Wacky Reviews: Doctor Who

[CaptainWacky]

With the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who coming up, I have decided to rewatch it on Netflix and review it, starting with 'Rose' and ending with 'The Big Bang' since that's the last episode they have for some reason! SO HERE WE GO.

Rose - I didn't know what to expect back in 2005 when I sat down to watch this. I had vague childhood memories of being scared by Davros on Blue Peter and I remembered watching the TV movie in the nineties (and not being too impressed.) But this episode must have done something right because it was good enough to make me think this could be a good tv show I should keep watching (and not in an Atlantis "well there's nothing else on" way.) Watching it again now...it's pretty good! Like I remember at the time a lot of people seemed to be unhappy with it and complained about the background music being annoying and the burping bin scene. Well the music isn't too annoying (there were certainly later episodes where I did find the music annoying but we'll come to those!) and the burping bin part...okay, it's still terrible. Plastic Mickey being really obviously plastic and Rose not noticing is pretty embarrassing (and it's not just the dated effects, I remember feeling that way at the time.) But it passes quickly enough and the rest of the episode is a lot of fun!

The best thing about it is Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor. Right from the start he's great and you always want to look at the screen when he's on. He does have a kind of alienness to him, but not in a really over the top gurning or wacky type way or anything. He's funny but then when he gets serious he's scary (like when he just says "oh hadn't thought of that" when Rose asks if Mickey is dead.) The scene where he rejects Jackie's advances with a "no!" is great and preferable to the easy laughs Tennant OR EVEN SMITH would go for by acting all scared of her. Billie Piper is also very good as Rose. She's the everywoman and the writing and acting are pretty much perfect for her here. Mickey is comically dumb, yes, but the episode isn't about him so they don't really need to give him depth yet and, other than the Plastic Mickey debacle he's quite funny.

I think the Autons were a good choice for the first villain as they combine the mundanity of Rose's job with the crazy alienness of the Doctor's world.

Having an internet guy give a brief explanation about who the Doctor is works well despite terrible photoshopping.

"It'll never last. He's gay and she's an alien!" - first gay reference and it's funny and perfectly delivered by Eccleston. A GOOD START!

SCORE (I'll be scoring the episodes, IT'S JUST FOR FUN DON'T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY): 7/10

 

[The Tomtrek]

For all the problems Rose (the episode) has, most of them are due to the fact that it's spending most of it's energy heaving a dead franchise out of the 80's and into the 00's. And it does that pretty damn well, really!

The Autons were a really wise choice. It was a fondly remembered classic villain to keep the fans happy, while still being "those shop window dummies that come to live" in the mind of the general public.

While the 1996 TV Movie tried to restart the show by jumping right into the deep end of continuity - literally the first line of it is "It was on the planet Skaro that my old enemy the Master was finally put on trial. They say he listened calmly as his list of evil crimes was read… and sentence passed. Then he made his last and I thought somewhat curious request. He demanded that I, the Doctor, a rival Timelord, should take his remains back to our home planet; Gallifrey It was a request they should never have granted… " which means NOTHING AT ALL to new viewers, and it only got worse from there by starting with a regeneration so that new viewers had no idea what was even going on.

Rose, instead, tells the story through Rose, and let's us get things gradually. We get the scene with Clive which says "there's a lot more history to this character than you know", but we're left to find it out ourselves gradually over the next few episodes (and seasons), to the point where we can now have episodes where characters go back and visit classic series episodes and everyone's still on the same page.

And I can't really hate the wheelie-bin scene, as it's the successor to this scene, so at the very least I can call it "consistent"
[video=youtube;vXrAK6sUZ_0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXrAK6sUZ_0[/video]

 

[CaptainWacky]

And shop dummies ARE scary anyway even when they're not alive (I forgot to mention this.)

 

[CaptainWacky]

The End Of The World - I remember enjoying this episode more than 'Rose' the first time around. Watching them back to back now...it's probably slightly better but it's not as big a difference as I remember. What this episode does really well is the character stuff. I really enjoyed everything with Rose. Her reactions to everything were all completely believable and Billie never went too far (even when she was ranting at Cassandra) and at no point was she annoying. I liked how she was overwhelmed by being in the future (even if the make-up on the aliens wasn't great and some of them were a bit too silly) but got excited again at appropriate moments. The scene with her phoning her mum and the end scene with her wanting chips were perfectly done. Really Rose at this point is leaps and bounds ahead of (21st century) Clara as a character (not saying that's Jenna Coleman's fault; I think they made Clara bland for a story reasons which is crazy but whatevs.)

