The Inevitable Dr Who Review

[green_amber]

Actually I wasn't bothered enough this week to write one, but then I wondered if everyone had found this ? Good fun in places, (do Cybermen really run on Linux?) and it also gives you a useful password :-)



Most people seem to agree with me that this ep was altogether rather bla - a fault I lay squarely at the feet of the writer whoever he is (Tom McRae - but who be he? (other than quite a nice singer/songwriter?) . The Cybermen looked great (though like several people over at blue_condition's place, I was mildly amused that they seemed to be wearing steel flares and matching 70s steel hush puppies), the soap opera elements were enjoyable, if a mite predictable (go Mickey! Rose, get over your father already! if I was Mickey I'd give her a good slap , now we've find out that he's lost *both* parents, not just one like Rose, and THEN had his sainted gran fall downstairs to boot) but the dialogue in the main plot was just either boring or pantomimeish - especially the dire Cyborg inventor guy. (The actor was OK, not his fault - he did as well as you could with dialogue straight out of Comic Villain Mastermind No 101). And nothing really seemed to HAPPEN (except nice shots of Zeppelins) for acres of time - why did this one get two-parter status when either Moffat's effort or School Reunion could have done so much with more space? was it just because (as seemed the case from Dr Who Confidential) creating the Cybermen cost so much money, they had to get their screen-time value out of them?

And what was with the alternative London politics? This seemed a really lazy case of world-building (as full of holes as Mickey's comics-derived knowledge of alternate universes, in fact) - compulsory downloads into people's heads, police state, army on streets, curfew , ok, so far so Brazil/Matrix -- but how did that go with a state that still apparently has ethics committees, bioethics conventions, the rule of law (it was Cybus not the government who were disappearing people, and Cybus didn't seem to run the govt judging by its President, however much they may have wanted to)and a humanist President who tells Cyber-guy off, and apologises to the Cybermen for the wrong done unto them? It was noticeable too that the compulsory downloads didn't have anything remotely unsavoury in them. If a "subversive" point was being made about how we all absorb the same media nowadays through our pores, then it was both too obvious and too irrelevant to the main plot to be bothering with. (And in fact even as satire it's WRONG - the effect of the Internet and new technology has been to give us all wider access to different media, the *opposite* of consumer homogenisation. Very few marks out of ten here at all.)

Battersea Power Station & The Lion Sleeps Tonight was great tho.

The only redeeming bit of this ep was really Mickey/Rickey (shades of Eastenders - Rick--aaayyyyyyyy!! something only catabolism will understand)- not to mention Noel Clarke with his kit off - phhwooaarrr! - I shall add him to the esteeemed glade of People Who Are LOTS Better With Shirt Off, like Sawyer from Lost and my long lost Spikey. Mickey's suddent rejection of his spare part/tin dog status did seem a bit - well - sudden - he's seemed to quite enjoy being the kid mascot up till now; also why should he expect the Doctor to care about him? Rose yes: but that didn't seem to be what was upsetting him - his lttle tantrum was all aimed at De Doc. (Mickey/Dr shippers - do any exist? - must have been wetting their pants.) Anyhow I hope Rickey dies heroically, Mickey fixes his gran's carpet and comes back to our universe for a grateful shag from Rose, who's remembered what great pecs he has. That would be a consummation devoutly to be worth watching :-)

Comments

[davesangel.livejournal.com]

I loved the episode, I thought that the characterisation was great, as opposed to last week's episode. The writing/production team have more or less said that last week's was written as 'filler' material between 'School Reunion' and this two-parter (hence some large inconsistencies in terms of characteristion this week and last).

I didn't see a problem in Rose wanting to go to find her dad...She's only really got to know him reasonably recently, and she never had him in her life for any considerable length of time. Mickey, on the other hand, grew up with his mum, dad, and gran (albeit for differing lengths of time) and lost them all at least 5 years ago, and has had time to get used to all of that loss, so it's probably more upsetting for Rose to see images of her dad, because it's 'rawer' for her emotionally.

Mickey does look great sans shirt, though :)

[anyana13x5.livejournal.com]

I was, indeed, wetting my pants. And martyn44 was pretty much agreeing with me.

Also, I agree with you about the crappy dialogue, but I'd so kill for those ear piece things for like, constant internet access. That would rock so hard.

[andrewducker]

I didn't get the impression that the downloads were mandatory - I thought that people _wanted_ to get their news updates. What we were seeing was a comment on Fox/Sky News and how people will happily sign up for their daily news update if it means they get the swanky new toys.

Mickey's suddent rejection of his spare part/tin dog status did seem a bit - well - sudden - he's seemed to quite enjoy being the kid mascot up till now

I disagree - he's been complaining (and upset) about being the spare wheel/tin dog, and clearly wanted to come along the first time he was offered, but was just too scared. He's got over that now, which is nice to see.

[thishardenedarm.livejournal.com]

"wot abaaaaat ther baaaaaybaaaaay rickaaaaay." who, indeed, could forget.

not only sans shirts but sans trousers with definite hints of bondage and probing by his identical twin. *cums*. sorry. Rickey/Mickey is the ship im boarding.

as for the identical downloads, i actually think that we are far nearer a culture of homogenisation than previously because there are no longer any real barriers between informational states. You get real heterogeneity only when systems can't communicate with each other (the informational equivalent of speciation); now that we're all floating in the common ether, we are all catching the same viruses. Funny, because the orginal conception of the Panoptican society was us all being watched by the same thing; instead it is vice versa, we are all, figuratively, watching Big Brother. So no, disagree, spot on.

As for the rest, a christmas panto episode of east enders indeed. That villain, I swear he went "mwaah ha ha", he did, didn't he? Kind of rubbish really, but fun. Just like that old seventies kids TV series, oh yes, Doctor Who.