DW 5x09 - Cold Blood
May. 29th, 2010 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caz963Well. That was… a pretty fantastic final ten minutes.
I thought Cold Blood was another okay episode, but it was pulled up by its bootstraps in the last ten minutes or so. The actual plot was a bit too full of coincidences to be convicing. I mean, how fortunate was it that there happened to be a big-wig Silurian on hand who didn’t want to wipe out the apes, and who readily accepted the necessity to try to find a peaceful solution.
I can’t listen to Stephen Moore without hearing “Life. Don’t talk to me about life…”
This is a bit disjointed - random thoughts and observations, really.
Amy falling asleep during the negotiations was probably because she wasn’t the centre of attention.
Did Ambrose kill Alaya with a 9 volt battery? ‘s what it looked like to me.
I didn’t get why Ambrose was so dead set on her contingency plan. Everyone was alive down there, she’d seen her son was alive and all they had to do was go down and bring everyone back. I suppose she was worried about what would happen when the Silurians discovered that Alaya was dead, but… I don’t know, that part really jarred for me.
Again, very convenient thatMarvin Silurian big-wig whose name I've forgotten immediately suggests shutting down their city again by making all the warriors go back to their pods under threat of poison gas – and agrees to come back in a thousand years. I quite liked the part where the Doctor told everyone that it was up to them to spread the word and make sure that future generations were prepared for the fact that they’d have to share the Earth in the future. The power of words and prophecy.
And then… oh, Rory!! I’ve stayed fairly spoiler-free, but after I read the synopsis in this week’s Radio Times, I suspected he was going to die. Why, oh, why did they have to kill off the one character I’ve actually managed to warm to so far this series? Although he’s been absorbed by the crack… which is perhaps significant. (And means he'll be back, right?)
It’s the first time I’ve had a lump in my throat and tears pricking in my eyes this series – the bastards.
The scene afterwards in the TARDIS where the Doctor is begging Amy to remember was… I don’t know, it should have been epic and felt more emotionally charged than it did. I can’t quite find the right words to say what I want to – but I just felt it should have been more. Amy was hysterical – or supposed to be, but Gillan didn’t sell it. Eleven was… Eleven, focused on the job at hand, trying to make sure Amy didn’t forget Rory. We’ve seen this trait of his before – his “I know you’re about to die but shut up while I think”, so his actions made sense. He’s clearly emotionally repressed when it comes to being the last of his kind and all the other baggage he’s carrying – but he also tends to shove it all aside and sit on it while he tends to the business at hand, which is very much something that some of the Doctors in the Classic era did. Which means that it was down to Gillan to convince us of her distress and carry the emotionality of that scene – and she didn’t. Not that I’m all that surprised, because she’s just not all that good. Her “no pressure there, then” moment as she and Nasreen are about to commence negotiations made me want to throw someting at the telly. She has three expressions and two tones of voice – whiny and sarcastic.
When the Doctor and Amy are thrown to the floor in the TARDIS, there is a clear shot of the ring box in front of him, and you can see him looking at it – but nothing is made of it.
If that was Amy ten years in the future – why did she appear to be wearing the same outfit?
The bit with the broken TARDIS sign was creepy. Shrapnel, indeed.
Intriguing that the Doctor said that removing the human bacteria from his system would take away half the things that are keeping him alive. What??!
The use of the voice-over in this episode was strange – I wonder why it was used in this and not the first part. Unless it was to get in the line about all the Doctor’s losses - past, and yet to come. Looks like he's still a tragedy magnet.
Something of a timey-wimey nature occurred to me during the week. River Song remembers the opening of the Pandorica because she was there. So obviously, the Byzantium adventure is in her future at that point. SO. In F&S, she's already survived the opening of the Pandorica and knows the Doctor survived it. And she must know that before she meets him in ToA because she knows to send him the message and the co-ordinates to pick her up, because if she thought he was dead, she'd have (presumably) come up with another escape plan.
But that means WE know that the Doctor survives it, too, otherwise how can he be in her future?
