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May. 15th, 2006 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
llywelaWatched this episode in a roomful of family, which is both a fantastic and terrible way to enjoy a show. Fantastic, because Doctor Who is classic family viewing, and watching it together is a great experience. Terrible because everyone talks so much you miss half of what's going on…
I still don't like the dynamic between the Tenth Doctor and Rose. Ten on his own, or with just about anyone but Rose, is a great Doctor. Together, they just seem to feed off one another and end up all giddy. The first Tardis scene being a case in point – the two of them giggling like schoolgirls and being really unnecessarily and thoughtlessly mean to Mickey in the process.
Tardis goes boom – see, Mickey shouldn't have taken his finger off that button, after all. Or possibly, they shouldn't have left him holding it quite so long.
In all seriousness, they never did explain what caused the explosion and their fall into an alternate universe, did they?
Lots and lots of location spotting in this episode. I won't bore everyone with it!
I liked that Mickey was the first to realise they'd landed in an alternate universe. Because he reads comics. Even more than that, I really enjoyed the Doctor and Mickey having a deep and meaningful conversation about the Tardis and their situation while Rose was off wandering around. Now, the Doctor-Mickey dynamic (when the Doctor and Rose aren't behaving like a couple of kids) I do appreciate. Like how it was Mickey last week who realised that the Doctor was upset at the end and needed some space, hauling Rose off to give him a Tardis tour and leave the Doctor alone. Mickey can be a problematic character, but he's got more depth than Rose does this season, sad to say.
Rose bothers me because she never seems to develop any more. It's like she's reached the limits of her character development and we never learn anything new about her. The alternate universe version of her family was probably a good idea on paper, but we've already learned about her daddy issues in Father's Day, and didn't need a re-hash of it here. Would have been better to give the focus to Mickey and give us his background story a bit more slowly rather than in one big info-dump from Rose.
I do appreciate the Doctor losing control of his pet humans, though. He can't chase them both, so when they insist on wandering off in opposite directions, what else can he do but chase one and leave the other to his/her own devices? Mickey might feel left out because Rose is the one getting all the attention, but there's two ways of looking at it. The Doctor could be chasing Rose because she's his favourite, the one he cares about most – or he could be chasing Rose because she's the one he expects to get into trouble, whereas Mickey who is mostly no longer seen as an idiot, is trusted slightly more to look after himself. Which he mostly does, to be fair.
The blonde 'most wanted' woman is an actress I've only ever seen in Welsh language productions before now. Felt very odd to see her speaking English!
Mickey's alternate self being called Ricky was either very amusing or a very bad decision, and I can't quite decide which. Kudos to Noel Clarke for getting to show off his acting chops in the dual role, though. As for the alterna-Rose being a Yorkshire terrier, now that was funny. *G*
The Cybermen have been ret-conned into something completely different than what they originally were, but that's okay (we're meant to believe) because it's an alternate universe. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, the new premise mostly works, and they are suitably creepy, and 'delete' is a wicked catchphrase. And it gives us the added twist of the Doctor trying to surrender because he thinks he knows the Cybermen and thinks he can predict how they'll act and react and has a plan…but these aren't the Cybermen he knows…
And the result is a cliffhanger. Roll on Part Two next week.
I still don't like the dynamic between the Tenth Doctor and Rose. Ten on his own, or with just about anyone but Rose, is a great Doctor. Together, they just seem to feed off one another and end up all giddy. The first Tardis scene being a case in point – the two of them giggling like schoolgirls and being really unnecessarily and thoughtlessly mean to Mickey in the process.
Tardis goes boom – see, Mickey shouldn't have taken his finger off that button, after all. Or possibly, they shouldn't have left him holding it quite so long.
In all seriousness, they never did explain what caused the explosion and their fall into an alternate universe, did they?
Lots and lots of location spotting in this episode. I won't bore everyone with it!
I liked that Mickey was the first to realise they'd landed in an alternate universe. Because he reads comics. Even more than that, I really enjoyed the Doctor and Mickey having a deep and meaningful conversation about the Tardis and their situation while Rose was off wandering around. Now, the Doctor-Mickey dynamic (when the Doctor and Rose aren't behaving like a couple of kids) I do appreciate. Like how it was Mickey last week who realised that the Doctor was upset at the end and needed some space, hauling Rose off to give him a Tardis tour and leave the Doctor alone. Mickey can be a problematic character, but he's got more depth than Rose does this season, sad to say.
Rose bothers me because she never seems to develop any more. It's like she's reached the limits of her character development and we never learn anything new about her. The alternate universe version of her family was probably a good idea on paper, but we've already learned about her daddy issues in Father's Day, and didn't need a re-hash of it here. Would have been better to give the focus to Mickey and give us his background story a bit more slowly rather than in one big info-dump from Rose.
I do appreciate the Doctor losing control of his pet humans, though. He can't chase them both, so when they insist on wandering off in opposite directions, what else can he do but chase one and leave the other to his/her own devices? Mickey might feel left out because Rose is the one getting all the attention, but there's two ways of looking at it. The Doctor could be chasing Rose because she's his favourite, the one he cares about most – or he could be chasing Rose because she's the one he expects to get into trouble, whereas Mickey who is mostly no longer seen as an idiot, is trusted slightly more to look after himself. Which he mostly does, to be fair.
The blonde 'most wanted' woman is an actress I've only ever seen in Welsh language productions before now. Felt very odd to see her speaking English!
Mickey's alternate self being called Ricky was either very amusing or a very bad decision, and I can't quite decide which. Kudos to Noel Clarke for getting to show off his acting chops in the dual role, though. As for the alterna-Rose being a Yorkshire terrier, now that was funny. *G*
The Cybermen have been ret-conned into something completely different than what they originally were, but that's okay (we're meant to believe) because it's an alternate universe. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, the new premise mostly works, and they are suitably creepy, and 'delete' is a wicked catchphrase. And it gives us the added twist of the Doctor trying to surrender because he thinks he knows the Cybermen and thinks he can predict how they'll act and react and has a plan…but these aren't the Cybermen he knows…
And the result is a cliffhanger. Roll on Part Two next week.
