Doctor Who Series 4
SPOILERS TOTAL. You've been warned.
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40X: Voyage of the Damned 2008 April 18
(First watched 2008-04-19) Not the spectacle that the last two Christmas specials were, but the 90 minute format is still nice for allowing a fuller program without the two-parter necessity of a big cliffhanger slapped in the middle.
That it's a spaceship Titanic takes away a lot of the weirdness I assumed when I saw the way the last episode ended.
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401: Partners in Crime 2008 April 25
(First watched 2008-04-26) Those adipose things had to be the cutest fat ever. This was actually quite a weird circumstance, in that until the Doctor started really throwing a wrench into their plans, it really was a win-win. Lose fat, weird species procreates. Once everything went to hell, though, they had to attempt life-destroying Plan B.
So Donna! Interesting how her life went back to boring, so she started checking out odd happenings specifically hoping to find the Doctor again. Well, I guess it worked. Their re-meeting scene in this episode with the lipreading was pretty brilliant. Though I imagine legitimate lipreaders didn't quite get the same experience.
So the Doctor tossed the spare sonic screwdriver away? Gee, I'm sure nothing will come of that and it will safely end up in a landfill.
So... Rose? I'd already heard spoilers that she'd show up sometime this series, but I wasn't expecting a cameo right at the end of the first episode. Will she be a recurring thing like Bad Wolf, Torchwood, and Mr. Saxon were in previous series?
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402: The Fires of Pompeii 2008 May 2
(First watched 2008-05-03) I like Donna. She's very impressed by what the Doctor can do (water gun!), but not in a fawning way, and she'll fight him on a point if she thinks he's going wrong.
So she has a conversation with him about the standard stuff we wonder, and he gives the same old (necessary for show purposes) brush-off response. Why does he go about changing some things and leaving others unaltered? Because some things are changeable and others are fixed; and as a Time Lord he alone can tell which is which.
For some reason the eyes on the back of the hands held up to one's face looked really creepy.
Lucius's teeth gave me a Busey vibe.
Especially odd for me is that the Doctor makes slight reference to having been to Rome before (prior to them realizing they're in Pompeii). In my watching of old 60s Doctor Who, I'm right in the middle of watching The Romans.
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403: Planet of the Ood 2008 May 9
(First watched 2008-05-10) Finally it deals with the massive slavery that was going on in Series 2. The Doctor says he didn't even think about it as slavery at the time? Come oooon. Totally subservient beings who can be electronically controlled was just taken as a choice?
"It's a long story."
"It's a long walk."
"It was the Devil."
I'm not quite sure what the point of Ood Sigma turning the boss-man into an Ood was. Ironic, yeah, but apart from that it didn't really accomplish anything, and was just a slower and much more complicated way of getting some revenge on him. Maybe there were further plans that just didn't get a chance to come to fruition because of the crazy goings-on in this episode?
I've got to say, at the beginning of this episode when the Doctor said he'd set the TARDIS to go to a random time and place... I was worried for a moment that they'd still coincidentally open up to modern day London.
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