Category: Other Universes

Timestamp #186: Gridlock

Michael Falkner5 Comments

Doctor Who: Gridlock
(1 episode, s03e03, 2007)

 

Atlanta traffic might be bad, but at least we don’t have killer crabs.

A newscaster delivers a traffic report as an elderly couple in a stalled car wait for the police. They are under attack from an unknown creature, and the creature wins before they can be rescued.

On the TARDIS, the Doctor offers Martha a trip into the future. She wants to visit his home planet, but the Doctor deflects her attention with musings about the architecture and the orange skies of Gallifrey. The way he looks… it’s heartbreaking. He sets a course for New Earth, the same place he took Rose on their first adventure together. The Doctor is excited, but Martha considers it a rebound relationship.

As they arrive, the Face of Boe directs his attendant, Novice Hame, to find the Doctor before it’s too late. Meanwhile, Martha encounters the New Earth version of a drug bazaar. The Doctor watches a young woman buy a dose of Forget after losing her parents on the motorway, and the transaction provides a distraction for a couple to kidnap Martha and drug her with a Sleep patch. With enough people on board, the car now qualifies for the express lane.

The Doctor pursues on advice from the pharmacists – he threatens that he will personally close the street down that night – and Martha meets her abductors. They are Milo and Cheen, and Cheen is pregnant so they’re looking for a better place to live. The upside is that they’re only ten miles away, but the downside is that it will take six years to travel the distance.

The title of the episode is Gridlock for a reason.

The Doctor enters the motorway and, after choking on exhaust, meets a cat person named Thomas Kincaide Brannigan and his human wife Valerie. They also have a litter of kitten kids, colloquially known as Children of the Motorway. The Doctor is astounded by the pace of the motorway, but he has no way off his current car. Brannigan refuses to move to the fast lane due to safety concerns for his kids, but he does connect the Doctor to a radio-based network of drivers who help him track down Martha’s location. Some of the drivers on the motorway have been there for over twenty years.

The Doctor questions if the police even exist in this endless traffic jam. Meanwhile, Martha learns that there are creatures living in the smoke layers beneath them, possibly in the air vents. As they all sit in the eternal traffic, the radio broadcasts a devotional that buoys the spirits of the commuters. Milo and Cheen’s car is finally granted access to the fast lane, but the exits are all closed. In fact, they’re perpetually closed, and the creatures are on the attack as the cars keep making the loop.

The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to jump from car to car, descending on foot. He leaves his coat – it was given to him by Janis Joplin – and muses about how he lied to Martha while he was showboating, then poses as a traffic patrolman as he bounces down the levels and encounters a host of characters.

The Doctor reaches the last level before the fast lane. He clears the smoke for a moment to get a clear view of the monsters below. They are the Macra, and they’re attacking cars in the fast lane. Martha’s car uses a submarine trick and cuts power to rest on the floor of the motorway. Unfortunately, they only have eight minutes.

The Doctor explains that the Macra feed on toxic gas, once building an empire of slaves (in the Second Doctor’s era) to mine gas for them. These Macra are no longer intelligent, but instead non-sentient hungry beasts. His attempts to stop the Macra is interrupted by Novice Hame, who explains that she’s dedicated her life to redemption for her past crimes over the last twenty-four years after she teleports them away. The world died in seven minutes after a drug named Bliss evolved into a lethal virus. Novice Hame has spent the ensuing years taking care of the Face of Boe while New Earth labors under a self-imposed century-long quarantine. The citizens in the motorway were saved from the virus, but are enslaved in their salvation.

The Face of Boe implores the Doctor to save the human race.

Martha and her abductors talk about the Doctor as their air supply dwindles. She places all of her faith in him, and its enough to sway her captors to power back up and drive through the Macra. The Doctor detects their license signature and, with a burst of life energy from the Face of Boe, opens the entire motorway to the world above. Martha’s faith is redeemed as her car emerges into the light of the sun and sets a course for the Doctor and the senate building.

As Martha arrives, the Face of Boe’s containment tank shatters. Martha asks who Boe is, but the Doctor only knows of the legends. The legend also tells that Boe will share a final secret before death, and the last of one race shares fate-changing words with the last of another.

“Know this, Doctor: You are not alone.”

And then he dies.

Martha and the Doctor return to the TARDIS, strolling along the now-defunct Pharmacist’s Row. Martha demands that the Doctor explain the secrets of Gallifrey and his history, and as the city raises their voices in the song of the devotional, the Doctor finally tells her of his home and the Last Great Time War.

 

This story is fairly light on story, but it continues threads set down from the beginnings of the revival era. The character development between the Doctor and Martha is great stuff, especially as Martha settles into her role as companion and helps the Doctor heal.

The Christian themes in the story are strong, from the discussions of faith in the Doctor – a literal deus ex machina, remember – and the salvation found in heading toward the light to the use of two Christian hymns as diegetic music. The travelers on the motorway sing “The Old Rugged Cross,” a 1912 hymn written by American evangelist George Bennard, and the recently freed citizens of the New New York sing “Abide with Me,” an 1847 hymn written by Scottish Anglican Henry Francis Lyte.

Finally, we saw the return of a classic enemy, although in a much-reduced state. They are left to waste away in the bowels of the motorway, which is somewhat troubling, but certainly not as much as it would have been had they been fully sentient.

 

 

Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

 

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Daleks in Manhattan & Doctor Who: Evolution of the Daleks

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

 

 

Timestamp #185: The Shakespeare Code

Michael Falkner11 Comments

Doctor Who: The Shakespeare Code
(1 episode, s03e02, 2007)

Timestamp 185 The Shakespeare Code (1)

Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

A woman named Lillith smiles as she is serenaded by a bard. She offers him a trip upstairs for his efforts where she reveals herself as a witch-like creature. She introduces the rest of her coven, Mothers Doomfinger and Bloodtide, and they consume the young man.

Going out on a limb, I’d say he’s not getting lucky tonight.

As the TARDIS hurtles through the void, Martha asks about how the time capsule works. The Doctor is elusive but is more than happy to introduce her to London 1599. She’s concerned about A Sound of Thunder, the Grandfather Paradox, and slavery, but the Time Lord eases her mind with the spectacle around them and urges her to “walk like she owns the place.” Oh, and they can also check out the freshly-built Globe Theater.

