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Doctor Who: The Ghost Monument
On the whole, I liked that better than last week! Which is not very surprising - Doctor introduction stories are almost never among my favourites. You have to go all the way back to Power of the Daleks and Spearhead From Space to find ones I really love. Now we're getting to the meat of the series, though: the Doctor and her new companions have an adventure on an alien planet. Excellent.
To get the few things I didn't like out of the way first: two episodes in, Yasmin really needs more character development. I feel like I have a good handle on Graham and Ryan already, but despite the nice allusion to her father and sister, I don't feel like there's much going on with her beyond 'generically plucky girl' at this point. Please don't let this turn into a Series 7 Clara situation. Fingers crossed she gets more of the spotlight next week.
And speaking of replicating Moffat's weaknesses: I am not thrilled with the suggestion that we are going to get another arc about the Doctor's mysterious past. I mean, really? (I love Moffat Who to bits and pieces - it's one of my favourite eras of the show - but even I think that it's time to give that sort of thing a long rest at this point.)
The way the gun-wielding Ryan scene was shot also didn't work for me at all - I don't have a problem with the idea (the Doctor was bound to run into someone who'd played to much CoD at some point) but it's done in a comic way that doesn't suit the tone of the rest of the episode.
Speaking of which, and moving on to things I liked: I loved the aesthetics of this dead planet. Everything is both creepy and eerily beautiful, and they do a great job of building atmosphere rather than relying on big action set pieces. I mean, there are a couple of those, but we spend a lot more time looking at the water and the sand and having character moments than looking at explosions, and I feel like it's a nice change of pace for the series. Oh, and the music is great. Nice to have a new composer after all this time!
I also really liked that both guest stars made it to the end of the episode, and Epzo really does learn something from the experience without suddenly turning into a nice person. And that he gets to use his nasty person talents for good, because heaven knows Ilim deserved a few threats. I would very much like to see Angstrom again if we are going to have a season arc about the Stenza. (I am not sure they're interesting enough to carry one, but then, we've only met one of them so far. Maybe other members of the species have more personality.)
Thirteen still feels a little generic to me in most of this, but she's definitely getting there by the end with the moment of self-doubt and then her glorious reunion with her beloved TARDIS <3.
Given that she is clearly not taking her new friends straight home, I await with interest their various reactions to being in 1955 Alabama instead of Sheffield next week ...
To get the few things I didn't like out of the way first: two episodes in, Yasmin really needs more character development. I feel like I have a good handle on Graham and Ryan already, but despite the nice allusion to her father and sister, I don't feel like there's much going on with her beyond 'generically plucky girl' at this point. Please don't let this turn into a Series 7 Clara situation. Fingers crossed she gets more of the spotlight next week.
And speaking of replicating Moffat's weaknesses: I am not thrilled with the suggestion that we are going to get another arc about the Doctor's mysterious past. I mean, really? (I love Moffat Who to bits and pieces - it's one of my favourite eras of the show - but even I think that it's time to give that sort of thing a long rest at this point.)
The way the gun-wielding Ryan scene was shot also didn't work for me at all - I don't have a problem with the idea (the Doctor was bound to run into someone who'd played to much CoD at some point) but it's done in a comic way that doesn't suit the tone of the rest of the episode.
Speaking of which, and moving on to things I liked: I loved the aesthetics of this dead planet. Everything is both creepy and eerily beautiful, and they do a great job of building atmosphere rather than relying on big action set pieces. I mean, there are a couple of those, but we spend a lot more time looking at the water and the sand and having character moments than looking at explosions, and I feel like it's a nice change of pace for the series. Oh, and the music is great. Nice to have a new composer after all this time!
I also really liked that both guest stars made it to the end of the episode, and Epzo really does learn something from the experience without suddenly turning into a nice person. And that he gets to use his nasty person talents for good, because heaven knows Ilim deserved a few threats. I would very much like to see Angstrom again if we are going to have a season arc about the Stenza. (I am not sure they're interesting enough to carry one, but then, we've only met one of them so far. Maybe other members of the species have more personality.)
Thirteen still feels a little generic to me in most of this, but she's definitely getting there by the end with the moment of self-doubt and then her glorious reunion with her beloved TARDIS <3.
Given that she is clearly not taking her new friends straight home, I await with interest their various reactions to being in 1955 Alabama instead of Sheffield next week ...
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(I also hope they take the trouble to get the history *right*. One thing that really irks me about New Who is the liberties they take with history - being somewhat of a history buff!)
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(Classic Who also got plenty wrong, but at lot of it was stuff that they thought was right when it was made.)