Well, Dodo is instantly irritating. The new companion comes flying put of the TARDIS, pokes around the alien environment, declares it like Whipsnade Zoo and then buggers off into the undergrowth. You ever get the feeling she’s going to end up being saved a lot? The more irritating part of her character is the speech – 1960’s northern colloquialisms creep in like “Gear”, which frankly I have never heard outside that episode of The Simpsons where they take the piss out of the Beatles. At least the BBC have the decency to recognize this and have The Doctor tell her off for her vernacular but she’s irritating all the same.
Anyway, to the story. I quite like the opening premise of this. Earth is buggered, humanity has fled and the whole of the human race has been reduced to the size of tiny cells to be transported. As well as two of every animal. And we’ve made friends with some rather random aliens who’ve come alone for the trip. And why not? Random aliens need love too.
The Ark concept is one that’s been used a few times since in science fiction (and before as well, I suppose, if you count the Bible…) but seems quite fresh in this context. And here, they’ve added in a harsh judicial system into the mix. We also have the idea of the strangers introducing the common cold into a futuristic society, who have never seen it before and so have no immunity to it. Again, this is something that has been done many times since but would have been fairly fresh I guess at the time (although, I suppose War of the Worlds beat it by about 60 years). But our heroes get arrested for basically being plague carriers, which is nice.
We have a bit of a daft trial but that soon gets ignored and The Doctor gets to work on a cure. Which, predictably, he finds and promptly cures everyone. And so, oddly, two parts into a 4 parter, the travellers leave the Ark but find themselves returning almost immediately. Or do they…?
In quite a nice twist (and with a very nice cliffhanger at the end of part 2) they rematerilise on the exact same spot but as they soon discover, 700 years later. As a plot device I love this. They get to see the future of their own actions and also get to see themselves as legends.
The still hilarious looking Monoids (aforementioned random aliens) have taken over the fresh-faced humans, however, which is impressive as they seem to trip over every 5 minutes. One would have thought a few swift boots to the backside would have been more than enough to defeat them. But the turnabout is quite good and the development (and discovery) on the planet they have been aiming for all this time is nice.
The main downside for me is that this story does (repeatedly) fall into the trap of people loudly explaining their plans while someone else happens to be listening. If The Monoids had kept their mouths shut they probably would have been fine. But they didn’t and the silly sods gave pretty much the whole game away. Actually, they don't have mouths but you take my point.
There’s a very confusing gun-fight as aliens that look exactly alike divide into two factions (that look exactly alike) and shoot each other. But you get the vague gist of who wins.
But then everyone resolves to live happily ever after and actually the resolution is fairly nice.
I quite enjoyed this. The game changer at the end of episode 2 was great, the Ark concepts and the distance they have to travel is nice and, best of all, by the end Dodo has stopped annoying me. Or, at the very least has made me want to see her voicebox removed from her marginally less. Good times.
Anyway, to the story. I quite like the opening premise of this. Earth is buggered, humanity has fled and the whole of the human race has been reduced to the size of tiny cells to be transported. As well as two of every animal. And we’ve made friends with some rather random aliens who’ve come alone for the trip. And why not? Random aliens need love too.
The Ark concept is one that’s been used a few times since in science fiction (and before as well, I suppose, if you count the Bible…) but seems quite fresh in this context. And here, they’ve added in a harsh judicial system into the mix. We also have the idea of the strangers introducing the common cold into a futuristic society, who have never seen it before and so have no immunity to it. Again, this is something that has been done many times since but would have been fairly fresh I guess at the time (although, I suppose War of the Worlds beat it by about 60 years). But our heroes get arrested for basically being plague carriers, which is nice.
We have a bit of a daft trial but that soon gets ignored and The Doctor gets to work on a cure. Which, predictably, he finds and promptly cures everyone. And so, oddly, two parts into a 4 parter, the travellers leave the Ark but find themselves returning almost immediately. Or do they…?
In quite a nice twist (and with a very nice cliffhanger at the end of part 2) they rematerilise on the exact same spot but as they soon discover, 700 years later. As a plot device I love this. They get to see the future of their own actions and also get to see themselves as legends.
The still hilarious looking Monoids (aforementioned random aliens) have taken over the fresh-faced humans, however, which is impressive as they seem to trip over every 5 minutes. One would have thought a few swift boots to the backside would have been more than enough to defeat them. But the turnabout is quite good and the development (and discovery) on the planet they have been aiming for all this time is nice.
The main downside for me is that this story does (repeatedly) fall into the trap of people loudly explaining their plans while someone else happens to be listening. If The Monoids had kept their mouths shut they probably would have been fine. But they didn’t and the silly sods gave pretty much the whole game away. Actually, they don't have mouths but you take my point.
There’s a very confusing gun-fight as aliens that look exactly alike divide into two factions (that look exactly alike) and shoot each other. But you get the vague gist of who wins.
But then everyone resolves to live happily ever after and actually the resolution is fairly nice.
I quite enjoyed this. The game changer at the end of episode 2 was great, the Ark concepts and the distance they have to travel is nice and, best of all, by the end Dodo has stopped annoying me. Or, at the very least has made me want to see her voicebox removed from her marginally less. Good times.