Saturday 26 December 2009

Much ado about nothing...

...so far

What can one say after watching "End of Time" (part 1) except for "I hope there is going to be a better part 2.", or maybe "come on Davies, you can do much better than that!" or something else less polite? Fact is that "End of Time" Part 1 (am I the only one who wants individual titles?) was highly disappointing so far. And after reading a few reviews I'm glad I'm not the only one having this opinion. You can read Mr. Mile's one here* and the good old Guardian-blog review here. Don't miss the comments, I think that's the best about it.

Maybe the reason why the whoniverse quite agrees about the "quality" of this episode is that our expectations were too high. However, even then "End of Time" isn't really a good one. Sometimes it remembered me of "Journey's End" and when it didn't do so it was because of the far too long scenes in which the Master demonstrates his craziness. Oh, and I missed he reason WHY he has those superpowers in the first place. Until know they are quite pointless. Talking about pointlessness. I know the "Master-race" is a sci-fi novelty and the idea behind it is certainly scary, but somehow those scenes manage to be involuntarily comical.

Ok, to start at the very beginning. I guess most British are familiar enough with their own history to find the first 5 minutes rather 'not amusing'. I have no idea why it was necessary to include an  Elizabeth I reference into the finale, as RTD should have known in the first place that most 'Doctor Who' fans are going to complain about that sentence...

Then there is the (now) famous Café scene. Some people say those are maybe the best minutes of the episode, but (there is always a but, isn't there) come on, the Doctor isn't supposed to care that much about himself. Fans know that! The best thing about it is Donna having a very Donna-like chat about her car and I have to admit the Doctor saying "oh, another wedding" puts a smile on every fan's face.

But this episode does have also an even bigger (well, that shouldn't be that difficult) brownie-point: Wilfred. He is the main reason why I'm almost looking forward to next week. He does a great job as the Doctor's companion. I just love the scene in which he is not satisfied with the TARDIS'# tidiness. We have always known Wilf is "special", we admired him protecting Donna from her mum we loved everything about him, especially when he defeated that Dalek with paint balls. I'm not a big fan of "Stolen Earth" but when I saw that scene I knew it was worth watching it. I really hope RTD won't go for the cheapest way of getting a dramatic effect,and kill him (or Donna) off.

Furthermore,  I know everyone is getting exited about the Time Lords coming back, but are they really good? There is a reason why the Doctor used to travel the universe in a stolen (well, 'borrowed') TARDIS when Gallifrey's suns were still shining on a happy(-slappy) planet inhabited by control-freaks.

All in all, while "End of Time" has its moments, it is inevitably getting a bit awkward. Well, then again, being awkward is one of the key recognition features of most RTD scripts.

Anyway, I'll keep my fingers crossed for "Part 2", it HAS to be better, well, it could but won't be really worse simply because 10th deserves a better departure than another version of the last final. So, let's increase our tissue-inventory until next week, we may need it, and let's hope for the best.
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*It's immensely short and as the whole world say how much they disliked it his has to be for his standards pretty positive, well, he may change it, the title says "part one part one" this has to have a meaning, at least I would be highly disappointed if it hadn't one.

#Dear editors and review writers. Maybe Catherine Tate doesn't know this, and I really don't care about it as she did a dazzling good job as a companion, but you should, it's part of YOUR job: that police box is a TARDIS and not a Tardis and the name of the show is "Doctor Who", the character is called "the Doctor". How difficult is it to get these things right?