Last of the Time Lords

[taleya]

Well.

What can I say.,

It's RTD all right, all in his rather dubious giggling fanboy glory. RTD through and through. It had the elements of something that could have been really, really great, but he went over the top and buried it under a pile of WTF.

Where to start:

ok. Simm - Legendary as per usual. His Master is delightfully batshit. I have never loved a villain more than this man's portrayal of an insane Time Lord :D :D :D

Jack, learning to take his enternal recycling in stride, and going more than a tad over the top with it - it's going to be interesting in Torchwood S2, now he's no longer...'hoarding' his resurrections, as it were. And as much as I love JB, he was terribly underused in the ep. Why was he in the three parter? To explain his destiny as RTD sees it (Dude, if you're going for a Cartmel Masterplan, you FAIL), provide the mechanism for a few quick & dirty escape sequences and I really can't think of a third one. Raising awareness for Torchwood S2?


Plot....ahhh.. Well, you see, it would have been more than good. It would have been great. But instead...

Ok, the Doctor being aged? You may remember last week I said there had better be a good reason, other than RTD needing to have a fanboy orgasm. Well there wasn't. The entire pupose - especially fucking Dobby was to make us believe that yes, when you get old enough, a 51st century human can eventually mutate into a giant head in a jar with a pair of testicles perched on his chin.

Not buying it. (And torasin has said he's taking the road of "Jack is fucking with them", which I much prefer)

The rest of it wasn't bad - but...

The Jedi Mind Powers Scene.

You know, that RIGHT THERE is just a massive showcase of how RTD likes to use shock and awe to try and cover up fucking shocking science and plot. I won't go into how torasin had a good splutter and mini-rant at the incorrect useage of matrices, but hell, you know what would have saved that scene?

Get rid of the glowy lights
Get rid of the Doctor magically becoming young. Hell, get rid of the dobby doc entirely.
Have him stand up, and change the speech.

"I've had a whole year to tune myself into the psychic network. Do you know what I can do with the power of six billion minds?"

And suddenly it changes from Peter Pan on crack to actual sci fi.

(There ya go RTD. Your mastery and lordship of all things television and who just got fucking pwned by a bored and slightly shat off amateur fanfic-writing blogger.)

It's not as impressive, but jesus christ, it would shit off a lot less people. And from there, you have the Doctor becoming younger as the paradox is reversed.

Actually, I should give RTD props. The useage of the TARDIS to stabilise the paradox? Brilliant. See, you can actually write real who if you try! And Martha actually having a chance to grow up and hopefully let the writers get over their sick obsession with companions falling maaaaaaadly in love with the Doctor and going a bit bunny-boiler over it.

And that Master death scene? *wibble* (Even with torasin next to me laughing his arse off and saying "I'm half-expecting him to start pistol-whipping him and scream "Regenerate! Regenerate, mothafucka!!") Although I am shat off at the regenerate refusal. If, at the instant of regeneration, they want to die, they can. That's book canon. But saying they have to will the process? Wrong. wrong wrong wrong. Just have him saying "What are you doing? Stop fighting it!" FFS

Anyway, I refuse to believe he's dead. It's a clone, Lucy was acting under orders, and he'd damned well better be back. So there. Because he's too fucking beautifully batshit to lose after three eps.



Overall? Mehh, I'm feeling generous. And Simm rocks.

7/10