Day Sixty-Two: Conspiracy (The Romans, Episode Three)

Will Brooks’ 50 Year Diary - watching Doctor Who one episode a day from the very start...

Day Sixty-Two: Conspiracy (The Romans, Episode Three)

Dear diary,

I'd been banking on this episode to turn things around for me. The last two have been alright, but I was hoping that Episode Three and it's fabled farcical style would be the one which raised this story up in my estimation. I'm quite keen on a good comedy historical (The Unicorn and the Wasp remains, five years on, my favourite 'new series' adventure, for example). Unfortunately, that's not happened.

…

You can't tell, but that ellipsis says a lot about this story so far. The way I'm doing this marathon is that I'm sitting down to watch each episode, then once it's over, I take a glance at any notes I might have made and then write up my thoughts, before posting them to Doctor Who Online. Then I carry on with my day. Nice and simple. I'm used to the routine, now, having down it for over two months.

Sometimes there's plenty to say, sometimes there's not so much, but either way I tend to find something to write about. Today's been a bit different, though. I typed that first paragraph, then just sort of… stared at the screen a bit. I even tried staring at the keyboard for a while, just in case that had some inspirational effect. It didn't. It never does, really.

In the end, I gave up. Went to Asda (other supermarkets are available) to do the shopping. I've got kitchen roll again, now, so the misses can stop pointing out that I'd run out. Got some new bin bags, too. I even bought an easter-egg-sized Kinder Egg, just to see if it had an extra large Kinder Egg tub inside it (It did. It was awesome.).

Then I came home, sat here and stared at the screen some more. Frankly, I've just not got anything much to say about this episode. I don't know what it is that's stopping me, it's just… not there today.

The best that I can figure is that this is almost a bit like the season stalling a little. Planet of Giants wasn't the most thrilling story, but visually, it was very impressive. If nothing else, I was kept interested by the design of the piece. The Dalek Invasion of Earth had an epic scale that hadn't been attempted in the series yet, and every episode was better than I could remember. Even The Rescue had a great (if bizarre) looking monster to keep me amused.

The Romans, though…

I did wonder if it might have been because I've grown to love the serious historicals that I've been through so far, more than I have before. Had that style of story ruined my enjoyment of this more light-hearted take on history? The more I thought about it, though, the more I remembered that I've tried to watch The Romans before, and I don't think I made it as far as this. So it must just be the story that's not connecting with me.

It's a real shame, because there's some good performances being put in, and the humour is well judged at times. Even the perspective effect used on the corridors is very good.

But then we've got 25 minutes of the Doctor and Barbara just missing each other. Over and over. And over. And then, over again! I praised it yesterday when it happened twice, but now the joke has kind of worn off. I spent a while wondering if I liked how it had been choreographed with their movements in and out of scenes, before deciding that if I'd been reduced to considering that, then something really wasn't right with my interest in the story itself…

Next episode: Inferno