Doctor Who's Season Finale Wrapped Up a Three- Year- Long Character Arc Perfectly. Doctor Who rarely does big character arcs. By its very nature it’s a transitory program: every week a new adventure, every few years a new Doctor and new companions. That means that a character, especially the Doctor, is established quickly and stays like that till they leave. But this weekend’s season ten finale put a wonderful bookend on an evolution that’s been in the works for all of Peter Capaldi’s time on the show. Read at your own risk!. The Season 4 finale was an hour of nonstop suspense as. Nick Romano reviews the American Horror Story Season 6 finale and revisits the good, the bad, and the worst of the Roanoke season, which was fraught with twists and. Jessica Lange announced to screaming fans at the American Horror Story PaleyFest panel tonight, "Yes, I'm done." She will not be joining Lady Gaga in American Horror. Ryan Murphy and the “American Horror Story” team have made plenty of references to creepy flicks. Fuse's Complete Guide has everything we know about the cast, timing and plot of the upcoming. June 21, 2017 8:15pm PT by Daniel Fienberg 'Fargo' Creator Goes Inside Season 3 Finale and Offers Hope for Franchise’s Future. Peter Capaldi’s run on Doctor Who could arguably be defined by a much stronger series of thematic arcs—especially for his first companion, Clara, who went on a journey of learning how to be more and more like the Doctor, before the recklessness that can come with travelling with him got her killed (aside from the whole “frozen in the moment before her death to run off with Arya from Game of Thrones” thing). But “The Doctor Falls” is actually all about wrapping up an arc that’s been bubbling away for much longer than one season. One that’s been key to Peter Capaldi’s portrayal of the Doctor. When the Twelfth Doctor first arrived on the show, there was much talk of how much darker he would be—and season eight gave us a Doctor harsher and more standoffish than we’ve seen in years, full of disdain for the idiots he has to save around him and running around with Clara as his carer, who cares so he doesn’t have to. Season nine, while taking Clara herself down a darker path, saw the Doctor soften up and warm up to his role as a protector and savior, with the realization that he regenerated with the face of someone he’d saved out of kindness as a reminder to keep him honest. Season ten, meanwhile, has been all about putting that into practice, not just in the people the Doctor fights to save, but in his tutelage of Bill not as someone to become more like him or to be his emotional translator, but as a friend.“The Doctor Falls” crystalizes that journey with another base under siege, a Who story trope that feels like it’s been a much stronger part of Capaldi’s time on the show than it has any other modern Doctor. Since launching American Horror Story, Murphy and Falchuk have gone on to bring the network even greater success with the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning The People v. This time, a solar farm of survivors on a Mondasian colony ship that, thanks to a black hole creating timeline dilation, has lived for years as its own self- sufficient community, avoiding the existential crisis that turned their former fellows to the genesis of the Cybermen on the lower decks. From the get go, it’s presented as an unwinnable scenario. The time dilation has led to the Cybermen to evolve into their militaristic, Iron Man- esque forms seen in recent series, making them a much deadlier force than the shambling half- conversions the colonists had previously dealt with. And even if the Doctor and his gang could do anything to help them, it would only be delaying the inevitable, moving them up to a solar farm higher up in the ship, giving them a bit more time before the Cybermen regroup and hunt them down again. The Masters—who spend much of their time dancing around each other trying to figure out exactly what the other is up to a wonderful t. And the answer is that he’s willing to stand, willing to fall so that complete strangers to get a chance to survive another day, not because he’s a warrior or because he’s angry, but because he is kind. It’s a moment that will likely define Capaldi’s time on the show, not just because it’s another of his heart- rendingly performed barnstormer speeches, but because it is the ultimate resolution of the journey this incarnation of the Doctor has gone on. It’s taken three years, but he’s grown from a man who doesn’t care to a man willing to die because he cares so much—and one that, when he’s about to regenerate, is so furious at the prospect of becoming someone else and having to potentially re- learn that whole journey again, demands to just die so his growth, his act of kindness, can truly mean something. There’s Nardole, given the task of safeguarding the colonist’s journey to the new solar farm and looking after them, essentially consigning himself to a later death when the Cybermen regroup and find them on a higher floor of the ship (I really hope that now the Doctor has TARDIS access again, he goes back and saves them at Christmas!). There are the Masters themselves, who both go out in a blaze of gloriously Master- y betrayal of each other: Missy, accepting her change to good, killing her past self so he can begin his own process of rehabilitation as her, and the Master then killing her, allegedly permanently, as one last act of vindictive spite that reflects his own unwillingness to accept that he, like this incarnation of the Doctor and Missy, could change. And then there’s Bill Potts, who gets the happy ending that no one else in this episode can. It’s one that comes out of unspeakable horror, with her mental barriers breaking down and realizing the cybernetic monstrosity she’s been transformed into—but it also comes out of the fact that, like