

Whether the power is turned on or off, your cat’s need levels will increase at an alarming rate- so much so that you can actually see them go up if you look at the game menu for a few minutes. Your demanding cat has four main needs- food, play, grooming and love- all of which must be attended to on a daily basis.

Each day you will get an allowance depending on how well you’ve cared for your cat- the base allowance is $5, with bonuses increasing it to $9 if your cat is in perfect condition, and penalties reducing it down to $0-1 if you’ve neglected poor kitty. Unfortunately, even the $9 allowance isn’t enough to pay for the two packs of cat food the average kitten needs to satiate its hunger, which forces you to constantly bring home money via games or cat shows (more on this later) just to feed kitty- let alone buy any of the other items on offer.

Food

Since the game is sponsored by Purina, it should come as no surprise that your cat will constantly be hungry for bags of Purina pet food, consuming up to three packs a day (or more, if you play games with it). As well as the basic “Hungry Kitten” food, there are also slightly more expensive cat biscuits that will reduce the cat’s play, grooming or love needs; and indeed, once you start getting bored of the endless cycle of care, you’ll probably want to use these to combat rising need levels (although you can’t feed the cat infinitely to get rid of all its needs- like a real cat, it will refuse to eat once it’s had enough).

The main issue with food is that you can’t just give it to the cat in one press of a button- instead, you have to use the stylus to drag the box of cat food over to the bowl, and then keep shaking it until it fills with cat biscuits. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the game sometimes has an issue with detecting your motions, and promptly ‘snaps back’ the food box to its original position, forcing you to start emptying it out all over again.

Grooming

Your house may be bland and clean, but somehow every day your kitten goes from shiny and clean to flea-ridden menace- so much so that you can see the fleas jumping about on it. In order to remedy this, you have to brush your kitten by rubbing the stylus over it until the meter empties- all within the time limit. The grooming process usually has to be repeated three times to completely empty the gauge, and the best way to proceed is to “scrub and scrub until it’s done”, making sure to brush the kitten all over.

Love

Kitty requires love and attention, and in order to fulfil its needs, you’re going to have to give it a lot of stroking. In order to administer love, first tap the screen to tell the kitten where to go (you can have it sitting on a chair, watching the fishes and so forth), and then tap again to zoom in and begin stroking. If you stroke your cat in the right places, it will give off hearts- and the happier it gets, the more hearts it will emit. Keep going until the hearts stop (sometimes the hearts will get stuck on screen and refuse to go away, but they should clear if you exit love and re-enter, or if you just keep playing for a while).

Play

Probably the most time consuming of all the tasks, playing isn’t even possible until you shell out for toys for your cat. Fortunately, it can also be quite fun- at least at first.

• String: Use the stylus to move the string around and watch as your kitten tries to catch it. The cheapest option for occupying your cat.
• Wind-up mouse: Pick up the mouse and then use the stylus to wind it up and let it go. Your kitten will chase it around.
• Fishing rod: Shake the lure on the end of the rod and watch as the kitten tries to catch it. Probably the most boring toy since it’s negligibly different from the string.
• Ball: Throw the ball with the stylus and watch your kitten chase after it. If you play it out in the garden, this is a good way to get the play need satisfied.
• Dump truck: The most enjoyable option out of all the toys, the remote control dump truck lets you either chase your kitten around or, more satisfyingly, give it a ride (you can also beep the horn and tip the cat off when you’ve had enough). If you take it out in the garden, you can drive it up the slide, but it does tend to get stuck on the way down.
• Butterfly: blow into the microphone to make the toy butterfly float around- your cat will chase it until it lands. I’ve always felt a bit stupid blowing into the DS microphone, and to be honest this is a pretty unsatisfying toy, albeit a cheap one.

Litter tray

Every day your kitten will do what the manual euphemistically refers to as “kitten clumps” in its litter tray, and naturally it’s your job to clean it out. This can either be achieved via the cheapskate method of individually scrubbing out each ‘clump’ with the stylus (a task so oddly compelling that the entire family has been known to argue over it- although no one seems to have the same inclination to attend to the real litter tray), or the rich bastard method of buying cat litter and using it to magically clean the tray. The latter method also has the advantage of reducing the cat’s need levels in a particular area, but despite the promise that the different litters will help keep your cat’s needs down for 2,4, 6 or 8 days depending on the brand you buy, their effects never seem to last more than one day.

Discipline and vocal commands

If your cat appears to be misbehaving itself (and the only time this has really happened for me is when it starts scratching at the screen because its needs are high), then you can actually encourage it to behave via ‘Discipline Mode’, which basically involves selecting a water pistol icon from the top of the screen and spraying poor kitty. Since this seems rather mean, I’ve only ever done it by accident.

You can also activate Discipline mode via the voice command ‘Bad Kitty’, although I can’t say that this has ever worked for me. The other two voice commands- ‘Here Kitty’ to make the cat come to you and ‘Meow, Meow’ to make it meow- seem equally unpredictable in their functionality.

Moneymaking and customisation

One of the hardest tasks in the game is making a decent amount of money, with building your fortunes requiring considerable effort. Aside from your pittance of a daily allowance, the two main ways of making money are through mini-games and cat shows, both of which are time consuming for different reasons. The mini-games offer very little monetary reward (more on that in a moment), whilst cat shows require days of preparation in order to earn the big prizes.

• Hoop-la: A simple shoot the hoops game in which you use the stylus to guide the basketball into the hoop. I’ve only ever been completely unsuccessful at this.
• Cupid: Shoot the moving hearts with an arrow (use either the stylus or d-pad) to earn points- even my best efforts have yielded about $3.
• Copycat: Your kitten will pop out of different coloured tunnels, and you’ll have to copy the increasingly long sequences. Another game that yields very little in the way of actual cash.
• Music: A DDR style game in which you have to tap the music bubbles as they go past; it requires a bit of practise and a quick finger, but it is the most rewarding of the games in terms of financial game. A decent score of 90-100 in the hardest difficulty will not only let you listen to cats meowing to opera, but it will also give you $5 a pop.

Playing any of these games will further increase your cat’s needs levels, so it’s

best to do them before you care for kitty.

• Cat shows: The alternative to working hard on tedious mini-games is to enter your cat into a show, which, if you get entrepreneurial about it, will enable you to rack up an impressive cat show. Four cat shows are available- one day, two day, three day and five day- although you have to unlock them in order by placing highly in each show. The days don’t refer to the length of the show, but rather how long you have to prepare for each one; as soon as you pay your entry fees, invisible judges begin recording how well you’ve taken care out of your cat, and on the appointed day you’ll take your cat to the show to receive your final judgement. The show itself is rather dull; not only do you fail to see any other cats, but your poor kitty is seated on an isolated white star whilst a disembodied hand picks it up and examines it. In order to walk away with first prize, you’ll need to score at least 39/40, a combined total awarded for satisfying the four need levels.