It’s more of tetradecagon instead of a globe, but they get to see William Shakespeare nonetheless. The Bard makes a curtain call after Love’s Labour’s Lost concludes, and the Doctor is bewildered by the man’s vocabulary and his odd behavior. It seems that Shakespeare is under Lillith’s spell and he has just announced a surprise play that the Doctor and Martha have never heard of.

They visit Shakespeare a bit later as he and his actors talk about the upcoming play. The playwright is unaffected by the psychic paper – he sees it as blank, which the Doctor heralds as the mark of a true genius – and looks through the ruse of Sir Doctor of TARDIS and Martha of Freedonia. He even tries to woo Martha, though she’s put off by his racial vernacular. After a brief confrontation with Lynley, the Master of Revels – the witches dispatch him after he threatens to shut down the new play – the trio get to know each other. Shakespeare can see a considerable amount about the travelers as they talk. Shortly thereafter, the Doctor and Martha retire to their guest quarters and chat about magic and witchcraft.

The Doctor also continues to mourn Rose, which puts Martha off a bit as he inadvertently compares the two companions.

Lillith visits Shakespeare and acts as his muse, playing the puppetmaster as he unwittingly writes. Lillith also kills Dolly Bailey, the owner of the house. The next morning, Shakespeare muses about the Globe Theater and how the architect, Peter Streete, often spoke of witches. They rush to the theater and investigate why it is built as a tetradecagal. They then head to Bethlehem Royal Hospital, where Streete was committed after he spoke of witchcraft.

The actors rehearse their lines and summon a spirit, but they agree not to speak of it for fear of being committed. Meanwhile, our travelers meet with Streete and find him catatonic, but the Doctor uses his telepathy to help the architect to unlock his memories.

They’re also upset to find that the hospital’s inhabitants are whipped to entertain the gentry.

Streete reveals that the witches dictated the design of the Globe Theater. When the design was complete, the witches broke him and he ended up in the hospital. The discussion is stopped when Mother Doomfinger arrives and kills Streete with a single touch. The Doctor challenges her, and after he deduces that the fourteen walls of the theater are based on the fourteen stars of the Rexel configuration, he names Doomfinger as a Carrionite. The witch disappears as the Doctor explains that their “magic” is really an ancient science based on the power of words.

Lillith promises to kill the Doctor. Because that’s what she does.

The Carrionites vanished at the dawn of the universe, in the Dark Times, leaving it up to debate whether or not they actually existed. The Doctor deduces that the new play was supplied by the Carrionites, and its recitation will bring about the end of the world as focused by the lens of the Globe Theater. The Bard heads for the theater to stop the play as the Doctor and Martha rush to stop the Carrionites.

Bloodtide and Doomfinger use their power to stop Shakespeare. Meanwhile, the Doctor explains that time travel’s cause-and-effect is kind of like Back to the Future. They enter the house and confront Lillith. The witch names Martha, knocking her out instead of killing her since she’s out of her proper time. She attempts to name the Doctor but doesn’t succeed. She also tries to use Rose’s name, but that only makes the Doctor fight harder to save humanity.

She explains that the Eternals eventually found the word to banish the Carrionites into darkness, but the three “witches” used the power of Shakespeare’s grief over his young son’s death to escape.

She tries seducing him and fails, so she steals a lock of hair to weave into a puppet (or rather, a DNA replication module). Lillith stabs the puppet and the Doctor collapses, relying on Martha to restart the heart that the witch attacked. Lillith flies away to the theater.

As the travelers rush to the theater, the actors speak the words that open a portal and release a violent storm of energy. Shakespeare joins the travelers and the Doctor encourages him to reverse the magic through his wordsmithing. The Bard stumbles over the last word and Martha supplies “expelliarmus” ala JK Rowling.

The Carrionites and all the copies of the play are sucked into oblivion, and with the portal closed, the assembled audience erupts in applause. The Doctor finds the Carrionite globe and the witches trapped within. As morning dawns, Shakespeare flirts once again with Martha as the Doctor plays with props, including a skull that reminds him of the Sycorax. He also fits the playwright with a neck brace that looks historically familiar.

As the Doctor and Martha bid the Bard farewell, he reveals that he knows about their true nature as travelers in time and space. The scene is broken up by the arrival of Queen Elizabeth I. The Doctor is ecstatic to finally meet her, but the queen demands that the Doctor be executed for reasons unknown.

The travelers run, chased by guards, and barely enter the TARDIS before an arrow slams into the door.

And off they go again.

This was another fun adventure that capitalized on Martha learning about the new universe around her. It was especially fun for the Doctor to hang a lampshade on that with his remark about having to break in new companions.

The references to the franchise were particularly deep. The Doctor’s mind-reading ability came back into play (The Girl in the Fireplace, Fear Her, and The Sensorites), and the arrow in the TARDIS called back to both An Unearthly Child and Silver Nemesis.

We also get a call-back to the Eternals, first introduced in Enlightenment, and the concept of witches is not a new one in this franchise.

Behind the scenes, we’ll continue to see the witches’ loft as Sarah Jane’s attic, a move that helped to pay for what became one of Doctor Who‘s most costly productions.

It’s hard to find complaints about this story. Even the blossoming relationship between the Doctor and Martha isn’t terribly oppressive. If I had one issue to highlight, the chroma keying process was a bit off in the opening scenes and in the shots as our heroes rush for the Globe Theater.

Otherwise, this was a fun adventure with roots deep in franchise history.

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Gridlock

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The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

Timestamp #184: Smith and Jones

Michael Falkner15 Comments

Doctor Who: Smith and Jones
(1 episode, s03e01, 2007)

 

It’s a coincidence, but what a fitting story to chronicle just after Apollo 11’s fiftieth anniversary.

Martha Jones is on her way to work when her mobile rings several times, each caller talking to her about her brother’s twenty-first birthday. In the midst of all these calls, she’s interrupted by a certain Time Lord who demonstrably takes off his tie. Once at the hospital, Martha bumps into a helmet-clad motorcycle rider in black, changes clothes, and tends to her patients as a medical student.

After dealing with a patient experiencing a salt deficiency, she spots two more motorcycle riders before moving on to her second patient: John Smith. The man has two heartbeats and is complaining of abdominal pain. Martha examines him and each of the medical students talks about the rise of static electricity as they move on to the next patient.

