mikailborg: I can't even remember what event I was attending, but I must have been taking it seriously. (whovian)
mikailborg ([personal profile] mikailborg) wrote2007-08-18 07:50 pm
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The Sound of the Universe

I have all of Doctor Who season 3 on my Mac. I have most of it on the DVR. So it was about time for me to get around to finishing season 2.

The last four episodes restored my interest in the Tenth Doctor, and I'm looking forward now to seeing "Runaway Bride". While I had nits to pick, these scripts really engaged me again, and I honestly think that this season's two-part finale is stronger than season 1's.

But I have to say that I'm pretty divided about episode ten. The episode was clearly about science-fiction fandom, and I understood all too clearly the points it was making from that angle. But the last bits with the guest lead and his grilfriend were wrong in so many ways... and I mean that seriously, not in that rueful fun manner.

This season has been full of fascinating medical information. In "New Earth", we established that IV fluids could be just as effective if applied to the skin by fire sprinklers. In "The Girl In the Fireplace" (an otherwise excellent episode) we learn that a human heart, once ripped from a body and deprived of a blood supply, still makes an excellent spare pump for spaceship fuels. In "The Idiot's Lantern", we discovered that humans do not require noses, mouths, or any air passages at all to breathe. But in "Love and Monsters", we're treated to the information that a human can think and speak while missing heart, lungs, spinal column, digestive apparatus, and indeed the back half of their brain. And that, in fact, this could be a fulfilling life!

Perhaps the title of this season could have been "Doctor WTF?"

And I really, really, really did not need the "love life" line. At least I got a laugh out of the female lead having been Moaning Myrtle.

After all that, though, I've enjoyed the majority of the season, and am slowly learning to just hand-wave such things away. Now for season 3.

[identity profile] rattrap.livejournal.com 2007-08-19 11:38 pm (UTC)(link)
I've never held Dr. Who to quite the same standards as say, Star Trek or B5, where those kind of things really bothered me. I guess it's because I've always thought of Dr. Who as more fantasy with SF trappings.

Besides, whe you get to "Evolution of the Daleks" you'll see what is one of my favorite scenes in a Dr. Who episode.

[identity profile] eeedge.livejournal.com 2007-08-20 01:01 pm (UTC)(link)
I hated that episode. Part of the reason that I loathed it so much was that it was so light and old-Dr. Who and then turned a corner and got nasty. Really, at the end, everyone should have been restored and all well with the world.

My impression, watching season 3, is that they are following a universal BBC trend at the moment and making everything darker. The Doctor is being worked around to be public enemy number one, which doesn't even bother me that much because David Tennant screams so much. I miss Eccleston so much.

I don't think there has been an ep so far in season three that I can say I really liked. Last night I watched yet another lonely-outpost-where-one-of-the-small-number-of-crew-members-gets-possessed-by-a-malevolent-entity episodes.