Doctor Who : The power of 3 [spoilers]

[mr friendly guy]

I am giving this a 3/5.

1. There were some obvious medical errors, but this is Doctor Who so its not that bad.

2. I got the feeling this was trying to evoke a feeling like Michael Crichton's Sphere, in the sense of mystery, ie what the hell are the cubes and whats its purpose. Well its purpose is to study and then kill us. Only problem was there is much more efficient ways to kill people rather than using the cubes. How about a bomb from space. The only saving grace is that the Shakti could have simply tried to kill humans and leave other life on Earth intact, hence they had to use such an elaborate way to do so.

3. The other let down was that for a race which even the Time Lords considered mythical and the pest controllers of the universe, they were quite lame. The Doctor defeated their technology with a deus ex machina (well the sonic screwdriver).

4. Yes, I realise that most of the episode is ideally character driven, and focussing on the relationship between the Doctor and the Ponds, and so people who like character driven (as opposed to plot) driven storylines more may enjoy it better.

5. Having Brian Cox guest star continues the fine NuWho tradition of getting scientists to show up, which RTD did with Richard Dawkins.

Please review and poll.

[Parallax]

Brian (as in Rory's Dad, not Cox) is awesome.

[Riquende]

Surprised this is scoring so highly to be honest. I was left scratching my head at the end. Why, when the Doctor was on board the ship bantering with the system interface, did he not make any effort to save the humans lying around on bunks? Sure, they could have been dead already, but as far as I can tell he didn't even check them to find out. For an episode that went out of its way to show us every single heart attack victim recovering (after however many hours of being dead), it was jarring that the Doctor just left all the abductees on the soon-to-be exploded ship.

Also relevant to that scene - where were the funny-mouthed guys when the Doctor was given carte blanche to wave the sonic screwdriver over the ship's computer? In fact, what were they? I guess androids, like the little girl, but if you're making androids to abduct people from earth why give them strange facial features?

That leads me to the abductions. Why were they happening at all? The obvious answer is to study humans, but wasn't the whole point of the cubes taking a year to do anything? The abductions seem to be a plot-convenient way for the Doctor to track... something... on his way to the ship, but I don't recall him even speculating as to why people had been abducted once there, he just saved the two people he knew. In fact, why wasn't Rory the least bit interested in them, being a trained medical professional?

Overall it feels like an episode that was either originally written as a 2 parter, or perhaps just one that overran by a 15 minutes, and when trying to decide how to cut it too much was removed from the last 5 minutes and not enough from the 'lol at the Doctor living with the Ponds for a bit'.

[DarkSilver]

This should have been a two parter.

It has the entire feeling that for the most part, the story was being rushed along (Asylum of the Daleks had a similar feeling - like the plot was supposed to go a different way and it got changed towards the end).

Lots of unanswered questions, and a too quick resolution. Also why the hell were the mysterious looking cubes not freaking everyone the fuck out at the beginning? I find it hard to believe people would just start collecting them and leave them laying around everywhere.....especially after a year.

[weemadando]

Yeah. It was a complete shambles of an episode. Lack of any discernible logic among either heroes or villains and what the hell was the big bad even about? Are they trying to set up a long term enemy or was this just a villain of the week with more ambition and shittily revealed backstory than most?

[Crazedwraith]

Well i was wondering through out the entire episode how they'd reached the title. Then that ending narration. Power of Three, how incredibly cheesy.

Aren't the pond's leaving soon? Are they just reaffirming the ponds want to be with the doctor forever just to twist the knife when they leave? They did something similar with Rose iirc.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Urgh. This was weak. It felt (as others have said) like it should have been a two-parter, but even that wouldn't have made it better methinks.

1. People collecting random cubes they find lying around? Interesting, I rather liked the news reports speculating about it beign a silent marketing campaign. But mainly, why woudl hospital staff leave them lying around a treatment ward?

2. The Tower of London bit. Again, interesting, but we already established UNIT has a base there, and it looked a lot nicer than this one.

3. The Brig's daughter was a nice part, but I feel she coould have been expanded on. Again, a two-parter might have helped with it.

4. Brian Cox? Sure, why not. It's just a pity he's a lot more of a twat in person than he is on TV.

5. The Doctor trying to live with the Ponds? Again, interesting, even if the random Hotel SAvoy seven-week trip was kinda unnecessary.

