Just saw the first part of Doctor Who's season finale...Gimmicky, for sure, and very much a set-up for the second part next week; not a whole lot of story or depth, to be sure; a string of glossy, exciting, shocking, generally "cool" scenes. But they are really, really, really cool scenes. It's a feeding frenzy of cool. And that worked for me. I was giddy and wide-eyed. I said "oooh" once. "Ugh", too. And I squealed like a hog when the Big Evil Metal Evil Sphere of Evil Spherical Metallic Big Evil opened and you know what came out...
There's been sort of a tendency for this season of Doctor Who to go that way, ish...Sort of action movie-like. Happened with the Cybermen story. Happened with The Satan Pit. Didn't like either of them much, 'cause I don't dig sci-fi action movies much. Depth and plot and theme sort of boil away in a cloud of shooty monsters. Seems to be happening again this time, but now it looks like it might actually work. I have high hopes.
Russell T. "Queer as Folk" Davies, the mastermind behind the show, really knows his shit (or as the Americans would say, his shizzle). He gets what makes Doctor Who tick, and he knows how to throw raw bleeding tender meat to the baying fans. He's quite witty, and writes excellent dialogue. And even though he's being very safe and conventional this episode, he still knows how to give moments a...twist. The Doctor kills three people, suddenly and cavalierly. Technically they're already dead, and it doesn't seem out-of-character, but...it makes you stop a moment. (Then a woman's brain is pulled out her ear.) David Tennant's acting has grated on me from time to time, as he has a tendency to get a bit too "hey look at me, I'm Doctor Who!", particularly whenever he's got a big speech to make, but I loved him tonight. Russell Davies seems to know just how to write for Tennant.
And did I mention it's really cool? Like, really really cool?
Ghosts. Loved the ghosts. Loved--really, really loved--the way the Doctor immediately dismissed the idea that they were actual ghosts of the dear departed, no matter how beautiful an idea people thought it was or how much they wanted to believe. The Doctor is a scientist and an atheist. Nice to see that played up this time.
And it was cool. Did I mention that?
Posted by aloysius at July 01, 2006 10:15 PM |