Maureen Flynn - Author
Ah Gridlock, the intense traffic jam episode with bonus Face of Boe, how I’ve always enjoyed you! Really, this season is quite good!!! Fair warning re this review: Ben got a bit carried away with his write-up and was so enthusiastic, I let him dominate…
Boy do I enjoy these historical throw-back episodes. I didn’t remember how this one panned out to be honest, though I remembered it dealt with the colour of Martha’s skin early on in and was pretty funny. Ben and I had a blast watching this…
And it begins. The Martha Jones series. Back in my teen years, this was where I hit the height of my RTD era Who obsession. I don’t like Doctor Jesus in Last of the Time Lords, but otherwise, I think this was RTD’s strongest run of episodes and strongest over-arching story arc. Freema Agyeman wasn’t the strongest companion in my memory, but a lot of that was the writing, rather than the actress herself, and I found her humour quite refreshing and her Series Three exit awesome. Onwards to Martha’s pilot …
The pre-title sequence
Ben: LOL. In a shocking twist, there was no pre-title scene this episode!
Maureen: I wonder if Rose was the same? I can’t remember. If not, how random!
The Companion
Ben: From the get-go Martha demonstrates herself to be an intelligent, capable woman. She deftly navigates family drama (what a tosser her dad is) while weaving her way through crowds of commuters.
Maureen: I’d forgotten about the whole Jones family dynamic with Martha stuck in the middle. It made a nice breakaway from Rose’s family, even if Martha’s mum upholds the whole RTD has mummy issues thing. Also, the second wife thing was a bit much with, “she’s spending all our inheritance on fake tan.”
Ben: Also, she doesn’t immediately go blabbing on about two hearts when she tries to listen for the Doctor’s pulse!
Maureen: I found this scene eerily relevant. I’ve read about three articles in as many weeks about Doctors bullying junior Doctors in the workplace.
Ben: I love that Martha takes her sudden transportation to the moon in her stride while everyone else breaks down in a panic. It’s easy to see how The Doctor is intrigued with her. And we get an explanation for Freema Agyeman’s first appearance in the Cyberman arc of the finale.
Maureen: I lol’d at the Freema explain away line (I had a cousin). But more seriously, as a teen, I didn’t give Martha enough credit for being a smart companion. I think I was too bitter about Rose leaving, but Martha certainly holds her own in this pilot. I loved that both Martha and The Doctor are, well, doctors and I loved that Martha put Ten in his place when she needed to do so.
The Doctor: Very clever. Brilliant in fact. Fancy going out?
Martha: Okay.
The Doctor: We might die.
Martha: We might not.
Also:
Martha: As far as I’m concerned, you’ve got to earn the title (of Doctor).
And:
The Doctor: I’m a Time Lord.
Martha: Right. Not pompous at all.
Ben: Things start to get really exciting when Martha discovers Mrs Finnigan standing over the body of the dead douchey doctor and has to literally run for her life. In amongst all of this, it’s clear Martha is having a blast, running more on adrenaline than oxygen. She ends up playing a critical part in getting Mrs Finnigan apprehended too, actually taking one of the scanners off of a Judoon. And she successfully revives The Doctor after he’s had who knows how much blood sucked out of him.
Maureen: I don’t know if it’s the script or Freema’s unadulterated excitement at being cast in New Who, but her joyous love for everything she’s doing is infectious. I love the shot towards the end of Martha looking out on the moon, followed by this exchange:
Martha: Blimey, it’s a bit bumpy.
Ten: Hold on, Ms Jones.
Martha: With pleasure, Mr Smith.
I’m less keen on the Martha crushing on The Doctor sub-plot, but it plays a minor part in this episode thank God. Final thoughts on Martha: God, I identify with her so much more now … passing medical exams, paying rent, dealing with family crap. She’s so much more adult than Rose in many ways.
The Doctor
Ben: We come across one John Smith (ie. The Doctor) at the hospital Martha works at. He immediately has a good banter going with Martha, which leads to them having a proper introductory conversation on a balcony overlooking the Earth. The discovery that the Judoon are hunting for an alien entity really gives the Doctor the motivation to get Doctoring, and his hair seems to be trying to engineer it’s own escape for parts of this episode too. The silliness continues with the Doctor expelling a whole lot of radiation into a shoe using a rather silly jig. And then throwing the other shoe away ‘caus wearing just one shoe is silly. So much silliness, which continues when the Doctor gives Martha a big sloppy kiss to distract the Judoon with alien residue on a human. Like, you couldn’t pull out a tuft of hair or something?
