Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 2, Episode 13 - Doomsday

Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 2, Episode 13 - Doomsday

Gods, I'm nearly in tears already, knowing what's coming and all...

Last time, Cybermen from Pete's World had invaded, and Daleks were coming out of a sphere...and Mickey was back...and Rose told us that this was the *sniff* story of how *sob* she died...

The Daleks advance on Rose, Mickey and the scientist, but Rose casts 'shout their name at them' and it lands a high enough d20 roll to convince them to leave the humans alive. After all, at this point how could a human know about Daleks and the Time War? Anyhow, the Daleks seem more fussed about protecting 'The Genesis Ark' at all costs. Higher up in the building, Jackie is panicking, whilst The Doctor promises that he will save them all. The Cybermen broadcast to the world to tell them that they're going to assimilate everyone. The army do a frankly rubbish job of trying to stop them, and fires are breaking out everywhere, which is a pretty cool image really. 

The Daleks want the least important of Rose, Mickey and the scientist to come forward, so obviously the scientist volunteers, having his brainwaves painfully extracted through the fabled 'head squash via Dalek-plunger' finishing move. They learn of the presence of the Cybermen, and they have a brilliant stand off where each refuses to identify first. The Doctor, meanwhile, watches this on a monitor looking slightly troubled. The Cybermen propose an alliance to upgrade the universe, but the Daleks give them the finger and kill their two scouts. They also spot The Doctor in the background of a video feed.The rest of the Cybermen start to prepare the Torchwood employees (and Jackie) for assimilation, with Yvonne protesting that she did her duty for Queen and country before she died. 

In the control room again, a group of people from Pete's World (including Jake from those episodes) suddenly appear, taking out the Cybermen, which allows Jackie to escape a few floors below as the Cybermen need to designate a new leader. The Doctor says that Pete's World shouldn't have the sort of technology that can transport across parallel worlds, but Jake says their version of Torchwood developed it, and uses the tech to take The Doctor across to his world. He meets Pete, who tells him it's time to listen for once.

Rose and Mickey wonder what's going on, and why Mickey is being kept alive. Rose speculates that the Daleks need the background radiation that time-travellers pick up on their journeys, to wake up a part of them as happened in Dalek, but the Daleks reveal that the Genesis Ark is of Time lord design. They believe that Rose's handprint will open the Ark up, 

On Pete's World, Pete explains that the Cybermen were locked up in the factories, but protesters argued that they were living beings and so set them free. They then jumped across the Void and so the moral of the story is, protesters are arseholes. Pete mentions that global temperatures have risen by two degrees in the last six months, and The Doctor says it's because every journey across the Void onto a parallel world rips the fabric of space apart, and that this is making the planet boil. They want The Doctor to close the breach, but he this would strand 5 million Cybermen on our Earth. He'll need to defeat them and The Daleks before he does that...but he's The Doctor, so go get 'em, champ. Or surrender to the Cybermen back in our world, whatever.

The Daleks are demanding that Rose open the Ark, but she taunts them with the knowledge that she destroyed the Emperor Dalek in Series 1. Just as they decide she should die for that act, The Doctor appears at the door. I'll now point out the 3D glasses that he's been wearing a fair bit during the last episode and this one, as it's probably about time they were mentioned. They turn out to be the Cult of Skaro, a legend that were designed to think as the enemy thinks, different from regular Daleks. When the Daleks tell him 'seriously, shut up and just open the damn Ark', he goes all Tenth Doctor on them, pointing out that his sonic screwdriver might be small but it's excellent at opening doors, blowing open some of them and unleashing a newly formed alliance of Pete's World people and Cybermen. Unforunately, during their escape, Mickey's hand ends up on the Genesis Ark, and starts the opening process.

Jackie finally meets up with them all again after apparently running up and down some stairs for a couple of hours. Bit awkward between Pete and Jackie for a while, but there's love in the air still. Gods, I'm in tears when they finally hug. If you aren't too, then you're DEAD inside. The Cybermen and Daleks are still fighting elsewhere in the building, but the Genesis Ark is still making its way to where the Daleks need it, even with Cybermen reinforcements being order to converge on Torchwood's location. Reaching their destination, the Daleks open the roof and head upwards with the Genesis Ark into the sky. The Ark opens and...well, shit, that's not good. Time Lord science=it's bigger on the inside i.e. the Genesis Ark is a prison ship, and there's millions of Daleks beginning to flood out. Still, epic battle about to commence.

It's time for The Doctor to leap into the action, 3D glasses and all. He's been using the glasses to see 'Void Stuff', or the background radiation, attached to everyone who has travelled through the Void to get to other worlds. All he needs to do is open the Void, and all the Void Stuff will get sucked back through, taking those it's attached to with it. Only one problem - to avoid getting sucked in from this side, everyone needs to head over to Pete's World, and that includes Rose. When the breach closes she'll be trapped there forever. Though she tries to convince Jackie that she will stay here with him, Pete and The Doctor share a knowing look, and manage to sneak a travelling medallion around Rose and Jackie's necks, sending them to Pete's World before they realise what is happening. Rose immediately travels back, telling The Doctor that she picks him over Jackie, and he reluctantly tells her how to help.

Rather randomly, the Yvonne Cyberman has somehow retained her humanity and busts a load of Cybermen. Locking some extremely powerful gravity clamps against the wall, The Doctor and Rose prepare to send everything into the Void, whilst hanging on for dear life. All the Cybermen and Daleks around the world are sucked back to London, and thrown into the Void, except for one Dalek who does an Emergency Temporal Shift the hell out of there. They're all nearly through when one of the levers begins to move, shutting the process down. Rose manages to make her way across to it to get it working again, but the power of the Void starts sucking her in. She desperately tries to hold on, but she slips and heads straight for it. At the last second, Pete appears with a medallion, saving her and taking her back to Pete's World, just before the breach is closed. The Doctor looks on, broken. On Pete's World, Rose pleads to be sent back, but the medallions have stopped working as the breach is closed.

Rose begins to dream that she hears The Doctor's voice, whispering her name. They get into Pete's old jeep, following the voice, leading them to Bad Wolf Bay in Norway. The Doctor appears as a transparent image, burning up a star to send a last message to her across the last tiny gap between worlds. He brings his image more into focus, but she still can't touch him. I want to hug them both, to tell them it'll be alright, but I know it won't be. She;s going to work for Torchwood, Jackie is pregnant, and I don't care because I'm still crying. She tells him that she loves him, confirming everything we already know. You know the rest - he's just about to say it back, when he fades from view, tears running down his face back in the TARDIS. 

Fiddling with the controls, he gets set to head off once more, only to be justifiably shocked to find Catherine Tate in a wedding dress wondering where the bloody hell she is.

Words will never quite do justice to the end of this episode. If you thought that the end of The Girl in the Fireplace was tear-jerker, then you ain't seen nothing yet. The end of Rose's journey is so heart-breaking, I'm still crying writing this now. It gets me every single time, no matter who I watch it with. It's a breathtaking end to the season, particularly as the rest of the episode is nothing more than 'good'. Entertaining, but not spectacular, which is a shame considering it features Cybermen vs Daleks. There's just something about the meeting of the two enemies that falls a little flat. They shoot at each other a lot, but that's it. It's surely just budgetary restrictions meaning the fight scenes of million of Daleks versus millions of Cybermen are so short, but it does mean that I'm left thinking, 'oh, right, yeah' rather than 'OH. MY. GOD.' It's a shame, because it's such a brilliant stand-off when the Daleks and Cybermen first meet each other, each refusing to identify themselves to the other. It's something that fans must have wanted for years (assuming that they haven't actually met before in a classic-Who episode.

When Rose can't hold on to the lever any more and heads straight for the Void, that howl of angst that David Tennant gives out caused the tears to prick my eyes again. Seriously, the whole last fifteen minutes are just one giant blubfest. As soon as that takes place, The Doctor's face is one of utter despair, Rose is smashing her hands against the wall pleading to be taken back, and I can't emphasise just how heart-breaking this all is. For a friendship that we've seen built up over the last two series, seeing it broken apart like this is almost too much. It's these moments that make Doctor Who so utterly brilliant.

David Tennant's face when he realises that Rose is gone, saved at the last second but still gone, is one of the most affecting he will ever give. The shot of The Doctor and Rose with their faces pressed against the wall, mirroring each other's actions as the Doomsday theme plays is one of new-Who's most iconic. The Doctor walks away a broken man, and we're all broken with him. Those tears sum everything up. Seriously, even those who don't like Rose MUST be affected by this.

Another bit that Russell T Davies absolutely nails perfectly is the way The Doctor explains that Rose will have to go to Pete's World and then just gets on with it. While she is looking traumatised, he knows that he can't afford to stop for a second, because if he does he won't be able to go through with it. Even with the ending, this is possibly the strongest showing of his love for Rose, and it's absolutely wonderful.

This is also what we believe to be the last time we'll see Jackie and Mickey. Both have been integral parts of Rose's story in Series 1 and 2, and both have been absolutely fantastic. Jackie is still the funniest character in new-Who; I loved it when The Doctor tried to explain parallel realities to her and she just told him to shut up. Never a dull scene with Jackie in it. Mickey, too has had a great character arc, finally proving himself to be a hero and ending up with Rose (we presume). For a while, at least...

