[DW] Ep. S4x04 - "The Sontaran Strategem"
I really had to FORCE myself to sit down and watch this episode. I wasn't sure why at first, but when I thought about it for about...oh...a nanosecond...I realized it's because of the immediate return of a certain someone. And I just...didn't want to see that.
It's not that I have anything against ANY of the Doctor's previous companions (that I've seen thus far); it's just that I was really digging the relationship the Doctor and Donna have been building the last few episodes, and I don't want ANYONE else sticking their nose in it. I knew it was coming, but by the fourth episode? Why so soon?
But, well. I made myself watch it anyway, because c'mon, I look forward to this show all week. I have to watch it now.
-I felt bad for the journalist because, well, she was actually doing meaningful investigative journalism. That's always the sort of journalist that snuffs it, which is a shame because they're the only journalist characters I can like or relate to at all.
-A Wunderkind character! I have a serious weakness for those.
-Ahem. DONNA WAS FLYING THE TARDIS. A COMPANION WAS FLYING THE TARDIS. DONNA WAS FLYING THE TARDIS. WE INTERRUPT THIS BROADCAST FOR SUSTAINED ATTACKS OF SPAZZY JOY. HOMYGOD.
-NOT SUGGESTIVE AT ALL, EITHER. MY JOY IS AS PURE AS NON-ACIDIC RAIN.
-The Doctor's look of apprehensive dread when the mobile rings? He so wasn't looking forward to facing that music, and I don't mean the ringtone. He's pathologically avoidant of emotional consequences.
-People have been predicting Donna meeting past companions being a big girly bonding squeefest, haven't they? Rose and Sarah Jane certainly had one, once they got over the initial jealousy. The Doctor clearly only remembers the initial jealousy, though.
-The bit where Donna asks if Martha's fiance is skinny, and the Doctor nods to himself as if he knows the answer is yes? And then is visibly taken aback when Martha says no? God, that slayed me DEAD.
-"Operation Blue Sky." *snorts*
-I really love UNIT's theme music.
-"Is that what you did to her? Turned her into a solider?" I don't think that was the Doctor's previous assessment of what he did to Martha, either.
-"What, you used to work for them?" "Yeah, a long time ago...back in the seventies. Or possibly the eighties." HA.
-"I'll have a salute." Donna continues to pwn all.
-I almost feel bad about the cocky UNIT canon fodder being toast. Opening the weird boiling coffin thing on the grounds that someone could be trapped and suffocating inside was actually a good reason.
-The human-body-thing was just the creepiest ever. But um, The Matrix, anyone? And um, is that rack-thing a lot like the rack Lisa was on in TW1? Or possibly even identical?
-I like bad guys that lecture the good guys on what's wrong with their tactics and strategy. Don't know why, I just do.
-Whoever was blocking the scene with the Doctor examining the ATMOS tech should really have found some other business for DT to do, because it's really, strikingly obvious that it's pointless business.
-Doctor Jones approves of Supertemp!Donna. Win. Also really like the particular physical mannerisms CT gives Donna.
-Jesus, Martha. "So like, it wasn't, like, the Doctor's FAULT my family was IMPRISONED AND TORTURED FOR A YEAR, it's just sort of a side effect of traveling with him. Um, tell your family to wear Kevlar!" Ouch.
-"Super-duper time machine." Right up there with, "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey." SCIENCE-Y TRUFAX.
-I started to get seriously annoyed that Donna was asking to go home AGAIN, i.e. does she need to ask every episode now, so PSYCHE. Donna got me as bad as she got the Doctor. "Aww," to his pleading with her to stay with him, even if it sounded like he practiced it in front of a mirror for just such an occasion. ("You've saved my life in so many ways," sounds a bit odd when you really only started traveling together a short time ago.)
(And yes, I caught the Medusa Cascade reference.)
-For a split second I was afraid Donna would be too overwhelmed and run AWAY from her granddad. The two of them hugging made me tear up more than any other companion!family moment since Peter's death in "Father's Day." (And that had annoyed me because it was such obviously constructed tear-jerking material. This was more naturally emotional to me.)
-Weeelll, now we can guess how Martha ends up covered in slime... ETA: Notice how much brighter Martha is in that she immediately tries to turn and run?
-Wilf is brilliant, of course.
-The Doctor empathizing with Luke over the social dilemmas of the intellectually gifted. WAAH WAAH. Stop being so damned arrogant about it, and you won't be so damned lonely. BOTH OF YOU.
-LOL Doctor hitting the button on the teleport to see where it goes. Oh...on board a hostile alien ship! Ooops!
-"Staal the Not-Quite-So-Undefeated But Nevermind." LOL. Very Monty Python.
-Martha's taken quite the page from the Doctor's, "tell me who you are," book.
-Ah, emo teenage pain. No one understands me, I'm gonna blow up the planet! Typical.
-If the sonic screwdriver is a plot device, then the counter-device plot device is clearly "deadlocked."
-*sputter**spark* "Oh, is that it?" *snort*
-"She takes care of me." Damn straight. *love*
-So much hilarity in Donna's family realizing they've all met him before.
-Aaaand that's probably the best cliffhanger the new series has had yet. Oh god, poor Doctor - overwhelmed by the scale of the deaths to come and unable to free Wilf. There's no way they can kill off the only member of Donna's family that the audience is sympathetic to, but the Doctor's frozen horror and helplessness here is so palpable.
I want him to think of something to free Wilf, but I don't because it shouldn't be his responsibility, but I do because if he doesn't the self-recrimination the Doctor is capable of is pretty awful. Oh, and. It would suck if Wilf DID die.
GAH. Next episode needs to happen now.