All told, I give it a 3. Some nice parts, some interesting ideas, but not followed up or executed well. Which, sadly, seems to be a major failing of this whole series so far. I hope UNIT and the Brig's daughter turn up again though.

[Starglider]

The characters were well written and the production design was good. Let down by the recurring problem with recent Doctor Who; the overall premise is shakey and the result is full of plot holes. The pulled-out-of-nowhere legendary enemy was defeated ridiculously easy by ten seconds of the Doctor waving his hands around, which destroyed any sort of menace or gravitas they might have had. Agree that it seemed truncated and might have worked better as a two-parter.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The enemy just seemed silly. Not to mention DW used this plot before with the Toclafane (Gallifreyan myths come to conquer the world). Been there, done that. This episode even had the "one year later" part as well.

[LadyTevar]

The cubes I saw from the beginning were a Maltese Falcon. This show was NEVER about the Cubes, it was all about daily life with the Ponds. So I wasn't disappointed at all with the resolution of the Cubes.

Now, the Life with Ponds, however... THAT was interesting
I liked seeing Rory as a ER Trauma nurse, and hearing that the hospital wanted him full-time. Amy has stopped modeling for the moment, and she's got friends outside of Rory and the Doctor. We get introduced to the Brigadeer's Daughter, who worked her way up UNIT on her own merits. We see Dad Brian is a fount of wisdom not just for Rory and Amy, but also someone the Doctor can confide in.

While I might have liked to see the adventures that happened those 7weeks, I think the brief "Well, that's that, we saved everyone" snippets worked well in showing the "Doctor Life/Pond Life" difference. That's why I voted this a 4. Lots of Character Growth. The Cube McGuffin was just another Maltese Falcon, setting the stage.

BTW: DarkSilver, your faults have answers you overlooked. When the Cubes appeared, the news-montage showed that people the world over were freaking out at the sudden appearance. UNIT (and presumably other national equivalents) took several weeks to calm people down. Thus Brian Cox's appearance. By the third month, the cubes were just another knicknack, trash on the street you walked around or put up out of the way.

BTW: Riquende: The Doctor told Rory and Amy 'get them out of here' before he started talking to the Shakti's Hologram. While he's talking, Amy and Rory are presumably using the distraction to remove all the humans back through the portal. Amy and Rory only return once the others are safe.

[DarkSilver]

Tev: I still find it odd that after almost a year, there were cubes just laying out on the streets. What about vehicles having to drive over them? Those things are a tire hazzard.....

Still, it WAS a good episode for character development: I'm pretty sure "A Town Called Mercy" took place during the "7 weeks" the Ponds were gone during the Dinner Party. It was probably the last "adventure" of that seven week time with the Doctor. That and it explains the whole "Left you're phone charger in Henry the 8ths bedroom" thing from "A Town Called Mercy" also.

Also, apparently Amy and Rory were with the Doctor and Companions as Ten Years, their reckoning. No wonder they were getting worried about aging compared to their friends. We're obviously missing something in these episodes - though they are suppossed to be stand alone, they are linked.

I guess we'll find out next week.

[Riquende]

BTW: Riquende: The Doctor told Rory and Amy 'get them out of here' before he started talking to the Shakti's Hologram. While he's talking, Amy and Rory are presumably using the distraction to remove all the humans back through the portal. Amy and Rory only return once the others are safe.

I'll have to give it a watch again then - I heard that as 'get him out of here' (referring to Brian), and when the Doctor told the Ponds to run I thought I saw people still lying down in the back of the shot.

[LadyTevar]

Good catch, DS! I totally missed that shout-out.

[Riquende]

You are right, the Doctor does say 'them', but it doesn't actually show Amy or Rory doing anything except saving Brian, and bodies can still be seen in the back of the room when the Doctor is waving the SS over the console.

Also, that's a minor quibble compared to: "Why the hell was anyone being abducted anyway?"

[PREDATOR490]

1 - It only gets that because they introduced UNIT in a positive light rather than the typical bullshit of the Military being evil... even though they went with that to some extent.
The story with the cubes was a joke that ruined the entire episode. From scary timelord myth... that gets waved away with the screwedriver to utterely retarded behaviour on the part of everyone involved.

