Previously: Mickey stayed behind in a parallel universe. Sad.
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The Idiot’s Lantern
Marines: Rain, thunder, lightening. Somewhere, a guy sits inside a shop, pouring over a book. A TV program is playing in the background. The announcer signs off just as the guy realizes he’s overdrawn and needs a money miracle. Watching TV while also maybe thinking about needing money miracles? MY LIFE. But with less “God Save the Queen” playing in the background.
Kirsti: I had a total “IT’S THAT GUY FROM THAT THING!!” moment when he came on screen, but wasn’t sure what that thing was. According to IMDB, it’s our old friend Britain Only Has Ten Actors, because he’s been in Hot Fuzz, Little Dorrit, and Chocolat. The thing I was thinking of, however, is Hornblower, better known as “That Show Where Ioan Gruffydd Makes Stockings And Shoes With Buckles And Silly Hats Kind of Hot”.
Mari: I can’t decide if that’s a show I’d ever want to see.
At a household that has apparently more money but less TV, a dad says goodbye to his family. His son looks up at him expectantly, and they continue a conversation they’ve obviously already had about getting a TV. The dad says maybe he will for the coronation. The kid (Tommy) is stoked. The grandma says that TV makes your brain soup and then it leaks through your ears. Shut your hole, grandma.
Overdrawn Man is sleeping on top of his books. Lightning strikes the antenna above his shop and his TV flickers. TV Announcer appears again and calls out to Overdrawn Man (Mr. Magpie). He thinks he must be dreaming, but TV Announcer says this isn’t a dream. IT’S HIS WORST NIGHTMARE. I added that part, but seeing as how he soon gets sucked into the TV and TV Announcer laughs maniacally, it’s a legit addition.
After the credits, Rose steps out of the TARDIS in a full on, 50s get-up. As much as I love Rose in a union flag t-shirt flying on a barrage balloon and Rose apologizing for her nakedness to Queen Victoria, I have a soft spot for when they dress up for their travels.
K: Same. Mostly because I would totally wear a ridiculous poodle skirt if given the chance. And sliiiiightly because it means that the Doctor has magical hair.
Mari: Rose says she thought they would go for the Vegas era, but the Doctor pops his head out and says that the only way to see Elvis is in the 50s, when he still had a waist. Rose giggles as the Doctor says that you have to also see Elvis in style, and he drives out of the TARDIS on a scooter as the rock n’ roll music in the background really picks up.
K: The pink helmet reminds me of that episode of Angel where he had to ride on the back of Wesley’s motorbike and wear the pink helmet that squished his hair. Good times.
Mari: AKA Not Season 4 Times.
Rose asks where they are off to and the Doctor explains that they might be able to catch Elvis performing “Hound Dog” on the Ed Sullivan show. Rose is all, “in a tv studio… in New York?” The Doctor brightly confirms because he hasn’t quite noticed that they are still in London and not in New York at all. As he twigs, Rose asks what all the flags are for. Above them, and running from building, are pennant streamers.
We cut back to the family from the cold open. They’ve got a TV now and are watching Annette Mills. The dad (Eddie) says it’s fantastic and asks the mom (Rita) to smile for him since TV is so cool. The mother refuses to smile on demand and I give her a high five. She can’t smile because of some mysterious “her” with an awful face. Since gran is missing, probably her. Papa Eddie says to STFU about it, but then some thumping starts sounding from above them. Mama Rita says that “she’s” awake and probably hungry. Personally, I know that if I’m awake, there’s a 78.3% chance I’m hungry. (K: YUP.)
Back outside, Mr. Magpie is delivering another TV, all in time for the great occasion. The Doctor is passing by and asks what great occasion that is. Magpie says it’s the coronation and the Doctor is a little slow on the uptake here again. It’s Rose who tells him it must be Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. (K: I’m surprised she’s not as distracted by his hair as I am.) She also notices all the TV aerials, as she previously believed TVs were few and far between during this time. Magpie says not so around these parts, thanks to his TVs. The Doctor is busy being really excited about 1953 and technicolor and the end of the war and bright and shiny futures, all up until a man, Mr. Gallagher, is dragged out of his house. Tommy runs out of his house to witness the commotion and asks the two officers what’s going on. They say it’s official police business that involves putting an official sack over Mr. Gallagher’s head.