Eccleston is very good again and I enjoyed his interactions with the TREE WOMAN (yes I know her name is Jabe.) Okay she wasn't a hugely developed character or anything but everything she did was believable and she wans't oboxious like some later female characters. The scene where she died was pretty sad and Eccleston managed to make a line like "you'll catch fire, you're made of wood!" not sound silly. And then the Doctor, spurred on by Jabe's death, telling Rose about his home planet being destroyed and him being alone in the perfect final scene. GOOD STUFF.

On the other hand, the plot wasn't really all that great and there was the part with the Doctor having to duck under a giant fan to get to a button that was behind a giant fan for some reason. BUT HEY on the whole this was another fine episode.

SCORE: 7.5/10

 

[The Tomtrek]

Yes this is the big difference between Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant is that even when the script's a big naff, he'll still do something interesting and worth watching.

This episode does a good job of saying "this show will have aliens so deal with it" to all the new viewers. The story is a bit... empty but it's more about Rose realizing exactly what she's gotten herself into more than anything. Although I hate the "Rose talks to the opposed class to show how she's a kind person" bit because it's so clumsy (and we get the exact same scene in the next episode).

"Toxic" by Britney Spears is a good song.

 

[CaptainWacky]

The Unquiet Dead - I think 'The Crimson Horror' from the latest series (like this episode written by Mark Gatiss) has ruined episodes like this for me as that one was so much fun and this is...okay. It's a ghost story, but really they're aliens but when the possess people they act like zombies. It's not scary anyway. Gwen from Torchwood is there and she's got "the sight" and I want to be sad when her character dies but she was kind of blah. Simon Callow is very good as Charles Dickens and the scene with him and the Doctor in the cart is fun, but really if his character hadn't been Charles Dickens it wouldn't have made much difference to the plot. The part where Rose says "I can't die, it's the past!" seems silly to me (has she never watched a time travel movie before?) but I guess this episode has to function as a kind of "my first time travel (to the past) story" for new viewers. It's okay. Not really memorable for anything beyond Simon Callow.

6/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

Aliens of London - So I always remember this two-parter being really bad because they were the "farting aliens" episodes. But part one, at least, is actually a decent episode, thanks to the fine writing of the always reliable (AT THIS POINT ANYWAY) RTD. I mean yeah, the aliens fart and it's fucking annoying and unfunny. And they laugh evily way too much. But otherwise the plotting is good, the Doctor and Rose's interaction is still fun and the scenes with Rose's family are amusing! Mickey was a shit boyfriend but he didn't deserve to be thought of as a murderer for a year so you can feel sorry for him now. I liked the part where Mickey impressed the Doctor a bit and how subtle it was? Like, I don't know if it was particularly subtle but one thing I find myself thinking watching these early episodes is "that was quite subtle COMPARED TO NOW." I think Moffat's episodes are more BOMBASTIC? I don't know. This is a terrible review.

The pig alien looks silly but Christopher Eccleston AGAIN reacts to it perfectly and makes it a good scene with "girl from Torchwood". The parts with the aliens peeling their human skin were actually quite scary (certainly more so than last week's attempt at horror) but then when we see the actual aliens at the end they look pretty silly. Oh and the farting is really annoying did I mention that? Again, I've only watched the first part and I have a feeling episode two wasn't as good but maybe it will surprise me too.

6.5/10

 

[The Tomtrek]

Yeah the Slitheen are the first RTD "Good concept, bad execution" idea.

An alien race (well, family) that infiltrates Downing Street by wearing the skin of politicians so they can start World War III so they can sell the remains of the Earth to make money is a good idea! What it ended up as was a collection of fart and fat people jokes. Partly because of the director, who thought Doctor Who was 100% a children's show, and directed it as such (he didn't work on the show again after filming his three episodes - Rose, and this two-parter), and part of it is just RTD and his (self?) hatred of fat people.

