By: Russell T. Davies
**Spoilers**
If you have not yet watched this episode, please go and do so before proceeding.
So whenever people are making lists of ‘Top 10 Worst Doctor Who Episodes’ to post on the internet, one can more or less guarantee that this episode will feature somewhere on that list. Feelings towards it range from people choose to ignore its existence to actively fantasising about hacking it apart. But I’m going to do the radical thing. I’m going to hazard the suggestion that this episode might not be as bad as its reputation. True it may be a bit more soapy in feeling than what some of the die-hard Whovians are looking for and even I will agree that the last fifteen minutes or so can be counted amidst some of the worst drivel ever to appear on television, but that doesn’t make the episode as a whole bad. The episode has major flaws, yes, and I promise that I will address them – but I hope to point out some of the good things about Love and Monsters in the process. Don’t believe it’s possible? Well, we’ll see.
Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:
The episode opens
with a young man stumbling his way through some weeds as he comes across the
TARDIS. It’s a rather odd beginning with enough shaky cam to put The Hunger
Games into second place, but this is a low-budget, Doctor-lite episode so that’s
forgivable – particularly once we realise that the story is being told as the
vlog of this young man named Elton.
- One thing this episode does that I find highly interesting is to give us an outsider’s view of The Doctor’s escapades. This portion of the episode refreshingly doesn’t take itself too seriously and treats us to a well-staged Scooby Doo chase scene, courtesy of Rose and The Doctor’s latest drooling foe. Yes it is a bit ridiculous, but sometimes you have to stop taking your show about a two-hearted alien that travels through time and space with a rickety police box and a ‘sonic’ screwdriver too seriously.
- This is an episode clearly aimed at the younger demographic after the past two weeks of dark, heavy storytelling and I’m sure it wouldn’t kill you all to kick back and enjoy the silly foibles of life as told through sci-fi for forty odd minutes.
- Within the first eight minutes of the episode we are introduced to our second main protagonist for this episode, Ursula, and get a bit of back story on how Elton has met The Doctor before, as a small child. When one really looks at it, it is a valuable insight into how The Doctor affects the lives of those around him...those who don’t become companions, that is. That is one theme that runs throughout this entire episode, especially in regards to Elton’s life, and it is something I think we can all identify with. But this time is taken to give us a quick character profile for Elton.
- He lives a perfectly normal life, aside from all of the mad things that have been happening around London thanks to Russell T. Davies’ obsession with having aliens invade the city. Some people have complained about the obvious reshooting with little attention to continuity that happens within this sequence. I say shut up and sit down. If you can accept a rubber, immovable mask as an evil overlord or that a load of green bubble wrap is a parasitic disease, then you can accept a bit of low-budget shooting. (And yes, I do know that when the Internet goes into meltdown it doesn't literally fry your PC...but you all do realise that that was an attempt at subtle visual humour, don't you? Calm down!)
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- We are then
introduced to Ursula, played by Shirley Henderson. She offers Elton more information about
the man who calls himself ‘The Doctor’…and I will forever put Elton in the
‘like’ category because he refrained from asking “Doctor Who?”
- What this episode can be summed up as is a salute to the Whovian community through the group LINDA. They get together at first to discuss The Doctor, to analyse possible TARDIS sightings through history, to create fanart, and to just be around others with a similar obsession. Sound familiar? What is so amazing about this group is that, despite the number of people in it, we still get a chance to know and connect a bit with each person as the group progresses from a bunch of geeks hanging out together to friends becoming a support system. True there is a fair bit of telling rather than showing within these sequences, but within the context of this particular episode it works. It’s not Davies Forced Exposition and none of it is shoved down our throats. The actors all do a wonderful job of selling their individual stories and we get the feeling that these are real people banding together here, not just cardboard cut-outs designated to be this week’s red shirts.
