Doctor Who: The Unquiet Dead
(1 episode, s01e03, 2005)

 

An undead Christmas carol, being a quest for redemption stymied by a bait and switch.

In the Sneed and Company funeral parlor, Mr. Redpath grieves over the casket of his grandmother. He takes a moment alone, leaving him open to attack as the corpse reanimates with a blue glow and snaps the man’s neck. The undertaker rushes in but cannot stop the undead from walking into the snowy night and wailing. Sneed summons his servant girl, Gwyneth, and makes a plan to deal with the walking dead.

Meanwhile, while hurtling through time and space, the TARDIS shimmies as the Doctor and Rose try to pilot the capsule to Naples, 1860. The TARDIS materializes and Rose gets a wardrobe change – avoiding a riot over her modern clothing – before taking part in Christmas. The Doctor calls her beautiful in her new attire, all things considered: She is human after all, and not particularly attractive to this incarnation.

Gwyneth uses her clairvoyant abilities to track the corpse to her last living desire, which was to see a Charles Dickens reading. At the theater, despite being jaded and weary, Dickens still decides to put on the reading of A Christmas Carol. His performance is interrupted by the zombie, and the screams attract the Doctor. The blue glow exits the corpse, leaving it to fall lifeless as the gas screams and swoops into a nearby lantern. Rose, however, is kidnapped by the undertaker as Sneed and Gwyneth recover the body, and the Doctor gives chase – with considerable fanboy charm – alongside Dickens in the writer’s carriage.

Rose awakens in the funeral parlor, as do more corpses with the blue gas from a nearby flame. The Doctor and Dickens arrive, determine that something is living in the gas pipes, and rescue Rose from the dead. The Doctor interviews the corpses and reveals that they are dying because the Rift is failing. The vapors are released and the corpses are lifeless once more.

The Rift, eh?

Moments later, the Doctor and Dickens interrogate Sneed as Gwyneth uses her powers to pour perfect cups of tea. The Rift is a growing crack in spacetime and the entities have traveled from across the universe. Dickens investigates the corpses and the Doctor fills in the gaps: When a body decomposes, it releases gas and leaves space for these gaseous beings to inhabit. Dickens is dismayed that his view of the world is wrong, but the Doctor assures him that it’s just limited and expanding by the minute.

Rose makes friends with Gwyneth over their similar occupations and upbringings, but Gwyneth sees the full scope of Rose’s past/future in her mind. Gwyneth exposes her clairvoyance to Rose – she mentions the Bad Wolf, which was also a throwaway line at the end of the world – and the Doctor surmises that her power is growing due to the expanding Rift. Gwyneth is the key, and the Doctor suggests a séance.

Surrounded by the key players (including a skeptical Dickens) Gwyneth summons the creatures. They descend on the round table, identifying themselves as the Gelth, a species whose bodies were destroyed in the Last Great Time War. They want to take over corpses to live again, and want to use the power of the Rift to let them through to Cardiff. Rose is repulsed by the idea, but the Doctor (quite aggressively) wants to help. Gwyneth stands up for herself and tips the scale, eager to assist the Gelth.

Rose is sure that the plan will fail because the dead aren’t walking in the future, but the Doctor reminds her that time is constantly in flux. Gwyneth channels her powers and opens the Rift, but the Gelth have tricked everyone by hiding their true numbers. As billions of Gelth swarm through the Rift, Sneed is killed and converted, and the march begins to destroy humanity and live in their corpses.

Dickens flees the funeral parlor as Rose and the Doctor are trapped in a corner. The Doctor apologizes to Rose for her pending death, but Rose is willing to accept it because she wanted to come. They choose to go down fighting, but are rescued by Dickens who snuffs the lanterns but leaves the gas running. The natural gas displaces the Gelth and forces them out of the corpses, leaving the Doctor open to convince Gwyneth to send them back. Unfortunately, she cannot, but she can hold them long enough to burn them as she strikes a match and ignites the gas. The Doctor mourns her sacrifice, another victim in the Time War, with two words: I’m sorry.

The Doctor explains that Gwyneth was dead from the moment she stepped into the arch. Rose doesn’t understand, but Dickens does via Shakespeare: “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Rose realizes that a mere servant girl, someone with no more power than she, has just anonymously saved the world.

As the Doctor and Rose prepare to leave, a newly rejuvenated Dickens lays out his plans for family and the future, plotting to warn the world through his works, which the Doctor assures him will last forever. Dickens watches in wonder as the TARDIS dematerializes, then walks the streets with a wish for the world of a merry Christmas.

 

The theme of the damaged and haunted Doctor continues here with his drive to make things right after (presumably) destroying his entire species. Here, he even goes against his companion to “save” the Gelth because they’re victims of the Time War and he feels personally responsible for their supposed genocide. The great part is that he learns from this mistake; there is no easy route to absolution, and in his emotionally-clouded desperation, the Doctor is prone to being fooled.

