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My review of #3.1 of Big Finish’s 8th doctor adventures Orbis staring Paul McGann as the 8th doctor and Sheridan Smith as Lucie Miller is available at Amazon.com here.
This begins Lucie Miller’s final full season with McGann. It’s a good one.
As always you can pick this up at Mike’s comics. You can also listen to a trailer the adventure here.
Yeah I’m upset about the Arizona ruling, the Massachusetts electoral college law and the Keeton case but there is joy in DaTechGuy ville today:
For Rich has started his newest Doctor Who saga Outrage today staring the 6th Doctor and Mel!
So get yourself over there and start enjoying yet another exciting and well drawn Doctor Who serial.
Oh and if you missed his just completed 3rd Doctor Adventure, The Stalker of Norfolk it is now available free as a PDF download.
See life is good
With the big dramatic ending and the very heavy situation you might have expected something with high terror, and a tense as a person can get. The Big Bang delivered almost exactly the opposite.
Was there some tension? Sure, where there several live and death moments, yup. But on the whole The Big Bang is a totally uplifting and lighthearted story that is just plain fun.
It’s not what you would expect from a season finale, the tension isn’t from the saving of the universe, it comes afterwords and plays itself very well.
Arthur Darvill’s Rory nearly steals the first third of the episode, his scenes with the Amy and the Doctor are powerful and really make the episode in a lot of way. Most of the “heavy” time comes from it yet even so the writing is so good that it isn’t so heavy that we can’t deal with it.
Alex Kingston has a much smaller part, but that’s ok, she is not the focus of the episode and she does have one very memorable moment.
One attractive piece of the story is the fact that not everything is resolved. That gives us something to look forward to for next season.
One final thing about all of this there is a big discontinuity with the fifth Doctor Episode Mawdryn Undead that longtime fans will spot right off, but we’ll let the BBC handle that.
That last 10 minutes contain not only some of the most pleasant moments of the entire run and something takes place that has never ever happened in the whole 47 years.
I’d have to say The Pandorica Opens is slightly better but the difference is so slight as to be almost meaningless.
One last thought, this episode is 55 minutes long, The Pandorica is 50 minutes long, that leaves only 15 minutes in two hours for commercials so I expect they will do some cutting. Perhaps they will cut the opening credits in the 2nd episode to save a few but I will be very upset if they slice and dice this thing.
Rating *****
Last Episode: The Pandorica Opens
Next Episode: Only 5 months away!
Considering how much I liked the Lodger it would take an extraordinary episode to go higher in my ranking. The Pandorica Opens pulls it off. It is the single best episode in the entire 5th series.
The direct tie ins with previous episodes work very well. Alex Kingston not only gets an incredible array of interesting costumes (her final costume is in my mind stunning on her, particularly the hip hugging belt, it is absolutely unrevealing yet incredibly attractive, The perfect uniform for the character.) but show stealing scenes and scene stealing lines: “I hate good wizards in fairy tales, they always turn out to be him.“.
However everybody gets into the act, simply manic moments and lines such as:
The Doctor: “Look at me! I’m a target.”,
The Doctor: No, I’m missing something obvious, Rory! Something big, something right slap in front of me, I can feel it!
Rory Yeah, I think you probably are
The Doctor: I’ll get it in a minute.The Doctor: Remember every black day I ever stopped you. And then, and then, do the smart thing. Let somebody else try first.
Roman General: “I leave camp for one week and find out we’ve been hosting, Cleopatra who’s in Egypt…and Dead!”
And in case you think this is only comedy, the drama is so thick you can cut it with a knife, A lot of answers are provided in this episode but even more questions. It leaves you emotionally drained yet desperate for more. This episode is a dramatic tear jerker and an emotional roller coaster with sizzling aliens of every type for good measure. The cliff hanger is surpurb
It doesn’t get any better than this, but lucky for you it gets damn close.
Rating *****
Last Episode: The Lodger
Next Episode: The Big Bang
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