Thursday 27 August 2009

The Girl in the Fireplace

Depends on which bit you count as the ending. The Doc bursting through the mirror on a horse is reasonable enough (well, in relative terms), but the rebuilt fireplace sticks in the craw a bit. Surely the time window wasn't a physical part of the actual fireplace, it just happened to be in that place. Also: the mind-meld is fucking bullshit.

School Reunion

It's not a satisfying ending by any means, but I've got to admit it doesn't really cheat the viewer. It doesn't really do anything actually. Bit of a dull episode, although I've got a lot of time for "ignore the shooty dog thing".

Tooth and Claw

A few minor offences throughout (lots of characters turning up at exactly the right moment) but the ending does a good job of avoiding out-of-nowhereness. It's somewhat odd that I'd be annoyed if the Doctor had built the moonlight-gun-thing, but it's ok cos Prince Albert did it 20 years previously. Not sure where he got the technological knowhow to do that. Still, no real complaints.

New Earth

Yes. Or so I thought when I watched it. It's the classic Doctor-rigs-up-a-machine-to-save-the-world rubbish. But thinking about it, the decontamination showers were introduced earlier, and the hospital did have the cure to every disease. It's kind of unlikely that they were all primary-coloured liquids in plastic bags, but whatever. Either way it's kind of shit though.

Wednesday 26 August 2009

The Christmas Invasion

Yes. Completely. The Doctor wakes up and suddenly everything's ok. I have to say it actually works in this episode, since we're introducing David Tennant and so on. But there's no getting away from it.

Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways

YES. Foreshadowed up to fuck but it still doesn't make sense. Let me count the ways.

1. The Doctor rigs up a delta wave to kill the Daleks. Yes he doesn't use it. But, yikes. What the hell's a delta wave?

2. Bad Wolf? Why? What kind of message is that? Why not "hey Rose, open up the Tardis, y'know, like in Boom Town"? Worst foreshadowing ever.

3. "Oh btw, the Tardis likes you so it's going to TURN YOU INTO GOD." Yes, literally, god out of a machine. Amazing.

4. How to dissipate all of that horrid time energy? How about a snog. Yeah, makes perfect sense.

And it's such a great episode apart from that. Although, why is it called Parting of the Ways? Yes, a few characters part ways at the end, but that happens every week. It's blatantly just cos RTD thought it was cool. See also: Journey's End.

Boom Town

Oh my god yes. First of the biggies. "Oh btw, the Tardis doesn't like you so it's going to zap you into an egg at a dramatically convenient moment. Did I mention it could do that?" And no, it doesn't count as foreshadowing for Parting of the Ways.