Holy Hannah! I thought Andor could not get any better than it was in its first season, but the Gilroy team and Diego Luna keep turning in masterpiece after masterpiece. Star Wars, at its core, has always been about resisting tyranny and oppression from fascist governments. Lucas was definitely on to something when he started with that little $11 million movie in 1977. Here we are, 48 years later, and Andor is continuing to build on those themes in new and interesting ways.
I’ll be honest, given how steeped in the Black Experience this episode is, I don’t know how much I should comment on it. I will say that I loved what it had to say about the importance of stories. I also loved that it continued to hint at the idea that the Doctor is realizing they are a story. This was such a personal episode for the Doctor, bringing back a lot of familiar faces in new ways. All in perfect service to the story.
Star Wars in the Disney era has been inconsistent most of the time. It’s hit highs such as the first two seasons of the Mandaloria. It’s sunk to terrible lows such as the Rise of Skywalker. I’m an old school fan. I love the Original Trilogy and mostly like the Prequel Trilogy, although it’s a bit clunky. And I despise the mess that was made of the Sequel Trilogy and the wasted potential. The Empire Strikes Back has been my favorite Star Wars production since I first saw it in the 1980s. The depth of character and nuance of story come together to tell something dark and brooding, yet full of hope.
“Rebellions are built on hope.”
It’s another episode that reaffirms for me that this is shaping up to be the best season of Doctor Who since it returned to screens 20 years ago. The timeliness of this episode, the relevance of it showing now, is astounding. Germany, Canada, and Australia have all recently rejected the cries and lies of right-wing politics and personalities. The U.S. is foundering under the strain of an incompetent evil built on lies. And boy, does this episode understand all of that, even though it was produced almost a year ago.
I have a new favorite science fiction film, and it’s not even close at this point. In the 1960’s, Jerome Bixby wrote four episodes of the original Star Trek: “Mirror, Mirror”; “By Any Other Name”: “Day of the Dove”; and “Requiem for Methuselah.” These are all considered iconic episodes of Star Trek, and they represent some of the most thoughtful writing to come out of the series. It is Bixby’s work on this last story, “Requiem for Methuselah,” that is relevant to the film The Man From Earth.
Russell T. Davies and Ncuti Gatwa dip into the Doctor’s history for what, in my opinion, is the best bottle episode the show has ever done. They do this by revisiting the previous best bottle episode Doctor Who has done, “Midnight,” from the fourth series with David Tennant. Both of these episodes are tense and terrifying in similar ways. They both have much to say about human nature in a crisis, even when the people involved have never even heard of humans.
We’re coming up on the 28th anniversary of my high school graduation next month. It seems an eternity ago, yet also close and immediate. At that time, when making plans for college, I thought I was going to be an Applied Mathematical Sciences major at Texas A&M with a four-year Navy ROTC scholarship. I would serve in the Navy. I would get my advanced degrees. After 20-25 years, I would retire from military life and go into academia. I have wanted to teach at a college level since I was 17.
“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” -John Lennon
Continue readingThe Pantheon the Doctor has been facing under the new run of Russell T. Davies starting with the reborn Toymaker and moving on to Maestro and Sutek has been insanely good. Giving the Doctor a mix of old enemies (Toymaker, Sutek) and new (Maestro, Lux) with powers beyond his science has required clever, human solutions. Sure, the Doctor’s not human. But he represents the best of humanity and brings out the best in humanity.
Doctor Who is back!
I know it hasn’t actually been all that long since we last had new Who, but I love this show so much. It waned a bit during the Chibnall years, and the Moffatt era was inconsistent. But I have loved this show in every incarnation since the 80s, no matter how weird and wild it got. Now, Ncuti Gatwa’s 15th Doctor is back with a new companion in a delightfully relevant season premier that speaks to the relationships between men and women.
Wow, it’s been almost nine years since I posted here. A lot has happened, but most of it will be of little interest to most people. The big news is that in 2021, I started work on my master’s degree for the third time, and it stuck. I graduated in December 2024 with my M.Ed. in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Lamar University. Since then, I have been licensed as a counselor (associate) and have started working my dream job as a professional counselor.
So, what’s next?
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