Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Doctor Who-The Bells Of Saint John

                          A man on a computer screen warns people all over the world not to log onto an unusual glyph for WiFi internet access because it will spread and their souls will end up like his-uploaded to a computer and their bodies dead. Meanwhile the doctor,living as a monk in early 11th century Cumbria received a call in his TARDIS from a women identifying herself as Clara,a nanny who has been having difficulty logging online herself. Thinking the doctor is a computer tech,she guesses "run clever boy" as her internet password. This prompts the doctor to go looking for her,realizing she is in fact Clara Oswin Oswald (who from his point of view has died twice) only to find she again doesn't know him. Skeptical of him in his monk garb,he changes into a new burgundy suit and returns to find Clara apparently dead. She saw a character from a book read by one of the children she was caring for who apparently had uploaded her using the same technology used for all the others. What they don't know is that that a lady named Miss Kizlet is under orders from an unknown client to use an enormous staff and alien technology to upload human minds using WiFi for the clients own personal storage. The doctor is able to use the sonic screwdriver to restore Clara to her body. When she is restored she has enhanced computer knowledge and remembers nothing if their earlier encounter. 

                   Later that day at a cafe,the doctor confirms what he suspected earlier that day: that people the world over are being manipulated by someone controlling biological fields through WiFi-to the point where Miss Kizlet is able to talk to him through the mouths of people within the cafe. By this time Clara has been able to determine Kizlet is operating out of The Shard. Being the only one so far to escape her operation Kizlet wants Clara back very badly. She describes her client as someone who is in love with human minds. By this point however Clara has been fully integrated back into Kizlets system by another WiFi base robot,like the girl she met earlier who appeared to be the doctor. The doctor meanwhile drives his special anti grav motor cycle up the side of the Shard and attempts to convince Kizlet face to face. In a few minutes she learns its not the doctor at all-its the re-programmed WiFi base system robot she used to absorb Clare-now in the doctors control. He manages to lock her into the system-forcing her staff to download all the human minds,whom they were apparently saving for the Great Intelligence,back to where they originally came from. Her staff have no idea what they are doing. And Miss Kizlet in fact only sees herself as a lost little girl. Meanwhile the doctor invites Clara,willing to travel so long as she can return to her life on 21st century Earth,to travel with him on the TARDIS in order to fill her book of places to see. More or less.

                  Since the beginning of Doctor Who,the doctor is a character who tends to reveal only other questions when it comes to his identity being revealed. While many of his companions have in fact been mysterious at first,Clara Oswin Oswald is literally an "impossible girl" who seems to reincarnate in a similar manner to the regeneration of a time lord. She claims not to remember the doctor,yet he remember her and feels otherwise. So with Clara he has truly met his match of mystery in a travelling companion. Also this story will have computer enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists alike astounding with it's portrayal of modern WiFi connection being used as not only a method of mind control,but of uploading the minds of people as if they were simple computer files. Typically the doctor engages in his "trolling the villain" routine with the manipulated Miss Kizlet-who is actually convinced she is the manipulator. The very unexpected scene in which the doctor climes The Shard in his ant grav motor cycle is a reminder of the epic FX that the modern day Doctor Who is able to realize. So from story line,special effects and the solid introduction of Clara as the 11th doctors companion 'The Bells Of Saint John' succeeds on every possible level.

    

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