Rose continues to be the gateway to his redemption as she sees that Gwyneth, a servant girl who is realistically no different than her, can save the world. One person can make a difference no matter who they are, and the Doctor seems inspired (though saddened) by this revelation.

 

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

 

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: Aliens of London and Doctor Who: World War Three

 

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.

 

 

Doctor Who: The End of the World
(1 episode, s01e02, 2005)

 

A trip to the end of the Earth is the gateway to a Time Lord’s scarred psyche.

Picking up immediately after the thwarted Nestene invasion, Rose and the Doctor determine where to go for their first trip together. The 22nd Century? Nah, that’s too boring. The New Roman Empire in the year 12005? Rose gives that a pass. A space station orbiting Earth five billion years in Rose’s future, the very day when the Earth dies after a solar expansion? That’s the ticket to adventure!

Rose is forlorn at the death of her homeworld, but the planet has long since been empty and in the possession of the National Trust as a sort of amusement for the rich and powerful. The travelers are confronted by one of the station’s stewards, and the Doctor uses his psychic paper to pose as a formal invitation to the proceedings. They are soon joined by the Moxx of Balhoon, the Face of Boe, living humanoid trees from the Forest of Cheem, and Adherents of the Repeated Meme. They are also joined the last remaining human, the Lady Cassandra O’Brien, a piece of stretched skin on a frame.

The guests exchange gifts, and Lady Cassandra offers the last ostrich egg and a jukebox (which she calls an iPod before playing “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell). The events are overwhelming for Rose and she flees from the gathering. Meanwhile, the silver spheres brought by the Adherents of the Repeated Meme hatch into mechanical spiders and the humanoid trees determine the truth about the Doctor’s origins.

Rose has a conversation with a station worker which illuminates her position so far from home with a stranger. When she leaves, the spiders attack the worker as they swarm through the station’s system, and Rose finds her way to an observation room. The Doctor offers a friendly ear as she talks through the overwhelming events. She also confronts him over the TARDIS and the translation matrix being in her brain without consent, and demands to know who he truly is. The Doctor stares at the viewport with the look of a haunted military veteran. As Rose pulls out her cell phone, he changes the topic by adjusting it so she can call home across time and space. She phones her mother, but the moment is disrupted by a tremor in the station. Moments later, the station’s steward is killed by the spiders.

The Doctor and Rose investigate the disruption, but Rose leaves as Jabe – the leader of the delegation from the Forest of Cheem – joins the Doctor in the maintenance corridors. Rose, in the meantime, speaks to Cassandra, but is disgusted by the portable face’s racist rhetoric. Rose declares herself as the last true human, insulting the Lady. As she storms off, the Adherents find her and knock her out.

Jabe talks with the Doctor, offering her condolences over his situation as the last of the Time Lords. He is visibly moved before he opens the ventilation system and (with Jabe’s help) captures a spider. As the Earth nears death, Lady Cassandra spins up “Toxic” by Britney Spears on the jukebox. Rose wakes up in the observation room with a lowering window filter, exposing her to the lethal rays of the sun. The Doctor finds her and eventually overrides the filter, but the door is jammed.

The Doctor and Jabe rejoin the assembled guests, and the Doctor uses the spider to trace the invasion to the Adherents. The Doctor discovers that the Adherents are merely remote controlled robots, and that the true villain is Lady Cassandra. She’s seeking the ransom on the assembled guests to fund her cosmetic operations, and the ransom can be paid whether they are alive or dead. Cassandra transmats away and the Doctor springs into action. He and Jabe return to the ventilation room, and the living tree sacrifices herself so that the Doctor reset the system.

Several of the guests died before the shields could be restored, but the station is able to defend itself just before the Earth is consumed. Rose is freed from her captivity as the station begins automatic repairs, and the Doctor pays his condolences to the Forest delegates. A furious Doctor finds Cassandra’s transmat device and brings her back to the observation room. He confronts the skin piece, and despite Rose’s requests for mercy, he watches coldly as she dries out and explodes.

Later, Rose watches through the window and muses that no one cared about the Earth’s death. The Doctor takes her home, telling her that people think things will last forever, but of course they won’t. He then tells her about being the last of the Time Lords, a man who watched his planet burn away in war. Rose offers companionship and to buy him chips.

 

This story, after hinting at the destruction of Gallifrey, really highlights the Ninth Doctor’s position as a haunted war veteran who is trying to reconcile what he did with who he is at heart. He shares a seat with Rose and listens to her concerns, but later shows no mercy in allowing someone who hurt innocents to die at their own hand. This Doctor is a troubled incarnation, and watching this hero work through his demons while still trying to do good, almost seeking redemption for his sins, is amazing.

 

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

 

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Unquiet Dead

 

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.

 

 

Doctor Who: Rose
(1 episode, s01e01, 2005)

 

Doctor Who evolves again.

