Tag: polly wright

Season Three Recap

malicerewatchesdoctorwho:

Keep in mind there were several huge gaps between posts for this season, and I am going by my memory.

This season is probably the weakest so far out of the three
shown.

There were quite a few episodes that I found just plain
boring, and that was a real first for me with maybe a few exceptions.  But here, it was episode after episode of
boring.

Not that it was all bad, because there is definitely a
lot of good in this season too.  It
starts off good and ends strongly.  The
middle is hindered by the twelve parter Dalek serial and others.  And there is a lot more missing episodes this
season than the past two seasons.  

I haven’t really got a lot to say as a standalone season
this time around.  The character growth
for the Doctor keeps on going strong, which is good.  Steven grew into a marvellous human being and
companion.  But others seemed to go
nowhere, and of course the latest companions were just introduced.

My favourites were The Myth Makers, The Ark and The War
Machines.  My least favourites were The
Celestial Toymaker, The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve and The Savages.

And this time there are quite a few more characters to go
through in what I thought of them this season going in order from the order
they leave or join.  The Doctor will, as
always, be done last.

So!  Let’s get this
ball running with Vicki.

Vicki

I really liked Vicki.
She was great from her introduction in The Rescue all the way to her
exit in The Myth Makers.  I wasn’t too
hot on her leaving to be with Troilus, because it seems that this show likes to
have female companions leave to be with the love of their lives, of whom they
have just met a few days ago.  Show, stop
that, it’s annoying.

Her love of the weird and wacky continued into this
season, with her loving the Chumblies right off the bat, and going so far as to
name them Chumblies to begin with.  

Her sense of humour stayed strong, even though with Barbara
and Ian gone, she ended up becoming more the rock for the Doctor.  Her place as a companion changed slightly so
that she was moral support instead of the good humoured child character.  And I thought it was actually a good change
for her.  She mellowed out a bit and lost
some of her childish behaviour, though she never got to the degree of Susan
with screaming.

Vicki wasn’t a screamer.

Yeah, I miss Vicki.
She was great.

Katarina

Katarina was in it for three or four episodes, before
dying.  

Her character could have been fascinating, but they kind
of wrote her into a brick wall with the direction they took her, so she couldn’t
stay.  Her whole character is her thinking
she’s already dead and looking after her fellow passengers in the Underworld.

It did not surprise me that she’d go out by helping the
others however she could.  And she does
so by flushing herself and one of the prisoners from the prison planet into
space.  

All up, a huge missed opportunity, and a character that
shouldn’t have been made.  It wouldn’t
have made much of a difference with or without her.

She just seemed to be there for a female companion to be
included after the loss of Vicki.

Sara Kingdom

I wished she had survived.

She was a seriously kick ass character, who was a woman
and she went out in such a horrific way.

Again, we don’t really know much about her.  She was here just for the Dalek twelve parter,
as was Katarina.  But she had a lot more
growth.  

She went from being one of the bad guys hunting them for
being traitors, to realising the wrong person was the traitor, changing sides
to be with the Doctor instead of hunting him, and turning on her boss, who was
the real bad guy.

And that was a mess of a sentence, I am aware.  But true.
And in that mess, she killed her brother thinking him a traitor.  And she was allowed to feel bad over it
without stopping being a badass.

She made a fine edition to Team TARDIS, even getting a
mini adventure in the TARDIS that had nothing to do with Daleks. 

Steven

I love Steven.

Steven is to male companions for One, what Barbara is for
the women.

He’s kind, he’s headstrong, and he’s got a sense of
bantering good humour.  He’s not afraid
to yell at the Doctor if he thinks he’s done something incredibly stupid or
bad.  And he’s not afraid of losing face
to women when it comes to his masculinity.

He’s not feminine in any way, but he isn’t afraid to
admit when a woman is better skilled in him at ‘male based’ things, like
fighting.  As long as they are on his
side, he couldn’t really care about gender.

Steven is the first companion to leave the Doctor only to
come back in the same episode.  He cares
deeply for the Doctor as a friend and fellow traveller and it’s great to see
them end up getting on so well.

And the Doctor being and telling him he is proud when he
leaves the TARDIS.  Though his leaving
still makes zero sense to me.  A
wonderful little moment between the Doctor and Steven.  And it is one of the few endings of a companion
that isn’t sad for the viewer, but is sad for the characters saying
goodbye.

Well, that’s how I saw it anyway.

Dodo

I feel like Dodo is severely underrated as a companion.

I liked her in all the stories she is in.  In some of those stories, she is one of the only
good things in there.  

But so little was done with her.  We know she likes to wander.  We know she likes to be helpful.  We know she’s as comfortable wearing men’s clothing
as she is women’s clothing and doesn’t care what others think of her sense of
fashion.  She is street smart, but not
book smart.

But apart from that, she is basically a blank slate to do
with as the show needs.  And in a show like
this, with a character as bubbly and likeable as Dodo is…I don’t think that
took away anything from her.  If anything,
it added to her.  

But she’s one of those companions that is generally
forgotten about, because she wasn’t one of the popular ones.

And that kind of sucks for her.

Don’t worry, Dodo, I liked you and thought you were great
as a companion.

Polly

So far, in the one serial she has been in, I like Polly.

She is smart, with a great sense of humour and has a saving
people thing going on.

She’s a mid-high class secretary at one of London’s elite
new buildings for one of the top professors.
This is a woman going places with her life.

She likes to have fun and party.  She likes to dress up.  She has friends everywhere.

I don’t remember a lot of the Two serials with her in
them, because they’re mainly recons and I have only watched them once.  But I do remember liking her in my first
watch through.  I hope I continue to like
her.

Ben

Ah, Ben.

