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A Doctor Who a Day - Day 21 - Review: The Idiot's Lantern

Updated: 4 days ago

The Doctor looking at Rose who has a blank face, no features at all
@BBC

Doctor Who Series 2, Episode 7, The Idiot's Lantern

Original Air Date: 27th May 2006


“Rubber soles! Swear by them!”


Am I going mad, or did Russell have a bit of a boner for the royal family in 2006? Personally I don't see RTD as a royal family fan, but they pop up a lot in series 2. The Coronation, Queen Victoria, King of France, I did my duty for Queen and country...! Anymore? Potentially they pop up at some point in Fear Her, pretty sure they are mentioned in some way or another. Is this something I am missing? A link to Torchwood?


Anyway, boners aside, here are my thoughts on The Idiot's Lantern.


Something in me doesn't vibe with this one. I never go back to watch it, and my big rewatch has confirmed why I don’t. This will never be an episode I enjoy.


"Ah, Cliff. I knew your mother would be a Cliff fan."


I am never a big fan of the old over the top bad husband for starters. Men are pricks, I know that. Are there hints of domestic violence going on? Potentially, but the character of Eddie seems half comic and half over the top villain, so I am not overly sure.


Perhaps I have misread that, and it is more the way times were way back when. The husband being the bread winner and someone who was feared. Sounds shit doesn’t it? When people go on about the good old days, I dread to think how many people were utterly depressed without ever saying so. Women, who could be so much more, locked away in their homes. Men, who had a certain way that they were expected to be.


It makes me laugh when people pull a certain era out of time and say that is how they want it now. We could be so much better right now, if everyone was allowed to be what they wanted to be. If we had anyone other than old white men, and middle aged white twats running things. We are so close, and yet slipping so much further away. I say that from a privileged position of course, and I am sure a lot of people would tell me I am way off thinking we are close. Trump may be the reason we get somewhere closer in the end though, because I like to think we can rise up against the old white cunts and live a better way. We can learn from these mistakes.


Not everyone will learn of course, but with time, people can be educated, they can learn to read, they can see that there is more to the world than a Daily Fail or Scum headline, or a post on the artist formerly known as Twitter. Maybe I’m just a dreamer, but surely I’m not the only one?


The ending did make me think that maybe there were no hints at violence and I had it all wrong. Surely Tommy wouldn’t have chased after Eddie? I certainly wasn't thinking any of this when I watched it originally, I just thought Eddie was an irritating dick.


"Conduct me to my victory, Magpie."


I don't overly like the Doctor and Rose in this episode, I am sorry, so sorry. They seem, for want of a better word, cocky! Now I get the Doctor can be cocky now and again, but this just seems a bit too much for me.


The wire (Maureen Lipman) seems to be having an orgasm over an empty tummy most of this episode. It was a fun portrayal, but I just didn't feel any worry about the shit that was going down. I guess in Doctor Who you don't always need that threat, it is just my most memorable Doctor Who episodes have me worrying about things, and this didn’t happen with the orgasmic television.


I also wanted to give Magpie a shake as he offered no resistance whatsoever, and I didn't see an awful lot to justify him being such a slave to the wire.


Doctor Who isn't Doctor Who without a couple of cringey moments, and the police officer offered a couple of those for us in this episode.


Tommy saves the day by working out what the Doctor had built and fitting a broken part and then everybody lives Rose Tyler, just this once, everybody lives - well apart from Magpie! The end.


Did this episode feed you? Did it feeeeeeeeed you? Let me know in the comments below.






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