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selenakTeam TARDIS meets Tesla and Edison: I enjoyed this a lot.
Scorpions instead of a spiders, but the design of the Queen of the Skithra looked a lot like the Empress of the Raknoss, so much so that I didn't realise another familiar actress was buried underneath it until I sawjesuswasbatman mention she's played by none other than Rani from The Sarah Jane Adventures. Anyway, the Skithra never rose to more than menace of the week, with the one variation that they're less into world conquering than into idea stealing, thus paralleling what's going on on the human level, but the Skithra were not the point of the episode.
The point being the Doctor and friends meeting Nikola Tesla. (Goran Višnjić playing the third screen incarnation of him that I've seen, after David Bowie in The Prestige and Jonathon Young in Sanctuary.) This version put the emphasis on Tesla the romantic and genius idealist versus Edison the pragmatic - and not above idea stealing - capitalist, but in a pleasant surprise didn't go for strict black and white, showing Edison with layers (he's seriously concerned for his workers, and he has a point about the impact of athink tank invention factory).
The Doctor's own inner scientist gets plenty of play, but what struck me is that this season does seem to return to Thirteen the edge the previous season mostly avoided giving her. Tricking the Queen into enabling her to teleport her back to her own destruction was a rare deliberate (for this Doctor) venting of the Doctor's ruthless side, complete with "I've given you your chance" (hello, Ten).
Otoh, there are also moments that struck me as uniquely Thirteen, like her telling Tesla: "You realise it's killing Edison they want you, not him" (re: the Skithra). Earlier Doctors probably would not have been able to resist making that dig to Edison instead of using it to make Tesla smile.
Given Tesla really did invent so much, I rose a bit of an eyebrow vis a vis the blantant implication that with more funding, he'd have come up with the internet decades earlier, but then again, there was a thematic reason there: if what Tesla imagines - the sharing of communication and knowledge - is the light side of the WWW, the use the Skithra pot their stolen devices to - stealing people' data, observing them against their will - obviously points out some of the dark side.
Tesla's assistant is the one really underdeveloped character in the episode and apparantly just there so the fam had someone to bond with over hanging out with mad geniuses.
Scorpions instead of a spiders, but the design of the Queen of the Skithra looked a lot like the Empress of the Raknoss, so much so that I didn't realise another familiar actress was buried underneath it until I saw
jesuswasbatman mention she's played by none other than Rani from The Sarah Jane Adventures. Anyway, the Skithra never rose to more than menace of the week, with the one variation that they're less into world conquering than into idea stealing, thus paralleling what's going on on the human level, but the Skithra were not the point of the episode.The point being the Doctor and friends meeting Nikola Tesla. (Goran Višnjić playing the third screen incarnation of him that I've seen, after David Bowie in The Prestige and Jonathon Young in Sanctuary.) This version put the emphasis on Tesla the romantic and genius idealist versus Edison the pragmatic - and not above idea stealing - capitalist, but in a pleasant surprise didn't go for strict black and white, showing Edison with layers (he's seriously concerned for his workers, and he has a point about the impact of a
The Doctor's own inner scientist gets plenty of play, but what struck me is that this season does seem to return to Thirteen the edge the previous season mostly avoided giving her. Tricking the Queen into enabling her to teleport her back to her own destruction was a rare deliberate (for this Doctor) venting of the Doctor's ruthless side, complete with "I've given you your chance" (hello, Ten).
Otoh, there are also moments that struck me as uniquely Thirteen, like her telling Tesla: "You realise it's killing Edison they want you, not him" (re: the Skithra). Earlier Doctors probably would not have been able to resist making that dig to Edison instead of using it to make Tesla smile.
Given Tesla really did invent so much, I rose a bit of an eyebrow vis a vis the blantant implication that with more funding, he'd have come up with the internet decades earlier, but then again, there was a thematic reason there: if what Tesla imagines - the sharing of communication and knowledge - is the light side of the WWW, the use the Skithra pot their stolen devices to - stealing people' data, observing them against their will - obviously points out some of the dark side.
Tesla's assistant is the one really underdeveloped character in the episode and apparantly just there so the fam had someone to bond with over hanging out with mad geniuses.
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Date: 2020-01-21 04:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-21 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-22 12:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-01-22 01:24 am (UTC)OMG this reminds me of a recent Murdoch Mysteries where some of the greatest minds were invited for a "con" re: what the future could be - Madame Curie, Houdini, Tesla and Edison among others. One of the show's villains kidnapped them to work for the villain to result in world domination. Anyway, Edison wasn't kidnapped and was insulted enough to stage his own aborted kidnapping lol
This show has some historical figures as recurring characters and always drags Edison every time he or Tesla is part of the story.