Doctor Who: Daleks in WWII
Apr. 18th, 2010 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackRandom thoughts:
1. I thought the premises were awesome, the idea of WWII Daleks was great, but the episode as a whole left me feeling a bit uninspired.
2. There seemed to be fewer of the really great moments I remember from one or two of the earlier episodes.
3. I still like Smith's Doctor and Amy, even though they had few moments to to shine. For instance, when Amy was questioning the Dalek against the doctor's orders, many companions would have made it seem like a purely petulant stupid thing to do, but Amy made it seem very reasonable, that despite the Doctor's correct fear of the Daleks, he ought to have been able to TELL her more clearly what he wanted, rather than just snapping orders.
4. Some things didn't make much sense, but the initial premises of the episode ("daleks in WWII", "churchill and doctor old friends") are a good example of how to deliver premises (whether they're self-consistent or consistent with prior canon of the series) VERY WELL: all brought out in the first few seconds and developed from there, so that we can relax into the story, rather than keeping wondering "is this a crisis, or is it all easily fixed by one of the random stupid premises they haven't introduced yet?"
5. I am excited to see how they handle River Song in the next episode, but am cautiously very optimistic, despite the significant risks to the characterisation of introducing an actual love interest for the doctor, I actually thought they handled River Song very very well when she appeared before, and am very interested to see another point in their relationship.
1. I thought the premises were awesome, the idea of WWII Daleks was great, but the episode as a whole left me feeling a bit uninspired.
2. There seemed to be fewer of the really great moments I remember from one or two of the earlier episodes.
3. I still like Smith's Doctor and Amy, even though they had few moments to to shine. For instance, when Amy was questioning the Dalek against the doctor's orders, many companions would have made it seem like a purely petulant stupid thing to do, but Amy made it seem very reasonable, that despite the Doctor's correct fear of the Daleks, he ought to have been able to TELL her more clearly what he wanted, rather than just snapping orders.
4. Some things didn't make much sense, but the initial premises of the episode ("daleks in WWII", "churchill and doctor old friends") are a good example of how to deliver premises (whether they're self-consistent or consistent with prior canon of the series) VERY WELL: all brought out in the first few seconds and developed from there, so that we can relax into the story, rather than keeping wondering "is this a crisis, or is it all easily fixed by one of the random stupid premises they haven't introduced yet?"
5. I am excited to see how they handle River Song in the next episode, but am cautiously very optimistic, despite the significant risks to the characterisation of introducing an actual love interest for the doctor, I actually thought they handled River Song very very well when she appeared before, and am very interested to see another point in their relationship.
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Date: 2010-04-19 06:17 pm (UTC)Yeah, I agree with basically all your criticisms. In honesty, I blocked out pretty much all the plot twists in the second part, and concentrated on the good and good-ish aspects...
I seem to remember hearing somewhere that they didn't actually want to put Daleks in this season but the BBC insisted,
That would make a lot of sense. They will in fact have to draw the Daleks out for as long as they make Doctor Who, because everyone expects at least SOME Daleks.
So I don't especially object to the idea that "crippled Dalek ship barely above WWII standard rejuvinates new scarier Daleks". I felt really sorry for the old Daleks :) Even though I thought the Dalek generator thing was a bit silly (and lots of the rest of the plot).
PS. What I forgot to ask about NZ's geographic and non-geographic MP system was if there was anything good/bad people typically said about it? :)