Aliens of London/World War Three

Slitheen are well known throughout the universe as 'Big Baby Monsters!'
Least accordingy to the Hitchhikers Guide to Big Baby Monsters...
The direction of them by Boak single handedly forces the DW team to stay away from non-human looking monsters for quite some time - sadly - with only CGI ones taking there place.

‘Aliens of London/World War Three’ do not make up a bad story, its just slightly lacklustre in places and to be honest has more silly moments than scary.

But like ‘Rose’ RTD may not have made an amazing story but he has taken actions that others might have shied away from. On so many fan-forums you’ll here some people bleting for a return of monsters that ‘don’t look so human’ – yet those same people will make jokes directed at the Slitheen.

The Slitheen are not perfect, no, but they are original Doctor Who and aim very hard to scare the kids. In this respect and in fact in how RTD writes two-parters, he’ll learn a lot from Steven Moffat who frankly gets the two-parter idea right the best and also gets the idea of scaring the kids very well. This is why the Slitheen don’t fully work, there just not scary enough – the CGI moments aside, as here there movement is perfect and they look pretty fiersome – and lets be honest come across as a pretty shoddy villain.

I’m a Buffy fan so I fail to accept that its hard to make a good monster without CGI, or human characteristics, it just takes some real imagination and to be honest this is one area  where the Who designers are lacking in, yet at the same time it is up to the writers and Russell to come up with monsters that work in that environment and they’ve lacked in doing that as well.

The stomach should not be there - its stupid and pointless, espcially since it just stops.
This picture is further proof that Keith Boak is not a director but someone who sticks a camera and just shoots what happens in front of him with zero thought and intellignece.
Then again Michael Bay does alright for himself.
I know I made a Michael Bay joke - I'm sorry but all blogs must do it at least once - read the T&C's

This is another criticism I have on the episode, once again RTD gets all the character moments but he still seems to be working out how he plots his episodes, and I’ve mentioned in an earlier review – he really does not work that out until Series 2 and 3.

Euros Lyns in comparing Russells writing to Moffats described Russells as more bang bang with the plot flying along and new elements being thrown in while Moff’s are a little more intricate.

Unfortunatly this means that much of Russells writing relies on him throwing in new elements to keep things going, and in the end his conclusions are just another plot point rather than something that really pays off.

This has its ups and downs, and while I really appreciate using Mickey and pushing him into the lime-light of the hero as well as showing Rose is completely devoted to The Doctor now, but just having Mickey go on a website and type in what is frankly the single most generic password ever to take control of the UK’s missile system to blow up Number 10 was just poor plotting and poor writing. My number one gripe in any TV show is how they abuse computers and there abilities so much, (Spooks has always been the number one faulter here by making every Teenager able to crack an encryption like its what they all sit doing – and very much like its easy and requires no other programmes to be used) so solving things this way was for me a real annoyance.

However in building up to that point there are some excellent moments. Many coming in the first 20 minutes of ‘Aliens in London’.

One of the best moments of series 1 and this story is the Pig. One moment its laugh out loud then suddenly just sad. The idea of using the animal as a set-up works very well and really makes the Slitheen sound completely evil and horrible.

Part of me wishes it hadn’t been killed and survived as a little silly thing in the episodes and somehow saved the day - only to die then.

Then again I also want a good, fully plotted and no GIANT plot-hole story - so obviously I'm at odds to who this episode is aimed at.

RTD betrays this character by failing to give us an emotional back story into his childhood.
'Babe - Pig in Space'
Best Doctor Who enemy ever.

Another great moment is Rose finding out she’s been away for quite some time and it works very, very well.   Its a great idea from Russell and once again shows The Doctor as not being very perfect – its a scary and funny idea at the same time, yet at the same time allows some interesting dialogue that shows Rose has been away from a while rather than her returning after only a few minutes and it just not being all that interesting.

The arrival of the fake ship is pretty cool, especially in crashing into Big Ben and is also really well CGI’d.

The biggest plot hole in this episode is that everyones favourite space pig would be a much better fucking pilot than that!

