Aliens Of London (2704/104)

[GateWorld]

<DIV ALIGN=CENTER><TABLE WIDTH=450 BORDER=0 CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=7><TR><TD STYLE="border:0;"><DIV ALIGN=LEFT><FONT FACE="Arial" SIZE=2 COLOR="#000000"><A HREF="http://www.scifistream.com/doctor-who/s1/"><IMG SRC="http://www.scifistream.com/wp-content/uploads/104.jpg" WIDTH=160 HEIGHT=120 ALIGN=RIGHT HSPACE=10 VSPACE=2 BORDER=0 STYLE="border:1px solid #000;" ALT="Visit the Episode Guide"></A><FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#888888">DOCTOR WHO SERIES 27</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=4><A HREF="http://www.scifistream.com/doctor-who/s1/" STYLE="text-decoration: none">ALIENS OF LONDON</A></FONT>
<FONT SIZE=1>EPISODE NUMBER - 2704</FONT>
<IMG SRC="/images/clear.gif" WIDTH=1 HEIGHT=10 ALT="">
An alien space craft crashes in London after the Doctor and Rose return, throwing the city into a panic. But the incident may just be a cover for a more sinister invasion.

<FONT SIZE=1><B><A HREF="http://www.scifistream.com/doctor-who/s1/">VISIT THE EPISODE GUIDE >></A></B></FONT></FONT></DIV></TD></TR></TABLE></DIV>

[IMForeman]

Aliens of London gets a bad rep from some, for a lot of undeserved reasons, IMO. AOL is a fun, fun episode. The slap, the Space Pig, god help me, even the farting. This episode keeps a good pace, and it just always keeps things fun. I really enjoyed AOL.

8/10.

[Flyboy]

My only issue is that the unsuiting of the Slitheen DOES get a tad repetitive. It can't be dramatic EVERY time they use it.

[Metarock Sam]

And after a while the farting gets a bit repetetive. I thought this ep was quite good with the crash landing into big ben and the pig. However in my opinion its the worst of the three 2 part stories in the season.

[Madeleine]

Farting aside, this two-parter felt more like Classic Who than any other story from s27. A cliffhanger is pretty much a requirement for anything to feel like Classic Who, so the fact that it wsa a two-parter helped, but it was also nice seeing the UNIT stuff, and the mix of fun and fear was just right.

[Reefgirl]

Farting aside, this two-parter felt more like Classic Who than any other story from s27. A cliffhanger is pretty much a requirement for anything to feel like Classic Who, so the fact that it wsa a two-parter helped, but it was also nice seeing the UNIT stuff, and the mix of fun and fear was just right.
Hear hear, I agree with everything you said Madeleine

[Nuallain]

I think everyone on the production team's agreed that this could have been much better. It was the first to be filmed and RTD (whose usually incredibly nice about everyone) has said that inexperience in the genre caused the director to make serious mistakes (encouraging the actors playing the Slitheen to camp it up for instance) and that their OWN inexperience as producers of the genre caused them to not speak up about their concerns.

They seem to have an attitude of "It happened once, and at least it happening that once means we can make sure it never happens again" about the ep.

[Flyboy]

Farting aside, this two-parter felt more like Classic Who than any other story from s27. A cliffhanger is pretty much a requirement for anything to feel like Classic Who, so the fact that it wsa a two-parter helped, but it was also nice seeing the UNIT stuff, and the mix of fun and fear was just right.
Hmm, I'm intrugied, why exactly do you think it was the closest ep to a classic Who?

Personally I felt that "The Christmas Invasion" is the closest thing we've been given to a classic episode. It was long enough to allow room for some of the less significant,yet important scenes where nothing much happens. It had a good old fashioned alien invasion, with some good confrontation from the doctor.

[Metarock Sam]

Plus it had that swordfight in the sky outside the ship which was very classic.

[Flyboy]

I believe the closest thing I can do to demonstrate how excited I was at that sword fight is this....

*SQUEE!!!!!*

I've never found another word such as that that can actually portray such excitement. it was an amazingly cool and classic Who scene.

