About JE Smith
Location: Irving, Texas
Occupation: Freelance
Bio: JE Smith, aka Jeff S., is a forty-something guy who was born in Illinois, but has been living in the wilds of Dallas, Texas for almost twenty years. He has been a movie nut ever since seeing Escape from the Planet of the Apes at Steeleville Theater in 1971 and is also obsessed with Doctor Who, Ultraman, Star Trek, The X Files, Batman, Spider-Man, Doc Savage and many other pop culture icons. For fifteen years (1981 - 1996) he published the sf/horror filmzine Wet Paint, and tried his hand at self-publishing his own comics with Bulletproof (1999, 3 issues) and Complex City (2000 - 2003, 4 issues and a trade paperback), both of which bombed. He's been writing film reviews for almost thirty years and is just getting the hang of it. Married to the lovely Barbara for over 15 years, and owned by a sleepy cat named Max.
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One year later…
Plot Points – 365 Days have passed since Martha teleported out of the Valiant, and she has spent her time “walking the Earth” (y’know, just like Kane on Kung Fu), collecting the pieces of a gun to kill the Master (ostensibly) and spreading the word about the Doctor. Meanwhile, the Doctor is reduced to Dobby the House Elf (or Gollum, depending on your allegiances) as the Master prepares to launch an all-out assault on the universe.
Doctor Who? – Deprived of his ability to regenerate, the Doctor ages to a wizened little creature with big doe-eyes and a cute little brown suit just like his big one.
Martha My Dear – So, it’s Martha’s big episode. She gets to save the world, and finally stops feeling second best to Rose. So why does it all seem so hollow and forced? Possibly because Russell T. Davies has reverted back to his Season 1 paradigm of having the companion be more important than the Doctor (this might as well have been an episode of Martha Jones), and even though MJ proves tougher than Rose ever could be (would anyone have bought Rose walking the Earth for a year and rousing the troops? I think not), it never seems real. And, naturally, now that Martha has gotten over her infatuation with the Doctor, and has come into her own, she gets dumped from the series. Freema deserves better than this.
Rosewatch – The Master taunts Martha by saying, “In days of old, Doctor, you had companions who could absorb the time vortex! This one’s useless!”
Too Cool – The less said about the CG Dobby Doctor the better, but I did think the “face” at the center of the Toclafane sphere was pretty creepy-looking.
Weird Science - All right, children, let’s all close our eyes and wish very, very, very hard, and the Doctor will be saved! And don’t forget to throw magical fairy dust into the air!
Dumb Stuff – The plot. Plus, it would have been nice to have some kind of motivation for the Toclafane being so murderous other than “because it’s fun!” And what exactly is wrong with Lucy? Is she shell-shocked from a year of banging the mostest evilest entity in the universe, or is she drugged, or both? It would be nice to get some indication of what the heck is with her.
Classic Who – The Doctor name-checks the Sea Devils (“The Sea Devils” 9.3/1972) and the Axons (“The Claws of Axos” 8.3/1971), both of which were Third Doctor villains which involved the Delgado Master (see last week’s entry).
Final Answer – …and so, it all falls to pieces. Never has the conclusion of a multi-part nuWho story gone so horrifically astray. Everything about this episode just seems half-assed and wrong. In the space of about 10 minutes, RTD manages to rip off Peter Pan, Return of the Jedi, and the 1980 Flash Gordon, and the Doctor’s revival through good vibrations and pixie-dust is about the most insulting thing Russell has ever foisted off on us, not to mention being a virtual retread of Rose’s fate at the end of Season 1. Does the Doctor do anything clever or interesting to save the day? No, he just floats across the room and gets all emo over the bad guy. The Master isn’t remotely threatening or frightening (the insipid sequence at the beginning set to Scissor Sisters’ “I Can’t Decide” is cringe-inducing) and continues to pull faces like Jim Carrey. Roger Delgado this ain’t, not by a long shot. The nature of the Toclafane is confusing (did the Master make them into little metal spheres, or did they do it to themselves?) and never, not for one moment, does it feel like a whole year has actually passed. The Master’s masterplan should feel apocalyptic and harrowing, but it never does, because we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’ll all get resolved in the end and a big “reset” button will be punched at some point before the episode is over. Why care about a world in ruins when we know it won’t last? And Jack is the Face of Boe? GMAFB. This is the third year in a row where Davies has given us basically the exact same finale – an overwhelmingly huge horde of alien whatsits swarm over the Earth and begin an all-out assault. At least with “Army of Ghosts”/”Doomsday” Russell had the good taste to actually let the Doctor save the day. No such luck here. “Last of the Time Lords” is a drag, and seems even worse given the largely excellent buildup. It’s a depressing end to an erratic season, and all too emblematic of Russell T. Davies’ bizarre approach to Doctor Who.
