Big Russ is on fire at the moment, ain't he?
Midnight, as was said before, was the dog's bollocks. Overturning all of the less enjoyable aspects of The Doctor in the past few years and turning it into something beautifully creeping and rotten. Turn Left was a bloody great punch in the stomach for most of the episode too. What with these two following Moffat's two-parter, this season feels more like old Who than any of the previous three.
So this seems to be how the resolved the scheduling problems this season, instead of taking Doctor and Companion out of the picture completely for an episode (a la Blink and Love and Monsters) they split them apart over two episodes and really get to the bottom of their dynamic by showing what happens when one doesn't have the other. On top of that, they're using budgetery constrictions to tell stronger, more character-based stories. That's very bloody clever production. The show's much better for it.
That was a stormer of an episode. Tate has been a constant revelation this series and this was totally her time to shine. She's a far better dramatic actress than she is a comedian and this is the best thing I've seen her in yet.
In a lot of ways this episode seemed almost like a response to the end of last season, which I found to be quite weak, in showing how companions (and the earth) cope in a world without the Doctor. I felt that when Doctor Who first started back, there seemed to be a lot of the old flavour, tempered with a good bit of kiddie-concession. I thought it would gradually fade these bits back as the series established itself. There's been a few episodes here and there that supported that hope (Unquiet Dead, Impossible Planet, Gridlock, Human Nature, Anything By Moffat) but the finale of last-season seemed to me like the more childish elements of it were winning out. Things looked bad for a bit, but I thought Simm's turn was a bit lacking in gravitas and menace while Martha's contribution seemed a little trivialised by the Doctor's rather pat form of self-aggrandising victory.
Not so here (though there's still two episodes to go). That was fucking brutal from start to finish. This is TV that demands the kids to bring themselves up to its level, rather than trying to play down to them. I mean, this episode last season, Utopia, was a really good turn, but I reckon that was down mostly to two scenes: The Doctor's chat with Jack, and Jacobi's gruesome transformation from kindly old professor who'd feed you Whizz-Pop Lemonade into the nasty old scientist who'd touch you up while you were drinking it.
This was a strong, everyday concept (how would the world be different if you'd made just one tiny choice differently) ramped up to mythic status and run with until it crashes into a busload of schoolchildren. That's when any sort of horrific fiction works best, I think.
Strongly written, pulling in everything it can from previous episodes to mix the whole series together into the one big volatile cocktail. There's four seasons of emotional connections built up between show and viewer by now, and RTD looks intent on pulling in favours from all of them.
Very much looking forward to the ending. Gutted I'll be at Glastonbury during next week (O this hard and difficult life), but it does mean I'll be mashing them together into a double-packed sandwich when I do get to watch them, so can't complain.
Loads more to say really, but I think that's the jist.
I liked it, see? |
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