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Dr Who - The Waters of Mars
Spoilers under the cut, do not click!
Now this is more like it. I don't know if RTD had a sudden attack of competence or if the co-writer influenced the tone of the episode but this was a pretty great outing. First of all, I MUST give huge props to the make up department because the Flood were superb. That make up was creepy as hell and, having watched Dr Who Confidential and seen how they did the water effects, I'm even more impressed. Kudos to the actors too, who totally sold it, because it would have been (hell, has been) easy to go OTT when playing Who monsters but they did a great job of underplaying it and being even more frightening as a result. Although I could have done without that ghastly screaming at the end but the ice cracking effect was awesome. Pity we never saw what was going to emerge, but I guess CGI costs too much these days :)
This episode is about two dilemmas; the Doctor about walking away and not interfering and Adelaide Brooke, deciding whether or not to accept her rescue. Let's look at the Dr first, because this is the biggie and is obviously going to have huge ramifications. Now I like Tennant, I do, but if he has one flaw in his acting, it's his tendancy to be shouty and hammy. Well he was shouty here but he kept it just the right side of hammy and it really worked. This was the Doctor losing control. This was the Doctor realising "Hey! Actually, I'm not answerable to anyone anymore!" and starting down that road of good intentions. And when he needed to rein it in and do more with less, he did so superbly. The closing scene with Lindsay Duncan was, for me, one of the very best of the New Who series to date. There was all the arrogance and all the superiority that someone who has suddenly realised the full scope of his power. In Lindsay Duncan's Adelaide, he had the perfect foil for the scene and his shock and dawning horror when he realises what he has done, what he was planning to do, was just awesome. Cannot wait for the Christmas episode, not just because the trailer looked flipping amazing.
Lindsay Duncan - Made of Win. She brought the perfect dignity to Adelaide, we totally bought all the things the Doctor said about her. And we needed to because she was the emotional lynchpin of the episode, her actions are what brings the Doctor to the realisation of the enormity of what he's done. While I totally bought Adelaide's actions, which is a tribute to the acting and writing of that last scene (and I don't say that about an RTD written ep often), it took me a while to process WHY she did it. I was putting myself in her place and I was thinking I wasn't sure I could be so unselfish as to NOT to take the chance to live. But then I thought about it some more. The way Lindsay portrayed Adelaide, I realised, totally enforced the Doctor calling her special and her actions pivotal for the human race. The sort of honourable woman she was, she had to take the action she did because she realised that not only was this not her destiny but that she was alive because of actions that were fundamentally wrong; The Doctor abused his power to corrupt history. Watch that scene with The Doctor when he displays that arrogance and confidence in his actions - she's appalled, genuinely and truly appalled. In reasserting her control over her own fate, she is also directly responsible for saving the Doctor from making more horrific mistakes or at least we hope so and that is totally in keeping with the character that both Lindsay and Tennant completely brought to life in the preceeding hour.
So yes, I liked this one a lot. I'd found, during the previous series, a distressing tendancy to get bored during eps, to wander off and poke the internet, half listening to the eps in the background. Not this one, I watched it raptly all the way through. Gotta give RTD credit where it's due, he seems determined to make his last hurrah a memorable one.
Hee! Roll on Christmas :D
Now this is more like it. I don't know if RTD had a sudden attack of competence or if the co-writer influenced the tone of the episode but this was a pretty great outing. First of all, I MUST give huge props to the make up department because the Flood were superb. That make up was creepy as hell and, having watched Dr Who Confidential and seen how they did the water effects, I'm even more impressed. Kudos to the actors too, who totally sold it, because it would have been (hell, has been) easy to go OTT when playing Who monsters but they did a great job of underplaying it and being even more frightening as a result. Although I could have done without that ghastly screaming at the end but the ice cracking effect was awesome. Pity we never saw what was going to emerge, but I guess CGI costs too much these days :)
This episode is about two dilemmas; the Doctor about walking away and not interfering and Adelaide Brooke, deciding whether or not to accept her rescue. Let's look at the Dr first, because this is the biggie and is obviously going to have huge ramifications. Now I like Tennant, I do, but if he has one flaw in his acting, it's his tendancy to be shouty and hammy. Well he was shouty here but he kept it just the right side of hammy and it really worked. This was the Doctor losing control. This was the Doctor realising "Hey! Actually, I'm not answerable to anyone anymore!" and starting down that road of good intentions. And when he needed to rein it in and do more with less, he did so superbly. The closing scene with Lindsay Duncan was, for me, one of the very best of the New Who series to date. There was all the arrogance and all the superiority that someone who has suddenly realised the full scope of his power. In Lindsay Duncan's Adelaide, he had the perfect foil for the scene and his shock and dawning horror when he realises what he has done, what he was planning to do, was just awesome. Cannot wait for the Christmas episode, not just because the trailer looked flipping amazing.
Lindsay Duncan - Made of Win. She brought the perfect dignity to Adelaide, we totally bought all the things the Doctor said about her. And we needed to because she was the emotional lynchpin of the episode, her actions are what brings the Doctor to the realisation of the enormity of what he's done. While I totally bought Adelaide's actions, which is a tribute to the acting and writing of that last scene (and I don't say that about an RTD written ep often), it took me a while to process WHY she did it. I was putting myself in her place and I was thinking I wasn't sure I could be so unselfish as to NOT to take the chance to live. But then I thought about it some more. The way Lindsay portrayed Adelaide, I realised, totally enforced the Doctor calling her special and her actions pivotal for the human race. The sort of honourable woman she was, she had to take the action she did because she realised that not only was this not her destiny but that she was alive because of actions that were fundamentally wrong; The Doctor abused his power to corrupt history. Watch that scene with The Doctor when he displays that arrogance and confidence in his actions - she's appalled, genuinely and truly appalled. In reasserting her control over her own fate, she is also directly responsible for saving the Doctor from making more horrific mistakes or at least we hope so and that is totally in keeping with the character that both Lindsay and Tennant completely brought to life in the preceeding hour.
So yes, I liked this one a lot. I'd found, during the previous series, a distressing tendancy to get bored during eps, to wander off and poke the internet, half listening to the eps in the background. Not this one, I watched it raptly all the way through. Gotta give RTD credit where it's due, he seems determined to make his last hurrah a memorable one.
Hee! Roll on Christmas :D