Bad Wolf

I did two things after watching Bad Wolf. The first was calling my good friend and fellow Who fan Paul Webb and leaving a voicemail trying to put the sheer brilliance of the episode into words. The second? I hopped into the bath and cleaned up.

At various parts of Bad Wolf, I cheered, cried, laughed, felt sick to my stomach, and shouted "OH MY GOD~!" at the top of my lungs. I know I've criticized Russell T. Davies for his fart jokes before, but Bad Wolf touched me in ways no episode of Doctor Who- in ways no episode of *anything*- touched me.

One of RTD's ongoing themes this season has been his fearless criticisms of our shortcomings as a society. As brave as it is to call out, say, Bush and Blair on the Iraq debacle, it's even braver to take what has traditionally been an escapist TV programme and use it to grab people by the lapels and cry "Look at what we've become! How could we have let this happen?!" At the start of the last century, learning how to make a machine that flies in the sky was our major technological breakthrough. At the middle of last century, there was an intense drive to take to the stars, set foot on the moon and possibly other planets. Now, what are we driving for? Clean burning fuels? Better spacecraft? Nope- more channels and a better picture. Of course, the Daleks aren't behind the stagnation of Western civilization- we are, which makes Bad Wolf that much more frightening.

As for the fanboy factor, this episode is off the scale. Eccleston's final speech to the Daleks- save an even more impressive one in The Parting of the Ways (which is entirely possible!)- is the defining moment for his Doctor. With the passage of time, it may well be remembered as *the* Doctor's defining moment. The Daleks...I can scarcely believe that the Nation estate was worried about their use in this series. These are the scariest Daleks anyone's seen since 1963, at least. They're powerful, cunning, and they've launched the only master plan in the history of Doctor Who that has made me literally sick to my stomach.

What more can I say? Oh yes- Greatest. Doctor. Who. Episode. Ever.