Story 201, Episode 754, Doctor Who 2009 Fall Special
Doctor: The Tenth Doctor
In one of the greatest stories ever, the Doctor finally goes too far.
The Review
Adelaide Brooke is told her fate
The arrogance has always been there with the Tenth Doctor, winking as he explains how he’s saving the day, being braggadocios and charismatic. It’s what made the Tenth Doctor such a sensation, but we could all tell there was darkness still lurking. Finally, it bursts forth. The Waters of Mars is an hour long but it never feels like it, with it positively bursting with energy. Immediately after the credits sequence, we learn the plot, the Doctor is here on Bowie Base One, on Mars…on the day the crew all mysteriously die. Immediately the Doctor tries to leave, realizing this is a fixed point in time. Adelaide Brooke and her crew are going to die, and there’s nothing he can do about it. Then, the infection starts in the bio-dome. Three crew members are suddenly controlled by the Flood, a virulent parasite that lives in water and can generate it through fission. As the crew scrambles to save the day, the Doctor really wants to leave, but he can’t. How often has the Tenth Doctor been criticized for seemingly to just love being in danger? Here, it’s a fixed point, but he cannot resist still learning the unknown truth of what happened to Bowie Base One. Eventually, Adelaide forces him to tell her she activates Action 5 and the crew dies. She lets the Doctor leave, still tries to save her crew, but one by one they start falling to the Flood.
The Flood are a very creepy and nigh-unbeatable foe
Already, this is an incredible episode, but then it becomes legendary. The entire past four years of the Tenth Doctor were building to this, as he trudges away on the surface of Mars, hearing the crew members die. Then we hear all the times the Doctor said the Time Lords had died, and with only Adelaide and two crew members left, the Doctor strides back into Bowie Base One. Adelaide knows she has to die so her granddaughter leads humanity into the stars, and so do we. Normally, the Doctor saving the day against the odds is the part of the show we cheer and smile at, here we look on with increasing horror. Fighting time, the Flood, Adelaide, the Doctor uses that robot Gadget to speed to the TARDIS and materialize it around the crew just as the base explodes. The Doctor returns them to England, where we finally see the Tenth Doctor’s worst self revealed at last. Finally feeling like he is truly the Doctor again after the Time War, the Doctor is smarmy, smug, and arrogant. Oh he’s saved ‘little people’ he says, but Adelaide is a big fish and he still saved her. The Time Lord Victorious. Then, the final note, Adelaide walks into her home, and kills herself. Suddenly, time hits the Doctor like a ton of bricks. He couldn’t win, he couldn’t defeat time. No one man should have the power over time, and Adelaide had to kill herself to prove it. The Waters of Mars is gripping, shocking, horrifying, and essential. There’s not another Doctor Who story like it.
The Waters of Mars shakes the Doctor, and the viewers, to their very cores. In the landmark stories that define the Doctor, Story 201 will never be forgotten.
The Sarah Jane Adventures Season 3 Episodes 5 and 6
The Doctor makes his appearance in The Sarah Jane Adventures in a story that doesn’t quite live up to the previous Trickster tales.
The Review
The Trickster appearing in white is pretty amusing though
Maybe the Trickster has diminishing returns, because his role in this story was not terribly interesting. I think a big problem is that Nigel Havers, the actor playing Sarah Jane’s boyfriend Peter Dalton, turns in a pretty weird performance. He seems to be playing older which is weird, and in the first episode his weirdness is supposed to make people suspicious of him. When it turns out he’s an unwitting pawn of the Trickster who thinks the Trickster is a an angel sent to save his life, it is hard for us to see the true connection he and Sarah Jane had because so much work was put into making us suspicious of it. Mainly he just seems to be a sweet old guy and we do not get too much of why Sarah Jane loved him so much. The opening of the kids tailing Sarah Jane and finding her on a date and Sarah Jane busting them is hilarious, as well as when Peter comes over and meets Luke for the first time because K9, Rani, and Clyde have to keep an alien just out of view. That Sarah Jane thinks she could marry him without him knowing really anything of her life hunting aliens is unrealistic. You do feel bad for Sarah Jane at thinking she finally had a chance to be happy in love, and have it taken away. This is also the third Trickster story that someone else dies to save Sarah Jane. We’ve seen it!