Later on, Martha talks to her sister on the phone and discovers that the storm outside is focused directly over the hospital. As John Smith walks by, the rain changes direction – straight up! – and the building rumbles as lightning strikes. Looking outside, Martha discovers that the hospital has been moved to the surface of the moon.

That cause a bit of consternation among the occupants. Okay, more like a riot.

Martha and her co-worker, Julia Swales, take stock of the situation. As Martha remarks that the building isn’t airtight – they should have died from asphyxiation long ago – John Smith congratulates her on her intuition and invites her to join him. They stand on a balcony in the Earth-light, breathe deep, and discuss extraterrestrials on Earth. From Big Ben to the Christmas invasion and the Battle of Canary Wharf (where Martha lost her nearly identical cousin, Adeola), Martha believes in aliens. John Smith introduces himself as the Doctor and apologizes for not saving Martha’s cousin. That event is still fresh in his mind.

Then they meet the Judoon.

Huge cylindrical ships land nearby and an army marches on the hospital. Meanwhile, the lady with the salt deficiency introduces Mr. Stoker, the medical student supervisor, to her friends in the motorcycle helmets. She also uses a bendy straw to start drinking his blood.

The Judoon storm the hospital, revealing themselves as rhinoceros-faced aliens, and use a universal translator to learn English. They catalog everyone they meet as human, complete with an X on each captive’s hands. Meanwhile, the Doctor tells Martha that the Judoon are police-for-hire, and if they find a non-human criminal hiding in the hospital, they will execute everyone inside as an accomplice. One patient tries to stop the Judoon with a vase to the head and he is immediately executed for assault.

Justice is swift.

The Doctor, being non-human, skulks away with Martha and tries to hack the computer system with the sonic screwdriver. He tells Martha that he spotted alien power cores a few days back and checked into the hospital as a patient to look around. Martha decides to ask Stoker for help in finding anyone with unusual symptoms, finds Florence enjoying her blood beverage, and the chase is on.

The Doctor and Martha take refuge in a radiology suite and the Doctor ambushes one of the motorcycle gang with an X-ray machine. He blasts the creature – a Slab, leather through and through – with 5000 times the radiation of a normal X-ray. He absorbs the rest of the roentgen (gamma) radiation and dumps it into his shoe, then ditches the other one to balance himself out. Barefoot on the moon, the Doctor finds that his sonic screwdriver has been destroyed before realizing that Florence can now pose as human thanks to her hemoglobin smoothie.

Sure enough, she’s soon cataloged as human.

The other Slab searches for the Doctor and Martha while she asks the Time Lord about traveling companions. They’re ambushed by Judoon who catalog the Doctor as non-human – Martha is truly surprised – and they run to the floor below. Since the Judoon are methodical, they won’t revisit a floor they’ve already audited. The pair find the exsanguinated Stoker, discover that the oxygen supply is starting to dwindle, and separate as the Judoon (surprisingly) storm the floor. The Doctor kisses Martha before running for the MRI suite where he finds Florence modifying the imager to fry every biologic within 250,000 miles. She’s intent on using the Judoon ships to escape.

The Doctor poses as a human and verbally spars with Florence. He mentions that the Judoon are changing their scans so Florence refreshes her disguise by drinking the Doctor’s blood. The Judoon barge in and scan the Doctor, declaring him deceased. Martha scans Florence, revealing her as non-human. Florence, a plasmavore, sets her MRI plan in motion before being executed (along with the Slab) and the Judoon leave.

Meanwhile, the hospital is about to explode.

Martha returns to the Doctor and performs a modified version of CPR, bringing him back to life. With oxygen levels critically low, the Doctor stops the MRI by pulling the plug and then carries Martha to a window as the Judoon lift off. Before they clear the moon’s gravity, they reverse the teleport process and return the hospital to Earth.

In the chaos that follows later, Martha watches as the Doctor enters the TARDIS and dematerializes. She goes home and gets dressed for her brother’s party, an event where Martha is mocked for her moon story – the public cover story is that everyone was drugged – before her family storms off. She spots the Doctor and follows him to the TARDIS. He offers Martha the chance to join him and she eventually joins him.

The “bigger on the inside” moment completely blows her mind.

The Doctor mentions his former companion, Rose, and tells Martha that she is definitely not replacing her. Martha replies that, despite the earlier kiss, she’s only interested in humans. The Doctor sets a course and the TARDIS hurtles away through the vortex.

 

The thing that impresses me most about this episode is the chemistry between Freema Agyeman and David Tennant. The spark is immediate and coupled with the pacing and the dialogue, this story is just fun. Martha is likable and smart, and she plays well with the Tenth Doctor’s zaniness. The downside, of course, is that the hints of a future romantic relationship are far too strong. We just left that party in Pete’s World.

The whole Saxon thread is back with this story after being teased in The Runaway Bride and Captain Jack Harkness. This season’s “Bad Wolf” gives us the added benefit that the mysterious stranger believes in life among the stars. We also get some callbacks as the Ninth Doctor’s sonic is destroyed – the last time we lost a sonic screwdriver like that was in the Fifth Doctor‘s era, and it was like losing “an old friend” –  and the Tenth Doctor muses about his love of bananas.

 


Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Shakespeare Code

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

 

 

Debrief: Atlanta Comic Con 2019

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Debrief: Atlanta Comic Con 2019
Atlanta, GA – July 12-14, 2019

 

 

Saturday night’s all right for geeking out! Atlanta Comic Con 2019 has come and gone and this year was a blast. My involvement was limited to the panels in one day, but it was a fun day to be there.

After a trip on MARTA and a short walk, everything started with a visit to DougPool7 who was lounging on a beach chair by the ticket lines. I have seen a lot of Deadpool cosplays over the years, but this one really made me laugh.

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Deadpool on Vacation! #AtlantaComicCon

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You can find some more of his vacation antics on his YouTube channel.

Most of my time and all of my panels for the day involved a Drop of Mikes, which you may remember after the Council of Michaels that we assembled at Dragon Con 2018. The first panel of the day was So You Want to Start a Podcast with Mike Faber and Michael “Howdy” Gordon.

We had a great discussion with the audience as we talked about how to start a podcast, why you’d want to in the first place, and the basics of Podcasting 101. Once again, I promoted Tee Morris and his fantastic reference book Podcasting for Dummies. We also fielded a simple question after mentioning that, in general, no one is going to get rich and famous as a podcaster: “Why bother?”

