Doctor Who – Smith & Jones

Through the wonder-tubes of Teh Internets, we watched the first episode of the new season.

I liked it more than last season’s opener, “New Earth” —

In fact, as a story, I might’ve even liked this better than the series one opener, “Rose.” (Although that had the added benefit of introducing the new show AND a new Doctor)

“Smith & Jones” reminded me of the short stories that used to be in the annuals and the comics — the sort of “this happens to the Doctor all the time” thing — just a quick, odd SF-ish problem that needs solving. I loved those stories when I was younger, and they were never really represented on the show, because the show was all about multipart stories with extensive plots involving capture and escape, running through corridors, meeting the locals, etc. With the new show, they can do that — in fact, this is one of the first ones that they’ve told which felt like it was *intended* like that from the start, rather than taking a traditional-style “Who” story and compressing it into 45 minutes, which always makes it seem a bit rushed.

Tennant is confident and isn’t “the new guy” any more….the show is his. Now he’s got his own companion, rather than inheriting one from the previous Doctor.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that this episode really felt like its own thing, finally — not an attempt to re-create the magic of the older series within the new format, but an example of the new show standing on its own two feet….in effect, the point at which it has changed from being “the new show” and has fully become “the show.”

Plus, Martha is FINE.

6 Replies to “Doctor Who – Smith & Jones”

  1. I also agree. Plus, there was a scene involving shoes that we loved so much we watched it twice. :)

    Seen the Doctor who Weakest link yet? Fun-ny!

  2. Bloody great. My only whinge is that it should have been Sontarans (in New Rock Boots!). And the Sucky Lady should have done the SFX reveal at some stage.

  3. I was watching it thinking “finally, Who does really big dumb Skiffy.”

    Intergalactic police, who are, by the way, rhino people in leather skirts, abduct a whole hospital to the motherfucking moon to catch a space vampire, which, by the way, can hide that it’s a non-human, while the doctor can’t.

    I have one quibble: RTD neither knows nor cares how an x-ray machine works (think superhyper filament light bulb and you’re not far off). So the doctor couldn’t “catch the radiation going around the room” to make it safe and then put it in his shoe.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.