Doctor Who Re-Watch: Series 2, Episode 3 School Reunion

I recall when we first got wind of the fact that Series 2 Episode 3 of DOCTOR WHO was going to star Anthony Stewart Head (Giles from BUFFY, and Uther from MERLIN) in a villainous role (yes, even back then I was looking up rumours and spoilers about the forthcoming series) I was super excited.

Then I saw the Next Time Trailer after TOOTH & CLAW.

Sarah Jane Smith?!? K-9?!?!? Holee crap!

I grew up watching the 4th and 5th Doctor’s (as I’ve mentioned), so seeing two of my all time fave characters from Classic DW return in the new one. Oh man, that was going to be awesome!

There I was just assuming that having them on the show at all would be boon enough, but no, RTD and writer Toby Whithouse (everyone’s favourite BEING HUMAN creator) decided not to just shoehorn them in for the sake of it, but use them to deal with latent issues that bubble under the surface with the TARDIS crew. But I’ll get to that later.

SCHOOL REUNION is a very DW type story. Alien bat-thingies (Krillitaines) have body-snatched teachers at a middle school and are feeding the children chips with special oil that makes them super smart, and then sit them at multiple computers working on a scientific theory of everything which would eventually allow them control over all time and space. Nasty buggers, the Krillitaines are creatures of scavenging who take the best features they find of each race they conquer. The Doctor, Rose and Mickey aren’t having it and set out to stop evil Giles and his cohorts.

So let’s examine the key bits about this episode above and beyond the main plot devices. First up Rose, for some reason, was under the obtuse assumption that the Doctor has not travelled with other companions. There was a pretty funny one page web comic going round that had a long line of people showing ALL the previous companions since Susan, ending in Rose shouting “You said I was special!” which I always got a chuckle out of. It’s pretty much illustrated here in Sarah Jane’s arrival and reunion with the Doctor (albeit 5 bodies removed from the one she recalls). He has to basically explain to Rose that there have indeed been others and while SHE could travel with HIM forever if she chose to, because of his long life he could NEVER travel with her for the rest of his. It’s quite a sobering moment actually and was probably like a bucket of cold water on Rose. So she really has to come to grips with his ageless life, the lonely god, and why he has to live how he lives. I like to think that Rose is accepting of the fact that she wasn’t the first and won’t be the last and hopefully she doesn’t begrudge him those relationships. But to be honest, Rose’s track record in the selfless department isn’t exactly stellar. She has spent the last few major revelations growing as a person to be less the selfish person she was when she began this, but I don’t think at this point she was quite there yet.

Secondly, we get my favourite development in this episode. The reappearance of K-9 (Mark III for those of you counting) causes Ten endless joy as he’s overjoyed to see his old faithful companion again (Last seen leaving the 4th Doctor with Sarah Jane), but in Mickey Smith it’s a head-smacking revelation. In the TARDIS crew he’s known for a while he’s kind of a third wheel when it comes to the Doctor and Rose’s budding relationship. It’s something I’ve never held Rose as accountable for (her treatment of him) as others have since Mickey begins his DW life as a lay about who would rather go down the pub and watch footie than spend time with his (at the time) girlfriend Rose. Her progression to love another man is as much a result of Mickey’s aloof treatment of her as it is her own selfishness. Mickey knows this, and has seemingly accepted it. It’s here that he comes to the realization that he’s the latest TARDIS crew’s version of the Tin Dog. He’s K-9 2005, just a human one. It’s the kind of moment that in anyone else would make them furiously angry, but I think Mickey should get points for not immediately responding that way. Be the time the episode ends we are shown that the Doctor doesn’t look at K-9 as just a Tin Dog, but as a valued and important member of the team. He’s a friend and he’s not as disposable as Mickey assumes him to be. In fact, Ten’s more then gentle treatment of K-9 when he is hurt proves to Mickey that even though Ten refers to him as “Mickey the Idiot”, he’s a friend. He’s trusted. He’s important. He’s so much more than a Tin Dog.

The TARDIS crew obviously stops the Krillitaines, and the Doctor has to say goodbye to both Sarah Jane and K-9 yet again, but again we’re given the secretly building plot of Rose and Mickey and their own inner growth. It’s truly nice to spend S1 and S2 watching Rose and Mickey go from on-the-rocks lovers, to spiteful exes, to begrudging companions to finally (down the line) inseparable platonic friends. I think it was RTD’s plan all along to set them on that journey and SCHOOL REUNION is certainly a big link in that chain of events.

All in all, a wonderful episode for modern and Classic DW fans alike. There is plenty to enjoy in the main story, and plenty more to examine in the deeper character stuff. And what’s especially interesting is that the Doctor, aside from some ex-girlfriend, new girlfriend moments of awkwardness, is kind of in the background allowing the guest stars and other protagonists a chance to shine all on their own.

Next Time: Steven Moffat’s Hugo-award winning episode THE GIRL IN THE FIREPLACE takes place both in Space and in 17th Century France!

Doctor Who Re-Watch: Series 2, Episode 2 Tooth & Claw

I’ve got more than one of these Re-Watch posts in the bag so I’ll be posting one today and you’ll see another one Monday, after that I will be caught up to the viewing sched properly as we’ve not moved onto the Cybermen two-part arc yet in our Re-Watch.

For today though…TOOTH AND CLAW!

RTD had a theme whenever he started a new Series of DW, he’d do one intro Companion ep, and the next ep would ALWAYS be one that took place in the past (Episode 2’s in Order: THE UNQUIET DEAD, TOOTH AND CLAW, THE SHAKESPEARE CODE, and THE FIRES OF POMPEII) It was just something he did. Now one might argue that of those eps, THE FIRES OF POMPEII is the best…but I think there is more at work in TOOTH AND CLAW than anyone gives it credit for. So let’s dig in shall we?

The Doctor tries to take Rose to a concert in the 1970’s…but miscalculates and they end up in the 1870’s Scotland, not only that but they stumble across a covered carriage that is transporting the Queen herself (Victoria)! I love the idea that the Doctor is like a tornado in time; he attracts big events, people and fixed points like a loadstone, and the Queen is no exception. What’s even more interesting is that they are heading to Balmoral Castle, but are waylaid by a train derailment and end up at a retreat in the wilds of northern Scotland that the Queen’s deceased husband used to frequent called…dun dun dun….TORCHWOOD! Yep, this is the genesis of the future organization and the eventual spin-off show.

Sidenote: Torchwood is an anagram of Doctor Who. Ding ding ding…the more you know!

So the Torchwood estate has, unbeknownst to the Doctor, Rose and the Queen and Co., been taken over by a band of fighting mystic monks set on releasing a creature upon the Queen when she arrives. The creature, revealed just after the credits roll is some type of Werewolf. Cue the best special effects shown in DOCTOR WHO so far, the wolf is wonderfully realized, scary and growly. When the company arrives at the estate the monks disguise themselves as staff and the staff are kept in a sub basement with the creature, who of course escapes and attacks.

 There is a lot of little things in this episode that I enjoy watching. Firstly Rose’s attempts to get the Queen to say her famous line (“We are not amused.”) start off ridiculous and get more hilarious as the ep goes on. It’s one of those moments where you realize just how much FUN Rose has while adventuring with the Doctor.

Sidenote 2: This is something I feel was missing from recent companions Amy and Rory. They never seem to be having fun on their adventures, it’s all business.

Anyways, the Queen eventually obliges and says the line, much to Rose’s enjoyment. There is also the fact that David Tennant gets to use his actual Scottish accent in this episode since he is posing as Scottish Doctor and that must have been great for him, and we certainly enjoyed it. Watching the genesis of Torchwood and why it exists (created by Victoria in the waning minutes of the episode since she realizes that the British Empire is threatened by non-terrestrial enemies as well as terrestrial ones) is always fun, especially knowing where it went down the line. What it began as and what Jack Harkness fashions it into are two different things, and RTD let himself play about in the sandbox history of that.

