Posts Tagged ‘Rose’

Dr.Who-Review-S1ep0 – The Christmas Invasion (60 minute special)

Posted: December 8, 2013 in Dr.Who-Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
1

s0_01

 

Deck the halls with red aliens!

 

Season two of Dr.Who starts off with a slightly strange episode, that doesn’t hesitate to revisit a lot of the previous episode’s ideas and characters. For example, we get another (very welcome) return of one of my favorite guest stars from season one, Harriet Jones. This time, her role is that of the Prime Minister who is very proactive and smart. This is fantastic, finally we get a character that isn’t either related or with Rose, and isn’t the villain… until the end.

At the end of the episode, the writers decide to make Harriet attack the leaving alien ship, and killing thousands… I’m honestly not sure how I feel about this. She’s now hated by the Doctor, and is having a mental breakdown. This was unfortunate because I would have loved to see her in future episodes.

But anyway, this entire episode was fairly solid, however had a few missteps. The pacing was slightly off, the aliens weren’t too intimidating, and there was a sorry lack of the ACTUAL Doctor, which was unfortunate. Let me take this moment to say that I’m not sure on Tennant right now, I’m aware the fans adore him, so I’m sure he gets better. But as of right now, he is decent at best.

The alien threat was assessed, and the plot thickened very quickly, but still felt somewhat disjointed and slow in areas. Everything about this episode felt just slightly off… from the not-so-threatening alien, to the odd final battle involving swords… I was just not too sure about the entire episode in general.

However, I must say that Tennant does a good job delivering his lines, as he seems to have quite a bit of energy to his words, just like Eccleston did. Although the Doctor may be different, their personalities are still somewhat the same. Using slapstick humor to lighten a dark situation, and have some really badass moments.

But overall, it was a fairly unremarkable episode, it didn’t do anything totally wrong, but it did have a few glaring issues that speckled the entirety of it. I do hope this show gets back into shape quicker than season 1 did, because it does finally seem like the writers know how to utilize all the characters in the episode without going overboard. Let’s see what the first proper episode of season 2 brings, let’s go!

P.S- Seems that the catchphrase is here to stay! Fantastic!

 

Grade: B-

Advertisement

Dr.Who-Review-S1ep8 – Father’s Day

Posted: December 7, 2013 in Dr.Who-Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
3

s1_e08

 

Fathers Day arrives with a blast

 

When this show focuses on something, it delivers its best episodes without a shred of a doubt. For the most part, this episode ditched the cliché and campy humor for a very human that was both emotionally powerful, and fascinating.

When Rose’s emotions overcome her, and she saves her Father from dying in the intended car crash, she literally screws up time, and these strange beasts (reapers) appear in London (and apparently the rest of the world) to quite literally kill everyone, to correct this malfunction. There were a few issues with this episode, firstly, why do these creatures not like “old” things? And it never quite felt like the end of the world.

But apart from these two things, this episode was mostly solid. We saw an emotional storyline involving Rose’s father, who was played brilliantly played by Shaun Dingwall. I will say right away that I loved her father’s personality, he was quirky and not in the least bit sardonic. Both of these traits are a pleasure to see, and he really did deviate from my expectations. We also found out how much of an absolute bitch Rose’s mother used to be, it may have been for a reason, but quite honestly, she did not gain any sympathy from me for the plain fact that her reason for her anger was not explained in full detail.

We also see the TARDIS stop functioning (for whatever reason) and we see a wedding get crashed. Everyone who attended were hiding in a church, and although this episode did not have some epic feel to it, it did have a personal one. I will easily admit that a few scenes in this episode were heartwarming and well-enough acted that I could overlook some of the clichés.

In the end, Rose’s father sacrifices himself for the sake of humanity. I was originally not enjoying this episode too much, it was slow paced for the first twenty or so minutes, however, it quickly began picking up to be one of the best ones of the show so far (if not the best). So I will freely applaud it’s deviation from the Dr.Who norm and hope that it’s not the only one that’s like this.

Although there were a few things that weren’t explained properly, the entirety of it was a solid forty minutes of emotional, and character developing goodness that I just had to re-watch. Rose, or Billie Piper, I should say. Has come a long way acting wise, she was much too stiff in the first few episodes, but now she has truly started to show her range as she conveyed true emotions through some of these scenes.

I am not sure if I like “Daleks” more than this episode, or if I enjoy this episode more than “Daleks”… all I do know is that it was an entertaining half hour of TV that I shall remember for the future seasons to come.

P.S- But really… what’sup with the TARDIS just randomly failing? Did I miss why?

 

Grade: B+