Ursula's fate. (Love & Monsters)

[Mister Fandango]

What made it worse was that literally a few episodes earlier Ten had implied that life as a Cyberman was a living death, yet apparently existance as a paving slab is tickerty boo...I guess it isn't that different from being the face of Boe!

To be fair, he did see how Humanity evolved and that the last living human (nevermind all those humans running around when the Master is at the end of the universe) was nothing but a stretched face. Maybe he assumes that's a suitable way of living for humans. Afterall, if they do it of their own free will, it can't be all that bad.

Personally, I think RTD just has some fucked up fetishes.

 

[Ghost Bones]

Why did the Doctor think that doing that to her was a good thing? It seems like a very cruel thing to do myself. I rank it as one of his worst decisions.

Vile isn't it. It's not just that it had a blowjob joke, I thought it was a pretty horrific thing for a show children watch.

Well, yea, I remembered that much, I just wanted to know what caused the "slab" condition.

He pointed his magic screwdriver at it.

Some viewers have concocted a fannish theory that severals aspects of the story are really just Elton's delusions. Basically, there's was no Absorbiloff, just Elton's jealous perception of Kay's character as he wooed each of his friends. When he finally swayed Ursula, Elton finally "cracked" and perceived Kay's role as some sort of "monster" who consumed his friends.

Problem is, the Doctor makes mention of the planet Clom in a later episode independent of Elton, thus cementing its reality.

Sincerely,

Bill

Course, just mentioned a planet doesn't mean all of that happened. There could be an unreliable narrator thing going on, and we don't see the paving slab face on the camera of his video diary, for what that's worth.

Also, it's biologically impossible that someone in that condition has a functioning cognisant brain, as well as functioning senses (she doesn't have any ears for a start, so she shouldn't be able to hear anything even if anything else magically works), so you can dismiss it as Elton's fantasy on those grounds.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Because Ursula never appears in Elton's video diary. If she had, then Elton's story would be believable. Without an appearance in the video, Elton could be unreliable. Delusional. Crazy. Maybe he's not, but the possibility exists. Many will latch onto that.

And that brings me back to my point of why? There's still no evidence. The only reason to latch on to it is because you don't like the episode and it's still easier just to say it's a bad episode than to say it's not part of the same continuity because it's all a delusion.

The unreliable narrator is often in very good stories. Fight Club or the Murder of Roger Ackroyd are examples. In neither story does the audience have to determine an unreliable narrator simply because they don't like it nor would creating the unreliable narrator change whether or not you like it. The same goes for an ambiguous unreliable narrator (of sorts) in Inception with its ambiguous ending. Even there, whether the narrator is reliable is hinted at in a way that isn't mere speculation.

I see nothing but speculation here. You could also speculate that all of Doctor Who is in the mind of an autistic kid, but I don't see why you would.

 

[Mitty]

I rewatched bits of it after Marc Warren (Elton) appeared on "The Good Wife". But I couldn't bring myself to watch the whole thing. Awful, awful episode. It could have been so much more than it was. Thankfully other "Doctor/companion lite" eps, such as Blink, Turn Left and Midnight turned out far better.

 

[The Doctor]

I've never understood the hate for "Love and Monsters." It's fun, touching and completely batty. One of my favorites from that season.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

I've never understood the hate for "Love and Monsters." It's fun, touching and completely batty. One of my favorites from that season.

I agree, though it's true that the end is not very satisfactory and the monster doesn't quite work. But yes, it is touching and it stretches the Doctor Who formula in completely new directions, which is no small feat for such an old show.

 

[SimpleLogic]

I still want to know why the Doctor would force the hell of being a stone slab on that poor girl. Everything up till then was OK.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Maybe she'd prefer to be a slab than dead? Maybe he asked her after he saved her and she said, yeah, I'd rather not be dead.