TV Review: Doctor Who Season 9

Doctor Who and The Simpsons share the same rarified air: TV shows with such intricate and lengthy backstories that only a dedicated fan could possibly mine the possibilities as a writer.  I’ve always said that the Star Trek franchise didn’t survive Enterprise because by that time they were hiring writers based on their knowledge of Star Trek trivia, not writing ability.  Fortunately for Doctor Who the whole thing is overseen by Emmy-winning writer Steven Moffat, who both knows Doctor Who trivia and is a brilliant writer.

Only a dedicated Whovian would dare go back to the most visited well in the Who-niverse, the Daleks.  Specifically the creator of the Daleks, Davros.  The two-part season 9 opener, The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witches’ Familiar, ultimately ends up being too twisty and turny to land the emotional ending it aims for, but traveling with The Doctor is still a fun ride after 50 years.

A large part of the fun is the addition last season of Missy, the latest incarnation of The Doctor’s sort-of main nemesis The Master (one of the most amusing things in the episode is Missy’s hurt feelings when Davros is referred to as The Doctor’s main nemesis).  Now in female form, she is a wild card; completely unpredictable and nearly as brilliant as The Doctor.  I disapproved of the previous reincarnation of The Master as played by John Simm; he was portrayed as a cackling supervillain, whereas the previous portrayals (I am most familiar with Anthony Ainley) showed The Master as a cool, calculating villain who just wanted power and didn’t care about the collateral damages caused by his plan, like blowing up the Earth.  He was a sociopath, not a psychopath.

For some reason I will cut Michelle Gomez more slack, mainly because her Missy is just so much FUN.  In The Magician’s Apprentice Clara Oswald calls her “good” and she immediately kills a security guard who had a wife and family.  Macabre, yes, but it keeps things lively.  Gomez’s Missy displays all the improvisational genius The Doctor has, but with zero moral constraints.  It’s a potent combination.

The plot deals with The Doctor believing he is about to die (never explained why) and going to meet Davros, who is also about to die after centuries of leading the Daleks.  Davros’ last wish is to prove to The Doctor that compassion is wrong, and he will do so by throwing The Doctor’s compassion in saving a young Davros back in his face by having his Daleks kill the Doctor’s companion, Clara.  However, before the issue can be fully debated it is revealed to be a ruse designed to trick The Doctor into extending Davros’ life.

There are lots of great details, including an explanation as to why the Daleks repeatedly intone “Exterminate! Exterminate!” when attacking.  Clara proves to be nearly as good a companion with Missy as she is with The Doctor (if only Missy would stop threatening to kill her every five minutes), and the plot keeps its cards close to the vest until the final denouement. The problem is that of course it has to end back where it began, because in episodic television heaven forbid a major character die or a potential plot device be sealed off permanently.  Having mined the Dalek backstory for this plot device, Stephen Moffet isn’t going to poison the well by dispatching Davros or the Daleks forever.

I will question one possible mistake; a key plot point is that The Doctor recognizes that something is wrong when a Dalek asks for “mercy.”  But we’ve already seen a Dalek do that, when confronted by River Song in the fifth season finale with Matt Smith, The Big Bang.  Okay, The Doctor wasn’t there, and maybe River Song didn’t tell him about the incident, but it seems odd for something that happened several years ago should be forgotten when providing the clue to resolving a plot point. I also intently disliked Kate Lethbridge-Stewart’s new science advisor, who made pronounced like saying the ability to freeze all airplanes in mid-flight was beyond the capacity of human science.  Duh. One deeply missed Osgood, the science advisor that had impressed The Doctor but was killed by Missy in the episode Death in Heaven; this being Doctor Who one hopes there is some ingenious way to bring her back.

Oh, and replacing the sonic screwdriver with sonic sunglasses?  Stupid.

I have not said much about Peter Capaldi, who continues to shine as The Doctor.  He can’t quite do whimsy as well as his predecessors (his entrance in Magician’s Apprentice is funny, but Matt Smith or David Tenant would have made it hysterical), but he brings more gravitas to the role and just seems like an older soul.  If only his Scottish accent wasn’t so frequently impenetrable.

