Snap Judgement

[coalescent]

[Poll #895040]

Comments

[twic.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

GOOD or BAD in the context of Doctor Who is always a bit of a surreal exercise, since by absolute standards, it's all very, very BAD. Somehow, not as BAD as Torchwood, but still, none of the new Doctor Who has been genuinely GOOD television. Accordingly, we have to judge it on its own terms.

Thus, i voted GOOD on this episode because (a) my mum thought is was funny and (b) there were several strikingly gratuitous down-wet-cleavage shots of a well-supported Catherine Tate, which is relevant to my interests.

Brief laundry list of what was BAD:

• The clunky shift between plot/action scenes and character/emotion scenes; clumsy writing in general


• The plot/action scenes being quite unconvincing


• The character/action scenes being completely unconvincing


• Hole to the centre of the earth (THE CENTRE! OF! THE! EARTH!)


• Spider babies being expected to be able to crawl up said hole (which is about 6000 km long, geology fans) in the space of one scene


• The water in the Thames being expected to be enough to fill up said hole


• The hole not spewing magma


• Basically everything about the hole


• The dialogue


• The explanation for why the magick energy refinery was under the Thames


• The rather convoluted plot to dose the Bride with magick energy; why not just kidnap someone and keep them in a basement? Why not just slip magick energy in to the food at a soup kitchen and abduct some homeless?


• Given that the magick energy can apparently be extracted from someone quite harmlessly, everyone's terror at being used as as host


• The mini-"no cause for concern - EXCEPT SKIFFY!CANCER" scene


• Formation of the Earth happening in about five minutes, sundry other bad physics associated with this scene


• Stupid children, repeatedly


• "It's christmas!" (THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP WITH THE SYMBOLISM I WOULD NOT HAVE GOT THAT REFERENCE WITHOUT IT)


• I MURDER YOUR SPECIES! ZOMG I AM GENOCIDALIST!?!?!AGAIN!! EMO.


• High-tech robots with normal guns (might be practical, but looked wrong)


• Was that at N64 controller? And wasn't it a controller for the grenades, not the robots? So how did the gurnmeister use it to disable them?


• Overuse of sonic screwdriver (although if i had one, i would too)


• STILL BLOODY MOPING OVER ROSE


• Snow


• "Be magnificent"


• Many other details i have managed to forget but reserve the right to add later

-- tom