Most of downing street is quite uninteresting, its not until The Doctor really arrives on scene that anything kicks off. Before then its just ‘oh look theres aliens under there! Ohhhhh’. Although for your information I actually really like the fart jokes – and while its tone is way off, the tone the series needs,  those downing street scenes would be so incredibly boring without them.

Onto the ‘Aliens of London’ cliffhanger – its actually very good, it really puts them all in mortal danger and at this early point in the show we really don’t know if they’ll survive adding some real intensity to it all. Having The Doctor and all the ‘experts’ in danger works really well as we sit knowing that the Slitheen have done some pretty clever trickery in this episode, and to be honest we don’t see this kind of idea again until the twist with the Pandorica in The Big Bang. This is mainly because after series 1 RTD becomes obsessed with quick moving and plot jumping stories, without much exposition or smart villains.

The conclusion of the cliffhanger is the single worst moment of series 1. Fact.

Its horrible – what so now the electric badge thing will electrocute not just one Slitheen its connected to but every single one across London!?

This firing into the second part is just rubbish. Its unfortunate because much of part 2 lifts the excitement levels so much. Lots of running, hiding and great characterisation with Rose willing to die to save the planet (although this is usual cheap trickery employed by many TV shows as she’d die anyways if it blew up!).

Unfortunatly – again – RTD pops his idiotic head above the ground of believability and smiles with a big grin as if to say ‘who cares if it doesn’t make sense – this is how I write, with zero intricacy and just shoving everything forwards for the conclusion!’

Annoyingly RTD thinks first of all – A missile defece system will:

1 – Have a simple password to access the navy’s firing systems.

2- Have missiles on ready, set to fire, and directly connected to the internet.

3 – THAT THE UK WILL HAVE NO DEFENCES AGAINST MISSILES, NOR A| SHUTDOWN/OVERRIDE FUNCTION.

Cash in your gold and receive your own missile system.
Courtesy of Cybus Industries.

A forth point not included in the missile system is this:

‘Everyone will just buy Harriet Jones – the single most annoying woman on the planet (she is good in Stolen Earth mind) – when she shouts ‘The Crisis is over!’ – right after a fucking missile blows up Number 10, where the planets entire defence is relying on (Did I mention how stupid the whole ‘send us the nuclear codes’ thing was? Why didn’t the UN just ask for co-ordinates and do it themselves, you know like the system is suppose to be set up to allow? Or why didn’t the US or someone say ‘Hey we have nukes, radar, scans and stuff – lets use them!...Hey, theres nothing up there!) 

Now If your a police man and a mad woman runs over and tells you how she just helped blow up Number 10 because the MP’s were all aliens – you’d firstly arrest her for being a fucking psycho – and then arrest The Doctor for being a hypocrite (‘Oh I hate guns, less there either a) Missiles b) Gunship guns to shoot down other missiles c) Other men, not me firing them, and d) theres a bunch of fucking timelords whose over-dramatic assault on time is sooooo much worse than the Daleks doing EXACTLY THE SAME THING ONLY WORDED DIFFERNELY)’

*RANT OVER

Theres not much else to say really. Harriet Jones is a bit annoying, but she serves a purpose. Rose is good in this episode, so is The Doctor.

The main and brilliant characterisation is that of Mickey Smith who saves the day – sure he doesn’t actually do much except thow some pickles and click a mouse – but according to the rules of RTD, doing what The Doctor tells you is characterisation.

Also - Keith Boak was rubbish again and my complaints on the Slitheen would be lighter I feel if he'd bother to direct them rather than just stick them in a room with a camera and tell them to move around.

 Aliens of London - 7/10

World War Three - 4/10

Unfortunate that the second part was a real let down and just created a big plot hole anywhere it looked. Though as a two-parter it sets things up, unfortunatly it fails to really get the tone the series requires and falls into a bit of a pantomime.

Overall I'd stick with 7/10, even though I gave the second part such a bad score overall the story is not 'terrible' just disappointing to be honest. Theres fun to be had, Mickey gets some good characterisation which while very forced on by RTD to the characters and plot, it works and gets him involved in an enjoyable way.

Oh and Bad Wolf pops up - for me the way it does makes no sense. More of that after 'Parting of the Ways' though.