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I loved The Vampire Diaries this week, the Stefan and Damon relationship has always been my favourite. The flashbacks with Damon and Stefan really helped explain why Stefan was so wary of Damon at the beginning of the series, plus Damon's issues with Stefan in 1994 make sense with his lingering bitterness over Stefan never coming looking for him when he was being tortured for so many years. It always bothered me a little in the past flashbacks that Damon and Stefan just seemed to want to hang out with one another again, which was pretty far from the 'eternity of misery' dynamic that opened the show, so I felt like this episode really helped pull some of that together and explain why they were on such bad terms in early season 1

They both looked soooo good when they were by that car I have to say, and lmao at Stefan trying to convince Damon to drink the rat blood :P I enjoyed all of the little nostalgic touches too, like getting to see Uncle Zach again and explaining his relationship to them, or seeing younger Liz with the pic of Caroline and talking with Damon for the first time.

Damon and Bonnie scenes continue with being surprisingly awesome with their banter, aww at Damon getting quite protective over her this week, the two of them really seem to have bonded. I even found myself liking Kai more this week. Well perhaps like is the wrong word lol, but I found his character, along with his fucked-up background, pretty interesting!

Loved all of the Stelena scenes, the fake proposal was hilarious, and I really liked all of Stefan's words on what they both loved about Damon and how he still has to live on without him

Only gripe about this episode is that, while I love that they brought Alaric back, I wish that they had more interesting storylines for him outside of another romance with a Doctor :( I feel like they still don't know what to do with him outside of his bromance with Damon

I found Tripp quite sympathetic this week actually, after hearing the background about his wife being killed in front of him, and then being compelled to believed that he was the one responsible. I appreciate that indiscriminately frying them in a van makes him no better then them in a way, but eh I'm kind of over the show constantly showing us how awful characters like Damon and Enzo can be when it comes to slaughtering innocent people, and then expecting us to root for them over humans. I know that following vampires is the premise of the show, but still...I'm not necessarily saying that I want Damon marked for death, just that I'm having a hard time condemning the POV of a character for finding characters like Damon (who just last season killed Elena's friend after "Elena" breaks up with him) or Enzo (who this season kills and turns Stefan's girlfriend to make a point) a threat that need to be eradicated. Like we're not talking about characters with a dark history who are working to change, the show has made it clear time and time again that is just who they are, they are never truly going to change and become model citizens, so is it really wrong for a human to consider them too great a threat and better off dead?

But honestly I kind of felt like that back in season 1 too. It seemed like Stefan and Damon's father was being portrayed as closed-minded and in the wrong for not listening to Damon and Stefan, and we were naturally supposed to be horrified at seeing the vampires muzzled and dragged off to burn. But I could see it from his POV then too, the vampires were behind the killings and Mystic Falls was under threat for real. How else should their father have handled it if he suspected that a predatory species like vampires posed a real threat to the town, taking them all out must have seemed like the only option, yet I feel like the show wanted to present it as if only he had listened to Stefan and not been so quick to judge. Umm Stefan was being mind-controlled by Katherine, that was the only reason that he was defending Katherine and on the side of the vampires, and her turning his sons into vampires did lead to them having their own massive body count over the years

I don't know if this is a really weird way of watching the show though lol, and I'm certainly not condoning going after individual vampires like Caroline and Alaric who have done nothing wrong (which I do realise that is most likely going to be the case with the dedicated Vampire hunters), but eh with ~unreformed vampires~ like Katherine, Damon, and Enzo, I can't really find it in me to blame the characters who see them as a threat to be taken out. That's actually a totally rational POV when you take a step back from them as characters that you've gotten to know and like, and remember the amount of humans that they've killed or used as playthings

And Doctor Who!

I liked the whole fairy tale theme of this episode, and the visual of Maeve in the red coat lost in the forest :) I've seen some complaints on it sending the wrong message by saying that Maeve shouldn't have been put on meds, but in the context of the episode it didn't really bother me because it seemed to fit with the whole fairy tale theme for the Doctor to argue that adults shouldn't so quickly dismiss actually listening to what kids have to say. Heh at how frustrated the Doctor was at the kids all taking the Tardis in stride, Peter Capaldi was fantastic at working with the child actors in this episode. And major aww at the Doctor's face when Clara tries to send him away on his own because she doesn't want to be the last of her race.