The dénouement of the episode concerns the fact that Prince Albert was aware of the werewolf threat and had Victoria's famed diamond cut down so it fit into a telescope device in an observatory on the estate as a key component that would send the werewolf (which was actually an alien creature of light who was trapped on earth) gracefully into death forever. The etsate was designed in the past by the Earls father as a trap to catch the beast and set it free. It also shows us that in the final battle with the Wolf before subduing it, Victoria was bitten and the Doctor explains that her line always and forever after that had a blood abnormality (this is a truth on historical record actually) that no one could figure out. RTD made Queen Victoria and the current line royalty…part werewolf. THAT is super cool.

One of the more emotional moments in the story is when the owner of the estate, Sir Robert, after having begrudgingly let the Monks trap the Queen in the house for fear of what they would do to his family, sacrifices himself to save them, buying them time in the observatory room and preparing the device. It’s a small moment, but I always love how RTD can help redeem people. Even though he wasn’t a villain, Sir Robert made a mistake in allowing the Monks to get as far as they did and that made him a touch cowardly. Well the redemption in death allows you to walk away from the episode and not think poorly of Robert for nearly betraying his monarch. That’s kind of a big feat for a paragraph in a script to accomplish, as he could have just as easily allowed Robert to live and written his transgression away by reason of needing to save his family, no matter the cost. RTD takes the tougher route in the narrative flow and makes it look easy. Bravo sir.

There’s lots of comedy, action and dramatics in this episode and it just seems like the cast and crew had a blast making it. Great ep!

Next Time: Buffy’s mentor Giles, it turns out, is actually a human drinking bat creature form Space in SCHOOL REUNION! Also, Sarah Jane returns after 35 years with everyone’s favourite metallic dog K-9. “Affirmative, master.”

Doctor Who Re-Watch: Series 2, Episode 1 - New Earth

I just realized that what with the latest Series of DW (7) and my attendance of TIFF, there has not been a new DOCTOR WHO RE-WATCH post since June. We left off with the 2005 Christmas Special (THE CHRISTMAS INVASION), which aired prior to Series 2 proper and handled the immediate post-regeneration of the 9th Doctor into the 10th. We got past Rose’s initial upset over losing the 9th when she sees what Ten has up his sleeve for the adventures. And here...we...go...

And it turns out the first adventure takes them to New York. Well, strictly speaking, it's the fifteenth New York, which makes it New New New New New New... New New New New New New... New New New York. At any rate Series 2, Episode 1, titled NEW EARTH is a humdinger. Why? You ask me. Well that’s easy. Ten and Rose ‘shippers (that would be those of us who wanted Ten and Rose to end up together)…this is where we started. Because in this episode, though it’s not technically her at the time, we got to see Rose kiss Ten. It’s a doozy of a kiss and the chemistry between David and Billie is so palpable that I dare anyone to watch the episode and not feel it.

I’ve always said that RTD’s skill is his storytelling and characters, and this episode is especially clever because he plays the long game with us and re-introduces us to The Face Of Boe. He is a big giant head with tentacles inside a large liquid filled container, whose implications to the series down the line are great once you get there. For now though he is a big mysterious head with information about the Doctor that he doesn’t have yet. He has a message for him, but knows that it can wait till the next time they meet, which he posits will be their last meeting. Knowing who the Face Of Boe is, and what he represents makes seeing him here (and then again in S3) just a joy to fans.

The episode actually acts as a quasi-sequel to the S1 episode 2 (THE END OF THE WORLD) as it brings back another person from that episode, namely the villain Cassandra. You recall her, the last human, the big piece of stretched skin on a frame who needs to be constantly moisturized. Well, turns out she survived her apparent death in S1 by using skin from her ass. Both Cassy and Boe are in a future hospital where powerful ailments are cured, and are administered to by a set of human cat nuns. Yep, human cat nuns! Did I mention DOCTOR WHO was awesome?! The Doctor and Rose arrive to find that diseases the Doctor considers incurable are being not only treated but cured. He smells a rat and the two quickly find out that not all that’s going on at the hospital is above board, and the human cat nuns are harboring some deep secrets. So if Cassandra’s not the villain, how does she fit in you ask? Well that’s easy, she brings a lot of comedy in her attempts to swap bodies to get a new one and live a new life, including both the Doctor and Rose’s bodies for a time. When she takes over Rose’s body, she unbuttons the top buttons and allows the cleavage to spill out. Cassandra is a bit randy it appears. Which takes us to her kissing Ten and giving the shippers something to strive for goal-wise.

What RTD does best here (other than inure Rose and Ten to each other from moment one and give us a solid diatribe about the evils of “a means to an end” going on in the hospital)…is he gives his previous villain closure. Cassandra jumps around bodies and eventually ends up in that of her assistant Chip, who willingly allows her to inhabit his body. But since he’s a clone the body begins to fail with a real human soul inside it, leaving Cassandra to finally have to confront the death she’s been avoiding all these years. In one of RTD’s perfect moment’s of clarity the Doctor decides to do a final favour for Cassandra, and takes her back into the past on the last night that she recalls someone calling her beautiful. The Cassandra-In-Chip’s-Body goes up to her younger self and tells her just that before finally dying in her younger self’s arms. It’s this kind of moment that RTD (and even sometimes Moffat) are good at. Here we have the villain, a woman who caused no end of heartache and almost destroyed an entire space station, and followed that up with body switching in an attempt to STEAL more life from others…and the Doctor gets right to the root of her, who she is and what makes her do the things she does. Then he makes this magnanimous gesture and allows her a moment of peace and love and beauty before she passes away. It’s interesting how we all rattle on about how the Doctor’s anger is something to behold, a terrible, shadowy growling god and if you get on that bad side you can be dealt with very harshly. But here’s where these men writing this character understand him best. His love, his compassion, and his benevolence even to his enemies (both The Master and even Davros receive this treatment as well) is a far more stunningly powerful thing to observe. Watching quiet moments like this actually make me want to be a better person. Here’s a very lonely man who COULD, if he chose, allow that loneliness to eat him up and leave only anger and bitterness…but instead when he lets love in he can be the proudest, glowing paragon of truth in the universe.

And I love that about him.

The main issue at hand, that of the nefarious way that the hospital nuns are curing diseases, is poignant as well and results in some of that anger I mentioned above, but when you finish the episode you will definitely take more away from the Cassandra plot line, and I think that was deliberate on RTD's part. Again, the man is a stellar writer and episodes like this showcase it.

Tennant gives everyone an absolutely incredible performance in his first proper episode. He’s note perfect. Watching NEW EARTH is like a window into the man we know will become voted the best Doctor ever in history. A boy who grew up watching the 4th and 5th Doctor’s himself, comes to play the character and absolutely knocks it out of the park week after week. Well that all starts here, with that quiet moment at the tail end of this episode.

Next Time: Queen Victoria is “not amused” in TOOTH & CLAW!

Doctor Who Re-Watch: Series 2, Episode 1 - The Christmas Invasion

Ah THE CHRISTMAS INVASION, thou art a weird duck. The first episode of Series 2, the first full episode with David Tennant in the lead as the 10th Doctor is quite good. But it’s still an odd duck since it’s technically what will come to be called a Doctor-lite episode down the line.

Sidenote: Doctor-lite: These are episodes that existed during the tight shooting schedule when David and Billie or down the road Freema or Catherine would be shooting other episodes and the need to get done more shooting in less time was high (this is info I’ve gleaned from Russell T. Davies book A WRITER’S TALE, which is a must-read if you are at all interested in the behind the scenes of the show) so they would craft an episode that only marginally included the Doctor (prime examples are BLINK, and LOVE & MONSTERS).