Maureen: I quite liked Ten this episode. Perhaps it’s that David Tennant feels more comfortable in the role or he isn’t saddled with the true love sub-plot of him and Rose, but I enjoyed his humour and found Ten less douchey than I normally do. I liked the shoe scene, though I agree the kiss was a bit of an un-necessary ship-tease.
Ben: I did rather enjoy the Doctor playing dumb with Mrs Finnigan. Stupid dumb self-sacrificing Doctor ends up as a blood thickshake for Mrs Finnigan, who played right into his little plan! I don’t know how much he expected her to drink, but I’m kinda suspicious that after straight up dying from blood loss he could be revived with a little poorly done CPR? Ahh well, who knows how Time Lord anatomy works. Anywho, the Doctor saves the day at the last second, everyone (mostly) lives, and the Doctor gets a new companion! And gets to show off the TARDIS with a cheap trick involving a tie (linking back to the first time we saw The Doctor this episode).
Maureen: Re that TARDIS scene, my only note is ‘re The Doctor mouthing “bigger on the inside?” Wanker.’ Otherwise, there were so many great Ten exchanges, like the one below, to love.
Martha: What else do you have? A sonic spanner?
Ten: I did, but Emily Pankhurst took it.
And:
Ten: A platoon of Judoon on the moon!
Also, I thought Ten’s plan was genuinely clever for once.
The Alien of the Week
Ben: We get two aliens this week! What a treat. In one corner we have the Judoon, come to apprehend the alien in the opposing corner, one Mrs Finnigan! And the Mrs Finnigan actress is quite the powerhouse, turning a little old lady into quite the terrifying bloodsucking alien. One who supplies her own straw too! The Judoon seem to have good intentions, even if they lack bedside manner, and also any sense of moderation. They go, for example, from 1-100 when hit over the head with a vase. And they can only operate within the jurisdiction they’ve been assigned, hence bringing the hospital to the moon before they can invade.
Maureen: I saw a lot of The Eleventh Hour in terms of the alien plot in this episode (got to love all those Moff call-backs). Prisoner Zero is similar to Mrs Finnigan with The Judoon the prison ship aliens. I too, found Mrs Finnigan every bit as creepy as say Olivia Coleman in TEH. What a brilliant actress clearly having the time of her life!
Ben: It turns out Mrs Finnigan is an internal shapechanger assimilating human blood to pass through the Judoon’s scans. Clever, but not clever enough to assume there’s another alien who can pass as human in the hospital. Interesting that her last line is that she’ll see the Judoon burn in hell with her. I guess she spent enough time around humans to pick up some concepts. That or hell is the English translation of whatever concept of eternal punishment plasmavores have. She did successfully engineer her final revenge in the MRI going critical, which of course The Doctor was able to thwart in about 15 seconds. All in all, a successful mission for the Judoon, with only two casualties (that we know of) during the operation. But it might not hurt to splash out on some more intelligent militia next time.
Maureen: I quite liked that the alien of the week wasn’t straight bad (The Judoon) and that RTD explored the concept of a space police force and how morality and justice for an alien race might work. I also understood Mrs Finnigan’s motivations even if I disagreed with her actions. I thought the aliens here were more nuanced than most RTD ones are. It’s a nice break from the hundredth earth invasion plan.
Final Thoughts
Ben: On the whole I enjoyed this episode. It’s definitely a better companion introduction episode than Rose’s. But to be fair, Martha didn’t have a Mickey to contend with. Martha and the Doctor immediately had good banter going, and some sparks flying too! It wasn’t a perfect episode of Who, but it was a fun, silly (if over silly at times) romp. I’m giving it 7/10
Maureen: I agree with Ben. Because there was no Mickey, this episode felt more consistent than Rose. It also was funnier and I’m not sure if that’s down to Freema, a more comfortable Tennant, better writing or all of the above. I’m giving this 7/10 inky stars.
