Story #177 - Army of Ghosts / Doomsday (2006)

Harry -
One of the unmistakable features of the RTD era of Doctor Who is the blockbuster season finale. It started with "Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways", a story that set the bar high with the Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack defeating an armada of Daleks deep in space. This time around, it's double the menace as the Daleks and the Cybermen both launch invasions of Earth.


Sarah -
Honestly, I’m surprised it took this long to get the Daleks and Cybermen into one story.


Harry -
The Cybermen-Nazis crossover in "Silver Nemesis" was kind of close.


Sarah -
Please don’t remind me of that.


Harry -
Righto.  This one begins with a hard dose of melodrama, as Rose provides a voiceover for flashback scenes of her life with the Doctor, ending by telling us that "This is the story of how I died."


Sarah -
I remember how shocking that pronouncement was the first time I watched the episodes. I thought it was going to be an Adric situation all over again. This time out, my daughter, who was watching it for the first first time, kept asking, “Is Rose really dead?” I, of course, responded, “Spoilers!”


Harry -
After the opening titles, RTD dials it back down to a benign scene of the TARDIS returning to the Powell Estate. Rose and the Doctor, back at Jackie's flat for a happy reunion. Jackie is delighted to see them and share the news that Rose's grandad is about to pay a visit. Rose's face drops and she suspects her mum has lost it because her grandad has been dead for 10 years.


Sarah -
I’m not sure I understand how people came to think the ghosts were loved ones. Jackie mentions that grandad’s ghost smells like his tobacco, but that seems awfully tenuous.


Harry -
The Doctor wrote it off to people sensing what they wanted to believe was there. It did seem slightly bonkers that society would embrace these entities and make them part of everyday pop culture. Where were the skeptics? Where were the scientists?


Sarah -
Right? Were the scientist and skeptics taken in, as well? Where was Neil deGrasse Tyson when the Earth needed him?  Speaking of scientists, after a season of breadcrumbs, we finally see Torchwood, which seems to have something to do with the ghosts. Located in Torchwood Tower in Canary Wharf, the Torchwood Institute is led by Yvonne Hartman, who is delighted to have the Doctor turn up on her patch.


Harry -
After all this time I'm still not completely sure what to think of this Torchwood.


Sarah -
It’s a little disappointing after months of build-up, to be honest. And while I’m being picky, doesn’t it seem that the Doctor and Torchwood should have crossed paths before now? It’s been a while since Queen Victoria declared him an enemy of the Crown in 1879. That some slapdash retconning there, RTD.


Harry -
The explanation behind the building of Torchwood Tower was brilliant -- it envelops a dimensional hole 600 feet in the sky. Having used another complicated piece of equipment to study the "ghosts" (two stories in a row without having the plot move forward with the wave of a sonic!), the Doctor traces the energy peak to Torchwood Tower. With an "Allons-y!" the TARDIS takes off with the Doctor, Rose... and Jackie aboard.


Sarah -
Jackie’s not impressed: “If we end up on Mars, I’m gonna kill you.”


Harry -
The crew we meet at the tower seem very serious and dedicated, for a few seconds. Adeola and Gareth slip away for a snog while Yvonne leads a welcoming committee to greet the Doctor with rounds of applause. That clapping scene was rather silly. To that point, Torchwood has been working with the "ghost energy" episodes that have been bringing the shadowy visitors into view. Yvonne proudly takes the Doctor for a tour of Torchwood's storage rooms, where he's taken aback by the alien technology they have collected. One room contains a large, floating sphere that seems to be made of nothing. The Doctor identifies it as a void ship, something designed to slip between universes.


Sarah -
I kind of hate the Doctor in these scenes, with his stupid 3D glasses and Ghostbusters jokes.


Harry -
The Ghostbusters gags were so bad I didn't even want to talk about them.


Sarah -
My apologies for bringing it up. When Yvonne demands to meet his companion, the Doctor pulls Jackie out and introduces her as Rose -- and then proceeds to berate her:

“She's not the best I've ever had. Bit too blonde. Not too steady on her pins. A lot of that.” 

“And just last week, she stared into the heart of the Time Vortex and aged fifty seven years. But she'll do.” 

“I'll have to trade her in. Do you need anyone? She's very good at tea. Well, I say very good, I mean not bad. Well, I say not bad. Anyway, lead on. Allons-y. But not too fast. Her ankle's going.”

