Doctor Who 4/30.10 Midnight
Jun. 15th, 2008 08:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakHands down scariest episode of the season. Which, you know, is not RTD's usual trademark - I'd say otherwise his strengths are quirky characters and emotional scenes, but I've never found his episodes terrifying. This one? Really scared the living daylights out of me. And a bottle show, no less. I'll get to the flaws later, but right now, I'm awed.
Firstly, I had heard in advance that this would be a Donna-lite show because Catherine Tate was busy filming the next episode, which is Donna all the time and Doctor lite. The narrative concept made a virtue out of a necessity: among other things, it illustrates how the whole "Doctor, in the middle of disaster, rallies people and saves (some) of them" depends more often than not on a companion being there. This story would not have worked with Donna at the Doctor's side. It's the dark parallel to the usual disaster movie (which RTD did with Voyage of the Damned) in which the people bond, and each of them displays their best side at least during the disaster, doing their bit to save the others. Here, they bond, alright, but against anyone who is other - first the possessed Sky and then the Doctor. For once, charisma and belief in human virtue doesn't work. And even his voice is taken away, that thing that usually gets him out of anything. It's turned against him, down to catch phrases. And there is no companion around to come to the rescue, either.
And yet it's not entirely a pessimistic episode as far as humanity is concerned. Dee Dee is correctly suspicious. Jethro protests. The Hostess works it out as well, and she - the only character in the episode other than the Doctor whom the audience doesn't learn the name of, the only one who didn't get a warm chatting scene early on - is the one who saves the day. Still, there is only a bleak aftermath possible, reminding me of nothing so much as Lord of the Flies, the final scene when Ralph, after being hunted down by all the other boys to the beach, is found by the deus-ex-machina officer who asks what the hell happened on the island, and Ralph doesn't have any words left, only tears and silence. Come to think of it, Lord of the Flies scared me exactly in the same way. Not just because of what it says about humanity but because it does so in a plausible way. The passengers aren't monsters. And what they are scared of is real. But their fear brings out the worst in them, and that is scarier than any vampire or skeleton.
The tag scene was direly needed, both for the audience and the Doctor. (And btw, love that the Doctor takes Donna to a spa planet to begin with - she needed that after everything she went through in earlier eps.) Man, was that hug needed.
Flaws: Sky being a lesbian and the Hostess being black makes two minority characters dead, but I suppose the later is at least balanced by the equally black Dee Dee who survives. I'm even torn on whether or not Sky talking about her ex boyfriend instead of ex girlfriend would have been better, or, say, the couple being two men or two women instead of husband and wife because as said couple were the frontrunner in the "throw them out of the airlock" department, that would have made for questionable subtext as well, had they been gay instead of heterosexual. (See the complaints about the sadistic black guard in Planet of the Ood.)
Acting: everyone was terrific. DT especially, but the actress who played Sky was also outstanding, and really, everyone just rocked. David Troughton sounds like his father, and did I detect an extra grin when the Doctor introduced himself to Professor Hobbes?
I think we had adventures with few settings before, but I can't recall one that really just has one (other than the two Donna scenes), a small one at that, and man, did that work for the horror and claustrophobia. Once again: scariest episode of the season, hands down. I haven't been that terrified since Blink, and I think this one scared me even more because of the Doctor in the middle. I think I'm going to watch that hug again...
Firstly, I had heard in advance that this would be a Donna-lite show because Catherine Tate was busy filming the next episode, which is Donna all the time and Doctor lite. The narrative concept made a virtue out of a necessity: among other things, it illustrates how the whole "Doctor, in the middle of disaster, rallies people and saves (some) of them" depends more often than not on a companion being there. This story would not have worked with Donna at the Doctor's side. It's the dark parallel to the usual disaster movie (which RTD did with Voyage of the Damned) in which the people bond, and each of them displays their best side at least during the disaster, doing their bit to save the others. Here, they bond, alright, but against anyone who is other - first the possessed Sky and then the Doctor. For once, charisma and belief in human virtue doesn't work. And even his voice is taken away, that thing that usually gets him out of anything. It's turned against him, down to catch phrases. And there is no companion around to come to the rescue, either.
And yet it's not entirely a pessimistic episode as far as humanity is concerned. Dee Dee is correctly suspicious. Jethro protests. The Hostess works it out as well, and she - the only character in the episode other than the Doctor whom the audience doesn't learn the name of, the only one who didn't get a warm chatting scene early on - is the one who saves the day. Still, there is only a bleak aftermath possible, reminding me of nothing so much as Lord of the Flies, the final scene when Ralph, after being hunted down by all the other boys to the beach, is found by the deus-ex-machina officer who asks what the hell happened on the island, and Ralph doesn't have any words left, only tears and silence. Come to think of it, Lord of the Flies scared me exactly in the same way. Not just because of what it says about humanity but because it does so in a plausible way. The passengers aren't monsters. And what they are scared of is real. But their fear brings out the worst in them, and that is scarier than any vampire or skeleton.
The tag scene was direly needed, both for the audience and the Doctor. (And btw, love that the Doctor takes Donna to a spa planet to begin with - she needed that after everything she went through in earlier eps.) Man, was that hug needed.
Flaws: Sky being a lesbian and the Hostess being black makes two minority characters dead, but I suppose the later is at least balanced by the equally black Dee Dee who survives. I'm even torn on whether or not Sky talking about her ex boyfriend instead of ex girlfriend would have been better, or, say, the couple being two men or two women instead of husband and wife because as said couple were the frontrunner in the "throw them out of the airlock" department, that would have made for questionable subtext as well, had they been gay instead of heterosexual. (See the complaints about the sadistic black guard in Planet of the Ood.)
Acting: everyone was terrific. DT especially, but the actress who played Sky was also outstanding, and really, everyone just rocked. David Troughton sounds like his father, and did I detect an extra grin when the Doctor introduced himself to Professor Hobbes?
I think we had adventures with few settings before, but I can't recall one that really just has one (other than the two Donna scenes), a small one at that, and man, did that work for the horror and claustrophobia. Once again: scariest episode of the season, hands down. I haven't been that terrified since Blink, and I think this one scared me even more because of the Doctor in the middle. I think I'm going to watch that hug again...
