Testimony Of A Lackluster Doctor Who Christmas Special: "Twice Upon A Time"

The Good: Performances are good, Some of the jokes land
The Bad: Dull plot, Forced sense of conflict, Many of the jokes do not land on a character level, Failure of chemistry
The Basics: "Twice Upon A Time" is fairly pointless, nostalgic Doctor Who that belabors a character conflict that cannot possibly go in a surprising direction.


One of the worst aspects of changing the actor who plays The Doctor in Doctor Who is that who the new Doctor is rapidly becomes the most spoiled information in science fiction at its time. While that might not usually be an issue - and the announcement of Jodie Whittaker being cast as the next Doctor was made months ago - it usually means that the final episode of the current Doctor must be treated with some finesse. After all, Doctor Who viewers already know who to look for at the episode's climax, so the episode's writer and director has to make it interesting to the viewer to get there. Sadly, for Steven Moffat's final episode as showrunner for Doctor Who, "Twice Upon A Time," he forgets all about subtlety and finesse.

Instead, "Twice Upon A Time" quickly establishes a ridiculous premise that the viewer knows cannot possibly come to pass as Peter Capaldi's Doctor refuses to Regenerate. "Twice Upon A Time" attempts, vainly, to get the viewer to believe that Capaldi's Doctor might well be the final incarnation and that rather than regenerate, The Doctor is ready to die. The instant failure of suspension of disbelief quickly turns to a joke-filled love note from Steven Moffat to his own prior works as "Twice Upon A Time" packs in references to prior Doctor Who episodes Moffat wrote and/or produced, like "Into The Dalek" (reviewed here!), "The Pilot" (reviewed here!), and - most recently - "The Doctor Falls" (reviewed here!). Despite the flashback nature of the very opening of the episode, "Twice Upon A Time" picks up right after the final scene of "The Doctor Falls."

The First Doctor, following an incident with the Cybermen, takes the TARDIS to the South Pole, where he refuses to Regenerate. There, he encounters the latest (Peter Capaldi) incarnation of The Doctor outside his TARDIS. The First Doctor, considering death instead of Regeneration, seems to be enough to stop time for everyone but the two Doctors and a confused World War I Captain who suddenly appears there. After a brief flashback to explain how the Captain arrived at the South Pole - after encountering a mysterious, glasslike form of a woman - the two Doctors and the Captain retreat to the TARDIS, where the First Doctor is critical of its style and upkeep. The TARDIS is abducted and taken aboard another ship. The First Doctor leaves the TARDIS and is miffed by how The Doctor is referred to as The Doctor of War. The current Doctor, recognizing the reference and Bill, who appears from a room on the ship, leaves the TARDIS and begins to question his Companion.

Bill is confused when she cannot find Heather (who she recalls rescued her from the Cybermen). The Doctors investigate the ship, which belongs to the Testimony. The Testimony is a time-traveling library that goes into the past and extracts people in the moment of their death, downloads their memories, stores them and then returns the significant individual to their moment of death. The two Doctors, Bill and The Captain retreat to the First Doctor's TARDIS, where they begin a quest to find who the Testimony's template is based upon. To that end, they travel to the center of the galaxy to access the biggest database in the galaxy and The Doctor encounters "Rusty" the Dalek who rejected the rest of the Daleks. There, The Doctor learns about Testimony and he and the First Doctor return to Earth to face their destiny.

"Twice Upon A Time" hinges a lot on the viewer having an expert level knowledge of Doctor Who which, admittedly, I do not. As a result, I feel unqualified to discuss the quality of David Bradley's performance. Bradley mimics some of the obvious mannerisms of William Hartnell's Doctor - based on the archive footage I've seen in prior episodes and clips - but whether Bradley gets the character's voice and attitudes right is something I am not qualified to evaluate. The unfortunate aspect here is that the First Doctor spouts a lot of racist and sexist lines and mannerisms that might have been a sign of the times in the early 1960s when the show began, but make no sense for a character from Gallifrey. Unless when The Doctor was born on Gallifrey black women were maids, for example, some of the jokes fail to land on a character level.

Even as a person only marginally fluent in the current (2005 and up) Doctor Who some of the episode's "big surprises" fail to land. The identity of The Captain is hardly surprising and outside his lineage and being miffed when The Doctor references "I" after referring to the World War, the character is somewhat pointless in "Twice Upon A Time." The Captain's presence is an obligatory nod to the history of the franchise, as opposed to a vital character in his own right.

"Twice Upon A Time" belabors the humor while poking fun at inconsistencies and issues within Doctor Who. The First Doctor calls the sonic screwdriver absurd and questions how The Doctor could wear sunglasses indoors. The Doctor repeatedly crow's Missy's early line "you know who I am" to the First Doctor and Moffat and director Rachel Talalay use the opportunity to play with un-armored Daleks. But the First Doctor's sexism and the jokes predicated on outdated attitudes quickly wear thin.

Thematically, "Twice Upon A Time" is all about people who are too afraid of death desperately trying to run away from their inevitable mortality. The First Doctor and The Captain are not ready to die and are afraid of what might come next and The Doctor recognizes that his life is on an exceptionally short fuse and he tries to solve one last mystery before his death. But the significance of any discussion of mortality and acceptance of it is lost because the viewer already knows The Doctor's decision. In fact, we know the First Doctor's decision (to regenerate), that Bill is already dead, and that the Captain is not a significant enough character to care about his impending demise. So, "Twice Upon A Time" ought to be The Doctor's acceptance of life and his determination to regenerate and continue, but it meanders around fairly pointlessly until it gets to where it always had to.

The theme of "Twice Upon A Time" offers a natural opening for David Tennant's Doctor to make an appearance and it is disappointing that he is only in archive footage. Tennant's Doctor essentially begged for more time before his end and thematically, that fits "Twice Upon A Time" exceptionally well. The lack of an appearance by River Song - technically, she never dies, so that makes sense, save that Moffat already brought an image of her back once following her demise - is similarly disappointing.

Finally, the plot conceit of "Twice Upon A Time" builds into something painfully familiar. The "tour around the Best Of" idea wears thin and when a long-gone character appears, it quickly reminds viewers of just how limited Steven Moffat's writing has become. The "dead character living for an adventure" conceit was, essentially, the whole concept behind Clara's final exit with Ashildr.

The result is that Moffat guts much of his own creation on his way out. After finding amazing chemistry for The Doctor and Bill, they return stiff in "Twice Upon A Time" and the regeneration into the first female Doctor occurs without any reference to Missy or commentary on why The Doctor would regenerate as a woman this time (did it just not occur to him before?!). The result is something of an obligatory bridge episode that lacks a spark or genius and merely muddles through to the inevitable.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Tenth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the final season of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other Doctor Who Christmas episodes, be sure to check out:
"The Return Of Doctor Mysterio"
"Voyage Of The Damned"
"Last Christmas"

3.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and season reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Finish High: The Ninth Doctor Goes Out With A Bang In “The Parting Of The Ways!”

