all aboard the mighty 200

Planet of the dead started like a cross between Tomb Raider and a James Bond film.  All the while I was thinking OMG it’s Zoe Slater.  She was annoying on Eastenders so I wasn’t holding much hope.  Michelle Ryan’s character Christina had an air of smugness and superiority about her right from the start as she robs a gallery of a golden goblet.  She of course in her get-away ended up on the same London route 200 bus as the Doctor.  Did he really need to be eating an Easter egg as he got on the bus?  I know it is the Easter special but it was all a bit naff.

As one would expect the bus enters a tunnel, drives through a hole in the fabric of reality and ends up on another world with 3 suns.  The bossy boots/little rich girl/dominatrix Lady Christine da Souza proclaims herself leader. The bus driver attempts walking back through the hole and is fried, they realise the bus has protected them like a Faraday cage but of course it is now stuck in the sand and then runs out of petrol.

Back on earth UNIT is called in and mad professor/welsh nutter character Malcolm begins his work.  Of course cell phone coverage between earth and the planet is no problem.  Another bus passenger, Carmen (Ellen Thomas who played the acerbic Liz in Teachers), can hear voices, lots of voices of the dead. Christina and the Doctor head off to investigate and run into a couple of human size fly creatures – Tritovore – turns out they crashed on the planet too. The Doctor and Christina soon learn the sand storm heading towards them is actually a swarm of metal sting-ray type creatures which have devoured everything on the planet.

The Doctor explains his pseudo science to Christina with my fave line of the episode when he describes something as a “super clever out of spacey way”.  Anyway, alien tech scavenged from the fly ship, fly-people devoured by the sting-ray creatures the Doctor and Christina race back to the bus.  With the final element – the golden goblet- the bus powers up and levitates back through the wormhole and over London in a very Harry Potter-esque moment.

Gratitude all round – nutty Malcom hugs the Doctor and can’t stop saying I love you, the Doctor seems fine with that but is disgusted when saluted by the UNIT boss.  Predictably at the end Christina wants to join the Doctor, he says no, she is handcuffed for the theft and led away, he relents and pops her handcuffs, she escapes and flies off in the bus.  Meanwhile Carmen tells the Doctors “your song is ending sir”, that it is “returning through the dark” and “he will knock 4 times”.

 I’m just pleased Christina didn’t leave with the Doctor.

Of curious interest is the title of the next episode – The waters of Mars. It is an anagram of both “The masters of war” or “The war of masters”. Coincidence?

gordon is human too

After World War II, New Zealand donated two wooden dispatch boxes to the UK Parliament.  One of these boxes is used by Gordon Brown as a lectern. Black ink marks have been appearing on the box and the article on Stuff and elsewhere suggests it was a surprise that it turned out to be the pen of the PM causing the damage. They even managed to report a quote from some official announcing “Of course, we can’t say anything.” Really? Why not? He may not even know he’s doing it. Is it really better to have this reported in the media instead? For goodness sake, he’s human, try talking to him.

journey’s end

**Doctor Who spoiler alert**

I’m still so excited I’m not sure I can put these thoughts in any coherent order just yet so this may jump around a bit.

Firstly thank goodness all those James Nesbitt rumours were WRONG. It would have ruined it for me, so yay for wild speculation which turned out to not be true.

Alas poor Donna, not dead, but dead to the world of the Doctor. So sad for him and sad for Donna too but she won’t know what she’s missing. I think it will be hard on Wilf knowing and not being able to say anything. Good on the Doc telling her stupid mother what’s what.  Maybe she’ll ease up on Donna now.

Doctor Donna – delightfully nutty the Doctor and Donna sort of mashed up and reconstituted as two timelord/human hybrids. the constant babbling and gobbiness of Donna combined with the hyperactive gibberish of the Doctor was amusing though I have to say more than a few minutes might just get annoying.  Oooh, two Doctors, now there’s a twist.  How soppily romantic leaving the human version with Rose in her alternate world. Aww they can grow old and grey together. Once she’s made him a more compassionate less genocidal version of himself that is.  She got herself a bit of a bad boy Doctor to deal with and you just know she’d rather have had the one who’s had his edges softened a little.

I’m so pleased someone finally said it.  The Doctor just isn’t as all peace loving as he’d have you believe. Count the corpses in each episode folks.  He might not have putlled the trigger or detonated the bombs but he has an army of dedicated followers who do the deadly work for him.  How many have the time children killed?

OMG, who knew the tardis was designed for 6 pilots?  Insane! How fab to see it full of all his friends.  The minute they came together you just knew it couldn’t last.  The programme’s not big enough for all those egos in the same show fulltime. It was sad to see the Doc end up alone again but the extras had to be dispatched.  Oh how convenient sending Mickey and Martha off with Jack. Well he was needing extra help after the demise of Owen and Toshiko. I did think it was mean though, not letting Donna’s mother help – honestly – she’s not thst bad is she. Loved the hugs goodbye and particular Donna taking her opportuity for a grope of Jack, positively shoving Sarah Jane out of the way to move in on him. Have to feel sorry for her, she was the only person he didn’t flirt with all episode.

Exterminieren – German speaking Daleks – what a blast.  I love these little details.  Of course the Daleks speak many languages – why wouldn’t they.

