The Narrow Fellow In The Grass
Updated 2006-12-04 16:00:00
You know what's sexy? The Doctor being all Oh Bondage Up Yours when it comes to the authority type figures. You know what lessens the effect? Pairing him with Ida, a woman delightful in most ways, but lacking in her ability to be Rose Tyler. Who in turn rocks out beyond the telling of it, quite awesomely, without needing her Doctor at all. I don't want that to work better than otherwise, but to be honest: in something like 8 of 9 cases this season, it's been the case. Which personally I think is the point, but what do I know? Nothing. So anyway, the Doctor's down in The Actual Pit Of Satan with Ida, whilst Rose is up in the Actual Rocketship Of Satan With Actual Satan And The Satan-Possessed Slave Race Of Actual Satan. And if you think about it, that's rather bleak. They both kind of give up on -- while simultaneously not giving up on -- each other. Rose figures out the retardedly obvious fact that she's a bad-ass regardless of being enDoctored, the Doctor himself gets even more confused about the total lack of needing a Companion he's got going, and they both somehow muddle through, just as people have been doing for hundreds of thousands of years lacking both Doctors and Companions. And still the main characters of the show don't get it. They rock out regardless: Rose flies away from the Impossible Planet in a rocketship with the Devil Incarnate, while the Doctor chats UNENDINGLY with the Devil Indevilnate. Conversations ensue and ensue and ensue. Both of them eventually come to the same conclusion: the Devil is so *****ing useless. Basically, all the Devil -- who cannot shut the hell up for anything, leading Tennant into some cringingly horrible green-screen yelling on the level of Zod and the level acting best of the goddamn Phantom Zone -- really wants to do is tell us some hideous things about some people that they already knew, and mostly wouldn't be a problem if they had any balls whatsoever to begin with. To wit: Toby's a virgin (duh), Jefferson and Zach are whatever, Ida's this, Scooti was that. In the end, some self-confidence and a good helping of denial get everybody through it, and nobody learns anything. On their side of the screen, I mean: What we learn is that Rose is going to die. In battle. Sometime soon.