(713) School Reunion

This episode is famous for three things. The return of Sarah Jane Smith and K9 but perhaps just as importantly, Anthony Stewart Head appears and almost steals the show. When I watched this back in 2006 I was totally preoccupied with her return but fast forward nine years to today, I think that Anthony Stewart Head is probably the best thing in this episode. In time terms, its been 23 years since Elisabeth Sladen had been in Doctor Who but in marathon terms it been about four months.

The Doctor is a teacher and Rose is a dinner lady. Had she not gone off for adventures in time and space I could easily see her cleaning tables and dishing out chips. If Jamie Oliver were writing a Doctor Who story then elements of this would be his. Chips leading to something bad is the sort of thing that he would have come up with.

The thing that was going to determine whether Sarah Jane Smith’s return was how she was bought back and its done rather well. She’s back to do what she does best and that’s by being an investigative journalist. The look on the Doctor’s face when he first sees her is pretty much how every fan was feeling and that is just astonishment. The looks of astonishment continue when Sarah Jane stumbles across that TARDIS and then realises that the person she thought was just a teacher was in fact the Doctor.

The jealousy of Rose when she meets Sarah Jane does seem a bit of a step back for Rose after the progress made in the previous episode. I think that the jealousy isn’t quite as annoying as it was when Lynda was being friends with the Doctor but it’s still a character trait that is becoming annoying and the strop she throws when she thinks that the Doctor will forget about her only adds to the problem.

There is a nice little scene between the Doctor and Sarah Jane where the Doctor learns there are consequences about her travels with him. He also learns that she didn’t get dropped off in Croydon but in Aberdeen.

Back to the subject of Anthony Stewart Head. Everytime he is on screen I think that he is superb. His face to face seen with David Tennant is one of my favourite scenes in the entire episode. ASH plays the fine line between villain and pantomime villain. The Krillotaines are a good villain however with the return of Sarah Jane and K9 as well as Anthony Stewart Head, they kind of get lost in the shuffle which is perhaps the one things that the story gets wrong. It is interesting that when they are in human form they walk with their arms behind them. It’s also interesting that they are bits of other races and this is something that could have been looked at more.

I hate writing this but K9 sacrificing himself was a moment that made me like the character. I am still unmoved in my original opinion of the character but it was a lovely moment.

The goodbye scene between the Doctor and Sarah Jane is heart-breaking. It’s because of David Tennant and Elisabeth Sladen that it works and the fact that K9 is hiding behind the TARDIS as a surprise present is the perfect way to end the episode. When Sarah Jane is offered the chance to go back travelling in time and space, I wanted her to say yes but I always get disappointed when this doesn’t happen.  

This has been a lovely episode but it’s one that ultimately seems to purely serve fans who has watched the show for years. New fans might not have taken as much from it as fans like me but it’s another well written episode with some very good performances and it is nice to see Elisabeth Sladen back in Who again.

(711) New Earth

It is perhaps the best thing to start the Tennant era with The Christmas Invasion because New Earth isn’t the strongest story of the series. I would be surprised if this story was in the top three at the end of the series. I have never been a huge fan of this story but I have never understood why until now. I think that it’s the comedy is misplaced. I have commented how RTD has done well with slipping in comedy in places that it shouldn’t work but on this occasion the comedy really doesn’t work and as a result I find the whole episode doesn’t work.

The comedy seems to come from Cassandra being in a different body. She starts off by being in Rose’s body leading to a bit where Rose kisses the Doctor and then she moves into the Doctor’s body and jumps a few more times. It is fun seeing David Tennant and Billie Piper play amusing versions of themselves. Cassandra/Rose referring to herself as a chav is still funny and seeing Tennant play a camper version of himself. The scene where the Doctor and Rose kiss is something that was clearly a big selling point because it featured in the trailer at the end of the Christmas Invasion but its not 1996 its 2006 because very little drama was raised as a result.