THE CHRISTMAS INVASION is a different type of this because it wasn’t a scheduling conflict that made it be Doctor-lite but rather the fact that the violent and taxing process of the 9th Doctor’s regeneration into the 10th Doctor had left the Time Lord bedridden and unconscious for the majority of the running time.

Where the episode benefits from this most is in the fact that Rose Tyler, her mum Jackie and her boyfriend Mickey Smith get a chance to really shine front and center solving a large part of the mystery in the narrative (this time an invasion of the Sycorax) on their own before the Doctor even wakes up.

Let’s get the plot out of the way, which for a Christmas Special is serviceable, if one of the more lackluster ones from the stellar Series 2. While the Doctor is convalescing, Rose and Mickey go Christmas shopping, only to be attacked by Santa robots! When they escape home the Doctor briefly wakes only to defeat the robots and mention it’s the residual regeneration energy that is drawing the things to him. Prime Minister Harriet Jones (whom you’ll all recall became Prime Minister after the incident with the Slitheen in Series 1) has sent a probe into space to Mars, but little known to her it has been gobbled up by the Sycorax warship on its way to earth to invade. The Sycorax arrive and hypnotize people all over London to position themselves on the tops of buildings with the threat that they will make the humans jump if those in charge don’t surrender half the human population to the aliens to become their slaves. This plotline slowly gets undone by the discovery that all the hypnotized humans have the same blood type (that of the type that was on the probe the ship gobbled up), and the eventual moving of the Doctor to the TARDIS where he finally wakes. Upon learning of the plot, the Doctor challenges the Sycorax leader to a swordfight (in borrowed pajama’s yet!) where he subsequently loses his hand. Being so close to the tail end of his regeneration though the hand grows back, and the Doctor is able to vanquish the leader in the confusion. Pretty standard stuff, but not at all unpalatable either. Decent and entertaining, if kind of a prologue to the rest of the Series.

Like I said above though, the spot where this ep shines best is with Rose and Co. All three of them spend a lot of time trying to come to terms with the regeneration, since the idea of it is so alien to them as humans. This person seems to be the same on some levels, but on most others including his looks he is also quite different.  There is a CORE that makes him a Time Lord and some very specific rules he follows, but otherwise all bets are off. The 9th Doctor is gone and in his place is a stranger. Compound this with the adoration that Rose had already begun to have for the 9th Doctor, this further complicates her own feelings. Imagine falling for someone only to have them change their face and parts of their personality. It would be bizarre to say the very least. Both Jackie and Mickey have an equally difficult time with it, but naturally on a different level than Rose. I think Jackie's reaction is probably the funniest (though that's usually the case with Camille Coduri's spot on delivery of lines) since she is truly baffled by this turn of events. I’ve always maintained that this is one of the areas where Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor missed a bit of a boat as he was freshly introduced to Amy Pond without her having known him before. I like the fact that companions have to deal with regeneration like Rose & Co. do here, and it hearkens back to Adric, Nyssa and Tegan having to see the 4th Doctor regenerate into the 5th, and again later when Peri watched the 5th regenerate into the 6th at the end of the CAVES OF THE ANDROZANI.

Now, it’s no secret that David Tennant is my favourite Doctor. I'm a card carrying, die-hard, flag waving, David Tennant fan. He likely always will be, and so THE CHRISTMAS INVASION holds a special place in my heart as his proper introduction, but there is a part of me that wishes he was in it more. That said, his scenes in the finale are very good and you can see where he is headed as the Doctor. Over the next few eps he will begin to solidify both his final look (with hair all “sticky uppy” as Wilfred Mott would call it later), his mannerisms and his personality, but in this ep he gets his wardrobe (Brown and Blue suits, plus Chuck Taylors and a long brown coat) which would become so iconic that I have personally cosplayed as him twice.

Next Time: We get more meat with the latest Doctor when he and Rose visit a future New York in NEW EARTH.

Doctor Who Re-Watch: Series 1 Episode 12 & 13 (Bad Wolf, Parting Of The Ways)

The 12th episode, being the first part of the two-part finale for Series 1 is a bit of an odd duck if you watch it standalone. It’s basically the lead up to the penny dropping about the who the main villain of Series 1 is, and what exactly the plot thread of Bad Wolf (a phrase that has shown up somehow in almost every episode) means.

Title BAD WOLF, the episode finds The Doctor, Rose and Jack on a space station that broadcasts game shows. Each in their respective shows: Doctor is on Big Brother, Rose is on The Weakest Link, and Jack is on What Not To Wear (even though that’s technically not a game show). Each quickly find that the penalty on each of the shows for losing is disintegration. While the Doctor, joined by Big Brother contestant Lynda, steps out of the “house” to find a root to the issue of what exactly is going on, Rose gets closer and closer to disintegration on the fast-paced Weakest Link show.

Like I said above, it’s an anomaly if you watch it by itself since it’s the prologue for the finale. It reveals Bad Wolf as the corporation that runs the space station, which turns out to be Satellite 5 from THE LONG GAME 100 years after the Doctor’s visit. As a result of that previous visit, the Earth stopped receiving transmissions, thus halting our worlds progress. It is also revealed that the villains behind the whole shebang are…dunh dunh dunh…the Daleks. More precisely a fleet of 400,000 Daleks. A New Dalek Empire. That’s about the size of it.

I think my point being that you should NOT watch this episode by itself. It will only make you yearn to watch the second half and the two really do work better as one 2 hour story.

With that said, I decided of course, on a double episode post to finish off the Series 1 Re-Watch.

So without further ado, I’ll talk about the final episode THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.

This episode begins with Rose, being threatened with extermination after having been transmatted (not killed as previously thought) to the Dalek Emperor’s ship. She is about to be exterminated when she shouts that they need her to give them info about the Doctor so they stop from killing her…info which she then proceeds to refuse to give them just as the Doctor materializes the TARDIS around her inside the Dalek bridge, saving her life. The Doctor, Jack and Rose step out onto the Dalek bridge, protected by the force field around the phone box to chat with the Dalek Emperor himself. It turns out that he escaped the Time War with his ship and has slowly been stealing human bodies and using their flesh and DNA to create his new race of Daleks. This is a notion that the Doctor finds laughable since the Dalek’s loathe anything remotely human as inferior. The Dalek Emperor revered as a god by his creations and the Doctor is secondly befuddled by a Dalek race that has apparently gotten “religion” after a fashion. This is a warped and twisted version of the Dalek race he has known his whole life, but it is no less dangerous. In fact, as the Doctor himself notes, they are all “quite mad” and a race of insane Dalek’s is not a good thing.

The first thing that jumps out at me here is that in the first half of the finale the Doctor was being helped by Lynda (with a Y) from his Big Brother house, and in the second half Rose meets her. It was hilarious to watch Rose (no less than 3 times) actually “sneer” at Lynda when she says she’ll help him do something. She reacts as jealously as she could and this is the first real indication that her motives towards the Doctor aren’t merely about adventure, time and space. This is the first time we see the inklings of “love” that will flourish as the series progresses. So in proper form she reacts to Lynda (and the Doctor’s admiration of her help) like a jealous lover would do, and it’s wonderful and realistic. One of RTD’s major skills is always the quiet, subtle beats in a script. The moments that you don’t really think about till later (or in this case on a re-watch), as they ring very true to Rose specifically.

After deciding that she’s not safe, the Doctor pulls a classic “Doctor trick” and sends her to the TARDIS to “get” something, the door locks and the TADRIS begins to dematerialize. While in transit back home a hologram plays where he tells her she’s not safe there and he had promised to keep her safe. He says let the TARDIS fade into memory on a street corner somewhere, and forget about it. This is one of those odd moments, that while it is entirely poetic, I often wonder if the Doctor assumed that strong-willed Rose Tyler was going to simply do as he asked.

