Gavin WintersSo… 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
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
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?"?