And if it wasn't obvious from that note about UNIT's music, I downloaded the 2005/2006 soundtrack Friday night. I can tell it's going to be on continuous repeat in my player for a while.
It's not that I have anything against ANY of the Doctor's previous companions (that I've seen thus far); it's just that I was really digging the relationship the Doctor and Donna have been building the last few episodes, and I don't want ANYONE else sticking their nose in it. I knew it was coming, but by the fourth episode? Why so soon?
But, well. I made myself watch it anyway, because c'mon, I look forward to this show all week. I have to watch it now.
-I felt bad for the journalist because, well, she was actually doing meaningful investigative journalism. That's always the sort of journalist that snuffs it, which is a shame because they're the only journalist characters I can like or relate to at all.
-A Wunderkind character! I have a serious weakness for those.
-Ahem. DONNA WAS FLYING THE TARDIS. A COMPANION WAS FLYING THE TARDIS. DONNA WAS FLYING THE TARDIS. WE INTERRUPT THIS BROADCAST FOR SUSTAINED ATTACKS OF SPAZZY JOY. HOMYGOD.
-NOT SUGGESTIVE AT ALL, EITHER. MY JOY IS AS PURE AS NON-ACIDIC RAIN.
-The Doctor's look of apprehensive dread when the mobile rings? He so wasn't looking forward to facing that music, and I don't mean the ringtone. He's pathologically avoidant of emotional consequences.
-People have been predicting Donna meeting past companions being a big girly bonding squeefest, haven't they? Rose and Sarah Jane certainly had one, once they got over the initial jealousy. The Doctor clearly only remembers the initial jealousy, though.
-The bit where Donna asks if Martha's fiance is skinny, and the Doctor nods to himself as if he knows the answer is yes? And then is visibly taken aback when Martha says no? God, that slayed me DEAD.
-"Operation Blue Sky." *snorts*
-I really love UNIT's theme music.
-"Is that what you did to her? Turned her into a solider?" I don't think that was the Doctor's previous assessment of what he did to Martha, either.
-"What, you used to work for them?" "Yeah, a long time ago...back in the seventies. Or possibly the eighties." HA.
-"I'll have a salute." Donna continues to pwn all.
-I almost feel bad about the cocky UNIT canon fodder being toast. Opening the weird boiling coffin thing on the grounds that someone could be trapped and suffocating inside was actually a good reason.
-The human-body-thing was just the creepiest ever. But um, The Matrix, anyone? And um, is that rack-thing a lot like the rack Lisa was on in TW1? Or possibly even identical?
-I like bad guys that lecture the good guys on what's wrong with their tactics and strategy. Don't know why, I just do.
-Whoever was blocking the scene with the Doctor examining the ATMOS tech should really have found some other business for DT to do, because it's really, strikingly obvious that it's pointless business.
-Doctor Jones approves of Supertemp!Donna. Win. Also really like the particular physical mannerisms CT gives Donna.
-Jesus, Martha. "So like, it wasn't, like, the Doctor's FAULT my family was IMPRISONED AND TORTURED FOR A YEAR, it's just sort of a side effect of traveling with him. Um, tell your family to wear Kevlar!" Ouch.
-"Super-duper time machine." Right up there with, "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey." SCIENCE-Y TRUFAX.
-I started to get seriously annoyed that Donna was asking to go home AGAIN, i.e. does she need to ask every episode now, so PSYCHE. Donna got me as bad as she got the Doctor. "Aww," to his pleading with her to stay with him, even if it sounded like he practiced it in front of a mirror for just such an occasion. ("You've saved my life in so many ways," sounds a bit odd when you really only started traveling together a short time ago.)
(And yes, I caught the Medusa Cascade reference.)
-For a split second I was afraid Donna would be too overwhelmed and run AWAY from her granddad. The two of them hugging made me tear up more than any other companion!family moment since Peter's death in "Father's Day." (And that had annoyed me because it was such obviously constructed tear-jerking material. This was more naturally emotional to me.)
-Weeelll, now we can guess how Martha ends up covered in slime... ETA: Notice how much brighter Martha is in that she immediately tries to turn and run?
-Wilf is brilliant, of course.
-The Doctor empathizing with Luke over the social dilemmas of the intellectually gifted. WAAH WAAH. Stop being so damned arrogant about it, and you won't be so damned lonely. BOTH OF YOU.
-LOL Doctor hitting the button on the teleport to see where it goes. Oh...on board a hostile alien ship! Ooops!
-"Staal the Not-Quite-So-Undefeated But Nevermind." LOL. Very Monty Python.
-Martha's taken quite the page from the Doctor's, "tell me who you are," book.
-Ah, emo teenage pain. No one understands me, I'm gonna blow up the planet! Typical.
-If the sonic screwdriver is a plot device, then the counter-device plot device is clearly "deadlocked."
-*sputter**spark* "Oh, is that it?" *snort*
-"She takes care of me." Damn straight. *love*
-So much hilarity in Donna's family realizing they've all met him before.
-Aaaand that's probably the best cliffhanger the new series has had yet. Oh god, poor Doctor - overwhelmed by the scale of the deaths to come and unable to free Wilf. There's no way they can kill off the only member of Donna's family that the audience is sympathetic to, but the Doctor's frozen horror and helplessness here is so palpable.
I want him to think of something to free Wilf, but I don't because it shouldn't be his responsibility, but I do because if he doesn't the self-recrimination the Doctor is capable of is pretty awful. Oh, and. It would suck if Wilf DID die.
GAH. Next episode needs to happen now.
And if it wasn't obvious from that note about UNIT's music, I downloaded the 2005/2006 soundtrack Friday night. I can tell it's going to be on continuous repeat in my player for a while.