The Doctor is doing just fine after 50 years and 13 different Doctors.  It is certainly doing better than The Simpsons, which hasn’t been that good for about 17 years.  It is more and more difficult to produce stories with an emotional resonance after all this time, and Steven Moffat’s genius for creating new stories out of well-trodden ground can only go so far.  This two-parter asks whether the Doctor will commit genocide and kill the Daleks; despite Moffat’s hand-waving, that question has been asked and answered.  But still with The Doctor it’s all about the journey, and The Doctor and Clara are still fine traveling companions (at least for a little while longer).

The sorry, sorry state of women's tennis

How bad is the state of women’s tennis?  The US Open was won by the 26^th seed, Flavia Panetta, who immediately announced her retirement.  The best tennis player in the world (this week) is a journeyman (journeywoman) outside the top 20 who is so old she can’t play anymore.

Here’s where women’s tennis stands: there is Serena, then there is no one.  Serena stand like a Brodignanian among Lilliputians.  Consider this—Serena’s closest rival is a woman, Maria Sharapova, whom she has beaten 17 times in a row.  As someone once said, it’s not a rivalry until the other player starts winning.

If Serena had won the US Open, she would have done so not facing a player inside the top 18, with #19 Madison Keys her highest seeded opponent. Yes, Serena’s loss to Roberta Vinci was the biggest upset in tennis history, but frankly if you had asked me before the semis I would have said she was more likely to lose to unseeded Vinci than #2 seed Simona Halep.  This has been Serena’s pattern; she crushes great players then drops matches to lesser players she underestimates. 

Serena kept saying she felt no pressure, so much so she must have felt pressure to keep saying she felt no pressure.  She was clearly pressing more than she had to, hitting overhead smashes an inch from the sideline when the court was wide open, fist pumping when she hit a simple passing shot against a much weaker opponent.  Then she had to play her sister, which always messes with her psyche.  When Halep lost in the semis to Panetta, did she think she had it in the bag?  Did she mentally assume she was going to win the calendar slam?  Only Serena knows.

Five of the top ten were out in the first round (including Sharapova’s withdrawal), and another 2 were out in the second.  That leaves only three of the top ten surviving to round 3.  Everyone on the women’s circuit these days is either physically or mentally fragile.  Sharapova retired before the Open started.  Sloane Stevens and Ana ivanovic lost in the first round. Wozniacki lost in round 2; Azerenka and Kvitova went out in the quarterfinals.  Bouchard can be excused for getting a concussion in the locker room, but she’s struggled since breaking out last year. 

One almost wishes Li Na, or Kim Clijsters, or Justine Henin would make a comeback.  They could be relied on to win and then show up at the next tournament.  Caroline Wozniacki was able to be ranked number one without winning a major because all of the players winning majors faded away. 

So, you ask, what is the solution?  Beats me.  I think there will be no immediate solution as long as Serena is in “Hulk smash” mode.  Eventually, in a few years, some new women’s players will come up and knock her off her pedestal.  But for now Serena’s dominance will eclipse all other players, which will either intimidate them into submission or spur them on to training regimens that will result in injuries. 

I’m curious to see the ratings for the US open Women’s Final.  I’d bet they were incredibly low, except in Italy.  For a while golf had a “Tiger problem” where courses were being altered to be “Tiger proof.”  Tiger eventually went away and is now ranked outside the top 200, while exciting new golfers like Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy rose to prominence.  In the late 1970’s/early 1980’s women’s tennis looked like it was going to be taken over by teenagers, but now teens are the exception.  

There’s nothing to do but wait it out.

The MVP Races Belong to ex-A's

Here’s the good news for the Oakland Athletics—two of their players are in serious contention for an MVP award.  The bad news?  The two players now play on other teams.