The Good: Wonderful acting, Great moments of character, Good tone, Decent effects, Cool villain moments
The Bad: None, really.
The Basics: Peaking with Rose reaching her heroic destiny (for now), “The Parting Of The Ways” sees the Ninth Doctor squaring off against the ultimate Dalek fleet!


Season finales have a big place in my heart and for the new Doctor Who, the “first” season finale – the finale that saw the climax of the character journey for the Ninth Doctor – created a standard that was hard to top. “The Parting Of The Ways” did exactly what a great season finale ought to do, which was bring the season together and conclude it in an engaging way that made the viewer want more. Taking obscure elements like the extrapolator acquired in “Boom Town” (reviewed here!), “The Parting Of The Ways” picks up immediately after “Bad Wolf” (reviewed here!) and it becomes one of the most memorable season finales in science fiction history.

Watching and rewatching “The Parting Of The Ways” made me realize that there are incredibly few amazing season finales that actually feature truly grand battles. Even Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s “A Call To Arms” (reviewed here!) was much more about the build-up to invasion than it was about a tremendous battle. “The Parting Of The Ways” is similar, though it does contain an incredible battle. But, like other impressive conflict shows, “The Parting Of The Ways” features an important ethical dilemma and has some surprises that are chilling time and time again. That makes the episode far more than just a conclusion to one season and a tease for the next; “The Parting Of The Ways” is an incredible hour of television that makes a larger statement . . . and it is a compelling one.

Opening with the Ninth Doctor rescuing Rose by transporting the TARDIS onto the Dalek mothership, The Doctor learns that the Daleks managed to survive the Great Time War through the intervention of the Dalek Emperor. The Dalek Emperor managed to harvest the dregs and lost members of humanity for their genetic material to create the new race of Daleks. The Doctor reasons that the Daleks (now made of pulped human DNA) loathe their own impurity and that makes them more dangerous than the Daleks ever were before. Returning to Satellite Five, The Doctor realizes that he can destroy the Dalek fleet using a Delta Wave . . . but it will take him days to build the weapon and the fleet is only twenty-two minutes away. After Harkness sets up a shield that will protect Satellite Five from the Dalek ships (and force them into making an assault by invading the satellite), he leaves The Doctor and Rose to rally the humans below Level 500 to try to hold off the impending Dalek invasion.

As the Delta Wave generator nears completion, The Doctor tricks Rose into getting into the TARDIS and he sends her back to her native time period. The Dalek Emperor, who has minted himself as the god of all Daleks, reveals that he knows The Doctor’s plan and is surprised when Harkness backs The Doctor’s plan to destroy the Dalek fleet even if it means wiping out all life on Earth (as the Delta Wave can be executed, but not sufficiently targeted in time). As Satellite Five is invaded by the Daleks and the humans who are willing to fight in the bleak future make a last stand, 200,000 years in the past, Rose Tyler unravels the mystery of Bad Wolf and works to make direct contact with the TARDIS to save humanity on her own terms.

“The Parting Of The Ways” is one of those amazing episodes of television that grows on the viewer with each viewing. Conflicts or concepts that do not quite gel in the first viewing are better explained through seeing the show multiple times. Chief among these is Rose Tyler’s Bad Wolf leap. When Rose Tyler looks into the heart of the TARDIS, so many things that were unresolved or minimally explained can be justified. In simpler terms, any issue one might have with the way Rose Tyler reasons out how the Bad Wolf graffiti is a message that she should go back to the future can easily be justified or explained away through the temporal influence that give her: at the moment Rose has the epiphany, the Bad Wolf is giving her the specific epiphany she needs. It’s pretty cool when the effects precede the cause, but “The Parting Of The Ways” does that very well.

The episode also does a decent job of continuing both the love between the Ninth Doctor and his dalliance with Lynda, who was introduced in the prior episode. Lynda drew The Doctor’s eye and even though “The Parting Of The Ways” has some of the purest moments of emotional connection between Rose Tyler and The Doctor, The Doctor still seems willing to run off with Lynda.

What sells all of the undertones (more than a soundtrack that builds to an emotional crescendo throughout the episode) is the episode’s climax and the performances in it. When The Doctor must choose between being coward or killer as he is set up to be the great exterminator in the wake of the Daleks decimating Earth, Christopher Eccleston gives his most impressive and deep performance as The Ninth Doctor. Eccleston goes through virtually every emotion in his performance in the last ten minutes of the episode and he is masterful in doing so.

In a similar fashion, Billie Piper connects with Eccleston like a complete professional. Her role in “The Parting Of The Ways” is easy to empathize with and she gets through some of the philosophical technobabble exceptionally well. The connection between Piper and Eccleston is amazing onscreen in “The Parting Of The Ways” and the episode manages to be big and intimate at the same time. The episode cements the Ninth Doctor as one of science fiction’s greatest, most complicated, intriguing heroes. That makes “The Parting Of The Ways” essential viewing for fans of science fiction or just great television.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sole season with the Ninth Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other season finales, be sure to visit my reviews of:
“The Beginning Of The End” - Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.
“Learning Curve” - Star Trek: Voyager
“Gethsemane” - The X-Files

10/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Setting The Stage For Destruction: “Bad Wolf” Is Plot-Heavy, But Cool!

The Good: Excellent continuity, Clever plot development, Performances
The Bad: Very light on character development
The Basics: The Doctor’s affections for Rose are diluted in “Bad Wolf” as the TARDIS crew is separated from one another and put into various television shows in the distant future.


For all the Whovians (Doctor Who fans) who like to play up the love between the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler, rewatching the series has a number of wake-up calls. I like The Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler, but objectively watching the series, there are frequent discrepancies between the ideal fans have for the show and what is actually in the program. Nowhere is fan denial of the on-screen truths greater than in “Bad Wolf,” the penultimate episode of the first season of the new Doctor Who series. For all those who love to claim that The Doctor has an intense and deep love for Rose Tyler, they seem to forget that in “Bad Wolf,” The Doctor picks up a new Companion in a virtually identical way to how he picks up Rose Tyler in “Rose” (reviewed here!). When The Doctor rescues Lynda, there is all the potential (and intent) that she would accompany The Doctor much like Rose did.

“Bad Wolf” is a follow-up to “The Long Game” (reviewed here!) and it pits The Doctor, Rose Tyler, and Jack Harkness against the Bad Wolf Corporation in Earth’s distant future. The episode also reaffirms that time is malleable in a way that allows Doctor Who to progress without any sense of continuity. The Doctor recalls several things that are unrealized in the first season of Doctor Who. While Harriet Jones’s brief arc is redefined in the next season, in “The Long Game” and “Bad Wolf,” The Doctor is plagued by memories of The Fourth Great And Bountiful Human Empire. The Fourth Great And Bountiful Human Empire was supposed to exist in Earth’s distant future, but its rise was disrupted by the Jagrofess and the building of Satellite Five. Satellite Five essentially enslaved Earth without its knowledge and in “Bad Wolf” the manipulations of those controlling Satellite Five are finally revealed. The episode also sets up the first season finale exceptionally well.

