Doctor Who: Series Two, Episode One – The Christmas Invasion

I’ve just decided to re-watch all the David Tennant episodes I’ve missed (ie. most of them), so here are my thoughts on ‘the Christmas Invasion’.

The idea was to introduce the new Doctor in a way that, while showcasing the differences between him and Number Nine, also made it clear that it was still the same show with the same people. It did exactly that. From “Am I ginger?” to “Six words”, it is obvious that the 10th Doctor is different kettle of fish entirely from his badass, leather-jacketed predecessor. The only thing I was unimpressed with was the alien menace, the violent, dangerous, skull-wearing Sycorax dudes who wanted to sell the human race into slavery and steal our stuff. With swords. And a spaceship made out of rock. Uh, yeah… Not especially scary. And the Doctor fighting the Sycorax Leader looked very fake and somewhat contrived.

But, the italicized ‘but’, The Christmas Invasion is fun, if not amazing, to watch, and a good introduction to the new Doctor. Allons-y!

Doctor Who, Series 7, Episode 9: Hide

Just watched Hide on ABC iView and I decided, having nothing else to do, to share my opinions on it.

Just for the record, I cannot handle scary stuff. I saw the trailer for Hide and thought Oh my God I am dead!, but I have to say it was somewhat lacking in the scare department. Yes, I watched the scene with Emma and the ghost with my hands over my eyes (C’mon! It’s a ghost) but it wasn’t anywhere near as creepy as I had thought. Then we have the monster. I know that monsters and aliens have always been a staple of Sci-Fi shows, and in Doctor Who they’re normally handled great. But I hate, hate, hate it when they have a reasonably good episode with some mysterious shapes and such in the background, and then they show the monster (which generally looks like something that was coughed up by a cat six hundred years ago)! To be fair, Hide was pretty good, Emma and Alec had some nice character development going on, and I loved the Screaming Woman Photos.                                                                                                                      (I’m not sure what was up with the Doctor and that circle he drew on the floor, though…)