It is with great joy and happiness in the House of Love that Doctor Who Series 3 began Saturday night.
And as sad as it was to say goodbye to Rose Tyler last season, with this series opener we were quickly introduced to Martha Jones, the new companion.
Overall, I really liked it!
*spoilers ahead*
On the whole I'm not a huge fan of Russell T. Davies scripted episodes but this one was serviceable.
Martha was introduced as being a capable and very intelligent companion given the fact that she's doing her medical residency.
I'd say while she's not obviously Zoe level intelligent but she's heads and tails above Rose and most others who have traveled with the Doctor. (I don't think she could get a badge for mathematical excellence though. Few could.)
On the whole, "Smith and Jones" pretty much hits all the right notes expected of the new Doctor Who. We meet Martha right off the bat and there's a wonderful and unexpected appearance by the Doctor that requires the full episode to be watched for the reveal of the scene.
They've decided to go a different route with her family and make it quite large. She's got a divorced mother and father, a sister, and a brother, all who makes brief introductory appearances here.
An event occurs throwing Martha and the Doctor together and having to face the Judoon.
Now the design of the Judoon sortakinda piss me off. They are these black armored alien Rhinoceros cops which are pretty cool but in their helmets they basically look like Sontarans. Hell, the Judoon all look alike so they are very much like Sontarans from a 'clone' perspective.
I would rather have had a totally different design here and saved this revamp for a reintroduction of modern Sontarans in a future episode. The Judoon in helmets are just too similar to them.
The real monster of the thing is a blood-sucking plasmavore taking the form of a little old lady.
She's got some budget-saving slaves that are just black-helmed guys in black leather and it explained that they are in fact all leather and are sortakinda animated.
Yup. Total budget saving move on that part.
Anyway, the hospital where Martha has her residency is where the plasmavore is hiding out and the Judoon, on the hunt for it, transport the whole hospital to the moon.
Yeah. It just kind of happens and is the impetus for the Doctor and Martha to get together.
There's a scene where the Doctor absorbs a ton of radiation and does a bunch of basically physical comedy. I've read that it is essentially an homage to the 7th Doctor but I'm not a fan of that era so I can't really say. (I'll give ya credit if you can suffer throught the godsawful 7th Doctor story Ghost Light.)
All in all, it is like I said a serviceable Doctor Who story.
I need to watch the whole 3rd series first before I can really say how good or bad it is. I've realize that with the new Doctor, I tend to find some episodes better after repeated watchings and in lieu of the whole season.
The real question though is if the Doctor will put a mini-TARDIS inside of Freema Agyeman's hair. That hair is like that Cold Case chick's hair. You could hide all kinds of objects in it.
Even more if the space inside the hair was bigger than the hair itself!
I agree with you completely about the Beeb missing a trick with the Judoon... What better way to reintroduce the Sontarans!? When I first saw them piling out of those space towers, I was instantly struck that they were Sontarans.
Then they removed their helmets...
M.
is russel t. davies a furry?
Hey, some of us grew up on the adventures of Sylvester McCoy... for what it's worth, he's at his best when he looks like a buffoon only to pull some scurrilous manipulative deviancy.
Having said that, the 7th did get stuck with an unfair share of bad writing... it was a shame; by the time it was on the up, the show got axed.
Still; Curse of Fenric == awesomeness.
JOP: I just really can't get into anything after Pertwee for some reason. Tom Baker's ok for the most part, but the 5th-7th Doctors tend to really just bore me.
There's a certain charm to the 1st and 2nd Doctors and the fact that they are in black and white that just appeals to me.
Sure they have 10 part stories where absolutely nothing happens of merit for 7 of the 10 parts but it was a different era and they were meant to be watched in 20 minute weekly intervals. Watching them all in one or two sittings doesn't work well in my opinion since that was the way the story beats worked.
I also think that I am actually influenced heavily by specific companions and I never cared for any of them after Sarah Jane Smith left.
I love Susan, Barbara, Ian, and Vicki and Liz Shaw. I especially love Jamie, Zoe, and Jo Grant!
Alas, I'll never truly get to know Ben, Polly, Dodo, and Victoria. AND IT REALLY PISSES ME OFF!!!
I want to see "The Tenth Planet", "Galaxy Four", "Marco Polo", "The Daleks' Master Plan", "The Myth Makers", "The Power of the Daleks", "The Evil of the Daleks", "Fury from the Deep", and " The Wheel in Space" so bad I could scream just thinking about the fact that I can never ever ever see these episodes!
Grrrrrrr...
I'm probably anti-80s Doctors because I can't stand 80s video effects too.
Oh well.
All hail the 10th Doctor!
I grew up on the Tom Baker & Peter Davidson years - they were great!! Especially Tom - what a character!! Loved how many of the stories had that gothic horror type feel to them ...
It's okay... with so many Doctors to choose from, it's somewhat understandable to have favourites. :)
I also understand what you mean about the ten part serials. We've got some first Doctor adventures, and neither my wife or daughter can understand the rather slow pacing. Indeed, it was a different time.
That you feel so heavily influenced by the choice of companions is not, I think, a bad thing - the companions are very much intended to serve as our interface with the Doctor. The choice of companion and they manner in which they relate to the erstwhile Doctor can very much make or break the show.
I would say that with the middle run of Doctors, you start to see some uniquely British aspects - such as Peter Davidson's 'cricket aristocrat' outfit, an image fully-loaded with connotations for the class-conscious Brits.
(Not to mention Davidson's previous run on 'All Creatures Great and Small').
Such details are not as instantly accessible to those that did not grow up in them; indeed, I think what you have there is another case of 'different time, different place' much like the ten-parters.
(Same for the 80s video effects; horrible, horrible stuff. But it's so wonderfully entrenched in what Doctor Who was all about back then; great science-fiction and human drama on a shoe-string budget.) :)
As for the contingent of missing and otherwise unavailable episodes... well, there's hope. Again, it might just be the quintessential Britishness shining through, but there's nothing quite like finding a lost episode locked away in a Clapham church. Apparently the BBC merely needs to interrogate more Mormons on the location of these things. :)
JOP said "Doctor Who was all about ... great science-fiction and human drama on a shoe-string budget."
Very well put, part of its charm I think.
:)
This is why I don't know if I can like the new Battlestar Galactica, with it's fancy special effects and sturdy, non-wobbling scenery. ;)