With the close of Series 3, our next dose of Doctor Who would be the Christmas Special for 2008, which preceeded the following season that started with "Partners In Crime."
Russell T. Davies is at the helm again (no pun intended), and I have to say that I tried time and again to give this episode a chance to make a good impression on me, and it has epically failed every single time.
This episode is what you get when you cast an actor BEFORE you've even written the story. Davies casted Kylie Minogue for the part of Astrid Peth before he had even written a rough draft of what this episode would be about, and it shows tremendously in the lack of imagination that was used when Davies DID get around to quickly throwing a flim flam story together.
At the closing cliffhanger to "Last of the Time Lords," we were lead to believe that the original Titanic had crashed into the TARDIS.
Basically, even mild to rookie sci-fi fans can accurately describe this episode as "The Poseidon Adventure" in space. Davies throws a bit of nostalgia into the mix by having the spaceship Titanic meet a similar fate as it's Earthbound counterpart, only this time the mammoth cruise liner is struck fire and not ice.
Absolutely nothing about the setting of this episode made sense, and it was often obvious that Davies made little attempt to make it do so. The backstory to support the reason for a space-faring Titanic is that the ship set sail from the distant planet Sto. While this is the first time that Davies introduces humanoids that don't come from Earth in some way, he does make every effort to make them appear as if they do. According to an Host Robot -- gold robots that echo the look of the robots used in "The Robots of Death" -- the cruise liner is intended to experience primitive cultures. In this case, conveniently being present day Earth around Christmas time.
Strangely enough, for a race of beings that come from a distant world, they seem to know quite a lot about Earth customs. Aside from the fact that the cruise liner is the exact duplicate of the sea-faring ship, except with a ginormous propulsion system jammed up it's stern, the interior is decorated with Christmas trees and other decorations, the band is singing numerous Christmas songs, and the passengers are all wearing Earth clothing. During interior shots, you could just as well assume that the Doctor has in fact traveled back in time and was aboard the original vessel.
Once again, Doctor 007.....err, Agent Who.......err.....Doctor Bond....well, the lead character dons his tuxedo again for all the fan girlies watching. The episode goes get worse the further it progresses, to the point of me considering not even finishing it because it was so utterly disappointing.
Besides the aforementioned plotholes that Davies neglected to logically fill, this episode has all of the typical marks for a Russell T Davies episode written just for the fan girls, including a kiss scene between Peth and The Doctor - complete with sparks flying in the background with a "New Year's firecracker" sound effect accompanying it, and ofcourse the usual notion that all other planets far and beyond all develop exactly like ours. The resident @$hole businessman, Rickston Slade, is often seen chatting with business associates on what appears to be a cell phone. Seriously Russell? Cell phones on the planet Sto? Davies also includes his usual exotically designed alien with a really long name so that dumbass masses will consider it "alien." This time its a short little red guy with a hint of HellRaiser in him, named Bannakaffalatta.
Don't even get me started on the music in this episode. Not only did we just watch a visual rehash of "Titanic" and "The Poseidon Adventure" blended together with a slight dash of Doctor Who sprinkled on top, but we also had to deal with motion-picture caliber musical scores throughout the duration of the episode.
The one redeeming feature about this episode is the introduction of Wilfred Mott, who we later learn is the grandfather to Donna Noble. One other thing I picked up on was that one of the robots was chanting "Kill! Kill! Kill!" in much the same way a robot did in "The Robots of Death." Sorry Davies, but that's all I could find in this episode that even remotely came close to an enjoyable episode of Doctor Who.
There should be a lesson to be learned here: write your stories with your plot in mind, not your actors. That way, the whole damned 70 minutes won't be one gigantic drama. I could have died a dozen times over during the slow-motion scenes near the end. Epic FAIL, Davies.
Russell T. Davies is at the helm again (no pun intended), and I have to say that I tried time and again to give this episode a chance to make a good impression on me, and it has epically failed every single time.
This episode is what you get when you cast an actor BEFORE you've even written the story. Davies casted Kylie Minogue for the part of Astrid Peth before he had even written a rough draft of what this episode would be about, and it shows tremendously in the lack of imagination that was used when Davies DID get around to quickly throwing a flim flam story together.
At the closing cliffhanger to "Last of the Time Lords," we were lead to believe that the original Titanic had crashed into the TARDIS.
Basically, even mild to rookie sci-fi fans can accurately describe this episode as "The Poseidon Adventure" in space. Davies throws a bit of nostalgia into the mix by having the spaceship Titanic meet a similar fate as it's Earthbound counterpart, only this time the mammoth cruise liner is struck fire and not ice.
Absolutely nothing about the setting of this episode made sense, and it was often obvious that Davies made little attempt to make it do so. The backstory to support the reason for a space-faring Titanic is that the ship set sail from the distant planet Sto. While this is the first time that Davies introduces humanoids that don't come from Earth in some way, he does make every effort to make them appear as if they do. According to an Host Robot -- gold robots that echo the look of the robots used in "The Robots of Death" -- the cruise liner is intended to experience primitive cultures. In this case, conveniently being present day Earth around Christmas time.
Strangely enough, for a race of beings that come from a distant world, they seem to know quite a lot about Earth customs. Aside from the fact that the cruise liner is the exact duplicate of the sea-faring ship, except with a ginormous propulsion system jammed up it's stern, the interior is decorated with Christmas trees and other decorations, the band is singing numerous Christmas songs, and the passengers are all wearing Earth clothing. During interior shots, you could just as well assume that the Doctor has in fact traveled back in time and was aboard the original vessel.
Once again, Doctor 007.....err, Agent Who.......err.....Doctor Bond....well, the lead character dons his tuxedo again for all the fan girlies watching. The episode goes get worse the further it progresses, to the point of me considering not even finishing it because it was so utterly disappointing.
Besides the aforementioned plotholes that Davies neglected to logically fill, this episode has all of the typical marks for a Russell T Davies episode written just for the fan girls, including a kiss scene between Peth and The Doctor - complete with sparks flying in the background with a "New Year's firecracker" sound effect accompanying it, and ofcourse the usual notion that all other planets far and beyond all develop exactly like ours. The resident @$hole businessman, Rickston Slade, is often seen chatting with business associates on what appears to be a cell phone. Seriously Russell? Cell phones on the planet Sto? Davies also includes his usual exotically designed alien with a really long name so that dumbass masses will consider it "alien." This time its a short little red guy with a hint of HellRaiser in him, named Bannakaffalatta.
Don't even get me started on the music in this episode. Not only did we just watch a visual rehash of "Titanic" and "The Poseidon Adventure" blended together with a slight dash of Doctor Who sprinkled on top, but we also had to deal with motion-picture caliber musical scores throughout the duration of the episode.
The one redeeming feature about this episode is the introduction of Wilfred Mott, who we later learn is the grandfather to Donna Noble. One other thing I picked up on was that one of the robots was chanting "Kill! Kill! Kill!" in much the same way a robot did in "The Robots of Death." Sorry Davies, but that's all I could find in this episode that even remotely came close to an enjoyable episode of Doctor Who.
There should be a lesson to be learned here: write your stories with your plot in mind, not your actors. That way, the whole damned 70 minutes won't be one gigantic drama. I could have died a dozen times over during the slow-motion scenes near the end. Epic FAIL, Davies.
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