the Doctor, she’d rather die if she can’t continue being the person she had become thanks to her time with him, fighting back against the Cybermen’s programming to stand with him against them. The space puddle ex machina of the Pilot from the first episode showing up to transcend her to another plane of existence feels almost like a reward, in that way, even if it is a bit of a cop out: Bill’s acceptance of her end paving the way to the next step in a journey she has to take without the Doctor and as a wholly new being. Doctor Who’s tenth season has been cut with an underlying theme about the value we place on a single life—how awful it can be when that value is discarded, how destructive clinging on to it can become, and ultimately, the honor and integrity involved in choosing to give it up for a noble cause. As we head into one final adventure with Peter Capaldi at Christmas, it seems like the final lesson this Doctor must learn is that sometimes there’s just as much honor in carrying on (albeit with a new body) as there is in falling for your principles—as lesson he’s going to learn from someone who’s got all that to experience ahead of him. Assorted Musings (in Time and Space)Sure, it was done to keep Pearl Mackie in the episode as much as possible, but having Bill around as that’s how she still perceives herself cut in to everyone else seeing the Mondasian Cybermen she has been turned into was stunningly effective at getting across the tragedy of the Cybermen as a concept. The Doctor quotes a ton of past locations of past Cybermen stories as he goes out in his explosive blaze of glory—Mondas, Telos, Planet 1. Voga, Canary Wharf, and even the Moon itself. But he also mentions Marinus, which has only every appeared in one story: 1. The Keys of Marinus,” two years before the Cybermen were first introduced. I wonder why he mentioned it? Steven Moffat is now three for three in “Companion dies but not really” story conclusions. While Bill’s is the closest to an actual death—she still went through the horror and pain of being shot and then converted into a Cyberman, she just transcended to a different form of existence afterwards—it’d be nice if we got a companion who left the show for a reason other than their kinda- sorta death. With the Christmas special seemingly using the First Doctor to help the Twelfth come to terms with regenerating again, I wonder just where in his timeline this First Doctor is from—and judging by the snowy environ the Doctors are in at the end of the episode, how close Doctor 1 is to his own “renewal.” After all, there never really was a proper explanation for how he began his own regeneration in “The Tenth Planet”, with fans theorizing possible outcomes to fill the gap like Mondas’ energy field draining him. Could the Christmas special see not one, but two regenerations, two Doctors struggling to accept their inevitable change? Craig Di. Gregorio on leaving Ash Vs. Evil Dead and the original season two finale. Club. The second season of Ash Vs. Evil Dead has come to an end, and naturally, there are a lot of questions on the table. At the very top is where the series will head now that showrunner Craig Di. Gregorio has stepped down and will be replaced by Battlestar Galactica and Daredevil producer Mark Verheiden. Ahead of the finale, The A. V. Club spoke to Di. Gregorio about his sudden departure, the ensuing tensions behind the scenes, and the original idea for the second season finale. Editor’s note: After this interview ran, Di. Gregorio wanted to provide more context: “I did this interview first and foremost to say . I felt the finale let them down and that was weighing on me. That was truly the only reason I opened up about the show. This was not meant to be a contest to pick an ending. Both have merits, but the entirety of the season was building toward something and it disappeared. I felt that would be evident to fans, so I wanted to give some context. In addition, I meant no disrespect to any parties involved. I was asked by Michael why I stepped down and I was completely honest about that. I was also honest about respecting the abilities of everyone involved, even though there were disagreements. Our producer was highly additive to the show when producing, and I never called that into question.”The A. V. Club: It was quietly reported last month that you would be stepping down as showrunner for Ash Vs. What happened? Craig Di. Gregorio: Honestly, it was a big difference of opinion on what the show should be. It’s weird—when you do something with an established property, it’s great because people already love the characters and the world. The downside sometimes can be that there’s a lot of ownership and other opinions that might not complement yours perfectly. With the case of Sam Raimi, who directed the pilot, I got along with him perfectly. He was amazing and such a great collaborator—Bruce . But they had a third person as their producer . He’s a great person and producer, but creatively, we just didn’t have the same taste at all. So, that’s what led to my decision. He owns part of the property and had a lot of creative opinions, but it was my job to creatively steer the show and so it became a hindrance. A microcosm of the relationship would be like—you know that morgue scene where he battles a colon monster? That, to me, was one of the most fun, the most Evil Dead scenes you could have in the show—I loved it. I thought it would be really funny and scary and have Bruce at his best and have the visuals be amazing. To me, that fight was like, “Yes, that is exactly what the show should be,” and I had a lot of disagreements with the producer about that. I fought for weeks and weeks to get that colon fight in the show and I thought that was a no- brainer. To me, that is one of the most fun sequences we did on the show in two seasons. AVC: It’s the grossest scene in the