The old get younger, and the cliché get cliché-er…
Yeah, you heard me, the episode tonight was extremely cliché, perhaps slightly underwhelming. But it definitely did something to start an ongoing theme within the season. Something that this season was either more subtle about… or just didn’t have. Lazarus, a man whom wanted to become young, became… well, young.
Except this experiment had a Side effect… he becomes a ravenous badly-cgi’d monster that stomps around turning people to bone by sucking out their “life force”. But what’s more remarkable, is the fact that we finally get a proper episode featuring Martha’s parents. Something I was whole heartedly eager to see…
Needless to say, her family is a pretty awfull… not the acting, that’s fairly good, but the entire dynamic of “Bitchy mother with no redeeming qualities” puts actually good characters like Rose’s mom to shame. Needless to say, her family was pretty low on chemistry, as well as appeal. Each one was somewhat rude, or just plain stupid.
I get the fact that Martha being with a guy can set a mom off… but here it just doesn’t make sense until some random man told her exactly how “bad” the Doctor is. It’s overlapping illogic that puts this episode down, the bad cgi I can deal with. Especially since I dealt with terrible CGI throughout most of the first season.
The unfortunate thing here is I actually LIKED this entire premise, it was cool and somewhat unique. I like that the Doctor has more reason to stick around, and the more episodes that don’t involve world-domination the better. Because I swear… if ONE more stupid villain wants to take over earth, I’ll just blow my brains out with my cliché pistol!
Apart from this, the execution was a bit better, and I found that, that is the redeeming quality of this episode. Its execution was good, and the resolve was more appealing, with a better lesson to back it up with. Which is something this show doesn’t always hammer in, but when it does, it surprisingly poignant and I appreciate that.
“The Lazarus Experiment” was a mixed back, just like the Shakespear episode, it was something of a tasters choice. And that’s sort of funny, since I still view this season as the best one so far… strange… perhaps I’m just becoming tougher to please with this show?
Grade: C
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