What’s quite amusing is that Adjoa Andoh plays Sister Jatt and goes on to play Martha Jones’ mother. The cat people seem nice and pleasant at first but they have a hidden secret. Their secret is that they have a huge lab with people infected and bred with every disease so that treatments can be found. The cat make up is very good and must have been expensive because only three of the cat people’s faces are seen, the rest are covered up. I think that more time could have been spent on what the cat people’s motives were and the Cassandra stuff could have been shelved.

The Face of Boe makes his second appearance and he’s dying. He doesn’t really add much to the story apart from telling the Doctor that they will meet a third and final time and he will reveal a secret. To be fair I don’t see much reason for why the Face of Boe would be there and why he would need to make another appearance in the show. He worked well in The End of the World but in this he doesn’t add anything to the story.

The Doctor saves the day in truly spectacular fashion by using every vaccine to cure everyone that has been infected. Also that’s not the final thing that happens. The final thing is when the Doctor does something nice an allows Cassandra (who has now got inside Chip) to go back in time and tell herself that she is beautiful. It’s a nice ending I suppose and it is pretty much the end for the character.

This isn’t as bad an episode as I thought. It’s not great by any means but I think that after the previous episode this wasn’t the right time to be trying this time of episode. I think that it’s one of the weakest episodes since The Long Game so that’s a good run of episodes that the show has been in. Watching the trailer for the next episode just makes me want to watch it now but I must be disciplined.

(710) The Christmas Invasion

So today I start the David Tennant era and I yesterday I said I wasn’t going to watch it but I cant think of a proper reason why not so instead of just watching it as an episode and then waiting until tomorrow to watch the opening episode. This is technically the first episode for David Tennant although its only eight minutes long and nearly two minutes of that is taken up with the reprise and the titles. It’s not fair really to rate this episode as it only serves a purpose in telling fans what happens between the regeneration and the TARDIS crash landing in the Christmas Invasion.

David Tennant in Christopher Eccleston’s costume is odd and its good that he doesn’t stay in it for long. I suppose that one thing this episode does is get through the inevitable ‘its not the Doctor thing’ although it does carry on to a certain extent in future episodes. It’s an interesting portion that doesn’t really add anything and if you hadn’t watched it at any point then you wouldn’t have missed anything.

Due to the success of the previous series, a new series was commissioned but also a Christmas Special was added to the list. This was only the second time in the shows history that it had aired on Christmas Day but this was designed as a Christmas Special and not just a throwaway episode in a twelve part Dalek epic. At the moment its late April and the sun is shining and the weather is warm so its slightly odd that I am watching an Christmas episode now. With the special being 15 minutes longer it means that there is more time to tell the story and the opening scene is quite good cause the TARDIS crash lands and Jackie does the first Doctor Who gag of the new era. The new Doctor spends most of this episode in bed which probably wasn’t how David Tennant thought he was going to start his time.

Penelope Wilton returns as Harriet Jones but this time as the PM that the Doctor talked about in World War Three. She’s doing the same joke of introducing herself but the joke is suppose to be funnier because she’s the most famous person in Britain. Even when she’s delivering a sombre Christmas Day speech she manages to slip in some gags. She asks about the royal family and after a pause she turns to the camera and says that they are on the roof. It’s quite impressive how RTD manages to put jokes in when it seems to be totally inappropriate.

The Robot Santa’s are a wonderful design as its just a bonkers idea but one that works and it works so well that RTD brings it back the following year. Another great thing that happens in this episode is the attacking Christmas Tree. Only in Doctor Who could an aggressive Christmas Tree feature in a Christmas Day episode. The main threat of the episode are the Sycorax who are a good looking monster. They show their credentials as villains but hypnotising a group of people to walk to the edge of high rise buildings and threaten to make them jump.