Of course once Rose is home she begins to fret. Her mother and Mickey attempt to comfort her but to no avail. She feels useless and that the Doctor could be dying 200,00 years in the future and there is nothing she can do about it. It’s not until the words Bad Wolf are written in chalk and paint graffiti at a local playground that she begins to put it together as a sign that she needs to try to get back to him. Believing that if she can get a panel open she once saw open on the TARDIS console (which the Doctor previously told her was the heart of the TARDIS) then perhaps she could get it to home back to where it had come from. Of course once they get open the panel the light/heart of the TARDIS goes into her eyes, the door shuts and zips right back to Satellite 5 again…with a “changed” Rose in tow.

The Doctor established that he could create a wave that would destroy the Daleks, but it would also destroy everything in the vicinity including them. Jack, Lynda and Co. attempt to fight off the Daleks to buy the Doctor time to do his, during which Jack is exterminated. The Doctor cannot bring himself to use the wave since it will kill everyone…but also because he can’t even bring himself to do in the Daleks. This is a turning point in the PTSD-Doctor from the Time War. He is leaps and bounds from the self he was back in DALEK when he would have killed the thing without batting an eye. This is the first time we see him starting to accept that war is war and this is something else. That IF there is a chance to get out of this without the deaths of thousands, even if they ARE Dalek, then he needs to take that chance.

When Rose arrives the Doctor realizes what she has done, having looked into what is essentially the untempered schism (a right of passage that only Time Lords can do seeing into all of time and space at once) and that “no one is meant to do that” he wants to help her but before he can she basically “unmakes” the Dalek fleet, up to and including the Emperor himself. I love that part, her power is unmatched and she basically does something the Doctor could not bring himself to do a few moments earlier. She also “makes” life by bringing Jack Harkness back to life…which funnily enough makes him immortal, but that’s another story.

The episode ends with the Doctor kissing Rose to absorb the time energy into his body, and then sending it back into the TARDIS properly. Sadly, this has triggered the death of the 9th incarnation of the time lord. His body is going to regenerate and he explains this as quickly as he can to Rose, who doesn’t really understand. Then it’s all blasting yellow regeneration energy from arms and head…and Christopher Eccelstone bows out of the role he pioneered (in the new show anyways), leading the way for the 10th (and most popular) Doctor, David Tennant.

This episode has a number of emotional moments, I thin one of the top we all agree is Eccelstone’s final scene where he rather matter-of-factly tells Rose he is going to die. But to be entirely honest with you, it was earlier where my emotional heartstrings got plucked. There is a quiet scene during the part of the episode when Rose is stuck on earth when Jackie Tyler can’t understand why Rose wants to go back and help. Rose looks at her mother and says “Because HE would have.” And at first you assume she’s talking about The Doctor, but no…she’s talking about her father, Pete Tyler (the inventor, who died when she was just a baby). She says, “he took me there mum. I met him, on the day he died. The Doctor took me back to see him.” And Jackie is disbelieving at first “Stop it. Don’t be stupid. Stop talking like that.” And with tears streaming down her face Rose says to her mum “Remember when dad died? There was a blonde girl who stayed with him till the ambulance arrived? You remember. It was me mum, I was there with him!”. Oh god, I blubbered like a little kid during that scene. It’s also the lynch pin to Jackie deciding to help her daughter and help the Doctor. That it’s because Pete would have done. He would have TRIED, no matter how silly the idea was.

My second fave beat in the episode, is of course David Tennant’s first scene. I flat out love his line of dialogue. “Hello! Oo. New teeth. That's weird. So where was I? Oh that's right. Barcelona!” and he cracks his trademark grin. It’s probably the BEST entry of a Doctor ever, and is only really rivaled by his own exit 4 years later.

Now this is where things get interesting. The Re-Watch continues, but the next episode is a with a new Doctor in tow and new adventures. I start Series 2 with the next episode (and the first full ep to feature David Tennant) THE CHRISTMAS INVASION. So stay tuned!

Doctor Who Re-Watch: Series 1, Episode 11 (Boom Town)

Sorry, it's been a little bit since the last entry. It was the holiday's after all.

The 11^th episode of Series 1 of DOCTOR WHO is not very good overall, but it has moments of real greatness as well. It’s not awful by any stretch, but BOOM TOWN is certainly, without a doubt one of my least favourite of Series 1.

Aside from the return of the last surviving Slitheen (let the human-suit-wearing farting resume) this episode doesn’t really offer us a lot beyond the basic of the overall arcing plot.

The Doctor and Company (which now includes Mickey and Jack Harkness) have landed in Cardiff, Wales because there is a Rift in space-time there that will recharge the TARDIS power cells. They spend an afternoon relaxing when they discover that the last Slitheen has become mayor of Cardiff and has hatched a plot to build a nuclear power plant that will cause the Rift to rupture destroying earth which she will escape by fleeing on a “space surf board” (no really). The Doctor, after catching her, plans to take her back to her home planet of Raxacoricofallapatorius for trial (where she was a member of the gangster family Slitheen), and even after she tells him they’ll kill her for her crimes he doesn’t relent.

The rest of the episode trundles along this creaky monster of the week plot to expected conclusions. If you guessed that she would try win enough of the Doctor’s sympathy to wiggle her way out, but to no avail…only to eventually be given a “second chance” (in an odd way) at her messed up life later on…then you guessed correctly.  Which is the proper theme of the episode, but to me it has nothing to do with the Slitheen plot at all. Read on…

The saving grace for the episode is Mickey. Ah Mickey Smith. What was once a foil of a character who existed so Rose would be able to run from something (AKA, her footy-loving, lazy, going-nowhere boyfriend) to her new life in the TARDIS, is now something much deeper. This is where I feel that RTD really shines in his writing. Where other writers might feel like Mickey had played out his usefulness and left him by the wayside leaving him to move on with his life post-Rose…Russell lets us dwell longer on him. Not only that by Mickey speaks the words that the rest of us only get to cry from the couch. Where have you been? We were worried sick! While you were gone I started dating someone else. You weren’t there for me. I got lonely. All the normal stuff that other writers “handwavium” or simply ignore, RTD brings front and centre in all its ugly glory. “Here” he says “This is what life is, this is how proper real humans really would react to this situation! Feelings are hurt, lives inevitably went on.”

So it is that Mickey grows a spine, tells Rose a lot of the things he truly feels. He tells her he loved her, but that with her missing there was only so long he was willing to wait. Rose reacts (as she always does) by attempting to appease Mickey and apologize while still giving off the vibe that where she really wants to be is with the Doctor. What’s truly heart-rending is that Mickey leaves without telling Rose (or anyone else) goodbye. She realizes this, and the Doctor offers to wait for him, but she says no, deciding maybe they both need a “second chance” as well.

Next Time: We get into the penultimate episode of the Series with BAD WOLF.

Doctor Who Re-Watch: Series 1 Episode's 9 & 10 (The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances)

The first time current showrunner Steven Moffat applied his writerly skills to the DOCTOR WHO universe, it was during Series 1 for the two part story of THE EMPTY CHILD and THE DOCTOR DANCES.  It was the first time any of us knew that with the right idea, Moffat’s tales could blow the doors clean off DW crafting not only memorable, but award-winning episodes! This was a trend that would continue as the Series went on, but for now let’s talk about this first one.