I was confused as to where the older sister was supposed to have been when she suddenly appeared at the end though, was she supposed to have been hiding in the bushes the entire time or something?!? It felt like they were going for a heart-warming moment there, but it just felt so random that they didn't pull it off for me at all :p

And Danny saying that there are wonders closer to home and he feels no urge to travel with the Doctor was absolutely fine, but again it makes me wonder what exactly him and Clara are supposed to have in common when Clara is someone who is addicted to adventure and seeing what's out there. I don't think we've seen them really connect over anything so far?

And next weeks trailer certainly looks very intriguing!

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The flashbacks with Damon and Stefan really helped explain why Stefan was so wary of Damon at the beginning of the series, plus Damon's issues with Stefan in 1994 make sense with his lingering bitterness over Stefan never coming looking for him when he was being tortured for so many years. It always bothered me a little in the past flashbacks that Damon and Stefan just seemed to want to hang out with one another again, which was pretty far from the 'eternity of misery' dynamic that opened the show, so I felt like this episode really helped pull some of that together and explain why they were on such bad terms in early season 1

Yes, it was a great "fill in the blanks" moment plus now we know why Damon is wearing that plaid shirt and keeps making pancakes for Bonnie.

And you're right, they need to find something for Alaric to do besides flirt with doctors and try and sober up Jeremy.

Edited 2014-10-27 19:22 (UTC)

I really love those kinds of storylines with the Salvatore brothers :D

And yeah I'm not sure why they struggle so much with finding a good storyline for Alaric, they find plenty of potential storylines for Damon and Stefan, but there always seems to be this lingering feeling of Alaric being the ~adult~ of the cast, and therefore not getting as much to do romantically with the other regulars. Not that romance is the only possible storyline, but they're already having him flirt with another cute but fairly bland Doctor that we've only just met, and honestly how into this new romance do they think that the majority of viewers are going to be?

or seeing Liz pregnant with Caroline and talking with Damon for the first time.

You must have seen something different than I... because in the episode I've seen she showed Damon a picture of her 2 year old daughter Caroline and was NOT pregnant. So I have no idea what you're talking about here... *lol* Oh well... :P

I really feel like we have seen a different episode of TVD (no Offense!), because so far this season there is no bromance between Damon and Ric (logically) and when he was so... I don't know... almost indifferent when he talked about Damon and was all like "kind of miss him", which felt a bit odd considering that they used to be friends. I was quite disappointed by that...

As for DW and Clara/Danny: I feel like they want to portray the "opposites attract" phenomen with their relationship. He's her "rock" - kind of. She's so adventouros while he's completely down to earth and might be able to kind of pull her back a bit. I don't know. I think she needs some kind of calming influence and that he provides... something that can help her "come down" again after her adventures with the doctor. I totally get that to be honest... and think it's great that he's so completely different. And she can challenge him quite a bit, and that's a good thing. But maybe I misunderstood :)

Lol yeah you're right, I don't know what made me say pregnant with Caroline, I meant to say seeing younger Liz with the cute pic of 'high-maintaince' Caroline, I'll edit that bit :P

And oh yeah they haven't done so much with their bromance this season, I was thinking more overall with Alaric that they never seemed to know what to do with him after season 1 had the intriguing backstory of him being a vampire hunter to find out what happened to Isobel, but ever since then it seemed like most of his screentime in seasons 2 and 3 (other than his final exit storyline obviously) either consisted of pallying around with Damon, or parenting Elena and Jeremy. And that was all fine, but I wish that they could find a really compelling individual storyline for him, I never find the romances that they give him have much spark to them :(

And for Doctor Who I just find it hard to connect to Clara and Danny's romance because it feels like every conversation they have has them at cross-proposes or Clara lying to Danny, there seems to be no real connection there at all, they even had the kids joking about how much they are seen arguing idk

Edited 2014-10-27 19:51 (UTC)

I think that was one of the reasons that Matt Davis left TVD was because he felt like his storyline was going nowhere...

And if they don't find something for him to do, he might again...

I was actually hoping that he and Enzo could kind of bond due to the search of Damon. And I think Michael would have loved to do that (at least that's what he said at Alpha Con), but obviously they didn't feel the need to :( They would have made quite the interesting team.