If these episodes starred David Tennant they would have been awful. They starred Christopher Eccleston, who is able to take something "okay" and turn it into "good".

 

[CaptainWacky]

World War Three - And yeah, it turns out part two isn't as good as part one. With the aliens now reveal the first half of this episode has a lot of running around. And I mean a lot. And it's not even entertaining running around just "oh look a fire extinguisher defeated them for some reason" running around. And more farting. The plot is still okay, but feels drawn out (what with all the running around!) Mickey and Jackie's scenes with Rose and the Doctor continue to be good and I quite liked Harriet Jones here. We find out she's gong to be PM three consecutive terms and lead the human race into a new golden age! So that should be fun. Oh and I should have noted in the last episode that this is the first appearance of celebrities playing themselves, with Andrew Marr and some guy from Blue Peter. They're used well here...

5/10

Dalek - Well, this is more like it. This episode is remembered fondly and I think it holds up well. Okay the CGI on the Dalek is a little ropey but I'm sure they did their best. The single dalek of the episode is introduced perfectly in a powerful scene with the Doctor. After that he's clever (tricking Rose) and dangerous (killing loads of people.) I don't even think the part where he starts feeling emotions ruins him as clearly it's because he was so damaged and had to use Rose's DNA to repair himself. It's pretty sad when he dies. And we get more details on what happened in the Time War and see the Doctor go into Time War mode and Rose is all "stop it!" and he's like "what have I become!" and it's good stuff. The stuff with Van Statten isn't as good, but it's not bad or anything. And there's shirtless Christopher Eccleston. So yeah this is the best episode so far.

8.5/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

The Long Game - ZZZZZZZZ. Oh sorry JUST FELL ASLEEP. Yeah. This is an episode I remember people hating and my thinking it wasn't too bad, but watching it tonight...it's just pretty boring? There's nothing really wrong with the story but for a spacestation in the future there's not really much stuff? There's food carts and rooms where people sit in a circle and there's Simon Pegg upstairs...also there seemed to be a lot of talking in this episode. Oh and since I said something about the background music in an earlier review I will say that this is an episode where I definitely noticed it and found it a bit annoying just because it was there in every scene and it was a bit much. But maybe I only noticed it because the episode was kind of dull. And the Adam stuff...I liked how the Doctor didn't really want him there but it wasn't played in a "he's jealous because he really loves Rose" way and how he kind of gave Adam a chance to prove himself and the ending is slightly amusing, but if all that happened for real Adam would probably have killed himself a few weeks after the Doctor and Rose left him. So I just have to imagine the Doctor came back and removed that super advanced technology from him. Anyway, I still don't hate this episode or anything but it's a huge step down from Dalek.

5.5/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

Father's Day - I remember no less an authority than RICHARD MADELEY saying this was his favourite episode ever. I can't say that I agree with him, but it is a very good one. Just to get the stuff I don't like out of the way, the Reapers look terrible. And not just in an "the effects aged badly" way, I remember thinking the same thing at the time. And surely there have been other situations since this episode where they should have popped up? And the part where the TARDIS key suddenly starts glowing feels completely random and out of nowhere (because it is) BUT it's just a red herring anyway so it doesn't matter too much.

On the good side the actual story with rose meeting her father for the first time is really good and touching. The acting from Billie and the actors who play Pete and Jackie is topnotch. And again I'll praise Eccleston's acting for the scene where he promises to help the young married couple, not in a mawkish "look how much I care!" David Tennant way but in an honest "okay I'll help you!" way which is obviously far better! So yeah, I don't think I need to go over what makes this episode good because it's pretty self evident (unless you haven't watched it in years and want a recap. I'm not giving one.)

8.25/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

The Empty Child - Okay, this is the best episode so far. Everything about it works. The London during the blitz setting is well executed. It has atmosphere. Compare it to SAY The Unquiet Dead and it's much more convincing. The most memorable thing is the gas-mask wearing kid (and adults) asking "are you my mummy?" and really for the first time this series Doctor Who is scary. Or creepy. Whatever. They're really good "monsters" is what I'm saying.

