Review - World War Three

Following on from Aliens of London is the second installment of the Slitheen saga, World War Three.

Season 1, Episode 5 - World War Three

Being part two of a story, this episode launches into things quickly. In classic Doctor Who fashion, we were left with the ominously menacing aliens fresh from the full reveal bearing down on The Doctor and friends. Of course The Doctor manages to do something not fully explained to subdue them all and allow everyone to get away.

There was a good attempt at drawing out plot exposition, delivering new information in dribs and drabs, but it does drag a bit in places. Where the first part of this story chugged along reasonably well, this one feels a little padded out. A prime example was the initial chase scene in Number 10. It just seemed to go on a little long.

<Insert Benny Hill Theme here>

On that note the juxtaposition of the Slitheen suit and the computer generated version was quite jarring. Where the CG looked like the agile, swift hunters they are clearly supposed to be, the suit continued to look like Barney the Dinosaur.

Killer huntress from beyond the stars.

Fast food mascot.

The Slitheen's motivation was well rounded and their scheme was exposed nicely, but I'm unsure on the science of irradiating the earth and then using it as fuel. That said, I'm happy to suspend disbelief on that front.

The Doctor's threat to triplicate the flammability of the alcohol was a good use of the Sonic Screwdriver as a bluff. Strangely enough, something tells me that wouldn't have been a bluff with the Eleventh Doctor's Sonic. The eventual solution itself was well executed, with the Doctor requiring outside help to get things done, but that makes four out of four enemies defeated by killing them or at least allowing them to die. The Doctor's racking up a fair body count already.

I think Aliens of London kept things moving with the character development. Sadly that was a little light on in this installment. What we did see between The Doctor and Rose felt almost like an abusive relationship. He pigheadedly refused to do what Rose wanted and have dinner with Jackie, and then essentially laid down an ultimatum. Come with me now, or I'm gone.

And of course she drops everything and runs to heed his call despite the protestations of her loved ones. Jackie pretty much begs Rose not to go, saying she'll change all sorts of things about herself if it will mean she'll stay. Rose doesn't care. It's really quite harsh.

Now get back here and make me a sandwich!

Finally we get an invite for Mickey to come along, but why does The Doctor hate him so much? There's no reason for it except for jealousy. Of course The Doctor has softened towards him by the end of this episode, and is actually quite nice when he protects Mickey's honour.

All up, slightly disappointing after the stronger start of Aliens of London, particularly on the character development front, but still a solid episode.

7/10

Can we fix it?

Most of the issues here are the same as with Aliens of London, chiefly the design of the Slitheen. As we get more of a feel for them being hunters, their weird baby faces are particularly odd. Yes, the huge claws indicate predator, but they have tiny mouths with no visible teeth. The overall body shape could work as a speedy predator despite the belly, but the head seems out of place.

I'd have liked for The Doctor to explain why electrocuting one Slitheen's compression device shorted all of them, but I can live without that. Mostly I'd have liked for Rose to put more of a fight up with The Doctor about him not coming to dinner. Even if he didn't end up going, some more explanation as to why he didn't want to would have been good. Anything to make him seem less of a jerk at that point.

Review - The End of the World

Continuing on with the retro reviews, we move on to The End of the World, or as I like to think of it, Let's See How Far This BBC Budget Will Stretch.

Season 1, Episode 2 - The End of the World

After the solid, if Companion-heavy relaunch episode Rose, we see the sow start to find it's feet in more ways than one. There is clearly more money invested here, with lots of costumes and better CG effects. The aliens in this episode seemed reasonably well thought out; a definite step up from some of the ones seen later in The Rings of Akhaten. The effects on both the Spiders and Cassandra were certainly much better than the old Wheelie Bin of Death from Rose.

We saw a bit of Hunka hunka burning Doc with Jabe, but it was expressed that he had been "intimate" by giving her air from his lungs, so maybe we can let that slide. Rose didn't seem to know whether to treat The Doctor as a boyfriend or a boy friend. At one point she's ribbing him over his kind-of-sort-of-flirting with Jabe, the next she's referring to him as a bad date. I think I'll put the latter down to just playful joking.

The scene where Rose essentially takes a step back and realises she's run off with a stranger was good, and set up the later argument and The Doctor's eventual sharing of his past. Whilst a good development of their relationship, I still feel this was a bit glossed over or rushed though. Sure, The Doctor shared some hints at his past, but he's still a virtual stranger to Rose.

There was a nice "Red-shirt" moment with Raffalo the plumber. The only way it could have been better was if she mentioned being two weeks from retirement. Still, you need someone to die to show things have just gotten serious, and it's better if they are a bit more of a fully fledged character.

When things did get serious though, we hit one of my pet hates. Why does the computer have to repeat everything multiple times? We don't need an audio cue that the sun filter is descending every five seconds. The burning line of sunlight moving down from the top of the screen does well enough. It would have been better said once each time something changed. If it had to be repeated a warning to exit the room would have made more sense. A tad picky, yes, but it's one of those things that annoys me.

The Sonic Screwdriver was again mostly only used to open doors or panels. The Doctor actually shoved it into the guts of the machinery at one point, which I liked. It makes it feel much more like a tool than just randomly waving it over the panel, which makes it feel like a magic wand. Even when he upgraded Rose's phone he actually put something into it, rather than just wave the Screwdriver at it.

The spiders had a great design. They had a real Golden Age Sci-Fi look to them. You'll note The Doctor didn't use the Sonic Screwdriver to disable or reprogram them, which I suspect he would have done had this episode been made in recent years. The spiders were a solid Monster Goon; numerous, clearly threatening, but easily dealt with in themselves.