[Deputy-Assistant-Second-Prime]

Despite how campy this one was, I did like the cliffhanger.

DASP just loves dem cliffhangers. :D

[Otera]

I't just at the first commercial break here, and I already spotted the reference!

[mckaychick]

good episode

[creed462]

It was good, There is so much classic Doctor it's unbeliveable.
Now an appearence from the Brig would have been priceless

[TheAncient1]

I thought it was pretty good. Have they used the slitheen in Doctor Who before? It sounds familiar...
I would also like to have seen the brigadier from Unit...but then he'd be pretty old.

Ok, i'm new to the new series, but is there going to be a reference to the "bad wolf" in every episode?

[Otera]

on that: use spoiler tags. this was mentioned in the thread for another episode and yes, there will be.

[northstar_08030]

What the heck was that?! I mean the first half of the episode was pretty good, with a good sense of pacing and mystery to it, but the second half felt like it was a totally mess of stuff, with no clear point of where the episode wanted to go. Where the writers on this episode smoking something? I mean that episode for me wasn't a fun episode it was a confusing mess that was quickly put together because something was under a deadline or something. Has to be the worst out of the four episode of the new series and I hope that the second part will some bring this story line up, but I don't think it will.


Well I did like see the Doctor find himself in a room with arm guards pointing their weapons at him, kind of reminded me of what happen to Han Solo in the first Star Wars movie. The slap was pretty cool as well and did anybody notice the red mark that was on his face, Rose's Mom did hit him good.

Slitheen's design was okay, but not the greatest. It was a good thing that their design was done with CGI and not some type of costum. God, I can only image how chessy that would looked. :mckay: :comeon:


An episode like this, is going to really going hurt SF rattings and might threated the US chance of getting the second season.

[creed462]

Just like the doctor a year late.... wait thats good for him ussally its a hundred.

[Metarock Sam]

Slitheen's design was okay, but not the greatest. It was a good thing that their design was done with CGI and not some type of costum. God, I can only image how chessy that would looked. :mckay: :comeon:

Actually the Slitheen are giant costumes.

[SGalisa]

my hubby and I thought it was both good, as in classic Who: good plot flows, suspense, and korny moments: :D

First time (that we ever remember) the DOCTOR ever got slapped by someone's mom in the entire series!! :eek:

Oy! alien stuff: the crash steering right into Big Ben. That'll take a while to fix!

The military's "RED ALERT!!" software discovery of "the DOCTOR!!", and Rose's comment about wanting to get *arrested* sooner (for posh treatment like that!). Enjoyed her eager wonder at a free trip into going to
10 Downing Street

... this had me curious as to why was she so excited about going there? She knows something we don't - just yet?


re: ...augmenting and shipping the pig into space? that was so cruel what those aliens did to the pig! The Doctor's wisdom is amazing... funny watching his encounter with UNIT and their reaction to his yelling out the Delta commands and them just blindly following him, after holding their guns at him - as if he was the enemy, now he's their temporary in Command Officer! :D

When I finally heard about what happened to that poor wittle pig, I had 2 thoughts:

"When pigs fly..." ;)
(computer Windows program) Flying pigs... :D

...aliens pretending aliens?
(not including the silly farting bits by murderous aliens, afterall, the Doctor was NOT amused)


Originally posted by TheAncient1:
I thought it was pretty good. Have they used the slitheen in Doctor Who before? It sounds familiar...Unless we're confusing it with the Tribe of the Sevateem ("survey team" ... also first Leela episode), then
Yes, the name does sound very familiar, but I don't remember from which episode it originally appeared in.


nice last scene cliffhanger sound effects (vortex) noise merging into the music - now, that's *Classic* DrWHO. :)

{EDIT MODE: more} sound effects explanation to follow -from the topic:
"Should New Who have been made to be more like the Classic Who?"

Originally posted by SGalisa:
...it kind of became a trademark of those older (classic DrWHO) eps, where at the very ending of the episode (often being a cliffhanger) - I think it was a synthesizer that made a sound (too difficult to properly describe) as if it was pulling the viewer into the space/time continuim vortex, which was reinforced with a visual vortex / wormhole-like effects during the end credits/theme song.