The Doctor dramatically crashing the wedding
Of course the big ticket item is that the Doctor is here, in a spin-off for the first time! With this being a kids show, the Doctor has to be toned down a little bit but it is still a dead-on charismatic performance by David Tennant. He doesn’t show up until the episode one cliffhanger, and in episode two we get some good moments with him but ultimately it is up to the kids and Sarah Jane to save themselves, as it should be. Luke gets weirdly side-lined a bit at the end, but then we get an extremely heroic moment from Clyde: charged up with some TARDIS artron energy he nearly sacrifices himself giving an electric handshake of doom to the Trickster. Seeing the growth of Clyde over the show has been truly rewarding, and he steps it up big time here. Seeing the kids get to walk around the TARDIS is cool, and it’s so great that David Tennant showed up for this. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an enjoyable story, but the weirdness around Peter makes it hard to truly key on in the emotional beats. We do get a nice montage of Sarah Jane’s life though with her as a kid from episodes of this show cutting into a classic series montage showing the Third and Fourth Doctors which was wonderful. She is clearly still not over being hurt by the Doctor being so unreliable, but is truly charmed when he appears to cheer her up in his attic. Still though, there is that inherent Tenth Doctor cockiness, and it’s coming to get smacked down soon…
The Trickster stories keep depreciating in value, and despite this story not being as emotional as it could it’s fun enough.
8/10 This was actually the last time Tennant acted as the Doctor until the 50th.
Story 200, Episode 753, Doctor Who 2009 Easter Special
Doctor: The Tenth Doctor
In Doctor Who‘s 200th story, we get a beautifully shot on-location tale that is disposable fun.
The Review
The swarm!
It was a big leap in technology in story 200, Planet of the Dead marked Doctor Who finally transitioning to high definition after Torchwood was there three years earlier, and the occasion is marked with the bus in the story being called the 200. We even get a pre-stardom Daniel Kaluuya! After a London bus falls through a wormhole and lands on an endless desert planet, we are treated to some of the prettiest on-location shots in show history, the real life desert in the UAE just outside of Dubai. Throw in Michelle Ryan as the cat burglar extraordinaire Lady Christina (as close to Catwoman as Doctor Who will ever get) and the show has never looked better. After the bus driver gets roasted into bones by the wormhole, the Doctor and Christina have to figure out how to get the bus moving back into the wormhole. Unlike Midnight, with no obvious threat, everybody is much nicer to the Doctor. Outside of psychic Carmen who delivers the famous ‘he will knock four times’ prophecy the rest of the guest cast, even Kaluuya, don’t get too much to do. Instead we spend time with Christina being badass and gradually flirting with the Doctor, and Tennant and Ryan have a great dynamic together. Christina in this form couldn’t have lasted a full season, but neither could the original interpretation of Donna.
Can we stop with the overly socially inept zany professors thank you
We meet the Tritovores, who are basically humanoid flies who speak in clicking. Not the most original alien design but it is certainly an arresting one, and them not having lines allows for more Doctor and Christina time. Christina does get to put her thievery skills to the test Mission Impossible style to extract the anti-gravity clamps that fly the bus home. Less successful is the plot line with UNIT talking to the Doctor from London, where we meet UNIT scientist Malcolm woh is your stereotypical ditzy scientist who is over the moon that he is finally helping THE actual Doctor solve a problem. Osgood will later be a much better rendition of a UNIT scientist obsessed with the Doctor. It’s all a bit too silly. The concept of a planet-devouring swarm that inadvertently generates wormholes to move onto its next victim is a very cool idea, though I just realized: how do the wormholes always know to appear around planets? Could’ve used a technobabble line saying planetary gravity causes that or something. The real problem though is that this story still feels kind of disposable, I had forgotten half of it watching it for the first time in seven years. It’s a fun story, and doesn’t aim to be anything but, just the Doctor and notCatwoman cavorting around an actual desert facing alien stingrays. Not a classic for story 200, but a fine entry.
