or “i KNOW what noetic means!”
… being a show-by-show TARDIS-esque (ie in effect random) exploration of Doctor Who Soup to Nuts, begun at LJ’s diggerdydum community and from now on also crossposted at FT.
it appears that LOVE(<–so-called)film are MESSING WITH MINE HEAD, since of the 30-odd whos I ordered, the first three have been 4s, and this one is the DAWNING OF THE SATANIC REIGN OF K9, aka The Invisible Enemy >:(however i shall buckle down like a good sponge
i: 4 himself rather phones it in this story which is GOOD ftb he usually annoys me
ii: there is something rather admirable about attempting a tale which combines visual elements of FANTASTIC VOYAGE with 2001: a SPACE ODYSSEY (the spaceship docking with the hospital asteroid), ALIEN (the eggs in the hold), and even low-cost STAR TREK (the console), when yr budget barely stretches to a the bristles off a white plastic brush, some eggboxes, balloons and sequins, and some swarfega for the eggs to hatch in… the opening sequence (spacerocket full of snoozing spacemen passes through asteroid belt into an ALIEN ENERGY CLOUD; spacemen wake up and bicker) was adorable
iii: the sortakinda nietzschean high-concept being explored — not profoundly, but vigorously — is INTELLIGENCE ISN’T EVERYTHING, INSTINCT IS GOOD TOO, and it’s nicely managed, given audience constraints (viz that they have decided no one older than 7 is watching); i liked that the doctor’s mental zone is actually divided PHYSICALLY into brain and mind aka reason and dreams, with a big spooky gap between them… this already makes it better than fantastic voyage (also: “they’re my own phagocytes! use your knife!” = THEY ARE HAIRY BALLOONS) (um there is a massive sexual subtext here pls to note)
iv: i was strangely pleased that doctor marius was rescued; the last two stories i saw were a bit casual about killing people off, and he was fun
v: i liked the FUN-WITH-BIG-WORDS substory — lots of fast rattling-off of polysyllables by marius, the doctor AND k9, and leela just sighing and at one point rapping k9’s hull resignedly (“can you explain SIMPLY!?”) (doctor: “shall we try using our INTELLIGENCE?” L: “if you think it will help!”); not sure how it combined with the clockwork orange-style nu-spellings of times to come (“imurjinsee eggsit”); maybe another INTELLECT vs er er SOMETHING joke
vi: the very obvious actual reason leela is unaffected by prawncooties is that she is a GURL who can SENSE evil and etc (none of the nurses are affected either) — so hurrah that the doctor gets infected-vaccinated by
absorbing cloneleela and her MICROGURLINESS
vii: one lost opportunity — there could have been a bit more scaleplay; eg when the prawn arrives big, the doctor mocks him for being clumsy in the macroworld; it would have been fun, just as he was saying “the age of man is OVER! the age of the virus has begun”, if he’d just BURST or something… the whole egg section surely doesn’t really need him in person (tho i enjoyed his heightened wheezing as SPAWNING approached) (i mean they could have carried some prawnspunk yes ew ew from his exploded corpse to the jiggling eggs) (obv i
haf forgot that only 7-yr-olds are watching)
OK this was a cheapie but I kinda LOVED it, it seized its £1.43p budget and HEADED FOR THE CRAB PRAWN NEBULA. Only spoiled for me by uber-tiresome K9 action at the end — they should have ignited the oxygen bomb by igniting HIM grrrr