Tommy tells the Doctor that this same thing is happening all over the place and people are turning into monsters. Papa Eddie orders Tommy to not say another word and get inside. The Doctor and Rose hop back on the scooter and take after the police car. Officer Kidnapper uses the car phone to call in an “operation market stall.” As he drives down an apparent dead end, a gate opens up for him. He drives in and two men close the gate behind him and then push out a wheelbarrow full of vegetables to block the way. The Doctor arrives at that same dead end a few seconds later, only to assume the kidnapper police have gotten away. Rose reminds him what Tommy said about monsters and suggests going to talk to the neighbors. The Doctor says he loves how she always takes the domestic approach and Rose isn’t sure that’s a compliment.
Magpie’s Store. He presents some sort of portable TV to the Announcer. He’s all, “so you can go now, right?” It seems Announcer is burning him up from the inside out and even his memories hurt. Growing up, my sisters and I would say “even my fingers hurt” or “even my nails hurt” to communicate a state of extreme fatigue. I have no idea where we got that from. Maybe I’ll lay down a, “even my memories hurt” sometime soon.
The Announcer villain speeches a little bit about the time being ripe for, you know, villaining.
K: Oh, villains. You and your Big Book of Speechifying…
Mari: Tommy is creeping upstairs, toward the thumping noise. He calls to his Gran through the door and announces that he’s going in. Before he can open the door, Papa Eddie stops him and confiscates the key to the room. Downstairs, Papa Eddie yells at Tommy for disobeying. (“No college for you!”) (K: I feel the need to clarify that this is England, so college = junior and senior year.) (M: I’m pretty sure that makes this threat worse.) Tommy says they can’t just lock their grandmother away. Rita is really distraught by the non-stop thumping. Eddie hushes her and says they are going to hang up their flags and pretend they don’t have some sort of monster grandma upstairs. Rita asks what if she’s dying and Eddie yells at her to STFU. Again.
The doorbell rings. Eddie answers it and finds the Doctor and Rose.
K: Damn, I wish I got to answer the door to that much adorable. Instead, I just get a creep-tastic 40-something Jehovah’s Witness who keeps inviting me to prayer circles. Uh, no.
Mari: Eddie asks who the heck they are and the Doctor whips out his psychic paper that makes him a representative of the Queen. The Doctor pushes his way inside and addresses Rita. Eddie basically tells her to STFU again. The Doctor turns the attention around and starts picking on Eddie, asking why his flags aren’t flying. Eddie blames it on Rita, since she’s the woman and in charge of the housework and all. The Doctor is all, “o rly?” because the Queen is a female and surely Eddie doesn’t expect the Queen to do housework, right? Eddie gets real nervous and gets to putting his flags up. Except he calls them “Union Jacks” and Rose doesn’t pass up the opportunity to be all, “THEY ARE ONLY CALLED THAT WHEN THEY ARE FLOWN AT SEA.” She smiles happily, maybe because she knew something someone didn’t, but probably because she knew something a sexist pig didn’t. WEE.
K: Can we have some kind of reverse misogyny shots? A celebratory toast over calling the sexist pig on his sexist bullshit.
Mari: Rose and the Doctor make themselves comfy and through gritted teeth, the Doctor asks, “a union flag?” Rose says that her mum went out with a sailor. Still gritting his teeth and forcing a smile, the Doctor says he bets she did. NONE OF THAT, YOU.
The Doctor invites Tommy and Rita to sit with them. After about 2 seconds of “isn’t television awesome?” small talk, the Doctor asks Rita what’s going on. Eddie tries to shush her again, but the Doctor insists. She starts to cry. Eddie seems to snap to and starts yelling about the things happening in his own house being his own business. The Doctor interrupts so he yells, “I am talking!” like he did to Rita, but now the Doctor stands and yells back, “AND I’M NOT LISTENING.” He looks real crazy when he does it, too. Crazy and adorable? There’s a lot of mouth movement and maybe a little spittle?
K: He’s channelling his inner Barty Crouch Jr during this scene, that’s for sure.
