Day Three Hundred and Fifty-six - Dr.Who: Series 4, Episodes 12-18, "The Last Great Battles of The Tenth Doctor..."

...not to mention his companions all make appearances, everyone from Sarah Jane to Martha to Jack to Rose-freaking-Tyler, herself.

The first episode of this long slog to the advent of the Eleventh is entitled Turn Left and features Donna almost exclusively as she gets attacked by some sort of "potentiality consuming" beetle that feeds on the alterations to a timeline that could change a persons life... like say Donna turning left for a job closer to home than the temp gig that introduced her to The Doctor. That one choice leads not only to The Doctor's death (without regeneration) after the Christmas confrontation with the Racnoss and the other major battles on modern Earth. With each Doctor-less dilemma, more and more of Earth's heroes lose their lives to stem the tide of destruction.

This is a fun concept episode to watch, especially since the writers decided to pay particular attention to the causality issues of The Doctor being absent. With no Doctor there would be no Yana regeneration into The Master, which means no Saxon. What I don't get is how Rose manages to avoid the causality shifts and knows why Donna is the focal point.

After Donna pulls it back together and dies for her regular self, she and The Doctor have to confront an ancient enemy that has stolen the entire Earth, along with dozens of other planets from space and time, in order to destroy all of reality that doesn't please them. Any guesses as to who? I mean, it could be any number of enemies, but it's the Daleks. Of course it's the Daleks.

It's a two-parter that drags the conflict out with lots more cameos from companions past. Sarah Jane, Captain Jack, Mickey, Rose, Jackie, and even Harriet Jones (former Prime Minister) defy the Daleks and Davros himself in order to save the Doctor and the world... but that's not all, thanks to an almost death at the end of a Dalek egg-beater, the Doctor regenerates not only his severed hand, but Donna as well, giving her his mind and his doppelganger a human heart... as well as all of his memories and experiences.

It's rather hilarious to see The Doctor Donna fasttalk her way through typical Whovian MacGuffin speak and easily defeat/confound/spin the Daleks. I also rather like the episode because it gives lots of action to all of the various companions that the Tenth has had over the years. Because of it all, I actually found myself enjoying seeing Mickey and Jackie. Maybe it's because they weren't daft idiots the whole time, actually proving useful with their guns and teleporters. Maybe it's because of nostalgia. I don't know. Either way, I was fairly happy with them... all of them. It was just the actual Dalek Doomsday itself that was silly and stupid.

After another tearful sendoff for Rose, et al., The Doctor goes back in time to the mid-18th century where The Cybermen have some grand plan in the works and it's up to The Doctor... both of them... to stop it. At first, it seems like The Doctor has caught up with some future incarnation of himself, but as time goes on, the truth is revealed that it's just a brainscramble that's tricked a local human into thinking he's The Doctor.

It's a cute episode to see a degenerated almost-Doctor trying to fight evil with his "sonic" screwdriver and inflatable TARDIS ballon, but that's all it is, really... cute. For the most part, the villains are boring and pedantic as we've all seen Cybermen before, this episode only taking a few new slants like the cat/dog Cybers, the female Cyberking, and the giant Cyber robot. It's all so much sound a noise. Spectacle to cater to the fans with no real substance.

The Waters of Mars, however, this is prime soft-scifi material worthy of The Outer Limits. The Doctor travels to mid-twenty-first century Mars where he encounters the first human colonists on the day of their deaths. It seems the commander of the mission is fated to trigger a nuclear explosion that wipes them and their base off the face of the Red Planet. The Doctor discovers that its their fate, a fixed moment in time, to die running from a sentient water virus... and has the hubris to defy the rules of paradox and help the survivors.

While I may enjoy the cheese and melodrama of other episodes, it's The Waters of Mars that makes the series for me. It shows The Doctor as having as much arrogance as the rest of us humans and, despite the guise of his immortality and alien-ness, The Doctor is a most compelling HUMAN character. It's not necessarily a fun or well-written episode, what with its one-off villain being so bad, conceptually, but the moral questions it begs are tremendous.