Wow. All the feels. And I say that as someone who doesn’t ship Rose/Ten. I guess time has made me kinder to this finale. Also, sorry for the blogging delay, but t’was the silly season. Pre-Title Sequence Ben: As is usual with these two-parters, the…
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…
The second Moffat story for New Who! In which all of his later series themes are laid out for us. Plus bonus The Time Traveller’s Wife riff, a great historical fiction revisionist slant on Madame de Pompadour and the chick who played Beth in Spooks. What’s not to love?
Image by Tom Newsom (I think).
The pre-title sequence
Maureen: Wow this episode is visually beautiful. Versailles, France, is wonderfully brought to life and we’re back into horror fairy story territory with Reinette telling us her clock on the mantle is broken as she calls for help from The Doctor.
Ben: This episode really opens with a bang doesn’t it! We get screams, panic, talk of love, duty, and a beautiful woman pleading for The Doctor to come and save the day! You gotta hand it to him, Moffat sure knows how to write an intro.
Maureen: Yes, I’ve always admired Moffat for his combination of rug-pulling against expectation and intriguing hooks to his episode openings.
The Companion/s
Ben: Rose and Mickey are definitely on the backburner this episode, but you can really see the formings of Rory and Amy in their pairing. Or at least, Rose and Mickey gave me strong Amy and Rory vibes.
Maureen: I’ll talk about this again later, but I definitely see The Girl in the Fireplace as Moffat’s thesis for his entire approach to New Who. Having said that, I didn’t get an Amy/Rory vibe from Rose/Mickey so much as I got a Reinette being the precurser to Amy vibe. Reinette waits many times for The Doctor, just as Amy did with, ‘you said five minutes.’ I wonder if anyone has written the Reinette/Amy fan fic. I’m there! There are elements of River Song’s relationship with The Doctor in Reinette too. Both pairings love is doomed to tragedy. And the fairy story visuals are here too. But back to Ben …
Ben: I love Rose’s makeup and hair this episode.
Maureen: I liked Rose and Mickey toting guns around.
Ben: I also loved Mickey’s shock that the TARDIS can even translate French.
Maureen: I love Mickey’s TARDIS joy.
Mickey: I got a spaceship on my first go.
Rose: Mickey Smith. Meet the universe.
Ben: Rose and Mickey are really good together, quietly exploring the ship, even if they do find some pretty horrible facts out. And Rose get’s to do something of substance! Her scene with Reinette was particularly sweet. If anyone can relate to what Reinette is going through, it’s Rose.
Reinette: I’m very afraid, but you and I both know Rose … The Doctor is worth the monsters.
Maureen: I liked that we got a Series One Rose this time around too who knows to ask the pertinent question/s. This time, why the aliens want Reinette in particular.
Ben: Onwards to Reinette who really is at this episode’s heart as a companion who never was. The inquisitive child was a great way to introduce this character, in my opinion. Kids and the Doctor in general do well. They can accept things that shouldn’t be much better than adults can. The child actress playing her did a pretty good job, and was suitably terrified at the monster The Doctor found under her bed.
Maureen: Talk about an The Eleventh Hour parallel. Instead of a crack in a child’s wall, it’s a clockwork creature.
Ben: Yep, next time we meet Reinette she’s an adult.
Maureen: Yep, just like Amy …
Ben: And boy does she know how to sweep a Doctor off her feet. What a brain she has too! You can practically see the sparks flying between the two as she steals a kiss from The Doctor. And then we find out her true identity! Madame de Pompadour, future Mistress to the King of France and all around overachiever. It’s hard to imagine who would be the more formidable in that pairing.
Maureen: I’d love some Big Finish spin-off, but what if Reinette met River Song? Also, I googled Madame de Pompadour after viewing this episode and what an interesting woman in real life!
Ben: We get to see snippets of Reinette’s life like her strolling through some magnificent gardens and such. Then, the clockwork robots made another appearance, and we get some more information: the clockwork robots need her, specifically her 37 year old brain, to repair their ship. The Doctor looks through her memories to try and find the answer, and in doing so opens the door for Reinette to look through The Doctor’s memories.
Reinette: Such a lonely boy. Lonely then and lonely now. Dance with me … Doctor who? It’s more than just a secret.
Maureen: I may have killed this episode a little by re-watching it so very much, but it has some beautiful scenes and quotes and the one you mention Ben, was definitely one of them. The scene also reveals another Moffat interest, the real identity of The Doctor and the metaphor of his name. It became a central theme in Series Six and Seven under Moffat. I also loved the throwback to Series One and The Doctor Dances with:
Ten: What did you see?
