Doctor Who, of course

[alexsarll]

I hadn't been all that excited about Waters of Mars. I try my best to avoid spoilers, but I'd still encountered enough to make me very, very excited about Tennant's final outings as the Doctor and the Christmas regeneration. Especially after the lacklustre Planet of the Dead, this just seemed like another contractual obligation, a roadbump in the way. Until I saw the last trailer with the Doctor telling the crew of Bowie Base One that he was very sorry, but this was a fixed point, and he had to let them die. Then, suddenly, I was excited. And for two thirds of the episode that was what we seemed to get - and it was wonderful, if deeply stressful. To be honest, I wasn't that concerned about the crew or the soggy zombies after them - good effects and all, but they were there to die. It was the Doctor I felt for, his mingled duty and curiosity, his sorrow at his own powerlessness. Not that I ever felt he was under threat, past one shout of 'Get your suit on, Doctor!' when the water was running in.
And then the bait and switch, and "The Laws of Time are mine and they will obey me", and I'm too staggered to punch the air but oh my life, this is amazing. This is the route to the godhead hinted at from time to time, especially in the Moffat stories (I half-expected Gadget to open the TARDIS door by clicking its manipulators). I always love it when a hero throws off the constraints of mortality and becomes a god, and this was up there with Kal El's 'Mother, Father, I love you, but you were wrong. I am no man. I am Superman."
Except...why has he taken them back to Earth in the same time zone? Why not hide them in the past or the future - I expected it to be somewhere out in the depths of space and time where a great-descendant of Adelaid Brooke could meet the originator of it all, John Wyndham's Outward Urge (a definite influence) meets DC One Million. When Adelaide doesn't feel up to sharing the Doctor's responsibility, why not just nip in, get rid of the body then go get the other two and take them on a long trip? You're not out of control, Doctor. You did the right thing. No need to emote, now go save the Time Lords. And fuck the Ood, they're not all that.
None of which is to deny that I'm now even more psyched up about The End of Time than I was before I got excited about Waters of Mars.

Not the only Who showing at the moment, of course, because there's also The Sarah Jane Adventures. Except, half of this series has been written by the same Phil Ford who collaborated on Waters of Mars, and yet all his teatime stories have all been utter drivel. Yes, you can say 'it's only a kid's show' - and that's precisely what Ford must do, because every one of his stories has been an exercise in dumb 'will this do?', as against fine work by all the other writers. But the worst of the lot was last week's outing, Mona Lisa's Revenge. To spoiler you less than the trailer does: Clyde, the rebellious one of Sarah Jane's kid sidekicks, is suddenly revealed to have always been a gifted artist. So much so that he has won a competition (with some really bad graffiti-style girls-with-guns work) and the class have been invited to see the unveiling of the Mona Lisa, on its first loan outside the Louvre. A loan to a gallery run by a man who was apparently barred from the Louvre for his obsession with the Mona Lisa, so that obviously makes perfect sense. Except, oh noes, the Mona Lisa has come to life! Where she is played by someone who looks nothing like the Mona Lisa, can't act, and has apparently been chosen just because somebody thought it would be jolly funny if for no apparent reason, the Mona Lisa had a Northern accent. Now, all of this is pretty poor in and of itself. But what makes it really special is that the Mona Lisa has already been key to a Doctor Who story. Not some pissy little book or audio or whatever, either, but one of the best stories in the original series' TV history, the Douglas Adams/Tom Baker/Lalla Ward classic City of Death. Ford is writing for a spin-off while either never having seen this story, being too stupid to remember it, or being arrogant enough that he thinks he can go clodhopping all over it for some cheap laughs which don't even come off.
But hey, at least he's not writing the series finale.
Oh, and while we've had occasional updates as to what original kid sidekick Maria has been up to since she moved to America, her dad, nice Alan Jackson, can now be seen as priapic, indolent English professor Matt Beer in Channel 4's so-so new comedy pilot Campus. Which is quite disturbing.

Comments

[davegodfrey.livejournal.com]

I've not seen it yet, but if the Mona Lisa was a primordial evil trapped in a painting, courtesy of the Doctor, or something (anything?) that would have nicely dovetailed with City of Death I wouldn't have minded. As it is I have a feeling it won't be.

I've not read Outward Urge, but there seemed to be parallels with Alastair Reynolds' Pushing Ice- if Ten had dropped her off 500,000 years in the future they'd have felt even more obvious.

[steve586.livejournal.com]

I hadn't been that excited either, which made tonight's offering all the more astonishing. That last 15 minutes totally made up for The Next Doctor and Planet Of The Dead, basically. I love it when a hero goes wrong, and when a hero finds him or herself impotent in the face of a fixed fate. This had both. So stoked for the finale now that I'm concerned that it can't possibly live up to expectation.

[xandratheblue.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the end kind of threw me - I was hoping he was going to hide them in the future as well - but then again, I suppose that was part of the "benevolent God" thing the Doctor supposedly has going on.

I was surprised how good it was, actually. If only because it involved Waterzombies! SO much more could have been done with the Water Zombies!, even though perhaps less was done to keep up their 'mystery.'

You know my thoughts on the lastest Sarah Jane. It made absolutely no sense, too much shoehorning where all that was needed was a little oil.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Disco Ulterior Vomit! Call him by his name!!

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

I'm sloooowly catching up on Sarah Jane, only up to the third episode but I am Sorting That Out. However, I've liked them all so far. Proving that I am a ho for haunted house style set-ups, I really liked the Mad Woman of Bannerman Road (only seen ep 1!), even if it is probably the exact same as that Buffy episode where Xander was showed his fake future, and red goth demon can go eat a s4ck of hairfalls...

Mona the Vampire Lisa more like. Clyde has to draw a GIANT BOWSHIP coming to life! Hm I wonder why Rusty hasn't hired me yet.

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

Did you write this the second you got in? :D

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

I agree that the Doctor did right, based on his motivations and the way the timelines changed, not obviously for the worse; I guess though that there was a big risk of the timelines changing in unpredictable and disastrous ways (like, oh just say, the Time War never happening?) and as such he should have known better. But he's not obviously an arrogant bastard for doing what he did, and as such I feel Adelaide's suicide and the other two's being ungrateful little swine was ladling it on a bit thick.

The real disappointment of the episode for me was that it wasn't anywhere near "The Scariest Doctor Who Ever?", mainly because we'd already seen anything that qualified as a scary bit in the trailer.

[miss-sheldon.livejournal.com]

I thought the robot thing was going to click his fingers too!