- But then this man
appears and all of the happy times abruptly grind to a halt. What I should very
much like to know is where these pictures of The Doctor and Rose keep coming
from? I know it is explained within the episode…but I’m pretty sure that the
Tenth Doctor wasn’t anywhere near Trafalgar Square on this Christmas past, so
where did the picture really come from? And this one looks like Rose about to
make her first run into the TARDIS. Is it just me or was this creepy fatso apparently
lurking about in the shadows somewhere? I do hope he didn’t interrogate poor
Mickey too much after that scene; the bloke had already gone through enough for
one day what with being eaten by a bin and having his girlfriend run out on him. Strike one for this episode.
- Victor Kennedy is a slimy lard-filled balloon who demands that everyone keep their distance from his ‘exzeema’ problems (a request I would be too willing to fulfil) and he takes the innocent little LINDA group and turns it into a Doctor-Gestapo with assignments and studying and interrogation tactics. He gives each of the members a picture of Rose and the TARDIS and sends them out into the city to find her while Bliss mysteriously disappears after a private meeting with Victor Kennedy. Umm...can we say 'CREEPY'?!
- Apparently something called ‘Bad Wolf Virus’ has gotten into the Torchwood files on Rose Tyler and The Doctor and corrupted them. I don't remember hacking computers being part of the whole "I take the words and scatter them..." speech.
- Whatever the reason for this apparent problem, one of the greatest faults of this episode (besides the unfortunate last fifteen minutes or so) is the fact that it sometimes plays out like a poorly-researched fanfiction…a bewildering fact seeing as how Mr. Davies himself wrote it…but that it what it reminds me of. Plot points are introduced that sound nice but when you really look at them they don’t really fit within the established chain of events. Strike two against this episode.
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- Whenever I talk to people about this
episode, I often find that the thing most despised is neither the writing
nor the truly deplorable monster of the week. No, the thing that fans seem to
scream in protest most about is the sheer amount of Jackie Tyler scenes within
this episode. Since I like Jackie Tyler I have little problems within this fact, but if you’re not a Jackie fan then this might be another strike against the
episode for you.
- Personally I enjoyed the scene where Jackie beat Elton to all of the points just as he was trying to work up the courage and even some of the later awkward scenes where she is flirting only serve to highlight just how much she misses Mickey and her daughter. Jackie was a lonely figure to begin with and the images of her walking around the empty flat, trying to pick up guys for a bit of company, is quite sad. How the companions’ families were affected by their travels was never really addressed in the past, so it’s nice to see an episode dealing with that behind-the-scenes stuff for once.
- Besides, it doesn’t last long because no sooner does Jackie start putting the moves on him then she finds a picture of Rose in his pocket and realises that he has been using her. Granted Jackie probably is no stranger to men just using her, but in this case it is different. In this case they are using her to get to the daughter which Jackie loves and adores and, through Rose, the two-hearted alien that Jackie has developed quite a soft spot for since his regeneration. This scene is painful. Not only have we had a good twenty minutes of seeing how happy Jackie is to have some pleasant company around her flat, but we’ve also spent an entire episode so far seeing the way Elton is being manipulated by Victor Kennedy. Yes Jackie was wrong to seduce him and yes he was wrong to lie to her...but these mistakes all culminate in a hurtful argument that leaves them both with less than they had before.
- Victor Kennedy was officially a creeper in a past life! I cheered whenever Elton, still stinging from the Jackie fiasco, finally stood up to the prissy, rotund man – but the good feelings all dissolved about the time he asked Mr. Skinner to stay behind and “Come a bit closer.” Urgh!
- This could have been an okay episode, really it could have. Upon its broadcast some critics (most notably Nick Setchfield of SFX) hailed it as RTD’s “…smartest, funniest scrip.” While I don’t agree with that assessment by any stretch of the imagination, feeling that even the ill-fated Slitheen two-parter contained more true humour, I have to admit that I was enjoying this episode upon the first watch. The style was quirky and odd, but it worked within the context of the story, and the members of LINDA were all likable enough that I was worried when one by one they started to disappear with screams. I would gladly have given this episode a decent rating, despite its moments of mediocrity and occasional sloppy continuity. But…well…we have to talk about it sometime. Let’s just get this over and done with.