That awesome retro-futuristic look

The Adherents of the Repeated Meme were a good red-herring villain and the reveal of Cassandra as the big bad was reasonably well executed. Having seen this episode before, it's hard to judge objectively though, as of course I already knew the twist, but I don't think it was telegraphed too badly.

The Doctor's callousness in letting Cassandra dry out and explode (why explode?) was out of place. At the very least I could see him preferring to have Cassandra tied up in court and disgraced (if possible) than let her die quite horribly, no matter how many trees she inadvertently caused to catch fire.

Rose's emotional turmoil when essentially faced with her own mortality was well played. The ending was sweet, even if there was maybe a bit too much intimacy between The Doctor and Rose for people who had effectively known each other a few hours. There had been a lot of sharing, so I suppose some closeness is to be expected, but in the end I was left feeling sorry for poor Mickey again.

Overall, a better balance between Doctor and Companion than the previous outing, but in the end felt a bit boring. Perhaps there was too much focus on developing that relationship between The Doctor and Rose than telling the story at hand.

7/10

Can we fix it?

Again, not a lot to fix here, and what I'm about to say will just be slight niggles. First and foremost, The Doctor should have listened to Rose when she asked him to help Cassandra. Having him come to his senses and save her would be much more Doctor-like that essentially torturing her to death with the throwaway line, "Everything has to end". It also would have made her return in New Earth easier.

This would also mean that Cassandra wouldn't explode. I mean, why? Why does drying out cause her to explode? And it was a sloppy explosion too. When she was drying out. How does that even work?

Why?

I'd have liked to have seen Rose still be a little wary of The Doctor at the end. She'd heard about his past, and seen his ability to do good, but she'd also glimpsed his darker side when he was prepared to let Cassandra dry out, and was frankly a bit of a jerk about it. After he revealed his past, Rose should be feeling more open to him, but not to the point of walking off arm-in-arm to get chips.

Other than that, yeah, it's a weaker story, but still entertaining.

Deus Ex Screwdriver

I once laughed and rolled my eyes theatrically as I read someone on the Internet ranting about how Harry Potter was stupid because there was no rules to the magic. "All magic systems need to have rules or they can just do anything," they said. I'm going to try as hard as I can to not make this that kind of rant.

The Sonic Screwdriver is The Doctor's magic wand. When he needs to do some technical jiggery-pokery, out it comes, and with a flick and swish he's opened a door, scanned a computer or somehow de-teleported someone. How can one device do so many things?

It was recognised long ago that the Sonic Screwdriver had the potential to be overused. That's essentially why it was written out during The Fifth Doctor's run. Even before its destruction it had limited uses and most of those uses could at least conceivably be achieved using sound waves. Opening locks, pulling stuff apart or welding stuff together. These are all things The Doctor could need to do in the process of creating a solution to a problem, but without being the solution itself. The Sonic Screwdriver was a tool to assist The Doctor, and anything he used it for he should have been able to do without it (albeit with more difficulty).

It's just a door handle

Since the reboot however, the Sonic Screwdriver just keeps getting more and more features. It's gone from a Gallifreyan Army Knife to some kind of Über iPhone. Need to remotely control your TARDIS? There's a setting for that! Nasty bite wound on the neck? There's a setting for that! Want to scan for life forms whilst reprogramming an alien computer and diagnosing someone's mental disorder? There's a etc.

To be fair, it's still mostly used for opening locks

You know things are bad when you have to start making up specific exclusions to what it can do. The wooden lock weakness has been around for a while, and is a fun little gag of high-tech foiled by low-tech, but to now have to include "deadlock seals" just to avoid the Sonic coming into play really highlights the issue. It's a bit like Superman being so Super that they had to invent Kryptonite just to give the stories some tension.

It would probably be fine for The Doctor to do most of these things, but using some other device. It could even be a mundane device that The Doctor has supercharged somehow, possibly even using the Sonic Screwdriver to do it. In a way that isn't just randomly waving the glowing end over it, that is.

Can we fix it?

Well this is a tough one. Having already established the increasing range of uses for the Sonic Screwdriver, it would be difficult to suddenly start ignoring them. Equally, the Sonic Screwdriver is a rather iconic part of the Doctor Who mythos, and so attempting to once again remove it as they did in the early 80s could be a hard path. Interestingly, I think the best tactic here would involve first making the Sonic Screwdriver better.

It was established in Silence in the Library that at some point in his future The Doctor gives the Sonic Screwdriver to River Song, but that by the time he does, it is vastly superior to the one The Doctor had at the time. As we are yet to see The Doctor gift his Sonic Screwdriver to River, I would suggest we could see some plot points whereby The Doctor adds "Red Settings" and "Damper Settings" before a later episode sees him pass it on to River. In fact, we recently saw what could have been the "Red Settings" in Cold War, so hopefully they are already moving towards this.

After ridding himself of the Über Sonic, The Doctor could potentially build another, less complex version that doesn't have as much functionality, but can still be used as a tool. In this way, we reset the power level of the Sonic, thereby avoiding the requirement to make more "sonic-proof" doohickies, plus we tie up some of the River Song continuity.

So yeah, I'm not saying there needs to be a list of hard and fast rules for the Sonic Screwdriver, but it does need limitations. It should be just one of the tools The Doctor falls back on.

It's The Doctor that can do anything, not the Sonic Screwdriver.