I am – Hercules!!
The BBC hired the guy who created “Queer As Folk” to write a whole bunch of new “Doctor Who” episodes. They’re now airing every Saturday night in the United Kingdom, and the ninth aired a few hours ago.
“Celtican” says:
What’s it called?
‘The Empty Child’
Who’s it by?
Steven Moffat
What’s it about?
The Doctor and Rose arrive in London, 1941 during the Blitz after chasing a distress beacon. The Doctor's public call box receives a call and Rose gets rescued by fellow time traveller Captain Jack Harkness. The Doctor meets a young woman called Nancy who feeds her group of 'adopted' children by sneaking into houses whilst the owners are sheltering in their Anderson shelters. Nancy helps the Doctor locate the distress beacon which is being guarded by the military but before seeking it out meets Doctor Constantine played by Richard Wilson. Constantine allows the Doctor to examine his patients who have some very strange symptoms, gas mask faces and a strange mark on their wrists. Constantine explains this as plague and soon it becomes clear that he himself is infected. Harkness and Rose meet up with the Doctor and a little explanation is in order.
The Good
A great period piece. The costumes, the sets, the little attentions to detail. Fantastic!
The Doctor unintentially does stand up comedy and Rose accidentally takes off with a barrage balloon during an air raid.
The moment Rose stupidly lifts off with a barrage balloon introduces us to the wonderful CGI work on this episode. The view of London under attack is just...well the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end!
The creepy masked 'empty' child calling 'mummy!' and Constantine's patients rising from their beds.
John Barrowman oozing charisma as the American RAF volunteer Jack Harkness. (Where would a WW2 story be without an American!)
Nice continuity touches, especialyl the Doctor revisiting a 1940's
Albion Hospital (as seen in 'Aliens of London')
Constantine's transformation scene.
'Mr. Spock?'
The Bad
Apart from news that Billie Piper is leaving next season not a lot.
The BBC censored this episode due to it being too scary so I guess we'll have to wait for the dvd.
Rose's overuse of the word 'Spock' to define anything sci-tech.
The episode's pace seems a little slow but considering it's a two partner, it can be forgiven.
Richard Wilson deserved more screen time!
'Doctor Who?'
How does it end?
Our heros find themselves in a tight corner.
Rating
I give it **** out of ***** (4/5)
Part 2 next week. 'The Doctor Dances'
“Zoe F” says:
Dr Who Episode 1.9
The Empty Child (part 1 of 2)
Written by Steven Moffat
Plot
The Doctor and Rose chase a U.E.O (Unidentified Evil Object) through space/time to London in 1941. Here they encounter an evil gas mask wearing mother obssesed child/zombie/mutant and also a fellow time traveller Captain Jack Harkness (played by John Barrowman). All manner of high jinks involving blimps, gas masks and creepy mother obsessions ensue.
Hoorah another cliffhanger. This episode has been in the news this week because it had to be edited due to the sound effects department getting a bit too enthusiastic with their 'skull cracking' sounds and the possibility that it may scare small children (not any of the little buggers i know it wouldn't).
**Spoilers**
Captain Harkness turns out to be a con artist who lured the Doctor to Earth, using the UEO (or Trula War Ship) as bait, as he thought that the Dr was a Time Agent (whatever the hell that is) and he could sell the 'war ship' to him then destroy it before the Dr realised it was in fact a Trula Ambulance. Unfortunately the Ambulance was harbouring an alien virus which mutates human dna and, through some groovy morphing (and sad lack of bone crunching), transforms human heads into gas masks and said humans into the mother obsessed zombies. The key to this virus seems to be the small gas mask-headed child that is chasing a homeless girl called Nancy. This child was originally Nancy's brother but was killed/mutated when the Ambulance crashed to Earth. At the end of the 1st episode the Dr, Rose and Capt Jack (the apparently Bi-Sexual American Con Artist) are trapped in a hospital surrounded by the gasmaskheads, who are walking towards them crying 'mummy, are you my mummy'. Seriously Freud would have had a Field day with this episode. Nancy is also trapped in a house with the small gasmask headed brother/mutant thing.
Good
* The morphing sequence involving Richard Wilson's head and a gas mask. Even minus the cracking noises this was unpleasant.
* Rose sailing across the London skyline hanging from a bit of string attached to a blimp.
*The many Spock references
* THERE'S AN AMERICAN IN IT NOW. So a US station can pick it up without the fear of the 'what do i know about british things with all british people in' backlash they seem to be afraid of. And eff off about the special effects, the vampires in buffy were just people with bumpy plastic heads for God's sake!
