The Next Doctor
I just watched the Christmas Special--and it really felt like one. :-D
I did enjoy that. It felt much more Christmassy than most specials, especially the rather nasty one last year with its predictably doomed ship and companion, many deaths, and offensive fat jokes which will prevent me ever watching it again. This one was fun: steampunk Doctor Who! So good it made up for it being Cybermen again.
Actually I think David Morrissey would have made a good Doctor, but I did guess who he was a bit before the Doctor did. I liked Jackson Lake and Rosita very much, and Dervla Kirwan (Dervla Kirwan, yay!) made a wonderful villain as Miss Hartigan. Someone said that Kirwan would play Servalan well, and she certainly could.
And what were those black hairy Cyberthings? I first thought they were dogs, then children, but they wouldn't have the strength to pull both men up the side of a building. I know! Were-Cybers!
Oh and the sonic screwdriver: hee! And extra points for hot-air balloons along with the steampunk. :-D
I thought Lake's son had been partially cybered at first when I saw him standing up there with staring eyes and spiky black (mascara'd?) lashes, but no: he seemed to be an ordinary child, if creepily silent. But then Victorians expected their children to be.
I loved the story, the Dickensian look, the steampunk, the Cyber King robotic ship, Miss Hartigan taking her revenge on all those stuffed-shirt Victorian men, and Jackson Lake being brave and tragic at once, but there were three things that concerned me:
- If Miss Hartigan's mind was so brilliant and powerful, why was she reduced to being a screaming cliché when the connection between her mind and the Cybermen was severed? I can imagine her seeing what she had done and being appalled, then destroying the Cybermen herself, but just sitting there screaming with mindless horror?
- Surely the Doctor's been thanked before. It was a nice moment seeing him hear the applause and cheers though.
- So the brave and resourceful Rosita is just going to be a nursemaid now? Feh. I know that Jackson Lake would have been sexist and racist because his society was, but he had a lot of the Doctor's memories, and he'd seen Rosita's courage and strength. Why didn't the Doctor say something? :-( I hope Rosita turns that little offer down and does something more interesting. I know it would be very hard to do in those days, but she's capable of so much more.
And yeah, Dervla Kirwan for Servalan!
And now I'm off to bed.