Doctor Who – “The Stolen Earth” (Part 2 of 3)

…

Nah. No way. They couldn’t have kept a lid on it. They wouldn’t have done it as a cliffhanger.

I don’t have time to blather on *too* long but that was pretty much as expected.

There are far too many bits where character burst into tears and/or give up simply because the plot demands it and it sounds cool. The “Harriet Jones, Former Prime Minister” gag is desperately overplayed (yet still funny). The Doctor-Rose running scene is strangely hilarious. It’s totally, gleefully non-stop from the word go, utterly saturated with incident, characters and hyperbole and, it must be said, despite all of that — it’s a hell of a lot of fun. Far more so than last year’s finale, part 1.

Davros is excellent, and about the only enemy suitable to the task of such a ludicrously overblown story (and tone). Great visual, great performance. Indeed, just about the only villain with enough weight to justify a regeneration.

But I’m not convinced that’s what we’re getting. Maybe Martha’s device is a big red reset button. Maybe Rose’s dimension hopping can save the Doctor. Maybe Donna gives her life to set things right (if there’s still something on her back could this all be another parallel reality?) Maybe they unlock the Time War and everything changes. It dosn’t matter. The simple fact remains: I don’t see the Doctor regenerating. Unless he regenerates into himself, Gandalf-style.

So basically an episode of Total Bollocks Overdrive. I mean, the Daleks couldn’t just Exterminate, they had to Maximum Exterminate. UNIT couldn’t have Code Red they had to have Ultimate Code Red. Everything was BIGGER.

For some reason I really liked it.