Doctor Who Season 2 (28) Episode 3 Rewatch: School Reunion

[Straha]

Did you ever watch the old series of Doctor Who? And then do you remember ye olde Sarah Jane Smith, companion to the Third and Fourth Doctors who also made an appearance in "The Five Doctors"? Well she's back, and she has with her the best companion whom the Doctor ever had, K-9.

So watch! Watch as Mickey Smith, Sarah Jane, Rose, K-9 and the Doctor investigate a school whose grades are too good, students too attentive, and whose principal is just a bit too weird.



Also, the rating for Tooth and Claw is 3.1875, putting it just behind Stolen Earth in our grand list of comparative episodes.

[Thanas]

I liked it.

The main plot is, on its own, very weak (Bat people feed students chips so they can crack magic equation + Doctor runs into old friend). But the real focus isn't on the plot, but on the relationship of the doctor to his companions. And that part was very, very well executed.


Bits that I especially liked:
- Rose/Sarah Jane interactions. Just pure comedy gold and I like that they did not use the episode to show "x character is better than Y". Instead you had two equals going at each other and it was FUN.
- Elisabeth Sladen. I had never seen her before and yet her performance there made me look for the fourth series again.
- Tennant played extremely well in this episode and his chemistry, not just with Billie Piper but with Sladen as well was excellent.
- Dinnerlady Rose. (D: I'll have the crumble!" R: "I am so gonna kill you...")

Bits I disliked:
- K9. But maybe that is just me, a friend of mine loved it.
- The main plot with the stupid computer symbols.






In retrospect:

Rose: I thought you and me were- Well, I obviously got it wrong. I've been to the year 5 billion, right, but this.... Now, this is really seeing the future. You just leave us behind. Is that what you're gonna do to me?
The Doctor: No. Not to you.

*looks at Journey's End*

One more proof that RTD fails to remember his own facts or ideas about how the doctor should act. Oh no, we need more emoness.

[Thanas]

Ghetto edit: This one is a 4, obviously.

[Stark]

I pretty much agree with Thanas again. The Mickey-Rose-Doctor-Sarah chemistry was awesome, and we in particular get to see a new side to the Doctor as his nomadic lifestyle is explored in a new way. The plot itself is nonsense and would be entirely forgettable if Anthony Head hadn't been involved.

THIS is how you foreshadow a finale. Not by saying LOL SAXON LOL every episode.

[Straha]

I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but this episode was really good not because of a forgettable and, frankly, crappy plot riddled with plot holes and unused strings, but because of the fantastic chemistry between the actors. Tennant really sold the show here (I think this is the definitive out of Eccleston's shadow episode. With Girl in the Fireplace setting him on his own.), and the interplay between Rose and Sarah Jane, as well as with Mickey was just... fantastic. It made what would, with Donna or Martha, be a two or at best a three a very solid four. I also loved the return of K-9. There was just something so nice seeing him back in action, and it was almost reminiscent of "Pirate Planet" and the duel with the bird robot. There was a message that RTD could have taken home here as well. Of the two plots, the one that affected most people the most and really shook them up wasn't "THE UNIVERSE IN PERIL! DOCTOR TO THE RESCUE!" it was, "What's going to happen to Rose? How will the Doctor treat her in the future? And what does she mean to him?"

[Thanas]

There was a message that RTD could have taken home here as well. Of the two plots, the one that affected most people the most and really shook them up wasn't "THE UNIVERSE IN PERIL! DOCTOR TO THE RESCUE!" it was, "What's going to happen to Rose? How will the Doctor treat her in the future? And what does she mean to him?"

^That's the trouble when you have companions who are bad characters and/or played by bad actresses. Because nobody in the audience believes the doctor is in any real danger. It has to be the companion and the audience needs to be sympathetic to them.

[Stark]

And instead of beating the audience with a finished thought (ie, 'the Doctor's attitude to Rose is xyz') it simply raised the question; the Doctor is unable to clearly articulate his feelings, which is dramatically effective (and hilarious, as anyone who's tried to explain anything to a 19 year old girl can attest). This is even echoed in the finale, and then (I imagine) pretty much destroyed by the S4 finale.