When the Sycorax ship arrives on Earth the way it is shot is very much similar to Independence Day when the ship is hovering over New York City. This is when the episode starts to take a step up because its when things start to go a bit wrong. It’s quite good how they manage to get the Doctor, Rose, Mickey and the TARDIS aboard the Sycorax ship. It’s also quite good how they manage to get the Doctor up and mobile and really into the story. His first scene when he is himself is great cause it starts his time in the show properly. Tennant has a great skill of balancing drama and comedy. I had always been unsure about Christopher Eccleston’s ability to do comedy but I overcame that but I have never been in doubt about Tennant’s comedy ability and he seems to be able to do both very well and its hard not to like the Doctor when he is doing comedy.

It’s nice to see the Doctor doing a bit of sword fighting. When he was doing the fighting I was reminded of the sword fighting that Jon Pertwee’s Doctor and the Master did in The Sea Devils. This was better because it was more dramatic. This fight sees the Doctor lose a hand (something which becomes handy in Torchwood and a future Doctor Who story) but RTD creates a new piece of Timelord mythology when in the first 15 hours of a regeneration cycle he can grow back his hand.

Torchwood gets started in this episode with Harriet Jones mentioning them. It is responsible for destroying the Sycorax ship and this is an important moment because it is when the Doctor angry and it sparks the end of the Harriet Jones regime. Torchwood is the story arc for this season and it makes much more sense than the Bad Wolf arc.

I love the scene where the Doctor is trying on clothes. The song is nice and sung well and it blends in well with the Christmas dinner. Everything seems to be back to normal now and the troubles of the Doctor regenerating is sorted. The final scene sees snow falling or ash as it turns out to be but its looks like snow so that definelty makes it a Christmas special. It’s a nice end to what has been a rather good Christmas special. It did what it needed to do and did it well. It starts the Tennant era off in fine style

(706) The Doctor Dances

Before I start todays review I just wanted to say something that I hadn’t spoken of in yesterday’s episode. The cliffhanger was really good and a better one than in Aliens of London. The people in the hospital walking towards the Doctor, Jack and Rose mirrors what’s happening to Nancy back at the house.  They solved the problem of the NEXT TIME trailer in a two parter. They held it over to after the credits finished which is now the norm. Being so bothered by the Jack/Rose romance that was beginning. I hadn’t commented on what the point of Jack was in the story and he is basically a con man thinking that the Doctor and Rose were going to make him an offer. He basically is the one that caused the problems that are happening in this story.

I remember that there seemed to be a bit of annoyance when the title for this episode was revealed. I think that people imagine that it was going to be a Doctor Who version of Strictly Come Dancing which was clearly never going to be the case. RTD might be mad but even he would do that sort of stunt in the tenth episode of the reboot. The cliffhanger being done in the pre-title scene is something that I like about the new series and the Doctor manages to save the day by just acting like a parent and telling them to ‘go to their room’.

Unlike World War Three, this episode actually delivers on what was set up in the previous episode. The spookiness continues in this episode. I love the scene where they are in Room 802 with the drawings and all the carnage. It’s the sort of room that appears in the found footage films which take place in abandoned hospitals. It’s lit perfectly and James Hawes keeps the shots tight to hide the arrival of the boy in the gasmask. The bit where the tape ran out and yet the boy still talks and the typewriter still typing when the kid isn’t sitting next to it are two great moments.

I like how the Doctor is annoyed at Jack because of what he was doing. It’s a nice contrast with the love in from Jack and Rose. There was a bit more innocence in the previous episode. Due to the change, there is less stuff to find annoying in this episode about Jack and so it doesn’t bother me so much that he becomes part of the TARDIS crew. There is a shot of the three of them coming towards the camera and to me it works and this is the moment that I think they work as a trio. The scene where Jack joins the TARDIS crew is a good one and one that I didn’t think I would like when I started watching the two episodes.

