Filler.
From the lame duck set up to end twist, this episode is purely
something to do before John Simm comes back.
Rona Munro takes over writing duties in this one and while her dialogue
isn’t bad there’s just too much of it. This is probably a symptom of a
small special effects budget; with the main monster being all CGI it, the action
has to be kept to a minimum.
This is no more evident than in the scenes where Bill hangs out with
some Romans. Firstly, there’s an extended bit about her figuring out the TARDIS
is translating everyone’s speech. I can’t see why this wouldn’t have come up before
and why it’s only now that she’s even thinking about it. Secondly, she’s
shocked to find that the Romans had a very fluid attitude towards sexuality,
with bisexual being the general norm. Except the whole set up for the episode
was that the Doctor and Bill had had an argument over who was the better expert
on the Romans and the Ninth Legion. If she loves the Romans so much, why does
this come as a surprise to her?
With these factors in place, this comes across as an excuse to bring
up Bill’s sexuality again. “Look everyone; we’ve got a black, gay woman in our
cast; please stop being upset that we didn’t cast Helen Mirren as the Doctor.”
In general, I think that Russell T Davies (for all the flaws with
his tenure over Who) handled the issue of sexuality so much better. He had a casual
attitude to the issues of who the characters were attracted to and more importantly,
was secure enough in it not to contrive ways to bring who had what sexuality
every five minutes.
Other than that, there’s not a lot to say about this episode.
It treads water until the anticipated return of two popular villains
next week.
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