Ooooh.
I enjoyed that. I dunno, I thought there were a few wee tonal glitches and some of the effects were ropier than the first season, but far too many pitch-perfect moments for it to matter much.
As far as differentiating from season one, felt a lot more like the classic Whos that I remember, though despite being a new planet, there's nothing done that couldn't have been done on the earth-centric first season. New Earth seems like a very clever, concious decision to gradually wean viewers further and further out into the greater Who universe (at least that's what I'm hoping). The whole episode smacks of the greater potential of this series.
Face of Boe's secret might shape up to be this season's Bad Wolf, though I'm hoping there's a more unifing strand this time round. I don't think Bad Wolf had satisfactory closure (If indeed it is done and dusted, not actually sure).
Cassandra in The Doctor and Rose was great. Piper immediately just sold the slightly shaky mind-transfer thing and then Tennant knocked it out of the park. One of the greatest strengths of Davies writing, I think, is underscoring the more difficult to swallow concepts with humour. Whether you readily swallow these sci-fi morsels or find it a bit harder, it doesn't matter when it's written and acted like that 'cause it's too much fun not to buy into it.
They're really showing up the acting talents of the two principals here too. Piper knows her character well now and so do we, so it's good to see her confidently stretching her. Tennant slides right into The Doctor like a hand in a glove. That man is the bee's knees.
Predictions? I smell a deeper insight into The Doctor's mythology. Not so much in refrencing old Who (a process I expect will continue along the same trend as last season), but the mythology of who he is, what he does and what it means to be The Doctor. Not sure why, I think it was that "the lonely God" line that piqued me. Sounded like a rich vein of Squeee just waiting to be mined. Our man definitely has more of a "There's a fucking DOCTOR in the house!" feel to him, over Eccleston's Time War affected "Head down, keep moving or you might just come to a stop" thing.
Eh........ aye.
It was good. |