Last, but not least, is the two-parter that sends David Tennant off and welcomes Matt Smith as The Eleventh. After falling from grace, The Doctor gets a visit from Ood Sigma and races off to commune with the Ood for a warning about the return of The Master. Events have been set in motion (and retconned on the freaking fly by Timothy Dalton) to bring the Timelords trapped in the Time Lock back. It's all just one loop. The Timelords, The Master, Earth... everything is shoe-horned together in order to present The Tenth with a single choice: murder his race again or doom the entire universe.

Easy choice, that, I think... but it's all so much noise again, cheap melodrama with no actual worth aside from nostalgia. It's nice to see all of the companions for a second time this season as The Tenth has enough time before regenerating to hop in the TARDIS and see them all. I think my favorite was Jack and Alonso at a deep space Mos Eisley.

At the end of the fourth series and the last of David Tennant's run (save for his series 7 cameo with John Hurt), I find myself both content and disgusted. There are far better series out there and Doctor Who can be fun, but it's so very stupid half the time, with all of its handwaving. These are arguments that I should probably save till I'm well and done (hopefully by the end of the year), but I still feel a little bummed even now.

Still, miles to go before I sleep. As Tennant's Doctor would say... Alons-y!

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

9!

Day Three Hundred and Fifty-four - Dr.Who: Series 4, Episodes 5-11, "Double Duty Diablo Days!"

I'm going to do my best to hit the end of Doctor Who... if that means doing six or seven episodes every other night, then so be it! Tonight's binge of Tennant and Tate (and Agyeman... and a little Piper) takes us from Modern London to several different far flung futures and the somewhat recent past, where alien and human threats abound!

Starting off is a two-parter where Martha Jones recalls The Doctor to Earth to help her and U.N.I.T. investigate a GPS/CleanAir system that can kill. It seems that a wunderkind is teamed up with the Sontarans to war with humanity and it's up to The Doctor and Donna to save the day. I'd add Martha to that list, but she gets kidnapped rather early on and has to be rescued from her evil doppelganger self.

The Sontarans are actually a pretty fun villain, despite their "back of the neck" weak spot. I rather like their martial sensibilities, even if their ultimate plan goes against their strict codes and their tactics are laughable at best. I mean, honestly, half the stuff The Doctor tricks them into should've been easily avoided by their superior tactical minds. Instead it's just simple action/reaction from them. Still, nice to see U.N.I.T. again after all the Saxon fascism from the end of last season.

After modern times are saved, The Doctor, Martha, and Donna find themselves in the middle of a human/alien conflict fought by generation after generation of clones who cannot remember the true origins of their war, it being shrouded in the mysteries of one of the biggest games of telephone in such a short time span ever. I say that because Donna figures out that the war has only been going on for seven days. Seven days of generations of clones spawning, dying, and being reborn with the story getting more abstract as it goes. This is happening on BOTH sides, mind you, not just with the humans.

This episode is a standout due to the fact that the cloning machine makes a haploid clone of The Doctor, which just so happens to be female... and is David Tennant's wife in real life (granted, they didn't get married until later). I rather enjoyed watching The Doctor first reject his "daughter" then grow to love her only to lose her to death. While her resurrection is a bit too convenient, I do like that it happened after the TARDIS left so that she wasn't an add-on companion and was off to have her own adventures.

Moving on, after dropping Martha back in her own time, Donna and The Doctor go back almost a century to the age of Agatha Christie and a murder mystery dinner party high on the melodrama and sporting a giant alien wasp-creature. Cute little nods are made to Donna and The Doctor inspiring Agatha towards works she hadn't yet written by quoting titles and characters from her unpenned books. Kind of a paradox, but it sort of resolves itself by the end of her episode with a mindwipe. While I wasn't that impressed with the murder mystery itself (or the cheesy revelation sequence), having The Doctor and Agatha both being clever in tandem was entertaining.

Phew... still several episodes left to go... starting with another two-parter which introduces MY FAVORITE WHOVIAN CHARACTER OF ALL TIME: Doctor River Song!

Oh, how I love River Song (and her actress, Alex Kingston)... a great character, a great actress, and a great concept in story telling, River Song is an intimate companion to The Doctor who is running on timelines almost opposite to his. Their first meeting from The Doctor's perspective is her last as, spoilers, she dies saving both him and thousands of trapped souls in a planet-sized library that is being guarded/hunted by the Vashta Nerada, a species of mite-like carnivores that hide in the shadows... well, are the shadows, really... and begin to kill and impersonate the members of Doctor Song's archaeological team.