We were pretty unanimous with the answer: Podcasting is a hobby and a labor of love, and as long as it remains fun, it’s still a worthy pursuit.

All in all, the audience was content with our advice. We fielded a few questions and offered a few more tidbits after the panel was over, and then we joined up with Michael Bailey to walk the con floor for a bit.

The four of us reconvened for The MCU: What Now?, our panel on the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

We had a wonderful turnout for the panel, even after half a row left when we told them that we would be discussing the most recent Spider-Man film. It’s entirely fair that they left, but we knew that couldn’t have an authentic discussion about the future of Marvel in film without including the twists and turns in Spider-Man: Far From Home.

This panel was one of the best experiences I’ve had in a while. The questions were intelligent and engaging, especially from the kids in a pretty diverse audience. There was also a spirited discussion about whether or not Thanos could wield Mjolnir with was quite enlightening. They actually changed my mind after the panel.

From this point, we bid the Fabers adieu and settled in for the afternoon and evening. Mike Gordon, Michael Bailey, and I grabbed some lunch, caught up on all the events since the last time we had been together, and toured the show floor until it closed at 7pm. After that, we settled on a bench in the lobby area and waited for our 10:30pm panel.

It was fun to watch the cosplayers and chat about all things geek – Bailey’s expertise on all-things comics is helpful in filling the gaps in my knowledge – but we were certainly baffled about scheduling a Batman retrospective panel so late in the night.

Regardless, after the awesomeness that was this Black Adam cosplayer, it was time for Holy Pop Culture: Batman at 80.

The Batman panel was pretty fun. Based on the time, we were worried about having an audience, but fifteen diehard Bat-fans (and one dude who wanted a relatively quiet place to catch some shuteye) joined in the fun. Michael Bailey led the discussion from Batman’s origins in Detective Comics through his evolution and rise over the decades to the character’s unfathomable popularity today.

After that, it was time to head home.

I’d like to thank the staff at Atlanta Comic Con for their hospitality and hard work. I’m definitely looking forward to visiting (and hopefully participating) again in 2020. I also extend a huge thanks to the Michaels – Faber, Gordon, and Bailey – for a great day of camaraderie and geeky fun.

Timestamp #SJA1: Invasion of the Bane

Michael Falkner18 Comments

Sarah Jane Adventures: Invasion of the Bane
(1 episode, New Year Special, 2007)

 

The triumphant return of Sarah Jane Smith.

Maria Jackson and her family are moving into their new home on Bannerman Road. After watching an advertisement for Bubble Shock soda, Maria briefly meets Sarah Jane Smith and finishes moving boxes into the house. It turns out that Maria’s mother has recently divorced her father, so it’s just Maria and her father Alan in the house.

Later that night, Maria sets up her room while the soda commercial plays again. She turns out the lights and goes to bed, but she awakens around 2:30 am to a bright pink light pulsing from Sarah Jane’s residence. Maria investigates and finds Sarah Jane communing with a floating alien that gives her a glowing stone device. Maria runs home in fear.

The next morning, she obliquely asks her father about seeing strange things. Their neighbor Kelsey Hooper stops by to say hello, and the girls decide to go into town after brief introductions with Alan. Further introductions are made as Alan meets Sarah Jane, but Sarah Jane seems rather intrigued by the girls and rushes off.

Kelsey gives Maria the lowdown on Sarah Jane: She’s a journalist who rushes around like a madwoman. The girls board a bus dedicated to the Bubble Shock soda and take a tour of the bottling facility. Sarah Jane rushes the gate and sneaks in behind them, taking some readings on a wristwatch device. The girls go through a supposed security scanner, but the data it takes is transmitted to a strange science experiment behind the scenes.

Sarah Jane continues to sneak around, using her sonic lipstick to open a locked door. She’s captured soon after and taken to visit Mrs. Wormwood, the woman who was working on the Frankenstein experiment. Sarah Jane interviews Mrs. Wormwood, drawing parallels between Wormwood’s operation and the Book of Revelation.

Meanwhile, the girls continue their tour and receive free samples, but Maria rejects the soda. Sarah Jane is also offered a sample, and she also rejects it. The company is very aggressive about wanting every person on Earth to drink their product, adding special emphasis on the ingredient Bane.

Sarah Jane smells an alien influence. She’s also a bit put off when Wormwood suggests that Sarah Jane’s life alone has been wasted. If she only knew the truth. When Sarah Jane leaves, Wormwood signals her assistant to kill the journalist, but Sarah Jane escapes. Meanwhile, Kelsey leaves the tour group and tries to use her mobile phone, but the signals awaken a creature and set off alarms throughout the facility. As everyone evacuates the premises, Maria goes in search of her friend.

Kelsey is soon found by the tour guide. The man smashes her phone and declares that the creature is his mother. In fact, it is the mother of them all. Maria tries to make a call and sets off the alarms again, this time causing a feedback pulse that awakens and frees the young boy medical experiment, known as The Archetype.

The Archetype finds Maria and they work together to elude the factory personnel by hiding in the ladies’ restroom. Sarah Jane Smith finds them soon thereafter, but when Wormwood’s team arrives they are gone. Sarah Jane, Maria, and The Archetype escape, but Kelsey is left behind with Wormwood. Maria confronts Sarah Jane about the events at the factory and those of the previous night, but when Sarah Jane tells her to go home, she leaves in tears.

Wormwood reviews her scans of Sarah Jane Smith and finds residual artron energy, the results of traveling through spacetime. When Kelsey remarks that Sarah Jane lives on Bannerman Road, Wormwood reveals her true form and the girl faints. Wormwood analyzes Kelsey’s knowledge and sends Davey the tour guide (and a recently mindwiped Kelsey) to Bannerman Road.

Sarah Jane talks with The Archetype, who claims to be everyone, but their discussion is interrupted by a male voice from upstairs. Sarah Jane scans the boy to find that he is a human boy but is only 360 minutes old and has no bellybutton. Meanwhile, Kelsey arrives back at Maria’s house and Davey assaults Sarah Jane’s home. The girls find out that Davey is there and they rush to help only to find a tentacled creature that pursues them inside. Sarah Jane and the kids rush upstairs to safety. Sarah Jane uses some kind of aerosol to repel the creature and make it transform back into Davey. Davey runs off, Sarah Jane analyzes the remnants, and Kelsey snoops around in the attic.

