Film Daze

The weird series for me is three. I remembered liking it more than I did. I think by now things got too old. The Dalek’s for example. They aren’t frightening if they show up for two or more episodes every series. That and they’ve never been as frightening as other creations. They seem to become a joke to often.

Anyways, apart from the tease of Catherine Tate as Donna, Freema Agyeman becomes the Doctors companion in episode two. The dynamic between the two is interesting, but I think they did too good of a job. The Doctor doesn’t “notice” Martha and the writers do as well. She’s really not that interesting of a companion as she really does just get kinda tossed to the side most of the time. She has a family, which re-occurs throughout this series, but I could care less because Davies doesn’t develop that like he did with Rose. Martha Jones really becomes kind of pointless and I think that hurt the series overall. The companions tend to provide some subsistence to the shows plots and to the development of the Doctor.

Again some of the episodes seemed tired. A lot of it just seems like a set up and a number of the episodes are two parters which isn’t always a good thing.

Most people probably remember “Blink” from this series. For fans of Moffat, this is usually the defense for him being amazing. Again this episode is one where we really don’t se much of the Doctor or in this case Martha. The Weeping Angels are really fascinating and Carey Mulligan is a great actress so that all helps as well. It’s also an example of the show really attempting to focus more on horror elements, which Moffat tends to do quite well. It’s not about the timey-wimey science stuff. The science behind the angels really isn’t that important, because the episode is just kind of creepy, especially since the Doctor isn’t there to explain everything.

We also get to see the return of the Master, which for me means I will be forever taping the sound of his drums. It’s hard to resist if you’ve seen any of his episodes more than once.

Still, the series as a whole just lacked the punch the previous ones had and again the finale was a bit off for me. It’s essentially done in three parts since “Utopia” really ends up being tightly connected. That and the finale two episodes are just slow and again involve some grand scheme that’s more complicated than it needs to be. There are some brilliant moments and I loved seeing the Master, but it just got old and slow too fast for me. This is also where a lack of really caring about Martha doesn’t help either.

Definitely a low point for the series for me and thinking about it, apart from “Blink” and the Master, I don’t really feel like people talk about this series much.