Maureen Flynn - Author
Just a quick note before this review to let people know I’m overseas for a month so will a) miss the first female Doctor’s debut and won’t be able to live blog my reaction and b) The series two re-watch stops till I get back…
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…
Ah yes. The episode where Torchwood begins. Where Rose spends an episode trying to get Queen Victoria to say she is not amused. Where there’s werewolves and it’s 2006 when the Twilight Saga is huge! Bring it, baby!
The Pre-Title Sequence
Ben: This was a bit of a different way to start an episode! Completely unlike any other episode so far in New Who, it actually reminded me a lot of BBC Merlin. I don’t think it’s explained how these identical men in orange came to be but watching them fight was pretty cool. And then we end with a mysterious unseen horror in a cage (cue the screaming, please!) It’s good stuff.
Maureen: It was very Robert Downey Jnr Sherlock Holmes, except the first film in that franchise came out 2009! Remember, Doctor Who did it first! It’s a crazy, monk-fighter-filled, out-there opening, and is the sort that can only happen on a sci-fi show like this one.
The Companion/s
Ben: My favourite episodes of Doctor Who are the ones where the companion gets to do something of importance other than look pretty and get rescued from a state of distress.
Maureen: Superficially interrupting Ben to say that I did enjoy Rose’s hair, make-up and costume this episode. It was so early 2000s, I remember the Dolly and Girlfriend magazine ‘how to’ get bleached blonde beach-scrunched hair articles that tried to teach me to get hair looking pretty similar to stars like Billie Piper in this episode.
Ben: Right, well, this episode goes right to the top because Rose gets shit done! Not only does Rose get to make jokes at the Queen’s expense, she also bonds with one of the Help and begins her own investigations.
Maureen: I swear there is a theme with Rose! She is a better companion and character in episodes where she bonds with the help! True, Rose does get kidnapped with most of the Torchwood Institute household –
Ben: Yeah, but she also questions the werewolf, learns its’ motives, and rallies the people trapped with her in an escape attempt. Her questions were intelligent, and I absolutely loved the Bad Wolf callback. The line about Rose burning like the sun, while the werewolf needs the moon is such excellent Doctor Who.
Maureen: I really liked that quote too. I got chills.
Host: Look, inside your eyes, you’ve seen it too!
Rose: Seen what?
Host: The wolf, there’s something of the wolf about you!
Rose: I don’t know what you mean.
Host: You burnt like the sun, but all I require is the moon!
Rose really showed herself to have a back-bone this episode. She literally saw The Captain ripped to shreds by the wolf in front of her eyes, and didn’t lose her head, even as we saw (curtesy of Billie’s acting chops) that Rose was upset and probably more than a wee bit traumatised.
I also quite enjoyed Rose’s interactions with Queen Victoria and The Doctor in trying to get Queen Vic to say her infamous line. Take this exchange for example:
Rose: [after meeting Queen Victoria] I wanted to hear her say, “We are not amused.” Bet you five quid I can get her to say it.
The Doctor: Taking that bet would be an abuse of my responsibilities as a traveller in time.
Rose: Ten quid?
The Doctor: Done.
Or:
Queen Victoria: And please excuse the naked girl.
Rose: Sorry.
The Doctor: She’s a feral child. I bought her for sixpence in old London Town. It’s was her or the Elephant Man, so…
Rose: Thinks he’s funny but I’m so not amused.
This is one of the few times The Tenth Doctor and Rose dynamic worked for me, and I think it was down to the light-hearted humerous tone of many of their exchanges as well as the way both helped the other to get to the bottom of the episode’s mystery and save The Queen (Rose was wearing a shirt featuring a crown, after all).
Ben: I was most amused by the presence of Queen Victoria in this episode. She had quite a sensible head on her, which is a refreshing change for characters in Doctor Who. RTD portrayed her quite well as a veritable force of nature, unfazed by the circumstances she’s found herself in. I loved the old English, and her manner of speech; the actress did a stellar job. Nothing showed this better than the speech she gives at dinner about missing her husband, and how she finds tales of the supernatural comforting for it gives her the hope of being able to contact her husband.
Maureen: I loved that speech too. I tried to get it down, but missed 90% of it. It’s not on imdb or Planet Clare either which is a real shame.
Ben: I have to say, Queen Vic handles the unexpected intrusion of the supernatural into her world like a champ. Her declaration that this world where werewolves are real is not her world is not one of denial, but defiance: declaring she’d rather die than have the werewolf bite her. Of course, in the end there’s a bit of ambiguity as to whether or not the wolf did bite her before it met its’ end, but what’s the fun in a clean ending? She does have have what I see as the most sensible response to an encounter with the Doctor: she rewards them and then banishes them, wanting nothing to do with them ever again. Her final speech to the two of them was spine tingling, and foreboding as hell! Plus she got to drop some serious truth bombs on Rose and the Doctor about their attitude to dangerous situations. This is a different Queen Victoria to the one we see at the start of the episode who welcomes tales of the supernatural. She’s seen there’s a bigger, scarier world out there, a world that Great Britain needs defending from. So, she establishes Torchwood to do just that! Harriet Jones would be proud.
Maureen: I know right!?! Harriet and Queen Vic actually have a lot in common as characters who lead Britain. Nice comparison. I loved the bit where she pulled out a gun, Sally Lockhart style, and tells her enemies, ‘the correct form of address is Your Majesty.’ It was very last-stand Harriet Jonesy. I also enjoyed her telling Rose and The Doctor off as she banished them. It was about time someone pointed out to those two they were living a suicide wish.
Queen Victoria: You may think on this also: that I am not amused. Not remotely amused. And henceforth, I banish you.
The Doctor: I’m sorry?
Queen Victoria: I have rewarded you, Sir Doctor. And now you’re exiled from this empire, never to return. I don’t know what you are, the two of you, or where you’re from. But I know that you consort with stars and magic and think it fun. But your world is steeped in terror and blasphemy and death. And I will not allow it. You will leave these shores and you will reflect, I hope, on how you came to stray so far from all that is good. And how much longer you may survive this terrible life. Now leave my world. And never return.
The Doctor
Ben: We see again in this episode that The Doctor just cannot drive the TARDIS to save his life, but on the bright side David Tennant gets to use his Scottish accent, which was excellent.
Maureen: He also got to be informed by Rose that he was a big, old punk with a hint of rockabilly which did make me snort-laugh. David Tennant did speak so fast when he spoke to Queen Vic he lost me once or twice, but it’s a minor quibble. This episode, for me, was the first time Ten felt like The Doctor. Aside: it also helped that Tennant looked kind of young and… whispers… hot this episode.
Ben: Hit the decks everyone! Inkashlings just admitted Ten is hot! Anyway, for the first half of the episode he really only does general Doctoring, asking leading questions and generally having a fun time. But once the werewolf appears the fun really starts. I loved the parallel storylines in this episode. As one party (e.g. Rose) is learning about the werewolf and it’s motives by coming face to face with it, so too is the Doctor, but in another scene with Queen Vic. This is repeated in the discovery of the mistletoe. It was a great little trick of storytelling that meant everyone got some great moments of action and reaction. But I digress, back to the story at hand! The Doctor, upon learning the story of the jewel Her Majesty carries, has his Eureka moment of the episode. However, I found his resolution was a bit dumb. Sir Robert’s father and Queen Victoria’s husband, having foreseen this day would come, cut the jewel down to use it as a prism through which to focus moonlight into a weapon to destroy the werewolf? And in the end the jewel doesn’t even fit into the telescope that’s not a telescope, the Doctor just throws it into the moonlight the telescope has beamed onto the floor? And the jewel somehow focuses such a strong beam of moonlight that it physically pushes the werewolf up against the wall? And surely Prince Albert and The Doctor should have filled Queen Victoria in on this little plan of theirs, too. It’s just polite to let the person you’re using as bait in your trap know what’s going on.
