Day Eighty-seven - Dr.Who: Series 1, Episodes 12 and 13, or "I MADE IT! I FINALLY MADE IT!"

Wow... it's been a longish, very boring trip to slog through the first season of the modern Dr.Who.

Yes, it's no surprise by now that I hate the pedantic, deus ex ridden adventures of Christopher Eccleston and Billy Piper. While the first series has given us probably one of the better companions in all Whovian History, Captain Jack Harkness, it's also brought me to tears at just how stupid a scifi show can be.

The first of this sortof two-parter is Bad Wolf, which brings everyone back to Satellite 5, the orbital media platform from back in episode 7, only something's wrong again.

Set many years after The Doctor shut down the weird shuggoth looking alien running the news, Satellite 5 is now a Gamestation where the game shows of the ancient BBC (see: modern day BBC game shows like Big Brother and Weakest Link) have been turned into death matches where only one (and sometimes NONE) survive for the entertainment of the Earthican masses.

Bleh. It's a pop culture Running Man. Boring.

The twist, of course, is that some nefarious entity has done this to human society from the shadows, and it's up to The Doctor and co. to find out who and why.

I think what pisses me off about this (and other episodes) is just how much utter crap the deus ex devices and macguffins are. At least with other scifi shows (like Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, and Fringe) they try to make their technobabble fit and be, well, believable. Here we've got a "transmat" beam that conveniently pulls the Time Warp Trio out of the supposedly impenetrable TARDIS and a "disintegrator" that doesn't disintegrate.

Really, the only saving grace of episode 12 (titled Bad Wolf), is the fashion game show with Captain Jack... who no only rock's the segment, but pulls a laser pistol out of *ahem* his arse to save himself when the robo-fashionistas turn homicidal.

Go, Cap'n Jack!

Anyways, Rose is supposedly killed by The Weakest Link's Anne-droid, but is really sent to... DUN DUN DUNNNNN... the Dalek fleet! It seems the one found in the vault in episode 6 wasn't the last. The Dalek Emperor managed to survive with his flagship and has been slowly building a new army of Daleks by harvesting humanity... one cell at a time.

Lord, that must've taken forever... also, @#$#*(@%Y&^$()$!@!!

And that brings us to The Parting of the Ways, episode 13, where The Doctor rushes in and somehow manages to materialize the TARDIS around Rose (and a token Dalek who is quickly dispatched by Cap'n Jack)... and then pops onto the command bridge to speak to the Daleks without fear of EXTERMINATION thanks to yet another deus ex, a hyper force field.

Ugh.

Then we cut to over a half-freaking-hour of the trio "getting ready" for the Dalek invasion of Earth. Cap'n Jack organizes the leftovers of Satellite 5 into a delaying action force, The Doctor begins building another deus ex, a "Delta Wave" generator that will fry all brains in its path, and Rose is... well, sent home to modern day England where she spends all her scenes dithering then trying to break into the Heart of the Tardis so she can gain its mystical time warp mojo (seen in episode 11) for herself so she can save The Doctor.

Seriously... they waste a half hour on this crap.

BUT... to make it worse... the climax occurs with the Doctor refusing to wipe out the entire solar system to save the universe from the Daleks (you bloody coward) just in time for Rose to pop in and use her brand new TIME GODDESS powers to revive the recently Exterminated Cap'n Jack, save The Doctor, and turn all the Daleks (including the Emperor) into dust with her fancy glowy eyes.

OoooooOOOOOOooooooo~! Save us with your Special Eyes, Rose!

Of course, so much power would melt her brains, so The Doctor kisses Rose to draw the glowy bits out of her ocular cavities, thereby dooming him to regeneration and semi-quick actor switchification.

Gag me with a freaking spoon.

I hate... Hate... HATE this crap. HATE IT! How in the world did it get made? Why in the world is it SO freaking popular? Why am I tearing my hair out in sheer frustration?!

But it's done.

I made it through the season. Barely.

David Tennant in is the hiz-zouse and is making quips about his new teeth. I can only hope it will get better from here. Please, please, pleaaaaaase, let it get better from here. I have the strangest feeling that it won't for a while, but the hope is there. It's a tiny inkling of hope, ready to be crushed under the malevolent boot of reality, but it's there... squirming around in the darkness of my soul.

Too melodramatic?

Time for another Dr.Who sabbatical for me. I've ruined my palate for quite some time, I think... but with Adventure Time being added to the instant queue just around the corner? There's that, at least.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Seventy-seven - Dr.Who: Series 1, Episode 11, or "Oh, you were SO CLOSE... then you went and ruined it."

It should come as no surprise to any Couchbound regulars that I'm a bit of a naysayer when it comes to the new Doctor Who... at least Christopher Eccleston's run so far *snarf!*

While I've enjoyed bits here and there and, like the rest of the world, fallen into an unrequited bromance with Captain Jack Harkness, it's just never thrilled me with the kinds of scifi stories that I've desired.

No real meaty choices or reflections upon humanity.

Sure, there have been a few attempts, like the glare of the mass media obscuring real truth, the rational world cornering the fantastic and taking the joy from life, etc., etc., but I've had more poignant stories from Reboot than Dr.Who in it's first series.

And that's a damning thing.

With episode 11, we see a return to the modern era and, fittingly enough, the return of an enemy thought dead.

It seems there is a Slytheen still kicking who has somehow, in the past year of relative time on Earth, managed to gain the Lord Mayorship of Cardiff, started a nuclear power initiative in the heart of the city, and managed to endrun around no doubt hundreds, if not thousands, of historical preservation laws to demolish Cardiff Castle to build said plant over... all in yet another MacGuffiny quest to ride a pan-dimensional surf board out of the solar system at the cost of the obliteration of Earth.

Utterly... freaking... ridiculous.

But... hidden in the dreck that is the A-story is something odd, an actual real scifi dilemma.

There's a difficult choice that The Doctor has to make. Now that she's been discovered, the Slytheen (named Blon) is captured by the TARDIS' crew (plus Ricky... or Micky... whatever) and will be turned over to her people... a people that have the death penalty... to which her family has already been condemned to centuries ago.

That's right... in getting a dangerous criminal off our planet (saving it yet again), he must turn her over for immediate, deadly justice.

Now THAT'S the sort of story I want from my cheesy scifi shows like Star Trek and Farscape... searching moral parables.

Granted, it's also the kind of story that I want from my hard scifi series like Planetes and Ghost in the Shell:Stand Alone Complex.

Anyways, as much as I hated the Slytheen as a villain race, being a hybrid creation of terrible CGI coupled with laughable practical effects, Blon didn't bother me as much this time around. Especially after the episode dispensed with the "getting reaquainted" portion of the story where we see just how blase she still is about murdering to keep her secret. The moment we get to the bathroom scene, though, and she spares the reporter, things actually get interesting.

Sure, there's the blah annoyance of Micky and Rose's continued "you left me behind" drama, but that's offset beautifully by The Doctor and Captain Jack's fun banter. It gets a little trying when Jack yet again has to prove himself by lampshading his knowledge of ancient Earthican slang, but oh well, every time travel show does that to try and establish legitimacy for itself.

In any case, I was pretty happy with the episode after that... until there's a crisis in the TARDIS and the whole moralizing of the episode is for not when it's shoehorned into an ending... as Blon was playing them for fools all along.

Ugh.

I really, really dislike the writing for this show... it's like they're afraid to step too far out of the Dr.Who rubric of standard plots and resolutions. Everything ends up sounding like the Christmas Special almost immediately. Rote... and boring.

Still, I'll soldier through over the year until I see my River Song again.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~