One hundred years after The Doctor killed the Jagrofess and liberated humans from the influence of Satellite Five, The Doctor awakens in a staging room for the Big Brother house that has three other occupants. Members of the reality television series are surprised by The Doctor’s appearance, as are the show’s controllers outside the room. Also suffering from mild amnesia is Rose Tyler who awakens on another set to find she is a part of The Weakest Link which is hosted by the Anne-Droid, a maniacal robot who asks trivia questions and (much to Rose’s horror) disintegrates those voted off the program. Similarly, Captain Jack Harkness awakens in the company of two robots who try to give him fashion makeovers, starting by dissolving his clothes.

The Doctor quickly realizes that whomever managed to abduct him and his crew from the TARDIS in the past, is exceptionally powerful and wants him alive. So, he vandalizes the Big Brother house, rescues Lynda from it and goes in search of the show’s controllers. The Doctor realizes that they are all on Satellite Five (though it is no longer called that) as Rose struggles to survive in The Weakest Link. At the same time, Jack breaks out of his televised “prison” and Lynda tells The Doctor that when the news channels went black a hundred years prior, Earth became a hellhole that was easily controlled by the reality programming that soon started streaming from the Game Station thanks to the Bad Wolf Corporation. As the trio rushes to rescue Rose from the finals of The Weakest Link, The Doctor is traumatized when he sees her disintegrated by the Anne-Droid. But Harkness realizes that the disintegration beam was actually a teleporter and in finding Rose, The Doctor, Lynda and Jack discover who has been manipulating the human race for hundreds of years!

Outside the climax of the episode, when The Doctor vows to rescue Rose Tyler at all costs, “Bad Wolf” is generally light on character and it actually has The Doctor separated from Rose. Without Rose, The Doctor latches onto the nearest woman in whom he sees potential and Lynda seems to represent that to him. The Doctor flirts with Lynda and reaches for her hand the way he reached for Rose’s at the beginning of the season. At the other end of the emotional spectrum, the character of The Doctor has a wonderful moment, compliments of Lynda, where he realizes that he is responsible for the downfall of Earth. The Doctor’s entire way of living is called into question and, for a moment (at least), it actually shakes him. The Doctor is unsettled until he sees who is behind manipulating the human race and when he resolves to rescue Rose, his strength is impressive. That moment illustrates the love that the fans so tout.

The acting in “Bad Wolf” is good, though both leads go through the exact same emotional journey. Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper laugh off their character’s predicaments until they discover the lethal consequences of the games in which they are participating. How The Doctor and Rose go from jocular to serious and afraid plays off only because Eccleston and Piper have exceptional range.

“Bad Wolf” is a great example of what Doctor Who can do best: the episode starts as goofy and transitions into something serious, smart, and somewhat menacing. The idea that humanity has been manipulated through television by an alien force is an interesting one and it is well-executed in “Bad Wolf.” The idea that episodes like “The Long Game” have serious consequences to the psyche of The Doctor is an engaging one as well. That The Doctor’s somewhat flighty way could lead his protected species to harm is one that grounds the character in a way that the sometimes goofy incarnation of The Doctor fails to connect.

Ultimately, “Bad Wolf” is a set-up episode for the first season finale and it is a fractured lead-in to the climactic finale. It’s worth the investment, but it is not a truly remarkable episode on its own.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sole season with the Ninth Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other penultimate episodes of shows that are truly just set-ups for the finales, please visit my reviews of:
“In The Cards” - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
“Ragtag” - Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.
“Life Matters” - True Blood

8.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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On Its Own, “Boom Town” Is Subtle Doctor Who!

The Good: Good mood, Decent acting, Moments of character
The Bad: Light on plot
The Basics: “Boom Town” sees the return of the Slitheen for a somewhat comical episode of Doctor Who that nets an important device leading into the first season finale.


Sometimes, there are better episodes of television in the context of the season or series they are a part of, as opposed to on their own. In Doctor Who, there are several episodes that have essential aspects in the larger context of the seasonlong arc that are somewhat unremarkable episodes. “Boom Town” is one of those episodes. Just like “Rules Of Acquisition” (reviewed here!) in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine had the appearance of being an unassuming Ferengi episode of little consequence, but was the first mention of The Dominion and essential for that, “Boom Town” is actually essential to both Doctor Who and Torchwood. In addition to referencing the Cardiff rift that was first mentioned in “The Unquiet Dead” (reviewed here!), “Boom Town” reveals the Heart Of The TARDIS and the tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator (the pan-dimensional surfboard), both of which are incredibly important in the season one finale and beyond. These little details actually make “Boom Town” an essential Doctor Who episode, masquerading as a bottle episode.

What “Boom Town” does exceptionally well is make an apparently mundane episode with a very limited plot into an episode packed with character elements that truly develop the four main characters who are presented in the episode. The Doctor is illustrated to be an intensely ethical and incredibly morally-complex character in “Boom Town.” Captain Jack Harkness’s character is developed further as he is revealed to be a natural leader. In fact, his reasoning and tactical skills are so ingrained that he has to be stopped in order to defer to The Doctor (and why he actually defers to The Doctor is something of a mystery). Rose, whose love for The Doctor seems to be obvious at this point and who has gotten some reciprocation on that affection, tries her best to reconnect with Mickey and discovers that avenue truly is closed to her. Mickey, for his part, becomes a more viable character in “Boom Town” by revealing that he is not just waiting around for Rose and he is actually hurt by the way she has abandoned him to fly off into time and space with The Doctor.

Six months after the Slitheen attempted to invade Earth, one of the inspectors from London arrives in Cardiff to try to warn the new Lord Mayor of Cardiff about problems with the planned nuclear power plant in Cardiff. Mr. Cleaver lets Lord Mayor Margaret know about the issues with the Blaidd Drwg nuclear power plant project and she reveals herself to be a Slitheen when she kills him. Shortly thereafter, The Doctor, Rose, and Captain Jack Harkness arrive in Cardiff where they intend to recharge the TARDIS using energy from the rift that runs below the city. While Mickey reconnects with the group (and is jealous of Jack), The Doctor sees a picture of Margaret in the local paper and the team goes to capture her. After foiling Margaret’s escape attempt, Harkness and The Doctor realize that the Slitheen is in possession of a pan-dimensional surfboard, which will allow her to escape Earth after the Blaidd Drwg nuclear plant explodes and frees the energy from the Cardiff rift.

