"You Are Not Alone..."

[Oldmankrondas]

Discuss "Gridlock"!

I really enjoyed it, loved the idea of it, and thought David Tennant was on top form 'What if the motorway never stops, all the cars going round and round...' etc, and more specifically his bloody heart breaking descriptions of Gallifrey.

Face of Boe's dying words were interesting, does this mean the Master or an evil Timelord is out there? I assume so, or does it mean something else? Guess we'll probably find out in "Last of the Timelords".

Ardal O'Hanlon was better than I expected him to be, even if the litter of kittens was a little hard to swallow.

But the heart of this episode, I suppose lies in the developing relationship between the Doctor and Martha. How he's coming to realise that he does need her, and how he's starting to open up to her, describing Gallifrey, going on an almost impossible quest to try and find her. And of course, the Macra were back, in a cameo role, which I assume is mainly down to the degree of narrative gridlock that was going on...so much stuff happening at once. I suppose there will be those denouncing RTD for simplifying the Macra, but I felt it worked, and it was great to see a lesser known monster pop up.

As for the negative? Well the political subtext was a little on the nose, that litter of cats, and the whole 'war with a race called the Daleks.' felt a tad tacked on but that's really about it. One of my favourite non-finale RTD stories.

[Cornelia_Africana]

To my surprise, I actually rather liked this. After three substandard stories since Christmas, I didn't have high hopes, but just for once RTD managed to write a story with a reasonably coherent plot, and some imagination. As usual, David Tennant's cockneyisms were really irritating, and once I again I had to ask the question - why are people so far in the future so like us, now? But for once, I could overlook this aspect of it. I could even overlook the implausability of a cat-man with an Irish accent and the name of Thomas Kincaid Brannigan(!), as Ardal O'Hanlan did manage to carry the part off well. There was actually some good writing too, and the final scene was genuinely moving. Which just goes to show that RTD can write when he puts his mind to it. I wonder, does he genuinely like all the soapy stuff he constantly puts into it, or does he just think that people feel a need for that sort of thing? If he does, he's wrong, because this was a much better story for lacking it.

[armadillozenith]

meridiana said:

I could even overlook the implausability of a cat-man with an Irish accent and the name of Thomas Kincaid Brannigan(!), as Ardal O'Hanlan did manage to carry the part off well.

Loved it myself! Mostly. And DID find it genuinely moving, a surprising note or several in there.

I've blogged on it here:

armadillo-den.spaces.live.com/

Glad to see the cats' NICE side this time.

The Irish cat man finds a possible explanation in my earlier (incompletely published online) story Pick-Up Point...

I postulate a future movement known as CAMRA (Campaign for Real Accents), whose enthusiasts will seek to promote the diversity and flavour of traditional regional dialects against the tendency toward galactic homogenisation of speech patterns. They research these from old sound and video recordings and practice them as a fannish hobby, like some today speak Klingon or Tolkien's Elvish languages, and hope to eventually reinstate them as distinctive local features.

This is why many people in the future speak with recognisable present-day idioms, (including perhaps the Doctor himself?)

At least I offer that as a rationalisation. It makes as much sense, and in the same way, as playing Britney's 'Toxic' on Platform One at the end of the world in the year 5 billion ! ie REALLY retro retro!!

[armadillozenith]

oldmankrondas said:

..even if the litter of kittens was a little hard to swallow..

You brute! How could you! That's worse than drowning them!

oldmankrondas said:

..that litter of cats..

cat litter?

My sister's cat gave birth to her first kittens in the litter tray. An understandable confusion i guess for a novice...

No, not THAT kind of Novice.

I thought the whole kittens thing was going to turn out to be a misunderstanding between the Doctor and the Brannigans, a comic misdirection of the viewers...
'Meet the rest of the family' as just a personification thing. Well my wife used to call her cats sentimentally 'my boys'...
ie they were really just their PETS not their OFFSPRING... 'Ha ha what a silly idea, who'd have thought we meant THAT'.

If I was novelizing the screenplay, that's what I'd opt for.

Wouldn't their actual offspring (if any) be expected to start a little... bigger? More human-looking? Of course if they were distinct species a cross would be impossible not to say just plain WRONG! On the other hand if the cat people are actually genetically-modified humans (like the Azen, in a two-doctors story I half-wrote)... who can say?

[John Darnacan]

oldmankrondas said:

Face of Boe's dying words were interesting, does this mean the Master or an evil Timelord is out there? I assume so, or does it mean something else? Guess we'll probably find out in "Last of the Timelords".

I wonder if the "Last Timelord" will be the Doctor's brother, mentioned in Smith & Jones.