Doctor Who: School Reunion
Apr. 30th, 2006 03:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kerravonsenOooh, let me burble! You know how I've been muttering about "please, let us have something that's not written by RTD"? Well, we now have something not written by RTD! Thank you, Toby Whithouse, for a great episode! I am still smiling.
Sarah Jane! Sarah Jane! Sarah Jane! And done so well, not only acting but writing.
And how the Doctor was so pleased to see her, though he couldn't let her know who he was, though he gave her a hint with his "John Smith" line. And how she figured it out as soon as she saw the TARDIS.
Anthony Stewart Head as an Evil Alien Shape-shifting (Vampire) Bat Headmaster! Ah, the irony. And he did it so well, too.
Interesting line of the Doctor's: "I'm so old now. I used to have so much mercy. You get one warning. That was it." Yes, this Doctor is definitely the arrogant, unmerciful type. Don't think I like that. Hubris, ah yes. And then he's being offered god-like power ("The Lonely God" again?). Which was pre-meditated on Finch's part, considering that he said in the pool confrontation that "You will join with me, I promise you." I wonder what Finch's motivation was. I think it was more along the lines of "If you can't beat them, enlist them." Because I don't believe for one minute that Finch and his cohorts would be willing to be guided by the Doctor. He wanted the Doctor as an asset(*), yes, but that's not the same as wanting him as a leader or even an advisor. Finch couldn't understand how anyone could refuse power -- he was contemptuous of the Time Lords for being a peaceful race. Which I guess they were, since they had the power of Time itself, and didn't go out and conquer the universe, they just kept themselves to themselves (and, if "Father's Day" is to be believed, also helped keep Time more stable)
(*) Remember, he said to his cohorts that they could eat the Doctor, "but give me his brain".
I liked the whole Rose-and-Sarah-Jane thing, them with each other, them with the Doctor, rasing the question of what does happen to old companions? And that the Doctor doesn't have quick answers for it. It ran the whole gamut from laughter to tears. Yay! And oh the angst at the end, where Sarah keeps her back to the TARDIS as it's dematerializing, with a sad expression on her face, and then turns around at the last moment... and there's K-9 as a present.
Mickey compared himself to a tin dog - heh! Interesting reaction of Rose to Mickey's request to come along -- is she jealous of the Doctor's attention? Probably. Not a good sign. Rather a turnaround from the time when Rose suggested Mickey come along and Mickey had already primed the Doctor to say no.
K-9 was okay. They had some good continuity for the Old-School references, good. "We are in a car." (eyeroll) Mickey is an odd mixture; is he really that stupid? But okay, he doesn't always think well under pressure, but at least he is willing to do things like fight off aliens with baseball bats and drive cars through doors. And hack computers. Hey, nice move of his with the unplugging the school computers. (grin) Presumably he then went and did that in every classroom.
Obligatory Torchwood mention. Hmmm.
Obligatory chase by monsters through corridors. Ah, Doctor Who, what would you be without it? They were rather impressive monsters, though.
Nitpicks:
The code of the universe, cracked on computers? Huh? Oh well, it looked pretty. (And it had to be something really tempting in order to tempt the Doctor. And I like how Sarah-Jane pulled him back from the brink, and it's also part of resolving her own issues too. You can't ever go back again, but you can make a new life...)
Amazing stuff this Crilliteen oil, not only does it magically make humans smarter (and more docile, it seems), but Crilliteens are allergic to it. If they are, then how do they make the oil? I mean, when you call something "SpeciesX Oil", you kind of expect that it's something which is something which is a biological product of SpeciesX, but if they're so violently allergic to it, they could hardly make it, could they? Oh well. It reminds me of the species in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which "evolved so quickly that if one didn't have long enough arms to reach his cup of coffee, it would immediately evolve into something that did -- but was probably quite incapable of drinking the coffee".
How did Mickey call them back? Can Rose's super-phone recieve calls from anywhere as well as send them?
When did the Doctor have time to make a new K-9? And update its memory?
