Yeah, I’m still re-watching Doctor Who in fits and starts.
Well, after all that was great with Eccleston/Nine in season 1, how we get Tennant/Ten. Oh, I do enjoy his take on the doctor. It’s a perfect mix of a whimsical seeing what he can get away with–with the absolute feel of sadness and age that a being like the Doctor really should be feeling…
And all with Rose along for the ride. Rose gets a lot of hate at times, but I really think she was a pretty good first nu-Who companion.
In this season, we a fair few two parters, a bunch of great episodes. The Girl in the Fireplace is a great take on ’the Time Travelers wife’ sort of thing. Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel introduces us to some old foes. The Impossible Planet/Satan Pit really start getting into Doctor Who as sci-fi/horror (and I love it).
And then… there’s Love & Monsters. That’s… actually not that bad? It’s definitely one of the ‘Doctor-lite’ episodes, which are always something interesting to try. The ending is crass and kind of terrifying to really think about–rather than the laughs you might think they were going for.
Overall, a solid season!
And the special introduces Donna! Even if she won’t be back for a bit, she’s certainly a contender for my favorite companion.
Onward!
Episode by episode reviews (spoilers! especially for previous episodes):
1. New Earth
New Earth. And New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York.
Cats. The Face of Bo. Old (Flat) Friends.
Rose: What about the skin? I saw it. You… you got ripped apart!
Cassandra: That piece of skin was from the front of my body. This piece is the back.
Rose: Haha, right, so you’re talking outta your…
Cassandra: Ask not!
Oh, this show sometimes.
The scene where Cassandra jumps to the Doctor and Tennant is jumping and twisting around is just delightful.
I’ve got an appointment. The Doctor is in.
That’s… not how any of this works.
And so goes Doctor Who.
That is enigmatic. That is textbook enigmatic.
2. Tooth and Claw
An American Werewolf in London Scotland?
Rose Tyler: [They are trapped in the library, but the werewolf has stopped attacking for the moment] Can I just say one thing?
The Doctor: What?
Rose Tyler: [Squeals excitedly] A werewolf!
The Doctor: [Just as excited] I know!
[They run to each other and hug. Then he pulls back to look over her]
The Doctor: Are you okay?
Rose Tyler: Yeah, I’m fine.
Versus Queen Victoria?
Delightful.
The Doctor: [about the telescope] It’s a bit rubbish. How many prisms has it got? Way too many… the magnification’s gone right over the top, that’s a stupid kind of -
[aside to ROSE]
The Doctor: - am I being rude again?
Rose Tyler: Yup.
The Doctor: But it’s pretty! Very… pretty!
An intense episode. Rather more fantasy this one, than sci-fi. But I suppose a moon laser should still count for something.
I will call it Torchwood. The Torchwood Institute.
3. School Reunion
Oh Anthony Head. I haven’t seen Buffy in years. He’s so much fun.
And of course, the (modern Who) introduction of Sarah Jane Smith and K9!
Sarah Jane Smith: [Sarah Jane and Rose are once again squabbling over the Doctor] I had NO trouble with space-stuff. I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe!
Rose Tyler: Try me!
Sarah Jane Smith: Mummies!
Rose Tyler: I’ve met ghosts.
Sarah Jane Smith: Robots, lots of robots!
Rose Tyler: Slitheen, IN Downing Street!
Sarah Jane Smith: Daleks!
Rose Tyler: Met the Emperor.
Sarah Jane Smith: Anti Matter Monsters!
Rose Tyler: Gas Mask Zombies!
Sarah Jane Smith: Real life Dinosaurs!
Rose Tyler: Real life Werewolf!
Sarah Jane Smith: THE LOCH NESS MONSTER!
Rose Tyler: Seriously?
Well then.
Lunch Lady: What are you doing?
Rose Tyler: Calling an ambulance?
[Screaming in the background]
Lunch Lady: It’s fine. She does that.
It’s a wacky episode.
