I don’t know whether it’s just that my expectations had been set lower after last weeks disappointing episode, or that this weeks episode was an improvement, but I actually quite enjoyed The Age of Steel.
To some extent it was a pretty predictable battle against the Cybermen effort. After escaping the cliff-hanger from the end of the previous episode thanks to the power cell from the TARDIS, the gang split into three teams, one to go after the transmitter that is controlling all the humans, another to sneak into the cyber-conversion area, and the third to head for the central control.
To be honest it was largely a pretty conventional conclusion, with the Doctor facing Lumic – now converted to the cyber-controller, complete with headlamps for eyes. In a not unexpected move for the new series, you also feel some sympathy with the Cybermen, as with their emotional inhibitor chip disabled they start becoming horrified by what they have become.
Perhaps the only surprise is the departure of Mickey at the end of the episode, who elects to strand himself in the parallel universe. To some extent they don’t seemed to have made much of the changed dynamic having him on board has brought. Also it will be interesting to see how things work for the ‘back at home’ type scenes now the character is gone, as effectively it leaves only Rose’s Mum.
However, after the disappointment of the last couple of episodes, next week looks intriguing. The episode is called The Idiot’s Lantern, and is written by Mark Gatiss who wrote the excellent episode The Unquiet Dead last year. This time the story is set in 1953, around the time of the coronation, with something nasty lurking in the TV sets. Hopefully it will get the season back on track…
I was more impressed with this episode than the last but I really really wish they’d quit with the anthropomorphism of the old enemies. I don’t WANT to feel sympathy for the cybermen – I want to feel that the Doctor did a good thing by killing them.
Rose is very seriously starting to annoy me now – coming across as a petulant teenager in most episodes. I understand why we have the soap aspect of the series – to show how a time traveller’s life affects those back home but… the Doctor (after all, he’s got a TARDIS that takes him pretty much exactly where he wants to go now rather than it being a surprise) could just drop her off 1 second after he’d taken her to begin with.
Of course, he can’t do that now as the timelines are screwed because he let Mickey stay in the alternate universe.
After the pure unmitigated joy of last season, I find myself detatched from the Doctor in this. I hope the scripts start to improve somewhat – the quality of the writing is really starting to worry me. I really couldn’t care less about Jackie and Rose’s dad – stop showing them to me. I couldn’t have cared less about Mickey but I actually find myself wishing he’d stayed and Rose had gone…
Show me some alien worlds – even if they’re just Welsh quarries somewhere.
I agree that Gatiss is one of the stronger writers though – next week should be good (please please let it be good, restore some of my faith).