176 Fear Her

Watched 12-Jul

On a Bluray.

This actually sucks.

The first few minutes establish the plot , the 'threat', the 'big bad' by means of ludicrous standing about in the street, unreal conversations between undeveloped characters. The Trish and Chloe characters seem like minor and distant at this early stage and do not get introduced in a sympatico fashion.

The action then seems to move to show the Doctor and Rose engaging in at first pretend police detective work, then some kind of weird mix of social work and hypnotism before it goes full "Exorcist homage". These scenes are uncomfortable to watch since they normalise a grown man interfering with a young child in a domestic "I'm saving her" setting. When Catholic Priests do this there's (sometimes) a Royal Commission... yuck!

Then the last reel is full of vomit dripping "this is a great day for humanity" unbelievable Olympic stadium/torch relay antics which would be barely credible if they were some kind of dream sequence.

The plot is alien tries to take over people by transmatting them 'somewhere' and using them for I'm not sure what. Then when the alien is discovered it submits when the Doctor and Rose rescue the 'egg' thing and burn it in a burning Olympic torch relay. (Could they have simply barbequed it?)

The whole episode is grating and lacking in the kind of thing DW should be. It's not relatable (except to middle class property weirdoes, maybe) and the climax is terrible.

I feel Matthew Graham (famous for Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes) is unsuited to the task of DW scripting. That he will be asked back to do another is hard to understand. Wikipedia claims that this episode was written quickly at a late stage to replace an script from Stephen Fry that failed to complete.

There are two worthwhile moments. The Doctor admitting, casually dropped into a conversation, that he "was a father... once." This is played by Billie as the sequel hunting bombshell it is... but sadly this has never really been followed up on. And of course the final scene which presages the dramatic tear at Rose's complacency in the following two episodes. Neither of these justify the whole running time.

Apart from that this is easily the worst episode of new Who and vies with the worst of old Who. A stunning and disappointing mistake.

ABM Rating 0.10/4.00
LJM Rating 1.49/5.00
SPJ Rating 2.00/10   

No. 180 (out of 184)


Link to Cumulative Rankings


Rankings Scoreboard