Re: Review - Season 2, Episode 7: The Idiot's Lantern
- From: FishFood <dont@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 08:28:56 GMT
pbowles@xxxxxxx wrote:
Well, I hadn't heard much positive about this episode in advance, and
in the event I found myself underwhelmed by it, though I might qualify
that by saying that I didn't think it was THAT bad.
We're promised a 'Twilight Zone'-style story, but I have to confess I
never got into The Twilight Zone. A weakness of the Doctor/Rose
situation that I've seen Agamemnon, of all people, highlight here is
becoming clearer - with a human companion and no overarching objective
of his own, the Doctor does mainly seem to be relegated to taking her
on a tour of bits of her planet's past. And usually getting the date
and place wrong, as here. That suggests it is time for a fresh
companion, hopefully one with a different background - aside from
Sarah's allusion to the fact in "School Reunion", let's have a reminder
that the Doctor takes alien companions; we've had none in this new
incarnation of the series.
Onto the story itself, the Magpie-Wire plot proves, in itself, too thin
to hold the story together. Therefore we're given a substory about the
abusive Eddy Connolly which is only tenuously tied to the main plot,
and which I feel the story could have done without. I've heard people
complain about the Doctor's and Rose's treatment of Connolly, but while
I didn't like it it seemed in character for the Doctor, who in past and
present incarnations rarely seems to have accepted that cultural norms
make certain behaviour acceptable, and I understand why Gatiss included
it. This is, after all, a show for a modern audience, including kids,
and kids' shows teach morality among other things - if we were to be
shown the abusive father/husband and not have him held to account, what
sort of message would that send? But it seems we have to be shown him
to make this a 'period piece' of the sort the BBC loves to sell, and so
we had to have Connolly taken to task.
On the subject of that part of the plot, I'm becoming uneasy about how
glibly the Doctor flashes psychic paper around as a way of avoiding any
necessity to work his way out of situations. Last season we saw psychic
paper twice. Since "New Earth", we've seen it in four out of six
stories, and here it's manifestly used simply as a way of avoiding
scripting the Doctor talking his way into the house. Some time soon we
need to have someone in an episode challenge the authority of the
psychic paper or doubt its veracity, just so that it becomes less of a
get-out-of-jail-free card. There must be a reason why the old Doctors
never resorted to it (a story reason, not the real reason that the idea
hadn't been thought of).
Having Rose victimised by the Wire was a mistake - that made it
inevitable that whatever solution the Doctor came up with would restore
everyone's faces, and as pointed out by others that makes no sense at
all in the context of the story or its resolution. It's not as though
Doctor Who needs happy endings where no one dies or is horribly
disfigured; the story could easily have been resolved with the victims
remaining faceless and hidden as a police cover-up (and on that
subject, why do we have Connolly mentioning Torchwood, an organisation
Harriet Jones told us in an episode set in 2006 that she wasn't
supposed to know about as PM? In an alternate universe I can stomach it
being public knowledge, but not here). The 'happy ending' to the
Connolly story was out of place too - the kid just got his father
kicked out of his home, and suddenly by going to help him carry their
bags the two are reconciled as they leave? Connolly's character is
presented as being too vindictive for that to be plausible, even if it
were desirable.
Not a strong showing at all - the only episode of the six on DVDS 2 and
3 that I've hesitated to watch a second or subsequent times. I'd have
to watch more of last year's episodes again before commenting on
whether it's on a par with the weaker showings there, but it's not a
favourite by any means.
Phil
This seems to be another one of those stories designed not simply
to make sense, but for the viewer to find sense. Strands of ideas
included for different, yet deliberate reasons. Its only the
superficial aspect of 'story telling', which impedes those ideas.
The 1950's, the new age of the media, the glorious distraction of
pomp and circumstance, and then those faceless people one might
describe as off their face.. not to mention the significant story
of abuse, and identity. There was quite a lot packed into this
episode, its just a shame the dramatic tension, relied on to sell
the idea, was less than it could be. No sight of the monster
behind the veneer of beauty. Just a vague notion of the image,
as so much reconstituted electrons. They might have had the monster
stealing faces and so identity - for a reason. All its identities
glimpsed in its demise. [but then there are only so many monsters
to go around ;-] Still i did like its period, which the beeb does
too well.
The significant moments was the doctor's comments to the police
and the boy's statements to his father, either would have been
reason enough for the episode. Good old Doc, always at hand with
the right medicine.
.
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