Doctor Who: "The Empty Child"

[rj_anderson]

Whoa. Now THAT is some fabulous script. Great, snappy dialogue, superb performances (especially by Eccleston), gorgeous filming, and on the whole I have to say this is definitely the most impressive episode of Who I've seen so far. Maybe all the night scenes helped, but this was the first ep I could easily see being blown up to full theatre size and still looking really, really good.

Except -- wah! -- I have to go to bed alone now. And I'm as likely as not to hear one of my sons cry "mummy!" in the middle of the night, at which point I will die of a heart attack and there will be no one to raise my children.

Ah, who am I kidding? My throat hurts so badly I won't be able to sleep anyway. :-P

Comments

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

Just the little voice-over on the splash page at http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho made my skin crawl! I can't wait to see it. Hurry up, download...

[labellerose.livejournal.com]

Sorry you are sick, Rebecca. Hope you feel better soon!

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I hope so, too.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

I am so thankful my own offspring are past that stage, and indeed several hundred miles away. I don't see why they worried about the noise of crunching bones scaring the kiddiewinks: the idea that their brother or sister might turn into a scary monster is much, much worse.

(And how is it going to affect games like Hide and Seek?)

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

I'm just as glad they cut the crunching bones part, myself. As soon as I realized what was going to happen to Constantine's face, I put my hands over my eyes and only took very quick squinty-peek looks at the screen until it was all over. Having to listen to gross sound effects would have made it even worse!

[tybalt-quin.livejournal.com]

I absolutely loved the special effects when Richard Wilson changed. In particular, the bit where the eyes become larger and suddenly changed into glass was excellent.

The rest of the episode ... well it still highlights to me why Russel T. Davies is the weakest of the writers. For me, the pacing was off and he relies on contrivances to get him out of trouble. I did love the little fake outs "You should meet the doctor" in particular was excellent (mainly because of Ecclestone's "eh?" face) and I enjoyed both the little "Mr Spock/don't you get tired of being called the Doctor all the time? Doctor? Doctor who?" and the "why do they always wander off?" speech.

Rose's characterisation in particular annoyed me this time because of the clunkiness of the scenes with John Barrowman's time traveller. They were just too heavy handed with the mutual attraction and the segueway into his time agent plot was dropped like an anvil. One thing I do want to say is that I don't think I'd have been so annoyed re the Rose moments had I not come to appreciate that Billie Piper is really doing her best with the role. I still don't think that her work always comes off, but I can see her giving it her all (as does Chris Ecclestone) so when she's given stupid things to say/do it irritates me.

After a while, the "Mummy" bit actually annoyed me because it was so one note. What would have worked for me was if he'd switch it between mummy/daddy based on who the child was talking to. That would have given me the eebie jeebies.

There were good moments - the Doctor just turning up at the dinner table was well done and I did jump when all the affected patients suddenly sat up. However, I am never going to forgive Russell T. Davies for the stupid that was the barrage balloon. This is mainly because German fighters would have shot them down on site, but also because he gives Rose a gravity defying upper body strength that doesn't make any sense at all other than to put her in needless peril (oh, and barrage balloons were attached with wire and not rope, which is a historical nitpick that really irked me).

On a final note, I am now very worried about the new casting of David Tennant. Chris Ecclestone has the gravitas and ability to swap betwen the manic and the serious in a convincing way (even with unconvincing lines). I saw Tennant in Cassanova and I don't think he's got that same ability, which means that they're really going to have to tweak the character to get him to do it right. I may be jumping the gun here, but it is something that's beginning to worry me.

I am definitely yay for the Master potential though that seemed to be set up here.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

The story's by Stephen Moffat, actually, not RTD. Though it's clear from "Confidential" that RTD championed the romance side of the story.

"Master potential"?

[tybalt-quin.livejournal.com]

Okay. Well that's embarrassing. Can we just pretend that I was sounding off about Stephen Moffat and not Russell T. Davies? Ahem ...

I still stand by what I said though (albeit directed at the proper culprit).

"Master potential" relates to the possibility of the writers setting up the introduction of the Master ... I think there are enough fake outs in there to suggest they're keeping the option open.

Course, what I'd really love is to see more of the cybermen than a museum exhibit ... Sigh.