tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695160558410668698.post5255464051650523960..comments2015-03-06T09:02:52.132-08:00Comments on The Doctor Who Zone: Incinerating Intruders for Three CenturiesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4695160558410668698.post-63030271589063418652012-09-19T12:33:01.671-07:002012-09-19T12:33:01.671-07:00What, no evaluation of Jex, or the cyborg's ob...What, no evaluation of Jex, or the cyborg's obvious similarity to both the Terminator and, mostly, Frankenstein's monster?<br /><br />Okay, I'll take a crack at it.<br /><br />First off, Jex. As the character (played brilliantly by actor Adrian Scarborough) said, it would be so easy to judge him if he was only an evil scientist or only a good and kindly physician from another world. That he was both really challenged the Doctor's moral judgment of him, especially when he (deliberately?) provoked the Time Lord to drive him to the edge of town past the makeshift barrier to face the cyborg.<br /><br />Jex was at once the arrogant scientist, the one who did his duty to his people and ended a bloody war that had already decimated half his world, and the remorseful doctor who heard the screams of his victims every time he closed his eyes and remembered the names of each and every one. In the end he chose to end the war not only for himself, but for his own creation.<br /><br />It would have been a brilliant character and an even more brilliant episode, if only Scarborough had played him a bit more consistently. His constant switching back and forth from the angry, arrogant, self-loathing war criminal to the meek, soft-spoken, humble physician just didn't sit well with me, and his provocation of the Doctor only to turn around mere moments later and revert to the guilt-ridden sympathetic character kept throwing me off. Overall it was a potentially great character but, as with everything under head writer Stephen Moffat's tenure, fell far short. And sorry, but climbing a mountain carrying the souls of everyone he's wronged just didn't feel like a compelling reason for him to fear death. Now if he had to do this for all eternity carrying everyone on his back, at night taking ten steps back for every one he took, something more horrible than just climbing a damn mountain, the element of fear would have seemed more real.<br /><br />Then we have the monster who wasn't a monster, the big bad cyborg out for revenge against the "evil" scientists who took away his life and made him into a killer. To be honest, the actor who played him could have been good, but we don't get nearly enough closeups of him to really show the turmoil the character is supposed to be feeling. Of course, this could very well have been the limitations of the makeup applied, because more emotive expressions probably would have damaged it.<br /><br />One thing that was implied but never really expanded upon was the circuitry that caused him to supposedly run amok and kill the ones who made him: emotional-and-memory inhibitor, most likely, that kept him from remembering what was done to him. This was in my opinion a missed opportunity to really drive home the guilt Jex feels over his actions, that the inhibitor might have been viewed as a mercy to the poor souls whose minds and bodies had been so cut up and bonded to weaponry.<br /><br />This episode had a lot of potential, but again, as with everything under Moffat's tenure as head writer it just didn't live up to it.Archangel Mortenwoldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09311166587338208238noreply@blogger.com