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Since I'm going to be at WisCon when The Legion of Rassilon screens "Planet of the Ood" and "The Sontaran Stratagem", I went ahead and obtained them by other means.
"Planet of the Ood" was generally very, very, good, so it took me a while to figure out the source of my niggling sense of dissatisfaction.
I was just kind of sorry that at the end of the day, the Ood were just gestalt-telepaths joined in one planet-spanning beautiful telepathic song. It just seemed, so...Babylon 5. Not that there ought to be anything wrong with that, but part of me would like to see Doctor Who do an alien race with an actual culture.
...Pauses to consider whether the Slitheen count as "actual culture"...Um.
On the other hand, I really liked the moment where the Doctor gave his stirring speech to the marketing woman, and she turns around and betrays them to the guards. Because, as much as it is part of the Doctor's character that he inspires people to break out of their ordinary patterns and to be better than what's around him, sometimes the show makes it too easy for him. And this time it didn't - the character didn't effectively say, "I see it now, Doctor! No one ever explained to me before that slavery was wrong, but now that you have said so, I will immediately turn my back on everything I know and throw away my career and possibly my life to help a pair of crazies I've just met!"
Also, how cool was it that we got a shout out to "The Sensorites"? Although, as an interesting side issue - I believe that this is the second time in the new series that we've had a superficial similarity between alien races explained by the fact that their planets are "near" each other. (In the case of the Absorbaloff and the Slitheen, they come from "twin" planets, which implies the same solar system. I don't think the Sense Sphere and the Oodsphere can be in the same solar system, though.) This is biological nonsense, but if we accept it, it does raise some interesting questions:
1. Do the Juddoon and the Sontarans come from nearby planets, or do they just use the same tailor?
2. For that matter, given the close external physical resemblance of Gallifreyans and humans, were Gallifrey and Earth near to each other?
"The Sontaran Stratagem" was a good run-around, and had a fantastic cliff-hanger. I think I won't really be able to review the full story until I've seen the second half.
There seems to have been a lot of discussion online about whether the Doctor was unnecessarily mean or rude to various members of UNIT. I don't see it that way. The Doctor was rude to a stuffy man with a gun - this is perfectly in character. It didn't make for the cosy UNIT family reunion that fans might have hoped for, but I think that was sort of the point. I think there's an interesting discussion to be had about why RTD chose to bring UNIT back in this way, and whether it was a good idea, but that's probably enough material for a separate post.
I think I'm becoming a bit of a sucker for "current companion meets former companion" scenes, and Donna and Martha didn't disappoint.
On the other hand, a couple of peeves about the writing:
First: For the love of Rassilon, can we call a moratorium on the "blowing up a computer by giving it contradictory orders" thing? (Raynor redeems it slightly by having the display crack and make a pathetic popping noise, rather than explode dramatically as the characters are clearly expecting. But still. If computers blew up every time you gave them contradictory instructions, I'd be so dead now.)
Second: I've never been one of those people who thought that the sonic screwdriver was a huge plot problem. While it can be abused, it's primary function is to make sure that the Doctor can get through locks. Since locks are generally less dramatically interesting than the motives of the beings or people who are locking them, this is fine.
However, some clever writer came along and invented the deadlock seal, which is impervious (among other things) to sonic devices. Which means that we can now have a character portentously say, "Deadlock it!", and then we get a scene where the Doctor tries to open something with the sonic screwdriver, and we all *gasp* in astonishment when it doesn't open.
Well, except we don't.
The point of a magic gizmo like the sonic screwdriver is to let you solve certain kinds of not very interesting problems so that you can get on with the plot. The magic gizmo is not supposed to be critical to the plot. And the failure of the magic gizmo to deal with another magic gizmo is *definitely* not supposed to be critical to the plot.
On the other hand, at least Helen Raynor didn't give us any magical gamma ray lightning bolts, like last year. Though I suppose there's always part 2.
"Planet of the Ood" was generally very, very, good, so it took me a while to figure out the source of my niggling sense of dissatisfaction.
I was just kind of sorry that at the end of the day, the Ood were just gestalt-telepaths joined in one planet-spanning beautiful telepathic song. It just seemed, so...Babylon 5. Not that there ought to be anything wrong with that, but part of me would like to see Doctor Who do an alien race with an actual culture.
...Pauses to consider whether the Slitheen count as "actual culture"...Um.
On the other hand, I really liked the moment where the Doctor gave his stirring speech to the marketing woman, and she turns around and betrays them to the guards. Because, as much as it is part of the Doctor's character that he inspires people to break out of their ordinary patterns and to be better than what's around him, sometimes the show makes it too easy for him. And this time it didn't - the character didn't effectively say, "I see it now, Doctor! No one ever explained to me before that slavery was wrong, but now that you have said so, I will immediately turn my back on everything I know and throw away my career and possibly my life to help a pair of crazies I've just met!"
Also, how cool was it that we got a shout out to "The Sensorites"? Although, as an interesting side issue - I believe that this is the second time in the new series that we've had a superficial similarity between alien races explained by the fact that their planets are "near" each other. (In the case of the Absorbaloff and the Slitheen, they come from "twin" planets, which implies the same solar system. I don't think the Sense Sphere and the Oodsphere can be in the same solar system, though.) This is biological nonsense, but if we accept it, it does raise some interesting questions:
1. Do the Juddoon and the Sontarans come from nearby planets, or do they just use the same tailor?
2. For that matter, given the close external physical resemblance of Gallifreyans and humans, were Gallifrey and Earth near to each other?
"The Sontaran Stratagem" was a good run-around, and had a fantastic cliff-hanger. I think I won't really be able to review the full story until I've seen the second half.
There seems to have been a lot of discussion online about whether the Doctor was unnecessarily mean or rude to various members of UNIT. I don't see it that way. The Doctor was rude to a stuffy man with a gun - this is perfectly in character. It didn't make for the cosy UNIT family reunion that fans might have hoped for, but I think that was sort of the point. I think there's an interesting discussion to be had about why RTD chose to bring UNIT back in this way, and whether it was a good idea, but that's probably enough material for a separate post.
I think I'm becoming a bit of a sucker for "current companion meets former companion" scenes, and Donna and Martha didn't disappoint.
On the other hand, a couple of peeves about the writing:
First: For the love of Rassilon, can we call a moratorium on the "blowing up a computer by giving it contradictory orders" thing? (Raynor redeems it slightly by having the display crack and make a pathetic popping noise, rather than explode dramatically as the characters are clearly expecting. But still. If computers blew up every time you gave them contradictory instructions, I'd be so dead now.)
Second: I've never been one of those people who thought that the sonic screwdriver was a huge plot problem. While it can be abused, it's primary function is to make sure that the Doctor can get through locks. Since locks are generally less dramatically interesting than the motives of the beings or people who are locking them, this is fine.
However, some clever writer came along and invented the deadlock seal, which is impervious (among other things) to sonic devices. Which means that we can now have a character portentously say, "Deadlock it!", and then we get a scene where the Doctor tries to open something with the sonic screwdriver, and we all *gasp* in astonishment when it doesn't open.
Well, except we don't.
The point of a magic gizmo like the sonic screwdriver is to let you solve certain kinds of not very interesting problems so that you can get on with the plot. The magic gizmo is not supposed to be critical to the plot. And the failure of the magic gizmo to deal with another magic gizmo is *definitely* not supposed to be critical to the plot.
On the other hand, at least Helen Raynor didn't give us any magical gamma ray lightning bolts, like last year. Though I suppose there's always part 2.
