Jocrassa Fel Fotch Pasammer-Day Slitheen, at Your Service!

I've been slacking on the blogs. I've never happened upon a bad Doctor Who episode, but the Slitheen episodes are not my favorites. It took a lot of effort to get through the last one. Therefore, I have been procrastinating. So finally, here's part two:

Series/Episode: 1/5
Title: World War Three
Writer: Russell T. Davies

We rejoin the room of alien experts as they are being electrocuted.
The Doctor manages to resist the attack and forces the electricity into the Slitheen.
Titles!
The electric power affects all the Slitheen, including the one in Jackie's house and the female that cornered Rose and Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North.
The Doctor, Rose, and Harriet escape their Slitheen.
Mickey whacks Jackie's Slitheen with a chair, and they escape, but not before Mickey snaps a photo of it with his cell phone.
UNIT is alerted to the aliens' presence.
The Slitheen manage to stop channeling the electricity.
Rose and Harriet are chased by a Slitheen in a Scooby Doo-like sequence.
The Slitheen from the alien expert meeting are back in their human suits. They try to accuse the attack on the Doctor.
"I think you'll find the Prime Minister is an alien in disguise."
UNIT is silent.

The Doctor: "That's never gonna work, is it?"
UNIT member: "No."
The Doctor: "Fair enough."

He runs out. pursued by UNIT.
UNIT unknowingly backs the Doctor into an elevator, and he escapes.
"I'm getting poisoned by the gas exchange. I need to be naked!" Green abandons his human suit.
Harriet and Rose are hiding, but the female Slitheen can smell them. She's treating it like a sinister game of Hide and Seek.
Just as the Slitheen find Rose and Harriet, the Doctor bursts in with a fire extinguisher, temporarily blinding the aliens.

The Doctor: "Who the hell are you?"
Harriet: "Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North."
The Doctor: "Nice to meet you!"
Harriet: "Likewise."

The three good guys escape the immediate danger and head for the Cabinet Room. (I had been calling it the Grand Conference Room. I was wrong.)
The Doctor says he likes Harriet. I like her too.
Harriet says she likes the Doctor. I like him too.
They arrive at the Cabinet Room with the Slitheen close behind.
The Doctor threatens, "One more move, and my sonic device will triplicate the flammability of this alcohol. Whoof! We all go up. So back off."
Do all political rooms have alcohol in them?

The Doctor: "Right then, question time. Who exactly are the Slitheen?"
Harriet: "They're aliens!"
The Doctor: "Yes, I got that, thanks."
Slitheen: "Who are you, if not human?"
Harriet: "Who's not human?"
Rose: "He's not human."
Harriet: "He's not human?"
The Doctor: "Can I have a bit of hush?"
Harriet: "Sorry."
The Doctor: "So, what's the plan?"
Harriet: "But he's got a northern accent!"
Rose: "Lots of planets have a north."
The Doctor: "I said hush."

There's all that stuff about the aliens' broadcasting satellite, but the Slitheen are not here to invade.
We discover that Slitheen is not the aliens' species, it's their surname. "Jocrassa Fel Fotch Pasammer-Day Slitheen, at your service!"
The Doctor is onto something: the Slitheen are here to make a profit.
The Slitheen are onto something: the Doctor was bluffing with that triplicating flammability stuff.
The Doctor hands Harriet the alcohol bottle.

The Doctor: "Harriet, have a drink. I think you're gonna need it."
Harriet: "You pass it to the left first."
The Doctor: (giving it to Rose) "Sorry."
Rose: "Thanks."

The Doctor gives us a brief history of Downing Street, including "Two thousand years ago, this was marshland. 1730, it was occupied by a Mr. Chicken. He was a nice man."
Turns out the Grand Conf- I mean, the Cabinet room- has a lock-down mode. The three good guys are safe from the Slitheen, but they are trapped inside.
The Slitheen call the planet insane. I was going to defend it, but then I thought about it. They're kind of right.
More Slitheen/government officials are arriving at Downing Street. Their seemingly random positions befuddle the news reporters.
The Slitheen disrobe and hang their human suits neatly on hangers. An odd bit of sensibility in the midst of a hostile takeover.
Back at Mickey's, Mickey makes Jackie a cup of tea.

Jackie: "Got anything stronger?"
Mickey: "No chance. I've seen you when you've had a few. This ain't time for a conga."

