Pseudo live-blog of Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead
I squee and meta a bit and get really cranky at points. Hopefully this is coherent. O.o
P.S. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. I mean, duh
I am extraordinarily pleased that the very fit young woman we've been seeing in the promos is a CAT BURGLAR!! Hot x 12. However, speaking of THEFT, what is this? Indiana Jones meets Mission Impossible? I'm all for parody, but you guys just aren't even trying. Also, how difficult would it have been to find an item that was both of near equal weight to the chalice and which DIDN'T make a squeaky noise, thereby tipping off the guards to the theft before you've gotten out of the building? Fail, Extremely Hot Thief. So full of fail.
HOW COME SHE GETS THE NICE BUS DRIVER. Every time I rode the bus in Scotland, I got barked at if I dallied so much as ONE NANOSECOND. Also, we're supposed to believe that psychic paper now works on things with no brains?
Ok, fine. I'll give you the psychic paper because it's Doctor Who, and at least it's not the gorram sonic screwdriver. And I liked the camerawork. I'll probably give you a pass on the bus driver, too, because Extremely Hot Thief is Extremely Hot and, as we all know, Extremely Hot People get away with more things than they should.
[Opening credits]
"I'm definitely sensing some excitation here!"
"It's got a little dish that goes 'round, do you see it?" *flickflickflick*
Is it just me, or is the Doctor trying very hard to flirt with EHT? He must be really into her to have regressed so far into Geek Mode.
"The voices! The voices are screaming!"
My friend once made me watch a really bad Stephen King movie. I don't remember the title but it was the one with Rob Lowe in it. I know this because my friend made me watch every movie that Rob Lowe has ever made and I've never forgiven her for it. The psychic woman here reminds me of a character from that movie and this makes me cranky. I'd like to forget that movie exists, please. Actually, I'll pretend this reminds me of Pirates so I can think about Naomi Harris' bare shoulders for a while. The only problem is that this highlights the Psychic's non-Standard-British accent and just. COME ON. Sure the accent sounds neat, but it also draws on the cultural mode of thought which 1) places religion and science in a contentious dichotomy and 2) associates religion or spirituality with persons of color and/or the Third World. It follows that white people from advanced (read: affluent) cultures are associated with science. So basically, Mammy's singin' her soulful gospels in de field an' Master is up in de Big House wid his learnin' books and ARRGH. This is freshman-year Cultural Studies, RTD. Stop being dumb. :(
On the plus side, there is more than one black person and the disappearing bus premise is rather cool.
Extremely Hot Thief continues to be Extremely Hot while implying the Doctor is mental for not having a proper name. The Doctor does absolutely nothing to dispell her theory, choosing instead to taste the sand and then OH MY GOD. AAAAAAAAAAGH! PUT THAT BACK IN YOUR MOUTH, DOCTOR! D: If I never see David Tennant's tongue again it will be TOO SOON.
Bus Driver attempts to walk through the wibbly time-space-door thingy and turns into a SKELETON!! WHOOO, SKELETON!!!! :D AND THEN THE COPS CALL IN UNIT!!! Yay. ^_^ Also, points for the first person to die not being black.
EHT takes charge of the situation and is collected and charming. She appoints herself leader and gets the Doctor to call her "ma'am" and she is now Hot x 37. She already owns a gimp mask, guys. Surely nothing I'm considering in my fevered imagination right now can be too OOC.
"I thought you were in charge?"
"I am. A good leader utilizes her strengths, and you seem to be the brain box. So start boxing."
I'm watching this episode hours after most of the world has, so there's already porn, right? Someone has written me porn of this scene. They must have. So, links?
Bonus: EHT (aka Christina) is a little dorky in that speech and it's hot. Dorky can be hot, ok? Don't judge me.
The Doctor steals screentime from EHT by exhorting the characters (and thus the audience) to think about their mundane lives while sitting on an alien planet/watching a sci-fi tv show because whoo. Chops and gravy. Man, I love my mundane life. I love it so much that I never try to mentally escape someplace else for an hour or so. Also, I am comforted and sentimental because the soundtrack tells me to be. Thanks, soundtrack!
Seriously though, there's an ALIEN PLANET but it's just SAND and the characters are sitting around a double-decker bus thinking about chops and gravy? You really grabbed this opportunity with both hands, RTD. Way to embrace the genre!