entire franchise. CD: Yup. By the way, Tony Tilse, who directed that episode, is the best. He’s a great guy who gets the show and saw that scene from the get- go and added so much to it. Just the fact that I could see it and other people could see it and then I had to argue with the physical producer about whether or not this belonged in the universe of Evil Dead, that is a very good single example of what my life was like every day. What I took away from that scene was—and what I think most people would take away from it—is that the show is fun, it’s funny, it doesn’t take itself seriously, it has legitimate scares and horror, and it has those visual idiosyncrasies of Sam’s. And that was all very important to me. It just seemed like we had a very different list of things that were important to us about the show. AVC: Did these tensions between you two start in the second season? CD: It was from the get- go. For the most part, I fought hard enough for the things that I really believed in that had the show checking off all of the boxes that I wanted it to check. Sometimes, I couldn’t argue hard enough, and I see those misses, I see those places where I think I failed and I think the show could’ve been better and it’s just very hard. By the way, I don’t fault the producer at all for arguing what he believes in for the show. He was there watching when Sam directed the original with Bruce, he wants what he thinks is best for the show, but so do I, and at the end of the day, we just didn’t think that was the same thing. I can’t fault him, though. He works very hard, he’s a great producer. But it was the creative environment where I felt he was lacking a little bit, and that is the area where he would want to be heard most of all. That made my job very difficult. AVC: What’s his overall vision and how did it contrast to yours? Did he want the show more serious with less comedy? CD: It was very important to me that the show would never take itself too seriously because it’s about a guy with a chainsaw on his hand. I don’t know how to do the highly dramatic version of that show and, honestly, I think if you watch the highly dramatic version of that show, it would fall flat. To me, there was no question that it needed to lean into the comedy. And Bruce, he’s so funny, and Dana . And I’m not saying they need to be cracking jokes all the time, but I just didn’t think it needed to be quite as self- important as maybe other people thought it should be. AVC: Did the tension affect other episodes outside of the season finale? CD: To some extent, yes, it affected other episodes, but not in such a way that I thought we failed. The season finale wasn’t what I wanted at all. This is the first time where I actually thought that the creative push- and- pull adversely affected the final product and I think it really shows. We could usually hide some of the tonal push- and- pull underneath fun dialogue, or underneath fun story points, or underneath fun visuals. It’s a show that goes so fast and it’s paced so quickly that you may not notice some of the things that bug me the most, but it was always there. Again, I fault nobody for wanting to make a great show, it just became very difficult. AVC: How late into the season did the finale get changed? CD: It was very last minute. We had started writing the entire season in October or November of last year and had the entire season planned out—just as far as storyline goes—by Thanksgiving or Christmas or somewhere around there. We all knew what we wanted to do in the finale, and it was agreed upon very early on. I think altering the direction of the show by last- minute changing the finale was a unique opportunity for our producer to show that he owned this thing. It has to be hard when you’re the producer for Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell—those guys are geniuses—and you don’t quite get the accolades or acknowledgment that they do. I’d imagine you would want to assert your power where you can, and in this case he could. I couldn’t really do anything about it. Starz is great—they always give great notes, and they always pushed us to do even crazier stuff with the show—but our producer owns part of the property, so there wasn’t a lot of recourse there. He was saying that, as a co- owner of this thing, this is the right way to go, and this is the wrong way to go, and at a certain point, they had to listen. I don’t exactly know, but I know by that point, I had been so set on doing the version we had talked about for months and months, and I wasn’t going to make those changes that he wanted. We always wanted to go back and show people what happened before Ash got to the cabin . I think it pulls everything together, and it’s a fun, interesting idea, especially if you’re a fan. You want to know what happened before this all started. And to show that, and have good reason to show that—like bringing Pablo back—I thought that was interesting. AVC: The penultimate episode of the season hints at that idea, but the finale tosses that aside pretty quick. CD: The finale’s story is so vastly different from what I wanted it to be and tonally it feels like another show. I think anything past the first three minutes is just completely different and I thought it really suffered because of that. We set up so much stuff for the entire season, so if you wipe the slate clean of an entire season before you pay off anything, that’s not really successful. AVC: What was the original plan? CD: Here’s what I remember—please forgive me if I gloss over anything—this alternate version was written almost a year ago. Basically, Ash kills Henrietta, gets the book, and runs outside with it. I wanted to get the episode outside of the cabin as quickly as possible because I thought I only wanted to see the cabin for episode nine. I didn’t want it to be there in 1. I thought it was a repeat of last