Other Words

The Only One Who Can Understand

 

“Hnn?”

 

…

 

“Oh. Eh, hey.”

 

…

 

“You ok, man?”

 

…

 

“Dude, sit down.”

 

…

 

“Woah, man, slow down.”

 

…

 

“Oh, er, no. Nn, sorry. I mean, I wasn’t really paying attention.”

 

…

 

“Oh, no. I mean, I d- Well, you were making kind of- Uh, I dunno. Just, like… Looked kinda… Hard not to notice, y’know? Uh…”

 

…

 

“Er- Look, sorry, what’s this all about?”

 

…

 

“Mm… Eh-”

 

…

 

“No, sorry, man. I- I think you’ve been drinking and, uh, mm, n’ you’re making me kinda uncomfortable… Uh… Will you just, uh, will you-”

 

…

 

“No, no, sorry. Will you please leave me alone, ah-”

 

…

 

“Let the fuck go of me!”

 

…

 

“What? No! Will- What? What th- What the fuck? Holy shit, what the fucking hell? What the fuck have you done? What the fuck?”

 

…

 

“What the fucking shit!? You’ve fucking drugged me or something! What the fuck’s going on!? Who are you!? What the fuck?”

 

…

 

“I’m fucking leaving. I’m, I’m, I’m… Just fucking going. Get the- Get the fuck off ‘f me! Get- Ngh! I- I’m fucking… This is just too fucking crazy. I’m fucking going… Shit.”

 

…

 

“Nn… Hey.”

 

…

 

“Hey. Uh… Hey.”

 

…

 

“Ehm… Oh g-”

 

…

 

“No. I mean, nyuh… Ah, God…”

 

…

 

“Yeah, sorry. God. A- Wait. Hang on.”

 

…

 

“Hahh… Right. Christ. Look… Listen. Did you see that, uh, that guy that was talking to me a- a minute ago?”

 

…

 

“No, but like, did you just see him? At all? I mean, I thought I saw you look up. Erm-”

 

…

 

“Yeah, yeah. I mean, sure. It’s ok, it’s ok. But, I mean, did you notice him? Like… Oh, man…”

 

…

 

“Well, it’s just, right… God… Uhkay, just, listen. Ok. This is gonna sound, like, crazy. God…”

 

…

 

“No, just listen. Please. Fuck. Right. Ok… Ok. So, th- this guy said he was like… Oh man, oh fuck…”

 

…

 

“No, please! Just listen to me, please! God, he said we were all, like, the same person. Like… Fuck…”

 

…

 

“No! No, listen, please! God! He’s, it’s right. I mean, look. Just look! We’re all, like, we’re all the same. Like, we’re all actually me, or, or you, or, oh God… I- I- Fuck. I dunno, eh-”

 

…

 

“No, no, please, just look! Look at him! Please! He’s me! And you! He’s- Can’t you see?”

 

…

 

“I haven’t done anything! I- I haven’t. I-I-I-It’s all the- We’re all the same. It’s like… Fuck, I dunno. It’s real. Fuck.”

 

…

 

“I don’t know. I’m fucking scared. I don’t fucking know. Please- Fuck. Oh god, I don’ know. Fuck…”

 

…

 

“No, please! Oh fuck, oh fuck, please. No, don’t! Don’t go. Please. Oh fuck. Please… Oh shit… Hnhh…”

…But ‘Ad Infinitum’ was probably too ambitious.

Why’ve I got a new blog? Hard to say. I wanted one, and blog.com seems nicer than livejournal. So here it is. I have decided to make this one have some actual content.  This has two content…s.

 

One: I have Rocket Man by Elton John stuck in my head. This is annoying, and most embarassing is the fact I really quite like it.

 

Two: A review of Who.

I feel more moved to actually review this than most other episodes. Sadly, this is not a good thing.

Note: I haven’t quite seen it all, I saw it a tiny bit out of order, a tiny bit twice, and missed a few bits, but whatever, I don’t feel like seeing it again.

