Last week's opening episode was distinctly better than I'd expected,
though very far from perfect. Can Chibnall (writing again) keep up the
quality in a "regular" series episode?
It is amusing, though unfortunate, that humanity hasn't learned
anything about running since Prometheus (when the crashing spaceship
is coming towards you in a straight line, it's a good idea to run
sideways, not directly away from it).
What's trying to be a proper discussion about cooperation versus
competition, and persistence versus despair, suffers rather from the
format: this is a 50-minute story which also has to do the procedural
stuff of resolving the cliffhanger, finding the TARDIS, setting up
some series-arc plot points, and of course the obligatory running
along corridors. At this length, serious content can't help but come
over as a bit trite and simplistic. Would it be better to leave it out
completely? I don't think so. Clearly plenty of other stuff has been
cut (like, why did anyone bother to move the planet?), and there's
certainly more to be told about the general state of the universe;
it's pleasing to have something in the show other than how cool the
Doctor is and how threatening everything else is.
I'm not terribly impressed with the Stenza as militaristic alien
menace so far: they're not doing anything the Sontarans wouldn't. But
on the bright side at least the production team isn't just recycling
the Sontarans with the same old costumes and same old disrespect. Some
of the worst stories in the show's run have clearly had their genesis
in "let's bring back monster X, people like them" rather than "here is
an interesting idea, let's have a monster as part of it".
The acting is pretty decent (especially since, filming in South Africa
in January, one of the cast suffered heatstroke); we're not learning
much about the characters but they are at least behaving consistently.
I wonder whether this is the first time we've seen a through-shot from
the outside, past the inside of the police-box door, all the way
inside? (Previous episodes have shown a view out through the old
hex-pattern door, but there was never clarity as to just how that
connected to the outside door.)
If regular series episodes stay this good, I'll keep watching; the
show isn't being hugely impressive but it's doing all right, and it's
avoiding most of the easy options for quick appeal at the cost of
consistency and storytelling. And it's not as though there were a lot
of SF with a vaguely optimistic outlook these days.
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