DOCTOR WHO-ALIENS OF LONDON and WORLD WAR THREE

 

DOCTOR WHO-ALIENS OF LONDON and WORLD WAR THREE

“I can save the world but lose you.”

 

“Since that man walked into our lives, I have been attacked in the streets. I have had creatures from the pits of hell in  my own living room, and my daughter disappear off the face of the Earth.”

"You're so gay."

"She slapped you!"

"900 Years of traveling through time and space and I've never been slapped by someone's mom."

 

“And maybe you get off on it, and maybe you think it's all clever and smart, but you tell me. Will she always be safe? Can you promise me that?"

 

Well, it’s not WORLD WAR THREE but…well let’s get this over with now:

 

Having personal losses in 9-11, I really hope and hoped that this is not Davies take on that event with aliens faking aliens, a flying machine hitting a national giant building, and the repercussions of a lie of “weapons of mass destruction.”  It’s best not to think too much about that stuff because…

 

This story has so many warm and yet chilling moments and is genuinely better with age. Yes, ABOUT TIME has all the sources, all the mistakes (THOUGH I’m not sure they caught the studio microphone that I saw above Rose when she, Harriet and the Doctor were trapped in the conference room as Rose answers her cell phone).

 

About the cell, I think it makes sense as does a phone in the TARDIS but it IS awkward for the show, the character and the plots. If the TARDIS crew had cell phones through the 60s and 70s as well as the 80s it would have saved them a lot of problems.

 

Things to notice here is how deftly, the show handles things the classic series did but better and with better effects and music as well as having us have family drama that works wedged into an alien “invasion” plot that’s not really an alien invasion plot but a business plot! From an alien family. While all of that and the character interplay and humor works well (LOVE Mickey and Jackie) the farting just does not work at all and is the one thing haters bring up about this story, as if they can’t ignore that for everything else great that’s happening here.

 

A few other awkward things: the killings during the wonderful cliffhanger, a triple cliffhanger as the Doctor is in trouble in one place, Jackie in another, and Rose and Harriet in another…take forever. Harriet and Rose and the other guy who dies (I forgot how the Doctor seemed to briefly mourn him) stand and watch Margaret Blaine undress from her skin suit FOREVER when they might have gotten past her. Are the skins suits made of human skin? If so, it’s very bloodless as are the killings really though I thought I detected some blood on the man with Rose and Harriet. Though the Slitheen looks bulky, the thrust of the man up the wall is well done.

 

The Doctor deduces it’s a trap but no one thinks about the ID cards (why would they?) but then instead of running out, everyone sits there for what seems like five more minutes as does Jackie cowering in the corner. Love the cliffhanger but it feels awkward.

 

The Doctor’s a nasty one toward Mickey until…the nice ending where he covers for Mickey after asking him to join them and heeds Mickey’s wish for Rose not to know he turned the Doctor down because of that life he lives and the danger. I forgot that long before Donna rejected a butt hurt Tenth Doctor in RUNAWAY BRIDE, Mickey did it first. ALL the Mickey stuff works as does the Jackie stuff. I also forgot Rose’s gran is still alive (and apparently left on her own when they vanish in DOOMSDAY). Jackie seems to have a full life: mentioning a Jim that comes around that she’ll say NO to because Rose seems to want her to. She also had someone ask her out: Billie Crew. I also totally forgot Ru Chan but not the kid who changed the news off the telly when the Doctor was watching.

 

The Doctor doesn’t do families? Is that a new thing? As the First he must have. As the Third he once sat down and talked to others and even stayed a few days it would seem in THE GREEN DEATH. He can’t have dinner with Jackie? He gives Rose a sort of ultimatum. Maybe it’s Time War grief or PTSD. He’s a jerk sometimes.

 

The dialog in the second half is strong but the first half is also strong. It almost ALL works. As it stands Jackie’s realistic as a mother in a DOCTOR WHO situation in a way that NO ONE ever was before and few have since. The Rose, Mickey, Jackie, and Doctor dynamic works well and gives us something not done before in the series.

 

Chris once talked about how the classic stuff is there and he’s right, it is (I could have used less of a poor pig suffering and then being shot to death) and he’s also right that the sexist writing of the secondary and helpless female sidekick is gone as are the wobbly sets but…we do get a THE MUTANTS style mike showing overhead Rose!

 

Frankly, 2005’s season might be the best season of DOCTOR WHO before and since as it seems to take it to new places while keeping the good from the classic series while confronting issues that the old series never would or could: is the Doc her boyfriend? Is Rose infatuated with him? What about her old boyfriend? Is the Doc jealous? In Pertwee some of that was touched on a bit. A very little bit.

 

2005 (and I’ll throw in almost all of Tennant’s seasons, too) to 2008 is probably the pinnacle of DOCTOR WHO, certainly modern DOCTOR WHO and/or DOCTOR WHO since say about 1981. In a way Doctors One to Four were the top notch seasons, so season 1 to season 19 let’s say, including Davison in his first year or so. BUT this is something that is better in a way, in ways that warm the heart of family while making us truly care about Jackie and Mickey as well as their caring about Rose: repercussions of classic WHO that classic WHO never addressed. For that I can tolerate the farting aliens and maybe even the 9-11 connections. If there any. If so, America got its revenge because I don’t think RTD did that well here.

Though she says she's not, Rose clearly thinks of the Doctor as a romantic possibility and while it could be just that he wants someone to break him out of his Time War angst, he seems to be infatuated with her...and by ep's end maybe even Mickey???

Of note: RTD didn't have enough of a gay agenda but he does have one of the aliens tell the other, both male, that he is beautiful or magnificent. And then there's this: ASQUITH: Shame. I quite enjoyed being Oliver. He had a wife, a mistress, and a young farmer.