Reinette: That there comes a time, Time Lord, when every little boy must learn to dance.
I don’t think she was talking just dancing, either!
Ben: At the final clockwork confrontation, Reinette is as fiery as ever, commanding silence of her audience.
Reinette (to the crowd of panicking noblemen and women): Kindly remember that this is Versailles and we are French.
The Doctor saves the day magnificently, but then Reinette goes and saves The Doctor! What an excellent twist.
Maureen: Yes. There was such quiet beauty in Reinette when she tells Ten:
Reinette: So here you are. My lonely angel. Stuck on the slow path with me.
Even now she knows he has a way out and she loves him too much to stop him from going.
Ben: She really is his equal, which makes me all the sadder that in the end she dies before getting to travel with The Doctor. Her final letter absolutely ripped my heart out. I’m not used to this level of tragedy from Doctor Who!
Maureen: Yes, even having viewed this episode many a time, I still felt emotional. *I’m not crying, it’s raining on my face*. And the Rose/Ten exchange killed me too.
Rose: You all right?
Ten: I’m always all right.
What a terribly sad lie!
The Doctor
Ben: The Doctor really gets into things quickly this episode! General Doctoring is dispensed with in the first few minutes, consoles are poked at and the scene is set on a spaceship AND on Versailles. And then appears our Girl in the Fireplace! I actually looked up the reference about August of 1727 and there’s nothing of significance that happened, that we know of at least. Maybe it really was just awful weather that month. Then we get to the first amazingly creepy scene of the episode, when the Doctor notices the ticking noise that shouldn’t be. This scene really reminded me of a scene or two with Mr Are You My Mummy back in season one and is really scary stuff. I loved the quick exchange he and Reinette had before the end of the scene. She might have nightmares with monsters in them, but monsters have nightmares with him in them. That’s the kind of imaginary friend you want as a 7 year old.
Maureen: I also found The Doctor’s response to the clockwork creature interesting. He acknowledges its alien beauty even as some of Nine’s anger shines through, showing that Moffat at least, hasn’t forgotten about The Doctor’s bitter past.
Ten: You’re beautiful. I mean it. You’re gorgeous. It would be a crime to dissemble you, but that won’t stop me.
And then I just loved the scene after The Doctor and Reinette ‘danced’ where Rose and Mickey are surrounded by clockwork aliens with Rose about to get sliced up and a drunk Doctor turns up going on about inventing banana daiquiris early and defeating the clockwork alien by pouring wine into its parts. This version of Ten is one I can really get behind!
Ben: It’s not often the Doctor encounters someone who can hold their own against him and really sweep him off his feet in that way. The measures The Doctor goes to to save Reinette’s life are, I think, a testament to the feelings The Doctor has for her, even though he’s only known her for half an hour. Plus his smarmy “oh yeah? Well I’m the lord of Time” response when introduced to the King of France said a lot. Anywho, breaking the time window was a hell of a way to defeat the clockwork robots, but it came at a cost – there’s no way back. Plus, Rose and Mickey are stuck on the ship, unable to fly the TARDIS without him. Whoops.
Maureen: I personally found Ten riding a horse through a wall into the royal court of Versailles a bit full on, but having said that, it was a bombastic and brash moment that had probably been earnt by the quality of the rest of the episode. I loved The Doctor’s manic expressions as he realised Reinette’s fireplace could return him to his TARDIS and it’s telling that he’d forgotten all about his relationship with Rose in the presence of Reinette.
Ten: Pick a star. Any star.
Alas, he came back for Reinette too late. Time was the boss of him and he’d just missed her death carriage. Ten’s expression as he read Reinette’s letter was truly sad. All of that guilt and loneliness and love was locked up tight, and not even Rose could get Ten to confide in her of his secret pain.
The Alien of the Week
Ben: Clockwork robots! What an excellent concept. The French costumes just add to their terror, quite frankly. And then we get to the real horror when we discover the ship The Doctor and his crew are on is running on human body parts mixed with machinery! A human eye in a surveillance camera, a human heart in the midst of some circuitry. And then the central mystery: why has this spaceship 3000 years in the future punched so many holes in space and time to follow the life of Madame de Pompadour? The grand reveal? The spaceship was damaged, these clockwork robots are repairbots and they used the crew to repair the ship. And Reinette is the last part!
