"Medieval misfits!"
I watched two Doctor Who stories today! One was wonderful and charming and lovely, the other was none of those things.
I'm going to talk about the other one.
- This is the most pointless Doctor Who story ever made. It's two episodes that ultimately serve no purpose whatsoever, unless you consider a shit, shape-shifting robot joining the crew as a purpose.
- So yes, Kamelion. He is rubbish. He is immensely terrible, both visually and character-wise. To be fair, he looks alright when he's stationary (despite being cross-eyed), but when he moves, oh god.
- It was an awful idea to introduce a robot who's so easily controlled. He spends most of Planet of Fire being controlled and shrieking, too. He is utterly crap. Also, he has nipples.
- Terrance Dudley is a terrible Doctor Who writer. He likes writing stories where characters are nice to each other and things are quite gentle and that's OK, but not for Doctor Who. I think Black Orchid is so good is because it played to his strengths as a writer and the cast were firing on all cylinders. This story is him trying to write THREAT and failing, like the laughable final episode of his Four to Doomsday. There's barely any time for the characters to breathe and in this time they're all "the Doctor is a friend oh no he isn't oh he's a friend on no the Master says he isn't".
- I would also like to point out that Dudley wrote K-9 and Company, a show that mostly seemed to consist of terribly posh characters having amazingly dull conversations in drawing rooms while drinking wine. I honestly don't know how it didn't get a full series.
- The Master is coasting in this. He's going to mess up the Magna Carta signing because, er, he wants "chaos". That must be the shittest, laziest motivation ever. Even the Master looks unconvinced when he gives this explanation. If you want to cause chaos, grab a nuke, go back in time and detonate it, that's chaos right there. Going to ridiculously convoluted lengths to stop the signing of the Magna Carta right down to using a neurotic, easily-influenced robot shape-shifter is so insanely ornate and contrived he might as well have not bothered.
- I don't care what people say, the new series Master was amazing and epic shit went down whenever he was around. Not like in this little kitten's fart of a story, which has no dramatic weight whatsover. The Doctor just looks bored to see him - maybe he already knew the Master was going to do bugger all and that everything would be solved by grabbing the robot and legging it back into the TARDIS?
- And didn't the Doctor say "so you escaped from Castrovalva!" after the Master's reveal in Time-Flight? I would check, but urgh, Time-Flight.
- Tegan is awesome. Haters to the left.
- Also, Five/Tegan/Turlough is one of my favourite TARDIS teams, even if Turlough is locked up for most of it just like in The Awakening.
- I usually love the Davison era music, but here it mostly sounds like someone thoughtlessly mashing a casio keyboard.
- Still. The location filming is great (yey Bodium Castle), the sets are actually really good and there's a swordfight. It's by no means an awful story overall, but it really is the very defintion of "meh".
I'm going to talk about the other one.
- This is the most pointless Doctor Who story ever made. It's two episodes that ultimately serve no purpose whatsoever, unless you consider a shit, shape-shifting robot joining the crew as a purpose.
- So yes, Kamelion. He is rubbish. He is immensely terrible, both visually and character-wise. To be fair, he looks alright when he's stationary (despite being cross-eyed), but when he moves, oh god.
- It was an awful idea to introduce a robot who's so easily controlled. He spends most of Planet of Fire being controlled and shrieking, too. He is utterly crap. Also, he has nipples.
- Terrance Dudley is a terrible Doctor Who writer. He likes writing stories where characters are nice to each other and things are quite gentle and that's OK, but not for Doctor Who. I think Black Orchid is so good is because it played to his strengths as a writer and the cast were firing on all cylinders. This story is him trying to write THREAT and failing, like the laughable final episode of his Four to Doomsday. There's barely any time for the characters to breathe and in this time they're all "the Doctor is a friend oh no he isn't oh he's a friend on no the Master says he isn't".
- I would also like to point out that Dudley wrote K-9 and Company, a show that mostly seemed to consist of terribly posh characters having amazingly dull conversations in drawing rooms while drinking wine. I honestly don't know how it didn't get a full series.
- The Master is coasting in this. He's going to mess up the Magna Carta signing because, er, he wants "chaos". That must be the shittest, laziest motivation ever. Even the Master looks unconvinced when he gives this explanation. If you want to cause chaos, grab a nuke, go back in time and detonate it, that's chaos right there. Going to ridiculously convoluted lengths to stop the signing of the Magna Carta right down to using a neurotic, easily-influenced robot shape-shifter is so insanely ornate and contrived he might as well have not bothered.
- I don't care what people say, the new series Master was amazing and epic shit went down whenever he was around. Not like in this little kitten's fart of a story, which has no dramatic weight whatsover. The Doctor just looks bored to see him - maybe he already knew the Master was going to do bugger all and that everything would be solved by grabbing the robot and legging it back into the TARDIS?
- And didn't the Doctor say "so you escaped from Castrovalva!" after the Master's reveal in Time-Flight? I would check, but urgh, Time-Flight.
- Tegan is awesome. Haters to the left.
- Also, Five/Tegan/Turlough is one of my favourite TARDIS teams, even if Turlough is locked up for most of it just like in The Awakening.
- I usually love the Davison era music, but here it mostly sounds like someone thoughtlessly mashing a casio keyboard.
- Still. The location filming is great (yey Bodium Castle), the sets are actually really good and there's a swordfight. It's by no means an awful story overall, but it really is the very defintion of "meh".