River Song is probably the most intriguing character I've encountered in time travel scifi save, perhaps, for Delenn in Babylon 5. She accepts The Doctor as one who, naturally, has known and trusted him forever, and can both cater to his needs and push him in the right directions when he needs it, and this is all evident from these two short episodes almost immediately. I very much look forward to the rest of her appearances.

Finally, after the triumph and tragedy at the Library, The Doctor and Martha take a vacation on a trendy future tourist locale on the planet Midnight, where travel is restricted to closed box rolligons with shuttered windows and sealed doors. This is mostly a Doctor episode where he and a bunch of vacationers get trapped with an alien menace which tests the bounds of their charity and humanity by preying on their baser, paranoid natures.

To describe it, I'd call it a bottle episode as most of the episode takes place on a single small set with just The Doctor and six or so other people. The actually alien threat, itself, is boring and gimmicky, but the panic that it inspires in the passengers and how quickly they turn on one another is pretty decent. I can't say I'm happy with the Driver/Mechanic just being dropped halfway through the episode for convenience sake (and after they'd JUST been introduced, too), but the human drama that takes up the majority of the epi is decent.

Keep an eye out for quick cameos by Billy Piper's Rose in the backgrounds. I forgot to mention, but she showed up for a second during Donna's reintroduction and has been on monitors and the like just out of The Doctor's sight for several episodes now.

While I'm not won over yet (though, dancing pretty close thanks to Alex Kingston), I can definitely say that the quality of the series has gone up over the continuum I've watched. Now, let's see if we can plow through the rest of Series 4 on Sunday (as I need something non-Whovian and Christmasy for Saturday).

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Three Hundred and Fifty-two - Dr.Who: Series 4, Episodes 1-4, "There's no such thing as a peaceful Christmas in Whoville."

Martha is done and The Doctor is once again alone... for a moment.

It's almost feels like, if it's a Christmas episode, then a new companion is going to be introduced. Last time it was one-off companion Donna and her sham wedding. Before that it was Rose being assaulted by robotic Santas. This time, it's SPAAAAACCCCE TITAAAANIIIICCCC... and another one-off/almost-companion in the form of a down on her luck waitress named Astrid who is serving drinks on the maiden voyage of the doomed spaceliner.

After leaving Martha (and having a webisode adventure with the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) that is NOT available on Netflix), The Doctor needs a bit of vacation so he hops aboard the Titanic, which is traveling above Earth at Christmastime. It took me a bit to realize that we were in modern times on an alien ship with a lot of folks who look human but aren't. Still, the Poseidon Adventure recreation that The Doctor, Astrid, and several passengers that he's interacted with is pretty fun. I also like the small role for Geoffrey Palmer (whom most folks might remember from As Time Goes By or Tomorrow Never Dies) as the ship's duplicitous captain.

I wasn't exactly thrilled with the forced "cyborg-racism" angle that crops up in several places. There's not enough time to lay a proper foundation and the two characters it directly manifests with are disappointing to say the least. I did like Astrid's solution and her almost-resurrection, but everything else, from the other passengers to the Host, was just boring.

Moving on, after Astrid buys it saving the ship, The Doctor stays in modern times to investigate the Adipose... a cute little enemy which is also being investigated by last Christmas' companion, Donna (Catherine Tate). Seems she actually got the adventure bug despite her protests last time and is looking for The Doctor, snooping out the unusual in an attempt to find him... and find him she does, just in time for both of them to stumble on an alien nanny who is using human fad diets to raise alien babies (contrary to universal law), who chooses to just kill a million humans instead of being exposed for the criminal she is. This leads to a chase sequence and MacGuffin theatrics, as per the norm, and Donna joining as a regular companion.

The Adipose are silly and cheap in terms of their CGI, and I was really expecting quite a bit more from the reporter instead of her just constantly being caught and tied up or left that way for a rehash of her "you're not just leaving me like this" joke, but Donna and the Doctor pantomiming from different sides of the villain's monologue was pretty entertaining.

From there it's off to ancient Rome, or so they think, as it's really Pompeii, only a day or so before the infamous eruption that consumed the city. There are soothsayers that can read truths and see through time who are working for a cult that The Doctor has met before (or so he says, I don't remember them from older Who epis). Anyways, the soothsayers are working at the behest of fire aliens who are living in the mountain and are using their proxies to build tech for their eventual invasion of the planet. Boring, but it gives Donna another chance to act as The Doctor's conscience, a role that I very much approve of.