Once you have your fortune, you’ll probably be wondering what you can spend it on before it all gets drained by day after day of purchasing Purina cat food. Unfortunately, whilst there isn’t anything too exciting to unlock with your cash, there are a number of customisation options you can buy. As well as a limited amount of collars, tags, food bowls, beds, hats and comedy noses (no, really) for you to dress up your cat in, you can also redecorate your house with different colours and materials for the various furnishings therein.

Multiple cats

For the truly dedicated, you can use your hard-earned cash to adopt up to five cats, although each cat must live in complete isolation in an identical house (it’s unclear whether each cat is moved from a limbo area into a shared house or whether they each live in separate yet identical houses that are all customised simultaneously but have personalised beds and food bowls). You can switch between cats using the start menu and donate unwanted cats if you have the cold heart to do so. It’s also worth noting that any unscrubbed ‘kitten clumps’ will transfer to the next cat’s litter tray when you load it up.

A word of warning

The bugs mentioned above are irritating but minor compared to what I am about to tell you- and that is that saved data on Purr Pals has a tendency to corrupt. It’s not for certain that it will happen, and it can go for months without issue, but for some reason once you start entering a lot of cat shows and unlocking numerous customisables, the game seems to decide it’s had enough- at which point all your hard work gets erased. At the same time, however, this can be a welcome release from the tedium you will be experiencing by that point.

Longevity

As with all games of this type, after the first few weeks or even months of care, you’ll begin to find it more of a chore than a pleasure, taking up a precious 25-50 minutes of each day that you start to feel could be put to better use. At this point, you probably won’t want to play anymore, although it’s debatable whether you’ll decide to return to the game at a later date.

Audiovisual

Although Purr Pals is on solid ground visually, the aesthetic appeal of the different cat breeds varies wildly- fatter cats tend to be cuter, whilst thin ones just look spindly and strange. A decent amount of effort has been put into the house, but ultimately it can’t disguise the fact that four rooms will get boring when there’s absolutely nowhere else to go. Meanwhile, background music is catchy in a slightly irritating way, but certainly nothing to write home about.

Final Thoughts

Although it isn’t up to the level of Nintendogs, Purr Pals is nonetheless a solid titles that stands out amongst the average dross that floods the virtual pet market. A sound alternative to the apparently disappointing Catz, Purr Pals is probably your best option if you wish to go into the business of caring for virtual cats.

Recap

The Daleks are ready to set their most ambitious plan ever in motion, and with their forces divided, it seems as if even the Doctor and all his allies may not be enough to avert the course of disaster. Will it be Rose’s dimension jumping, Captain Jack’s immortality, Martha’s mysterious Osterhagen Key or Sarah Jane’s tenacity that turns the tide, or will it all fall on the shoulders of the newest companion- Donna Noble, the temp from Chiswick?

Alien, Planet and Tech Guide

• Reality Bomb: using twenty-seven captured planets, the rift at the heart of the Medusa Cascade and a central area known as ‘The Crucible’, the reality bomb erases the electrostatic forces between atoms, disintegrating matter. If amplified enough, it can destroy everything in the universe.
• Biological meta-crisis: a situation where excess regeneration energy causes the DNA of different life forms to merge. In this case, it creates a part human duplicate of the Doctor using Donna Noble’s DNA, whilst also infusing Donna with Time Lord DNA and knowledge.
• Dimension jumper: The same dimension jumping equipment used at the end of season two- takes thirty minutes between charges.
• Osterhagen project: a drastic last ditch solution in which three separate online stations can access a series of nuclear warheads planted under the Earth’s crust. If detonated, the warheads will rip the planet apart as an alternative to having humanity continue to exist in suffering.

Episode Thoughts, Notes and Nitpicks: Extended Edition

Dear readers, if you’ve stuck with my Doctor Who posts for this long, then I hope you won’t mind me indulging myself in this section- because there’s ranting to be done, and I intend to do it. First off, let me say that I didn’t much like this episode, but whilst the majority of it was either poor or unintentionally amusing, it was what happened to Donna at the end that really angered me- so much so that until I ate dinner and calmed down a little, I never wanted to watch Doctor Who again. Now, bear with me as I go into more detail.

At the beginning of the episode, our heroes are in trouble. Jack, Rose and Donna can only watch in horror as the Doctor begins to regenerate, Sarah Jane is on the verge of being exterminated and our Torchwood heroes may not be able to hold out much longer against a sustained Dalek assault. It’s the kind of cliff-hanger that ensures viewers will tune in next week, but unfortunately, it’s also the type that gets resolved rather disappointingly within about two seconds.

First-off, the Doctor redirects the regeneration energy into his spare hand (the significance of which was first indicated last episode by a lingering shot of it), enabling David Tennant to remain The Doctor for the time being and setting up a plot point for later on. Meanwhile, deus ex machina reigns supreme as Mickey and Jackie show up to blow the heads off the Daleks menacing Sarah Jane, whilst a convenient time lock device invented by Tosh freezes the Dalek and saves Gwen and Ianto- albeit leaving them trapped in Torchwood with little other role than ‘gratuitous cameo’.

In this sort of adventure, the darkest hour always comes before the dawn, and so it is that the TARDIS is taken to Davros, where its shields are neutralised, forcing our heroes to emerge and give themselves up- well, all except Donna, who ends up locked inside as the Daleks send it off to be burned inside the fires of the Crucible. It is here that the ridiculousness goes to new heights, for as a desperate Donna reaches out to the Doctor’s spare hand, it causes a ‘biological metacrisis’ in which the regeneration energy from earlier causes a second Doctor to grow, albeit a human one with only one heart. Fortunately, however, it seems that a second heart isn’t required for TARDIS operation, with Doctor II transporting it away at the last minute.

In the meantime, however, everyone else is going into supporting character overload- Jack defies the Daleks, gets exterminated and put in the incinerator, only to revive due to his invincibility. Fortunately, he happens to meet up with Mickey, Jackie and Sarah Jane, who surrendered themselves to the Daleks in order to get closer to the Doctor, but were able to escape custody on the Dalek ship through a mixture of luck and Dalek incompetence (really, how did these tin pepper pots pose any sort of threat to the Time Lords?). And of course, Sarah Jane just happens to be carrying a Warp Star- a massive nuclear explosion encased in a pendant. They don’t sell those on the Jewellery Channel, that’s for sure.

Not that Sarah Jane is the only one with a powerful weapon to bring to bear, for thanks to her mind-reading teleport, Martha is able to go to Nuremburg, where one of the “Osterhagen stations” is located. With just three of these stations online, the users can activate a series of nuclear weapons designed to rip the Earth apart- foiling the Daleks’ plans at the cost of the planet and everyone living on it.

