Hello, hello. A few thoughts on Series 4 of Doctor Who, plus Heroes and Scrubs.
Doctor Who
1) Partners in Crime
A surprisingly weak plot for the new Doctor Who, I found this one pretty disappointing. The Adipose are cute but not brilliantly realised, and the bits where people have them moving around underneath their clothes look ridiculous. On the plus side, Catherine Tate does just fine as Donna, Tennant continues to be a great Doctor, and the Rose surprise is a good one - this show should do more things like that. 6/10
2) The Fires of Pompeii
I wasn't sure about this one... It didn't impress me as much as I think it should have. However, the effects are amazing, the Doctor fighting people with a water pistol is EXACTLY what this show is about, and Tate is very good at the end as the Doctor breaks the rules of time. 7/10
3) Planet of the Ood
There's some good stuff here, mainly the brilliant Ood - one of the best alien species in Doctor Who, who are rightfully developed into more than 'those creepy squid faces from the Devil episodes'. But the story's so slow moving, taking ages to get anywhere and Tim McInnery is a bit miscast, coming across as just another unmemorable cliched villain. 6/10
4) The Sontaran Stratagem
Okay, first thing's first - the Sontarans are silly. Well, they are. They're hilarious. But it seems the Doctor Who team knew this too, and so Christopher Ryan (General Staal) gets some decent dialogue to work with. Martha's back! Hooray. I like her more now. The clone plot thread seems a bit pointless though...The pre-titles sequence is, as RTD pointed out in Confidential, a rather adult way to begin the show, and it works. 8/10
5) The Poison Sky
The first episode this series which I've gone away from feeling satisfied. Martha's underused, but hopefully she'll fare better in next week's ep, which looks great. Nice reference to the gas-mask zombies, Rose again (!) and a good cliffhanger. Best ep yet, I think. 8/10
Heroes
1) Four Months Later
A fairly strong opener, if very slow. A whole new lot of plot-lines begin, and look to be just as good as last year's, if not better. Hiro's scenes are the best by far, but the Matt/Mohinder/Molly dynamic is interesting, too. 8/10
Scrubs: Season 7
This begins airing in the UK this week on E4, but I've seen the first 10 episodes through downloading, on youtube, etc. Bit disappointing overall. The first couple of eps are good (the cliffhanger resolution to Series Six is awful though) but there just aren't that many funny bits... Also, there's not really any proper plot for a couple of shows, so everything's a bit directionless. Episode 10's very funny though.
Thanks for reading, please post comments 