Maureen Flynn - Author
Well, what can I say? As an angst riddled teen I loved this finale. Then I re-watched in my uni years and found the whole thing irritating melodrama. Then, um, Ben and I re-watched and well, I kind of like, enjoyed this first part of…
Before I get into this review a quick note on why no episode by episode reviews of Series 11 starring the thirteenth Doctor. Here’s the honest truth: I love Jodie, I don’t mind the visuals or the almost X Files vibe the show has going…
Oh, man. Warning to all: I loved this two-parter as a teen when the show first aired, but oh my how the suck fairy visited this two-parter in Ben’s and my re-watch. I was so disappointed by how much I disliked this. On the plus side, I hated Idiot’s Lantern back in the day, and compared to this two-parter, it seemed decent so um … maybe tune back in next week if you are keen for more positive who review love. Anyway, read on if you want to share our pain??? This is a hate watch.
Can you tell I’m an evil, mad villain?
The Opening Titles
Ben: The first episode’s pre-title sequence was hammy. It gave me strong ‘overacting villain from a James Bond movie’ vibes. The John Lumic character was chewing the scenery something awful, and I found the music to be very obtrusive. I know that music is used to help encourage the right emotional reaction out of the audience, but I feel like it was being used like a blunt weapon in this instance. The pre-title sequence for Age of Steel was, as usual for multi episode arcs, a recap. And honestly, a much better telling of the events of the previous episode than the episode itself.
Maureen: I have to agree with you, Ben. My only notebook comment re Lumic beyond how irritatingly over-the-top his voice and acting is, was this is an unfortunate representation of disability. But also, it occurred to me later that the cybermen info dump was kinda stupid. Wouldn’t suspense have been so much better if the audience hadn’t known about cybermen involvement till Jackie Tyler? I feel like all the surprise in the episode was undone by the opening sequence.
The Companion/s
Ben: After liking Rose so much last episode, I was disappointed to see she’s back on the treating Mickey like dirt bandwagon.
Maureen: I give up on Rose. She’s a bloody awful companion. Poor Billie Piper getting stuck with her. The Rose/Ten dynamic completely doesn’t work whenever a third party is involved because the writers use this as an excuse for constant bickering, bitchiness and ugly jealousies. It’s sexist. It’s annoying. Stop it, show. God, I’m glad Mickey got a backbone this episode and walked for real. Rose deserved it.
Ben: In AU Britain, Rose wants to go and see her parents, and the Doctor whinges about that without giving a good explanation for why the hell not (in my opinion, at least).
Maureen: Nope. I’m with you, Ben. The whole time Ten whinged I was like, what? Shut-up.
Ben: I mean, Nine agreed to let Rose go into her past and see her real dad before he died, so what’s the harm in Rose visiting her parents in this alternative universe? She doesn’t exist in this universe, after all. Hell, if getting involved in parallel universes is such a big no-no, why did he let Mickey stay at the end of Age of Steel? But at least Rose got to have another awkward one sided flirty conversation with her dad at the party plus another rather unpleasant one with her mum, right?
Maureen: I was really disappointed in the Rose/Pete interactions. Father’s Day set-up a nice dynamic that felt squicky this time around. We get it. Everyone crushes on Rose. Even her Dad.
Ben: I don’t know if we were supposed to like Jackie in this, but I felt nothing for her. She’s supposed to be some fancy rich lady, but her dress doesn’t even fit properly! And she’s just nasty to everyone! You really see her true colours in the exchange she has with Rose at her party. I get that she’s feeling vulnerable because her and Pete have separated, but that was just nasty. So it wasn’t exactly an emotional blow when we discover she’s been turned into a cyberman in Age of Steel.
Maureen: Yeah, I’m not sure what was going on with Jackie in this either. I mean, generally speaking I’m not mad keen on Jackie Tyler, but at least in the real world she has some redeeming qualities. Unless the idea is that she is a nicer person because she brought up human Rose in the real world? Because, ya know, Rose is perfect and without her everyone on this show is incomplete /sarcasm.
Ben: Rose’s Dad is just as bad, but in different ways. He’s a bit of a wet rag, really. The revelation that he was feeding information to the rebels just fell so flat! I don’t know if it’s the writing or the direction in these episodes, but so many of the scenes just felt off. Then poor Mickey was treated like dirt through the entirety of these two episodes.
Maureen: I know right? From the get go Rose and Ten being arseholes to Mickey set my teeth on edge. I thought the Rose/Ten banter was cute too … till I realised it was at Mickey’s expense. And I hated all the times The Doctor got all worried about Rose, but said outright he didn’t have time to care about Mickey. Jaysus. No wonder Mickey went off to do his own thing!