Margaret reveals that the Slitheen have been tried in abstention on Raxacoricofallapatorius and that she faces the death sentence should The Doctor actually extradite her there. While Rose and Mickey begin to reconnect (until Mickey reveals he is dating another young woman from the shop Rose used to work at), The Doctor grants Blond’s (Margaret’s Slitheen identity) last wish, for a meal out. After she tries multiple times to kill The Doctor, she tries to explain to him how horrible the death penalty is on Raxacoricofallapatorius. When Blond erupts the rift to attempt to escape, The Doctor must decide whether to stop her and condemn her to death or give her the chance to choose to reform and accept the consequences of her previous actions.

“Boom Town” is a follow up to the two-part “Aliens Of London” (reviewed here!) and “World War Three” (reviewed here!), but it stands on its own fairly well even for those who might not have seen those two episodes. The return of the Slitheen Margaret seems to largely be to present the emotional and ethical dilemma that The Doctor faces in “Boom Town” as opposed to anything innately cool about the Slitheen or Margaret. Even so, the use of Margaret makes for better continuity and provides a minor emotional tether to earlier episodes.

The ethical dilemma in “Boom Town” is a fairly common one in science fiction. The Star Trek franchise has done many episodes where the question of extraditing a prisoner, knowing they will be killed, brainwashed or otherwise altered motivates the protagonists to rethink doing the legally-mandated thing. “Boom Town” asks similar questions well by taking an unlikable antagonist whose quest to destroy the Earth for profit was barely foiled and slowly making her sympathetic. Even after Blond kills Mr. Cleaver, she spares the life of Cathy, a reporter who is digging into the story of the Blaidd Drwg nuclear plant’s “curse.” Even though both The Doctor and Blond minimize that act of compassion, it is still an act of compassion and cultural contamination that has developed from Blond wearing her Margaret Blain skinsuit for too long.

The acting in “Boom Town” is fine, with the best performances coming from guest stars Noel Clarke and Annette Badland. Clarke presents Mickey with an undertone of anger that makes Mickey seem both very real and suddenly potentially menacing. For moments, it seems like Mickey could become an antagonist and Clarke does a good job of making the usually milquetoast Mickey into an edgier character. Similarly, Badland takes a character who has largely been used as comic relief and makes her into an articulate, emotionally-realized alien. For all those who complain about how lame the Slitheen costumes were, there is a moment when the rubber-suit alien emotes well and the voiceover from Badland sells the moment.

“Boom Town” also finally makes explicit the quiet menace that has been building the entire season of “Bad Wolf.” Of course, that is a prime example of something within the episode that works far, far better in the context of the entire first season than on its own. In “Boom Town,” The Doctor shrugs and dismisses “Bad Wolf” after he notices it and Rose seems troubled by it; that thread is picked up in the finale, though and that helps make the season’s climax come from a more ordered place than seem like a random leap.

Ultimately, “Boom Town” is entertaining, but simple and it works far better as a thread in the larger tapestry of Doctor Who than on its own.

For other works with somewhat ridiculous invaders, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The World’s End
“False Profits” - Star Trek: Voyager
“Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” - The X-Files

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sole season with the Ninth Doctor here!
Thanks!]

8/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Terror, Bananas, And Answers Come When “The Doctor Dances!”

The Good: Good plot, Decent acting, Moments of humor and horror work well, Special effects, Self-referential moments, Moments of character
The Bad: None
The Basics: Filled with good banter and horror moments, “The Doctor Dances” is an impressive resolution to the storyline begun in “The Empty Child.”


It is a rare thing for me to find a mystery truly engaging. I know that I am not the only one. In fact, there are very few dramatic television shows that produce two-part episodes (or longer arcs) in the form of mysteries. Mysteries are hard to pull off: if the clues are not all given in the first part, viewers feel cheated – like they could not have gotten the answers even by paying attention. If the clues are too obvious, though, a second part will bore viewers because they will have seen the end coming a mile away. “The Doctor Dances” is the second part of a mystery-horror episode of Doctor Who and it is actually a stronger episode than the first part.

“The Doctor Dances” follows immediately on the heels of “The Empty Child” (reviewed here!) and it is one of the rare second parts that is stronger than the first. It is impossible to discuss “The Doctor Dances” without revealing some aspects of “The Empty Child.” “The Doctor Dances” builds on the first part with all of the elements introduced in “The Empty Child” without simply reiterating the feeling of the first part.

With The Doctor saving himself, Rose, and Captain Harkness (and unwittingly, Nancy) by sending the gas mask-clad patients of the hospital to their room, Nancy collapses and is caught in the house she used to feed the children. Harkness details the con he was planning to play on The Doctor (thinking he was a Time Agent). The Doctor is convinced that the space junk, a Chula ambulance pod, is what was responsible for transforming the patients of the hospital. Together, the trio goes to the room where Jamie (The Empty Child) was brought the night the pod fell to Earth and they discover that the room is empty and the child has broken out of.

With the patients of the hospital closing in on The Doctor and Rose, Harkness helps the trio get to a secure location before he teleports out to his ship. Nancy abandons her orphan charges and tries to break into the crash site where the Chula hospital pod crashed. When Harkness rescues The Doctor and Rose, The Doctor deduces the cause of the mutation that turns people into gas mask-wearing undead. With the Nanogenes going airborne and rewriting people all over, Rose, The Doctor and Harkness find themselves at ground zero for a futuristic plague that threatens to wipe out human existence.

“The Doctor Dances” is an impressive mix of humor and horror. Doctor Who is seldom self-referential or willing to reference other science fiction programs. While “The Empty Child” referenced Star Trek, “The Doctor Dances” pokes some fun at the conceits of Doctor Who. The Doctor reveals the origins of the sonic screwdriver in a scene that makes the exposition fun and funny. Jack Harkness has a sonic disruptor and when he and The Doctor are fleeing, Harkness says what many fans of Doctor Who have long been thinking, “what the hell is the point of a sonic screwdriver?!”

Harkness is a fun character, but the real character development comes in the form of Rose Tyler and The Doctor. Rose re-establishes her interest in The Doctor, whatwith having been swept off her feet by Harkness in the prior episode. The Doctor’s trademark blend of humor and intelligence is played out brilliantly in “The Doctor Dances.” The humor comes in the form of a hilarious exchange about bananas that plays out well. What could have been a dry scene that discusses the origins of the sonic screwdriver is turned into a funny exchange. The chemistry between Rose and The Doctor is wonderfully re-established and it feels entirely organic.

“The Doctor Dances” is a perfect episode of Doctor Who that does not feel like it is rich in character, but it builds the characters of The Doctor, Rose, and Jack Harkness in a compelling way. Billie Piper and Christopher Eccleston have amazing on-screen chemistry in “The Doctor Dances.” What is truly impressive is how John Barrowman fits into their couple with a similar energy that is fun to watch and does not seem at all distracting or improbable (i.e. Rose’s attraction to Harkness seems like it could lead her legitimately away from The Doctor). All of the guest stars are good as well.

