And we're back to present day Earth for the first two-parter of the revival, and it's interesting to see how much has changed in the last ten years. You see, it's one of those episodes which have dated from its references and special effects, and was something that was bouncing off the success of countless other films and television shows which follow that motif. Many still do, but Doctor Who has toned it down since. In 2005, it was all the range, as seen already in End of the World with the 'iPod', but Aliens of London puts it front and centre with the various news reports and with incredibly dated special effects (the Big Ben shot, whilst still a marvel, is rather poor by comparison of modern effects).
Returning Rose (Billie Piper) back to her London home supposedly 12 hours after taking her of a trip of a lifetime in Rose, the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) realises that he got the timing wrong by about 8765 hours, and Rose is said to have been missing for about a year - with boyfriend Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke) being the lead suspect in the case. But with Rose now seemingly safely returned home alongside the man who mother Jackie (Camille Coduri) met once before. But just as things are starting to normalise, out comes a spaceship cruising through London and crashing into the Thames, with an alien body found and sent to a private hospital for analysis. Whilst the Doctor is initially pleased by the notion of first contact, he succumbs to curiosity to see what's going on - only to discover that the plot goes all the way down to 10 Downing Street, where the Prime Minister appears to be missing and a strange case of bottom burps is infected a number of people including acting Prime Minister Joseph Green (David Verrey).
As I've said before, this is an episode which hasn't aged well, what with the dated references to the likes of Andrew Marr presenting the news (with humorous results) and Matt Baker making a spaceship cake on Blue Peter. It also caters all too much to the child audiences - acceptable, but at an older age is rather garish - by having a prominent feature of the villains be farting. It's a new thing for the show, but something which doesn't fit the entire family demographic. The humour is that way in this episode as there's a lot of attempts but mostly failures, ranging from the farts to Mickey running into a wall. It dominates the actual story. That said, the writing by Russell T Davies is fine. Not great, and arguably not good, but not necessarily bad. In terms of what has been broadcast thus far, it's his weakest yet.
Performance-wise, there isn't any noteworthy acting. Eccleston seems to be breezing through this episode, leaving the bulk of the acting for Piper. Good thing though, as it leaves space for character growth and further expansion into her family unit. Coduri and Clarke finally manage to leave a mark onto the show and gives perfect reasoning for the expanded focus on the companion and her background. Outside of the Powell Estate is Harriet Jones (MP for Flydale North) played by Penelope Wilton, who still hasn't made a mark on the show yet, but leaves plenty of room for the second part for her character to grow, whilst the actual villains are classic pantomime villains. Nothing more, nothing less.
There's not much else to discuss for this first part, as the main bulk of the story is stored away for next week's World War Three. Whilst a few little hints to past and future are stored away, such as UNIT and future Torchwood member Toshiko Sato (Naoko Mori), and the inclusion of a Space Pig hoax is smart, the rest of the episode is just set up and some family time. Not bad, but not good. 5/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment