May. 4th, 2008 @ 08:49 pm Doctor Who: The Poison Skies (aka Sontaran plan step 2: profit)
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Good things

I really liked this episode as well. I'll need to rewatch them if I'm to decide if they're real classics, but I've very much enjoyed all the episodes this season, (except parts of the first), and really look forward to the next one.

Notable moments:

* "Are you my mummy?"
* Military officers kiss. It reminded me so much of Colonel Jack O'Neill and Captain Sam Carter.
* The firey sky
* "Son-tar ha"!
* "No, no, no, it's not an atmos system! Atmos stands for..."
* Kudos to Saraphale, who was right that the gas was for a good reason.
* Doctor asking Donna to save everyone, "I wouldn't ask, but..." "You HAVE three fingers" "Oh, yeah."
* Doctor giving the Sontarans one last chance.

Neutral comments

* Donna's mother is so Donna's Donna

* The Sontarans could also do with not some "sending lone guards to stand with their backs to enemies with no radio contact" training, but it was so awesome for Donna I won't argue.

* Now will people believe in aliens? People often say "won't believe in X until I see it written in fire across the sky". Well, now they have. That sky beats stupid hovering Dalek columns hollow, surely everyone must have seen it? :) (That's not a criticism: I don't think the show could handle the doublethink any better than it does, but it's still amusing.)

Nitpicks

I tried to keep these to a minimum, I really did.

* See, look, you can smash the window. Actually, I think (1) there is a fundamental problem here, you are not *supposed* to think you can, you're supposed to be surprised by Mum's ingenuity, but this is achieved by giving the impression that deadlock is a magic forcefield, when in many other situations that would be the correct inference (2) in actual fact, they just drew out the climax last time too long for the "help! car!" crisis to work, but that was just a minor cinematographic problem, you can see what was _meant_ to happen.

* Who's got the gigantic evil evil-spaceship-destroying laser from Torchwood in the first christmas ep? Why don't they use that on the evil spaceship?

* Blah, blah, repent, blah, sacrifice life, blah. OK, kudos to the boy genius. But come on, how dumb are you, of course they're going to betray you. I think it would have been a mcuh more exciting story if he went off to become Sontaran (and either the Sontarans accepted him, or not). Sontar-ha!

* And the students didn't add up. It's natural that he messes up controlling them at the last minute and they walk out (though none stay to help save the world). But if he didn't have sufficient charismatic control, how did he get them jogging? And isn't it sad none stayed to comfort him?

* Why did the doctor do all that mugging to Donna in the vidphone? Didn't he just want her to sit tight until they moved her into a storage area? Couldn't he have done so reassuringly, even if he couldn't just phone her? For that matter, why didn't she ring directory enquiries (and ask for either ATMOS factory, Martha or UNIT)?

* Blah, blah, environmental message, blah. Rub it in much? No-one uses their cars, yay! Because they're all (a) scared of them and (b) smashed them up to get out.
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From:[info]rochvelleth
Date: May 5th, 2008 12:45 pm (UTC)
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Who's got the gigantic evil evil-spaceship-destroying laser from Torchwood in the first christmas ep? Why don't they use that on the evil spaceship?

Apparently the laser they used to blast the Sontarans from the Valiant is a scaled-down version of that very laser (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doctor_Who_vehicles#Valiant) - so UNIT sort of have it. But I've no idea why they couldn't use it on the ship... (especially when they were considering going nuclear on it instead).

P.S. Shame about the window-smashing...
From:[info]cartesiandaemon
Date: May 6th, 2008 10:41 am (UTC)
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Apparently the laser they used to blast the Sontarans from the Valiant is a scaled-down version of that very laser

Oh, right, continuity! That's very cool. I forgot the Valiant, the Valiant was also very cool.

I've no idea why they couldn't use it on the ship... (especially when they were considering going nuclear on it instead).

Exactly. I suppose maybe it only works on passive targets (eg. can't aim in real time, easily shielded against or similar), but if the military know that much you'd think they'd know nukes wouldn't help either.

P.S. Shame about the window-smashing...

Yeah, I didn't see your post until after I wrote this (was waiting to see the ep), I think I agreed with what you said there.
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From:[info]robhu
Date: May 6th, 2008 10:42 am (UTC)
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The TARDIS wiki sez the Valiant's laser is mounted on the bottom, so it can't shoot at things in space.

AFAICT it's a scaled down version of the Torchwood laser anyway.
From:[info]cartesiandaemon
Date: May 6th, 2008 10:48 am (UTC)
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I mean, why they can't use the big version against the Sontaran ship. Obviously the piddly[1] one might not be much use.

[1] Piddly being a technical term to refer to the smallness of gigantic gigaton[2] floating UN battlestations[2]
[2] In the other sense
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From:[info]robhu
Date: May 6th, 2008 10:49 am (UTC)
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Maybe they don't have the big one any more?
From:[info]cartesiandaemon
Date: May 6th, 2008 10:53 am (UTC)
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Well, yes, it would be quite plausible; maybe it was in Torchwood HQ when it was destroyed by Daleks and Cybermen. But you'd think they'd have something, if they had previously started the idea of collecting alien tech.
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From:[info]rochvelleth
Date: May 6th, 2008 04:59 pm (UTC)
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Doesn't Jack say that they pillaged everything from the destroyed London Torchwood so it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands? Maybe they didn't use it because Jack was distracted[1].

[1] I mean, upset about Owen and Tosh, not having sex with Ianto.
From:[info]cartesiandaemon
Date: May 6th, 2008 05:40 pm (UTC)
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That would mostly make sense: if Cardiff Torchwood turned basically autonomous after the Cybermen disaster, maybe no-one official has their phone number, or just that Jack didn't set up the big evil laser for ready use.

But then -- UNIT got ahold of the laser to adapt to the valiant, you'd think they'd still have made sure not to let go of the big one.
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From:[info]rochvelleth
Date: May 7th, 2008 02:55 pm (UTC)
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Or maybe they sent it to the Torchwood Pompeii branch :D