The ash demons themselves were rather boring, and I was hoping for something more interesting when it came to the stone transformations of the oracles... especially since the sisterhood had a gesture that covered their eyes, which made me think of a Weeping Angel connection that would've been fun. Alas, just a third (and fourth, I guess) eye reference as they used their inner sight instead of their actual vision.

The last episode was a trip to the far-flung future and the home planet of the Ood (whom we last saw in the thrall of Satan). It seems the corporation that is exploiting them as slave labor is having trouble dealing with a strain of rabid Ood who have glowing red eyes and are violent for some unknown reason. The Doctor and Donna investigate and find out that the humans are abusing the Ood and their large hive brain, but the Ood are fighting back against their masters.

Honestly, the whole "brain in their hand" gimmick is actually pretty interesting, even if the giant CGI brain that is being held captive is boring as all get out. Sigma's subtle poisoning of the CEO, Klineman, is another nice plot point that, for once, pays off well... and in a Doctor Who episode, at that. Amazing.

With only two weeks left to go in the year, I don't know if I'll make it to the end of Series 6, but I'll give it my best go on alternating days. We'll see if I can make it without doubling up.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Three Hundred and Forty-nine - Dr.Who: Series 3, Episodes 9-14, "Yeah, Martha really made this series worthwhile... -ish."

For almost the entire year I was trudging through an episode of Billy Piper's run on Doctor Who every few weeks and it was hell. Sure, things got better when David Tennant took over as The Doctor, but it wasn't until she left and Martha joined that the episodes started to become somewhat enjoyable.

The show must go on, though, if I have any chance of finishing the episodes available on Netflix and today I ploughed through the last six episodes of Freema Agyeman's run as Martha Jones... and they were weirdly decent. For one thing, there is Derek Jacobi, who guests as one of the incarnations of perennial Doctor villain The Master. For another, despite the same old MacGuffiny devices, there are some really interesting themes running through several of these episodes.

Let's start with Human Nature and Family of Blood, a two-parter where The Doctor and Martha are on the run from a mysterious alien force and find refuge in 1913 as a school teacher and housemaid. It seems that someone wants his Time Lord energy and, in order to fool their senses, The Doctor masquerades as a human... and falls in love. Not with Martha though, no matter how much she'd want him to, but with a local era woman, and he doesn't realize that he's The Doctor. Instead he's John Smith, average human teacher.

What's great about these episodes are the mildly subtle nods to the The Great War. It's a little schmaltzy, especially that ending where Martha and The Doctor visit the mildly psychic student who helps them ninety years later, but oddly endearing, too. Plus the moral quandary of whether Martha and The Doctor have the right to kill the John Smith personality in order to save the universe. Oddly good stuff.

Quick shoutout to Thomas Sangster who plays the psychic. Folks might remember him from Game of Thrones or Love, Actually... but I prefer him most as Ferb from Phineas and Ferb.

After that is the introduction of probably one of my favorite Whovian villains of all time, The Weeping Angels. There's nothing scarier, I think, than boogeymen (or women? maybe?) that move when you're not looking. It's a great gimmick, too, even if it isn't all that consistent. I mean, c'mon, the Angels (at least three of them) are looking at each other in the chapel. Still, the gimmick of the DVD Easter Eggs and the conversation across time to companions (one in particular), who aren't even real companions, just one-offs, is pretty fun.

And that's when we get to Derek Jacobi... Shakespearean actor, Brother Cadfael, and all around tremendous actor. He guests as Doctor Yana, an improbable scientist trying to get the last remaining humans to the mythical Utopia... which he manages to do, with the help of The Doctor, but not before all the talk of time travel and TARDISes (and a convenient plot device seeded in previous episodes) stirs the evil within. 

He... is... The Master. 

Unfortunately, Jacobi only plays The Master for that one episode, replaced at the end via regeneration into John Simms (who I've recently been watching in the TREMENDOUSLY compelling BBC drama, Exile) who announces that he IS The Master... and gets trapped in mid-millenial England, becoming the much-hinted Harold Saxon, newly minted Prime Minister of England, who hatches a plan to take over the universe by sacrificing the human race, both prosaic and future-versions via cannibalizing the TARDIS that he escaped in and doing generally MacGuffiny things, as per the norm.