With a middling subplot, little story depth, it takes a gorgeous setting and a memorably unique performance from Michelle Ryan to make this one worth a rewatch.
8/10 The opening is literally a daring art heist, extremely not this show.
Lady Christina: a memorable could’ve been companion
Story 199, Episode 752, Doctor Who 2008 Christmas Special
Doctor: The Tenth Doctor
The Doctor is without a companion, in a fun story that ultimately could’ve been so much more.
The Review
The Doctors
For really the first time, we saw the Doctor ‘behind the scenes’ so to speak, in-between companions, just flying about. He arrives on Christmas Eve in London in 1851, and quickly meets a guy who thinks he’s the Doctor played by David Morrissey. Seeing his interpretations of the Doctor legend are really funny he has a normal screwdriver that makes noise when you tap it, and the TARDIS is a big hot air balloon. He even has a companion, ‘Rosita’, clearly another Rose call-back. It turns out that he’s actually just a human, Jackson Lake, who is suffering a fugue state where he thinks he’s the Doctor. It’s an entertaining story, but instead of diving into what it means to be ‘the Doctor’, Tennant’s true Doctor quickly takes over as the lead hero role. The setting for this story is good fun as modern-day Christmas episodes apart from not feeling all that Christmas had been a bit worn out. It’s a nice change of pace. The point is that the Doctor still is feeling glum from Journey’s End, but here Jackson leads the citizens of London in cheering the Doctor and he agrees to spend Christmas with him. It all feels a bit too little too late, as we know it doesn’t really fix the Doctor.
I mean a giant steampunk Cyberman is pretty cool
The flip-side is this Christmas we get more Cybermen in the mix, and they are perfectly adequate but don’t do much. They are aided by the malevolent Mercy Hartigan who is getting revenge on all the rich people in the city not doing enough for the poor…or something? She’s mainly just a megalomaniac, and although Dervla Kirwan gives a very memorable evil performance there is not much reason why she is evil. Still, the visuals of the Cybermen walking through a snowstorm in a graveyard and the giant steampunk Cyber-king rising over Victorian London are plenty fun. There’s some stuff about Hartigan overriding the Cybermen with her exceptionally strong intellect, and the Doctor opening her eyes to the horror of who she’s become causing a big explosion destroying the Cybermen. Still, she is underdeveloped and sadly is not the iconic villain she could’ve been. Despite all this, it’s still a fun episode and has a high rewatch score, especially with there being few things that scream Christmas more than it snowing in Victorian London. It’s a good episode, but could’ve been great.
The Next Doctor is a fun comforting capper to Doctor Who‘s biggest year ever in 2008.
Companions: Sarah Jane Smith, K9, Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith, Captain Jack Harkness, Donna Noble, Martha Jones, Wilfred Mott, River Song
David Tennant’s final season brings the perfect duo of the Tenth Doctor and Donna, while the stories do not always hit classic status, some do, and they are rarely bad.
The Review
Here’s the scores for the stories:
Midnight: 10/10
Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead: 10/10
Partners in Crime: 8.75/10
The Fires of Pompeii: 8.5/10
Planet of the Ood: 8.5/10
The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End: 8.25/10
The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky: 8.25/10
Turn Left: 8/10
The Unicorn and the Wasp: 8/10
The Doctor’s Daughter: 7.5/10
The best part of Series 4 is seeing two talented actors in David Tennant and Catherine Tate having the time of their lives. Tennant is sneaky good still as the Tenth Doctor, inhabiting the role so completely and utterly that his performance is just a built in part of what we expect from the show now. In Donna, Doctor Who gets the most ‘basic’ of all the companions, but also the most compassionate and human of them all. The Tenth Doctor still has a lot to learn about empathy and being a human, and he learns a lot of it from Donna. While the crazy companion fueled conclusion doesn’t hit all the marks, it cannot take away from one of the show’s very best duos.
