Sfdebris Reviews DW's "Gridlock"...

[Big Orange]

Here's the YouTube trailer:



And here's the review itself:

"Gridlock"

[El Moose Monstero]

Good review - I think the conclusion is about right, Gridlock is watchable, but speaking personally and in agreement with the review, is only memorable for the bookends. If I ever feel like I want to see those scenes again, I tend to youtube them, even though I actually have the dvd. This isn't one of the ones I'd choose to sit down and watch as a repeat from S3, even though I don't remember it being particularly obnoxious. Mind you, the list of repeat view episodes for S3 is thin, (Blink, Smith and Jones, Utopia). Was 42 any good? I can't remember anything about it, though I did watch it.

As much as I like the scene, though, the end bit with Abide with me did always seem a bit... easy? Like a big sign flashing saying 'be sad' to the audience. Which is odd, because the new series episode about Van Gogh was on recently, and I really enjoy the last ten mins of that episode, even though it is also using a real song as a giant sign / club saying 'here be emotional moments'. Has Abide with me been used in anything recently apart from 28 days later? Excluding the FA cup. It might be just a 'been done before' thing.

[Big Orange]

Good review - I think the conclusion is about right, Gridlock is watchable, but speaking personally and in agreement with the review, is only memorable for the bookends.

Also when the citizens trapped onboard started singing in unison. I think "New Earth" had more padding, followed by one memorable book-end moment (Cassandra dying for a second and final time). I agree with the review to a certain extent, but I prefer Chuck's recaps for Babylon 5 and Red Dwarf.

(Blink, Smith and Jones, Utopia).

And "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood"? "The Shakespeare Code" wasn't exactly an all time great, but also nice to see again a few years later.

Was 42 any good? I can't remember anything about it, though I did watch it.

"42" was on a red painted ship orbiting too close to sentient sun. Not the low point of Season 3, but yes, it was kinda bland. But then again Chibnal's "The Hungry Earth" and "Cold Blood" could be placed in a similar cubby hole; not extraordinarily awful, but still kinda mediocre and not outstanding if not for the final few minutes. And in S4 people have acclaimed Matt Smith's Doctor, the fresher story formula, and his new TARDIS interior, but at the same the newish Cushing style Daleks seem to have caused more a of a shitstorm in fandom than John Simm's excitable Master.

Anyway here's another video review of a RTD episode, "Love & Monsters", by Nash. "Love & Monsters" has a few defenders here (including myself) but he really, really hates it with the fiery passion of billion galaxies going supernova, his personal low point of NuWho so-far.

[Revy]

Anyway here's another video review of a RTD episode, "Love & Monsters", by Nash. "Love & Monsters" has a few defenders here (including myself) but he really, really hates it with the fiery passion of billion galaxies going supernova, his personal low point of NuWho so-far.

I gotta agree with him, "Love & Monsters" is my most hated Who episode of all time, at least out of the ones I have seen (and I've seen all of the nuWho epps). Honestly it was like the League of Gentlemen & Little Britain tried to do a Doctor Who episode, and I despised both of those shows already. About the only episode I can think of that even comes close to being as bad is "Fear Her", and the only thing I even remember about that was the utterly stupid thing about an alien kid erasing the entire planet earth by drawing it in crayon on her bedroom wall.

But yeah, I'd even rate Journey's End over Love & Monsters. At least I could laugh at the stupid in Journey's End. L&M just made me cringe.

I remember Gridlock and I have nothing to add on that as I agree with what has already been said. Although the episode did have me pointing at the screen and shouting "Oh! That's Dougal from Father Ted!".

[Captain Seafort]

I gotta agree with him, "Love & Monsters" is my most hated Who episode of all time, at least out of the ones I have seen

Heartily seconded, especially as it promised to be pretty damn good from the trailer. The only good thing about it was that it made Blink seem even better having been described as "this season's equivalent of L&M".

[Big Orange]

For me, the low point of S2 was "Fear Her" which (apart from the TARDIS getting parked facing the wrong way and the Doctor mentioning being a parent) was bland padding, looking very weak in relation to "Doomsday" and "The Satan Pit". "L&M" was nowhere near as good as "Blink" and "Turn Left", but at least it didn't put me to sleep and I could see the point why the LINDA group were far better off just being friends with each other, instead of fruitlessly chasing after the Doctor and then attracting a dangerous person along the way. My personal worst episode of Doctor Who proper is "The Unicorn and the Wasp" (a nonsensical period story with a alien crow-barred in), with the NuWho franchise's lowest point being TW's "Cyberwoman", which was morally completely reprehensible and genuinely mean spirited (as hamfisted as "Journey's End" was, at least it was morally well intentioned).

[Eleas]

For me, I had no problem with "Love and Monsters". I liked the character they followed and found it a nice change of pace overall.

I can't, however, even vaguely understand the appeal of "The Satan Pit." The Devil? Enshrining Judeochristian mythology as something so significant in the DW mythos it underpins its reality? Really?

Frankly, if they wanted a homage to Doom, at least they could have given it a story that wasn't offal. As it was now, the stupidity burned; the great big demon came close to defeating the Doctor because the Doctor's powers of reasoning weren't proof against the constantly shifting rules of fairy magic. Scaaary.

My favourite episodes, though, are... well, there are a lot of them. I think DW is the sort of series in which favourite scenes are easier to find.

