awkwardreviews

The key to the universe? The answer to the greatest questions? Weird mask! Wait no… 42!

Honestly, I’m still confused as to why this episode is called “42”… maybe I’m just not as perceptive as I used to be? Perhaps it’s where they were? But damn! I still don’t know!

But the episode itself was generally pretty good, it had some issues, like perhaps the oddest of villains… but we were treated to a downright splendid performance by the Doctor. Is this the first time he’s properly screamed? The first time he’s said “I’m scared”… wow.

Christopher Eccelston (The ninth Doctor) only had a season to develop, but his development cycle was fast, and to the point. While Tennant is definitely taking his precious time to develop the Doctors new persona, almost painfully so. But today was definitely a development-heavy episode, as well as an episode where I came to the conclusion that Martha and the Doctor will never truly get together.

But let’s talk about the villain… who was the sun. The sun was a living organism that we polluted…oh wow, the satire! It hurts! But yes, this was quite clearly a social commentary as well, which wasn’t as grating as I thought it would be.

When I first laid eyes on the “baddy” in form of the woman’s (whom I forgot the name of) husband, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the silliness. And that annoying “silly” sensation didn’t stop until around midway through where the Doctor gets “Infected”, and shit really hits the fan. So yes, the Doctor really brought this somewhat mediocre episode from the gutter and into the ‘slightly above average’ range.

Which is definitely a happy occasion, since although Tennant has been great, he really needed something like this, a more dynamic and responsive role as the protagonist. He was quite literally sacrificing himself for the people, which we all knew he would do… but it was still somewhat cringe-worthy (in a good way) to see him struggle and try overcome this infestation of the sun throughout HIS OWN body.

Thank the stars for his two hearts, or he’d be toast for sure! The side characters were a little less important in this episode, which is whole-heartedly unfortunate since Dr.Who is always so good at making side characters seem three dimensional. I won’t say all of them were bad… none of them were, they just weren’t as prominent and interesting as they usually are.

But I digress… the episode was fine, the Doctor was brilliant, and we got to see Martha’s “why can’t I be with him” speech for not the first time… and surely not for the last.

Grade: B