September 2009

Good story. I think the acting was strong. I hate that 'FEED ME!!!!! FEED MEEEEEEEEEE! and HUNGRY!!!! bits, they could have lost those and it would have been better. The opening is a bit awkward but it's all pretty good. One last poor point: the Doctor, Eddie, and Tommy's mum can't speak clearly in this episode. I'm used to this Doc's rambling but really! I had to break out the DVDs to use the subtitles for the first time since the McCoy era! At one point I thought Tommy's mum said, "Everyone enjoying the Pope?" and what did the Doc say about it's never too late (he quotes Kylie) but almost everything he says in the climax is lost on me (I thought he said 300 soles never leave home without them). Truly dreadful pronunciation from the Doc, Eddi'es parents.

This Week In Doctor Who
September 12, 2009 - Vol 12, No 35
The weekly guide to Doctor Who broadcasts worldwide since 1998.
by Benjamin F. Elliott
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This cannot be a proper review. Why? I couldn't get past the first ten minutes of this horridly boring story. Maybe it's not fair or maybe it's just David Tennant's Doctor sucks when he's traveling on his own or maybe I've just had enough of this Doctor period. Then there's obligatory "10 meets female psuedo companion when traveling on his own"  scenes. Even with the sttrangeness of this opening and the odd Tardis stuff, this just fails to grab me. I might return to it but I doubt it and I'll never go back to the Maghony Murders as that was much more boring. David's Doctor is all over the place and in fact, I wonder if his Doctor has more stories than all the others or all the others put together and for me, it's way too much. To be fair, there are a great deal of good audios, novels, comics featuring this Doctor. He's rubbish without his companions and the worst of his spinoffs feature him  alone on his own. IMO.

I really like this audio story and would probably give it like a 4/5 or a 7 or 8 out of 10. It feels like a historical but with some added stuff to the mix and all of it is good. Frazier Hines, one of my favorite companions in Jamie, if not some of his oddball comments in interviews, is also great in this. At just about all times, his Second Doctor impersonation is so spot on, I thought they had recruited David Troughton (who to me sounds just like the Second Doctor) to do the Second Doctor! It's that amazing. That said, toward the end, the stop-go manner of talking does get on one's nerves ---the second Doctor didn't talk that ALL THE TIME and nor did he clear his throat that much. Hines does it far too much but again, he sounds in all other ways just like Patrick.