What is arguably the most impressive aspect of “The Doctor Dances” (outside the direction by James Hawes that captures the fancy footwork of The Doctor and Rose at the episode’s climax) is how the episode is entirely rewatchable because it quickly departs from the mystery format that build “The Empty Child.” Instead, the answers to the mystery that was unresolved in “The Empty Child” come quickly and the rest of the episode is spent on dealing with the cause of the creepy legion of undead mutated people and how all the various pieces might be altered to solve the resulting problem. “The Doctor Dances” is smart, tight television and it leaves the viewer satisfied that they have just watched something intelligent and enduring because they have.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sole season with the Ninth Doctor here!
Thanks!]

10/10

For check out how this episode stacks up against other Doctor Who episodes by visiting my Doctor Who Review Index Page where the episodes and seasons are organized from best to worst!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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“Are You My Mummy?” Terror Comes To Doctor Who In “The Empty Child!”

The Good: Charming lines, Creepy mood, Engaging plot
The Bad: Erratic special effects, Light on character development for the primary characters.
The Basics: Steven Moffat and James Hawes bring a creepy adversary and an energetic new hero to the Doctor Who universe with “The Empty Child!”


When my wife (and I) got into Doctor Who one of the things she did not know about the show was how frequently it would play to creepy or outright scary. One of the most instantly creepy episodes of the entire franchise is “The Empty Child.” “The Empty Child” is a time travel episode that puts The Doctor and Rose on Earth during World War II. Anyone who has seen “The Empty Child” is likely to instantly recognize the phrase “Are you my Mummy?” as a source of creepiness.

“The Empty Child” is a significant episode in the Doctor Who mythos and in television history as the first episode that features Captain Jack Harkness. Harkness would go on to be the protagonist of Torchwood. Played by John Barrowman, Harkness is the sexually-fluid, charming character who is able to hold his own against The Doctor and seems like the reasonable subject of a spin-off.

Latching onto an alien object when the TARDIS gets a Mauve Alert (which The Doctor informs Rose is the universal sign for emergencies), the TARDIS arrives in World War II London. Despite Rose begging The Doctor for “some Spock” (scanning for alien tech), The Doctor goes into a nightclub to find if anyone has heard a loud crash and seen an object falling from the sky. Leaving the club, while Rose tries to rescue a gas mask-clad child standing on a nearby rooftop, The Doctor is baffled when the TARDIS actually begins ringing . . . like a police box with a telephone. With Rose climbing on a rope to a German zeppelin and getting carried away, The Doctor follows a woman into another person’s house during an air raid.

Rescued by the enigmatic Captain Jack Harkness, Rose finds herself saved from almost certain death when she falls from the rope. Harkness uses a tractor beam and his computer recognizes Rose’s cell phone so it quickly becomes obvious to both people that neither is native to 1941 London. While The Doctor meets with orphans (and their benefactor) who dine in the homes of those who are forced into their shelters by the bomb sirens, Rose is charmed by Harkness. Harkness uses psychic paper (like The Doctor) and believes that Rose is a Time Agent. After Harkness heals Rose using nanobots that are thick in the air near his invisible ship, The Doctor hunts for the object that fell to Earth about a month before he and Rose arrived. Harkness claims that the object is a fallen Chula warship and he tries to negotiate with Rose for a price of the warship he salvaged. After asking about the object, The Doctor finds himself at the hospital in the presence of Doctor Constantine . . . and dozens of unconscious patients all of whom have identical injuries and gas masks fused to their faces!

“The Empty Child” is very much a British show; set in 1941 London, the episode stops dead long enough for The Doctor to express appreciation to Nancy (the young woman who is looking after the orphans and who tells The Doctor she lost a brother a month prior when the object fell from the sky) about British resilience in the face of Hitler’s advance. There is actually no real reason for The Doctor to praise how the British took a stand against Nazi Germany. While one might want to look at this as a truly revelatory moment (The Doctor is over 900 years old and of all the examples in the galaxy, he praises the British for their capacity for resistance), it is very ethnocentric; while the British have much to be praised for in terms of resilience to the Nazis, the Russians did quite a bit more.

Captain Harkness is a very cool character. In “The Empty Child,” he is characterized as a con man. Harkness admits fairly quickly that he is a con man. He is trying to sell an ambulance as a warship and when he is exposed by The Doctor, he is actually surprisingly honest.

“The Empty Child” is creepy as hell, though. The little child who wears a gas mask and coos “Are you my mummy?” is echoed by the dozens of undead people in Doctor Constantine’s office. The result, which comes after a bit of build-up with the single empty child, is terrifying. This is arguably one of the creepiest antagonists ever produced on Doctor Who.

While “The Empty Child” has wonderful performances all the way around – John Barrowman is a scene stealer as Harkness, Billie Piper has great on-screen chemistry with both him and Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor – it is fairly light on character development. This is a very plot-based episode of Doctor Who and it works very hard to build the premise of the mystery of what is going on in the streets of 1941 London. Like all wonderful mysteries that have two parts (as “The Empty Child” is the first of a two-part episode), this episode actually contains all the clues one needs to discern the cause of the medical mystery it has built. Despite all of the horror aspects to the episode, it is very much a mystery episode. It does not, however, contain any real character revelations to it. In fact, the closest we get to character development in “The Empty Child” is Rose begrudging The Doctor the fact that he never scans for alien technology when they arrive on Earth for one of their adventures.

“The Empty Child” has unfortunately erratic special effects. While the morph with Doctor Contantine near the episode’s climax is creepy and well-executed, the sequence with Rose near the beginning is actually a terrible bluescreen shot.

Ultimately, “The Empty Child” is a wonderfully horrifying episode that gives viewers chills each and every time one watches it. It’s entertaining television, but not flawless.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sole season with the Ninth Doctor here!
Thanks!]

6.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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From The Political To The Personal, “Father’s Day” Is An Important Dramatic Shift For Doctor Who!

The Good: Wonderful character development, Good acting, Good narrative structure
The Bad: None within the episode.
The Basics: Rose Tyler gets the focus of “Father’s Day” when she explores her dead father’s timeline and makes an effort to save his life . . . with disastrous consequences.


In decent serialized television, like Doctor Who, the conceptual framework of the series has to be established and sometimes the episodes that establish the framework are not as good as the episodes that simply exist within the framework and use it. In the first season of Doctor Who, “The Long Game” (reviewed here!) establishes the fluidic nature of time within the Doctor Who Universe. The episode, however, is largely without significant character development. So, that the episode follows up with “Father’s Day,” a powerfully character-centered episode that utilizes the framework established in “The Long Game” works to the benefit of the season.

“Father’s Day” is also notable in that it does not have a defined villain, which is pretty refreshing given that the prior episodes almost exclusively contain adversaries motivated primarily by greed. “Father’s Day” is a strong Rose episode and focusing on The Doctor’s companion for an altered-time episode establishes a decent precedent for the show. In addition to finally making explicit that The Doctor has the ability to alter the outcome of the Great Time War where The Doctor’s people were all killed, it is finally explained – explicitly - why such changes cannot be made in the Doctor Who Universe.