My wife thinks I'm a ludicrously sensitive soul, and it's probably things like the fact I had tears in my eyes when Pete and Jackie saw each other for the first time that give her that impression. Hell, when she says that in twenty years there was never anyone else, and then he says that she did make something of herself after all because she raised Rose, and then they finally hug, I don't see how anyone can't feel a swelling in their heart. Yet people apparently think Twilight has an epic romantic story to it but would ignore Doctor Who. These people are morons.

Special praise needs to go to Murray Gold's 'Doomsday' theme. I can't hear the opening piano and bass without welling up, knowing what scene it comes from. It's so different to all his other pieces of music, and it must be one of his most iconic. He's always superb, but he surpasses himself here.

Ooh, those Daleks are mean. 'You didn't have to kill him!' Rose shouts at them, when they murder the scientist who had been studying the sphere. 'Neither did we need him alive' is their reply. Well, they have a point, but perhaps killing him was a little excessive? A quite retirement would have been fairer. The Daleks give the equivalent of a 'yo momma' comeback, when telling the Cybermen they are better at only one thing - dying. Ooh, you can feel the burn from here!

There's a big bit of Who-lore that influenced a lot of guessing about the 50th Anniversary special, as The Doctor tells the Daleks he was at the Fall of Arcadia. Still waiting to see it on the TV, but if they can persuade John Hurt to come back...

There are a couple more things that bug me, but that are fairly minor quibbles. The first is that when Pete saves Rose at the end, he is able to stand still despite the pull of the Void. Yes, he's only there for a second or two, and the breach is nearly closed, but when the pull of the Void is so great that Cybermen are dragged all the way from India, there's no way he would be able to stand absolutely steady. The second is that I don't really understand the bit where it turns out Yvonne survived the Cyber-assimilation. It's a needless scene, and doesn't make me cheer at all, though I understand it's probably a sign that humanity will win out against evil. It just makes me think, 'well why the hell did that happen?'

Torchwood Mentions
Oh, don't be stupid.

Overall
Though the episode itself is a little flawed, the ending is perhaps the greatest since new-Who began. It's the most heart-breaking, tear-jerking finish to a season, even more so than Series 4, and I'm still feeling the effects half a day later (well, nearly 7 YEARS later from when I first saw it). Fantastic end to the season, and a very fond farewell to Rose, Mickey and Jackie.

9/10

Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 2, Episode 12 - Army of Ghosts

Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 2, Episode 12 - Army of Ghosts

Rose narrates a short monologue. Nothing happened for the first 19 years, then she met The Doctor, then they did stuff, and it looked like carrying on forever. But then came Torchwood and the Army of Ghosts. This is the story of how she died.

Cue title sequence.

Rose and The Doctor arrive back in the present. Jackie is pleased to see them, kissing The Doctor for good luck, though she appears to have lost her mind as she thinks her dead father is coming to visit. Just then, a ghost appears, so perhaps she isn’t that mad. Although it sets alarm bells ringing. As Jackie says the ‘shift’ is about to end, we briefly see people at the ‘Torchwood Institute’ (FINALLY!) pulling a lever, shutting down a system. The Doctor flicks through the TV channels, seeing that it’s all over the world, including Eastenders. It’s been going on for about two months, which caused panic to start with, until people got used to it. Though Jackie swears she can smell her father in the ghost, The Doctor says that it’s a psychic link which the ghosts use to make their pull on reality stronger.

At Torchwood, the woman who appears to be in charge exchanges notes with some scientists who are guarding a sphere that technically doesn’t exist, as well as Martha Jones’ cousin (we’ll touch more on that in Series 3).Fake Martha flirts with a colleague, arranging to get a coffee. They head into a restricted area undergoing some work, but it goes a bit tits up when she bumps into a Cyberman.

Assuming the role of Ghostbusters, The Doctor and Rose set up some detecting bits to detect bits. Torchwood power the lever back up, as Fake Martha and Gareth return with extra Bluetooth ear pieces, a-la people in the parallel world. Jackie gets all depressing by telling Rose that if she keeps travelling she won’t be the same in forty-odd years time, which shouldn’t be news to anyone anyway, as everyone changes after forty years. Outside, The Doctor traps a ghost in his field, alerting Torchwood. They catch the TARDIS on camera, and send troops to meet it as it appears at Torchwood. Showing The Doctor and Jackie (pretending to be Rose) around Torchwood, the lady in charge (Yvonne) tells them that anything alien that comes into British airspace is shot down, stripped of its parts, and used for the good of the British Empire. It was created by Queen Victoria, and The Doctor is still an enemy of the state. They take him to the sphere we saw earlier, which The Doctor identifies as a Void Ship, a vessel designed to exist outside time and space, and technically impossible. Turns out that the sphere appeared from nowhere, followed by the ghosts, but when Yvonne says that they want to open it, The Doctor refuses, wanting to send it back to the hell of the Void. Fake Martha, meanwhile, is getting other colleagues assimilated.  Rose exits the TARDIS, donning a lab coat and doing some exploring.

Yvonne takes The Doctor to the...control room, I suppose, where we’ve seen the levers and stuff. The sphere came through here, a gap in the world, and they had to build a skyscraper to reach it. The Doctor warns that any more ghost shifts and the cracks that are present in reality could smash like glass, bringing something unwanted through, but Yvonne simply says they’ll be more careful. In the end, he uses reverse psychology to stop her doing it. For now, anyway.

Below, Rose is exploring still. She uses the psychic paper to get into the sphere room, but some psychic training means that the scientist guy from earlier isn’t fooled. He asks Samuel to call security, who HOLY CRAP THJAT’S MICKEY! WHAT THE BLEEDIN’ BLOODY HELL IS HE DOING HERE?! Rose does remarkably well to hide her surprise, I must say. Yvonne and The Doctor are talking about how the ghosts probably came through with the sphere, when the re-programmed employees start the ghost shift programme again. The building starts shaking, and the sphere becomes active. The Doctor has to sever the psychic connection in the employees, killing them as it did those on Pete’s World, but he needs to find a transmitter to block the signal that’s overriding the systems or something. Downstairs, Mickey tells Rose that they’ll beat them again. And by ‘them’, he means...oh, we’ll have to wait a minute. The Doctor, Yvonne and guards find the source of the transmitter emissions – Cybermen! Our world is colliding with Pete’s World, and shit’s about to get real. Back with Mickey, he tells Rose that the Cybermen disappeared from their world, but Mickey (and presumably some friends) followed. In the control room, the Cybermen complete the ghost shift, revealing that the ghosts are all Cybermen. That causes a bit of panic round the world as you might expect, with people getting sort of killed.

Downstairs, the sphere opens and it’s not Cybermen. It’s...DALEKS! Cybermen vs Daleks! Delete vs Exterminate! Hell yeah!

Shit just got real!

Let’s be very clear about one thing here; the ending is one of the best endings to a Who episode you are likely to see. The Cybermen, flawed as they were in the two episodes earlier in the season, make for a chilling bad guy here, but to then have the mysterious sphere revealed to contain Daleks? Gods, that’s exciting stuff! Add to that the reappearance of Mickey, also out of the blue as it’s something we thought impossible, and you’ve got a whole load of twists and surprises that are pulled off brilliantly. I don’t know if the Cybermen, Daleks or Mickey were known to be appearing by the wider public before this aired, but I think the Daleks at least were a complete surprise.

Before all that excitement, the episode does a great job of building the mystery of just who the ghosts are, and what’s in the sphere. Though there are heavy hints about the Cybermen’s presence (outlines in the plastic sheeting, the ear pieces etc.), it’s not 100% clear, and it’s still a mystery how they could have arrived. The fact that they just piggybacked here is a shock, as you just assume that they created the sphere for that specific purpose, until you learn the truth of its origins.

Are there any negatives to the episode? In truth, no they aren’t. This is a brilliant episode from the off, and as well as the mystery and drama, it’s damn hilarious in places. Take The Doctor and Rose’s conversation when they first arrive in Torchwood, for example:

Rose: Doctor, they’ve got guns.

Doctor: And I haven’t, which makes me the better person. They can shoot me dead, but the moral high ground is mine.

That’s one of the funniest moments of the series, and a contender for my favourite line of all time. There’s also the moment where The Doctor pretends Jackie is Rose, calls her deluded and she threatens him with a kicking. Add to this The Doctor debuting ‘allonsy’ as he moves the TARDIS following his attempt to trap a ghost, and the very profound and deep moment, when Rose says that the ghosts are definitely human due to their looks, and The Doctor points says, ‘Maybe not. A footprint doesn’t look like a boot’, and it all adds up to a very strong script indeed.

  

Even after all this time, hearing Rose say that this is the story of how she died still brings tears to my eyes, as I know what’s going to happen at the end of the next episode. We’ll deal with that in the next review, of course, but there’s the threat of Rose’s death hanging over the whole episode here, though you’re mostly certain that she isn’t going to die in the first half.

Right from the start, this Torchwood seems incredibly dodgy, unlike Torchwood Three that we’ll get to know in the TV show, Torchwood. That bit has always confused me, but watching it again I suppose that Torchwood Three did exactly the same job of protecting the British Empire from aliens. It’s just that we get to know the characters in Torchwood must better, and none of them are as arrogant and smug as Yvonne (who is played excellently by Tracy-Ann Oberman).

Of all the actors, David Tennant continues to shine the brightest throughout this episode. Billie Piper feels very absent for most of it, though she’ll get her moment next time. It’s great to have Noel Clarke back as Mickey, giving him his chance to shine at last, and it’s always fun having Jackie Tyler along. I’ll miss Camille Coduri come next season, and I’m glad she gets a big part in the finale. Tracy-Ann Oberman is great as Yvonne, and though Freema Agyeman isn’t on screen for long as Adeola Oshodi, she’ll more than make up for it next season.

