Originally Posted by DryHumper:
“I gave it "good", I think it's probably about the fourth best, probably equal with "Rose", but behind "Dalek" the 3rd one and the 2nd one. I notice people seem to be getting alot more critical than they were with "Rose", even though I don't think it was much different, quality wise, as I've mentioned before, I think that's because the "honeymoon period" is wearing off.
Sure there was a bit of sillyness, but I'm starting to accept there's always going to be a bit in every Dr W episode (even "Dalek" had some, with the Dalek trying the keypad for millions of combinations without the keypad wearing out or burning out (and hows that make it a genius?) and the "downloading of the internet"). I thought the doctor wandering up to level 500 without much caution was a bit daft, plus noone immediately to meet them, same with the girl, the way she just wandered around level 500. The answerphone bit was also daft, as well as the mobile phone calls back to present day - that was ok for a bit of a joke, but it's wore thin. The "key to the tardis" as well, surely he isn't going to protect the Tardis with a key anyone can use? The ending was a bit unsatisfying, "give me full access" or whatever, then she can totally takeover. Errrr, ok. Perhaps it could have been better fleshed out if the level 500 access point had been described as a special access point that gave full control. Ok, perhaps she could do that because of what the doctor did in that cupboard, but it was a bit unsatisfying
Plus sides I thought were Simon Pegg, who was great. I'm surprised that the corrie guy has been slagged so much, I think he's a pretty good actor and gave a good performance. I liked the social commentary, that the human race is quite often sheep who only think what the media tells them to think. I thought the alien was ok, but might have been better if it had been some huge alien brain in a huge tank, instead, being fed all the information. Did it need to have teeth? Did it need to snarl alot? That didn't seem to match up with it's supposed intelligence.
Like most people are saying, some good ideas, that could have been better thought out. But not all bad either.”
I agree with you.
Dalek and The Unquiet Dead are the only episodes that I think are pretty good all round, and I found to be the most rewarding of the series.
1) Dalek - Excellent
2) The Unquiet Dead - Very good
3)The End of the World - Quite Good
4) Rose - Average to Good
5) The Long Game - Dull to Average
6) Aliens of London - Poor (Farcical Embarrassment)
7) World War 111 - Poor (Farcical Embarrassment)
There's bits in all episodes that are good though, but some of them as complete episodes or stories are just not that good.
I don't agree that the series is going from strength to strength. For me it's patchy at best. Although there's something to take from all episodes for most people, and it's doing well in the ratings, I don't think it's going from strength to strength as far as quality goes. Popularity yes possibly, but not quality.
Dalek, The Unquiet Dead, and maybe also The End of the World, are good enough to keep me watching, and are inspiring enough for me to be optimistic about the future of the show. These 3 shows tell me that this show is capable of a lot more, and that they really do have some talent on board there.
But 2 or 3 good shows out of 7 looks quite bad on paper. But the show does enough to keep people watching, and I'm sure that the remainder of the series is going to improve.
I am very optimistic about series 2, and I think there will be more hits than misses there for me.
As mentioned by another poster, ironically it's the stories penned by Russell T Davies that are the ones that seem to be the weakest.
There seems to be a lot of worship of Russell T Davies as a writer, but I try to keep my feet on the ground.
Yes, he's the guy who was responsible for pulling all this together and making it all happen, but his actual writing in individual episodes makes me think that they aren't his best work.
Maybe it's the hype around him that makes people assume that he's the best writer ever, but I think Mark Gatiss and Rob Shearman have outclassed him with their two episodes. I think they have possibly been generally ignored for how much better they were, while RTD is the recipient of all the praise.
The story arc is good, but some of the writing from RTD has been very disappointing for me. It's like he's writing episodes of a second rate children's soap at times.
And I'm not too sure about RTD's talent at actuallly writing science fiction. Most, if not all, of his ideas are derived from other sci-fi, or ideas ripped from other sci-fi movies.
There are disappointments for me, but also positives that outweigh the negatives.
There is a lot I can credit RTD for, but it wouldn't be for his actual writing of individual stories, it would be more about his vision, how he wants it to look visually, and work into some of the characterisations.
Sometimes this series works for me, and at other times it doesn't work at all. Very patchy, but when it's good it's excellent, and shows a lot of optimism and promise for the future.
Better stories would make things a lot better I think. And for some reason 45 minute stories aren't working too well, I don't know why, but for some reason they aren't in general.
but did anyone else notice how Adam never gave Rose her souped up mobile back??
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