8.575/10 With this classic duo leading the way, no one can fail
Story 198, Episodes 750 & 751, Series 4 Episodes 12 & 13
Doctor: The Tenth Doctor
Companions: Sarah Jane Smith, K9, Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, Jackie Tyler, Captain Jack Harkness, Donna Noble, Martha Jones, Wilfred Mott
In Avengers: Infinity War a decade earlier, RTD writes the most insane, bonkers story ever that somehow gets better with every rewatch.
The Review
Elisabeth Sladen was the best of us
This story is insane. First you’ve got the Daleks, oh yeah, turns out they’re behind the stars going out. There’s the return of the Supreme Dalek. Even bigger, Davros is back for the first time in 19 years. Next up, there are NINE companions in this story, not counting Torchwood and Luke Smith. Oh, and there are two Tenth Doctors. This story is the climax of the RTD era, an era of Doctor Who that focused on characters and relationships like none other and built the most inter-connected earth since the UNIT era of the 70s. There’s so much going on it boggles the mind. As an overview, I have watched this story twice recently for the Doctor Who Lockdown event and this review, and I am struck by how RTD made sure that there was no plot point, no character relationship left untouched. The best examples are the spin-off characters, Gwen calls Rhys to tell him to stay safe, Ianto inquires about when Jack met a soldier in a bar recently, Luke says that Maria and her dad are safe as well as Clyde, every character has their moments. My favorite though is Sarah Jane’s horrified reaction when the Dalek voices come over the screen in The Stolen Earth, and her similar reaction to seeing Davros again. I miss Elisabeth Sladen terribly, and you can feel the emotion and history in her relationship with Davros. RTD doesn’t miss a thing does he? On the Capitan Jack front, he’s here, he’s funny and charming, really actually not too much to say though him kissing Gwen and Ianto after hearing the Daleks over the loudspeaker is emotionally powerful too.
Martha is a soldier now, and it feels like a unfortunate direction for her character
Let’s move on to UNIT’s Martha Jones, who has gotten a very recent promotion to Manhattan, presumably so we can show the Daleks invading New York for real this time. Martha comes very close to using the Osterhagen Key, which will destroy the Earth with a chain of nuclear warheads. In what is meant to be one of the narrative backbones of the story, the Doctor turning people into soldiers, Martha is most explicitly a soldier. Now I know Martha was originally supposed to factor into the third season of Torchwood, but Martha’s character development does end with her as a soldier, and I think I am supposed to feel bad about that. She is the only companion who briefly gets into an argument with the Doctor, and her plan to hold Earth ransom to stop the REALITY BOMB because it needs all 27 planets to function makes some sense but still feels out of character for Doctor Who. Oh, I haven’t even mentioned the plot, the Earth gets stolen by the Daleks and is hidden in the Medusa Cascade one second out of sync with the rest of the universe to power Davros’ Reality Bomb which will leave the Daleks the only race in existence. The earth literally gets pulled out from under the Doctor and Donna in the TARDIS, who visit the Shadow Proclamation and get to the Medusa Cascade because ‘the bees are disappearing’ is actually a vital plot point because some bees are aliens and leave a trail and ok that’s enough.
