BFA: Doctor Who Unbound - Full Fathom Five
Mar. 1st, 2007 06:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fangrrl_squeesSpoilers below.
Bleakest. Story. Ever.
This non-traditional/non-canon story has to be the bleakest DW story I've encountered to date. The Doctor is, well, he's a hypocritical, murdering asshole who manages to make everything sound oh-so-reasonable until the very end, and the bodycount is on par with a Shakespearian tragedy - as is the progression of the plot.
The story is a rather frank take on how manipulative the Doctor can be, but in this case, the apparent altruism is a cover for motives that are understandable (get the TARDIS back after being separated from it for nearly thirty years) but the means gained to that end are very disproportionate. Indeed, the whole theme of the story - driven home without much subtlety - is about ends, means and justification thereto, and how even the Doctor can go too far to get what he wants.
David Collings makes an excellent Doctor and Siri O'Neal as Ruth did a fine job, although she got a bit bleaty in the middle - probably because there wasn't much for her to do aside from demanding the truth from the Doctor. I'll share blame (what little there is) for that between the director, Jason Haigh-Ellery, and the writer, David Bishop. Otherwise, the pacing is excellent and, I must admit, I got slapped upside the head in mid-eyeball roll as I was thinking Oh, geeze, it's so obvious the big bad monster is Ruth's dad and it wasn't. I should have been suspicious of so-obvious a setup, but I'm one of those folks who can never figure out whodunnit before the last page.
Without scattering any more spoilers, all I can say is that this is an excellent tale. A rather dark, but very plausible, reflection of the Doctor
I wonder how many more lives this bastard has got?
Brr!
Bleakest. Story. Ever.
This non-traditional/non-canon story has to be the bleakest DW story I've encountered to date. The Doctor is, well, he's a hypocritical, murdering asshole who manages to make everything sound oh-so-reasonable until the very end, and the bodycount is on par with a Shakespearian tragedy - as is the progression of the plot.
The story is a rather frank take on how manipulative the Doctor can be, but in this case, the apparent altruism is a cover for motives that are understandable (get the TARDIS back after being separated from it for nearly thirty years) but the means gained to that end are very disproportionate. Indeed, the whole theme of the story - driven home without much subtlety - is about ends, means and justification thereto, and how even the Doctor can go too far to get what he wants.
David Collings makes an excellent Doctor and Siri O'Neal as Ruth did a fine job, although she got a bit bleaty in the middle - probably because there wasn't much for her to do aside from demanding the truth from the Doctor. I'll share blame (what little there is) for that between the director, Jason Haigh-Ellery, and the writer, David Bishop. Otherwise, the pacing is excellent and, I must admit, I got slapped upside the head in mid-eyeball roll as I was thinking Oh, geeze, it's so obvious the big bad monster is Ruth's dad and it wasn't. I should have been suspicious of so-obvious a setup, but I'm one of those folks who can never figure out whodunnit before the last page.
Without scattering any more spoilers, all I can say is that this is an excellent tale. A rather dark, but very plausible, reflection of the Doctor
I wonder how many more lives this bastard has got?
Brr!