What an asshole. He deserves everything coming his way.


Harry -
This is RTD's writing at its most obnoxious. Back upstairs, the romantic episode has ended in horror with Adeola and Gareth falling victim to Cybermen lurking in a construction area. Adeola begins picking off the rest of the staff, luring Matt to the Cybermen next, just before Yvonne and the Doctor return.


Sarah -
I totally forgot Freema Agyeman was in this story. I now recall Martha will mention that her cousin died at Canary Wharf, but she didn’t mention it was her twin cousin.


Harry -
Twin cousins, how rare is that!


Sarah -
It was surprisingly common in American sitcoms of the 1960s and 70s, but not usually so much in Doctor Who.


Harry -
Hah!


Sarah -
I was excited to see Martha -- or her twin cousin, or whatever -- and then angry all over again in anticipation of the Doctor being a complete dick to her in series 3. Just when I thought we were almost into the frying pan, we go straight into the fire!

Did you bring any gin? I need to calm my nerves.


Harry -
Steady on, Sarah, we haven't finished with Rose yet.


Sarah -
Not yet, but soon, my friend, soon.


Harry -
Separated from the Doctor and Jackie, Rose winds her way to the room with the void ship. There, a happy reunion awaits because what's an RTD blockbuster without happy reunions?


Sarah -
Mickey Smith, defending the Earth! I was so happy to see him after all this time. I know it’s only been a few weeks, but it felt so much longer.


Harry -
I totally forgot he was in this one so it was a great surprise when he revealed himself in the room with the void sphere.


Sarah -
Mickey explains that the Cybermen were nearly beaten in his adopted parallel Earth but they managed to escape to Rose’s Earth. Rose reminds him that the Doctor says it was impossible, to which Mickey replies, “Yeah, it's not the first time he's been wrong.” That’s right, Mickey, tell it like it is!

Now, really, where’s the gin?


Harry -
We should pause to enjoy a few sips now, because the story is about to go turbo wild.


Sarah -
Brace yourself!


Harry -
The newly-cyberized staff override the safety mechanisms and send Torchwood into the ultimate ghost shift, bringing millions of Cybermen through to this Earth. Meanwhile, the void sphere suddenly activates of its own accord. Watching on camera, the Doctor wonders what the Cybermen are about to hatch, but the Cyberleader informs him that the sphere is not of their design. They merely followed it to this world. At that moment, the sphere opens and from within it emerge...Daleks! Kolossal! It's the ultimate invasion, and an amazing cliffhanger.

Got to hand it to RTD, he does a good blockbuster.


Sarah -
He had to outdo last season, and more than met the challenge.


Harry -
Unlike the swarms of Cybermen who have arrived on Earth, the sphere contained only four Daleks. They are a unique group who have individual names and call themselves the Cult of Skaro. They have brought with them a device called a genesis ark, and with it a new mystery: who or what is inside?


Sarah -
I’m amused the Daleks have finally reached the appropriate level of development to begin forming cults. I guess it was inevitable.


Harry -
One of the most memorable scenes from this story is the glorious trash talking between Cybermen and Daleks. The relentless, dispassionate logic of the Cybermen crashing against the psychotic hate of the Daleks, it's mad fun.


Sarah -
It’s absolutely the best thing in the story.


Harry -
Well, it's fun to watch. For the Doctor and his friends it's the ultimate nightmare. The world is under siege, Torchwood is in chaos, and Yvonne and Jackie are marched off for cyber-conversion before the Doctor can save them.


Sarah -
Poor Jackie. Has she not endured enough? Now she faces being upgraded again? Yes, yes, I know that was alternate reality Jackie, but we had to live through it and that was more than enough.


Harry -
Did we mention this was a blockbuster? Because, zapping through the void, here comes Pete Tyler and the rest of parallel Earth's Scooby Gang! What a scene!


Sarah -
Jake and Pete arrive just in time to save the day...sort of.


Harry -
It's too late to save Yvonne, who goes forward to receive cyber-conversion while declaring that she did her duty for queen and country.


Sarah -
Poor Yvonne.


Harry -
We barely got to know her.  At least Big Finish has come through for her.  

For Jackie, it's a lucky escape. The Cybermen become distracted by the Daleks and she sneaks away down a stairwell.


Sarah -
Go, Jackie, Go!


