Day Three Hundred and Twenty-five - Dr.Who: Series 2, Episode 6, "DELETE! DELETE! DELETE!"

If there's one thing that I hate about Dr.Who, and I've probably mentioned this before, it's the constant refresh of old fan-favorite villains. I know that I'm the minority, but I despise the Daleks and Cybermen, and guess who shows up in this alternate reality of Earth that The Doctor, Rose, and Mickey manage to MacGuffin their way into?

The Cybermen.

Toasters on their heads and everything, the Cybermen have returned to the Whovian universe... well, a version of it anyway, where Britain is a society under siege with curfews for the poor and zeppelins for the rich. This is also a Britain where Rose's father, Pete, is still alive and married to Jackie. Also, they're in the money... and there's no Rose. Well, there is a Rose, but not the one played by Billy Piper. No, the Rose in this universe is a lapdog. Literally.

Anyways, the meat of the episode is the coup that a Howard Hughes type attempts against the President of the UK (Get it? President instead of Prime Minister? It really IS a parallel universe! XP) in the form of the Human 2.0 Upgrade, which turns out to be a forced conversion into Cybermen.

Aside from the return of the Cybermen, I'm also annoyed by the instant stupidity that both Mickey and Rose seem to catch when they find out that they're in an alternate reality. Despite Mickey knowing just what can happen in A-U stories thanks to movies and television, he still runs off to visit his not-dead A-U grandma... and Rose does the same in looking for Pete, her father. I mean, really? Have they learned absolutely nothing thanks to their time traveling antics? Especially Rose after she nearly destroyed all reality by trying to save her father from the car accident that killed him in her own universe?

It's also annoying how spoonfed the clues are concerning the "eventual" reveal of the Cybermen. Whether it's the earbud antennae that form the familiar head box or the out of focus Cyber at the beginning and the near constant shots of their stomping feet during the rank and file attack on Jackie's birthday party... it's all just one big already spoiled tease.

More ham-fisted writing on behalf of the crew, I suppose. Only so much you can do to get the primary conflicts of an episode this ridiculous started.

But, it's all to be expected, I guess. Dr.Who is only okay on its best of days, so there are bound to be some pandering crapfests here and there, even if it had been improving lately. Sad thing for me is that this is a two part episode (which I will get to, probably in the next few days). Such is life.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~