Sarah Jane reveals her secret to the kids in the room surrounded by alien artifacts, pictures of the Brigadier and K9, and artwork depicting the TARDIS. She tells them of the Doctor and her travels, and how after she met him the second time, she dedicated herself to investigating alien influences on the planet Earth. Speaking of K9, the daft little metal dog, he’s working to seal a black hole before it destroys the planet. The portal between K9’s work and the attic is a concealed safe in the wall.

Back at the factory, Davey pays the price for his failure: He is eaten by the Mother. Sucks to be him.

Sarah Jane deduces that The Archetype is an alien experiment. As Sarah Jane and Maria develop a friendship, they discover that the soda (particularly Bane) is alien in origin. In fact, it is part of the creatures that they have been dealing with. Sarah Jane calls on Mr. Smith, her supercomputer, to hack into Wormwood’s office for a one-on-one video discussion. Wormwood is unwilling to bargain and declares war on humanity by using the Bane in everyone’s systems to transform them into the newborn Bane.

Sarah Jane, Maria, and The Archetype rush to the factory to find a solution. Sarah Jane sonics the gates to trap the soda zombies but the main gates to the factory are deadlock sealed, so she uses the Bubble Shock bus to break through the walls. Wormwood introduces Sarah Jane to the Mother and then explains that The Archetype is a combination of the strongest elements of each scanned visitor to the factory. The intent is to use the boy to fine tune the soda formula so that every human would drink it, but since he’s no longer needed, Wormwood issues a kill command in the boy’s DNA.

Maria fights back using her mobile phone, but the Mother swipes it away. The Archetype produces the communication device that Sarah Jane received the night before and programs it with the specific frequency of the Bane’s communications. Using that painful distraction, the humans run and the factory explodes behind them. The Mother is presumed dead, but Wormwood as escaped while vowing vengeance.

Everyone returns home to find that the world is restored. Alan meets The Archetype who Sarah Jane declares to be her adopted son. Sarah Jane and Maria reconvene later and deliberate over the boy’s future. Mr. Smith created official adoption documents, and Sarah Jane finishes them with a proper name: Luke.

There’s a nice touch here with nods to the Brigadier and Harry Sullivan while trying to name the newest member of the Smith family.

Sarah Jane waxes philosophically about her travels with the Doctor as the adventure comes to a close.

 

This is a wonderful pilot episode for the return of Sarah Jane Smith. It’s fantastic to see her continuing as a journalist with the added expertise of her travels with the Doctor. Knowing that this new series is designed with kids in mind, I find that the Bannerman Road Gang is easily relatable and adds a sense of innocence to the adventure. It’s almost as if Sarah Jane has become a mix of the Doctor and Torchwood, but with a much lighter tone.

It was nice to see Samantha Bond (Miss Moneypenny from the Pierce Brosnan era of James Bond, as well as Lady Rosamund from Downton Abbey) and I did love her turn as a villain, even with the over-the-top scenery-chewing performance. I also couldn’t help but draw a parallel between Luke Smith and Kyle XY, what with the lack of bellybutton as a tying characteristic.

One thing that I’m not a fan of is the tilted camera angles used in the factory. There are better ways to use the style and to inspire unease in the audience.

 

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Smith and Jones

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

 

 

Timestamp: Torchwood Series One Summary

Michael Falkner7 Comments

Torchwood: Series One Summary

 

Torchwood was dark and gritty, but its core message emphasized humanity, compassion, and companionship.

The first series took full advantage of its post-watershed television position, complete with adult themes, nudity, and mature language. The franchise itself is hit and miss with fans because of these elements, but the core mission of the first chapter in the show’s run is something that we should all pay attention to. Each of the characters, including Suzie, tried to balance the darkness and secrecy of their clandestine jobs with the need to talk about it with anyone who would understand. This common thread wove around each of Torchwood Three’s team members and slowly pulled them apart.

That is until the tension snapped them back together with the mutual understanding of where they stood and what they needed to do.

The stories may have varied in quality and entertainment, but the message that we all need empathy, compassion, and friendship to help us make it through the darkness makes Torchwood‘s first series worth the journey.

Now, it’s obvious that we can’t make a direct comparison between Torchwood and Doctor Who. The themes are similar, but the content and feel are markedly different. But we can look at the twenty-nine season/series grades so far to get an idea of how it fits within the Timestamps Project’s scope.

Torchwood Series One earned a 3.8 average. There are six seasons of Doctor Who, all of them from the classic era, that met that bar: The Seventh, the Tenth, the Thirteenth, the Fourteenth, the Twenty-Fifth, and the Twenty-Sixth.

Of course, we will be able to compare each series of Torchwood as they are reviewed here.

 

Everything Changes – 4
Day One – 4
Ghost Machine – 2
Cyberwoman – 4
Small Worlds – 3
Countrycide – 5
Greeks Bearing Gifts – 4
They Keep Killing Suzie – 3
Random Shoes – 3
Out of Time – 4
Combat – 3
Captain Jack Harkness – 5
End of Days – 5

Torchwood Series One Average Rating: 3.8/5

 

The Doctor Who universe continues to grow from here. Since I’m approaching the revival era from a (mostly) chronological order, our next stop is the first episode of the Sarah Jane Adventures. That series is all new territory for me since I haven’t seen a single episode.

After that, we’ll dive headfirst into the Series Three and meet Martha Jones.

 

UP NEXT – Sarah Jane Adventures: Invasion of the Bane

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

Atlanta Comic Con 2019

Michael Falkner1 Comment

 

Atlanta Comic Con 2019
Atlanta, GA – July 12-14, 2019

 

 

I will be at Atlanta Comic Con this year! I have three panels on Saturday, so come find me and say hi!

 

The convention schedule is available now. The list of confirmed guests, performers, and artists is available on the official site.

Atlanta Comic Con takes place in downtown Atlanta at the Georgia World Congress Center.

Note: All schedules are tentative until the convention ends.

 

Saturday 11:00a – So You Want to Start a Podcast (1 hour)
Room C109
Have you wanted to start a podcast, Or do you have one and just want to talk shop? Well this is the place that will talk about how to create a show, what kind of equipment you will need to start, and where to post your new shows. In this Q&A session we will hope to point you in the right direction.