Harry -
An epic battle ensues. Cybermen vs Daleks with all of humanity trapped in the middle. The Doctor eventually lets us all in on the business with the 3-D glasses. They reveal a kind of "void stuff" that the Doctor posits can be sucked back into the void. However, it means that after being reopened, the void and the gateway to parallel Earth will close forever. Rose is suddenly faced with a choice: join her Jackie and Mickey with parallel Pete on the other Earth, or stay with the Doctor, "forever". It never seemed to have sunk in with Rose that "forever" means two totally different things to Earthlings and Gallifreyans.


Sarah -
Despite the Doctor trying to explain it to her about five thousand times. Seriously, was he not clear enough or is she completely delusional? The swings between competent, empathic Rose and bat-shit crazy girlfriend Rose is frustrating.


Harry -
This gin is getting perilously low.

Having made her choice to stay with the Doctor, Rose bids tear-soaked farewells to her family and Mickey, who then zap away to parallel Earth.


Sarah -
They’re better off without her.


Harry -
The Doctor and Rose brace themselves, throw open the void and watch as the Cybermen pour back through. In a panic, the Daleks initiate emergency temporal shift and vanish as well. But disaster strikes when Rose is thrown into the void... and is rescued by Pete a split second before she would have died.


Sarah -
So much for being better off without her. I like that alternate reality Jackie and Pete decide to stick together. That’s very sweet. I want Jackie to have a happy ending.


Harry -
It was nice that Jackie was able to have everything in the end.  Typing out that rapid fire sequence gives a clear view of how everything unfolded, but in real time it happened so quickly. Everyone was stunned. Rose worst of all, as she collapses in tears.


Sarah -
I really am the worst person ever. I couldn’t stop rolling my eyes at the whole thing. Can you imagine having to live with her after all this?


Harry -
They couldn't even find some words to try and console her.  The RTD Doctor-companion-relationship experiment comes crashing to an end, in blockbuster style.

Having saved the world, once again, the Doctor is left alone, once again. For that segment of fandom for whom "shipping" the Doctor and Rose was a huge thing, this would have obviously been the show's darkest moment. The Doctor has lost so many friends over time, but RTD built this one up to be different, and way more emotional.


Sarah -
The lonely God is alone again. While I don’t want the Doctor to react with, “Oh well, Adric’s dead, let’s move on, he wouldn’t want us to linger.” I could do with much less drama than we get here.


Harry -
Yes, we've yet to hit that sweet spot somewhere between "cold fish" and "emo tears".


Sarah -
This leads us to their final(ish) meeting at Bad Wolf Bay.


Harry -
Final(ish), damn you RTD!


Sarah -
Rose has a dream where she hears the Doctor calling, so Rose, Mickey, Jackie and Pete head off to Norway to follow the voice.


Harry -
As one is compelled to do from time to time.


Sarah -
The Doctor has found a way to transmit an image of himself to talk to Rose. We learn that Jackie is pregnant and Rose is working with parallel Torchwood. Rose learns that she’s officially listed among the dead from the Battle of Canary Wharf. 

We end with the Doctor telling Rose that they can’t see each other again. She tells him that she loves him and he responds with “Quite right, too. And I suppose, if it's one last chance to say it, Rose Tyler…” as he vanishes.


Harry -
So many shipping fantasies shattering into a million pieces.


Sarah -
OK, maybe I’m not completely heartless. It is a touching moment and all that, but what made me the most emotional is the sudden appearance of Donna Noble in the TARDIS!


Harry -
What an emotional swing!  I don't think we could have handled another minute of this blockbuster.  Our last bottle of gin certainly didn't.

Overall, RTD delivered a blockbuster for the ages.  I loved the war between the Daleks and Cybermen.  Torchwood got an appropriate introduction before essentially being destroyed.  It shall rise again in another place, at another time.  As for the shipping, I was done with it before I knew shipping was a thing.


Sarah -
Bring on the next adventure, Old Boy! I’m ready.


Harry -
Goin' to the chapel and we're... gonna get married!


Sarah -
Best Line: “This is not war. This is pest control.”

Favorite Moment: The Dalek-Cybermen trash talk.

Lasting Image: I want to say Donna, but that doesn’t seem sporting. I guess I’ll go with the beach scene as I’ll never be able to delete it from my brain. 

6/10


Harry -
Best Line: same!

Favourite Moment: same!

Lasting Image: the Doctor and his 3-D glasses.

7/10

Our marathon continues with Story #178: The Runaway Bride...

