DW BBC The Nemonite Invasion
Feb. 26th, 2009 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThis was a bit rubbish.
I need to have a think about why I feel that.
The most obvious reason is that Donna is the only woman in the entire story. She fancies someone, there's kissing, then there's Tragic Doomed Sacrifice and then she takes a letter to his mum. The story never gets as far as her talking to his mum so I don't think it counts as his mum being in the story. So there's just Donna. Only. Being someone's love interest.
There's a case to be made that he's her love interest, but instead of Donna or the Doctor resolving the alien plot, Donna inspires this guy to save the world. She's the inspiration, she's the love interest.
She also gets to think up Plans and be able to read german because the TARDIS is around (though in 45 its a plot point that the TARDIS translates for everyone in the area not just for the TARDIS people, as it is in The Christmas Invasion where the Sycorax speak English in the middle of the sentence, and... well, anyway, it's inconsistent, is what I'm saying. But this is Doctor Who so I shouldn't bother complaining about that.) I think I'd like it better if she could read german because she reads german. Half the people that went to my school read german, so it's not exactly implausible. So, anyway, Being Caring, Reading, and Electrocution. Feels a bit slim somehow.
It being World War II (again) is no excuse for it being all men. Fenric managed, and that was being all military.
So, what else irritated... well I'm not sure how the parts of the story fit together. I mean, okay, World War II, alien invasion, base under seige, fair enough. Very old school. That was one of my pervasive impressions actually, this one being old school in all the wrong ways. I'm trying to pin down what I mean by that. It's not that I don't like the classic series, I like it a lot, but ... I don't know, this story felt like it hadn't learned from anything in my lifetime? Maybe?
So, anyway, base under seige, aliens, the usual.
There's a thread where an old soldier isn't sure he can risk civilian lives to save soldiers.
There's a thread where a man who lost his wife and son snaps under pressure and decides he's the boss now.
There's a thread where there's alien parasites invading the Earth.
The old soldier thread has obvious parallels to the Doctor, but they were never explored. If his dilemma is not believing he has the right to risk civilians then the solution is to show that civilians will risk themselves for a good cause, and win, and survive. Nobody in this story gets to do that. There's no civilians in the story, as far as the old soldier knows. Donna counts, obviously, but the Doctor introduced them both as being from the War Office so it's not the same. So instead that thread gets resolved by a bit of a talking to from the Doctor, and I really dislike the do as I say version when the do as I do makes better story and much better teaching.
The war office thing: Introducing yourselves as being from the X Files and then quoting from one of the more famous early episodes does not in fact make it better that you're obviously ripping bits from the X Files. "We're not who we are" is the original quote. Adding words just makes it sound like you're misquoting. And, importantly, that layer was never followed through on. There wasn't so much as a minute where someone was faking out the listeners or the characters by being possessed secretly. They were instead possessed and dripping black goo with their eyes gone black. And only two of them could talk, neither of them keeping their personalities. The rest shuffled about like zombies. So what it ended up sounding like was an archaeological relic of an inspiration, rather than an integral plot thread.
And this was annoying, because the Jarman thread, the man who snaps, only works in connection with the parasite not who we are thread. He's convinced that the Doctor is a German spy and the Vice Admiral needs replacing. IF they're working the alien parasite / we're not who we are / spies connection then he has a story. As it was he just went really excessively nuts all on his own, without actually overlapping with the alien story. Seriously, everyone else was in a Base Under Siege, he was wandering around playing dress up and singing. Nobody else could wander around without bumping into aliens, and making noise was supposed to attract them. So he just plain didn't make any sense.
And he should have. He's lost his wife, he's lost his son, the war took everything. The Doctor can empathise with that. The aliens can empathise with that. That's a great setup.
It just never bumps into the Doctor or the aliens to explore that great setup.
Alien parasites invading Earth. Okay. So they can't survive without killing sentient beings. The Doctor has to stop them. But he doesn't want to wipe out their species. This is a classic Doctor dilemma. That part plays through fine.
But then there's the part where he lures them into a submarine to keep them contained.
The parasites live in the water. Little tadpole looking ones nearly got into one character in the drinking water. They're about to spawn again in their millions.
You'd think keeping them out of the sea would be rather a priority.
So there was a lack of making sense there, big time.
The Doctor ran around trying not to kill them, the navy ran around trying to kill them, between them they killed them all. That's Doctor Who story.
The bit where they capture a U boat randomly full of Zyklon B for the concentration camps, and then use it to exterminate the aliens, who as previously noted are the last of their kind... that's nasty. Really uncomfortable.
But again, while there's the opportunity to explore the similarities and differences with the Nazis, the rhetoric of calling humans parasites and the cold biological fact of alien parasites... story never goes there.
So I guess it's a bit rubbish because I can see a lot of things to do with these themes, characters, story parts, but I don't see as this particular story did any of them.