[Thanas]

And instead of beating the audience with a finished thought (ie, 'the Doctor's attitude to Rose is xyz') it simply raised the question; the Doctor is unable to clearly articulate his feelings, which is dramatically effective (and hilarious, as anyone who's tried to explain anything to a 19 year old girl can attest). This is even echoed in the finale, and then (I imagine) pretty much destroyed by the S4 finale.

Not as much destroyed as rendered meaningless, I imagine. Anyone who has seen him act in Seasons 2/3 already knows how he feals, at least by the time of The Satan's Pit. Then, after Doomsday, S3 practically beats the viewer over the head with it that she is the love of his life.
And then, after all that buildup, there comes the shitfest that is Journey's End. And the resolution to the only storyline spanning the four seasons of NuWho is simply: "Off you go, be trapped in that other universe and btw, here is a copy of me that needs fixing. Oh, and don't think you have a choice in the matter." Hardly the acts of a man who was so fixated on a woman that even when he wiped his complete memory of every name of every person he ever knew (including his granddaughter), he still couldn't forget her name.

But then, that's RTD for you.

[Stark]

Well, I'm not sure if I agree with that, but that it's even left up to interpretation makes it 'good drama' instead of 'lazy exposition'. That he's got feelings he can't express for someone who basically saved him from post traumatic stress disorder and allowing his anger to turn him into someone else was cool and interesting; while it's obvious how he feels, School Reunion (and much of the S2 stuff actually, like the LOL GET A MORTGAGE faux pas) shows that he's really not sure about it and is still very unstable emotionally.

OH SHIT, CHARACTER DEPTH.

[Thanas]

^True that. We can't have that. The doctor has to have only three character issues - guns'r'bad, crazy manners and emoness. So decreed by the mighty RTD.

On a more serious note, I say we stop the debate about what the extent of his feelings in The Satan's Pit when we get to that episode. Otherwise I fear we will merely repeat ourselves there.

[Stark]

Don't you think that's funny, though? We can talk about chemistry and relationships for pretty much every S2 ep (even the fucking Wire) but later it's just 'lol Martha is bland' and 'zomg Donna is rude how edgy'.

I mean, we've got GitF and the first Pete's World eps. Can we say CHARACTER DRAMA?

[Thanas]

^It is indeed funny that even in the episode where Rose spends the majority of her time as a faceless puppet, she still has way more impact on the Doctor than the later companions. It also is sad at the same time. On its own the character of Rose is nothing special. It is just the actres that pulls it off, with a huge help from the supporting cast of Mickey and her mother.

The show really struck gold with Billie Piper. Freema Agyeman was just a bad actress and Catherine Tate got stuck with the most unsympathetic character ever to boot. Freema and Tate never could play as well off Tennant as Piper could. Also, the producers seem to have run out of ideas. I mean, they had fair warning that Billie Piper wasn't going to come back next season and the best they could come up with was.....bland, uninteresting character#2 who was just like Rose minus the wonder, compassion or chemistry.

It is a funny thing that we are doing the rewatch at the same time I am watching the DVDs with a friend of mine who never has seen who before. I wonder what his reaction will be to the S2 finale. He already needed convincing to watch after Eccleston quit (I pursuaded him with the fact that BP was still on board). I'll probably stop watching after Blink or Human Nature with him.

[Straha]

The show really struck gold with Billie Piper. Freema Agyeman was just a bad actress and Catherine Tate got stuck with the most unsympathetic character ever to boot. Freema and Tate never could play as well off Tennant as Piper could. Also, the producers seem to have run out of ideas. I mean, they had fair warning that Billie Piper wasn't going to come back next season and the best they could come up with was.....bland, uninteresting character#2 who was just like Rose minus the wonder, compassion or chemistry.

