School Reunion

A cracking episode of Doctor Who, with one of the most beautiful lines ever:

Some things are worth getting your heart broken for.

Scott Matthewman has written a great review of School Reunion.

The reasons he likes it are mostly the same ones I do, though I get the impression he'd rate it 11/10 rather than 8/10 as I do! (Though on my rating scale 8/10 is very good, and not many things get higher!)

As he says, the reasons can be put in four words.

Sarah Jane Smith. K9.

BTW - do check the links to the Deffrey Vale High School site and others. Probably the most funny and detailed collection of fake websites so far!


I may add more of my own thoughts on School Reunion later.

For now - just to note there was another Torchwood sighting, as Mickey got a "Torchwood: Access Denied" message as he hunted for UFO info on the defence website he'd hacked into.

And the theme of Godlike power was touched on again.



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Torchwood Sightings

It looks like Torchwood will be this year's "Bad Wolf" after all!

So it's time to remind ourselves of all the Torchwood sightings so far:

• In the series one episode Bad Wolf, one of the quiz answers reveals that the Great Cobalt Pyramid was built on the remains of "the famous Old-Earth Torchwood Institute".


• The Torchwood spin-off series has been described as being about a group of maverick investigators, a kind of British X-Files.


• In The Christmas Invasion (TCI), Harriet Jones asks UNIT to contact Torchwood. They are a group so secret that she's not supposed to know about them, though they do seem willing to take orders from her.


• At the end of TCI, the Sycorax spaceship is destroyed by a powerful weapon built using retrieved alien technology. The weapon is controlled and presumably built by Torchwood.


• In Tooth and Claw (T&C), Queen Victoria's encounters with an alien werewolf and the Doctor lead her to realise that the Empire faces threats she'd never imagined. She decides to launch the Torchwood Institute to investigate mysterious phenomena, and protect the Empire from them. The Doctor is seen as one such potential threat, maybe not directly, but in his dangerous habits and casual attitude.


• The Torchwood Institute is named after Torchwood House, where T&C is set, in gratitude to the MacLeish family whose efforts saved the Queen and the Empire.


• In the commentary track for T&C, David Tennant confirms that there will be Torchwood references all through this series, and there will be a big payoff when they're all be pulled together in the two-part season finale.

Time to start keeping a lookout - and let the speculation begin!


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Tooth and Claw - First Thoughts

Tooth and Claw was an episode in the traditional Doctor Who mould, with a classic mixture of horror, mystery and sci-fi neatly put together. It was rather unlike most Russell T Davis episodes, and didn’t have the typical RTD weaknesses, but it also lacked some of that RTD magic.

The story was nicely atmospheric, with a remote Victorian estate taken over by evil monks, and our heroes besieged by an alien werewolf, all in a moonlit Scottish landscape. Throw in Queen Victoria, and the mysterious contraptions left behind by the previous Lord, and it’s a great setup for a Who story.

The plot drives along nicely, keeping you wanting to know what happens next. And for once, RTD’s plot makes good sense and avoids convolutions and a profusion of subplots. And as the plot rolls along, there are plenty of scenes of terror, and plenty of nice one-liners.

But what is missing from Tooth and Claw are those moments in Who that reach the parts that other shows seldom reach. Moments that are moving and thought-provoking, maybe even profound. Strangely, New Earth had many more of those moments, even though it also had more weaknesses than Tooth and Claw.

So, I think I’d rate Tooth and Claw as 7/10, good Whovian fare. One to watch and enjoy, but perhaps not come back to time and time again.



Related Topics:

For detailed comments on New Earth, see my earlier posts, including New Earth - Initial Thoughts and Lightweight Villains?.

For discussions of RTD’s strengths and weaknesses see the Tamino BadWolf topic: RTD - The Good, the Bad and the the Ugly, plus many other threads in the forum, such as episode discussions of The Christmas Invasion.

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Lightweight Villains? - More on New Earth

They say that drama is about conflict, and great drama needs a great enemy.

New Earth wasn't riveting because the enemies weren't formidable enough, evil enough, relentless enough, or chilling enough. And there were too many of them.

The zombie-like lab-rat humans were too sympathetic to work as a horrifying menace. And the chase scenes with them were played like a romp, with comedy-chase music.

Cassandra was too likeable, and not even close to being an enemy that could match the Doctor.

The cat-nurses weren't seen very much, and again it's hard to see them being any kind of a serious threat to the Doctor.

So the episode was enjoyable fluff rather than great drama like Dalek or The Empty Child.


The other side of the equation is that RTD seems to be attributing ever greater power to the Doctor. There were references to "a lonely God" and "if you want to appeal to a higher authority, tough, because there isn't one". Add to that the previous mentions of "the technology of the Gods" and "The Oncoming Storm" and RTD's Doctor appears so powerful as to be invincible.

