NaBloPoMo: Series 1, Episode 7: "The Long Game"

WARNING: THIS ANALYSIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT WATCHED DOCTOR WHO OR AT THE VERY LEAST HAVE NOT SEEN THIS EPISODE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. 

It's Day 7 of my NaBloPoMo challenge! This time it's Series 1, Episode 7, "The Long Game," that I'm analyzing.

In this episode, the Doctor, Rose, and Adam go to a place called Satellite Five in the year 200,000. Adam is more in wonder than Rose is, as this is his first adventure as a Companion.

Long story short, it becomes evident to the Doctor that things aren't what they should be, and he realizes all the humans on Satellite Five - heck all the humans on Earth at that time probably - are being manipulated. Manipulated by a man called The Editor (played by Simon Pegg, a.k.a. Scotty from the J.J. Abrams Star Trek movies, the voice of Thompson in The Adventures of Tintin, and the voice of Reepicheep in The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader). Who's not actually the one in charge. He himself is being manipulated by a creepy alien blob he calls "Max" (it's easier to say than its real name), and most likely by the banks he represents too.

While the Doctor and Rose are trying to save the day, Adam wanders off on his own and ends up doing the stupid thing some time travelers to the future do - try to send information from the future to the past. He does so initially by trying to leave messages on his parents' answering machine (using Rose's phone, which he borrowed earlier); that being too slow, he opts to have one of the forehead ports the Satellite Five people have installed in his head so he can access the information more directly. This unfortunately puts him at the mercy of The Editor, who uses the ports to read the brains of the people on his Satellite and squash any doubt in the system. He gets out of it, but in the end he's not better off, because the Doctor kicks him off the team for trying to change history, destroys his parents' phone on which he left the messages, and doesn't do anything about Adam's head port -- which his mom accidentally sees when she snaps her fingers (which is how they are activated).

In thinking about this, I thought of the movie Back to the Future Part II, where Doc Brown takes Marty and Jennifer to 2015, and Marty buys a sports almanac with the intent of taking it back with him. But Doc warns that he can't do that, that it will change history in a disastrous way. But, as it happens, the Biff of the future finds the almanac first (which Marty left in the Delorean), steals the Delorean, and gives the book to his past self, which then changes Marty's present of 1985, which Marty has to fix. When Marty realizes what Biff did, Doc comments:

It demonstrates precisely how time travel can be mis-used, and why the time machine must be destroyed, after we straighten all of this out.

Which they do...eventually.

So Adam goes bye-bye. Eh well.

The Bad Wolf reference in this episode is a reference to "BadWolfTV" made by Cathica, who notes that it's currently broadcasting the Face of Boe announcing he's pregnant.

Cathica and Suki were both pretty cool by the way. Suki reminded me a little of Erin from The Office (U.S. version). She looks like her. That such an unassuming person was actually an anarchist investigating Satellite Five incognito was an interesting twist.  Cathica was also awesome in that, really, she saved the day. It wasn't the Doctor this time. She looked familiar, but I'm not sure where I would've seen her before.

This episode reminded me a little of the video game The World Ends With You, which I played recently. In it, the main character Neku, as well as others, are trapped in a game called The Reaper's Game, set in an alternate version of Shibuya. As the game progresses, more and more info is revealed, and you see just how much the baddies have their hands in everything and how messed up the Reaper's Game is. (That's about as much as I can tell you without spoiling the whole plot. Go play it! It's a great game for the DS).

This episode also shows the dangers of media consolidation and putting the power of the media into the hands of the few. Not to mention using the media to influence people's thinking, especially so intimately and in a way unbeknownst to those with the ports. No wonder the Doctor says the technology is wrong. Assuming that that's what he means by that.

Well, that's pretty much all I have to say about that. Bye!

***

NaBloPoMo Special:

The Love of the Doctor and Rose Tyler

Part Seven: I Only Take the Best

Since the theme of NaBloPoMo this month is "Love and Sex" (probably because of Valentine's Day), I feel compelled to write something about love in my posts. Hence, since I am exploring Series 1 and 2 in this challenge, I am going to write a little special essay throughout the month about the growing love between the Doctor and Rose. Please note I am in no way an expert on relationships.

In this episode, the Doctor and Rose are back to saving the world together. Sure, Adam's there, but he goes off on his own pretty early on. 

The Doctor seems to be liking Rose more and more in this episode. He praises her for asking "the right kind of question," that being why it's so hot in Satellite Five, when Cathica refuses to ask it. At the end of the episode, after kicking Adam off the team for misusing time travel for his own purposes, the Doctor praises Rose further by saying, "I only take the best. I've got Rose." And in the middle of those two events is this brief conversation between Rose and the Doctor in the elevator right before they reach Floor 500:

DOCTOR: That's her gone. Adam's given up. Looks like it's just you and me.
ROSE: Yeah.
DOCTOR: Good.
ROSE: Yep.    

It's like they becoming more like equals, more in sync. The romance is definitely growing, though we're not seeing it explicitly. Before, Rose came to the realization that the Doctor was a stranger to her, but now they're definitely not strangers. 

As we also see in other episodes, people are catching on to Rose and the Doctor's closeness, even if the two of them are oblivious. Adam, who was the one to point this out last episode, does it again this time before going off on his own:

ADAM: No, no, you stick with the Doctor. You'd rather be with him. It's going to take a better man than me to get between you two. Anyway, I'll be on the deck.

I think it's very true. Rose would rather be with the Doctor than anyone at this point. More than her mother, even more than Mickey, who's supposedly her boyfriend, or her best friend Shareen who she always mentions but we never see. The Doctor may tease her about boyfriends - first about Mickey and then in this episode with Adam, telling them to go off on a date, then later reprimanding her for giving Adam her TARDIS key, exclaiming "You and your boyfriends!". But in reality, Rose's relationship with Mickey does not appear to have much weight in it for her - he's definitely more committed to it than she is - and although Adam and she had shown interest in one another, nothing romantic kindled. It's only with the Doctor that anything seems to be happening for Rose.

Well, we'll see what happens next episode...when Rose messes up, changes history, and gets the Doctor pretty mad.

***

Tune in tomorrow for Day 8 of my NaBloPoMo challenge!

Quotes from The Doctor Who Transcripts. Back to the Future Part II quote from IMDb.

Unlike other posts with the timestamp 11:59 PM, this post WAS in fact published on 2/7/13, though I published it unfinished so it would have the right date. Therefore, it is not, as I noted before with previous posts, a post published after 11:59 PM that has had its timestamp doctored by me.

NaBloPoMo: Series 1, Episode 6, "Dalek"

WARNING: THIS ANALYSIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT WATCHED DOCTOR WHO OR AT THE VERY LEAST HAVE NOT SEEN THIS EPISODE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. 

It's Day 6 of my NaBloPoMo challenge! Today's episode: Series 1, Episode 6, "Dalek."


And, as the title suggests, it features the return of the Doctor's mortal enemy, that smarter-than-it-seems squid-in-a-metal-box race known as the Daleks.

Basically, the TARDIS - en route to somewhere unknown - gets diverted to an underground bunker in Utah in the year 2012 by some signal. The Doctor and Rose exit the TARDIS to find themselves in the middle of a big museum full of alien artifacts, including a piece of the Roswell spaceship, moon dust, and the head of a Cyberman (specifically the design from "The Invasion"), which the Doctor tells Rose is an old enemy of his but does not identify by name.