Story #176 - Fear Her (2006)

Sarah -
I’d like to propose we establish a new Sofa of Rassilon honor: The Warriors of the Deep Award (WOTDA), which recognizes episodes of Doctor Who with a decent script that are entirely let down by the story’s production.


Harry -
If it involves drinking a ceremonial toast, I'm in.


Sarah -
It certainly does! We’ll have to mix up a special concoction -- or just pass the gin bottle between us.

In any case, "Fear Her" is my official WOTDA nomination for Series Two.

The story of "Fear Her" begins with Stephen Fry’s legendary unfinished Doctor Who story. Fortunately, the production team had a reserve script standing by, written by none other than Life on Mars co-creator Matthew Graham. In addition to being ready to go, the "Fear Her" script ticked off the most importance box -- it was cheap. 

The TARDIS lands on a quiet suburban street. There’s a brief kerfuffle when the TARDIS doors are facing a storage unit wall, but all is set to rights and the Doctor and Rose are ready for the 2012 Olympics. I had the realization that this story was broadcast six years before those Olympics and now we’re six years on from them. Times flies, doesn’t it?


Harry -
This is some genuinely timey-wimey stuff. The first time around it was a futuristic story, now it's a historical.


Sarah -
The street turns out to be not quite as quiet as it looks. Rose immediately notices missing posters for children all over the neighborhood. We saw one of the children vanish before the Doctor and Rose arrived, despite warnings from an elderly neighbor.


Harry -
A bit of farcical police work attempted by the Doctor while the neighbours voiced their concerns. After resorting to shushing everyone, the police procedural can begin properly. Rose and the Doctor both detect signs and smells of a kind of residual energy left behind after children have disappeared.


Sarah -
It doesn’t take long for the Doctor to work out that a girl named Chloe seems to be connected to the missing children. When she draws pictures of the children in her neighborhood, they become trapped in her artwork. It’s chilling.


Harry -
Abisola Agbaje gave a brilliant performance as Chloe, who appears at first to be a lonely girl, but with flashes of inexplicable anger. There seems to be a natural reason for this:

ROSE: What about Chloe's dad? 
TRISH: Chloe's dad died a year ago. 
ROSE: I'm sorry. 
TRISH: You wouldn't be if you'd known him. 

But this being Doctor Who, it comes out that something alien is causing her to react, but Agbaje's performance still makes it very believable.


Sarah -
It know it’s fashionable to pick on child actors in certain circles, but I agree Agbaje's performance is effective. No shade to Eros Lyn, but I can’t help but think that another director might have been able to help the actress find more subtlety in her performance. The whispering got a little one-note after a while.


Harry -
Like so many great scares in Doctor Who, it's the commonplace made horrifying that sticks in the mind. The living drawings stayed with me all this time as well.


Sarah -
The Doctor works out that Chloe is possessed by the Isolus, an alien life-form that has four billion siblings. The Isolus is just trying to recreate its family, with potentially billions of human beings. 

I find this premise absolutely terrifying. The Isolus is the type of protagonist I often find most interesting. It’s not trying to conquer Earth or carrying out a diabolical plan, it’s just lonely and trying to survive. It’s all very tragic.


Harry -
Another great horror trope: someone's body possessed by a malevolent force. The scene where the Doctor communicates with the Isolus through Chloe was unsettling.


Sarah -
There’s so much that’s unsettling in this story. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen an abusive parent in Doctor Who, but Eddie Connolly’s bullying doesn’t seem to come close to the physical and possibly sexual abuse of Chloe’s father. Chloe and her mother Trish are both still suffering from PTSD, which has contributed to the infiltration of the Isolus.


Harry -
There is clearly a stress on the dad having done horrible things.


Sarah -
Nina Sosanya, who portrays Trish, is one of those actresses I have liked every time I’ve seen her. She effectively underplays the role of a mother whose own PTSD is so overwhelming that she can’t even begin to help her daughter. That has led her to swap her abusive relationship with husband for one with her possessed daughter. 

This is also a very good episode for Rose. When she’s away from the Doctor, she becomes so capable. She’s the one who first notices the missing posters and connects with people in the neighborhood throughout. This is when I like Rose the most.


Harry -
Agreed. Full credit to Matthew Graham for doing away with the smugness we've had to endure this season.


Sarah -
It’s definitely a respite.


