Not another Dr Who companion

Jeez…you have thought that by now the Dr Who production team would be able to hang on to an actor long enough to play ‘the companion’ for more than five minutes but it appears not, unless of course Russell TD has some master plan up his sleeve which we’re not privy to.  So Kylie is the companion for the Christmas special then Catherine Tate for the next series, some people aren’t impressed, and what of poor old Freema Agyeman?  Well she only gets to play in the 2nd half of Series 4 apparently .   I rather liked the character of Martha Jones and to think that the Dr Who folks have got bored of her already is a shame, as for Catherine Tate…I just don’t see it working.  Russell TD may have is work cut out selling this one to the faithful.

Dr Who season finale…thoughts…

K and I have just sat thought the final episode of the this series of Dr Who…and K is incandescent.  Yep she’s pissed with Russell T and I’ve got to agree.  The Master unbeknown to me is K’s favorite character from Dr Who and she felt that he was treated as nothing more than a comedy villain, not to mention killing him off…sort of.  OK, the ring being picked up was intriguing but in a oh-so Ming the Merciless sort of way.

So The Master as comedy bad guy was the main problem but it didn’t end there.  The Captain Scarlet Cloud Base nonsense jarred against the backdrop of the rest of the preset day, yes I understand The Master is a clever so and so and could easily create such technology but it seemed so out of place.  The rewind the clock time travel bit at the end was beneath them too and so script cliche 101 that I can’t believe no one noticed; it’s like going into a shop guitar shop and playing Smoke on the Water.

But don’t misunderstand there were some really great bits which included…

The Doctor’s return.
Martha’s walk around the earth and the myth creation of a super weapon.
The scene where The Master refuses to regenerate and ‘dies’.
Martha leaving the Tardis.
Derek Jacobi.
The Face of Boe twist.

However they can’t make up for the fact that The Master wasn’t the subtle, sinister and malevolent presence he should have been.  With the rest of the series being so good it’s a shame it ended without the superb flourish we all expected but all diamonds have their flaws I suppose.  Next time Mr R T Davies needs to call K before sodding about like this again….what next?  Dancing Cybermen?  Ummmmm…

What makes us human?

This is more of a philosophical question than anything else as I’ve just started to reread the wonderful Philosopher at the end of the Universe by Mark Rowland.  It uses Sci-Fi movies as way of examining the basic questions philosophy explores like the nature of reality, morality, free will, death and the meaning of life.  This was prompted by a conversation I had the other day about cloning and what if we could not only create a clone but transfer all of the experiences, memories, thoughts and feelings from one brain to another.  Would it still be you?  And what about a clone of a clone?  Mark Rowlands as luck would have it discusses just this in his book using the Arnie movie ‘Sixth Day” as an example.  Ok, ok the movie stank but hey philosophy and film don’t always make easy bedfellows.  If this can apply to clones what about Cybermen?  I know that the original Cybermen had completely turned themselves into machines but the later parallel universe Cybermen embedded the human brain in a metal exoskeleton and in some cases didn’t lose their identity.  So if you transfer a human brain into a machine body is the Cyberman still in effect human?   Or is it the body, plus the brain and the ‘mind’ that defines a human?  Or something I’ve missed?