Maureen Flynn - Author
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…
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…
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…
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.
Before I write any more of this review, I need to remind everyone of this: Rob Shearman wrote this episode. Yes, THE Rob Shearman. That guy who wrote two of the best Doctor Who audios ever recorded for Big Finish; Jubilee and The Chimes of…
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…
The second episode of New Who’s first season sees Rose and The Doctor race forwards in time to the end of the world itself. Borrowing (as Who does often) from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the earth’s end is a spectacle for rich aliens as they watch the sun burn up the planet from a save distance, complete with gift giving and waiters.
Pre-Title Sequence
Maureen: I really loved the opening sequence to this episode. We learn just enough about how The Doctor rolls (manically and with little care to his companions possible reactions, thoughts or feelings about what they are about to see) to get an idea of where the season is headed. You can really tell the show was written by fans for fans, with the mention of the New Roman Empire instantly making me want to run off and check for the fan fic of that particular adventure. I also noticed Murray Gold’s brilliant soundtrack with a vengeance in this opening. ‘Welcome to the end of the world,’ may be one of the best Who hooks ever to an episode.
Ben: Ahh… these ye olde special effects really take me back to watching Doctor Who back in high school… Anyways, this pre-title sequence sequence had some real snap crackle and pop to it, with Rose and the Doctor flirting up a storm! The Doctor was talking a big game about how far forward in time the TARDIS had travelled and Rose was acting suitably impressed, it was all very high school. But more importantly, their chemistry is excellent, especially in comparison to the chemistry between Rose and Mickey. Which brings us to The Doctor having the excellent idea to bring Rose to the literal death of the Earth! Great second date material there, Doctor.
The Companion
Maureen: I liked Rose a lot more this episode (probably because she was sans Mickey). The banter between her and The Doctor felt more natural and their chemistry is strong. I love how out of place and confused Rose feels when The Doctor tells her she’s surrounded by different species of aliens because it felt realistic.
Rose: The aliens are just… so alien.
The Doctor: Good thing I didn’t take you to the deep South.
For the first time, the romance angle is overt. We see it in the exchange between Jabe and The Doctor about Rose’s function/relationship to The Doctor (Wife? Partner? Concubine? Prostitute?), The Doctor calling Rose his plus one and Rose telling The Doctor to go pollinate with Jabe and that she wanted him home by midnight.
I loved how Rose acted around the blue mechanic. She is interested and compassionate in what was a lovely little scene. I was less of a fan of how Rose interacted with Cassandra. She was fairly harsh in her assessment of Cassandra as ‘a bitchy trampoline… just lipstick and skin.’ To be fair, she is overwhelmed and confused by her surroundings so some frustration and snappiness is to be expected. She also didn’t do much other than be a damsel in distress while The Doctor and poor Jabe solved the mystery of the episode, but hey, it’s early days for Rose yet.
Ben: Poor Rose understandably had a bit of a tough time this episode. Being brought 5 billion years into the future to witness the destruction of the Earth is something of a mood killer. And then to be introduced to the ever so naughty Cassandra, who claims to be the last pure human whilst having had every last bit of humanity surgically removed? It’s enough to put even the happiest person in a mood, and from early on she clearly feels very awkward and out of place.
It is a bit disappointing how she gets sidelined for most of this episode, though. She has some good moments being snarky at Cassandra and Jabe, and the touching moment when the Doctor does some technobabble to her phone, enabling her to call home and talk to her mum. But mostly she’s either having a crisis of identity and freaking out that she’s travelling space and time with an alien she knows basically nothing about. Which, as I’ve said already, is pretty understandable considering the circumstances.
The Doctor
Maureen: This episode developed Nine nicely, letting us know he is broken and damaged and very, very angry. This Doctor is brutal, unafraid of punishing people and aliens when they seriously mess up. He also is filled with unbearable guilt; about the universe, about his people and about Jabe too.
Jabe: Stop wasting time… Time Lord.
I still remember how thrilling that line sounded as a teen!
‘Everything has an end and everything dies,’ Nine says to Rose, trying to justify why he let Cassandra die, but you know he’s talking about brave Jabe too.
We also hear the first about the dreaded last of the Time Lords trope, but it’s fresh at this early point and I loved Eccleston’s delivery.
The Doctor: My planet’s gone. It’s dead. It burned like the earth. It’s just rock and dust… there was a war and we lost… I’m the last of the Time Lords.
Ben: The Doctor had some pretty great moments this week: the introduction of the ever so useful psychic paper, “I gift you air from my lungs”, and letting Cassandra dry out and subsequently die a fairly horrific death at the end of the episode. Before that though, we have The Doctor being prickly and mysterious and refusing to answer Rose’s questions, and then doing the same with Jabe and her questions before caving and telling both of them the truth. It’s an important step, and while we don’t get the specifics, it’s still enough to explain some of why the Doctor is how he is.
The scenes he had with Jabe were all so good, as well. I know all the Doctor’s are serial flirts, but Eccleston can really put it on when he wants to. It’s that kind of charisma and connection that inspires his companions to do amazing things, such as Jabe sacrificing her life to save the station. And as a grand crescendo we had him walk between two blades of a fan set to maximum! It was a bit dumb, and you never really see Time Lords having that kind of ability again, but it sure looked cool.
The Alien of the Week
Maureen: Cassandra was a great villain; a capitalist nightmare highlighting everything wrong with our modern world, a world where we value objects and things over people. Cassandra is cruel and callous and vapid and I love that she calls a duke box an iPod and Tainted Love and Toxic classic earth songs.
The Face of Boe turns up for the first time, as do a number of other alien species. The blue people were nicely humanized and Jabe was a beautifully realized character. I would have dug her as a companion!
Cassandra’s little metal spider aliens reminded me of Michael Crichton’s Prey and were genuinely frightening. I can’t say that of every Who alien!
Ben: Boy did they pull out all the stops with the aliens this episode! The world building is simply phenomenal, with a veritable smorgasbord of aliens in attendance. We get some soon to be familiar faces, such as the Face of Boe, and the mysterious Adherents of the Repeated Meme (I hope it’s a dog-related meme). The one critique I have of this episode is, surely these advanced alien civilisations would have figured out a way to make sun shields a bit less fallible. But as far as complaints go, that’s pretty minor. The little robot baddies were animated surprisingly well, all things considered! And the twist with them actually being controlled by Cassandra was a really great moment.
Our verdict?
Maureen: I’ve always loved this episode. Partly it’s nostalgia, but I just think it’s a strong episode in general; there’s a great central mystery, interesting world-building and aliens, moments of tragedy alongside humour and a deepening of The Doctor’s backstory and the mysterious Time War. It’s early in the peace, but I’m giving this one 10/10.
Ben: This episode was just peak Who, it’s sci-fi perfection, and we had the first Bad Wolf reference I’ve spotted so far! As much as I’m hesitant to give an episode 10/10 because there’s always the chance there will be a better episode, I really can’t justify a score other than 10/10. Onwards and upwards!
Next week, one of the few Gatiss penned Who episodes Inkashlings actually likes…