This is a really fun two-parter (The Sound of the Drums & The Last of the Time Lords) because it features the return of fan favorite Captain Jack Harkness! I love the tete-a-tete they have throughout the episodes that lampshade Jack's licentious nature. Captain Jack (John Barrowman) also just has this wonderfully bouncy nature and great chemistry with whomever he's with. Not to mention the Face of Boe crack finally happens.

Don't get me wrong, all of my recent happiness with the series doesn't belie the fact that it's a pretty crap show overall. It's terribly lax with its science, characters, writing, pretty much everything... and expects you to merrily join them without asking questions. Unfortunately, my mind doesn't work that way, and no amount of handwaving will make me.

Still, there are moments of fun, here and there, and these episodes represent a good deal of what I've managed to enjoy so far. Is it worth recommending? On the whole? No. In small spurts of the better stuff, like this? Maybe. 

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Three Hundred and Forty-six - Dr.Who: Series 3, Episodes 5-8, "Daleks, and Pig-men, and Scorpions... Ho Hum."

Still plugging away at the modern Doctor Who series, hoping (but not betting) on finishing them before New Year's rolls around. Thank the many heavens and hells for Diablo 3. It's the only way I could survive, I think.

Tonight's block of MacGuffiny SciFi Adventure starts with a two-parter where the Daleks that escaped being sucked into the Void at the end of Billy Piper's run have set up shop in Depression Era New York and have taken over construction of the Empire State Building in the hopes of using its frame (and some Dalek alloys) to harness the energy of a solar flare to jumpstart a new Human-Dalek hybrid race.

Since the Cult of Skaro were bred to imagine new ways to victory, their leader (Dalek Sec) has imagined the Hybrids as the new evolution of Dalek Supremacy as humanity has such a strong will to survive and adapt... and is so confident that Sec volunteers to be the first true convert. This leads to a schism as Hybrid Sec has developed feelings like honor, compassion, and dignity, which the other Daleks find abhorrant enough to betray him and his plan, leading to both his and their destruction.

Well, all except one, anyway. Can't destroy the fan-favorite enemy entirely yet again, can they? No, gotta keep one around so they don't paint themselves into a corner.

Bleh.

The next two episodes happen in modern times and the far future, respectively.

"The Lazarus Experiment" covers the semi-successful attempt by a scientist to become immortal (of course, via MacGuffinry) and young again. It works, but also turns him occasionally into a giant, essence-sucking pseudo-scorpion that The Doctor, Martha, and her sister have to defeat via organ music.

That's right... organ music.

What's fun about this episode is that there are more and more references to Harold Saxon, including a sneaky bureaucrat who is trying to get to The Doctor via Martha's family, whispering evils in her mother's ear... which continues on to the next episode "42" where Martha and The Doctor are trapped on a ship soon to crash into the sun. The Doctor gives Martha's cell "Universal Roaming" so she can call home and, of course, her suspicious mother is working for Saxon's Secret Police.

Meanwhile, back in the future, an energy being has sabotaged a ship that has stolen its "heart" and is slowly killing the crew, blaming them for hurting it. The Doctor and Martha do their best and manage to save a precious few of the crew (and themselves) exactly one second before impacting on the sun. Based on the scale of the ship and the size of the sun, it looks like they're quite a long way away from its surface, but that's what you get when your series isn't concerned about details or believability.

I think the Dalek episodes were the strongest of the four, even if I am giggling over the Saxon subplots. It will be nice to actually see him... well, his future/former form anyway. I'm not a fan of Saxon, but I am a fan of Yana (Derek Jacobi). Still, much harder to complain now that I have Diablo 3 to play on the laptop while watching. I guess it's cheating a little, but it makes it soooo much more palatable to binge watch the cheese that is Doctor Who.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~ 

Day Three Hundred and Thirty-nine - Dr.Who: Series 2, Episodes 12-14, "The End of an Era... Hooray! Rose is Gone!"