Also, I'm very resentful of the Doctor giving the "I'm going to get you home" speech and thereby undercutting Christina's authority. I'm fairly sure I'm not supposed to feel that way.
UNIT ARRIVES! WHOO! OMGYAY the commanding officer is a black woman. Is this going to be awesome like Battlefield? I think it will.
As Christina and the Doctor trudge off into the dunes for some unknown reason, the show cuts for the second time to a hand in a glove pointing at an ooky ~alien screen and making clicking sounds. I love it! OMG THE BUBBLEWRAP IS WATCHING YOU!!! :D
"Let's just say we're two equal mysteries."
"We'd make quite a couple."
"We wouldn't make any sort of couple, thank you very much."
Blegh. Ooh, Rusty, you're sooooooo subtle. Why, I wouldn't have noticed any sort of chemistry between these two characters at all if you hadn't put those lines in there! Thanks so much! Things are NOT AT ALL AWKWARD now!
EHT is an EHT of noble birth. Neato! And oh yeah, the Doctor is a Time lord and an alien and he has wacky adventures blah blah blah. WE KNOW THAT BIT ALREADY.
Also, why aren't they wearing sunglasses? There was an express point made earlier that both of them had sunglasses and now they are not wearing them, despite the harsh sun and wind and SAND. There'd better be a slapstick scene in the next five minutes of both of them stumbling around and screaming, "AAAAH, THERE'S GRIT IN MY EYES! IT BURRRRRNS!"
The scientific advisor and the commanding officer fanboying the Doctor while he makes ridiculous faces is hilarious. That entire scene is hilarious and adorable, actually, though I a little confused as to what Malcom's accent is supposed to be.
WHOOOOOOO, CLICKY ALIEN WITH BUG EYES! YAY! THAT SHIP LOOKS AWESOME. I especially like how it's been completely torn in half. And it's all spiky and half-buried and stuff! AND THE INSIDE HAS WEIRD PIPES AND HANGING CABLES. And it's purple, and there's glowy lights, and there's this nifty detail about the steel it's made out of reversing the temperature and IT'S ALL SO NIFTY.
"That's how I like things. Extreme."
Ok, Rusty, now you are trying to do sexual banter and it's not working. Light touch, sweetums. Less is more.
Ugh, the heads on those things are fantastic. All the little ridges, the way they're slightly shiny. My favorite bit is the maw between their little mandibles. Creepy and vaguely sexual; reminiscent of a flesh wound. Vulnerable, yet disturbing. I also love how the mandibles move. They sort of freak me out!
Now the Doctor convinces the Fly-People that he and Christina didn't try to kill them with their bus. They believe him and so he starts messing around with their ship's console and performs percussive maintenance while blathering on. Cute, but Ten's done this a dozen times before. Christina is just standing there watching and that's disappointing. What are you going to let her do something awesome again, Doctor? Maybe your manic schtick is new to her but NOT TO US.
Blah blah blah "Lord of what, exactly?" ARRGH. Why are you wasting valuable screentime on this, RTD? If we were going to get an entire season with Christina that'd be one thing, but we don't. We only get an hour and you're wasting half of it with Christina sitting around doing nothing while the Doctor lectures her on Whoniverse 101.
"A hundred billion people turned to sand." That's cool. That's creepy, delicious, and tragic. Let's have more of that. Like… A FLOCK OF MANTA RAYS!! True, both of the alien races you've come up with are basically identical to THINGS ON EARTH but it's progress! And a flock of manta rays gives me the willies if I think on it too much. Especially if they have an EXO-SKELETON OF METAL!! COOL! The design of those things is really nifty. It's so nifty that I'll overlook the theory that they created the wormhole by "flying really fast in circles."
The Doctor finds a pair of comms and hands one to Christina. The Fly People don't have ears so how come these comms look exactly like human-made Bluetooths? Never mind. I'll just ignore it.
YAY CHRISTINA GETS TO BE AWESOME!!! She hooks up her winch to go down the shaft and get the crystal thinger. The Doctor snoops through her backpack and we learn more about the MYSTERIOUS CHALICE OMGOMG. And the Doctor discovers that-DUN DUN DUN!!-She's a thief! Wait, we already knew that. Dammit, Rusty!
