Love, monsters, drawings, girls, and abusive fathers!
So today I wanted to cover two episodes at once, they are not a two parter or anything, but I felt that they were both fairly adequate episodes that didn’t do too much to progress the plot. However, one of them was definitely better than the other.
Love & Monsters was a fairly unremarkable episode, marking the twenty fifth departure this show has had. When compared to the previous episode(s) “The Satan Pit” it definitely falls short. However, it falls short not due to plot errors, or bad writing, but a fault that early season one had. Stupid, silly, too-campy-to-handle villains.
It followed a man (not the doctor) who joined a group of other like-minded weirdoes whom have a similar interest in the doctor. However, soon enough they drifted off into just a meet up of great friends having fun, until the antagonist shows up. It was revealed pretty early on that he was the baddy, and was killing/consuming the background protagonists in some way…
The story in itself isn’t too bad, the acting does its job, but the sorrow lack of the Doctor and Rose really does put an unwanted strain on the episode. I get it’s supposed to be a departure… but it’s not really a good one. But I will say that I was enjoying the episode for quite a while, until they spoiled it with that absurdly stupid villain, because low and behold, the baddy turns out to be a really fat and silly looking alien that absorbs people…
At least they threw a few jokes at the viewer’s way, because playing this situation off as serious would have been just… too cringe worthy. I will say that the Doctor is fantastic as usual, and the first two thirds of the episode does a good job in developing the characters, a budding romance, and Rose’s mom gets some splendid dialogue and character development.
But… the final act really does hinder this episode, it’s just too much camp for too little pay off. The final scene is supposed to be profound, but I’m left cringing at the dumb conclusion. How does this girl that has been pretty much turned into a slab even speak? She’s around two inches thick, where is her brain?! Ahh… whatever, let’s just move onto the next episode.
Here we have a much better departure, the Doctor is back with rose in yet another VERY strange episode. The good part about this though, is it wasn’t strange in the absolutely dumb-villian sort of way, but instead in the impossible becoming probable. The side story told about the abusive father was also somewhat profound in its own simplistic way, and both of the guest starts (child included) did a respectable job in preforming their roles convincingly.
Was this episode “The Satan Pit” quality? Hell no, but it was still something that was interesting, intriguing, and better yet, I was actually curious to see how the Doctor solves this one. Actually, let me fix that, I was curious and happy to see how ROSE fixes the problem. This has been one of the first times we saw her characters do something (properly) without the Doctor guiding her.
My favorite part had to be when the scribbles the young child drew on her paper manifested themselves into something real, popping out of the garage. I was genuinely confused until I pieced it together going “Graphite… graphite… OHHH!!!” I don’t know, something about that really tickled my fancy.
Overall, both of these episodes were departures from this “impending doom” that seems to be building. As the name ‘Torchwood’ has been thrown around this entire season, I am eager to see where that goes. The promo for the season finale two parter… definitely looks promising!
Grades:
Love & Monsters: C+
Fear Her: B
awkwardreviews 
Love and Monsters as far as I can tell is considered the worst episode of new who. It suffers from being both a “Doctor light” episode (implimented because of the tight filming schedule from new series two onwards to have the Doctor in every single episode) and because the Absorbaloff (sp?) was created by a kid in a Blue Peter competition. (in case you don’t know Blue Peter is a long running kids magazine show here in Britain) that year it was ‘create a new villain’ and RTD had to use it and do what he could with it. The next year wad ‘win a speaking extra role’ but I won’t spoil which episode it’s in.
Before the episode aired I wanted it to be extra special good because I warms big into Hustle at the time and especially Marc Warren. He wad good in it, but like you stated it falls apart with the execution of the villain and how the episode ended. (sex life joke cutting it a bit close for pre-watershed if you ask me)
As for “Fear Her ” that’s rather sketchy, again the remembering back several years thing. I did find the drawing things into reality angle rather cool, and wondering if the 2012 Olympics would look like that (they so should have got DT in there somewhere along the way for the real torch relay. He’s celebrity enough and it would have been fantastic 😉 )
I can also Denver landing the TARDIS in the wrong place so they couldn’t open the door lol
It wad a good episode, but one I have to hear mentioned before I remember it exists
*It was difficult for the Doctor to be in every episode.
That’s the only bit that is my personal mistake, the rest is Damn predictive text, like I know I changed Denver to remember
For sure, i had no idea about that competition thing, that clears things up pretty well… but then again the studio created those farting aliens in season 1, so maybe they just sunk to new lows :p
And so we edge closer and closer to the great finale.. And on that note, season three is coming.
It’s a pretty great season. That is all I shall say as I do not wish to spoil. (I presume you are reviewing all the seasons up to the current one? (Season seven)
yes, i am! 🙂