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] myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com 2009-04-14 10:31 am (UTC)(link)
Just trying not to spoil your other readers, there. I think there is all sorts of nightmarey flashbacky stuff that does not necessarily indicate reset button/destruction of all story endings for the sake of getting the gang together. RTD's clumsy way of putting all the toys back in the box, given how many "toys" I've seen in the pictures.

[identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com 2009-04-14 10:39 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah, flashbacks could work - so long as he resists the temptation to have them overlong and mawkish and wrecking what should be a tense moment. Which, based on past form, he won't.
I think we're safe from spoilering others now the threads have folded.

More spoilers

[identity profile] myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com 2009-04-14 10:59 am (UTC)(link)
There are new pictures of Sarah Jane and Luke with the Doctor, as well of the ones of Ging and family at their house from S4, Ood and a peroxide-haired Simm-looking chap. We'll see - the next ep looks great and the bookshop spoilers looked brilliant, so...

Re: More spoilers

[identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com 2009-04-14 11:01 am (UTC)(link)
Sarah Jane and Luke are fine by me, though poor Clyde, never getting to meet the Doctor!
Next episode...my first thoughts were 'Oooh, the Eden Project' and then 'Mars? How does this fit in with the Ice Warriors and Osirans?'

Re: More spoilers

[identity profile] myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com 2009-04-14 11:03 am (UTC)(link)
I know, and Clyde is buff. Albeit really, really short in the flesh (they all are, presumably so they don't look daft next to la Sladen).

I hope we at least get an Ice Warriors mention, I'm very fond of them.

Re: More spoilers

[identity profile] barrysarll.livejournal.com 2009-04-14 11:11 am (UTC)(link)
They were at least referenced in Christmas Invasion but yeah, I'd really like to see them again - they're the biggest corrective to Who's slightly dodgy tendency to say 'These aliens are behaving in this unpleasant fashion because that is what their race does'.
(See also: Earth Reptiles)