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Dr. Who: Voyage of the Damned
So, we watched it tonight, and my reaction is basically ... WTF?
... I mean, seriously. WTF?
There were two things in it that I really liked. One is the whole idea of a bunch of aliens naming their tourist liner Titanic because it's the only Earth ship they've heard of. That is just such a perfectly dumbass tourist/cultural-outsider thing to do. (Also, I've had a weird soft spot for the goofy-zany anachronism of sailing ships in space ever since I saw Captain Harlock when I was eight.)
The other thing that got me is the fact that everyone's noticed that London gets attacked by aliens every Christmas and have made plans to be elsewhere. That cracked me up.
And then there was the rest of it.
... so, seriously, are my expectations for this show too high, or something? I mean, I love SGA even when it's lame and makes no sense, because I sort of expect it to be lame and make no sense -- so when it's good, I'm insanely happy with that because I'm not really expecting it, and when it's not, which is rather often, at least it fulfills my USRDA of amusement and squee. I can't figure out if I'm being too hard on Dr. Who and expecting it to be better than what it is, or if it's just gone a few quantum levels of "lame" beneath SGA's pits of lameness, because the best that this episode managed to do was occasionally make me grin, and otherwise, I spent quite a bit of time just feeling annoyed by its ... well, everything. I actually kinda wish I hadn't seen it, because I was pretty optimistic about what Donna could bring to the whole dynamic (as a mature, no-nonsense sort of Companion who wasn't likely to fall into the love-interest trap), but this episode -- it was like everything I didn't like about the last season compressed into an hour of PAIN, and right now I have zero confidence in the writers to do ANYTHING right.
... I mean, seriously. WTF?
There were two things in it that I really liked. One is the whole idea of a bunch of aliens naming their tourist liner Titanic because it's the only Earth ship they've heard of. That is just such a perfectly dumbass tourist/cultural-outsider thing to do. (Also, I've had a weird soft spot for the goofy-zany anachronism of sailing ships in space ever since I saw Captain Harlock when I was eight.)
The other thing that got me is the fact that everyone's noticed that London gets attacked by aliens every Christmas and have made plans to be elsewhere. That cracked me up.
And then there was the rest of it.
... so, seriously, are my expectations for this show too high, or something? I mean, I love SGA even when it's lame and makes no sense, because I sort of expect it to be lame and make no sense -- so when it's good, I'm insanely happy with that because I'm not really expecting it, and when it's not, which is rather often, at least it fulfills my USRDA of amusement and squee. I can't figure out if I'm being too hard on Dr. Who and expecting it to be better than what it is, or if it's just gone a few quantum levels of "lame" beneath SGA's pits of lameness, because the best that this episode managed to do was occasionally make me grin, and otherwise, I spent quite a bit of time just feeling annoyed by its ... well, everything. I actually kinda wish I hadn't seen it, because I was pretty optimistic about what Donna could bring to the whole dynamic (as a mature, no-nonsense sort of Companion who wasn't likely to fall into the love-interest trap), but this episode -- it was like everything I didn't like about the last season compressed into an hour of PAIN, and right now I have zero confidence in the writers to do ANYTHING right.
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All of that said, I am looking forward to seeing my Doctor because I love sci-fi, even not-perfect sci-fi, and pluckily hope for at least a few impressive episodes this season.
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Like I posted in another comment above, the main reason why this episode caused me to pretty much lose all interest in watching the rest of the season is because the show has come under so much criticism for its handling of Martha, and issues of race/gender/etc. THIS EPISODE, coming right on the heels of season 3, was their opportunity to show that, yes, they get it, they're listening, they understand that they haven't been doing that well, and they can do better. Instead, it was not just cheesy and over-the-top silly, but it was pretty much across-the-board offensive -- body image, class, race, gender, disability; it was almost like they set out to thumb their nose at their detractors and create the most offensive episode they could.