We begin with Margaret Blaine (Annette Badland), in reality Blon Fel-Fotch Passmeer-Day Slitheen, now as the Mayor of Cardiff. It seems that she has begun work on a nuclear power plant to be set in the heart of Cardiff known as Blaidd Drwg (Welsh for "Bad Wolf"), promising a bright future for Wales. A scientist has come to express some concerns that the plant could have a meltdown...almost as though it was designed to...and, when she learns that he's only shared his findings with her, she murders him. As one does when they're going to be exposed in a scheme that will tear apart the entire Earth.
Meanwhile, Mickey is still under the effects of Rose Tyler's alien brain parasite and comes down to Cardiff (no, actually Cardiff this time!) to find the TARDIS, bantering with Captain Jack, Rose, and the Doctor. All of whom are just a wee bit insufferable in this scene if I'm being entirely honest. Of course, Mickey's made to come off as though he's some sort of smarmy asshat because we should never believe that our main cast is anything but infallible and wonderful. Thanks for telling me what I should think, Russell!
But back with Blon Fel, she holds a press conference as Margaret Blaine to talk about Blaidd Dwrg before being approached by an intrepid young reporter who was approached by the scientist that she spoke to in the opening. She fully intends to kill the woman, even luring her into the bathroom to do so...and when she learns that the young woman is pregnant, she stops...and lets her go. Reminded of her family, she weeps...and the Slitheen suit actually look a little bit better here than in the Slitheen two-parter.
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| "What's 'Bad Wolf'?" "Something that isn't nearly as important as our writer thinks it is." |
At lunch, however, the TARDIS crew and their friend Mickey are having a merry time that gets ruined when the Doctor notices Margaret on the cover of a tabloid. Thus, they spring into action and - following some comedic chase hijinks involving the sonic screwdriver doing things with teleports that the sonic screwdriver shouldn't really be able to do - manage to capture her. They find the model of the Blaidd Drwg plant and discover within it a Maguffin - a pandimensional surf board that Blon-Fel was planning to use to escape the Earth when Blaidd Drwg went nuclear.
They plan to return Blon to her homeworld...and when she informs them that she'll be executed upon her return, the Doctor gives a pat "not my problem". However, upon getting her back to the TARDIS, she calls them out on so cheerfully conducting her to her doom...and no one can quite look her in the eye after that. The Doctor, however, does agree to her last request: a meal at a bistro she came to enjoy while living as Cardiff's Mayor. While they leave to do that, and Jack stays around to play with Blon's surfboard on the TARDIS, Mickey and Rose head out for a bit as well...
The Doctor and Margaret have a most interesting dinner where Margaret tries to kill the Doctor in a variety of ways (all of which he skillfully avoids and continues on like nothing happened), tells him a bit of her backstory and tries to defend her right to live, and manages to get in several barbs at him when he tries to write her off as a remorseless killer - in particular referencing his own lifestyle and how he leaves destruction in his wake as he heads off into the stars - as well. It's all very well done and fulfills Russell T. Davies' intention of making the episode about analyzing the Doctor's life and the consequences of his actions...
Sort of.
More on that later. These dinner scenes, alas, are intercut with Mickey and Rose talking. The talk is, at first, rather sweet and romantic and eventually goes into Rose telling Mickey about some of her travels to alien planets that the budget wasn't able to actually show us...and Mickey confessing that he's been dating someone else who we have never seen or heard of before and will never see or hear of ever again. Because drama! At first, Rose seems to take this well...but this is Rose Tyler, the most perfect human being of all human being who would never...
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| Want an activity more painful than pulling teeth? Watch these scenes. |
...oh....oh, she's chastising Mickey for his choices and then not taking it well when he brings up the fact that she ran off with another man into time and space. Then came back with not only him, but another man who shows romantic interest in her (and, as we established in the previous two-parter, there's at least some sexual feeling there...but it's Jack, so I can hardly blame her for that one).