Torchwood Mentions

Ha. Good one.

Overall

A fantastic episode, full of mystery and drama, as well as a good dollop of comedy thanks to the excellent writing. A brilliant cliffhanger to leave us eagerly awaiting the finale.

10/10

Line of Duty Series 1 Episode 5 Finale Review

Line of Duty Series 1 Episode 5 Finale Review

This review contains spoilers

I'll get the most important thing out of the way first - that little shitty kid who I stated in the review of the last episode needed to get his punishment handed out rather meatily sort of...didn't. He got a smack in the leg with a crowbar, but at the end of the day the police sent him home to a mother who clearly doesn't care, with the knowledge that it's not too late for him. Even though he tried to cut off another copper's fingers with a pair of bolt clippers.

Seriously, though, perhaps he will flourish if they move him onto a foster home. If they don't, then his social workers really need to get fired.

Back to the rest of the story, Line of Duty Series 1 signed off in style, with the (sort of) redemption and death of DCI Tony Gates, and the apparent arrest of 'Tommy', the person behind all the trouble this series, from the laundered money that Jackie Laverty was involved in to the deaths on the 'Bog' estate. We also saw DS 'Dot' Cottan's big reveal - he's the real bent copper, and has known Tommy since he caddied for him on the golf course, which explains the name 'The Caddy' that crops up in Series 2. He tells Tommy to go for immunity in exchange for information about the 'terrorist' threat from the estate, which is of course complete bollocks, but sets up Series 2 nicely.

DS Arnott is now a fully integrated member of AC-12, happily working alongside DC Fleming and Supt Hastings, and the rest of the characters will sort of just disappear and get on with their jobs. DC Morton, in particular, appears to have suffered no comeback from smacking Fleming in the head with a cane in full view of several other police officers, but perhaps she just didn't press charges.

From the very beginning, this has been an absolutely superb drama, which I know will only get better in Series 2 (having already seen it). Giving Gates, a copper who is clearly morally questionable at times but essentially a 'good' copper, the chance to make amends was the correct decision, especially with the reveal of Dot being the actual bent officer. Lennie James has been superb throughout, and he's been the standout performer in a cast of standout performers. Martin Compston's DS Arnott has been great as the frustrated young officer trying to get to the truth, and Vicky McClure is similarly brilliant as DC Fleming, trying to get to the truth whilst undercover and playing Gates. From Adrian Dunbar's trying-to-stay-calm-but-getting-frustrated-at-Arnott's Supt Hastings, to Neil Morrissey's completely-different-from-his-comedy/building-roles as Morton, to Craig Parkinson's legendary-whatever-he's-in performance as Dot, this show has been a shining beacon for the talent of UK drama actors.

The plot has kept viewers guessing throughout, with questions over Gates' true intentions and level of corruption swinging back and forth, just as DI Denton's innocence or guilt will do in Series 2. I've been spellbound during every episode, desperate to watch the next instalment immediately, and hindered only by having to watch it late at night and not having the energy to concentrate.

I can pick out a couple of frustrating flaws: why is Morton not getting arrested for attacking Fleming (I'm guessing she didn't press charges, but was that even mentioned?)?; what happened to the old guy who kept getting burgled - was it just to show how Fleming was neglecting her old duties?; was the body of Jackie Laverty ever actually found (I don't remember seeing anything about it, though I could be wrong)? These are just minor quibbles though, and not important in the long run.

I've not been this engaged in this style of UK drama since Spooks, and I hold that upon the highest pedestal. Luckily, it's been renewed for Series 3 and 4, and I'm hoping that it manages what Spooks did, and not have a single dodgy series. It deserves to be seen by anyone who likes a good mystery running through its core, and should have won award after award (I think it was nominated for several but didn't win).

Now, all I need is to hear that the shitty kid went on to change his life around, voluntarily served five years in prison, and now teaches nuns how to rollerblade to raise money for charity, I'll be a very happy man.

Line of Duty Series 1 Episode 4 Review

Line of Duty Series 1 Episode 4 Review

This review contains spoilers

I wouldn't like to be DS Arnott right now.

As we come pelting towards the final episode, everything has started coming to a head for the main characters of Line of Duty. Arnott is uncomfortably close to the truth, DCI Gates' world is the tiniest nudge away from crashing down completely, DC Fleming has revealed herself to be AC-12 after taking a smack to the face by DC Morton's cane (in full view of other officers), and DS Cottan has told AC-12 that Gates gave the order for him and Deepak to abandon their posts for 10 minutes towards the beginning of the series, during which two murders happened.

Before I go any further, however, I want to register just how much I'm hoping that the despicable excuse for a child that keeps cropping up gets more punishment than he got at the end of this episode. Seriously. I'm not sure I've ever hated and had so much anger towards a character in any TV show or film before. Not even Joffrey. Joffrey might be a sadistic bastard, but he lives in a fantasy world. This kid is set in a realistic drama in Britain, and I have never wanted someone to pay so badly. If this is the intention, then the young actor playing him deserves a BAFTA, because I can feel my hatred rising with each minute he's on screen. To me, he's the real villain of the show. Why isn't he in school? I bet he took part in the London riots. Absolute scumbag. I hope his trial takes place in the adult court at the end of the series. Harry Potter was tried in an adult court for the tiniest use of magic, so this cretin certainly should be. When people talk about youngsters having no respect today, this is the sort of person they mean, times infinity. The plot of the show should have been refocused to focusing the police's efforts on gathering evidence to arrest this kid, rather than anything else. In many ways, if he doesn't suffer serious, serious consequences at the end of the series, I'm going to be majorly annoyed. He'd better not die, either, because that's no form of punishment. He needs to atone for his appalling attitude, and lack of respect to the rest of the human race. I would allow Gates to resign quietly and without fuss if it guaranteed this kid saw his punishment. They've only got an hour to do it however, so they'd better gather some evidence quickly. The way he and his other cretinous companions treat the poor chap with clear disabilities is one of the most disgraceful acts that someone can do, and I can feel the fury building within me at the thought of it even now. I can remember those ridiculous public petitions to free Deirdre from prison in Coronation Street all those years ago; where were the petitions to have this piece of sputum locked away?

Yes, yes, I know he's got a shitty home life, and I know that's the reason, and in real life I'm a very, very sympathetic person to this sort of case, but this is a television show so I'm allowed not to care about that.

In less important matters, the acting is the strongest that I've seen it all season. I need to single Neil Morrissey out for particular praise here, because I think he gives the strongest performance of all the cast in this episode. I still know him only as Tony from Men Behaving Badly, so to see him in this sort of role ups my respect for him as an actor (which was already very high) even further. It's almost unfair to single anyone else in the cast out lest it seem like the others aren't up to scratch, but Lennie James particularly has been giving an award-winning performance week in week out. His conflict and increasing despair and panic as the series has gone on has been a particular highlight. I don't know what awards (if any) the show won, but it deserves them all. 

Line of Duty is speeding towards its climax, following an episode full of huge moments in the lives of all the characters, and it's going to be a sad but terrific buzz when it finishes. As I've already seen Series 2, they really, really need to hurry up and get Series 3 and 4 finished and broadcast!

Below are spoilers for Series 2

I don't for a minute believe that Gates gave Dot the order to leave early. Knowing a very small hint of what happens at the end of this series with regards to Dot's storyline, I'm fairly positive that he made the call himself because he's in on this gang's drug-related activities, in his role as 'The Caddy' (or whatever the codename was). I'll be very surprised if it's anything different, but then it'll be a pleasant surprise.

Line of Duty Series 1 Episode 3 Review

Line of Duty Series 1 Episode 3 Review

This review contains spoilers

Another hour, another set of twists and turns. Following last weeks murder of Jackie Laverty, the walls are closing in on DCI Tony Gates. He's being blackmailed into taking over her money laundering scheme by a man known as Tommy (who will play a major role at the start of Series 2), and his wife is starting to suspect that he's been playing away. It's a slightly more subdued episode in many ways, but it's still absolutely top-notch drama.

Gates team appears to be cracking, too. Deepak, having become wise to Gates' dodgy operations, tries to rat him out, but is cast out from the team when it turns out that Gates deliberately tried to discover any moles by giving them all different possible locations for his piece of missing evidence. DC Morton seems to be questioning Gates' actions, too, and confrontation seems to be starting to arise between Morton and DS Cottan. Add in DS Arnott's text to both Supt Hastings and DC Fleming at the end, telling them both that he isn't right for the job and that Gates has won, and it appears that everything is falling down for everyone.

Surely in the next episode there will start to be some credible evidence against Gates coming to light, leaving us with the final episode to see his guilt finally unveiled to all. His intense assertion to Kate that he isn't bent is the cry of a man who knows that he's done wrong, and that things are starting to catch up with him. There's not going to be anyway back for him from here.

Once again, all the acting performances are fantastic. I'm still disappointed that we don't get more of Craig Parkinson as Cottan, but in Lennie James as Gates, Martin Compston as Arnott, Vicky McClure as Fleming and Adrian Dunbar as Hastings, it's an incredibly strong quad that lead the way. Though my eyes are nearly closed with this late hour, I'm still desperate to stay up for another couple of hours to watch it till the end.

Line of Duty is everything you could want from a UK drama; compelling, wonderfully acted and with an ability to hook and reel you in from the very first minute.

