53 replies to this topic

[DWF]

Spoilers

Quote

When the Tardis crew takes a holiday, the Doctor encounters an enemy he thought long dead. It soon transpires that plans to build a nuclear power station in Cardiff city are disguising an alien plot to rip the world apart — and when the Doctor dines with monsters, he discovers traps within traps.

[Mooky]

I guess this one will be a memory refresher for me.  Can't remember much about it.

I've had to clean re-install everthing at least once since a year ago, and forgot to back up my season 27 .AVIs.

[DWF]

I think dramatically speaking this was a very important ep. it referenced two earlier stories and set things up for a future one and there was some interesting character development as well, all in all an interesting ep. with a cool Bad Wolf reference.  

[Mooky]

I'm wondering DWF, are you getting SciFi?  Last I read (from you, I think), Comcast took SciFi off in Ohio.

[DWF]

Nathrakh, on May 18 2006, 08:23 PM, said:

I'm wondering DWF, are you getting SciFi?  Last I read (from you, I think), Comcast took SciFi off in Ohio.

Yeah I get Sci-Fi on satellite, I don't know about Comcast though.  

[Mooky]

DWF, on May 18 2006, 07:27 PM, said:

Nathrakh, on May 18 2006, 08:23 PM, said:

I'm wondering DWF, are you getting SciFi?  Last I read (from you, I think), Comcast took SciFi off in Ohio.

Yeah I get Sci-Fi on satellite, I don't know about Comcast though.  

  it'd be ironic if the #1 DW fan in the country didn't have access to DW on TV.

[DWF]

^^^LOL! Maybe the biggest Dr. Who fan on the Exisle certainly not the country.  

[Mooky]

DWF, on May 18 2006, 08:00 PM, said:

^^^LOL! Maybe the biggest Dr. Who fan on the Exisle certainly not the country.  

Well, you probably beat the self-proclaimed "King Of All TV."

[Josh]

I thought this ep was merely "okay."

It didn't stick in my mind for very long or make much of an impact. Other parts felt tacked on and underdeveloped. Probably one of the weaker eps of the season (along with "The Long Game").

I love the actress who plays Margaret though. She exudes evil very well.

[Christopher]

Nathrakh, on May 18 2006, 08:23 PM, said:

Last I read (from you, I think), Comcast took SciFi off in Ohio.

Comcast isn't the only cable company in the whole state of Ohio.  Here in Cincinnati, the main one is Time Warner, and they carry SciFi.


Anyway... "Boom Town."  This was a hell of an episode, nothing like I expected.  The followup to a fairly mediocre, comical two-parter turns out to be one of the most unusual, deep, thought-provoking Doctor Who stories ever told.  This is a classic illustration of the way Russel Davies is being true to the spirit of the series while also looking at it critically, challenging its conventions and filling in its gaps.

The Doctor professes to be a peaceful man, a champion of life, yet he's killed so many villains and monsters in the heat of battle.  What, then, when he's put in the position of sitting down with one of his enemies, having to get to know her face to face before delivering her to execution?  What a striking twist on the formula.  And what a refreshing way to tell the story.  I much prefer this kind of confrontation between characters, the kind waged with words and ideas and emotions, to the running-punching-and-shooting kind.

And how about that Margaret?  After being a somewhat comical adversary the first time, she emerges as a much more serious, devious and nuanced opponent.  And Annette Badland did a superb job with the role.  It's a shame there's no likely way to contrive a scenario whereby Blon would grow up and take on the form of Margaret Blaine again.

Hey, there's a question.  What did they do with Margaret's skin?  They just popped off to Raxacoricofallapatorius (and yes, I typed that from memory) to put the Blon egg up for adoption, but the flayed-off skin of a dead woman was just lying there on the floor like a rumpled coat.  They should've at least arranged for the remains to be buried in some decent way, returned them to her family or something, before popping off to Raxacoricofallapatorius.  (That's fun to say.  I loved the scene where Rose was determined to get it memorized, and how proud she was when she succeeded.  And of course it's a classic RTD twist to follow that playful moment with "They have the death penalty there.")

Oh, it was a nice touch getting in the exposition about why the TARDIS looks like a police box, and what a police box is.  I suppose new viewers might've been somewhat confused about that.  It did seem a little tacked on at first, but it turned out to have thematic significance -- the idea of a police box as a place for suspects to be locked up temporarily until they could be delivered to more official facilities.  As Rose said, the TARDIS ended up serving a similar function for real.  That's a good way to handle an exposition scene -- to give it some other purpose to the story besides mere infodump.