Mari: The Doctor keeps crazy-yelling that Eddie is staring into a dark pit of trouble unless he comes clean and lets the Doctor help.
Just then they all hear the thumping from upstairs. Eddie says that she never stops. Tommy tags in with the rest of the explanation: families all over have had people change, but they’ve kept it a secret because they are scared. Somehow, though, the police are finding out and taking these changed people away. The Doctor asks them to show him.
Tommy leads everyone upstairs where we finally see gran: she’s got no face. I feel like I should feel a little bad about tell her to shut her hole earlier, but meh. The Doctor scans her non-face with his sonic screwdriver and exposits that she’s got no electrical impulses and it’s almost like her brain has been wiped clean. Of course, the kidnapper police show up JUST THEN. (K: CONTRIVANCE!) The Doctor asks the family what Gran was doing before she got wiped but no one can remember. The kidnapper police make it upstairs and the Doctor tries to stall them with, “three important, brilliant, and complicated reasons why you should listen to me.” Officer Kidnapper just punches him in the face and it’s kind of hilarious. Only because there is no way talking should’ve worked in this circumstance, and it didn’t.
Rita gets pushed aside and Tommy attends to her. Rose is over the Doctor, slapping his face lightly to help him recover from a punch to the face. It works.
The Doctor jumps up and heads downstairs where the kidnapper police are already riding away. Rose is distracted by the TV in the living room, which is crackling with cheap-looking, red electricity. (K: It reminds me of Ghostbusters 2…) The Doctor calls for Rose, but when she doesn’t respond, he rides after the kidnapper police alone. Rose is pushing the TV set around, trying to figure it out. She sees a sticker for Magpie Electronics. The Connollys come back inside and Eddie tells Rose to get out. She stands and says it was a pleasure to meet Tommy and Rita, but Eddie is an idiot for hanging the flags upside down. She runs out.
This time, the Doctor is quick enough to catch the tail-end of the market stall operation. Probably they shouldn’t have the same dude sweeping the same spot every time. The Doctor goes exploring and finds a smaller entrance he breaks into with the sonic screwdriver. Inside that building, he finds a cage full of faceless people. He lets himself into the cage and shines a light in their non-faces. They all start pressing in on him, up until Office Kidnap finds him and shines an even bigger light on all of them.
Rose visits Magpie’s shop. He tells her the shop is closed, but she doesn’t leave. One of the TVs behind them crackles to life and the Announcer appears and whines, “hungry!” Magpie tries to shoo Rose out again, but she isn’t leaving until she’s seen everything. Probably going to regret that. Rose lays out everything she’s connected and how the common theme of all the shenanigans is Magpie’s TV sets. He locks the door and Rose gets a little nervous. Apparently, she didn’t really think the whole “confront the villain alone” thing all the way through. She recovers pretty quickly, though, and asks if Magpie is going to confess. What’s in it for him? Peace, he says, from the lady on the TV. Rose says she’s just a program, but Announcer starts talking to her. She introduces herself as The Wire and says she’s hungry. The Wire starts sucking Rose’s face and Magpie stands by and watches.
K: Yeah, Rose really didn’t think that through at all. That said, I do kind of appreciate that Magpie tried repeatedly to convince her to leave.
Mari: Officer Kidnapper is questioning the Doctor and starts with, “tell me everything you know.” The Doctor replies, “well, for starters, I know you can’t wrap your hand around your elbow and make your fingers meet.” I tried it before I knew what I was doing. Hilariously, the officer behind Officer Kidnap tries it too. The Doctor tells Officer Kidnap (Detective Inspector Bishop, name courtesy of DIB’s mum, who wrote it on the inside of his collar) that he isn’t doing very much detective inspecting.
K: I love the Doctor’s little “Bless your mum” when he notices Bishop’s name inside his collar.
Mari: The officers are just gathering the faceless people and hiding them away. The Doctor guesses it’s ’cause of the coronation, and the fact that with so many eyes on London, they want to maintain control. DIB sits down, resigned, and admits that while he’d love to investigate, he doesn’t even know where to start. The Doctor says that could change. He stands and tells DIB to tell him everything he knows. This is the second time this episode where we’ve seen this kind of shift of power; the first was his crazy yelling at Eddie.