...it'd be nice to hear that vortex noise the way it always was. It sort of acted as an enhanced *punch-line* to the series, as well. If it ever does get reincorporated back into the series at all ... it should be included at least in the two-parters (...any "To Be Continued" stories). ;)it's definitely at the end of this episode. happy viewer! :)

[Auralis]

The military's "RED ALERT!!" software discovery of "the DOCTOR!!", and Rose's comment about wanting to get *arrested* sooner (for posh treatment like that!). Enjoyed her eager wonder at a free trip into going to
10 Downing Street

... this had me curious as to why was she so excited about going there? She knows something we don't - just yet?


10 downing Street is the english white house equivalent so to speak. Of course shes excited to visit it. Who would not?

[creed462]

I can't wait to see the conculdion this one was so good.

[Snork]

I hated this episode. World War Three rocked my face,though.

[Admiral Mappalazarou]

I like the episodes that return to the present day and how alien incursions affect our daily lives, the pig scene was a bit confusing though.:confused:

[Nolamom]

Watched this again on BBC America. Still a lot of fun. I like the pig. The farting becomes a bit much after awhile and how many times do they need to unzip from the body suits for dramatic effect? Overall, it was great fun.

[P-90_177]

this was one of the first of the new whos i saw and it's still one of my favorites. it's just so funny.

[lord-anubis]

after watching this ep again this made me really want to see unit in some furture eps of the show

[P-90_177]

They're sort of mentioned but there is a reason why you don't see them.

[sparklegem]

Here's a question that's really bothering me:

When Rose and the Doctor found out that they came back a year after they'd left instead of a day, why didn't they just hop back in the TARDIS and try again for a closer date, instead of just accepting that she'd been gone for a year?

I would think the justification that someone might offer would be that the TARDIS isn't that accurate, but it couldn't have hurt to try to back to a time closer to when they left.

I've searched multiple forums hoping to stumble across a discussion on this, but I haven't found what seems to be a very obvious question brought up anywhere. Am I missing something?

[Madeleine]

The Doctor tried to stop Rose from going home, once he realised the mistake, maybe so that they could do just what you suggest. But he was too late, so once he got to her she'd already met her Mum, and going back to stop herself from being 'missing' would have been problematic in the way that saving her father was in Fathers Day.

[sparklegem]

Okay. Thanks a lot.

[Willow'sCat]

Well re-watched this one on Friday (ABC2) and I didn't find the farting or the unzipping of the flesh as annoying this time around, I think maybe because I knew it was going to happen a lot in the episode it just kind of washed over me (that sounds incredibly wrong :S:p).

Seeing TWs Tosh playing a Doctor made me wonder why they didn't use her in Torchwood as a Doctor instead of Owen, hell Owen could have played the computer tech geek just as well. :S

I loved seeing Harriet again, but I was so struck as to how naive she was here, after knowing what we know now her naiveity seemed even more glaring to me.

The pig made sense this time around, I must have missed a lot of dialogue the first time I watched this as I had no idea what was up with using the pig, I get it now... a distraction from the real aliens, a decoy.

Still not one of my favourites but because this is the episode where Jackie slaps The Doctor :D it gets a big thumbs up from me. *slap*

[rosey_angel]

second time around, and i still love jackie, and especially her slapping the doctor. it's such a motherly response, something i'd imagine my mum doing if i'd been gone for a year with explanation!

the farting still kind of annoyed me, but remembered with the slitheen do in the next ep, i guess they had to tone down the scariness for the kiddies watching, plus it also gives the Doctor an easy way to recognise the species.

can't wait for next week, love that ep!

[Willow'sCat]

Next week's is a good one. I am almost tempted to watch it on DVD now but I am finding re-watching the show on TV a good way to bring in the weekend atm so I will wait... well OK I did re-watch all the Capt Jack eps recently on DVD! I am only human! :D:o:P

[rosey_angel]

i know! it's so hard sometimes waiting a week

[maneth]

Cool episode! Even if the aliens got a bit annoying by the end.