Not an outstanding episode, but a decent way to spend an hour.
I did like seeing Martha get her CSI on by realizing that Professor Lazarus had unwittingly supplied her with a DNA sample.
Mark Gatiss was delightfully arrogant.
I think it was a mistake to try to recreate Lazarus’ face on the creature. The CGI just didn’t do it for me. I couldn’t help but think back to a similarly unconvincing man/creature hybrid in The Mummy Returns.
Why did we need yet another villain whose name, coincidentally, specifically reflects his area of interest? I can just see Professor Lazarus inventing a mind-control device enabling him to take over the world, then tossing it into the garbage because he realized he had the wrong name. “If only the Mesmer family down the block had adopted me, THEN it would be OK for me to use it,” he would sadly mutter.
The Doctor needs to find an assistant who will club seemingly dead foes with a frying pan or something JUST TO MAKE SURE. This will save him needless trouble. And if he feels the need to express moral outrage over clubbing someone with a frying pan, well, he LIKES expressing moral outrage, doesn’t he?
Yup. As soon as we saw the actor in old age makeup, it was obvious what would happen (I didn’t catch his name till later, then went :rolleyes: ). Not that it was a bad episode, just one of your “fun for an hour then forgettable” shows.
Never mind the frying pan, the second time they killed him, I said, “OK, now stuff his mouth with garlic, chop off his head, burn him, and bury the ashes at a crossroads.” I guess the fact that he was all wrinkly again meant he was most sincerely dead, but I wouldn’t have taken the chance.
I don’t know if it was just sweet, sweet relief that the abominable Dalek two-parter was over, or that Martha finally got to change her clothes, but I loved this episode. Loved all the running (in heels! Go Martha!), loved the Doctor’s little “It shouldn’t take that long just to reverse the polarity - I must be out of practice!”, and loved that the Doctor actually played something on the organ rather than just banging keys. Of course he would.
For some reason I so wanted Tish to come along on the TARDIS after this ep.
Oh, and Francine only wishes she could smack the Doctor as well as Jackie could. I miss Jackie.
Worst episode of this season to date, notable only for the introduction of that vaguely menacing fellow that was slagging The Doctor to Martha’s family. I presume he re-appears at some future point to cause more mischief? (Don’t answer that)
“Mr. Saxon”. He was “name dropped” without further comment in the official season premiere, “Hospital on the Moon”. I don’t believe he has popped up outside Martha’s home time period, unlike “Bad Wolf” which popped up throughout the first season.
Also, the face on the monster reminded me of the look of the N64 “GoldenEye” graphics engine…wonder if it was the same production company?
I liked the reverse polarity joke and the Spinal Tap reference of turning the Organ up to 11. These were regrettably the highlight of the show.
The monster made far less sense than normal, even my 10 year old daughter did not understand how the size of a human could change that much, she thought the scorpion man should still be man size.
As far as the Op’s question,
I think it is worth remembering that despite the large adult audience for the show, it is written with kids in mind. Your complaint is similar to the ones about the naming of the characters in Harry Potter.
I had a strong feeling the episode was just a bridge to the darker story arc that
“Mister Saxon” will be.
I was annoyed by the Doctor’s instant reaction of moral outrage to the rejuvenation effect, even before it became obvious that something had gone wrong. It’s pretty easy to preach about making the best of the time you’re given and living every day to it’s fullest when you’re an immortal Time Lord.
Finagle, I get where you’re coming from. At first I agreed with that emphatically. Seemed very hypocritical of him really.
But I think that the Doctor knows humans too well, and that in their weakness they would cling to rejuvination while being utterly unprepared to deal with it. The Time Lords at least had been doing it for thousands of years and understood all the baggage that came with it.
I think the Doctor was warning Lazarus not out of moral outrage but out of his own experience. I’m not saying that the Doctor necessarily has a death wish and is feeling suicidal (althugh in the Dalek two parter he was willing to do suicide via Dalek) but he certainly isn’t feeling too happy about his own existence lately.
Also, Martha’s mom had the scariest eyebrows ever.
I don’t recall him as being morally outraged at rejuvenation * in principle* Didn’t he say something along the lines of “there’s a thousand variables, and you can’t possibly have accounted for them all.” I see his reaction as being based on the knowledge that Lazarus is certain to have got something wrong, and the error might be very dangerous.