I like Mickey. And now I want a cup of tea....
Mickey's complaining about the Doctor again, but "like it or not, he's the only one who knows how to fight these things." Good man, Mickey. Giving credit where credit is due.
Jackie starts to cry, and Mickey gives her the kind of hug I would give someone if I had to hug someone comfortingly. (That is, not hugging them at all, really. I'm not good with physical contact.)
They seem to be working out their differences. "You saved my life! God, that's embarrassing."
The Doctor sticks the body of Ganesh, the secretary guy, in an alcove. No one knows his name. That's a good point. I only know it because I looked it up on IMDB.
The Doctor explains that the Slitheen couldn't use the body of the Prime Minister because he was too small. Even big humans require them to be compressed, and the compression causes the gas exchange. I'm still a little confused.
Rose makes a comment about how she wishes she had a compression field so she could be a size smaller. (Because, you know, she's not tiny or anything.) Harriet shoots her down, saying that people are dead, that it's not the time for making jokes. I disagree. Meaning no disrespect to the dead, but serious situations are most often easiest to handle with a bit of lightheartedness thrown in the mix. It's not like she was like, "I'm glad the Prime Minister's dead. He was such a douchebag!" That would be rather inappropriate.
Rose says you get used to that kind of stuff when you're friends with the Doctor. Harriet remarks that that's a strange friendship. She's hit the nail on the head. But it's strange in the best kind of way.
But Rose is already used to the (mostly fun) madness? It's only her fifth episode.
The Doctor has heard the name Harriet Jones before....
The three of them talk about the possibility of accessing nuclear weapons and what the Slitheen want.
Harriet says, "Listen to me, I'm saying Slitheen as if it's normal."
Rose gets a phone call from Mickey. He's sent her the picture of the Slitheen. And here I was just thinking he took the picture to show off.
The Doctor has Mickey use his computer to access the codes they need. The password is buffalo. "Two Fs, one L."
Jackie gets on the phone and lists all the dangerous things that have happened since the Doctor came into their lives. She asks him flat out if Rose is safe, if she'll always be safe. The Doctor doesn't answer.
Mickey has accessed what they need.
The Doctor tries to decipher what the Slitheen broadcast is saying.
Mickey's doorbell rings. This can't be good. He sends Jackie to answer it.
It's the Slitheen Policeman. Just as anyone with a brain suspected.
Jackie calls it a "Slickeen." Slitheen is actually a pretty cool name for an alien.
The Doctor, Harriet, and Rose pool all the information they know about the Slitheen to figure out a way to save Mickey and Jackie.
I've never heard the phrase "narrows it down" so many times at once before.
They realize the Slitheen are made out of calcium, which "narrows it down" to one planet: Raxacoricofallapatorius!
It is totally worth your while to learn how to say that word, trust me. I also like to refer to the planet as Bohemian Rhapsody Fallopian Chorus.
Mickey responds, "Yeah, great, we can write them a letter!"
The Doctor realizes they need vinegar to defeat the Slitheen.

The Doctor: "Mickey, have you got any vinegar?"
Mickey: "How should I know?"
The Doctor: "It's your kitchen!"

Jackie combines gherkins, pickled onions, and pickled eggs.
The Doctor: "You kiss this man?"
Jackie tosses the concoction onto the Slitheen, and it explodes into green gunk all over Mickey's kitchen.
And apparently Hannibal crossed the Alps by dissolving boulders with vinegar. Who the hell is Hannibal?
Green/Slitheen (ha ha, it rhymes) learns of his brother's death. He then proceeds outside to address the nations of the world, who think he's the acting Prime Minister.
He says the alien experts were murdered by alien hands. This is true, but he left out the part about them being his alien hands.
He also claims there are massive weapons of mass destruction overhead in space that are capable of being activate in forty-five seconds. He says the world is on the brink of extinction unless Earth strikes first, and that the UK is directly under the mother ship. He begs the United Nations for the nuclear access codes, since firing at the ship is supposedly Earth's only chance at survival.
This is all crap, of course. The Slitheen want the missiles fired for their own purposes.
The Doctor opens the door and confronts the Slitheen. They want nuclear war to destroy the earth so that they can sell the debris for a profit. The signal beaming into space is an advertisement. Their ship in the Thames will keep them safe. "Not crashed, just parked."
I think the actor playing the main female Slitheen is really good. She's got perfect swagger and arrogance balanced with authority. I like her performance a lot.
The Doctor gives an ultimatum: leave the Earth or he'll stop them.

Slitheen: "What, you? Trapped in your box?"
The Doctor: "Yes, me."

Seriously, Slitheen? You're fucked.
The Doctor closes the door again.
I know things turn out okay because there are still three and a half seasons to come, but this is still really tense.
The three main Slitheen rush into the Prime Ministers office and gather around the phone like little kids (and me) waiting by the tree on Christmas morning.
With no other options, the Doctor declares that there is a way out, there's always been a way out.
When Rose asks why they don't use it, he says it's because he can't guarantee that Rose will be safe. Jackie forbids it, but the Doctor tells her if he doesn't everyone dies.
Rose tells him to do it.
"You don't even know what it is, you'd just let me?"
Understanding passes between Rose and the Doctor.
I was tempted to make a perverse joke, but I didn't want to ruin the mood. Anyway...