And then, well, the Doctor gets a little too close to some display case, alarms go off, and he and Rose get taken prisoner.

The bulk of the episode is about this egotistical collector, Henry Van Statten, the owner of the museum, who has one living specimen in his collection: a strange metal alien that he's been trying to get to talk for some time. When they let the Doctor in to try to talk to it, he realizes -- to his horror -- that it's a Dalek. As far as he knew, the entire Dalek race perished in the Time War, along with all the other Time Lords except him. So he's pretty surprised to see it, as is the Dalek to see him when it realizes who the Doctor is. He realizes, however, that at the moment it can't "exterminate" (to use the Daleks' favorite word) anyone, because its gun doesn't work, and scoffs at his enemy's powerlessness. He then attempts to destroy it, but is stopped by Van Slatten, who wants his prized piece alive.

That should have been the end of that...well, except that Rose, who'd been left with this guy named Adam, happens to see footage of one of Van Slatten's men torturing the Dalek (to try to make it talk again like it did with the Doctor) and gets angry. She and Adam go down to see the Dalek, and when she speaks to it, it responds, saying that it is in pain and is happy to have met a human who was not afraid of it before it dies. Out of pity, Rose touches its head, and the Dalek regenerates itself. And because of that simple move of pity...all hell breaks loose. As usually happens when the Daleks are around, seeing how much they like to destroy things.

The Dalek goes and kills all the soldiers Van Statten throws at it, finally chasing Adam and Rose to the end of the multi-floor vault in which it was originally held. Van Statten and the Doctor decide to seal the vault to contain the Dalek, but at the risk of putting Adam and Rose in danger. Adam and Rose get toward the final bulkhead door with seconds to spare, and Adam manages to barrel-roll under the nearly-closed door. Rose, on the other hand, isn't so lucky and is trapped in the room with the Dalek. The video feed cuts right after the Dalek gets close to Rose, basically making the Doctor believe she's dead. The Dalek, however, spares Rose's life - a rare show of pity for a Dalek, which normally does not have any emotions other than hatred. Turns out that when she touched it, it absorbed some of her DNA and some of the time energy she'd absorbed from her travels with the Doctor, and when doing so developed some emotions as well. After a moment, the Dalek turns the video feed back on and offers Rose's life in exchange for the vault being unsealed. Though it would be dangerous to let the Dalek out of the vault, the Doctor puts Rose's life first and unseals the vault.

Rose and the Dalek end up in Van Statten's office, after the Doctor has left, armed with an alien gun Adam hung onto (the rest of the alien weapons are in the vault), to pursue the Dalek. The Dalek attempts to kill Van Statten out of revenge for the torture Van Statten subjected it to, but Rose stops it, saying it must want something more than killing. The Dalek admits that what it wants is freedom. They then leave the office and head for an empty hallway, where the Dalek blasts a hole in the roof, letting the sunlight in. Just then, the Dalek opens up its casing to reveal the squid-like being within. The Doctor then arrives, ready to kill the Dalek, but Rose refuses to let him, still feeling pity for it. Gradually, it becomes obvious to them all that the Dalek is mutating into something that no Dalek ever wants to become, and the Dalek begs Rose to order it to die. Rose, after some hesitation, does so, and the Dalek elevates itself into the air, forming a force field around it with those metal balls from its armor, in which it self-destructs.

In the end, Van Statten gets arrested by his own men, and the Doctor reflects on having possibly won the Time War. Just then, Adam shows up and informs them that Van Statten has been deposed and that the underground museum is going to get filled in with cement, meaning they all need to get out. Rose manages to talk the Doctor into bringing Adam along with them, since Adam had said earlier he always wanted to see the stars. The Doctor doesn't much like the idea, but Adam creeps in after them anyway.

We got to see a very different side of the Doctor in this episode. A very angry Doctor. I suppose it makes sense considering he's being faced with the possibility of his mortal enemy still being alive, not to mention that the Ninth Doctor is still emotionally unstable from the Time War, with survivor guilt and clear PTSD hanging on him. This is epotimized in the scene where the Doctor tries to kill the Dalek after first meeting it:

DALEK: You are an enemy of the Daleks! You must be destroyed!
(Its gun arm twitches but nothing happens.)
DOCTOR: It's not working.
(The Doctor laughs as the Dalek looks at its impotent weapon.)
DOCTOR: Fantastic! Oh, fantastic! Powerless! Look at you. The great space dustbin. How does it feel?
DALEK: Keep back!
(The Doctor stands inches away, staring into its eyepiece.)
DOCTOR: What for? What're you going to do to me? If you can't kill, then what are you good for, Dalek? What's the point of you? You're nothing.
[Outside the Cage]
DOCTOR [on monitor]: What the hell are you here for?
DALEK [on monitor]: I am waiting for orders.
[Cage]
DOCTOR: What does that mean?
DALEK: I am a soldier. I was bred to receive orders.
DOCTOR: Well you're never going to get any. Not ever.
DALEK: I demand orders!
DOCTOR: They're never going to come! Your race is dead! You all burnt, all of you. Ten million ships on fire. The entire Dalek race wiped out in one second.
DALEK: You lie!
DOCTOR: I watched it happen. I made it happen.
DALEK: You destroyed us?
DOCTOR: I had no choice.
DALEK: And what of the Time Lords?
DOCTOR: Dead. They burnt with you. The end of the last great Time War. Everyone lost.
DALEK: And the coward survived.
DOCTOR: Oh, and I caught your little signal. Help me. Poor little thing. But there's no one else coming 'cause there's no one else left.
DALEK: I am alone in the universe.
DOCTOR: Yep.
DALEK: So are you. We are the same.
DOCTOR: We're not the same! I'm not (pause) No, wait. Maybe we are. You're right. Yeah, okay. You've got a point. 'Cause I know what to do. I know what should happen. I know what you deserve. Exterminate.
(The Doctor pulls a lever on a nearby console and the Dalek is lit up with electricity.)
DALEK: Have pity!
DOCTOR: Why should I? You never did.

The kicker though, is when the Doctor gets mad at the Dalek after it takes down a whole bunch of men in what appears to be a storage room of some sort. 

DOCTOR: And?
DALEK [on screen]: Nothing. Where shall I get my orders now?
DOCTOR: You're just a soldier without commands.
DALEK [on screen]: Then I shall follow the Primary Order, the Dalek instinct to destroy, to conquer.
DOCTOR: What for? What's the point? Don't you see it's all gone? Everything you were, everything you stood for.
[Loading bay]
DALEK: Then what should I do?
[Office]
DOCTOR: All right, then. If you want orders, follow this one. Kill yourself.
[Loading bay]
DALEK: The Daleks must survive!
[Office]
DOCTOR: The Daleks have failed! Why don't you finish the job and make the Daleks extinct. Rid the Universe of your filth. Why don't you just die?
[Loading bay]
DALEK: You would make a good Dalek. 

