Will She Ever Get Sick of Doctor Who?
Jan. 21st, 2007 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meddowBecause I’m not going to watch three Doctor Who serials in four days and not weigh in on them…
The Hand of Fear
Seriously can’t get enough of “Eldrad MUST live.” And the pink and white striped dungarees. I don’t know how, but Sarah Jane’s awful taste in clothes just endears her to me more.
I think having met and adored Sarah Jane in the new series and her own spin-off, I really wanted to see the episode she left. While she was lucky not to get killed off or married off or have her memory erased, I think she ended up worse off than Rose. Rose at least had Jackie and Mickey and her sort of-Dad and Sarah Jane’s words of warning and the knowledge that this was the end. Sarah Jane got dumped against her will in Aberdeen with a stuffed owl and a pot plant and “till we meet again.”
Rose knows to get on with her life and if she doesn’t then Jackie will give her a kick up the arse until she does. Sarah Jane doesn’t know for how long she’s going to stay, and so refused to make attachments to the slow path and wakes up to find out she’s middle aged, the Doctor hasn’t returned and at some point she forgot to live her life.
So I think The Hand of Fear is actually more tragic than Doomsday.
Starts out really well. The serial of loses its way with the major plot of Eldrad as soon as they leave the power station. Of course ends on a high note.
Verdict: Must watch for the “Eldrad MUST Live” bit. And for Sarah Jane leaving.
The Genesis of the Daleks
Omigod, this was amazing! Davros was perfect as the sick and twisted creature that creates the Daleks. I loved the complete moral ambiguity to it, no side was right. The Doctor contemplating genocide also nicely fitted into his actions in The Parting of Ways. I think watching it has given the new series a context.
The special effects in this one in particular have aged incredibly well and some of the visuals were absolutely stunning. The serial is seriously up there with anything the new series has created. Tom Baker is awesome. Harry Sullivan is adorable (underrated as a companion IMO). I want Sarah Jane’s combat pants.
Verdict: Absolutely essential viewing.
Pyramids of Mars
Genesis of the Daleks is a hard act to follow. It’s cute and has some adorable moments. It’s great to see the Doctor getting mocked behind his back for doing his “I’m an angsty Time Lord” spiel. It also points out the fact that Victorian dresses + big firearm = awesome.
I do absolutely love it for answering the “well we know that x didn’t happen in y year because it would be in the history books if it did” quibble by the Doctor showing the future before the crisis was resolved.
Since apparently the Fourth Doctor & Sarah Jane duo is the one relationship the modern Doctor-Rose relationship is modelled on, I think comparison arises best from this serial. I’ve never been particularly happy how with Ten, Rose came rather co-dependant (and with it annoying). I think the new series writers had better watch Pyramids of Mars again (or some of the later Rose-Nine episodes, because they had it right as well). I just think it has it right balance of the companion acting as the interpreter for the viewer while not being an idiot and being helpful and needing help to further the plot and obviously caring about the Doctor but not in a OTT manner. (I’m not a Doctor/Rose shipper, can you tell?)
You can totally tell it’s designed so that children can watch by the rather lame way people keep on dying, getting zapped by Daleks or falling from a high is much better than G rated mummy strangulation.
It is interesting watching the documentary about it afterward, thirty odd years later there still seems to be conflict between the actors and the director. Apparently Tom Baker and Lis Sladen had issues with the director and vice versa. I love it when DVD special feature documentaries are not love and sunshine.
Verdict: I think it’s cute and entertaining. Not quite the epic that is Genesis of the Daleks though.
And RTD, for the love of everything remotely sacred, can Martha please please please be a posh ninja lesbian. Please.
The Hand of Fear
Seriously can’t get enough of “Eldrad MUST live.” And the pink and white striped dungarees. I don’t know how, but Sarah Jane’s awful taste in clothes just endears her to me more.