The fact here is that Rose made a choice and has to deal with the consequences of that. She left Jackie and Mickey behind on Earth, and Mickey has started to move on. While Russell no doubt intended for Mickey to come off as some sort of clingy idiot - upset because the moment Rose calls, he comes to wherever she needs him to - the exact opposite is true. Sure, Russell. You can keep insisting that Rose is perfect and wonderful and we should love her, but her actions do not show that.
As we established in Aliens of London - she left Mickey and Jackie for a year! While that isn't her fault, she was so utterly dismissive of them both. She then left at the end of World War Three, also in a manner completely dismissive of the pain of her loved ones - as well as outright lying to her mother! All of this, coupled with her giving her now-famous half-hearted apologies and then swanning off to help the Doctor out at the first sign of trouble...well, I managed to avoid it for two episodes, but GUESS WHAT JUST CAME BACK, FOLKS?!?!?!?
Rose Tyler is Awful Count: 5,055,636,206
But yes, Rose runs off (leaving Mickey screaming) as the rift suddenly opens and Blon's surfboard is revealed to be the culprit. It has opened the rift and is draining power from the TARDIS, something that neither the Doctor or Jack are able to stop. Rose walks in just in time to be caught up in one of Blon's claws...and sadly isn't put out of my misery. She reveals her plan: anyone who could find her would have sufficiently advanced technology of her own for her to leech off of. Because the Doctor would, of course, want to play with the shiny new technology, it was the perfect trap.
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| "Do try the chips"...oh, wait. Wrong Series. |
While Blon demands the board be placed in front of her, intending to ride it off of Earth as the Rift tears it apart, the TARDIS opens up. The Doctor speaks briefly about how the TARDIS is a living being and that opening it up has revealed its soul. He encourages Blon to look into the light...which she does. A smile breaks out across her face and she thanks him before she vanishes.
The Rift closes, the TARDIS is repaired, and the Doctor, Jack, and Rose find an egg in Margaret's skin suit. The TARDIS has reverted her so that she can start her life anew, the Doctor saying that they'll take her to the homeworld and she can have a second chance. Rose laments that that must be nice, her eyes moistened as she's clearly supposed to be thinking of Mickey...
...and no, by the way, she doesn't learn anything from this experience or change how she interacts with her family in any way. So...
Rose Tyler is Awful Count: 5,055,636,207
Russell T. Davies has gone on record as saying that he wanted to explore the consequences of the Doctor's actions. Hearing it from the mouth of one of his enemies is actually a bit of genius...it's just a pity that he and Margaret had all of one exchange together during Aliens of London and World War Three. To level another criticism at it, however, the episode doesn't really do anything to give that an in-depth look and analysis of that. It's basically the same sort of points made in Resurrection of the Daleks in the classic show, only coming from an enemy instead of a companion. Maybe if more had been done to show Margaret learning more about the Doctor throughout history (giving some opportunities for expansion on the lore and shades of the classic show), then I could see it working a little better here.
As it stands, though, she met him all of once and he basically annihilated her entire family with a missile.
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| I'm not even from the UK, and I still find this funny. |
Despite that, Annette Badland's performance really really shines and I see why Russell wanted her back. Instead of the walking fart joke that the Slitheen were made to be, Blon Fel is actually quite sympathetic in this episode, making many good points as to why she should be let go and actually being one of the few villains to unsettle the entire TARDIS crew with nothing more than words. While the reveal of her being the big bad of the episode was predictable, it was very well done. You might just think, just for a moment, that she might be being genuine...
The ending is a bit of a cop out, I admit, but I'm a sucker for happy endings. While nothing in the episode really got resolved, Cardiff was saved and Blon Fel-Fotch will get a new chance at a better life.
Next time, it's finale time...and we finally have to address Bad Wolf. We see Doctor Who take on reality television, we see the return of an old enemy...from six episodes ago, we see what could have been the return of an old enemy from the classic show that didn't come to fruition, and we see a predestination paradox that...doesn't lead up to itself in any real way.
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