New Who Review for Gridlock
Posted By Kathleen David on July 23, 2007
This one really had me of two minds. I thought it felt a little drug out as a story but then sitting on a highway and seeing if you can move just another inch forward feels very much like that too. I think anyone who has gotten caught in traffic sympathies with a lot of the characters we meet along the way. But then you also have the Doctor and Kittens. Where can you go wrong with that?
This had a Caroline scare factor of none. She watched the whole thing and of course loved the kitten part of the episode.
Next week “Daleks in Manhattan”
I am grateful for Fastpass and the kind people at Disney who helped us yesterday.
It was nice to see the Cat people again (if they have a name as a species, it is not coming to my brain right now). Having the Face of Boe in the mix is always fun. And the message he delivers foreshadows the end of the 3rd season. (Please discuss only up to Gridlock at this point).
I like the Doctor admitting that Martha has been kidnapped because he was showboating. It is his fault that she is in the situation she finds herself in. We have yet another Rose reference (which to me becomes the Torchwood of this season. The further we get into it the more I tend to groan when they bring it up again).
Martha did very well for herself. She dealt with the situation she found herself in and rather than screaming, sorted out solutions to her problems. Not that they worked very well. Martha is moving rapidly up behind Ace as my all time favorite companion by this point.
The message of this one seems to be that drugs (or in this case moods) are not the answer to everything or even anything. That a mood virus was created was kind of an interesting notion. And keeping people driving around to save them was rather brilliant. I have to say that I did feel for these motorists having been caught on Staten Island on more than one occasion for a period of time that doubled my total time getting back to Long Island.
Since you like Martha Jones, here’s something that I realized just this Saturday. I was re-watching the final two episodes of Doctor Who’s Season two and I was thinking that there was something awefully familiar about the lady that gets earpodded by the Cybermen in Army of Ghosts and used as a means of bringing the Cyberman to our Earth. Then is struck me: it was “Martha Jones!” Frema Agyman (sp?) had a minor supporting role in the last part of the Season that preceded her becoming the Doctor’s companion.
It’s not much of a story,and I’m notorious among my friends for never noticing that sort of thing, so it may have been freaking obvious to others but it struck me as amusing at the time…
The only name I’ve ever seen for the cat race was the Sisters of Plenitude. I always thought that they were some form of Kitling (from Survival) as designed by the modern FX.
They seemed to have expected people to remember Freema Agyeman from Army of Ghosts & Doomsday as they had her mention her sister who worked for the company that was the front for Torchwood at the Torchwood Tower.
Overall, I’m loving the new series and this was a pretty good ep. The thing I’m still most enjoying though is how wrong I was about David Tennant’s taking on the role after Christopher Eccleston left it. Eccleston was a hard act to follow but Tennant continues to impress me with the odd bits he throws into the role here and there and his ability to go to the extremes of lightness and darkness in the new Doctor so effortlessly and believably.
Cousin not sister, Jerry. Freema and producer Phil Collinson have some fun with the resemblance on their commentary for ‘Smith & Jones’ on the BBC website (don’t know if this can be accessed outside UK, though).
And, of course, the actress playing Martha’s mother also played cat nun Sister Jatt in ‘New Earth’.
Wow..i didn’t know that bit about the actress playing Martha’s mom being one of the earlier shows cat nurses!
I will admit that when i first saw the cats on the BBC site and read a bit about it i thought that ALL the other characters were going to be cats! Oh well….I do love the guy (no,i don’t remember names well) who played the cat driver. He was in Father Ted and My Hero (I think that’s the name..used to show both shows on the various PBS stations around NY/NJ area).
The only thing that made me go “huh?” were the ‘monsters’. They just looked like giant crabs to me.
I was really impressed about how the various relationships were shown…seems that in the future all types of folks will all be treated the same. At least in ol RTD’s future that is:)
Here’s hoping that they make large figures of the cat nurses and the cat driver. If they can make clockwork droids as the larger action figures they should be able to make something that is actually on the good side of the Doctor!
Ardal O’Hanlon is the name of the actor who played Brannigan (and was Thermoman in My Hero). The thing about the crabs is they were the monsters in a 1967 episode – The Macra Terror. I believe you can only get this story via audio and photo+novel, but the BBC did put it out. Check out http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/classic/episodeguide/macraterror/
In the commentary [available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/sounds/ ]Russell T Davies mentions that in some Doctor Who monster book he wrote that when the Face of Boe dies the sky would crack open. He forgot about this until someone mentioned to him that indeed that did take place in this episode. He also says that he was inspired by elements of Judge Dredd and Halo Jones for this episode.
Neil
I wondered if there was some political allegory goin’ on, too, about how slow the British government has been in addressing the desires of the people. Before Blair opted to resign, of course.
On another discussion forum, it was pointed out that the episode also allegorically discusses two kinds of faith – the kind that locks you into a stolid mindset, circling aimlessly around a fixed route, hoping for salvation from above (the Upper City); and the kind that believes that there’s always another way, that giving up just isn’t a valid mindset, that redemption is possible, if you’ll just work together and take that leap.
And, of course, “I’ve invented a new sport!”
I’d love to have been in the production meeting where they said, “Hey, let’s bring back a monster no one’s seen since we taped over the one episode they’re in forty years ago, only instead of having them being eight feet tall interstellar conquerors who control mankind through telepathy, let’s make them giant mindless bottomfeeders!” I think it’s definitely the most … interesting creative decision the new series has made.
Though it did occur to me, rewatching the episode, that the Macra have nothing to do with the episode’s plot–the Bliss virus and the Undercity being sealed off to protect its residents. They’re just there, without explanation, for no reason other than to put Martha’s life in danger.
And my only problem with the Face’s secret was that it was pretty much exactly what everyone had been guessing it would be for the past year. Though I did notice that at the same time as he said, “You Are Not Alone,” he also said, “You are the last of your kind.”
Hmmmm. It is interesting that in retrospect, the Face of Boa’s words actually mean less than we think. At the time that I originally watched the episode, it was of highest importance. Still, this was a fun episode. Obviously, the writer has had some experience driving on the freeways of Los Angeles.