The beginning of the Third Doctor’s era in 1970 was a major turning point for the franchise, signaling a shift in production (black and white to color) and tone (cerebral plots to more action-driven stories). It happened again to a smaller degree in 1982 as the Fifth Doctor literally unraveled his predecessor’s scarf and tied off the loose ends in a trilogy of Master stories. In 1996, the television movie signaled another paradigm shift after a seven year hiatus, and nine years later Doctor Who did again upon starting up in the twenty-first century.

This story and era starts with the global view, zooming in on the hectic life of Rose Tyler, a young woman who works at Henrik’s department store. She goes to work, has lunch with her boyfriend Mickey Smith, and almost leaves the store with the lottery money. She takes it to Chief Electrician Wilson’s office, but instead of completing her task, she finds an empty office, an army of mobile mannequins, and a strange man named the Doctor.

Together, the Ninth Doctor and Rose run from the Autons – it’s been, what, thirty-four years since we saw them last? –  and Rose is pushed out of the store as the Doctor detonates a bomb that destroys the upper floor of the building. Rose returns home, not noticing the rickety blue police box across the street and trying to avoid the hovering affections of Mickey and her mother Jackie. Mickey leaves with a mannequin arm that came from the store as Rose goes to bed.

The next morning, Rose is visited by the Doctor, who has been tracing a plastic signal. The Time Lord is unfazed by Jackie’s flirtations, and he’s impressed by his face, presumably the first time he’s seen it since regeneration. He and Rose are attacked by the mannequin hand (which crawled back to the Tyler residence) and immediately leave; the Doctor is intent on solving the mystery and Rose is intent on understanding what’s going on.

The Doctor leaves Rose outside his TARDIS, and as she walks away she sees the capsule dematerialize. She goes to Mickey’s place and searches the internet for any sign of the Doctor. She stumbles onto a website dedicated to the mystery of the Time Lord, run by a man named Clive. She and Mickey drive to Clive’s home and Rose learns about how the same man appears throughout time. The Doctor is a legend woven throughout history, and when disaster comes, he’s there with the storm of death behind him.

Outside, Mickey encounters a moving trash bin that replaces him with a plastic duplicate. When Rose returns, the pair goes to lunch. Auton-Mickey interrogates Rose about the Doctor, and the Time Lord arrives just in time to save her from the doppelganger’s rampage. The Doctor enters the TARDIS, and Rose joins him moments later after processing her “bigger on the inside” moment.

The TARDIS is gorgeous, reflecting a coral pattern in the console room. Rose learns about the Doctor as the Time Lord connects the Auton’s head to the console in an attempt to trace the signal. The TARDIS moves to the edge of the River Thames, shocking Rose even further, but her confusion turns to anger over the Doctor’s dismissal of the real Mickey’s fate. The pair try to trace the transmitter for the Nestene Consciousness, the controlling source of the Autons, and Rose narrows it down to the London Eye. They descend underground with a vial of anti-plastic to end the threat.

They enter the Nestene base where the Doctor confronts the Consciousness. Rose leaves the Doctor when she sees the real Mickey, who was kept alive to maintain the copy. The Doctor challenges the Consciousness under something called the Shadow Accords, trying to reason with it when he is captured by two mannequins. The Consciousness detects the TARDIS, a superior technology, and confront the Doctor over the death of Gallifrey in the Time War. It begins the invasion ahead of schedule.

In the Queen’s Arcade mall, the people are terrorized by rampaging mannequins. Jackie is chased, Clive is killed, and the streets are overrun. Underground, Rose and Mickey run for the TARDIS but are locked out. Rose comes to the Doctor’s rescue, attacking the Autons and knocking the anti-plastic into the Consciousness. The transmission stops, sending the Autons into confusion as the base explodes. Rose, Mickey, and the Doctor escape in the TARDIS as the Consciousness is apparently destroyed.

When the TARDIS lands, Mickey runs in confusion and fear. The Doctor invites Rose to travel with him – Mickey is too afraid of the alien – but she turns him down. Rose watches as the TARDIS dematerializes, but as she and Mickey walk away, the Doctor returns to tell her that it’s also a time machine. That wins her over: She kisses Mickey goodbye and runs for the TARDIS.

 

The show has changed, and just like with the Seventh Series, it was necessary for survival. Production values jumped, plot structures shifted, and episode lengths shortened, but the mythology is still the same. The franchise also adapted to modern technology, bringing the internet and mobile phones to bear when they haven’t really been addressed to date.

As a companion, Rose Tyler fulfills her role of gateway to the world of the Doctor. The Ninth Doctor himself offers a view into the world of a weary war veteran who is worn and nearly broken from the horrors he’s witnessed (or even taken part in personally).

There’s a lot of potential from this point forward, and this is a strong showing that hardly needs the regeneration handicap to score well.

 

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

 

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The End of the World

 

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.