Bad Wolf

Aliens in London'/'WW3' were among my least favourite episodes, yet last week's 'Boom Town' proved unexpectedly watchable -- so I didn't switch off the television when another of my season lows, 'The Long Game', stepped into the reprise spot. I hated the idea of reality tv for higher stakes (there's got to be a pile of sf stories that play that card). Played out, though, it was more enjoyable than I'd anticipated: Jack's Dayna reprise was cute, and some of the re-envisaged programmes were hilarious ('Ground Force', who knew?). The rapid intercutting of the three scenarios generated enough tension to drive things along.

In contrast, the stuff on the station felt like a return to the old running-round-in-corridors paradigm, and I worried that the Controller had been borrowed from somewhere else ('Minority Report'?). Despite the Bad Wolf references all season, the dramatic end seemed to come out of nowhere in particular.

In the plus column, 'Bad Wolf' features another strong performance from Eccleston, who just seems to be getting better & better, and there are tonnes of solid supporting performances: Rodrick, Strood, Crosbie, Broff, Davage... in fact pretty much everyone except Rose clone Linda-with-a-y; here's hoping she's the obligatory female sacrifice for the finale.

Joe Ahearne's directed some of the most visually exciting episodes of the series, and 'Bad Wolf' has pretty shots aplenty: Davage's blue-lit face when we first see level 500 & the Dalek in reflection struck me particularly. On the other hand, the Dalek fleet had an Ed Wood saucer-on-a-stick feel about it.

Despite my doubts about the ending, it does make an excellent concept cliff-hanger... How did the Controller bring the Doctor to the station? Did she plug in all the Bad Wolf references? How? Is there some link with the soul of the Tardis? What are the Daleks doing with all the losing contestants? Are Jack's missing two years relevant to the Time Wars? Did the Doctor somehow bring about the Time Lords/Daleks destruction? Will he do the female thing, & sacrifice himself to save the world? Will he have to choose between saving Rose & Rose clone? And the biggie: how are they ever going to tie everything up in 45 minutes?

I just hope some of the above will prove to have interesting answers....