I think having met and adored Sarah Jane in the new series and her own spin-off, I really wanted to see the episode she left. While she was lucky not to get killed off or married off or have her memory erased, I think she ended up worse off than Rose. Rose at least had Jackie and Mickey and her sort of-Dad and Sarah Jane’s words of warning and the knowledge that this was the end. Sarah Jane got dumped against her will in Aberdeen with a stuffed owl and a pot plant and “till we meet again.”
Rose knows to get on with her life and if she doesn’t then Jackie will give her a kick up the arse until she does. Sarah Jane doesn’t know for how long she’s going to stay, and so refused to make attachments to the slow path and wakes up to find out she’s middle aged, the Doctor hasn’t returned and at some point she forgot to live her life.
So I think The Hand of Fear is actually more tragic than Doomsday.
Starts out really well. The serial of loses its way with the major plot of Eldrad as soon as they leave the power station. Of course ends on a high note.
Verdict: Must watch for the “Eldrad MUST Live” bit. And for Sarah Jane leaving.
The Genesis of the Daleks
Omigod, this was amazing! Davros was perfect as the sick and twisted creature that creates the Daleks. I loved the complete moral ambiguity to it, no side was right. The Doctor contemplating genocide also nicely fitted into his actions in The Parting of Ways. I think watching it has given the new series a context.
The special effects in this one in particular have aged incredibly well and some of the visuals were absolutely stunning. The serial is seriously up there with anything the new series has created. Tom Baker is awesome. Harry Sullivan is adorable (underrated as a companion IMO). I want Sarah Jane’s combat pants.
Verdict: Absolutely essential viewing.
Pyramids of Mars
Genesis of the Daleks is a hard act to follow. It’s cute and has some adorable moments. It’s great to see the Doctor getting mocked behind his back for doing his “I’m an angsty Time Lord” spiel. It also points out the fact that Victorian dresses + big firearm = awesome.
I do absolutely love it for answering the “well we know that x didn’t happen in y year because it would be in the history books if it did” quibble by the Doctor showing the future before the crisis was resolved.
Since apparently the Fourth Doctor & Sarah Jane duo is the one relationship the modern Doctor-Rose relationship is modelled on, I think comparison arises best from this serial. I’ve never been particularly happy how with Ten, Rose came rather co-dependant (and with it annoying). I think the new series writers had better watch Pyramids of Mars again (or some of the later Rose-Nine episodes, because they had it right as well). I just think it has it right balance of the companion acting as the interpreter for the viewer while not being an idiot and being helpful and needing help to further the plot and obviously caring about the Doctor but not in a OTT manner. (I’m not a Doctor/Rose shipper, can you tell?)
You can totally tell it’s designed so that children can watch by the rather lame way people keep on dying, getting zapped by Daleks or falling from a high is much better than G rated mummy strangulation.
It is interesting watching the documentary about it afterward, thirty odd years later there still seems to be conflict between the actors and the director. Apparently Tom Baker and Lis Sladen had issues with the director and vice versa. I love it when DVD special feature documentaries are not love and sunshine.
Verdict: I think it’s cute and entertaining. Not quite the epic that is Genesis of the Daleks though.
And RTD, for the love of everything remotely sacred, can Martha please please please be a posh ninja lesbian. Please.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-21 08:30 am (UTC)Hee about Martha. She is a med student so she'd have to be a posh ninja lesbian doctor! :)
no subject
Date: 2007-01-21 08:53 am (UTC)I’m so insanely happy about Martha being a med student. Rose minus Ten was lovely and I know she was supposed to be an everyperson, but I’ve spent the last two seasons finding myself relating to guest characters like Sarah Jane and Harriet Jones far more than with Rose. Now a character who is taking some time off the path to a career to travel and see what life outside of a textbook has to offer; that is a character I can relate to. *crosses fingers*
Of course if she was ninja lesbian on top of being a doctor not only could a romantic angle to the relationship be dead in the water from day one, but she could also kick Ten’s arse when he’s being a jackass.