2007-07-01

S3E13: The Last Of The Timelords

That was pap in every respect except the theme tune. All we needed was the plot elements of the previous two weeks to come together in a coherent and somewhat surprising way. Is that really asking so much? I'm all for pushing narrative boundaries but not at the expense of the basics.

Why wasn't David Tennant in it for more than five minutes when he's the show's greatest asset and it's him we tune in to watch? How do you book talent like John Barrowman and John Simm for fifty minutes of screen time and squander them so? What science there was in this fiction was glossed over to the point that it looked like magic and felt like Harry Potter. A shoddy end to an otherwise strong series.

I was so glad to be with friends when Doctor Who jumped the shark (he said, sarcastically). They went easy on me and didn't actually hold me responsible for the turd onscreen. At one stage, I left the room to make coffee and said to shout if anything good happened.

Human Nature, The Family Of Blood and Blink are the year's killer episodes so all that remains for me to do is i) play the arse out of that D.V.D. when it releases and ii) adjust to there being no minimum guaranteed standard of quality on the show any more. It's just like the old days!

12 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Have to agree with almost all of that, sadly. I think this season has been uniformly rather good, other than the second Dalek episode and the finale. But is the casting of Kylie Minogue for the Christmas special further evidence that it's time to call it a day? Maybe not, but I think it's probably a good thing that we're likely to see a changing of the guard at the end of season four, if not a temporary or permanent halt in production.

09:52  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Shig, I'm going to agree with you here. The casting of Kylie will be all manner of exciting for the boys, but it's farcical really.

And it might be time for a break because although this series was good, all round, it's losing its magic. And there's nothing new in it. Well, they ruined their chance for something magical and new when they make a mess of the finale. Idiots.

14:47  
Blogger thisismarcus said...

Shig: Agree on the awful ones though obviously I'd lump GRIDLOCK in as a third. There's the top three I mentioned but the other seven were consistently good in my opinion, esp. SHAKESPEARE, LAZARUS and DRUMS. I've rewatched last week's to check I wasn't insane and everything *was* going exceptionally well! I'm still pissed off and dumbfounded. It's like my team just lost 10-0.

Alice: Kylie's confirmed, is she? I missed that. She'll appeal to the straight guys, bi guys, gay guys, gay girls, bi girls and children so that's most of the audience pleased. I'll judge her once I've seen her. Right now I'm much more concerned with who's writing it at Christmas and exactly what he considers "special". I'm constructing a personal director's cut version of the last episode in my head. It's so much better already and I never worked in T.V. in my life.

I thought there was plenty new this year and the show benefitted by having the lead actor re-approach the role after feedback for the first time in the revival. Tennant was bloody brilliant this year when he had good material. I hope he sticks around to work under someone else.

18:03  
Blogger The Paranoid Mod said...

I'm not a fan but I'd like it to be good, not laughably bad. From the moment the music struck up and the Master took the Doctor on a little wheelchair jaunt you knew the scriptwriters slept through this one.
I liked the little dystopian chills about Russia being a shipyard and Japan getting burnt, but it wasn't enough. Get rid of the idea that it's big budget entertainment and that every story has to relate to the assistant's working class hero family somewhere in south london and get out in the stars and sort out their political tangles and random wars, is my 1/2p's worth. But you know, I haven't seen more than a couple of hours of this series so whatever...

18:13  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Kylie is confirmed, yes. Well, the BBC said so. RTD's writing. Can't wait.

I'm serious when I said I found it a bit repetitive and dull in places this year but I've mentioned before that I thought it had lost a lot of its spark this series. Yes, I think a lot of it is down to Martha being uninteresting (until the last episode when it was too late). Tennant was always very good, but they let him down a lot.

18:22  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

For me, Alice, the problem wasn't that Martha was uninteresting--although once we'd got over the "She loves the Doctor and he doesn't even look at her" thing, there was less to her than I'd have liked--but that her family were so badly forced in, once SMITH AND JONES was over. Rose's family were integrated into the makeup of seasons one and two so well. It would have been much better not to have Martha's family at all than to try to duplicate the emotional payoff of having a companion's family around without doing the groundwork of making us care for them.

It occurred to me today--yes, I was in Forbidden Planet--that the Gollum-Doctor may have been more cynical than I'd thought. Was he only put there because he'd make such a cute action figure? I hope not.

22:59  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That's absolutely true about the family - I rolled my eyes whenever they appeared because they were so pointless. If the Master had zapped them all with his screwdriver, no one would have cared, I'm sure. But I could easily ignore them because they weren't there that often. Alas, Martha was there all the time. :(

Re. Gollum: cute?! I thought he was vile! But I can see why others might disagree.

Anyway, Shig, we have much bigger problems with the announcement of the new companion! Dear Lord, help us! The whole thing's gone to hell!

07:27  
Blogger Tim F said...

Awaiting with all extremities quivering your initial reaction to the news of the Season 4 companion.

Presuming you haven't shot yourself, of course.

07:36  
Blogger thisismarcus said...

Mod: You're not far wrong, mate. Re-treading any idea to death (in this case, modern day Earth in trouble) isn't a good idea on a show famed for its lack of limitations.

Tim: Alive and well here, though not liking the announcement much. I enjoyed Tate's last performance as a one-off but would have preferred Sally Sparrow or Thomas Milligan to return. (Thomas and Martha could then live happily ever after.) At least Martha's coming back. Take that, haters!

08:19  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Goodness, yes, I'd have campaigned for Sally Sparrow, or Reinette, or just about anybody other than Donna. Couldn't he and Jack have had a comedy companion swap, with the Doctor ending up with Gwen from TORCHWOOD?

As for the Gollum-Doctor being cute, Alice, I meant that somebody else would probably think so provided that the BBC told them he was.

08:19  
Blogger Hilary said...

I was watching the last of the series with Ross on Saturday and he told me off for laughing hysterically when the Doctor got re-juvenated, but it was so ridiculous. Plus the end kind of felt tacked on.
My favourite of the series was 42. That was tense, and real-time writing that was much better than 24.

15:54  
Blogger thisismarcus said...

Aye, Hils. That was the 3rd worst moment for me after Dobby The House Elf and the Scissor Sisters!

I enjoyed 42 too. I really thought 10 out of the 13 episodes were strong - or maybe that's 8/13 since two of the crap ones were concluding episodes and so screwed up two whole stories, really - or you could count the lame 2006 Christmas Special and call it 8/14. So I think it's fab in patches. It could be so much better still.

Shig: Tennant and Gwen = yes, please! And bring the retcon pills.

13:58  

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