Recalling how her mother told her about her father’s death, Rose implores The Doctor to take her to visit her father. Together, they witness Peter and Jackie Tyler marrying (with Pete getting Jackie’s name wrong) and then they journey to the day Peter died from a random driver running him over. Witnessing him getting hit by the car, Rose is distraught and wants to make sure that Pete will not die alone. Going back to right behind themselves, Rose runs out and stops Pete from getting killed. Despite The Doctor being clearly upset over Rose’s meddling with the time stream, the pair returns to Pete’s apartment where Rose sees all of Pete’s weird inventions. The Doctor abandons Rose in his anger and runs afoul of a massive flying creature he calls a Reaper.

Accompanying Pete to the wedding of Sarah Clarke and Stuart Hoskins, Rose encounters the younger version of her mother as people in the immediate vicinity begin to disappear at alarming rates. Jackie, seeing Rose, gets upset with Pete (and his job history). The Doctor arrives in time to save Rose and some of the wedding guests from the Reapers who are picking off people in the area. The Doctor reasons that saving Pete’s life has created a wound in time and, seeing the car that was supposed to kill Pete appearing and disappearing around the church leads The Doctor and Pete try to restore order to the timeline.

The fundamental fluidity of the Doctor Who universe is explored wonderfully in “Father’s Day.” Not only does such a fundamental shift in time, such as Rose saving Pete’s life, alter the immediate vicinity, it creates tremendous ripples throughout the timeline. The TARDIS disappears and the appearance of the Reapers menaces all existence. In the larger context of Doctor Who this sort of illustrated consequence makes one question how such consequences are avoided for other temporal incursions (like how the Jagrofess in the prior episode enslaving Earth for 91 years that altered what The Doctor remembered of time not having similar consequences) makes no sense. But within “Father’s Day,” there are no such issues.

In fact, “Father’s Day” might well be the first perfect episode of Doctor Who, at least in the rebooted series. The episode is strong in character development for Rose and there are a number of incredible lines from The Doctor that enhance his character’s flexibility. He gets very angry at Rose throughout “Father’s Day,” but he comes to the anger from a place of frustration and love. Pete is characterized well as a smart, imaginative, but out-of-touch man and there is an interesting parallel to be made between him and The Doctor in the episode. Fortunately, Rose immediately puts the kibosh on Pete’s unwitting almost-advance upon her.

Actors Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper have amazing on-screen chemistry in “Father’s Day.” Their ability to emote to one another through eye contact is incredible and they sell the deepest emotional moments for their characters very well. Camille Coduri (Jackie) and Shaun Dingwell (Pete) have decent banter that makes it seem like they were a viable married couple once upon a time. Their on-screen tension plays out well through the course of the episode.

“Father’s Day” is one of the few episodes of Doctor Who that cheats on some of the consequences; most episodes of Doctor Who do not essentially “reset” the timeline to its starting point (characters remember the incidents in the episodes, casualties remain dead and time goes on with the incursion in place). “Father’s Day,” despite being wonderful, pretty much half-asses its resolution. While it restores the timeline, essentially, the story that Jackie tells the young Rose Tyler changes . . . so how the episode actually works out remains troublingly murky. What happened? What didn’t? In the final blend of the temporal wound and its resolution, the timeline is resolved in a murky way. The argument can be made – given that The Doctor and the previously-deceased father come out of the church after the important event – that a rest happens when Pete meets his fate head-on, but it does not really explain how the temporal reset works. Jackie says “people say” there was a girl . . . even though she saw the girl in question and how they disappeared.

That said, “Father’s Day” is still a perfect episode. The level of character, consequences, and the performances all lend themselves well to a solid hour of television that replays remarkably well. Despite all the time spent on the conceits, “Father’s Day” is a tight, resonating character story that is accessible to fans and casual viewers of Doctor Who.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sole season with the Ninth Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other, intriguing time-travel stories, be sure to check out my reviews of:
“The Visitor” - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Fringe - Season Five

10/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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One-Shot With A Brilliant Social Message And An Alien Of The Week Playing “The Long Game!”

The Good: Acting (especially the regulars and Simon Pegg), Moments of character, Concept
The Bad: Moments of cheesiness, Erratic character development, Special effects
The Basics: “The Long Game” is a better episode in the context of the first season of Doctor Who than it is a decent hour of television.


The concept of a time travel show is an interesting one, especially when it involves travel forward and backward in time. Doctor Who, with its reboot in the mid-2000s, was ballsy in that it went backward and forward in little increments and leaps and bounds, usually episode by episode. Unfortunately, even as the show managed to keep the feeling of being fresh in its seventh episode, “The Long Game,” those who watch the season attentively will find that “The Long Game” is very much the same – thematically – as most of the episodes that preceded it. Doctor Who belabors a theme of greed in its first season, which has a foil in the selfless act at the climax of the season. Until that comes up, though, it seems like every adversary The Doctor and Rose encounter is motivated by pure, unadulterated, greed.

“The Long Game” is an episode that appears to be a standalone episode, though it resonates later in the season with a return to the setting introduced in this episode. The purpose of the episode is largely to dispose of the new companion and illustrate an audacious concept in the Doctor Who chronology. In this version of Doctor Who, time is in flux and The Doctor recognizes differences between what time is supposed to be and what it ends up being. Unfortunately, this revelation – and its relevance later in the season – do not save the episode from being an often-cheesy Alien Of The Week Episode.

The Doctor, Rose and Adam arrive 200,000 years in Earth’s future. There, they find themselves on Satellite Five where The Doctor expects to find Earth at the great and bountiful Fourth Empire, at the height of culture and civilization. While Rose and Adam explore Satellite Five, the Doctor investigates the discrepancies between the history he remembers and the filthy, news-obsessed, somewhat oppressive civilization he finds there. Adam gets Rose’s TARDIS-based cell phone while The Doctor looks at the technology that runs Satellite Five. When their guide, Cathica, is alarmed when her subordinate at the planet’s news organization, Suki is abruptly promoted, The Doctor reveals that time has been horribly altered.

Suki meets with the Editor of the news feed that Satellite Five is streaming out while Adam tries to learn about the advanced computer technologies in the year 200,000 to send back to the past (presumably for his own gain). With The Doctor’s credits buying him a brain-computer upgrade, Adam gains the ability to hack into Satellite Five’s main computer. The Doctor and Rose, watching the heat signatures, head to Floor 500 after Cathica reveals that Satellite Five came on line 91 years prior, which is about how long human evolution seems to be off-course from The Doctor’s expectations. On level 500, The Editor of Satellite Five reveals what is behind the alterations to human history and Adam Mitchell’s interference on Satellite Five puts Rose and The Doctor at risk!