Maureen: I wasn’t bothered by the silliness of the plot resolution. It was all very Hound of the Baskervilles atmostpheric and that suited me just fine. I was there for the character drama, not a sensible plot. But also, I’m a bit of a sucker for cursed jewel penny dreadful-esque stories and late night Victorian era hauntings. Finally, the resolution was very Classic era Who with everyone contributing to the werewolf’s defeat. And using books!!!
The Doctor: Books! Best weapons in the world!
The Alien/s of the Week
Ben: I loved this Doctor Who twist on the tale of the werewolf, of an alien life form that inhabits human bodies and moves between them with a bite. The scene between the human form and Rose had great tension, and I particularly enjoyed the scene at dinner of Sir Robert relaying the myth of the wolf that haunts the region. Paired with the head of the religious order doing his Latin chanting in the background it really did remind me of the scene in The Empty Child episodes with the typewriter. It’s a good horror scene, for sure.
RTD really leaned into showing how lethal this werewolf is, with the imperviousness to bullets and the way it cut through Sir Robert and his men like a hot knife through butter, the threat was very real. I did, however, find the scene in the study somewhat redundant; we already knew of the comet and the monastery from the myth Sir Robert relayed at dinner, and of the werewolf’s motives from Rose, so this confirmation felt a bit unnecessary. I had some issues with the special effects used on the werewolf, but I did appreciate they tried to go for a less-is-more approach with it killing people. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the way it was defeated, but honestly the rest was so good I can mostly forgive it. Overall, I really enjoyed what they did with the werewolf, but I would have maybe liked to see a bit more about the religious order that formed up around it. Maybe something for a future episode to explore?
Maureen: I do agree with you there, Ben. I was a bit confused about the role of the monks in the story, why they’d formed and when. Otherwise, I didn’t have a problem with the werewolf SFX. It was 2006 and the less-is-more approach meant you didn’t see much of it. The scene with The Captain eaten was actually rather Penny Dreadful before Penny Dreadful existed.
Final Thoughts
Ben: I thoroughly enjoyed this romp of a Doctor Who episode. It started off strong and kept up the good work right through the episode. I enjoyed the reinvention of the myth of the werewolf, I loved Queen Victoria, and I loved that Rose and the other’s got substantial moments to themselves this episode. I had a few issues with the special effects and such, but nothing I can’t forgive. I’m giving it a 9/10.
Maureen: I loved this episode too. I mean, I am a sucker for period piece Who, but even putting that aside there was a lot to love. It was definitely an ensemble episode with some great performances from David Tennant, Billie Piper and the lady playing Queen Victoria. I’m also giving this 9/10 inky stars.
Let us launch into the new Doctor’s Series proper with a return of an old foe, an old friend and some ‘interesting’ fan fic style script shenanigans. Again, this is one of those episodes I’ve always remembered from high school. I didn’t like it then…
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…
Ah, and so we reach the end of Series One of New Who with the first two-parter finale. Again, and I know I keep repeating this, but back in high school I thought this two-parter was the height of high stakes, emotional drama and I always had fond memories of the overall Series as a result. But did it hold up? Rose, The Doctor and Captain Jack find themselves on a familiar space station and find out all is not what it seems with the twist return of an old foe.
Pre-Title Sequence
Ben: And we begin this week’s episode with a good old recap, albeit of one of the worst episodes of the season.
Maureen: I know right? My first response was, ‘oh yes, that recap of the God-awful episode we shall not speak the name of… how interesting… said no one ever.’ For those wanting less vague episode put-downs, Rose and The Doctor find themselves back on Satellite Five, first featured in The Long Game.
Ben: The Long Game recap ends rather ominously, showing The Doctor being told he needs to stay behind to help explain what happened, which is a thing he does not do.
Maureen: That bugged you didn’t it, Ben? Thankfully, this episode addresses The Doctor’s fatal error in The Long Game.
