DW: Episode 4.11

Holey guacamole! Not so much for the episode itself, but for the trailer afterwards!


There were two points to this episode. One: establish that Donna is the bestest, most special person in the world, and Two: the big bad is about to hit. But first, I want to talk about point three.

Three: the world without the Doctor is very different. Oh sure, there are the Sarah Janes and the Torchwoods, but this earth is barely scraping through... however, without the Doctor, the witch-thingies would have won in The Shakespeare Code, not to mention that the planet would be destroyed or whatever after the events in Pompeii... Yes, alternative universes are all very nice, but trying to work out the details of a sans-Doctor version never really works all that well. (And what about the bee-man?!)

Anyway, RTD uses this episode to state very loudly: Donna is the bestest person ever. Ironically, who gets worked into this episode to help say that? The bestest companionest person ever, Rose Tyler! (Remember the joy we all felt whenever Martha returned to the series... yeah, not so much here.) As they say, methinks the man doth protest too much. Just saying she's special ain't cutting it much, especially when other people are saving the world when the Doctor isn't around, and all Donna is doing is whinging. Aren't they special then? (Actually, with these episodes, it looks like we are slipping back into Rose Who.)

We also have the Big Bad (Wolf?) come up, given the ever so useful name of The Darkness. (Which could have been the two words. Actually, I was suspecting "Medusa Cascade".) Since the arc theme has been more subtle that certain previous series, I'm not sure how anything ties in together, but it looks like everything will be mashed up for the final two-parter.

In many ways, this episode is the Doctor-less filler. Yeah, Donna gets a lot of screen time, but aside from "Rose is around, and The Darkness is coming", there's not a lot to this episode. What really blew me away (and not entirely in a good way) was the trailer...


Next week: Freaking fanwank! Did Gary Russell help write it or something?

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