First Reactions: Waters of Mars
Nov. 16th, 2009 12:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charameiGREAT BIG SPOILER WARNING!
This isn't intended so much as a review as a brain-dump. I'd like to watch the entire ending trilogy before writing a proper review.
THIS POST ALSO CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TRIAL OF A TIME LORD. Since that sentence could itself be a spoiler for Waters of Mars for anyone with reasonable deductive capabilities, I felt the need to separate the two warnings. Consider yourselves warned.
The episode seems to fall loosely into two sections: Waters of Mars and Birth of the Valeyard.
I felt the first half was, ironically, rather dry. Although it's better-written than Planet of the Dead and has infinitely more happening in it, it falls into the same traps of too many characters, inadequately fleshed out.
Both PotD and WoM operate on the Midnight principle: seven or eight previously-unmet people trapped in an inescapable area with the Doctor. The difference is that in Midnight that's all that's going on - because it's entirely psychological, and because nobody enters and nobody leaves, there is nothing to be done but talk. The lack of action sequences frees up ample time to flesh out the characters. By comparison, in PotD the Doctor and Christina run off to talk to tritovores and we keep cutting back to U.N.I.T. to see how they're getting on, and Waters of Mars is a fully-fledged episode with an absolute load of characters. It didn't help that characters have a tendency to get their character moment right before dying, when it's already obvious they're going to cop it.
The hyperbole didn't help much, either. The 'scariest episode ever' wasn't, for me, even as scary as SJA's The Eternity Trap, which pulled out every trope in the wiki and made them work; and it didn't hold a candle to Midnight, Empty Child (*shudders*), Survival or Chimes of Midnight.
The first half was good, but not spectacular. The prosthetics were flippin' amazing, some good jokes and even a little character development that didn't suck, but I get the feeling that mostly, the writers were interested in the last ten minutes of their script.
Which brings me to section two.
This is presumably the bit that's meant to be scary, and it works. Michael Jayston made a great Valeyard: Tennant makes a terrifying one.
I love the way that everything was set up leading to this moment - the red planet, the dome-shaped colony, and of course the inevitable explosion. The voice-over went on a bit too long, but that too did more or less work, and once that was over, holy fuck, you can see why the Master wanted that kept down. One almost expects Six to turn up with a net and start shouting at his future self about responsibility and committing suicide-by-console to keep this from happening, and now look what he's gone and done...!
It's a wonderful and powerful ending: the use of the cloister bell is particularly clever, since in these circumstances it could so easily be the TARDIS saying, 'You're a SPACKING IDIOT who just FRIED THE UNIVERSE, get out of me and DON'T COME BACK, I am taking you to the Brigadier/Barbara/Tegan/Donna to be yelled at and then going to find some other Time Lord because mine is clearly DEFECTIVE, SWEET RASSILON ON A POGO STICK.'
All the same, I'm not sure the last ten minutes of pure terrifying brilliance quite make up for the rest. In re-watching it may gain things, and of course there are two more episodes to go (with a cast list as long as my arm - eep!), but my overall reaction is very mixed. I can't help feeling that the end would have been even more powerful had the beginning been as scary as originally claimed.
And now... now we just have to hope that RTD's insanely long cast list and tendency to indulge in deus ex machinae and fanboy wankery don't ruin the last two hours of David Tennant's tenure. As much as I'm looking forward to it after tonight's performance, I'm also going to have to start preparing myself for a terrific let-down on New Year's.
On the other hand... the Doctor actually has to die this time. Maybe the hideous deus ex won't be necessary?
/\/\/\
I think I've worked out why we keep getting untranslated alien languages in these specials.
Usually, a Doctor Who episode takes as its 'point of view' character the companion, but without one of those hanging around we're actually following the Doctor's POV for once - and since he speaks these languages, the TARDIS probably wouldn't bother translating.
Of course, the question then becomes 'Why isn't the Doctor talking to himself/the TARDIS rendered in Gallifreyan?', but... eh. Maybe he is actually speaking English - it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the Ninth and especially Tenth Doctors had gone completely native.
(This also puzzles me frequently during the Great Punning Session at the beginning of Destiny of the Daleks. Why are the Doctor and Romana, currently inside the TARDIS with no non-Gallifreyan companions, apparently speaking English to one another?).
