Doctor Who: Parting of the ways

[mrph]

That worked. I take back most of what I said about RTD's inability to write a good story.

More later.

There may be spoilers in them there comments, btw...

Comments

[aoakley.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but as a huge fan of the new series, I thought Parting was the worst written episode of series 27.

It was just so god-in-the-machine, wasn't it? "And this amazing unexpected magical thing happened which saved everyone..."

Why that specific phrase "bad wolf" and not another? I realise this was the clue Rose left for herself, but why did that specific phrase help?

Basically the plot says you can solve any problem no matter how big if you sacrifice yourself by looking into the Eye of Harmony. So, er, given the saving-the-universe nature of most of the Doctor's adventures, why this episode and not other episodes?

Plus, waaay too much technobabble yet very little in the way of explaining how people survived the time war.

RTD is a superb director and writes great human-aspect scenes but he doesn't write good sci-fi, hopefully he will bring in more 3rd-party writers next series- I'd particularly like to see Moffat and Gatis writing again.

Looked great, though. And Tennant looks promissing.

[zarbi.livejournal.com]

After a bit of thought, it now seems pretty straightforward to me. The phrase 'bad wolf' (assuming it had to come from anywhere, given Rose's statement 'I am the bad wolf, I create myself' - with a loop in time, things don't have to have a clear point of origin) they came from the TV corporation name, which Rose/Tardis then dispersed.

The survival of something significant from the time war was clearly hinted at by the existence of the Dalek in 'Dalek'. If the Doctor survived, and that survived, then something else could have survived.

As for the 'eye of harmony/time vortex' business; my reading of it is that so far they have just been lucky - there is some form of incredible power there but it is raw and unpredictable - there is a phrase: 'riding the tiger'. In the 1996 film, a tardis with internal bits left open very nearly kills the Doctor and destroys the Earth.

I am old enough to have watched most of Dr Who at the original time of broadcast, and I have to say that, in my opinion, this series has been outstanding - even with its occasional failings.