alexsarll: (seal)
Alex ([personal profile] alexsarll) wrote2009-04-12 01:27 am

Planet of the Dead

Five hours or so since the first new Who in months, and not a whisper of it on my friendslist? Curious. Is that because it was neither worthy of an OMG 'This is awesome!' nor a 'I was on the internet registering my disgust' before people headed out to their Saturday evening festivities? I can understand that. Better than any of the christmas specials since the first, but still hardly a classic. Michelle Ryan remains someone who ought to be better, cooler, sexier than she actually is, even when she's got the material. Tennant...his 'food, home' speech was Tennant by numbers, and yes he's still great, but he brought nothing new here, and didn't get me a fraction as teary as the end of Finding Nemo beforehand.
The ad on the side of the bus for Neon mobiles - "tomorrow is here" - that's going somewhere, isn't it? Spotting this stuff is in danger of stopping being fun. Similarly, I worry about the 'four knocks' stuff at the end, because that sounds like the sound of drums, which implies the Master, which suggests that the appalling tabloid suggestion as to how the Tenth Doctor ends might be true, which would suck, because neither Rose nor Donna can be brought back without it all going horribly wrong.
But if we pull back from the future to the present of the Time Lord...I liked non-human aliens. It's not as if hegemonising swarm entitites are new to Who - hi there, the Cybermen - but non-humanoid aliens are still too rare. The fly-chaps died too soon and too pointlessly, and I would have liked to see one coming back to Earth even if the resulting comedy might have been an embarrassment. Malcolm, against all odds, was brilliant, though I don't see what was gained by the UNIT captain's suddent burst of Evil Military Efficiency - and if you're doing a black female UNIT officer, why not bring Bambera back? She was ace.
Oh, and one of my favourite bits - early on, where the Doctor mentions that he was at the first Easter, and "what really happened..." - I know that's never going to get followed up. But in my head, the possibilities include:
Captain Jack bums Jesus back to life.
The Doctor, with respiratory bypass &c, stands in for Jesus on the cross. Ideally the Fifth, because that ties in with the stuff in Timewyrm: Revelation where he's crucified on the Doctor's brain-stem.
Jesus is in fact the Master, the Resurrection being one of his cunning escape plans.
Was it really necessary, though, to have one of the most generic episode titles ever?
Could have been a lot worse. Should have been better. I'm grasping for an angle here; it was OK.

[identity profile] renegadechic.livejournal.com 2009-04-12 01:12 pm (UTC)(link)
one problem i found with the episode was that the first 15 mins of it was all "get to know everyone!" at which point, everyone else on the bus became basically irrelevant and superfluous other that the mildly psychic lady. i mean, i know they werent really important, but why go so into it? rhoda brought up midnight, and i know we didnt find out a great deal about the characters there, but they had a point. was it just to add some weird resemblance of empathy for their fear? i didnt feel it.

michelle ryan... i dont know what it is but i never feel like she does believeable naughtyness or derring-do. she looked far more naieve and out of her depth than even martha jones did and she didnt seem down to earth enough compared to any of the others. it was more "here is my game i will prove i am your equal" compared to "goodness you are fabulous and though i know my place, you shall love me for my inadvertant wonderful humanlyness". know what i mean? hmm. she probably does need an award though for providing instant fanboy hardons despite not showing an inch of flesh. i suspect is was the clothing assisted grativy defiance of her boobs and had non-anorexic looking quite nice figure rather than her face

[identity profile] renegadechic.livejournal.com 2009-04-12 01:13 pm (UTC)(link)
ugh typos. i am struggling a little on this mini asus eee keyboard of my sisters

[identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com 2009-04-12 01:19 pm (UTC)(link)
This being the case I will assume that was meant to read 'mini anus, eee!' ;)

RTD has often been keen on a rather extraneous spot of characterisation for *all* the characters in any jeopardised small group - the Kylie episode was particularly bad for it. It's one of the things he feels he has to do to keep mainstream viewers onboard - I don't think it's necessary, and I'm hopeful it will depart with him.

Black and leather is always a good look, right?

[identity profile] renegadechic.livejournal.com 2009-04-12 01:22 pm (UTC)(link)
well, leather looks good on the floor... anywhere else and i am still harder to impress than i should be. besides, leather in the desert? pass the deodorant.

[identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com 2009-04-12 03:33 pm (UTC)(link)
She probably had that in the bag along with the spade, hammer, winch, shades...