Maureen: In RTD era Who, Moffat doesn’t do straight evil villains. In his Series One two-parter, the aliens were also repairbots of a kind, albeit little microbes that healed all they came in contact with even if their understanding of what was and wasn’t healthy was impaired. Similarly, the clockwork aliens are just trying to make sure their spaceship continues on. Programmed to repair, when they ran out of parts they had to make do with what materials they had available to them … too bad that was their human crew.
Ben: The clockwork aliens meet something of an ignoble end, separated from their ship with no way to wind up their gears again. Scary as they were, it’s hard not to feel sorry for them in the end. And that final moment of the episode when the camera zooms out and you see the name of the ship? The Madame de Pompadour? Why, that’s the cherry on the top of this episode. In the end, just as the clockwork robots had claimed all along, Reinette and the robots were indeed linked.
Maureen: Yes, that was such a clever touch! The ship was named Madame de Pompadour so for fix-it alien types, it made sense that they thought Reinette’s brain could re-boot the ship.
Final Thoughts
Ben: This episode was both wondrous and wondrously sad by the end. Moffat really is incomparable in writing these standalone episodes. This combination of whimsy and horror with a little dash of steampunk is exactly the kind of episode I love from Doctor Who. It’s about as close to a perfect episode as you can get, in my opinion. I’m giving it a 10/10.
Maureen: I’ve re-watched this episode more times than I can count and as a result, its lustre has worn off a little over time. It’s probably my least favourite Moffat episode of RTD era Who. Which given how good his other episodes are, isn’t saying much. I kept teetering between a 9 and a 10, but if I’m honest, this is a pretty wonderful Who episode and the first time someone saw it, I can really see how they’d be blown away. I’m sitting with 10/10 inky stars for now.
YAY!!! THE SARAH-JANE SMITH MEETS BUFFY GILES EPISODE. IN A SCHOOL. I wonder where Clara and Class got it from? Also, K9. Oh, and Mickey and Rose are somewhere in the episode. Don’t forget them! The Pre-title Sequence Ben: It’s what’s his face from BBC…
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…
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
Ben: Is it bad the main thing I took from this episode is that the Tenth Doctor is just as bad a driver as the Ninth?
Maureen: Dude, you’re fixated!
Ben: Also, I’m a sucker for a scene where they reference the name of the show.
Maureen: Me too, actually. It got a bit much in the Moff years, but in this episode I admit I grinned.
Ben: Jackie ends up providing great comedic moments in this episode (anything else he’s got two of?), and boy does she start off strong! Also, the Doctor and Rose made it back to London in time for Christmas!
Maureen: God, I love the opening for a new Doctor. The long shot of earth, then we dive in close as Murray Gold’s bombastic score plays, the world spinning. Interesting note: both Mickey and Jackie come running the second they hear the TARDIS, like perhaps they’ve held out for its sound…
The Companion/s
Ben: Rose is firing all cylinders from the get go this episode, although to be honest things like checking the Doctor’s heartbeat might have been impressive to Mickey and Jackie, but she really has no idea what she’s doing. A similar moment happened when she was suspicious of the creepy Santas’ at the shops. Clearly, she’s picked some stuff up as the Doctor’s companion, but without him she can only react to events.
Maureen: I’ve reviewed my notes and I’ve penned and underlined the following: I want Rose’s jacket. But in all seriousness, Rose didn’t do much this episode except whine that The Doctor wasn’t her Doctor. To be fair, this fits with her teen character profile, and RTD probably needed to play this up to make sure the New Who audience accepted Tennant as the new Doctor. More irritating was Rose’s ongoing insistence that she and others were worth nothing without The Doctor:
Mickey: What do we do?
Rose: Nothing. There’s no one to save us.
I get that RTD needed to sell us the enormity of The Doctor saving the day in record time, but it sucked that he chose to do that by making the companions agentless. I mean, has Rose seriously learnt so little from The Doctor she can’t think of anything to do but run away as the apocalypse falls (compare Rose in this episode to Martha in Season Three when she walks around the earth resisting The Master with nothing but a story damn it!).
