tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8800091210753201638.post7366501041212432444..comments2023-06-04T17:53:06.332+01:00Comments on Neil Is The Best Dalek: Over The MoonUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8800091210753201638.post-38231796197164508722014-02-02T12:44:44.800+00:002014-02-02T12:44:44.800+00:00Series Three takes "hit and miss" to imp...Series Three takes "hit and miss" to impressive extremes: it has some of the best episodes of Doctor Who ever made, and a few of the worst. You wonder why they couldn't tell the difference making them.<br /><br />I love the Judoon. Much like the Ood, and the Weeping Angels, I think their popularity comes from the sheer brilliance of the idea. (The Ood are slaves who don't actually mind. The Judoon are space-police just doing a job. The Weeping Angels can't move if you're looking at them.) Not to take away from the design, which is pretty great for all these things (although I've got mixed feeling about the rhinos!), but it always comes down to the ideas, I think.Neil Is The Best Dalekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12049901367710121384noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8800091210753201638.post-8903507318628214322014-02-01T23:14:49.034+00:002014-02-01T23:14:49.034+00:00Despite the handful of real stinkers in Series 3, ...Despite the handful of real stinkers in Series 3, there are some absolute corkers, and this is one of them. I think it's by far the strongest of the RTD season-openers - 'Rose' is brilliant for the first twenty minutes it begins to get a bit muddled toward the end, 'New Earth' had some real fun stuff in it but is ultimately pretty inconsequential, and 'Partners in Crime' has three or four moments of dramatic and comedic brilliance - and one hell of an ending - but is otherwise a bit off the mark. But 'Smith and Jones' is just solidly entertaining throughout, well-paced, clever and confident. Martha impresses right from the get-go, and she's a huge step-up from the peril-magnet companions of the past. The Earth and Moon vistas are beautiful, the guest actors do a great job, David Tennant is on fire here and yes, the Judoon are a stroke of brilliance - at once one of the most bonkers and memorable things RTD ever did. It's no wonder they've been brought back for repeated cameos in DW-proper and made the cross-over to one of the spin-off shows - they're just so instantly recognizable and so easily evoke that sense of daft fun that made the RTD era so insanely popular - they're basically a distillation of that entire era. I'm pretty sure they and the Ood will be fondly remembered with the likes of past favourites like the Sontarans, Zygons, Silurians, Cybermen, Yeti and Daleks in years to come (of course, it helps that the animatronic masks are so spectacularly goo).<br /><br />So yes, 'Smith and Jones' is a classic - not perfect, but well above average. And as I said above, it encapsulates RTD's Doctor Who in a way that few other episodes do - no wonder Steven Moffat chose this story to riff off for 'The Eleventh Hour'. This is one of the ones I come back to most readily, and I always thoroughly enjoy it. Shame the rest of the season was so hit and miss...liminalDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06621859737411962756noreply@blogger.com