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dolariWell, it's been a week, most of you have seen it by now. If not, I suggest not reading any further.
When last we saw the our heroes, Sarah Jane was about to be exterminated by Daleks, Torchwood was under siege, and the Rose Tyler and her odd lisp returned in time to see the Doctor hit by Dalek fire and regenerating....
Mickey and Jackie appear out of nowhere and destroy the Daleks about to exterminate Sarah Jane. Torchwood goes into Time Lock - a Get Out Of Jail Free Card supposedly Hoshi Sato was working on before she died - freezing the Dalek in place and locking two people they couldn't find plots for underground. And the Doctor simply decides not to regenerate by "redirecting" all his regeneration power into his hand.
I call bullshit.
Two minutes in, and I was thrown out of the narrative. I'm sorry, but you cannot build this great big climax only to fix it all in 3 minutes with a few lines of technobabble, mysteriously appearing security systems and making Jackie Tyler into an incredibly lucky crack shot. At least an a half a line or two about her being in Mickey's underground or something would at least made that plausible (at least as plausible as the "She must have finished it before she died" line made the Time Lock plausible...which wasn't very plausible).
And the Regeneration excuse? Doesn't want to change? Cause "Look at me!" Pure silliness. I'm sorry, but pure silliness. That spawns even more silliness later in the episode.
All inside of THREE MINUTES. Cliffhanger wiped clean.
I call bullshit.
There were a few well handled scenes though. One was The Doctor, Capt. Jack and Rose steeling themselves up for meeting the Daleks and their own impending demise. In fact, most of the scenes involving Davros, The Doctor and his assistants (I hate the term Companions, for some reason) were incredibly good, the standouts being the destruction of the TARDIS scenes, the "See the Doctor's true soul" scenes (David Tennant really manages to make these scenes shine) and the Sarah Jane/Davros scenes. More on that later.
Doctor 10.2 - Silly. Very silly. Somehow Donna needed to give a piece of herself to the Doctor's Hand, and the hand needed to give a piece of something to her, to make a whole new Doctor. Silly and stupid, especially as he just stands around and does nothing until near the end. Although it's hilarious to see David Tennant mimic Donna's attitude so well and while I call bullshit on this, at least it was entertaining.
IT was nice to see the Martha/Oesterhahgen Key plot stretched on for a bit. Seeing Daleks speak German was very cute (EXTERMINIEREN!) and the idea that the one person left at the OSterhagen Key HQ was willing to (try and) kill Martha brought home how scared she was of it (and Martha's tearful goodbye to her mom as well). I actually thought that was really well executed...till, well...we'll get there.
Doctor 10.2 makes a technobabble gun. I can deal with that. Martha has the Osterhagen key. I can deal with that. Sarah Jane pulls a Warpstar out of herass pocket. Um, Chekov's Rule #1 - if you use a gun in Act III, Scene I, it must be on the wall in Act I, Scene III. Sure, we've seen other things pulled out of asses pockets, notably Capt. Jack's ass pocket, but this came out of left field. Almost as if the writer hadn't thought about it until that moment....
Seeing Sarah Jane in the School Reunion episode was a great great great thing. She really appeared to be Sarah Jane Smith from the 70s all grown up (although I wasn't happy with the whole "I pined for Tom Baker" theme they added to her). In the Sarah Jane series, she doesn't seem to BE Sarah Jane. More like Romana if anything - a Time Lord herself with all the confidence therein, and very little of the wonder. This shot, though, between Sarah Jane and Davros? That was Pure 70s Sarah Jane again, all grown up, facing her tormentor. Prolly the best scene in the whole episode.
Everyone being transmatted without their weapons just felt wrong. All these people made/had weapons at their disposal, and instead of using them, they let themselves be captured before they could use them by a transmat that allows them to transport without the weapons. Coneveeeeeeeeeeeeeenient. Makes sense with the OSterhagen Key, if Martha was transported with it, she's still powerless, but the warpstar? Pull it out of herass pocket then have her drop it minutes later, makes it look like the cheap prop that it is. I did like the scramble for the reversal gun, though, since it shows how desperate everyone is to kill the Crucible.
And then we get the best and worst thing in the episode...The DoctorDonna, aka Doctor 10.3. Catharine Tate has been OUTSTANDING this season. Who knew that someone so grating and bristling in her one-episode special would end up being the assistant people are going to remember. Then she gets a technobabble boost activating the new Time Lord part of her brain and she becomes The Best Assistant Ever...even though her big claim to fame is punching buttons on a conveniently placed power control thingy that seems to control EVERY DALEK ON THE PLANET SIZED STATION, TURNING THEM INTO STUPID DUMMIES THAT CAN BE PUSHED AROUND AND MADE TO LOOK FOOLISH. She managed to make Deus Ex Machina look good, but it's still a rather stupid Deus Ex Machina. Daleks defeated by a 100 WPM Typing Half Time Lord.
And it seems Capt. Jack can still pull things out of hisass pocket when he find the gun that Mickey threw away on the street in the TARDIS. "I can't tell you what I'm thinking right now" kinda makes up for it. Sorta. Not really.
