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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First Contact In Doctor Who Comes In The Form Of Invasion From The “Aliens Of London!”

The Good: Mood, Significance, Continuity, Some great lines.
The Bad: Mixed special effects, Very light on character development
The Basics: Doctor Who develops an alien invasion conspiracy surrounding first contact with aliens in “Aliens Of London.”


Every major science fiction program that has extraterrestrial characters interacting with human beings has to, at one point or another, address the concept of First Contact. First Contact is generally regarded as one of the most important moments in human history when humanity publicly, undeniably, encounters extraterrestrial life. In the Star Trek franchise, the idea was made explicit with horror film interpretation in Star Trek: First Contact (reviewed here!) and as a political allegory exploring the idea in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “First Contact” (reviewed here!). The two contrasting visions within one franchise is interesting and there is something funny about how long it took the Star Trek franchise to get around to the concept explicitly (it was the spinoff, not the original Star Trek that addressed First Contact. For the current run of Doctor Who, then, it is somewhat refreshing that the series gets to First Contact so very quickly. In the fourth episode, alien life reaching Earth is made explicit with “Aliens Of London.”

Believing they have only been gone for twelve hours, The Doctor and Rose nonchalantly return to modern day London. There, The Doctor discovers that they have actually been gone for a year, and after trying to smooth things over with Jackie (Rose’s mother), an alien ship crashes into Big Ben and then the Thames River. When the television reports declare that an alien body has been fished out of the Thames, panic ensues . . . especially when the British Prime Minister appears to have gone missing. With the Minister in charge of sugar subsidies being made acting Prime Minister, Rose works to enjoy the moment while The Doctor hunts down what is going on (this is not the version of First Contact that he recalls).

Infiltrating the military hospital, The Doctor encounters the “alien corpse.” It is not dead and, sadly, it is not an extraterrestrial (it’s a pig with an altered brain). At Downing Street, one of the back bench Ministers – Harriet Jones – witnesses the real aliens as they take control of General Asquith. When Rose is reunited with Mickey (whom Jackie accused of doing something horrible to Rose during her missing year), she is forced to tell her mother something about The Doctor. Realizing the space ship crash was a fake that utilized actual alien technology, The Doctor and Rose try to get to the truth. Unfortunately, Jackie’s motherly concern kicks in and she calls the authorities which become a roadblock to The Doctor thwarting the alien invasion and uncovering the real culprits behind the historic event!

“Aliens Of London” might have some soap operatic qualities - when it is not busy with reforging the relationship between Mickey and Rose, it takes time to complicate that by The Doctor treating Ricky, er, Mickey, poorly and Rose being more amused than offended by that – but the rest of the time, it is actually a surprisingly tense alien invasion episode. The episode breaks up scenes that are enough to make viewers intensely jumpy with humor. The Doctor has some great lines and Harriet Jones’s trademark introduction is repeated enough through the episode to be amusing. “Aliens Of London” explicitly references past Doctor Who by introducing the idea of UNIT (a United Nations alien task force) and it continues the long history of Doctor Who as somewhat campy science fiction through the Earth being invaded by the galaxy’s most flatulent aliens ever.

The sense of camp in “Aliens Of London” comes more from the special effect than the episode’s general tone. For sure, the Doctor is weirdly goofy as he and Rose are driven to 10 Downing Street, but the rest of the time, the episode is preoccupied with creating a realistic interpretation of an alien invasion that cripples the highest levels of British government. Unfortunately, some of the elements used to create that realistic mood and story are utterly ridiculous. The flesh suits of the discarded humans look silly and the aliens, when revealed in the episode’s climax are so goofy that until the next episode explains them, it is hard to imagine viewers not just turning Doctor Who off and not returning to it.

That said, “Aliens Of London” does work hard to take itself seriously. The Doctor in “Aliens Of London” goes from excited about exactly what is happening to humanity to deeply concerned when he realizes that it is a hoax. His quips in the episode are a bit more harsh – though his renaming Mickey and then berating him when Mickey only “thinks” he knows what his name is one of the most memorable lines of the series – than usual, but they keep the episode moving along at a good pace. The idea of how Mickey was a suspect in Rose’s disappearance and how Jackie and Mickey relate to Rose returning is pretty realistically handled. The realism of the human interactions and The Doctor’s investigation into the crash are contrasted by the ridiculousness of the three flatulent aliens in plus-sized human bodies.