That last line was the one that got me. It's very appropriate that the video feed of the Dalek cuts out right then, because it really is a whammy line worth a pause. Think about it. All Daleks feel is hate. And in that scene, that is really all the Doctor is exhibiting - hatred. He's turning into exactly what the Daleks are - hatred-filled machines devoted to exterminating all other races. And yet, he feels no remorse for it at this moment (his next line is "Seal the vault"). It's not until the later scene where Rose tells him not to kill the Dalek that he breaks down:

DOCTOR: Get out of the way. Rose, get out of the way now!
ROSE: No. I won't let you do this.
DOCTOR: That thing killed hundreds of people.
ROSE: It's not the one pointing the gun at me.
DOCTOR: I've got to do this. I've got to end it. The Daleks destroyed my home, my people. I've got nothing left.
ROSE: Look at it.
DOCTOR: What's it doing?
ROSE: It's the sunlight, that's all it wants.
DOCTOR: But it can't
ROSE: It couldn't kill Van Statten, it couldn't kill me. It's changing. What about you, Doctor? What the hell are you changing into?
DOCTOR: I couldn't. I wasn't. Oh, Rose. They're all dead.
DALEK: Why do we survive?
DOCTOR: I don't know. 

It's actually a lot like the Doctor of Series 7 - he's becoming a person he shouldn't be, but he's so blinded he can't see it until his Companion points it out. Compare what Amy Pond says to the Eleventh Doctor in "A Town Called Mercy" to what Rose says:

ROSE: It couldn't kill Van Statten, it couldn't kill me. It's changing. What about you, Doctor? What the hell are you changing into? 

AMY: This is not how we roll, and you know it. What happened to you, Doctor? When did killing someone become an option?...And what then? Are you going to hunt down everyone who's made a gun or a bullet or a bomb?...You see, this is what happens when you travel alone for too long. Well, listen to me, Doctor. We can't be like him. We have to be better than him.

I found a very good article today from Tor on the Doctor's regenerations, and in it, the author points out that both the Ninth and the Eleventh Doctors had the guilt of what happened during the Time War:

The Ninth Doctor clearly suffered through Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and was a man frightened of himself and what he could do, who still tried his best to carry on because he couldn't think of anything else to do with himself....

...The Tenth Doctor didn't want to stop being himself, and so there was a lot of hold over to the Eleventh. He got even younger looking, kept a pretty snazzy dress sense, and maintained that ability to posture his way out of a lot of situations. But the guilt from the Time War needed to be set aside, and he needed to stop filling his companions in on the whole story....So the Doctor started to lie again, and buried some things deep down.

So it makes sense that in this sort of situation they would react very similarly, huh?

The Bad Wolf reference here is more explicit: Van Slatten's helicopter is called "Bad Wolf One."

Well, that's all I really have to say about that. In the next episode, the Doctor, Rose, and Adam go to the year 200,000, in which *spoiler* Adam does something stupid and gets kicked off the team.

***

NaBloPoMo Special:

The Love of the Doctor and Rose Tyler

Part Six: Save the Woman You Love

Since the theme of NaBloPoMo this month is "Love and Sex" (probably because of Valentine's Day), I feel compelled to write something about love in my posts. Hence, since I am exploring Series 1 and 2 in this challenge, I am going to write a little special essay throughout the month about the growing love between the Doctor and Rose. Please note I am in no way an expert on relationships.

DALEK [on screen]: Open the bulkhead or Rose Tyler dies.
DOCTOR: You're alive!
ROSE [on screen]: Can't get rid of me.
DOCTOR: I thought you were dead.
DALEK [on screen]: Open the bulkhead!
ROSE [on screen]: Don't do it! 
DALEK [on screen]: What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?
DOCTOR: I killed her once. I can't do it again.

Who would've thought that a Dalek would help "define the relationship" between the Doctor and Rose?

The Doctor and Rose are separated for almost the entire episode, much like the Series 2 two-part finale. But his feelings for her are put to the test in this episode when she not only objects to everything he says, but when he is also faced with the fact that he may have killed her. He had that problem in the last episode, when he didn't think Rose would survive the missile hitting 10 Downing Street, but here he has to face a much worse prospect: Rose is trapped in a room, alone, with a Dalek. And Daleks don't spare lives. 

And strangely, it is not Rose or the Doctor who recognizes the growing love between the two in this episode, but a DALEK. A being who feels no love to begin with, usually (this Dalek is an unusual one because it developed emotions from absorbing Rose's DNA). That's got to be Doctor Who history there. Either that or the Doctor and Rose are both so oblivious to the feelings that it takes a freakin' Dalek mentioning it to make them notice.

So, even though it doesn't show much in this episode, things are clearly developing between Rose and the Doctor. We'll see what ensues!

***

Tune in tomorrow for Day 7 of the NaBloPoMo challenge! 

Doctor Who quotes (from this episode) from The Doctor Who Transcripts. Amy Pond quote from this transcript (same site). Quote from Tor article from original article.

NaBloPoMo: Series 1, Episode 5, "World War Three"

WARNING: THIS ANALYSIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT WATCHED DOCTOR WHO OR AT THE VERY LEAST HAVE NOT SEEN THIS EPISODE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. 

It's Day 5 of my NaBloPoMo challenge! Today's episode: Series 1, Episode 5, "World War Three."

This is the second part of the 2-parter begun last time. And in this episode, the world goes into full-on war mode as the Slitheen launch their plan into full force. Jackie and Mickey come to terms (sorta) with Rose being with the Doctor, and Rose officially "signs up" as a Companion.

So, continuing from last episode, the Slitheen have basically infiltrated the highest government and social positions in Great Britain. They manipulate people into thinking there is an alien emergency (not caused by the Slitheen of course) and that the mothership of the alien attacking force is prepared to go nuclear. Therefore, they ask that the U.N. release the nuclear weapon access codes so that the British government can retaliate against this threat.

Now why would they do that, you ask? Well, turns out "Slitheen" isn't these aliens' race. It's their surname. They're actually a family of aliens made of living calcium and hail from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorius. And basically the Slitheen are kinda like a mob family. They kill whoever they have to in order to obtain "skins" to disguise themselves with, while hoping to make a profit while they're at it. Their plan for profit in this episode is to instigate World War III, reducing the planet to a crisp so that they can sell off the remaining radioactive chunks as spaceship fuel for cheap (since apparently there's a recession out in space too).

Unfortunately, at this point in this 2-parter, the Doctor, Rose, and Harriet Jones are trapped in 10 Downing Street, and the cunning Slitheen have basically murdered anyone in the building who might be of any help. The Doctor corrals Harriet, Rose, and himself into the Cabinet Room, and after confronting the Slitheen briefly, seals off the Cabinet Room. Still, in order to save the world, he has to think of something, and fast.

Meanwhile, out in London, Mickey saves Rose's mom from the Slitheen (disguised as a policeman) who was attacking her in her flat and brings her to his flat. But before leaving Jackie's flat, he snaps a picture of the Slitheen on his cell phone and sends it to Rose.

Thanks to the Doctor "upgrading" her phone in episode 2, Rose gets cell service inside the Cabinet Room and shows the Doctor the picture Mickey sent. Via Rose's phone and a conference table speakerphone system, the Doctor helps Mickey hack into a secret part of the UNIT website to try to identify the signal the Slitheens' spaceship - which the Doctor already determined was hidden in the North Sea - is sending out into space. In the meantime, a (understandably) distressed Jackie decides to confront the Doctor about her daughter's safety:

JACKIE: Well, I've got a question, if you don't mind. Since that man walked into our lives, I have been attacked in the streets. I have had creatures from the pits of hell in my own living room, and my daughter disappear off the face of the Earth.
ROSE: I told you what happened.
JACKIE: I'm talking to him. 'Cos I've seen this life of yours, Doctor. And maybe you get off on it, and maybe you think it's all clever and smart, but you tell me. [pause] Just answer me this. Is my daughter safe?
ROSE: I'm fine.
JACKIE: Is she safe? Will she always be safe? Can you promise me that?

