Yay! Not Adam!

Jun 18, 2005 · 2 minute read

But…I think we should start a campaign here and now to prevent RTD from writing the second parts of any more episodes.

Okay, first ten minutes: AWESOME. The Emperor Dalek (thus dredging up old continuity but yet avoiding fun Davros scenes), "DO-NOT-BLAS-PHEME!", and so on. But as soon as the Doctor sent Rose back through time, the episode fell apart, flicking between present-day Earth and Captain Jack's team in the future, while the Doctor…fiddles with some wires for half-an-hour.

(anybody else think it amusing that the best special effect this series has had was a small child with a gas mask?)

Then there was the resolution, which, if you're kind, stole considerably from The Phoenix Saga, and if you're being cruelly honest, rewrote some portions of Buffy's dialogue in Season 4's Primeval episode and stuck it on-screen. And yes, completely wrong about Bad Wolf, although as soon as the Emperor said it wasn't him, I knew it was Rose. Perhaps next time, she could send herself something less oblique, like "Stick a recovery lorry on the TARDIS! And get some jellybabies!" Plus, given the choice between killing everybody left on Earth and destroying the Dalek fleet, or dying and letting the Daleks harvest Earth for a new army to conquer the universe, I would hope that he would have set the Delta-wave in motion (as Bonnie and I are at pains to point out - the Seventh Doctor would have done it in a heartbeat; or more accurately, make the Daleks think that it would be a great weapon for themselves to set off). I guess that we're supposed to think that he's already killed his own race to stop them once before, and that didn't work.

Okay, I think all my problems with the episode can be summed up in one sentence: The Doctor did not save the day.

Also, hopefully, with the amount of technobabble in tonight's episode, the writers/producers will stop being all superior towards the previous incarnations next year as well.

Ehh. After spending the week looking forward to it, the episode was something of a let down. But I did like the Ninth Doctor's final words:

Rose, before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And do you know what? So was I.

The Christmas Invasion! Any bets on seeing the Paul McGann-Eccleston regeneration?