Anyways, Doctor 10.2 destroys all the Daleks in a Genocide (for the third time now!) and everyone goes into the TARDIS to get away. The TARDIS manages to tow Earth all the way back home (with a little help by a plot contrivance whose total reason for existing is to give John Leeson one line of dialog), stretching credibility for even what a TARDIS could do (I can buy it towing a space station, but a WHOLE PLANET?) while keeping the atmosphere around the earth which is flying at incredible speeds.
No. Despite the scene of all the Doctor's assistants helping fly the TARDIS in this scene, I refuse to believe the TARDIS has that kind of power. The towing of the ship? That's powerful. The towing of the planet? That's goofy.
"You've got the biggest family on Earth" is right. Why he chooses to let them go after bringing them all together when they seem perfectly willing to have him in their lives, though, seems to just be a way to make Doctor 10.1 look all emo and pouty. He's never been one for family, sure, but he's finally SEEN that he can...to have him fart it away to be alone just makes him look like a self-inflicted martyr. Even an acknowledgment of some kind would be much better.
Rose's departure I find just completely a MAry Sue. I know Rose is a Mary Sue interjection of Russel T. Davies (_R_ussel _T_? _R_ose _T_yler?), but giving him/her a copy of the Doctor in the alternate universe that will grow old and die with her screams "I got my man! Bye everyone, in my universe, I'm with him forever!"
And the flipside to that - Donna's "death." Donna's death is the sorest point for me in this episode. Not because its sad, it is kinda sad, but because it feels almost like a revenge plot. Think about it. Most of us have spent the season praising Donna for being the best assistant in the new series. Better than Martha and Rose. If Rose is RTD's Mary Sue, this has gotta sting. And now the best assistant ever has reverted to when she was the worst assistant ever, and has had any chance of her coming back closed off forever. "You liked Donna, huh? Better than Rose? Well, now you can't ever have her again, and look, she's annoying again! HAH! I GOT MY MAN!" Donna did not need to "die," even if she was leaving...not even in this way, which screams of "revenge."
Wilf saves the scene. Wilf is by far my favorite character this season...I'm really disappointed that he never got to hitch a ride, even once around the planet, with Dear Old Grandad. He was really itching for it....
So in retrospect - this episode pissed me off as a writer. It has it's good parts. some VERY good, but the contrivances, the pulling things out ofasses pockets, the moments of pure flakiness and convvenience totally ruined it for me. And that almost sadistic ending added the cherry on top of what, to me, was a REALLY bad episode.
Then again, I hated Last of the Time Lords and PArting of the Ways, too....maybe Doomsday was just me having a good day?
So many people are saying now that Russel T. Davies is a bad writer. I don't think he is. Season 1 and 2 had some really good episodes. But I think he's become a tired writer (Don't you think he looks tired?). BUT he's a great producer. Producers are idea men, and without RTD, I don't think Doctor Who could have been as great as it has been (Even Stephen Moffat takes his marching orders from RTD). I could see him writing great episodes of Doctor Who in the future, especially if he takes a break from it all and can leave Rose out of it.
When last we saw the our heroes, Sarah Jane was about to be exterminated by Daleks, Torchwood was under siege, and the Rose Tyler and her odd lisp returned in time to see the Doctor hit by Dalek fire and regenerating....
Mickey and Jackie appear out of nowhere and destroy the Daleks about to exterminate Sarah Jane. Torchwood goes into Time Lock - a Get Out Of Jail Free Card supposedly Hoshi Sato was working on before she died - freezing the Dalek in place and locking two people they couldn't find plots for underground. And the Doctor simply decides not to regenerate by "redirecting" all his regeneration power into his hand.
I call bullshit.
Two minutes in, and I was thrown out of the narrative. I'm sorry, but you cannot build this great big climax only to fix it all in 3 minutes with a few lines of technobabble, mysteriously appearing security systems and making Jackie Tyler into an incredibly lucky crack shot. At least an a half a line or two about her being in Mickey's underground or something would at least made that plausible (at least as plausible as the "She must have finished it before she died" line made the Time Lock plausible...which wasn't very plausible).
And the Regeneration excuse? Doesn't want to change? Cause "Look at me!" Pure silliness. I'm sorry, but pure silliness. That spawns even more silliness later in the episode.
All inside of THREE MINUTES. Cliffhanger wiped clean.
I call bullshit.
There were a few well handled scenes though. One was The Doctor, Capt. Jack and Rose steeling themselves up for meeting the Daleks and their own impending demise. In fact, most of the scenes involving Davros, The Doctor and his assistants (I hate the term Companions, for some reason) were incredibly good, the standouts being the destruction of the TARDIS scenes, the "See the Doctor's true soul" scenes (David Tennant really manages to make these scenes shine) and the Sarah Jane/Davros scenes. More on that later.
Doctor 10.2 - Silly. Very silly. Somehow Donna needed to give a piece of herself to the Doctor's Hand, and the hand needed to give a piece of something to her, to make a whole new Doctor. Silly and stupid, especially as he just stands around and does nothing until near the end. Although it's hilarious to see David Tennant mimic Donna's attitude so well and while I call bullshit on this, at least it was entertaining.