4. The Girl in the Fireplace
Reinette: You and I both know, don’t we Rose? The Doctor is worth the monsters… One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel.
A spaceship. Windows in time. The life of a little girl… a young woman… a Madame de Pompadour.
Oh that’s a delightful episode.
And a little sad, as all the best Doctor Who episodes seem to be.
Reinette: There is a vessel in your world where the days of my life are pressed together like the chapters of a book so that he may step from one to the other without increase of age, while I, weary traveller, must always take the slower path.
A few delightful moments as well though.
King Louis: What the hell is going on?
Reinette Poisson: Oh. This is my lover, the king of France.
The Doctor: Yeah? Well I’m the Lord of Time.
Oh this show.
5. Rise of the Cybermen
Wonder who the big bad(s) will be in this one?
[after the TARDIS has crashlanded]
The Doctor: We fell out of the vortex, through the Void into nothingness. We’re at some sort of no-place, a silent realm, a lost dimension…
[looking outside]
Mickey Smith: Otherwise known as “London”.
It’s kind of amusing that, in a literal Time Machine, it’s so hard to believe they might have accidentally come back to a changed London.
Timey whimey and all that. (Oops haven’t gotten there yet.)
Roger Lloyd Pack does quite the act in this. It’s even more interesting when you see this came out a year after he was in Goblet of Fire with Tennant.
Final note… I know Mickey isn’t exactly the most thrilling part of the show, but to be relegated to straight up comic relief?
[Mickey has his finger on a button]
The Doctor: Um, what are you doing that for?
Mickey Smith: Cause you told me to
The Doctor: When was that?
Mickey Smith: About half an hour ago
The Doctor: Um, you can let go now
Mickey Smith: Well how longs it been since I could have stopped?
The Doctor: Ten minutes?… twenty… twenty-nine?
Mickey Smith: You just forgot me?
The Doctor: No, no no! I was just, I was calibrating… I was, no, I know exactly what I’m doing
Just kidding. Mickey/Rickey was pretty awesome.
6. Age of Steel
And now things escalate. About as expected.
Mickey Smith: You’re just making it up as you go along!
The Doctor: Yup. But I do it brilliantly.
He does at that.
7. The Idiot’s Lantern
FEEEEED ME!
Tommy: What are you?
The Wire: I’m the Wire. And I will gobble you up, pretty boy. Every last morsel.
[the TV image becomes colour]
The Wire: And when I have feasted, I shall regain the corporeal body which my fellow kind denied me.
Bishop: Good Lord! Colour television!
They say the television will rot your brains… they didn’t say anything about faces.
A properly creepy episode, if a touch overdone with the “feed me”s.
8. The Impossible Planet
Ood.
The Ood: We must feed…
We must feed…
We must feed…
We must feed…
…you, if you are hungry.
Ood.
A planet orbiting a black hole.
Impossible. (But not really, you can totally orbit a black hole; albeit “geostationary” doesn’t really make sense in context.
Still awesome.
The Doctor: So when it comes right down to it. Why did you come here? Why did you that? Why? I’ll tell you why. Because it was there. Brilliant! Excuse me, er Zac wasn’t it?
Zachary Cross Flane: That’s me.
The Doctor: Just stand there cos I’m going to hug you. Is that alright?
Zachary Cross Flane: Suppose so.
The Doctor: Here we go. C’mon then
[the Doctor hugs Zac]
The Doctor: Human beings. You are amazing. Hah! Thank you.
Zachary Cross Flane: Not at all.
The Doctor: But apart from that you’re completely mad. You should pack your bags, get back in that ship and fly for your lives.
And wonderfully creepy.
The Ood/ship’s random interludes.
The hand text.
Going outside.
… to be continued.
9. Satan Pit
The Doctor: You get representations of the horned Beast right across the universe in myths and legends of a million worlds. Earth, Draconia, Vel Consadine, Daemos… The Kaled god of war, the same image, over and over again. Maybe, that idea came from somewhere. Bleeding through, a thought of every sentient mind…
Ida Scott: Originating from here?
