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After the amazing run and cliff hanger of the last session, I waited hoping for something amazing to answer my many questions. Jelly and Shell fish wasn't top of my list, and whilst the handling of the seperation of the Doctor and his companion is done well, the rest just comes across as weak. This is the mid session light hearted romp we like from time to time. It was just too silly and at the wrong time for fans.
| By: | Doug, Pocono Summit, PA, USA |
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| Date: | Tuesday 14 July 2009 |
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| Rating: |   7 |
Wasn't there another review or two here previously?
Well, anyway, first off, I still love, love, love the new/retro opening titles music that was first used with last season's Eighth Doctor and Lucie releases.
In Orbis, we get quite a bit of misdirection on the part of the "Headhunter" character, so all is really not what it seems here. I suppose it's easy to get frustrated by what at first appear to be inconsistencies, but listening all the way through reveals that a lot more is going on here than is apparent at first. This story is not as simple as it appears, nor is it really concluded as the closing theme music rolls.
Having said that, the bulk of the story concerns, um, big walking jellyfish and shellfish. Yah. The main baddie is almost like the ghost of Sil. The Doctor, it seems, got dumped here on Orbis for reasons that will be made clearer as you continue, and he's been here for a REALLY long time. For Lucie it's only been a few months, but for the Doctor, it's been... MUCH longer. As you can imagine, this presents some problems when the two meet again. It brings to mind a question. If we're to take all of this as proper within established Doctor Who canon, how was the First Doctor so aged if he was only 500 or so years old? The ideas in Orbis, though interesting, don't really square for me, but maybe this is yet more misdirection, the truth of which will be revealed later.
Orbis is definitely a strange way to resolve the previous season-end cliffhanger, but we'll just have to see what is done with it throughout the rest of this season. What I do *not* like about this so far is the downer of the Eighth Doctor's new 'tired of life' attitude, which hopefully will not last long...
| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Sunday 6 February 2022 |
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| Rating: | 6 |
So, we get a new "season" started for the 8th Doctor adventures. Someone had an idea: Let's have The Doctor forget Lucie so that they can start again as if new. It's not the most brilliant problem one could come up with. Somehow, then, the Sisters of Karn from the last episode managed to whisk away The Doctor from certain death to a mostly sea-based planet that no one has really heard of, and kept his TARDIS as a memorial or something like that for themselves. The Headhunter has somehow, we don't learn how, managed to wangle the TARDIS away from the Sisters, and pilot it well enough to track down Lucie at home in Blackpool and shoot her with time bullets (time-released death), so the Headhunter can use Lucie to persuade The Doctor to do something, but we are not sure what. The wrinkle is that when they arrive at Orbis, The Doctor has been there for hundreds of years, and become the protector saint of the squidlike beings who live there. He has lost much of his memory, and does not recognize Lucie at all. Time for Lucie to go emotional (when is there not a time for Lucie to go emotional?). The episode leaves so many unanswered questions, mostly regarding the causes for events, that it would be too much of a burden to enumerate them all. It does have its amusing bits.
