Doctor Who (Season 2) "Love & Monsters" (Spoilers)

[HellCat]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/casarbi/dw.jpg
Doctor Who Series 2: Episode 10
Love & Monsters
Written by Russel T. Davies
David Tennant and Billie Piper
Saturdays, BBC 1 - 7.00pm

The Doctor is an enigma through history, leaving little clue to his identity. Some who do know of him seek to find him for their own curiousity. Others have more sinister motives...

Watch the TARDISODE prequel! (http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/tardisodes/)

[HellCat]

I generally liked this episode, nice shake up. My only complaint....what the hell was with the ending?! If The Doctor couldn't bring her completly back why bother? Life as a paving slab...

[Conan-san]

"He always looked grim, saying things, this exact face made my head real"
"But he's gone now, the Doctor"
(Paraphrased Exceprt from "Boogiepop and others")

This episode pulled me right back into the time during easter that I was reading Boogiepop and others, the whole time, the Doctor is this figgurehead, this agent of distruction that only appears to cause final chaos and right the world again.

But this was a fantastic episode I felt.

Peter Kay, well, he was better untill he went Cell on us, that's all I say to that.

The ending? Well, I thought it was to suit the younger audiance, realy. The epiosde for me ended after the mother rememberance part, but damn that was depressing.
Let's concider a few things, if it had ended at that white out, I felt it would of been the best Doctor Who episode this season on the acount that it document's the Doctor's "Agent of Death" Status to a T, but then again, it probably would of left a very sour taste in the mouth of the viewing majority and I can understand why Davis extanted it beyond the Melocoly.

[MonkeyFunk]

The ending did let things down a little, what with the Abzorbaloff's slightly pat death, and as for the paving slab... well, maybe this would have been better off as another "everybody lives" dealy. But other than that this was definitely one of the better single-parters of the season.

[IanC]

i really liked it. It was so different, yet it still felt like Who :)

[James]

The silly intro with the farcial running around corridors really set the story off on the wrong foot. It did get better. Good on Who for doing something different again. How different to The Satan Pit? Kaye was wonderful. I love the way his "true form" just reverted Kaye into pure Northerner. I love the way his planet is one syllable - it just seemed to epitomise the real life difference between the more rooted North to the more elaborate South. Lots of fun, if patchy in places.

[Conan-san]

Oi, don't diss the Scooby Doo Chase scene, it's funny.

[HellCat]

I'd agree that this was an episode where the camp and comedy elements generally worked. The ending's the only thing I really have problems with since it seems cruel to her and after Elton spends the episode trying to convince us he's not an alien obsessed nutjob, he goes and keeps an immortal face for a lover.
Kaye was brilliant as expected (hence why he gets the poll) and you could tell he loved getting to run around in costume. Like SJJ pointed out, his true form was a great poke at the old North vs South and I liked how they worked in the name the kid who designed it gave it.

Next week's episode...well, looks like a bit of fluff before we hit the 2-part finale.

[James]

Outpost Gallifrey is like a war zone of pro and con fans. I wish Who fans would remember that this show is for a spectrum of viewers - not just them.

I take back the running issue at the beginning. As a fan just pointed in OG, that's just the narrator's interpretation. I missed that. What a goof.

[Conan-san]

I take back the running issue at the beginning. As a fan just pointed in OG, that's just the narrator's interpretation. I missed that. What a goof. Oh hell! I Just totaly missed that point!

[Wussycat]

I was hoping that they wouldn't pull a deus ex machina and have those people survive, but now I'm wishing they did. :shrug:

Two questions:

Why did the bucket have to be a specific colour?

What's going to happen to Elton's girlfriend when he dies of old age?

[James]

Oh hell! I Just totaly missed that point!

Good boy. Not just me.

[Conan-san]

I was hoping that they wouldn't pull a deus ex machina and have those people survive, but now I'm wishing they did. :shrug:

Two questions:

Why did the bucket have to be a specific colour?

What's going to happen to Elton's girlfriend when he dies of old age? A) It wasn't the bucket, it was the content of the bucket that was to be a clour

b) Curse of the doctor, mate.

[IanC]

Outpost Gallifrey is like a war zone of pro and con fans. I wish Who fans would remember that this show is for a spectrum of viewers - not just them.
Popcorn thread and Squee thread, they are the safe havens over there right now, in that section.