Oooh, a high speed chase up a shaft with a SCARY METAL MANTA RAY OMGOMG!!! And Christina is a QUICK THINKER and engages the security system to zap the manta ray! Whooo! This is exciting. ^_^
Aw man, the Fly People get eaten by a manta ray. It was gross and therefore awesome, but now there are fewer aliens and that is not awesome. :(
Due to conversion issues, the Doctor proceeds to turn the chalice into an adaptor by HAMMERING THE CRAP OUT OF IT. Nice to see that his complete disregard for historical artifacts has not changed. And by "nice" I mean YOU HEARTLESS PHILISTINE. I HOPE YOU HAVE TO REGENERATE BECAUSE YOU ARE RIPPED APART BY A MOB OF ANGRY ARCHEOLOGISTS. >O
Ok, so Malcom refused to close the wormhole because the Doctor was still on the other side. So then they learn that the Doctor has returned and Malcom… doesn't close the wormhole? And now there are manta-ray-eaty-things in the middle of London why, exactly? After the bus came through, there was enough time for 1) the soldiers to dumbly watch the bus fly around for a while 2) a soldier to head for the trailer to tell the commanding officer-in person, not on a radio or by shouting-that the bus is back 3) the commanding officer and Malcom to stare at each other for a while 4) the commanding officer to run out of the trailer and stare at the wormhole-and THEN the manta-rays come through? That's dumb. There will be death and destruction because someone was dumb. (Come to think of it, that was the plot of another Rob Lowe movie I was forced to watch. It's called Atomic Train and it will make you lose your faith in humanity.)
Oh, and when Malcom finally gets around to pressing The Button (F5) it DOESN'T WORK? And there's sparks and Malcom goes slapstick with a fire extinguisher? In the final 8 minutes while there's EVIL EATY THINGS IN THE MIDDLE OF LONDON? RTD seriously couldn't think of a better way to prolong the climax? He needed another five minutes of script so this is what we get? What a crock.
Oh wait, I get it. This happened because Malcom couldn't save the day on his own merits, no. He can only save the day once the Doctor technobabbles at him. Never mind that the episode up 'til now made the point that Malcom is good enough at technobabbling to impress the Doctor. Just like The Next Doctor showed that Jackson Lake could rappel up walls and swing from ropes but when it came to doing the exact same thing at the climax of the story in order to save HIS OWN SON, he couldn't do it. Turn Left is even more explicit: humans cannot possibly survive without the Doctor. The problem isn't that statement (after all, humans are a relatively primitive species and aliens are BAMFS) so much as the extremely flawed way in which the show attempts to prove it. I'm totally ok with the Doctor saving the day; he's the hero, it's his job. The problem is that no other character is allowed to even share a part of the victory. They can help along the way by tagging along and doing the grunt work, but when it comes to the final moment the Doctor has to step in as the figurehead for every single tiny victory. This isn't because he's cleverer, or has better technology, or is a better diplomat. He saves the day just because he is the Doctor and Rusty thinks the Doctor is the bestest thing ever. See also: Tinkerbell Jesus.
Too bad the Fly People aren't still around, because they could feast for a week on the subtext that RTD is shoveling in here.
BTW the kiss was really hot, although I'm not sure why everyone felt the need to applaud. Next, Christina should handcuff the Doctor to the steering wheel and punish him for destroying a priceless historical artifact. Just a suggestion. ^^
Malcom spooging on the Doctor's suit was less hot. Did they specifically cast that guy because he looks like Rusty? I'm not going to think about it too much.
I'm not sure about the Doctor recommending the two random guys for UNIT because, uh, how exactly were they "good in a crisis?" They didn't DO anything except check a demographic box so all the viewers at home could feel like they were on an adventure because, you know, the audience is so simple-minded and exclusive that we can't possibly identify with anyone unless they are exactly like us and by "exactly like us" I mean "are of a similar socio-economic class." But whatever.
I was disappointed that Christina didn't get to go in the TARDIS but it was a one-off special and hey! She gets a flying bus! She doesn't NEED no stinking TARDIS. She's gonna run around the world having her OWN adventures and picking up her own companions to handcuff to things. And her best enemy shall be…. JACK HARKNESS!!! It would totally work and you know it. Spin-off series? Please?
