What to say? I suspect people are being nasty about it web over, and I’m not sure that’s fair. It was far from a bad episode. In fact, the worst you could say is that its ambitions were small. After a long break, and the build-up to a so-called “special” I felt I deserved something awesome. I suppose it’s only fair, as I anticipate the show will be on full emotional onslaught mode now onwards – so it was nice to have a breather: not a bad episode, by any means. Just Who at it’s most basic level.
As such there were no surprises, yet it did what it did with a lot of enthusiasm. The sets were lovely, seeing UNIT is always brilliant – as was the return of the Captain from Turn Left. She still comes second to AGLB and Bambera, but in time this could change. Bring her back more! When the police got on the phone, I roared "UNIT!" and my sister roared "Torchwood!", so I was feeling very happy to see them.
When I first saw the trailer, all I could think was in terms of it’s debts – to Midnight, Voyage of the Damned, Pitch Black, Iris Wildthyme, whatever. It’s a tribute to the episode’s wackiness that none of these occurred to me while actually watching. I liked the way that it subverted what happened in Midnight. Midnight was smart for being so dark, but it’s also a gruelling watch – so I was physically relieved when everyone got on. Yet what we learnt of the passengers were nice – so nice, in fact, I’m shocked the Doctor the volunteered two of them for the most dangerous job in the universe. Lara Croft’s dialogue was a lot of fun – in fact, she had two thumbs up in our lounge. In fact, perhaps fitting the desert setting, it was notable for it's lack of darkness. I kinda expected 10 to go back and nuke the Metal-Flappy-Thingies, or turn them over a skewer - but apparently he's just going to shift their hunting grounds. OK then.
The Doctor was, as per usual, great. I loved the city of sand, that reveal was intense, not to mention brushing off Christina. Totally cold. 10 has a bastard streak the size of the Medusa Cascade. Especially after he’s been flirting with her for an hour.
Problems? Naturally. Particularly the Doctor conveniently finding some extras to explain the plot to him, before conveniently getting killed. It lacked dramatic tension almost entirely – you never worried for any of the characters.
No, it wasn’t deep or challenging. But it did have a flying double decker bus, swarms of metallic beasties, a huge portal in space-time and the Doctor trying to make fly-technology compatible with TFL. Doctor Who is a show like no other, because it can be smart, be sad, be epic – then turn around and be ludicrously, infectiously daft without anyone batting an eye.
Of course, everyone’s talking about the last ten minutes. They may as well not have aired the rest. They didn’t have to reuse the Ood reference, would have been better to come up with something new. My thoughts in order: “Valeyard, Gallifrey, Sutekh”. The first because I really really want it. The second in response to “it”. The third, no idea, but probably something to do with the words “…of Mars” being on screen. I trust the production team. I don’t want to hang all my hopes on the Master’s return, because I’ll be so bitterly disappointed if it isn’t him. Perhaps where the bizarre idea about the Valeyard came from, because it’s so totally unlikely. As far as possible, I refuse to speculate.
The rest of Team Traken disagree. Their first thought, as goes knocking was tap tap tap tap, tap tap tap tap, tap tap tap tap.
I think when the anticipointment –word from the Writer’s Tale, for something turning out as bad as you expected – has worn off, this episode will be seen more favourably. Certainly it has yet to live up to the trailer in my book. Ach, I so wanted to be the voice of optimism on this internet, and yet it’s hard for me to get enthusiastic.
But that’s not the sort of episode it was.
No comments:
Post a Comment