But what is the Daleks’ plan, I hear you say? Well, listen carefully, for I shall say this only as many times as it takes to communicate the ridiculousness of it. You see, Davros has come up with what he likes to call a ‘reality bomb’, a device powered by the 27 stolen planets that has the power to disintegrate the electrostatic bonds linking atoms (I must wonder if it works on the strong force that binds nuclei together, but that’s a discussion for another day), which, with the appropriate amplification, will disassociate all the matter in the universe, leaving only nothingness. This is Davros’ so-called supreme victory, but I can’t help feeling he should have planned it a bit better- who exactly is going to be around to see it? Even if the Daleks somehow protect themselves by being at the point of origin, where will there be to go once the universe is in ruins? Why don’t villains think this through before they start trying to destroy the entire universe?

Anyway, surely the Daleks will have to step down now that Martha and Sarah Jane have brought their threats to bear? Perhaps not, because instead they use their trans-mat technology to teleport all the offending ‘Children of Time’ to Davros, where they can be confined along with the Doctor- could all hope be lost? Is all the Doctor has left the knowledge that those who travel with him are turned into warriors?

Of course not, for don’t forget that help is still at hand in the form of Donna and the newly-formed Doctor II, who arrive in the TARDIS just in time to save the day- or so one might hope. Unfortunately, for all his intellect, being human seems to have dulled the Doctor II in some way, resulting in a pointlessly slow run at Davros that inevitably ends in failure. And even Donna manages to get hit by Davros’ beam when she makes her own charge- they really should have thought out some sort of plan before starting the whole endeavour.

Still, this is the same Russell T Davies who had Bad Wolf Rose destroy an entire Dalek fleet, so don’t worry, because a ridiculous conclusion is around the corner. You see, the electric shock delivered by Davros is enough to reveal that the ‘biological meta-crisis’ affected Donna as well, somehow imbuing her with the Doctor’s knowledge, knowledge that was dormant until the moment the plot demanded it. With a combination of Time Lord knowledge and human intuition, all it takes is a few button presses to disable the Daleks, deactivate their weapons and have them all spinning around- right before destroying their fleet and returning 26 of the 27 planets. Not bad for two minutes’ work, eh?

Note, however, that I said 26 planets, for in typical fashion, Earth gets left behind, which isn’t really good news for the citizens of this strangely significant little planet. Fortunately, the ridiculousness has yet to end, for with the help of Torchwood and Mr Smith, the TARDIS is somehow able to create what is essentially a tow rope to pull the Earth back into place. Ah, how the physicist inside me wept tears as this happened- for how could the Earth be pulled through space at a speed high enough to get it back to the Solar system without experiencing gravitational effects and atmospheric damage? In fact, at those kinds of unachievable speeds, collision with a single hydrogen atom would be pretty damaging- that’s why the Starship Enterprise had deflectors, after all. And more perplexingly still, the Doctor needs six people to operate the TARDIS at this point, claiming that that was how it was designed- but surely a TARDIS is something a Time Lord creates to go off in his own in?

Anyway, the upshot of all this stupidity is that everything is more or less back to normal- now the time has come to wrap up all the loose ends with regards to the characters. Sarah Jane will be going back to Luke and the Sarah Jane Adventures, whilst Jack must return to Torchwood- with both Mickey and Martha accompanying him as possible new characters for the third season. Meanwhile, despite having finally got back to the Doctor, Rose must be sent back to the parallel universe with her very own copy of the Time Lord- Doctor II. His unusual genesis makes him angry and dangerous in just the same way that the Doctor was before Rose ‘saved’ him, and so of course it’s fine to inflict him on a parallel universe to keep the primary one safe. What’s more, not only is he a human who will age and die together with Rose, but he isn’t afraid to admit he loves her, so even though it’s only an inferior copy of the original, Rose will finally have a pretty good simulacrum of her dream man. Although, to be honest I have a hard time believing someone as brilliant and alien as the Doctor could have harboured romantic feelings towards Rose Tyler.

With all the others thus sent home, the Doctor and Donna are able to resume their adventures once again, or so I would have liked to see. For having come to like Catherine Tate in the role as I never imagined I would, another bombshell is about to be dropped when it is revealed that the Time Lord knowledge in Donna’s mind is now overloading her brain. And even though Doctor II can seemingly withstand this influx of knowledge, for Donna it is to spell the end of not only her journey with the Doctor, but also the loss of all her memories. Now she must go home to Chiswick and never remember the time she travelled with the Doctor, with the script glossing over problems like explaining where she was these last few months, why she split up with her fiancé way back in the Christmas episode and how she will somehow get through by disbelieving everything that has happened to the people of Earth of late. And, as if to add insult to injury, the Doctor makes a special effort to say goodbye right after stressing how important it was that she not be reminded of the tiniest bit of her time with him. Couldn’t he have just made that knowledge dormant once more instead of cutting short Donna’s dream? The companion is, after all, the personification of all the people who want to accompany the Doctor on his magical adventures, and to say that you might walk away without even the memory of the dream is too cruel to bear.

And so we come to end of the fourth season of the relaunched Doctor Who, with two years to wait until the next proper series and general speculation as to whether Tennant will be returning to helm the TARDIS once more. In the meantime, however, I cannot help but feel disappointed with the bulk of this season and its finale, and it remains to be seen whether I’ve ‘outgrown’ the series or whether the mystical allure of who and what the Doctor can and should be will continue to draw me in.

The other day I was outside when I heard a something that sounded uncannily like the TARDIS. Naturally I rushed over to begin my career as the Doctor’s companion, but to my disappointment it turned out to be some sort of farm machinery. Oh well, better luck next time.

Recap

When the Earth suddenly disappears from right in front of the TARDIS, it’s a pretty good indication that something’s very wrong- and indeed it is, for a familiar old enemy has resurfaced, with a diabolical plan that starts with the theft of no fewer than twenty-seven planets. On Earth itself, all the Doctor’s old allies and companions are busy trying to fight off this new threat, but until the Doctor and Donna can find out where they’ve been taken, what hope do they have of holding out against nothing less than a Dalek invasion fleet led by Davros himself?

Alien, Planet and Tech Guide

• Daleks (updated): After Dalek Caan made his emergency temporal shift, he somehow ended up in the time-locked Time War, where he rescued Davros at the expense of his own sanity. Davros recreated the Daleks (including one Supreme Dalek) by growing them from cells of his own body, whereupon they began stealing 27 planets for a master plan, including Earth, Clom, Pyrovillia and the Adipose breeding planet.
• Project Indigo: A personal teleport suit built from the remains of Sontaran technology; although untested with regards to reaching a destination, Martha Jones is able to use it successfully to teleport from UNIT in LA to her home in London.
• The Shadow Proclamation: a distant space station which presumably is the hub for enforcing its laws. As well as administrators, the station is guarded by Judoon.
• Subwave Network: Developed by “The Mr Copper Foundation” (presumably founded by the Mr Copper from Voyage of the Damned) and former prime minister Harriet Jones, the network is a sentient entity which is able to seek out and connect to anyone who has had contact with the Doctor- provided they are his allies.
• Medusa Cascade: A locale the Doctor visited as a child, now used as the staging ground for Davros’ plans. The planets are all kept “a second out of sync” with the rest of the universe, which admittedly makes little sense when taken literally, but must mean out of phase in some way,

Episode Thoughts

I can’t help feeling there was just too much going on in this episode, what with Torchwood, Rose, the Doctor, Martha and Sarah Jane all being shoe-horned in; I’ve often complained of episodes trying to pack too much in, and this was the worst offender yet. As someone who only occasionally catches a few minutes of Torchwood and has never watched the Sarah Jane Adventures, I also felt a little excluded, like I was being invited to a party where I barely knew half the attendees.

