Yeah, that idea about having a review done by the end of Friday and two by the end of Sunday didn't really work out. Still, I made the notes for this yesterday. Perhaps it speaks volumes about me that the most free time I could find was on St. Valentine's Day
. Anyway, I will do my best to make them more frequent.
School Reunion (***½)
Right, so we open with Anthony Head doing his best villainous face while sinister music plays as he walks down some steps and along a corridor in a school. An ill child with no parents then apparently gets eaten by him in the Headmaster's office (though I'm not sure she could have been as chewed as the scenery from Head just then). Clearly he's the Headmaster then. Incidentally, when she says she's from the children's home and so has no parents and he says words to the effect of "no one to miss you then", imagine you're a child in a children's home tuning into Doctor Who that week. Still, not much time to dwell on that, because we see that the Doctor is a teacher. And he would be a great teacher, wouldn't he? Though this does mean the psychic paper had to be a whole CV.
The titles roll and then the Doctor attempts to teach Physics by saying "physics" over and over again and asks lots of tricky questions only one speccy stereotype kid can answer. Only this isn't about him being a nerd, but rather something clearly being up. The questions are that tricky y'see. We then see that Rose, meanwhile, is a dinner lady. Or dinner woman at least. Her and the Doctor talk a bit about how some school weirdness is up (Mickey put them onto it, somehow knowing) and how the chips are nice. And another sinister teacher comes in and behaves in a sinister way. Back in the kitchen, some strange looking barrels are being moved around (with one of the dinner ladies saying "steady" every few seconds, so you immediately know one of them will go over), and while secretly watching this Rose talks on the phone to Mickey, who seems to be a proper hacker now. Only he can't get to some specific information about recent UFO sightings because the Torchwood site puts up a silly looking "Access Denied" message that isn't very realistic. But we've got a lot of necessary information about the episode's premise in a short space of time (5 minutes), so that's very well done. Also all the kitchen staff have been replaced. Apparently by the Chuckle Brothers, because sure enough a barrel goes over and someone who gets splashed screams a lot.
In the next scene, sinister teacher #2 (I'm trying not to just call him the black one) is giving a computer class which involves a lot of children staring at green screens with spinning cubes and symbols. And then we see her. Lovely Sarah Jane. She's getting a bit of a tour from the Headmaster. The Doctor is talking with another teacher in the staff room about all the funny goings on when Head and Sarah Jane come in. Turns out she's a journalist again. The Doctor recognises her (but obviously she doesn't recognise him) and it makes for a lovely scene, especially for those of us who are fans of the old show. It also really does establish the new show as being in the same continuity as the old one, though I personally was sure of that since seeing the Cyberman's head in Dalek.
Anyway, after this we see Kenny (a child from earlier) go into a classroom and see a CGI weirdness under a desk stand up and become a teacher. Something would seem to be up in this school. The Doctor, Rose, and Mickey then go into the school at night for a nose around. They split up, and it turns out Sarah Jane is snooping around too. She comes across the Tardis and then the Doctor. Hiding the Tardis in a school that you suspect has dodgy alien goings on may not be the best idea, but there's not much time to dwell on that. They talk a bit and Sarah Jane now realises who he is, and then they catch up to Rose and Mickey. Mickey found a load of vacuum-packed yellow (plastic-looking) rats in the Maths department. Some more snoopings and they find a lot of big bat creatures hanging from the ceiling in the Head's office.
They leave and outside in Sarah's car is K9! I never thought we'd see K9 in the new show. You'd think he was everything they wouldn't want to remind you Doctor Who used to be. Slow, bulky, dated, but he is something the old show was and the new show has struggled to be: charming. You'd have thought a funny little tin dog would have no place in a slick production like New Who. But the show's all the better for him. Oh yeah, and while all this was going on, a creepy bat person was watching.
