Planet of the Dead
So, over the weekend, the latest Doctor Who special aired. Nominally it was for Easter, though unlike the Christmas specials, it didn't have the holiday theme (which is probably for the best, since Easter isn't nearly as secularized as Christmas is).
Short version: I liked it. I thought it was like a pretty good episode, though for a 'special' it was maybe a bit under the bar I might have hoped for. Still, with the dearth of Who this year, I'll certainly take it, and it definitely wasn't bad.
More under the spoiler cut.
Doctor Who
The first thing I thought about when the special started up was that the setup was very, very similar to what we had for "Midnight" back in Season 4. Then it quickly turned into "Midnight" meets The Flight of the Phoenix, only with David Tennant and the Bionic Woman being awesome.
Now, don't get me wrong: I don't mean that to be critical; I'm just saying, the parallels are more than just a skosh obvious, in this case.
Michelle Ryan as the main companion for this story worked pretty well: I thought she was smarmy and fun in a way that never quite got obnoxious enough for me to not like the character. I do think that she and the Doctor had good chemistry, too, in terms of problem-solving and crisis management, and the clash of their very strong take-charge personalities was done quite well. I think she could have been fun as a companion to stick around for multiple stories (maybe just a handful, like three or so). Alas.
I thought that the rest of the bus crew was a bit underutilized, though. I realize that they only had 60 minutes in which to tell this story, but they made a point of specifically introducing us to this bus full of people, and other than the psychic woman (who served to add some neat atmosphere), they felt just kind of like "filler" and whatnot. Which I guess isn't all that bad; not everyone gets to be the hero, after all.
Giant, metallic flying stingrays that eat people? Okay, that's officially kind of cool. As far as alien design goes, I really dug those things. They looked really neat and made me think of stuff out of a lot of 'classic' science fiction. The one thing that did bother me, though, was the explanation of how they actually generated the wormhole: oh, dear lord, even by Bullshit Science™ reasoning, that was just weak. I mean, I can take some leeway with scientific reasoning when I'm watching science fiction, but almost anything would have been more plausible than the explanation given (though the metal skeleton bit was kinda cool, I'll admit).
I thought the UNIT stuff was pretty well done. ("Did you just salute?" "...no.") The little remix of the UNIT theme music from Season 4 was pretty awesome, too. They dropped some things in there which really felt like hints at a bigger story to come, and I'm curious to see what that all comes to.
Oh, and one last gripe: I'm totally okay with the Tenth Doctor's reason and rationale for not wanting to travel with companions, but I'm getting kind of sick of having "The Speech" hammered into my head over and over again. Seriously, this was like the fourth time we've had to hear it, and I get it already.
But yeah, despite sounding like I'm focusing on the things I didn't like, I really did enjoy the special. I thought it was a good (if not entirely spectacular), and it's sated my Doctor Who jones for the time being. Though, given how long we may have to wait for the next dose, that might not last long enough.
Short version: I liked it. I thought it was like a pretty good episode, though for a 'special' it was maybe a bit under the bar I might have hoped for. Still, with the dearth of Who this year, I'll certainly take it, and it definitely wasn't bad.
More under the spoiler cut.
Doctor Who
The first thing I thought about when the special started up was that the setup was very, very similar to what we had for "Midnight" back in Season 4. Then it quickly turned into "Midnight" meets The Flight of the Phoenix, only with David Tennant and the Bionic Woman being awesome.
Now, don't get me wrong: I don't mean that to be critical; I'm just saying, the parallels are more than just a skosh obvious, in this case.
Michelle Ryan as the main companion for this story worked pretty well: I thought she was smarmy and fun in a way that never quite got obnoxious enough for me to not like the character. I do think that she and the Doctor had good chemistry, too, in terms of problem-solving and crisis management, and the clash of their very strong take-charge personalities was done quite well. I think she could have been fun as a companion to stick around for multiple stories (maybe just a handful, like three or so). Alas.
I thought that the rest of the bus crew was a bit underutilized, though. I realize that they only had 60 minutes in which to tell this story, but they made a point of specifically introducing us to this bus full of people, and other than the psychic woman (who served to add some neat atmosphere), they felt just kind of like "filler" and whatnot. Which I guess isn't all that bad; not everyone gets to be the hero, after all.
Giant, metallic flying stingrays that eat people? Okay, that's officially kind of cool. As far as alien design goes, I really dug those things. They looked really neat and made me think of stuff out of a lot of 'classic' science fiction. The one thing that did bother me, though, was the explanation of how they actually generated the wormhole: oh, dear lord, even by Bullshit Science™ reasoning, that was just weak. I mean, I can take some leeway with scientific reasoning when I'm watching science fiction, but almost anything would have been more plausible than the explanation given (though the metal skeleton bit was kinda cool, I'll admit).
I thought the UNIT stuff was pretty well done. ("Did you just salute?" "...no.") The little remix of the UNIT theme music from Season 4 was pretty awesome, too. They dropped some things in there which really felt like hints at a bigger story to come, and I'm curious to see what that all comes to.
Oh, and one last gripe: I'm totally okay with the Tenth Doctor's reason and rationale for not wanting to travel with companions, but I'm getting kind of sick of having "The Speech" hammered into my head over and over again. Seriously, this was like the fourth time we've had to hear it, and I get it already.
But yeah, despite sounding like I'm focusing on the things I didn't like, I really did enjoy the special. I thought it was a good (if not entirely spectacular), and it's sated my Doctor Who jones for the time being. Though, given how long we may have to wait for the next dose, that might not last long enough.