Dr Who the new review

[gategrrl]

Dr. Who...this episode had a really weird pace. In fact, it hardly had much story at all. Don't know if I'm saying this correctly. It was mostly John Simms jumping around as a new superpowered mega-Time Lord *eating people* for energy (and I suppose because he simply liked to eat humans cuz he's that kind of guy), Tennant running around like a sprinter searching for an empty bathroom and getting knocked over by a ravenous Simms playing the Master, and teasing scenes with Donna. Perhaps the only one with any true meat to his role was Wilfred, Donna's grandfather. Is he a soldier minor time-lord and yet doesn't know it? Is he really human? Does that mean that Donna would be able to adapt to the time-lord mind inside her own? Is she going to die? Or be the wild card, as she generally was?

I won't be able to say for sure whether or not I liked this swan-song for the original show-runner, RTD (and although I remember his initials, I don't remember his name! argh!) until I see I see part 2. I'm just waiting for Rose to pop back in with her Bad Wolf self and try to fix things, but I'm really hoping that she's completely and truly stuck in that other universe with her human Dr Who #10.

I thought the inclusion of Obama was strange: what the heck speech were they all talking about? I guess this Dr Who takes place in a genuine alternate universe from ours, because there's no way that even simple middle class folk anywhere in the USA or Great Britain would ever think that one president could solve the depression, as the newscaster called it on the show.

I will say this: Wilfred rocks, I hope he's a time lord soldier, because that's the only way I could think of for Donna to survive, if she had some time-lord blood in her.

Comments

[webbgirl.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you on everything here.

I remember looking at the time when I was watching the episode and realizing that it was half over and nothing had really happened yet.

The Obama thing was really bizarre. I couldn't understand why folks in other countries would be so interested in his speech. I'm not sure if that's a product of how he views America or...I don't know. It was just weird.

I loved Wilfred and would really take a whole episode of him.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

That's it. NOTHING HAPPENED for half the show! I remember taking a look at how far along it was, and realizing with a shock at how much vagueness and talk-arounds in the dialogue there were before anything started happening. And that's when Timothy Dalton appeared.

Was the woman on the TV who talked to Wilfred-was she also in the same room as the Dalton Time Lord character?

[agentotter.livejournal.com]

My favorite bit was that chase through the wasteland with The Master stopping to stare back at the Doctor menacingly, and then running, and then stopping and posing again... I was practically checking my watch, like "WTF, just catch him or don't, but I've got shit to do!"

In the "Inside Look" special after the episode, RTD talked about how Obama being elected was such a big deal that they wanted to do something with that in the Whoverse, but I think that HOW they did it was just bizarre. It would've been *less* strange if they'd invented a "newly appointed King of the World" character, if he really wanted some person of import for The Master to become. And then the whole thing of everybody (except those who are convenient to our plot) becoming the Master was just like... W. T. F. I has a bitter.

[nialla]

I think the review title at io9 summed it up for me: What the Hell Was That?

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

Also: John Simms in women's clothing. They kept pointing it out in the scenes, and almost always a really feminine pink!

Brings back horrible memories of that short-lived SciFi show starring the former-Highlander actor. Do you remember the ad where he walks out of a train depot (i think) wearing a women's low-cut pink pink sweater? OMG. Bleach, pleasE!

[nialla]

I'm having a vague memory of the image, but otherwise I've managed to repress it. ;)