Friday, May 18, 2012

Doctor Who Watch a Thon: Season 1 Episode 12 "Bad Wolf"

As an effort to justify our somewhat obsessive T.V watching Meghan (Of Coffee and Wizardsand @MegTao on Twitter) and myself have decided to undertake a Doctor Who Watch-a-long. We'll be starting with the beginning of the 2005 relaunch and will be posting about one episode each Friday, on our respective blogs. We hope you'll join in – whether as a re-watch or to discover the Doctor for the first time!
*just a heads up each post may contain spoilers for that episode and then ones before it*


Episode Summary
Written by: Russel T Davies
Director: Joe Ahearne
The three TARDIS travellers find themselves separated, waking up with temporary amnesia in various reality television and game shows. The Doctor finds himself in a Big Brother house, Rose on the set of The Weakest Link hosted by the "Anne Droid", and Jack facing the female androids Trine-e and Zu-Zana who offer to give him a brand new image, à la What Not to Wear. All three find out that the shows are more fatal than their twenty-first century counterparts. On The Weakest Link and Big Brother, losing contestants are seemingly disintegrated, while on What Not to Wear, participants undergo major cosmetic surgery. Jack and the Doctor escape from their shows, the Doctor bringing along a contestant called Lynda, and discover they are on the former Satellite Five, which the Doctor previously visited in "The Long Game", now under the control of the Badwolf Corporation.  

Thoughts on the Episode
There is some bizarre stuff going on in this episode. All three characters, find themselves on some crazy adaptations of famous reality TV shows. I felt very thrown into this episode, as it immediately starts with the Doctor being thrown into the Big Brother house, but once I figured out what was going on it was a lot of fun.

Captain Jack as always is a joy to watch. Transported into What Not to Wear, he's in his element. Showing off in the different outfits they dress him in, pulling a gun out at the last minute (from where? Well that's better left to the imagination). Things are quite serious/dire for the Doctor and Rose, so it's nice to have Jack provide some comic relief and lower the tension of the episode. 

Was I the only one shocked by the return of the Daleks the first time they saw this? How did they survive? How did so many of them survive. Their voices are so creepy, they always give me the shivers. It's quite the elaborate plan they've orchestrated here, having the entire Earth be potential game show contestants, where losing means death. It also blows my mind how this has been hinted at so many times. I caught a few of the Bad Wolf references throughout the season but no where near all of them.

I'm super excited for next week to see how this all works out and what the Doctor intends to do to save Rose. Are they all going to make it? AHHH maddness!!

Favourite Moment
All the fabulous one liners throughout this episode. Especially when they're playing the games. Two of my favourites are:
" She was the weakest link - she got disintegrated."
"You have 10 second to say your farwells and then we're gonna get you!"

I know it makes me a little dark, but I actually laughed out loud at some of these lines. Those Daleks have a sense of humour ;)

3 comments:

  1. My favorite lines were "we will talk to the Doctor" "Oh, will you? That's nice. Hello."

    It makes me sad that there is only one episode left of this season.

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  2. The Daleks were made out of the humans they "killed" I thought?

    My reviews going up Wednesday cause I fail XD

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    1. I don't think they mention that in this episode. Maybe they explain it part 2?

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