I haven't exactly been the most ardent supporter of Doctor Who's revival, as you may have noticed, and Billy Piper has been one of my least favorite companions, to be sure. That said, I am a little sad to see her go. While she hasn't exactly thrilled me with her performance as Rose Tyler, as both her and her mother Jackie are annoyingly chav-tastic, when you spend so much time with a person, you kind of grow attached to them, annoyance or not.

It's rather like getting a little sad when Wesley left for the Academy in TNG. Sure, he was the whiny, least interesting member of the crew and most every fan was happy to see him leave, but you also sort of missed him, too.

In any case, the first episode of tonight's binge isn't Piper's last ride, it's a weird one about a sentient plant that can create its own imagination worlds and can draw living beings into said worlds... at the behest of a little, traumatized girl who has nightmares about her dead, abusive father and doesn't want to be alone. The episode also happens to coincide with the beginning of the 2012 Olympics (the episode aired years earlier in 2006) where The Doctor and Rose are on the case, trying to save everyone involved.

Of course, they do... it IS Doctor Who and all. Well, let me dial that back a bit. THIS time they manage to save everyone. To be honest, it's kind of surprising how often people buy it in Doctor Who, and even more surprising that everyone makes it here. Sure, they're mostly kids, which makes it easier for the writers/producers to justify, but still.

Moving on, the next two are a pair of connected episodes that really do chronicle the last stand of Rose Tyler as she, The Doctor, and the collective Torchwoods of two dimensions attempt to fight off the forces of both the Cybermen and the Daleks reborn.

It seems that the Cybermen from the world where they left Mickey half a season ago have escaped their world and are primed to take over Rose's by first infiltrating then using the overzealous Torchwood Institute to bring them through the Void between universes. Unbeknownst to them, there's a Void Ship sitting at the bottom of the Institute filled with Daleks who escaped the lockdown during the Time War. Both are devastating enemies and both are on the loose... and it's only The Doctor, Rose, Jackie, Pete, and Mickey who can save both worlds.

Fun ain't it?

It's just as silly the rest of the series, to be sure, and the emotive moments that come from the end of Rose's tenure as The Doctor's companion are more than a bit trite, but it's also bittersweet. I mean, their steady climb up relationship mountain has never been believable, and it's not like they didn't know this day was coming (or should have, anyway), but the Wesley effect does maintain.

I like how they deal with the Pete/Jackie issue and it's cute how there's a lone Cyberman holdout who kinda-sorta saves the day, but the last second save of Rose is pretty stupid.

On the whole, while I have a few mild regrets that Billy Piper has left the building and it is the end of an era, I always did like Martha more and I'm that much closer to Amy and River Song. Plus, it's nice to finally have a companion with a college education again.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Three Hundred and Thirty-seven - Dr.Who: Series 2, Episodes 8-11, "BINGE WATCHING HOOO~"

I think, if I'm going to make any progress towards finishing the seasons currently on Netflix before the year is out, I'm definitely going to have to marathon the series to even come close. Which brings us to our first entry in our December Doctor push which feature homicidal televisions, the Devil, and vlogging.

Fresh off their victory over the Cybermen in the alternate earth where they left Mickey behind, The Doctor and Rose head to 1950's England to witness the coronation of QE2 (monarch, not cruise ship) and run afoul of a sentient television program who feeds off of the electrical activity of the people who watch... THE WIRE... which, for some reason takes their faces off as well.

Of course, during the episode, Rose manages to get blank-faced as well, but don't worry, The Doctor manages to save the day and re-visage both his companion and the entire populace of face-eaten Northenders, not to mention free a family from an abusive father figure and collaborate with the local constabulary.

"Huuuuunnngggrrrryyyy." Bleh. -3 Points. Rose potentially dying a Blank-face? +4 Points. Deus Ex'd Human again? -3 Points.

Next, is another two-parter which pits the Doctor and the last surviving researchers of a black hole and the mysteriously powerful gravity well that is keeping a planet in stable orbit where it really, really, really shouldn't be. It appears that there is something very dark and ominous buried deep under the planet... something that The Doctor just cannot believe to be true... THE DEVIL! Cue mysterious body tattoos, possession, murder, and the mind control of a sentient slave race (the morality of which are only briefly lampshaded) who are used against the humans (and timelord) in an attempt to free THE DEVIL from his eternal prison.