JOHN FUCKING BARROWMAN makes his first appearance as Captain Jack and the character is instantly likable and intriguing and Barrowman does a fine job. Even the scenes with him and Rose flirting, which could have been cheesey or obnoxious, are pretty convincing and Barrowman was a good looking guy before his face went all plastic!

Richard Wilson is a great choice as a guest star as well. He just looks like you'd expect a doctor from WW2 London to look like. The girl playing Nancy is very good as well. And do I have to mention how good Eccleston is in all the scenes with the kids? No? Well I fucking just did!

No dull moments here, the episode builds and builds to a great cliffhanger, this ia fantastic episode of Doctor Who.

(NOTE: The first "Doctor, Doctor who?" line in a Moffat episode. He'd use that one again. And again. And again...maybe he was already foreshadowing John Hurt.)

9.5/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

The Doctor Dances - And the second part is just as good if not better! It's a "human emotion saves the day!" type ending and it's completely earned by everything in the two episodes and makes perfect sense. The sci-fi plot and the human plot come together perfectly. A little boy finds the love of his mother. Richard Wilson! The Doctor has a good day and remembers how to dance. Captain Jack is willing to sacrifice himself and learns a lesson in responsibility (it's like Star Trek Into Darkness but with good writing!) This has everything I want out to Doctor Who. A perfect episode.

And hey, I wonder what happened to Jack during those missing two years? I can't wait to find out! Also I hope he gets his own spin-off series. But don't make him all dark and brooding and take away what people actually liked about the character. That would be stupid.

(NOTE: First "character is unexpectedly gay!" punchline in a Moffat episode. Not saying it's bad here, it's fine, but see future reviews!)

10/10

 

[The Tomtrek]

"What, you've never been bored? Never had a long night? Never had a lot of cabinets to put up?" is a really good line.

 

[CaptainWacky]

Boom Town - So this episode isn't actually terrible. It's obviously a "we ran out of money!" and we have to hear a Slitheen fart/burp again (thankfully only in one scene!) but the writing is fine and the actress playing the Slitheen does a good job in the scenes with Christopher Eccleston. Of course the "how can you send me to my death?" stuff would probably work a bit better if she hasn't just tried to kill EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. Twice! But at least it tries to get a bit philosophical. The Mickey/Rose scenes are decent too. I'm sure I remember Mickey being more annoying than he actually is? Like he was perfectly reasonable with Rose here and she did vanish on him for a year (not her fault I know) so it's pretty selfish of her not to want him dating someone else. Maybe all I remembered was the "YOU'LL ALWAYS CHOOSE 'IM, WON'T YOU?" line which is pretty poorly delivered.

The ending with the Heart of the TARDIS transforming her back into an egg would have been nice if it had been foreshadowed even a bit. Like just have the Doctor say to Jack "hey, the Heart of the TARDIS could turn you into a woman, aye up!" or something earlier in the episode. But I know it's just there really so that a certain development in the finale doesn't seem to come from nowhere.

SCORE: 6/10

Bad Wolf - This episode starts off crazy with the Doctor, Rose and Jack all in reality tv shows. It could be really stupid, but it moves along fast and before you know it it's turned into a episode about KILLER reality tv shows, then it's about the evil corporation, then there's the controller woman Borg Queen/Minority Report hybrid, then hey it's Daleks and they would have been a nice surprise if not for the "NEXT TIME" bit in the previous episode! But it's a really fun, frantic episode.

In terms of the tv shows used, Trinny and Susannah are the most dated reference since nobody knows who they are in 2013 and the idea they'd be popular thousands of years in the future is ridiculous. But Captain Jack hiding a gun up his bum is amusing. The Weakest Link at least is still on tv (I think?) in 2013 and those scenes don't feel too dated and they have Paterson Joseph and the Anne Droid is pretty scary just admit it. And Big Brother...yeah I can totally see Big Brother still being on the air thousands of years in the future and people still complaining that it's not as good as it used to be. You can tell RTD is a real BB fan as all the housemates speak and act like real Big Brother housemates.

Lynda is a fun and likable character and of course Eccleston does a great job in his big speech to the Daleks at the climax. No pulling stupid faces or shouting certain words in a stupid voice for him UNLIKE SOME DOCTORS I COULD MENTION PROBABLY. (Oh and the scene where he's talking to Lynda about the Earth's devlopment and realising it's all his fault is strong too.) This is a really good episode!