Still, the nitpicks are just nitpicks, not gaping huge enormous holes.
Edited To Add:
It just occurred to me, that #5 and #10 are totally opposite in the "mercy" department -- #5 is the most peace-making of the lot, always trying to reconcile people (including non-human people), wheras #10 just goes and gives 'final warnings' to anybody whom he suspects of wrongdoing. A rather sad contrast, and not an aspect of #10 that I like all that much. Then again, #5 and #8 are amongst my favourite Doctors, and they are the more gentle ones.
Sarah Jane! Sarah Jane! Sarah Jane! And done so well, not only acting but writing.
And how the Doctor was so pleased to see her, though he couldn't let her know who he was, though he gave her a hint with his "John Smith" line. And how she figured it out as soon as she saw the TARDIS.
Anthony Stewart Head as an Evil Alien Shape-shifting (Vampire) Bat Headmaster! Ah, the irony. And he did it so well, too.
Interesting line of the Doctor's: "I'm so old now. I used to have so much mercy. You get one warning. That was it." Yes, this Doctor is definitely the arrogant, unmerciful type. Don't think I like that. Hubris, ah yes. And then he's being offered god-like power ("The Lonely God" again?). Which was pre-meditated on Finch's part, considering that he said in the pool confrontation that "You will join with me, I promise you." I wonder what Finch's motivation was. I think it was more along the lines of "If you can't beat them, enlist them." Because I don't believe for one minute that Finch and his cohorts would be willing to be guided by the Doctor. He wanted the Doctor as an asset(*), yes, but that's not the same as wanting him as a leader or even an advisor. Finch couldn't understand how anyone could refuse power -- he was contemptuous of the Time Lords for being a peaceful race. Which I guess they were, since they had the power of Time itself, and didn't go out and conquer the universe, they just kept themselves to themselves (and, if "Father's Day" is to be believed, also helped keep Time more stable)
(*) Remember, he said to his cohorts that they could eat the Doctor, "but give me his brain".
I liked the whole Rose-and-Sarah-Jane thing, them with each other, them with the Doctor, rasing the question of what does happen to old companions? And that the Doctor doesn't have quick answers for it. It ran the whole gamut from laughter to tears. Yay! And oh the angst at the end, where Sarah keeps her back to the TARDIS as it's dematerializing, with a sad expression on her face, and then turns around at the last moment... and there's K-9 as a present.
Mickey compared himself to a tin dog - heh! Interesting reaction of Rose to Mickey's request to come along -- is she jealous of the Doctor's attention? Probably. Not a good sign. Rather a turnaround from the time when Rose suggested Mickey come along and Mickey had already primed the Doctor to say no.
K-9 was okay. They had some good continuity for the Old-School references, good. "We are in a car." (eyeroll) Mickey is an odd mixture; is he really that stupid? But okay, he doesn't always think well under pressure, but at least he is willing to do things like fight off aliens with baseball bats and drive cars through doors. And hack computers. Hey, nice move of his with the unplugging the school computers. (grin) Presumably he then went and did that in every classroom.
Obligatory Torchwood mention. Hmmm.
Obligatory chase by monsters through corridors. Ah, Doctor Who, what would you be without it? They were rather impressive monsters, though.
Nitpicks:
The code of the universe, cracked on computers? Huh? Oh well, it looked pretty. (And it had to be something really tempting in order to tempt the Doctor. And I like how Sarah-Jane pulled him back from the brink, and it's also part of resolving her own issues too. You can't ever go back again, but you can make a new life...)
Amazing stuff this Crilliteen oil, not only does it magically make humans smarter (and more docile, it seems), but Crilliteens are allergic to it. If they are, then how do they make the oil? I mean, when you call something "SpeciesX Oil", you kind of expect that it's something which is something which is a biological product of SpeciesX, but if they're so violently allergic to it, they could hardly make it, could they? Oh well. It reminds me of the species in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which "evolved so quickly that if one didn't have long enough arms to reach his cup of coffee, it would immediately evolve into something that did -- but was probably quite incapable of drinking the coffee".
