Oh okay, next post but one.. Very short reviews ‘cos my brain isn’t up to much.
The Age of Steel
Doctor Who as a James Bond movie – gadgets, a meglomaniac’s lair, fights, an aerial climax and a hero in a dinner jacket throughout.
The good (Mrs Moore, Mickey becoming a hero, the design work, Rose paying homage to Jo Grant by climbing a rope ladder in a mini-skirt) outweighed the bad (Lumic, the Cybermen paying homage to all DW monsters past by not moving fast enough to catch anyone).
9/10
The Idiot’s Lantern
One part Quartermass, one part The Twilight Zone, one part something that can only be Doctor Who. A simple story that expresses the core ethos of the programme – when Tommy tells his father that he fought the war against fascism so that even
kids like him could live as they liked, that was an emphatic statement of the fan’s position. The Doctor is our hero, because he doesn’t fight for “truth, justice and the whatever-an way” but because he fights for us – the geeks, misfits and outsides – to carry on being ourselves.
9/10
The Impossible Planet
So I thought Doom and so did a lot of other people. A lot of other people thought Event Horizon and a whole bunch of other techno-gothic sci-fi/horror offerings. Possibly one of the strongest episodes of the new series in terms of creating a solid time and place distinct from our own.
Not at all bad in terms of plot or acting either. I do have a bad feeling about part two though.
10/10
Oh, and can anyone remember the name of the warrior-librarian race from the Benny books with face tentacles like the Ood? Was the Groo or something like that?
chipper