CGI Devil? +1 Point. Doctor having to confront said Devil and waffling over whether or not to defeat him at the cost of Rose (who is, of course, Deus Ex saved at the last second)? -3 Points.

Finally is a single episode which mostly doesn't feature The Doctor at all, as he and Rose only briefly show up in the life of a young Vlogger who is chasing after Doctor sightings thanks to all of the events that have happened during the course of the modern series. A twenty/thirtysomething wastrel named Elton goes about chronicling his brushes with The Doctor and finds several like-minded people... who give him a family. That is, of course, until a domineering personality inserts himself into the group and takes over for his own reasons, while Elton's new family slowly starts disappearing.

I kind of like this one both for it's unique storytelling style, the minor personal dramas of the L.I.'nD.A. members, Moaning Myrtle, how little of The Doctor and Rose we actually see, and the Scooby-chase. Always love me a good Scooby-chase.

Less Doctor? +2 Points. Myrtle? +1 Point. Scooby-chase? +5 Points.

End Tally? +4 Points! Fair play to The Doctor, though he really can't claim much credit as it was Elton and L.I.'nD.A. who gave him such a positive lead.

I think I've found a way to survive the show while binge watching. Diablo 3. Some might call it cheating to multitask in such a way, but I find that I can still watch the show (and be annoyed with it) while grinding out rares and seaching for the ever elusive 1k DPS weapons, legendaries, and set pieces. Pretty sure that is going to be my routine for pounding out the series. If anyone has any objections, take it up with my lawyers! Just let me tell you that The Doctor is MUCH more enjoyable this way.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Three Hundred and Twenty-seven - Dr.Who: Series 2, Episode 7, "Good thing there was an extra Rickey... er, Mickey... whatever."

As far as two-parters go, Age of Steel was definitely better than it's companion piece, Rise of the Cybermen. It felt very much like its predecessor was all about the tease of Cybermen than about the silly threat they post.

I mean, sure, they have no mercy or need for sleep, and can march endlessly in their quest for more humans to upgrade, but their only weapon is grabbing onto you with their electric jazz hands of death. I have a suspicious feeling that, without their Deus Ex mind control ear buds, just about every soul under seventy could've easily avoided their wrath long enough to find The Doctor's eventual solution.

Still, in spite of that, Age of Steel is a quaint little tale of free will versus control, as evidenced by several of the minor characters who don't survive the night, including (but not limited to): the evil henchman, Rickey, Mrs.Moore, Jackie 2.0, and thousands more residents of London. I honestly don't get why the CyberController didn't just upgrade The Doctor, Rose, and Pete. It's what I would've done as a metallic despot with no soul, but then we wouldn't have had a chance to see David Tennant's stirring speech about the imagination, creativity, passion, and pain of humanity.

Personally, I think I could've written a better one... but that's just my opinion and the Free Market has spoken as I haven't gotten paid the big bucks to do just that.

Another thing to like about this episode is that it finally gives Mickey a chance to be something other than an afterthought, something that the writers were apparently aware of and struggling with for some time. Sure, we'll see him again later (or will we?), but I think this was a fitting enough sendoff to the character such that he didn't need to come back.

As far as cheesy (often alien, but not here) threats go, I don't hate how the Cybermen were presented. They're just as ridiculous as they've always been, but in comparison to the majority of Whovian villainy (Weeping Angels notwithstanding), they're not horrible. I don't know, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I'm glad they didn't get all that radical a redesign (just look at the furor over Daleks of different colors) from their classic motif, but they're still utterly laughable to look at.

On the whole, I can be happy with this episode because 1)they killed Jackie (well, alt-Jackie, anyway), 2)they killed Mickey (Rickey), 3)Mickey is done being a companion, and 4)Pete isn't ready to be a father in ANY universe. It's still mostly crap to me, but it didn't hurt to watch as much as many other episodes of Dr.Who.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

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~

Day Three Hundred and Seventeen - Dr Who: Series 2, Episode 5, "Love for a Time Traveller"

It's been a loooooong while since I've done any Doctor Who and, with the 50th Anniversary looming on the horizon (and friends posting about it on Facebook), I decided it was time to take a step back and resume my viewings. The result? A fairly sweet little love story, even if its burdened by the typical Whovian MacGuffins and Handwaves.