Before he can answer, Mickey takes the phone back to inform the Doctor's he gotten into the site. The Doctor tries to make out what the message is saying, but he can't. Meanwhile, the Slitheen that attacked Jackie finds her and attacks again. The Doctor, Harriet, and Rose try to narrow down what planet the Slitheen could be from, finally narrowing it down to Raxacoricofallapatorius. At this point, the Doctor also realizes the Slitheen are living calcium and thus have acetic acid (a.k.a. vinegar) as a weakness. So he tells Mickey and Jackie to get to the kitchen and find anything with vinegar in it. Jackie happily volunteers (cause apparently Mickey doesn't know what's in his own kitchen cupboards), and starts going through Mickey's cupboard, pouring stuff in a bowl, which leads to a funny comment from the Doctor:

JACKIE: Oh, give it here. What do you need?
DOCTOR [OC]: Anything with vinegar!
(Jackie grabs a large jug and starts pouring stuff in.)
JACKIE: Gherkins. Yeah, pickled onions. Pickled eggs.
DOCTOR (to Rose): And you kiss this man?

This takes care of the Slitheen, but the other members of the "family" sense his death, which makes them pretty angry that someone even got lucky enough to kill one of them. The head of the family, Jocrassa Fel Fotch Pasameer-Day-Slitheen, who is pretending to be the acting Prime Minister, heads outside to make a televised statement, which Mickey transmits to the Doctor and co. via his phone:

GREEN: Ladies and gentlemen, nations of the world, humankind. The greatest experts in extra-terrestrial events came here tonight. They gathered in the common cause, but the news I bring you now is grave indeed. The experts are dead, murdered right in front of me by alien hands. Peoples of the Earth, heed my words. These visitors do not come in peace.
MICKEY: Listen to this.
(He holds the phone in front of the television.)
GREEN [on TV]: Our inspectors have searched the sky above our heads and they have found massive weapons of destruction capable of being deployed within forty five seconds.
DOCTOR: What?
GREEN: Our technicians can baffle the alien probes, but not for long.We are facing extinction, unless we strike first. The United Kingdom stands directly beneath the belly of the mother ship. I beg of the United Nations, pass an emergency resolution. Give us the access codes. A nuclear strike at the heart of the beast is our only chance of survival. Because from this moment on it is my solemn duty to inform you planet Earth is at war.

The Doctor recognizes this speech for the rubbish it is and prepares to take action, after confronting the Slitheen with his newly-acquired information while he's at it. He also finally answers Jackie's question about Rose's safety, saying he can't promise Rose will be safe. Rose tells him to go ahead and dare to do whatever he's planning to do to save the world, and Harriet follows suit, claiming authority to do so as the only elected representative in the room. 

The Doctor springs into action. He gets Mickey to hack into the Royal Navy (dang Mickey's a pretty darn good hacker) in order to launch a missile at the Slitheen, who are currently gathered in the Prime Minister's office waiting for the UN to call with the defense codes. Rose then decides they're not going to die and, with Harriet's help, clears out a cupboard for the three of them to hide in during the explosion (like, she figures, standing in a door frame during an earthquake). Meanwhile, the military people downstairs see the missile on their radar and evacuate the building of everyone but Rose, the Doctor, Harriet, and the Slitheen. The Slitheen are killed, but thanks to Rose's quick thinking she, the Doctor, and Harriet survive. 

Harriet hurries off to speak with the press, as the Doctor reveals to Rose that Harriet will one day be Prime Minister - which is why Harriet's name rang a bell with him.  At home, Rose and her mother watch Harriet's speech on TV, while Jackie complains that Rose and the Doctor should get the credit for saving the world, not Harriet. Jackie tells Rose she's finally ready to hear all about the Doctor and where they went, and promises to prepare tea for everyone. Just then, though, Rose's phone rings, and the caller ID says "TARDIS." It's the Doctor, who apparently has a phone inside the TARDIS (which Rose didn't know about...but then considering its disguise is a telephone box, I guess it makes sense). He refuses the tea invitation and invites Rose to go see this amazing nebula.

The next thing we know, Rose is packing a large duffle bag. Her mom begs her not to leave, but Rose still does. Outside, the Doctor has the kid from last episode clean the graffiti off the TARDIS and briefly talks with Mickey, who shows him a newspaper stating the recent alien-instigated events were all a hoax. The Doctor replies by saying Earthlings are just not ready yet to admit aliens exist. He then gives Mickey a disc containing a virus that, if put online, will destroy every mention of him. (This is an interesting point given the fact that later in the series, in Series 5, the Doctor erases himself from history to close the cracks in the universe, while in Series 7 Oswin Oswald erases him from the Dalek Pathnet). He says it's because he doesn't want to be followed, because he's dangerous. Mickey asks him how he can say that and still take Rose away with him. The Doctor offers Mickey the chance to go along, but Mickey turns it down, saying he can't handle the Doctor's life - but not to tell Rose he said that. Rose then appears, and she too invites Mickey, but the Doctor, to keep Mickey's secret, acts like he won't allow Mickey to come.

Rose then throws her duffle into the Doctor's hands, saying she's "signing up" and that he's stuck with her. Jackie tries to get one last bit of worry about her daughter in for good measure:

JACKIE: You still can't promise me. What if she gets lost? What if something happens to you, Doctor, and she's left all alone standing on some moon a million light years away. How long do I wait then?

The Doctor doesn't answer. Rose reassures her mom, saying she'll be back in ten seconds Earth time. The TARDIS dematerializes, and Jackie looks at her watch, saying "Ten seconds" and then realizing Rose isn't back. She then walks away, while Mickey goes back to reading the paper.

I was really grossed out by the Slitheen in this episode. I wanted them to quit unzipping their heads and shedding those human skins and stuff...that's just creepy. *shudder* Plus I really wished they would quit farting, even if it was just a down-side to them wearing skins.

Jackie really stood up for herself in this episode, which I thought was great. She's the kind of person who will fight tooth and nail for her child. Granted, she comes across as a tad bit overprotective, but still that she is so concerned for Rose's safety shows the kind of mother she is. We know Rose's dad died years ago, so Rose has basically been raised by her mom. There's got to be a closeness there, a really important bond. 

Mickey redeemed himself in this episode as well. Who knew a seemingly idiotic guy was actually such a good hacker? Still think Rose could possibly do better, but I guess I'm biased.

Penelope Wilton did a good job in this episode and the last one as Harriet Jones. Despite being a supposedly unassuming Parliament member, she is actually a strong and clever woman, and she wins over the Doctor quite easily. You can see how in the future she becomes the Prime Minister.  

Ok, well...till next time. In the next episode, the Daleks finally enter the reboot series. Uh-oh.

***

NaBloPoMo Special:

The Love of the Doctor and Rose Tyler

Part Five: Can You Keep Her Safe?