Line of Duty Series 1 Episode 2 Review

Line of Duty Series 1 Episode 2 Review

This review contains spoilers

Well...that ended on a bit of a shocker.

It's not unusual for Line of Duty to end an episode leaving us open mouthed (Episode 1 of Series 2 is one of the most shocking endings to a TV show I've seen, in many ways beaten only by The Red Wedding), and out of nowhere we're left with a massive power shift. Where DCI Tony Gates has previously been in control, able to manipulate certain crimes to give his solved cases a boost, he's suddenly in the frame for murder. Jackie Laverty's throat being slit by intruders, presumably criminals involved in her money laundering scheme, comes out of the blue just as it looks like their relationship is going to continue for the worse, and with Gates' prints being put onto the knife the killers used, it's going to be difficult for him to wriggle out of this one.

Throughout the episode we saw Laverty acting more and more unhinged, until just before her murder I had decided that she clearly suffered from some form of mental disorder. Gates seemed to be starting to realise that too, as the truth of what his affair would do to his wife and kids began to hit home. DS Arnott had finally seemed to find some evidence to pin on Gates, too, as Laverty was set to be interviewed by Arnott and Supt Hastings the next morning, so somehow it seems that the criminals who would have been implicated have got to her first to silence her. Is that more corruption in the police, with information being leaked by someone else inside? Knowing his shady connections from Series 2, my money is on Dot, but without that knowledge it would be impossible to know at this stage.

Arnott also looks to be heading for trouble, as the firearms officers who were with him in the botched operation in the first episode appear to have changed their stories, implicating him as having made the wrong call. Elsewhere there's something going on with drug dealers, but I confess I can't really remember what all that bit is about...no doubt it will all come round to play a major part by the end, but at the moment all I can think about is how much I loathe the type of children who are shown in those scenes, and how I wish the police just arrested the whole damn lot of them and throw them in a young person's detention centre. Seriously, kids with that bad of an attitude rile me up more than anything else on television.

Until the ending, the main gist of the episode was of the invulnerability that Gates' seemed give off slowly slipping, as Arnott made small but significant steps towards unmasking his illegal activities. Gates is clearly a copper who wants to put away the bad guys, as are all his team (even if most of them appear to none to fussed about staying 100% squeaky clean), but he has a very dodgy moral compass, and I'm willing to bet it'll only get dodgier as he tries to escape the trouble he's getting into.

Line of Duty remains utterly compelling, with stellar performances throughout. I've not mentioned Vicky McClure yet this week as DC Fleming, but I'm sure the character is going to get found out sooner or later, and there's a superb intensity to McClure's eyes in every scene she's in that make we feel we don't see her often enough. Adrian Dunbar as Supt Hastings also appears to be vastly underused so far, especially compared to his screen time in Series 2. I'm tempted to watch the remaining three episodes all in one go now, as it's the type of show that you just don't want to stop watching once you start. Great stuff!

Line of Duty Series 1 Episode 1 Review

Line of Duty Series 1 Episode 1 Review

This review contains spoilers

Having come to discover Line of Duty a bit late with Series 2, I've been desperate to catch Series 1 to fill in some of the gaps. Series 2 was without doubt one of the best UK dramas I've ever seen, keeping me guessing throughout as to who was guilty and who innocent, and just where the story would go next. Finally, I've got hold of the Series 1 DVD, and I can't wait to get started.

Two minutes in, however, and already I felt like I'd been delivered a emotional suckerpunch that will take some beating. Series 2's opener was incredible and shocking, but the death of an innocent father while he wears his baby is...for a parent like myself, it's devastating. All it takes is the number on a door to slip slightly, and an innocent father is killed. A wife is left a widow, a child is left without one of his parents, and a police officer trying to stop a terrorist will never be the same again. I'm not ashamed to say there were tears in my eyes at this point. I'm always getting emotional at things in television and film, but particularly anything nowadays that involves family.

The story begins, of course, with a tale of police corruption. DS Arnott refuses to cover up the truth, despite his superior's insistence that all the police officers present lie to say that the innocent victim was threatening them. He is moved onto AC-12 (Anti-Corruption), into the role we now know him for. Supt Hastings is his boss and mentor, though their relationship isn't a happy one initially, as Arnott wants to believe that the officer they are investigating, DCI Gates, is innocent. Gates has just been named Officer of the Year, but Hastings is concerned that he cracks far to many cases, and is using 'laddering' to up his statistics (inventing charges that never make it to court, but are counted as being solved). DC Fleming is trying to make her way onto Gates' team, secretly working undercover for AC-12. While this moving around of personnel is happening, Gates is trying to cover up the accidental hit and run committed by the lady he is having an affair with, Jackie Laverty.

In so many ways this feels exactly like Series 2, with the main difference being we can clearly see from the start that Gates is a corrupt officer (rather than the running question of whether DI Denton was guilty or not). To what extent is probably the main mystery; he struggles desperately with whether to delete the links between Jackie and her hit and run victim, which you could argue is either a sign of him struggling with covering up the truth (putting him more towards the good side) or making sure in his head that this isn't going to come back to haunt him (putting him back towards the bad). Either way, if he was truly bad through and through, he'd have deleted those links with no more than a second's hesitation.

It's strange, of course, seeing Arnott not yet comfortable working with Hastings or Fleming, though by the end of the episode he's clearly just as suspicious of Gates as the others. Mind you, if someone pooed in my car I'd want to nail them for something. The other members of Gates' CID team, particularly DS 'Dot' Cottan, do a great job of coming across as the 'lads' of the police i.e. a bunch of dickheads. Craig Parkinson really does shine above everyone else in everything he's in, and it's great seeing Neil Morrissey in a different role than I'm used to.

At this early stage, and pretending I don't have a big idea of how this is going to work out, it looks as if the truth about this hit and run is eventually going to come out and condemn Gates to early retirement, possibly behind bars. It's utterly compelling straight from the off (which I must emphasise again was an incredibly affecting opening), and I can't wait to see if this hits the same heights as Series 2. Brilliant stuff.

Revisiting Doctor Who – Series 2, Episode 10 – Love & Monsters

Revisiting Doctor Who – Series 2, Episode 10 – Love & Monsters

Marc Warren runs up a hill, and comes across the TARDIS. There’s some paper rolling across the ground in front of him like tumbleweed, which is symbolic of this episode as a whole. Marc hears The Doctor and Rose shouting and goes to investigate. He opens a door and some beast roars at him. It cuts to him making a Vlog, and he wants to tell us the rest of his story.

Cue title sequence…

The Doctor appears behind the beast, tempting him with meat while Rose throws the wrong colour bucket of water over him. There’s some chasing from one side of some rooms to the other, which was funny in one cartoon when I was three, but now? Seriously? I know this is a kid’s show, but seriously?

Marc does some filming of his home. He’s a great actor, but already this is rubbish. Or is it just that I’ve already seen it and know it’s rubbish? Apparently he saw a disapproving looking Doctor when he was young. Marc’s name is actually Elton. He was there when the Auton’s caused hell in Rose. He saw the space ship crash in World War III (or whatever part 1 of that arc was). He saw the Racknos, he met Jackie Tyler, he did a bunch of things. Actually, this bit isn’t so bad because it’s basically just Marc Warren. Though at the same time, he’s now just dancing and what the hell has that got to do with the plot? Oh, right; ‘filler’. His computer once blew up because the internet was being used a lot (I get that this is supposed to be ‘funny’, but meh). He met Ursula who runs a blog about The Doctor. She’s part of an inner sanctum, studying the Time Lord, and something bad is going to happen to her, something ridiculously stupid. Oh look! It’s Michael from Alan Partridge in their special group! There are other people I recognise, but they aren’t Michael so I won't name them. Also I've already forgotten their names. They call themselves LINDA, which stands for something.

They do readings, group therapy, form a band. Though this is dull as sin, at least Peter Kay hasn’t arrived ye- Oh look, there he is. Believe it or not, the episode goes downhill from here.

Peter Kay is dressed like a pimp, which would probably make for a more exciting episode. They do some talking or something, I don’t know. It’s hard to hear over the sound of my inner-fan dying. ‘Bliss’, which is a stupid name, stays behind to talk to ‘Mr Kennedy’, which is an alter ego of Peter Kay. She screams, so maybe she heard about the plot for this episode.

Mr Kennedy has taken over the group, without any protest, which is stupid. I know these are underground conspiracy-type people, who are likely to straight away cede leadership of a group to someone they've only just met, but this is just stupid.

Gods, what’s happening now? Peter Kay doesn’t like being touched, apparently. I don’t want to know any more about that.

They’re hunting Rose and The Doctor at the moment. Ha, actually it was pretty funny when Marc Warren though it’d take ages to find Rose and a lady pointed out her exact address straight immed-Oh, he’s dancing again. Great. He deliberately bumps into Jackie in a launderette. I do like Jackie. She’s already made this episode eighty-three times better. ‘The Adventures of Jackie Tyler’. That would be awesome. She melts my heart with her smile. Why does she have trouble finding a man? She’s lovely, with beautiful eyes. Quite domineering, but then I quite like that I’m getting off track a bit.

Where was I? Oh yeah, this episode sucks. And written by Russell T Davies! How?! He’s a fantastic writer! I don’t care if his cliffhanger resolutions aren’t always brilliant, he’s one of Who’s greatest assets in the…Russell T Davies era.

