Gavin WintersPartners In Crime: it’s a fairly slim plot (ba-dum-tish!) but it’s carried along by the sheer entertainment value of the Doctor and Donna’s reunion, plus all the near-misses beforehand. I don’t think RTD ever tried so hard to make an episode as funny as he did here. #DoctorWho
The windows scene alone, leading to the miming and the eventual interruption by Miss Foster, remains one of the most laugh-out-loud things Russell’s ever written. #DoctorWho
And call me a monster if you will, but the Adipose getting splatted by the taxi also never fails to make me laugh…🤭😈
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Miss Foster falling to her death could only be more cartoon-like if they had her glasses remain floating in the air for a couple of seconds after she fell before following her. #DoctorWho
As ambivalent as I was about Rose coming back, fair play to RTD for keeping that extra little scene a secret. Literally no one knew about it. #DoctorWho
The Fires Of Pompeii: this has a very lavish look to it, both in the studio and the location filming in Rome, and the full Pyrovile creatures represent another step forward in terms of what the show can do with CGI. #DoctorWho
The ‘competitive soothsaying’ scene is very well directed as it builds in intensity, and introduces two bits of this year’s story arc - “she is returning” and “there is something on your back”. #DoctorWho
Donna’s disagreement with the Doctor over the rights and wrongs of changing history is the best attempt to deal with this issue since the First Doctor and Barbara in The Aztecs. #DoctorWho
Of course it’s impossible to watch this now and not get a sort of temporal whiplash due to the presence of Peter Capaldi and Karen Gillan… 🫨 #DoctorWho
Planet Of The Ood: there’s a lot here that brings to mind stories from the 1970s, like the ‘future empire’ setting, the filming in a factory/industrial location, and the exploited indigenous natives that the Doctor needs to set free. #DoctorWho
One defining characteristic of Donna you always notice is how she won’t take any of the Doctor’s crap, like the way she instantly snaps back here at his cheap jibe about “who makes your clothes”. I’m not sure Rose or Martha would have been confident enough to do that. #DoctorWho
The CGI for the big purple brain thing is only *slightly* more convincing than the physical prop they used back in Time And The Rani! #DoctorWho
I feel sorry for the scientist guy who’s been secretly working (for ten years!) to bring down the company from the inside and free the Ood, then gets killed seconds before he’s achieved it… and the Doctor takes all the bloody credit by flicking a couple of switches! #DoctorWho
In fact there’s a general ’Raiders Of The Lost Ark’ problem here of the main protagonist not actually doing anything that affects the plot. Everything would have happened the same without the Doctor, just Ood Sigma would have presumably thrown the switch at the end. #DoctorWho
The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky: time for the perpetual ‘Big Bad No. 3’ to make their New Series debut. The blue armour looks a bit CBBC but otherwise it’s a good update.
And it wouldn’t be a Sontaran story without the traditional reveal via a helmet removal. #DoctorWho
That truck that UNIT are using as their mobile HQ is clearly bigger on the inside… 👀 #DoctorWho
God, Bernard Cribbins was just brilliant in every scene he was ever in, wasn’t he? #DoctorWho
So… you’re telling me these Sontarans can make perfectly accurate clones of Freema Agyeman…? 🤔 #DoctorWho
Rattigan’s an uncomfortably believable depiction of what certain tech billionaires we could mention were probably like as teenagers…
And like so many others in #DoctorWho who allied with Daleks, Cybermen, etc, the idiot ends up dead. Though at least in a noble self-sacrifice.
*Me in 2008 watching the first battle between UNIT and the Sontarans*
God, poor UNIT. They’re getting slaughtered.
*Me watching the second battle where they could shoot back*
YES! FINALLY!! WE’VE WAITED 40 YEARS FOR THIS! GO ON UNIT! FUCKING MURDER THEM!!! 🤬
The Doctor’s Daughter: a middle-of-the-road episode, enlivened slightly by the promise of the title - that we might see another Time Lord. And a relative of the Doctor, no less. Tennant plays the emotional range of his response to this development very well. #DoctorWho
Less welcome is more of his angry shouty acting, like when he’s yelling about “A man who never would!” at the end here. It’s an aspect of his performance that reeeeally hasn’t aged well. #DoctorWho
Poor Martha gets such a raw deal here. She’s only in it to be hived off into the side-story about the Hath.
