Dr Who: Adispose, ah suppose
So. Doctor Who. Series 4.
A new companion, and a new ‘monster’. How exactly did it come off?
Warning: the following contains information about the plot, spoilers etc. If you haven’t already seen Dr Who “Partners In Crime” and intend to watch it, I’d not read any further as it may spoil your enjoyment. Okay?
To be honest, I don’t think it came off that well. It was slick, well directed and well presented as usual. There were some moments that were poignant (Donna telling her grandfather she was prepared to search as long as necessary to find the man in the blue box); some moments which were really quite remarkably funny (the Doctor and in particular Donna frantically miming to each other) but on the whole, it left me feeling somewhat … empty.
It was okay, there’s no doubt about that, but the problem is that the creative genius known as Russell T Davies, who as much as anyone else has revitalised Doctor Who, has set the bar so high with his own writing that you expect brilliance every time. And this wasn’t brilliant.
Partners in Crime was okay, as I said, but while the separation of Donna and the Doctor was played for comic effect, it was overplayed to the extent that it started to affect the credibility of the storyline, there seemed to be a rather odd moment when the Doctor locked a door with his sonic screwdriver, and Miss Foster had her goons shoot it down — only to later reveal she’d had her own sonic screwdriver all along and could simply have opened the door again rather than shooting up the building … and as for the ‘adipose’ creatures themselves, well…
You can do wonderful things with CGI. You can make things which look like little, twee and even semi-cute blobs of fat in 1 kilo sizes waddle around pavements and over cars. That doesn’t mean that you have to. As a concept, I have no problem with the adipose. It’s their tweeness that I object to.
It’s the fact that the story behind them seemed to be poorly thought out, and simply to be an afterthought in an episode where the main purpose seemed to be “get the Doctor and Donna back together”.
Still, I expect the rest of the series will be considerably better. Russell T. has done too much good work with Dr. Who and with Torchwood for me to think that this will be anything but a one-off…
Hello. I am 
I must admit first off that I’ve never really been a Dr fan. But my wife has encouraged me to watch and a few episodes I have thought very good and watchable over the last couple of seasons. I agree that there were some excellent moments - the mime and the grandfather scenes (both the ‘chat’ and the show closer) - I don’t really have any criticism of the overall plot as it seemed pretty standard fare for the show - there always seem to be those slight inconsistencies and implausibilities.
However, I have real fears for this season that may make me finally rebel and not watch. Mainly as I was never a big fan of Catherine Tate. Donna exhibits too many quirks, facial expressions, etc. of Tate’s old characters.
A colleague of mine doesn’t like ‘comedy’/sitcoms, so hasn’t seen Tate’s show and therefore wasn’t aware of those and therefore could relax and enjoy (although that isn’t an unbiased take on it as he has all the shows on audio plus collectors editions, encyclopaedic knowledge of all the Dr’s incarnations, etc.). He also writes for some forums based in the US and they love it too, again without the prior knowledge of Tate, and reckons most of the poor reviews in the press are those that do know Tate.
So, back to my fears - the Dr is the slightly hammy and slapstick character and I think the Rose and Martha both provided some grounding to that. If Donna is not going to provide that, it’s difficult to see how the whole show isn’t going to be denigrated.
I got to watch this on BBC iPlayer - I don’t have a television license so don’t usually see these until months later (I am allowed to use iPlayer for now - I checked - only when they start broadcasting live on-line will the whole thing be barred to me. Just in case anyone reading this thought I was breaking the law.)
I have never seen the Catherine Tate show, but Donna’s character is basically a comical one. And that’s an issue. It’s supposed to be a family show and there’s always humour in there - their always was (married to a child of the sixties and seventies, I have be subjected to much of the back-catalogue). But it’s not supposed to be slapstick. And on first impressions, this looked like the first episode of a rather poor sci-fi sitcom.
However, it’s Doctor Who! And I read that Martha Jones will be back at some point in this series, so it should get a lot better.
I almost switched it off because of Tate.
I’m sure somebody has said this before but I think that the trouble with Russell T. Davies is that he’s useless at sci-fi plots. So while the Doctor/Donna reunion and subsequent banter was good the whole Adipose background story was rubbish (and most of the RTD plots aren’t very good in my opinion, such as all the New Earth stuff). But the whole thing was saved by the scene near the end, setting us up for the return of “you know who”. And this is what he’s probably best at - devising story arcs and the “bigger picture” - not the nuts and bolts of plotting and -most crucially - coming up with decent monsters.
It’s funny coz I only got hooked to this show when i got to watch one episode, it was interesting and now i’m looking forward to watch more after watching “the journey’s end”