New Who Review for “Bad Wolf”
Posted By Kathleen David on June 7, 2006
Yeah I know that we are almost to the final of this season but I had to comment on this episode. We learn a lot more about Captain Jack. Bad Wolf comes into sharp relief at this juncture. This was a great send up of both “reality shows” and “games shows” and if you didn’t catch the in-joke that was Anne Robinson as the Anne Droid. Sort of Spoilers under the cut for the episode
And TA we did get the DVDs and have watched through them. Thanks Buddy. I owe ya one.
I am grateful that we had this and the final episode to watch back to back rather than waiting a week.
Most of this is set up for the next episode as you could tell by the number of Daleks at the end of the episode. This was a pretty good character episode. I like how each character (Doc, Rose, Jack) thought this was all great fun until they realized the death factor in each of these games. And the “death” of Rose and the Doctor reaction to it was spectacular. The first time we watched, we didn’t put it past the producers to kill Rose. Eccelston’s reaction to events was just wonderful to watch. And the Doctor’s declaration that he was going to rescue Rose was just brilliant. We weren’t sure about this episode to begin with but they had us by the end and fortunately we DID have the next episode so we just continued to watch. So great dialogue and good acting makes this one very watchable. Next week we find out the meaning of “Bad Wolf” once and for all.
It wasn’t just Anne Robinson voicing the Anne Droid. The hosts of the original British versions of “What Not to Wear” and “Big Brother,” the other two shows parodied, also voiced their robotic dopplegangers. Americans are more apt to know Robinson because she hosted the American version of “The Weakest Link” as well as the British version, but they got send-up participation across the board.
(The UK “What Not to Wear” is available on BBC America, of course, but that has a much smaller audience than NBC. No reason for any American to recognize the “Big Brother” voice since the UK version doesn’t air in the States, and I wouldn’t have known that had I not looked it up on IMDB.)
And I thought this was a fun and frightening episode, and a great set-up for the season finale.
Kathleen, if you have the DVDs, I think you’ll enjoy the commentary tracks for both episodes.
I think Russell Davies did a very nice job of starting out on a lighter note, using UK reality shows as a soft target, before completely ramping things up by the end.
My only disappointment is the casting of Paterson Joseph as Rose’s Weakest Link opponent; Paterson is a superb actor who I got to know years ago during the filming of Neverwhere, and he was grossly underused as this character. Apparently the casting director on Doctor Who has subsequently regretted it as well, because it basically means they can’t use him as another character in the show now
My only disappointment is the casting of Paterson Joseph as Rose’s Weakest Link opponent; Paterson is a superb actor who I got to know years ago during the filming of Neverwhere, and he was grossly underused as this character. Apparently the casting director on Doctor Who has subsequently regretted it as well, because it basically means they can’t use him as another character in the show now
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Why not? The old series often reused actors, the most memorable being Nicholas Courtney, Lala Ward, and Colin Baker.
David
“Why not? The old series often reused actors”
Especially conisdering the nature of the TV show. Just put some makeup on him and you have an alien.
Also, just to note, the lady who played QUeen Victoria in the recent episode Tooth and Claw was in a Patrick Troughton episode of Doctor Who.