Doctor Who: The Star Beast
Nov. 25th, 2023 08:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosanicusHello everyone. If you were not aware, my lifelong adoration of Doctor Who has not abated through time or effort and so I was in fact seated and wiggling happily for tonight's episode.
I don't have a huge amount of nostalgia for the Tennant/Tate era (I liked it but even at the time I found The Stolen Earth/Journey's End a bit melodramatic... at the tender age of 12...) so I came into this mostly excited for Beep the Meep, who I knew from TVTropes and a few of the promo articles in Doctor Who Magazine. And on that front I was NOT disappointed.
On the whole I had a great time with the episode. It had a pretty good balance of fanservice to actual plot, although I have to say that the sonic screwdriver doing *gestures vaguely* All That will continue to drive me up the wall. It was initially just able to do screws, sonically, and that was really impressive. And now it can make LASER WALLS. Because scope creep will kill app developers, it will kill video games, and it will kill my love for a silly bit of technobabble. Even if the resonating concrete reference did get me a bit.
The theme of transness saving the world was also killer, even if introducing Rose as trans by having a gang of bike-riding youths deadname her in the street was a bit clumsy (can't you stick with the conversation with Sylvia? Must we repeat everything now?). Yasmin Finney is a great actress and I'm really pleased she's in DW even temporarily. I did dislike the bit at the end where Donna would once have said 'you're a man, you don't get it' and it would've been okay if cissexist, but after an hour of acknowledging gender fluidity and transness referring to the Doctor as 'male-presenting' sucked major balls.
Plot-wise it was servicable. The sci-fi tradition of a seemingly innocent alien actually being the aggressor isn't exactly a new twist but it was set up well and it was fantastic watching Beep the Meep do a heel turn into evil sharp toothed villainy. Frankly I want seven cuddly Beep the Meeps immediately so that I may bask in the Meep's majesty. The scene where the Meep was hiding in a big pile of cuddly toys brought me unimaginable joy. The Wrath Warriors were also a great design, obviously taken from the comic, and I loved the vaguely Ice Warrior-esque naming conventions mostly because they allowed me to think fondly of my beloved Izlyr and Ssorg (the gay Ice Warrior detectives from classic Third Doctor story The Curse of Peladon).
As for my usual Classic Who fan banging on, I don't love the consistent Americanisation of UNIT - by which I mean the insistence on all-black SWAT team style uniforms and squad structure. Obviously UNIT has always been in some way military apologia but I find Classic Who's iteration of it less obviously unfortunate because it is usually removed from members of the public. However, Ruth Madeley as the new scientific advisor = perfect, no notes, even if the wheelchair mounted rockets were a bit... IDK, Beano-ish? I hope we're not going to see the age of gadgets return to Doctor Who, the UNIT era was good for that because the special effects were limited enough that we couldn't have Iron Man style floating HUD elements everywhere and - again - I don't want scope creep to infect my beloved slightly crap sci-fi show.
OH AND. I cannot BELIEVE they gave me my perfect ideal TARDIS interior and then immediately blew it up. Horrendous. Hideous. Hurtful. Other adjectives beginning with H. If that console had a fast return switch and they didn't show it to me I will explode just like the TARDIS did.
ANYWAY. Did anyone else watch it live? Any predictions for Wild Blue Yonder? Personally I'm hoping for a trapped-in-the-TARDIS episode in the style of Edge of Destruction, although I imagine Donna would attack the Doctor with a pair of scissors without the need for psychic interference.
I don't have a huge amount of nostalgia for the Tennant/Tate era (I liked it but even at the time I found The Stolen Earth/Journey's End a bit melodramatic... at the tender age of 12...) so I came into this mostly excited for Beep the Meep, who I knew from TVTropes and a few of the promo articles in Doctor Who Magazine. And on that front I was NOT disappointed.
On the whole I had a great time with the episode. It had a pretty good balance of fanservice to actual plot, although I have to say that the sonic screwdriver doing *gestures vaguely* All That will continue to drive me up the wall. It was initially just able to do screws, sonically, and that was really impressive. And now it can make LASER WALLS. Because scope creep will kill app developers, it will kill video games, and it will kill my love for a silly bit of technobabble. Even if the resonating concrete reference did get me a bit.
The theme of transness saving the world was also killer, even if introducing Rose as trans by having a gang of bike-riding youths deadname her in the street was a bit clumsy (can't you stick with the conversation with Sylvia? Must we repeat everything now?). Yasmin Finney is a great actress and I'm really pleased she's in DW even temporarily. I did dislike the bit at the end where Donna would once have said 'you're a man, you don't get it' and it would've been okay if cissexist, but after an hour of acknowledging gender fluidity and transness referring to the Doctor as 'male-presenting' sucked major balls.
Plot-wise it was servicable. The sci-fi tradition of a seemingly innocent alien actually being the aggressor isn't exactly a new twist but it was set up well and it was fantastic watching Beep the Meep do a heel turn into evil sharp toothed villainy. Frankly I want seven cuddly Beep the Meeps immediately so that I may bask in the Meep's majesty. The scene where the Meep was hiding in a big pile of cuddly toys brought me unimaginable joy. The Wrath Warriors were also a great design, obviously taken from the comic, and I loved the vaguely Ice Warrior-esque naming conventions mostly because they allowed me to think fondly of my beloved Izlyr and Ssorg (the gay Ice Warrior detectives from classic Third Doctor story The Curse of Peladon).
As for my usual Classic Who fan banging on, I don't love the consistent Americanisation of UNIT - by which I mean the insistence on all-black SWAT team style uniforms and squad structure. Obviously UNIT has always been in some way military apologia but I find Classic Who's iteration of it less obviously unfortunate because it is usually removed from members of the public. However, Ruth Madeley as the new scientific advisor = perfect, no notes, even if the wheelchair mounted rockets were a bit... IDK, Beano-ish? I hope we're not going to see the age of gadgets return to Doctor Who, the UNIT era was good for that because the special effects were limited enough that we couldn't have Iron Man style floating HUD elements everywhere and - again - I don't want scope creep to infect my beloved slightly crap sci-fi show.
OH AND. I cannot BELIEVE they gave me my perfect ideal TARDIS interior and then immediately blew it up. Horrendous. Hideous. Hurtful. Other adjectives beginning with H. If that console had a fast return switch and they didn't show it to me I will explode just like the TARDIS did.
ANYWAY. Did anyone else watch it live? Any predictions for Wild Blue Yonder? Personally I'm hoping for a trapped-in-the-TARDIS episode in the style of Edge of Destruction, although I imagine Donna would attack the Doctor with a pair of scissors without the need for psychic interference.
no subject
Date: 2023-11-25 09:39 pm (UTC)I watched it live and I'd like a Meep, too, though to be honest it's just a bigger version of my demon cat.
Don't know what to predict for the next adventure except that it won't be as simple as one last trip to a fun place. I loved Donna spilling her coffee and causing a major malfunction Looking forward to the next episode
no subject
Date: 2023-11-27 06:51 pm (UTC)