Saturday 1:30p – The MCU: What Now? (1 hour)
Room C102
The Marvel Universe has been on the big screen now for over 10 successful years, but last year it all came crashing to a halt with a snap of a finger. Now one year later we have been introduced to Captain Marvel and have seen the results of Avengers Endgame, but what’s next? Join the crew from the Earth Station One Podcast as we talk about some possibilities for new directions for existing heroes and some new ones on the horizon. We will be recording this panel live for a future episode of our podcast.

Saturday 10:00p – Holy Pop Culture: Batman at 80 (1 hour)
Room C110
Batman turns 80 this year. Join us as we spend an hour talking about his evolution over eight decades as well as his influence on and presence in popular culture. Holy puns will be kept to a minimum.

 

 

 

Timestamp #TW13: End of Days

Michael Falkner2 Comments

Torchwood: End of Days
(1 episode, s01e13, 2007)

 

The last big fracture that brings a family together.

Gwen and Rhys have a rare moment to themselves, but Jack calls with an untimely but important interruption: UFOs have been sighted over the Taj Mahal, police are clashing with soldiers from the English Civil War, and people believe they are signs of Armageddon.

Ianto recites biblical verses (what he calls Daniel 12:10 is really Daniel 12:8-9), and Jack brings news that everything worldwide is linked to Owen’s breach of the Rift. Institutions around the world, including UNIT, have their eyes on Torchwood. Owen and Tosh are dispatched to a quarantined hospital, and PC Andy Davidson calls Gwen with word of a Roman Soldier in lockup. Gwen and Jack drug the soldier and lock him away in the Hub. Gwen also sees a vision of Bilis Manger that apologizes to her.

Owen and Tosh find evidence of bubonic plague, the Black Death, at the hospital. Owen is rattled since he brought this upon Cardiff, and he channels that frustration into the medical staff. Meanwhile, Tosh sees her mother who brings an ominous message: Darkness is coming and Tosh must open the Rift to stop it.

At the Hub, Ianto brings word that the weevils are swarming. Once he’s alone, he also sees Lisa again, and his vision tells him to open the Rift.

I’m going to say that opening the Rift is a bad plan.

When Owen and Tosh return to the Hub, Jack unleashes on Owen for meddling with the Rift. The two men quarrel, resulting in Jack firing Owen. He also tells everyone else that they can follow Owen if they want, and Owen reminds Gwen that he’ll likely be Retconned within the next twenty-four hours and walks out.

Jack and Gwen visit Bilis at his clock shop, A Stitch in Time. Bilis reveals that he can step through time and see the whole of history, but his curse is that he doesn’t belong anywhere within it. He says that the only way to solve the fracturing of time is to fully open the Rift. He then disappears, only to leave a message for Gwen: Rhys is going to die horribly at some point in the future.

Gwen rushes back to her flat to find Rhys cleaning the oven. He won’t come with Gwen, so she stuns him and takes him to the Hub. He’s understandably upset, but she asks him to trust her. She returns to the operations area and talks with the team, with whom she has shared the vision. When the power goes out, Gwen and Jack run for the cells. With the power off, the cell doors have opened, and Rhys meets Bilis. Bilis stabs Rhys multiple times and vanishes as the power comes back. Jack and Gwen find Rhys, but it is too late. Gwen’s screams are heart-wrenching and soul-shattering.

Meanwhile, Owen is drowning his sorrows at a bar when he sees a vision of Diane. She tells him to open the Rift. It’s still a bad plan.

As the team mourns around Rhys in the examination area, Jack consoles Gwen as she lashes out at him. Owen rushes in, but while Tosh is happy to see him, Gwen is furious. Owen announces his intention to open the Rift, and everyone but Jack follows him to help. Jack tells them that it’s a trap, threatens to shoot Gwen, and insults each of them: Tosh and her fling with Mary; Owen and his death wish; Ianto and his Cyber-girlfriend; Gwen and her affair with Owen.

Gwen punches Jack and Owen kills him with his own gun. The team is shocked, but then starts gathering retinal images to unlock the subroutine to open the Rift. It’s at that point that Jack snaps back to life. The team evacuates the Hub only to find Bilis healding the arrival of Abaddon, an enormous vision of the devil that is stampeding through the city. It was cast out of time, and anyone in its shadow immediately dies.

Jack tells Gwen to take him to an open space, intent on feeding Abaddon with his all-you-can-eat life smorgasbord. Jack stands in the shadow, writhing in pain, and a bright blue light arcs from his chest to destroy the beast and seal the Rift. Gwen grieves over the dead body of Captain Jack Harkness.

The events reset the timeline with one exception: Jack is still dead. Owen, Ianto, and Tosh are resigned to his fate, but Gwen won’t give up. She sits with him for days despite the team’s growing worry about her. Ianto breaks down and cries into Jack’s coat, and Tosh nearly convinces Gwen to let Jack go.

She kisses Jack and starts to walk away when he wakes up, weak but alive. He gets dressed and reunites with the team, all of whom are happy to see him in their own way. Jack even forgives Owen and embraces him as the team’s black sheep weeps.

Later on, Jack and Gwen discuss the Rift. It’s due to become more volatile, and Jack tells Gwen what vision would have convinced him to open it during the crisis: “The right kind of Doctor.” He walks out to find the tank with the hand bubbling and glowing. He also hears the faint sound of the TARDIS materializing, to which he snatches up the tank and runs, leaving Gwen confused as the team returns with coffee.

Something has taken him. Jack is missing.

 

This story ties all of the threads together that have been strung across the last twelve episodes. Every one of our main characters has been broken in one way or another, and it’s this trauma that finally unites them for a common cause as a dysfunctional family. It brutally unearths everyone’s secrets for the bright light of day, and that honesty is healing.

The story twists and weaves in one way while being direct in others, linking the Torchwood series definitively with Doctor Who, and not just in the final moments. It was well-crafted and exhilarating, and a fantastic way to close this chapter.

 

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

 

UP NEXT – Torchwood: Series One Summary

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

 

 

Timestamp #TW12: Captain Jack Harkness

Michael Falkner10 Comments

Torchwood: Captain Jack Harkness
(1 episode, s01e12, 2007)

 

An eye-opening tale of star-crossed lovers.

Jack and Tosh arrive at a derelict dance hall called The Ritz to investigate 1940s music that has been drifting out of the premises at random. Pushing past the Vote Saxon posters, the duo dance in the dust before finding the music. They are transported back in time, presumably thanks to the Cardiff Rift. While Jack is happy to be there, they are trapped in 1941.