SCORE: 8.5/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

The Parting Of The Ways - The Christopher Eccleston era (is it an era if it's only one series?) comes to end with a really strong finale! The Daleks are still scary here (well I mean I don't actually find them scary, but I'm an adult) and seem like an actual threat. I mean they change the shape of contients with bombs somehow! That's pretty scary.

I like Jack here trying to organise everyone and just doing his best. I remember the GAY KISS somehow being a big thing at the time but watching it back it's just perfectly normal really. It's actually sad when he dies and I remember being happy he was brought back. Of course he wouldn't always be used as well after this...

Lynda's death is a really good scene. The two flirty tv people it's kind of hard to care about since they were running a game that killed millions of people in the last episode, but meh they're okay. They seem like real people at least.

The whole thing with the Doctor setting up the Delta Wave feels slightly like a rehash of him wanting to kill the Dalek in 'Dalek' (but on a bigger scale.) Maybe that's intentional. It still works in the episode as it's really about him coming to terms with what he did during the Time War and finally finding peace. It's good closure on the Time War thread that's been running through the series and I'm sure it means we won't hear much more about the Time War from now on!

(And YES Tomtrek I am aware it's also a bit simliar to a scene in the Tom Baker story 'Genesis Of The Daleks' OKAY.)

Rose kind of starts showing signs of becoming an annoying character here. I mean I approve of her character growth in the scene where they're eating chips, but she still barely acknowledges Mickey and is really dislikable when she's giving Lynda the stinkeye just because the Doctor's being nice to her. Notice also that she didn't bring Lynda back to life with Jack! (Okay to be fair she wasn't really in control of what she was doing by then.)

As for Rose looking into the Heart of the TARDIS and becoming Bad Wolf I think it works fine here (and all the Bad Wolf mentions through the series were a nice mystery, even though it was impossible to work out what it meant.) It has been set up a bit and most importantly there are consequences to her actions...

So Christopher Eccleston is gone. That's a pretty big consequence. I always liked him as the Doctor but watching back now I appreciate him EVEN MORE. Some of these episodes would have been unwatchable with a lesser actor due to dodgy writing and dodgier special effects (and this one looks terribly aged!) but Eccleston holds them all together. It could have been a disaster without him, really! So yes Christopher you WERE fantastic. It's a shame you won't ever appear in anything Doctor Who related again but you're friends with Natalie Portman now and that's pretty cool too. Thanks for everything.

SCORE: 9/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

The Christmas Invasion - So after waiting six months to see the new Doctor in action...he spends two thirds of the episode asleep. And maybe that would have been fine if these two thirds had been exciting but they're not. They're really boring. We're back with Mickey and Jackie, but they don't really say or do anything they haven't already. In previous episodes they've been part of the story, here they're just there to fill up time. We also have Harriet Jones and UNIT, but they spend a long time just standing around looking at monitors. It's slow and I felt myself losing interest, which I never felt before even in the bad episodes. There's also a killer Christmas tree which is kind of fun but then the Doctor presses the "blow up Killer Christmas Trees" button the sonic and it's gone.

So, the Doctor finally wakes up and the episode gets a bit better. At least things happen! Tennant is pretty good here when he's dealing with the aliens. They're not exactly memorable villains though. And the satsuma bit looks bad and improbable. Then Harriet Jones shoots the aliens after the Doctor gives her a scary speech about all the aliens who will come to Earth to kill humans and suddenly she's a bad guy? And her government falls apart is the time it takes the Doctor to change clothes which is pretty stupid. But hey, at least the Doctor stopped that Golden Age of humanity from happening! The lives of those asshole aliens who nearly killed a third of the Earth were totally worth that!

Then the Doctor and Rose start making gooey faces at each other at the end and that's not really how I want the Doctor to behave! Oh and Rose herself is useless for most of the episode and keeps saying things like "there's no hope!" This being the same Rose who looked into the Heart of the Time Vortex in the previous episode. Okay!