Ben: Yep. More on this later. Anyway, moving on to the episode proper, the Doctor has somehow gone and got himself teleported into a Big Brother house 100 years after the events of Satellite Five. This can’t be good…
The Companion/s
Maureen: Before Ben and I get started on Rose and Captain Jack, I want to just jump in and note that Lynda is the same kind of companion who never was as Suki, except with more naivety. I kind of liked the parallel. She’s a right Doctor fan-girl, maybe even crushing on him. And I love that she asks The Doctor what outside viewers think of her and his invented response is she’s sweet, but sweet doesn’t win reality shows. Damn straight. Too bad The Doctor doesn’t yet know the extent of how messed up these games are…
Ben: In terms of Rose and Jack, I don’t have much to say about them this week, as they didn’t really do much of substance! For me, Rose’s most memorable moment was the excellent pun made about the Anne-droid. Oh, and her bit of foreshadowing ‘Bad Wolf’. Her ‘death’ at the hands of the Anne-droid seriously raises the stakes and gives The Doctor something to ‘Be Sad TM’ about. And when it turns out she’s alive it’s a bit of a good news bad news situation, as she’s found herself on the deck of a Dalek ship. This has come to be a bit of a trope with Rose, as she constantly finds herself in need of rescue by the Doctor. I much prefer the episodes where she gets to be more than a damsel in distress.
Maureen: I’m starting to think that perhaps Rose wasn’t written for people our age, Ben. I know for a fact she was my favourite of RTD’s companions in high school, so maybe she’s relatable for teens, but grows frustrating beyond that? I’ve also had a hard time warming to her this series.
Poor Rose gets the short end of the stick this episode. She gets stuck playing The Weakest Link without understanding the stakes when she votes someone off the game. Her reward? Watching that person disintegrated before her very eyes. And then she loses out and gets disintegrated herself, only to find herself trapped on a Dalek ship. ‘We have your associate.’ Not a good day for Rose.
Ben: Much like Rose, Jack doesn’t do a great deal of substance this episode. He stands around mostly naked, poses in some outfits, then pulls a gun out of his butt. Much like The Doctor he gets to do some good emotional acting once Rose ‘dies’, but other than discovering the secondary transmat system, he mostly just flirts with everyone he comes into contact with.
Maureen: Harsh Ben. He might not do much, but he’s Captain Jack. He can get naked all he likes.
Jack: Ladies, your viewing figures just went up.
Ok, ok, so maybe it was a little gratuitous BUT I DON’T CARE.
Also, I enjoyed Jack coming on to the admin guy at the most inopportune moment. As The Doctor points out, there’s a time and a place!
The Doctor
Ben: The first half of this episode was Doctor heavy, but also pretty meaningless as it’s just him escaping from the Big Brother house and doing some general Doctor investigating. It was nice to see the Doctor facing the consequences of his “save the day then gotta dash” approach, as he discovers he’s responsible for the 100 Years of Hell, as Lynda put it. When all the news stations went down there was nothing to fill the void. Of course, this could have been avoided by having, you know, more than one place broadcasting the news, but what can you do.
Maureen: Maybe RTD just painted our current reality, don’t you think? Media concentration in the hands of one company is a problem in both Australia and the UK. I find that when RTD does dystopian social commentary, he does tend to lay it on a bit thick, and that was definitely the case this episode, but it’s still food for thought in your tea-time television viewing. It is a chilling moment when Lynda tells The Doctor that there are hundreds of violent and deathly games playing at once and that people watch them all day every day.
Nine: And you watch this stuff?
Lynda: Everyone does.
We also see The Doctor get angry multiple times. First, when he finds the station staff:
Female Programmer: If you’re not holding us hostage, then open the door and let us out. The staff are terrified!
The Doctor: That’s the same staff who execute hundreds of contestants every day?
Female Programmer: That’s not our fault. We’re just doing our jobs.
The Doctor: And with that sentence, you just lost the right to even talk to me. Now back off!
And then later, when The Doctor sees Rose’s jacket in the TARDIS and knows The Daleks have her followed by this exchange with The Daleks:
The Doctor: *No*! ‘Cause this is what I’m gonna do – I’m gonna rescue her! I’m gonna save Rose Tyler from the middle of the Dalek fleet, and then I’m gonna save the Earth, and *then* – just to finish you off – I’m gonna wipe every last stinking Dalek out of the sky!