“Aliens Of London” does not showcase anything incredible on the acting front. Noel Clarke is somewhat stiff as Mickey (he fails truly to sell his anger at Rose or Jackie) and Camille Coduri emotes like a soap opera actress as Jackie. Coduri drops her coffee mug well, but she does not play shocked to see Rose with any extraordinary or specific talent. Even Penelope Wilton is given too little to do as Harriet Jones to wow.

Christopher Eccleston handles The Doctor’s mood swings well and Billie Piper comes back from her mediocre performance in “The Unquiet Dead” (reviewed here!) with a stable performance that embodies well the mixed feelings Rose now has. Rose is torn between her feelings for Mickey and The Doctor and that is played out well in “Aliens Of London.”

The first of a two-parter (technically, a three-parter, though the third part comes much later), “Aliens Of London” is the set-up for a big conflict between humans and aliens and it does what it sets out to do well, even if the episode is not chock full of character development.

[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 Rupert Vansittart, please visit my reviews of:
Austenland
Painted Lady
Braveheart

7/10

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 Moment He First Takes Her Hand, The Grand Romance Begins Between The Doctor And “Rose!”

The Good: Decent acting, Interesting initial characterizations, Good humor, Decent sense of menace/mood
The Bad: Somewhat silly plot premise.
The Basics: In “Rose,” an alien Time Lord grabs a shopgirl to save her life and, in the process, starts an adventure with her that will bind them through time and space.


Now that I have completed my reviews of the final episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise (reviewed here!), I have exhausted the entire Star Trek franchise for reviews! If one had told me that I would then go on to review all of the (modern, at least) Doctor Who, I would have told them that they were crazy. My wife, however, has become obsessed with the new Doctor Who and now that she has picked her fandom, I figure it’s time to give it a fair shake. The new saga of Doctor Who begins with “Rose.”

“Rose” is the name of the new (Ninth, though now with the retroactive creation of the War Doctor, technically the Tenth Doctor) Doctor’s primary companion. The title character of Doctor Who is The Doctor, a Time Lord who has visited Earth over many decades in his time machine known as the TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space), with different faces, personalities, and wardrobes in each incarnation. In “Rose,” The Doctor is introduced with surprisingly little fanfare, but the show works hard to be instantly accessible to new viewers and most everything is explained in “Rose” the way one might want it to be. In fact, in “Rose,” there is a strong insinuation (by The Doctor seeing himself for the first time in a mirror) that this latest incarnation of The Doctor is still a very new one.

At 7:30 in London, Rose Tyler wakes up in her apartment (actually, her mother’s) and goes to work at the department store, Henrik’s. Her day is spent working, hanging out with her boyfriend (Mickey) and she gets to the end of the night when she has to close the shop. On her way out of Henrik’s, she is tasked with bringing lottery money to the basement. In trying to get Wilson the shop’s lottery money, Rose Tyler ends up in the basement . . . surrounded by mannequins that move about and menace her. Backed into a corner, someone takes her hand and urges her to run. Together, they run to safety.

The man is The Doctor and after urging Rose to get herself to safety, he blows up Henrik’s. Rose takes a mannequin’s arm The Doctor tossed at her back to her apartment where her mother is worried about her, as is Mickey. The next morning, The Doctor tracks down the plastic arm and, inadvertently, Rose. After saving her from the animated plastic arm using his sonic screwdriver, The Doctor tells Rose that there is a war going on on Earth that humans are oblivious to and that the plastic that has come alive is simply being manipulated by an alien force. In investigating The Doctor, Mickey is replaced by a plastic facsimile that takes Rose out to lunch and pumps her for information on The Doctor. Rescuing Rose yet again, The Doctor uses the faux-Mickey’s head to try to find the signal that is controlling the plastic. Together, Rose and The Doctor hunt down the transmitter in London in search for the entity that is controlling the plastic with a sinister agenda against humanity!