It wasn't that they were bad actors, per se. It was that they were given crap writing. Martha was fleshed out as a really interesting character premise, but after Smith & Jones that interesting character disappeared and became Rose Mk. II. If they'd given Martha a personality and made her assertive, someone who was a MD and wanted to go out and fix the universe, not just Earth it'd have been different. Or if they'd given her any sort of character development at all. Instead we got... nothing. When the script called for it she acted like Rose, and when it didn't she was blended into the background. Tate got the same treatment, only worse, her only real character development moment was Fires of Pompeii. Aside from that she was an unexplored untouched character until she was erased in what was an insult ever to her.

[Thanas]

^Which once again makes you wonder how such a drop in the quality of the writing could have happened. I mean, who left the writing staff to make such an impact?

Or maybe BP screwed Russell's long term plan over with her deciding to leave. But still, I cannot really believe that is the reason. What, so they ran out of good sidekicks because one actress left?

[Patrick Degan]

This one I could have wished for two episodes to develop. I mean, there's Elisabeth Sladen and Anthony Stewart Head, both on your show in the same story and you don't give them enough time to really stretch themselves? Ffinch was a good villain and played wonderfully by Head. And of course you've got the inestimable Lis Sladen, who's not only playing brilliantly off Tennant but also Billie Piper and Noel Clarke. An opportunity like that should have been mined for all it was worth.

[Ohma]

I'll echo the general consensus that this ep was good because of the chemistry between that chars involved. My only real quibble with the ep is that I think resurrecting K-9 at the end rather cheapened the emotional impact of his sacrifice. However, that's really minor and I did squeal when he reappeared at the end so...

[Straha]

^Which once again makes you wonder how such a drop in the quality of the writing could have happened. I mean, who left the writing staff to make such an impact?

Or maybe BP screwed Russell's long term plan over with her deciding to leave. But still, I cannot really believe that is the reason. What, so they ran out of good sidekicks because one actress left?

I think they took that RTD took the wrong lesson from the first two seasons. Take the Doomsday two-parter. I love it for the "This is not war! This is pest control!" line and for the character drama with Rose and the Doctor. The fact that "The whole dimension is in danger!" isn't one of those things that really got to me, especially because we'd seen hordes of Daleks before and knew that, with the Doctor around, they'd be utterly ineffectual. RTD looks at the ratings Doomsday gets and says "Wow! So the key to having great season endings is to threaten the Earth with perilous peril! And to have a main character going away as a subplot..." And because he's Producer, Script Editor and Writer in one person no one can tell him "No!"

So we get Last of the Time Lords where we see hordes of Toclafane in the sky exactly like the Daleks were in Doomsday and Bad Wolf, we see that the galaxy is at terrible peril and have the master give a teary goodbye to the Doctor when it's all over. And then we get Journey's End. Rather than say anything myself I'm going to quote RTD and let that stand for itself.

"This is so busy and so mental and so epic and universal in scale that of course you need two Doctors to solve it."

That's it really. I think that, in the throes of things they simply took the wrong lesson in what made good TV, and it cost them. Of course it didn't really, because looking at that Ratings Index BO posted in that other thread Journey's End was almost universally loved.

[Thanas]

That's it really. I think that, in the throes of things they simply took the wrong lesson in what made good TV, and it cost them. Of course it didn't really, because looking at that Ratings Index BO posted in that other thread Journey's End was almost universally loved.

Your theory makes sense. Yet why exactly did it get that huge a figure on the appreciation index. Was it the fanwank? Or does the public have no standards? (I honestly do not know how that index is compiled, so I have no idea).

[Straha]

That's it really. I think that, in the throes of things they simply took the wrong lesson in what made good TV, and it cost them. Of course it didn't really, because looking at that Ratings Index BO posted in that other thread Journey's End was almost universally loved.

Your theory makes sense. Yet why exactly did it get that huge a figure on the appreciation index. Was it the fanwank? Or does the public have no standards? (I honestly do not know how that index is compiled, so I have no idea).

Under BARB, viewing diaries were sent to 2,000 people on a panel made up of members of the public each week, with a further four panels consisting of 1,000 people each receiving diaries every four weeks. The BBC now uses a panel of up to 4,000 people. The members of the panels grade programmes from 0 to 10 and are also asked why they watched a particular programme. They are given three options:

* "Made a special effort."
* "Made some effort."
* "Because it was on."

