TV Treats

Review of Doctor Who (2008, S04E01)

The previews of "Partners in Crime" had me worried but they were wrong, a great fun episode to launch the new series. My biggest concern, Catherine Tate, turns out to be a pleasant surprise and I think she'll fit in well.

The plot is one of the more straightforward ones. Both The Doctor and Donna Noble are investigating a suspicious weight-loss company called Adipose. The CEO is played wonderfully by Sarah Lancashire who has come a long way from Corrie.

This strange company promises incredible dieting results, all from taking just one pill. We go through a very amusing sequence of scenes where the two investigators keep missing each other by split seconds. She has realised that saying no to The Doctor in the Christmas Special was a mistake and she is seeking out trouble since she figures he'll be close by.

Eventually we find out that the weight loss occurs due to the fact the the fat turns into little creatures that detach themselves from you at night and are collected by the company. Even worse, the CEO is basically a wet nurse who is breeding all of these creatures under contract. This of course breaks "Galactic Law" and is seen as a bad thing.

Why do all Sci-Fi series have this mad notion of laws that spread across the Universe? We can't even agree a common side of the road to drive on and yet they think billions of aliens will agree to a set of laws!

There isn't much tension in this episode as it is mainly played for laughs. They baddies partially get their comeuppance and of course The Doctor gets himself a new assistant. The only mysterious bit was the sudden appearance and disappearance of Rose right at the end.

Whilst I enjoy these romps, it's the really scary ones that get me going (who could forget the statues?). All in all though, a decent start and I'm gagging for more.

Torchwood (Exit Wounds, S02E13)

Wow, they pulled it off, absolute highlight of the season. Utterly riveting, feelings of sadness, empathy and loss. Why can't they deliver at this level all the time. But no cliffhanger?

Captain John's first appearance in the show was silly, high camp and not very impressive. What a turnaround they achieved with the season finale. Explosions all over Cardiff, each member of the team dealing with one location. All because they were mean to him? No not quite.

Capt John takes Captain Jack back to 27 AD. He shows him a bomb that is molecularly bonded to his arm. Everything he has done was under duress. Suddenly Jack's brother Gray appears, hugs him and stabs him. He has the anger of centuries and blames it all on Jack leaving him behind to be tortured by monsters as kids on their home planet. Even worse, he buries Jack alive, effectively forever. Capt John throws in his ring into the grave.

Whew, ring turned out to be a transponder and Jack is eventually dug up thousands of years later by Torchwood staff and placed in frozen storage so he doesn't encounter himself on another time-line.

Meanwhile, the horrible weevils are everywhere and the nuclear powerstation is going into meltdown. Poor Tosh gets shot by Jack's brother and it looks like Owen dies when the room is flooded with radiation. But surely he is dead already? Is this the way to reset that dead-end plotline for the next season?

Gray is defeated but Tosh dies.

I don't mean to sound flippant about the plot because I found the whole tortured brotherly relationship touching and was also very surprised that they killed-off Owen in addition to the insipid Tosh. After so many let-downs during this season, they got the plotting and acting spot on. Looking forward to the next series already!