[Srelex]

In fairness, I think demons and the like have appeared before in DW.

[Serafina]

In fairness, I think demons and the like have appeared before in DW.

Quite - we have all sorts of supernatural entities, and this wasn't necessarily the most powerfull in the Whoniverse. But it has always been a point that technology, rationality/science and intelligence can beat them.
Nor would i overly complain about it being a "judeo-christian entity". It had a lot in common with Satan, yes, but you DO find similar figures all over the world - a point addressed in the episode.
Nor was the Doctor really outsmarted by the entity. Overpowered maybe in a physical aspect - the elevator cable snapping and such - but he certainly managed to figure out everything in time (such as the psychological warfare the entity was waging and it's main plan). If anyone failed it were the members of the expedition, and even they held up pretty well.

[Eleas]

Quite - we have all sorts of supernatural entities, and this wasn't necessarily the most powerfull in the Whoniverse. But it has always been a point that technology, rationality/science and intelligence can beat them.
Nor would i overly complain about it being a "judeo-christian entity". It had a lot in common with Satan, yes, but you DO find similar figures all over the world - a point addressed in the episode.
Nor was the Doctor really outsmarted by the entity. Overpowered maybe in a physical aspect - the elevator cable snapping and such - but he certainly managed to figure out everything in time (such as the psychological warfare the entity was waging and it's main plan). If anyone failed it were the members of the expedition, and even they held up pretty well.

True, my problem is partly that it's the Devil, but mostly that the rules that govern this entity make no apparent sense and changed constantly. I can't see a single point where I went "oh, so that's why the entity needed to do X". It was a constant asspull, or so I felt, and one excused because... well... it was the Devil.

I would like to enjoy the episode; the setpieces were good and the effects, filming, acting, lighting etc all top-notch. But I felt it was undermined due to the above.

[Serafina]

True, my problem is partly that it's the Devil, but mostly that the rules that govern this entity make no apparent sense and changed constantly. I can't see a single point where I went "oh, so that's why the entity needed to do X". It was a constant asspull, or so I felt, and one excused because... well... it was the Devil.

I would like to enjoy the episode; the setpieces were good and the effects, filming, acting, lighting etc all top-notch. But I felt it was undermined due to the above.

Um...what?

The rules were quite simple:
-It had a physical body within which it once resided. We saw that one down in the pit.
-The physical body was incapable of leaving it's prison, and once opened said prison would cause the planet to fall into the black hole.
-It had telepathic and telekinetic abilities, hardly anything new in the Whoniverse. It used to wreak a couple of things and to influence the Ood.
-It did at some point (unknown to us) seperate itself from it's physical body and was capable of possessing the archeologist. It wanted to use him to escape, which is why it wanted the explorers to run away.

I don't see anything inconsistent in these. It simply had powerfull psionic/mental abilities and used these to escape it's prison while leaving it's body behind.


Also, it explicitly only inspired the concept of the devil - and many other concepts. That's a pretty standard trope - a single entity behind a lot of legends. It therefore was not the actual devil.

[Eleas]

-It did at some point (unknown to us) seperate itself from it's physical body and was capable of possessing the archeologist. It wanted to use him to escape, which is why it wanted the explorers to run away.

That's the real part that bugged me. There was a door, but its thematic function was undermined by the fact that the beast was free, and then the door opened.

...

Meh. I'm perfectly willing to chalk my negative response up to happenstance. Maybe I was in a bad mood that day or something.

My least favourite episode other than that? Daleks in Manhattan. God, what an atrocity.

[FaxModem1]

For me, the low point of S2 was "Fear Her" which (apart from the TARDIS getting parked facing the wrong way and the Doctor mentioning being a parent) was bland padding, looking very weak in relation to "Doomsday" and "The Satan Pit". "L&M" was nowhere near as good as "Blink" and "Turn Left", but at least it didn't put me to sleep and I could see the point why the LINDA group were far better off just being friends with each other, instead of fruitlessly chasing after the Doctor and then attracting a dangerous person along the way. My personal worst episode of Doctor Who proper is "The Unicorn and the Wasp" (a nonsensical period story with a alien crow-barred in), with the NuWho franchise's lowest point being TW's "Cyberwoman", which was morally completely reprehensible and genuinely mean spirited (as hamfisted as "Journey's End" was, at least it was morally well intentioned).

It's been a few years, refresh my memory, why was Cyberwoman so morally low?

[Big Orange]

It's been a few years, refresh my memory, why was Cyberwoman so morally low?

Ianto Jones, supposedly one of the trustworthy and reliable of Captain Jack's semi-amaterish crew, had smuggled in his girlfriend (who was part Cyberman) into the small Cardiff base and that directly lead to the avoidable deaths of a few innocent people. And we're supposed to feel sorry for the murdering, mutilating Cyberwoman and after the fiasco Ianto Jones was not properly repremanded (not facing treason and negligent death charges, then getting dumped and imprisoned/executed by Torchwood, etc). That putrid Chibnal script made me genuinely angry, unlike RTD at his worse (where there's still a degree of fun like a "good" bad Michael Bay movie or a cheesier TNG episode).

Anyway somebody else from TGWTG site has done his own review/commentary videos on NuWho:

Top Ten 9th Doctor Moments or Scenes

Top Ten 10th Doctor Moments or Scenes