awkwardreviews

Doctor! Meet your new assistant!

Now I know the Doctor only said that she will be going with him “once”… but come-on, two assistant “dumps” in two episodes? Seems completely unlikely! I think we just met our new assistant and my first impression is…I like her! In fact, I like her more than I liked Rose in season 1! This is because Martha is actually competent, she’s smart, therefore proving to be much more helpful to the Doctor than Rose was in the beginning.

While this episode was set back by a few… oddities, it was still a fantastic installment no less! We had some very interesting aspects, fit with a big enough budget for giant alien space ships! And in those spaceships? RHINOCEROS PEOPLE!!

This… what? I don’t even… I think my brain… what?!

That just outlined my reaction, because although their makeup models looked good and well made, they seriously should have worked better in animating the mouths… Apart from the intimidating march that the rhinoceros people have, when they talk, I can’t help but giggle. The entirety of this storyline was really interesting though.

I love the fact that there is some galactic police force filled with brutish mercenaries that aren’t just inherently evil. They do their job, because they are paid. It’s not like they go out of their way to hurt people, they are just rough badasses that are hired for their efficiency. This caused an interesting dynamic within the hospital, because after the initial “WTF” moment of being on the moon wore off, the audience needed something else to either love or hate. These rhino people where that something.

They were trying to find some criminal alien scum, whom can suck the blood out of the victim and gain their blood type. The only true misstep with this plot was her whole “I want to destroy the earth” scheme… as I found this just stupid. It wasn’t convincing or well-acted, it was just there for the sake of being something dangerous. I much rather them stick with dealing with the Rhino problem, and them trying to find the alien on board.

Again, this made for an interesting dynamic! Having every episode surround the destruction of the world tends to wear a little bit thin, and get sort of banal and boring. But apart from the silly facial animations, and the stupid “world destruction” plan, this episode was surprisingly solid. A very fit introduction for the Doctor’s new assistant, whom I’m very fond of! I eagerly await the next installment of the show, hopefully one that doesn’t hesitate to leave London.

P.S- I adore the personality they are starting to implant within Martha. Instead of freaking the hell out over being on the moon, and cowering in some corner, she was the one who was trying to figure everything out. Not only that, she had some brilliantly snappy dialogue with the Doctor, something we didn’t get to see much of!

Grade: B+