Dr. Who: Voyage of the Damned

[sholio]

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.

Comments

[sholio]

Yeah, you're not missing anything.

I was extremely unimpressed with the one-and-a-half episodes of Torchwood that I've seen -- I think this is one where I'll sit back and wait for the viewer responses to roll in, and then make a decision about watching it.

[leenys.livejournal.com]

When I first watched it, it was like watching a movie, and I kept getting a shock when the commercials came on. But mostly I think I like it because these characters actually show emotion, unlike many characters in US shows (there are notable exceptions, such as SPN). Who ever thought a guy could cry? Or that one friend would get so pissed he'd beat another? When they are scared, they are SCARED, and it's real. Someone pulled a gun on Gwen, about to shoot her, and it wasn't met with a stoic expression. She was pleading, terrified, crying, doing what real people would do. All their reactions are like that, so for a scifi show, it comes across as being very realistic and something I can connect to on more of an emotional level.

That, and it's a team that works together because they have to, not because there are any huge friendship bonds here. Add the enigma of Jack to the mix (which Doc Who screwed up, thanks for that) and it's a winner for me.

Kids are downstairs watching Fantasia 2000. Love it. *grins* They're playing the flamingos with the yo-yos. . .