Josh Donaldson is favored as the American League MVP after putting the Toronto Blue Jays in position to go to the promised land of the playoffs for the first time since 1993.  He currently leads the league in RBI (the favorite MVP predictor for no good reason), is third in home runs, and tenth in batting average.  If you don’t like olde timey stats, he leads the league in Runs Created with 113.8, leads in WAR with 8.0, and in extra base hits with 77.  Given that the Blue Jays seem well placed to win their division (as a long-time Yankee hater, I assume the Yanks will not make up the 1.5 game difference between the teams) while the Mike trout-led Angels are not, his candidacy appears to be a fait accompli.

In the National League, the candidacy of Yoenis Cespedes is heating up.  In addition to individual acts of bravado, the Mets offense has been scoring three runs a game more (3.54 to 6.14) since Cepedes joined the team at the trade deadline.  Compare this to what happened to the A’s—they had the best record in the league last August 1^st, they sent Cespedes to Boston in exchange for two months of John Lackey, and now they have the worst record in the American League after their offense fell into a pit.  Aside from personal achievement, Cespedes appears to be a piece that makes the pieces around him significantly better.

Cespedes is a long shot, given that he joined the Mets at the trade deadline.  But as the linked article points out, Manny Ramierez came in fourth in the MVP voting in 2008 when he joined the Dodgers at the trade deadline and proceeded to hit nearly .400.  With most of the NL’s best players on sub-.500 teams (Bryce Harper [okay, the Nats are barely above .500], Paul Goldschmidt, Joey Votto) the door might be open for a player from a division winning team who clearly made a difference.  (as an aside, I stand firm that no one from a team that didn't make the playoffs should get a vote for MVP; to be valuable you have to make a difference, and going home after 162 games isn't making a difference).

The most common phrase emanating from the lips of the ESPN cognoscenti regarding Donaldson has been, “What were the A’s thinking trading him away?”  I understand the A’s perspective; they are a small market team.  Yes, Donaldson was under arbitration for three more years, but that was Marvin Miller’s little joke on the baseball club owners; he knew that arbitration-determined salaries would be set by the free market salaries negotiated by players no longer under arbitration, and therefore would come close to matching free agency salaries.   Better to trade Donaldson before his price went up.

But here’s the thing—let’s say the A’s got value in the trade.  Let’s say that one of the prospects they acquired turns out to be another Josh Donaldson only cheaper because he can’t yet go to arbitration.  What will the A’s do in that case?  Why, trade him away to another team for more prospects.  And the A’s will keep trading prospects away until they get one far less talented than Donaldson, and him they will keep.  As the lyrics to “Smuggler’s Blues” say, “It’s a losing proposition/but one you can’t refuse.”

Billy Beane went all in last year to win the World Series, trading away Cespedes for two months of John Lester, who the A’s couldn’t afford to re-sign.  Lester was supposed to be the last piece they needed to make a deep playoff push.  And all he did was post a 7.36 ERA in his first (and last) start in the post-season.  Cespedes had not only won two All-Star Game Home Run derbies, but on June 10, 2014 made one of the greatest throws in baseball history, something he has replicated with the Mets.

After trading away Cespedes the A’s offense went on hiatus, and the A’s went from leading the division comfortably to barely squeaking in with the Wild Card. They scored 466 runs in the first half of the season, but only 263 in the second half, a 43.5% drop off.  The A’s averaged 5 runs a game with Cespedes on the team, slightly over 3.5 after he was traded.  Cespedes did not single-handedly account for that difference; his removal from the line-up must have triggered something that caused the team’s offense to fade away.

His impact with the Mets has been the converse; now that he’s joined the team, previously struggling hitters are smacking the ball and the team has started pulling away from the Nationals, who were supposed to be a lock to win the World Series when the season started.  Maybe he’s only been with the team for less than half a season, but maybe that just proves how valuable his addition has been.

So, Josh Donaldson and Yoenis Cespedes make pitches for MVP votes, and the A’s languish at the bottom of the American League.  Will Aaron Sorkin write a sequel to Moneyball about that?  Probably not.