And then they have her be a terrible medical doctor when Jenny is shot, instantly declaring there’s no hope and not bothering to do anything to try to save her. #DoctorWho
It’s a bit of a cliche in sci-fi that if you introduce a game changing element like Jenny, they *must* be killed off at the end, just to restore the status quo. But at least (at Moffat’s suggestion) they revived her. Shame she hasn’t returned since. Maybe in RTD2? #DoctorWho
The Unicorn And The Wasp: I think enjoyment of this one depends on your interest in/knowledge of the work of Agatha Christie. Not being hugely familiar with it myself, (beyond the Cluedo-like cliches) most of the references to book titles, etc, were lost on me. 🤷🏻♂️#DoctorWho
There are at least lots of funny bits, such as the flashbacks where everyone’s lying about what they were up to. Or the scene where they all emerge from their rooms in response to the Doctor’s call… with the butler belatedly poking his head out of the son’s room… 😄 #DoctorWho
But they’re also just repeating the whole routine from The Shakespeare Code of the historical author hearing mentions of works they’ve not written yet. It’s not as good as that episode, or The Unquiet Dead, which also gets a nod. #DoctorWho
All in all the whole convoluted story of the Vespiform and how it gets Agatha’s books imprinted on its mind (?) just seems like nothing more than an incredibly long-winded way of explaining why one of her book covers apparently had a huge bloody wasp on it. 🫤 #DoctorWho
Silence In The Library / Forest Of The Dead: a great pre-credits teaser, which immediately hooks you in with the mystery, and from there everything is gradually revealed and explained at exactly the right pace. This almost equals Blink as Moffat’s best story under RTD. #DoctorWho
“Hello Sweetie!”
River is noticeably much calmer here in her first (last?) appearance, not so much the outrageous ‘could-out-flirt-Captain-Jack’ whirlwind of a character she later becomes. #DoctorWho
Everything about this now feels like a forerunner of the imminent Moffat era, and especially all the hints about the future from River carry a lot more weight and meaning now we’ve seen her full story. #DoctorWho
It’s a bit daft that, having established the idea of keeping out of the shadows, not crossing them, etc… *everyone* starts wandering through clusters of shadow all the bloody time. #DoctorWho
Lots of familiar Moffat tropes on display here… a repeated phrase… a sound or image appearing subtly in the background before you realise its significance… but also the first appearance of “the Doctor quotes his own notoriety to get out of a tricky situation” #DoctorWho
Its overused in the years to come, but even this first example is a bit silly, telling the Vashta Nerada to “look him up”.
What if they did, but still kept coming? What would he do? What could he *actually* do to stop them?? Always feel it’s a bit of a lazy get-out. #DoctorWho
Love the fake ending of the Doctor and Donna walking away, before he sprints back to get the screwdriver and the subsequent mad dash to save River. Another triumphant “everybody lives” ending from Moffat. #DoctorWho
Midnight: a masterpiece from RTD, a horrible exploration of the worst excesses of humans when paranoid and terrified.
And credit to the director and sound editors too, for their achievements in getting the whole concept of this mysterious creature on to the screen. #DoctorWho
I’ve heard of ‘multi-screening’, but the entertainment system here is ridiculous. How could anyone watch that?
Although… if the alternative is the Doctor being one of those annoying twats who wants to engage you in conversation on the bus… maybe it’s not so bad! 😬 #DoctorWho
It’s quite something to see the Doctor’s familiar bravado and swagger and confident assumption of authority just completely fail him here. Until his last desperate claim of “Because I’m clever!” is met with complete scorn. #DoctorWho
People like Val are of course the real monster of the episode, domineering and bullying the less confident members of the group like Jethro and Deedee to fall into line. “It’ll be you next!”
And that barbed comment comparing the Doctor to an immigrant… #DoctorWho
Turn Left: another stellar episode in the run up to the finale. Taking the basic ideas of ‘Doctor-lite’ and ‘let’s run through recent #DoctorWho history’ from Love & Monsters, but with a horrific, dystopian twist that escalates and escalates the further it goes.
Amongst all the other terrible happenings, RTD just offhandedly kills off not only the Torchwood crew, but also Sarah Jane and all the kids from The Sarah Jane Adventures. Must’ve been a bit of a shock for any children watching… 😳#DoctorWho
Amidst all the sci-fi concepts of death and destruction, RTD also slips in probably the darkest and bleakest allusion to real world horrors ever seen in #DoctorWho, with the fate of the Colasanto family. The look in Wilf’s eyes says it all.
