Ehhhh.
Soooo Steven is still unconscious, Katarina the Trojan is still on board the TARDIS, and the Doctor is still pretending to Katarina that his time machine is actually a journey to eternal peace.
KATARINA: What is that?
DOCTOR: Oh, we're slowing down, my dear. We're going to land in a moment.
KATARINA: Can we have reached the place of perfection so soon?
DOCTOR: Er, well. I rather doubt it. At least, that is, er, we shall be stopping at a lot of places before that.
So the Doctor lands the TARDIS "somewhere" because he needs a "special drug" to stop Steven from dying. This is not convincing me of his status as a medical professional. His name is such bullshit, man. I hope one day I get to see the story of how Time Lords get their name, and I hope the Doctor admits he picked his out of a hat.
On the planet the TARDIS just landed on, two dudes appear to have crashed their spaceship, because apparently literally nobody can fly one of those things. They try to get in touch with people over the radio, but that doesn't work, and they argue a little bit, and then BOOM, the scene cuts to Earth (Earth! I missed you!) to some sciencey people fighting over which TV channel to watch. They decide on channel 403, which I imagine in 1965 seemed hilarious and futuristic. Four hundred and three whole TV channels! Mental.
They talk about a routine call to five-zero-alpha, which I'm pretty sure is the code the two dudes from the broken radio used, and oh! The two dudes are out looking for Badass Marc, the guy the Daleks exterminated in the weird prequel! Cool!
Back to the exciting TV channel subplot, a guy called Mavic Chen, the GUARDIAN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM, is... going on holiday? He's giving a speech about peace between the galaxies, or something, and doesn't really say much interesting other than it's the year 4000. A light indicating that the two dudes (they're called Kert and Bret, I'm going to use their names instead of calling them 'the two dudes') are trying to call keeps flashing, but the science people are too engrossed in the riveting broadcast to notice. Top notch sciencing, there, guys. Keep it up.
Back on the planet, Kert and Bret are arguing again; Kert's leg is in a splint, and he wants Bret to go ahead without him, because Kert'll slow him down and there are Varga plants everywhere and you know what happens when those bastards are hanging around. So Bret clears off and Kert is all, 'Yoooo, I know you're out there!' and some Daleks come and kill him, so that happened.
Elsewhere in the forest, Bret is all, 'What is that mysterious vworping noise?' and a wild TARDIS appears! Bret hides behind the bushes while the Doctor emerges, and then follows the Doctor to the edge of a nearby village and holds a gun to his head until the Doctor gives Bret the TARDIS key. So then Bret strolls right into the TARDIS and makes small talk with the Trojan lady and the semi-conscious Earth dude and it's pretty chill. But the Doctor follows him right back and it turns out that ol' Bret left the key in the door, so that was dumb. The Doctor just goes right on in and Steven knocks Bret out with a spanner and that plan of his really didn't turn out to be all that effective after all, did it. Poor Bret.
When Bret comes round again, the Doctor acts smug as hell even though he didn't really have much to do with the capture at all, which sums One up pretty well, actually. Although apparently the thing that is keeping Bret restrained is a MAGNETIC CHAIR that can restrain a HERD OF ELEPHANTS that the Doctor invented, so there best be a good reason why I haven't seen this bad boy in the series reboot.
The Doctor is smug a little more and then leaves a restrained Bret alone with Katarina (Steven passed out again) and heads back to the village for the 'special drugs' to dose Steven with. On the way he sees what I presume is the rotten corpse of Badass Marc (his communication/transmitter thing is by the body). The Doctor, reliably incompetent, remarks on how so very strange it is to see an abandoned recording device lying on the forest floor and then walks riiiiight on past it. Sigh. But then he makes it into the village and sees some Daleks and has the usual OH NO I'M SO SCARED OF DALEKS exclamation, even though they are, like... not any more threatening than any other monster that he has to face. Like, am I the only person who thinks this? I've never understood the hype behind the Daleks. They're just. Average.
And then: a plot twist! Mavic Chen, the guy who was going on holiday at the start of the episode and also the SUPREME RULER OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM or something, he's in league with the Daleks! The Doctor rushes back to the TARDIS and finds that surrounded by Daleks too! Daleks everywhere! Shit! (But only regular levels of shit because the Daleks aren't exceptionally terrifying!)
This episode was... fine. I admit that I'm writing this at late o'clock and also I am in Paris, so I might not be as invested in the episode as I could be, but also. Daleks. No Vicki. Incompetent Gallifreyan. You know how it is.
MORE SOON.
Moosh
So, the whole thing about the Doctors name; he chose it. There's a whole thing about it in New!Who in the Sound of Drums when he and the Master are having like... A lovers tiff or something, and the Doctor comments on how the Master chose 'Master' and the Master's like, 'well you chose Doctor, you pompous git, so suck on that!' and it's all like... woah...
ReplyDeleteYeahhh but I figured that was a little reference to a bigger arc that happened in Old!Who. MAYBE NOT, THOUGH.
DeleteI kind of always thought it was because he's a "time doctor". Like correcting everything bad and saving the universe and stuff.
ReplyDeleteSi, und he's a Doctor of pretty much everything. Apparentley. Ovbiouslly.
ReplyDelete