Love and Monsters

 

"Perfectly normal life... and then it all went mad."

Writer: Russell T Davies

Format: TV

Broadcast: 17th June 2006

Series: 2.10

Featuring: Tenth Doctor, Rose

Synopsis 

An ordinary man becomes obsessed with the Doctor and Rose, and uncovers a world of living nightmares. As the group known as LINDA track the whereabouts of the Doctor and his mysterious police box, their world gets turned upside down when a sinister Victor Kennedy arrives...

Verdict 

Love and Monsters is far from being a great episode of Doctor Who but to my pleasant surprise, I actually found myself slightly enjoying what I was watching! I watched this with my cousin which was our first watch in quite some time with Planet of Fire being the last story I think we watched together. This was excellent use of my Easter holidays as there's nothing I enjoy more than family time and Doctor Who. I was quite surprised that he had never seen this episode before as he's an avid watcher on Watch and I was sure that they would have shown this episode in the time between I last saw him and now. However, it meant that I could blog another TV story, of which there have been quite a lot lately actually, and I could further expand his Doctor Who knowledge. It also seemed to make sense as the Tenth Doctor is his favourite incarnation and I can't say I was shocked by that but I was quite pleasantly surprised that the Third Doctor comes in at second place in his ranking of favourite Doctors. He seemed to really enjoy this episode and watching him watch the episode really opened up my eyes as to how the story would appeal to the younger viewer. As the enemy was actually quite laughable, it really appealed to the younger viewers and I could really see that here for the first time. I always thought the concept and appearance of the Abzorbaloff was pretty laughable but here my thoughts changed dramatically to my absolute surprise. I thought Victor Kennedy was actually rather good and I loved his sheer determination to locate the Doctor. His reasoning was rather absurd with him hoping to enjoy a great feast at the Doctor's expense and return to Clom victorious and be able to boast about his great meal. With this being the first Doctor-lite story, I thought it was actually very good that with the Doctor only appearing at the start and end, the episode was still all about him. I really wasn't struck on the whole home video thing with Elton but as a lead character for the episode he wasn't bad at all. His relationship with Ursula was pretty good even if I did think the ending was a little bit ridiculous with her face being retrieved and Elton claiming to be in love with a bit of concrete. Despite my enjoyment, don't get me wrong there is a lot wrong with this episode. LINDA were a good little bunch even if the acronym was pretty poor but the togetherness they had was nice to see and they really did seem to be enjoying themselves. At first, they had started by trying to locate the Doctor but they had grown to enjoy each other's company very much and even began forming their own little band. Bliss being the first victim of the Abzorbaloff was interesting and that just left two obvious couples who didn't quite have the nerve to get together in Elton & Ursula and Mr Skinner and Bridget. Sadly, neither would end up together. Well, the former pair sort of did but they could hardly have a love life now could they. There's not really much you can do with a slab of concrete. The new material set during the events of Rose, Aliens of London/World War Three and The Christmas Invasion was magnificent and was absolutely the highlight of the story. But the scenes with the Hoix were pretty humorous and Jackie shined in a more prominent role here. Rose's displeasure at Elton using her mother to get to her was fantastic and I also enjoyed how quickly the Doctor talked the Abzorbaloff into being ripped apart. It was so simple but it seemed like only the Doctor would have been capable. The story of the Doctor was very good and because it was all about him and the mark he leaves on people, it didn't really seem like he was gone. Overall, plenty of room for improvement but a much more enjoyable watch than the last time. 

Rating: 7/10