What do kids think of the pigmen?
I don't know, what do you think of the pigmen?
I didn't really care either way. To me, the Pigmen just weren't important enough to register as being all that objectionable.
When it comes to supporting elements like the Pigmen -- or, for that matter, like Gadget in "The Waters of Mars" -- I'm more interested in what
kids think of elements like the Pigmen, because, at the end of the day,
Doctor Who is, first and foremost, for them. If the kids liked it, then I'm fine with the Pigmen; if the kids didn't like it, then I'd say they should have created another servant class for the Daleks. Characters like the Pigmen or Gadget exist primarily to mediate the story being told so that child audiences can more easily assimilate the story's characters and themes. To the extent that they are successful in that task, I don't object to them.
For me, the Pigmen had nothing to do with what made "Daleks in Manhattan"/"Evolution of the Daleks" a disappointment. For me, that two-parter was a disappointment because of a poor depiction of the Daleks -- inconsistent with their previous characterization in "Doomsday," overly-cartoonish in their movements, and insufficiently powerful. These characters were supposed to be the guys who would boast, convincingly, that they'd be able to kill 5 million Cybermen with just four of them; to see them mucking about, hiding from the world, and trying to fuse themselves with Humans just seemed implausible and inconsistent with their own arrogance.
The Doctor and the Master were at one point in their youth very close friends. Add to that that there were no other Time Lords, and it seems natural the Doctor would be very upset over the Master's death
I still think it's a bit crass to completely write off his later seasons when he wrote very good episodes like "Midnight"
Okay, I have to ask, just what is so great about Midnight? Everyone always praises it as some sort of masterpiece and work of art, but I find it one of the only two episodes from the RTD era that are complete disappointments with no redeeming qualities. The other is Fear Her.
I just found it genuinely creepy and unsettling in a way no other episode of Who has been. There's just something so
wrong about the alien lifeform.
What I always thought was interesting about "Midnight" was that there was always the possibility that the unknown alien was just a radically different type of lifeform that was trying unsuccessfully to communicate with the Humans but didn't know how. The possibility that it had no malevolent intent but that its blundering had provoked Human malevolence.