Bad
* Didnt see enough of the Dr in this episode, was too focused on Rose fancying the pants off Captain Jack Swings-both-Ways
* Bloody cliffhangers grrrrr.
Looking forward to the future episodes when Captain Jack (not Sparrow, sadly) goes off Rose and chats up the Doctor...............could he be the Master?
“DVDMike” says:
"like a mouse fighting a lion"
The Doctor and Rose visit England during the Blitz in the 1940's.
b: 21-May-2005 w: Steven Moffat d: James Hawes
NOTE: Described in the The Radio Times Doctor Who special as : "Richard Wilson stars as a doctor (No,not THE doctor) in this two parter set during the Blitz".
Or dvdmikes description : "the one where sky captain meets Jacobs ladder"
What has the doctor and rose gotten into this week
dvdmike :
Well they arrive in London 1941 during the blitz
looking for alien tech.
Rose the "stupid ape" that she is goes wondering off
when she See's a child whit a gas mask looking for his
"mummy".
For no good reason i can see Rose climbs a balloon and
ends up over London during an air raid.
She is spotted by (a very typecast)yank fly-boy who
proceeds to pull her in via a tractor beam.
After much flirting it transpires that he has a
spaceship and is from a future of some sort, he is
offer to Rose and her companion "Mr Spock" a warship
he stole and parked in London.
The doctor bumps into a homeless girl who warns him
not to answer his non connected now ringing tardis
phone.
She is the head of a group of homeless children who
during air raids go into abandoned houses and eat the
half eaten meals.
this meal is interrupted by the same gas masked child
asking for his Mummy.
The doctor follows her and is told to see "the doctor"
and is shown the hospital and the alien bomb.
The doctor in question is the last remaining member of
staff of the Gothic looking Albion hospital,
he shows the doctor one of the wards full of hundreds
of people with "psychical injuries as plague" and gas
masks fused to their faces.
We notice that the cut on the patients hand is also on
Richard Wilson's doctors hand and after he tells the
doctor that the homeless girl knows more than she is
letting on (a person died when the alien bomb landed
this was her brother),a gas mask grows from his face
and he wants his mummy too.
Rose and the fly boy turn up as the gas masked natives
turn restless, across town the homeless girl goes back
for more food and is accosted by the gas mask child
who we find out is her brother.
we end on a cliff hanger as the infected move in.
Whats good:
The effects on the whole fit together well.
The doctor saying that the children taking food during
the blitz is "Marxism in action of a west end musical"
The night of the living dead style chanting and slow
moving infected people (stick that Danny Boyle)
Whats bad:
The way rose always runs off EVERY TIME grrrrrrrrrrrrr
There is no feeling of dread form the blitz there is
almost no weight to it.
What does the BBC web site say :
NOTE FOR PARENTS: This is the scariest episode of
Doctor Who yet... but it's also quite, quite
brilliant. Harry, Samuel and Adam all enjoyed being so
frightened, but Amy was too scared to sleep alone
after it. No one had nightmares. Both sets of parents
have suggested that, if you're concerned, tape the
episode, and watch it with children during the
daytime, or, at least, a long time before bed.
I am dvdmike and my grammar sucks ass i thank you.
“SuperToysLast” says:
Doctor Who 27.9
What's it called?
The Empty Child
Who's it by?
Steven Moffat
What does the Radio Times say?
At the height of the Blitz, Rose meets the dashing Captain Jack Harkness.
The verdict?
The Tardis is chasing after an object moving through the timestreams. It leads them to London during the Blitz. While the Doctor attempts to discover more about the object, Rose wanders off to try and help a child seemingly in distress. She ends up getting stuck on a barrage balloon during an air raid but is rescued by a time traveller who has assumed the name of Captain Jack Harkness. He is a time-travelling conman trying to pass off an ambulance as a rare warship which he hopes to sell to Time Agents.
Meanwhile, the Doctor discovers that the ambulance/warship crashed near a hospital, killing the younger brother of Nancy - a girl who looks after children made homeless during the war. But some kind of virus has spread throughout the hospital from the ship and everyone who is infected gains the same injuries suffered by Nancy's younger brother. Including a strong desire just to find his mummy.
This is a well-paced episode, creating an effective set-up for a second part which will hopefully build on what has come before. Not a great deal of action or plot in this first part - just plenty of good scene-setting. The BBC were exaggerating when they claimed it to be the scariest episode yet - only scary for the youngest of children, I feel. Any gut-wrenching sound effects which have been cut out should have been left in.