Since the theme of NaBloPoMo this month is "Love and Sex" (probably because of Valentine's Day), I feel compelled to write something about love in my posts. Hence, since I am exploring Series 1 and 2 in this challenge, I am going to write a little special essay throughout the month about the growing love between the Doctor and Rose. Please note I am in no way an expert on relationships.

Given that war and the impending end of the Earth are at stake in this episode, you wouldn't expect there to be any time for the Doctor and Rose's romance to develop in this episode. And that is true. But one important thing does happen in this episode: the Doctor is faced with the question of whether, by sharing his dangerous life with Rose, he can still keep her safe.

At first, the Doctor doesn't answer - well, actually, because Mickey takes the phone back from Jackie, he doesn't have time to answer. Later, right before enacting the plan to launch the missile, he gives Jackie his answer:

DOCTOR: There's a way out.
ROSE: What?
DOCTOR: There's always been a way out.
ROSE: Then why don't we use it?
DOCTOR: Because I can't guarantee your daughter will be safe.
JACKIE: Don't you dare. Whatever it is, don't you dare.
DOCTOR: That's the thing. If I don't dare, everyone dies.
ROSE: Do it.
DOCTOR: You don't even know what it is. You'd just let me?
ROSE: Yeah.
JACKIE [OC]: Please. Doctor. Please. She's my daughter. She's just a kid.
DOCTOR: Do you think I don't know that? Because this is my life, Jackie. It's not fun, it's not smart, it's just standing up and making a decision because nobody else will.
ROSE: Then what're you waiting for?
DOCTOR: I could save the world but lose you.

The Doctor knows the risk he's taking in firing the missile straight at 10 Downing Street with him and Rose still trapped in it. But Rose is willing to take that risk anyway. And, frankly, it's Rose's quick thinking that gets them out alive at all. But this conversation with Jackie shows that the Doctor is starting to actually care about Rose's well-being and realize just how dangerous his life is to other people. I mean, he's said before that it was dangerous, but I'm not sure the reality of that statement really hit him till this moment.

Rose doesn't really show any clear feelings to the Doctor in this episode, other than when she encourages him to go ahead and dare to do what he needs to do to save the world. But she does decide to officially "sign on" as a Companion, and proves it by packing a large duffle bag to take with her. So something about the Doctor must appeal to her, even if he and his life are dangerous.

Where will this lead? Nobody knows...yet. We'll see!

***

Tune in tomorrow for Day 6 of the NaBloPoMo challenge! 

Quotes from The Doctor Who Transcripts. 

NaBloPoMo: Series 1, Episode 4: "Aliens of London"

WARNING: THIS ANALYSIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT WATCHED DOCTOR WHO OR AT THE VERY LEAST HAVE NOT SEEN THIS EPISODE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. 

It's February 4th, and time for Day 4 of my NaBloPoMo challenge! This time, it's Series 1, Episode 4, "Aliens of London."

In this episode, the Doctor brings Rose back home for a visit with her mom. But, he miscalculated how much time has passed, so in her world Rose has been missing for a year. Her mom has been in panic, putting up missing person posters, and her boyfriend Mickey has been questioned multiple times by the police and even been suspected of murdering Rose. Needless to say, things don't go down so well now that Rose has returned, and when the Doctor attempts to make amends, Jackie Tyler assumes he's some pedophile Rose met on the internet and slaps him, while Mickey confronts the Doctor for all the trouble he's had to endure as a result of the Doctor taking Rose away. (This includes a funny scene where Mickey sees the Doctor walking toward the TARDIS and tries to run after him, but gets there just after the TARDIS dematerializes and therefore runs right into a wall).

Now, this would be more of an issue, if not for a spaceship suddenly crash-landing in the Thames (taking out Big Ben's face while it's at it) and causing a national emergency. For some reason, the spaceship reminded me of the Tribubble Bongo the Gungans lend to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan in Star Wars Episode I. (The top picture below is the ship from Doctor Who; the bottom one is the Bongo).

Mass chaos ensues, and the government does what the government usually does in stories where aliens crash-land in a major city and a body is found in the spacecraft: they take possession of the body with the intent of examining it medically and probably doing tests on it. Except that the body tries to break out of the morgue and one of the military men in the hospital shoots it even though the Doctor tells everyone not to shoot it. The Doctor realizes, however, that this body is not an alien at all, but a regular pig's head attached to a body (which is reminiscent of how alien hoaxes generally end up being explained in real life). Therefore, the crash landing must be a cover-up for something else.

The pig, by the way, made me think of the Bauerschwein from Grimm, which are a pig-like variety of Wesen (the creature-human hybrids that only Grimms can truly see) that are sworn enemies of the Blutbad, the variety of Wesen that Nick's Wesen friend Monroe is. They are not generally antagonistic against Grimms, though. (Again, top pic is from Doctor Who, bottom is from Grimm)

But it turns out not to be a cover-up but a trap - to distract the humans while the real invasion is going on unnoticed. Ladies and gentlemen, please meet the Slitheen.

Who look quite a lot like our typical stereotype of aliens as "little green men," don't you think?

Anyway, they begin their attack, and we see them closing in on Rose, Harriet Jones (who gets introduced in this episode, by the way, apparently she becomes important later), and the Junior Secretary Indra Ganesh in one room and Jackie Tyler in her flat, while in the briefing room all the alien experts are getting electrocuted by their own ID badges -- including, surprisingly, the Doctor!

And then the episode ends. To be continued next time. DUM DUM DUM.

Having seen movies where this sort of alien invasion happens, I kinda was not surprised with the way the average people's reactions were handled. I was a bit unnerved by how happy the Doctor seemed about everything (he responds to the gridlock and panic over the crash by smiling and saying, as usual, that this is "fantastic" - that word being the Ninth Doctor's catchphrase, which he always utters in an extremely excited voice at exactly the wrong time). It makes me want to say, à la Lady Bracknell, "Doctor, you seem to be displaying signs of triviality."

"Bad Wolf" shows up in this episode in the form of a kid spray painting it on the side of the TARDIS. Strangely, even when he goes back to the TARDIS, the Doctor doesn't notice the vandalism. But then it is dark.

I was also kind of mad at Jackie for reporting the Doctor to that emergency help line number, like she was responding to an Amber Alert or something. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's good that they have those numbers - I think it does help the police catch criminals. But I thought the Doctor was going to get arrested for that, which wouldn't have been that great. And Amber Alerts are no joke. Nor is older men meeting younger girls online and taking them away, as Jackie accuses the Doctor of doing -- and with good reason, really, because that is actually a real-life problem. It can lead to dangerous situations. Heck, any strange man meeting up with a girl can result in dangerous situations, even if it isn't due to a pre-arranged meeting. Believe me, I live in the same area where the Amber Dubois and Chelsea King murders happened, so I know that young, innocent girls can get assaulted and killed by strange men. It's a dangerous world out there, people, so be prepared.

At any rate, an interesting episode...but it's only Part 1 of a two-parter, so we'll see how it ends next time.

***

NaBloPoMo Special:

The Love of the Doctor and Rose Tyler 

Part Four: More Important Than a Boyfriend

Since the theme of NaBloPoMo this month is "Love and Sex" (probably because of Valentine's Day), I feel compelled to write something about love in my posts. Hence, since I am exploring Series 1 and 2 in this challenge, I am going to write a little special essay throughout the month about the growing love between the Doctor and Rose. Please note I am in no way an expert on relationships.