The Doctor and Rose follow the distress beacon of an alien craft in the TARDIS. As they land in London in the vicinity of the crash site, the Doctor informs Rose that although they followed the ship closely the TARDIS has dropped them more than a month after the alien ship had crashed. They are also both completely unaware what the date is. It is quickly apparent that it is the past, but more specifically that it is WWII-era during the London Blitz. The Doctor goes off in search of someone to help locate the fallen ship, while Rose sees a young boy in a gas mask calling out for his mother and she goes to investigate. Rose finds herself in short order hanging from a dirigible by rope, and The Doctor finds the TARDIS phone (a device that isn’t connected to anything) ringing. Over the course of the first episode we meet the monster of the episode, which it turns out, is the Gas Mask child (and anyone he touched, who then become Gas Masked as well and are forever looking for their mothers).  We also meet (for the first, but certainly not last time) Captain Jack Harkness. A far cry from his much more altruistic hero future, here he is shown as a con-man/trickster who actually caused the alien ship to crash in the hopes to swindle the Doctor for it.

I can’t help but love these two episodes. We get a villain who is not a villain, we get another villain who is really a victim, we get the rigors of war, we get creepy dialogue (“Are you my mummy?”), we get Rose in a flirtatious relationship with someone other than the Doctor, and lastly we get the Doctor expressing something we had yet to really see from him…happiness. In less than two hours, Moffat has crafted a stunning microcosm of all the things that make the re-launched DOCTOR WHO series so utterly watchable. In fact of all the episodes that my co-watchers (read: first time watchers) have seen, this two-parter has resonated the loudest. I was told “Wow, those were REALLY good!” by said co-watchers. And that’s the point I’m making. Any time I try to get people to watch DW Series 1, I will immediately mention these two episodes (and FATHER’S DAY) to them, because although there are other very good episodes in Series 1, these ones have EVERYTHING and will totally hook the new viewer.

Rose has a nice little romp in this one, a lot of which she is on her own for. This is actually one of the first times in the Series that she is left to her own devices (unwatched over) by the Doctor. There are hints of the strength that she will begin to show as a character. The first peeks of an independent Companion of the Doctor, as opposed to the unknowing tagalong she spends a few episodes being when we began this journey when she is still unsure. I mean, she’s not yet confronting and bewildering Daleks or Cybermen, but at least she starts on the path. That’s a big deal due to where the things go by the end of the Series and the Bad Wolf-Arc.

Harkness is represented well, and you even buy into his transformation over the course of the 2 eps from con-man to upstanding hero. A change wrought almost entirely by having met and pissed off the Doctor. I love that bit actually, since it showcases how even just meeting him and hearing the way he sees things can change a person. That’s a huge weight to bear around, and the Doctor does it like it’s  a feather.

This is one of the Doctor’s finest hours. The ending of THE DOCTOR DANCES is probably one of the most iconic moments of Nu-Who and has dialogue that is repeated by fans. You really can’t help but feel the infectious nature of that when you watch it, and I feel that is something that Moffat usually brings to his episodes. It is certainly one of the reasons that he has won so many Hugo Awards for these stories.

I love these through and through, and even though I have seen them multiple times, I never get bored of them.

NEXT TIME: An old, previously thought defeated (flatulent) enemy returns in BOOM TOWN.

Doctor Who Re-Watch: Series 1, Episode 8 (Father's Day)

FATHER’S DAY, the 8^th episode of Series 1 DOCTOR WHO is one of my all-time faves. Written by Paul Cornell (a veteran of a number of the DW novels), the episode is very self-contained and concerns an aspect briefly covered in the last episode, that of changing something in time, and what the effects of that are. The difference being that Adam had TRIED to change something in time and the Doctor stopped him, but this time it’s Rose who does it (albeit for completely understandable, if selfish, reasons) but she succeeds as well.

It all starts when Rose asks the Doctor for a favour. She wants to go back and see her father (Pete Tyler, who died when she was a baby), and so he takes her to see him when he married her mother Jackie. After that she begins to reminisce about how her mother used to talk about him when she was little and that he was killed by a hit and run driver on the way to the wedding of a couple friends on November 7^th, 1987. Jackie told her that no one was there with him, as he died. The more she thinks about it the more Rose wants to go to the day he died, and be there for him as he dies. The Doctor reluctantly agrees and the two travel to the time and place of the hit and run. The problem arises as she stands there and watches him get hit she is frozen and can’t make herself go to him. She asks the Doctor for another chance, so they watch themselves watching Pete get hit and Rose can’t help herself and runs to push him out of the way of the oncoming car and saves his life. Then all hell breaks loose. These huge gargoyle creatures start attacking and devouring people.

The Doctor is upset as he, Rose and Pete head back to  Pete’s  flat so he can change into the clothes for the wedding. When Pete is in the other room the Doctor has it out with Rose about changing something so significant, and the fact that he believes she only wanted to travel with him to come back and save her father, which she denies. The argument ends with the Doctor leaving her there and telling her goodbye, storming out. Pete and Rose head out to the church where Jackie has just arrived and her two parents get into a huge argument about how Jackie thinks Pete plays around on her and that he’s a useless inventor who will never succeed. This stuns Rose as she has always believed her parents were very much in love when he died as her mother says a bad word about him in the future. It’s a poignant moment in the story and one that delves deep into not only Rose as a character, but her family as well.

The Doctor meanwhile has discovered his TARDIS has no interior any longer and that time is wounded. The gigantic gargoyle creatures are bacteria attempting to seal the wound by eating everyone in it (this being a problem the Doctor explains that the Time Lords would have sorted out in the past, but without any around the gargoyles (Reapers) have to do it). Inside the Church where the wedding is supposed to take place it is safe since the event that created the death of Pete in that timeline took place near it.

This episode is the first time that showed me how brilliantly, and uncompromisingly emotional DOCTOR WHO could function as a TV show. Here we have a wound in time that Rose has created because she wants to save her father from his fate, and the Doctor’s subsequent efforts (though he is pissed with her for her choice) to make sure that he saving of Pete is able to stick and she will have her father back. Sadly, the paradoxical nature of the event has made it clear that healing such a wound is not easy. During all this Pete discovers that Rose is actually his grown daughter, and oh my god that scene makes me cry manly, manly tears. I can’t even fathom the depth in that scene, and as just he realizes and Rose’s tears are falling she calls him “daddy” and my heart just melts. How can you not feel that way? Here is a chance given that no one has, to have your father back from a death that meant you never knew him. The tumult of emotions would be staggering.

In what I deem as another step up the ladder/stairs of recovery from the Time War PTSD, the Doctor instead of feeding his anger about what Rose has done, he sympathizes and even goes so far as to try to make sure her act saves her father.  Sadly, in a moment that you can see coming, but is no less hard to watch, Pete realizes (through Rose telling him lies about things he does in the future that are out of personality for him) that he dies in his timeline and that his living is responsible. Imagine the sacrifice you’d have to make. Time is seriously messed up and people are dying, how easy or difficult would it be to make the decision to set the timeline right by dying when you need to? Pete shows himself to be a hero, and the story Jackie is telling Rose as a little girl from earlier (yet still in the future) changes and she says that no one knew why he ran outside the church, but that when he died they said an unknown girl stayed with him the whole time he laid there dying. I mean come on! I’m not made of stone. I’m not afraid to admit this episode makes me very emotional. It also impresses the hell out of me that RTD and Cornell didn’t shy away from the “some things in time MUST stay as they are” and that changing things is a tricky business.  This episode shows us that sometimes even the thing you want most you simply can’t have, and that some things are actually better for having been left as they were. Rose gets a few hours with her father and he gets to show her that although he is not exactly who she imagined him to be, he is still her hero and she gets to show him the strong person she grows up to be. It’s a wonderfully bittersweet episode, and one that I love to watch.

NEXT TIME: Oh the first of the Moffat-Excellence written eps with THE EMPTY CHILD and THE DOCTOR DANCES two-parter!