Yeah I remember he was really dissatisfied at how pushed to the background Alaric was in season 2 with his romance with Jenna

I wouldn't be surprised if they did eventually set up some kind of threesome with Damon, Enzo, and, Alaric (not in that way :P ) as Enzo does need more members of the cast to interact with and bond with then just Damon (well and Caroline I suppose), so friendly interaction could still be coming up with them at some point, maybe after Damon introduces the two of them? At the same time it could go either way though, because I could see Alaric wanting to take a step back from Enzo acting more wild and totally embracing being a vampire, while he is really struggling with trying to control his blood urges

The Damon & Bonnie show keeps being amazing. The world doesn't need yet another serial killer, though, so please leave Kai inside his time bubble (as if, but one can hope).

I get the feeling that Kai will be dragged back to the regular world one way or the other, and that will be something that Bonnie will really struggle with. I must admit that Kai didn't make much impression on me in the previous episode, but I found him quite entertaining in this one when he's describing how he killed his family, and we find out just how sick and twisted he really is

I just really wonder at Danny. I mean, he could be really fascinating. Presumably, he went off adventuring, and now thinks better of it, and there could be this really interesting comment on British imperialism, but I think Moffat's afraid to go there.

I can't see him and Clara working out long-term. I actually know a guy who's quite a bit like that—he and I get along really well, but he has zero idea why I would ever want to travel. For him, he's happy doing his job and skateboarding and smoking weed and going up to his cottage when he's not working, and pondering the Deep Meaning of Life. I would tear my eyeballs out if that were my life. He's totally a person I love to hang out with, but I could never be in a relationship with him as our lifestyles just don't mesh.

I liked the episode, though. Capaldi + children = my heart doing funny things.

I thought that the Doctor was especially cute in the beginning of the episodes in the scenes with just him and Maeve :)

And I saw a comment elsewhere wondering if some of us are finding it hard to click with Danny because he seems so hostile to the Doctor and so hostile to the concept of travelling in space and time, so in a way he's criticising everything that the viewers do appreciate about the show, and viewers are going to take it personally when he acts like Clara is being a little bit childish and hasn't she grown out of wanting to travel with the Doctor. And that made a lot of sense to me actually lol, presumedly they went to set him up as a counterpoint to the Doctor, and Clara thus being torn between the two of them, but all we the viewer ever see is the appeal of travelling with the Doctor, Danny's lack of imagination can't really compete with that

And yeah opposites attract to an extent, but Clara and Danny seem to want completely different things out of life. Even in this episode, Clara is getting excited about looking into what the mystery of the trees mean, while Dannt is solely concerned with looking after the children and has no interest in any of that. Which again is fine, but does it really work for a shared life goal when Clara has this huge fascination with the wonders of the universe and seeing what's out there?

It just clicked for me: Danny is the Nagging Sitcom Housewife standing in the way of the manchild who just wants to drink beer and have fun. And—while I appreciate the gender swap—I hate that trope. Anyone who watches the show is not only going to fantasize about travelling with the Doctor, but also have the context of him saving the world a bazillion times over, inherently making anything a companion does more significant than anything anyone else does to make a difference.

(I thought the SJA story where Jo comes back dealt with that heartbreakingly well, and remains one of my favourite episodes of any TV show, ever.)

Opposites attract for sure, but yeah. I'm just thinking of relationships I've had where the other person doesn't understand my life goals. It's the reason it's never worked out between me and apolitical types, too.

Yep, it's kind of hard for Danny to not come across as a bit of a dullard when he's the character stuck at home, while Clara is off having exciting adventures and phoning home to make up elaborate lies about what she's really doing (incidentally I can't believe that he hadn't already picked up on her lying to him last episode!) The fact that the Doctor's appeal completely escapes him isn't all relatable for me, if I had a girlfriend and she was phoning me from a train in space then I would be boggling at how cool that is and secretly wishing for an invite, but he comes across like he honestly isn't that interested in any of that and just wishes that Clara would get it out of her system already....

I haven't seen any of the SJA, but it sounds like that's an episode that I should check out?

Edited 2014-10-27 21:33 (UTC)

if I had a girlfriend and she was phoning me from a train in space then I would be boggling at how cool that is and secretly wishing for an invite, but he comes across like he honestly isn't that interested in any of that and just wishes that Clara would get it out of her system already....

Exactly! Which is why he doesn't seem like a real character, or at least a character that I should like.

I haven't seen any of the SJA, but it sounds like that's an episode that I should check out?

Without having seen the last three episodes (because the very thought of them makes me sad), I think SJA is overall the best-written part of Nu Who. Because it's a straight-up children's show, they can't create drama by killing people or resolve plots by killing people, so it's inevitably much more intelligent. And Sarah Jane is such a compelling, tragic, relatable character.

