(720) Love and Monsters

Love and Monsters is the only story (to date) that has made me angry. During the course of this marathon there have been stories that have disappointed me or bored me but no stories have ever made me angry. This story is first of what would become a sort of new series tradition where it doesn’t feature the Doctor or the companion as much. Due to the popularity of the show, fourteen episodes were ordered by the BBC but had to be made during the same production time as thirteen so that meant that the two episodes were pretty much made at the same time and there had to be a story where the Doctor and companion weren’t at prominent in the story as they normally would be. The thing is that no one really knew this before transmission (or I certainly didn’t) and that is what was the centre of the anger.

This story sees Peter Kay guest star in the episode. Now to me Peter Kay is one of the funniest comedians I have ever seen and his live show is fantastic and I was thrilled when I learnt that he would be appearing in Doctor Who. Kay appears as Victor Kennedy who then turns out to be is as an Abzorbaloff and the Abzorbaloff….well absorbs people. The character was a prize winner from Blue Peter and its not a bad idea and Peter Kay actually saves the episode.

Marc Warren plays Elton who is someone who has had quite a live which has centred around the Doctor. There are some nice nods to previous earth adventures including Autons and the events of Aliens of London. He joins the London Investigation ‘N’ Detective Agency or LINDA for short. It’s has a serious reason for existing but sadly it’s the comedy that sort of takes over. Ultimately the problem with the episode is that the comedy is totally out of place. Normally RTD does a good job of mixing the comedy

The flirting of Elton and Jackie is rather irritating. I don’t care about it and yet its given so much screentime. The reaction that Jackie gives when she discovers a picture of Rose is in his coat is quite good but sadly I have had to endure such nausea for so long. It’s not the fault of Camile Coduri and I actually feel sorry for her because of how much the character has improved during the course of this season.

There is another reference to Torchwood and there is a reference to Bad Wolf and also a Saxon reference which is the first mention of the next series story arc. In 2006, this didn’t seem to mean much but in retrospect it makes sense.

When the Doctor and Rose really get involved in this episode that is when it starts to get back to some sort of normality. If only the episode had been five or six minutes long then the episode would have been much better than it turned out to be.

“You upset my mom” is a line that a friend of mine uses when critiscing Rose Tyler. It’s not the worst thing about the character but its not the best thing that Rose does because within minutes she’s feeling sorry for Elton. Watching this episode, I didn’t have the anger that I did back in 2006. My rating for this episode is 6.22 and at the moment, it’s the second worst story ever. The previous worst story was New Earth and this is much worse because it’s another case of the humour not sitting right with me and it by far the worst new series episode that there has been. In fact I don’t think that there are many (or any) episodes which are worse. Anyway at east its out of the way.