Dalek: But you have no weapons, no defences, no *plan*!
The Doctor: Yeah, and doesn’t that scare you to death?
I don’t know about everyone else, but Nine always was a frighteningly angry and unstable Doctor. It’s part of his appeal for me.
Ben: Mmm, I agree. The best Doctor moment for me was his final defiance of the Daleks, refusing to back down, to give up, and declaring he’s coming to rescue Rose. Nothing like a defiant Doctor facing down certain defeat to put the fear in his enemies.
The Alien of the Week
Ben: The Daleks are back! Although they didn’t really do much this episode, the build up to the reveal was pretty well done thanks to the Controller – a Tilda Swinton/Samantha MoretonMinority Report inspired character if ever I saw one. And talk about a long game! From what the nameless Controller was saying the Daleks have had this plan in the works for hundreds of years, biding their time and building their forces. We’ll have to wait until the second episode to see if it was worth it, and perhaps find out what they’re doing with all the humans that have been transmitting to them over the past century or so.
Maureen: That reveal confused me. Maybe I just need a re-watch but I’m not sure if the inference is that the gap The Doctor left behind in the last 100 years was the point The Daleks showed up or if they had been the financiers behind The Jagrafess and Simon Pegg in The Long Game and took The Doctor leaving a vacuum as the excuse to get more blatant with their plans or something else altogether. Please answer in the comments if you know the answer 🙂
Final Thoughts
Ben: I’m really not sure what they were thinking with this episode, I guess the heavy-handed commentary about reality/game shows would have been a bit more relevant when this episode first aired? I mean, the killing of the contestants (or as Lynda with a Y puts it, being evicted from life) is a bit much. But the result is they spend so much time on the game shows all the real plot this episode has is crammed into the final 5 minutes.
Maureen: Yes, I had the same issue as you. At the time I first saw the episode, the reveal was shocking and the games depicted more contemporary. Now that I know the twist, it feels a bit like a one trick pony and the games shown have become obsolete.
Ben: Furthermore, I’m not a fan of two-parter stories like this when the first episode is spent setting up the second episode. And frustratingly, we’ve already had a perfect example of how to do a two parter this season with The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, so we know that Doctor Who is capable of so much more as a show. I’m giving this episode a 3/10.
Maureen: Wow Ben, we need to stop scoring so similarly. It’s getting creepy. I hovered between a 2 and a 3 but decided to land on 3/10 inky stars as the twist ending genuinely is amazing the first time around.
Next week I am so, so excited for the grand finale. I know I loved it back in the day.
Now we reach the episodes that Maureen has limited recollections of, which is weird, coz ya know, the episodes I don’t remember include the finale and all… Anyway good old Boom Town continues on The Slitheen storyline, but with more panache and better acting. Too…
This is one of the RTD era who two-parters that everyone talks about. Actress Nicola Walker once said this was amongst her favourite of all New Who. Hers and many others, including best of lists. I hadn’t re-watched this one in years and had forgotten…
This is one of the episodes I haven’t re-watched in years. I knew it involved Simon Pegg, an alien in a ceiling, and very little else. I thought I liked it quite a bit. Whoops. Maybe I did back in the day, but this re-watch… well… let’s just say every frustrating aspect of RTD’s writing style and show running style which I loathed back in the day is on display here. Strap yourselves in. This review ain’t gonna be pretty.
So what happens? The Doctor, Rose and Adam find themselves in the year 200 000 in the fourth great and bountiful human empire. Technology and the sought after gold-wall lined Floor 500 (where humans after a promotion go) are wrong, says The Doctor, and thus, exploration ensues in a pastiche episode that checks off The Face of Boe pregnant, the Bad Wolf channel and a 1984 style propaganda machine.
Pre-Title Sequence
Ben: The opening to this episode was fun enough. I liked the Doctor giving Rose a chance to show off with Adam. It was a sweet moment. And Rose is 19 years old, so I can understand her needing to get her flirt on every once in a while. Is it enough of a reason to bring Adam with them on an adventure? Not really. But hey, there’s always the chance the writers have an interesting way of using him in this story (spoiler alert: they very much did not). Ultimately, this opening reminds me of the opening to The End of the World, but with less awesome.