Using mirrors to assist in time-travel is a neat callback to Evil Of The Daleks, and feels like RTD trying to give that fairly vague and fantasy-esque notion a bit more of a science-fiction justification. #DoctorWho
Donna running through the streets looking like a terrorist with a coat covered in wiring and electronics should really cause a bit more of a panic amongst onlookers than it does! #DoctorWho
The two word message being Bad Wolf caught everyone by surprise back then. I thought it was going to be ‘Davros Lives!’ or something. 😁 Not quite as good a cliffhanger as Utopia the previous year but still one of the most memorable. #DoctorWho
The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End: peak RTD. The absolute epoch of his first era. It’s not just turned up to 11, but 11000. This has a frenetic reckless pace to it, which keeps bashing you over the head with more and more guest stars and returns from across the #DoctorWho universe.
The ‘TO BE CONTINUED’ cliffhanger of the first part and the subsequent week of mad speculation (even on the news!) must represent the pinnacle of public engagement with and interest in #DoctorWho
It’s a good update to Davros, going back to his classic look from Genesis, but of course fanboy Russell had to make sure to give him a metal hand after what happened in Revelation.
And another great fan-pleasing moment to have him and Sarah Jane recognise each other. #DoctorWho
One thing that always seemed to rub certain fans up the wrong way is RTD’s tendency to write his sci-fi ideas with broad brushstrokes. Everything’s handwaved with a lot of technobabble. It might irk those fans but always seemed to work for kids and the general public. #DoctorWho
I’ll grit my teeth again to get through the last stage of Ten and Rose. Right… blah blah, you and metacrisis Doctor, off to your parallel universe, etc. Done. Now stay there this time!
Back to the proper drama of poor Donna’s fate. It only happens to the best, Donna! #DoctorWho
Despite some brilliant episodes (some of the all-time best in fact) and that storming Marvel team-up style finale, season four doesn’t quite hit the heights of season three for me. Only by the narrowest of margins though. I’d rank them 3, 4, 1, 2. #DoctorWho
Riley@gavinwinters I'm surprised! I feel like the lows of Series 3 are lower, and the conclusion to its finale is the biggest reset button that's ever been pushed.
@riley But the conclusion to season 4, with Donna pushing buttons in the Dalek ship, is also just a big reset. 😜
The season three time reversal didn’t bother me because the scale of what was happening was so bad, I knew *something* like that had to happen.
The Next Doctor: since it was now in the public domain that Tennant was leaving, RTD was blatantly teasing the viewers and the press with that title. And the episode itself continues to play the game for as long as possible. #DoctorWho
Always liked Dervla Kirwan’s performance as Miss Hartigan. There’s a very dark backstory there, hinted at in a few lines. Same with Rosita.
All the crap Moffat got for how he wrote women, and RTD writes the only #DoctorWho episode ever where all the female parts are prostitutes!
Another big step in acknowledging the show’s past with the images of all the former Doctors. No John Hurt of course, but you could retrospectively imagine the War Doctor left an impression on Jackson Lake due to him wearing the strip of info-stamps like a bandolier. #DoctorWho
There’s a sort of reverse-Human-Nature thing on, with “The Doctor” discovering he’s actually a normal human man rather than the other way round. #DoctorWho
David M.@gavinwinters That is a FASCINATING observation.
@davscomur Thank you!
@gavinwinters Your posts have made me realize how long it’s been since I watched these episodes. I should really remedy that.
Do the Cybermen really need kids to push those cogwheels, shovel coal, etc? Wouldn’t it be more efficient to do it themselves? They only seem to be there to provide a Christmassy image of Victorian Urchins in distress being heroically rescued. #DoctorWho
Dud (Mx)@gavinwinters They're allergic to Gold, iirc.
@BackFromTheDud But where is there any gold in that episode?
@gavinwinters Dunno, but maybe they're thinking "Why take the risk?"?
I bet Russell was giggling to himself imagining the boggled “WTF?!” reactions from fans upon seeing this… 😄 #DoctorWho
Planet Of The Dead: my eyes! It’s HD! 😵
In another timeline this could have been a decent opener for the 2009 season. As it stands it’s a fairly normal “special” before things start to ramp up next time. #DoctorWho
Isn’t it kind of overkill for that museum to have four guards (armed with machine guns!) surrounding that exhibit all night? And they still don’t notice someone descending from the ceiling! Doh! #DoctorWho
Once again the Doctor is portrayed as that annoying twat on the bus who ignores all the empty seats and sits next to someone to try to engage them in conversation.
Seriously, who ever thought that was a good personality trait to give him?? #DoctorWho