From Newsgroup: rec.arts.drwho.moderated   
   From Address: jphalt@aol.com   
   Subject: Re: jphalt's Doctor Who reviews   
      
   CLOSING TIME   
      
   1 episode. Approx. 45 minutes. Written by: Gareth Roberts. Directed   
   by: Steve Hughes. Produced by: Denise Paul.   
      
      
   THE PLOT   
      
   Now traveling on his own, and very aware of his death at a fixed point   
   at Lake Silencio, the Doctor is at what may be his lowest emotional   
   point when he decides to pay a farewell visit to Craig (James Corden),   
   his one-time flatmate (The Lodger). He is surprised to find Craig at a   
   new home, taking care of the baby he had with Sophie (Daisy Haggard)   
   while she is away.   
      
   The Doctor intends a short visit. But when he discovers evidence of   
   alien technology, he investigates, ultimately taking a job at a shop   
   when he discovers disappearances in the store's vicinity. It isn't   
   long before the Doctor traces all this to its source: A ship -   
   belonging to the Doctor's old enemy, the Cybermen!   
      
      
   CHARACTERS   
      
   The Doctor: I think I've finally figured it out. The Doctor falling   
   "so much further" than he ever has before wasn't the moment in A Good   
   Man Goes to War at which his triumph and Amy's baby were snatched away   
   from him. It's been his gradual loss of faith in himself since then.   
   >From having to acknowledge that River's path is set in Let's Kill   
   Hitler, to having to sentence Old Amy to oblivion, to dashing Amy's   
   faith so that she sees him as just "a madman in a box." Bit by bit, he   
   has spent the last half of this season deciding that he is like a   
   cancer, doing harm to those he touches. His "fall" was not a single   
   defeat. It was a gradual and self-inflicted process. Hopefully, the   
   events of this episode have served to remind him that the mad man in a   
   box can also be a hero and can also do legitimate good, giving him the   
   faith in himself he'll need to (presumably) subvert his fate in the   
   finale.   
      
   Craig: Reminds the Doctor of something he's forgotten: That he isn't   
   really the cause of all the deaths around him. Craig remembers their   
   last encounter, and tells the Doctor that the people who died last   
   time were "people you didn't know." He states that the place where he   
   and his son are safest in a dangerous situation is with the Doctor.   
   After all, the people who died the last time he encountered the Time   
   Lord? They were people who were not with the Doctor. For Craig and   
   Sophie, the Doctor was their salvation.   
      
   Amy/Rory: Only glimpsed in passing this episode, walking through the   
   store just as the Doctor's talking about coincidence. We see that they   
   have moved on with their lives and appear happy, with Amy having   
   achieved a certain level of fame modeling cosmetics. The Doctor is   
   pleased to see her happy and successful - though I'll wager that will   
   be interrupted in the next episode.   
      
   Cybermen: Purely a plot device - a last foe for the Doctor to defeat   
   on his last adventure. They ultimately aren't defeated by the Doctor,   
   but instead by soppy sentiment, in what may well be the most   
   unconvincing and mawkish climax of the entire new series. Still, this   
   episode isn't really about them, so their overeasy defeat actually   
   doesn't destroy this episode the way it would have done to a "normal"   
   Cyberman story.   
      
      
   THOUGHTS   
      
   Series Five's The Lodger came just before the season ending fireworks.   
   It was a small but pleasant episode, one that gave both the Doctor and   
   the audience a chance to enjoy a fairly quiet, human story. Before   
   telling something on a larger scale than ever before, the show took a   
   breath and reminded us of the human scale. The result was a success,   
   making it little surprise that, one year later, the series tries to do   
   the same thing over again.   
      
   When it sticks to being a human-scale comedy/drama, Closing Time works   
   pretty well. Not as well as The Lodger did, mind you. The idea isn't   
   as fresh, Daisy Haggard's Sophie is missed, and the jokes just aren't   
   quite as funny this time around. Still, enough of the humor clicks to   
   keep it all turning over quite nicely, and Matt Smith and James Corden   
   make an engaging comedy duo. It particularly suits this Doctor to be   
   forced into the mundane.   
      
   There's only one really big problem with this episode, and that is the   
   Cyberman.   
      
   I don't think the Cybermen have ever been used worse than they are in   
   this episode. It's not that the versions we see are weakened - Some of   
   the best Cyber stories involve Cybermen in a weakened state. It's not   
   even that their presence keeps interrupting the far more interesting   
   character material, such as the Doctor's "enhancement" of the baby's   
   outer space diorama. The balance between the character story and the   
   monster story may be off, but not so badly as to destroy a solid   
   episode.   
      
   Unfortunately, the Cyber material goes from weak to atrocious at the   
   end. In a season that's been marred by an unfortunate tendency toward   
   overt sentiment, the ending here is the biggest offender. Not only are   
   they defeated in a way that completely defuses them as a threat for   
   this episode - The ending actually takes the most frightening aspect   
   of the Cybermen and drowns it out in such a way that I'd wonder how   
   there could even be successful cyber-conversions. Forget shooting   
   Cybermen with a slingshot - Turns out the Beatles were right and "all   
   you need is love."   
      
   A tag that leads into the finale, and the solidity of the Doctor/Craig   
   material, just about keeps this afloat. But I can't quite forgive the   
   weakness of the Cybermen plot and particularly the resolution of it,   
   leaving this one with a mixed score:   
      
      
   Rating: 5/10.   
      
   --- Synchronet 3.15a-Linux NewsLink 1.92-mlp   
    * Origin: http://groups.google.com (1:2320/105.97)   
   --- SBBSecho 2.12-Linux   
    * Origin: telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - Dial-Up: 502-875-8938 (1:2320/105.1)