awkwardreviews

Attack of the potato people

Yep… pretty much just that, attack of the potato people. They attack, in the cliche and slightly unoriginal “lets take over the world” scheme. And do you know why they attack? Because war. Nope, nothing but war, just war, war is cool, war is interesting, war is fun, war. The entire races favorite thing to do is war… like the Daleks… but they ARE NOT, Daleks, they are actually potato people… the similarities.

I think it’s automatically clear that i had a few issues with this episode, like the madly stupid “soldiers” who wandered into that special room and got taken over by the Sontaran. Or how the Doctor didn’t stop fake Martha. Or the fact that Martha even needed to be involved in this. Actually… scratch that, i liked that Martha was around. She has finally gotten some character developement past “I lovez ze Doctor, omg!” Which was refreshing to see.

She’s actually getting married, again, something that’s progression for an empty vessel of a character. Having her pretty much be compared to Donna, was somewhat entertaining, even if that’s just because Donna is such a vastly superior character. I watched Martha in season three and was like “she’s good!” But now watching her with all these positive changes? She’s still “just good!” instead of something more, and that’s because of Donna, who pretty much boosted any preconceived notions i have of an assistant…

To be frank, i was never a huge fan of the “Assistant” thing… ever. Even if Rose was good, and Martha was good, i was never quite the fan. But this episode, which focused less on Donna for a little, was noticeably worse for it. Which is funny, and which made me understand that Donna is the first assistant in this show that I feel is necessary!

But enough gushing… lets talk about the episode. It was generally a sillier episode played straight, and the hilarious-looking Sontaran were a decent enough threat that i actually found myself enjoying the episode much more than i thought I would. I find that there is a sub-twenty year old billionare training people to move planets to be silly… but the lesson behind it is actually poignant and solid. The lesson revolving around loneliness and exclusion, which is something lots of shows never quite touch on, so I liked how Dr.Who handled it.

Tennant didn’t have any noticeable  acting “WOW” moments, but of course, he was extremely solid throughout, as was everyone in the episode. The general structure was well-paced and interesting, and the whole idea of Atmos is sort of… I don’t know… social satire?

I will say that watching Wilf almost die in the car was sort of heartbraking… I really like him, yet he didn’t have THAT much screentime yet. Maybe because he’s paired up with such a bitch character (the mother), but he’s such a heartwarming guy, and as I mentioned in my Voyage of the Damned review, I have a soft-spot in my heart of elderly people whom are also really nice.

In the end, the episode was just solid, but that’s a good thing for this show, since consistency is something it almost never has… so having it develope some sort of continues material that’s solid (Even if it’s just in the ‘B” range, which is still very good), is great to see. So this episode was definately a success, it goes smack dab in the center of all two parters, right behind Human nature I think.

Grades: 

Part 1: B

Part 2: B+

Overall: B+