There’s a love plot or two going on here. Sweet Marc Warren, not realising that Jackie is deliberately finding jobs to keep him arou-Christ that’s a short skirt, Jackie. Yep, Jackie and her seduction attempts are easily the best thing in this episode. I could watch this all day. Ha, the way she pours the wine all over him! Repeatedly! Seriously, that bit is classic. I mean, don’t sit through all of this episode just for that one bit; just look it up on YouTube.

Jackie then gets morose when Rose rings, but Marc Warren gets pizza. Is this episode meant to show what happens to those left behind? Oh gods, he’s dancing again. STOP DANCING MARC, PLEASE! I WANT MY SCIENCE FICTION DRAMA BACK! Oh, here’s a bit of drama. Jackie discovers Marc just wants The Doctor. And look, she mentioned being left behind! I was right! Woo! I don’t know why I’m celebrating. I think perhaps with this episode, you need to take anything you can.

The group are arguing blah blah blah. Yeah, screw you Kennedy, we’re off for a Chinese takeaway. I’d love a Chinese right now. It’s lunchtime and I’m hungry. I DO have a delicious Beef Wellington that my wife made, so I’ll just have to enjoy that instead. I’ll enjoy it a lot more than the rest of this episode, anyway. Oh, Michael’s about to get done in by Kennedy. Marc and the other one head back inside, to find Kennedy hiding behind a newspaper. They hear Michael calling for help, and find that Kennedy has transformed into something that isn’t Peter Kay. He absorbs his victims, which just comes across as overly strange, both visually and whatever the opposite of visually is. An ‘Abzorbaloff’, so he is named. He absorbs Marc’s girlfriend too. Well, I preferred Jackie, anyway. Peter Kay looks like he’s having a poo, which is just bizarre. Also, the award for ‘Best Stating of the Bleeding Obvious’ goes to his girlfriend, who says, quite seriously, that she can read the Abzorbaloff’s thoughts and that Marc Warren is next. No. Freakin’. Way. Peter Kay is chasing him in his underpants, which is not a sentence I will ever type in a positive way.

Thank the gods, The Doctor is here at last. And Rose is annoyed with Marc for upsetting Jackie. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah absorbing blah blah blah blah Doctor uses reverse psychology blah blah blah blah the absorbed people try to pull Peter Kay apart while Marc destroys his cane, melting him. Then the most ridiculously ridiculous thing of all happens, as the absorbed people become paving stones, and Marc has the strangest relationship with his girlfriend that the world has ever seen.

The Doctor reveals that when Marc saw him years ago, he’d been investigating a beast in the shadows, but he couldn’t stop it killing Marc’s mum. This part is actually really tragic. Like, SERIOUSLY tragic. I get really upset nowadays about that sort of thing. Doesn’t make it a worse episode, but you hope for an ending to cheer you up and well, that ain’t happening.

There’s a quick montage of the group, as Marc talks about people paying the price for knowing The Doctor. It’s also revealed that it’s The Doctor’s fault that Marc’s girlfriend has been turned into a paving stone, as he did some reversal thingy that-OH THANK GOD IT’S FINISHED!

You might have guessed that I’m not a fan of this episode. I know that fans of cult television are prone to going over the top, and I’m fully willing to accept that children will probably really enjoy this episode (and, if I’m honest, it’s clearly just trying to be harmless fun) but I just find it terrible from start to finish. Doctor-lite episodes can be phenomenal (Blink and Turn Left are two of the best episodes ever), but this is appalling. The constant wasting of screentime with Marc Warren dancing? What the hell does that have to do with Doctor Who? It doesn’t make me warm to the character any better. Marc Warren is one of my favourite British actors, and if nothing else he’s very good in the role here, it’s just that the role is terrible.

The only bits that are any good are the bits with Jackie Tyler. It really is genuinely hilarious when she tries to seduce him, particularly where she repeatedly throws wine over him. One of the funniest moments Who has ever produced, in my opinion. There’s also meant to be a genuine attempt to have us think about how life with The Doctor affects those left behind, but we’ve seen that done far better with Mickey. He was with Rose and The Doctor for a large part of the series so far, yet left behind at the same time, and we have every sympathy for him because of it. In this episode I just don’t care. Well, I feel sorry for Jackie and all, but I don’t go away thinking about how awful it is for those left behind. I just wish the episode would hurry up and finish.

Ursula will never age apparently, though she doesn’t see the problem with this. She doesn’t see the problem with spending the rest of eternity as a paving slab, who will see Elton (and any love after it) die. There is literally no way this would not drive someone insane after about five minutes. I know this episode is plainly designed for younger children, but it’s horrific on so many levels (not just it’s quality). Also, Elton and Ursula apparently have a bit of a love life. I really think he gets the better end of the stick there.

Seriously, if you wanted to put someone off Doctor Who for life, this is how to do it. I know this was designed by a child for Blue Peter, and my conscience is racked with guilt for criticising it, but there are so many ways that they could have told a better story. That's the bigger problem than the monster itself. True, I can’t think of any, but there simply must be, because there can’t be anything worse than this. And from Russell The Davies, too! Perhaps it's also the fact that a 9-year old boys idea of a monster isn't necessarily something that is going to work well on screen, in a television story. That's no fault of the child, but a fault of the producers either committing to feature the winner in the episode, or picking a creature that wouldn't translate well. 

Torchwood Mentions

Victor Kennedy notes that the Bad Wolf Virus erased all mention of Rose Tyler from the Torchwood files on The Doctor (nice mention of Bad Wolf there!).

Harold Saxon Mentions

Our first airing of the name Harold Saxon, as a poll mentions him in the newspaper that the Abzorbaloff is reading.

Overall

Whilst children might find this brilliant, anyone else will likely find this to be the worst episode of Doctor Who ever created. The comedy isn’t funny, the characters aren’t likeable, and the villain just doesn’t work. Besides one genuinely hilarious scene involving Jackie Tyler (though when isn’t there a genuinely hilarious scene involving Jackie Tyler?), I can’t find a single thing to recommend about it.

1/10

Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 2, Episode 9 - The Satan Pit

Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 2, Episode 9 - The Satan Pit

Last week...SATAN APPEARED!

Cue title sequence...

The crew open fire on the Ood as the ship goes back into orbit. One more of the crew that I swear has only just been added gets killed, as Captain Zach narrowly escapes, and they agree to enact Strategy 9. The Doctor makes contact, telling them that the pit is open, but there's no sign of the Beast. Scott ignores Zach's orders to return to the base, but The Doctor advises retreat for once. Shit must be about to get real if he wants to go home.

Strategy 9 is to open the airlocks with the crew inside the main control centre, jettisoning the Ood. Before any of it can happen though, the Beast, or at least the Beast talking through the Ood as 'The Legion', tells them all that this is his domain and that they'll die. Apparently, some people of the Light chained him 'before time', so he's a bit pissed off. He taunts them all, before flashing an image of a Balrog on screen again. The Doctor tries to keep them calm, playing them up against the Beast playing their fears. In the middle of this, the cable holding the lift breaks, stranding The Doctor and Scott at the bottom, with only 55 minutes of air left. 

The Ood begin to break through door bolts. To buy them time and find an escape route, Zach reroutes power from the rockets. On the base, Danny realises that if he can flip some monitor and transmit a flare it'll disrupt the telepathic link, but they need to go to Ood Habitat to do that. Zach will have to manually send air along with them as they go. They all drop into a ventilation shaft to begin their journey as the Ood break into the room behind them. After a short while they pause while they wait for more air, when the Ood appear at the end of the shaft, scuttling quickly towards them. They flee as quick as they can with the Ood in hot pursuit, Jeffersen staying behind to buy them some time, ending up trapped on the wrong side of a locked door. The other reach the final door, but when it opens there are Ood there waiting. As Zach tries to get that door shut again, the crew flee, escaping upwards as they-WAIT! OMG! TOBY IS STILL EVIL! HE HAD RED EYES AND TOLD THE OOD TO WAIT! OMG! WHAT A MEAN PERSON! Anyway, Danny gets the signal sent out, and the Ood collapse. 

Down below, Scott makes plans to use the broken cable to abseil into the pit, but The Doctor insists that he should be the one to go down. He waxes lyrical about beasts and myths to Scott as he goes, until they run out of cable. He knows that he has no choice but to jump, and he needs to take that leap of faith. Gods, that's a big drop - he just keeps going into the darkness until he's disappeared. As Rose makes contact again, Scott tells her that he mentioned her before the end. Zach tells her that there's no way they can save her, and they have to leave her down there. Though Scott agrees, Rose refuses to leave The Doctor, so she has to be restrained. They head for the rocket, noticing that the Ood are beginning to wake, as the telepathic field begins to re-establish itself. Rose wakes as the rocket leaves base, pointing the gun at Zach, but he knows she can't go through with it. 

Many miles down in the pit, The Doctor has survived with nothing more than a bit of unconsciousness and a broken bit of visor glass. He struggles to his feet, somehow able to breathe - there's air down there which helped to cushion his fall. He sees cave paintings that tell of how the Beast was imprisoned. He finds two urns that glow when he touches them, as depicted on the wall, and then he sees a Balrog chained in front of him. As it makes eye contact with him, Toby starts cackling on the rocket. The Doctor questions the Beast, realising that it won't or can't talk, though it spoke before on the ship. Of course, this is just the body - his mind has escaped upstairs, and its on its way to Earth. Reading the paintings again, The Doctor sees that the pit was designed to destroy the gravity funnel if it was opened, sending the planet (and the Beast) into the black hole, but the concept of the Beast/Satan is just an idea, and if its mind escaped then that idea would escape with it. The Beast's jailors left the air cushion so that someone could make their way down and destroy the Beast before its mind could spread. But destroying the prison would destroy the planet, the gravity funnel and therefore Rose. 