Deflategarte: Our Long National Nightmare Continues

So it’s come to this: the NFL’s disciplinary process is so bad that a court won’t even let them punish someone who is obviously guilty.  The U.S. District Court hearing the NFL suit to uphold its suspension of Tom Brady decided that the NFL process wasn’t fair, and ruled that Brady shouldn’t be punished for his role in Deflategate.

Let’s start by establishing his guilt.  Brady said in a Facebook post that the Patriots “did nothing wrong.”  That is a bald-faced lie, unless Brady is contesting that 11 of the 12 game balls in the possession of the Patriots were NOT underinflated when turned over to referees, a claim for which there would be no evidence if anyone were making it.  The rule says the team has to provide the NFL with 12 properly inflated footballs; they did not, and thus broke the rule.  The reason WHY the balls were underinflated, be in Patriots equipment manager or the Ideal Gas Law, is irrelevant.

Was it deliberate or negligence?  Well, given that the Patriots have an employee whose job title is “The Deflator” it is kind of hard for them to make the case that they did not deflate footballs.  Also, if atmospheric conditions were responsible, why weren’t the Colts balls similarly deflated?  Clearly, the Patriots were up to something.

But were Brady’s fingerprints on the murder weapon?  First of all, it is dubious that a low level employee would tamper with game equipment without at least thinking that he had the approval, tacit or overt, from either Coach Bill Bellicheck or star Tom Brady.  There is also the fact that Brady said he was ignorant of how footballs are inflated, yet lobbied for the rule change that put teams in charge of inflating the balls.

And Tom Brady destroyed his cell phone.  That’s a confession.  Unless you believe that innocent people destroy evidence that proves their innocence just because it would be too easy to win that way.

Brady is guilty.  That’s guilty, guilty guilty (apologies to Gary Trudeau).

Was a four game suspension absurd overkill?  Yes!  Was the fact-finding process flawed?  Obviously!  Will the judge’s decision be upheld on appeal?  Well, maybe not.

The judge was reacting to the obvious, indefensible lack of due process in the NFL, er, process.  The “independent” investigator (air quotes provided by the judge) was essentially an NFL employee.  Roger Goodell decided the original verdict, then presided over the appeal.  While being a witness.  Goodell did what Goodell always does, made up the rules as he went along without any thought of common sense or propriety.  This was why Ray Rice was suspended two games, then indefinitely, then 6 games for the same crime.

But the judge wasn’t being asked to evaluate the fairness of the decision.  He was being asked if the NFL Commissioner’s office had exceeded the scope of its disciplinary power as defined by the collective bargaining agreement, and the answer to that question is no.  The union cheerfully gave Goodell almost unilateral authority to decide disciplinary matters, whether fairly or unfairly.  Maybe in the next CBA the union can get the NFL to agree to some basic due process rights.  But that is not what is in the current CBA.

Of course when the 2^nd Circuit overturns the decision Brady will be retired on an island in the Caribbean.  In the meantime, the NFL HAS NO DISCIPLANARY PROCESS.  Any player, suspended or fined for any reason, can go to court and ask that it be overturned, citing the same procedural flaws Brady did.  They may not always win, but given the chaos in the Commissioner’s office, they’ll win enough.

In response to the question of whether Goodell should be fired, many have pointed out that won’t happen as long as the NFL keeps makes money. But is Goodell responsible for that, or would the NFL money train continue if a manatee were making decisions as commissioner?  Goodell is paid $45 million a year, and has now botched several disciplinary cases in a row, with the latest leaving the NFL without an effective process for enforcing rules like the ones mandating ball inflation pressures.  It must be great to make $45 million a year and not get fired no matter how much you screw up or how many mistakes you make.