The Doctor: Could be.
Ida Scott: But if this is the original, does that make it real? Does that make it the actual Devil?
The Doctor: Well, if that’s what you want to believe. Maybe that’s what the Devil is, in the end. An idea.
The whole thing while he’s being lowered into a completely black room, absolutely no way to tell how large.
It’s interesting that he can accept beyond the universe… but not before it.
It’s getting a little away from the science part of sci fi for me, but heck. We had goats and werewolves in the first season. 😃
Still quite an intense episode.
10. Love & Monsters
Oh hey. We’re at Love & Monsters.
Elton. All the times he’s almost but not quite met the Doctor.
And he has a blog.
The Doctor light episodes are always a bit odd.
Shirley Henderson does have quite the unique voice.
It’s actually a pretty solid episode.
Ending is a bit of tonal whiplash.
11. Fear Her
The Doctor: I’ll give you a fiver if you can tell me what the hell it is, cause I haven’t got the foggiest.
Art.
She’s a child.
The Doctor: And you’re terrified of her.
Interesting how different seasons of Doctor Who have different feels. This one certainly gets into touches of horror…
And then… the Olympic torch. Silly that.
12. Army of Ghosts
Rose Tyler: The first nineteen years of my life, nothing happened. Nothing at all, not ever. And then I met a man called the Doctor. A man who could change his face. He took me away from home in his magical machine. He showed me the whole of time and space. I thought it would never end.
Cheerful this one.
Torchwood!
The Touchwood institute has a motto: If it’s alien, it’s ours.
Allons-y!
Pre-Martha Freema Agyeman!
Mickey!
Companion Jackie!
The Doctor: So, you find a breach, probe it, the sphere comes through, 600 feet above London, BAM! It leaves a hole in the fabric of reality. And that hole, you think: “Should we leave it alone, should we back off, should we play it safe?” NAH, you think: “Let’s make it BIGGER!”
Oh humanity.
I do live the anaglyph glasses. Is this the first time seeing those?
And then… double trouble!
13. Doomsday
Dalek Thay: Identify yourself!
Cybermen: You will identify first!
Dalek Thay: State you identity!
Cybermen: You will identify first!
Dalek Thay: IDENTIFY!
Mickey Smith: It’s like Stephen Hawking meets the speaking clock.
Cybermen: That is inconsistent and illogical. You will modify!
Dalek Thay: Daleks do not take orders.
Cybermen: You have identified as Daleks.
Dalek Sec: Outline resembles the inferior species known as Cybermen!
Oh this show.
Along all the ways Daleks can kill someone… being suction cupped is certainly one of them.
Anyways.
That’s an awful lot of baddies… with Earth in between.
I’m burning up a sun just to say goodbye.
That. That is the Doctor.
This translates as Bad Wolf Bay.
And Rose.
(That is delightful and to the episode though. Nice balance.)
Special: The Runaway Bride
Donna.
The Doctor: Haven’t you got a mobile?
Donna: I’m in my wedding dress; it doesn’t have pockets. Who has pockets? Have you ever seen a bride with pockets? When I went to my fitting at Chez Alison, the one thing I forgot to say was “Give me pockets”!
It’s a bit of tonal whiplash from Rose and Doomsday… but it’s just so fun!
They’re a good match.
The Doctor: There is no way a human being can lock itself onto the TARDIS and transport itself inside! It must be some atomic connection, disruption? Something in the temporal field? Something pulling you into the chronon shell! Maybe something macro-binding your DNA with the interior matrix! Maybe a genetic…
Donna: [slaps him hard upside the face]
The Doctor: [picks himself up, completely shocked] What was that for?
Like I said.
Donna: I can’t do it!
The Doctor: Trust me.
Donna: Is that what you said to her? Your friend? The one you lost? Did she trust you?
The Doctor: Yes, she did. And she is not dead. She is so alive. Now jump!
And good for him as well.
There’s a reason she’ll be back.
(Spoilers)