Back in the rocket, Rose is realising that they've gotten away too easily, as the Beast could have stopped them unless it wanted them to escape. Toby, rather uncharacteristically Rose must think, tells her to shut up. The Doctor decides that, whatever he believes in, he believes in Rose, and so he smashes the urns trapping the Beast anyway. As Toby begins to rant and go all Beast-ified again, Rose shots out the window and unlocks his belt so that the mind of the Beast flies into the black hole, followed by the planet, and soon it'll be the rocket. Below, The Doctor runs away from a disintegrating Beast body, only to collide with the TARDIS. As the crew in the rocket accept their fate, they suddenly start to turn around, and then The Doctor's voice speaks to them as he tows them away. He saved Scott too, though he lost all the Ood. 

BIG HUG TIME as The Doctor and Rose are reunited. The crew debate what the TARDIS was exactly, as he tells them that he genuinely doesn't know what the creature was. They all bid their goodbyes, as the TARDIS leaves and the crew fly off...

Aw, crap. I've got to sit through Love and Monsters next time.

As a second part, I think this was an improvement in many ways. You can't always say that Doctor Who second parts improve on the first, but the way the Beast was defeated made sense (the civilisation that trapped it there obviously wouldn't want to destroy their own planet so had to leave it to a future generation), and the performances, though by no means shoddy last week, were raised this time.

The Doctor's face as he reveals that he couldn't save the Ood sums up everything great about David Tennant in the role. It's that haunted expression as he feels the pain of not being able to save someone, despite the fact that there really wasn't anything that he could do about it. I'm guessing it's a fixed point in time, or he could just go back in time and pull them out seconds before. Tennant's whole performance in this episode is great, actually. From his musings on the Beast as he descends into the pit, to his excited cries towards the Beast as he figures out how to destroy it, he's absolutely superb. I feel like he's not in this episode quite as much as normal, too, but the impact he has on it is massive. 

Rose, too, was fantastic as she took on the role of motivator and organiser, when she was trapped with Danny and Jeffersen. In the absence of The Doctor she really stood up, and it shows how far the character has come since the early days of Series 1. Rose's tears and refusal to leave The Doctor are one of Billie Piper's high points of the season. Gods, that woman and character can make the strings pull on my heart!

Of the guest performances, my favourite was Shaun Parkes as Zach, for whom the burden of being Captain weighed heavy on his shoulders throughout, but ultimately stepped up to play his role when it was needed. Claire Rushbrook as Ida Scott was also particularly strong, her interactions with The Doctor around the pit being excellent.

With regards to the characters, talk about a senseless death. Danny tells Jeffersen not to open a door, which he does anyway only for the Ood to then kill someone, exactly as Danny warned. You SUCK as head of security, Jeffersen!

The Beast foreshadows Rose's death, as we often do so see things prophecised in Doctor Who. She will, of course, 'die' in the series finale, so the Beast was partly right, though he's obviously not so powerful that he can't tell the truth behind it (that she was actually just sent to a parallel universe). At this stage, we have no reason to believe any but that the Beast lied, as The Doctor says.

The Bad Wolf theme plays softly in the background as The Doctor tells Scott to tell her...something. Which we all know is that he loves her, right? Of course it is. I'm trying to decide if I mind the whole 'Doctor in love with companion' thing or not, and really I think I'm fine with it. I think it's logical. The Doctor has found someone that makes him happy again after all the crap of the Time War, so why wouldn't he fall in love? His role as the Ninth Doctor was of someone introducing Rose to the universe, but now she's more of an equal. 

I do have a quibble with some of the science: so Rose shoots out the window of the rocket, letting the cold vacuum of space straight in, but none of them suffer at all? Did I miss something there?! Surely I missed something!

Torchwood Mentions

The expedition represents the Torchwood Archive

Overall

An improvement on part one, with a particularly strong performance from David Tennant as he destroys the Beast to save Rose and the crew. 

8/10

Revisiting Doctor Who – Series 2, Episode 8 – The Impossible Planet

Revisiting Doctor Who – Series 2, Episode 8 – The Impossible Planet

The TARDIS materialises on a deep space exploratory ‘sanctuary base’, The Doctor and Rose popping out of it. Its walls have strange symbols daubed on them, untranslatable by the TARDIS, making it very old. And it also has ‘Welcome to Hell’ written above in English, which is sort of comforting that at least we can read part of it. When they try to leave the room, they open the door to find a bunch of what we’ll soon learn are Ood, empathic servants, declaring that they ‘must feed’, and it kinda looks like The Doctor and Rose are the meal...

Cue title sequence...

Oh, wait, it’s just a dodgy vocal box that the Ood is carrying – one good smack and it changes to ‘we must feed...you, if you are hungry’. Phew! Officers soon burst in, surprised to see The Doctor and Rose. One quake alert later, they end up in the control room, to find more surprised crew. When that’s all over, they learn they’re on a planet with no air, and that one of the storage areas has been destroyed, which a bloke called Toby goes off to investigate. After being introduced to the rest of the crew, we learn that the base is on a planet in orbit of a black hole, which is impossible. The Doctor is like, ‘SERIOUSLY, WTF?’. Toby, meanwhile, is hearing voices as he heads around the base.

According to some scriptures, the planet is called Krop Tor, and the black hole is a might demon who was trapped into devouring itself, only to spit it out because it was poison. ‘The Bitter Pill’, is its translation. A gravity funnel shoots out of the black hole, which the crew used to travel down. The crew are drilling down to find the power source, which in no way is going to cause a bloody big problem. The writing on the wall was copied from fragments by Toby, and they’re hoping to find more. The Doctor praises them for their wish to explore, whilst telling them that they’re utterly mad and need to flee. However, Rose and he won’t be fleeing any time soon, as it was Storage Bays 5-8 that collapsed, and the TARDIS was parked in 6...

Whilst The Doctor and Rose contemplate a life without time travel, Toby is analysing fragments and hearing voices again. At the same time, as Rose is chatting to an Ood serving her meal, it politely informs her that ’The Beast and his armies shall rise from the pit, to make war against God’, which one an odd response to her non-Beast related question. She assumes it be a glitch, but behind Captain Zach the 3d display of the planet briefly changes to a shot of a horned Balrog snarling, but changes back before he can properly see what has just happened. The computer system tells Danny that ‘he’s awake’ as he opens a door. Toby then finds the symbols drawn on his hands following a voice warning him not to turn around or else he will die, which he promptly does anyway Then he sees his face in a mirror, which is covered with symbols, and new bright red eyes. He then collapses.

The rest of the crew watch a solar system burning up in the black hole. Rose gets a call on a phone with no signal, also informing her that ‘he is awake’. Toby’s eyes spring open at this point. Could be connected? The Doctor and Rose question Danny about the Ood, and their telepathy. The Oods biosigns suddenly go from Basic 5 to Basic 30, which apparently means that something is shouting at them in their heads. Apparently, according to the Ood, we should worship whatever is awake. Toby, meanwhile, has gone outside without a spacesuit, so I think he’s kind of not Toby anymore. Boy does he have a freaky maniacal expression on his face. He also cracks the glass from a distance, sucking Scooti out to the planet’s surface, and compromising the base’s integrity.

Everyone, including Toby, makes it further inside the base, but they’ve lost Section 11-13. Somehow Scooti is apparently in Habitation 3, despite being a bit dead. When the crew get there, they find her stuck to the glass dome, outside. She floats off to the black hole after a short minute. At the same time, the massive drill stops. They’ve reached Point Zero, the goal of the drill. The Doctor volunteers to go with Scott, down to its lowest depths. Despite Danny’s warnings to only obey him, the Ood all stand as one when the capsule reaches the bottom of the shaft.

The Doctor and Scott step out into a massive cavern, complete with carvings and massive statues, remnants of a past civilisation. The Ood’s eyes change to red, as their biosigns change to Basic 100, putting the crew on alert, as The Doctor and Scott find a massive metal seal, covered in symbols. Questioning Toby on what the symbols mean, everyone is a little surprised when Toby stands up and they see his face is covered in symbols again, his eyes are red, and his voice has broken. He tells them that the symbols are ‘the words of the Beast...and he has woken’. With a strange cry, the symbols fly of his face and onto the Ood, turning them into the Legion of the Beast. Turns out the Beast is Satan, of course, and his Legion have the ability to electrocute people in the head using their translation sphere, which they do to some bloke who I swear has only just appeared on the crew roster. The seal begins to open, and the planet starts to move as the gravity field collapses. The Beast/Legion continue to rant about being free, as The Doctor and Scott look warily down into the pit...

It’s rather an ingenious idea, using the idea of Satan as the basis for an episode. In many societies there seems to be an evil force that people believe in, so why wouldn’t there be an actual beast from the beginning of time that was the starting point for the legend? This doesn’t confirm the existence of God at all, just that there are some nasty beasts out there.

It’s a pretty scary episode for children, what with the symbols written over Toby and the Ood turning evil. I know that, even in future episodes featuring them, I still get a bit wary of the Ood suddenly turning again. They’re definitely one of new-Who’s most memorable aliens.