Set dually on a warp ship in the 51st century far in the expanses of space and in many slivers of time in the life of Madame de Pompadour in 18th century France, the story unfolds on clockwork automatons employed by the ship to haunt her years until the time is ripe to harvest her brain. It's all very silly, but gives rise to an infatuation on her part for the rescuing Doctor who visits her at many different moments in her life, both saving and intriguing her. This infatuation develops into an intimacy that even Rose cannot compete with.

As far as Doctor Who episodes go, its rather fun, despite its sad and lonely ending. Sure, its a bit of a stretch for the Doctor to form such an enormous attachment in such a small amount of time considering how long-lived (and already taken, unofficially, by Rose) he is, but it's nice to see the Doctor experience love, for however short a period of time, that isn't to one of his convenient, long-time companions. It's one of the reasons I love River Song (whom we technically haven't met yet... but soonish).

Now, maybe all of the lingering looks and chemistry had a little something to do with the fact that the actress portraying Madame de Pompadour (Sophia Myles) was actually dating David Tennant at the time, or maybe it has to do with the period clothing and the ample cleavage it shows off, but who knows?

Mickey and Rose aren't as annoying here as they usually can be, which is a blessing as I've hated Mickey as the mope he was previously. Their explorations throughout the ship while the Doctor is playing kissyface are cute, as is the bit of "girl talk" that Reinette and Rose share that lampshades the trials and triumphs of loving the Doctor.

All in all, not a bad bit of television. Still a crap series, overall, but one I don't have problems watching idly. I don't think I'll ever be a full blown, die-hard Whovian like many of my friends, but this episode serves as an example that they're not all bad. They're just mostly 'not great!'

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Two Hundred and Thirty-one - Dr.Who: Series 2, Episode 4, "Is... is that Giles?"

Well... after being banished by Queen Victoria, herself, it seems as though The Doctor is back on his game, infiltrating a modern day alien situation at a recently reformed school where kids are testing off the charts, posing as a science teacher (while Rose is in the kitchen and Mickey is running tech support/research).

It seems as though all the improvements to the school are thanks to the new headmaster (Anthony Stewart Head) and his retinue of new teachers and lunchladies. They're up to something sinister, eating orphans and forcing students to randomly type to cryptic green glyphs, and it's up to The Doctor, et al., to get to the bottom of it with the help of two familiar faces from Classic Dr. Who: K-9 and Sarah Jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen)... both former companions of the Doctor's (Three, Four, and Five).

Of course, it's your typical Whovian adventure, full of MacGuffins and Technobabble, but what else is new? What's really fun about the episode is the cattiness, both between Sarah Jane and Rose... and Mickey and K-9. Well, cattiness on Mickey's part as K-9 is nothing if not helpful, even if it is mildly passive-aggressive during the climax action sequence with the car. Sarah Jane and Rose, though? Fun, fun stuff! Too bad they managed to reconcile as I would've preferred them to remain icy towards each other as romantic rivals, instead of the stereotypical commiseration between gals in the same boat.

It is nice to see some character continuity bleed over from Classic Who in the form of Sarah Jane, though. She had to be my favorite companion back in the day (whenever I'd watch Tom Baker's version on Betamax at my Aunts' place in the 80's), and was the quintessential example of an assistant/companion until, I think, Amy Pond came around.

I do think it's a little sad, though, seeing her now that Elisabeth Sladen has passed. I never did get into her spinoff series, The Sarah Jane Adventures (not that I'm all that into the Who story universe to begin with), but I'm glad she carried the character on as long as she did and I hope, if there is an afterlife, that she goes wherever good companions (or actresses) go.

AnyWho....

While most of the alien action in School Reunion is blah CGI, I think the most annoying feature of the episode is Anthony Head's bat-grimace. I love the man to death (even if I can't stand some of his other projects, like Repo! The Genetic Opera), but the macular distortions he was forced to portray here were just hammy beyond belief. Still, I did enjoy his "Join Us" speech to The Doctor.

As for the rest? Well, I just wish the chips around here boosted IQ. Then I'd feel less guilty gobbling them up like the big fat pig that I am. It's a fun episode, at the least... with cheese-factor that is easily suffered.

Oh, gods... I hope that doesn't mean that my resistance is breaking down and I'm slowly being converted into a Whovian. Is there an antidote? Say, like, watching Community... where the Who references are meta and ironic?

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~