Love & Monsters

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!

Not only is this the worst episode of the 2006 series, not only is it the worst episode of the 2005 & 2006 series (even worse than the awful "The Long Game") but this is the worst episode in the whole history of Doctor Who! It is astounding that it was given the green light but since RTD is an executive producer as well as head writer I suppose there is nobody to stop him churning out whatever drivel he wants to.

"Love and Monsters" shows once and for all that RTD cannot write Doctor Who stories. This was in many ways not a Doctor Who story in that the Doctor and Rose are hardly in it. The "plot" is absurd. A group of people who meet to discuss the mysterious "Doctor" end up working for the equally mysterious Peter Kay. Kay turns out to be an alien who absorbs people and wants to absorb the Doctor. To go into more detail would just be too tedious.

The acting is good, especially from Marc Warren, considering the poor material that the cast has to work with.

This episode shows yet again RTD's inability to plot properly. He comes up with a few ideas slaps them together and hey presto an episode of Doctor Who appears! It is significant that the best plotted of all RTD's episodes has been "Tooth and Claw" which he was not originally scheduled to write. RTD may think much of "Love and Monsters" is funny but it's actually just stupid.

I still find it amazing that RTD won the Dennis Potter award for writing. That is surely an indictment of the lack of good writers working in TV.

If this episode is a signpost for the future then Doctor Who is heading in a direction that will make the era of JNT at it's worst look like a golden age.

3/10