The episode itself has plenty of intriguing points to it, from the impossible nature of the planet’s orbit around the black hole, the concept of the beast being Satan, and the issues surround slavery. Regarding the latter, Rose is rightly appalled by the thought of humanity once again resorting to taking slaves, even though the humans in the future don’t see it as a problem because the Ood actively want to serve. A similar dilemma has been raised about humanity building robots who want to serve in the present; does that make it alright? After all, that’s kind of how The Matrix started.

The episode itself sets up the second half nicely, because in all honesty, how the hell is The Doctor expected to slay Satan? Overall, it’s a solid episode that brings the ideas mentioned above together nicely, but it lacks a lot of the fun interactions between Rose and The Doctor that I like so much. I know that it’s a much darker episode, but others have managed to be very dark yet very funny in places, and I just don’t see that as much here. Also, the recovery of the TARDIS just seems to disappear from The Doctor and Rose’s plans pretty quickly. I know the captain has said that they can’t divert the drill to go and look for it, but I can’t imagine The Doctor giving up that easily.

The Doctor’s love for humans comes out in a hug for Acting Captain Zach, who looks sheepishly pleased by it all. We’re amazing, apparently, with the way we love to explore and discover what’s out there, even though it inevitably leads to a shedload of problems that The Doctor has to rescue us from. Tennant’s glee whenever The Doctor gets excited has always been one of his most memorable traits, and it never fails to raise a smile when it crops up.

The Doctor’s role as the Last of the Time Lords come to the forefront again with his insistence on finding the TARDIS because ‘It’s all I’ve got, literally the only thing’. In this minute, he’s not thinking about Rose. His guilt at the thought of trapping Rose is brought out, as well, when he thinks they can’t go anywhere. It’s meant to be fun, this universe travelling, not dangerous!

There an awkward love moment when The Doctor and Rose are talking about the possibility of not travelling the universe anymore, having to settle down, and potentially doing so together. Oh, how those flames of love are being fanned! She even kisses his space helmet (that’s not an innuendo).

Perhaps one of Who’s best jokes that only UK viewers will understand is when Scott says that there’s no going back, a sure sign in horror films that things are going to go wrong, to which The Doctor replies that saying that is almost as bad as ‘this is going to be the best Christmas Walford’s ever had’. Made me laugh a lot, that one.

A TARDIS is grown, not built. Just another fun fact about Time Lords.

Torchwood Mentions

None

Overall

A solid episode that leads in nicely to the second part, but without a lot of the warmth and humour that has made new-Who so special for me.

7/10

Line of Duty Series 2 Episode 6 Review

Line of Duty Series 2 Episode 6 Review

*This review contains spoilers*

With the finale of Line of Duty Series 2 comes the end of yet another TV show I wished that I had known about at the time it was first broadcast. Over the past six episodes, we've seen twist and turn, guilt and innocence, drama and heartbreak, right until the very end. Is it a satisfying ending? Very much so, even though it's one that I expect has probably polarised opinion.

In the end, it turns out that yes, DI Lynsey Denton was guilty. Except she wasn't, sort of. She was, technically, but not morally. And even technically, she was only sort of.

Basically, Denton was approached by DS Akers, after she had seen Alex Lawrence (Tommy Hunter was Series 1 in his Witness Protection guise) beating up Carly Kirk, who had just been kicked out of DCC Dryden's car when he realised that Denton had seen the two of them together (still following?). Akers wants to give Hunter over to other underground bad guys, to stop him being able to harm girls like Carly (as he has been granted immunity, he apparently cannot be convicted of any crimes), and wants Denton to help do this, giving her a wad of cash. It turns out that DI Cottan is also in on this (we know he is The Caddy from previous episodes). On the night of the ambush, Denton changes her mind and goes off on a different route, only for the assassins (Prassad and Cole) to find them anyway, due to a tracker planted on her car, which she finds and switches on to the car carrying Akers, Hunter and the two (innocent) police officers.

That's it basically, if you can follow that rather garbled explanation. Why did Denton change her mind last minute? Presumably with an attack of conscience (though Hunter was an evil shit who liked beating kids, Denton is still a professional, and was still sending him to death and torture). Dryden, therefore, is innocent of any involvement in the conspiracy, and Cottan ordered the hits on the other officers and Akers to eliminate anyone who knew of his involvement - Hunter is dead, which was the end goal, and Denton was spared as she didn't know of his involvement, and there was also someone for him to focus the investigation on. 

It's fairly watertight, though I still think that Dryden's manner in offering a promotion to Supt Hastings in the previous episode was too much of a red herring, as he wouldn't have acted so shiftily if he didn't have any involvement. Still, that's a fairly minor quibble. The real story is that, according to the end of episode notes, Denton pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to murder, but was found guilty by a majority. The evidence all points to her, of course (nicely done, Cottan), but it's still a tragedy as this is someone who ultimately trying to save young girls from a monster. All done in the wrong manner, of course, and it led to the death of four police officers (including Georgia from Episode 1), but her only involvement in a conspiracy was to hand Hunter over to other criminals, which was all he deserved. No one ever said that Line of Duty was trying to make a pleasant drama. 

Throughout all of this, the acting has been superb. Keeley Hawes morally ambiguous Denton has helped keep us guessing right until the very end, with an incredible range of extremes in her performance, from the almost psychopathic attack on her neighbour, to the despair at her mother's death. Vicky McClure as DC Fleming and Martin Compston as DS Arnott have been the two rocks holding the investigation together, fighting their own demons as they go along, particularly Fleming with the breakdown of her marriage and having to live in her car. Supt Hastings, played by Adrian Dunbar, is rightly earning many plaudits as the officer who is desperate to advance in his career to help save his marriage and financial woes, but knows that doing the right thing will scupper all those. Mark Bonnar as DCC Dryden was particularly brilliant in the interview of Episode 5, going from the cold man in charge, to the wreck at the end as he sees his world crashing down around him. I can't emphasise just how much I like Craig Parkinson in anything, but he's wonderful as DI Cottan, who is surely going to keep getting away with things with each progressive season until it all crumbles down at the very end.

The individual moments of this episode probably don't matter compared with the ending that closes the story, but there were some definite highlights. Watching Fleming hammer on her front door when she learns her husband has changed the locks (something that normally happens to the man) is heartbreaking, when you realise just what a disrupted home life she's been hiding. Arnott's reveal that he's been playing Denton (though how far back we don't know) is also top notch, helping to reconcile the two work colleagues who appeared to have been drifting apart. Hastings telling Dryden that he would throw the book at him, as other charges around him are dropped, tops off Hasting's character arc for the series perfectly.

Standing above them, though, it couldn't really be anything but the grand reveal of the truth. The flashback in Denton's head, and in particular the brutal nature of Carly Kirk's kidnapping, are what we've wanted to know about all along, and the knowledge that Denton is ultimately innocent finally puts our minds at rest. If we were in her position, given the chance to rid the world of a scumbag who targets teenage girls, wouldn't we try to do something? There's a lot to sympathise with her about it, and it's clear why she felt she couldn't come forward - Hunter is dead, which was the ultimate goal, and if she could have held out a bit longer without the money she was paid being found, there was no evidence to put her away.

Line of Duty has been utterly superb, right from the beginning. I'm desperate to catch Series 1 now (hurry up and return it please, library folk), and desperate to catch Series 3 as soon as it airs. I've not been this impressed by a UK drama since Spooks (discounting Doctor Who), and with Prey impressing equally on ITV at the moment, it's a very strong time for UK television.

Roll on, Series 3!

Line of Duty Series 2 Episode 5 Review

Line of Duty Series 2 Episode 5

*This review contains spoilers*

I swear, if Line of Duty gets any better, it'll be criminal (ahem).

This week, we see the walls come toppling down on the conspiracy in a huge way. DCC Dryden's involvement becomes plain, as he is arrested and charged with a whole host of offences, including murder and conspiracy to murder. At the moment, the order of business is looking like this:

• Dryden had sexual relations with 15 year old Carly Kirk, which was caught on camera by key witness Tommy Hunter
• When learning about Hunter wanting to bribe him, Dryden had PC Prassad and PC Cole murder her to keep her from talking, and also set up the ambush that killed Hunter

It all looks fairly clear at this point, were it not for the last minute reveal of an abortion by DI Denton earlier in year, and the hint of a smile on her face as she watched the news broadcast about Dryden's arrest. All of a sudden, it looks as though perhaps the ambush was set up by Denton after all, to incriminate Dryden as revenge for making her go through with an abortion and not leaving his wife.

Gods, I don't know who to trust any more.

The interview scene where Dryden is charged is absolutely superb. Watching Dryden go from cold, hard and in control to utterly deflated is mesmerising, as are the performances of Martin Compston as DS Arnott and Vicky McClure as DC Fleming, who go the opposite way from nervous at interviewing their commanding officer, to full-on bad cop at its termination. If anything, it tops the interview that Arnott, Fleming and Supt Hastings gave Denton in Episode 2.

Before we get to Denton's pleased expression whilst watching the television, there is one further hint that perhaps everything still doesn't quite add up. As Hastings points out, the photos incriminating Dryden were found on the car-computer of Prassad; surely that would make Prassad part of the conspiracy to blackmail Dryden, rather than suddenly turn around and help him. Just another small piece that means we're so close yet so far from the truth.

