JJ and his amazing friend Jason have both seen Guardians of the Galaxy. They want to discuss said movie. If you have not seen it, you have been warned. Of course the duo speak of other things as well like JJ’s recent back problems and resulting medications. So they do talk that first, but you have been warned, BEWARE THE SPOILER!

Click here to download!

View the RSS feed!

I…. I truly don’t know where to begin this magnificent episode, I truly don’t. What the actual hell, Moffat? After so many mediocre episodes this season, you knock this one out of the god damn park! THIS is Doctor Who at it’s finest and I hope it manages to keep this standard up during the 50th Anniversary and beyond.

First thing I have to address is the opening, which has Clara appearing alongside various incarnations of the Doctor. It’s an amazing scene with some astounding stand-in work and some less fantastic green screen, though they do a great job of matching Clara’s attire with the style of the times. It says a lot that she could have fit into any Doctor’s incarnation and not looked out of place. We see her interact with the first Doctor directly and then just call after the other classic Doctors. It’s a great sequence and wonderful to see the old Doctors back in some form.

We’re back with the Victorian Gang too! Vastra and Jenny are at home while Strax goes to Glasgow on his weekend off to fight Scots! Brilliant. The Victorian Gang is always a welcome return as well as the Alex Kingston as Professor River Song. They’re a fun bunch but their banter is soon cut short as Jenny is murdered right in front of them by the Whisper Men. It’s a visceral gut-punch as she apologises profusely before fading from sight. Soon, everyone at the conference is under attack from Whisper Men and the episode kicks into high gear.

The music in this episode is absolutely fantastic, buidling on the atmosphere in each scene. The Doctor and Clara find themselves on the way to Trenzalore and these two have a great dynamic throughout the episode; Funny and sweet but tragic and heartbreaking at the same time.

Appearing at the Doctor’s final resting place (the TARDIS grown to gigantic proportions after a “size-leak) on Trenzalore, The Great Intelligence claims that this was his final blood-soaked battle and that he became something much darker towards the end, becoming known as The Storm, The Beast and, most terrifying of all, the Valeyard. For those who are relatively new to Who lore, the Valeyard is the Doctor gone wrong. An evil future regeneration between his 12th and 13th regenerations according to the Master.

Inside the tomb, the Intelligence finds the means to undo the Doctor’s every victory and triumph, and wipe out the universe in the process. As he does so, the Doctor convulses on the control room floor as the gang rush outside to see the stars vanish from the night sky. Slowly, the universe becomes colder and even the Doctor’s allies change for the worse, as Jenny disappears and Strax tries to kill Vastra. It’s a truly desperate situation. Clara, having remembered the events from Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, knows that she appears in other times to save the Doctor so naturally she heads into his timestream to undo the Intelligence’s machinations. Once everything is restored to normal and the Doctor is back in fighting shape, he has every intention of following Clara and saving her this time. As the others argue with him about this, River Song, enraged and frustrated, attempts to slap him only to catch it.

In the sweetest and heart-breaking scene in the episode, the Doctor acknowledges River’s prescence. Throughout the episode, she has only appeared to the others and not to him because this is River Song we met all the way back in Silence in the Library. She is the back-up copy of River. The Doctor and River share their final goodbye and it’s wonderful. A story that started 5 years finally reaches its natural conclusion as they say their goodbyes, only to promise to see each other again. I loved it!

Clara falls through time, encountering the Doctors and saving his life, explaining the mystery of the Impossible Girl but her story isn’t over yet! The Doctor appears to save her and he sees something that scares him. Clara confirms that she saw 11 Doctors as they stare at a silhouetted figure overlooking the dying embers of Trenzalore and the Doctor can only muster that the mysterious figure is the Doctor’s greatest secret. Clara collapses and as the Doctor carries her out, the figure speaks. He had no choice. He only did it in the name of peace and sanity. The Doctor scowls and departs protesting “But you didn’t do it in the name of the Doctor.”

The figure turns.

And the fandom collectively creamed itself as credits roll.

