But the concert was fantastic
Jul. 19th, 2008 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dbskylerSaw "Turn Left" last night (or rather, very early this morning when I got home from the Billy Joel concert). Very, VERY disappointing episode. After "Midnight" showed us how great RTD's writing can be, "Turn Left" showed us how bad it can be, although it didn't descend into quite the cringey depths of SoD/LotTL or VotD.
Where do I start? First off, I didn't like the entire format of the episode where we re-visit seasons 3 and 4 and see what would have happened without the Doctor there. It was a retread of old ground (and old special effects), and furthermore it kept bringing me out of the episode as I tried to decide whether or not I agreed with the hypothesized new chain of events. Most of the time, I didn't. So the hospital still gets transported to the moon by the Judoon (yes, makes sense, with you there), but this time everyone dies of suffocation except that one whiny med student (nice touch, I loved that he was brought back -- see, I will give compliments where they're deserved). Why did almost everyone die?? NO ONE died of suffocation the first time around. They all went unconscious, but the moon was returned before anyone died from lack of oxygen. The only way I can make it work (and I was busy trying to make it work during the episode instead of watching the next scene, a major distraction and problem) is if it took just that much longer for the Judoon to find the plasmavore this time around. And that's pretty lame. It would have been better if they just hadn't been able to find her at all and had instead sentenced the entire hospital to execution for harboring a criminal, which was part of the jeopardy of the original episode. However, most of the original events seem to have played out even without the Doctor there, right down to the plasmavore setting off the MRI machine to cook the moon, the Judoon and half the Earth. Okay, I'll go along with that, but apparently she was stopped by SARAH JANE SMITH??? WHAT????? Okay, I loved the mention of SJS (see, another compliment, there you go) but this makes NO sense at all. If Sarah was there this time, why wasn't she there during the actual episode??? Is RTD trying to suggest that Sarah knew the Doctor was around and investigating the hospital and so decided not to bother? Just picture how that would go: Sarah shows up at the hospital with the teenagers in tow, sees the Doctor and turns around and leaves. Okay, like THAT would happen. You and I and anyone who's ever seen an episode with SJS know that if Sarah had found out that the Doctor was taking care of some danger at the hospital, the last thing she would EVER do is leave him alone to get on with it. So no, I can't make that one work at all. AT ALL.
Now I'll admit I missed some of the next scenes in the episode because I was busy trying to make the AU of "Smith and Jones" work, but when I picked up the thread again it didn't seem I had missed much. Just a bunch of misery on the part of Donna and her family and some mysterious appearances from Rose who curiously didn't seem much like Rose at all. Maybe she's not real Rose, but "Bad Wolf" Rose? And boy, did I hate the mention of "Bad Wolf." I didn't like it the first time around, and I'm really not looking forward to it now. Nor did I like the hints that Donna isn't just Donna, but super-special-time-flux-most-important-woman-in-the-universe Donna. Why can't a companion just be a regular old human being??? When did that stop being interesting???
As for the other episode "what if"s, I could mostly go along with them -- Titanic crashing, yes (although I thought in the original episode the entire Earth was going to get destroyed, not just southeastern England); Torchwood taking care of the Sontarans, okay, fine I guess (although again, that just makes me wonder where Jack and co. were during the actual episodes and why they didn't intersect the Doctor at all). Then I started thinking about whether the Earth was in danger in any other episodes since "Runaway Bride" and got brought out of the episode again while I thought them through. I wondered about the Master, but figured out that it actually made sense for him not to be a threat if the Doctor wasn't around. Then I came up against "Fires of Pompeii" and decided that logically, everyone on Earth should now be Pyroviles. Because you can't tell me that Sarah or Jack stepped in and took care of THAT one for the Doctor. So then I just threw up my hands at the whole thing. And now that I'm thinking about it a little more, I wonder about the Carrionites from "Shakespeare Code" as well. So we'll let the Carrionites and the Pyroviles duke it out for who got to destroy the Earth first -- I don't know if historical order trumps episode broadcast order or not. Maybe that can be the subject of RTD's next script.
But my biggest, biggest problem with the episode was the central premise that Donna saved the Doctor's life back in "Runaway Bride." What?? Funny, but I don't remember that at all. I remember Martha saving his life in her first episode, and Rose arguably saving his life in hers (I still like to think that the Doctor would have managed that one on his own, though) but Donna saving his life? By telling him to leave before he gets drowned by the Thames????? That's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. If that's why the Doctor finally dies -- because no one is there to tell him to get out of the way -- then why have I bothered to watch this character for all of these years? For a canon AU death-without-regeneration scenario, it's about as disappointing as you can get. Even Colin Baker had a better exit than that.
But the Billy Joel concert was fantastic. He was good on his own, as Billy always is, but he brought in a string of special guests to do their own songs here and there throughout the concert which was incredibly exciting. Steven Tyler from Aerosmith completely rocked out to "Walk this Way." But the ending was the best, and I will leave off with two words of my own:
Paul McCartney.
