Doctor Who, 3 x 06, Initial Thoughts

[fangrrl_squees]

I finally watched The Lazarus Effect, last night.

It was alright. The setup and the story itself were good enough. Nothing groundbreaking, but it got the job - the job being to entertain me for 40 minutes - done.

I like the fact that there's an apparent split going in within Martha's family regarding the Doctor. And, unlike Rose, Martha seems to have an ally from the get-go. After all, it took Mickey a while to warm up to the Doctor and even then, there was always some resentment simmering away. A pal of mine is grumbling about yet another companion's mother having a hissy fit, but I'm not. It is, indeed, rather obvious that death and destruction occur around the man - even if he's minimizing it, rather than causing it - and combine that with what is apparently whole bucketloads of separation anxiety/esteem issues as what Martha's mother seems to be carrying and, yeah, you've got a character who is not going to be pre-disposed to liking the Doctor.

Who's the henchman for Saxon? He looks like he came right out of Archtypical Thug Central. I mean that as a compliment. Saxon's henchmen should look like that.

I liked that the Doctor - well, he isn't exactly changing, but at least he could admit that he wasn't treating Martha as well as he could.

I think my theory that one of the themes this season - in so far as one can be positively identified - is faith. Let's see how this plays out over the next few weeks, hm?

Gatiss chewed on the scenery as expected - no surprises there. Nor did he let the team down. I'm looking forward to seeing him do his turn as Marty Stu Lucifer Box, whenever that goes into production...

I've resigned myself to silly monster design on the show. It's, y'know, part of the tradition of Doctor Who. Rather than bottom tier Equity dudes wrapped up in tinfoil, we get texture-of-the-week CGI with some (occasionally baffling) anthropomorphism. Fine, fine, the anthropomorphism gives the kiddies something to identify/hang their comprehension on.

Overall, I don't think the eps was particularly good or bad. As I say, it entertained, but I'm not jumping up and down and gibbering about it like I did after, say, The Impossible Planet.

On another note entirely, watching the preview for next week, I can't believe that it took a whole 12 hours for me to think Master/Jack. *Wanders off into a happily perverted place*

No, I haven't caught up with the Dalek story yet. I'm lagging, I know, but the ho-hum reviews don't have me jumping up and down with eagerness, either.

Comments

[crabby-lioness.livejournal.com]

Daughter introduces Mom to bloke who:

- won't say his name,

- won't say where he's from,

- won't say what he does for a living,

- won't say where he's been with Daughter, and

- won't say what he's been doing with Daughter.

Any Mum who didn't have alarm bells going off doesn't deserve the job title!

You must watch the Dalek story for one reason, and that is to keep a running tally of all the sexual kinks presented. There's over half a dozen. Helen Raynor was only getting warmed up with the gun!porn scene she wrote for Torchwood. Then she wrote Daleks in Manhatten. I wonder how kinky her next Torchwood episode is gong to be?

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

IMHO, The Lazarus Effect was possibly the tightest script of series 3 so far. It wasn't particularly innovative, but it was a solid mad-scientist-turns-into-monster yarn. I also liked how Martha's family seems to be splitting, and I wonder how Tish will fare with no Lazarus at the head of Lazarus labs, but with funding from Saxon likely to continue...

The remainder-of-series trailer blew me away - they really know how to cut those together for edge-of-the-seat effect. Saxon in an oxygen mask rapping on the table at Number 10 at the end stole the trailer, IMHO, with no dialog.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I like your idea that the theme of this series is "faith".

I liked the episode more than you did, but we focussed on pretty much the same things in the same ways. Yes, the goofy monsters are just part of the package.

[iko.livejournal.com]

Master/Jack/Doctor/Martha FTW!

They'd have angsty, kinky, hot-n-heavy sex. You know it.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

I've described this monster design as "that second Mummy movie, but good."