📝5/10 = MIXED!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time! This time: the dangers of television! 

The Idiot’s Lantern transports us back to the early 50s, sometime before the coronation of Queen Elisabeth, in the infancy of commercial television sets. It’s the story of the Connolly family, led by the abusive Eddie Connolly, and an alien trying to invade Earth by possessing people through television.

The depiction of 50s family values and abusive fathers feels a bit heavy-handed. That being said, it does recieve a good payoff when Rita decides to essentially throw Eddie out and send Tommy away with the Doctor—well, until the very end, that is, where Rose persuades Tommy not to give up on his prick of a father.

The latter half of the episode is more focused on the alien invasion part, which isn’t anything too special but cleverly mixed with the breakthrough of television as an entire nation watches the Coronation. The climax at the TV tower, with the Doctor climbing to save the day, is a pretty exciting sequence.

I have to admit that seeing the Doctor and Rose in period-accurate get-ups and driving around on a Vespa is pretty cool. The return of the smugness between them is less so. I love how Ten puts Eddie in place by reacting to his bullying (a moment partly ruined by the fact that Rose tries to do the same). What annoys me is how leisurely the Doctor begins investigating before Rose loses her face, after which he goes on a furious rampage to save the day.

The supporting cast is one of the more unlikeable in New Who: I don’t sympathise with the Connolly family at all, even if the father is a major prick and one of the most unlikeable characters in Doctor Who history. Tommy is an annoying kid, but at least he makes for a good ally in the climax as Rose is incarcerated. The only supporting character I like is Mr. Magpie, as played by Ron Cook.

The Wire is a creepy villain. The nice lady speaking with her victims through the TV set is an effective idea, and Maureen Lipman’s performance perfects it. However, the “hungry!” catchphrase feels like too much of an attempt to make the wire stand out more and makes her less nuanced later on. The faceless people created by the Wire also make for quite creepy zombies.

Euros Lyn is a great director, so I don’t know why exactly he wanted to use so many Dutch angles in this episode. They are in every other shot, it feels like. Also, the simple suburban setting doesn’t really make this period piece justice.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

• Is Gatiss trying to remake his VNA novel Nightshade with this one? Both stories feature TV programs and big research/TV stations as major plot elements.
• The Wire has a similar function and design as both the Library Robot in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead and the Ambulance in Boom.