this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2025
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Signing in from the "traumatized by Cassandra" brigade. Even knowing how this one ended, I still spent most of the episode worried somebody was going to trip over and tear right through her.
It's funny to see this episode starting out being thrifty with the budget (opening with a time travel montage where we only see the inside of the TARDIS) and then very spend-y a few minutes later (CGI everything, needle drops from Soft Cell and Britney Spears). I don't know if BBC has any kind of special deal to use music for broadcast, but even if they do, it probably doesn't apply to streaming or home releases, so this episode has probably remained expensive.
According to Doctor Who Confidential, this one was deliberately high budget, as a showcase for what it can do at the top end of the scale. I'm not really sure what to make of it. High-budget Doctor Who is always a bit of a mixed bag. The most iconic villain is an upside-down dustbin, so how much does it stand to gain from a cash injection? The strongest stuff in this episode is in the smaller scenes, when Nine is chatting with either Jabe or Rose, or even when we're watching solo Rose contemplate mortality.
I don't dislike the episode, it's just not really doing what I expect to see from DW, which is a compelling story told for about six bob, using a bit of theatrical creativity and strongly written characters. Still, I guess it's good that it sets the bounds of what you should expect to see from the series: it's either people in mannequin suits or an effects extravaganza. If you haven't seen something you liked yet by this point, the show probably isn't for you.
All that money for "the Doctor walks through some fan blades".