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A couple of things irk me about that episode, which was otherwise absolutely fantastic. The first is the time beetle. The second is the time beetle.
It looked awful, which was a massive letdown. This storyline was seeeded back in the second episode of the series, with the female seer telling Donna that there was something on her back, and I'd been looking forwards to finding out what it was. For the majority of this episode, it was *really* unsettling - you've got the whole parasite thing, which is icky enough to begin with, but then they combine it with the idea of things just on the periphery of your vision, of other people being able to see it but not being able to yourself. The idea of wrongness. And that works fantastically to conjur up this sensation of dread, especially when other characters through the series have hinted that Donna's going to have something truly horrible happen to her.
The concept of the beetle was sound, too. It works with that idea of slightly freakish normality, so that ver kidz can get a decent freak-out from it - stag beetles are fucking odd anyway, exactly the kind of thing that, when you're young, you're going to be weirded out by, so the concept works with that and says that yeah, you're *right* to be a bit frightened of those things.
It's just a shame that it looked so shit. There wasn't even an attempt to make it look like it was attached to Tate with anything other than velcro - its limbs were flopping around all over the place. And it suffered from the usual problem with these prosthetic things, where they'd tried to animate it, but it was clearly some guy pulling a string. I honestly think it'd have been more effective if it'd been completely still.
The other issue I've got with the time beetle is that I have no idea whatsoever what it was that it was meant to be doing. It feeds off sommething relating to time, we're told, but I can't figure out what, or how its relationship with its host benefits it in the slightest. And I'll be damned if I can work out what part Not-Chanthro was supposed to be playing in all of this.
I know that they're just MacGuffins, a lead in to an episode of otherwise general aceness, but they could have been dealt with far more effectively. You don't have to talk about the exact details of things like the Time War, or explain the fantasy science behind most other stuff that happens here, but when it's the core element that's allowed you to get your story told, you should make more of an effort.
Bad Wolf appearing on the signs came out of nowhere, clumsily. Closing on the close-up on the "oh shit" Tennant face on hearing the words could have worked better, I think. And it's kind of odd that there was a massive parallel between other-Donna's self sacrifice and that of Rose's father - broken timelines, suicide by RTA in order to fix those timelines, Rose being present at the final moments of both lives - without Rose (or RTD?) seeming to notice it.
I only pick on these things 'cause I loved so much else about it. It's easier to notice flaws when most everything else sparkles. |
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). And simply has that wealth of experince coupled with knowledge