chocolate milkshake and creamed spinach: I really want to smack Sarah. Her whole issue with who Chuck is and is not and which parts of him she loves. "MY Chuck"? Smack. And then throwing that issue of him killing equalling not being Her Chuck out the window because it wall All For Her. Smack. "You saved me!" Smack.

But hey, Mark Sheppard!

I really enjoyed io9's FF recap, entitled "This Week's FlashForward Was 60 Minutes Of Pure Nudity" in an attempt to help the ratings.

Some choice quotes:

It's never really explained how Mark made the jump from Somalia to chess opponents. The man truly is one of television's greatest off-camera savants, along with Urkel from Family Matters (remember, he invented a shrink ray).

3.) ICE absconds with Keiko after they find her working in a low-rider garage. This is a prime example of Flashforward's weirdly hyper-compressed storytelling. A cute, fish-out-of-water subplot about fixing cars how charming BAM DEPORTED.

Meanwhile back at the office, Vogel and Mark interrogate Janis - it turns out she's been investigating Marcie in her free time. Who's Marcie? Some who-cares minor character who goes outside and puts sugar in her coffee a lot. But Mark Benford pulls a Carnac the Magnificent and notices that HOLY CRAP MARCIE DOESN'T TAKE SUGAR IN HER COFFEE. Demetri and Mark determine that the sugar is a signal. They make confused eye contact with Marcie, and shit suddenly gets Peckinpah. She kills about a million FBI agents until Janice takes her down with pregnant karate.

Was this episode particularly good? Negatory. Was it loopy fun watching characters jump to insane conclusions and having their madness validated? Indeed. Will episodes of this quality bring back ratings? Probably not.

New Doctor Who: I'm glad they've stopped being cruel to the space-whale but how about their own people? Weren't they feeding grown-ups and misbehaving kids (after they'd grown up) to the whale?

Doctor Who #11, Episode 2, too:

I'm amused that the Queen was named Elizabeth. heh.

Also, as for the companion's costume if it was good enough for 10 and Arthur Dent...

Less than five minutes into Doctor Who 5.02, I must ask:

has Stephen Moffat read James Blish? Because seriously. It's just a bit of a complete ripoff of Cities in Flight.

Who 2: I was a bit meh on the episode until Liz showed up, and then the whole thing gelled nicely. Although the whole concept did seem familiar, and I've never even heard of the thing Consuela refers to .

I do very much like the way that Steven Moffat is establishing the Doctor's continuity while letting Eleven be his own man. Lots of references back but not in a forced way. And Amy certainly made her mark .

New Who: I wish I could take credit for this observation, but the crack that we see in the Spaceship UK not only matches the crack we saw in Amy's room, but it also matches a line we see in the oscilloscope in the new Tardis.

What I did notice when I went to verify, was that we get a good look at the oscilloscope right by the Doctor's head while he Amy is asking why he's taking her along of all people. What I noticed on rewatch was that the Doctor did see what was on the oscilloscope screen, and was VERY quick to turn it off when he 'promised' Amy that he was only asking her along because he was lonely.

Doctor Who, ep 2: Flippin' 'eck, do I like Smith's very controlled mood swings. Drawing a little bit on Nine, I feel. Losing it at humans in Amy's direction confused me, until The Girl reminded me that it had echoes of the rant directed at Wilf, which for the Doctor might have been just days ago. The continuity of that was good - showing him learning how not to be lonely is a nice touch. The plot meant this ep felt like a bit of a filler, although Liz Ten was fun, but the Amy and Doctor interaction was really solid and made the episode.

ita, re your comment that "The Doctor needs edge" - I think they're showing signs of working on that. I still think the slapstick opener of ep 1 was to establish the fact that he wasn't cooked yet (anyone for Buffy baking analogies?) and they won't be going back there. They still have to make up for it, though.

What's with the Doctor telling Amy he never interferes in other races' affairs? It's like he's been watching Star Trek and resolving to do better. It's a good thing he's gone off the idea by the end of the episode.

The lies of omission are interesting. Amy quickly working out that he's very old is a good sign that she's going to see through them (although I could have done without the MAKING IT VERY CLEAR TO THE AUDIENCE REPEATEDLY THAT THE WHALE IS LIKE THE DOCTOR).

Anne, re the cracks. I haven't noticed the one in the TARDIS - is that ep 1? I'll have to go and re-watch. Liking the concept of a cracked universe.

Seska, I'm reading the non-intereference statement as a way of trying to distance himself from the Ten we saw at the end of Waters of Mars. I think non-interference will not be an option, but I think this Doctor will try to use some degree of temperance in his affairs.

As for the crack in the TARDIS, it's towards the end (a little after the 1 hour mark on my download), when Amy and the Doctor are talking about why he's taking her with him. It's a jaggedy line on what looks like an oscilloscope. The Doctor is very quick to turn off the monitor after promising Amy he has no other reason for taking her along.

My hope is that I'm not reading too much into this, and that Eleven has a secretive and manipulative streak much like Seven's.

I'm so pleased that I did in fact notice the crack in the Tardis machine in the first episode. Continuity yay!