Several folks on ESPN have said that there was “no evidence Brady did anything wrong.”  These people live in a post-Ray Rice world where if it isn’t on tape, it didn’t happen.  Clarence Darrow told a story about a lawyer who defended a man accused of biting another man’s ear off.  The only witness in the case was asked if he saw the defendant bite the ear off, and he said he didn’t.  The lawyer didn’t shut up; he then asked why the witness had said that the defendant bit off the ear. “Because I saw him spit it out,” was the reply.  When video shows Ray Rice dragging his unconscious girlfriend from an elevator, you don’t need to see the rest of the video to know what happened. 

Brady probably didn’t personally take a needle and let air out of the balls.  He probably just said something about the balls feeling “big” and winked at the equipment guys.  One last piece of proof that the Patriots were guilty—owner Bob Kraft said he knew the investigation would show no direct evidence that the Patriots did anything  wrong.  How could he know that, unless he knew there were no video cameras in the room where the balls were deflated?

Mr. Robot: What does the season one finale mean?

As in gymnastics, sticking the dismount is important for TV shows.  A disappointing finale can leave faithful fans let down, their expectations unmet (Lost series finale).  A bad finale can make fans re-evaluate the quality of the show in general (How I Met Your Mother).  A good season finale can leave fans eagerly awaiting further episodes (Lost’s magnificent season 1 finale, possibly the best ever).

There were high expectations for the Mr. Robot season one finale, made even more so by the one week delay in broadcasting it because the show, typically, had trouble staying ahead of current events (I don’t mean that as a criticism; no other scripted show on TV even attempts to be current).  The expectations were more than met, and the chess pieces neatly arranged for season two.

The most astonishing thing about the episode “Zero Day” was that the hack that we’ve seen planned all season actually worked.  This is as surprising as when, in Animal House, John Belushi’s plan to spy on the girls in the sorority succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.  We expected failure, because the collapse of the world economy was not something we expect TV characters to accomplish; failure would set up a season two scenario where fsociety plans an even bigger, better hack.

But series creator Sam Esmail blew it up.  The merry band of Bolshevicks undid the world’s economy, freeing the masses (and a few dogs along the way) and paving the way for a new social order.  Of course, the question arises; how will freedom taste if you can’t get money from your ATM?  If you can’t buy a car because no one can run a credit check on you?  People might find themselves in the same situation as those dogs that were liberated from the pound—yippee, we’re free; now what do we do?

The show did a brilliant job of defying expectations, of denying the audience (Elliot’s “friend”) hard answers and clear exposition.  What happened to Tyrell?  Was that him in the Mr. Robot mask in the video?  Can his wife seriously get any weirder?  Did anyone find the gun in the popcorn?  We are as clueless as Elliot, who woke up in an SUV and discovered the world had changed.

Hypocrisy seemed to be one of the major themes of Zero Day.  The shoe salesman was contemptuous of Angela for working for Evil Corp, yet he still sold her new shoes to replace her brain-splattered ones.  She should quit her job, but he should keep doing his?  Evil Corp head Phillip Price thinks the world is better off without James Plouffe, but he publicly mourns his untimely passing.  Krista’s old flame Michael, excuse me Lenny, wants Elliot thrown in jail for revealing all the disgusting stuff Lenny was up to, as if Elliot’s crimes were morally worse than what he had done (by the way, nice way to work in a reference to the Ashley Madison hack).

If I have any quibble with Mr. Robot’s season finale, it’s that it seems a little unfocused when it claims to be supplying answers.  Someone, somewhere, wrote that in many cases penultimate episodes now contain the major jolts a series can deliver, while the finale just cleans up the pieces.  Zero Day did more than that, but after the revelations about Mr. Robot, Darlene, and just how unreliable a narrator Elliot is (how unreliable?  Really, really unreliable) the finale lacked a little punch.  Is Mr. Robot’s rant giving us answers, or does he only THINK he’s giving us answers?  Or is Elliot just nuts?

The murkiness of Zero Day reminded me of another season one finale, the final episode of The Prisoner, Fall Out.  I mean that as extremely high praise.  Patrick McGoohan said that after the final episode of The Prisoner aired people accosted him on the street, shook their fists in his face and demanded an explanation for the series that Fall Out failed to provide. Zero Day doesn’t attempt to explain anything.  Why is there a woman with a parrot on her shoulder on the subway (in a shot that duplicates a prior shot)?  Where had Elliot been for two days?  Who knocked on his door at the end of the episode?  What the hell happened to Tyrell?