As for the Daleks, well, they’ve shown up and been thwarted so often that I can’t really regard them as something to be scared of anymore. I’m just concerned for the Doctor- will he really regenerate or will Donna make some sacrifice that changes reality so that Tennant can continue? For that reason alone, I can’t wait until next week.

Notes and Nitpicks

• I’ll accept a magical shield keeping the atmosphere in, but what about compensating for the light and heat provided by the Sun? Not to mention the gravitational effects of being removed from the solar system and placed in tandem with 27 other planets (think- if a body as small as the moon has such an effect on the tides, what sort of effects could we expect?)
• I really wish Clom (the Absorbaloff planet) hadn’t been mentioned- I like to pretend it doesn’t exist.
• Why would just three planets be snatched from earlier points in time and then 24 get taken simultaneously?
• Dalek Caan says that death will come to the most faithful companion, but who will that be? Will it be death in the same sense as Rose’s ‘dying’ in season two?
• Based on what I’ve read, we can expect Jackie Tyler and Mickey back next week (what about Jackie and Pete’s new kid?), whilst speculation includes Donna having to give up being a companion and the regeneration going wrong and causing a second Doctor to be created from his spare hand. Said Doctor may only have one heart and will go off into the sunset with Rose.
• Is there still something on Donna’s back? Will she have to use it to make a past decision that prevents the Daleks’ plan from coming to fruition?
• Why was Jack’s teleport so easy to repair? All it took was two cycling numbers, which seemed a bit ridiculous. Then again, the sentient sub-wave network and the teleport that magically took Martha home were equally silly.
• Note that last year we had ‘blogging’ and this year we saw an ‘outer space Facebook’- it’s like the writers know just what I’m doing online.

Since this season was initially meant to be 16 episodes before the writers’ strike, seasons five and six have been extended to 17 episodes each.

Locke and Ben: moving the island

Ben may have been captured by Martin and his men, but just as he predicted, a rescue party led by Richard soon shows up to rescue him- with Kate and Sayid assisting in return for being allowed to leave. To their surprise, Ben agrees to honour this deal, for he has bigger issues to deal with- such as moving the island.

Making his way back to the Orchid, Ben assists Locke in gaining access via the greenhouse, and once down in the station, he hurriedly makes preparations whilst Locke watches the last of the Dharma orientation videos. According to the video, the Orchid is built around a bizarre pocket of space-time that allows such phenomena as time travel with a specially sealed chamber known as the Vault. Ben, however, has other ideas for the Vault, and he immediately sets about blowing it apart so that he can travel even deeper- to the place where the island can be moved.

Unfortunately, the duo are interrupted when the seemingly unstoppable Martin shows up again- he may have been shot during Ben’s rescue, but his trusty bulletproof vest saved his life. Now, he has new for Ben- the detonator for the bomb he left on the boat is a dead man switch that will only go off if his heart stops, so if he dies, so does everyone on the boat. Nonetheless, faced with the man who killed his daughter, Ben cannot contain his rage, and so he ends up attacking Martin and fatally stabbing him.

Although Locke is concerned for the fate of those left on the boat, as far as Ben is concerned, it isn’t his problem- it was just another ill-advised emotional decision made in the heat of the moment. Now, Ben must go and move the island, but Locke isn’t to go with him, for whoever undertakes this task can never return to it. Instead, Locke must go and find the Others, for he is to become their new leader.

On the boat: thar she blows

Michael, Desmond and Jin have found the bomb, but there’s a slight problem- even the army-trained Desmond has no idea how to disarm the complex system of wiring without triggering an explosion in the process. The only thing they can do is freeze the battery with liquid nitrogen- but that will only give them as long as it takes until the canister runs out to figure out a solution.

As Desmond and Jin futilely search for a way to disarm the bomb, Michael keeps spraying the battery with liquid nitrogen- but upon Martin’s death, the detonator light turns from green to red, and with less than a quarter of a tank remaining, there doesn’t seem to be any way to avoid an explosion. Instead, the newly arrived chopper is forced to patch itself up and take Sun and Aaron on board, but with time against them, they leave moments before Jin can also get on. Now a devastated Sun must watch as her husband is left behind mere moments before the boat explodes, killing everyone still aboard.

The chopper: between a rock and a hard place

After assisting in the release of Ben, Kate and Sayid meet up with Jack, Sawyer, Hurley and Frank at the chopper, and despite Locke’s plea to Jack that he not leave the island, they are all more than ready to go. Unfortunately, on the way back to the boat, Frank notices that the fuel gauge is going down much faster than it should be- a bullet has pierced the tank. There is no choice but to lighten the load as much as possible, and when even tossing out all backpacks and other equipment has little effect, Sawyer decides to take action. After whispering something to Kate, he dives out into the ocean and heads back to the beach.

Unfortunately, no sooner have they reached the boat than Frank and the others find out the bad news- their place of sanctuary is about to explode. After taking Desmond, Sun and Aaron on board, patching up the leak and refuelling as best they can, the chopper takes off-leaving Jin behind. Their only choice now is to head back to the island, but even as they do so, it disappears, leaving them to crash-land in the sea once the fuel runs out.

Fortunately, as they float in their life raft, Jack and the others notice a boat, which just happens to belong to one Penelope Widmore. Everyone is rescued, but as they board, Jack remembers what Locke told him- in order to protect everyone left on the island, they will have to lie about what happened. To that end, everyone except Desmond and Frank put out on another boat and wash up on another island, ready with their cover story about being the only survivors of Oceanic Flight 815.

Flash forwards: they have to go back!?

Three years after the rescue of the Oceanic Six, Jack has become convinced that they have to go back, insisting as much to Kate in the scene we saw at the end of season three. The issue is prompted by the death of one ‘Jeremy Bentham’, a man who visited all of the Oceanic Six at some point previously. Still, with their lives on separate courses, who can be persuaded to go back?

At Ben’s command, Sayid is continuing his mission of assassination, hoping to avenge his wife. Meanwhile, Hurley is visited by an older Walt, who wants to know why the Oceanic Six lied about what happened on the island. Elsewhere, Kate is still living with Aaron, but she receives a fright one night when she catches someone in her son’s room- especially when that someone turns out to be Claire, complete with a warning that she must not take Aaron back. And, most surprisingly of all, Sun has just struck a deal between the company she now controls and one Charles Widmore- but what are her reasons?