P.S. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. I mean, duh
I am extraordinarily pleased that the very fit young woman we've been seeing in the promos is a CAT BURGLAR!! Hot x 12. However, speaking of THEFT, what is this? Indiana Jones meets Mission Impossible? I'm all for parody, but you guys just aren't even trying. Also, how difficult would it have been to find an item that was both of near equal weight to the chalice and which DIDN'T make a squeaky noise, thereby tipping off the guards to the theft before you've gotten out of the building? Fail, Extremely Hot Thief. So full of fail.
HOW COME SHE GETS THE NICE BUS DRIVER. Every time I rode the bus in Scotland, I got barked at if I dallied so much as ONE NANOSECOND. Also, we're supposed to believe that psychic paper now works on things with no brains?
Ok, fine. I'll give you the psychic paper because it's Doctor Who, and at least it's not the gorram sonic screwdriver. And I liked the camerawork. I'll probably give you a pass on the bus driver, too, because Extremely Hot Thief is Extremely Hot and, as we all know, Extremely Hot People get away with more things than they should.
[Opening credits]
"I'm definitely sensing some excitation here!"
"It's got a little dish that goes 'round, do you see it?" *flickflickflick*
Is it just me, or is the Doctor trying very hard to flirt with EHT? He must be really into her to have regressed so far into Geek Mode.
"The voices! The voices are screaming!"
My friend once made me watch a really bad Stephen King movie. I don't remember the title but it was the one with Rob Lowe in it. I know this because my friend made me watch every movie that Rob Lowe has ever made and I've never forgiven her for it. The psychic woman here reminds me of a character from that movie and this makes me cranky. I'd like to forget that movie exists, please. Actually, I'll pretend this reminds me of Pirates so I can think about Naomi Harris' bare shoulders for a while. The only problem is that this highlights the Psychic's non-Standard-British accent and just. COME ON. Sure the accent sounds neat, but it also draws on the cultural mode of thought which 1) places religion and science in a contentious dichotomy and 2) associates religion or spirituality with persons of color and/or the Third World. It follows that white people from advanced (read: affluent) cultures are associated with science. So basically, Mammy's singin' her soulful gospels in de field an' Master is up in de Big House wid his learnin' books and ARRGH. This is freshman-year Cultural Studies, RTD. Stop being dumb. :(
On the plus side, there is more than one black person and the disappearing bus premise is rather cool.
Extremely Hot Thief continues to be Extremely Hot while implying the Doctor is mental for not having a proper name. The Doctor does absolutely nothing to dispell her theory, choosing instead to taste the sand and then OH MY GOD. AAAAAAAAAAGH! PUT THAT BACK IN YOUR MOUTH, DOCTOR! D: If I never see David Tennant's tongue again it will be TOO SOON.
Bus Driver attempts to walk through the wibbly time-space-door thingy and turns into a SKELETON!! WHOOO, SKELETON!!!! :D AND THEN THE COPS CALL IN UNIT!!! Yay. ^_^ Also, points for the first person to die not being black.
EHT takes charge of the situation and is collected and charming. She appoints herself leader and gets the Doctor to call her "ma'am" and she is now Hot x 37. She already owns a gimp mask, guys. Surely nothing I'm considering in my fevered imagination right now can be too OOC.
"I thought you were in charge?"
"I am. A good leader utilizes her strengths, and you seem to be the brain box. So start boxing."
I'm watching this episode hours after most of the world has, so there's already porn, right? Someone has written me porn of this scene. They must have. So, links?
Bonus: EHT (aka Christina) is a little dorky in that speech and it's hot. Dorky can be hot, ok? Don't judge me.
The Doctor steals screentime from EHT by exhorting the characters (and thus the audience) to think about their mundane lives while sitting on an alien planet/watching a sci-fi tv show because whoo. Chops and gravy. Man, I love my mundane life. I love it so much that I never try to mentally escape someplace else for an hour or so. Also, I am comforted and sentimental because the soundtrack tells me to be. Thanks, soundtrack!
Seriously though, there's an ALIEN PLANET but it's just SAND and the characters are sitting around a double-decker bus thinking about chops and gravy? You really grabbed this opportunity with both hands, RTD. Way to embrace the genre!
