In some ways, this episode wasn't as bad as the last one, mostly because it was just kind of boring. And the aliens were completely pointless. If you cut them out of the story it would be exactly the same, you'd just save some time.
 |
| These characters are terrible. |
The episode starts with a flashback to Yas's awful family, but fortunately they're not in the episode much. They're just a sort of bookend to explain why Yas wants to visit her grandmother when she was young. It didn't really work for me though, because I still don't know why she wanted to. But anyway, they do. That's the reason for this episode.
 |
| This is the old woman from the first picture but when she was young. Except not really, they're both just actors on TV. |
But when they get there they immediately notice that something weird's going one, because A, the doctor's having some weird seizures that will never be explained and don't have any impact on anything; B, there are aliens hanging around and maybe murdering people; and C, Yas's grandma's story doesn't match up with what's happening.
 |
| These aliens are just here to waste everyone's time. |
The actual plot of the episode is very straight-forward. India and Pakistan are splitting, Yas's grandma and her fiancé (who isn't Yas's grandfather, so it's a real mystery what's going to happen to him) are caught in the middle of it. There's really not much to it, and it only briefly seems like there might be because of the mysterious aliens, but they turn out to be completely unimportant.
 |
| This is their stupid-looking space ship. |
The Doctor tells us the aliens are assassins. They don't actually kill anyone on-screen and the one person it looks like they might have killed only looks that way because important information is withheld from the audience. Apparently they used to be assassins but now they just go around watching people die, which is weird. Also, they say they only watch people who die alone but that is a blatant lie.
 |
| We could have explained everything much earlier but the writers needed to fill some time. |
They're annoying as a concept, because they don't seem to take any trouble to avoid being seen so there should be tons of witness sightings of them. And they're specifically annoying in this episode because there's no reason for them to be in it. I feel like someone thought they were a really cool idea and was just desperate to find some use for them, so when this episode idea came about and needed something to givfe it the appearance of a plot, in they went even though they clearly don't belong.
 |
| Also the Doctor officiated at their wedding because I guess someone though that would be... funny? Cute? I don't know. |
So one half of this episode is the core of a story but without anything to hold viewers' attention, and the other is a distraction without purpose. The whole thing adds up to nothing. Even more so than last week's because at least the A plot there had a recognisable structure, it just wasn't substantial enough to take up a whole episode.
 |
| And Bradley Walsh is criminally underutilised. |
No comments:
Post a Comment