All they did was give lip service to the notion of collecting the cubes rather than leave them in the open - I can understand it not being possible within a month but a year is plenty of time to enact programs to get them rounded up. The cube version of a bottle bank should work well enough nevermind the obvious hazards the cubes present. I am kinda amused at the idea of billions of cubes strong enough to resist being run over by a tank being left lying everywhere.
If it were me... I would be rounding those things up and making structures out of them rather than leave them sitting in the way. Its not like the humans of the Dr Who verse should be rather wary of strange shit causing bad things to occur... like it has for the entire NuWho nevermind OldWho.

Ponds - Yawn, bored now... can we just leave them alone without the melodrama bullshit. We spent ages on Amy and hint at her motherhood issues without any payoff or further information regarding River Song. We reduced Rory to being a punching bag of the series between bouts of utter awesome character moments and now have completely forgot it nor intend to actually show it. Thanks for fuck all.


Next Week - Weeping Angels + River Song + Ponds
Dibs on the Ponds getting transported back in time by the Weeping Angels and meeting the Doctor as old folks.
My magic melodrama bullshit metre also predicts the Doctor using technobabble to justify not being able to save them followed by the Doctor going into another emo phase.

Verdict: Good fucking riddance, if River Song gets transported back as well... oh wait... fuck.

[weemadando]

But baby weeping angels!

Fucking shit.

The next person to take over the reins should be told that they cannot use any previously existing characters or aliens for one whole season.

As shitty as the wrap up (aka River ex machina) for it was, the early Silence arc was interesting. New enemies, new tricks - until they weren't.

[PREDATOR490]

I am more forgiving on letting them use previously existing characters or aliens.... IF they fucking exist and have NOT been repeatedly claimed to NOT exist.

This is the same shit the Daleks went through with RTD... first it was no Daleks then four Daleks, then it was three, then it was one, then it was an army, then it was none... oh and now its three again... and now its five power rangers... then its an army again.. oh and a loony bin planet filled with Daleks from every era = Whatdafuq are you doing !?

The Angels - They worked wonders because they were a very interesting new villian within the narrow focus of the episode they were in. The attempts to revive them just end up screwing things up, especially when they seem to be obsessed with the one-up over previous appearances.

Oh, we had 4 angels the last time... I know what would be cool = An army of angels with baby angels
Wait... arent they supposed to be lone hunters that are afraid of traveling around each other incase they get stuck ?
Shush... we just make them zip around in the dark
Wait... arent they supposed to send people back in time which the first episode demonstrated can screw them up ?
Shush... we just make them snap necks and rip out throats...
Wait... anything that takes the image of an Angel becomes an Angel, so your gonna have New York become infested with Angels... ?
...
Uhm... tragic ending to Rory and Amy Pond, you will cry you heart out and River Song is in it.


I am not expecting anything less than complete shit from the next episode and I highly suspect Rory and Amy aint coming back to the father... this episode had far too much foreshadowy setup for the inevitable Doctor gets pissed because he promised to bring them back safely.

As for Angels - The city that never sleeps, filled with tourists, security cameras and any other kind of recording equipment and it is going to be 'policed' by Angels who zap you back in time. That is the most retarded setup I have ever heard of and I wont be surprised if Lady Liberty ends up being the Queen Angel.
Between the Daleks, Angels and this episode these feel like multi-part episodes that have been crushed into a single episode without any aftermath.
I am seriously hoping this is an intentional feature that will pay off later but thats what Victory of the Daleks felt like.

[weemadando]

The first Angels episode was a favourite because in addition to being very tightly scripted and with good characters, for once, in a show about a time traveller, they solved a problem with time travel.

[Ahriman238]

It rates a mighty 'meh' from me.

It feels like there was a great episode in here, struggling to get out, but there was too much left out or left dangling so we could have people's reactions to the cubes and the Ponds. I really did like the Doctor's little heart-to-heart with Amy, and the Brigadier's daughter.

I didn't like the villain, who emerges from Gallifreyan myth to do little, for reasons that are never explained. Why kidnap people, if your goal is the extermination of humanity? I will say that I MAY reconsider somewhat if this villain will be recurring and some of the mysteries get explained. Far better a foe than the Silence, a mysterious chessmaster who exists outside time and space, but can view all of it, screwing with time to meet his inscrutable objectives and, of course, to vex the Doctor. That seems like a worthwhile opponent for the Last Time Lord. It's not the villain we saw today, but it oculd be with very little retooling, and hopefully the unanswered questions went unanswered because Moffat has a plan for this guy, rather than because he's forgotten Writing 101.

I got the "power of three" thing right after the first time someone said the Earth had been "cubed." God, I'm such a geek sometimes.