“The Long Game” is a real mixed concept episode. The Jagrofess is a pretty generic alien of the week and the alien and the episode rely largely upon Simon Pegg’s Editor character to sell the concept of the episode. That means a lot of exposition for the episode comes from a surprisingly creepy Pegg. The Jagrofess itself, like the head computer when Adam first uses it, looks ridiculous and it’s hard to watch “The Long Game” and not feel that there is a definite cheese factor working against the episode. Between the computer generated effects and the high camera angle descending upon Suki when she first encounters the Jagrofess and screams (as opposed to attempting escape), “The Long Game” relies a lot on elements that do not work to the benefit of the episode.

But “The Long Game” actually establishes some important conceits for this new Doctor Who. Time is fluid, so the expectations of what the Fourth Great And Bountiful Human Empire is supposed to be is established, but completely undone. The Doctor has knowledge of time and his willingness to change the course of human history . . . without actually fixing the initial problem. “The Long Game” becomes a somewhat disturbing conceptual episode in that, fairly early in the episode, The Doctor is told by Cathica that Satellite Five was created ninety-one years prior. Rather than leaving humanity enslaved for ninety-one years by a force that The Doctor knows is stunting human growth, The Doctor could have taken Rose, Adam and the TARDIS back to the inception of the temporal interference by the Jagrofess and prevented the degradation of humanity. One of the serious issues with “The Long Game” is that the Jagrofess’s temporal incursion is never actually explained. The Doctor knows time has been altered and the cause is the creation of Satellite Five and the appearance of the Jagrofess, but how those events occurred when The Doctor remembers the history of the future differently does not make sense.

On the character front, “The Long Game” is erratic as well. The Doctor is almost an incidental character in the episode until the very end. Ceding the spotlight to Rose, The Doctor lets Rose try to wow Adam before she finds him unworthy of her attention and affection. Adam’s presence pretty much forces the viewer to watch the episode “Dalek” (reviewed here!) to understand. But what follows is a huge chunk of plot exposition where Adam and the setting have more character than The Doctor and Rose. In fact, in the middle acts, the only real character moment for the Doctor and Rose comes when they take one another’s hand and take the lift to level 500.

Adam’s character development mirrors the plot exposition, as laid out by the Editor. Adam is greedy and wants to exploit future technology in the past, much like Rasmussen in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “A Matter Of Time” (reviewed here!). Again, the villain is just motivated by avarice and an inflated sense of profit motive and that, by this point in the season, is getting quite tired.

Fortunately, The Doctor’s actions in the episode’s climax completely justify the lackluster sense of growth throughout the rest of the episode. Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper once again illustrate amazing on-screen chemistry as The Doctor and Rose. They have great timing for their characters’ banter and Billie Piper’s looks of adoration at Eccleston sell her character’s deep-seated feelings for him wonderfully.

Still, “The Long Game” is very average television and while it is amusing and becomes important, on its own it is a much weaker episode than one might hope for.

For other works with Simon Pegg, please check out my reviews of:
The World's End
Star Trek Into Darkness
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Paul
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader
Star Trek
How To Lose Friends And Alienate People
Run, Fatboy, Run
Mission: Impossible III

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sole season with the Ninth Doctor here!
Thanks!]

5.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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“I, Borg” For Doctor Who? The Inevitable Return Of The “Dalek” Tries For Something Substantive!

The Good: Character development, Plot progression, Impressive acting (especially by Christopher Eccleston)
The Bad: Thematically heavy-handed in context
The Basics: “Dalek” restores a single villainous adversary to the Doctor Who universe . . . with powerful results for The Doctor and Rose.


In Star Trek: The Next Generation, one of the most compelling character arcs involved Captain Jean-Luc Picard wrestling with the consequences of his abduction by the villainous Borg. In one of the few serialized elements of the largely episodic series, Picard’s emotional confrontation with a single Borg was explored in a popular and powerful episode called “I, Borg” (reviewed here!). It is tough for genre fans not to make a comparison between “I, Borg” and the Doctor Who episode “Dalek.”

For those not hip on Doctor Who, the most popular, powerful, recurring villains are the Daleks. The 2006 Doctor Who reboot was set following the end of the Great Time War, which was alluded to in bits and pieces throughout the first five episodes. In “Dalek,” the conflict is made a bit more explicit as The Doctor is forced to wrestle with the consequences of his actions that resolved the Great Time War. Unfortunately, The Doctor was responsible for the genocide of the entire race that fought the Time Lords. The Doctor was the last surviving Time Lord, but in ending the Great Time War, he supposedly destroyed each and every Dalek in existence. In “Dalek,” The Doctor finds out that he is not the only survivor of the Great Time War: there is a single Dalek alive as well!

The TARDIS is drawn off course to 2012 Utah where The Doctor and Rose find themselves in a subterranean museum. The facility is packed with artifacts that are all related to The Doctor’s prior adventures and experiences (like a stuffed Slitheen arm and a Cyberman head). The museum’s owner is Henry Van Stanton, who promptly captures The Doctor and Rose. Van Stanton is keen on information on his one living specimen in his collection, a creature he calls a Metaltron and that has life readings inside its metal shell. The creature is a Dalek and despite the Doctor’s initial fear of it, he is delighted when it turns out the Dalek is powerless and unable to harm him. Revealing the nature of the Daleks to Van Stanton, Henry Van Stanton realizes that The Doctor is not human.

With The Doctor captured, Rose – who has befriended Van Stanton’s genius assistant, Adam Mitchell – witnesses the Dalek being tortured. Feeling compassion for the creature, Rose breaks into the chamber that houses the Dalek and, as it appears to die, she reaches out and touches its metal housing. That allows the Dalek to extrapolate her DNA and regenerate its organic component. Repaired and absorbing the whole of human knowledge from the internet, the Dalek goes on a killing spree and menaces the entire facility. To prevent the Dalek from killing everyone, Rose and The Doctor use captured alien technology to slow the Dalek down. In the ensuing combat, The Doctor puts Rose in mortal peril and together they work to keep the menace contained to the facility.

The emotional punch of “Dalek” comes at the episode’s outset and climax, with a long stretch in between where the episode degenerates into a firefight between Van Stanton’s forces and the Dalek. The initial reactions of The Doctor when confronted with the Dalek takes the character through the entire emotional range and it’s an impressive acting exercise for Christopher Eccleston. Realistically, Eccleston portrays The Doctor as horrified, then euphoric, then angry and the transitions hardly seem erratic as they would from a lesser actor. When The Doctor witnesses the might of the Dalek, Eccleston’s portrayal of utter shock is incredible.

“Dalek” features decent transitions between the action-packed portions and the philosophical elements. Despite the somewhat abrupt initial transition from a very conversation-realistic (if not heavy) episode to an extended chase sequence that is light on dialogue and heavy on gunplay. But then, Doctor Who fans and those who like good television have reason to rejoice; “Dalek” turns philosophical with The Doctor actually talking with the Dalek. When Stanton’s people are unable to keep the bulkheads in the bunker open, the episode utilizes the opportunity to have The Doctor go on a moralistic tirade. It’s refreshing to watch science fiction that has a philosophical component and watching both The Doctor and Rose debate with the confused Dalek is intriguing and interesting to watch.