Another officer arrives with a faceless person. The music changes to a somber and dramatic dun dun, in case you have a doubt who this is. This officer brings faceless!Rose to DIB and the Doctor. The Doctor is very distraught and the sound fades out as he stares at Rose’s non-face and has FEELINGS. Behind him, the two officers discuss finding Rose in the street and they mention Torchwood. (K: SHOTS!) The Doctor tunes back in and clarifies that Rose was found in the street. They took her face and chucked her out. The Doctor does his teeth-baring-yell again, this time saying that no power on the Earth can stop him.
K: Thank you for including that gif, because it saves me having to look for it.
Mari: Not including it was not an option.
Morning. The Connollys are hosting a coronation get-together. Eddie growls at Rita to behave herself and smile. He hams it up for his guests and one of them asks for Gran. Rita says Gran can’t come down and the lady says maybe she can go up and see Gran later. Tommy pointedly says that’s a good idea and pisses Eddie off. Some more.
When the doorbell rings, Tommy gets up to answer it. It’s the Doctor and DIB. Tommy steps out to talk to them, but Eddie has followed him. Eddie growls at Tommy now, telling his son that people in the neighborhood respect him and it matters what people think. Tommy realizes that it was Eddie all along, calling the police and ratting out faceless people. It’s weird that DIB just stands there since he’s presumably the police Eddie was calling BUT OKAY.
Tommy calls his father a coward. He may have fought a war against fascism, but now he’s become a fascist in his own right. (K: I may have cheered a little over Tommy’s speech.) Rita comes out now and asks if all this is true. Eddie insists that faceless Gran was filthy and disgusting and he did the right thing. Spoken like a fascist. Rita tells Tommy to go along with the Doctor and then locks Eddie out of the house.
The Doctor asks Tommy again what happened the night Gran went faceless. He finally manages to say that they were watching television. From there, it’s easy for the Doctor to connect the lots of TV sets to Magpie and run there. He breaks into the shop, and when no one answers, starts rifling around. He locates the portable TV Magpie was making and sonics it. He also licks it. (K: WHYYYYYYYY. With a side of urgh.) The sonic screwdriver also detects other power sources in the room. Suddenly, faces appear on all of the TV sets. Tommy spots his Gran and the Doctor finds Rose. She’s screaming, “Doctor!”
Magpie comes out of the back room. The Doctor asks him who is in charge and The Wire shows up on a screen and delivers her true villain speech. It was executed by its own people, but escaped amongst the stars and ended up trapped in a TV. Now, it’s using the electrical activity of different brains to try and regain a corporeal form. As the Doctor angry-exposits about how the Wire is stuffing itself like a pig, his dimples are really, really noticeable. Sorry. David Tennant’s face is just so distracting sometimes.
K: Seriously. Especially when paired with that hair.
Mari: Anyway, the Wire is going to use the coronation to be really, really evil, but it isn’t strong enough to do it all from the shop, which is why Magpie was building the portable transmitter. That all done, the Wire decides to eat faces now. And this next part is suuuuper awkward as she’s all, “mmm, mmm, Doctor is delicious!” and then the Doctor slowly pulls out his sonic screwdriver and as we extreme zoom into the Wire’s TV face, it says, “Ah! Armed. He’s armed and clever. Withdraw! Withdraw!”
“He’s armed and clever.”
Okay.
K: All the “delicious” stuff was disturbingly reminiscent of When Harry Met Sally and “I’ll have what she’s having”…
Mari: The Wire lets the boys go and yells for Magpie to grab the box. It transfers into the box and Magpie runs out of the store.
Everyone is still watching the coronation over at the Connollys’.
The Doctor comes to. The Wire got all of DIB’s face, but Tommy is okay. Those two run outside. Tommy thinks it’s too late, but the Doctor says it never is. The Doctor realizes they are near Alexandra Palace, the biggest TV transmitter in north London, which is why the Wire chose this location. The Doctor runs back inside and between him and Tommy they collect a bunch of supplies.
Magpie keeps driving toward Alexandra Palace while the Wire hangs out in her portable TV and laugh maniacally. He arrives at Alexandra Palace and starts running up stairs and climbing up to the top of the tower.