“Rose” has moments that are genuinely creepy, though the basic concept is somewhat ridiculous. In the first adventure, aliens invade Earth to use their plastic because they have depleted theirs in a war that is only alluded to. As a result, most of the point of “Rose” is to establish the conventions of Doctor Who. The Doctor presents a great deal of exposition in “Rose” and a lesser actor than Christopher Eccleston would have completely botched it. Instead, The Doctor is immediately characterized as a smart guy who has a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and a protective instinct for humanity.

The Doctor is a highly ethical character who has regret over his actions in the war that left the plastic creature as a refugee eager to shunt itself to Earth. Unlike something like Star Wars where military solutions seem inevitable or the point of the series, Doctor Who - despite its campy qualities even in “Rose” – strives for something smarter and more evolved. As such, The Doctor arrives at his alien nemesis, armed with an anti-plastic bomb, but refuses to use it in his first interaction with the creature. Instead, he just wants to talk with the entity and get it to leave humanity alone.

Rose is a likable character right off the bat for multiple reasons (not the least of which is that she is not an American size zero blonde). Rose is generally fearless and she lives in a very real world: when she tries to bring Wilson the lottery money, she walks around a mostly darkened basement not concerned about phantasms or things that go bump in the night because they do not exist in her world. Rose is willing to accept such fantastic things as sentient plastic and alien life forms (as well as the TARDIS, which appears to be the size of a phone booth on the outside, but is actually quite a bit bigger on the inside) when she encounters them and has empirical evidence to their existence.

Like The Doctor, Rose is smart. She reasons initially that the moving mannequins are students and the Doctor praises her as clever for the deductions. Moreover, Rose is not an inactive sidekick or a damsel in distress. While The Doctor rescues her, by the end of the episode, Rose has rescued him at least once as well. While the character’s inquisitive nature is alluded to in the way she hunts down Clive (a man who studies all things related to The Doctor) early in the episode, it is not presented as a driving aspect of her personality enough to make the episode’s climax be entirely credible.

That said, “Rose” works despite having a ridiculous plot and nothing in the way of truly developed themes or purpose (this is an exposition-heavy story that is very much a pilot episode) because of the quality of the acting. Christopher Eccleston is a genius character actor and his quirky, loose-body language for embodying The Doctor is distinctive and easy to watch. He is able to sell The Doctor as a goofy, lonely character who nevertheless cares deeply about humanity and, by the simple act of taking Rose’s hand, Rose. Billie Piper plays Rose well, though many of her reaction shots have her simply staring at The Doctor and looking somewhat amazed. Even so, Piper and Eccleston have pretty wonderful banter and under the direction of Keith Boak, “Rose” does not look or feel like a pilot episode. There is nothing clunky about the acting (save some of the reaction screams, most notably from Camille Coduri, who plays Rose’s mother, Jackie Tyler) and that makes the episode much more accessible than most pilot episodes.

“Rose” is also a rare episode of television that replays better with multiple viewings. Initially, the episode seems like it has a lot of potential for camp and that it could seem exposition-heavy. But, unlike some pilots, like the one for The X-Files (reviewed here!), “Rose” does not have any unnecessary scenes and it transitions well from creepy to self-mocking back to menacing. While I always wish for shows to have a sense of theme and meaning to them, “Rose” suffers because it is so busy defining the terms of this new Doctor Who that it does not develop beyond that. Fortunately, there is an entire season for the show to create more than just moody, science fiction with fast dialogue. But to establish the Ninth Doctor in “Rose,” creepy, momentarily ridiculous, and deceptively smart science fiction is all that we’re able to get. And it is enough.

[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 Christopher Eccleston, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Thor: The Dark World
Unfinished Song
Amelia
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra
Heroes - Season 1
28 Days Later . . .
Elizabeth

8*/10

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

[*I agonized on the rating for this episode. While my initial reaction was to put it around a 7.5/10, the episode replays exceptionally well and there is enough to the episode that makes it worth watching multiple times for all of the things one catches upon repeat viewings. While better than The X-Files “Pilot,” “Rose” is not really strong enough on its own to merit an 8.5/10. I realized that my suspension of disbelief and patience with the show upon rewatching the episode came more from foreknowledge of where the season was going than an inherent hook and quality of the episode itself. Thus, 8/10 – solid acting, interesting characters, absurd plot, and an episode that truly means nothing bigger than itself thematically – is how the episode lands viewed on its own.]

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