MATT RAUB: Your weekly Who review!
Hey gang, Matt Raub back again, and that can only mean one thing – it’s Who time! So here we are, already a quarter of the way through another explosive year of Doctor Who. And what better time to start the season three story arc than in the 727th produced episode, beating out all of the Star Trek series combined!
In the episode, entitled “Gridlock,” the Doctor and Martha travel on their third voyage together, this time to the future city of New New York. Some of you may remember that we’ve been to New New York, and fairly recently (Don’t worry, Martha brings that up too). Last time, the Doctor and Rose visited a sick friend in very chic hospital above ground, but this time we find our traveling duo deep in the city’s bowels and on the New New York Motorway, which reaches all the way to New New Jersey. Fun thing about this motorway is that, due to the traffic, it takes about 10 years to go four miles. Well, in all the chaos, Martha is kidnapped by two motorists hoping to get into the express lane. The doctor then does his doctor thing and declares he will find her if it’s the last thing he’ll do.
The greatest part of this episode isn’t a quirky part of dialogue, or interesting plot point, but the way the episode was shot. The majority of this episode is going from car to car, whilst the doctor searches for Martha. Now, each car is shot in the exact same set, just with a change of furniture and a few new actors. This makes for an incredibly cheap budget for the episode, and while this is completely unnecessary for the BBC’s top rated show, it reflects some of the ingenuity that American TV lacks. My hat is tipped to executive producer and episode writer Russell T. Davies and the boys and girls overseas for this particular stunt.
Back to the episode, while looking for Martha, the doctor comes across an old buddy – in fact, the same old buddy he came across the last time we were all in New New York: The good ol’ Face of Boe. Those of you who remember the last encounter with that giant head-in-a-jar, remember that Boe said he would meet the Doctor a final time, and then he would tell him the great secret. So now here we are, and that big secret is? **SPOILER WARNING**
The doctor is not the last of the Timelords! And all of you Whovians out there know that this can mean only one thing: the Master’s back! Well, you already read that here on ComicMix, but heck, we do that.
So, thus begins the broader season three story arc, the doctor versus the master. And sorry Hollywood Squares fans, because it looks like we won’t be seeing Eric Roberts reprise his role as the evil time traveler. Instead, we get another BBC great straight from his final season as the lead in Life on Mars as John Simm will be taking on the cloak. I, for one can’t wait to see how it turns out!
All in all, another great episode from our friends in Britain. Next week we get into some more trouble with the Daleks as they take on Manhattan. Overall, I give “Gridlock” an 8/10, only because I have a huge pet peeve about an entire episode that takes place in a futuristic New York City, and the only person that has a New York accent (let alone an American one) is a hologram. But hey, the leaders of the Galactic Empire all had British accents too, even though their leader sounded just like Mufasa from The Lion King. Strange.
(Nouveau Who fan Matt Raub regularly reviews movies and television for both ComicMix.com and for the ComicMix Podcast)
I don't know that this episode was necessarily done on the cheap, just because they were clever enough to use the inside-vehicle set to represent different conveyances. I mean, those CGI shots of the gridlock itself (not to mention the Things In The Express Lane) must have cost a chunk.I think they did a good job at showing the dank claustrophobia of the never-moving freeway. And I love the kittens! Did you recognize their father? I kept waiting for Ardal O'Hanlon to say "I'll save you all!" and change into Thermoman. :)
Is that it? Was that really the final installment of Black Ice? The story doesn't end so much as it just stops. (Why am I complaining? I begged for this book to stop months ago! I also swore I wouldn't comment again. But, just like Black Ice, I'm not living up to my promise.) The final panel has a the baby haddison evolving like a Pokemon. That's a strange non-sequitur to have as the final image. I've been waiting for another episode, an epilogue, something to tie up loose ends and make some sense of this resolution. But now I doubt that another episode will come. Did somebody pull the plug on Black Ice? Did it run out of steam, money or did Mike Baron and Mike Gold finally decide to put this sad, crippled pony of a story out of it's misery? Did Baron and Oaks just get as tired by Black Ice as I was by the end? There have been long delays between installments of Black Ice in the past, so I'm really not sure if this is the end.By the way, why is this book called "Black Ice"? I kept waiting for some reference in the story and it just didn't come. Maybe that's a metaphor for this book. I kept waiting for Black Ice to make sense or get good and that didn't happen either.This issue revisited the most preposterous of plot devices: mention it's somebody's birthday and everyone will try to kill them. And poor Roland, the innocent gondolier, cut down in his prime, all because Prince Orum was trying to escape his birthday festivities. Let's face it, nothing in this book made sense. I guess it wasn't supposed to. I just frustrated myself trying to sort it out.I did like the image of the Pomegs tearing Prince Orum apart, but I'm a Frank Zappa fan. I enjoyed the reference to "Weasels Ripped My Flesh."How did Sir Boss sneak a knife into his meeting with the Helmut leader? Doesn't anybody frisk a prisoner? Nothing makes sense. Why am I asking the characters or plot to make sense!It was fun watching Lee Oaks develop as an artist. You can see him gain confidence and progress from episode to episode. But Oaks' art never became masterful enough to pull "Black Ice" out of the tailspin death-spiral the plot ended up falling into.This story had some cool elements, some nice ingredients, they just didn't come together to make any sense or ulitmately be entertaining. To my eyes, Black Ice is a Grand Failure, the single worst comic that ComicMix has offered up so far.I wish someone else would comment on ComicMix comics. I take very little pleasure in being this negative. I just wish "Black Ice" had lived up to the promise of Mike Baron writing a Swashbuckling Fantasy Adventure. (I remember a story with Badger and Nexus on a flying ship. That was funny and cool. Was that Badger in "Nexus" or Nexus in "Badger"? I think that might have been the Bowl Shaped World [Nexus 6-8] in the First First Issues of Nexus!) Maybe my expectations were too high. Most comics aren't as good as Badger and Nexus. I've just come to expect more from Mike Baron, Mike Gold and ComicMix than the half-baked crap that "Black Ice" delivered.