Ben: Maybe it’s just a sign of the times, but Rose’s description of his grandmother as this amazing woman who used to slap him as a boy was uncomfortable.
Maureen: Yeah, what was with that? Rose laughing about it just made me hate her in this two-parter even more than I’d been hating on her previously. Haha domestic abuse. Haha Mickey deserves it. Fuck off, Rose.
Ben: I guess Grandma’s the only family he has left, but … it definitely explains why Mickey puts up with Rose and The Doctor for so long and is kind of disturbing to boot. In another episode this scene might have been touching, but instead it just felt awkward. The music was loud and emotional, Mickey was getting slapped around, and then his grandma treats us to a trope filled information dump. But hey, at least Mickey has some cool new friends now? Who then immediately treat us to another info dump. And then we get to one of the worst parts of these episodes – Mickey and Rickey. I don’t know what it is, Mickey’s actor usually does a fine job, but as soon as Rickey and Mickey are on the screen together it all goes to crap. I found all the scenes with the two of them just awkward. Ricky was just as badly overacted as the villains, in my opinion. And considering his failed rescue of Rose, Pete and The Doctor he’s just about as useful as Mickey too (the most wanted man in London due to unpaid parking tickets). Happily, Ricky is killed off at the start of Age of Steel and Mickey discovers his courage. Mickey gets a proper redemption with the last half hour of this episode – hacking computers, flying zeppelins and generally being a bad ass who’s saving the day. Onwards and upwards, Mickey!
Maureen: For me, Mickey was the saving grace of this dismal two-parter! I wish Noel Clarke had been given a real chance with this character. I think he was pretty shabbily treated by the show.
The Doctor
Maureen: My opinion of The Doctor in this two-parter is pretty basic. Fuck him. Fuck him and the unicorn he rode in on. Fuck him and his Mickey insults. Fuck him and his obsessive Rose protectionism. Fuck him and his sanctimonious lectures to all and sundry. And especially fuck him in the moment when he makes Mickey hold a TARDIS lever and doesn’t tell him to let go, then laughs at Mickey. What a bully.
Ben: Yeah, right off the bat the Doctor is bullying Mickey again. I thought we’d gotten over this stupidity, but no. And then suddenly the TARDIS is dead. This scene felt really weird, the music was loud, and the acting just felt off. And that was just the beginning. Time and time again I had issues with The Doctor in these episodes; he was bossy to Rose, mean to Mickey, and his use of technobabble was especially egregious. All the explanations around the TARDIS and their getting in and out of this parallel universe were dumb. On the bright side, Rose and the Doctor get to go undercover at Jackie’s party, and The Doctor does look rather fetching in a tux. An episode high point.
Maureen: Well, until the next dick move on The Doctor’s part. The Doctor laughing at dog Rose was just the next dick move in a long line of dick moves.
Ben: I didn’t really understand the point of the scene in the tunnels with Angela Price/Mrs Moore. In retrospect, it feels like the only reason we got a proper introduction to her – family, history, motives – was so that her death would have an impact when she was no longer useful to the story.
Maureen: Urgh yes. She was the only interesting character in the whole damn story so of course she had to die (though maybe I only warmed to her coz her name matches Angela Lansbury’s in Bedknobs and Broomsticks). I can spot the trope a mile off and I predicted she would die as soon as she got a back-story.
Ben: I also thoroughly did not enjoy The Doctor’s encounter with Lumic. His speech was very much holier-than-thou. And speaking of ridiculous technological explain-aways, having this advanced mechanical system compatible with Rose’s old flip phone is a level of ridiculous and dumb I don’t even have the words for …
The Alien of the Week
Ben: I didn’t like Mr Lumic as a villain. He felt like a caricature of every Bond villain ever. Is he completely insane? Check. Does he have a dastardly plan to take over the world? Check. Is he good for a dramatic speech and presentation at the drop of a hat? Check. I even had issues with his motive. Clearly the man is physically unwell, so this is a way to extend his life beyond the failings of mortal flesh. But beyond that we didn’t get any exploration of his motives. Similarly, Mr Crane (the Alfred to his John Wayne) was about as stereotypical a British butler as you can get. Of course, we don’t find out anything about his reasons for aligning with Mr Lumic, he is just The Help after all. The arc involving his whole sudden-but-inevitable betrayal of Mr Lumic was, to me, disappointing. Were we to believe that Mr Crane was fine with picking up transients off the street and turning them into cybermen against their will (that scene was also at least 17 different kinds of bad, and then he seemed to thoroughly enjoy putting the newly subservient men through their paces a few scenes later?), knew the fine details of Mr Lumic’s schemes, and that was the best assassination attempt he could muster? Plus it was a dramatic change of mindset from a man who used a song from The Lion King to drown out the sounds of men being torturously transformed into cybermen earlier on. He didn’t even get to give a speech about what Mr Lumic doing was wrong! And again, I constantly found the music obtrusive and distracting.