Back at the Hub, Owen wakes up to find Ianto monitoring Rift activity. Of course, Ianto can’t reach Tosh, so he calls Gwen. Owen analyzes the data, still maudlin about Diane’s disappearance, and Gwen investigates The Ritz. When Gwen calls for Jack, he can hear her voice but doesn’t get to her in time.

Tosh and Jack find themselves at a party on January 20, 1941, right in the midst of the London Blitz. Trying to blend in, they meet with an American captain who saves Jack and Tosh from a fistfight.

The American is Captain Jack Harkness.

Torchwood Jack is stunned but eventually comes up with an alias: Captain James Harper. He tells Tosh that he took the captain’s name as a disguise when the man died the next day in a training exercise. Torchwood Jack and Tosh start to work on the second half of an equation that will bridge the Rift and send them home. They transfer the equation from Tosh’s dying laptop to paper, but are interrupted by the manager, Bilish Manger. He has a Polaroid camera, which shouldn’t exist yet, and a file labeled Torchwood.

He’s also in the present and admits Gwen into the building to continue her investigation. She checks in with the Hub and learns that Manger exists in both time periods.

Tosh and Torchwood Jack return to the party. Tosh chats up another airman to get the local coordinates while Torchwood Jack gets to know the real Jack. Tosh also encounters a bit of racism – she’s Japanese, and the Japanese are one of the enemies in World War II – but Torchwood Jack is able to cover for her. Tosh sneaks back upstairs and uses the Polaroid to photograph the equation. She’s interrupted by Manger, so she only gets part of what she needs, so she finishes the equation with her own blood and seals it in a can to hide for the future.

Back in the present, Ianto and Owen spar over their lost loves and the equation. Owen is dead set on opening the Rift and bringing Diane back. He tries to use the rift manipulator but finds that a piece is missing. Owen leaves to search Manger’s office for clues as Gwen finds the can. Owen finds the missing piece and returns to the Hub.

Torchwood Jack is falling for Real Jack, only to be interrupted by Real Jack’s girlfriend Nancy. Torchwood Jack urges Real Jack to kiss her goodbye as she leaves the party, but the American captain only finds his situation worse when Nancy professes her love for him. Jack confronts Jack and exchange war stories to make their respective points. As the bombs begin to fall, everyone takes cover.

Real Jack confides in Torchwood Jack that he is scared. They sit down for a private talk as the bombings stop and the partygoers return to their revelry. Real Jack heeds Torchwood Jack’s advice to spend more time with Nancy, to treat that night as if it were his last, but later returns to spend those moments with Torchwood Jack. They hold hands before being interrupted by another couple looking for Lover’s Corner.

Owen continues his work and breaks into Jack’s safe to find the manipulator’s blueprints. Ianto takes the blueprints, but Owen overpowers him. Ianto returns with a gun, eventually shooting Owen in the shoulder to stop him. The bullet is too late. The manipulator activates as Owen slips into unconsciousness.

Torchwood Jack watches the party, telling Tosh about how the real captain will die the next day. He also explains how he was brought back from death and apologizes for dragging her into this. While Torchwood Jack mourns for the pending loss, Tosh looks on as Real Jack makes his decision. Jack takes Jack’s hand, leads him to the dance floor, and they share a dance before the Rift bursts through the door. They share a kiss as the partygoers watch in astonishment, then the wayward members of Torchwood Three return home.

They meet up with Gwen and return to the Hub. Owen performs surgery on himself to remove the bullet as Ianto searches for signs of Manger. Tosh joins Jack in his office and together they raise a glass to the memory of the real Captain Jack Harkness.

 

First things first, if we presume that this story and the Ninth Doctor tale that introduced us to Jack are happening at around the same time, then there are (at least) two versions of that character roaming about in that time.

The Jack story is quite touching, from Jack finding a moment of love with the man whom he replaced to Tosh getting to know her boss in a fantastic change of pace for the character. I mean, look, Tosh has a role in the plot! Yes! This also is a crazy story in terms of time travel for both Jack and Tosh. Tosh’s actions are quite straightforward, echoing other time travel adventures where the stuck-in-the-past hero has to send a message to his/her support team in the future in order to be rescued. Jack’s temporal threads are a bit more complex: Jack took the Captain Harkness identity as a matter of convenience, then travels back parallel to his own timeline and interacts with the man he replaced. The implications and possibilities could have spun wildly out of control.

There is the question of the dance and the kiss. From what I gather, homosexuality was still illegal in England and Wales until the Sexual Offences Act 1967 was passed, and that did not apply to the armed forces. In reality, Captain Harkness would have likely been either imprisoned or rebuked for sharing the moment with Jack, and probably wouldn’t have been allowed to fly his mission the next day. Since the Torchwood Jack Harkness still exists, it’s reasonable to assume that either the event was washed away as a mass delusion – two people did disappear in a mysterious burst of light – or it was a moment of poetic license for the sake of drama.

Either way, I consider it a minor quibble. It was a beautiful moment for Jack, even if actor Matt Rippy didn’t seem to be totally into the role.

Owen’s story is one of obsession and subversion of power. He wants nothing more than to get love back in his life, and he’s willing to tear time and space apart to make it happen. Even a gunshot wound to his shoulder won’t slow him down. I’m interested in how it will play out with the season finale next.

 

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

 

UP NEXT – Torchwood: End of Days

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

 

 

Timestamp #183: The Runaway Bride

Michael Falkner32 Comments

Doctor Who: The Runaway Bride
(1 episode, Christmas Special, 2006)

 

It’s the balance between character chemistry and chewed scenery.

Starting with that RTD Earth-zoom shot – you know the one – we meet bride-to-be Donna Noble as she’s walked down the aisle on Christmas Eve. As she approaches her groom, she’s transported away in a cloud of gold energy and appears on the TARDIS right where we left the Tenth Doctor, orbiting a supernova, at the end of Doomsday.

Donna immediately confronts the Doctor, demanding to know where she is. The Doctor is confused since she doesn’t belong on the TARDIS, and Donna thinks it is a practical joke by her friend Nerys. Donna opens the doors in an attempt to flee but stops cold at the sight of outer space beyond the TARDIS’s walls.

Then she finds out that the Doctor is an alien. Mind blown.