I wish "Turn Left" could have ended with two words like that.
Where do I start? First off, I didn't like the entire format of the episode where we re-visit seasons 3 and 4 and see what would have happened without the Doctor there. It was a retread of old ground (and old special effects), and furthermore it kept bringing me out of the episode as I tried to decide whether or not I agreed with the hypothesized new chain of events. Most of the time, I didn't. So the hospital still gets transported to the moon by the Judoon (yes, makes sense, with you there), but this time everyone dies of suffocation except that one whiny med student (nice touch, I loved that he was brought back -- see, I will give compliments where they're deserved). Why did almost everyone die?? NO ONE died of suffocation the first time around. They all went unconscious, but the moon was returned before anyone died from lack of oxygen. The only way I can make it work (and I was busy trying to make it work during the episode instead of watching the next scene, a major distraction and problem) is if it took just that much longer for the Judoon to find the plasmavore this time around. And that's pretty lame. It would have been better if they just hadn't been able to find her at all and had instead sentenced the entire hospital to execution for harboring a criminal, which was part of the jeopardy of the original episode. However, most of the original events seem to have played out even without the Doctor there, right down to the plasmavore setting off the MRI machine to cook the moon, the Judoon and half the Earth. Okay, I'll go along with that, but apparently she was stopped by SARAH JANE SMITH??? WHAT????? Okay, I loved the mention of SJS (see, another compliment, there you go) but this makes NO sense at all. If Sarah was there this time, why wasn't she there during the actual episode??? Is RTD trying to suggest that Sarah knew the Doctor was around and investigating the hospital and so decided not to bother? Just picture how that would go: Sarah shows up at the hospital with the teenagers in tow, sees the Doctor and turns around and leaves. Okay, like THAT would happen. You and I and anyone who's ever seen an episode with SJS know that if Sarah had found out that the Doctor was taking care of some danger at the hospital, the last thing she would EVER do is leave him alone to get on with it. So no, I can't make that one work at all. AT ALL.
Now I'll admit I missed some of the next scenes in the episode because I was busy trying to make the AU of "Smith and Jones" work, but when I picked up the thread again it didn't seem I had missed much. Just a bunch of misery on the part of Donna and her family and some mysterious appearances from Rose who curiously didn't seem much like Rose at all. Maybe she's not real Rose, but "Bad Wolf" Rose? And boy, did I hate the mention of "Bad Wolf." I didn't like it the first time around, and I'm really not looking forward to it now. Nor did I like the hints that Donna isn't just Donna, but super-special-time-flux-most-important-woman-in-the-universe Donna. Why can't a companion just be a regular old human being??? When did that stop being interesting???
As for the other episode "what if"s, I could mostly go along with them -- Titanic crashing, yes (although I thought in the original episode the entire Earth was going to get destroyed, not just southeastern England); Torchwood taking care of the Sontarans, okay, fine I guess (although again, that just makes me wonder where Jack and co. were during the actual episodes and why they didn't intersect the Doctor at all). Then I started thinking about whether the Earth was in danger in any other episodes since "Runaway Bride" and got brought out of the episode again while I thought them through. I wondered about the Master, but figured out that it actually made sense for him not to be a threat if the Doctor wasn't around. Then I came up against "Fires of Pompeii" and decided that logically, everyone on Earth should now be Pyroviles. Because you can't tell me that Sarah or Jack stepped in and took care of THAT one for the Doctor. So then I just threw up my hands at the whole thing. And now that I'm thinking about it a little more, I wonder about the Carrionites from "Shakespeare Code" as well. So we'll let the Carrionites and the Pyroviles duke it out for who got to destroy the Earth first -- I don't know if historical order trumps episode broadcast order or not. Maybe that can be the subject of RTD's next script.
But my biggest, biggest problem with the episode was the central premise that Donna saved the Doctor's life back in "Runaway Bride." What?? Funny, but I don't remember that at all. I remember Martha saving his life in her first episode, and Rose arguably saving his life in hers (I still like to think that the Doctor would have managed that one on his own, though) but Donna saving his life? By telling him to leave before he gets drowned by the Thames????? That's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. If that's why the Doctor finally dies -- because no one is there to tell him to get out of the way -- then why have I bothered to watch this character for all of these years? For a canon AU death-without-regeneration scenario, it's about as disappointing as you can get. Even Colin Baker had a better exit than that.
But the Billy Joel concert was fantastic. He was good on his own, as Billy always is, but he brought in a string of special guests to do their own songs here and there throughout the concert which was incredibly exciting. Steven Tyler from Aerosmith completely rocked out to "Walk this Way." But the ending was the best, and I will leave off with two words of my own:
Paul McCartney.
I wish "Turn Left" could have ended with two words like that.