Still convinced that going back is the only way, Jack pays an after hours visit to the funeral parlour where Jeremy Bentham’s body currently rests, only to run into Ben. Ben tells him that if the island is to be saved, everyone who was rescued must go back- and that includes Bentham himself, for the man who is now called Jeremy Bentham was better known in life as John Locke…

Observation and Speculation

• Well, it’s the end of the season, and what a twisted, convoluted season it’s been- are we ever going to understand what it’s all about? Why do I doubt it somehow?
• Presumably moving the island is what sent Ben to the desert (like a space-time recoil, perhaps), and could explain what the Dharma polar bears were doing there way back when Charlotte found them.
• What happened to Daniel and the people in the lifeboat that were heading towards the boat? Also, what about the generic island survivors aboard the boat- why was everyone so caught up with rescuing named characters that they forgot to pick them up?
• Is Sun working with Widmore because she believes Jin might still be out there somewhere?
• How and why did Locke leave the island? What is the island, anyway- an artificial construction, a massive life form, or something else? Certainly most normal islands can’t just teleport from one place to another.
• What exactly happened to Claire, and how come Hurley and the others have been seeing dead people? Have they really passed beyond the veil?
• Charlotte seems to have some prior connection with the island and is apparently looking for that place she was born- could she have been born on the island itself?
• Note that back in season one, Claire learned she was destined not to raise Aaron- a prophecy that came true when Kate became his ‘parent’.
• If the Oceanic Six and Locke have to go back and make things right, does that mean Walt and Desmond would have to return too?
• Did Michael really die in the blast or is the island still saving him for some future purpose?

It’s quite probable that almost everyone from my generation grew up with the original Indy movies- they were cheesy and a bit silly, but they were from the eighties, when we were young and such things were common. Come 2008, however, and into a more mature and sophisticated world was born a brand new film, starring a much older Harrison Ford as an older and wiser Indiana Jones. Unfortunately, it’s common knowledge that you can’t go back, and indeed, this film seemed determined to become the most ridiculous of them all. And of course, where ridiculousness dwells, Azure Flame is there to mock it.

The film begins, for some reason, with a race between a convoy’s escort car and a random passing group of American teens- a completely pointless display of high speed driving that inexplicably ends with the rest of the convoy catching up when it comes time to turn off- even though mere moments before they had all been left behind. Equally mysterious is a lingering shot of a CG mongoose- just one of many animal appearances that have nothing at all to do with the actual story.

Anyway, with that little prologue over, the time comes for the real story (such as it is) to begin. The US colonel in charge of the convoy is actually a traitor leading a force of Russians to Area 51, where a kidnapped Indiana Jones is supposed to lead them to a bizarre artefact he recovered some tens years previously. With the film being set in 1957, this would make said incident take place in 1947, and what do we all associate with 1947? That’s right, the Roswell incident and the weather balloon that might have been a flying saucer. But this is Indiana Jones, and even though we’ve had the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, we wouldn’t have aliens and flying saucers…would we?

For the time being, however, let’s get back to the artefact, which for some reason is highly magnetic, enabling Indy to just toss some gunpowder in the air and have it lead him through the warehouse to the relevant crate. Upon opening the crate, the magnetic effect increases sufficiently to attract the Russian guns, overhead lights and so forth, because of course thin wooden crates are well known for their incredible magnetic shielding capabilities. Not that the magnetism makes much sense, given that the substance in question is quartz (a non-magnetic crystal) which somehow has the ability to magnetise equally non-magnetic metals such as gold.

Naturally, Indy isn’t one to hang around while the bad guys conduct their nefarious plans, but unfortunately for him, his sidekick Mac has other ideas, and after an unconvincing delivery about how a run of bad luck with the cards forced him to sell out to the Russians, he turns on our hero. Fortunately, without basic training in combat and marksmanship, the villains (led by the evil scientist Colonel-Doctor Irina “severe bob and a rapier at her side” Spalko) are no match for Indy’s whip skills, and an extended fight scene commences.

For some reason, during the fight, Indy manages to accidentally flip a switch that launches a jet propelled vehicle- because of course you arrange it so that such a powerful object can accidentally be launched by so little as a bored worker fiddling with the controls. Even more amazingly, Indy ends up getting carried along on the front of the vehicle, and doesn’t even get thrown off by its rapid deceleration at the end of the track. Still, this is only the warm up for what comes next, as our hero makes his way to an atomic testing village mere moments before a bomb is about to be set off. Whilst all the pursuing Russians sensibly run away, Indy has no recourse but to hide himself in a fridge, which somehow withstands the blast and being thrown several hundred in the air to deliver its human cargo intact and unharmed. Indy even gets out moments after the explosion and manages to get away without experiencing a lethal dose of radiation!

One decontamination and a debriefing later, and the FBI now suspect that Indy may be colluding with the Russians- didn’t any tell them that he’s the hero? Before you know it, Indy’s even been given an extended leave of absence from his teaching position at Marshall College, but on the train out of town he is approached by a motorcycle riding greaser named Mutt Williams. Before you know it, Indy has somehow got off the train and is meeting with Mutt in a café, where the young man reveals that former colleague Harold Oxley has gone missing, and that the villains also went to the trouble of capturing Mutt’s mother and then letting her ‘escape’ so that she could sent a letter to Indy via Mutt. Surely there was a less convoluted way of communicating their wishes?

Unsurprisingly, as soon as the letter progresses, two generic evil lackeys who just happened to teleport into the café moments earlier (the camera rather amusingly cuts to two out of place men in suits sitting amongst a bunch of college students) make their move, resulting in a chase through town and then Marshall College, complete with guns, high speed antics and a motorcycle ride through a library. Only then are Indy and his new sidekick Mutt able to shake off their pursuers and head to Peru to find Oxley (cue the cheesy low budget depiction of the journey as a red line across a map).

In Peru, our heroes discover that Oxley went mad and was admitted to a sanatorium (or rather a stone cell), only to be busted out by the villains after conveniently leaving a cryptic clue carved into the walls and floor. It seems that Oxley found the previously hidden grave of the Conquistador Castellana, and from the vague clues he leaves, Indy and Mutt are able to pinpoint its exact location and pay it a visit. Even more mysteriously, the graveyard is inhabited by half-naked attackers, who seem to hang around for no reason other than to attack the extremely minimal number of visitors that show up every year.

By the time they make it to the actual tomb and slice open wrappings able to miraculously preserve a body in a near-perfect state for hundreds of years, Indy and Mutt find what Oxley left there- a magnetic crystal skull made entirely of quartz, and stuffed with what looks like tinfoil. The skull is more elongated than a human’s and looks too perfect to have been carved- wait, does this mean there really are aliens in the movie after all? Please say it’s just a human-made artefact.

By this point, it is time for the Russians to make a reappearance, with the captured Oxley (who has been transformed into a raving madman with a tendency to point out what to do next in cryptic riddles thanks to his contact with the skull) and Indy’s old flame Marion Ravenwood (now Williams), who just happens to be Mutt’s mother. It seems the skull is important to Spalko, who believes that it will spearhead psychic research that will enable the Russians to control the minds of people worldwide. What a shame, then, that Spalko spends so much time hesitating and posturing that she cannot possibly hope to defeat our heroes.