Doctor Who Re-Watch: Series 1, Episode 7 (The Long Game)

The 7^th episode of Series 1 DOCTOR WHO is a bit of an odd duck. It’s written by Russell T Davies, and even stars Simon Pegg in a villainous role, but it’s a really tough episode to properly like. What’s worse about that statement is that this episode is actually the first real key/notice that something is not right with humanity, and this is the first inkling of things that will come to fruition later near the finale two-parter, so you really have to watch it.

That said, if I COULD have skipped THE LONG GAME (I can’t, as I want to be thorough, and I want my co-watchers who haven’t seen these to have the full experience), I definitely would have.

Is it a bad story? No, not at all, and the writing in it is even good. The problem arises two-fold. Issue #1: is that this episode pretty much exists as cautionary tale concerning Adam (picked up in the TARDIS from last episode DALEK). Remember that moment in BACK TO THE FUTURE II when Marty has the sports almanac to place some bets in the past and get rich, but Doc catches him and tells him he didn’t invent the DeLorean to win at gambling…and then the rest of the movie shows why Biff using it is such a bad plan? That’s what THE LONG GAME is for Adam and the Doctor. Only the Doctor is about a hundred times more pissed about it. Issue #2: Is that aside from Adam’s (rather quick) fall from the Doctor’s grace, the episode doesn’t have oodles to say arc-wise, and even the clever first signs of the stuff that will be dealt with in the finale don’t really fit the bill of importance yet. So the episode feels like mostly filler. Which is sad, since as I said above, the writing and dialogue is very good.

Basically The Doctor, Rose and Adam land on a space station in 200,000 years in the future, overlooking the 4^th Great And Bountiful Human Empire. The station, they quickly discover has many levels, and is a conduit for all news to be distributed across the empire (96 billion people). In a macabre display that shows the Doctor something is really wrong with this human timeline, the people who report this news have holes built into their forehead that open to receive thick data streams of compressed info, not to mention the station is REALLY hot. Of course it doesn’t take long for the audience to find out that some big nasty baddie (in this case the Jaggrafur creature; a huge upside down fleshy volcano with razor teeth and no eyes that needs to keep cool) is running the show (with his underling Simon Pegg’s The Editor) from the 500^th floor, which is a place the inhabitants of the Station believe is some golden-walled Shangri-la, and if they are good they will get “promoted” up there. Little do they know this means their death, so the chips in their heads will blindly keep doing the bidding of the creature.

The episode follows the logical progresson: Something is wrong, The Doctor and Rose investigate, They find a human who is both annoyed by their meddling, and perplexed that her life may not be what she thought, meddle, Get Caught by the Villains, are saved by helpful human, kill the baddie, everything goes back to normal. The only addition to that narrative is the above mentioned “sports almanac” Adam storyline which ends with the Doctor dropping him at home (with the data hole in his head that activates by snapping fingers), destroying his answering machine where he left a message of all the data from the future, and tells him he is not welcome in the TARDIS any longer. He implores Rose to let him come along, but she turns her back on him too. So yeah, they could have called this episode ADAM IS A MORON WHO FORFEITS HIS CHANCE AT TIME & SPACE TO GET RICH QUICK because that is essentially what it does for you. The only other thing it really does is set the Doctor’s mood for the beginning of the next episode (one of my faves), which you will see when we get there.

Simon Pegg is good. He's not great because he doesn't really get to do his comedy thing and is more the villains sidekick who gets to say nasty things, but generally isn't a comedian. 

It’s a decent episode as far as a filler one goes, but beyond that you could skip it without missing too much…BUT if you want to be in the KNOW come finale time this episode actually serves as prologue and shouldn’t really be missed. It’s a conundrum, but thankfully the episode isn’t painfully bad or anything, simply kind of boring and by-the-numbers.

NEXT TIME: One of my all-time faves from this series FATHER’S DAY is up next.

Doctor Who Re-Watch: Series 1, Episode 6 (Dalek)

The Doctor’s anger, when properly on display, is a frightening thing. It is powerful enough to wither even the most powerful villain’s resolve, and it is certainly a sight for us as an audience to behold.

Thus do we get to the 6^th episode in my Re-Watch of Series 1 DOCTOR WHO. Titled DALEK and written by Robert Shearman (as a special request by RTD himself), the episode is nothing short of brilliant. Some of the very best episodes of this show (especially during RTD’s tenure) are the self-contained, we are stuck in a tight space and something is after us type episodes. Add to this the unleashing of the Doctor’s proper fury and humans being cruel and torturous and you have the makings of incredible television.

Rose and the Doctor respond to a distress signal that is beaming out into space from an unknown source deep under the Utah desert, and find themselves in the lower levels of a multi-level bunker/personal collection of alien artifacts and technology. American billionaire (and supposed OWNER of the internet) Henry Van Statten collects alien artifacts (including a Classic Series Cyberman head, nice touch that!) and stores them underground in his massive complex. He is assisted by numerous helpers and an entire squad of armed guards to keep his collection safe. One of Statten tech’s Adam (Bruno Langley of CORONATION STREET fame) takes Rose o a tour, while Van Statten offers to show the Doctor their only living artifact, an alien they keep chained up and torture in an attempt to find out more about it. That’s where things get interesting, because the live specimen is:

A single, solitary Dalek.

Once the Doctor realizes this fact as he is locked in a room with it he literally FREAKS OUT and shouts to be let out as he is afraid it will kill him…until he realizes that the Dalek not functioning properly and is merely a lost soldier of the Time War who’s weapons systems are offline. At which point something strange happens. The benevolent Doctor, the one who usually tries to save things actually laughs and begins to mock the trapped Dalek. Heckling it, and regaling it with stories it is unaware of, like the decimation of its race and planet and the fact that it is now a roaming soldier with no orders. The Doctor laughs in its face like a bully who has his opponent on the ground. He then attempts to kill the creature, but is stopped

by Van Statten’s guards.

Rose and Adam eventually make their way to the chamber and Adam revels in showing the Dalek off to her, but Rose (being Rose) takes pity on the creature because it is in pain, confused, chained and tortured. It speaks to Rose in human tones and she lays her hand on it…and her DNA/time energy/radiation allows it to re-energize itself and power up. It quickly discovers that it is the last Dalek, and breaks its restraints and begins a rampage.

It isn’t until he gets a chance to explain to Van Statten and his assistants just what this thing is that they start to realize why he behaved like this towards it. I think it all comes out best in a conversation between the Doctor and Van Statten in his offices after they realize that Rose has accidentally awakened the Dalek to its power, and without orders it has defaulted to the prime objective, exterminating all non-Dalek life in the universe:

Henry Van Statten: I thought you were the great expert, Doctor, if you're so impressive, why not just reason with this Dalek? It must be willing to negotiate, there must be something that it needs, everything needs something.

The Doctor: What's the nearest town?

Henry Van Statten: Salt Lake City.

The Doctor: Population?

Henry Van Statten: One million.

The Doctor: All dead. If the Dalek gets out it'll murder every living creature, that's all it needs.

Henry Van Statten: But why would it do that?

The Doctor: Because it honestly believes they should die. Human beings are different, and anything different is wrong. It's the ultimate in racial cleansing, and you, Van Statten, you've let it loose!

So in this episode we finally see the Doctor’s violent anger. He actually, more than once, tells the Dalek it should just kill itself and die since it has no purpose. He shouts and rages at pretty much everyone in the episode. This is the PTSD Doctor rearing himself to face the camera in all his growling glory. This is a man who thought he’d seen the last of a race who basically caused the extermination of his own Time Lord race, and he’s faced with one of them still alive. His reaction is pure, unadulterated, and passionate emotion. But what is really telling in the episode is not that final reveal of the emotional condition of the post-Time War Doctor and his subsequent actions, but rather the point of the whole episode exists in one single line uttered by the Dalek. After a particularly brutal barrage of nastiness and demands on the part of the Doctor when the Dalek is looking for “orders” he demands that the Dalek kill itself.