So the four of them go off to a café (all while the bat people keep watch), where Mickey has a gloat at Rose about how her silly love story with the Doctor isn't all that after all, and how he's probably had loads of companions before. Which is, of course, exactly right, and not something I'd have expected the show to acknowledge in a hurry. The Doctor has a go at fixing K9 with his screwdriver and talks with Sarah Jane about how he left her, directly referencing the end of The Hand of Fear. Giving me enough fangasms that I'm fanmoist now. Any more like this and I'll be ready for a fancigarette. On a sadder note though, Sarah Jane is upset about how the Doctor never came back for her. Which we can all understand, and feels very real. K9 then starts working again, and the Doctor gives him a sample of the dodgy barrel stuff which Rose got earlier for analysis. Of course, I'm sure he has equipment that could do that in the Tardis, but we'd all rather have K9. K9 identifies it as Krillitane oil. Another thing this episode does well is give us an interesting idea for a villain. Rather than just being bat people, the Krillitanes give themselves desirable physical characteristics from species they've conquered. And "they're doing something to the children". You just can't hear a line like that any more without thinking...whatever you're thinking.
Loading K9 back into the car, Mickey and Sarah Jane talk, and he realises that he's the New Who equivalent of the tin dog. Poor Mickey. I've really come to like Mickey now. He's far more likeable than Rose at least. Rose also asks the Doctor how many companions he's had exactly. Turns out she thought she was something special, whereas (as we all know) she isn't. This is just what I've wanted to hear from the show. None of that love story rubbish in this script (which even my favourite story up to now, The Unquiet Dead, was sadly tainted with). Well, almost none. At least there doesn't seem to be as much from the Doctor to Rose. The Doctor talks about how he doesn't age, and how hard it would be to watch people he's with grow old. Which is still better than how an RTD script would have it ("of course I love you, give me a snog" or something). After hearing the Doctor say he's a Time Lord, the one of the Krillitanes who was watching from a distance swoops down and...well, just flies past and then off again into the night.
So the next day as school opens, they go in and do things. Except Mickey, who has to wait in the car with K9. The Doctor also gives Sarah Jane his screwdriver, so she and Rose can go and see what's going on with the computers. There's a nice moment there that it's very easy to miss, where Rose thinks the Doctor's about to hand the screwdriver to her but he instead gives it to Sarah Jane. The Doctor goes off for a chat with Head (well, he's really called Finch, but...) around the swimming pool, where we discover that Head has a true human form and that he knows about the Time Lords being gone. The Doctor also threatens him a bit, without knowing the Krillitanes' plan. And while dabbling with the computers, Sarah Jane and Rose argue quite a bit and list off the monsters they've encountered. Again, nice confirmation of being the same continuity. They end up laughing though. Which is nice.
Meanwhile, Head goes to the other teachers and says it's time to do their plan, and that it will make them gods. This involves getting all the kids into class (except Kenny who doesn't go). Then all the proper human teachers get eaten, all the doors close, and then all the kids do the computer/green symbol thing from earlier. Does that mean there are as many computers as students then? I guess Blair's speech about "education, education, eduction" really was sincere. Kenny runs to the door, but it's locked, and so Mickey switches K9 on who works out that you can drive into it. The Doctor's now worked out that the Krillitane(s?) are trying to solve the "Skasis Paradigm". Apparently solving this makes whoever finds the solution into gods with the power to control all of everything. Doesn't make a lot of sense if you look into it too deeply. But the oil's been used in the children's dinners to make them more intelligent (and, presumably, more suggestible which is why Kenny who didn't eat the food didn't go in with the rest of them). Also, the reason for using the children is because they have more imagination, and that's needed to crack the thing.
Now, when discussing Children of Earth, someone mentioned that they thought it may have worked better if the drug the 456 got from the children was their imagination, or something to that effect. I've always taken this idea that children have superior imagination to adults as specious however. After all, if they were that imaginative, wouldn't they be coming up with the best fiction? But ask a child to write a story, and it's usually something along the lines of "I went to a park and threw a ball for my dog to fetch. The end." Unless they're slightly older, in which case it's "I went to the park, got smashed on some cheap cider, and mugged a pensioner." Also, if this Skasis Paradigm was such a widely known puzzle, don't you think someone would have solved it by now? And don't Krillitane children have imagination? It just doesn't stand up to that much scrutiny.
Anyway, Head comes along at this point to talk to the Doctor, and tries to tempt him with the prospect of using it for good. Personally, I'd say yes. After looking like he's thinking about it, the Doctor throws a chair at a big screen in the room with the calculating (or something) going on, and for some illogical reason that makes all the computers in that room shut off. At the same time, Mickey drives through the glass door. To come and help I suppose. Then all the human-looking Krillitanes turn into their true forms. I like them. They look cool. Impressive CGI work.