The results are used to calculate a score between 0 and 100. The viewing diaries come with questionnaire booklets which can be tailored to ask questions of specific programmes or series. The BBC in particular has used this service to gauge the attitudes of younger people towards its programmes, as well as what members of the public were doing when watching, and their moods.

I poked around for an explanation of their methodology but I couldn't find one. So I don't know if the options weigh into the score or not. But, if not, I would guess that they just add up all the numbered answers and divide.

To give an idea of the disparity between their ranking of Journey's end and ours, if you multiply the data compiled in the rankings thread by twenty to give it the same 0-100 scale ours comes to a 38, and theirs is a 91. However, interestingly enough, if you do the same conversion to our average ranking of Doctor Who episodes (3.883) it comes out to 77.6, and the average BBC show on the AI recieves a 77. It's a fun quirk of the math, I think.

[Stark]

I'm sorry to say, but almost by definition most people don't have taste.

[Atavarius]

I'm sorry to say, but almost by definition most people don't have taste.

So true. Toss the barest of "stories" and throw in some fan wank (I'm looking at you Stolen Earth/Journey's End") and they rave about it.

I'll make this one short and say that I agree with the sentiment of this thread. Characters totally made this story since the villain plot was retarded to the extreme. I can't rate it quite as high as a four though, as I think they wasted Anthony Stewart Head. I'll agree that his performance as such a retarded villain was excellent, with better writing, he could have been much much better. So its a 3 from me.

It wasn't that they were bad actors, per se. It was that they were given crap writing. Martha was fleshed out as a really interesting character premise, but after Smith & Jones that interesting character disappeared and became Rose Mk. II. If they'd given Martha a personality and made her assertive, someone who was a MD and wanted to go out and fix the universe, not just Earth it'd have been different. Or if they'd given her any sort of character development at all. Instead we got... nothing. When the script called for it she acted like Rose, and when it didn't she was blended into the background. Tate got the same treatment, only worse, her only real character development moment was Fires of Pompeii. Aside from that she was an unexplored untouched character until she was erased in what was an insult ever to her.

I totally agree here Straha. One thing I'd like to add is how they tried to keep recreating the family chemistry and utterly failed. I've flushed alot of S3 and S4 out of my mind, so maybe I am off there, but it seemed they wanted the worrying mom again (with Martha's mom) which totally failed. They tried slightly changing with Donna's grandfather, but with how horribly they wrote that character, I often found myself liking him better.

[Revy]

I gave this a 4, for much the same reasons as everyone else. Great actors, great chemistry and character interaction, let down by a dodgey plot. Enjoyable to watch overall.

[Crazedwraith]

I voted 5. I usually hesitate to vote 5, simply because it implies a perfect episode and nothing is ever perfect but I think this is as close as it gets. Decent character work for all the characters involved on the backdrop of a decently fun alien adventure. What more could you want?

Though Anthony Head was a bit wasted, I remember people thinking at the time he'd have a made a good master. On reflection now he would have had to have been a lot saner version of the Master than Simms was. More in line with Jaccobi's pre-regeneration performance.

[Thanas]

Though Anthony Head was a bit wasted, I remember people thinking at the time he'd have a made a good master. On reflection now he would have had to have been a lot saner version of the Master than Simms was. More in line with Jaccobi's pre-regeneration performance.

Hmmm....I don't know. Head is best used as some sort of a Machiavellian genius and that isn't quite what I believe the master to be. I thought the part he played was perfect for him - a highly intelligent evil mastermind.

[Patrick Degan]

Though Anthony Head was a bit wasted, I remember people thinking at the time he'd have a made a good master. On reflection now he would have had to have been a lot saner version of the Master than Simms was. More in line with Jaccobi's pre-regeneration performance.

Hmmm....I don't know. Head is best used as some sort of a Machiavellian genius and that isn't quite what I believe the master to be. I thought the part he played was perfect for him - a highly intelligent evil mastermind.

No, Anthony Stewart Head could have worked as the Master, playing one much more in the mould of Roger Delgado's version of the character.