Strangely, I didn’t like Simm for the past two episodes, but he did make me smile a bit here, odd that. It was painful at times when it looked like he really didn’t want to be doing what he was doing (I can’t blame him), but he probably should have been able to hide his awkwardness. Whatever, I thought he did the best he could with what he was given. The manic was RTD, not him, and I can’t imagine he didn’t venture to RTD it should be toned down. (Although the production team are so full of themselves this might be quite the task.) On the other hand, maybe I’m too used to blaming RTD and it was Simm’s fault. I don’t deny there were times that I felt like I was finding excuses for him.

Tennant, same deal. He looked bored and fed up with the hokum. He was decent in the last few minutes maybe, but they were hardly a challenging few minutes.

Martha got some major screentime, enough to really assess her potential. Suffice to say, I’m glad she’s gone.

Jack got nothing to do, and did nothing accordingly. Meh.

The supporting cast were pretty good, I thought. Milligan or whoever was a bit flat, but I liked the scientist woman; she reminded me of Mrs. Thingy from Rise of the Cybermen. Miss Dexter did alright with what amounted to a few repetitive close ups, but then, maybe I just think that because she’s pretty… The rest of the extras were balls, but then how much can you do with a mandate of sitting on some stairs chanting ‘Doctor’?

I hate the Toclafane voices. Kids, maybe. Kids don’t speak like that. I hated them. I could only take them remotely seriously when they were silent. (And they could have been quite effective if they did remain consistently silent, perhaps with a picked-out leader communicating by text on the Master’s laptop. The First Contact scene would have been great if the President was just met with icy silence, methinks.) I like the design of the Tocs, though. Erm… Not much else to say, they’re a bit devoid of substance for major enemies. Also, the traits they were attributed by Martha’s tell-don’t-show exposition made them sound stupidly strong.

The special effects were awful, but they’re always awful, so I just accepted it. At least the rocket field looked alright. (Very Gerry Anderson, again, I thought.)

The direction was fine; it didn’t make itself known, but that means it’s at the least competent. It didn’t do anything particularly thrilling though. Seeing the Tocs whizzing around as little more than specks was a bad move. Zooming in on them shaky-cam style at points when they were hovering in the sky would have worked well, methinks.

Murray Gold’s score went from rehashes of old music that robbed it of why it was good, to music that was merely adequate and unnoticable, to loud, brash, this-is-why-Murray-Gold-never-impresses-me overblown unemotional bollocks. The chart music was a mistake, as it always is, but at least it suited the scene better than last time.

The plot was wrong. It was simply appalling. The one year on jump would have been good for some shows, but not this one, and not a story like this. Making Martha a legendary figure would only have worked if she were a MUCH stronger companion. The anti-time-lord gun was bull, and not redeemed by the fact that it was meant to be bull for two reasons. First, I can easily imagine RTD using it as a serious plot device, second, just because it was a decoy doesn’t mean it has to be laughably stupid, third, Martha laughs incredulously at the fact the Master believed it. Why plan a decoy you don’t expect your enemy to believe in? I could go on, but I won’t. The scientist woman was so incidental that her turncoat moment just looked like a plot device, and not part of the natural flow of the story, as if for a moment the inner, dirty mechanics of the story were apparent. And the idea that simply by telling people about the Doctor they’d somehow be able to generate energy in a satellite just because it was broadcasting a signal that affected their mind, and that the Doctor could integrate himself into this system and absorb that energy to become some godlike being? Just read the last sentence back, it’s every bit as bad as it sounds. And THEN, because RTD is a coward, he undoes everything, trying to excuse this cop out by having the main characters remember it, and it’s obvious he wants us to forgive this major dismissal with Francine’s ‘it still happened’ line. The Master’s ultimate victory was alright, but not Master-like at all. but then, this character was never really the master anyway. And what was the point of building up the drums to have them come to precisely nothing, anyway?

This story is irredeemably bad, it sits at the bottom of the pile, in the new series dregs that hold the Idiot’s Lantern, but this episode is perhaps more disappointing as the supposed climax of weeks of story. This is what we were made to wait for? Cheated. 1/5