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- The monster for
this ill-fated week is called an Abzorbaloff and is portrayed by Peter Kay at
his very worst. He was annoying as Victor Kennedy, but that was okay because he
was the villain and he didn’t chew half so much scenery as Anthony Head, but
once he got the green makeover he descended in the new depths of irritating
that the Slitheen could only dream of. In fact, I would take the farting gaggle
of giggling MP’s over an Abzorbaloff any day!
- I wonder if the poor little boy who designed this monster cried when he saw the monstrosity they had turned his concept into. I also wonder if he is now embarrassed to have his name tied to this episode. Once Victor Kennedy sheds his skin, the episode immediately goes to the dogs. The charm is gone, the plot is gone, heck...even the mystery is gone. He was what ruined this otherwise middle ground episode and made it into something that people hate.
- What is Russell T. Davies’ obsession with the Slitheen, anyway? Already they’ve featured in three stories as major antagonists and been mentioned in some shape or form in almost every other episode ever since. Why? They’re not particularly inspired creations and goodness only knows that they weren’t particularly well received. Series 1 I can understand because the production was already finished long before the airdate…but why all the references in Series 2? Is it because they, like Miss Rose Tyler, are Davies’ babies? Or does he just have some sort of fondness for fat folk and flatulence?
- Needless to say, while we can’t perhaps blame the Abzorbaloff completely on Davies, we certainly can blame the deliberate reference to the Slitheen on him...as well as the painful writing that saps away any integrity this episode had word by word.
- A chase scene commences where Elton is eventually cornered by the Abzorbaloff and his trapped friends and he defeats the monster by breaking its cane (why this worked, I really don’t know…it was never explained or hinted at during any part of the episode). Rose and The Doctor then show up so that Rose can chew Elton out for what he did to her mother and The Doctor can finally tie up the dangling plot thread that was why Elton had seen this Doctor as a child.
So whenever people are making lists of ‘Top 10 Worst Doctor Who Episodes’ to post on the internet, one can more or less guarantee that this episode will feature somewhere on that list. Feelings towards it range from people choose to ignore its existence to actively fantasising about hacking it apart. But I’m going to do the radical thing. I’m going to hazard the suggestion that this episode might not be as bad as its reputation. True it may be a bit more soapy in feeling than what some of the die-hard Whovians are looking for and even I will agree that the last fifteen minutes or so can be counted amidst some of the worst drivel ever to appear on television, but that doesn’t make the episode as a whole bad. The episode has major flaws, yes, and I promise that I will address them – but I hope to point out some of the good things about Love and Monsters in the process. Don’t believe it’s possible? Well, we’ll see.
Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:
The episode opens
with a young man stumbling his way through some weeds as he comes across the
TARDIS. It’s a rather odd beginning with enough shaky cam to put The Hunger
Games into second place, but this is a low-budget, Doctor-lite episode so that’s
forgivable – particularly once we realise that the story is being told as the
vlog of this young man named Elton.- One thing this episode does that I find highly interesting is to give us an outsider’s view of The Doctor’s escapades. This portion of the episode refreshingly doesn’t take itself too seriously and treats us to a well-staged Scooby Doo chase scene, courtesy of Rose and The Doctor’s latest drooling foe. Yes it is a bit ridiculous, but sometimes you have to stop taking your show about a two-hearted alien that travels through time and space with a rickety police box and a ‘sonic’ screwdriver too seriously.
- This is an episode clearly aimed at the younger demographic after the past two weeks of dark, heavy storytelling and I’m sure it wouldn’t kill you all to kick back and enjoy the silly foibles of life as told through sci-fi for forty odd minutes.
- Within the first eight minutes of the episode we are introduced to our second main protagonist for this episode, Ursula, and get a bit of back story on how Elton has met The Doctor before, as a small child. When one really looks at it, it is a valuable insight into how The Doctor affects the lives of those around him...those who don’t become companions, that is. That is one theme that runs throughout this entire episode, especially in regards to Elton’s life, and it is something I think we can all identify with. But this time is taken to give us a quick character profile for Elton.
