9.11: Boom Town
The one in which RTD plays with our expectations, and I realise I did not think my numbering scheme through.
Broadcast: June 2005
Watched: July 2021
“The South Wales coast could fall into the sea and they wouldn’t notice. Oh god. I’ve gone native.”
This is the one this season I find most difficult. I didn’t enjoy it on broadcast. Possibly this was because it’s the only one I’ve ever watched with my friend Manu, and it was a bit weird, so I got the cringe. Possibly because it’s a sequel to what had felt like the season’s weakest story. Possibly because it feels like a waste of the new companion.
Or possibly just because it requires a Slitheen costume to emote.
This is the first time I’ve watched it when I could see past those things. It is still tonally a bit uncertain – half of it’s a comedy, then half of it is about guilt and responsibility; the mismatch is summed up by the spooky “Bad wolf... those words... we’ve been seeing them everywhere" bit, which is immediately dismissed as a joke.
But... I can now see what it’s trying to do. The reason it’s a bit difficult is that it’s not an adventure story in the normal sense: it’s trying to deconstruct the conventions of the show, ask what the Doctor immediately running away actually means. That’s something we’ll touch upon again next episode, and leads ultimately to the children of time stuff in Journey’s End and Hell Bent. I can appreciate it more as an experiment now it’s just part of the text.
Things I enjoyed:
The Rose/Mickey argument, in which RTD lets his leads be in the wrong for once (“You left me!” etc).
The attempt to sell Cardiff as a destination.
The way there are clearly a bunch of missing adventures in which Jack gets settled – they’re very much a trio by now – although, oddly, he does ask about the appearance of the TARDIS.
The list of deaths and Margaret’s excuses for them (“Well, they were French").
The hilarious idea of demolishing Cardiff Castle and building a nuclear power station in its place.
Things I am not so sure of:
The ending is still a cheat, even if it makes more sense in retrospect (the TARDIS clearly has a mind of its own, and can give you what you want if you communicate with it).
The fart jokes are still rubbish.
The dynamic among the regulars, from which Mickey is excluded, is the first hint of the smugness that annoyed some people – me; I mean me – about the next season.
Other random thoughts:
The “previously on” bit is largely Andrew Marr, which is quite funny. (Even funnier, from some perspectives, is that we’re now, if you squint, colleagues.)
RTD hasn’t bothered to google what a “Lord Mayor” is either.
“He’s nothing exciting but he’s mine” hey screw you Cathy that’s a horrible way to talk about your partner.
The incidental music sounds a lot like Blink.
2005 was a long time ago: the regulars have very high tech Nokia phones.
“Dinner and bondage” eww.
The flat Margaret Slitheen describes is RTD’s isn’t it?
Is Cardiff town hall the same set as the Cabinet Room? Bit obvious.
It’s interesting that they put Daleks in the “next time” trailer, blowing the episode’s big reveal a week early. Not least because I mentioned this to Agnes when we were watching Bad Wolf and she got annoyed with me because she’d forgotten.