stunt_muppet

You know how I occasionally whine about how my PBS station back home never plays Doctor Who, especially not the old series, except at 1 a.m. on random weeknights?

Turns out my college PBS station airs an episode (of New School, but hey) pretty reliably at 11 p.m. every Saturday night. If the Christmas gift season doesn't take too much out of me, I may have to send them money. Plus, one of the donor swag items is the special 4-disc re-release of The Three-and-a-half Doctors and a Bloke in a Wig The Five Doctors.

Tonight they ran The Impossible Planet, and I realized I've never actually typed up my thoughts, brief or otherwise, on said episode. I'm going to address it mostly separately from The Satan Pit, since TSP has some issues that TIP doesn't, but in brief:

- Good: Gabriel Woolf's vaguely homoerotic Beast voice. He just seems to be really good at playing Satan characters, doesn't he?

Seriously, though, I liked his voice better than the fairly generic roaring we get from the actual Beast, and I think I like it better than the Ood mass-voice as well. It's purring and sinister and predatory and cultured and I like it. I wish he'd spoken more often.

Which brings me to my disappointment with the Beast himself. The CG work was good, yes, but a great big roary thing with horns just feels like a letdown when we're supposed to facing the incarnate of all that is evil. At least Azal had a slightly nonstandard appearance (satyr rather than Chernabog), even if he ultimately didn't come off any better due to the lulzy special effects.

Not to mention, I have issues whenever New Who monsters or aliens get too godlike. Sutekh and Azal were described as inspirations for Satan and Devil figures the universe over, but they were also explicitly and textually described as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens. The Beast is said to be from Before Time, Sealed Away By The Disciples of Light...basically, all the hallmarks of an Elder God. And aside from my irritation at Cthulu-style mythos being shoehorned into every bit of popular SF ever, it violates a few of the principles of the Whoniverse. This doesn't stand out quite so much in TIP, but the segment where Toby's tattoos fly off his face and "possess" the Ood calls it to attention in a very bad way. Possession I can deal with - psychic powers are canonical in the Whoniverse; Sutekh can possess people. But flying face ink just ventures way too far over to the supernatural side of things.

Lookit me, debating and nitpicking canon like one of the boys. *potshot*

- The way the Ood are handled still doesn't sit right with me. I'm glad it was addressed in Planet of the Ood, but the Doctor's sheer apathy in the face of the Ood's slavery is glaring. Rose is bothered by it. Even after she's told that the Ood "choose" slavery, she remains uncomfortable - or at least seems that way, in her interactions with the Ood serving her dinner. She wouldn't ask if it got paid if she was perfectly okay with it being a slave. The Doctor? Not one bloody word.

It's one of the moments in S2 that makes me uncomfortable with Ten, because right there, it feels like he's not the Doctor, not really. Because the Doctor wouldn't stand for a slave race. The Doctor would be angry on their behalf.

- That said, watching a Rose episode divorced from the fandom sturm und drang over her is really quite refreshing. She's a bit flip in the beginning (which is sort of understandable, given that she doesn't know that the TARDIS is gone), but I love that she was appalled by the slavery of the Ood and never really accepts it. I like her sarcastic banter with the crew at first. "What's your position, cheif dramatist?"

If I may, for a moment, state my opinion of a very touchy scene without causing a huge pile of wank: I think the "you'd have to get a morgage" line was a joke on Rose's part. Settling down and adapting is what Rose would have to do, because she's human; I think she forgets, for a moment, that the Doctor can't do that, until he react to her suggestion. And I think, eventually, she would like to settle down somewhere, and even with him, even if she knows, consciously, he can't do that. What you know doesn't always affect what you want. Which, on the one hand, points to her actually being in love with the Doctor, and not just his sweet ride (I'm not going to touch whether the Doctor is in love with her, okay? Not here and not now.). On the other hand, that doesn't make the end of Journey's End any less skeevy, nor the implications of The Stolen Earth.

Straying from the wankiness, I do quite like the crew of the space station, even with the condition of the Ood. I found most of them fairly well-realized, especially Zach and Ida, although I suppose that's to be expected given that they're the ones we spend the most time with. I liked the older one, with the wife, as well, though his name escapes me. All in all, possibly not my favorite New Who guest cast, but pretty high up on the list.

- I was never quite clear on how Ida and Scooti are related. Are they mother and daughter? Cousins? Sisters (unlikely, but possible)? They look so much alike, and are dressed and made up so similarly that I feel like they're supposed to be related, but if they ever said so I missed it.

Also, Scooti's death still plays very well; the image of her floating out in space, her body somehow intact (I can handwave away her lack of decompressed warping by postulating that the Beast is holding her body in place because he knows the crew is watching, although I admit that's unlikely), her elbow bent as if she's only waving goodbye...it's grim and strangely beautiful, and one of the more successful uses of CGI.

- That said, why didn't her body warp from depressurization? The "Beast wanting to freak out the crew" explanation is sort of implausible; I only drag it in because the image is creepy enough that I'd rather not lose it.

- SOMEONE TURN DOWN THE MUSIC. For the most part, I think the music here is actually okay (except for the music after Toby gets possessed; I think that would have been much more effective with no music or, if we had to have music, with the Bolero still going in the background, softly but reaching its crescendo) but New Who's consistent problem with sound mixing is especially egregious here. There are times when I can't hear what anyone's saying, which is a problem, given that the dialogue is sort of important.

- So, basically, more Gabriel Woolf is what I'm saying.
 

I suppose I should go back to studying now, but as a parting word, since I do tend to leave the TV on as background noise while I study: does it strike anyone else as strange to run not one but two ads for thinly-veiled phone sex hotlines during the airing of a children's movie? Even if it is late at night?

There's an audience disconnect there, is all I'm saying.

And now they're running another one! Creepy.