Davies as writer takes a lot of chances, especially in the finale, so it can feel over-the-top and mythic simultaneously. What else can you say about the Master transforming the entire population of Earth into versions of himself? It can’t all be for the joke, “the Master race.” It’s one of those outrageous ideas that seems absurd and compelling simultaneously.
The new Who attracted some of the top acting talent in the UK, though the UK TV and pop stars weren’t always known in the U.S. We have heard of Timothy Dalton and Claire Bloom, who play key roles in the finale. We’ve also seen Lindsay Duncan, who played Adelaide Brooke in “Waters of Mars”—and I have a weird story about that. We were watching a DVD of the “Rome” series—which had a number of actors who’d appeared in Doctor Who-- and when I saw her I kept trying to place what character she had played, because I was sure I’d seen her in Who. When I looked her up on the Internet, the latest news was that she had just been cast—in “Waters of Mars”—her first role in Who.
“Waters of Mars” is also interesting because it’s the closest the new Who has come to a near-future story, and so we see the first human habitat on Mars later in this century, surveying the planet for possible settlement after escaping the “chaos back home. Forty long years, climate, the ozone, the oil apocalypse—we almost reached extinction.” There’s more future history flashing by in the biographical panels (very poorly written they are, too; one of the few slipshod elements of the series), but it’s notable that the first Captain on Mars is a woman, as is the first Captain of a starship. Take that, James T. Kirk!
The new Who attracted some of the top acting talent in the UK, though the UK TV and pop stars weren’t always known in the U.S. We have heard of Timothy Dalton and Claire Bloom, who play key roles in the finale. We’ve also seen Lindsay Duncan, who played Adelaide Brooke in “Waters of Mars”—and I have a weird story about that. We were watching a DVD of the “Rome” series—which had a number of actors who’d appeared in Doctor Who-- and when I saw her I kept trying to place what character she had played, because I was sure I’d seen her in Who. When I looked her up on the Internet, the latest news was that she had just been cast—in “Waters of Mars”—her first role in Who.
“Waters of Mars” is also interesting because it’s the closest the new Who has come to a near-future story, and so we see the first human habitat on Mars later in this century, surveying the planet for possible settlement after escaping the “chaos back home. Forty long years, climate, the ozone, the oil apocalypse—we almost reached extinction.” There’s more future history flashing by in the biographical panels (very poorly written they are, too; one of the few slipshod elements of the series), but it’s notable that the first Captain on Mars is a woman, as is the first Captain of a starship. Take that, James T. Kirk!
1 comment:
The last couple of minutes of 'The End of Time' Part One is some of the most mind-blowing television I've ever seen. The Master Race was just so... INSANE... it was thrilling and hilarious and frightening, I felt I'd been hit with a bolt of lightening out of the blue, literally. And that last thirty seconds, that slow reveal... I couldn't sleep for a week, RTD knows how to write a great cliffhanger but he outdid himself there. I have never been that excited about anything on TV, ever.
Post a Comment