OK, I know this wasn't a proper episode or story, but it's out there and it still counts. I've always been divided over this type of additional sketch / prequel - I worry that in reducing a situation to tableau or edited highlights it trivialises it and the attitude of the characters involved. It suggests that some stories just aren't worth telling as a whole. We had the same thing at the beginning of The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe at Christmas. Doesn't this then put more pressure on the stories that are told to be ever better? Could the team allow the novels to fill in these gaps, maybe?
Anyway, the Ponds are just getting on with their lives (which is nice) with an ominous brief visit from the Doctor and the occasional voicemail until the late Jon Pertwee's wish kind of comes true when the Ponds find an Ood sitting on their toilet (for those who don't know Pertwee thought the scariest thing ever would be to come home and find a yeti sitting on your toilet in Tooting Bec). There's some nice character moments with Amy and Rory and the Ood butler, while the Doctor is having his adventures with Sontarans and Mata Hari. It's all very fleeting, as I say, moments caught in time. Then there's an obviously heartbreaking moment at the end where Rory is walking out on a distraught Amy. How can things have got suddenly so bad between them? Why hasn't this been built up to?
These minisodes are too short to make an opinion over really. They appear to be setting up certain concepts for the next series but are a curiosity at best, and at worst a waste of about seven minutes of your time. I may re-visit them after the first half of Series 7 (the Pond half) is over and re-evaluate if / what it was seeding.
Yeah I felt it was all very throwaway and I see your point, it does almost become a parody of the show when the Doctor leaps out of spaceships one second and is then immediately in history and staying for 2 minutes before he's off again. It suggests the stories aren't of consequence so why should we care?
ReplyDeleteI should have stuck to my guns and watched the omnibus all in one go, watching it in itty bitty chunks was very frustrating, no sooner as you ready for the story to arrive, it's finished.