Harry -
Having sorted out that the Isolus is behind the disappearances, the Doctor determines that they need to locate its pod and I quite like what happens next. Instead of waving his sonic screwdriver and locating the pod in two seconds, he and Rose go back to the TARDIS to build a pod detector. Old school!


Sarah -
So much of this story feels old school and, dare I say, cozy. I kind of love how giddy the Doctor is about finding the pod.


Harry -
I wonder if RTD got fidgety while reading this script and decided to throw in the Doctor's casual line about being "a dad once."


Sarah -
OMG! The look on Rose’s face when says that! It’s a great moment that illustrates for the 595th time that there is a gap between them that can never be bridged.


Harry -
Before Rose can question him about it, the gizmo picks up the pod and they set off on the trail. Meanwhile, Chloe begins drawing the Doctor and the TARDIS.


Sarah -
Whoops! The Doctor finds himself trapped in a drawing, but Rose is determined to save him. She grabs a pickaxe and starts digging up the street, much to the dismay of Kel, the local council worker who has been assisting Rose in her investigation. Meanwhile, Chloe is drawing the entire crowd at Olympic Stadium...and then the world. 

Following the direction from the Doctor in the drawing, Rose realizes the pod needs warmth and love...right as the Olympic torch is on its way down the street. She chucks the pod into the touch and -- hurrah! -- the missing children begin to reappear.


Harry -
The story felt like it went off the rails here.


Sarah -
Meanwhile, Chloe’s drawing of her father has come to life, terrorizing her and her mother and trapping them in the house. Trish sings to Chloe to drive the terror away, destroying the monster of her father’s memory. Going back to the Warriors of the Deep Award, I have to suggest that this scene would have been significantly more effective and way scarier if it wasn’t so damn bright. The animation of Chloe’s drawing of her father should have been terrifying, but it doesn’t come close, which is a pity. Chloe’s recovery should have been so much more effective.


Harry -
Agreed.  The monster that you cannot see is often more terrifying.


Sarah -
But wait, where’s the Doctor? The torch bearer falters from the pod flare, which leads to the dialog that made me want to smash my television: “There's a mystery man. He's picked up the flame. We've no idea who he is. He's carrying the flame. Yes, he's carrying the flame and no one wants to stop him. It's more than a flame now, Bob. It's more than heat and light. It's hope, and it's courage, and it's love.”


Harry -
Oh man.


Sarah -
The Doctor picks up the torch and lights the cauldron, sending the Isolus home in its pod on a cloud of love. Good grief. My teeth hurt from all the saccharine. 

The Doctor and Rose are reunited and all is well. Or is it…?

ROSE: You know what? They keep on trying to split us up, but they never ever will. 
DOCTOR: Never say never ever. 
ROSE: Nah, we'll always be okay, you and me. Don't you reckon, Doctor? 
DOCTOR: There's something in the air. Something coming. 
ROSE: What? 
DOCTOR: A storm's approaching.


Harry -
Foreshadowing for the extremely foreshadowly challenged.  I was quite done with this story by the end.  As you said above, a solid story let down by the production and for me the era as well.  This could have been a wild CSO thriller in the Pertwee era, or something with insane visuals in the McCoy era.  Anyway, we got through it.  Drink!


Sarah -
Best Line: No, I'm not really a cat person. Once you've been threatened by one in a nun's wimple, it kind of takes the joy out of it. 

Favorite Moment: The Doctor absentmindedly eating marmalade from a jar with his fingers, only to be corrected by Rose with an “ahem” and a shake of her head. It’s one of those perfect scenes that remind us that the Doctor is an alien. 

Lasting Image: Star Trek was my Sci-Fi gateway drug, so I have to go with the Vulcan Salute

5/10


Harry -
Best Line:
ROSE: Cake? 
DOCTOR: Top banana. Mmm. I can't stress this enough. Ball bearings you can eat, masterpiece! 

Favourite Moment: the initial terror of the dad in the wardrobe.

Lasting Image: the living drawings.

4/10

Our marathon continues with Story #177: Army of Ghosts / Doomsday...

Story #175 - Love and Monsters (2006)

Sarah -
We’ve reached our first Doctor-lite episode, which feels like a bit of a milestone. Created to make it possible to get the season filmed on time and on budget, Doctor-lite episodes can still be a divisive issue in fandom. The quality of Doctor-lite episodes will fluctuate over the years, but "Love and Monsters" has the distinction of being the first.


