So, in answer to my questions from last week:What the hell is going on?
In this episode, mostly an awful lot of explaining.
How can the library be inside that little girl's head?
Apparently, it's largely there for her entertainment.
What's happened to Donna?
She's in a very boring suburban game of Wii.
Who is Dr River Moon?
There is no such person as Dr River Moon, but Professor River Song is someone that the Doctor is going to get to shag at some point in the future in a rather kinky way involving handcuffs.
How are they going to get away from the scary walking skeleton in the spacesuit?
In a break from tradition, they are going to run.
Seriously, what is the business with the library being inside the girl's head?
She is the computer. It's really rather heartwarming, or at least I think it's supposed to be.
How are they going to fight against the shadows?
They're actually quite reasonable man-eating shadows who respond well to logical argument and are happy to give the Doctor 24 hours to save the people that they want to eat.
How are they going to rescue Donna from whatever the hell it is that's happened her?
Just ask the computer nicely, and fry Alex Kingston's brains.
How does Dr River Moon know the Doctor and is there going to be nookie?
See above. She's a hot companion from the future. It's nice to know that the Doctor finds true love eventually. Also, opening a book on what the Doctor's real name is. I will start the bidding with 'Trevor'.
Is Dr River Moon is the same person as Dr Moon the psychiatrist, and if so, is there going to be three-way Doctor-Doctor-Doctor nookie in which two of the Doctors are in fact one oscillating shape-shifting hermaphrodite?
Astonishingly, no to all of the above.
Should I have a cold shower and a lie down?
Almost certainly.
Was Donna jealous of Dr River Moon?
Almost certainly.
Does it matter, now that she's a face on a stick?
Not when she's just had a ten-second, seven-year relationship with sexy stammer man who loses her tragically because he can't call her name. It would be more tragic if I had spent more than ten seconds with him, but I do like the fact that his very existence either makes it OK that Donna dies at the end if she does, as she has experienced proper life and the true womanly fulfillment of having babies, even fake clone babies, or gives her a possible alternative fate of tracking him down and riding off into the sunset with him if she doesn't die.
How is the little girl with the library in her head going to rescue them?
She doesn't really. Basically, there's a flurry of science.
Oh, and WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?
As it turns out, quite a bit less than I'd hoped.
Still, another spawning-planet storyline, pattern-watchers.
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21 comments:
Noel Clarke, who plays Micky, has claimed that the Doctor's name is Curtis. My entry is Inigo Motoya. Prepare to die.
Okay, if River Song has a relationship with a later incarnation of the Doctor, why does she go through her diary in the first half of this two-parter, asking him stuff like: "The picnic at Asgard; have we done that yet?" That sounds like she's dealt with the current incarnation as well, in addition to the fact she doesn't understand at first that he has failed to recognize her.
I really, really liked this one. It makes a lot of the episodes such as the Sontarians and the Doctor's Daughter this season look even weaker than they were, and even takes the sheen off the ones that were rather good. If they want to bring back Alex Kingston, I have no objections whatsoever.
I like Alex Kingston too. Nice that he gets to shag a MATURE woman for a change...
I really enjoyed this actually. Kids were all on the edge of their seats, and 8 year old was very confused by the end. Normally they take Dr Who in their stride, but for the first time ever the 12 year old went to bed with her light on last week!
I wasn't really sure about the ending though. I think I'd have preferred oblivion to virtual reality heaven...
I LOVED the Donna marriage thing and I think it is going to give them a get out clause for her, so maybe she isn't going to die, or maybe she's going to end up in virtual reality heaven too along with him. Or maybe she'll swap places with Rose in the parallel universe.
I also liked the comments at the end about being allright in Time Lord Speak.
I spotted the cloning planets pattern too.
Also... everybody lived is my favourite line in The Empty Child two parter. Only they didn't really, not properly....
I agree the parasites were a bit disappointing - if he could simply talk to them why couldn't he do that last week?
I did really like Miss Evnangelista's face and the cloned children, which were genuinely spooky. And for a while there I wasn't sure if Dr Moon was a goodie or baddie. Even being a goodie I thought he was rather sinister.
Definitely my top episodes of this season!
It seems me, Poly, Persephone and Jane Henry may be in the minority here since plenty of others seemt o be at best ambivalent about this episode (if not the pairing). Shame as I loved it - review is up...
I meant pair of episodes btw - realised that my phrasing was rubbish there.
I loved the first one, just felt a bit let down by this one. Overall the pair are probably still the best of the series.
