ed_rex

As snarky and impatient and critical as it can be, creators also get an awful lot of slack from fandom. We've invested time and energy in characters and situations, almost as if they are real people, and so we can forgive a lousy episode or even a lousy series, if we can hope that, as with a beloved but losing sports franchise, "There's always next year."

The subtleties of Russell T Davies

So I found myself silently cheering The Middle Men, just a little. A scene here, another there. Watching Gwen burn pointless rubber on a motorcycle was kind of fun; Jack's Batman-like disappearance before the arrival of the constabulary was cute as well. Cliched and kinda goofy, they nevertheless had an element of fun this series has been sorely lacking.

Even a brief scene of intense and cringe-inducing, brutal violence was strangely welcome.

But even for a fan, a character moment here, a well-blocked scene there, is pretty thin soup if the back-story makes even less sense than it did last week, and the plot is still driven by your favourite characters acting, well, stupidly.

The Middle Men isn't quite as awful as the previous installment, but still ... the stupid, it burns! As usual, spoilers, snark and analysis behind the link.