Series 4 Rose: we can all agree it was a miss
Now onto the big character problem with the story: Rose. Whether it’s because Billie Piper lost the energy from two years ago, or it is part of an intentional change to make her also this badass dimension hopping soldier, Rose has little of the charm we remember. At least Martha’s soldier-ification happened on screen, all this character development for Rose we never get to see. It’s hard to feel invested in the Doctor seeing Rose again, when this does not track as the Rose we remember. Rose’s pouting ‘I was there first’ when she can see but not join the subwave network Zoom call with the companions rings especially sour with Sarah Jane on call. As much fun as it is to see Jackie Tyler again, her becoming a badass doesn’t make too much sense. Jackie does get the heart wrenching scene where she apologizes to a woman before she teleports away from the Daleks disintegrating people and we see that woman die. The one soldier who makes the most sense: Mickey Smith. Thanks to excellent groundwork laid by Noel Clarke in Series 2, and that he’s done it before, Mickey as a dimension-jumping hero makes a ton of sense. Also, his decision to return to his home universe is made entirely on his own terms and shows how he has finally moved on beyond Rose and is ready to forge his own path. Good for you Mickey! So, on the Rose-centric cast, Rose actually comes off as pretty uninteresting in what should have been her reunion with the Doctor. There’s also SO MUCH going on that you stop caring about the Doctor/Rose relationship.
Visually though, Davros is a home run. Seen here remembering he left the stove on back on Skaro
Alright, let’s talk about the Daleks of it all. RTD was right, for this story (and the landmark 750th episode), something big had to happen, and it does: we actually see the Daleks invading Earth, which we didn’t in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. The shots showing the different planets in the sky and the Dalek saucers flying overhead are awesome. The menace of the Daleks is largely in the first episode, by the second there isn’t much time for them (though we do get German Daleks which is amazing and very Wolfenstein). It’s not really a surprise the bad guys are just Daleks again, but we get some of the show’s best visuals to date. Now, returning is Davros, and he has some snarky monologues with the Doctor and is behind the silly Reality Bomb. Davros’ biggest problem is that he gets lost in the absolute chaos of this story, and is hardly what people remember from it. In a story returning so many characters, Davros is new (to the new series), and there’s only so much energy the audience can spend on processing who Davros is and what he means. Honestly more notable than driving the point home of the Doctor turning his companions into soldiers is Davros’ refusal to be rescued by the Doctor as the Dalek Crucible burns, then declaring the Doctor ‘the destroyer of worlds’ with zero self-awareness. For such an epic crossover, the villains couldn’t be anyone but the Daleks, but they and Davros become victims of plot soup. There’s only so much a story can do.
Meeting of the Doctors
We’re not even close to done. It’s finally time to talk about the ostensible current companion, Donna. Throughout the story, Donna keeps being told she is special, but refuses to believe it even as she helps the Doctor to the Medusa Cascade. Catherine Tate is funny throughout, but gets lost a bit in episode two when she…ok so this is a regeneration story. A Dalek shoots the Doctor when he’s running at Rose, Jack, Rose, and Donna pull him in the TARDIS, he goes to regenerate, and…heals himself but pours energy into his hand in a jar. Donna touches the hand, and out grows the Meta-Crisis Doctor, who dons the blue suit and we learn has only one heart and has picked up some of Donna’s catchphrases and attitudes. The idea of the two Doctors is crazy, but it does allow David Tennant to be in two places at once which I appreciate. At the end of the day, the famous cliffhanger of the Doctor regenerating is exciting but of course it has to end in a cop-out. The second Doctor really is around for more Tennant/Tate banter, and as a gift to Rose to make Ten/Rose shippers happy for eternity. The Meta-Crisis Doctor decides to commit genocide on the Daleks, and as that goes against the Fourth Doctor’s established modus operandi in Genesis of the Daleks, he has to be punished. The Meta-Crisis Doctor gets to love and grow old with Rose, and the Doctor leaves her behind. While the Doctor getting over Rose should be a big emotional moment, it happens mostly silently. Anyway, this crazy new Doctor is a better fit for Series 4 Rose anyway.