[Mooky]

Christopher, on May 19 2006, 09:53 PM, said:

Oh, it was a nice touch getting in the exposition about why the TARDIS looks like a police box, and what a police box is.  I suppose new viewers might've been somewhat confused about that.

New viewers without access to EI (much less, the web).  

Us "classic" Whovians did our best to provide this information to the Whobies around here , but the Doc did explain it best.

Edited by Nathrakh, 19 May 2006 - 11:09 PM.

[Smitty]

Wait a second!

Mickey referred to Jack as Jumpin' Jack Flash.

DWF posted Jumpin' Jack Flash as the subtitle to his Aliens of London (which this ep is a sequel to) review thread.

Hmm, just a coincidence DW?

Okay, what's with the old Hanna-Barbara sound effects for the Slitheen teleporter?
Come to think of it I heard the same sound fx last week too.  

What the deal RTD, can't pony over a few quid to the fx guys for new sounds?

-cs™

[Mooky]

Smitty, on May 19 2006, 11:28 PM, said:

Wait a second!

Mickey referred to Jack as Jumpin' Jack Flash.

DWF posted Jumpin' Jack Flash as the subtitle to his Aliens of London (which this ep is a sequel to) review thread.

Hmm, just a coincidence DW?

Okay, what's with the old Hanna-Barbara sound effects for the Slitheen teleporter?
Come to think of it I heard the same sound fx last week too.  

A bit of comic relief?

[tallulah]

I missed the episode to which this one was the "sequel," but I thought it was written well enough to fill me in on a bit and not feel totally lost.  There was a bit of exposition that did seem a little too much like exposition, but I LOVED the three-way about travelling through "Time.  And Space!"

I do have a question, though, for those in the know.  Are all the references to the big "Bad Wolf" leading somewhere?  I don't want to be spoiled, so a simple yes or no will satisfy me.  I just thought the Doctor's speech was a little too pointed though he played it off as a joke.  On second thought, I don't want to know!

And how can one not love "Dinner and Bondage"?

T.

[Mooky]

tallulah, on May 20 2006, 12:06 AM, said:

I do have a question, though, for those in the know.  Are all the references to the big "Bad Wolf" leading somewhere?

Patience, grasshopper.   All shall be revealed in episode 13.

[eechick]

Great episode.

[NeuralClone]

tallulah, on May 20 2006, 01:06 AM, said:

I do have a question, though, for those in the know.  Are all the references to the big "Bad Wolf" leading somewhere?

Yes.

[Cyncie]

Quote

Anyway... "Boom Town."  This was a hell of an episode, nothing like I expected.  The followup to a fairly mediocre, comical two-parter turns out to be one of the most unusual, deep, thought-provoking Doctor Who stories ever told.  This is a classic illustration of the way Russel Davies is being true to the spirit of the series while also looking at it critically, challenging its conventions and filling in its gaps.

I'm with Christopher on this one. For all the raving over The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances, I found them to be fairly stock horror genre stuff. Well done enough, but a bit too Stephen King for my personal tastes.

Boom Town seems to be viewed by many of the fans as "filler"-- a let down from those two episodes -- but I found it to be much more deep and intelligently thought provoking. Questioning the effects of the Doctor's freewheeling, adventures-in-time lifestyle from the standpoint of the ones left in its wake was great, and the theme was continued in the Rose/Mickey interaction.

I'm going to have to stop reading the Doctor Who fanboards. It seems the episodes that get the most buzz are the ones I find to be typical genre fare, and the ones that get panned are the ones I find most intriguing.

~Cyn

Edited by Cyncie, 20 May 2006 - 04:12 AM.

[DWF]

Cyncie, on May 20 2006, 05:10 AM, said:

Quote

Anyway... "Boom Town."  This was a hell of an episode, nothing like I expected.  The followup to a fairly mediocre, comical two-parter turns out to be one of the most unusual, deep, thought-provoking Doctor Who stories ever told.  This is a classic illustration of the way Russel Davies is being true to the spirit of the series while also looking at it critically, challenging its conventions and filling in its gaps.

I'm with Christopher on this one. For all the raving over The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances, I found them to be fairly stock horror genre stuff. Well done enough, but a bit too Stephen King for my personal tastes.

I'm going to have to stop reading the Doctor Who fanboards. It seems the episodes that get the most buzz are the ones I find to be typical genre fare, and the ones that get panned are the ones I find most intriguing.

~Cyn

The two parter Christopher is refering to is Aliens Of London/World War III not the last two eps.  

[Cyncie]

I know that. I was referring to the difference in the general consensus fan opinion vs my own. Everyone loved TEC/TDD, I didn't. Everyone hated Boom Town. I didn't.

~Cyn