Television Without Pity » Doctor Who » Fear Her
Rose and the Doctor head to London 2012 for the Olympics, only to find themselves on a suburban street where the children are disappearing. After a bunch of herrings both red and anvilicious, it is discovered that one lonely little girl named Chloe is responsible: she pulls her neighbors into her art by drawing them. Shes also got her mean scary demonic dad locked up in a very scary picture in her closet. After a billion years of gumshoe and lots of sardonic twitticisms, it is discovered that the girl is actually
possessed by a colony of tiny aliens called the “Isolus,” whose separation from their mothership drink has caused them to go shit nuts. Chloe draws the Doctor and TARDIS in as well, leaving Rose to save the day. She does this, and meanwhile Chloe and her mum sing “Kookaburra” at Mean Dad until he goes away. Then the Doctor reappears, grabs the Olympic torch, and things get stupid. Considering that next weeks double-header is the season finale, this is a shit way to go out. But most of the episode is pretty awesome,
even for all the cheese at the end — the effects are neat-looking, and the performances — especially those of Chloe, her mom, and Rose — are fun to watch. The fun of being Doctor and Companion again after last week is infectious, if claustrophobic, and its nice to see Rose react to the Doctors absence with something other than total meltdown. And theres a happy ending, which is getting rarer all the time. Not recommended, but a good close to the story before the final denouement.
The TWoP reviewer didn’t much like this episode, and neither did we. Okay at first, creepy in an interesting way, and then about the time Rose thinks she’s worked it out and saved the Doctor (I do like how our Rose is capable of saving herself, not to mention the Timelord) the episode goes badly downhill. Yes, it’s a good twist that the evil demonic daddy drawing has been freed, but it’s a bad twist when it turns out that you can defeat him by huddling together and singing the kookaburra song, because laughter
and happiness always beat evil bad demonic daddies.
Meh.
Although we thought it was funny that the Isolus hitched a ride and a warm-up in the Olympic Torch, it was groan-inducing when the Doctor stepped in as a last-second replacement.
Meh.
I suppose “final denouement” means we can look forward to more Big Badness to come. I’m only vaguely aware of upcoming personnel changes, so we’ll tune in next time to see how the finale plays out. We only just started liking David Tennant in the role, though. It took several episodes – actually, most of the season – to get where we accepted him as “the Doctor” and not just as “the new guy that replaced the totally awesome Christopher Eccleston.”
Kind of my reaction, too. The Torch thing was just … stupid. No other word for it.
I didn’t mind the Kookabura thing — though the song is now permanently creepified for me. And the whole “trapping people in the drawings” thing was darned scary while it lasted.
For a show that was about Missing Children, the tone and action were (aside from some early, and inexplicable “OMG Look at that poster!” railroading) strangely light. I wanted someone to slap the neighbors bickering and say, “Kids are fricking *missing* — suck it up and help us!”
But the episode was almost all worth it for the animated kid running around in the paper and screaming as we cut to the main titles …
Of course, the finale’s on tonight, we’re (hopefully) headed out of town sans DVR, so I’ll have to pointedly avoid any coverage of the Series (Season) Finale. 😛
Merry Christmas@!