To which the Dalek replies with a very even “You would make a good Dalek.”

I mean hell, what a gut punching line that is. Here is the Doctor, finally shedding the emotions that roil within him and allowing that anger out to play onto the very creature who’s race was its cause, and in all his righteousness he loses sight of a very simple difference…that he not act like his enemy…and he has become just that. In fact, if you flip this episode around and presume that the Doctor is the bad guy and the tortured Dalek is the good guy, then the Doctor actually doesn’t come off far from the Dalek mentality at all. What an eye-opener that was. In fact, the only shred of humanity that the Doctor is allowed to cling to is his defense of Rose, his tireless efforts to make her safe (which nearly costs the complex and everyone in it their lives) and his keeping of a promise to her mother. That’s a really nice thread to have come from the last episode with Jackie having been so distraught, that the Doctor actually took notice of something human and allowed it inside his tortured soul. I think this is the first time that Rose takes root in him as an ideal, as a healing notion. This is it, the Doctor has reached rock bottom, and his misery about the Time War has come full circle and confronted him. What’s great about that is that his defense of Rose is his first step on the stairway that leads up and out of that post-war despair into something more powerful, something more generous…the stuff of legends.

This is also the first time we see the classic villain, the Daleks, show up in the re-launched DW. The Daleks scared the bejeezus out of me as a kid, and they are my favourite villain (easily), and when I first watched this episode when it aired on TV I got so excited to see one again after so many years. I got even more jazzed when the Doctor makes a cryptic reference to Davros when speaking with Van Statten. Nicholas Briggs has done various voices on the show, but the Daleks are probably his most well-known, and he does such a stellar job at it!

Probably one of the BEST Christopher Eccelstone episodes that exists in canon. Shearman does an absolutely incredible job at uniting aspects of Classic Who with Re-Launched Who and ties them together with the Time War. I never get tired of watching this episode.

Next Time: THE LONG GAME features a big guest star (Simon Pegg), and the newest TARDIS companion (Adam) finds out that his own personal gain is not a good reason to time travel.

Doctor Who Re-Watch: Series 1, Episode's 4 & 5 (Aliens Of London / World War Three)

How’s this for playing catch-up with the DOCTOR WHO Re-Watch? The first Two-Parter, reviewed in one post!

Davies wrote both parts of ALIENS OF LONDON and WORLD WAR THREE, and what immediately jumps out at you when you watch, is that the actual alien portion of the story has the backseat for both hour's. It’s the human, interpersonal relationships that are present foremost here.

The Doctor and Rose return to 21^st Century earth, with the Doctor telling Rose it’s been only 12 hours since they left at the end of the first episode. Sadly, it has been rather a while longer as a whole year has passed, Rose’s mother Jackie is beside herself, her boyfriend Mickey has been accused of killing her and she was generally very missed. Just as the whole situation of her mysterious return is about to come to a head, a spaceship crashes through Big Ben and into the Thames and the Doctor and Rose are off to investigate. The Prime Minister and most of his cabinet end up killed and Harriet Jones (MP for Flydale North) is on the hunt to discover why and what exactly the spaceship crash has to do with it. Close investigation reveals that an alien race family known as The Slitheen are impersonating the government for their own nefarious purposes.

Like I said above, the alien stuff is fairly by the numbers. The aliens are wearing ill-fitting human suits (in which they have a gas exchange to make them smaller to fit human proportions, but it makes them fart...which I'm sorry, is pretty funny), are attempting to take over the world and the Doctor has to figure out why. Sounds pretty standard for DW doesn’t it? That’s quite alright because the REAL story here is the one about Rose returning, the one about how distraught Jackie Tyler was over what might have happened to her, the one about Mickey Smith being accused not only by the police, but by his own neighbors and Jackie herself of murdering Rose, the one about how furious Jackie is with the Doctor for daring to put her daughter in danger, and the one about the Doctor himself coming to terms with his own attitude about Rose and what she could mean to him and others. 

Davies makes a hell of a statement in the second episode, and one that is really uncomfortable to view. Jackie finally comes to terms with the Doctor as benevolent after having seen him saving the world, and plans on having him in for dinner. Rose pleads with him to attend as her mum just wants to get to know him. In true post-Time War Doctor fashion, he flat out refuses, telling her he doesn’t do dinner, or families, or the like. He also gives her a choice between that or coming with him right then to see a phenomenon in the Horsehead Nebula. She quickly makes her decision and Jackie catches her packing to leave again and begins to cry. It is a scene that REALLY pulls at the heartstrings and makes you wonder at just how much of a draw the Doctor has on Rose that she is willing to leave her family and friends behind just to go on adventures with him. It’s also nicely juxtaposed with the scene where the Doctor is being unreasonably, and most certainly in-humanly cold and indifferent to those feelings. It is a very telling scene written very well to illustrate that although Rose is travelling with him, she has yet to actually have an effect on the hard shell he built around himself following the Time War and his part in it. He is still, at heart, a cold individual who has just seen too much death and suffering to be anything but disconnected from it, lest he go mad with the grief over the death of two entire races. I mean honestly, think about that for a second. When someone in your family dies, you go cold inside. You do everything you can to inoculate yourself from allowing that persons death to consume you entirely. You slowly mourn them, and after a good long time, usually with help from other family and friends, you heal. Now imagine those reactions on a planetary/population scale. The weight of that would be enormous, and the Doctor has (as a result) inoculated himself against the overwhelming sadness he must feel by becoming this cold, indifferent individual.

You also get a smattering of the first real signs that Mickey isn’t just Rose’s scaredy-cat, dopey boyfriend. There are sections of real heroics while helping Jackie, and eventually the Doctor with the fight against the invading Slitheen. These lead up to even the Doctor himself realizing that Mickey (the idiot) may not be the person he thought he was. A plot thread that is laid bare mostly when Mickey himself, after the Doctor invites him to join them in the TARDIS, confesses to the Doctor that such things he just doesn’t think he could handle. The Doctor gives him a look of immense respect, and later when Rose asks Mickey to come along the Doctor says Mickey is a liability and he won’t have such a screw-up in the TARDIS, and the Doctor shares a bit of a wink with Mickey about the lie.

Probably one of the most poignant episodes about the human condition and its core characters, and it is totally disguised as a by-the-numbers alien invasion. How very clever! It also showcases one of the best things about RTD-era WHO (missing from Moffat’s latter Series 5 & 6) and that is attention to family and how they react to a companion traveling with the Doctor in time and space.  To me there is a realism to that that doesn’t exist in current WHO (since not once has Amy or Rory’s families ever been mentioned as wondering where they are) and such notions are well-represented in both these episodes. 

Easter Eggs NOTE: The BAD WOLF phrase shows up again, this time spray painted by a kid on the side of the TARDIS in stark white.

Next Time: One of my favourite episodes named DALEK. 

Doctor Who Re-Watch: Series 1, Episode 3 (The Unquiet Dead)

Ah, Dickens.

How can you not love Dickens?

 A DOCTOR WHO story that takes place on December 24^th to boot! 

There really are some hidden gems in Series 1 of DW, and I think that the Mark Gatiss-penned 3^rd episode THE UNQUIET DEAD is one of them. No, not because it pulls at any particular heartstrings, or because it stars Simon Callow as Charles Dickens (a role he recently and briefly reprised in the Series 6 finale THE WEDDING Of RIVER SONG), but because it was a good old fashioned period ghost story.

RTD-era DW usually began with a 3-episode pattern. First Episode: Modern Day Earth, Second Episode: Future Earth or other planet or space station, Third Episode: Period piece set at some point in Earth’s past. This being the latter there were lots of lustrous costumes, sets, and special effects to be had here.