- He lives a perfectly normal life, aside from all of the mad things that have been happening around London thanks to Russell T. Davies’ obsession with having aliens invade the city. Some people have complained about the obvious reshooting with little attention to continuity that happens within this sequence. I say shut up and sit down. If you can accept a rubber, immovable mask as an evil overlord or that a load of green bubble wrap is a parasitic disease, then you can accept a bit of low-budget shooting. (And yes, I do know that when the Internet goes into meltdown it doesn't literally fry your PC...but you all do realise that that was an attempt at subtle visual humour, don't you? Calm down!)
- We are then
introduced to Ursula, played by Shirley Henderson. She offers Elton more information about
the man who calls himself ‘The Doctor’…and I will forever put Elton in the
‘like’ category because he refrained from asking “Doctor Who?”- What this episode can be summed up as is a salute to the Whovian community through the group LINDA. They get together at first to discuss The Doctor, to analyse possible TARDIS sightings through history, to create fanart, and to just be around others with a similar obsession. Sound familiar? What is so amazing about this group is that, despite the number of people in it, we still get a chance to know and connect a bit with each person as the group progresses from a bunch of geeks hanging out together to friends becoming a support system. True there is a fair bit of telling rather than showing within these sequences, but within the context of this particular episode it works. It’s not Davies Forced Exposition and none of it is shoved down our throats. The actors all do a wonderful job of selling their individual stories and we get the feeling that these are real people banding together here, not just cardboard cut-outs designated to be this week’s red shirts.
- But then this man
appears and all of the happy times abruptly grind to a halt. What I should very
much like to know is where these pictures of The Doctor and Rose keep coming
from? I know it is explained within the episode…but I’m pretty sure that the
Tenth Doctor wasn’t anywhere near Trafalgar Square on this Christmas past, so
where did the picture really come from? And this one looks like Rose about to
make her first run into the TARDIS. Is it just me or was this creepy fatso apparently
lurking about in the shadows somewhere? I do hope he didn’t interrogate poor
Mickey too much after that scene; the bloke had already gone through enough for
one day what with being eaten by a bin and having his girlfriend run out on him. Strike one for this episode.- Victor Kennedy is a slimy lard-filled balloon who demands that everyone keep their distance from his ‘exzeema’ problems (a request I would be too willing to fulfil) and he takes the innocent little LINDA group and turns it into a Doctor-Gestapo with assignments and studying and interrogation tactics. He gives each of the members a picture of Rose and the TARDIS and sends them out into the city to find her while Bliss mysteriously disappears after a private meeting with Victor Kennedy. Umm...can we say 'CREEPY'?!
- Apparently something called ‘Bad Wolf Virus’ has gotten into the Torchwood files on Rose Tyler and The Doctor and corrupted them. I don't remember hacking computers being part of the whole "I take the words and scatter them..." speech.
- Whatever the reason for this apparent problem, one of the greatest faults of this episode (besides the unfortunate last fifteen minutes or so) is the fact that it sometimes plays out like a poorly-researched fanfiction…a bewildering fact seeing as how Mr. Davies himself wrote it…but that it what it reminds me of. Plot points are introduced that sound nice but when you really look at them they don’t really fit within the established chain of events. Strike two against this episode.
- Personally I enjoyed the scene where Jackie beat Elton to all of the points just as he was trying to work up the courage and even some of the later awkward scenes where she is flirting only serve to highlight just how much she misses Mickey and her daughter. Jackie was a lonely figure to begin with and the images of her walking around the empty flat, trying to pick up guys for a bit of company, is quite sad. How the companions’ families were affected by their travels was never really addressed in the past, so it’s nice to see an episode dealing with that behind-the-scenes stuff for once.
- Besides, it doesn’t last long because no sooner does Jackie start putting the moves on him then she finds a picture of Rose in his pocket and realises that he has been using her. Granted Jackie probably is no stranger to men just using her, but in this case it is different. In this case they are using her to get to the daughter which Jackie loves and adores and, through Rose, the two-hearted alien that Jackie has developed quite a soft spot for since his regeneration. This scene is painful. Not only have we had a good twenty minutes of seeing how happy Jackie is to have some pleasant company around her flat, but we’ve also spent an entire episode so far seeing the way Elton is being manipulated by Victor Kennedy. Yes Jackie was wrong to seduce him and yes he was wrong to lie to her...but these mistakes all culminate in a hurtful argument that leaves them both with less than they had before.