Also, I'm very resentful of the Doctor giving the "I'm going to get you home" speech and thereby undercutting Christina's authority. I'm fairly sure I'm not supposed to feel that way.
UNIT ARRIVES! WHOO! OMGYAY the commanding officer is a black woman. Is this going to be awesome like Battlefield? I think it will.
As Christina and the Doctor trudge off into the dunes for some unknown reason, the show cuts for the second time to a hand in a glove pointing at an ooky ~alien screen and making clicking sounds. I love it! OMG THE BUBBLEWRAP IS WATCHING YOU!!! :D
"Let's just say we're two equal mysteries."
"We'd make quite a couple."
"We wouldn't make any sort of couple, thank you very much."
Blegh. Ooh, Rusty, you're sooooooo subtle. Why, I wouldn't have noticed any sort of chemistry between these two characters at all if you hadn't put those lines in there! Thanks so much! Things are NOT AT ALL AWKWARD now!
EHT is an EHT of noble birth. Neato! And oh yeah, the Doctor is a Time lord and an alien and he has wacky adventures blah blah blah. WE KNOW THAT BIT ALREADY.
Also, why aren't they wearing sunglasses? There was an express point made earlier that both of them had sunglasses and now they are not wearing them, despite the harsh sun and wind and SAND. There'd better be a slapstick scene in the next five minutes of both of them stumbling around and screaming, "AAAAH, THERE'S GRIT IN MY EYES! IT BURRRRRNS!"
The scientific advisor and the commanding officer fanboying the Doctor while he makes ridiculous faces is hilarious. That entire scene is hilarious and adorable, actually, though I a little confused as to what Malcom's accent is supposed to be.
WHOOOOOOO, CLICKY ALIEN WITH BUG EYES! YAY! THAT SHIP LOOKS AWESOME. I especially like how it's been completely torn in half. And it's all spiky and half-buried and stuff! AND THE INSIDE HAS WEIRD PIPES AND HANGING CABLES. And it's purple, and there's glowy lights, and there's this nifty detail about the steel it's made out of reversing the temperature and IT'S ALL SO NIFTY.
"That's how I like things. Extreme."
Ok, Rusty, now you are trying to do sexual banter and it's not working. Light touch, sweetums. Less is more.
Ugh, the heads on those things are fantastic. All the little ridges, the way they're slightly shiny. My favorite bit is the maw between their little mandibles. Creepy and vaguely sexual; reminiscent of a flesh wound. Vulnerable, yet disturbing. I also love how the mandibles move. They sort of freak me out!
Now the Doctor convinces the Fly-People that he and Christina didn't try to kill them with their bus. They believe him and so he starts messing around with their ship's console and performs percussive maintenance while blathering on. Cute, but Ten's done this a dozen times before. Christina is just standing there watching and that's disappointing. What are you going to let her do something awesome again, Doctor? Maybe your manic schtick is new to her but NOT TO US.
Blah blah blah "Lord of what, exactly?" ARRGH. Why are you wasting valuable screentime on this, RTD? If we were going to get an entire season with Christina that'd be one thing, but we don't. We only get an hour and you're wasting half of it with Christina sitting around doing nothing while the Doctor lectures her on Whoniverse 101.
"A hundred billion people turned to sand." That's cool. That's creepy, delicious, and tragic. Let's have more of that. Like… A FLOCK OF MANTA RAYS!! True, both of the alien races you've come up with are basically identical to THINGS ON EARTH but it's progress! And a flock of manta rays gives me the willies if I think on it too much. Especially if they have an EXO-SKELETON OF METAL!! COOL! The design of those things is really nifty. It's so nifty that I'll overlook the theory that they created the wormhole by "flying really fast in circles."
The Doctor finds a pair of comms and hands one to Christina. The Fly People don't have ears so how come these comms look exactly like human-made Bluetooths? Never mind. I'll just ignore it.
YAY CHRISTINA GETS TO BE AWESOME!!! She hooks up her winch to go down the shaft and get the crystal thinger. The Doctor snoops through her backpack and we learn more about the MYSTERIOUS CHALICE OMGOMG. And the Doctor discovers that-DUN DUN DUN!!-She's a thief! Wait, we already knew that. Dammit, Rusty!
