{"id":9889,"date":"2006-10-15T17:44:25","date_gmt":"2006-10-16T00:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/10\/15\/tv-reviews-doctor-who-and-battlestar-galactica.html"},"modified":"2006-10-15T17:44:25","modified_gmt":"2006-10-16T00:44:25","slug":"tv_reviews_doctor_who_and","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/15\/tv_reviews_doctor_who_and.html","title":{"rendered":"TV Reviews: Doctor Who<\/i> and Battlestar Galactica<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/div>\n

Doctor Who<\/em>‘s Series 2 continues to improve by leaps and bounds. “School Reunion,” the most recent episode, is a classic, in a couple of ways.<\/p>\n

First off, there’s the villainy. A great combo of semi-cheesy alien plots, suitable spookiness, and some nice SFX, Anthony Head was spectacular as head baddie (and there were multiple areas of irony there). And if the menace got resolved a bit easily … well, that’s not what’s really going on in the episode. <\/p>\n

It’s all about the nature of the Doctor, and his Companions. I won’t spoil anything — but there’s a great deal of humor, and pathos, and some very nice stuff to give one plenty to think about. And, yes, some good cheesy fun from the past, but some interesting insight into the Doctor’s present, and future. <\/p>\n

Great stuff. Destined to be a classic episode. <\/p>\n

There’s a deleted scene<\/a> from the episode online at SciFi until 21 October. Haven’t watched it yet …<\/p>\n

\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

Battlestar Galactica<\/em> ran the first half of a two-parter, named (hopefully) “Exodus.” Things held together a scosh better than the season premiere, if only because the amount of New Stuff was, perforce, limited. Plots advance, betrayals occur (and come to light), and … um … a silly, stupid, “plot twist” thing happens that dodges a major bullet (so to speak) from last time. Indeed, the show turns the clock back about 30 seconds — well, more like a couple of hours — before the end of the previous
\nep, such that … <\/p>\n

… well, it was the weakest aspect of an episode that was actually pretty decent, and sets up what should be a hell of a lot fireworks next time around. <\/p>\n

I’m still not happy with the direction of the Season, even if in the end we end up being “back to basics” BG again. The main weakness: the Cylons have turned into something not at all alien, not at all Other, just a petty and vindictive and, well, human. Maybe that will be the theme — humanity’s creations becoming, in essence human, in emotion and reproductive ability and all that jazz. The children supplant, or are consumed, or learn to co-exist with their parents. <\/p>\n

Which would be fine, if they “skin jobs” weren’t so soap operatic in their lusts and peeves and bickering and bloody-mindedness. Especially in contrast to Baltar (who’s usually sitting in drunken stupor at the far end of the room), they come across as two-dimensional melodramatists.<\/p>\n

Or maybe that’s<\/em> the message …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doctor Who’s Series 2 continues to improve by leaps and bounds. “School Reunion,” the most recent episode, is a classic, in a couple of ways. First off, there’s the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[43,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-tv-doctor-who","category-media-tv"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":38415,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/08\/the-once-and-future-doctor.html","url_meta":{"origin":9889,"position":0},"title":"The Once and Future Doctor","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Aug-13 4:57pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Kay and I re-watched the 4th Series Doctor Who episode \"The Fires of Pompeii,\" just to see Peter Capaldi, now named as the Twelfth Doctor, in an earlier appearance on the show.It's an odd episode -- the second of the Donna appearances, with some weird moments and poor pacing and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11474,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/08\/20\/doctor_who_42.html","url_meta":{"origin":9889,"position":1},"title":"Doctor Who: “42”","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 20-Aug-07 10:57am","format":false,"excerpt":"Great one-off (kinda) Doctor Who ep this week.\u00a0 It has all the classic elements, including a crippled space ship, a stalking monster, a mystery to be unravelled, and a...","rel":"","context":"In "Doctor Who"","block_context":{"text":"Doctor Who","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-doctor-who"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/tardis.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9990,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/01\/tenth_doctor_second_serie.html","url_meta":{"origin":9889,"position":2},"title":"Tenth Doctor, Second Series, First Impressions","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 1-Oct-06 8:21am","format":false,"excerpt":"Watched Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion and the \"New Earth\" episode of Doctor Who on the DVR last night. Okay, so David Tennant isn't bad. He hasn't established a...","rel":"","context":"In "Doctor Who"","block_context":{"text":"Doctor Who","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-doctor-who"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/tardis.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8752,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/04\/25\/doctor_who.html","url_meta":{"origin":9889,"position":3},"title":"Doctor Who","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-Apr-06 6:06pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been avoiding talking much about Doctor Who here, because (a) some folks haven't been watching it (but will be, dammit, once I get the DVD set in July), and...","rel":"","context":"In "Doctor Who"","block_context":{"text":"Doctor Who","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-doctor-who"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/tardis.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9804,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/10\/31\/doctor_who_the_rise_of_th.html","url_meta":{"origin":9889,"position":4},"title":"Doctor Who: “The Rise of the Cybermen”","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 31-Oct-06 7:12am","format":false,"excerpt":"Sat down and watched last Friday's DW. I'm beginning to get a feel for what I do and don't like about this particular series (vs. Series 1). The episode,...","rel":"","context":"In "Doctor Who"","block_context":{"text":"Doctor Who","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-doctor-who"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/tardis.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11314,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/09\/25\/doctor_who_utopia.html","url_meta":{"origin":9889,"position":5},"title":"Doctor Who: “Utopia”","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-Sep-07 11:02pm","format":false,"excerpt":"After the excellence of \"Blink\" and the superbity of the \"Family of Blood\" duo, \"Utopia\" is bound to disappoint -- except insofar as it is nigh-on-classic Doctor Who, from...","rel":"","context":"In "Doctor Who"","block_context":{"text":"Doctor Who","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/franchises\/media-tv-doctor-who"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/tardis.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}