Doctor Who: Sontaran Stratagem
Apr. 30th, 2008 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackGood things
I really enjoyed this episode.
* The Doctor and Donna and Martha were great. Martha driving the Tardis was great, that she continues to see through the Doctor as no-one else can, and how they all bond. All their three perspectives on each other ("like fire") were multidimensional.
* The evil genius boy. I love that this nerd has so much gusto (bantering about grammar was great, as was his dismissal of the reporter at the start), rather than the normal cliches of "shy nerd who comes good in the end" or "mwahahaha 2d villain"
* The Sontarans are a good warrior race.
* The doctor and escort diving onto the grass and a tiny explosion behind them, and several other funny moments.
Good things: UNIT
You often see the doctor facing down aliens on his own, and think he needs some backup for when soft talking doesn't work. But this shows how it's not that easy. It's not overdone -- UNIT may be all quasi-legal-grey in Torchwood, but here they were pretty straightforward, but the potential for misuse and the Doctor's uncomfortableness were enough to underscore the problems.
I really liked the UNIT characters, the general and the doctor's escort, they were pleasant, competent, and good, and it shows the problem is the system, not that there are random evil people here.
Nitpicks
1. The whole Sontaran macguffin. I mean, it's not the stupidest plot ever considering what it's competing with, but it's definitely way more stupid than nothing.
If they were using the cars for precision work, having mobile units all over that could destroy key targets. Or if the aim was to control all military vehicles with no risk to yourself, it would make sense. But if you just want to kill lots of people, why futz around for the love of god.
Step 1. Accelerate a medium asteroid toward any city that looks like it might offer resistance.
Step 2. Profit.
Step 3. Profit.
I mean, come on! Any plan without a step two or three has to be good!
2. "Drive into the river! LEFT! RIGHT!" Come on! It's practically trivial to build a sat-nav that ignores stupid suggestions. I _have_ one, now, with today's technology![1]. It's so much more trivial to cut off all suggestions from the driver than to tell it to specifically disobey them. It said it was ignoring him.
And then blowing up? Computers self-destructing on contradictory statements is so mindbogglingly stupid I thought the meme had died, but here it is again. It is so stupid.
3. This was marginally less stupid once I knew the Atmos wasn't primarily a satnav, but still, as plans go:
1. Discover evil satnavs kill people
2. Go to evil satnav headquarters with no backup, get manhandled by genius goons and thrown out humiliatingly, loudly swear vengeance in great detail
3*. Phone UNIT to warn them
4. And make unsupported threats where evil satnav HQ people can hear
5. Discover evil satnav is out of control
6. Get in car and drive away.
7. Be surprised when you die.
Is one that really, really, really sucks. I mean, like eighteen out of ten on the international Sontaran scale of plan-sucking.
4. Suppose I am a governmental agency careening increasingly outside the law. Which restrictive government policy do I breach with most priority?
Due process of law?
Respectment of alien territories?
Putting evil satnav in my anti-evil-satnav jeep fleet?
Hint: The stupid one. I'll even let you leave the poison gas in if you want to, just smash the bloody satnav.
I can see what the episode was going for: relevance and creepiness of both climate control and excess satnav reliance issues. But I already thought relying on satnav to the detriment of common sense was stupid, so this episode was just sort of stirring that around to no helpful effect.
5. OK, so you change the name of UNIT to avoid offending the UN. That's a good idea, I agree. But why shout at the new name at every opportunity? Just say "UNIT". "UNIT" is a good name, with authority. Whatever it stood for was stupid.
6. Invading a factory, why shout "This is a UNIT operation"? Do you want people to get shot? What does that name mean to them? Invading in force is bad enough, why not should "POLICE" or at least "ARMY", something people might know means "It's under our control, stand still, obey, and it should in theory be ok."
7. "I'm calling you home to Earth." No duh. OK, it's useful scene setting, but why linger on it?
8. You are trapped in a car filled with poison gas. Separated from the relatively clean air outside by millimetres of safety glass. Outside is a man armed only with a tool (a) about nine inches long and made of metal and (b) of high-frequency-sonic-powered-shattering.
Do you (a) smash the glass (b) shatter the glass or (c) die? Justify your answer.
9. What was the Martha clone[2] wearing? Do the Sontarans keep clothes lying about? Or were they Martha's clothes? If so, how come she's still clamped to the table next episode[3]
10. Sending soldiers to wander the basement in pairs with no backup.
11. "Who's she, the cat's mother?" I suppose Donna's mum was supposed to be that strident, but really, it takes a superhuman amount of chutzpah to object to people using the pronoun "she" when you're eavesdropping on them! When can you use it?
12. "Like fire... Stand too close and someone gets burned." I thought it was great that they admitted that, the doctor is awesome, but dangerous. I thought spelling out the analogy was annoying (although probably the correct choice for kids who might not know it).
[1] That is: it doesn't accept any voice input. Also, I don't actually have one, but I mean, I'm referring to a standard satnav.
[2] I've given up even arguing with "clone"
[3] I guess.
I really enjoyed this episode.
* The Doctor and Donna and Martha were great. Martha driving the Tardis was great, that she continues to see through the Doctor as no-one else can, and how they all bond. All their three perspectives on each other ("like fire") were multidimensional.