I also thought it was excellent.
I did think the floaty flowery voice-over stuff at the end by Kingston was ridiculous, and the idea of Donna being upset at losing someone she never had a relationship with in the first place.
My biggest complaint was actually the fact that the Doctor seemed to form a very strong bond with a human - AGAIN. I think he's only supposed to show his companions real concern and emotion for them sporadically (part of his aloof appeal), yet in this series, he's being mad about Donna, Martha, his daugher AND Alex Kingston, and hasn't been afraid to show it. From slightly cold loner to love whore, if you will.
But overall, it was dead exciting and interesting and not that easy to predict (not that i'm good at predicting storylines at the best of times).
marie: "I loved the first one, just felt a bit let down by this one. Overall the pair are probably still the best of the series."
Seems I'm very much in tune with you on this one. Stand-out for the season, not so stand-out for Steven Moffat.
Also, the Doctor already said that when it's the Vashda Lambada, or whatever, all you can do is run. But apparently the 'pirhanas of the air' don't realise this and will in fact back down in the face of a good talking to.
Matt, actually I agree with you a bit about the Doc's love life. He does seem a bit of a lothario doesn't he. And what's he going to say to Rose when he meets her again? So yes. I love you. And lost you to a parallel universe, but ah, I've just met my future wife...?
But... Alex Kingston knocked him out!!! And handcuffed him!!!
Sorry. I can't help getting excited about that!!!
Right. Fresh from having correctly predicted that the little girl was the library's computer (smug mode ON), I'm going to stick my neck out here and predict that the reason that Prof Song knows the doctor's name, all that he is about to do and so on, why she tells him that he will trust her is that she is the next incarnation of the Doctor, not his wife.
It's a long shot, but...
Bro
Not possible: she didn't recognise Donna.
And: she would have remembered what happened in the library.
Basically: no. I'm certain of it. We love Prof Song though.
You wait and see.
Bro.
I love the idea of Prof Song as his next incarnation, but it doesn't quite add up.
- DT said there was only one reason that he would tell someone his name. If she was the next him, she would just know it.
- She died (or as good as), and didn't reincarnate. He's running low on lives, but i'm sure he's got a couple left.
- when the Doctors incarnations get together, they don't usually get on. They feel like their thunder is stolen slightly. That might be a throwback to yesteryear but hey, he's a Time Lord.
But I really do love that idea Bro.
Love "Saf's" reference to the "Vashda Lambada"! (The Forbidden Dance for Carnivorous Dust Motes...)
Jane, I'll take a virtual reality heaven over being reduced to an ageless face in a concrete block whose only excitement is orally gratifying Marc Warren for the forseeable future. Sometimes the Doctor should let well enough alone...
One reason he could have for telling her his name is that he knew he had to, so that she'd know it, the last time she saw him, so that he'd trust her.
Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey, same as one of the bits in Time Crash by the same writer-y.
persephone: "I'll take a virtual reality heaven over being reduced to an ageless face in a concrete block whose only excitement is orally gratifying Marc Warren for the forseeable future."
I don't wish to open a can of worms here, but surely that's a given for everybody ;)
My parents were arguing about what his name would be. My mother said it would be some very strange and alien and my father said it was Keith.
But stu-n, the Doctor said, in David Tennant's best emotional acting, that there's only one circumstance in which he would have told her his name. So I'm speculating that said circumstance would be (a) death, (b) true love or (c) orgasm. (c) is a bit Torchwood.
Do you think the Doctor would call out his own name during orgasm? That sounds way more Captain Jack...
I liked the running. Seriously - there's all this stuff about the Nature of Consciousness (minds trapped inside LEDs, minds trapped in statues, minds taken over by evil flesh-eating dustmotes) not to mention The Nature of Reality Itself (minds talking to computers in VR heaven). Then there's some genuine emotional interplay, sitting on top of shovelfuls of Whovian backstory, or possibly forwardstory; one of the wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimeyest plots ever; and some really scary monsters. In Who terms it had everything except lots of running down corridors - and oh, look, it had that too.
All in all, I thought this one was quite good.
(Has the Doctor ever had a name before - or told anyone his name?)
Phil, it's always been clear that Doctor is a nomenclature chosen rather than given. Did you see the full length Confidential as that does set the debate in a little context and I'm pretty sure the debate is dealt with elsewhere (semi/non-cannon stuff like Big Finish Audios and the novels).
I'll get my anorak...
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