Rambling Onward
A little late today, so let’s crack on.
The Sontaran Stratagem
The fourth series of the new Doctor Who has had the strongest start of any of them, and thank God because the Christmas Special was such a stinker. The Fires of Pompeii was the best purely “historical” Who of the revival (if we don’t include The Girl in Fireplace as it was split between the far future and 18th Century France), and it’s a shame they don’t raid the Beeb’s Jane Austen cupboard to do more episodes in the past. The opener managed to be funny without getting unbearably silly, and Planet of the Ood turned out to be, of all things, pretty moving.
The trailers for Saturday’s episode weren’t the most effective the BBC’s ever made, using the one cringe-worthy scene of Martha Jones calling the Doctor home and playing up the daftness of the Sontarans themselves. Speaking of which, the episode went to huge lengths to draw out the baddies’ dramatic reveal, even though they’ve been plastered all over the publicity material for months.
As it turned out the episode was fantastic, far better than writer Helen Raynor’s weak Dalek two-parter from the second series. It had a genuinely tense cliffhanger, and apart from the phone scene it was great to see Martha return. The production team managed to update the Sontarans while keeping the original Who vibe, all alien warrior monologues and retro-futuristic clone vats and video monitors. In fact, with this and Pompeii, Series 4 has been closer in tone to old Who than the previous 3 have. I guess Russell T. feels a little more comfortable with referring to what’s gone before now the show’s a success with a new audience.
A brilliant start, then, and we’re not even at the Moffat episodes yet.
on March 7th, 2010 at 1:24 am
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