Doctor Who: No Place

The Tenth Doctor, Donna, her mum Sylvia and her grandpa Wilf, all having an adventure together just down the road in Chiswick.
The Doctor has bought a house and now it's going on Haunted Makeovers, a reality TV show where they're called in to explain the ghosts getting in the way of the renovations.

The story has the character gold of Donna and her family, in a house together, while Donna pretends to be married to the Doctor. And it combines that with a proper spooky story building up to a big finish.

It was proper atmospheric. And a lot of it you could see coming but in the properly spooky way. Like, as soon as they mention the chandelier, you know what's going to happen there, but they're a home makeover show so they don't. And once the inevitable occurs, Sylvia is all 'I wanted Donna to get me tickets to Phantom of the Opera but now I don't know'.

Everyone's great because they're all reacting to the spooky but many of them are reacting with annoyance and or great interest. And then there's the resolutely skeptical realiity show guy, the point of view for the whole thing, which makes like it's edited from his show. Things do not work out for him the way he would expect. Which, obviously, he's the skeptic in a Doctor Who story.

... I read on tumblr someone saying about an actual equivalent to Haunted Makeovers, but they bring a psychic and a home inspector. The psychics always find a bunch of stuff, and then the home inspector finds the blown fuses and broken windows that explain all the things. That's the show the presenter thinks he's in.

The only boring bit was when he decided the Doctor was hoaxing.

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I reckoned this was 4/5. But I might have liked it more if the ending was a bit different.

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The characters were great though, and you get lots of moments of connection and where they act distinctive ways, even with all the stuff they're in theory hiding from the camera.

I liked.

passing thought

you know when Andrew was all 'a boy Slayer would be so cool'
(actually when was that, am I remembering right? clearly I must rewatch if memorisation has slipped)

So mostly that's an :eyeroll: because duh, male stabby violence, not in short supply.

But I was thinking, key to being a Slayer is she's both bait and trap. She's the one no one would suspect, the one who looks like the typical victim, so vampires follow her down dark alleys.

And key to being Buffy is not wanting to do violence, because cheer and clothes and dances and being voted queen. Wanting to be normal, meaning not stabby.

Soooo. A guy who was all that? Actually not all that common.

Closer now than then, obvs.



I'm also wondering what vampire stories I'd want when I've gone off the whole Slayer concept. I mean I'm not keen on law enforcement executing criminals, I don't see why that should change if the criminals have bumpy faces and a sun allergy.

A reluctant Slayer who just, you know, refuses to Slay, and sticks to that?
... I mean making it interesting is the trick, but you'd have something like that space marine story, where they replace war with law.

which should rock.