Oh, boy. Where to even begin… First up, JOHN F***KING HURT is the DOCTOR! Amazing! Secondly, there is so much speculation going on right now, it’s unreal. Many are saying that this is 9th Doctor, the one who ended the Time War to which I say, really? Every season since the series revival has steadily allowed the Doctor to put the events of the Time War behind him and go on with his life. What would be the point in dredging it all up again?
My thoughts? This is the Doctor’s final regeneration, since the Doctor established that the time tunnel was not only a gateway into his past, but to his future as well (And the Intelligence refered to him as “old man”). He went renegade and became something wholly unlike the Doctor that he lost the right to the name. He is the Time Lord Victorious, he is the Beast, the Storm, the Valeyard. That’s my take on it and I have to say it makes a whole lot more sense than a “forgotten” regeneration that would undo years of character growth. Hell, it might even be a good set-up for the 50th Anniversary…

And with that, we leave Season 7 and look forward to the future six months from now when The Doctor returns. What were your thoughts on the episode, John Hurt, and the season as a whole? Let me know in the comments and I’ll see you guys on 23/11/13!

Space. The final frontier. These are reviewages of the starship DOOMandy. It’s mission: To seek out new Mass Effect DLC and new multiple endings. To boldly review the biggest fubar in recent video game history. BAH! BAH-NAH-NAH! BAH-NAH-NAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!

So, that Mass Effect 3 ending, huh? Quite a let down. I personally found it confusing and lacking any real closure or depth. Others had a more…. Visceral reaction, but I had faith that Bioware could pull it back and so they put the Extended Cut into development. To develop it, Bioware re-prioritized their post-release downloadable content schedule for the game to bring us this. I wasn’t expecting much given such a small timeframe but I left the end cut scenes satisfied after viewing them online. That’s right, I didn’t do it in-game but there’s a reason for that which I’ll explain later. [SPOILERS AHEAD]

First things first; the indoctrination theory, while brilliantly thought out, is not incorporated into the new DLC. This is literally an extended version of the original endings, plus a fun new surprise. The first thing I noticed while playing through was that it’s fully voiced. All the new scenes and voice-overs were brought in with the intended voice cast. That alone put me at ease because it showed that Bioware weren’t going to half-arse this. During the Conduit Run (depending on EMS score) you get a scene showing why your squad mates are noticeably absent during the endgame. This does include one of the most heart-rending goodbye scenes with Tali that I choked up. I am a grown ass man but I’ll be damned if that little Quarian doesn’t tug my heartstrings.

The rest of the game plays out as usual until you get to the Catalyst and major changes are noticeable. The dialogue has changed, you can actually ask the Catalyst questions and you also get an extra ending. Yes, folks that’s right, a new ending that I didn’t know about until it happened to me. Do you know how I found out how to activate the new “Refusal” ending? I shot the Catalyst IN THE FACE for boring me. I did not know this would trigger something but boy was I smiling when it did. It’s such a great touch that “Refusal” is triggered in two ways, a brief period of inactivity or shooting a starchild in the face. I laughed my ass off in disbelief. Good show, Bioware. Good show.

If you choose NOT to shoot the Starchild and doom the galaxy, the rather bland three ending structure stills stands but you’re given more insight as to what will happen and, given your choice, be treated to a 10-15min epilogue by one of three characters. I won’t spoil them for you and let decide for yourselves what to think but personally, they did such a good job fixing these and adding so much in post that I am suitably impressed. Granted, there will be nay-sayers and those that demand more but Bioware didn’t have to do anything, yet they went out of their way to produce a satisfying fix to many of the issues people were having with the original endings. In no way do I wish to be an apologist for Bioware, if I had a problem with anything they did in the Extended Cut, I’d say it but I don’t. They produced a solid piece of content in a short amount of time that fixes most, if not all, of the outstanding issues with the original endings to the game, including new scenes and voice work and give a greater sense of closure to the story as a whole. For free.
So how do I feel about the series now that we have a satisfying ending? Hopeful. Each of the endings leaves the galaxy in a place where more games could come from this universe and I sincerely hope they do. Bioware created this gorgeous, deep, and wonderful universe with vibrant characters and it would be a shame to see all that effort and potential go to waste.

But if this is the end of the Mass Effect universe and we’ll never see these characters again outside of nostalgia, then I will never be more proud to have met, fought beside, laughed at, and loved so many characters than on the SSV Normandy.

I’m Commander Sharp-O and this is my favourite video game series on the Citadel.