In this episode, we don't see a whole lot of the Doctor and Rose's relationship, mostly cause everyone is all concerned about the alien invasion. But despite that, their relationship inches a bit closer in this episode.

First of all, there's how Rose thinks of the Doctor. She tells Mickey that the Doctor's "not my boyfriend...He's much more important." Twice in the episode, even though she hasn't decided whether or not she's going to stay at home now that she's back, she asks him not to disappear, as if she's concerned that he'll leave her behind. Still, she can't seem to even tell her mother about him and where he's taken her, or Mickey either (although Mickey knows about the Doctor from episode 1). Mostly, she's confused, I think.

The Doctor is genial with Rose as usual, but looks genuinely concerned when he realizes that instead of landing in London 12 hours after he and Rose left, they've landed 12 months after, and that Rose has been suspected missing or even dead on her world. He opens up to her about his age right before the alien spaceship lands (telling her he's 900) and is even willing to watch the alien attack unfold on TV along with Rose, her mother, and her mother's friends - to the point of holding a baby on his lap. When he is invited to 10 Downing Street as an alien expert, he tries to insist that Rose go into the briefing room with him, and seems rather annoyed when he is told she can't. But the ultimate sign of his feelings in this episode is that he gives her a TARDIS key, adding as he does, "It's about time you had one." I mentioned before in my 2012 Christmas Special post that this giving of a TARDIS key to a Companion implies trust. He's trusting her with a key to the TARDIS -- his spaceship, his most prized possession as far as we know. And I think that says a lot.

Based on the next episode preview, showing what happens in Part 2 of this two-part adventure, the Doctor might face a real possibility of losing Rose. Uh-oh. Maybe this is where they really "define the relationship," or at least start to? After all, Rose does technically still have Mickey. Hmm...we'll see.

***

Tune in tomorrow for Day 5 of this NaBloPoMo challenge!

Doctor Who quote from The Doctor Who Transcripts. Lady Bracknell quote from Project Gutenberg (and altered slightly by me). Doctor Who pictures from Sonic Biro. Tribubble bongo pic from Wookiepedia.

Edit: On an un-related note, TARDIS Thoughts is now officially listed on the blogroll for NaBloPoMo February 2013. Hooray!

NaBloPoMo: Series 1, Episode 3, "The Unquiet Dead"

WARNING: THIS ANALYSIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT WATCHED DOCTOR WHO OR AT THE VERY LEAST HAVE NOT SEEN THIS EPISODE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. 

It's Day 3 of my NaBloPoMo challenge, and thus time for Episode 3 of Series 1! So far in series 1 we've had the attack of the creepy mannequins and a visit to the death of the Earth. So what's next? A journey to the past, of course! In this case, Christmas Eve 1869, in Cardiff, Wales, complete with a ghost/zombie storyline that somehow involves Charles Dickens.

I found it kind of amusing how much they had the Doctor diss Cardiff in this episode. Because, if you know anything about Doctor Who, you know that Cardiff is where they currently film the show. So the fact that he keeps commenting about it like it's some podunk town is pretty funny (and most likely did not sit well with some Welsh people).

Anyway, the plot of the episode is that the Doctor is planning on taking Rose to 1860 Naples - since he wants to take her to the past now that she's been to the future - but something goes awry in the flight, and they end up in 1869 Cardiff instead. They then find themselves involved with an undertaker named Mr. Sneed and his servant girl Gwyneth, who have been having issues with their cadavers waking up and walking around like zombies. As aforesaid, Charles Dickens gets involved in all this as well, as the initial zombie victim in the episode had a wish before she died to see Dickens's one-man show, which was taking place that evening, with him performing his story "A Christmas Carol."

I thought the gal who played Gwyneth, Eve Myles, did a great job in this episode. Apparently, she also plays Gwen Cooper, a main character on the spin-off Torchwood. I might watch Torchwood just for that, even though it stars John Barrowman, my impression of whom has not been positive so far, even though I've only really seen him in the Doctor Who Brit List special.

Somewhat of a spoiler: the seemingly-innocent Gelth - the token alien in this episode - end up being, well, demons. Not "angels" as Gwyneth called them when they visited her via her inborn clairvoyant abilities. Somehow I think I expected this, but with this show you know aliens can take all sorts of forms, and so I was ready to believe the Doctor when he just said they were aliens and nothing more. And I suppose they are, from another universe as the Doctor states, but at any rate they are revealed as malevolent, and it takes some quick thinking from Dickens and a heroic act from Gwyneth to stop the Gelth from destroying the human race just to acquire bodies.

The concept of Gwyneth's clairvoyant abilities and the ghosts/Gelth scenario is actually not too surprising, when you think about it. Spiritualism - a sort of religious movement tied to being able to contact the dead - was very popular in the 19th century, as were occult ideas such as Theosophy. Therefore this sort of idea actually fits into the time period.

I also like the way Dickens was portrayed in this episode. Unfortunately, I'm not as much of a fan of his as I would like to be -- the only novels of his I've read are Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities, and those were both for school. Here he is played by Simon Callow (though I swore it was Michael Gambon for some reason; his first scene reminded me a lot of Gambon Dumbledore). Callow is well-known for his writings on Dickens and has played him in a one-man show called The Mystery of Charles Dickens as well as in movies and TV shows. (I imagine his one-man show is similar to the one my parents and I saw by David Payne, An Evening with C.S. Lewis - which is definitely worth seeing if you get a chance. You can see a clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Vx6L3MhIg&noredirect=1). The scene of Dickens doing a recitation/reading of "A Christmas Carol" in front of an audience in this episode actually has a basis in fact - he did indeed do tours of such readings from 1868 to 1870. And, just as the Doctor mentions at the end of the episode, he died in 1870, leaving The Mystery of Edwin Drood unfinished.

This episode, more than any so far, reinforces the "for the good of the many" attitude the Doctor seems to have. Even if Rose begs him to save one innocent person (Gwyneth in this case), he will refuse in order to do the greater good of saving the rest of humanity. This attitude does get him in trouble though in this episode, when he trusts the Gelth and offers to help them out, only to find out they aren't what they seem.

We also find out a bit more about the Time War in this episode via the Gelth. They say the universe convulsed as a result of the Time War, and it was "devastating to higher forms." You can see the Doctor's expression become pensive when they say this, as if he's remembering that horrible time over again. Clearly he's got shellshock and some serious survivor's guilt, though he doesn't want to show it.

The token "Bad Wolf" reference for this episode comes from Gwyneth, who utters "the Big Bad Wolf" when she's with Rose and her clairvoyance kicks in.

Interesting note: Dickens doesn't understand the Doctor's use of "fan" meaning to be a fan of something. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term "fan" derived from the earlier term "fanatic" (which Dickens would have known), but in this meaning seems to be of American origin and thus may not have been well-known in Britain at the time.

