Mummy on the Orient Express
Oct. 16th, 2014 10:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcI enjoyed this much more than last week's.
This may need a bit of unpacking. Last week I complained that "Kill the Moon" was trying to make a serious story out of a ludicrous premise. It could be argued that this episode was trying to make a scary story out of a ludicrous premise, so what's the difference?
Focus. "Kill the Moon" put "the Moon's a giant egg" front and centre, made it the basis of a moral dilemma, and asked us to take that seriously. "Mummy" established early on that it was well aware "Orient Express In Space" was ridiculous, and then let that aspect disappear into the background when the focus was on the monster.
And while "Kill the Moon" had the shape of a puzzle story (why is the Moon increasing in mass?), but didn't come up with a satisfactory answer (it's increasing because it's an egg with a growing baby inside! And eggs break conservation of mass all the time, probably!), MOTOE had the Doctor consider the evidence and come up with a consistent explanation for everything.
All that and it took the time to explain why this was a story that was happening now when the Doctor got a phone call about it at the end of "The Big Bang". And a fun turn from Frank Skinner as the stolid engineer.
The only thing that didn't make sense was why Maisie and her grandmother were on the train, given the reveal that all the other passengers who weren't Mummy experts weren't really there.
This may need a bit of unpacking. Last week I complained that "Kill the Moon" was trying to make a serious story out of a ludicrous premise. It could be argued that this episode was trying to make a scary story out of a ludicrous premise, so what's the difference?
Focus. "Kill the Moon" put "the Moon's a giant egg" front and centre, made it the basis of a moral dilemma, and asked us to take that seriously. "Mummy" established early on that it was well aware "Orient Express In Space" was ridiculous, and then let that aspect disappear into the background when the focus was on the monster.
And while "Kill the Moon" had the shape of a puzzle story (why is the Moon increasing in mass?), but didn't come up with a satisfactory answer (it's increasing because it's an egg with a growing baby inside! And eggs break conservation of mass all the time, probably!), MOTOE had the Doctor consider the evidence and come up with a consistent explanation for everything.
All that and it took the time to explain why this was a story that was happening now when the Doctor got a phone call about it at the end of "The Big Bang". And a fun turn from Frank Skinner as the stolid engineer.
The only thing that didn't make sense was why Maisie and her grandmother were on the train, given the reveal that all the other passengers who weren't Mummy experts weren't really there.
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Date: 2014-10-17 11:04 am (UTC)Ooh, I hadn't spotted that...Maybe the grandma was a deliberate first victim to bring the whole thing to the attention of the experts more quickly - sadly they might not have taken as much notice if it was just the crew getting bumped off :(
I am Suspicious of Perkins. He seemed a tad too useful to be true....