- Victor Kennedy was officially a creeper in a past life! I cheered whenever Elton, still stinging from the Jackie fiasco, finally stood up to the prissy, rotund man – but the good feelings all dissolved about the time he asked Mr. Skinner to stay behind and “Come a bit closer.” Urgh!
- This could have been an okay episode, really it could have. Upon its broadcast some critics (most notably Nick Setchfield of SFX) hailed it as RTD’s “…smartest, funniest scrip.” While I don’t agree with that assessment by any stretch of the imagination, feeling that even the ill-fated Slitheen two-parter contained more true humour, I have to admit that I was enjoying this episode upon the first watch. The style was quirky and odd, but it worked within the context of the story, and the members of LINDA were all likable enough that I was worried when one by one they started to disappear with screams. I would gladly have given this episode a decent rating, despite its moments of mediocrity and occasional sloppy continuity. But…well…we have to talk about it sometime. Let’s just get this over and done with.
- The monster for
this ill-fated week is called an Abzorbaloff and is portrayed by Peter Kay at
his very worst. He was annoying as Victor Kennedy, but that was okay because he
was the villain and he didn’t chew half so much scenery as Anthony Head, but
once he got the green makeover he descended in the new depths of irritating
that the Slitheen could only dream of. In fact, I would take the farting gaggle
of giggling MP’s over an Abzorbaloff any day!- I wonder if the poor little boy who designed this monster cried when he saw the monstrosity they had turned his concept into. I also wonder if he is now embarrassed to have his name tied to this episode. Once Victor Kennedy sheds his skin, the episode immediately goes to the dogs. The charm is gone, the plot is gone, heck...even the mystery is gone. He was what ruined this otherwise middle ground episode and made it into something that people hate.
- What is Russell T. Davies’ obsession with the Slitheen, anyway? Already they’ve featured in three stories as major antagonists and been mentioned in some shape or form in almost every other episode ever since. Why? They’re not particularly inspired creations and goodness only knows that they weren’t particularly well received. Series 1 I can understand because the production was already finished long before the airdate…but why all the references in Series 2? Is it because they, like Miss Rose Tyler, are Davies’ babies? Or does he just have some sort of fondness for fat folk and flatulence?
- Needless to say, while we can’t perhaps blame the Abzorbaloff completely on Davies, we certainly can blame the deliberate reference to the Slitheen on him...as well as the painful writing that saps away any integrity this episode had word by word.
- A chase scene commences where Elton is eventually cornered by the Abzorbaloff and his trapped friends and he defeats the monster by breaking its cane (why this worked, I really don’t know…it was never explained or hinted at during any part of the episode). Rose and The Doctor then show up so that Rose can chew Elton out for what he did to her mother and The Doctor can finally tie up the dangling plot thread that was why Elton had seen this Doctor as a child.
Personally, I think that this episode is
not as bad as its reputation makes it out to be. True the ending is deplorable,
disgusting, and despicable rubbish that should never see the light of day
again…but up until the big reveal Love and Monsters is an interesting
piece of television. Maybe it seems so bad because the last two episodes were
so wonderful or maybe viewers just couldn’t get that "Still have a bit of a love life," comment out from where it had been seared onto their minds. I will
agree that this episode has some major, major problems. But there is a lot to
like too, especially if you are willing to cut back and let the show take
itself lightly for a change. It is a lovely little tribute to the Whovian
community and it is a shame about the ending. It isn’t perfect, it isn’t
great, and it isn’t even as witty as Aliens of London – but I give Love
and Monsters a 2/5 and encourage you to check it out. It’s worth
one watch, at least, even if you’re just going for character development.
What did you think? Do you agree with my rating? If not -
what would you say differently?
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