Also, fans of Dickens will notice details relating to him in this ep. First of all - and the thing I noticed - they made Callow look exactly like how Dickens looks in all the usual pictures of him, right down to the beard. Thus I recognized him as Charles Dickens immediately. When Dickens is on stage, the work he's reciting is his story "A Christmas Carol," as aforesaid. Also, when the Doctor rides with Dickens in the carriage, he references several of Dickens's works in his fanboy excitement (Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, Martin Chuzzlewit, the death of Little Nell from The Old Curiosity Shop, and the short story "The Signal Man"). Later, when the Doctor enters the morgue, he says "Urgh. Talk about Bleak House," which refers to another of Dickens's books, Bleak House. When Dickens escapes Sneed's, the Gelth ghosts go into the door knocker, which may refer to the scene in "A Christmas Carol" when Scrooge's knocker turns into Marley's face. As the Doctor and Rose are leaving, Dickens refers to his book The Mystery of Edwin Drood. And at the very end, as Dickens is walking away, someone says to him "Merry Christmas, sir" to which he replies "Merry Christmas to you. God bless us every one!" which mirrors Scrooge's words at the end of "A Christmas Carol."

Oh and I finally got the answer to my question about where the heck Amy and Rory got those clothes for the 1890's in "The Power of Three." Apparently, the Doctor's got a whole wardrobe of period clothes somewhere in the TARDIS. Near the bins (meaning he's got trash bins too; not sure why - but that's what British people mean when they say "bins").

Overall, a good episode. Looking forward to what's next!

***

NaBloPoMo Special: 

The Love of the Doctor and Rose Tyler 

Part Three: Journey to the Past

Since the theme of NaBloPoMo this month is "Love and Sex" (probably because of Valentine's Day), I feel compelled to write something about love in my posts. Hence, since I am exploring Series 1 and 2 in this challenge, I am going to write a little special essay throughout the month about the growing love between the Doctor and Rose. Please note I am in no way an expert on relationships.

In this episode, the Doctor and Rose journey together to the past. Their relationship seems to have improved, based on the early part of the episode when they're in the TARDIS. Later they end up in danger of possibly dying from the attack by the Gelth, and he admits that he's glad he met her, to which she replies the same. Now, I suppose this is the sort of thing that comes out when you and a friend are in mortal danger, but it does show a progression in their relationship.

The Doctor does actually seem concerned about Rose's safety this time. He makes her change into period clothes to avoid a riot, steals Dickens's hansom cab to go after Rose when she's kidnapped by Sneed, and tells Dickens to get Rose out of the room when she starts coughing from all the gas. He also shows concern when she says it's impossible for her to die before she's born, and explains to her that because time is not linear as we suppose, time could twist and she could be born in the 20th century and die in the 19th, and it would be his fault cause he brought her there. (This is somewhat similar to what the Weeping Angels do; they send you back in time - to before you were even born to begin with - and force you to live out the rest of your natural life. However, your life in the past before being sent back by them will apparently still happen, since in "The Angels Take Manhattan" Amy tells the Doctor to visit her younger self and encourage her, an idea that supposes that her younger self has not been erased from existence).

So, they've been to the future, and they've been to the past. What could be next? Well, based on the "Next on Doctor Who," aliens attacking London and a UFO running into Big Ben. Another test awaits our dear couple! We'll see what happens!

***

See you guys tomorrow for Episode 4!

Quotes from The Doctor Who Transcripts.

NaBloPoMo: Series 1, Episode 2, "The End of the World"

WARNING: THIS ANALYSIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT WATCHED DOCTOR WHO OR AT THE VERY LEAST HAVE NOT SEEN THIS EPISODE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. 

Hey there Whovians! It's February 2nd, and as far as I know, spring is not coming late. But besides being Groundhog Day and Candlemas, it's February 2nd, and that means time for Day 2 of my NaBloPoMo challenge. Today I'm covering Series 1, Episode 2, "The End of the World."

This was the first time I used my Netflix app on my iTouch to watch something. I found myself with extra time to kill before going to work, so I camped out in Starbucks for an hour and watched the episode. Watching any TV show on a mobile device is in many ways not the same as watching it on your TV. In good and bad ways. But thankfully, one good thing is that I was able to set closed captions to appear, because as I've said before, I can't understand what people are saying half the time on this show because of the accents, no matter what I set the volume to. And thanks to watching lots of subtitled anime, I can easily read the screen and watch the action at the same time.

So...the title of this episode kind of says it all. It takes place 5 billion years in the future, at the time the sun expands and basically incinerates the Earth. We all know from scientists telling us so that this sort of thing will indeed happen, astronomically speaking. But, as shown here, it will take billions of years before it does, at which point we'll probably not be living on Earth anyway, either because of space exploration or pure extinction.

It's kind of weird that the first place the Doctor takes his new Companion Rose is to what is basically the end of her home planet. In the episode, it comes across as him more or less trying to impress her with what he can do (and also because he thinks the 22nd Century is boring and the year 12,005 not impressive enough). But I have heard some Whovians refer to it as a sort of test - that he's testing her to see if she's Companion material. It's highly possible; we see this sort of thing later on with Amy Pond (with Starship UK) and with Clara (in "The Snowmen" both Vastra and the Doctor put Clara to the test). You can also sort of view it as a first date, especially considering how he refers to her as his "plus one" when confronted about whether he has an invitation, and how at another point a character thinks Rose is the Doctor's wife or partner.

So, basically, the episode takes place on a spaceship/observation deck called Platform One, where rich aliens gather to watch "artistic events," which in this case is the death of the Earth. And it is essentially a party, with everyone being introduced as they come in, and people mingling and giving gifts of peace to one another, complete with refreshments. There are even stewards and private suites, as if this were a cruise ship. And, as the Doctor tells Rose, people do this for fun. It actually gives a sort of macabre feeling to the whole affair. It's kind of like The Hunger Games actually - where the wealthy people of the Capitol gather basically FOR FUN in the huge stadium to watch 24 young people fight to the death against each other with increasingly rising stakes like the Cornucopia, electrified water, tracker jackers, and creepy monkeys.

This episode has an almost mystery feel about it, like Clue or Murder on the Orient Express, with a bunch of people gathered in one place, something going wrong, and the culprit by necessity having to be one of the guests, due to there being no possibility of outside influences bringing about the incident in question. At the same time, it has elements of adventure, like the Doctor having to dodge the spinning air conditioning turbines to get to a switch that has to be activated to save everyone, all while the temperature is rising rapidly. We also see conflict between the Doctor and Rose as she gets angry at him for not telling her about himself, and some inner conflict on the Doctor's part as he's forced to face the past he's clearly avoiding. Rose also goes through some inner conflict as she realizes she basically hitched a lift with a guy she doesn't even know, without even thinking about it -- while meanwhile she's having to deal with the impending death of her world, not to mention getting captured by the monk-like Adherents of the Repeated Meme and being trapped in a room as the sunfilter is malfunctioning.

The steward was an interesting character. There's one scene where he is talking to his unseen boss and clearly panicked about a tremor that just happened onboard, then he gets on the intercom and calmly tells everyone not to worry, they're just experiencing turbulence, before promptly returning to his panic as soon as the intercom's off. This two-faced behavior is an interesting idea, but so true to how we sometimes act in times of trouble - we try to appear all calm, when we're really panicking.

The blue-skinned plumber Rose meets, Raffalo, reminds me a lot of Jenny, Vastra's companion/wife. She has the same innocent, Cockney maid thing going for her. She also is a bit like Martha in The Secret Garden - really polite but talkative and pleasant. She's played by Beccy Armory, a relatively unknown actress who is primarily known for this role.