Maureen: My favourite part of the pre-title sequence was Rose successfully getting her Doctor on (I love it when companions get to do this without being harshed on). Rose is loving showing off when she says ‘judging by the architecture’ it’s a time far in the future and the surroundings point to ‘definitely a spaceship’ to Adam. She does get her flirt on, as Ben points out, and yes, I get she’s 19, but it makes Rose seem inconsistent. She likes Mickey… no wait The Doctor … no wait Adam … no wait The Doctor again. Make up your mind, woman!
Adam: *Faints*
Nine: He’s your boyfriend.
Rose: Not any more.
The Companion(s)
Ben: As much as I was in support of Rose getting a little action at the start of the episode, I really soured towards her as the episode went on. She was pretty supportive of Adam going through the motions of acclimatizing to time travel, only to immediately abandon him when things got interesting. Because leaving someone you barely know to their own devices in a strange place where bad things are probably happening is an excellent idea *sarcasm*. She doesn’t really do much for the rest of the episode other than follow the Doctor around. They have a nice moment in the elevator to level 500 when they realise Adam isn’t there and agree it’s better when it’s just the two of them, but like, why aren’t The Doctor and Rose concerned for him? He’s alone 198 000 years in the future and the general consensus is that’s fine? It’s no wonder he gets up to absolutely nothing good, especially considering where he was working in the previous episode! The final scene where they drop Adam off at home was pretty nasty really, especially considering they’re at least partly responsible for what happened to him. Really, Rose doesn’t come across as a great person this episode.
Maureen: I agree with Ben on this one and Ben gave Rose some leeway on her Adam flirting in the pre-title credits! I have very little to add except I did like the bit where Rose says she’s ‘missing out on the party upstairs’ re wanting to dash up to the creepy Floor 500. I’m going to leave Rose behind and focus on yet another companion who never was, Suki, as played by the excellent actress Anna Maxwell Martin. Here’s the thing guys: why cast someone as prestigious as ANNA FLIPPING MAXWELL MARTIN and then do nothing with her character till she’s unceremoniously fridged? WHY? I thought Suki didn’t know she was a spy, so it was a neat twist when it turned out she was a double agent all along.
Suki: This whole system is corrupt.
But that’s about all there was to her character. RTD. YOU ARE THE WORST.
Ben: And don’t forget Adam. Poor Adam got the worst of it. After the scene in the food court where he got to call his parents he was basically left to his own devices. It would have been kinder to keep him in the TARDIS for the rest of the episode. Instead we get so many scenes about Adam getting progressively further in over his head, culminating in him having everything he knows about Rose and the Doctor being forcibly yanked out of his brain.
Maureen: I read online somewhere that this was the series first Doctor-lite episode. Maybe it was. But it still sucked. And the Adam screen time is still completely unjustifiable. It was boring, awkward and a distraction from the real plot. I can’t believe Rose and The Doctor leave Adam to his own devices. He was working for the dangerously inquisitive Van Statten in Dalek. Wouldn’t they, you know, want to keep him on a tight leash till they know they can trust him? Scratch that. In logic land, The Doctor would never have brought Adam along at all!
Ben: Of course Adam was going to be interested in futuristic technology!! And then he was consigned to a future of being prodded and probed and reverse engineered. Yes, he got greedy, but he was the equivalent of a kid in a candy store in this episode. His guardians are the ones who should be shouldering the blame here. My final thought is, why even bring Adam into this episode if they didn’t have an interesting idea for how to use him?
Maureen: Rather! Also, the script is just plain predictable. It’s telegraphed a mile off that Adam is up to no good and will try to use his future knowledge for his own capitalist gain. It’s obvious something bad will happen to him (the cute dog whining at the sound of Adam’s voice on the answering machine made that obvious, and it was shown not once, but twice). And anyone who isn’t totally moronic aka Adam would trust Tamsin Greig nurse lady as far as they could throw her. Speaking of Tamsin Greig, her entire performance was off. Was she going for sexy? For funny? For creepy? Who knows? I doubt even she knew. And as to the episode’s ending, the tone is all wrong. Were we meant to feel sorry for Adam? Were we meant to laugh at him? Were we meant to feel vindicated? Who knows RTD.
