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Doctor Who Season 3: The Family of Blood and Blink
Saw two more episodes of Doctor Who last night, courtesy of the Legion of Rassilon fan club.
This was a really good wrap up to the first part, "Human Nature", though I did find that, at the beginning, I was quite impatient for them to just find the pocket watch and get on with it. I'm not sure if it was good impatience or bad impatience. I'm looking forward to watching both parts again together.
I don't remember the novel version of Human Nature having this much of an emotional impact on me. But it was years ago when I read it - I'm going to re-read it now that I've seen the episode. I don't remember the book having the scene where John Smith realizes that the Doctor's whole plan amounts to having created John Smith with the intent to murder him. Which really hit me hard - up until that point in the episode I was thinking, "Okay, look, get the watch, open it up, change back into the Doctor and kick alien ass!" And then John Smith talks about not wanting to die and turn into this strange alien, and I thought, "Yikes! It's not really that simple, is it?"
Nevertheless, I cheered when the Doctor came back.
David Tennant does some of the best acting I've ever seen him do in Doctor Who in this episode. Though I've always liked David Tennant's portrayal of the Doctor, I've always thought that Christopher Eccleston was by far the best actor in a technical sense to play the Doctor. If Tennant turns in a few more performances like these, Eccles will have competition.
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obadiah and I agreed that the Doctor's method of disposing of the aliens at the end felt more like a 7th Doctor thing than a 10th Doctor thing. Though, the 10th Doctor does seem to have a thing about people who want to live forever, so maybe that activated the cold, calculating side of his personality.
This episode did have the most upfront acknowledgement yet of Martha's "unrequited love" for the Doctor, and it did strike me as a little bit of an off note, especially where she says, "He is everything to me." Because to me, that doesn't really square with what we've seen so far on screen. It's clear that Martha fancies the Doctor, that she seeks his good opinion and is hurt when he compares her unfavorably to others, and even that she loves him, at least in the way that all companions come to love the Doctor. But she also obviously still cares about her family, and her own career as a doctor, and...Martha just doesn't seem like a "He is everything" kind of girl. The scene probably would have worked better for me without that line. Still, it's a minor niggle.
When I talked about "Human Nature" last month, I predicted that if part two lived up to part one, the story would end up on the Hugo awards ballot next year. I'll stand by that prediction, but I'll also predict that it will have stiff competition, in the form of Steven Moffat's "Blink".
Well, this episode has everything you've come to expect from a Moffat-penned Doctor Who episode: a hot girl, wickedly funny and quotable one-liners, genuinely scary monsters, and a plot that actually uses the fact that Doctor Who is a show about time travel. (Most episodes of Doctor Who use the time travel aspect merely as a way of setting up the story - the TARDIS travels in time to some location, and then the story unfolds linearly from there. Moffat, especially in "The Girl in the Fireplace" and "Blink", really likes to use time travel as a plot device. (Even in "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances" the plot is made possible by the fact that Jack is using time travel to run a con designed to entrap other time travelers.) Actually, one of the interesting things about all the Moffat stories is that in all three cases, it's not the TARDIS that's doing the time travel. Hmmm.)
But I digress. Really, I'm not sure what to say about this episode except that it was absolutely engrossing, and definitely sets the standard for what a "Doctor-lite" episode should be. I actually wondered a bit if Larry's obsession with the Doctor's DVD Easter egg and his obsession with internet message boards was a bit of a nod to "Love and Monsters", last season's "Doctor-lite" episode. Or maybe a bit of a poke at "Love and Monsters" - Moffat saying, "See, I can do this, and do it better."
Actually, now that I think about it, possibly the only thing that could have made "Blink" better would be the addition of ELO and Jackie Tyler.
Another thing that really struck me was the shot near the end where Sally grabs Larry's hand. Just because visually it reminded me of all those lovely shots we used to get in Series 1 of the Doctor taking Rose's hand, and so it was a big thrill. I don't think any reference to Rose was necessarily intended - I think it's more that the show has actually established handholding as a shorthand for a certain kind of emotional connection.
The Legion of Rassilon has a raffle each meeting, with assorted Doctor Who-related prizes. I won an iron-on transfer that reads, "The angels have the phone box." Now I must go find a T-shirt to put it on.
