Doctor, Doctor…
Ever since becoming aware of the beauty of CTRL+I in Windows Media Player to cap images, instead of having to use a different piece of software, I have slowly begun my cap-fest of things I love that I have the recordings of. I started it with the MagiRanger episodes and some key points to music videos (which I’m not using because of inconvenient placing of station logos), now I am moving on to the recent Doctor Who series.
Every Saturday I have sat down to watch the episodes (and the Confidential behind-the-scenes series that follows each episode), I’ve taped the episodes for catching up before the next episode and I’ve got .avi copies so I can do things like capping and checking scenes for references (like the ‘Bad Wolf’ hints which should be answered next week). Yes, it is geeky, but not as uber-geeky as some I’ve seen. The problem I have is limiting myself in the number of caps I do, I don’t want to go whole hog on it.
There are only two episodes left this series and then a wait until the Christmas special.
The series has had it’s high points and it’s levels of mediocrity, my only real issue is that it seems everything has been cramped into the series that could have been stretched further into a second series or possibly just placed elsewhere in this series.
The whole Dalek episode was a constant disappointment, they had the elements of a multi-billionaire, a museum of alien artefacts, capturing the Doctor, underground labyrinth with laboratories and cells, a stranded Dalek, and they chose to merge them all together in a story of developing emotion in a single killing machine that would have no effect on it’s race.
Adam joining the crew in Dalek and being struck off almost immediately in The Long Game was far too quick, where they could have had him developing his character and motivations towards stealing from the future, before his most audacious and noticeable act.
The use in Fathers’ Day of creatures that appear in dimension after a paradox or disruption in time and proceed to feed off the time particles of elements in the universe until it folds in upon itself was great, as well as looking a very freakish creature. There was slight reminiscence of the idea in The Time Monster, with Kronos and his race that would devour time if freed. An added bonus was that the creatures would eat the ‘youngest’ things first and older elements would be safer from them, this gave an interesting bit to the story with survivors sealed inside a church.
The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances gave perhaps the scariest moments of the series, mainly for the passive nature of the chill, the atmosphere was what was mostly disturbing and the corruption of innocence.
The reappearance of the Slitheen in Boom Town was an interesting choice for repeat villain and with a unique plan for a return, trying to get away from Earth and the destruction of humanity being just a side effect, but could have been stretched into another series (if they could have kept Eccleston and Piper for recognition).
The constant Bad Wolf references that are scattered throughout the series are a good means of eeping interest, reminding me of all the people who looked for hidden meaning in peacocks when The Murder Game was shown a few years back. This time though, the intention is there for people to make guesses and there are numerous BBC owned websites to support this.One of the high points is the consequences of actions are shown a bit more than any other series. Rose going along with the Doctor has a knock-on effect that is seen with her family and boyfriend, giving an emotional depth to other characters that can be sympathised with and at the same time give a slight feeling of resentment to Rose and the Doctors decisions – however, this constant return to Earth is also a problem, as the TARDIS can travel through time and space it seems they only seem to do it in unscreened episodes, where even futuristic space stations are in orbit around Earth.
Why, yes, I do have my eye on the DVD box set due out on 21 November 2005.