Billie Piper isn’t as annoying as she has been for several episodes. Her best scene comes when Rose is talking to Nancy about the future of the country. Nancy’s truth is revealed at one of the tenser moments of the episode. In the previous episode we learn that the boy was Nancy’s brother but in fact he is her son. I like how Nancy hugging her son is what saves the day and for the first time means that there weren’t any deaths in a Doctor Who story.

The nanobots from the previous episode actually have a purpose and that is they are the one that caused the gasmask on everyones faces. Ok I would really liked to have blamed Captain Jack but on this occasion it was the nanobots. They think that the boy is how all humans should look like and be like and that is why everyone else is walking around saying mummy. It’s a great idea from Moffat and as a result this two part story is one of the strongest of the series.

After a rough couple of episodes, it feels like the show is back on track with a story that didn’t wallow in family back story and despite my mis-givings about the romance between Rose and Jack in the previous episode I think that this adventure is one of the strongest stories so far.

(705) The Empty Child

At the moment I am ready the novel Illegal Aliens which was written by Mike Tucker & Robert Perry which oddly enough was going to form part of the 1990 series had that been made. That story takes place in November 1940 which is just before the events of todays episode. I liked watching todays episode thinking that the seventh Doctor had been walking around the streets of the same city just a short time before. This is the second two parter story and in my opinion the strongest of the three that occur during this series. The story was written by future showrunner Steven Moffat (at a time when people liked him). The Rose problem is still on show in today’s episode. Not only is she wearing a Union Jack top but is obsessed with the Doctor using some ‘alien tech’ and wanting to do a bit of Spock stuff which makes me wonder if she wishes she were in Star Trek.

There are some lovely visuals in this episode. The first is when Rose is hanging from a barrage balloon just as planes are about to come towards her when bombs are falling towards the ground. The effect of Doctor Constantine’s transformation towards the end of the episode is a fantasticly gruesome one and one that I thought at the time would get the show into trouble but it still looks fantastic.

John Barrowman’s first scene is an odd one. He is basically perving over Billie Piper’s bottom (which most would say isn’t a bad thing). But it’s not the greatest of starts for the future Face of Boe. He spends his first episode pretty much flirting with Rose which just gets in the way of the story. If it weren’t for this flirting then I wouldn’t have found him so annoying.

If there is one thing that Moffat can do really well then its spooky drama. The idea of a small boy with a gas mask just saying “Are You My Mommy?” is something that could only have come from the mind of Moffat. The scene where Nancy and the Doctor are inside the house and the boy in the gas mask is outside. It’s a very enjoyable scene and shows how you can have a great moment in the show without CGI or any special effects.

Something else he has done well in this episode is the creation of Nancy and the young kids that she ‘mothers’. Despite the horrible settings they found themselves in there is something nice about the family that she seems to find herself being the mother of. Her story is very sad but I think that Florence Hoath works well with Christopher Eccleston. The whole Doctor/Nancy relationship works much better than the Doctor/Rose relationship has been recently. At the moment I wish that Rose would be left in 1941 and Nancy would go travelling with the Doctor. The idea of someone from the Second World War travelling in time and space is a great one. Nancy lost her brother during one of the airraids and he died.

Richard Wilson guest stars in these two episodes and whilst he is more known to me (and most people) for playing Victor Meldrew in the BBC sitcom One Foot in the Grave (1990-2000). He is great in the scene he is in before he gets a new gas mask as a face.

Steven Moffat has written a cracking set up episode. Despite the relationship between Rose and Captain Jack, I have found what he has written to be entertaining and its still easy to see why he would go on to be the showrunner in 2010. James Hawes deserves a lot of praise for making the whole episode look like it was actually filmed in 1941. The pacing is constant and I never found myself being bored (only when Rose and Jack were on screen). The omens are good for the next episode.

I’ve just read something about an interview that Christopher Eccleston did to promote some ITV drama (spits on the floor). In it he says that he would have done the comedy differently which to me is an odd thing to say because I actually think watching it this time that his comedy is actually pitched just right.