A hero who so out-classes his adversaries doesn't make for a gripping battle.

Then there's the added complication that David Tennant doesn't actually project the awesome power that is implied, so it is only talked about, not felt. So mostly the drama feels like a lightweight Doctor matched against lightweight enemies.


Next week might be very much better... from the trailer, those werewolves might be just the kind of enemy that makes great drama.


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New Earth - Initial thoughts

New Earth was fun and enjoyable, but I felt a lot more could have been done with it.

It was a good idea for a story, but I'd have enjoyed it a lot more fleshed out over two or three episodes. There were many strands that I'd like to have seen explored more:

New Earth - What kind of society is it? The Duke of Manhattan? What is humanity like in the year Five Billion? etc etc

Engineered Beings - Cassandra's sidekick, and the lab-rat humans. (Bit like the cow that wanted to be eaten in HHGG.) Raises lots of interesting ideas, echoes debates about genetic engineering, animal experimentation, abortion etc.

Cassandra - What was her story? How did she come to be there? The whole thing about her wanting to be beautiful. And wanting to live forever, and there being a time to let go. Her body hopping and experiencing the world from other people's skins.

Boe - We heard practically nothing of his story, which was set up as highly intriguing, and was what fetched the Doc to New Earth in the first place.

All great material for SF, but not delved into enough for my liking.


New Earth was also not as emotionally engaging as it could have been because the various moods weren't sustained for long. The scarier people-in-peril parts would have been more powerful if they'd been under siege longer. And the poignant moments would have been that much more moving if built up to slowly and lingered over.

Cassandra's death was affecting, but her progression from egotistical villain to redeemed soul was too sudden to fully draw us in.


One thing about these hurried RTD endings is they are Textbook Anti-Climactic.

I was so looking forward to hearing Boe's message for the Doctor. That was really built-up, and I was extremely disappointed that at the moment of climax instead of something wonderful being revealed, Boe just says he'll tell him another time and vanishes.


So overall I'd rate it as something like 7/10. Fairly good, but missed the opportunity to be awesome.


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Tenth Doctor, Second Impressions

New Earth was our second chance to see David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. My second impressions of the character were much more favourable than the first.

In The Christmas Invasion (TCI) the Doctor didn't make much of an appearance until the last few scenes, when finally he recovered from his post-regeneration illness, made a dramatic entrance, and saved the day.

Although I enjoyed TCI there were a number things I didn't like about that portrayal. I didn't take to the manicness, his cockiness, or his seeming preoccupation with his looks -right bang in the middle of a world crisis. And while the sword fight was fun, I'd hate to see the Doctor turn into just another handsome action-hero.

I was much, much happier with the Doctor we saw in New Earth.

Cheery and cheeky, but not cocky or arrogant.

Slightly bemused at being attractive to women.

Intelligent, curious, and compassionate.

Much more the Doctor we know and love, somehow the same man, despite all the changes.


I'm very much looking forward to seeing the Tenth Doctor develop.


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Hunting Bad Wolf Hunting

Bad Wolf Hunting, a blog post by Scott Matthewman, was the one of the first places on the net for Bad Wolf speculation and discussion. Another blogger rightly called it "the best Doctor Who forum ever, except it's some poor bloke's blog"!

Scott Matthewman has redesigned and migrated his blog since then, and it is not quite straightfoward for me link directly to all the orginal conversations there.

The Bad Wolf Hunting link now takes you to a list of all his posts about Doctor Who, and by going through the older posts from April - June 2005 you will find all the original material. To see the full conversations with the hundreds of comments, you might need to click through to the permalinks.

There are several different posts, all good, with titles like "Bad Wolf Hunting", "Bad Wolf - Part 2" and "RTD on Bad Wolf".


Hope this helps those of you coming new to Bad Wolf, as the show airs in the US and other places.

Enjoy!


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Season Two approaches...

Season Two of Doctor Who is fast approaching.

The BBC has not finalised its schedules, but everyone is expecting the series to start on the Saturday evening of the Easter weekend, just as it did last year.

I haven't been updating this blog very often, but have been participating in LiveJournal (LJ), and on Tamino BadWolf. (See the TorchWolf and Tamino links in the sidebar.)

I recommend the LJ Doctor Who communities to anyone that wants to keep up with Doctor Who news, and read fan-fiction. Some of the LJ fiction is very good indeed!

You can find the Doctor Who communities by using the search-by-interest function, and see which ones I personally like on my user profile page. (Some of them are time_and_chips, multi_who, who_daily and torch_wood.)

Enjoy!


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