June 2006: Farewell to Rose

3 June 2006

I thought this episode was going to be terrible, but it was excellent.  I liked the double bluff at the beginning with the Ood appearing menacing and then turning out to be merely hospitable.  The scene where Toby was possessed was really spine-chilling.

 10 June 2006

Not quite as good as last week, but very good nevertheless.  I have spent all the past week muttering “the Beast and his Armies shall rise from the Pit”. Especially on Tuesday. [6/6/6]. 

17 June 2006

This is the episode we have been worrying about.  In the end, I quite enjoyed, it, but I’m not sure that it was Doctor Who.  It is the first time I have really warmed to Jackie, but I think it might have been better without Peter Kay.  Apparently the kid who designed the Abzorbaloff intended it to be the size of a double decker bus, but forgot to mention this in his competition entry.  I think it might have worked better if it had been that bit bigger and less like Peter Kay in a green fat suit.

 24 June 2006

This week’s episode was surprisingly good.  Unfortunately, I was filled with the urge to make some little cakes decorated with ‘edible ball bearings’ for tea on Sunday. I managed to drop the sieve, sprinkling copious amounts of icing sugar over the kitchen floor and my jeans, and then, when I finally managed to get the top off the tub of silver balls, they scattered far and wide.  I now have a very sticky kitchen.  Still, the cakes tasted all right.  (Culinary note – those silver balls are also handy for making marzipan Daleks).

1 July 2006

I don’t know quite how we managed it, but today we are flying to Italy for a holiday, so we won’t be seeing tonight’s episode live.  The one good thing about this is that we don’t end up spending large amounts of money on buying day-old English newspapers while we are there, in case they have anything about the episode in them.

 9 July 2006

We arrived back late last night, missing the final episode as well.  The first thing to do this morning after unpacking and loading the washing machine, was to watch Army of Ghosts. This could have been extremely silly, but fortunately wasn’t.  The unveiling of the Daleks at the end was a surprise.  I had heard vague rumours that Daleks might be involved because the trailer appeared to show a Dalek gun being used, but didn’t think a Dalek gun necessarily meant actual Daleks. After all, we already knew that one Dalek had fallen to Earth, and Torchwood collects alien artefacts.

Later, we saw Doomsday.  Well, it was fairly obvious that Rose wasn’t really going to die, or she wouldn’t have been there to tell the story, and once the parallel Earth came up again it was fairly obvious what was going to happen.  Still, it was a moving end, if not quite as good as The Girl in the Fireplace. Not sure about the Catherine Tate bit though.  It had rather the same effect as the “Phil’s back…and he’s not happy” voiceover on the ending of Casanova when it was broadcast on BBC1.