Bad Wolf

I was very worried about this episode due to its reality television content. I hold the view that reality television is an extremely tacky form of programming, and though I may watch the occasional reality programme, on the whole I disagree with it. So upon learning that this episode would feature the Weakest Link (more a game-show than reality), Big Brother (the programme responsible for the reality craze) and What Not To Wear (fashion according to two badly dressed females) I didn’t hold high hopes for this episode. This wasn’t helped by HEAT, one of those tacky celebrity magazines, declaring that Russell T.Davies has written the episode especially for them. That, for me, was not a very good recommendation for the episode. But I still decided to tune in and see it for myself instead of relying on reviews and friends comments.

The episode wasn’t tacky which can only be a good thing. BUT that didn’t stop it having a few problems that did rather spoil my enjoyment of the show. For a start that Big Brother house looked far too small. It seemed to consist of the diary room, a small living room and the eviction corridor. What about everything else? The bedrooms, kitchen, dinning air, bathroom? The set felt very small and actually felt like a studio set, was that the point though? I doubt it. The Big Brother house may look weird and bizarre but rarely does it looks like a television set. But this one did. Seeing as they got permission to use the theme tune, the name/format, and the logo couldn’t they also have got permission to film in the real house? When this episode went into production the current series of Big Brother hadn’t started so surely it could have been possible? And couldn’t they have filmed on the real set of the Weakest Link instead of that very small and obviously fake one? The real one would have been much better and an audience watching the contestants could have been a sinister addition. An audience sheering at the apparent death of a contestant would have unnerved the audience and heightened the tension. Instead the Big Brother & Weakest Link sequences looked cheap, as if the budget had run out.

The robots looked dreadful, simply dreadful. They reminded me of some lego creation rather than a scientific creation. I think it would have been better to use Anne Robinson and others and just made them up to look slightly robotic. And in the Weakest Link the contestants could have been killed by a laser coming from Anne’s eyes, far better than a gun in the mouth. A nice close up to a pair of red burning eyes and then a laser shooting out and killing the contestant. Much more sinister and scary. Instead we got pathetic and cheap looking robots that ruined the sequences for me. Sure it would nice to have Anne Robinson, Davina McCall and those other two doing the voices but it would have been either better if they had actually appeared in person. But would the budget have stretched to that?

I find it extremely hard to believe that reality television will be with us, or make a come back, that far in the future. In fact I would go as far as saying it is highly unlikely, unrealistic and therefore unbelievable. It was just a cheap ploy to make yet another and unoriginal attack on the state of television in the modern age. This would have been better achieved by setting the episode in the present day rather than thousands of years into the future. Having the twist of shows killing of their contestants isn’t a new idea and is in fact a rather boring one. I have written several essays and articles regarding the state of television and reality television. In each of them I note that it won’t be long until someone tries to televise a life death, more than likely in America first. So its already well documented and whenever anyone attacks reality television they use that argument, amongst others, to describe why its so bad. So this was another element I didn’t real like. A more in-depth look at the Long Game’s manipulation of news would have been far interesting. In that episode they barely touched on the subject, it was just mentioned really, and the Doctor returning to find the news still be manipulated for a far more evil purpose would have been much more interesting and slightly more original. A twist could be Satellite 5 creating false news stories to hide the bigger one, such as the survival/return of the Daleks.

Moving on to the Doctor and once again Davies feels the need to reduce him, in parts, to that bloody smiling idiot. He had a great big grin smacked across his face during parts of the episode that totally ruins any tension or suspense. What’s the point of being scared if the Doctor is smiling? What’s the point of wondering what’s coming next if the hero of the piece has a smile bigger than the M25 across his face? I really wish this annoying habit of having the Doctor walking around with a massive grin on his face, and thereby ruining any tension or suspense in the scene, is dropped in the next season. Another trait I hope is dropped is the Doctor suddenly stopping what he’s doing and exchanging small talk about how he loved this programme or some other trivial matters that only make him look stupid/silly instead of alien.

This episode carries on the theme set up during the previous one of having to face up to the consequences of your actions, of having to pick up the pieces, to clear up the mess. This is something that Doctor isn’t real good at. When a mystery is solved or an alien invasion stopped he disappears in the TARDIS and doesn’t hang around to clear up or deal with the consequences. Due to this Margete escaped and able to try and destroy the World (and as an added bonus Cardiff) to save herself. In this episode because of the Doctor’s rash actions in The Long Game satellite 5 closed down and the Earth government and economy collapsed something that shouldn’t have happened. It could be argued that because of the Doctors actions during The Long Game the events of Bad Wolf took place.

And are we closer to finding out who or what Bad Wolf is? I don’t think we were told during that episode, we were? Instead it seems that several others join the list of suspects. Those are the Daleks, Linda, Captain Jack and whatever saved the Daleks during the time war (Davros?) and was heard during the trailer for the next episode. By introducing Linda the producers are hoping we’ll think she joins the Tardis crew but I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s killed off during the battle with the Daleks, something that happens for “shock factor”. The flashbacks to remind the reviewers all the Bad Wolf references were good but I’m now wondering whether we’ll ever find out who or what Bad Wolf is about what it all means. Is it really that important or just a coincidence? Have they really managed to manipulated the Doctor for all this time, since he met Rose? Have they really managed to foresee everything that the Doctor has done over the past 11 episodes? And since it started when Rose joined could it be Rose herself or even dippy Mickey, annoying Jackie or dangerous Adam? Or could it be the Tardis or heaven forbid the Doctor? I guess we’ll have to wait until next week.

Performances were pretty good with Captain Jack being much better than in previous episodes. As ever Billie Piper was better than all the others and her reaction to realising that being voted the weakest link was death was truly great television. Christopher Eccleston was good when not playing the grinning idiot and the guest stars were average really. They were better than in some previous episodes but still lacked character and felt rather two dimensional, a problem with most of Davies scripts.

And with the end of the episode we’re left with a massive Dalek fleet preparing to invade Earth, we presume, Rose in the hands of the Daleks and The Doctor & Captain Jack preparing to do battle and rescue Rose. The trailer for next week looks extremely interesting and seems to suggest that the Daleks are now religious! I await next week’s episode with egger anticipation. Makes a change from dread.