Doctor Who: 2x05 "Rise of the Cybermen" & 2x06 "Age of Steel"

If you missed Tuesday's announcement, check it out here.

DOCTOR WHO REWATCH: SERIES TWO, EPISODE FIVE: “RISE OF THE CYBERMEN”

The Cybermen are back… and so is Pete Tyler.  Oh my!

Doctor Who: 1x05: “Rise of the Cybermen” Written by Tom MacRae

The Summary: (In Brief)

The TARDIS, containing the Doctor, Rose and Mickey, falls through a crack in time, and the group ends up in an alternate universe London, where Pete Tyler and Mickey’s grandmother never died.  The Tylers are rich, but without Rose (as a human at least), and Mickey’s alternate universe version is a wanted criminal and leader of a group called the Preachers, who believe the population’s reliance on technology has endangered them all.  This is a legitimate fear as Lumic, who apparently owns everything, has created the Cybermen, an old-school Doctor Who villain.  While Mickey’s getting mixed up with the Preachers, Rose and the Doctor crash the Jackie 2.0’s birthday party, which is promptly attacked by the Cybermen.  With the Preacher’s (alt-Mickey!Rickey, Jake Simmonds, and Mrs. Moore) help, Mickey, Rose, the Doctor and Pete Tyler escape the house – Jackie 2.0 is trapped – but quickly become surrounded by the Cybermen.

The Women:

Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler 2.0, Mrs Moore/Angela Price, Gran (?)

The Conversations:

1. Jackie 2.0 and Rose:  The rating: 0.5

The Woman to Woman Quote of the Episode:

“You’re the help.” – Jackie Tyler 2.0 to Rose Tyler

Completely thrilled by the fact that both her parents are alive, Rose thinks the universe they’ve landed in is by far a better universe than her own, until Jackie says this to her, revealing that though both Jackies take their tea in the same fashion, they are not the same woman at all.

The Tally:

Episode 2x05 Total: 0.5

Series 2 Total: 4

10^th Doctor Total: 4

Rose as Companion Total: 20.5

Russell T Davis Era Total: 20.5

DOCTOR WHO REWATCH: SERIES TWO, EPISODE SIX: “AGE OF STEEL”

The Cybermen are back… and so is Pete Tyler.  Oh my!

Doctor Who: 1x06: “Age of Steel” Written by Tom MacRae

The Summary: (In Brief)

Picking up where we left off in “Rise of the Cybermen,” the Doctor, Rose, Mickey and their new team of ragtag heroes are surrounded by Cybermen; the Doctor tries to convince the Cybermen to allow them to surrender, but the Cybermen decide to “delete” the group anyway.  Obviously, they can’t all die, so they manage to escape.  Jackie 2.0 doesn’t and is brought to Cybus Industries’ warehouse to be assimilated.  While running away, Pete Tyler reveals he’s been feeding the Preachers information for months; they split up to get away from the Cybermen, and since “splitting up” is synonymous with “this is how people die,” Rickey, Mickey’s universe double, is killed by a Cyberman.  The gang reconvenes and Jake is rather pissed that Rickey died and Mickey lived.  They quickly split up again to break into the warehouse via three directions.  Rose goes with Pete to try saving Jackie; the Doctor and Mrs. Moore go into the tunnels beneath the warehouse, and Jake and Mickey go to the roof/zeppelin-on-the-roof to stop the signal to the earbuds controlling the people of London to give themselves to the Cybermen for assimilation.  Again, they split up so this time it’s Mrs. Moore (real name: Angela Price) who dies.  Rose and Pete are captured by the Cyberman created from Jackie; the Doctor is also captured.  It’s up to Mickey and Jake to save everyone, which they do.  Rose and the Doctor head off in the TARDIS for their own universe, but Mickey chooses to stay and help Jake destroy the other Cybermen factories around the world.

The Women:

Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler 2.0, Mrs Moore/Angela Price

The Conversations:

Rose and Mrs. Moore participate in the same conversations, but they never speak together alone.

The Woman to Woman Quote of the Episode:

Nope.

The Tally:

Episode 2x06 Total: 0

Series 2 Total: 4

10^th Doctor Total: 4

Rose as Companion Total: 20.5

Russell T Davis Era Total: 20.5

Doctor Who: 1x06 "Dalek"

And we’re back to the regularly scheduled programming.

