The second half of the episode which started with “Rise of the Cybermen” sees the battle to stop John Lumic’s creations from taking over the yadda-yadda-yadda … I mean, in reality, the menace in this episode, though well done in a B-movie fashion, is really secondary, again, to the personalities involved — in particular, Rose dealing with her parallel Earth mother and father, and Mickey dealing with what a doofus he is.
More spoilish stuff below the cut (for those who haven’t watched it yet.
Rose fares the worst of it all with one “parent” dead, the other rejecting her, and her “safety net” boyfriend out of the picture for good. When she’s broken down in tears on (real) Jackie’s shoulder by the end of the ep, it seemed pretty understandable to me
Things haven’t been going well for Rose this season. Pretty much every episode has involved some emotional nastiness.
Mickey, on the other hand, ends up as much of a doofus by the end of the ep as he was at the beginning — but at least he’s gained some measure of respect from the Doctor. As far as I’m concerned, I’m more than happy to see him driving off into the metaphorical sunset.
I regret the passing of Mrs. Moore. Of the three folks in the “resistance,” I wish she’d been the one to survive.
Tennant may be finally getting the hang of the role. His speech to the main heavy (and its subtext) was great, his banter with Mrs. Moore was excellent, and he seemed to have some depth of feelings toward both Rose and Mickey by the end. I have hopes.
The episode, though was not without problems — not least of which was that it felt like they had about 40 minutes of material for a 50 minute slot. That made some of the scenes — including a lot of the Mickey stuff at the end, feel very padded. The editing for the SciFi slot felt strange, too, with some odd commericial breaks and the end coming very abruptly.
Beyond that, the Doctor’s “solution” to the Cybermen problem — especially after he talks to one of them at length — felt particular brutal and savage. “Let’s give them their emotions back and let them go insane with the horror and pain until their heads explode. Fantastic!” Not that there was any other easy way out, and the stakes were certainly high. But he seemed to go from “Can we do that?” to dispassionately watching it happen with very little hesitation or regret. I guess
once you’ve killed one cybernetic race the second one comes easy, but it felt out of character to me.
That said — still great, entertaining stuff. Worth the watch.
Actually, I didn’t think he stood by and watched dispassionately at all. Not only was he torn up by the Cyber(wo)man that he put to sleep with Mrs. Moore and the “can we do that?” after coming up with how to kill them, but also there was a nice little scene of him horrified at watching a Cyberman realizing what he’d become in a mirrored section of metal.
I think that by the end of this season, especially with [REDACTED BY BLOG OWNER], Tennant is going to own this version of the Doctor like his predecessors have done. He’s already my 3rd or 4th favorite Doctor. 🙂
*cough*cough*spoileraboutREDACTED*cough*cough*
I didn’t catch the “horrified” look — everything I could see (albeit doubtless some bravado) was sort of breezily delivered.
I saw horror, and his philosophical discussion with Mrs. Moore about the morality of the solution was just starting to get good, and inspired, before the inevitable happened. I figured she was a deader when we got such an interesting snippet of her backstory.
Actually, she sort of reminded me of Harriet Jones, MP Flydale North, but a SPOILER-filled Wikipedia entry tells me different.
Oh, he was definitely horrified when he broached the subject to Mrs. Moore. That horror got cut off, and never really revisited when it actually came time to do it. Perhaps vengeance for Mrs. Moore, or carrying out her last — if not wishes, then what *she* said needed doing. But, barring some stuff snipped from the episode for local consumption, nary much of a look back.
Oops. I thought everyone in the universe knew about [REDACTED] by now. 🙂
I think you should watch it again. When all the Cybermens’ heads are blowing off, there is a too-brief moment when one of them is looking in a mirror with as much of a look of horror at what he’d become as you can put on a robot face. The Doctor is right behind him and says he’s sorry. Considering how things were blowing up and the fact that they needed to run, I thought it was a nice little moment.
Mmmm. You’re right. I remembered the (convenient) mirror/mirrored surface. I’d forgotten the comment.
Okay, he was sorry. He said that a lot. Still …