Doctor Who 3.7: 42
May. 20th, 2007 05:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenayAs usual, comments and review are under the cut and chock-full of spoilers.
This is definitely one of the best episodes so far this season :-) On the surface it's a fairly simple, save the ship before we all die plot, something that Doctor Who has always done quite well. The difference is that it was done in real time and the acting was brilliant. Even though this is Doctor Who and I knew that he and Martha were going to get out of it, I was still on the edge of my seat feeling thoroughly traumatised as he tried to hit the buttons that would pull back the pod. Such a simple, cliche sci-fi moment was done so well that I couldn't help holding me breath.
The part that I wasn't expecting was the living sun taking over the Doctor. That's not the way it usually falls in these things. To then have the Doctor confess that he's frightened made the whole thing that bit more affecting, as though there was real jeopardy for for him.
In these things, it's always the ship's captain who has done something (deliberate or not) to bring on the disaster. I was anticipating that she'd brought on some dodgy cargo or docked somewhere stupid (yet profitable). I loved the idea of the living sun :-)
Having mentioned the captain, I was rather impressed with Michelle Collins. I could see her being a fairly tough captain, going for profit wherever possible. Her relationship with Korwin was touching and fitted well, in a strange sort of way, with the rest of her personality. It was the ending that sealed it for me: she brought it all on herself and was, ultimately, responsible for Korwin's death so she sacrificed herself to end it for him. It was a satisfying end to her story.
Visually, the whole thing was stunning. The sets for the ship's interior was a huge part of what made the episode so tense and claustrophobic, with the red lighting and old, jury-rigged equipment. In Confidential they were remarking on the current Doctor Who's vision of the future being rather dingy and decrepit. It's a huge contrast to the very clean, white future that classic Doctor Who often showed and there's a part of me that thinks it's possibly a more realistic vision. The incredibly white, sterile future look doesn't feel real to me.
It was interesting to see the Confidential afterwards and their trip through past Doctor Who space ships. The ship from Trial of a Time Lord actually holds up really well against modern effects. Many of the old space ship clips are showing their age, but that one doesn't. I do wonder what the special effects we're making now will look like in twenty years time.
The thing about effects now is that I don't notice it's an effect when I'm watching, even when it's a shot of a ship falling into a sun. For me, that's a mark of the sophistication of the effect - it can keep me in the moment rather than throwing me out and making me notice that it's an effect.
The episode had a simple story structure, but the scripts, acting and visuals turned it into a tense, brilliant episode that had me holding my breath and completely absorbed. Fantastic.
This is definitely one of the best episodes so far this season :-) On the surface it's a fairly simple, save the ship before we all die plot, something that Doctor Who has always done quite well. The difference is that it was done in real time and the acting was brilliant. Even though this is Doctor Who and I knew that he and Martha were going to get out of it, I was still on the edge of my seat feeling thoroughly traumatised as he tried to hit the buttons that would pull back the pod. Such a simple, cliche sci-fi moment was done so well that I couldn't help holding me breath.
The part that I wasn't expecting was the living sun taking over the Doctor. That's not the way it usually falls in these things. To then have the Doctor confess that he's frightened made the whole thing that bit more affecting, as though there was real jeopardy for for him.
In these things, it's always the ship's captain who has done something (deliberate or not) to bring on the disaster. I was anticipating that she'd brought on some dodgy cargo or docked somewhere stupid (yet profitable). I loved the idea of the living sun :-)
Having mentioned the captain, I was rather impressed with Michelle Collins. I could see her being a fairly tough captain, going for profit wherever possible. Her relationship with Korwin was touching and fitted well, in a strange sort of way, with the rest of her personality. It was the ending that sealed it for me: she brought it all on herself and was, ultimately, responsible for Korwin's death so she sacrificed herself to end it for him. It was a satisfying end to her story.
Visually, the whole thing was stunning. The sets for the ship's interior was a huge part of what made the episode so tense and claustrophobic, with the red lighting and old, jury-rigged equipment. In Confidential they were remarking on the current Doctor Who's vision of the future being rather dingy and decrepit. It's a huge contrast to the very clean, white future that classic Doctor Who often showed and there's a part of me that thinks it's possibly a more realistic vision. The incredibly white, sterile future look doesn't feel real to me.
It was interesting to see the Confidential afterwards and their trip through past Doctor Who space ships. The ship from Trial of a Time Lord actually holds up really well against modern effects. Many of the old space ship clips are showing their age, but that one doesn't. I do wonder what the special effects we're making now will look like in twenty years time.
The thing about effects now is that I don't notice it's an effect when I'm watching, even when it's a shot of a ship falling into a sun. For me, that's a mark of the sophistication of the effect - it can keep me in the moment rather than throwing me out and making me notice that it's an effect.
The episode had a simple story structure, but the scripts, acting and visuals turned it into a tense, brilliant episode that had me holding my breath and completely absorbed. Fantastic.