DOCTOR WHO REWATCH: SERIES ONE, EPISODE SIX: “DALEK”

For the first time in New Who, we meet the Daleks – the Doctor’s most hated enemy – and it is awesome. (But maybe not for equal representation)

Doctor Who: 1x06: “Dalek” Written by Robert Shearman

The Summary:
The Doctor and Rose follow a signal for help to an underground compound in Utah in the year 2012, which is the past now but was the future then. They discover that they have landed in a private alien museum/collection owned by a personification of capitalist greed by the name of Henry van Statten. The Doctor rather idiotically shows off and proves himself to be an alien expert. Van Statten then forces him to go, without Rose, to confront the alien he’s been torturing with hopes of learning what it is. Said alien turns out to be a Dalek, which looks rather silly with its weapons being a whisk and a plunger but is actually rather terrifying and sends the Doctor into a crazed frenzy. Meanwhile, Rose chats up Adam, the technology expert working for van Statten who really knows nothing about aliens and thinks Rose is completely ignorant. Rose gets Adam to spy on the cell van Statten takes the Doctor to, but instead of seeing the Doctor scream about how much he hates the Daleks, she sees one of van Statten’s employees torturing the Dalek. The Doctor has been taken to another cell to be tortured once van Statten figured out he was an alien. Rose convinces Adam to take her to the cell so she can help the poor alien. The Dalek tricks her into touching xim* which revives xim to full strength. A bunch of people die, like whoa, including almost Rose, who only survives because she tainted the Dalek into treating her like xir commanding officer. Using her power over the Dalek, Rose helps it realize that it wants something more than to kill, which shouldn’t be possible; at the same time, the Doctor has become obsessed with killing the Dalek. Eventually, the Doctor convinces Rose to convince the Dalek to blow xirself up, which is presented as merciful since the Dalek’s changes are torturous to xir nature. In the end, the Doctor and Rose, with Adam, disappear into the TARDIS once again. This episode marks the fourth instance of the Bad Wolf meme and the first episode in which no women interact only between themselves.

The Women:
Rose Tyler, Diana Goddard, de Maggio

The Conversations:
…

…

Ahem.

The Woman to Woman Quote of the Episode:
:-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-(

The Tally:
Episode 1x06 Total: 0
Series 1 Total: 13.5
9th Doctor Total: 13.5
Rose as Companion Total: 13.5
Russell T Davis Era Total: 13.5
Series 1 Half-Way Point Episode Average: 2.25 points/episode = One and a quarter conversations between only women without mention of men per episode

For Further Discussion: Compassionate Women are Wrong

This is the second episode in which a woman who acts out of selflessness and compassion unleashes something murderous. One of the major characteristics of the Doctor is his compassion – he always wants to give whatever/whomever he encounters a chance and hates to resort to violence. This has turned out both badly and well for him, but so far, when women do this, it turns out horribly. It’s probably too early to call foul and claim there’s a pattern, but it’s something I’m definitely going to be looking out for this in future episodes. As it stands now, it looks almost like an indictment against sentimentality, which is typically attributed to women over men



PS. De Maggio is awesome and I wish Rose became friends with her rather than with Adam.

Doctor Who: 1x03 "The Unquiet Dead

Welcome to the third episode review for Fandom Approved, Bechdel Tested.  I’ll be starting with a rewatch of Doctor Who.  In each review, there will be spoilers for the episode reviewed and all previous (obviously); any spoilers for future episodes will be highlight-to-read or under a “Read More” bar.

DOCTOR WHO REWATCH: SERIES ONE, EPISODE THREE: “THE UNQUIET DEAD”

A fun little ghost story romp into the past with Charles Dickens.  Unfortunately the twist at the end is how idiotic everyone but Rose was.

