The Sandman: Chapter 10 – Lost Hearts

“When you go to sleep tonight, you have to find him and end this. It’s up to you now, Rose. You’re the Vortex.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

In (what we thought was) the season finale of The Sandman, all the ongoing plots of The Doll’s House finally come together to an emotional climax. This ep freely adapts a mixture of the story’s last three comic issues largely unchanged, but as with previous eps there are some small and subtle differences that add depth to the story. It’s a heady and emotional mix involving a new set of characters that we’ve nonetheless come to care about deeply over the last four eps of the season.

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The Sandman: Chapter 9 – Collectors

“You said that a Vortex can create universes, or destroy them. So I suggest you leave my universe the fuck alone. This dream is over.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

The penultimate (or so we thought) episode of The Sandman’s first season is also the penultimate episode of the original Doll’s House  storyline, as the various plot threads finally converge. Rose, the missing dreams, Lyta’s dream-based pregnancy, and the serial killer convention all come together and come to a head here, awaiting the next ep’s resolution., just as in the comics.

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It’s a Sin

“Boys die, in London, and they say it’s cancer, or pneumonia, and they don’t say what it really is. But it’s a lie, and I don’t want that. Do you know why? I had so much fun.”

(SPOILER WARNING – FOR THE WHOLE SERIES. ALSO PROBABLY NSFW)

In 1988, I was at university, and in denial. My eyes were drawn to attractive boys, furtively, pretending not to look. Glancing over my shoulder as they passed, sneaking looks at their behinds, clad in those late-80s stonewashed jeans that were ever so slightly too tight. Thinking about them as I lay in my creaky single bed in halls, trying not to make too much noise while I had a quick wank imagining them naked. But I wasn’t gay, I told myself. How could I be? Even with my ultra-liberal, Doctor Who-founded tolerance of every creed, colour and sexual orientation, some part of me, deep down, was ashamed.

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Doctor Who: Season 12, Episodes 1&2 – Spyfall

“Doctor – the security of the planet is at stake. Can we rely on you?”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

OK, so it’s been a busy couple of weeks for me, being in the UK when the first ep of Doctor Who’s new season was broadcast and flying back to Barcelona pretty much the next day, then getting to grips with a packed new teaching schedule. The upshot is that I haven’t much of a chance, till now, to jot down my thoughts on this big, expansive season opener. But also, crucially, it means I’ve now seen both parts of it. Continue reading “Doctor Who: Season 12, Episodes 1&2 – Spyfall”