Maureen: Damn Ben! You just said everything I was gonna say. I’m just gonna pour a glass, sit back and enjoy the hate watch ride … ps: I agree, The Lion Sleeps Tonight scene was shark jumping of the highest order.
Ben: Moving on, the scene where The Doctor and Rose were in the crowd of people as they got their daily download was pretty creepy – everyone frozen in unison, then laughing in unison was creepy. But that is maybe the one good scene in these two episodes.
Maureen: The darkness of this scene reminded me a little of the hive mind suicide jumpers in The Christmas Invasion. Also, this was the only time I actually woke up and started paying attention.
Ben: Alas, after that it was all downhill when it came to scenes involving Mr Lumic’s technology. The revolving arms of blades and general horror that turned people into cybermen was just incredibly stupid. It’s the kind of thing that would be played for laughs in a Scary Movie or something similar. And I really didn’t find the cybermen scary when they were properly introduced at the end of Rise of the Cybermen, their repeated exclamations of “delete! Delete!” just made me feel like they were budget Daleks.
And, just like a James Bond villain, these cybermen have a fatal weakness. Of course the emotional inhibitor would be easily accessible and easy to disable. And of course disabling the emotional inhibitor will make all the cybermen go insane and kill themselves. That’s not a fatal design flaw at all. Speaking of design flaws, Mr Lumic’s final cyber form is what you see when you look up overkill in the dictionary. Anyways, due to some enraging uses of technology the cybermen met a fiery, self destructive end, and I can pretend it never happened.
Maureen: How noisy was that ending? I wrote, ‘what a fire and brimstone ending.’ I was beginning to want to stab my own eyeballs out. But then the episode ended. Thank God.
Final Thoughts
Ben: Look, I hated it. I hated all of it. There were very few redeeming moments, the music was really distracting, Mickey was being treated like crap, there was an over-reliance on technobabble to explain away plot points, and I wasn’t invested in any of the characters or their arcs. Maybe in an alternative universe this episode would have been received better, but I’m giving this Cyberman story a 0/10.
Maureen: At first I came over all nostalgic and was all well Mickey got out of this cluster fuck so I should award a point, but nope. No, I cannot. Because even Mickey’s exit was over the top and a bit shit. Like I’m glad he left, but gosh this wasn’t a well acted or produced episode in which to go out with a bang. Also, I loathe Ten and Rose and want them to fall into a black hole and stay there. I don’t give a damn about Pete or Jackie Tyler. I certainly didn’t give a damn about the two-dimensional cardboard cut-out big bad of the week and his cybermen, toothless pets. 0/10 inky stars
Ah, the infamous Christmas specials of Doctor Who, loved and loathed in equal measure, but this time was the first time. We were innocent and knew not what was coming that first Tennant Christmas when Santas’ and trees and Sycarax came calling… The Pre-Title Sequence…
Strap on your seat belts! It’s finale time! Given how much I disliked Bad Wolf I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Parting of the Ways. Yes, even with the RTD literal deux ex machina and a host of Daleks playing the big…
I hadn’t seen this episode in years and nor had Ben. Ben didn’t remember it at all. I had fond memories. I knew it was *the* Pete Tyler episode but not a lot else. So what goes down? Rose begs The Doctor to take her back in time to the scene of her father’s death by car collision, but when she tries to change history time (and aliens) intervene. It’s up to Rose and The Doctor to make things right.
Pre title sequence
Ben: The pre title sequence this week started sweet. Rose is a bit sad, thinking about how she never really got time with her dad before he died, and asks the Doctor if they could see him before he dies. And then it veers off into the realm of creepy, with the Doctor trying to be flirty and responding with “your wish is my command”.
Maureen: I found the ‘… but be careful what you wish for,’ part stranger frankly. Why did The Doctor allow Rose to go back in time if he knew something bad could reasonably come of it? Or does he mean that seeing her own father’s death in real time will upset Rose? In which case, why not talk her out of it, Mr Flippant. Why do this at all? (Don’t say because plot needed an excuse to unfold. Worst excuse in the book).
Ben: It was a pretty flat opening, really, and is such a dramatic change in gear from the ending of the last episode where the Doctor and Rose cheerily left Adam to his fate (why RTD why?).
