Voyage of the Damned
Dec. 26th, 2007 01:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snorkackcatcherAs expected: rather fun, even if it didn't always make sense!
I can't be the only one who was at least half-hoping that Taren Capel (or his heir or successor) was going to be down in Room 31, right? The faces of those angel droids looked so like the ones in The Robots of Death.
It made a nice change for the threat scenario to be motivated by something mundane rather than Yet Another Invasion. Although they did a nice piece of lampshade-hanging on the latter with everyone clearing out of London because of the invasions of previous years. (Are all the UNIT-era ones still supposed to have happened in the post-Time War timeline, since no-one mentions previous troubles with Cybermen or Autons or Axons or whatever?)
Does the Doctor have a thing for blondes or what? Romana II, Rose, now Astrid ... Although the trouble was you knew the latter was probably doomed when they started talking about her joining him, which unfortunately doesn't work very well when the guest star is a famous name in their own right. Roll on Donna! ("I just want a mate!" "Well, you're not going to mate with me!")
On the subject of RTD and his prejudices ... hmm. I still don't think his recent interview was anything out of the ordinary, but one thing that was noticeable about the VotD script was a sort of 1970s attitude to characters that were 'different' -- the overweight couple and the little red cyborg guy were mocked for comedy to an extent, like the bald man on the Benny Hill Show -- even by the Doctor, although they did get heroic exits. Although the little speech at the end about not getting to select who survived as that would make the Doctor a monster was a useful counterweight.
If there was enough power for the Doctor and his friend to teleport down once they'd fixed the engines, wouldn't there have been enough to keep Astrid in that holding pattern until then? And why would killer robots have a "stop and explain the evil plan" override? Eh, silly questions -- those are just things that follow the Laws of Plot.
Another set of aliens who look exactly like humans? Not even funny ears or blue skin or something? That's all right in a future or alien-planet scenario, but was actually a bit confusing in this one -- for a while I was wondering if this was supposed to be some sort of timeship from a future Earth colony, until it gradually became clear that this point wasn't supposed to be important.
Echoes of other things: the scene at the end with Astrid in the forklift was a bit like Ripley and her spacewalker thing in Aliens. The script was a nice play on ship disaster movies ("IN SPACE!"). And of course there was lots of in-joke lines like the references to snow, the Queen staying at Buckingham Palace (like her dad in the war!), and the Doctor finally getting to say "Take me to your leader!". (Although didn't he say it The Face of Evil?) And the Doctor deciding yet again that he's better off not getting attached. Yeah, like that's going to be a resolution he keeps. :)
Anyway, lots of action, and some nice character moments. Good fun.
I can't be the only one who was at least half-hoping that Taren Capel (or his heir or successor) was going to be down in Room 31, right? The faces of those angel droids looked so like the ones in The Robots of Death.
It made a nice change for the threat scenario to be motivated by something mundane rather than Yet Another Invasion. Although they did a nice piece of lampshade-hanging on the latter with everyone clearing out of London because of the invasions of previous years. (Are all the UNIT-era ones still supposed to have happened in the post-Time War timeline, since no-one mentions previous troubles with Cybermen or Autons or Axons or whatever?)
Does the Doctor have a thing for blondes or what? Romana II, Rose, now Astrid ... Although the trouble was you knew the latter was probably doomed when they started talking about her joining him, which unfortunately doesn't work very well when the guest star is a famous name in their own right. Roll on Donna! ("I just want a mate!" "Well, you're not going to mate with me!")
On the subject of RTD and his prejudices ... hmm. I still don't think his recent interview was anything out of the ordinary, but one thing that was noticeable about the VotD script was a sort of 1970s attitude to characters that were 'different' -- the overweight couple and the little red cyborg guy were mocked for comedy to an extent, like the bald man on the Benny Hill Show -- even by the Doctor, although they did get heroic exits. Although the little speech at the end about not getting to select who survived as that would make the Doctor a monster was a useful counterweight.
If there was enough power for the Doctor and his friend to teleport down once they'd fixed the engines, wouldn't there have been enough to keep Astrid in that holding pattern until then? And why would killer robots have a "stop and explain the evil plan" override? Eh, silly questions -- those are just things that follow the Laws of Plot.
Another set of aliens who look exactly like humans? Not even funny ears or blue skin or something? That's all right in a future or alien-planet scenario, but was actually a bit confusing in this one -- for a while I was wondering if this was supposed to be some sort of timeship from a future Earth colony, until it gradually became clear that this point wasn't supposed to be important.
Echoes of other things: the scene at the end with Astrid in the forklift was a bit like Ripley and her spacewalker thing in Aliens. The script was a nice play on ship disaster movies ("IN SPACE!"). And of course there was lots of in-joke lines like the references to snow, the Queen staying at Buckingham Palace (like her dad in the war!), and the Doctor finally getting to say "Take me to your leader!". (Although didn't he say it The Face of Evil?) And the Doctor deciding yet again that he's better off not getting attached. Yeah, like that's going to be a resolution he keeps. :)
Anyway, lots of action, and some nice character moments. Good fun.
