S3E03: Gridlock

Two unknowns die (pre-credits) and their television plays on. It could happen to me!

Points to whoever put seats in the T.A.R.D.I.S. control room when they revamped it for the new series. Tennant makes such a good show out of flying it short-handed that he deserves to sit down once in a while.



Whenever He dipped into Time Lord folklore/mythology with Rose, He told it mostly straight so a new audience could learn it with her. With Martha, there's a nice ambiguity: we know His planet is gone now (if it ever actually existed following the Time War) but, this time, He uses the opportunity to reminisce and leaves Her in the dark re: the truth.

Ol' Rubber Face is back. Why is there such a gap between the quality of the digital effects and the quality of the prosthetics on new Doctor Who?

A distraught woman ignores His advice and takes an anmnesia drug to forget about her missing parents. So He asks her again about her missing parents. That's cold.

Ardal O'Hanlan's doing his Father Dougal routine but that's grand, so it is.

Allow me to rephrase: why is there such a gap between the excellent cats and all the other prosthetics in the series?

I like this Motorway concept but if you knew you'd get five miles in twelve years wouldn't you walk instead? The streets are deserted. It would be more ironic if it was called The Freeway but this is a rare case of pandering to British viewers.

The grain cake made of recycled waste looks like wholewheat...

"We've got contact with [the other cars]. Well, some of them anyway. They've got to be on your Friends List."

Over on Heimlich Maneuvers, the good Dr. plays a drinking game during his 24 reviews. He takes a shot whenever anyone sets up a "perimeter", goes "data mining" or when Jack says, "dammit!" I feel the catchphrases and motifs on new Who ought to be similarly recognised. Support for alternative lifestyles has been a motif of the new series so we take a shot for the old gay couple and another for the woman who mated with a cat.

He name-dropped meeting Janis Joplin. Drink! And I'll buy a drink for the first person to explain the link between her and a long brown coat.

The vertical sequence (climbing down the cars) just zipped by. Encore! It's funnier when you know they redressed the same set for each interior. The nudist car was, predictably, my favourite. God love the gay man in charge for remembering all the dads watching.

The Macra are here! They're doing nothing any brainless monster couldn't do! The Macra are gone! That was pointless.

He's wearing glasses. Is that drink-worthy?

"I've invented a sport!"

I promise I won't be this big a killjoy every week but wasted potential really gets my goat. The first twenty minutes tonight introduced clear parameters for the story: a contained world, characters with believable motivation, danger, a rescue-quest and some neat S.F. ideas worthy of Philip K. Dick (whose dystopian futures are imitated here). On its own it would've made a strong Part One in the old four-part format.

In the second half, the Doctor was transported to the resolution of the story where someone else explained what was going on and provided a push-button solution to it all in the very same room. He pushed the button and, instead of rescuing Her, sent Her a flight path home. It's like the middle act (where our hero works out what's really going on and uses elements of the story that have already been introduced in His ingenious solution) was just absent. Why/when/how did the Macra come to New Earth and set up shop in a man-made structure? What happens if you wear two conflicting mood patches at once? Who's the villain of the piece and how will they be brought to justice? Without an opposing force, it's yet another tale about technology run amok with the ending from THX1138.

My brain gave up on this episode when the writers gave up on telling me a good story. The little I know about next week has me giddy though.