Another major character of this episode is Jabe, a woman from a race of humanoid tree people, who's played by Yasmin Bannerman. Bannerman's had a few TV roles but that's all. Nor was this her last involvement with Doctor Who; she also appeared in the Doctor Who audio dramas The Bride of Peladon and The Fourth Wall, as well as guest-starring in an episode of the Doctor Who spin-off series Torchwood. I kinda liked Jabe actually; she worked well with the Doctor, and I was kinda sad that she doesn't survive in the end.

And then there's Cassandra, the last "pure" human on Earth. If one can call her human - as Rose points out, she's just a face and skin, stretched out on a rack with some sort of cyllinder below filled with liquid (which probably holds her brain). And because of her state, she must be followed round-the-clock by two servants who periodically moisturize her with hoses. If anything could scare women away from plastic surgery, it would be this lady. She is a clear sign of what happens when plastic surgery goes too far; after all, she's had 708 surgeries and is scheduled for another within the next week. And, lo and behold, it turns out she's the bad guy in all this, releasing mechanical spiders into the station to basically take over its systems, disabling the shields and the sunfilters, with the intent of killing everyone on board so she can make money off the shares she holds in their rivals' companies (either that or set up a hostage situation; she admits to both plans). She does, however, have the Adherents of the Repeated Meme do the dirty work of getting the spiders on board and distributed to the guests - in the form of mysterious iron balls - in hopes that they will take them behind the code walls guarding their suites on the station, thereby allowing the spiders to access every part of the station's systems. Which in fact they do. She also uses the Adherents so that if something goes wrong she can deflect the blame off of herself (which she does).

One thing I personally thought of with Cassandra is that she sounds an awful lot like Dame Judi Dench, especially as she was playing M in James Bond. Maybe I just thought that because I'm a pretty big Bond fan. (She's actually played/voiced by Zoë Wanamaker, an American-born British actress who's done a fair amount of TV and movie work, such as Madam Hooch in Harry Potter and Ariadne Oliver in Agatha Christie's Poirot, as well as doing stage work with the Royal Shakespeare Company).

Thankfully, the Doctor is able to reach the switch to save the day, though it doesn't end without some casualties due to the sun's radiation getting into the station due to Cassandra's spiders shutting off the gravity machines keeping the sun back. By this time, Cassandra has teleported herself to safety, but the Doctor manages to teleport her back, at which point she becomes exposed to the increased temperature in the room and starts to dry out (since there's no one there to moisturize her). She then basically explodes.

Some interesting moments in this episode: Cassandra brings as a gift something she calls an "iPod." But it is clearly a jukebox. One that plays vinyl records and everything. At first it plays Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" (a song that strangely even I recognized) and later Britney Spears's "Toxic," which I am vaguely familiar with. The Doctor mentions the TARDIS translation field to explain why Rose heard the aliens speaking English, to which Rose protests about his machine getting in her head. Frankly, I think I wouldn't much like that either, though it would definitely help with communication. Also, this episode features the first mention of the "Bad Wolf" theme that pervades Series 1. And - something I probably noticed due to having the contextual knowledge of later seasons - it's worth noting that one of the guests on Platform One is the FACE OF BOE. Yeah, the same Face of Boe that shows up later in Series 3. Not sure why he gets introduced this early but hey. Oh, and apparently the TARDIS has some sort of hand crank thing the Doctor needs to use in order to travel through time? Never knew that.

Overall, I found this episode an engaging watch. It was interesting to see the Doctor actually show emotions, which he didn't really do in "Rose." He also finally begins to open up to Rose by telling her a bit about his past at the end of the episode. This Ninth Doctor might not be so bad after all.

***

NaBloPoMo Special: 

The Love of the Doctor and Rose Tyler 

Part Two: The First Date (Or Test?)

Since the theme of NaBloPoMo this month is "Love and Sex" (probably because of Valentine's Day), I feel compelled to write something about love in my posts. Hence, since I am exploring Series 1 and 2 in this challenge, I am going to write a little special essay throughout the month about the growing love between the Doctor and Rose. Please note I am in no way an expert on relationships.

In this episode, we see the Doctor and Rose on what is essentially their first date (I think they even refer to it as such later in the show). They're still kind of wary of each other at this point. Rose even comes to the realization in this episode that the Doctor is a complete stranger to her, and that she "hitched a lift" with him without really thinking. The two also have conflict in this episode since the Doctor still refuses to tell her anything about himself. She also doesn't much like the idea of his TARDIS getting in her head without her permission (she says this in reference to the Doctor explaining the TARDIS's translation field, which allowed her to hear the aliens speaking English; part of me wonders whether this isn't just a gimmick to save the writers from having to create alien languages). But overall, he's pretty genial to her in this episode, and he does try to save her from the room she's locked in by the Adherents of the Repeated Meme, though he seems less concerned about saving her than about saving the station itself.

It is shown at the beginning of the episode that the Doctor is trying to impress Rose. He asks her when in time she wants to travel to, and she tells him a hundred years in the future. He adjusts some levers, cranks his little hand crank thing, and in no time at all, he announces that they are now in the 22nd Century, though he admits it's kinda boring. He then tries to impress her further by going to the year 12,005 (10,000 years in the future), which he adds is the time of the New Roman Empire. (My first thought at this was that Amy Pond, who's fascinated with Roman Britain, would probably love to go to the New Roman Empire). He then can plainly see that she's not that impressed. So he decides to go all-out, and says he knows just where to go - and that's how they end up on Platform One in the year 5 billion (or, more technically, 5.5/Apple/26).

The Doctor does seem to be warming to Rose though. He actually doesn't shoot down her comment about her not liking that the TARDIS is getting in her head, but instead says he hadn't thought of it like that, actually being willing to acknowledge that's he's rather inconsiderate of others. He even mods her cell phone so she can call her mom, who's back at home in the present day, as a way of cheering her up, though this only makes Rose more sad as she realizes that, at the point in history she's at, her mom would be dead.

The real moment for these two's relationship, though, comes at the end of the episode. Rose looks at the now-destroyed Earth, and sadly points out that everyone was so busy saving themselves no one saw the Earth actually explode. The Doctor then tells her to come with him, and they reappear in modern-day London, in the midst of a crowd who apparently can't see them. He points out that all that we see will be gone one day. He then breaks down, and admits to Rose some of his past:

DOCTOR:...My planet's gone. It's dead. It burned like the Earth. It's just rocks and dust before it's time.
ROSE: What happened?
DOCTOR: There was a war and we lost.
ROSE: A war with who? What about your people?
DOCTOR: I'm a Time Lord. I'm the last of the Time Lords. They're all gone. I'm the only survivor. I'm left travelling on my own 'cos there's no one else.  

Rose tells him there's always her, but he reminds her how dangerous traveling with him is and asks if she wants to quit. She says she's not sure what she wants. She then gets distracted by the smell of chips (what we Americans call French Fries) and asks the Doctor if they can go get some before they head off again - insisting that he pays. He doesn't have any money, though, so Rose is stuck paying herself. They then run off, with Rose adding at the end: "We've only got five billion years till the shops close."

So, things seem to be moving forward for this couple. They had their first date -- and Rose seems to have passed the Doctor's initial test of her worth as a Companion. How will it develop? We'll see!

***

See you tomorrow for Day 3 of the challenge!

Quotes from The Doctor Who Transcripts.