Donna about to get the mind wipe
Oh, back to Donna. In the first episode, much of the driving plot is Harriet Jones (former Prime Minister) creating a big Zoom call and sacrificing herself (nobly!) for Torchwood and Mr. Smith to have every phone in existence call the Doctor to drag the TARDIS to Earth’s hiding spot. Donna gets a lot of screen time, but not as much in the second episode. After the Osterhagen Key thing, Captain Jack holding a ‘warp star’ to blow up the Crucible, and the Meta-Crisis Doctor having some backfire gun all fail in a funny twist on Davies-ex-Machina, it is Donna who has the new Doctor brain of hers awakened by Davros who stops the Reality Bomb. To see Donna, the most basic companion filled with self-doubt in full complete control, toying with the Daleks and Davros is a complete and utter joy. It represents the full potential of what Donna could be…and then it’s taken away. After the long denouement as all the companions leave, the Doctor knows he has to wipe Donna’s mind of her time with him or her brain will burn with the Time Lord consciousness in it. I think this is the most devastating companion departure, as Donna pleads to be allowed to die as the Doctor wipes her memory. I know the wipe is controversial, but I do think the Doctor makes the right decision in preserving her life. Just as hard as seeing Donna back to The Runaway Bride is Wilf’s reaction. Wilf is mainly adorable throughout the story and not an official companion yet, notably not on the giant TARDIS flight. Wilf does two important things, he tells Sylvia that Donna was better in the TARDIS (leading to the Doctor finally rebuking Sylvia), and asking the Doctor if he’ll be alright. In the end, this resolution for Donna seems cruel and it just isn’t a satisfying resolution to her arc. Ah well.
The gang flies Earth home
So where does this leave us? First off, this story is a ton of insane fun. It’s like doing a line of pure RTD. It’s hard for me to be too upset at a story that is this wild and fun, and so much of it is pretty great. K9 even shows up! The biggest problems with the story are as follows: the return of Rose brings us a character unrecognizable from when she left us in Doomsday, the motif of the Doctor turning his companions into soldiers does not have a true resolution, is this a good thing or bad thing? The story won’t say. Lastly, Donna’s arc instead of concluding with her in triumph, ends with her reduced back to what she was. Instead of the story being about the Doctor having the largest family in the universe as Sarah Jane tells him, he ends the story dejected and rain-soaked in the TARDIS: alone. It’s a daring thing to end a story jammed with characters and a celebration of the success of the return of Doctor Who with the Doctor being all alone by himself. It’s seriously sad. I’m ok with these potential downer endings, but it just wrings wrong for a story that had so much verve and life and energy. Still though, it is a very good time, and every character gets their own little moments making nobody completely forgotten in the shuffle. RTD even ties up the thread of Gwen being a descendent of Gwyneth from The Unquiet Dead. This is an essential Doctor Who story for the sugar rush it provides, but there is just too much going on for this story to have a truly impactful plot.
There is no story more insane than this one, but the insanity denies characters the time they needed to truly wrap up their arcs.
8.25/10 RTD goes ALL IN.
The most insane story ends on such a depressing note. Such a gamble!
Turn Left is a dark look at the world of Doctor Who if the Doctor had never met Donna in a story that is disturbing to watch in 2020.
The Review
Sylvia Noble, a rude overbearing mother, almost destroys the universe right here
Catherine Tate shines in Turn Left, a story all about the Donna with the Doctor featuring the least he has in the whole new series. A parasite in an alien bazaar attaches to Donna’s back, and she makes a fateful decision to turn right and not accept the HC Clements job, thereby never meeting the Doctor. The Doctor dies defeating the Racnoss, and we run through how the world would’ve looked without the Doctor. The turning point is the ridiculously silly idea of the outer space Titanic crashing directly into London, which causes the apocalypse. Donna and her family were away having won a raffle, and see the nuclear fireball over the city. They are forced to live in a cramped apartment with an immigrant family in Leeds, who are eventually taken off to ‘labor camps’. Wilf completely breaking down telling Donna ‘that’s what they called them last time’ is horrifying. Sarah Jane and her charges die with Martha when the Judoon take the hospital to the moon, Torchwood dies to stop ATMOS and the Sontarans. It is an ugly, sad, brutal world, especially in Britain, and watching it in 2020 after several years of bad choices by the world leading to predicted bad outcomes…it’s tough. There’s nothing really poignant about what it shows about society though, as it all happening with a dead Doctor makes it about showing how important the Doctor (and Donna) are. It’s not nearly as scathing as it could’ve been, for how bleak it is, it rarely twists the knife.