All the performances are top-notch, as ever. Performance of the week has to go to Mark Bonnar as Dryden, for that incredible switch of character in the interview room. Hastings conflict between doing the right thing and getting on with his career are brilliant as well. I don't have too much sympathy for him in one respect, because in no way should he allow his career to get in the way of justice for a murdered teenager and four police officers, but at the same time you can understand how difficult it must be to arrest someone so high up in the force. The scene between the two of them, where Hastings begins to outline that he thinks there may be more involved in the conspiracy and is clearly accusing Dryden, is brilliant, especially the way that Dryden all but confesses when he suggests Hastings might get a promotion if he wants it. If that's not a way of saying 'yeah, I did it, but if you drop it then it'll be worth it' then I don't know what is. In fact, if Dryden turns out not to have done it, I think that's one of the only ways we could call fault with the storyline; that scene would be a deliberate red herring, but an unfair one.

There are other little storylines knocking about, such as DI Cottan's slightly-corrupt cop (which ties into Series 1 and I've still not had a chance to watch), Fleming apparently being yet another officer who owes a lot of money (seriously, are the police that badly paid?) and Arnott letting himself down by not sleeping with someone for two weeks running, All in all, anticipation for the finale couldn't be higher.

Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 2, Episode 7 - The Idiot's Lantern

Revisiting Doctor Who – Series 2, Episode 7 – The Idiot’s Lantern

England. Sometime after WWII. Mr Magpie looks over his accounts, needing a miracle, whilst another family read, listen to the radio and freak out their grandchildren about brains melting. A typical evening in a 50s British household in other words. A bolt of red lightning hits the aerial of Mr Magpie’s shop, turning the TV back on, but it’s all rather strange when the lady on the TV starts talking directly to him. Now, are you sitting comfortably? Good! Then we’ll begin…sucking his face into the TV with red lightning, apparently.

Cue title sequence…

The Doctor and Rose are dressed ready for 50s America, to go see Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show, so they’re a bit disappointed when it turns out to be 1953 London, all set for Elizabeth II’s coronation. The family with the melting brains are enjoying having a TV, though apparently the gran now has an awful face, and is knocking on the floor from upstairs, which I imagine is in no way connected to the face sucking red lightning thing. Turns out that, unlike everywhere else, everyone round here has a TV, as Magpie’s shop sells them for £5 a pop. It’s in old money but still, that’s like…not much.

Suddenly, a man is taken away in a car with a blanket over his head, which Tommy from the originally family says is happening plenty, with everyone turning into monsters. The Doctor and Rose pursue on their scooter, but the supposed police officers have initiated ‘Operation Market Stall’, which involves blocking the road with a market stall, and disappeared behind some big doors, unbeknownst to our heroes.

In his shop, Mr Magpie has finished something electronic, which pleases the television lady. Apparently she’s burning him behind his eyes, which is just plain mean. She’s a bit condescending too. I don’t like her. Too smiley. Never trust someone who smiles that much. It betrays hidden turmoil. Never go up and investigating a strange banging grandmother, either, which is a lesson Tommy should learn when he tries to do just that, before his father can stop him. Rose and The Doctor call on them, taking delight in getting Mr Connolly to do some housework, before Mrs Connolly begs for help with her mother. Piping Mr Connolly’s ego down, The Doctor hears of how people seem to be changing everywhere, before getting taken away by the police. Investigating the grandma, we see that she basically has no face now. It’s like it’s been wiped clean, or a blank canvas. The police/men in black turn up before they can do anything else, punching out The Doctor as they go. He heads off on his scooter to follow them, but Rose has become distracted by red lightning buzzing around the TV, and she sees the name ‘Magpie Electricals’ on the back of it before leaving.

The Doctor realises what’s happening with Operation Market Garden, finding a back way in, and finding a lot of people without faces locked up in a pen together. They react to him by clenching their fists and heading towards him, before a huge spotlight shines on him, and he warned to stay where he is. Meanwhile, in Magpie’s Electricals, Rose questions the owner on why his prices are so low, before the strange TV lady appears crying about being hungry. When Rose tells him that she knows the televisions are behind it, the lady reveals herself as ‘The Wire’, sucking Rose’s face off. Turns out her plan is to feed on the 20 million people watching the coronation.

The Doctor is being questioned by Detective Inspector Bishop, though he points out that the police aren’t really doing much detective inspecting. Turns out that faces being sucked off is a bit beyond what the police normally deal with, so The Doctor offers to lend a hand. He’s a bit downbeat though when the police bring Rose in. Very determined, though. He’s going to kick some ass.

The family are watching the coronation, with some thinly veiled threats from Mr Connolly towards his wife and Tommy (who has been goading him by suggesting relatives go upstairs to visit his gran), when The Doctor shows up. Mr Connolly tries to take control of the situation, but Tommy tells his father what a massive bellend fascist he’s being, as it was his father who informed on everyone in the street. Mrs Connolly also tells him to sod off, before going back to watch the coronation. Tommy goes with The Doctor and DI Bishop, heading to Magpie Electricals, where they discover the electrical thing Magpie made. When the sonic screwdriver is activated, it turns all the TVs on, and we see that everyone whose face has been sucked off is stuck inside one of them. So, Rose is alive! Woo! When Magpie appears, The Doctor gets all shouty again, but The Wire makes herself known, turning into a colour image and declaring that by feasting on everyone she will gain a corporeal body, which her own kind denied her. Turns out they executed her, but she fled in this form across the stars. The portable television that Magpie built is designed to transport her to a bigger transmitter, as she can’t do it all without. She starts to feed off them, but The Doctor stops it with the threat of the sonic screwdriver. Whilst The Doctor recovers on the floor, The Wire transmits to the portable TV and gets Magpie to drive her to a much bigger transmitter.

The Doctor rouses Tommy (DI Bishop has lost his face), figuring out that The Wire is headed for Alexandra Palace, the biggest transmitter in the area. They bring a load of electronics with them, as we see Magpie head up the tower with the portable TV. Tommy looks after the electronics in a room whilst The Doctor heads up the transmitter after Magpie and The Wire carrying, well, a wire. Red lightning starts to crackle all around as Magpie connects the portable television, and 20 million people begin to have their faces sucked off. The Wire chats bollocks for a while, Magpie moans and then gets disintegrated by The Wire, and The Doctor eventually saves the day when Tommy replaces a faulty electrical thingy in the big electrical thingy box, and he’s able to do something electrical to stop it. I don’t know much about electrics and electricals, but it turned the receiver back into a transmitter and he trapped The Wire in a VHS.

Back with the police, Tommy is reunited with his gran and The Doctor with Rose. Mrs Connolly kicks out Mr Connolly, and everyone else celebrates with a street party. After a pep talk from Rose, Tommy heads off to try and turn his Dad into a decent chap, as she and the Doctor share a glass of orange.

Now, all we need is for The Doctor to get rid of his scary 50s haircut, and all will be right with the world

I’ve seen this episode feature quite low on Who-fans lists before, and I think that’s a little unfair. It’s not a spectacular episode by any means, and it certainly isn’t going to make it onto any ‘best of’ lists, but it’s not a bad episode at all. Perhaps that’s the problem then; there’s just nothing that makes it stand out as being particularly brilliant. Certainly, if you asked me to name all the episodes of Series 2, this is one of the ones I’d be likely to forget.

It’s full of strong performances, as ever. Billie Piper in particular is fantastic when she puts on her commanding voice to school Mr Connolly about being British. I’ve got to say, Mr Connolly is a massive dick, but there isn’t a single role that the actor, Jamie Foreman,  plays where he doesn’t make it better because he’s so accomplished a playing a massive dick. Boy, do I hate his character in basically every role. He also does bully-turned-simpering-idiot very well, too.

Debra Gillett as Rita Connolly is perfect. The show could have run away with her finally getting rid of Mr Connolly, changing her instantly from a meek and mild mannered lady to a ferocious woman-scorned with a temper to put her husband in the dark, as is what usually happens in these circumstances; instead, she quietly tells him to get out, and calmly tells everyone it’s a new beginning (along those lines). It’s a wonderful change, and brilliantly played. You fully believe that she’s just so relieved and happy her tyrant husband is gone, and she’s looking forward to the future now. Rory Jennings as Tommy Connolly is also very good, convincing as the child who just wants to help solve the situation and find out what’s happening to his gran, whilst living under the harsh rule of his father.

Speaking of women in these times - yes, these jokes have been done to death in every form by now, but watching The Doctor force the bullying Mr Connolly to do ‘a woman’s job’ is still funny (‘Does the Queen do the housework?’). Especially so when Rose corrects him on his Union Jack vs Union Flag error. Which, of course, I wouldn’t have made.

The Doctor’s temper comes out in full force when Mr Connolly tries to take back control of his house. As a complete aside, I laughed with the way he said ‘I’m not listening-AH!, as it reminded me of Metallica’s James Hetfield, or WWE’s HHH. He’s quite angry throughout, really, especially when Rose loses her face.

The Wire is a creepy baddie, but Christ do I find her ‘hungry’ and ‘feed me’ cries annoying! Almost-enough-to-knock-a-ratings-point-off annoying. MEGA-annoying. Fantastic actress and performance all round though. Reminds me exactly of the type of presenter I’ve seen in classic BBC shows.

I laughed like a drain at ‘Operation Market Stall’ being nothing more than putting out a market stall. Brilliant!

If there’s one other thing, besides the ‘feed me’ annoyance, that I didn’t like about the episode, it’s David Tennant’s hairstyle. Christ, there’s some volume in there! I just think it looks terrible, and thank the gods it seems to have gone back to normal in next week’s episode. I was distracted by it all the way through!

Torchwood Mentions

Mentioned by a police officer

Overall

Nothing spectacular, but nothing too shabby either. Just a fairly run-of-the-mill episode at the end of the day.

7/10