After being forced to stare into the skull’s eyes in an attempt to communicate with it, Indy and his allies finally make their escape in the form of a painfully extended chase scene through the jungle that includes the ridiculousness of a group of monkeys attacking Irina but happily swinging through the vines with Mutt as he miraculously catches up with a car that has long since driven away. There’s even a scene in which Mutt must rescue Indy and Marion from quicksand by pulling them out with a snake, during which time Marion reveals that Mutt is Indy’s son. An old flame returns with a son whose father turns out to be the main character- boy, like we didn’t see that one coming.

Anyway, after Mac rejoins the team by claiming to be a double agent (predictably he’s lying about the whole thing and even drops large, bleeping transmitters for the Russians to follow even as the heroes fail to notice them), our heroes avoid unrealistically large killer ants and take a ride over no fewer than three waterfalls in an amphibious vehicle before finally reaching their destination- a Mayan temple in the middle of nowhere. Naturally, the temple is not without its hazards, and as they make their way through a set of tunnels, they are attacked by yet more mysterious half-clad people who waiting in ambush in the walls. What they were living on in the meantime and why anyone would spend all their time sealed in a wall waiting on the off-chance that intruder might chance upon their well hidden temple is anyone’s guess, but fortunately these generics are eventually fended off, enabling our heroes to make their way to the innermost chambers.

If you thought all that was pretty silly, however, it was only a prelude to the conclusion, which defies sense even by Indiana Jones standards. You see, in the deepest chamber of the temple sit thirteen quartz alien skeletons (somehow the magnetism aspect has been forgotten), minus the one crystal skull that Indy and the others have been bringing. Naturally, this is the point where Spalko shows up for the conclusion, even going so far as to place the skull back on the skeleton from whence it came whilst revealing that she somehow knows that the aliens were a hive mind- a single consciousness shared among many bodies. God only knows how she deduced that from her research on dead alien corpses.

With the skull returned, somehow the consciousness of the thirteen aliens is restored, and they decide to bestow a gift upon our hapless heroes. Being not perhaps as mentally stable or sexually satisfied as she might like, Spalko demands to know everything, a demand which somehow causes all thirteen alien skeletons to merge together into a single living alien (molecular transmutation?), which pumps so much knowledge into her that our ambitious villain becomes completely incinerated.

Should you be a Stargate SG-1 fan, then at this point you might have noticed that not only have we had crystal skulls (recall that Daniel Jackson once encountered one) and aliens that look a bit like the Asgard, but that the inter-dimensional portal that opens at this stage in the film is not too dissimilar to the eponymous Stargate. Rip-off or not, the portal is about to draw all our heroes in, and so the only choice is to run for it, leaving the predictably greedy Mac to get drawn in whilst he tries to fill his pockets with gold. Everyone else manages to make it outside, however, where they somehow manage to find a spot to stand completely unharmed whilst a giant flying saucer rises out of the ground and vanishes into the void between dimensions, leaving large rocks to rain everywhere.

With Indy’s latest and most ridiculous adventure thus concluded, our hero gets to go home, become assistant dean and even marry Marion- but he isn’t quite ready to give up the legendary hat just yet. What does that leave us, the viewers to look forward to? Perhaps a sequel involving 85 year old Harrison Ford clutching his walking stick as he scales a cliff? Endless spin-offs starring Shia LaBeouf as Mutt Williams? I can hardly contain my excitement.

Recap

On an ordinary day, Donna Noble turned left at a junction, but how much difference would it have made if she had listened to her mother and turned right? More than you would think, for in that one instant, the universe was set on a different course- one where Donna never met the Doctor, where the Doctor’s life ended the day he confronted the Arachnos, and where there was no one able to stand up to all the alien threats that could so easily have destroyed the Earth. And for once, the only person who might be able to set things right isn’t the Doctor himself, but a former companion, one who was thought forever lost in a parallel universe.

Alien, Planet and Tech Guide

• Trickster Brigade: a race of giant beetles that feed on time, altering the decisions people made in the past in order to somehow feed off the energy thus produced. They remain attached to their host but largely invisible. The beetles seem to work in tandem with a humanoid to lure in their prey, although the exact relationship between the two is unknown.
• Rose Tyler: Believed trapped in a parallel universe with her family two years ago, Rose has somehow gained the ability to move through universes.
• Donna Noble: It seems there is more to Donna than anyone ever expected- time and space has been wrapping itself around her ever since she was born. Why is Donna such an important person in the scheme of things?

Episode Thoughts

I’ve seen plenty of ‘what-if’ episodes in sci-fi, so this one was pretty par for the course in terms of ‘main character wakes up in a different reality, things get progressively worse until they figure out how to put it right’ way. Still, despite the lack of the Doctor, this was a solid enough episode- not the best the series has to offer, but still good enough with plenty of twists and turns. I’m not the biggest Rose fan, but it’s interesting to see her back, but I’m slightly concerned about the fate of the universe revolving around Donna- why do they have to burden the companion with something like that?

On another note, I would have found the beetle thing creepier if it didn’t look so fake- why not have a centipede with its front pincers dug into Donna’s shoulder and the rest of it coiled around her back?

Notes and Nitpicks

• Based on the preview, next week we can expect to see Rose, Martha, Donna, Captain Jack, Sarah Jane and Gwen from Torchwood- what a companion-filled extravaganza.
• In the parallel universe, the Doctor dying at the hands of the Arachnos meant that he wasn’t there to combat the Judoon and the Plasmavore (resulting in Martha’s death), save the spaceship Titanic (rendering London uninhabitable), stop the spread of the Adipose (causing the death of millions of Americans) or put a stop to the Sontarans and ATMOS. Captain Jack, the Torchwood team and Sarah Jane also died in this reality.
• Having seen Daleks in the preview and read that Davros is set to come back, could it be that this is what was sealed in the Medusa Cascade? If so, how can even the Daleks pose a threat to all universes?
• How, why and where did Rose gain her universe shifting ability?
• I can understand that the Doctor not visiting the end of the universe meant that the Master never came back to Earth, but who stopped the 1930s Daleks and their pig slaves? What became of Professor Lazarus and his immortality experiment?

Recap

On the diamond planet of Midnight, the sapphire waterfall is a must-see tourist attraction, and even if Donna wants to stay behind, there’s no way the Doctor is going to miss it. Unfortunately, getting there involves a four hour bus trip across the deadly surface of the planet- bad enough at the best of times, but even worse when the vehicle mysteriously stops and something starts knocking on the outside. The planet is supposed to be devoid of life- so why is there something outside trying to get in?