Harry -
Aye, who knew when this singular oddity appeared that it was just the thin edge of the wedge, and we'd see entire calendar years fall victim to the Doctor-lite phenomenon.


Sarah -
My memories of "Love and Monsters" were fuzzy before this rewatch: the Abzorbaloff, Moaning Myrtle in a paving block, lots of ELO, and adorable Marc Warren. In the end, it’s certainly not a great episode, but it’s not as bad as I feared it might be. There’s a backhanded compliment for you!

Harry -
My memories were similar and I ended up almost relieved that it wasn't as bad as I remembered. Apologies to RTD for our double backhand.


Sarah - 
In defense of RTD, he’s as much of a fan as we are, so Love and Monsters is a significantly more generous treatment of fandom than Whizz Kid in "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy".


Harry - 
It's a twist on fandom that shows us characters who are fans of the actual Doctor, not the show. The story opens with a classic Doctor Who moment: someone running. In this case, it's Marc Warren -- who for a time in the mid-00s was everywhere, appearing in State of Play and Life on Mars, and he gave a memorably grotesque performance as the titular character in a BBC adaptation of Dracula. Here, his Elton follows some shouting voices into an abandoned building. He sees the Doctor and Rose chasing something and comes face-to-face with a roaring alien. Some comedy running ensues. It's all quite mad, and then we cut to Elton's video journal.


Sarah -
I just discovered that "Love and Monsters" wasn’t Warren’s first brush with Doctor Who. He was an uncredited extra in "Battlefield" in one of his earliest TV appearances.


Harry -
There's a piece of trivia worthy of Toby Hadoke.


Sarah -
I imagine Toby can name six different ways Marc Warren is connected to Doctor Who!


Harry - 
Elton introduces himself as someone who first encountered the Doctor inside his childhood home at the age of three or four. Since then, he has been haunted by that night and he wants to find that mysterious man. Having been a witness to the Auton rampage, the spaceship crash that wrecked Big Ben's tower, and the Sycorax invasion, his interest in the Doctor is stoked and his investigation becomes more intensified. He's not alone. He and a group of like-minded investigators have formed a group called L.I.N.D.A.: the London Investigation 'N' Detective Agency.


Sarah -
Elton is the anti-Donna Noble; the person who was paying attention!

I’m kind of sad that Clive from "Rose" didn’t have the opportunity to meet up with L.I.N.D.A. Also, I love that Elton was waiting years for the opportunity to use the L.I.N.D.A. acronym. That’s a proper nerd for you.


Harry -
Despite being brought together by a common interest in the Doctor, the quirky group of L.I.N.D.A. members find themselves enjoying other activities like music, food and art. Clive might have kept their focus from drifting, but that task is taken up by Victor Kennedy, a well dressed man of no known background. L.I.N.D.A. quickly falls under his sway as Kennedy whips the team into an investigative force, dispatching them on missions to research, observe, and infiltrate -- whatever it takes to get close to the Doctor. Before long, he begins picking off individual members and inventing reasons to explain their sudden disappearances.

I liked that RTD brought together such a disparate group of people to form L.I.N.D.A.. They were more believeable as a group of very-regular-seeming people, rather than had they all been as fanatical as Kennedy.


Sarah -
I love their little L.I.N.D.A. surrogate family and Elton’s developing relationship with Ursula. The jam session is one of my favorite moments in the story. It’s heartbreaking when Kennedy shows up with his Torchwood files and starts picking them off one by one. He’s just awful, with a particularly awful performance from Peter Kay. Everyone else hits just the right note, but he’s so over the top it became unbearable.


Harry -
One of the weak points of the story was that Kennedy provided no backstory whatsoever, and there he is bossing everyone around, and how would he have a) gotten, and b) brazenly announced that he had Torchwood files in hand. Would the rest of the group even have known what Torchwood was, top secret organization and all? Anyway, probably overthinking it.


Sarah -
A fan theory that I had never come across before now is that Kennedy is based on Ian Levine. True or not, this is my new favorite fan theory of all time!


Harry - 
Now that's a backstory I can get behind!

Still in Kennedy's thrall, the rest of the team continue with their assigned tasks. Elton believes he's struck paydirt when a couple of lucky breaks lead him into Rose's sphere, i.e. a chance encounter with her mum Jackie.


Sarah -
Poor Jackie. It’s so cringy when she starts flirting with Elton, but we see how lonely she is. It’s not easy being the person left behind.