Wilf realizing that Britain is killing all immigrants is a horribly powerful moment
The big event is that Rose is fully back on our screens for the first time since her tearful stranding in Doomsday. The version of Rose we get here is very different than when we last saw her, she’s much more solemn and mature and infamous Billie Piper has a lisp because she could not find the Rose voice. Rose is more effective as a mystery in this episode, and she just does not act like the Rose we all remember. That leaves us with Donna, who is superb in this episode, a normal person with all the flaws that we remember Donna having. Despite never meeting the Doctor, Donna is still heroic when Rose takes her to the UNIT base where they’ve retrofitted the dying TARDIS into a last ditch time machine. The pay-off to ‘something is on your back’ being a disgusting beetle is disturbing, and played brilliantly by Tate. Seeing Donna go from happiness that she’ll meet the Doctor and that she does matter to despair that she’ll die to acceptance, committing suicide to save the world is a heart-wrenching journey. Throughout her life, Donna has been looked down upon, especially by her mother, and told that she doesn’t matter. Actually, Donna matters more than anyone, because of her heart and her stubbornness. When we see Rose and Donna together, there’s no question who we like more. Rose has become some weird action hero while Donna is just trying to do the best that she can. In the end, Donna saves the day, but don’t worry: Bad Wolf is returning to stop the stars from going out.
Rose comes back at last, but it turns out we don’t really care: Donna has been the star of the show and gets the episode she deserves.
8/10 I heard RTD did a whole show about nasty people ruining Britain I think I see enough of that here in America thank you.
In one of the best stories of all time, the Doctor is alone.
The Review
Midnight.
I watched Midnight for the first time in 2013, and don’t remember thinking much of it. Over the years I have seen its praises sung effusively and never went back to rewatch it. Now I have. Heaven Sent is #1, but boy this might be #2. What makes both stories so incredible, is that they could take place in any format. They could be audio dramas, books, theater productions, the story is universal but something only Doctor Who could produce. Midnight is a simple story, Donna stays behind to relax while the Doctor goes out on an excursion on the planet Midnight. It is a planet composed of diamonds bathed in Xtonic radiation from its sun, beautiful, but impossible ever to be touched, only glimpsed behind fifteen-foot thick glass. The Doctor is on this excursion with the driver, mechanic, hostess, a middle-aged couple and their emo son, a professor and his lab assistant and an older woman, Sky. The trip takes a detour due to a rockfall and then…the engines stop cold for no apparent reason. The Doctor visits the cabin, and the mechanic swears he sees a dark shadow, shifting in the diamonds. Nothing can be alive out there and survive Xtonic radiation, right? Then the banging begins on the cabin hull, circles in on Sky, and with a loud explosion the power cuts. Sky won’t look at everyone else.
Happier times on board
This story is about group psychology and group fear, and it is terrifying. More than that, it is about the Doctor. The Doctor can always get out of situations, speak a bunch of clever words and make the problem go away with his companion aiding the explanations. This time, he’s trapped, there’s no way out, there’s no escape. Sky starts talking, repeating what everyone says causing mass panic, then she starts saying words the same time they do. As the paranoia increases, everyone turns on the Doctor: he showed up out of the blue, won’t tell them their real name, implies he isn’t human, why should everyone trust him? He’s the only one who talked to Sky before, they’re probably doing this together! Then, Sky starts only repeating the Doctor, then, she jumps ahead of him, and stands as the Doctor freezes, immobilized, repeating Sky’s words. Sky assures the passengers she has been freed, the entity is in the Doctor now, and it is save to cast him onto the planet’s surface and vaporize him. Some passengers hold reservations, others prepare to throw out the Doctor. Never has the Doctor come as close to death as he has right here, it is absolutely terrifying. Only when Sky says ‘molto bene’ and ‘allons-y’ does the hostess realize the evil is still in her and sacrifices herself to destroy it. No one even knew the hostess’ name.
