Wednesday, May 03, 2006
I was planning on reviewing the Doctor Who episodes as they were broadcast each week but that hasn't happened. Whoops. It has been interesting though, as it's shown that while Russell T. Davies is the right person to help bring it back he's probably one of the worst people to allow to write for it, as a number of his shows are aimed at children with little for the rest of the family and, most importantly, me, to enjoy.
Show one, with the nurse-cats, wasn't much cop. The main story tried to go for an anti-vivisection message but fudges it up by translating it into a science-fiction setting and the episode is only partially salvaged by the burlesque joy of Rose and then the Doctor being posessed by the bitchy trampoline 'Lady Cassandra'. It also follows Doctor Who's often ambivelent relationship to ideas of justice, as with the lone Dalek in season one, she gets to kill loads of people and then feel a bit sorry for it, then die.
Show two, with Queen Victoria and a werewolf is better. The computer graphics are by now pretty impressive and some of the best we've seen on the British small screen, though considering British TV has tended to be reluctant to do it's own science-fiction for fifteen years this is not saying much.
It's only episode three, with RTD not scripting, that the show starts to really start hitting some of the emotional depth of last year, with the return of Sarah-Jane Smith and K9, and Rose wondering about what this means for her relationship with the Doctor.
There seems to be a drift in the direction of confirming that the Doctor and Rose are having a full relationship which I really hope doesn't happen. He'd be even worse than James Bond with a time machine. He kisses you in the morning, fights Daleks in the afternoon and then is back in bed with you in the evening. That would really be a weird relationship. However, Mickey has been ungainly shoe-horned through the TARDIS doors by episode's end so maybe he'll finally get the girl.
But, just as we had Margaret Slytheen questioning the Doctor's morality last year Sarah-Jane was reminding him how his actions have consequences in episode three. The Doctor has never been one for dealing with things, always off down the road like the Littlest Hobo, being exiled to 1970s Earth really was a punishment for him.
Hopefully the episodes will be more like this as we go on. And when it's all over we can start looking forward to Torchwood, and the return of Captain Jack.
Show one, with the nurse-cats, wasn't much cop. The main story tried to go for an anti-vivisection message but fudges it up by translating it into a science-fiction setting and the episode is only partially salvaged by the burlesque joy of Rose and then the Doctor being posessed by the bitchy trampoline 'Lady Cassandra'. It also follows Doctor Who's often ambivelent relationship to ideas of justice, as with the lone Dalek in season one, she gets to kill loads of people and then feel a bit sorry for it, then die.
Show two, with Queen Victoria and a werewolf is better. The computer graphics are by now pretty impressive and some of the best we've seen on the British small screen, though considering British TV has tended to be reluctant to do it's own science-fiction for fifteen years this is not saying much.
It's only episode three, with RTD not scripting, that the show starts to really start hitting some of the emotional depth of last year, with the return of Sarah-Jane Smith and K9, and Rose wondering about what this means for her relationship with the Doctor.
There seems to be a drift in the direction of confirming that the Doctor and Rose are having a full relationship which I really hope doesn't happen. He'd be even worse than James Bond with a time machine. He kisses you in the morning, fights Daleks in the afternoon and then is back in bed with you in the evening. That would really be a weird relationship. However, Mickey has been ungainly shoe-horned through the TARDIS doors by episode's end so maybe he'll finally get the girl.
But, just as we had Margaret Slytheen questioning the Doctor's morality last year Sarah-Jane was reminding him how his actions have consequences in episode three. The Doctor has never been one for dealing with things, always off down the road like the Littlest Hobo, being exiled to 1970s Earth really was a punishment for him.
Hopefully the episodes will be more like this as we go on. And when it's all over we can start looking forward to Torchwood, and the return of Captain Jack.