year with the last two episodes in the cabin. So, we got out of the cabin quickly, and that’s when Ruby and Kelly return. Inside, young Ash has entered but the book is gone, so he never reads it in this timeline. At that moment, the trunk rattles, Pablo’s in there, and he’s okay. So, now they have the book and they have Pablo. Ash decides Ruby and Kelly are going to destroy the book. Meanwhile, Ash and Pablo head into town because Ash secretly wants to see his present- day deceased father Brock one last time before they go back to the present—remember that in 2. Brock starts to reveal a big “secret,” we wanted Ash to want to get to the bottom of this. So, Ash and Pablo go to the bar, Kelly and Ruby go to the woods to destroy the book. In the woods, Ruby runs into 1. Ruby and makes that same sort of plea to her, the “your life is going to be different, you don’t have to do this.” But 1. Ruby thinks that her future self has gone completely soft, kills Ruby, but then Kelly holds her own against 1. Ruby, grabs the book, and runs with it. Ruby chases her because she wants to bring her husband and kids back and she didn’t listen to her future self. American Horror Story Season 6 Finale Review: Is That It? As both journalist and fan, I’ve attended various conventions, Comic- Cons, and celebrity panels over the years — which is probably why I appreciated the nauseating opener of the American Horror Story finale. In real life, Ryan Murphy and his cast have graced the stage at Paley. Fest to promote the anthology series, but here they poke fun at the scenario by bringing out the cast of the fictional My Roanoke Nightmare. In the timeline of season 6, this moment occurs before the mass murders in Return to Roanoke, and it embodies everything that can be aggravating, fan- baity, and — at worst — empty about these fan- driven events. The actors may try to outshine each other on stage for the best soundbite or audience reaction, the producer often makes a teasing remark about “some ideas” for another season without saying much of anything, and there’s always those one or two fans who ask silly questions like, “What’s your favorite color?” to which they get equally silly answers. It was a moment that summed up the entirety of season 6. Roanoke began by baiting fans to guess the mysterious theme with an elaborate puzzle of teasers. The mystery went beyond the premiere, as what seemed like a True Crime show revealed four pieces to the larger puzzle: the My Roanoke Nightmare show complete with confessionals and reenactments, the behind- the- scenes drama with the producer, the Return to Roanoke reality show, and the aftermath that played out in news segments. Image via FXOn top of that, this was the season to connect all the seasons: The Piggy Man killer from Murder House terrorized the mansion, Sarah Paulsonreprised her Asylum character for the finale, Murphy drew a line to Coven by confirming Lady Gaga’s witch to be the very first Supreme, and Evan Peters’ Edward Mott was a descendant of the Mott family in Freak Show. The only one left out was Hotel, but we already know it’s linked to Murder House through Billie Dean Howard. That was the true victory of season 6 — tying it all together. Murphy has hopes to make this show the Twilight Zone for a new generation, and wants to unite. Murder House and Coven for a future season. Now he can do that with virtually no explanation, but if you cut away all the spectacle, there was little else to be enjoyed. The only reasons AHS seems to be surviving are the thematic mysteries, the creatively gory deaths, and the cast. It’s the Jessica Lange, the Sarah Paulson, and the Lady Gaga of it all that impress, but the material has been waning since Season 1, arguably the best of the bunch. Asylum was complicated, but still tantalizing; Coven could’ve transcended what ended up being a kitschy plot line; I glazed through Freak Show; and Hotel, again, at least had Gaga. Roanoke was another low note: it wasn’t too far off from the trash reality television it tried to channel. During The Lana Winters Special, Lee figured that the news woman can sympathize with her, having been through horrors of her own at Briarcliff Manor and her ability to realize there’s more to the story than what’s on the surface. That’s the problem with reality television, isn’t it? We don’t really have the full story. We don’t see the cast playing themselves, only them playing a part for the cameras. Image via FXThere are few real moments in Roanoke. Audrey (Paulson), Dominic (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), Rory (Peters), and Monet (Angela Bassett) all seemed as though they were hamming it up for the cameras because, hey, we only see them through the lens of found- footage from a reality show. It’s difficult to care about actual reality stars for this very reason. It was equally difficult to care about Shelly (Lily Rabe) and Matt (Andre Holland) because their true horror story turned into a media spectacle, which was diluted further by the introduction of the self- absorbed actors. All of a sudden, a story that was physically confined to a single space (the Roanoke mansion) broke off into various moving parts, like with Agnes (Kathy Bates) and Sophie (Taissa Farmiga), each carrying less and less of an emotional impact. It’s hard to care for those we’ve only just met. What was missing from a lot of the season was that human connection. There were attempts, like with Lee (Adina Porter) and her daughter, Flora, but most felt staged and insincere. AHS has never truly been scary, so it usually tries to bring in more flair, more gore, more style, more character. Roanoke was mostly flair. But that is the true magic of AHS: No matter how bad the seasons become, I’m still at my computer every year, refreshing the page for when FX announces the new theme.
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