• Overall, the new series gets off to a nice start. The first episode is very much an episode made for people who aren't necessarily familiar with the classic series. A lot has to be introduced very quickly, but this is done rather well.
• The use of parallel editing to built suspense is a bit overdone in "End of the World".
• With episode two, the series finally accomplishes something it has previously failed to do: Figure out a plot-relevant way to work in the tune "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell.
• I guess the new production team is trying to avoid getting bogged down in the sci-fi technobabble that often characterized previous incarnations of the series, but at least throw some in where it might be necessary to keep things from looking silly. You do not kill an alien species that exists as a vat of intelligent, molten plastic by spilling in some "anti-plastic". It doesn't have to be terribly accurate or in-depth, just say you're going to kill it with "ionic neutralizing solvent". Doesn't that sound cooler?

"New Earth" (2006) - The season two opener features the tenth Doctor, played by scotsman David Tennant.

• It's very strange how close the Doctor and Rose have gotten. I have never seen things get this flirty between the Doc and one of his companions. For a brief time, I wondered if anything was going to happen in this episode, or if they were just going to escalate to one of those public displays of affection wherein they are making out while he has his hands in her back pockets.
• The most recent Doctor Who is quite the sharp dresser. After Christopher Eccleston's leather jacket and t-shirt look, it is very nice to see the character wearing a sharp suit and tie. Converse All-Stars are ideal time-travel footwear. I wonder if this will further increase the retail price of these simple, canvas and rubber shoes.
• Oh yes, the actual plot of the actual episode. There's kind of a lot going on. They could have opted to have less stuff happening, thus giving themselves time to actually explain what was going on and come to a satisfactory resolution. Instead, there's an attack of plague zombies, people get chased through numerous corridors, and then the Doctor cures the zombies by touching them. Thus, an atheist super-hero ends up looking creepily like a messiah. Weird.
• There's an unnecessary comedy body-swap side plot. This gives actress Billie Piper an opportunity to show off her "acting" by talking in a different accent and behaving rather slutty. This also provides motivation for an unsettling moment where the Doctor minces around saying things like "Oh, yum!"

"The Stones of Blood" (1977) - Part three of the "Key to Time" series. Here is the key info:

• Someone offers the Doctor a snifter of sherry. I'm not sure if I imagined this, but it really seemed like Tom Baker's instinctual response was very nearly, "Oh, holy shit yes!"
• The bad guy is a woman who appears on Earth as a primly dressed spinster. When in hyperspace, she lets her hair down and paints herself silver.
• The monsters are silicon-based life-forms. This means they are huge, two-ton rocks that drink blood. Being monsters, they manage to find a moment to wander out of the plot and find two random campers to murder. "Congrats, Steve, I just got you cast on a popular television series. Your lines are 'What's this thing? Aaaaaaaaaauuuuggghhh!!!' Can you have that memorized by Monday?"
• There is an old woman in this episode who is obviously not wearing a bra. I was horrified. I know you're old and you don't give a damn, but you still have to wear a bra on TV.
• K-9 gets a chance to use his old "Keep a monster at bay with your laser until you're almost out of battery power" trick. Then he recharges. Then he has to do it all over again. Maybe K-9 would have more time to help out in other ways if the Doctor would invest in a laser beam with a tripod.

"Shada" (BBC Webcast) - Big Finish Productions went ahead and redid this unfinished episode written by Douglas Adams.

• It's pretty good.
• Paul McGann might have made a good television Doctor Who had he gotten more of a chance.
• K-9 does the laser thing again.
• Professor Chronotis is the same character as in the Adams novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.
• Plenty of opportunities for secondary characters to get attacked by a weird mind-sucking globe and scream "NOOOOOOOO!!!" Each one of these opportunities is exploited to the fullest.

Excessively nerdy, you say? This is a perfectly respectable hobby! Also, I am bored and anxious as I wait to become a father.

There are a couple of episodes in season two that are so unspeakably poorly written that I almost gave up on the show. True story.

"Rise of the Cybermen" is a clumsy action B-movie with some of the most stilted characterisation you ever did see and no coherence whatsoever.

"The Satan Pit" is basically a series of moments ripped off from Event Horizon and Aliens which goes on about faith and reason while clearly having no understanding of what the terms actually mean.

The season finale was big and brassy and had moments of great promise, but ultimately proved tiresomely self-indulgent, contrived, and hollow.

I worry that the new stuff is being written more and more for idiots.

"The Stones of Blood" though is great. The killer rocks scared the silicon out of me as a wee nipper.
# posted by  Anonymous : 2:25 PM