Sunday, December 31, 2006

Runaway success

I adored The Runaway Bride, the 2006 Doctor Who Christmas Special.

"Why?" I hear you cry, dear reader.

Well, it was good standard Doctor Who, on the whole. And when it tried to be different, it was good. I was very relieved and strangely excited by this. In the previous two series, trying new things have been a bad idea, on the whole and in my humble opinion. This time
, it worked.

The best of th
e new:

A potential new assistant preferring to stay home and out or the TARDIS.

Donna was a real breath of fresh air. The Doctor's relationship with Rose was beautifully crafted throughout the past two years, but her not being there did not feel wrong and I did not spend the entire sixty minutes wishing she was. In fact, I kind of wish Donna had agreed to go off with The Doctor in his ship. She'd have made a fabulous companion, being quite different to Rose.

I have a nasty feeling that Martha will be something of a Rose carbon copy, especially now that we've been introduced to her family. My only hope is that her relationship with The Doctor will be different and, dare I say it, not as strong. I'm half hoping that she'll be dropped or resign before the last episode. I don't really care to see more character development and soap, thanks all the same. More sci-fi, less soap, please!

Who knows, perhaps Donna might reappear some time.

Can you believe I just said that, dear reader, considering my dislike for The Catherine Tate Show?

It's her programme I dislike. She's a good woman as was the character she played in The Runaway Bride, Donna. She's a good actress and the piece was well written. Perhaps she should get RTD to write some sketches for her show. They might be funny, then. Oh, no, having said that, perhaps she shouldn't. They'd all be toilet gags, agout farting or weird sex. No, Catherine, don't do it.

Oh, and wasn'
t the Racnoss Empress both scary and as camp as knickers? Fabulous!

The special effects blew my tiny mind: the formation of the earth, the Racnoss ship, the draining of the Thames and the Empress herself... Marvellous!

The whole thing: very Doctor Who with a touch of panto and comedy thrown in. I'm nervous of comedy in Doctor Who, especially when RTD is pushing the pen, but this time, it worked. I still have no idea why and I might change my mind. I've only seen the episode once and will require further viewing before making my mind up. On the whole: 9/10.

Hurrah!

Of course, it co
uld have been better. I was on call as a transsexual Cyber-person to appear in The Runaway Bride at a moment's notice. Sadly, my telephone refused to ring. I must remember to call Telewest, the cunts.

7 comments:

Old Cheeser said...

Well, such a pity that you weren't required to star as a transexual Cyber-person, pet. But then again you might have eclipsed David Tennant and Catherine Tate and we couldn't be having that, could we? You never know, you might be required to star in the next series...I'm sure you'd be SO much better than Roger Lloyd Pack's ultra-hammy John Lumic/Cybercontroller in the last series...

Anyways, really glad to hear you enjoyed "Runaway Bride". I agree Donna was pretty good, once she stopped doing all the OTT shouting bits so much. And glad you thought Catherine T came up to scratch considering your dislike of her comedy show. There you go, she was okay after all!

I too hope that the Dr / Martha relationship will be different to the Dr / Rose one. I was a bit tired of all that "we'll always be together" stuff between the Doc and Rose by the end of the second series and there was a smugness about their relationship that was bloody irritating sometimes. We need a completely new character from Rose. But like you say, Martha's family are due to make an appearance which does seem to point toward more soap opera type storylines in the vein of the Tylers. Let's have something different, purlease!

Nice pics in your post too - look rather similar to the ones in my own, actually (!!!)

Minge said...

I pinched them from you.

Naughty!

Old Cheeser said...

I thought as much!!

Oooh You devil!! You deserve to be flushed down the plug hole with the Empress' babies!!

Only kidding - don't mind really!

Minge said...

Ming be naughty lady sometimes! Smack!

Minge said...

Minge, even.

Anonymous said...

There are no words to describe how disturbing I find the blond Cyberman so I'm just going to move on, shall I?

Yes, I adored RUNAWAY BRIDE (couldn't RTD at least given us a better title?) far more than I thought I would. In fact, I'm willing to put it up there in my top 5 episodes of the new series. It includes my now very favorite line of all the episodes: when Donna rolls down the window and yells, "Santa's a robot!" I don't know why--it's something in her tone that sounds both annoyed and like she's blaming the Doctor--but this reduces me to fits of laughter every time I hear it.

I wish Donna was going to be his new companion. The Doctor needs someone to give him guff--a Tegan for the 21st century. What little I know of Martha, I don't think she'll fit the bill.

Are you willing to join my letter writing campaign to get RTD to bring back the Brigadier? I don't care which show: WHO, TORCHWOOD, or SARAH JANE (which I also was thrilled with--God, Lis Sladen looks great!). I just want the Brig back. (But WHO would be preferable.)

Minge said...

Yes, I am willing to join any campaign you wish to mount. Just tell me what to do and how to do it. I'm all yours.