Doctor Who: Terminus

I liked it :-)

And then I had a think about it and liked it rather less.
Some bits were narratively unsatisfying. Things that look like clues turn out to be nothing much, characters know things that other characters found out without communication happening, some things come out of nowhere, and really the thing about the ship setting off the big bang was a bit... well, did they really need that? Stopping a hospital ship from blowing up would in itself be a worthwhile endeavour.

Although, you know, timeship made the big bang. Cool.

Tegan and Turlough spending the whole adventure crawling around in conduits was obviously central to the plot.
... yeah, no.
I kind of liked it, actually. I don't know why. Just sometimes the sidekick ends up stuck under the floor all day?
I did like when Tegan went up the ladder in her shorts and Turlough was all :eyeroll: about following her and not interested at all.

... what? atypical moment!


What was with Nyssa's entire lack of clothes this story? She wanders around in her petticoat and sometimes her pants are showing! In a children's show!
Of course the amount actually showing would be entirely decent in most settings, but the idea!

Thing I did like a lot about this one: Nyssa's exit.
She didn't marry *anyone*. Even a little!
Instead she found a task that needed her skills (as a proto-Doctor) and stayed behind to see it through.
Win!

Now if only she'd have found the cure in a slightly more proactive way than being chained up next to it.



What's with giving Turlough Adric's room? Isn't the TARDIS huge? Wasn't he just saying it was like wandering through a maze? So why give away someone's room?


I think I've had enough of him being whiny and bullied by the Black Guardian.
Minor sabotage and making things blow up is cool though.




If Martha went like Nyssa, only a bit better written, that would be okay. Run her own hospital! In space!

... there is no other way Martha and Nyssa compare. Martha has an actual personality.


Tegan and Turlough both have personalities too. Somewhat unpleasant ones sometimes, but hey, you get story out of them.


My laptop can actually run for longer than the average Doctor Who story. A whole hour longer. It's just that an hour only shows you half another one, plus then it's down to zero percent and it automatically shuts itself off at much higher percents than that. So one story and then recharge.
Which is probably a good routine anyway, cause otherwise I'd just plug in to DW and stay that way for however long it takes to watch 5 and 7.
Which is a long time.

absorbing monster that's actually scary

You ever start poking a story you don't like just to see if it's fixable?
I was thinking about the Doctorless ep with the absorbing monster. Which was irritating. The monster wasn't very monsterous. I mean, okay, it killed people, but there's lots of ways to do that. The absorbing thing wasn't really gone into much.

In the Chalion books I just read there's one where someone uses demons to create the perfect offspring. They feed people to the demons to give them skills those people have, and then they put the demon in their descendant's bodies.

If an absorbing monster is targeting people because they have something, are something, know something - then you've got some fun to play with.

and you end up with a different set of Doctor fans getting ate. I mean, you have to focus on why someone trying to get powerful would take that person. The way it is in the episode they're pretty much just random victims, but it almost almost has the monster using them. So use them more directly, have it absorb people so it can pass as human, read body language, do detective work, all that. Have it acquire stuff that highlights the strengths they had as individuals and as a unit.

Not a big change, actually.

Big enough, maybe.



It's the uber-Buffy without the free will or ability to seperate out afterwards, I guess. And the parts ending up stronger than the big blobby thing that tries to appropriate them. That would be fun.

(no subject)

You know, if the world was taken over by zombies, very little around here would be different.
Quieter, maybe.

Doctor Who: Enlightenment

I like Turlough.
Self proclaimed coward (which has acquired a nice history lately but in theory isn't a good thing): twisty, sneaky, greedy, backstabbing little wretch -
who eventually chose the right people to backstab.

Means he has a wider range of possible actions (not that straightforward hero stuff) and yet ends up playing for the good guys.


I like the idea of all those sailing ships in space. That was neat.

Tegan's room had bits of costumes and stuff. Like her air stewardess uniform.
Someone was saying somewhere on the f-list how Tegan was 'always' whining and asking to go home. Well maybe the first season when she was only with them on accident, but then she chose, even if the TARDIS did disappear right then. And after that she didn't wear her uniform any more. And also lost her job. And she was more grr than whiny, complaining about Turlough who was in fact worth complaining about.

Nyssa didn't complain much even about things she legitimately could have. No reactions. No personality.



I liked when the console blew up and the Doctor said it had probably done it a world of good.
... I'm easily amused.



There was chess. I only notice because 7 always had a Thing about chess.

5 ignored it to do fixing the TARDIS.


I like how the TARDIS lately got bigger. I mean it was always bigger on the inside, but sometimes gave the impression it wasn't so very *much* bigger. Now it is huge!

Also, 10 pretty.