Ben I remember less than Polly.  I remember I wrote in one of my reviews at
one stage that I didn’t like him as much as Polly and this was very true of my
first watch through.  So, it genuinely
surprised me how much I enjoyed him in The War Machines, with a few annoying exceptions.  

He’s a navy boy at heart and is homesick for the
sea.  He’s loyal to those he sees as
friends and comrades and to those who help him out with problems and especially
if they save his life.

He’s not super strong, but isn’t afraid to keep on trying
if he fails the first time at a task, especially if it will get him out of
trouble.

So far so good, though I don’t know how long that will
stay true.

The Doctor

Oh, Doctor, how I love you and your ridiculous character
development.

In season one, he started off almost killing a man for
slowing them down because he was injured. Now he is fighting for justice and
the good of the universe.  What a change.

And he has lost a lot of that grump in exchange for minor
annoyance and glee for the wonders around him.

He has a lot more fun this season.  He gets to be more of his good traits,
instead of emphasising the bad.  It’s
gotten to the point where older companions tell the newer ones of his
temperament and that he can get very grumpy and to ignore him when he does.

And I kind of maybe love that just a bit.

He has grown so much and continues to grow as a character
and it is wonderful to see.

I also love that his relationship with his companions for
the most part is different with every different one.

He also finished this season off with his badass moment
in The War Machines, when he stays put and walks forward into a situation the
army is running from.  Awesome.

Keep on growing, keep on changing and keep on going, you
wonderfully strange, alien man.

The War Machines – Episode Four

malicerewatchesdoctorwho:

Written by – Ian Stuart Black
Director – Michael Ferguson
Producer – Innes Lloyd

Episode Four

(“To coin a phrase, Sir Charles, I neutralised it.” – The
Doctor to Sir Charles about stopping war machine 9.)

Likes

– Ben being all helpful still.  I actually really liked Ben in this
episode.  With about 1 exception.

– The cuts to radios, bars, shop fronts for updates, so we
know what is happening in the story without having it focus all on the Doctor
and his party, because it is info they wouldn’t know right off.  They find it out along with everyone
else…through the radio.

– The Doctor not worrying just for Polly and trying to stop
Ben going to find her and only her.  He has
a lot more people to worry over.

– The Doctor reprogramming the war machine to attack WOTAN.  And set it to like super speed to get there
fast.  Look at that thing go!

– The Major’s short part in this episode.  I feel so sorry for that man.  More so than for Brett.  And they go to get him medical help, which is
really nice to see.  He’s the only one
who needs it, but he was the one who had the machines kill dozens of
people. 

Dislikes

– Ben’s worry right at the end that he’d be late to his
barracks.  He says it three or four times
in about as many minutes.  

– What is up with the part with the New York paper calling England
for more info. I get that they wanted us
to know the world was all worried over it, but it seemed like a really forced
scene just thrown in there.

– Polly, no!  Don’t
go to WOTAN for disobedience after fighting the program and letting Ben
escape.  That was awesome!  This move just sucks.

– The speech Polly gives the Doctor which was supposed to
be a message from Dodo saying goodbye.  Boo
to that.  Dodo should have come herself
and proven the message was true.  I do
not think the Doctor overreacting at all when he hears it.  I’d be pissed off too.

Awesome

– I like how they used the streets for parts of this
episode.  It adds scale to it.

–

The
bar set.  It was a random set with random
extras in it for a news update, but I really liked it.   

– The burnt out remains of WOTAN looked nice.  I wasn’t expecting it to be burnt by smoke,
but it was and it looks great.

– The special effects when war machine 9 is going to the
post office tower and the camera is directly facing it.  Old fashioned special effects that look silly
but effective are my favourites.
Especially if they are still used today just upgraded a bit for more
effect.

– The over acting of Brett when he was being
unhypnotised.  Hahaha, it looks just as
corny and great in reverse 😛

– I really liked that shot of the bike wheel spinning while
the war machine can be seen moving past it in a puddle of water.

– I…I kind of really like Polly’s hat at the end.

Shitty

– The sound effects when WOTAN was being destroyed.  Just, ow, my poor ears.

– Why did those two people right at the end after the
TARDIS disappeared break the fourth wall?
Was that really necessary?  It made
no sense for them to do that at all.

– WOTAN had one line in this whole episode that was stand
out…and I couldn’t understand properly what it said.  

In Conclusion

I found this the weakest episode in this serial.  The first three were great with a lot of good
build up and then it just comes to a hold in this episode.  The fighting you’d expect is, for the most part,
simply not there.  Though I did like what
the Doctor did to stop it, the war machines that were out should have done more
seen damage.

Still, I like that Ben was active all the way through and
was helpful with the trap.  The Doctor did
a lot in this episode and saved the day by knowing how to program
computers.  It was Polly being
adventurous and observant that got her and Ben in the TARDIS.  

All up, I liked it, but not as much as the other
episodes.  And I don’t really know what
else to say about this episode, because not a lot happened that involved things
outside the Doctor and his party, whose plot was stop the machines.  And they did.

Death Count – 1.
Krimpton who was killed by the Doctor’s war machine.

The War Machines as a Whole

I really enjoy The War Machines.  

Most of it is fun, a good introduction to the new
companions and gives the Doctor quite a few heroic moments.  It has enjoyable for the most part side
characters, like Sir Charles, who I really liked throughout this story.

Ben and Polly are given totally different lives to each
other, different personalities, different everything really.  They are also very different to other
companions so far, but they work well together
when they are both in their right minds, which is good to see.

The one thing about this story I really don’t like is the
disappearance of Dodo, and Polly giving us a speech which sounds completely fake,
and the Doctor’s reaction to it is perfect.
You should be angry that she just decided to never see you again and
leave a message of love in return with someone he barely knows.

Definitely give this one a watch.  Great fun for almost all of it.