Alien, Planet and Tech Guide

• Midnight: a diamond planet that orbits an extonic star which bathes the surface in deadly light, Midnight is home to the sapphire waterfall, and also to an unknown life form that has the power to take over a human mind and learn through repetition. Some years ago, a Leisure Palace was dropped in from orbit to form a prime vacation spot, although the discovery of said planet most likely means that the planet has now been quarantined.

Episode Thoughts

Although I’ve always felt I’m supposed to look up to him and praise him, the truth is that I haven’t liked a lot of the episodes of Doctor Who penned by Russell T Davies, and sadly this one was no exception. It started well enough, but as the episode progressed it all began to feel a little pointless and overacted, until finally the conclusion left me thinking “well, what was the point of all that, then?” And the fact that we didn’t even get to see the sapphire waterfall was a real disappointment (don’t they know better to dangle the promise of gemstones in front of a fanatic like me?).

Notes and Nitpicks

• Although I hadn’t picked up on it myself until this week, a browse of the TV.com forums shows that I should have been paying attention to the Medusa Cascade, which the Doctor offhandedly mentions in this episode, and which has appeared earlier in the season (for example, the girl in Pompeii said that the Doctor’s name was sealed in the Cascade of Medusa). Could it be that Gallifrey and the Time Lords are in there?
• Again we see Rose on a monitor when the Doctor’s back is turned, and as we can see from the preview, she will be back next week.

The island and the boat- it’s like a rock and a hard place

With Frank’s chopper having dropped a sat phone onto the beach, the survivors can now track them- and Jack is determined to do just that. Despite the danger of re-opening his wound, Jack resolves to go into the jungle and catch up with what he believes to be Sayid and Desmond, with Kate doing the tracking.

As it turns out, the first group they encounter is none other than Sawyer, Miles and Aaron, and after a brief explanation of Claire’s absence, Jack and Sawyer continue into the jungle, whilst Kate takes Miles and Aaron back to the beach. By the time she gets there, however, Sayid has already shown up with the life raft, and when he hears where Jack has gone, he realises that Jack will be in danger if he doesn’t go after him. After leaving Aaron with Sun, Kate accompanies him, and the pair head back into the jungle- leaving Daniel to start ferrying passengers back to the boat.

In fact, Jack and Sawyer have already had enough of a head start to make it to the chopper, although by the time they get there, the only person they find is Frank, who has been handcuffed to the fuselage. As they release him, Frank explains that Sayid and Desmond didn’t come with them- he was the one who dropped the sat phone, and he can fly everyone away from the island whilst Martin and his team capture Ben and torch the island. There’s just one small problem- Hurley is still with Ben, and that puts him in danger.

Meanwhile, Kate and Sayid are hot on Jack and Sawyer’s trail- at least until Kate realises that someone else has come this way, before doubling back to follow them. And indeed, shortly afterwards, Richard emerges from the jungle, complete with a surrounding group of armed Others. Sayid and Kate have no choice but to hand over their weapons, but what lies in store for them?

Elsewhere, Daniel takes the first group back to the boat, including Jin, Sun and Aaron. With Martin gone, Michael has been released to fix the engines, but there’s on slight problem- someone has packed the boat with explosive C4. Suddenly, the boat doesn’t seem quite such a safe place to be…

Ben, Locke and Hurley: heading for the Orchid

Now that Locke has been told to move the island, the next stop is the Orchid station, but as Ben well knows, that is just where Widmore will expect him to go. And indeed, Martin and his team have already reached the greenhouses that mark the entrance to the Orchid, leaving Ben with no choice but to tell Locke and Hurley how to get inside whilst he surrenders himself- although as Ben says, he always has a plan. But will all the planning in the world be enough to save him from the trigger-happy Martin? (Well, yes, based on the flash forwards.)

Found: The Oceanic Six go home

In the hold of a plane, the six official survivors of Oceanic 815- Jack, Hurley, Kate, Aaron, Sun and Sayid- are taken to a safe port where they can be reunited with their families. After agreeing to get a press conference over with, the survivors give their version of events- the plane went down in the ocean, and only eight people made it to the shore. The ‘Oceanic Six’ were ultimately the only ones to survive, making use of a fishing boat that washed ashore to make it from their uninhabited Indonesian island to an inhabited one after a hundred days- during which time Kate also gave birth to Aaron. The press is eager to pick at the holes in the story, but the Oceanic Six deflect any difficult questions.

The time has come for everyone to get back to their lives, with even Nadia showing up to see Sayid and resume their long interrupted relationship. Sun goes back to Korea to have her baby alone, but she also has an unpleasant surprise for her father- using the money from her settlement, she has bought a controlling interest in his company, and no longer intends to bow and scrape to him.

Elsewhere, Jack is finally able to hold a funeral for his father, even though Christian’s body was long lost. After the event, he is approached by a blonde woman who claims to know why Christian was in Australia- he was there to see his daughter. Although Jack is disbelieving at first, the woman tells him that she had a child with Christian, and that that very daughter- Claire- was on the plane with Jack.

Meanwhile, Hurley becomes paranoid when he comes home one day to find a coconut on the floor and the sound of whispering permeating the house; is this the work of the island? Ready to confront any attacker, he picks up a metal statue and heads deeper into the house- only to discover that his family and friends have thrown him a surprise party. The Hawaiian theme is perhaps not in the best of tastes, but Hurley’s father also has another gift for him- he has fixed up a car for Hurley, and without using the lottery money. Relieved that the money isn’t involved, Hurley gets into the driver’s seat, only to see that the odometer reads “481516” “2342”- the numbers. Fearful of what is going on, Hurley runs off down the road.

Observations and Speculation

• Since I have the finale ready and waiting to be watched, I’ll leave most speculation until the next blog post, when we’ll all be puzzling over the events of the season together for the next few months.
• Well, we now know that Jack knew he was related to Aaron when he was arguing with Kate a few episodes ago.
• Again, who is Allpert? He doesn’t seem to have aged at all in the many decades since Locke was born- is he dead, immortal or the son of the original?

Locke, Ben and Hurley: quest for the cabin

While the others are sleeping, Locke wanders into a clearing, only to find a Dharma man chopping down a tree. The man tells him that he is making a getaway for himself and his wife, but when his actions keep looping, Locke realises that it is a dream. Not just any dream, however, but a prophetic piece of advice from the island.

Once the entire group is ready to go, Locke leads them to the place where Ben dumped the corpses of the Dharma Initiative members so long ago. Although they are now only skeletons, Locke is able to identify the man from the dream by the name on his uniform- and sure enough, he has a map in his possession, showing the way to the cabin.

Now that they have the map, Locke tells Hurley that he isn’t needed; instead of accompanying them, he should head back to the beach. Naturally, Hurley doesn’t think much of being dumped and asked to make his way through the jungle alone, instead choosing to stay and provoking Ben to remark that Locke has just pulled off a neat bit of reverse psychology. Locke denies this, and the party continues onward until finally the cabin is reached.