The episode, however, is a little more problematic in context. “Dalek” is episode six and three of the five adversaries from those episodes have identical motivations. The villain in “The End Of The World” (reviewed here!) and in the Slitheen arc are both after profit. Greed is a motivation for villains, but so far it’s the motivation for all the big villains and with Henry Van Stanton being motivated by profit motive, too, the theme is getting pretty stale by this point. That said, within the episode, the theme works wonderfully. Van Stanton’s greed is a foil to the Dalek, which wants nothing other than to exert its superiority over all other life forms, and because it cannot be bribed, only a philosophical battle makes sense for resolving the conflict.

Amid the philosophy and character journey for The Doctor, one which is intended to bring him some sense of peace following the issues that brought him to Earth at the outset of the series, the relationship between The Doctor and Rose Tyler deepens. This episode marks a departure from the usual flirting between The Doctor and Rose and instead it gives them a chance to explore something more intense. After Rose flirts with Adam, she tries to absolve The Doctor of his guilt when she is convinced she will be killed by the Dalek. That moment is an intense bonding moment that cements their relationship in a way that the prior episodes have only been building to. That an emotionless Dalek can recognize The Doctor’s love for Rose pretty much codifies the implicit romance between them.

On the design front, “Dalek” makes an intriguing implicit statement about the relationship between the Time Lords and Daleks. The Daleks are designed with a color scheme and metal balls that are similar to the interior of the TARDIS. That the two opposing races are so, apparently, intertwined, seems to imply that the Daleks and Time Lords are really only philosophically different and in their technological focus (destruction vs. exploration).

“Dalek” is not quite on the philosophical level of “I, Borg,” though it makes a powerful statement and is a solidly entertaining hour of television. This is one of the more impressive conceptual episodes of Doctor Who that actually pushes forward the characters as opposed to working hard to sell a convoluted plot or audacious theme. The Doctor is a fun and interesting character, but the conflict in this episode does not quite reach a philosophical peak that one might hope for (Rose actually has one of the biggest epiphanic moments).

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sole season with the Ninth Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Corey Johnson, please visit my reviews of:
X-Men: First Class
Kick-Ass
Hellboy
The Mummy

9/10

For other Doctor Who episode and season reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Part Two, “World War Three” Concludes, But Does Not Blow Viewers Away.

The Good: Decent acting, Good pacing
The Bad: Mixed special effects, Light on character development
The Basics: “World War Three” reveals the plot of the alien invaders in the second part of the arc that is very preoccupied with answering questions from the first part as opposed to telling a strong Doctor Who story.


On Doctor Who, the new continuation of the franchise, the stories are largely serialized. Even so, there are some stories that cannot be contained within a single episode. The very first explicit two-parter is “Aliens Of London” (reviewed here!) and its second part, “World War Three.” “World War Three” is a continuation of the plotline which finds Earth under an alien invasion in the near future (or what was the near future when the episode aired in 2006) and it is impossible to discuss without revealing some spoilers from the first part.

“World War Three” has some of the same basic problems as the first part – minutae like The Doctor listening to a signal and trying to translate it while Rose shows none of the same ability (though both should be tapped into the TARDIS telepathic translation matrix) – and the episode is similarly plot-centered, though it is not bad. What it does illustrate is how curt The Doctor can be and, unfortunately, how plot-focused the show could be for some of its arcs. “Aliens Of London” dug the characters into a sufficiently deep hole; “World War Three” takes a lot of focus to get the characters out of their predicament and save the world . . . with little time for character growth and development.

When The Doctor turns the Slitheen weapon on his captors, it incapacitates all of the Slitheen on Earth. This allows Rose and Harriet Jones and Mickey and Jackie, separately, to escape their respective Slitheen captors. Rose, Harriet, and The Doctor escape to the most secure room in Downing Street where The Doctor works to formulate a plan. The Slitheen, which is a family of aliens, congregate at the upper levels of the Prime Minister’s office.

Using Rose’s boosted phone to contact Mickey, The Doctor tries to narrow down where the Slitheen are from. Deducing from the technology, size and composition of the aliens that they are from Raxacoricofallapatorius, the alien-inhabited acting Prime Minister makes an appeal to the United Nations for the nuclear codes that will allow the Slitheen to destroy the ship they crashed in the Thames. Believing there is an alien invasion imminent, the UN debates releasing the nuclear codes, while the Doctor appeals to the Slitheen and is forced to make a decision which endangers Rose. Working with Mickey over the phone (Mickey having gotten into UNIT’s controls over the internet thanks to the Doctor), the Doctor tries to avert nuclear destruction and stop the Slitheen from making profit off the Earth’s burnt-out remains!

The thing is, Rose is an adult and she is old enough to make her own decisions, so her willingness to be put in peril in order to save Earth from the Raxacoricofallapatorians is hers to make. So The Doctor’s moral dilemma of the episode seems especially forced and melodramatic.

Arguably more important to “World War Three” is the progression of guest character Harriet Jones. Harriet Jones acts as a Companion to The Doctor in the episode and she is an interesting addition to the team. Indeed, she is a natural leader and she makes for a good Companion for The Doctor, even if only for the episode. The Doctor’s revelation about Harriet Jones near the climax of the episode is an interesting one and it promises the character’s return, which adds to the sense of a larger story being told in the first season of Doctor Who.

The Doctor is much more curt in “World War Three” than in prior episodes. He’s pleasantly goofy at some points, but he’s just mean to Mickey (until the very end of the episode) and the way he dismisses Jackie out of hand when she tries to cook for him is off-putting. On the plus side, The Doctor is characterized more as a thinker than any sort of omniscient being in “World War Three.” He uses deductive reasoning and rational thinking as opposed to suddenly divining correct answers (and keeping them from his Companion and the audience) until it is plot-convenient.

Despite the plot-heavy nature of “World War Three” and the occasionally gruff nature of The Doctor in the episode, the acting is wonderful. Billie Piper, Christopher Eccleston, and Penelope Wilton all interact flawlessly with CG versions of the Slitheen. While some people take issue with the cheesy look of the Slitheen, they are a unique alien life form in science fiction and they look decidedly more real as big rubber suits than in their computer generated forms. Piper and Eccleston continue to build on their character’s chemistry, though there is less flirtatious banter in “World War Three” than in any of the prior episodes.

“World War Three” ends up being a necessary conclusion to the first two-parter in the new Doctor Who, but it is not a stellar episode of television. It suits its purpose in an enjoyable-enough way, but it is not particularly substantive or satisfying outside the resolution it brings.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete First Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sole season with the Ninth Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Penelope Wilton, please visit my reviews of:
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
Pride And Prejudice

5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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