Odd. Ood. Odd.

Elsewhere I forgot to mention last night my "review" of Doctor Who which proved to be pretty divisive in the comments on Behind The Sofa. I haven't read many good reviews of the story online most agreeing that despite everything it seemed to spend too much time with spectacle and not enough in relation to telling a good story. As I tried to intimate in the review, I can't completely blame writer Helen Rayner. There's a shopping list culture in play at the top in which the producer says to a writer that they want:

1930s New York
Daleks
Pig Men

... or something and then expect them to put together a decent story. Sometimes it works and sometimes you wish that they'd just left the writer to their own devices. In this story whenever Raynor touched anything related to the depression and its effects it was gold. As soon as it strayed away from that the flow of the story suffered. Martha seemed particularly ill served, generally trailing around in the opening episode and then spend most of the closing episode discovering something the Doctor already knew then having him turn up and do the really heroic thing she was primed for. As a wise woman once said: "It was odd." Oh and Dalek Sec's prosthetic was just distracting. Not one of Neil Gorton's best efforts...