"Wild Blue Yonder" [review]
Dec. 5th, 2023 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shivverWhen I told my husband that this is probably my new favorite episode, he said, “Really? It’s better than ‘Human Nature’?” I didn’t really have an answer for that. Do I really like it more than that, or my other favorite, “The Caves of Androzani”? It’s really hard to say. The three episodes are so different, with entirely different reasons for being good, it’s hard to compare them and choose a winner. I think I’ll have to say all three for now.
But I have seen it twice so far. It would have been three times but we ran out of time last night.
Spoilers inside…
Omg, where to start? First and foremost, for me anyway: actual hard science fiction! A myriad of puzzles to figure out, each emerging as the previous one was solved. Antagonists that not only behave according to a set of rules that the Doctor has to figure out, but also learn and grow, becoming an ever-increasing threat. Solutions that are based on the presented dilemmas and solid thinking rather than technobabble, hand-waving, or mystical forces.
The action, once started, never stopped. Even expository speeches and important discussions about feelings and history were delivered during the story, rather than stopping the story to draw the spotlight, which is something that’s been a problem for years and plagued Thirteen’s run. As an example, when the Doctor is talking about where the TARDIS goes when it takes off alone, he’s constantly working to adjust the water pivot. It’s a minor action, but he’s accomplishing something, not just standing there speeching to thin air, and also serves to contrast him to the inert Donna copy as she’s learning to create herself.
This Doctor/companion pair was a unique opportunity, like RTD realized that he’d probably never have another chance to create a TV story that hinged on a team that knew each other so well that they could ask the right questions to discern their doppelgangers but also held enough assumptions about each other that they might interpret the answers incorrectly. This story wouldn’t have worked with Rose or Martha, or perhaps things would have turned out very, very differently.
The antagonists. We don’t even have a name for them, do we? It was fascinating watching them evolve and learn. The creepiness, though - that’s all Tate and Tennant. The tiniest twitch of a lip or raise of an eyebrow while staring through the glass could chill your soul. And after all the monsters with claws and teeth and men with guns and swords who’ve tried to defeat the Doctor, this one uses his own weapon against him - his need to think and understand - and nearly won.
But don’t discount Donna here. With the metacrisis gone (and that was probably a good thing; it would have sped up their demise), she was way out of her depth, but she’s still Supertemp. Ever observant, she noticed the lack of the tie, while the Doctor was fooled by her double because he so desperately needed solace for his woes. Later, she asked the right question, which the Doctor, in his targeted quest to foil these things, didn’t even consider: why were these things trying to scare them?
And amongst all this, the story still found time to address other issues. The Doctor is still wrestling with his origins as well as who he currently is, and he’s keeping that all to himself. Donna, despite her current good life with her husband and daughter, still has family and personal issues to deal with.
Of course, maybe the best part was the last scene, which I’m not going to explicitly talk about because maybe someone is dumb enough to have read this review without seeing the episode and if so, they really don’t want to be spoiled by this last scene. But I teared up a little. So did my husband.
I’ve seen complaints about the bad CGI, and in fact one professional review I read basically said the CGI totally tanked the episode. Honestly, I didn’t even notice. Yeah, the giant tunnel-blocking Doctor and Donna was pretty bad, otherwise? I was paying more attention to the story than the visuals. The ship was gorgeous, though. And if you’re primarily watching sci-fi for the visuals, then you should know that DW isn’t the show for you, and it hasn’t been, since 1963.
Finally, at least one thread left dangling, which just makes me grin with anticipation. Will the Fourteenth Doctor correct the timeline divergence he caused (well, Donna caused) in the pre-credits scene - we know that he’s aware that it happened - or will it be left for the Fifteenth Doctor to address?
So, um, yeah. Best DW episode ever? Quite possibly.
But I have seen it twice so far. It would have been three times but we ran out of time last night.
Spoilers inside…
Omg, where to start? First and foremost, for me anyway: actual hard science fiction! A myriad of puzzles to figure out, each emerging as the previous one was solved. Antagonists that not only behave according to a set of rules that the Doctor has to figure out, but also learn and grow, becoming an ever-increasing threat. Solutions that are based on the presented dilemmas and solid thinking rather than technobabble, hand-waving, or mystical forces.
The action, once started, never stopped. Even expository speeches and important discussions about feelings and history were delivered during the story, rather than stopping the story to draw the spotlight, which is something that’s been a problem for years and plagued Thirteen’s run. As an example, when the Doctor is talking about where the TARDIS goes when it takes off alone, he’s constantly working to adjust the water pivot. It’s a minor action, but he’s accomplishing something, not just standing there speeching to thin air, and also serves to contrast him to the inert Donna copy as she’s learning to create herself.
This Doctor/companion pair was a unique opportunity, like RTD realized that he’d probably never have another chance to create a TV story that hinged on a team that knew each other so well that they could ask the right questions to discern their doppelgangers but also held enough assumptions about each other that they might interpret the answers incorrectly. This story wouldn’t have worked with Rose or Martha, or perhaps things would have turned out very, very differently.
The antagonists. We don’t even have a name for them, do we? It was fascinating watching them evolve and learn. The creepiness, though - that’s all Tate and Tennant. The tiniest twitch of a lip or raise of an eyebrow while staring through the glass could chill your soul. And after all the monsters with claws and teeth and men with guns and swords who’ve tried to defeat the Doctor, this one uses his own weapon against him - his need to think and understand - and nearly won.
But don’t discount Donna here. With the metacrisis gone (and that was probably a good thing; it would have sped up their demise), she was way out of her depth, but she’s still Supertemp. Ever observant, she noticed the lack of the tie, while the Doctor was fooled by her double because he so desperately needed solace for his woes. Later, she asked the right question, which the Doctor, in his targeted quest to foil these things, didn’t even consider: why were these things trying to scare them?
And amongst all this, the story still found time to address other issues. The Doctor is still wrestling with his origins as well as who he currently is, and he’s keeping that all to himself. Donna, despite her current good life with her husband and daughter, still has family and personal issues to deal with.
Of course, maybe the best part was the last scene, which I’m not going to explicitly talk about because maybe someone is dumb enough to have read this review without seeing the episode and if so, they really don’t want to be spoiled by this last scene. But I teared up a little. So did my husband.
I’ve seen complaints about the bad CGI, and in fact one professional review I read basically said the CGI totally tanked the episode. Honestly, I didn’t even notice. Yeah, the giant tunnel-blocking Doctor and Donna was pretty bad, otherwise? I was paying more attention to the story than the visuals. The ship was gorgeous, though. And if you’re primarily watching sci-fi for the visuals, then you should know that DW isn’t the show for you, and it hasn’t been, since 1963.
Finally, at least one thread left dangling, which just makes me grin with anticipation. Will the Fourteenth Doctor correct the timeline divergence he caused (well, Donna caused) in the pre-credits scene - we know that he’s aware that it happened - or will it be left for the Fifteenth Doctor to address?
So, um, yeah. Best DW episode ever? Quite possibly.
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Date: 2023-12-09 11:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-09 11:49 pm (UTC)