New Who Review for The Poison Sky
Posted By Kathleen David on June 3, 2008
Rules again. There will be spoilers behind the cut and in the comments. You can talk about anything up to this episode but please nothing about anything beyond that. And yeah I know the next two are pretty darn cool too. But please limit it to what has been seen on SciFi. Thanks.
This is the conclusion to the previous episode The Sontaran Stratagem which had our favorite potato heads trying to do something that the Doctor was still figuring out at the end of the episode with dire consequences for a minor character while Ariel was shouting at the TV Find a Large Rock or something!
Overall not a bad conclusion to the set-up in the previous episode. Some nice dramatic moments and my love of Donna as a companion just keeps growing. She really does think things through and occasionally goes on a tangent that helps the situation rather than exacerbating it or shouting, “Doctor, what do we do?” Martha is great also. Freema did a wonderful job with what she was given to work with. Two strong women working together rather than trying to one up each other. It was nice to see.
Then there is Rattigan. After being such a one-note character in the first episode, they actually give him an arc in the second and some character development that the actor played splendidly indeed.
I am grateful for some either lucky or well thought out character development.
Yeah I did see the ending coming. I knew the Doctor couldn’t talk the Sontarians out of their mad scheme. I also knew we had an expendable character in the wings. But it was a satisfying ending. I didn’t think that the make-up for the Sontarains would give them much range for facial expressions but when Rattigan showed up on the ship and took the bomb from the Doctor, they had plenty of expression.
Martha clone and Martha gave Freema lots to play with and she did great with both. I liked how the Doctor informed the clone thingy that he knew with a couple of small things like the pupil of the eye and the hair and follows it with “and frankly you smell.”
And Catherine Tate goes on to prove that she is a fine actress indeed. Donna’s mother proves to be smarter than we thought and her granddad is good in a crisis. It was interesting to see where Donna gets her gumption from.
Next week the title is “The Doctor’s Daughter” and we meet well…..the Doctor’s Daughter.
Hmmm. Perhaps the weakest part of the episode is that the cliffhanger at the beginning was so dámņëd obvious.
Really enjoying Donna. They removed most of her annoying character quirks from her first appearance and made her the most intelligent companion since the reboot.
My one problem with Rattigan’s resolution was that I found it totally unrealistic for the character. I think he completely came across as someone who would always have a rationalisation as to why it’s not his fault and who would never sacrifice himself like that–too much of a survivor.
Ryan Sampson (Rattigan) was very entertaining in the commentary. Until he saw the special effects at the end he was saying how he was going to return. I thought Rattigan was first really torn up by the rejection of his students and then when the Sontarans said they would just use them for target practice and they were using him the whole time he was determined to get revenge. He was ready to abandon his life on Earth, so sacrificing himself to get his revenge isn’t too far a stretch for me.
I thought that the Doctor figured out that Martha wasn’t herself right off the bat, but I had been wondering why he played along so long. When they had her stop the nuclear reprisal it made sense.
And then Martha was ready to leave again and the TARDIS takes off. The next episode looks like it will be a fun one.
Neil