(some of the comments have been down right disgusting)

[James]

Popcorn thread and Squee thread, they are the safe havens over there right now, in that section.

(some of the comments have been down right disgusting)

It is embarassing how rude some of the threads across the net have been simply because it deviates from "traditional Who". It's quite amazing how such a liberal idea for show is embraced by such single minded fandom. To my further surprise, quite a homophobic fandom in some areas (I tire of waffle about RTD's gay agenda, drama queen stories etc etc). It's not OG (I want to make that clear, it's net fans in general, it just so happens IanC, myself and others frequent OG as a point of reference) - it's just a minor but vocal element of fandom which is spread out across the net. I've seen far worse at the BBC forums.

[Conan-san]

And here I was thinking it was the show we're supposed to be rating, not the dood's sexual prefernce.

[The Guitar Slayer]

I liked that ep. I wouldn't go nuts over it like I did for GitF (which is, I think, the best single-parter this season), but I wouldn't relegate it to the trash heap like I would 30 out of the 45 minutes of Rise of the Cybermen.

I think I fall into the camp of "it isn't a Who ep without the Doctor." I wouldn't want them to do another ep like this for a few seasons, and I think it's a little oddly placed considering "THE NEWS" that has come out; I would have put this earlier in the season after Girl in the Fireplace, and it would have meshed well with the whole "What happens when the Doctor enters and leaves your life?" theme. This would have been a better time for build-up.

I wonder if LINDA and Lynda-with-a-Y have anything to do with each other.

I caught the "Bad Wolf" virus Mr. Kennedy mentioned; very clever reference to Rose spreading herself across time and space, deleting more or less any trace of Rose and replacing it with Bad Wolf and--

.....

I think that just became my pet theory for the finale, other than Peter coming back from the dead and the Doctor having to kill him again, making Rose leave the Tardis. Killing the inlaws -- generally bad.

[James]

I wouldn't want them to do another ep like this for a few seasons...

Your wish is their command. This is a back to back episode with The Satan Pit. The schedule - as with last year - was 13, but they had a 14 episode season, so one episode had to be fitted around that 13 episode production schedule. As such, this was done back to back with episode 9 and thereby had little of Tennant and Piper. Season 3 will have this same production schedule, so I expect another Doctorless episode next year.


I wonder if LINDA and Lynda-with-a-Y have anything to do with each other.

LINDA was a group RTD had on a UK kid show he produced called Why Don't You? Annoying show. They were a rival gang. The commentary on the BBC website explains all.

[The Guitar Slayer]

Your wish is their command. This is a back to back episode with The Satan Pit. The schedule - as with last year - was 13, but they had a 14 episode season, so one episode had to be fitted around that 13 episode production schedule. As such, this was done back to back with episode 9 and thereby had little of Tennant and Piper. Season 3 will have this same production schedule, so I expect another Doctorless episode next year.
That's more like the "Corrupt-A-Wish" game on F&G. meep. It's one of those things where I think this should have been earlier in the season. Given what this is building up to, you'd think they'd just ride the waves on it rather than taking a sudden detour. This ep could really take place at any time after Christmas; why did it have to be in the middle of this season's crescendo? Even if it was filmed alongside Satan pit, production order is not always airing order.

[James]

That's more like the "Corrupt-A-Wish" game on F&G. meep. It's one of those things where I think this should have been earlier in the season. Given what this is building up to, you'd think they'd just ride the waves on it rather than taking a sudden detour. This ep could really take place at any time after Christmas; why did it have to be in the middle of this season's crescendo? Even if it was filmed alongside Satan pit, production order is not always airing order.

Depends on the production. Generally - like many shows - Doctor Who runs it's production blocks in order; with a set number of episodes worked on within that block. Naturally those episodes are ones which are close to each other in airtime. Within that block, the order of production isn't concrete (obviously). I think the fact this ran right after The Satan Pit and was back to back is co-incidence so far as the block goes. Yes, this was done in the same block of episodes, but no it doesn't mean within that block that this episode HAD to follow The Satan Pit. I guess my messed up point is that the production is done roughly in the airing order, with the production blocks.

I don't think it was a bad placement. It's pretty much in the calm before the storm part of the arc - similar to Boomtown. We've had the intense Satan Pit, this brings the humour back in before the next major run. I think it makes sense to bring things back down before rising to the crescendo.

