29.07: 42

[ambershadow]

Your right here in america the ads are mor than 15 min out of every hour. So, 42 min. sounds about right for an hour brodcast show.

[Dave]

And it is also set in the 42nd century too.

[Lenny]

Awww. I was hoping it'd have more to do with the Meaning of Life.

[Dave]

It would be nice if it were dedicated to Douglas Adams (once a Doctor Who editor and scriptwriter.)

[pyan]

Originally Posted by Dave

It would be nice if it were dedicated to Douglas Adams (once a Doctor Who editor and scriptwriter.)

He was? Well, you learn something new......

[Lenny]

Three episodes, I think.

He mentions it in the introduction to his HHGttG four-in-one edition.

[Dave]

He wrote the Shada story that was never broadcast due to industrial action by cameramen. Some of the already completed on-location filming in Cambridge; the river punting shots of Lala Ward and Tom Baker, were re-used in the The Five Doctors. Also Adams re-uses some of the the names, locations, dialogue and concepts that he had originally intended for Shada in the Dirk Gently books. Shada was later made into an online audio play with Paul McGann as the Doctor, available to listen to at the BBC website. But before Shada he worked as a script editor.

[Gipsy Girl]

I know that i wasn't happy bunny when the bbc decided to set Doctor who back. I need my David Tennant fix every Saturday. Oh well its done now but at least there are now only two days until 42.

[Lenny]

If the producers have any sense humour, then they'll have a few scenes in it, like the 24 thing, but backwards - from full to blank. For 42 is, of course, 24 backwards.

[Gipsy Girl]

I hope this weeks ep was worth the I hate it when things are made out to be better than they actually are don't you?

[Dave]

Was this the worst episode this Season?

I think so. Just lots of running around and shouting for no reason, a man in a helmet as the villain and doors encoded with trivia questions.

They are in the 42nd Century, in a distant Galaxy, yet they still listen to Elvis and the Beatles as classical music. And who had more number ones pre-downloading? American charts or British? What about the Martian Chart from 2045? What about the Elvis revival in 2166 with the virtual Elvis?

Maybe it was because he looked a little too like Darth Vader. Maybe it was because he reminded me too much of the Medusan in the box in Star Trek 'Is There In Truth No Beauty'. Maybe it was because they have already done all this before in The Satin Pit. Can they already be running out of ideas?

And what was with the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' soundtrack?

The best parts, by far, were the conspiracy bits with Martha's mother, the mystery woman and Mr Saxon's two men in Grey suits, on the day of the election. I'm not sure how useful tracing that call is going to be though - "We have the exchange, it's from a Galaxy, Far, Far Away!"

[PTeppic]

And finally, 26 posts in, the episode. (edit: parallel posting with Dave... )

Martha and the Doctor arrive on a space-craft just in time to learn that for some reason the said ship is 42 minutes from crashing into the sun around which its been orbitting.

Very much a cross between Danny Boyle's "Sunshine" and last seasons "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit". Lots of running around in narrow corridors, crew members being picked off one at a time in a place where the sonic screw-driver isn't working but they have loads of doors to get through. More stressing the virtues of the family, an RTD-bingo line, some increasingly obvious Saxon sub-plot involving Martha's mum (and an as yet unspecified dodgy looking intelligence organisation), much heart-wrenching between our leads (he is so on the rebound, whilst she's almost falling for teacher)... though, it's well played, the effects seemed much better than Planet/Pit and the story made vague sense (albeit with some large, sun-physics sized holes). But, the time pressure seemed to rush things along just too fast in places, real-time being a gimmick where it wasn't really needed. Need to watch a repeat to make my mind up, but I think it gets a thumbs up.

[Lenny]

I quite liked it, to be honest.

There was something that made me laugh out loud... oh yes!! "Do they not teach Recreation Mathematics these days?".

The ending was interesting, too - not only the three suits (did anyone notice that in the credits, the blonde was called "Sinister Woman". That made me giggle. ), and the comment that it was election day, but also the fact that Mrs. Jones invited Martha around for tea... which sadly means we'll be seeing that in one of the coming episodes (I'll guess at the penultimate).

Next weeks looks cracking! It's a double, right? Looks very good.

[Foxbat]

Better than previous efforts but still nothing special. Shades of Solaris here with the living sun and some nice photography but, as Dave says, still a lot of running around and shouting very loudly. Ironically, the only bit of shouting that came across both with some reason and containing an element of pathos was when the Doc and Martha couldn't hear each other (in the pod).

[Talysia]

Not a bad episode, in my opinion. Next week's ep looks great, though.