Maureen: My opinions on the opening are a lot less thoughtful than Ben’s. I wrote in my notebook of the opening credits, ‘dad dead exposition. Thanks Rose.’ The perils of being a writer (albeit not a screenwriter) is suddenly you notice devices like someone narrating a story at you because plot.
The Companion
Ben: Rose goes through the wringer this week in this companion focused episode. She gets to see her parents get married, and immediately realises reality is very different to how she imagined it, remarking she thought her dad would be taller. Moments like that happen a lot this episode, where Rose realises reality is starkly different to her imagination, to the image of her dad she had worshiped at for all these years. The drama of it all is a bit soapy for me.
Maureen: I think Ben you need to remember how new this episode felt at the time. Yes, now we’ve seen many sci fi and fantasy stories mess around with time and perception in this way, but back then not so much in the mainstream. I found myself noticing the many similarities between what happens to Rose and her image of her father in Father’s Day and what happens in the season one arc of Life on Mars (UK) to Sam Tyler with his father. Given that Sam Tyler was named after Rose and Life on Mars was partially seen as an adult Doctor Who, I wouldn’t be surprised if this Who episode had a massive influence.
Ben: Your mileage may vary. I found the soap too much in general. The soap rears its ugly head when, after Rose saves Pete’s life and breaks the rules of causality, Pete starts to hit on her. It happens again when Pete admits he’s not really a “businessman” and is just making it up as he goes. It happens again when Jackie comes along and they all have a massive row. I think it’s also really telling that after her parents make up and Rose sees the Doctor running towards her in a panic, she immediately puts on her “come hither” face. She’s still living half in her imagination, where her parents are the perfect couple. It isn’t until they’re all trapped in the church and people are dead that Rose snaps back to reality.
Maureen: I admit, Ben, that I’ve never been sold on Jackie Tyler actress’ acting. I thought the guy playing Pete was great, as was Billie. What didn’t work for me with the family dynamics was that aside from Pete, I didn’t care about anyone enough to invest in the story as I did with Life on Mars and Sam Tyler. This is not Billie’s fault at all, but I simply don’t find Rose all that relateable. When I was her age I read everything I could get my hands on, spent a lot of time online and writing and didn’t care much for boys. As for Jackie, she’s my worst nightmare. If I met someone like her in real life, they’d get flayed by my tongue pretty fast and I wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with them.
Ben: Can we agree that the Mickey thing was weird?
Maureen: Yep. It didn’t bother me as much as it did you though.
Ben: Moving on then: Rose really starts to get closure with Pete when he realises he’s her dad, and he realises he should have died. Ultimately, Rose gets to do what she set out to do at episode beginning. Pete sacrifices himself and Rose is by his side as he dies. It’s something of a positive outcome, in that it changes the story Jackie tells baby Rose; her dad didn’t die alone in a senseless hit and run. Instead, the poor kid driver got to watch helplessly as Pete ran in front of the car. Real fairy tale stuff.
Maureen: I’ve always found it odd no other writer has explored this trope again. I mean, this kind of thing must happen around The Doctor A LOT.
The Doctor
Ben: I didn’t particularly like the Doctor this week. Right off the bat he’s acting happy and flirty, not noticing (or maybe just not caring) that Rose is acting out of character. Wanting to be there when your dad dies so he’s not alone is a noble gesture, but the Doctor should have approached the situation with a bit more… humanity. And then when Rose freezes (I guess seeing your dad get hit by a car is a pretty emotional moment) and doesn’t get to comfort him as he dies, he agrees that they can go back and try again! Even though he knows this is a really, really dumb idea!
Maureen: I think the implication though is that The Doctor knows it’s a dumb idea but does it anyway. Why? Because he loves Rose in his alien, angry way. Still, he immediately demands Rose say sorry afterwards and calls her a stupid ape which I agree is a bit much. He didn’t exactly warn Rose about the possible consequences of what could happen in revisiting such a traumatic event. It’d be like McGonagall giving Hermione the Time Turner without telling her the rules of how to play with it safe, and then giving her detention when she stuffs up. It just seemed unreasonable and emotionally manipulative (again) to me.
Ben: The Doctor really is out of his emotional depths this episode. It’s only after Rose saves Pete and refuses to admit she’s done anything wrong that things really heat up. When the aliens start killing he gets to do his dramatic Doctoring for a bit, sees the car stuck in a loop and immediately decides to try and keep Rose’s dad alive instead of doing the right thing. Which is a noble gesture and all, but if he wasn’t in love with Rose this whole thing could have been solved much earlier. He does get a nice scene with the couple to be where he doesn’t call them stupid apes and listens to their troubles; it’s a shame Rose didn’t get this Doctor at the start of the episode or this whole mess could have been avoided.