[Stewie]

Boo. The goofyness I can take. But I was distracted by the grossness.

I could take only seeing The Doctor and Rose in pictures if the episode added to the story outside of them. If we had gotten more than just a reference to Torchwood, more than just some especially weird alien, it might have been worthwhile. This wasn't that.

Despite all this, I did enjoy it. It is Who after all. There were some laughs. But giving up The Doctor wasn't worth what we got. And the "Absorbaloff (?)" was gross. And Ursula's final form offered grave implications. I could have done without the comment about their "love life."

[James]

And Ursula's final form offered grave implications. I could have done without the comment about their "love life."

I was vaguely amused by the ending; the average guy proving he wasn't quite as.. normal or mundane as we thought.. but personally, I think the play out on the mother disappearing in the park was a better coda to the whole story. I think I'd have made my cut there and filled out the story.. or swapped that mother fade out for after the love life comments and ended on a gentle note.

[The Guitar Slayer]

Yeah. Mommy issues are fun to end an ep with. Then again, in that same line of conversation, we also got that good closing speech.

The Absorbaloff was designed by a contest-winning kid on Blue Peter, a British kids' show. The drawing wasn't Picasso, but he had his concept down pretty well. So yes, if you have nightmares, credit young William from Essex. ;)

[Stewie]

I was vaguely amused by the ending; the average guy proving he wasn't quite as.. normal or mundane as we thought.. but personally, I think the play out on the mother disappearing in the park was a better coda to the whole story. I think I'd have made my cut there and filled out the story.. or swapped that mother fade out for after the love life comments and ended on a gentle note.For whatever reason, I didn't really latch on to the lost mother story. Just didn't pop for me. As I was watching his revelation, my mind wandered to other things until the cut away from the park.


The Absorbaloff was designed by a contest-winning kid on Blue Peter, a British kids' show. The drawing wasn't Picasso, but he had his concept down pretty well. So yes, if you have nightmares, credit young William from Essex. ;)It wasn't the look, it was the sound. I've never found a valuable use of fart sounds.
Thinking back, I'm a little creeped out by the monster now. The body reminded me of John Leguizamo in Spawn, the face of Howie Mandel in Little Monsters (shudder), and I also got a Tim Curry as Pennywise the Clown vibe.
EDIT: Oh, and Fat Bastard.

Oh, and that sounded like techno-babble when the Doctor was saving Ursula. There hasn't been much of that before, has there? It seemed out of place.

[HellCat]

The mother storyline fell flat for me, mainly because some promotional stuff made it sound like we'd know about her from the get go (I ended up assuming the info was wrong) and it was just rather thrown in at the end "I was at your house to remove a monster, but couldn't save your mother". If the answer to Elton's quest had received more focus than it would have worked for me. Definetly deserved the time more than Miss paving slab.

[James]

The mother storyline fell flat for me, mainly because some promotional stuff made it sound like we'd know about her from the get go (I ended up assuming the info was wrong) and it was just rather thrown in at the end "I was at your house to remove a monster, but couldn't save your mother". If the answer to Elton's quest had received more focus than it would have worked for me. Definetly deserved the time more than Miss paving slab.

That will teach you to watch the teaser.

[HellCat]

That will teach you to watch the teaser.

Eh? I heard about the mother from an interview the BBC posted last week...that said, who DIDN'T know who was the Abzorabaloff going into this?

[James]

Eh? I heard about the mother from an interview the BBC posted last week...that said, who DIDN'T know who was the Abzorabaloff going into this?

Me. Knew nothing about it all.

[Conan-san]

Eh? I heard about the mother from an interview the BBC posted last week...that said, who DIDN'T know who was the Abzorabaloff going into this?Yo!

[Stewie]

Eh? I heard about the mother from an interview the BBC posted last week...that said, who DIDN'T know who was the Abzorabaloff going into this?And Stewie makes three.

[HellCat]

And Stewie makes three.
Wait a minute, you don't live in England...you get off on a technicality!

(Additionally, 24+ hours is an awfully long wait to be able to even just look at a forum...Outpost Gallifrey needs to speed up)

[Stewie]

Wait a minute, you don't live in England...you get off on a technicality!But you people have my heart. Does that count for something?