Meanwhile, the Doctor and Tommy run together. The Doctor is assembling something as he goes.
K: Good Lord. I can’t even text while walking without landing face first in a tree.
Mari: Doesn’t really stop me from trying to text and walk, though.
Magpie stops mid-climb. He tells the Wire he can’t do this and she just screams, “FEED ME!” He grabs his head and groans, so I guess his memories hurt.
The Doctor and Tommy arrive and see Magpie slowly climbing up the tower. They run past the guard, as the Doctor flashes his psychic paper, identifying him as the king of Belgium.
K: LOL. People really will believe anything.
Mari: A wee bit of Wikipedia research has led me to believe two things: 1- That should be ‘King of the Belgians’ and 2- that guard technically thought the Doctor was this guy:
The Doctor sets Tommy up quickly in a room somewhere and instructs him to keep that thing he was assembling switched on. He heads back out, running a wire the entire way, and climbs up after Magpie.
Magpie finally makes it to the top and plugs the Wire in. It starts large scale face sucking. There is a bit of a, “you can’t do this!” “OH YES I CAN!” back an forth as the Doctor closes the last of the distance between himself and Magpie/the Wire. Magpie says he was promised peace, but instead he gets disintegrated, which was way dumb of the Wire, because now her box is all alone. The Doctor manages to grab it without being electrocuted (and the awkward lines keep coming with, “rubber soles, swear by them!“) (K: Mark Gatiss wrote this episode, what do you expect?!) The Doctor plugs his contraction into the portable TV, but back with Tommy, something short circuits. The Wire laughs at the Doctor’s failure and he looks so confused.
Tommy is all over it, though, and conveniently finds a replacement valve and replugs the whole whatever this contraption is in. The Wire’s red electricity disappears and she cries out in defeat. All of the faceless people have had their faces returned and fingers crossed for no permanent brain damage!
The Doctor goes back to meet Tommy and explains that he just turned the Wire’s transmitter back into a receiver and trapped her in a tape. He’s invented the home video 30 years early. Not as impressive as a banana daiquiri, but…
The coronation wraps up.
Tommy is reunited with his grandmother. The Doctor and Rose beam at each other and embrace.
K: OTP TO END ALL OTPS.
Mari: Rita officially kicks Eddie out of the house.
There’s a full on block party happening now on Florizel street. The Doctor says that this is where the real history is happening. “The domestic approach,” Rose calls it. She asks if the Wire is truly stuck on a tape. The Doctor hopes so, but he’s going to tape over it, just in case. The Doctor and Rose join Tommy. He’s watch his dad leave the house. Rose encourages him to go after his dad, because even though he is an idiot, Eddie is still his dad. As the Doctor and Rose watch Tommy run after Eddie, they cheers.
So, this was a thing. I thought I was going to hate it going in, but it wasn’t nearly as offense as all that. It wasn’t great, either. Kirsti said last recap that this is a season that starts and ends well. What we’ve got in the middle so far just feels a little gooey and undercooked. I hated the Wire as a villain as I disliked pretty much all of its lines and the performance (or at least the direction) was painful. The idea wasn’t a bad one, but it isn’t well supported. I will say that I liked several bits here, most of them surrounding Rose. The show has been a little inconsistent with writing her. More, her relationship with the Doctor doesn’t come across as linear. We start this season in what is basically their wet dream, but then pull back from that considerably and just kind of amble along whatever they are or aren’t.
I liked this, then, because we get to see a little bit of how they’ve grown as near-partners. Sure, the Doctor does ultimately rescue her here, but it is Rose who calls the TV thing from the beginning and who made it to Magpie’s shop way before the Doctor did. She waltzes right into danger, and while I poked fun at that, it’s such a Doctor thing to do.
Overall a wash. This is probably the season 2 episode most likely to be forgotten. Oh, wait. “Armed and clever;” I take that back.
K: This episode has a lot of weak moments. But it also features a woman in 1950s England kicking her husband out of the house(!!!!), and David Tennant sporting some truly magical hair. So…yeah. It’s probably going to end up in the middle of the pack for me.
Next time on Doctor Who: The Doctor finds a planet orbiting a black hole in S02 E08 – The Impossible Planet.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
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