This was a really good wrap up to the first part, "Human Nature", though I did find that, at the beginning, I was quite impatient for them to just find the pocket watch and get on with it. I'm not sure if it was good impatience or bad impatience. I'm looking forward to watching both parts again together.
I don't remember the novel version of Human Nature having this much of an emotional impact on me. But it was years ago when I read it - I'm going to re-read it now that I've seen the episode. I don't remember the book having the scene where John Smith realizes that the Doctor's whole plan amounts to having created John Smith with the intent to murder him. Which really hit me hard - up until that point in the episode I was thinking, "Okay, look, get the watch, open it up, change back into the Doctor and kick alien ass!" And then John Smith talks about not wanting to die and turn into this strange alien, and I thought, "Yikes! It's not really that simple, is it?"
Nevertheless, I cheered when the Doctor came back.
David Tennant does some of the best acting I've ever seen him do in Doctor Who in this episode. Though I've always liked David Tennant's portrayal of the Doctor, I've always thought that Christopher Eccleston was by far the best actor in a technical sense to play the Doctor. If Tennant turns in a few more performances like these, Eccles will have competition.
obadiah and I agreed that the Doctor's method of disposing of the aliens at the end felt more like a 7th Doctor thing than a 10th Doctor thing. Though, the 10th Doctor does seem to have a thing about people who want to live forever, so maybe that activated the cold, calculating side of his personality. This episode did have the most upfront acknowledgement yet of Martha's "unrequited love" for the Doctor, and it did strike me as a little bit of an off note, especially where she says, "He is everything to me." Because to me, that doesn't really square with what we've seen so far on screen. It's clear that Martha fancies the Doctor, that she seeks his good opinion and is hurt when he compares her unfavorably to others, and even that she loves him, at least in the way that all companions come to love the Doctor. But she also obviously still cares about her family, and her own career as a doctor, and...Martha just doesn't seem like a "He is everything" kind of girl. The scene probably would have worked better for me without that line. Still, it's a minor niggle.
When I talked about "Human Nature" last month, I predicted that if part two lived up to part one, the story would end up on the Hugo awards ballot next year. I'll stand by that prediction, but I'll also predict that it will have stiff competition, in the form of Steven Moffat's "Blink".
Well, this episode has everything you've come to expect from a Moffat-penned Doctor Who episode: a hot girl, wickedly funny and quotable one-liners, genuinely scary monsters, and a plot that actually uses the fact that Doctor Who is a show about time travel. (Most episodes of Doctor Who use the time travel aspect merely as a way of setting up the story - the TARDIS travels in time to some location, and then the story unfolds linearly from there. Moffat, especially in "The Girl in the Fireplace" and "Blink", really likes to use time travel as a plot device. (Even in "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances" the plot is made possible by the fact that Jack is using time travel to run a con designed to entrap other time travelers.) Actually, one of the interesting things about all the Moffat stories is that in all three cases, it's not the TARDIS that's doing the time travel. Hmmm.)
But I digress. Really, I'm not sure what to say about this episode except that it was absolutely engrossing, and definitely sets the standard for what a "Doctor-lite" episode should be. I actually wondered a bit if Larry's obsession with the Doctor's DVD Easter egg and his obsession with internet message boards was a bit of a nod to "Love and Monsters", last season's "Doctor-lite" episode. Or maybe a bit of a poke at "Love and Monsters" - Moffat saying, "See, I can do this, and do it better."
Actually, now that I think about it, possibly the only thing that could have made "Blink" better would be the addition of ELO and Jackie Tyler.
Another thing that really struck me was the shot near the end where Sally grabs Larry's hand. Just because visually it reminded me of all those lovely shots we used to get in Series 1 of the Doctor taking Rose's hand, and so it was a big thrill. I don't think any reference to Rose was necessarily intended - I think it's more that the show has actually established handholding as a shorthand for a certain kind of emotional connection.
The Legion of Rassilon has a raffle each meeting, with assorted Doctor Who-related prizes. I won an iron-on transfer that reads, "The angels have the phone box." Now I must go find a T-shirt to put it on.