How did Mickey call them back? Can Rose's super-phone recieve calls from anywhere as well as send them?
When did the Doctor have time to make a new K-9? And update its memory?
Still, the nitpicks are just nitpicks, not gaping huge enormous holes.
Edited To Add:
It just occurred to me, that #5 and #10 are totally opposite in the "mercy" department -- #5 is the most peace-making of the lot, always trying to reconcile people (including non-human people), wheras #10 just goes and gives 'final warnings' to anybody whom he suspects of wrongdoing. A rather sad contrast, and not an aspect of #10 that I like all that much. Then again, #5 and #8 are amongst my favourite Doctors, and they are the more gentle ones.
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-30 08:59 am (UTC)I liked the bit at the end where the traditional bespectacled, plump swot is suddenly a hit with the girls through taking the credit for blowing up the school.
This was also one of the very rare occasions when we got some genuine science in Dr Who, even if only in the context of the Doctor pretending to be a physics teacher.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-30 10:05 am (UTC)I liked the bit at the end where the traditional bespectacled, plump swot is suddenly a hit with the girls through taking the credit for blowing up the school.
(snerk) Though also a bit of a nitpick too, considering that only minutes before, the chip-eating pupils were eager to get into class, so why they'd suddenly revert to rejoicing that school had been blown up seems rather odd -- how long does the oil take to wear off? Less than that, surely, or they'd be force-feeding the kids chips every hour. But it was fun anyway.
This was also one of the very rare occasions when we got some genuine science in Dr Who, even if only in the context of the Doctor pretending to be a physics teacher.
Yeah, I was wondering if he was going to make a mess of it at first, considering that he started off the lesson trying to demonstrate how many ways one could say the word "physics".
no subject
Date: 2006-04-30 05:43 pm (UTC)But it was such a good episode that the nitpicks didn't really matter.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-30 09:27 pm (UTC)Agreed.
Also it occurred to be afterwards that nowadays, with concerns over child nutrition, a school canteen could hardly get away with serving chips with everything.
Well, they'd probably lie about it.
There would be lots of things that would appeal to kids in this ep: - The fact that the school was encouraging the eating of chips.
- I remember thinking, as soon as I saw that the teacher in the science room was the Doctor, "Any nerd's dream come true -- the Doctor as their science teacher!"
no subject
Date: 2006-04-30 04:11 pm (UTC)I figured they were doing Block Transfer Computation, a la "Logopolis." (And, interestingly, there seem to be to be a lot of things in this episode that, while not explicit callbacks to previous events, do seem to tie into, or at least resonate with, existing continuity if you're actually looking for connections. I have no idea whether this is deliberate or not.)
Amazing stuff this Crilliteen oil, not only does it magically make humans smarter (and more docile, it seems), but Crilliteens are allergic to it.
Is it just me, or has every episode so far this season had the plot solved by some deus ex machina at the end that doesn't actually make a lot of sense? I mean... Throw the cure for every disease in existence at them! Concentrated moonlight kills werewolves! They're allergic to their own oil! *rolls eyes* Not that this sort of thing doesn't necessarily work on Doctor Who, being that it's, you know, Doctor Who, but I'm not exactly liking the pattern.
When did the Doctor have time to make a new K-9? And update its memory?
The dude does own a time machine. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-30 09:32 pm (UTC)I think the others would have noticed if he'd nipped off -- on the other hand, we do know that he moved the TARDIS, since it was originally on the school grounds, but the goodbye scene was outdoors. Okay, that can be explained; he dashes into the school after the explosion, to "move the TARDIS", hovers in the vortex for a few days, building a new K-9... does that work?
no subject
Date: 2006-04-30 09:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 02:26 pm (UTC)And icon love! May I borrow?
no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 02:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-06 11:45 pm (UTC)She must have been fairly certain after that first meeting. Confident enough to load K9 into the back of her car.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-07 01:07 am (UTC)Oooh, nice icon!