This isn't intended so much as a review as a brain-dump. I'd like to watch the entire ending trilogy before writing a proper review.
THIS POST ALSO CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR TRIAL OF A TIME LORD. Since that sentence could itself be a spoiler for Waters of Mars for anyone with reasonable deductive capabilities, I felt the need to separate the two warnings. Consider yourselves warned.
The episode seems to fall loosely into two sections: Waters of Mars and Birth of the Valeyard.
I felt the first half was, ironically, rather dry. Although it's better-written than Planet of the Dead and has infinitely more happening in it, it falls into the same traps of too many characters, inadequately fleshed out.
Both PotD and WoM operate on the Midnight principle: seven or eight previously-unmet people trapped in an inescapable area with the Doctor. The difference is that in Midnight that's all that's going on - because it's entirely psychological, and because nobody enters and nobody leaves, there is nothing to be done but talk. The lack of action sequences frees up ample time to flesh out the characters. By comparison, in PotD the Doctor and Christina run off to talk to tritovores and we keep cutting back to U.N.I.T. to see how they're getting on, and Waters of Mars is a fully-fledged episode with an absolute load of characters. It didn't help that characters have a tendency to get their character moment right before dying, when it's already obvious they're going to cop it.
The hyperbole didn't help much, either. The 'scariest episode ever' wasn't, for me, even as scary as SJA's The Eternity Trap, which pulled out every trope in the wiki and made them work; and it didn't hold a candle to Midnight, Empty Child (*shudders*), Survival or Chimes of Midnight.
The first half was good, but not spectacular. The prosthetics were flippin' amazing, some good jokes and even a little character development that didn't suck, but I get the feeling that mostly, the writers were interested in the last ten minutes of their script.
Which brings me to section two.
This is presumably the bit that's meant to be scary, and it works. Michael Jayston made a great Valeyard: Tennant makes a terrifying one.
I love the way that everything was set up leading to this moment - the red planet, the dome-shaped colony, and of course the inevitable explosion. The voice-over went on a bit too long, but that too did more or less work, and once that was over, holy fuck, you can see why the Master wanted that kept down. One almost expects Six to turn up with a net and start shouting at his future self about responsibility and committing suicide-by-console to keep this from happening, and now look what he's gone and done...!
It's a wonderful and powerful ending: the use of the cloister bell is particularly clever, since in these circumstances it could so easily be the TARDIS saying, 'You're a SPACKING IDIOT who just FRIED THE UNIVERSE, get out of me and DON'T COME BACK, I am taking you to the Brigadier/Barbara/Tegan/Donna to be yelled at and then going to find some other Time Lord because mine is clearly DEFECTIVE, SWEET RASSILON ON A POGO STICK.'
All the same, I'm not sure the last ten minutes of pure terrifying brilliance quite make up for the rest. In re-watching it may gain things, and of course there are two more episodes to go (with a cast list as long as my arm - eep!), but my overall reaction is very mixed. I can't help feeling that the end would have been even more powerful had the beginning been as scary as originally claimed.
And now... now we just have to hope that RTD's insanely long cast list and tendency to indulge in deus ex machinae and fanboy wankery don't ruin the last two hours of David Tennant's tenure. As much as I'm looking forward to it after tonight's performance, I'm also going to have to start preparing myself for a terrific let-down on New Year's.
On the other hand... the Doctor actually has to die this time. Maybe the hideous deus ex won't be necessary?
I think I've worked out why we keep getting untranslated alien languages in these specials.
Usually, a Doctor Who episode takes as its 'point of view' character the companion, but without one of those hanging around we're actually following the Doctor's POV for once - and since he speaks these languages, the TARDIS probably wouldn't bother translating.
Of course, the question then becomes 'Why isn't the Doctor talking to himself/the TARDIS rendered in Gallifreyan?', but... eh. Maybe he is actually speaking English - it wouldn't surprise me to learn that the Ninth and especially Tenth Doctors had gone completely native.
(This also puzzles me frequently during the Great Punning Session at the beginning of Destiny of the Daleks. Why are the Doctor and Romana, currently inside the TARDIS with no non-Gallifreyan companions, apparently speaking English to one another?).