Doctor Who: 1x03: “The Unquiet Dead” Written by Mark Gatiss

The Summary:

Meaning to land in 1860 in Naples, the Doctor takes Rose to Cardiff, 1869.  There, a funeral home director, Mr. Sneed, and his maid, Gwyneth, are dealing with the corpses rising, attacking people, and taking their bodies on joy rides.  Meanwhile, Charles Dickens is performing A Christmas Carol.  The latest zombie, Mrs. Peace, ends up in his audience, where the Doctor, Rose, Mr. Sneed, and Gwyneth all end up to fix whatever’s wrong.  When Rose confronts Gwyneth about stuffing an old woman into the hearse, Mr. Sneed kidnaps her.  The Doctor enlists Charles Dickens’s help in saving Rose.  When Rose wakes up, she is nearly killed by two zombies and narrowly escapes thanks to the Doctor.  While Charles Dickens complains the entire that what he’s seeing isn’t possible, the Doctor tries to figure out how to stop what’s happening.  After they figure out Gwyneth is psychic, he has her host a séance.  The zombies turn out to be created by an alien called the Gelth possessing them; the Gelth claim to be near extinction victims of the Time War and ask for the Doctor’s help in giving them dead bodies to possess permanently.  Despite the séance company including a genre savvy genius, the genre savvy genius, a man whose entire income is dependent on dead people staying dead, and a very religious woman who thought this was all unholy witchcraft until two seconds ago, and despite the first thing the Gelth have done once they get into a body is (attempting) to murder somebody, only Rose protests that this might not be a good plan.  The Doctor ignores Rose’s protests and has Gwyneth open the rift in time and space so that the Gelth could come through.  Surprisingly-not-surprisingly, the Gelth are actually not anywhere close to extinction and want to kill everyone in the world, starting with the Doctor and Rose, in order to take over.  Charles Dickens comes up with the idea to blow them all up at the last second and Gwyneth, who died a bit earlier, does it.  This episode is the second instance of the Bad Wolf meme and a more overt set-up for “Father’s Day.”

The Women:

Rose, Gwyneth           

The Conversations:

1. Rose and Gwyneth:  Rose confronts Gwyneth about stuffing Mrs Peace into the hearse.  Gwyneth tries to reassure Rose that everything’s fine before Mr. Sneed interrupts them to knock-out and kidnap Rose.  The conversation can barely be considered one, so the rating: 1

2. Rose and Gwyneth:  Rose and Gwyneth end up in the kitchen while the Doctor and Charles Dickens investigate the zombies.  While the essence of their conversation is comparing their lives and pushing forward the idea that Gwenyth is psychic as well as presenting the Bad Wolf meme again, the vehicles for their conversation are men – Mr. Sneed, the Doctor, Rose’s father, the butcher boy Gwyneth has a crush on.  The rating: 0.5

The Woman to Woman Quote of the Episode:

“You would say that, miss, because that’s very clear inside your head, that you think I’m stupid … It’s true though.  Things might be different where you’re from, but here and now I know my own mind, and the angels need me.” – Gwyneth (to Rose)

Feeling empowered for possibly the first time, Gwyneth delivers this awesome line to Rose who is doing the same thing she always hates when it’s done to her – talking about Gwyneth like she isn’t there and has no say.  I wish this had more of a pay-off because Rose is, of course and really rather obviously, right, and Gwyneth really does not understand at all.

The Tally:

Episode 1x03 Total: 1.5

Series 1 Total: 8

9^th Doctor Total: 8

Rose as Companion Total: 8

Russell T Davis Era Total: 8

For Further Discussion:  Facts vs. Faith

I’ve said before that I think Rose’s biggest strength is her ability to quickly analyze all the facts she’s given and come to a usually correct idea about what’s going on.  This is often brushed off as her having a “feeling” about something, an annoyingly sexist concept that men have ideas and women have feelings, and it’s definitely done so in this episode.  Rose takes all her givens about zombies and how to treat the dead and analyzes that along with the Gelth’s attempted murder of her and figures out that this is not a great plan.  Of course, the Doctor doesn’t listen.

But I think the real battle of wills in this episode is between Rose and Gwyneth.  Rose’s greatest weakness is self-righteousness, and her assuredly in her own cleverness has only grown since she’s begun traveling.  Gwyneth, on the other hand, is all compassion and selflessness and faith in the goodness of others.  And Gwyneth delivers a great blow at Rose’s self-righteousness that ultimately… doesn’t pay off at all.  The audience can’t even entertain the idea that Gwyneth could be right, the set-up for the Gelth being not just out for their own self-interest but full on evil was way too obvious.

What really bothers me about this isn’t that one character was wrong; it’s that they set up Gwyneth’s downfall as being symptomatic of a lack of education and belief in God.  It’s not just the “educated” who are right, and what could have been a wonderfully feminist discussion ends up being rather classist.