Ben: She’s had the carpet pulled out from under her fairly dramatically. She goes through a few of the stages of mourning The Doctor; anger, sadness, before finally accepting that he’s gone. The scene where Rose finally broke down paired with the alien ship arriving felt profoundly apocalyptic. And of course, without the Doctor, hiding in the TARDIS makes excellent sense. (Maureen interjection: speak for yourself, Ben)Although you’d need a lot of food to be able to wait out the apocalypse. Unfortunately, for Rose, Mickey, and the Doctor, this is the moment the TARDIS gets taken aboard the Sycorax ship.It is only when The Doctor is behind Rose that she feels she can make her speech to The Sycarax. I did adore Rose’s last ditch attempt to emulate the Doctor and send the Sycorax on their way, it’s a shame it was played as a comedic moment…
Maureen: Yes, she makes her pretty speech, but it’s still The Doctor who saves the day. I know I sound like a whiny brat, but The Doctor as savior trope REALLY annoys me.
Ben: Jackie was one of my favourite characters this episode, taking on the role of comic relief like a champion. Her panicked exchange with the Doctor as she’s trying to figure out what he needs without letting him talk had me giggling something awful. I’m not always a fan of Jackie, but this episode would have been much grimmer without her.
Maureen: I loved that scene too! Who doesn’t enjoy Jackie being told to shut-up by The Doctor. There was Jackie’s proof Ten hadn’t changed all that much from Nine.
Ben: But Harriet Jones was by far my favourite character this episode. From flirting with her right-hand man to dealing with an imminent alien invasion with a no-nonsense, practical approach, Harriet represents some of my favourite elements of Doctor Who. I loved her shutdown of the American President, and that she didn’t place all her hope in The Doctor coming to save the day. As we saw last season with the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire, he has a tendency to swan off once he thinks the day has been saved. In short, Harriet is a badass who stands up to terrifying aliens without breaking a sweat.
Maureen: I love Harriet Jones too. I thought she stuck around for way longer and got this sinking feeling in my stomach when I realised where The Christmas Invasion leaves her. She’s wound up leading Britain’s Golden Age, and is calm and professional in the face of alien invasion. I loved the caustic humour in some of her lines:
Harriet Jones: It’s hardly the Queen’s Speech. I’m afraid that’s been cancelled.
Then she finds out the Royal Family are mind-controlled, about to jump off a roof… and Harriet is teleported onto the Sycarax spaceship. She begs them for understanding, yet they show none.
Harriet Jones: Children who need help. Children who need compassion.
What choice does this alien race give her? Surrender and be sold into slavery or die. Let’s be real now… who wouldn’t have made the choice she made at episode’s end?
Ben: Yes, she’s the defender of the human race we deserve, not The Doctor. Yes, she does end up making a public plea for The Doctor to help, but only as an absolute last resort. But then, after that emotional plea she’s immediately back to business, calmly recognising she was being teleported while everyone else was panicking. I also LOVED the “yes, we know who you are” exchange with the Sycorax. What an sublime joke. Unfortunately, things come to a rather enraging end with Harriet. Authorising Torchwood to destroy the Sycorax ship was definitely an aggressive step to take, but it was well reasoned by Harriet. The way the Doctor punished her for this, taking away her Prime Ministership was so ugly, and not at all justified in my opinion.
Maureen: I completely agree. It annoyed me as a teen. It has annoyed me on every subsequent re-watch. It’s the same bullshit that was pulled in Season Eight in Kill The Moon when the story hated on Hermione Norris’ character for choosing killing the moon, despite the fact it was a perfectly reasonable choice to make. Based on the duplicitous and violent way The Sycarax dealt not just with humanity, but with The Doctor and based on The Doctor’s flippant remarks that ‘you’re getting noticed more and more. You better get used to it,’ and that he can’t promise he’ll always be around to protect earth, why on earth shouldn’t Harriet have destroyed the space ship of murderous nut job alients? Or is it just that RTD has an issue with women in power going against the whim of The Doctor?
The Doctor
Ben: Talk about a rough regeneration! All this talk of neural implosions and brain collapse was very dramatic, and all remedied with a cup of tea! (You know, I think I had the same thing a couple of times when I wanted the day off school.) It isn’t until the last twenty minutes of the episode that he actually has his moment. I wonder if it were a scheduling issue?
Maureen: I’m not sure it was. I think it was a way to build up to The Doctor in action reveal and give the audience time to mourn the loss of Nine alongside Rose. Moffat pulls a similar conceit with The Eleventh Hour (albeit more successfully in my opinion).
