h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Undecided about the ep... did breathe a mental sigh of relief when about 30 secs in Mel says 'let's kill Hitler' and it became pretty obvious this wasn't going to be quite what I'd been expecting (read: dreading).

Got better as it went on, and sets up as many questions as it answered, I'd say.

Oh, and congrats to BBS post 4542 for the least accurate set of predictions I've seen

Gif

Thank-you

Missed much of the earlier part of the series thanks to being in America but managed to catch this episode fairly quickly after broadcast and loved it. My thoughts are here. Warning, it's a long-un. http://wp.me/pLq5j-bh

Dunno about anyone else but I thought that was **superb**. THe first two acts were terrifying. I expect that there will be a fair few kids not sleeping tonight!

FB

I enjoyed it. It wasn;t until a mate texted that it had a Sapphire and Steel' feel that I realised why.

Creepiness and threat in the mundane and ordinary was what Sapphire & Steel dealt with and that is how this one was set-up.

Also, the scares were subtle and more to do with adults remembering what it was like to be a kid and the kids knowing what it's like being a kid...things scare you but you don;t know what or why...great stuff.

That was bloody brilliant.

Just caught up on iPlayer. Definitely not something to watch just before bed. It was good.

Thoroughly enjoyed that though I don't think it has much replay value.

Can I just say how much I'm enjoying Rory and Amy as a couple: it allows the writers to give them personalities and stories without them being the co-stars of the show (as sometimes happened with Rose, Martha and Donna). I really like the little hints of the domestic too - Rory having a cuppa in the console room made me smile.

wow! just when i'm getting a bit bored by the series they pull an episode like that out of the bag ... superb

Interesting: I didn't think it was that great an episode, although I enjoyed it, of course. The only really fantastic bit, for me, was the reveal that the child wasn't an ordinary child. For some reason, the dolls just didn't have chill factor for me, although the "mild peril" (as the BBFC sometimes say) was more than enough to carry me through.
Maybe it was that, early on, when it started turning out that things in the house were wooden fakes, I had a theory that it was _all_ a fake of some sort, and the sense of fear never really came back.

Nah, I agree it won't replay well, and Mr Vip managed to figure out they were in a dolls house by the time Amy had finished talking about the wooden 'copper' pan (but then he's always been pretty quick like that). It was still a true piece of entertainment though.

I LOVED the way the Doctor managed to turn the father from angry through to completely petrified as well. It was a wonderful bit of dialogue that left us both grinning.

"Mr Vip managed to figure out they were in a dolls house by the time Amy had finished talking about the wooden 'copper' pan"

Same here...

The only thing that diminished the fear factor for me was when Rory picked up the giant pink scissors.

And here.

Best bit for me was the father realising he loves his son no matter what. Oh, and the mother coming home to find it's all been sorted 8 hrs after she left

I have half a suspicion that at the end of the series the Doctor will find that saving the child was a mistake, but not sure why I think that. Perhaps because I'm wondering how these alien cuckoos end up floating through space in the first place...

Gif

I wonder if the episode had been edited down a bit for time ... it was pretty well-paced so I'm not complaining.

I just wondered why there was no resolution to the unpaid rent ... my suspicion is that in the original draft, nasty man would become loving, compassionate landlord ...

I found it a bit like Fear Her - scary monster created by a child in a cupboard, alien-esque child capturing those around them and putting them in an artificial world of their creation, turning them into dolls not drawings

Having said that, much, much better and an enjoyable episode.

<BB<

Reminded me a little of two of the Sarah Jane Adventure stories ...
- one where two colourful robots are hunting/scanning for a lost king on a deserted earth.
- one where people get captured as ghosts in a mansion.

I thought that was great! My thoughts here http://wp.me/pLq5j-bk

My uncle said something interesting to me though. You remember how the Doctor calls River Mrs Robinson in the president's office in The Impossible Astronaut? And in Let's Kill Hitler she said "Hello Benjamin" even though there's nobody there of that name. Apparently that's a quotation from The Graduate as well so he's gone to re-watch that to see if there are any other clues in there about River, or at least fun bits that might be used as little asides between the Doctor and her later on. Anybody else spot this?

Yes, I did. Also the copy of the iconic shot from The Graduate.

http://jackasscritics.com/images/movies/the_graduate_01.jpg

Self-correction: I 'got it' when they found the giant glass eye, not the wooden pan. Mere seconds later, bit still second place

Wonder if the glass eye has later significance? We have an eye patch to match it to, after all... and no obvious continuity references in this story otherwise, aside from the closing shot.

Gif

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