Harry -
Credit to RTD for creating something unique in the new series. "Rose" gave us the Rose story, "Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel" gave us the Mickey story, and now we get the Jackie story. Instead of Doctor-lite, many of these stories could be seen as Companion-plus.


Sarah -
The moment when she confronts Elton about finding Rose’s photo in his pocket is heartbreaking, but she’s still our tough Jackie, “Let me tell you something about those who get left behind. Because it's hard. And that's what you become, hard. But if there's one thing I've learnt, it's that I will never let her down. And I'll protect them both until the end of my life. So whatever you want, I'm warning you, back off.” I love Jackie so much in this story.


Harry -
It was sad that the story that put Jackie front and centre highlighted her loneliness, but it also showed her steely side. Elton was lucky not to take one in the chops. He realized immediately what a terrible mistake he'd made.


Sarah -
Don’t mess with Jackie Tyler!


Harry - 
Determined to confront and leave Kennedy once and for all, Elton and Ursula finally discover his true nature. I remember on first viewing that this was where the story went off the rails. It's hard to take anything seriously when the villain is so over-the-top panto. And silly. And gross. The Abzorbaloff devours its victims by, well, absorbing them into its body, but not completely. The faces of recent victims press out against its flesh, their minds and senses still their own.


Sarah -
Off the rails, through the village, and over the cliff! If I decide to watch this story again, I think I’ll just turn it off when Ursula goes back to get her phone and skip the whole Abzorbaloff reveal. There’s really no point in watching the rest of the episode. It’s just embarrassing. I’ll defend wobbly sets with my last breath, but never bad writing.


Harry -
The Abzorbaloff was in this story because it was the winner of a "design a Doctor Who monster" contest on Blue Peter, so we can literally say it's like some kid designed it.


Sarah -
I'd forgotten about that. It's a terrible idea that I hope will never happen again. "Dear Mr. Chibnall..."


Harry -
The story began with a comic monster chase and it fittingly ends with one as the Abzorbaloff nimbly waddles after Elton, right into the path of the Doctor and Rose.


Sarah -
Rose gives Elton a piece of her mind for messing with Jackie and the Doctor discovers the Abzorbaloff is from Clom, twin planet of Raxacoricofallapatorius. Of course he is.


Harry -
The "Clom" line was the only time I laughed while watching. And Elton, once again lucky not to take one in the chops from an angry Tyler.


Sarah -
Having been absorbed, Ursula is able to direct Elton to snap the Abzorbaloff’s cane, which causes him to melt into the paving stones, along with his L.I.N.D.A. victims. But wait, the Doctor can save one person with a convenient wave of his sonic screwdriver and that one person is Ursula. Sorry everyone else, you’re screwed.


Harry -
I hate to say this was a lazy ending because the whole story was experimental in nature.


Sarah -
Then I'll say it -- L.A.Z.Y.

Turns out Elton did meet the Doctor as a child. He explains to Elton that he was hunting a living shadow which had escaped its home dimension. He caught it, but not before it had killed Elton's mother, so that’s sorted. Elton muses on his situation, deciding it’s not all that bad. And the fates of Rose and Jackie and how much longer it will be before they pay the price. Bit of foreshadowing there, eh?


Harry -
Second story in a row with the foreshadowing.


Sarah -
So, apparently, Elton and Ursula the paving block live happily ever after and our story ends with a not-so-subtle oral sex joke. There’s a full point off my rating for that. Ugh.


Harry -
So lame. A prime example of RTD getting self-indulgent with no one to check him, but again, the whole story feels that way most of the time.


Sarah - 
Best Line: "Oh, you don't meet many Eltons, do you? Apart from the obvious."

Favorite Moment: Jackie telling Elton off.

Lasting Image: Unfortunately, it will probably be the Abzorbaloff running after Elton

4/10


Harry -
DOCTOR: Not from Raxacoricofallapatorius, are you? 
VICTOR: No, I'm not. They're swine. I spit on them. I was born on their twin planet. 
DOCTOR: Really? What's the twin planet of Raxacoricofallapatorius? 
VICTOR: Clom. 
DOCTOR: Clom. 
VICTOR: Clom.

Favourite Moment: the ELO jam session.

Lasting Image: so many images I'd prefer to banish, especially the Abzorbaloff!

5/10

Our marathon continues with Story #176: Fear Her...