Frustrating.
I need to have a think about why I feel that.
The most obvious reason is that Donna is the only woman in the entire story. She fancies someone, there's kissing, then there's Tragic Doomed Sacrifice and then she takes a letter to his mum. The story never gets as far as her talking to his mum so I don't think it counts as his mum being in the story. So there's just Donna. Only. Being someone's love interest.
There's a case to be made that he's her love interest, but instead of Donna or the Doctor resolving the alien plot, Donna inspires this guy to save the world. She's the inspiration, she's the love interest.
She also gets to think up Plans and be able to read german because the TARDIS is around (though in 45 its a plot point that the TARDIS translates for everyone in the area not just for the TARDIS people, as it is in The Christmas Invasion where the Sycorax speak English in the middle of the sentence, and... well, anyway, it's inconsistent, is what I'm saying. But this is Doctor Who so I shouldn't bother complaining about that.) I think I'd like it better if she could read german because she reads german. Half the people that went to my school read german, so it's not exactly implausible. So, anyway, Being Caring, Reading, and Electrocution. Feels a bit slim somehow.
It being World War II (again) is no excuse for it being all men. Fenric managed, and that was being all military.
So, what else irritated... well I'm not sure how the parts of the story fit together. I mean, okay, World War II, alien invasion, base under seige, fair enough. Very old school. That was one of my pervasive impressions actually, this one being old school in all the wrong ways. I'm trying to pin down what I mean by that. It's not that I don't like the classic series, I like it a lot, but ... I don't know, this story felt like it hadn't learned from anything in my lifetime? Maybe?
So, anyway, base under seige, aliens, the usual.
There's a thread where an old soldier isn't sure he can risk civilian lives to save soldiers.
There's a thread where a man who lost his wife and son snaps under pressure and decides he's the boss now.
There's a thread where there's alien parasites invading the Earth.
The old soldier thread has obvious parallels to the Doctor, but they were never explored. If his dilemma is not believing he has the right to risk civilians then the solution is to show that civilians will risk themselves for a good cause, and win, and survive. Nobody in this story gets to do that. There's no civilians in the story, as far as the old soldier knows. Donna counts, obviously, but the Doctor introduced them both as being from the War Office so it's not the same. So instead that thread gets resolved by a bit of a talking to from the Doctor, and I really dislike the do as I say version when the do as I do makes better story and much better teaching.
The war office thing: Introducing yourselves as being from the X Files and then quoting from one of the more famous early episodes does not in fact make it better that you're obviously ripping bits from the X Files. "We're not who we are" is the original quote. Adding words just makes it sound like you're misquoting. And, importantly, that layer was never followed through on. There wasn't so much as a minute where someone was faking out the listeners or the characters by being possessed secretly. They were instead possessed and dripping black goo with their eyes gone black. And only two of them could talk, neither of them keeping their personalities. The rest shuffled about like zombies. So what it ended up sounding like was an archaeological relic of an inspiration, rather than an integral plot thread.
And this was annoying, because the Jarman thread, the man who snaps, only works in connection with the parasite not who we are thread. He's convinced that the Doctor is a German spy and the Vice Admiral needs replacing. IF they're working the alien parasite / we're not who we are / spies connection then he has a story. As it was he just went really excessively nuts all on his own, without actually overlapping with the alien story. Seriously, everyone else was in a Base Under Siege, he was wandering around playing dress up and singing. Nobody else could wander around without bumping into aliens, and making noise was supposed to attract them. So he just plain didn't make any sense.
And he should have. He's lost his wife, he's lost his son, the war took everything. The Doctor can empathise with that. The aliens can empathise with that. That's a great setup.
It just never bumps into the Doctor or the aliens to explore that great setup.
Alien parasites invading Earth. Okay. So they can't survive without killing sentient beings. The Doctor has to stop them. But he doesn't want to wipe out their species. This is a classic Doctor dilemma. That part plays through fine.
But then there's the part where he lures them into a submarine to keep them contained.
The parasites live in the water. Little tadpole looking ones nearly got into one character in the drinking water. They're about to spawn again in their millions.
You'd think keeping them out of the sea would be rather a priority.
So there was a lack of making sense there, big time.
The Doctor ran around trying not to kill them, the navy ran around trying to kill them, between them they killed them all. That's Doctor Who story.
The bit where they capture a U boat randomly full of Zyklon B for the concentration camps, and then use it to exterminate the aliens, who as previously noted are the last of their kind... that's nasty. Really uncomfortable.
But again, while there's the opportunity to explore the similarities and differences with the Nazis, the rhetoric of calling humans parasites and the cold biological fact of alien parasites... story never goes there.
So I guess it's a bit rubbish because I can see a lot of things to do with these themes, characters, story parts, but I don't see as this particular story did any of them.
Frustrating.