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| The Wire feasts on Rose! |
1 episode. Approx. 45 minutes. Written by: Mark Gatiss. Directed by: Euros Lyn. Produced by: Phil Collinson.
THE PLOT
The TARDIS materializes in London, 1953, on the eve of Queen Elizabeth's coronation. The Doctor and Rose have only barely stepped outside before they witness a bizarre scene: Mysterious men in black, taking a man away from his home while his relatives protest. It's a scene that's become common in this small neighborhood, as men and women have been transformed by their brand new television sets, purchased cheap from local electronics dealer Mr. Magpie (Ron Cook).
The transformations are effectively appetizers, feeding The Wire (Maureen Lipman), a presence that lives within the television signal. The Wire is preparing for a feast: The coronation, when for the first time in British history millions of people gathered around television sets. The Doctor is determined to stop the creature from its feast, and he's been given one added piece of incentive.
The Wire's most recent victim is Rose!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: "Start from the beginning. Tell me everything you know." The Doctor deals with two different figures, both of whom initially oppose him: Detective Inspector Bishop (Sam Cox) and Eddie Connolly (Jamie Foreman). Bishop is a career detective in over his head. His interrogation of the Doctor quickly turns into a confession that he just doesn't know how to deal with this situation. The Doctor quickly sizes him up as a good man and offers his help. By contrast, Eddie Connolly is a fool, a blowhard in love with the sound of his own voice. The Doctor sizes him up quickly as well, and dismisses him as an obstacle.
Rose: The smugness the character sometimes displays in Series Two is at its worst here since Tooth & Claw. There's a scene in which she observes the Doctor's dismissal of Eddie Connolly, then chips in by embarrassing the man further. The Doctor's act serves a purpose, getting the blowhard out of the way so that he can talk to his more reasonable wife and son. Rose's followup is just spite. Combined with her being all too obviously all too pleased with herself about it, her actions actually serve to make me feel a little sympathy for Eddie - or at least, it might have done, had Eddie been portrayed as having even a single redeeming quality.
THOUGHTS
The Idiot's Lantern was one of the worst-received episodes of Series Two, and it's easy enough to see why. The Doctor/Rose teaming is at its most smug, their mutual admiration of each other's general awesomeness making their interactions quite grating. The Connolly family are drawn in broadstrokes, with Eddie in particular a one note imbecile, making it hard to connect with them as real people. On top of all this, Gatiss' script tilts toward the preachy in a ham-fisted scene that gives Eddie Connolly his comeuppance.
In fairness, Tooth & Claw shared some of the same flaws, particularly in the Doctor/Rose characterization. But while that episode made up for it with a relentless pace, The Idiot's Lantern lacks anything visceral or compelling. From start to finish, this episode feels exactly like what it is: Filler.
With all that said, it's not bad filler, and probably does represent writer Mark Gatiss' best television Who script (admittedly, damning it with faint praise). It's better-paced than The Unquiet Dead, which left most of its plot for the final ten minutes. And though Euros Lyn's direction goes overboard in trying to be visually stylish, with so many tilted camera angles that it gets distracting after a while, it does at least add a bit of atmosphere to the proceedings... something which can't be said of Gatiss' later, Moffat-era offerings.
There are a few nice visual beats, with a particularly good bit in Magpie's shop as the Doctor sees the faces of all The Wire's victims on the television screens. The Wire herself isn't a fully successful creation. The idea is interesting, and Maureen Lipman is effective in the scenes in which she's talking quietly in kindly tones. But when The Wire is reduced to shouting, "Hungry!" and cackling evilly, she comes across more like a Scooby Doo villain than anything else.
Overall, this isn't a bad episode, but it also isn't a good one. It sort of sits in the middle, watchable but unmemorable. The sort of show for which the term, "Meh," was created.
Overall Rating: 5/10.
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