IT was nice to see the Martha/Oesterhahgen Key plot stretched on for a bit. Seeing Daleks speak German was very cute (EXTERMINIEREN!) and the idea that the one person left at the OSterhagen Key HQ was willing to (try and) kill Martha brought home how scared she was of it (and Martha's tearful goodbye to her mom as well). I actually thought that was really well executed...till, well...we'll get there.
Doctor 10.2 makes a technobabble gun. I can deal with that. Martha has the Osterhagen key. I can deal with that. Sarah Jane pulls a Warpstar out of her
Seeing Sarah Jane in the School Reunion episode was a great great great thing. She really appeared to be Sarah Jane Smith from the 70s all grown up (although I wasn't happy with the whole "I pined for Tom Baker" theme they added to her). In the Sarah Jane series, she doesn't seem to BE Sarah Jane. More like Romana if anything - a Time Lord herself with all the confidence therein, and very little of the wonder. This shot, though, between Sarah Jane and Davros? That was Pure 70s Sarah Jane again, all grown up, facing her tormentor. Prolly the best scene in the whole episode.
Everyone being transmatted without their weapons just felt wrong. All these people made/had weapons at their disposal, and instead of using them, they let themselves be captured before they could use them by a transmat that allows them to transport without the weapons. Coneveeeeeeeeeeeeeenient. Makes sense with the OSterhagen Key, if Martha was transported with it, she's still powerless, but the warpstar? Pull it out of her
And then we get the best and worst thing in the episode...The DoctorDonna, aka Doctor 10.3. Catharine Tate has been OUTSTANDING this season. Who knew that someone so grating and bristling in her one-episode special would end up being the assistant people are going to remember. Then she gets a technobabble boost activating the new Time Lord part of her brain and she becomes The Best Assistant Ever...even though her big claim to fame is punching buttons on a conveniently placed power control thingy that seems to control EVERY DALEK ON THE PLANET SIZED STATION, TURNING THEM INTO STUPID DUMMIES THAT CAN BE PUSHED AROUND AND MADE TO LOOK FOOLISH. She managed to make Deus Ex Machina look good, but it's still a rather stupid Deus Ex Machina. Daleks defeated by a 100 WPM Typing Half Time Lord.
And it seems Capt. Jack can still pull things out of his
Anyways, Doctor 10.2 destroys all the Daleks in a Genocide (for the third time now!) and everyone goes into the TARDIS to get away. The TARDIS manages to tow Earth all the way back home (with a little help by a plot contrivance whose total reason for existing is to give John Leeson one line of dialog), stretching credibility for even what a TARDIS could do (I can buy it towing a space station, but a WHOLE PLANET?) while keeping the atmosphere around the earth which is flying at incredible speeds.
No. Despite the scene of all the Doctor's assistants helping fly the TARDIS in this scene, I refuse to believe the TARDIS has that kind of power. The towing of the ship? That's powerful. The towing of the planet? That's goofy.
"You've got the biggest family on Earth" is right. Why he chooses to let them go after bringing them all together when they seem perfectly willing to have him in their lives, though, seems to just be a way to make Doctor 10.1 look all emo and pouty. He's never been one for family, sure, but he's finally SEEN that he can...to have him fart it away to be alone just makes him look like a self-inflicted martyr. Even an acknowledgment of some kind would be much better.
Rose's departure I find just completely a MAry Sue. I know Rose is a Mary Sue interjection of Russel T. Davies (_R_ussel _T_? _R_ose _T_yler?), but giving him/her a copy of the Doctor in the alternate universe that will grow old and die with her screams "I got my man! Bye everyone, in my universe, I'm with him forever!"
And the flipside to that - Donna's "death." Donna's death is the sorest point for me in this episode. Not because its sad, it is kinda sad, but because it feels almost like a revenge plot. Think about it. Most of us have spent the season praising Donna for being the best assistant in the new series. Better than Martha and Rose. If Rose is RTD's Mary Sue, this has gotta sting. And now the best assistant ever has reverted to when she was the worst assistant ever, and has had any chance of her coming back closed off forever. "You liked Donna, huh? Better than Rose? Well, now you can't ever have her again, and look, she's annoying again! HAH! I GOT MY MAN!" Donna did not need to "die," even if she was leaving...not even in this way, which screams of "revenge."
Wilf saves the scene. Wilf is by far my favorite character this season...I'm really disappointed that he never got to hitch a ride, even once around the planet, with Dear Old Grandad. He was really itching for it....
So in retrospect - this episode pissed me off as a writer. It has it's good parts. some VERY good, but the contrivances, the pulling things out of
Then again, I hated Last of the Time Lords and PArting of the Ways, too....maybe Doomsday was just me having a good day?
So many people are saying now that Russel T. Davies is a bad writer. I don't think he is. Season 1 and 2 had some really good episodes. But I think he's become a tired writer (Don't you think he looks tired?). BUT he's a great producer. Producers are idea men, and without RTD, I don't think Doctor Who could have been as great as it has been (Even Stephen Moffat takes his marching orders from RTD). I could see him writing great episodes of Doctor Who in the future, especially if he takes a break from it all and can leave Rose out of it.
