I’m looking forward to this episode in 20 minutes time. Doctor Who two parters have tended to have a stronger second half, as opposed to series like Star Trek that start strong and wither come episode two.
Hopefully the episode will end with a goodbye from Martha!
Bleurgh, no chance of that eh? But worth waiting for, a solid episode.
Seeing how well the Sontarans (Sontrans ) were done makes me wish RTD would bring back the Ice Warriors, a shame that he’s apparently passed up on them.
As an alien, they’re done well and keep some of the menace that the NuCybermen lack in comparison to their predecessors.
I’d say this two parter was a little below par, which still made it enjoyable of course.
[spoiler]Yet another disappointing, lazy and predictable deus-ex ending but I guess that’s to be expected by now.
I like that the Earth forces managed to surprise the doctor by countering the Sontarans, even if it was ultimately pointless. How long before Earth no longer needs the Doctor to protect them from aliens? He’ll probably still be needed to protect them from themselves though.[/spoiler]
I find myself liking Catherine Tate, she’s a better actress than I gave her credit for.
The trailer for next week… Hmm. Expectations are pretty low, so hopefully they can surprise me.
Its a change from a bunch of squaddies with SLRs bunging rifle grenades at Daleks, that’s for sure. I thought the commanding officer would cop it at the hands of the Sontarans, instead of being the one to take out the leader of their squad on Earth.
At some time in the future, Earth and other planets can kick the Cybermen into touch and leave them incapable of any more than a bit of nuisance. And either after or before there’s at least one great and bountiful human Empire, which might be the one that ends in the story “The Mutants”
True, but then she has done more than a bit of comedy in her time, shes acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company for one.
I enjoyed the episode quite a bit, lazy deus ex machina aside (yes it annoyed me too). More to the point surely if you ignited the gas in the atmosphere the fire would continue down to the ground and burn everyone and everything in a fiery inferno of destruction? But then that wouldn’t have been a very family-friendly ending would it? I was glad that all the questions I had in the thread on the previous episode were answered, it was actually a consistent and well thought out story.
One bit that was slightly chilling (even though they didn’t draw much attention to it) was when the two altered soldiers walked up as the Sontarans were attacking the factory and said “We do our duty” and the Sontaran leader just casually turns and shoots them. Admittedly it was off screen but that is clearly what is happening.
Catherine Tate is getting better at this role but is anyone else getting the vibe that she really hates her mother? There’s all these tearful hugs and kisses with her grandfather but she barely even says anything to her mother. I think Martha looked quite inferior next to her, actually.
The next episode, from the preview at least, looks like it’s going to suck big donkey dick.
A pretty entertaining two parter, spoilt by some glaring plot holes.
One particularly clumsy bit of plotting that got me. The Doctor telling donna to go to the TARDIS for no immediately apparent reason. I missed why he did that, if any reason was given. Then purely by chance just after she’s gone there, that is the moment when the Sontarans decide to take the TARDIS, along with Donna. Why they do this isn’t clear because they show little interest in it once they’ve got it. Bit of a coincidence that they should choose that particular moment. Then, having captured it, they just sort of leave it alone. Why aren’t their techs trying to get into it? It’s convenient for the plot that they did so, but why they did so isn’t clear.
I also didn’t like the pollution clearing gun that came out of nowhere.
I think the Sontarans have come up against Timelord technology before and been beaten by it, so they merely wish to deprive the Doctor of it. Either that or bring it back somewhere more suitable for closer analysis.
And yeah, I remembered Susan calling the first Doctor “Grandfather” when I heard about the title of the next episode.
This was yet another “what just happened?” episode, for me. They do tend to draw the mystery out as long as possible, and then cram the explanation of what the hell is going on into the last five minutes. Something about preparing a breeder planet and igniting the atmosphere? I don’t know, I must have been out of the room during the crucial thirty seconds. It seems like a tortuously slow build-up to a very rushed ending.
They tucked the history of the Sontarans as such into the story (both parts) pretty well, there was mention of clones and the war against the Rutans not going well before the last flash in the pan.
This season just gets better and better. I thought I’d hate Catherine Tate as a companion, I can’t stand her sketch show, but this series has had some of the best episodes of the whole 4 years. It was nice for UNIT to be ahead of the Doctor for once. Colonel Mace’s speech, followed by the Valient coming down was the best bit so far this year, I’ve watched that bit 6 or 7 times so far.
They’d better, I read somewhere that Jenny is just going to be a clone of the doctor from stolen DNA, but the website was wrong about some other things this season, so I hope it’s wrong about that too.
As far as I know, she was seen in this and the first episode, and it was probably her mentioned in the second episode.