This week’s episode…
What a half-baked pile of dross that was.
The potential was there, to be sure. The concept (cloning the Doctor) was a good one, and it was nifty that the clone was played by Georgia Moffet — Peter Davison’s daughter (so “The Doctor’s Daughter” was played by the Doctor’s daughter), but UGH. Where to start?
* When you do the entire cloning and introduction of the episodes entire dramatic premise in less than 20 seconds in the pre-titles sequence…..this may be a hint that you might want to devote more than a single episode to it.
* The background plot–a never-ending generational war whose participants have mythologized it, has been done to death on every SF show since the beginning of EVER. It’s not clever. It’s old hat and quite cliched by now.
* There were plot holes the size of… quite large plot holes. The generational war has only been going on a week? What happened to the original (non-cloned) colonists, then? A fish-man does a noble sacrifice and dies by…. sinking in quicksand? Even though he has fishy-scuba-gear providing him with what he needs to breathe? The nifty uber-terraforming whosit functions perfectly when smashed into bits? The TARDIS took over and flew them there “because of Jenny?” Buh? What the hell is that supposed to mean…and why doesn’t it fly them back when she comes back to life? I don’t mind the tendency towards “wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey”, but you don’t handwave something that formed the cliffhanger from last week and the entire impetus for the plot of your episode. BAD.
* She didn’t regenerate — that was full-on Genesis-Device Spock-Ressurection, caused by the uber-terraforming whatsit. I like the character, but come on. If you’ve decided to have her live, just make her a companion. (Supposedly, it was Steven Moffat who decided that she should be revived at the end. Perhaps he’ll bring her back as a regular when he takes over — I doubt that they’ll do another spin-off.)
To sum up — this one pissed me off because, unlike the awful season opener, I could see how this could have been so much better than it was. They had a great core idea, but ham-fisted it. Bah.