At the cabin, Hurley and Ben are happy to let Locke enter, but when he goes inside to see Jacob, he finds someone different- Christian Shephard. Christian claims that he speaks for Jacob, and even more bizarrely, he has Claire with him- albeit a Claire who seems entirely at ease with what is going on. It is a strange experience indeed, but once he has consulted with them, Locke knows exactly what he must do- if he is to protect the island, he must somehow move it from its present location.

On the boat: tensions run high

When Frank brings Martin and his commando team back to the boat, it is clear that the soldier has no intention of letting anyone stand in his way- not even the captain. He forces the captain to surrender his key to the safe so that they can look up Widmore’s instructions, and even goes in to torture the now imprisoned Michael, although the captain manages to save the saboteur by claiming (quite rightly) that he is the only one who can fix the engines.

Worried that Martin is suffering strange effects from the proximity of the island, the captain decides to take matters into his own hands by secretly handing over control of the lifeboat to Sayid and Desmond so that they can rescue the survivors on the beach. Nonetheless, Desmond has no intention of going back to the island that claimed several years of his life, leaving Sayid to act alone.

Meanwhile, Martin also wants to go back to the island that same evening, but Frank refuses to fly at night, claiming there is no way he can follow the right bearing under these conditions. Determined to have his way, Martin decides to take extreme action, slitting the doctor’s throat and tossing him overboard, and shooting the captain when he tries to intervene. With the lives of the others on the boat now at stake, Frank has no choice but to agree to fire up the chopper- a return trip to the island is imminent.

Flashback: Locke’s life

One rainy evening, a teenaged Miss Locke argues with her mother about her boyfriend- he may be older than her, but she loves him, and what’s more, she’s six months pregnant. Unfortunately, no sooner has she stormed out of the house than she gets hit by a lorry.

At the hospital, the baby is delivered safely, if prematurely, and given the name John, but when his mother sees him, she realises she can’t go through with looking after a child, leaving her own mother to arrange for adoption.

As a young boy, Locke is visited by a certain Richard Allpert, who believes he has the potential to attend a school for gifted children- if only he can identify which of a set of items should belong to him. All is going well until Locke picks out a knife, at which point Richard decides he isn’t ready and abruptly leaves.

Years later, and Locke is at high school, where he gets bullied and locked in a locker because his fellow students see him as a science geek. Locke’s teacher tells him that he should attend a special science camp, but Locke is adamant, insisting that he is no different from the other boys in liking sports and so forth. His teacher tries to persuade him that he might as well accept that he’ll be the geeky who works in the lab, because there’s no point trying to be Homecoming King, a quarterback or a superhero- those roles are made for other people. Naturally, an angry and rebellious Locke becomes ever more certain that he can be whatever he wants to be.

Just after his accident, Locke is in rehab, but the signs don’t look good. An oddlhy familiar orderly takes him to the elevator, but as they wait for it to arrive, he tells Locke that he should go on walkabout- only then will he find his true self.

Observations and Speculation

• Okay, moving the island is just a tad ridiculous- I happened to hear a spoiler today that it’s man-made (unsurprisingly), but does it have a giant engine underneath or something? Wait- I’m sorry I asked.
• It seems that Allpert has been keeping an eye on Locke since birth, raising questions as to who he really is, and how far back this whole island thing goes. Also, the picture that young Locke drew seemed to be the smoke monster grabbing someone; was Locke ‘chosen’ from the start?
• Is Claire dead now or in that mysterious state between? Maybe everyone in the series really is dead anyway.
• Also note how the fact that the people on the beach found the dead doctor before he was killed- yet more evidence for the time dilation effect surrounding the island.

For those who didn’t know (and that included me up until this week), the fifth season of Doctor Who won’t be airing until 2010. In the meantime there should be four special episodes to tide us over.

Recap

As the Vashta Nerada chase the Doctor, River Song and the remains of her team through the depths of the library, it is clear that they need to trust each other if they are to have a hope of survival, but what can River Song do to prove to the Doctor and the others that in her past and his future, they will have the relationship she claims? Meanwhile, Donna has apparently been ‘saved’, but what is this new reality that she has been sent to, and why does the mysterious Doctor Moon want her to forget everything that happened before?

Alien, Planet and Tech Guide

• Vashta Nerada (updated): The Vashta Nerada hatch from microspores in trees and forests; however, when their forests were pulped and turned into paper for the Library’s books, they spores ended up infesting all the books and ultimately hatching. The library Vashta Nerada are unique in that they become able to communicate via the neural relays in the suits of the people they devour.
• The Library (updated): the computer core of the Library is CAL, aka Charlotte Lux, a relative of the Library’s creator who was suffering from a terminal illness. Her consciousness effectively is the computer, where she creates a virtual reality to house the uploaded consciousness of the 4022 people ‘saved’ from the library and later Donna Noble (they were all teleported out of the library, but instead of being re-materialised they were saved to the hard drive of the main core. The strain caused by housing these people had caused CAL to forget her purpose and true nature, despite the presence of an assistant program built on the planet’s “doctor moon”. Ultimately Professor River Song used her consciousness as hard drive space for a reboot, enabling CAL to be restored and the people to be rematerialised. Currently, the Library has been closed to humans and has become the exclusive domain of the Vashta Nerada, although the echoes of River Song and her team live within the computer core with CAL and Doctor Moon.
• Future sonic screwdriver: modified from the original, it has ‘red settings’, dampers and a neural relay hidden within.

Episode Thoughts

Again, although this wasn’t perfect (nitpicks will of course be covered below), I have to admit this two-parter now ranks amongst my favourite Doctor Who episodes. The Doctor and River Song had some great scenes, and although Donna perhaps overdid it in the virtual reality (are we really supposed to believe in her feelings for Lee or her virtual children when all her history with them was just programmed), generally the acting was good. I love this kind of episode not only for the twists and the hide behind the sofa factor, but because they expose who the Doctor really is- a capricious, lonely genius with a love of showing off and yet a secret desire to one day meet his match.

On another note, the computer core thing probably threw ‘casual’ viewers, but I doubt that sci-fi fans had any problem spotting it a mile off.

Notes and Nitpicks

• Based on her knowing the Doctor’s true name and so forth, it seems we are being led to believe that River Song will be his lover in the future, but is this the truth or just a red herring? And does she know the Tenth Doctor, or is the ‘real’ Doctor a future regeneration?
• If there were transcription errors in uploading Miss Evangelista, then how was she able to reappear in her original state at the end? Or was the restored CAL able to restore her data once she remembered her purpose and didn’t have 4022 people to keep track of?
• I knew that Lee and Donna would miss each other by a matter of moments in the real world, but I wonder if Lee will be the reason Donna leaves the TARDIS in the future. Or is a more horrible fate in store for her, as per River Song’s reaction when she realised who Donna was?
• Despite the admonition not to let their shadows cross, none of the team seemed particularly careful about this- probably why they all ended up getting infected.
• The Library being sealed seems a pretty big thing, so I’m surprised the Doctor seemed unaware of it from his post 51^st century visits.