So Davros appears to live on, no one wants to be responsible for killing him off. You just know that somehow a Dalek will return eventually and appart from the mind-wiped Donna no one of consequence is killed. A brilliant episode and fine final story from RTD.  The cast is intact and David’s hair will bounce back to entertain us again. Now the speculation over the the next companion can begin.

the girls are back

**Doctor Who spoiler alert**

If you’d told me that I’d enjoy a DW episode with barely any scenes with the Doctor I wouldn’t have believed you.

Last week’s single set episode had an air of money saving about it and this week’s “flashback fiesta” was a bit the same.  Money is being stashed away for the finale and it had better be good is all I can say.

I’d also been thinking that by the time Rose finally returned I’d have got fed up waiting but I hadn’t.  She was like a mini Doctor, adopting his habits and behaviours.

The fortune teller was seriously creepy, more than the bug on Donna’s back. That time beetle – looked like something out of a toy shop. I regretted that they showed us the whole thing to clearly in the end as it was just creepier and more suspenseful seeing only small snippets of it.

Another market scene – did that remind anyone of pompeii? It felt a bit samey. And I kept thinking it was earth.  The opening scene just didn’t register and it wasn’t till Donna was talking about time machines and aliens so freely – I kept thinking why is she saying that to someone on earth – but of course she wasn’t.

Flashback annoyance aside I did like the tie-ins with the spin-off series – the Torchwood reference and the Sarah Jane link. A mention of Ianto and Gwen – so much <3 so much sadness.  And then my mind wanders to Captain Jack…

At the end, Donna’s whole realisation that her life was insignificant compared to the survival of the world – I’m still struggling with that. It just arrived too quickly. It felt like the end of the episode was rushed. Even at the moment she realised she needed to jump felt too rushed. The interval between the realisation and the action was so brief and it is in a parallel world so she won’t take that with her. In her “Rose” world she’s gone from ignorance to mind blowing awareness and self-sacrifice but in the “Doctor” world she’s been on the journey of discovery and ading real world emotion and reality to the Doctor’s world. In my head I can’t reconcile the two Donnas.

So overall I really liked this episode despite the flashbacks and woefully too few shots of that fabulous hair.  This “Turn Left” episode is still messing with my mind. I can’t wait for the finale.

midnight mayhem

**Doctor Who spoiler alert**

For the first time ever I’ve just seen an episode of Doctor Who I really didn’t enjoy. It was okay, it just wasn’t spectacular. Midnight saw the Doctor off on a solo adventure, stuck in a transporter with 7 others doing a spot of sightseeing. It was just all a bit naff.  I understand all the subtleties and depths within, the Doctor failing to win over humanity, the fact he came so close to being abandoned by his fellow travellers, how different it is for him to travel without a companion.  I watched Doctor Who confidential as well and I appreciate the difficulties faced by the sound folk in this episode.  I don’t need a big explosion or scary monsters to enjoy an episode. I think after the last two episodes I was just expecting something more.

And as for Rose, we know she’s coming back, all the little entrances which the Doctor doesn’t see are becoming as annoying as Donna’s return was.

doctor donna martha

If you haven’t watched series 4, episode 4 of Doctor Who and don’t like having the story spoilt then read no further. OMG it was fabulous. After the ridiculously long reunion scene when the Doctor and Donna were reunited I was worried this would be more of the same. I didn’t think I could take 20 minutes of annoying slapstick humour again. My other fear was that it would be stupidly soppy.  I’m very please it was short at sweet and put the power in the hands of the girls.

I like the way the Doctor was all “don’t fight over me ladies” as though he was some irresistable chick magnet and instead they turn the tables on him. Martha is engaged and Donna could care less, the ganged up on him!  As charming as the doctor is, he is just so full of himself. I mean, I know it was deliberately written that way but I loved the way he was portrayed as such a dufus when Donna announced she had to go.  He did a brilliant job of the slightly socially inept man jumping to all the wrong conclusions.

Only downside is that it is a two-parter and I have to wait a whole week, dammit.

was it really love?

I’ve just seen episode 8 of series 5 of Shameless.  It screened on 12 February 2008 on First Look in the UK but its official screening date will be 19 February 2008.  If you haven’t seen it yet and don’t want the surprise ruined read no further. I’m a huge fan of Shamelss but I’m a little bit traumatised by this episode. Frank Gallagher falling in love and actually considering his appearance – how can this be? Of course the object of his love is not his heavily pregnant wife but a random antique dealer he meets on the bus. What does she see in him and how can she get past the smell which I imagine flows from his every pore?  I’m guessing she had an itch to scratch as we eventually learn her husband has senile dementia and is in a home.

Two other story lines continued alongside. Debbie tries to earn money for a family holiday by taking in religious students from the USA. Of course they turn out to be miscreants about as religious and well-behaved as the Gallagher brood.

The third storyline has PC Carrie Rogers deliberately flunking her seargeant’s exam. She has a debt which Paddy Maguire has acquired. She has no cash so he wants it paid in information. The three storyliunes weren’t as well knitted together as they usually are and I found myself watching and thinking, this can’t be Frank, he doesn’t have a caring side.  Some of the previous episodes have been extremely violent and black so maybe it is the contrast which bothers me.  Not my favourite ep but I’ll still be back next week.