Oooh, a high speed chase up a shaft with a SCARY METAL MANTA RAY OMGOMG!!! And Christina is a QUICK THINKER and engages the security system to zap the manta ray! Whooo! This is exciting. ^_^
Aw man, the Fly People get eaten by a manta ray. It was gross and therefore awesome, but now there are fewer aliens and that is not awesome. :(
Due to conversion issues, the Doctor proceeds to turn the chalice into an adaptor by HAMMERING THE CRAP OUT OF IT. Nice to see that his complete disregard for historical artifacts has not changed. And by "nice" I mean YOU HEARTLESS PHILISTINE. I HOPE YOU HAVE TO REGENERATE BECAUSE YOU ARE RIPPED APART BY A MOB OF ANGRY ARCHEOLOGISTS. >O
Ok, so Malcom refused to close the wormhole because the Doctor was still on the other side. So then they learn that the Doctor has returned and Malcom… doesn't close the wormhole? And now there are manta-ray-eaty-things in the middle of London why, exactly? After the bus came through, there was enough time for 1) the soldiers to dumbly watch the bus fly around for a while 2) a soldier to head for the trailer to tell the commanding officer-in person, not on a radio or by shouting-that the bus is back 3) the commanding officer and Malcom to stare at each other for a while 4) the commanding officer to run out of the trailer and stare at the wormhole-and THEN the manta-rays come through? That's dumb. There will be death and destruction because someone was dumb. (Come to think of it, that was the plot of another Rob Lowe movie I was forced to watch. It's called Atomic Train and it will make you lose your faith in humanity.)
Oh, and when Malcom finally gets around to pressing The Button (F5) it DOESN'T WORK? And there's sparks and Malcom goes slapstick with a fire extinguisher? In the final 8 minutes while there's EVIL EATY THINGS IN THE MIDDLE OF LONDON? RTD seriously couldn't think of a better way to prolong the climax? He needed another five minutes of script so this is what we get? What a crock.
Oh wait, I get it. This happened because Malcom couldn't save the day on his own merits, no. He can only save the day once the Doctor technobabbles at him. Never mind that the episode up 'til now made the point that Malcom is good enough at technobabbling to impress the Doctor. Just like The Next Doctor showed that Jackson Lake could rappel up walls and swing from ropes but when it came to doing the exact same thing at the climax of the story in order to save HIS OWN SON, he couldn't do it. Turn Left is even more explicit: humans cannot possibly survive without the Doctor. The problem isn't that statement (after all, humans are a relatively primitive species and aliens are BAMFS) so much as the extremely flawed way in which the show attempts to prove it. I'm totally ok with the Doctor saving the day; he's the hero, it's his job. The problem is that no other character is allowed to even share a part of the victory. They can help along the way by tagging along and doing the grunt work, but when it comes to the final moment the Doctor has to step in as the figurehead for every single tiny victory. This isn't because he's cleverer, or has better technology, or is a better diplomat. He saves the day just because he is the Doctor and Rusty thinks the Doctor is the bestest thing ever. See also: Tinkerbell Jesus.
Too bad the Fly People aren't still around, because they could feast for a week on the subtext that RTD is shoveling in here.
BTW the kiss was really hot, although I'm not sure why everyone felt the need to applaud. Next, Christina should handcuff the Doctor to the steering wheel and punish him for destroying a priceless historical artifact. Just a suggestion. ^^
Malcom spooging on the Doctor's suit was less hot. Did they specifically cast that guy because he looks like Rusty? I'm not going to think about it too much.
I'm not sure about the Doctor recommending the two random guys for UNIT because, uh, how exactly were they "good in a crisis?" They didn't DO anything except check a demographic box so all the viewers at home could feel like they were on an adventure because, you know, the audience is so simple-minded and exclusive that we can't possibly identify with anyone unless they are exactly like us and by "exactly like us" I mean "are of a similar socio-economic class." But whatever.
I was disappointed that Christina didn't get to go in the TARDIS but it was a one-off special and hey! She gets a flying bus! She doesn't NEED no stinking TARDIS. She's gonna run around the world having her OWN adventures and picking up her own companions to handcuff to things. And her best enemy shall be…. JACK HARKNESS!!! It would totally work and you know it. Spin-off series? Please?