The Doctor investigates Donna while she demands to be taken back to the church. She spots one of Rose’s shirts and wants to know how many women the Doctor has abducted, but his attitude shifts to a combination of somber and angry as he replies that he lost her. Back on Earth, the church is in chaos as the Doctor drops Donna near Oxford Street. Donna has her “bigger on the inside moment” while the Doctor tends to the TARDIS, and she sets out on foot. The Doctor pursues, adamant that he’s not a Martian, and the pair have considerable difficulty hailing a taxi.

Especially since neither of them has any money.

Donna uses a sonic-screwdriver hacked pay phone while the Doctor stands in line for the automatic teller machine. He sonics some cash and then notices a trio of sinister Santas, including one that just drove off with Donna. She figures out that the Santas are the bad guys after she is abducted, and the Doctor runs for the TARDIS. He materializes on the roadway, flies alongside the taxi, and rescues Donna while driving the time capsule with a length of twine. The whole sequence is solid edge-of-your-seat action.

The TARDIS touches down on a rooftop and, in a burst of smoke, takes some time to cool down. The Doctor and Donna talk about her wedding and time machines, and the Time Lord gives her a ring that acts as a bio-damper to confuse the Santa-bots. They also talk about the events of last Christmas, during which Donna was hung over so she missed the whole affair. The Doctor muses about Rose for a moment before turning back to the mystery at hand.

Donna works as a secretary at a local security firm where she met Lance, head of Human Relations and her husband-to-be, as he offered her a cup of coffee. They went out for a while before they decided to get married (after Donna pestered him for a really long time). The Doctor takes her to the wedding reception, which Donna is furious about since they’re partying without the bride. Donna’s mother Sylvia counters, prompting a furious storm from the assembled guests, and Donna silences them with a quick cry. The party carries on and the Doctor investigates H.C. Clements.

It turns out that the security firm was owned by Torchwood before the institute was decimated. The Doctor asks the wedding videographer if he caught Donna’s disappearance on tape, and figures out that she was infused with Huon particles. Unfortunately, those particles cannot be shielded by a bio-damper and the Santas are on the march. The building is surrounded, and the Doctor sees that the Santas are using the Christmas trees as weapons. The ornaments explode, providing a diversion as the Santas take aim on the Doctor. The Doctor replies by plugging his sonic screwdriver into the DJ’s mixing board and blowing the robots apart.

The Doctor realizes that the Robot Santas aren’t being controlled by the Sycorax this time. He analyzes one of the robot heads and tracks the controlling signal to a star-shaped spacecraft in orbit. Lance gives Donna and the Doctor to H.C. Clements – Donna missed the Torchwood event as well – and the Doctor tracks the Huon particles to a secret sub-basement. Those particles, which haven’t been seen since the Dark Times, connected Donna to the TARDIS since the time capsule is the only other place where they exist. The trio take Segways to a door marked with the Torchwood logo, and the Doctor ascends to the Thames Flood Barrier. The secret base is underneath the landmark river.

They find a series of water capsules in a lab. Someone has been using the river to create the particles and store them in liquid form. The Doctor explains that the Time Lords stopped using Huon particles because they were deadly, and he promises to help rid Donna of them. They’re interrupted by a legion of robots and a sinister voice belonging to a half-spider half-humanoid being, the Empress of the Racnoss. The Racnoss were supposed to have gone extinct during the Dark Times.

They also find a pit dug all the way to the center of the Earth. Chekhov’s pit, perhaps? Spoiler: Not quite.

Above the pit is a giant web, inside which is the corpse of H.C. Clements. The Doctor and Donna try to distract the Empress as Lance sneaks up with an axe, but Lance’s identity is soon revealed. He made her coffee everyday, spiking it with Huon particles while tolerating her obsession with pop culture. He’s been promised a chance to see the stars, and that was enough to betray Donna. The Empress decides to dispose of the Doctor, but he reverses the particle activity and draws the TARDIS around them so they can escape.

The Doctor sets a course back in time as Donna grieves about Lance’s betrayal. They arrive at the creation of the Earth, making Donna the first human to ever see it. Together, they watch as the Racnoss starship arrives, acting as the nucleus for the planet’s formation. At that moment, the TARDIS rocks and is pulled forward to the present day as the Empress floods Lance’s body with Huon particles. To avoid a direct return to the lab, the Doctor smacks the extrapolator and shifts the TARDIS into an abandoned corridor. Unfortunately, they are both soon trapped by the robots.

The Empress extracts the Huon particles from Donna and Lance, projecting the energy into the pit and awakening the sleeping Racnoss below. She then releases Lance as food for her growing horde as her spaceship descends and attacks the city. The Doctor arrives and saves Donna before offering the Empress one last chance to save her people by surrendering. The Empress, of course, declines, and the Doctor warns her that what follows is her own doing.

The Doctor disables the robots before telling the Empress where he’s from. It turns out that the Time Lords were responsible for the extinction of the Racnoss, so the name Gallifrey sparks fear in the Empress. The Doctor uses the explosive ornaments to breach the Thames walls, flooding the complex while the Last of the Time Lords watches with sinister intent. Donna brings him back to his senses as the Empress transmats back to her ship.

On the roads above, tanks roll in and – under orders from Mr. Saxon, who we saw referenced last in Love & Monsters – destroy the ship. The Doctor and Donna surface to find the threat over and the Thames drained. They take the TARDIS back to a nearby road and the duo say goodbye. The Doctor uses temporal energy to start a Christmas snow before offering Donna a chance to travel with him. She declines, despite the adventure they just shared, but she encourages him to find someone because they can help balance the darkness in him.

The Doctor briefly tells Donna about Rose before taking off for his next adventure.

 

For a fun Christmas tale, this one does the trick. Donna and the Doctor together are amazing, playing off each other in pseudo-confrontational snappy dialogue as they work together to solve the mystery. The source of that threat, on the other hand, was way over the top: The Racnoss Empress chewed the scenery into splinters.

The Doctor is taking some time to mourn for Rose. It seems like just the right amount instead of going to the extreme with a depressed and/or mopey Doctor. He also knows when to set aside his grief to save Donna’s life and stop the Racnoss from destroying the Earth. I also really enjoyed the discussion about the Doctor needing a companion to balance him and rein him, particularly in the post-Time War trauma that the character is experiencing.

Following the episode airdates, we go back to Torchwood at this point and will remain there until the end of the show’s first series.

 

 

Rating: 4/5 – “Would you care for a jelly baby?”

 

 

UP NEXT – Torchwood: Captain Jack Harkness

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.