The Doctor
Ben: I don’t really have much to say about the Doctor in this episode. He was okay. He solved the mystery, saved the day, and then left the mess to be cleaned up by other people. I didn’t mind this so much in World War Three, because Harriet Jones was quite capable of handling things herself. But in this case Cathica is quite right in stating that no one is going to believe what happened here.
Maureen: Nope. She’s a woman AND black. Unless social structures have changed any by the year 200 000. I doubt it.
Ben: I guess the Doctor isn’t really a fan of being there for the long haul. But then to cap things off, he was quite happy to leave Adam to his own devices (which left Adam with a head full of futuristic technology), and then blamed him for ending up over his head in an extremely alien environment! The worst part is that the Doctor and Rose didn’t care they were damning Adam to a fairly miserable life at the end of the episode. Yes, Adam got greedy, but where was the Doctor to keep him in line? At least some acceptance of responsibility would have been appreciated.
Maureen: I can’t disagree with Ben on that either, though two positives to end this section on from me. I did like the emphasis on Nine as a more sexual Doctor (shown when he is cool with Suki hugging him and looks like he kind of enjoys it and also the fan fic hand cuffs scene with him and Rose). And Nine’s lines about being a tourist rocked.
Nine: The thing is, Adam, time travel is like visiting Paris. You can’t just read the guide book. You’ve got to throw yourself in, eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers – or is that just me?
So true, Doctor!
Alien of the Week
Maureen: Simon Pegg is… adequate… I guess? What a waste of a role for him too. So he’s a banker. That’s nice. Somehow he makes money out of propaganda news and supporting The Jagrafess who wants… who knows? The episode never makes that clear.
Ben: Ahh, the cheap special effects are back this week. I know that this was made in the early 2000s, but you know what else was? Lord of the Rings. Special effects aside, the Jagrafess didn’t really make sense as the big bad. Why is it living on the roof of a space station for 3000 years of its lifespan? How is this preferable to where it normally lives? How does it benefit from this arrangement it has with the Editor and the consortium of banks he represents? Why does controlling the information benefit banks in the long run? And in a slight aside, how does Cathica use the information transfer system they use to package the news to control the space station’s heating systems? There’s a lot of plot holes and poor explanations in this episode.
Maureen: Also, far too much pastiche. It’s 1984! No! Simon Pegg and his frozen people keyed into the space station channels are Minority Report. No! Suki, Cathica and co. are like Scarlet Johanssen and Ewan McGregor in The Island. Wait! It’s kind of like Seven/Ace meta stories like The Happiness Patrol… except far more boring and with far less to say. What a mess!!!
Final Thoughts
Maureen: This is it. Right here. The point where all of RTD’s excesses are truly revealed for the first time. There were elements in Aliens of London, but this here is the real McCoy. We got the kitchen sink. Check. We got The Doctor being an arsehole and getting away with it narratively because… well… he’s the Doctor. Check. We got nonsensical plots. Check. We got humour that isn’t funny. Check. We got inane, empty dialogue that goes nowhere and means nothing. Check. Urgh. The last line in my notebook on this episode is ‘HORRIBLE EPISODE. HORRIBLE.’ It gets worse the more I think about it. 1/10 inky stars.
Ben: Look. This episode was bad. Real bad. It feels like they threw everything at the wall to see what stuck, and decided they really liked the look of the stained mess that was left on the wall. It was convoluted, confusing, the jokes didn’t land, and Adam existed. The world they created was interesting, which makes it all the worst because they could have done a really interesting story about propaganda – the great human empire and it’s one news source. But no. I give it 1/10.
Next week at least we have Father’s Day, which by both my memory and by all accounts is halfway decent. Regular Who programming to resume at InkAshlings next week.
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…