* The evil genius boy. I love that this nerd has so much gusto (bantering about grammar was great, as was his dismissal of the reporter at the start), rather than the normal cliches of "shy nerd who comes good in the end" or "mwahahaha 2d villain"
* The Sontarans are a good warrior race.
* The doctor and escort diving onto the grass and a tiny explosion behind them, and several other funny moments.
Good things: UNIT
You often see the doctor facing down aliens on his own, and think he needs some backup for when soft talking doesn't work. But this shows how it's not that easy. It's not overdone -- UNIT may be all quasi-legal-grey in Torchwood, but here they were pretty straightforward, but the potential for misuse and the Doctor's uncomfortableness were enough to underscore the problems.
I really liked the UNIT characters, the general and the doctor's escort, they were pleasant, competent, and good, and it shows the problem is the system, not that there are random evil people here.
Nitpicks
1. The whole Sontaran macguffin. I mean, it's not the stupidest plot ever considering what it's competing with, but it's definitely way more stupid than nothing.
If they were using the cars for precision work, having mobile units all over that could destroy key targets. Or if the aim was to control all military vehicles with no risk to yourself, it would make sense. But if you just want to kill lots of people, why futz around for the love of god.
Step 1. Accelerate a medium asteroid toward any city that looks like it might offer resistance.
Step 2. Profit.
Step 3. Profit.
I mean, come on! Any plan without a step two or three has to be good!
2. "Drive into the river! LEFT! RIGHT!" Come on! It's practically trivial to build a sat-nav that ignores stupid suggestions. I _have_ one, now, with today's technology![1]. It's so much more trivial to cut off all suggestions from the driver than to tell it to specifically disobey them. It said it was ignoring him.
And then blowing up? Computers self-destructing on contradictory statements is so mindbogglingly stupid I thought the meme had died, but here it is again. It is so stupid.
3. This was marginally less stupid once I knew the Atmos wasn't primarily a satnav, but still, as plans go:
1. Discover evil satnavs kill people
2. Go to evil satnav headquarters with no backup, get manhandled by genius goons and thrown out humiliatingly, loudly swear vengeance in great detail
3*. Phone UNIT to warn them
4. And make unsupported threats where evil satnav HQ people can hear
5. Discover evil satnav is out of control
6. Get in car and drive away.
7. Be surprised when you die.
Is one that really, really, really sucks. I mean, like eighteen out of ten on the international Sontaran scale of plan-sucking.
4. Suppose I am a governmental agency careening increasingly outside the law. Which restrictive government policy do I breach with most priority?
Due process of law?
Respectment of alien territories?
Putting evil satnav in my anti-evil-satnav jeep fleet?
Hint: The stupid one. I'll even let you leave the poison gas in if you want to, just smash the bloody satnav.
I can see what the episode was going for: relevance and creepiness of both climate control and excess satnav reliance issues. But I already thought relying on satnav to the detriment of common sense was stupid, so this episode was just sort of stirring that around to no helpful effect.
5. OK, so you change the name of UNIT to avoid offending the UN. That's a good idea, I agree. But why shout at the new name at every opportunity? Just say "UNIT". "UNIT" is a good name, with authority. Whatever it stood for was stupid.
6. Invading a factory, why shout "This is a UNIT operation"? Do you want people to get shot? What does that name mean to them? Invading in force is bad enough, why not should "POLICE" or at least "ARMY", something people might know means "It's under our control, stand still, obey, and it should in theory be ok."
7. "I'm calling you home to Earth." No duh. OK, it's useful scene setting, but why linger on it?
8. You are trapped in a car filled with poison gas. Separated from the relatively clean air outside by millimetres of safety glass. Outside is a man armed only with a tool (a) about nine inches long and made of metal and (b) of high-frequency-sonic-powered-shattering.
Do you (a) smash the glass (b) shatter the glass or (c) die? Justify your answer.
9. What was the Martha clone[2] wearing? Do the Sontarans keep clothes lying about? Or were they Martha's clothes? If so, how come she's still clamped to the table next episode[3]
10. Sending soldiers to wander the basement in pairs with no backup.
11. "Who's she, the cat's mother?" I suppose Donna's mum was supposed to be that strident, but really, it takes a superhuman amount of chutzpah to object to people using the pronoun "she" when you're eavesdropping on them! When can you use it?
12. "Like fire... Stand too close and someone gets burned." I thought it was great that they admitted that, the doctor is awesome, but dangerous. I thought spelling out the analogy was annoying (although probably the correct choice for kids who might not know it).
[1] That is: it doesn't accept any voice input. Also, I don't actually have one, but I mean, I'm referring to a standard satnav.
[2] I've given up even arguing with "clone"
[3] I guess.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-12 02:02 pm (UTC)That is, I'd love it if they did, but I think it's too much to hope for, and I don't actually have a problem with making things up that sound good, I think that's the right thing to do, and doctor who has changed over the years, and that's the only way to do it. I just like nitpicking, and get annoyed when what someone makes up one week doesn't seem consistent within that episode, or with what the audience probably _does_ know.