Ben: Anyways, I did like the scenes of the Doctor discovering who he his in this new body, up to a point. Beyond that it just became silly. I’m perhaps comparing this regeneration to Eleven’s a bit too much, but these scenes of self discovery became a bit much.
Maureen: I was pleasantly surprised actually. It’s no secret that Ten is without a doubt one of my least favourite Doctor’s (and I include Classic Who in that assessment), but I found him quite funny for most of the episode. AND HE QUOTED THE LION KING. AND MENTIONED MEETING ARTHUR DENT. What’s not to love?
Ben: I didn’t at all like the sword fight, and while I did like Ten’s speech about the earth being protected, I think Eleven did it better in his debut episode.
Maureen: Oh yes, me too. Eleven had such a lovely debut though.
Ben: And then we get to the bit I hated about this episode, as The Doctor, enraged at the measures Harriet Jones took to defend the Earth, engineers a petty revenge, setting up Harriet to lose the Prime Ministership. I hated it, especially when it’s been established in earlier episodes that The Doctor can be something of an unreliable protector. For me, this end really brought down what had been an excellent episode of Doctor Who, and really left a sour taste in my mouth.
Maureen: God I hate this ending so very fucking much. From the sword fight on I was reminded of all the reasons why I loathe Ten. He’s an action hero who has a compulsion to save everyone his way or the highway, and the story rewards him for it even when it’s completely unmerited. His dismissal of Harriet is mean and petty and God-like and sanctimonious and white man ego and the only good thing to come out of it is The Master getting the Prime Ministership later because of The Doctor’s shitty decision. Moving on…
The Alien of the Week
Maureen: YOU WANT CHRISTMAS SPECIAL? I’LL GIVE YOU CHRISTMAS SPECIAL, said RTD. That’s not a bad thing this first time round in my opinion. It was a bit silly, I guess, but overall I found the spinning Christmas tree and the Santa reconnaissance aliens and the Christmas dark apocalypse stuff fun and grim AT THE SAME TIME.
Ben: Look, for me, the creepy Santa’s and killer Christmas Tree were a bit much, but once we got past the pilot fish and met the metaphorical shark, the Sycorax, things got much more exciting. Their demands were pretty standard, all your base belong to us material, but what was particularly terrifying was their blood magic. I am curious to see what would have happened if one of the humans being controlled was physically blocked, because all they did was show distraught humans pleading with them to stop. It’s a great way to engineer a hostage situation, and what terrifying visuals it leads to. And their ship! Monstrous. Although it clearly marks them as being on the primitive side when it comes to aliens capable of interstellar travel and teleportation, as does their warlike behaviour and the restrictions of blood control. Despite that, they’re definitely more than humanity can handle. They came to something of a dishonourable end, being shot out of the sky as they’re leaving Earth, but considering their champion tried to cheat in the dual they don’t exactly come across as an honourable species. It is a bit morbid that the final shot of the episode was the people of Earth celebrating Christmas in the falling ash of a destroyed alien ship.
Maureen: I know right. Happy Christmas kids. HUMANITY IS GONNA JUMP OFF BUILDINGS IN A MASS SUICIDE ON CHRISTMAS DAY. BUT DON’T WORRY COZ EARTH IS SAVED BUT THE DOCTOR AND HIS COMPANIONS ARE PLAYING IN MURDERED ALIEN ASH. I’VE GOT THIS KIDDIES. TEN HAS FOUND HIS PINSTRIPE SUIT AND HIS CRACKER HAT. I’m seeing how Torchwood came out of RTD given this alien plan and the one in The Parting of the Ways.
Final Thoughts
Ben: Look, this is a really hard one to rate. Russell T Davies is just so inconsistent with his writing! The first forty minutes were really great, but once The Doctor arrived on the scene things started heading downhill at a fairly rapid pace. The final scenes with the demise of Harriet Jones really reminded me of how they treated Adam at the end of his storyline. Disappointing. I found it really hard to rate this episode, but I think I’m going to give it a 6.
Maureen: I’m with you Ben. I might have ranked this an 8 or 9 for sheer outrageous Whovian fun until Ten turned up for his sword fight and his crappy Harriet (doesn’t she look tired?) takedown. I’m going to go with a 6 too.