Maureen: I liked the way The Doctor treated the soon to be wed couple, even if it contrasted to how he treats Rose (maybe he’d fooled himself into holding Rose to a higher standard?).
DOCTOR: How did all this get started?
STUART: Outside the Beatbox Club, two in the morning.
SARAH: Street corner. I’d lost my purse, didn’t have money for a taxi.
STUART: I took her home.
DOCTOR: Then what? Asked her for a date?
SARAH: Wrote his number on the back of my hand.
STUART: Never got rid of her since. My dad said.
SARAH: I don’t know what this is all about, and I know we’re not important.
DOCTOR: Who said you’re not important? I’ve travelled to all sorts of places, done things you couldn’t even imagine, but you two. Street corner, two in the morning, getting a taxi home. I’ve never had a life like that. Yes. I’ll try and save you.
Alien of the Week
Ben: The big bad this week was very confusing. For starters, it all begins on some pretty shaky grounds. Why does having the first set of Rose and Doctor see the second Rose cause a huge wound in time? And if it was such a risky maneuver in the first place, why did the Doctor even allow it? (answer, he wasn’t thinking with his head) I mean, the car wasn’t even going that fast in the first place, so it wasn’t a convincing death either. The whole red hunting vision of the mysterious baddies was some pretty dodgy special effects work, and on top of that, why is the TARDIS now a regular phone box? Why is a song on the radio playing that isn’t out yet? And what was with the Watson phone call?
Maureen: I can help you there, Ben. I thought The Doctor said that time had been more or less broken because of Rose saving Pete and so anachronistic events were happening (such as songs playing from a later era on Pete’s car radio and people hearing Alexander Graham Bell).
Ben: Whatever. It’s just all very poorly done. The focus was on the drama centred on Rose, rather than a good sci fi plot. Then, the second time we get the red hunting the aliens manage to vanish a whole playground of children in about 15 seconds without any of the screams we got from the first round of attacks. And THEN, when they finally reveal these horrible CGI constructions of aliens, their attacks are loud and messy and not stealthy at all! There was just such inconsistency around these aliens. The church is old therefore it’s strong and they can’t get in? What about the massive stained glass windows? If, as the Doctor says, these monsters are here to sterilise the wound in time, surely they’d only need to go after either Rose, the Doctor, or Rose’s dad? Or perhaps the car that’s stuck in a loop? That’s never fully explained either. And why does the whole Earth have to be sterilised? And how are the aliens going to sterilise plants, bacteria, animals under the water? The TARDIS still being active doesn’t make sense. If it’s inside got pushed out by the wound in time, won’t it just get pushed back out when the Doctor tries to summon it? And what happened to the outside of the TARDIS? When it starts to appear in the church it’s whole again. At least after Rose’s dad sacrifices himself the aliens vanish, everything goes back to normal and it’s like the whole episode never happened. Which is how I’m going to live my life after finishing writing this review.
Maureen: To be honest, most of what you point out didn’t occur to me, though you make valid points. The TARDIS thing did feel silly and I have no idea how The Doctor survived the alien attack. I guess I didn’t care so much though because I was concentrating more on the relationship between Pete and Rose, which I thought was lovely. I’m glad Pete gets to come back.
On a non-alien or anything else related note, I remember having butterfly clips like Rose was wearing in the late 90s and early 2000s. The weird scene where Billie was backlit against the dark church was super odd as an art direction choice. It threw me right out of the story. Finally, how Muriel’s Wedding was that almost-to-be-wedding?! Oh Thatcher England.
Final Thoughts
Ben: I had a lot of problems with this episode, in particular with the plot holes around the paradox. There were some good lessons about how the past is looked at through rose tinted glasses. Rose bore the brunt of those lessons, but the groom this episode also had a few good moments, reminiscing about his recently deceased dad. Overall though, I really struggled to look past how poorly the time wound/paradox was done, and the drama with Rose and her parents was overdone. This episode might have been breaking new ground when it first aired, but watching it now in 2018 it’s safe to say this has not aged well. This concept has been explored much better by other people, e.g. Terry Pratchett’s book Mort. I’m going to give it a 4/10.
Maureen: Gees, that’s a bit harsh. I didn’t think it was any worse than the series pilot, Rose, so I’m giving this 6/10. I rated this a lot higher as a teen but times change I guess.
Next week: Please Santa Moff don’t let us down. I can’t take much more underwhelming Who.
Sorry guys for the lateness of this write-up. Ben was on time, but I’m in Canberra for the 2018 Hardcopy manuscript development program and now is the first chance I’ve had to upload words to this blog. Aliens of London/WW3 is RTD’s first two-parter and…