Everyone's chased into the dining hall, and they try to hold off the attacking Krillitanes by swinging chairs until K9 comes in and fires some lasers around so they can escape. His power supply for this soon runs out though. The Doctor then realises that the Krillitane oil is now toxic to the Krillitanes, because of how they keep changing their form. Which might make sense, but it's not really stated what this oil is. I mean, we know it's used to make the kids cleverer, so they manufacture it right? But then, why would they make a version that's toxic to themselves? Also, K9 identified it as Krillitane oil, so maybe it's a substance they naturally produce (hence his being able to identify it). So is it then a lucky coincidence that feeding it to children makes them clever? It isn't really making sense this stuff. Which is a shame, because up until the bit where we found out about this Skasis Paradigm, this was on course for being the best episode of New Who yet. But that then followed by this confusing plot device oil means it's taken a turn for the worse somewhat.
Then, when trying to figure out how to fight bats, Kenny sets off the fire alarm, hurting their bat-like ears. Only, it was stated earlier that they just nabbed the wings after conquering the Bessan. I suppose we'll just have to assume they took the hearing as well. Though Head said earlier he was a Krillitane in permanent human form, so why's he hurting from it too? Eh, whatever. After they've escaped, Head soon disables the alarm by pulling out a wire from the wall (I suppose that's how they work). Similarly, Mickey shuts down the computers by just pulling the plug out of the wall. One unplug disables the whole school network it seems. Also, after he unplugs it, the clever computery box sparks. Why? Meanwhile, the Doctor, Rose, Sarah Jane, and K9 are in the kitchen. The barrels of Krillitane oil are deadlock sealed, so the screwdriver won't open them. Deadlock sealed? One of them splashed out everywhere just by being knocked over. A tin opener could probably do the trick, but the zany magic screwdriver can't? This episode was going so well. Anyway, a blast from K9's laser could open one, but he's low on power. The Doctor sends away Sarah Jane and Rose, and there's a nice moment when it turns out K9 would have to stay and get destroyed to save everyone else, and the Doctor says goodbye to him. Helpfully for the budget and the plot, all the Krillitane come into the kitchen in human form so K9 can explode one of the barrels over them. Then, after enough time to let Head and K9 have some dialogue, the school blows up. I'm not definitely sure why. I presume it's due to the exploded oil barrel, but surely it should have happened immediately then? Eh, whatever. All the kids are happy and cheer Kenny, who sort of helped in a way.
With all that resolved, the episode goes back to what it did better: the Sarah Jane/Doctor stuff. The Doctor invites Sarah Jane to come with them, but she declines becase she feels too old and thinks a CBBC spin-off would be enough. There's an amusing moment when Mickey asks if he can come, clarifying he meant with the Doctor and not with Sarah Jane. The Doctor says yes, and Rose then responds to this like a total bitch. She's far more unlikeable this series than in the last one. Sarah Jane has a brief word with her, than she goes outside the Tardis with the Doctor and there's a sweet moment as she says goodbye. But then, as the Tardis dematerialises, it's revealed the Doctor rebuilt K9 for her. It's a very sweet ending.
So yes, not perfect. It could have been one of the best, but the Krillitane plot was ultimately quite weak. After all, it's easy to forget that the whole plot is resolved by Mickey pulling a plug out of a wall and all the Krillitane lining up in the same place to get splashed by magic oil which then explodes. Which is disappointing, but it's still by no means a bad episode. There's lots to enjoy, expecially for fans of the old show. Also it's fun and well paced, and this is the first time the Tenth Doctor himself really feels like the Doctor we'll come to love. And it's still the first episode of Series 2 worth a damn. Though I'm told next week's is quite good.
That zany screwdriver:
1. Blows up a spinning Christmas tree. Ho ho ho.
2. Scares off some Robot Santas. It's got itself a reputation now then.
3. Opens a great big secret door. Opens doors, closes plot holes.
4. Is used to threaten Cassandra's consciousness in Rose's body. A densely layered stupid thing is still a stupid thing.
5. Only the Doctor knows how to hold down the on button. Then it opens a smaller, unsecret door.
6. Makes a convenient ring thingy fall down.
7. It locks an old door. An old, Scottish door. Didn't have enough time to put porridge in the lock.
8. Fixes K9. But I won't begrudge it that.