I guess we’ll have to wait for season 2 and hope answers are more forthcoming than they were with Lost.  I also hope that Emmy voters remember the show, and especially Rami Malek’s performance, when nomination time rolls around almost a year from now.  Mr. Robot has been the best, most exciting new show since the debut of Lost.  Can it keep it up?  Maybe the 10-episode model can keep the plates spinning more easily than Lost’s 22-episode a season model could.  Given the assuredness and the confidence that exuded from every frame of Mr. Robot, I do not anticipate a sophomore slump.

The Education of Robert Griffin III

Professional athletes, and I guess everyone else, often use good will like it is a banking system, storing up good will for the time when they screw up and have to apologize.  For everyone else this just happens in private; for athletes it is very public.  Johnny Manziel acted brash and arrogant, and now having used up what little good will he had, he is keeping a low profile.  Tom Brady spent years burnishing his title of Golden Boy, and he thinks that will insulate him from being punished for getting caught cheating.  It largely has (many other QBs would have lost their jobs in similar circumstances) but he has burned through a lot of good will.

Robert Griffin III created more good will in his first season in the NFL than almost any other player.  He helped a storied franchise change their losing ways with his reckless play and unqualified success.  And he has squandered almost all of it in two years.

The latest incident involves his Instgram account “liking” a post ripping Washington team owner Dan Snyder and praising RGIII.  Griffin blamed the incident on his social media intern and reversed the “like.”  Where to begin?

First of all, he has a “social media intern”?  I’m not sure which is more laughable; that he has someone responsible for his social media, or that he doesn’t have a hired professional.  Second, this is typical athlete behavior, refusing to take responsibility and blaming some underling (like Brady blaming equipment managers for deflated footballs).  Wasn’t the intern given instructions?  Why did the intern feel that “liking” this post was a good idea?  Doesn’t he have anyone to ask when nebulous ethical situations presented themselves?

It might not have been so bad if it hadn’t come soon after RGIII was quoted as saying he thought he was the “best quarterback in the NFL.”  That’s funny, because the NFL Fantasy site ranks him 30th out of 40.  It’s funny because Tom Brady has four rings, Peyton Manning is breaking almost every career regular season passing record, Aaron Rogers and Drew Brees have won Super Bowls, Russell Wilson has been in the past two Super Bowls, and Ben Roethlisberger and Eli Manning have two rings, and the guy who threw for 4 TDs last season thinks he is better than all of those guys. 

Confidence is one thing, but one must have a grip on reality.  Griffin may want to be the best QB someday, or feel that if he works hard he will become the best eventually, but for him to claim to be better than Tom Brady is either delusional or stupid.  It is one thing for a once great player, like Tiger Woods, to hang on to the idea that he is still the best golfer in the world (as he said several years ago; I doubt even he believes that now), but for a guy who has played in 37 games over 3 seasons to claim to be better than Peyton Manning is someone in need of therapy or heavy medication.

Part of the problem goes back to another stupid thing Griffin (or some publicist) said when he was injured at the end of his first season.  He announced he was “all in for week one” like he had control over how fast his body healed from injury.  Playing through pain is noble; playing through injury is a ticket to early retirement.  He insisted on playing in the first game of the season despite missing the entire pre-season, and he has never been the same since.  His lack of mobility made him vulnerable to additional hits, which reduced his mobility and created a vicious cycle. 

Now he isn’t even the second best QB on his own team, as Kirk Cousins is the starter and Colt McCoy is the back up. 

RG III seems like a nice guy. People like him, or at least they did before he became a loser.  He should take a lesson from Johnny Manziel.  Keep a low profile.  Fire your social media intern, and stay off social media altogether.  Focus on being the best football player you can be.

And for God’s sake, keep your mouth shut.