Rose continues her habit of flirting with every man she meets - this time with a conman posing as a smarmy American. He claims to be an ex-Time Agent, but this may be a lie. It is not explained who exactly the Time Agents are, though. But his space/time-ship from the future does provide some of the "Spock" that Rose has been hoping for. After all, the Doctor doesn't scan for alien technology. Disappointingly for Rose, he just prefers to ask people!
The atmosphere od wartime London was effectively recreated. This joins The Unquiet Dead for being all the more effective by being set in the past. The special effects of bombing raids over London are superb and Murray Gold proves that he can provide some decent music when called upon to create atmospheric music in a period setting, rather than the usual irritating background music he normally churns out.
I enjoyed this episode and hope that part two delivers on its potential. Maybe in future episodes we will find out if Jack Harkness is more or less than he claims to be. And it is good to see the tradition of the companion wandering off being revived!
Supertoyslast's rating for Doctor Who 27.9?
****
“Gerald the Dalek” says:
GREE-TINGS ONCE A-GAIN YOU SHA-VEN SI-MI-ANS!!!!!! GE-RALD IS MOST HAP-PY TO-DAY!!!!!! GE-RALD HAS HIS FIRST PET SINCE HE AC-CID-ENT-AL-LY IM-PLO-DED THE CAT!!!!!! I WAS MAK-ING MY WAY THROUGH THE NORTH OF THIS TINY DAMP IS-LAND THEY CALL THE U.K. AND JUST HAD TO PICK UP A SOU-VEN-IR!!!!!! ITS NAME IS DAN!!!!!!! AS I WAS A-BOUT TO BE-GIN THE IN-TRO-DUC-TORY PRO-BING CUS-TOM-ARY TO THE DA-LEKS I RE-CEI-VED THE NEW WHO BROAD-CAST!!!!!!!!! THIS LAN-KY LIT-TLE LUMP OF OO-ZING FLESH AC-TU-AL-LY LIKES THIS AC-CUR-SED PRO-GRAMME, AND IT WAS ON-LY HIS PRAISE FOR MY VAST-LY SU-PER-I-OR PER-FOR-MANCE IN ‘DA-LEK’ THAT PRE-VENTS ME FROM VI-O-LA-TING HIS IN-FE-RI-OR MIND!!!!!!!! BE-HOLD – THE MON-KEY SPEAKS!!!!!!!
Well this is all I bloody need. There I was, queuing up outside my local chippy in Blackpool when all of a sudden the majority of its occupants were vaporised, and I found myself kidnapped by a randy Dalek with a worryingly greasy looking probe. Now I’m its bloody pet! Still, it could be worse – you should see the state of Adam’s cranial implant. Bet his warranty’s void on that…
So this weeks episode of Who was one of the best yet – sort of Oliver Twist meets Dawn of the Dead. It involves The Doctor and Rose tracking an unusual space craft to London in 1941 at the height of the Blitz. Not to give too much away but it’s pretty damn creepy in places – there’s this little dead kid with a gas mask for a face looking for his ‘mummy’ that’s re-writing the DNA of everyone it touches…
There’s also a new time traveller posing as an American soldier that Rose takes quite a shine to (she’s certainly making her way through the fellers recently – I think the mild Piper obsession that both me and my shiny new phonetic friend have in common is saving me from quite a vigorous probing) but he might not be all he seems… (don’t get too excited though – he’s not a Time Lord!)
Other highlights? The Tardis phone rings! Britain gets a big up from big ears! The Spock references! The increasingly snappier dialogue! This is miles better than the last two parter! There’s no fart gags!
All in all I’d give this one 8.8 out of 10! Next week’s looks just as good – assuming I’m still here and in one piece to see it…
A-DOR-A-BLE IS-N’T IT?!?!?!?! ITS TI-NY CRUDE BRAIN AM-U-SES ME!!!!!! PER-SON-AL-LY THERE WAS NO WAY NEAR E-NOUGH EX-TER-MIN-A-TION FOR MY TASTE BUT AT LEAST AT-TEN-TION WAS DRAWN TO THE DOC-TOR’S LU-DI-CROUS-LY O-VER-SIZED EARS AND NOSE ONCE A-GAIN!!!!!!!! AND IT IS GOOD TO KNOW THAT ROSE HAS AN EX-CEP-TION-AL GRIP!!!!!!!!!!!!! AN EX-TER-MIN-A-TION RA-TING OF 63 PER-CENT IF ONLY FOR SEE-ING A MAN GROW A GAS MASK OUT OF HIS FACE!!!!!!!
UNTIL NEXT TIME FEE-BLE CREA-TURES!!!!!!!!
GERALD (AND HIS NEW FLESHY PLAY THING DAN!)