The one where Jo comes back breaks me at every level. It's just so perfect. I don't know that there's ever been an episode of TV that got me as much as that one did. I'm probably going to watch it again soon but I'm afraid it won't live up to the first viewing and how much I cried.

Clara/Danny is so poorly developed and their entire relationship apparently takes place offscreen so I'm not sure why we're supposed to care. I know everyone h8ed the days when Amy was torn between the Doctor and Rory but that whole triangle was way better constructed tbh!! LMAO.

Yeah they seemed to go really quickly from the supremely awkward dinner date in Listen to Clara declaring her love for him in Caretaker, I'm sure they didn't intend for it to come across that way, but it just seemed like Clara meeting their future offspring made her feel like she was supposed to be with Danny after that?

At least Amy and Rory travelled in the Tardis together and got to go on adventures, poor Danny seems stuck at forever being the dull stay at home bf wondering what exactly is supposed to be so fascinating about a magic box that can travel anywhere in space and time

The Damon and Bonnie scenes have been some of the best parts of this season, I think. Which is huge of me to say since I was never big on Bonnie.

I definitely agree about the Damon and Stefan flashbacks. Their relationship and how it has changed over the years has always been interesting to watch.

Yeah I found Bonnie pretty dull when she was paired off with Jeremy much of the time, but she has a fun chemistry with Damon, especially when they bicker *g*

The fairy tale feel of the Doctor Who episode was very much to my liking as well and there were many a good moment. Though as you I didn't really get where Maeve's sister had been, I thought perhaps someplace with the glowing things?

I think Clara and Danny are more an opposite attract couple than anything, and that they just fit even if they don't really connect in regards to much but teaching so far.

It seems so, although it would be nice to see them at least a little bit in sync, because I'm really struggling to see what draws them together at the moment

And yeah I really don't know lol, that would make sense I suppose! I've also seen spec that she just ran away, and it was hearing the message from her little sister brought her home. I liked the fairy tale feel, so I just went with the lack of logic and science for most of the episode, but that was one moment where I felt they overstepped and should have brought in SOME kind of explanation for what was going on. Who knows, maybe there was a deleted scene to further explain what happened to the sister, I feel like you need more of a scene then just her appearing again out of nowhere and that's the end of that particular plot...

Oh I'm glad to see you say that about Tripp, because that is so often how I feel about characters - we may be meant to hate them but looking at it from their point of view it's understandable why they react in the way they do. Seriously, don't ever get me started on the Others on Lost as one example, but there are lots of other characters I could say the same about.

I just can't really see them as the bad guys for going after vampires who actually do kill and use their brainwashing powers on humans, in their shoes you would totally consider them a scary threat to take out! It would be one thing if it was just prejudice against vampires as a species full-stop and they weren't actually hurting anyone, but we've seen many vampires freely killing people, so I can't really blame characters like Trip for feeling like the obvious course of action is to take them on. Like in his first intro we see him being concerned at people trying to shut up a young girl from talking about how she was attacked and drained of blood, yet somehow the writers are expecting us to side with the regulars and want that attack covered up because Elena has ~personal issues~ after all, never mind the threat that she represented to the innocent townspeople going about their business. In Trip's position I would have been side-eyeing them all too

And I love your icon :)

Edited 2014-10-28 23:15 (UTC)

This episode and the Robin Hood ones are the only ones I've enjoyed this season. I don't know. I know the reviews are mixed. I've had friends just stop watching completely now.

I've noticed that with Clara's storyline the colors red and blue are used all the time. Patterns as well so it's curious if this has any meaning. I wonder from the preview if Missy takes control of Clara and reveals everything....

EDIT: Also - Clara and Danny have nothing in common nor any on screen chemistry. No idea about this one. Is she only going after him because she met her great-great grandchild or whatever in the earlier episodes?

Edited 2014-10-29 05:22 (UTC)

Is she only going after him because she met her great-great grandchild or whatever in the earlier episodes?

That was partly the impression that I got, after Listen she suddenly seemed very gung-ho and talking about being in love with him, but we'd only just seen them on their first date before then

I thoroughly enjoyed this Who episode. Watched it four times. Have you seen this weeks episode yet?

Oh and as Whovarian i have added you onto my flist.

I really enjoyed it as well, I'm hoping to post my thoughts on it soon!

And it's always nice to hear from another fan, I've added you back :)

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