selenak

New Who: The Impossible Planet was wonderful, especially for an Alien (not, note, Aliens) fan like yours truly, and having watched The Three Doctors in recent months, I can't help but wonder if the late Omega has something to do with the black hole, if not the evil from the dawn of time. Probably not. Anyway, the station's crew are nicely individualized, and this episode's version of the chestburster, aka the writings transferring to Toby's skin and later the Ouds', are an incredibly creepy twist. Meanwhile, the Oud (spelling?) inevitably remind me of the HP houselves, and no prices for guessing that the station's crew (however many of the survive) will come to the conclusion that a slave race is Not A Good Thing.

This is clearly a Doctor/TARDIS OTP episode, with the TARDIS (not Rose) being called "all I have". Rose, for the record, is at her best in this episode, empathizing with the Oud, trying to cheer the Doctor up, and taking the none-too-enthusiastic reaction to the mortgage proposal without treating it as a rejection. Meanwhile, I notice a commendable and ongoing trend from the Alternate Universe episodes, which is the Doctor taking the time to regret and mourn the redshirt casualties. (I believe David Tennant each time Ten says "I'm so sorry", too.) On the lighter side of things, loved the hug for Zach (again, spelling? Zack?) and the later's nonplussed acceptance of it.

At a guess: what's going to rise from the ~~seal in Sunnydale High~~ ancient bronze plate isn't meant to be the Judeo-Christian devil per se but an entity which can, if it wants, masque as same. The reverse of the B5 Vorlons, if you like, who can appear as angelic/divine creatures because they can access the relevant genetic memories of all races.

Also: it just might be that NOBODY survives, except the Doctor and Rose. Precisely because the crew are individualized, and because this could be the two-parter where the bill for the hubris demonstrated in Tooth and Claw and in the teaser gets presented. Now if I hadn't recently seen Five surrounded by dead bodies, I'd say this is too dark for Who - i.e. the Doctor can't save anyone, anyone at all - but now I'm aware there is precedent. I hope not, though. At least one or two survivors would be good.

Meanwhile, I wrote Action and Reaction, a fourth season Alias ficlet, as a response to several challenges (over at

fandom_muses, at

alias500 and

yahtzee63 and

eirena daring me to). The Bad Wrong, it is doubled. I blame JJ.

Also, according to Alias executive producer Jeff Pinkner, Ghost!Nadia is always, including in the finale, a part of Sloane. His conscience. Which means her action at the end - leaving him to suffer immortality alone - is actually self punishment. Interesting. Mind you, I'm of the opinion that authorial intention on tv does not count as a "must" - i.e. we're free to interpret what we see - but it's intriguing that this is what the writers intended.