Doctor Who S2 ep 8 "The Idiot's Lantern"

sniffles · May 30, 2006

Oi, where's a thread for this? I guess I'll start one myself.

A 'lighter' episode after the darkness of "Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel". Very creepy, though. I think Mark Gatiss is a great writer. I guess I should have known he'd be good at creepy after watching him in The League of Gentlemen.

I particularly liked how angry the Doctor was after what happened to Rose. And they did a great job of evoking the feel of the '50s. The actress playing the Wire was great.

After watching the Doctor Who Confidential for this episode, I really want to see the live Quatermass Experiment that David Tennant and Mark Gatiss did just before Tennant was cast as the Doctor. Anyone seen it? How was it?

Volaran · May 30, 2006

This was episode I very much enjoyed, but I've had a difficult time coming up with any stand-out moment that made it for me. The whole thing was well done.

Cthulhudrew · May 30, 2006

I was going to start a thread for this episode, but since I didn't really enjoy it all that much, I figured I'd leave it to others, rather than have a negative start to things.

I don't know quite why, but it just didn't really interest me much. I liked the bit at the end with the Doctor, Rose, and the kid (Tommy? Timmy?), and I liked how the kid came to the rescue with the vacuum tube or whatever it was, but otherwise, the whole thing was kind of meh. I think the Doctor and Rose started out with pretty good chemistry during the first couple of episodes, but I haven't felt much of it lately- Rose in particular doesn't seem to have much to do lately. The actor playing the father was a bit too over the top.

I liked the idea of the Wire- even if I didn't really like some of the way it was implemented here- and wouldn't mind seeing a return. ("I thought you were going to tape over this?" "Whoops! I guess I forgot!") Good thing it was a Betamax tape- it will be hard to come back from that (though I wondered where the Doctor actually got one in the 1950s).

I think part of what I didn't like was that this episode seemed overly campy- a feeling that was only enhanced, IMO, by some of the weird choices for camera angles they used. Rather than feel creepy, it just felt... odd.

KaosDevice · May 30, 2006

I thought this was a fun popcorn episode. I like that Rose is getting more of a 'tude as they go along. And I was really pleased that they kept the message that anyone could be redeemed when the kid went after his jerk of a father. I'm getting a little burnt out on the whole 'villain converting people to slaves' trope. I wish they'd have a murder mystery or something just to break things up.

sniffles · May 30, 2006

Cthulhudrew said:
Good thing it was a Betamax tape- it will be hard to come back from that (though I wondered where the Doctor actually got one in the 1950s).

He went back to the TARDIS to get it. He's seen leaving the TARDIS and the boy is waiting for him, just before they go to the tv transmitter. I almost missed it myself until my fiancee pointed it out to me.

I was rewatching "The Deadly Assassin" last night, a story I've always liked because the Doctor is on his own, I think. It occurred to me that I'd really like to see a story in which the Doctor and Rose are separated for almost the entire episode but each has plenty of action on their own. That's hard to do in a 45-minute format, but not impossible.

This seemed to me like a sort of 'fluff' episode after having several very involved or serious episodes in a row. I didn't object to that. Sometimes it's nice to have a break.

I do agree with KaosDevice that it would be nice to see something other than an alien menace that takes people over. I'd also like to see them get off Earth for an episode or two. Maybe next week I'll get my wish, though it was hard to tell by the preview.

MonsterMash · May 31, 2006

I liked it, actually more than the cyberman episodes, but it may have faced a bit of a hostile fan reception due to the more humorous approach. It had good use of Maureen Lipman as the Wire, but I'd like to have had a bit more to the plot and some more use of the minor characters.