jedi_of_urth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jedi_of_urth) wrote2012-06-05 09:30 pm
jedi_of_urth) wrote2012-06-05 09:30 pm
Entry tags:
100 Reviews: 6
So, slow and...somewhat steady, back to the reviews.
Doctor Who 1x03: The Unquiet Dead
To tell the truth, and I usually do, I’ve never been terribly fond of this one. I like a lot of the scenes but they’ve never held together for me when taking the episode as a whole.
But firstly, it suffers from the problem a lot of the stores set in the past do, and is why those episodes have to work harder to compete with the present or future ones for me; in spite of the show trying to tell us the past can be changed, you know they’re not actually going to do it. Our modern world isn’t going to be rewritten no matter what stakes the episode tries to create. This works better in episodes like Pompeii where time loops are involved or HN/FoB where ultimately the stakes to the world at large are not that large.
So with the plot hamstrung but narrative law the story has to work doubly hard to make the show engaging. The best way to do this is with the characters and while there’s some truly excellent stuff here I don’t think it fits together all that well, or something about it just doesn’t work for me.
I think my main problem is with the writing of Rose. Because the first few scenes of AMAZING and if I didn’t already love her I would for her thoughts on seeing the past, her joy at stepping out into history and making footprints on snow that fell so long ago, her enthusiasm for everything surrounding her. But then...I’m not entirely sure I buy her attitude once the Gelf enter the story, she’s jumping all over the map and sometimes seems to just be arguing because she’s locked in argument mode. I might like to think she’s maybe doing that to keep the Doctor from making a mistake because someone played the Time War card (plus she’s gone into protective mode for Gwyneth), but I’m not sure that tracks.
Rose does have a consistent character trait of ‘the loss of one person it a tragedy, the loss of millions is a statistic’ thinking, she cares about protecting the people she’s closest to first and foremost and at this point she hasn’t had a chance to really start thinking in terms of saving the world and entire races yet. So yeah, she’s thinking small and trying to project her morality/values onto others but I don’t quiet buy that she’d be that stubborn about not reusing dead bodies as just having a problem with that.
Anyway, I‘ve also never been real fond of the guest cast in this one. Gwyneth is okay, Sneed’s kind of funny in places, and Dickens has some good moments, but I’ve never really felt for any of them all that much. Also, I would like it to be explained how Gwyneth kept doing things after she was dead I’ve always thought that was a cop out to not give it even an as-least-by-DW-standards-“scientific” explanation.
But I do get a chuckle out of Charlie-boy bringing up ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ in the end. I saw this only a couple years after I was in ‘Drood’ in college, a musical about Dickens’s unfinished book where the audience gets to vote on the ending. If we did it today I wonder how many people would vote for the blue elementals (not a real option in the play, but I’d expect to have people shouting it out. Yes I did go to a nerdy enough school where I would expect this to happen from someone).
A fringe issue I have with this story is how much of a fan of Dickens the Doctor is. I am really not a fan of his myself, so I find the whole bit of fanboying over Dickens more annoying than charming because I wish I hadn’t been subjected to the man’s works in school likely because of that kind of attitude. It’s a small issue, but since I’m kind of meh on this episode I might as well mention it.
Next time:
Probably TVD ‘Rose’ but we’ll see.
>Requests for reviews?
Doctor Who 1x03: The Unquiet Dead
To tell the truth, and I usually do, I’ve never been terribly fond of this one. I like a lot of the scenes but they’ve never held together for me when taking the episode as a whole.
But firstly, it suffers from the problem a lot of the stores set in the past do, and is why those episodes have to work harder to compete with the present or future ones for me; in spite of the show trying to tell us the past can be changed, you know they’re not actually going to do it. Our modern world isn’t going to be rewritten no matter what stakes the episode tries to create. This works better in episodes like Pompeii where time loops are involved or HN/FoB where ultimately the stakes to the world at large are not that large.
So with the plot hamstrung but narrative law the story has to work doubly hard to make the show engaging. The best way to do this is with the characters and while there’s some truly excellent stuff here I don’t think it fits together all that well, or something about it just doesn’t work for me.
I think my main problem is with the writing of Rose. Because the first few scenes of AMAZING and if I didn’t already love her I would for her thoughts on seeing the past, her joy at stepping out into history and making footprints on snow that fell so long ago, her enthusiasm for everything surrounding her. But then...I’m not entirely sure I buy her attitude once the Gelf enter the story, she’s jumping all over the map and sometimes seems to just be arguing because she’s locked in argument mode. I might like to think she’s maybe doing that to keep the Doctor from making a mistake because someone played the Time War card (plus she’s gone into protective mode for Gwyneth), but I’m not sure that tracks.
Rose does have a consistent character trait of ‘the loss of one person it a tragedy, the loss of millions is a statistic’ thinking, she cares about protecting the people she’s closest to first and foremost and at this point she hasn’t had a chance to really start thinking in terms of saving the world and entire races yet. So yeah, she’s thinking small and trying to project her morality/values onto others but I don’t quiet buy that she’d be that stubborn about not reusing dead bodies as just having a problem with that.
Anyway, I‘ve also never been real fond of the guest cast in this one. Gwyneth is okay, Sneed’s kind of funny in places, and Dickens has some good moments, but I’ve never really felt for any of them all that much. Also, I would like it to be explained how Gwyneth kept doing things after she was dead I’ve always thought that was a cop out to not give it even an as-least-by-DW-standards-“scientific” explanation.
But I do get a chuckle out of Charlie-boy bringing up ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ in the end. I saw this only a couple years after I was in ‘Drood’ in college, a musical about Dickens’s unfinished book where the audience gets to vote on the ending. If we did it today I wonder how many people would vote for the blue elementals (not a real option in the play, but I’d expect to have people shouting it out. Yes I did go to a nerdy enough school where I would expect this to happen from someone).
A fringe issue I have with this story is how much of a fan of Dickens the Doctor is. I am really not a fan of his myself, so I find the whole bit of fanboying over Dickens more annoying than charming because I wish I hadn’t been subjected to the man’s works in school likely because of that kind of attitude. It’s a small issue, but since I’m kind of meh on this episode I might as well mention it.
Next time:
Probably TVD ‘Rose’ but we’ll see.
>Requests for reviews?
no subject
It seemed to be missing something. And yeah, I wish there was more of a 'scientific' explanation to the whole Gwyneth thing.
That's one of the things I love about Doctor Who; there's always some sort of 'reasonable' explanation.
no subject
Yeah, it's really not DW style not to have some "reason" for things that happen. I mean did Gwyneth's psychic energy go into the Rift and allow her to keep causing things to happen after her death? It doesn't have to be real science, but it's really not their style to be like "oh well, we don't care how it happened."
I'm almost feeling like it was a cop out because they didn't want the Doctor to leave her while she was still alive this early in the show. OR, if I have to purely Watsonian about it, maybe he was lying to spare Rose's feelings, which I'd rather not think, but it wouldn't be out of character (Jack, having just come back in time from the Game Station would like me to point that out).
no subject
no subject