Doctor Who
Just an upfront warning, I am going to be brutally honest in my feelings on this episode. I debated whether to post anything, but unlike SGA I have been watching Doctor Who for the past three seasons and, therefore, feel like I can vent. The short version is I hated, hated, hated this episode. If I could get the hour back of my life I would. I think they owe me a trip in the Tardis to do just that.
The bullet points of disgust:
* One Year Later. Really? This was my first (of many) "You've got to be kidding me?" moments. If you are going to rip off another show, don't pick one that is still on the air, did the same plot twist roughly a year ago and, imho, did it better. If had just been a time jump maybe I could have let it go, but that coupled with the human race being enslaved by a bunch of robotic creatures, um, no.
* What a waste of the cast. I thought the old age makeup was bad enough, but then we get some truly embarrassing CGI. Golum in a suit? It would have been nice if the Doctor got to play a significant role in the finale. And John Barrowman/Jack gets a few brief scenes of being chained up or shooting a gun before being revealed as the Face of Boe. Actually, I'm not 100% sold that he is. It could be just a joke, a coincidence. Though, in New New York when Boe reveals to the Doctor he is not alone, Jack would have that knowledge. For me, it strikes me as a sad end to the character - a man so eager to be part of the universe, confined to a big fish tank. However, the big head is appropriate. ;)
* My affection for Martha has been eroding as the season progressed. To the bitter end she had to profess her love for the Doctor, even to complete strangers. (Did they really need to know that for the plan to work?) And on the surface she got to be heroic, but what did she really do other than exactly what the Doctor told her to do? Now she has apparently left and I sat here thinking I'm not going to miss her. Ultimately, she was one wasted opportunity after another. I'll give her a small bit of credit for remembering that her goal was to become a doctor and that she would have been a hypocrite for not following her own advice. Maybe the Doctor will come back and find her shacked up with Tom. I liked Tom.
* I was a little embarrassed for John Simms. He's a better actor than the material here. I just couldn't take the Master at all seriously.
* Didn't they establish in the previous episode that the Master was using the satellites to control people's minds and that accept for a small percentage of people it worked? Yet, he didn't pick up at all that there was a growing resistance in which a single word would give the people and the Doctor the power to defeat him?
* So the Doctor who's as near death as he can get regenerates into his former self and rises into the air in a big ball of light, arms reaching out......oh...good...grief. They're making him Christ-like? God-like? The Doctor is no longer humanities helper, he's our savior. I'm insulted.
* Why did the Master keep Martha's family alive? To humiliate them? To use them to get to Martha? Then why not do that sooner before she traveled the world to get the masses to rise up against him?
* Speaking of the world traveling, HOW? I'm guessing there was no more air travel. Shipping would have been monitored closely. And only a select few had permission to drive. Yet, she got around the world in a year?
* Does anyone know what the deal is with Ms Lucy in the sky with diamonds? Last week she seemed to be part of the Master's schemes and this week she walks around wearing a red dress and black eye and doesn't speak. As if the Master wasn't evil enough, they had to turn him into a wife beater. Or was he? I'm guessing that was her picking up the Master's ring at the end. Was she playing the role of wronged wife eager for revenge for the Doctor's benefit? Did she actually shoot him to save him from being the Doctor's prisoner?
* Just when I thought the show couldn't get any slashier, it could! WOW. The Master commenting on dying in the Doctor's arms. The Doctor begging him to regenerate because he couldn't let him go. The tears! He wasn't this broken up when Rose left.
* Oh, I also loathed the "I forgive you." One, because I saw that coming, and, two, because I'm growing quite tired of shows telling us we have to forgive. No, we really don't always have to.