The story begins with a funeral home in Cardiff (Wales) having problems with zombies. The dead rising and walking and attacking. The Funeral home director, Mr. Sneed, is aware of it but is trying to keep it under wraps as to not discredit his business, and he uses his maid Gwyneth (Eve Myles in a role that would see her end up as Gwen on latter spin-off TORCHWOOD) who is psychic to find the missing walking dead. One shows up at a show that Dickens himself is putting on that night and the author ends up involved as well. Enter the Doctor and Rose and all hell (or the rift) breaks loose. 

This is the first time we see the evidence of, or even hear ABOUT the rift in Cardiff that allows alien things through. This particular theme not only runs as a thread through future DW episodes, but also is the basis for the TORCHWOOD spinoff as TORCHWOOD 3 is based in Cardiff BECAUSE of the rift.

I am a big Charles Dickens fan, so when the Doctor gushes about how big a fan he is I can’t help but smile. This theme is another that runs through DW. The Doctor has met many famous authors and playwrights and likes to let them know that they are well received in the future. Agatha Christie, Shakespeare, and even Vincent Van Gogh have met him and been so informed. I truly like that. As an artist it would only bolster their career and drive to know how enduring their works were. 

Anyways, I got away from myself there. The ghosts! The ghosts are actually the Gelf, creatures from the rift who CLAIM to be few in number and as higher beings they were supposedly decimated by the Time War. This notion, and the doctor’s subsequent desire to see them helped even at the expense of them using reanimated corpses (something Rose is vehemently against) to further live, is the first time that we see The Doctor make a horribly blind decision. This is the first decision that is made by an old soldier suffering PSTD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) from the time War. The guilt over what transpired not only to the Daleks during the Time War, but also to other higher beings is too much and the Doctor is going to help blindly come hell or high water, even if it is a poor decision (which Rose knows it is from the outset). I think that is a key reason why this episode is important for the whole Series 1 arc, as it is the first time that rose makes a call that is right and is nearly shunned for it. The Doctor will later realize his faith in his companion will be much more valuable than he could have imagined back when he saved her from the Autons. 

I do also believe that this is the first mention of the Bad Wolf theme in Series 1 (I think), and though I’ll not reveal it here, that is something that will be a major player down the line. It always mystifies me that RTD had the forethought to put so many little nods to overall continuity just into random, almost throwaway sentences in each episode. A sign here, a comment there, but if you were paying attention ...you understood that something important was mentioned. This works on an even BETTER level on a re-watch, because you know all the nods, and you can watch for the cues and really get into the meat of the episodes’ writing.

A solid period piece episode and a rollicking good ghost story to boot. THE UNQUIET DEAD is Mark Gatiss’ first contribution to NuWho and was not his last, though I am beleaguered to try to sort out if it was his best. It is certainly up there with his best stuff.

Lastly, I feel the need to point out that both my girlfriend and her sister pointed out that they don’t love Eccelstone as the Doctor. My girlfriend having seen only Tennant and Smith and her sister only really Smith, they have not really been exposed to 9 like I have. I had to tell them to hang tight, that just like the other incarnations, it takes a bit for a Doctor to get his feet and grow on you. I am therefore patiently awaiting them watching episodes like FATHER’S DAY, THE EMPTY CHILD, THE DOCTOR DANCES and THE PARTING OF THE WAYS which were the ones that REALLY endeared me to the 9^th Doctor. We’ll get there in the re-watch folks, we’ll get there.

Next Time:  ALIENS OF LONDON

Doctor Who Re-Watch: Series 1 Episode 2 (The End Of The World)

And so we settle into the second episode of DOCTOR WHO Series 1, THE END OF THE WORLD, also penned by Russell T Davies himself. This one is great because it takes place off-earth…sort of.

The Doctor takes Rose five billion years into the future to a space station called “Platform One”. Outside the viewport the earth revolves and the Doctor reveals that it is now owned by the National Trust (love that reference!) and has long since been abandoned by humanity. The empty planet has been returned to a previous glory state and the expanded sun is kept at bay by gravity satellites. Now the money has run out and various alien beings, including the last human Cassandra (now just skin and a face stretched on a metal frame and mosturized) are invited to watch as the satellites let go and the earth is consumed by the expanding sun.

It’s a party! A posh one that the Doctor and Rose only get into by using Psychic Paper (which shows people what he wants them to see as I.D.)

The best thing about this episode to begin with is that Davies (with his eye for small details about his characters) finally has Rose react to being taken this far (in space and time) from her home, amongst weird looking aliens, and all with a man she barely knows. She has a bit of a breakdown, and the Doctor attempts to cheer her up by sonicking her cell phone so she can call 5 billion years ago and speak to her mum. While this seemingly serves to only depress Rose more, it is still a really nice gesture on the part of the Doctor and the cell phone manipulation will come into play down the line. After the introductions have been made and the countdown to the earth’s destruction has begun, little metallic spiders with red laser eye’s are crawling around the station and have begun to dismantle its safety protocols and sabotage it. Safety screens on viewports are downed and people die from the intense suns rays burning them to a crisp including the host. It’s up to the Doctor and Rose to find out who and why.

This episode marks the beginning of the walls the Doctor has built up from his previous experiences starting to slowly come down. The more comfortable he is with Rose the more he seems to trust her.  I actually REALLY enjoy the fact that this is a long process and it makes more sense down the line as to why, but Davies script is clever without revealing too much. The mystery itself within the episode is rather by-the-numbers and its outcome can be guessed early on. That’s not the point of this episode though. The first ep was a little more serious, and so this one busts out into a lot of fun. Here we get to see the Doctor (Eccelstone) mugging about, goofy faced, dancing and bobbing his head to TAINTED LOVE, and even bouncing around to Britney Spears TOXIC. One of my fave bits is during the sequence where each guest is giving gifts to one another and the Doctor offers “Air from my lungs” as his gift. Though gentle with the first guest, on the second guest he breathes a whole swathe of air in a big circle, mouth gaping. It’s quite hilarious! Rose spends some of her time upset about being so far from home, and about not knowing just WHO the Doctor is ( < ---see what I did there?), until she ends up in rather mortal danger and he has to save her. She also shows the first signs of the companion she will come to be as she investigates things and unearths a few bits of important info on her own.

I think one of the KEY things that eventually makes the Doctor and Rose’s relationship so entirely strong is that she KNOWS, without a doubt that if there is a possibility to save her (no matter how dire the situation) then he will, and actually vice-versa. That is a link that becomes unbreakable. Well that link really and truly begins here on a station orbiting a dead planet.

The aliens who play the secondary characters here are all well acted, and most especially Cassandra (Zoe Wanamaker) since she’s basically a bit of skin and a face, she manages to be a very interesting character. This is also the first time we see The Face Of Boe, a character who we will see again and who has a few strong significances within the show. Again, it is nice to see Davies paying attention to the long game of continuity even in episode 2.

Here there be revelations, arrrr!: One of the secondary characters, a beautiful tree alien named Jabe eventually reveals that she knows that the Doctor is a Time Lord, and the last survivor of the Time War. Exactly what that war was is not yet explained, but it’s another piece of the puzzle that has popped up about the Doctor’s past.

After the station is saved and it was revealed who the culprit for the sabotage was, we see the Doctor’s unremitting anger, and this time he is unrepentant and cold about it. Again a nod to the need for a companion to temper that.

I love episodes that end as this one does. It ends with the Doctor confessing to Rose that his planet Gallifrey was destroyed in a great war and that he is the last of the Time Lords. She sympathizes with him as they share some chips on a sunny London afternoon. It’s one of those things that makes Davies’ writing so well timed. Here is the most epic and sad of pronouncements and it’s juxtaposed next to the day-to-day normality of sharing some chips with a friend. He could have just told her he failed a math test. It’s a great scene and a nice ending for the episode.

Stay Tuned Next Time: THE UNQUIET DEAD