Gah, my head hurts again now.
Wibbly-wobbly...
Oh - and some nice little references to All the Strange, Strange Creatures from Murray Gold, although the use of a cue from TRB whtn the Doctor put his hand into the crack made me grin.
I thought Cold Blood was another okay episode, but it was pulled up by its bootstraps in the last ten minutes or so. The actual plot was a bit too full of coincidences to be convicing. I mean, how fortunate was it that there happened to be a big-wig Silurian on hand who didn’t want to wipe out the apes, and who readily accepted the necessity to try to find a peaceful solution.
I can’t listen to Stephen Moore without hearing “Life. Don’t talk to me about life…”
This is a bit disjointed - random thoughts and observations, really.
Amy falling asleep during the negotiations was probably because she wasn’t the centre of attention.
Did Ambrose kill Alaya with a 9 volt battery? ‘s what it looked like to me.
I didn’t get why Ambrose was so dead set on her contingency plan. Everyone was alive down there, she’d seen her son was alive and all they had to do was go down and bring everyone back. I suppose she was worried about what would happen when the Silurians discovered that Alaya was dead, but… I don’t know, that part really jarred for me.
Again, very convenient that
And then… oh, Rory!! I’ve stayed fairly spoiler-free, but after I read the synopsis in this week’s Radio Times, I suspected he was going to die. Why, oh, why did they have to kill off the one character I’ve actually managed to warm to so far this series? Although he’s been absorbed by the crack… which is perhaps significant. (And means he'll be back, right?)
It’s the first time I’ve had a lump in my throat and tears pricking in my eyes this series – the bastards.
The scene afterwards in the TARDIS where the Doctor is begging Amy to remember was… I don’t know, it should have been epic and felt more emotionally charged than it did. I can’t quite find the right words to say what I want to – but I just felt it should have been more. Amy was hysterical – or supposed to be, but Gillan didn’t sell it. Eleven was… Eleven, focused on the job at hand, trying to make sure Amy didn’t forget Rory. We’ve seen this trait of his before – his “I know you’re about to die but shut up while I think”, so his actions made sense. He’s clearly emotionally repressed when it comes to being the last of his kind and all the other baggage he’s carrying – but he also tends to shove it all aside and sit on it while he tends to the business at hand, which is very much something that some of the Doctors in the Classic era did. Which means that it was down to Gillan to convince us of her distress and carry the emotionality of that scene – and she didn’t. Not that I’m all that surprised, because she’s just not all that good. Her “no pressure there, then” moment as she and Nasreen are about to commence negotiations made me want to throw someting at the telly. She has three expressions and two tones of voice – whiny and sarcastic.
When the Doctor and Amy are thrown to the floor in the TARDIS, there is a clear shot of the ring box in front of him, and you can see him looking at it – but nothing is made of it.
If that was Amy ten years in the future – why did she appear to be wearing the same outfit?
The bit with the broken TARDIS sign was creepy. Shrapnel, indeed.
Intriguing that the Doctor said that removing the human bacteria from his system would take away half the things that are keeping him alive. What??!
The use of the voice-over in this episode was strange – I wonder why it was used in this and not the first part. Unless it was to get in the line about all the Doctor’s losses - past, and yet to come. Looks like he's still a tragedy magnet.
Something of a timey-wimey nature occurred to me during the week. River Song remembers the opening of the Pandorica because she was there. So obviously, the Byzantium adventure is in her future at that point. SO. In F&S, she's already survived the opening of the Pandorica and knows the Doctor survived it. And she must know that before she meets him in ToA because she knows to send him the message and the co-ordinates to pick her up, because if she thought he was dead, she'd have (presumably) come up with another escape plan.
But that means WE know that the Doctor survives it, too, otherwise how can he be in her future?
Gah, my head hurts again now.
Wibbly-wobbly...
Oh - and some nice little references to All the Strange, Strange Creatures from Murray Gold, although the use of a cue from TRB whtn the Doctor put his hand into the crack made me grin.
