... and a horse called Susane.
Looks like Steven Moffat's shown us some mercy! At long last! An episode of Doctor Who that's ridiculously brilliant, almost beyond measure. Completely perfect. Nothing wrong with it whatsoever - five stars. Well, almost. Nearly. No, sorry, not at all. In an ideal world, maybe, but this - it's bearable and that makes a most welcome change. Instead of legging it through narrow spaces as he'd usually be doing on a Saturday night, the Doctor seems to take a breather, have a few conversations and save a town, rather than the entire universe. Nice.
It's got a few of the same old problems however. The Doctor manages to blow some stuff up at just the right moment using nothing but his sonic screwdriver. Enough to roll your eyes at. How does that device actually work? Does anyone know?! It seems capable of an awful lot! The main villain he uses it to escape from is copied and pasted directly from a CBBC show. He's really not very menacing at all, whereas he could have been. Scrap the shoddily animated robo-vision with floaty text that tells him who to kill, and the weaponry borrowed from Dr X, and it'd be much easier to take him seriously. He's got very well acted eyes though. His eyes say far more than he ever does. That's a plus point, as normally everything has to be made pretty obvious, and a lot here still is in fact. The robot has to say what he is doing, in much the same way a Dalek would, so all the 3 year olds watching can keep up. Has to be said though, possibly the greatest line spoken by the Doctor so far this series is definitely, "they could build a spaceship out of tupperware and moss."
Another reason why this episode sucked a lot less than the previous two could be the presence of Farscape's Ben Browder, playing Isaac. This man is science fiction all over. You can see it in his performance. He's totally there, he believes it. He brings a seriousness to the world that's not been there to see so far. And, he's very good at running about in a panic. Brilliant work. Then there's also Pyschoville's Mr Jolly, Adrian Scarborough, playing Kahler Jex, who does 'emotional' and 'sinister' rather convincingly. Speaking of sinister men - the ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston, was a sinister man and David Tennant had a go at it but that lasted about half an episode and wasn't very satisfying at all. Matt Smith, number eleven, doesn't get nasty very often. He shouts sporadically and that's about it. Here, we witness him struggle with a difficult choice, and he gets nasty. He points a gun at someone - it's great! And Amy's response to his actions is utterly convincing. We need more of this, more questions, more moral dilemmas. The problem, however, with moral dilemmas combined with Doctor Who, is that the right course of action is almost always taken. Let these guys fuck up. Let them do something wrong, really morally wrong. People are always making terrible mistakes - so should the Doc and his chums. Ben Browder's John Crichton was always making crappy decisions in Farscape, and so were the rest of the characters. It made them all believable and each and every one of their questionable actions had a scary, usually life threatening, re-action to go with it.
Warning: Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! (That's a spoiler warning in 'horse'...)
Looks like Steven Moffat's shown us some mercy! At long last! An episode of Doctor Who that's ridiculously brilliant, almost beyond measure. Completely perfect. Nothing wrong with it whatsoever - five stars. Well, almost. Nearly. No, sorry, not at all. In an ideal world, maybe, but this - it's bearable and that makes a most welcome change. Instead of legging it through narrow spaces as he'd usually be doing on a Saturday night, the Doctor seems to take a breather, have a few conversations and save a town, rather than the entire universe. Nice.
It's got a few of the same old problems however. The Doctor manages to blow some stuff up at just the right moment using nothing but his sonic screwdriver. Enough to roll your eyes at. How does that device actually work? Does anyone know?! It seems capable of an awful lot! The main villain he uses it to escape from is copied and pasted directly from a CBBC show. He's really not very menacing at all, whereas he could have been. Scrap the shoddily animated robo-vision with floaty text that tells him who to kill, and the weaponry borrowed from Dr X, and it'd be much easier to take him seriously. He's got very well acted eyes though. His eyes say far more than he ever does. That's a plus point, as normally everything has to be made pretty obvious, and a lot here still is in fact. The robot has to say what he is doing, in much the same way a Dalek would, so all the 3 year olds watching can keep up. Has to be said though, possibly the greatest line spoken by the Doctor so far this series is definitely, "they could build a spaceship out of tupperware and moss."
 |
| If only Ben Browder's scruffy tash could go & get sucked down a wormhole... |
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| "Step away from the giant alien boob." |
Ben Browder doesn't last long at all, unfortunately, as he gets shot by the cyborg cowboy bloke. Most unusual, considering he spends the vast majority of the episode waving his gun around and never actually shooting it. When Isaac dies and makes the Doctor sheriff, nobody spends very long mourning the poor bloke. Amy couldn't give a shit, and this harks back to a point raised in previous reviews - nobody seems to be scared (in the Tardis, that is). Here, the supporting cast do a reasonable job of convincing us they're worried about their town being blown to pieces, but onboard the Tardis nobody ever seems to be effected by death. If or when Amy dies this year, she'll certainly give a fuck then, but up until now she's not been the littlest bit worried about Daleks or dinosaurs, and neither has Rory. Perhaps it's because, more often than not, if you aren't a random villain in the show, you'll be brought back to life.
All in all, this episode’s not bad. It's not as bad, at least, as it has been. The Doctor talking to a sodding horse certainly spoils it a bit, but it makes a brilliant change from the norm to have the pace slowed and for people to be not completely sure if what they're doing is the right choice to make. In the end though, it's the same show. Sonic screwdriver, heartfelt suicide, everything's fine again. Morals intact. Villain goes good. Might be appealing to children, but the way in which things are wrapped up here isn't inventive enough for adults. Rated very much against its own shitty standards, this episode of Doctor Who gets one star more than the previous two. Can it keep on improving?
★★★☆☆
Roo