A little heavy on the Donna gushing, but otherwise another good outing. The Ood had a lot of potential when introduced in "The Impossible Planet", but they were quickly reduced to the week's monsters. Their potential is nicely realized here, with a conclusion to their story.
-They pretty much say the Ood are related somehow to the Sensorites from the original series, and are even from the same system. Their planet is called the Ood Sphere (vs. the Sensorites' Sense Sphere) and they have always looked pretty similar, despite having fundamentally different biologies.
-They actually nail down a specific year here: 4126 in the history of the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire. This means that "The Impossible Planet" happened sometime between 3926 or so and this episode, given that the Ood had been domestic slaves for 200 years. OTOH, the "Friends of the Ood" movement implies that the previous episodes didn't happen all THAT long ago. Concrete years have been rare in the new Who, so it's fun to stamp a date so precisely in an episode like this.
-The rocketship seen flying over the Doctor and Donna is a painted version of the same one seen in "The Satan Pit", further cementing the time period.
-And yet, everyone in the 42nd century still dresses in 21st-century business suits and military gear, right down to the American assault rifles they had. At least this time they fired real bullets, whereas in the previous episodes their PFN-90s had matted-in effects. Honestly though, I think they DELIBERATELY don't care to dress anyone in the future episodes to actually look FUTURISTIC. I'd hoped that seeing the 51st century home of Captain Jack this year on Torchwood would have shown the producers that futuristic clothing HELPS the look of the show, but I guess not.
-The bad guy here is played by Tim McInnerny, best known to genre fans as Percy / Captain Darling from various Blackadder series in the 80s. Sounds the same, but MAN did he get old...
-The Ood hint that the Doctor's song was going to end. Sure, everyone's gotta die sometime, but what are they foreshadowing here?
Mark
Posted by Not Invented Here (Member # 1606) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: -The bad guy here is played by Tim McInnerny, best known to genre fans as Percy / Captain Darling from various Blackadder series in the 80s. Sounds the same, but MAN did he get old...
-The Ood hint that the Doctor's song was going to end. Sure, everyone's gotta die sometime, but what are they foreshadowing here?
Tim McInnernery also played a bad guy in a couple of seasons of Spooks ago, and did a bloody good job of it there too. Unfortunately, as always with Spooks, instead of spinning his character out for a few episodes and giving him a decent arc I think he was in a grand total of 2. And yes, he did get very old very quickly.
Personally I thought the foreshadowing was a bit too obvious. But then I've thought that about most things Russell T. Davies has done with the new who...
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
When twenty-five years older you are, look as good you will not, hmm?
Posted by Reverend (Member # 335) on :
Yeah, I'd hardly call two decades fast.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Just goes to show how 'timeless' Blackadder is... Maybe except for the first season.
Funny that i'm reading this thread now - just as Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work" comes on my random playlist. Tim McInnerny was in the film-clip to this song. He did a great job in that too!