Jackie: "Please, Doctor. Please. She's my daughter! She's just a kid!"
The Doctor: "Do you think I don't know that? 'Cause this is my life, Jackie. It's not fun, it's not smart, it's just standing up and making a decision. Because nobody else will."
Rose: "Then what're you waiting for?"
The Doctor: "I could save the world but lose you...."

This scene is remarkably well written and acted. All the subtle emotions are covered. Rose even almost smiles at the underlying meaning in his statement.

Harriet: "Except it's not your decision, Doctor. It's mine."
Jackie: "And who the hell are you?"
Harriet: "Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North. The only elected representative in this room, chosen by the people for the people, and on behalf of the people I command you. Do it."

Harriet Jones is awesome.
Back in the Prime Ministers office, the Slitheen declare that "Victory should be naked!" They shed their human suits in quite a dramatic fashion.
Mickey has hacked into the Royal Navy. He and the Doctor are going to launch a non-nuclear missile at Downing Street.
"Mickey the Idiot, the world is in your hands. Fire."
Rose takes the initiative to find a closet, the strongest part of the room, for them to hide in.
Meanwhile, the UN has voted to release the nuclear codes.
A UNIT official walks in on the naked Slitheen, simply apologizes, and leaves.
The missile hits, destroying the Slitheen and the Downing Street building.
The Doctor, Rose, and Harriet emerge unscathed. Harriet commands a UNIT officer to contact the UN and tell them to step down.
She runs off to help, shouting "The earth is safe!"
The Doctor remembers why Harriet's name was familiar to him. She's elected Prime Minister in the future.
"Mankind stands tall, proud, and undefeated. God bless the human race." Woohoo!
Rose goes home, safe and sound. Jackie says there's no getting rid of the Doctor now since Rose is infatuated. Rose says she's not infatuated.
She is infatuated.
Jackie wants to invite the Doctor over for dinner to learn about what he does and what Rose has been up to. She tells Rose she needs to learn French, since Jackie told Rose's grandmother she was in France.
Rose gets a call from the Tardis.

Rose: "You've got a phone?"
The Doctor: "You think I can travel through space and time and I haven't got a phone? Like I said, couple of hours. I've just got to send out this dispersal. There you go. That's canceling out the Slitheen's advert, in case any bargain hunters turn up."
Rose: "My mother's cooking."
The Doctor: "Good. Put her on a slow heat and let it simmer."
Rose: "She's cooking tea. For us."
The Doctor: "I don't do that."
Rose: "She wants to get to know you."
The Doctor: "Tough! I've got better things to do!"
Rose: "It's just tea."
The Doctor: "Not to me, it isn't."
Rose: "She's my mother."
The Doctor: "Well she's not mine!"
Rose: "That's not fair!"
The Doctor: "Well, you can stay there if you want. But right now there's this plasma storm brewing the the Horsehead Nebula. Fires are burning ten million miles wide. I could fly the Tardis right into the heart of it, and ride the shockwave all the way out. Hurtle right across the sky and end up anywhere! Your choice."

You would go, though, wouldn't you?
Jackie wanders out of the kitchen looking for Rose so she can ask if the Doctor drinks.
Rose says he does, but she's packing a bag. Jackie begs her not to go.
Mickey and the Doctor are in an alley somewhere. The graffiti kid is scrubbing his handiwork off the Tardis.
Mickey is reading a newspaper with the headline "Alien Hoax?" He questions how the world can say that when they saw the events happen. The Doctor says they're just not ready.
"You're happy to believe in something that's invisible, but if it's staring you in the face, nope! Can' see it!"
That's really insightful. He goes on to say, "There's a scientific explanation for that. You're thick!"
Mickey laughs.

Mickey: "We're just idiots."
The Doctor: "Well, not all of you."

Mickey seems to have proven his worth to the Doctor, as is evidenced by what happens next.
The Doctor invites Mickey to come with him and Rose. Nice one, Mickey!
But Mickey says he can't, this life of the Doctor's is too much. He couldn't do it.
It's odd to see Mickey showing his vulnerabilities in a conversation with the Doctor.
But he tells the Doctor not to tell Rose what he said.
Jackie tries to bargain with Rose to get her to stay.
"Mum, if you saw it out there...you'd never stay home." Why isn't time travel real????
Rose invites Mickey to go with them.

The Doctor: "No chance. He's a liability. I'm not having him on board."
Rose: "We'd be dead without him."
The Doctor: "My decision is final."

Ha ha.
Jackie bombards the Doctor with her concerns again.
Rose steps in and tells her that it's time travel. She could be gone doing all sorts of amazing things, and by the time she gets back ten seconds would have passed.
Rose gets on board the Tardis, and moments later it dematerializes.
Jackie counts to ten.

The end.