Re: Doctor Who S2/S15 - Ep. 6: The Interstellar Song Contest

In message <xn0p5yeh6bvqlqa001@post.eweka.nl>, Blueshirt <blueshirt@indigo.news> writes

>
I haven't watched many Eurovision Song Contests live in recent
years, but we did always find the scoring the most entertaining
part when we did...

Me too. Before I stopped watching it altogether I used to skip the songs and just start watching when I guessed that the scoring was about to start. Even way back 50 years ago, most of the songs were so dire that I can still remembered what a shock it was when the then unknown ABBA performed "Waterloo" and I thought "Wow, this is really good!"

so for "The Interstellar Song Contest" to
miss out that part of the merriment was unforgivable! However,
we did get OTT, fun, weird, camp, as well as a twist at the end,
to make this a decent parody of the real thing. In fact it was a
lot shorter and a probably a lot more entertaining than the real
thing too.

Yep.

>
As a story "The Interstellar Song Contest" was actually quite
good and very enjoyable, but of course the episode got kind of
de-railed half way through when we got the Susan cameo... not
Susan Twist, but Susan Campbell (née Foreman). Heavily rumoured
in the usual online fan forums of course, but now fully
confirmed on screen. Wow! Carole Ann Forde is back, at 84 years
of age. Having her character call Ncuti's Doctor "Grandfather"
was a bit weird though. At least William Hartnell looked the
part!

Though at 84 Carol Ann Ford still looks a lot younger than William Hartnell did in his 60s.

>
As for the ending; flood -> rain -> Rani, was always a good guess
from the start. The only issue was whether it was too 'on the
nose' and one of RTD's red herrings, but no, it was indeed
exactly what it said on the tin and it was another reveal this
season that had also been heavily speculated on within fandom.
Clearly there is a leak somewhere within the BBC (!)
>
I'm not sure about the two Rani's thing, or Mrs Flood now
becoming an underling either. I was also hoping that
bi-generation was just a once-off in the show too... but RTD
likes to hammer down on his ideas so we've now seen
bi-generation twice in a few years, after never hearing of it
for sixty years! No doubt it will rear its head(s) once again in
the future now that it has become a 'thing'. For me it was silly
fun once, but a stupid gimmick twice.

Not so bad as "mavity" being used again, though.
I now have a variant of a famous Who (as in the rock group, not as in DW) song playing in my head: "Talking about bi-generation".

>
There's only two episodes left of the season now, so now that
the unsurprising surprises have been revealed, what is RTD going
to throw at us in those two episodes? It's going to have to be
something BIG for a season finale... but will RTD get the
landing right or will it be a damp squib? One thing is for sure,
with RTD's subtle use of the word "mavity" in this episode,
'that' is definitely going to play a part!

I assume we're going to get a two-parter dealing with how the Doctor prevents the end of the world, which from the date for it that was given within the episode would appear to be scheduled for this weekend. I also assume that it's the Rani who is trying to bring about Earth's destruction, though what her motivation for that could be is hard to see.

>
Stay tuned folks. The end is near... but the moment has been
prepared for.

:)
--
John Hall
                "I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly,
                 will hardly mind anything else."
                                            Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-84)