SCORE: 5/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

New Earth - So it's David Tennant's first full episode and...it's not very good? I mean, it's not his fault really. He's not as good as Eccleston was in his first full episode, but he has a much worse script. The bit at the start with the Doctor and Rose lying on the grass grinning at each other with the overly romantic music just felt really wrong. Then they get into lifts and get sprayed and the music is really really annoying and it's not funny. There's two plots here, the one with the cat nurses using human clones to cure people and one with Cassanra (hey, remember that powerful moment in 'The End Of The World' when the Doctor let Cassandra die? Don't worry, she didn't really die!) The cat nurse plot is pretty awful! If they actually care about curing people surely they'd think "hang on, we've actually hurting lots more people!" If they're doing it for some EVIL REASON well the episode never makes it clear. Then the patients break out and act like zombies and we get some long, boring chase scenes then the Doctor cures them all and "creates a new species" (which are just thick humans basically) by curing them all by...mixing all the cures together. Okay. It's bad, worse than anything in the first series.

The Cassandra plot is okay. Billie Piper does a decent job playing Rose possessed by Cassandra, David Tennant...doesn't. The final scene with Cassandra dying in her own arms is quite good. Oh and there's something about the Face of Bo and a vague prophecy which is really lazy writing but I guess RTD loves lazy vague prophecy writing as he'll do a lot more of it starting from now on.

None of Eccleston episodes felt boring, this one did in places. Not good.

SCORE: 5/10 (PROBABLY OVERLY GENEROUS)

 

[CaptainWacky]

Tooth And Claw - I remembered two things about this episode before I watched it. One was that it started with a BBC ident of people jumping in slow motion. The other was that Rose was really annoying in it. Watched it back, both those things are true! The ninja monk people don't really do anything else after the teaser. Actually I'm not sure what happened to them in the end? I don't really care either. And yes Rose was really annoying and rude to Queen Victoria (an okay performance by Pauline Collins but I would have prefered Miriam Margolyes reprising the role from Blackadder's Christmas Carol.) In fact the Doctor was a bit of a dick in this one too. I liked how Queen Victoria didn't automatically trust him like many do. I mean, who would trust someone who is a bit of a dick? I could kind of understand her banishing him! Oh, there was a werewolf too but it was really an alien and it wasn't very exciting. Boring episode.

SCORE: 5.5/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

School Reunion - What's this? David Tennant in...a good episode!? Yes! It happened. Took a while. This is the first time you actually think "hey, maybe this show is still good even without Eccleston!" It's the best episode for Tennant as an actor yet too as his deliverly of the Doctor-type lines is good. But I think it's the presence of Sarah Jane Smith that brings out the best in him as he seems genuinely happy to see her. Elisabeth Sladen is course a delight and I got a bit misty eyed in the scene where she was telling the Doctor to say "goodbye" as I remembered she'd actually dead now and that's really upsetting. I also love K-9 and I'm not ashamed to say it. On the acting front though perhaps the most praise must go to Anthony Stewart Head who is just brilliant as the Demon Headmaster type villain. He's so good that I wish he could have been in more episodes.

The episode is good but not actually great or anything. I thought the transitions between scenes seemed off at the start? Is that a thing? Is that a proper complaint? Along the same lines I thought it would have been better if the first time we saw Sarah Jane was when the Doctor first saw her, rather than have her talking to Anthony Head first. And really does it make any sense that the evil alien headmaster would want an article written on him when he's got so many secrets? Then again he could be such an egomaniac alien that he just wants Earth to know what a great teacher he was.

Then there's Rose. Fucking Rose. I don't know why they thought it was a good idea to turn her into a raging bitch this season, after she was really quite likable in season one. The scenes where she's acting jealous of Sarah Jane just come across so harsh (and to be fair Sarah Jane is a bit overly nasty to her too) and not even the part where they become friends really makes up for it (the scene with the Doctor telling her why he leaves companions behind is good though and well acted by Tennant.) And her treatment of Micky, hoping that he created a crisis just because he wanted to see her again but also being worried that chips will make her fat and less sexually attractive to the Doctor then being all snidey when the Doctor invites Mickey to travel with them. Urgh.

But overall it's a good episode thanks to the good parts I already mentioneD!

"Ignore the shooty dog thing."

SCORE: 7.5/10