References to Cheesy 80s cartoons for 400, Rusty!

[captainsblog]

Considering that I've never seen more than a couple of stray pre-Nine episodes and am firmly stuck back on "Impossible Planet" in the current arc, it's remarkable how much I was able to understand (with a tad of Wikipedic assistance) of That Whole Business From Last Night. Don't know who Wilf is; didn't need to. The sequences with him and the Doctor are all you need to know to get it all to play at a very nice level.

The Master, or Saxon (ironic use of national-heritage name, that, huh Mel?), or Skeletor as Ten calls him in what for me was perhaps the funniest single word in the ep (did you UKers even get He-Man back in the day?) seemed to me to be the first real worthy adversary I've seen in my roughly 24 hours of viewing to date. Finally, someone with the same skill set who can't be killed off through something obvious, stupid or deux-ex-machinish. Having the whole world save three turn into him at the end (including Obama, thus fulfilling the Christmas dreams of the Birther nutjobs who already SAID he was an alien zombie) just made the story the more evil and the cliff the more hangerish.

Not so much, the Resurrection, though, I thought. After all the shit I've accused JKR of stealing over the years, at last someone nicked her back for most of that ritual. All that was lacking was Wormtail running across the floor with the signet ring between his overbitten teeth.

Second-best line was the one thunderemerald  already led with- "She's a cactus!"  Again, not knowing barely a thread of the backstory, I'd no idea who the Cactii actually were, but I had my eye on that chickie the whole way in, since the camera seemed to be paying wayyy too much attention to her during those early Don't Mind Me I'm Just A Shopgirl Operating The Controls moments.

As opposed to something the camera totally didn't focus much on, but which erinpuff, at least, was spot-on in catching.   Check the lower left panel of the leftmost rectangle of the stained glass in the opening scene:



Immense (if obscure) thanks, again, to thems wot made it possible.

One last mini-spoiler for those using VLC as the player of choice for this stuff: did you notice the little Christmas hat on top of the player logo? I so dig shite like that.



Just one non-spoilery complaint, though. Did any of you catch the wording on the side of the Fartmobile that jitneys the Doctor's contingent of aged fans early in the ep?



The OVER-50s? EXSQUEEZE ME? Hey, I resemble that remark now:P

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All of this is on BBC America tonight, supposedly, for those who have the knowledge but not the means so far. We now return you to a world where President Obama's economic plans are still in progress....

Comments

[platypus]

I would have thought this would be harder to follow without the Master/Saxon stuff from Series Three, but you seem to have done fine :). Though if you ever have a chance to catch Series Four, Donna was really a wonderful companion. She, alas, does not remember it here, so she's back to being a bit vapid.

The cacti have never been seen before; there was just a brief reference to the Doctor having met a short red spiky guy in Voyage of the Damned (apparently no relation). Other than that, there is no background to be had.

I really must make an icon of that stained glass window sometime.

I do hope the situation they left things in at the end of this episode is resolved quickly in the next, because John Simm As Everybody is funny in the sort of way that is only good for a limited time, but I have appreciated the Being John Malkovitch jokes that have abounded overnight.

[thanatos-kalos.livejournal.com]

Actually, the Doctor met a cactus-like cerature called Meglos in the eponymous serial; that's also interesting for having the actress who played one of the first companions back, thiuogh she played an adversary not her original character.

The Master was intended to be the Doctor's Moriarty from the outset; his first serial is Terror of the Autons (third Doctor) and he's in everything thruogh the 8th Doctor film. He then comes back in s3 of the revival, in 'Utopia', which is one of the best eps ever, and stays thruogh 'Last of the Time Lords'. Also, in the serial The Daemons (third doctor again) the Master associates himself with black magic/satanism in a very interesting examination. (They even have a white witch! :)