The Doctor collapses after the entity has been exiled
What makes Midnight so incredible is how it functions as a deconstruction of the Doctor and how he usually solves problems, especially the Tenth Doctor. The Tenth Doctor is always clever, often too clever for his own good, and acts with a swagger and a ‘smarter than thou’ energy. Here, it is weaponized against him with devastating effect. Sure the entity is evil and the story’s villain, but it is hysteria and paranoia of ordinary people than almost get the Doctor killed. He is only saved because of his eccentricity, his usage of Italian and French tip off the hostesses that Sky was still evil. In essence, the Doctor got lucky. Armies of Daleks and Cybermen and Sontarans, no problem. A couple of scared humans locked in a room? The Doctor barely escapes with his life. The story also shows how important the companions are to the Doctor, with Donna there she would have been able to translate some of the Doctor’s Doctor-speak and maybe saved the day. In the end, she isn’t there, and the Doctor is left at the mercy of people, ordinary people, who show how horrible people can be. At the end, the mother insists she did say the Doctor wasn’t possessed, and he stares blankly at her, as we all know: she was a liar. Midnight is a powerful, dark story and one of the greats.
Let them build somewhere else the Doctor says. Midnight should keep turning around an Xtonic star, a world of diamonds no one can ever touch…forever.
10/10 RTD does character drama like no one else. Only he could’ve written this absolute classic.
Story 195, Episodes 746-747, Series 4 Episodes 8-9
Doctor: The Tenth Doctor
Companions: Donna Noble, River Song
Steven Moffat continues his absurd hot streak by introducing River Song in an absolute classic story.
The Review
Doctor Moon talks to the girl…CAL
Sometimes, everything is perfect. For Steven Moffat, that seems to happen a lot. First, the setting, a giant library planet, is completely inventive and leads to magnificent exterior shots and a moody setting. I’m not sure any monster has unnerved me more than the Vashta Nerada, moving shadows that instantly devour flesh is completely terrifying. The Doctor throwing a chicken wing in the dark and it becoming solid bone before it hits the ground, the gut wrenches. When they take over the people’s suits and a skeleton in a lumbering spacesuit with shadows expanding from it, just add another layer to the whole thing. The concept of the Vashta Nerada are enough for a story, but oh boy does Moffat not stop there. The story opens with a little girl talking to her therapist, Doctor Moon, as she flies through the library in her dreams. We see this girl apparently controlling events in the library, being able to see everywhere. It turns out she is CAL, a living computer built out of a dying girl who loved books at the heart of the library (protected by her great-nephew, Mr. Lux who is actually not a capitalist ass) trying her best to save people. Doctor Moon is literally the planet’s moon, an antivirus software. It’s insane.
Miss Evangelista: the horrifying reveal
Oh you think Moffat is done, not a bit. Donna in the second part of the story is ‘saved’, uploaded to this virtual world. She marries a guy named Lee, thinks she has kids, until she meets the hideously deformed Miss Evangelista who was eaten by the Vashta Nerada before she could be properly saved. Donna’s story is absolutely heartbreaking as she is forced to give up her life with Lee, whom she tries to find when the saved are put back in the real world. Lee sees her leaving, tries to say something, but he has a debilitating stutter and can’t. My heart was breaking. All this is enough, but Moffat has one more trick: River Song. From saying “hello sweetie” when she sees the Doctor, River is clearly someone important. It quickly becomes clear that she has a deep relationship with the Doctor, but there’s one problem: he has never seen her before in his life. You can feel River’s heart breaking as the Doctor genuinely has no clue who she is, and doesn’t trust her. River whispers something to him to get him to trust her, and later we learn: it was his name (I wonder what Alex Kingston said, if anything). While Donna can’t find Lee again, River’s story is heartbreaking, dying with her lover who doesn’t know who she is. It’s a fun performance from Kingston, with hints of cliches to come but it all works well here to shatter our hearts.
River gives her final goodbye to the Doctor
The story could end there, the Doctor gets the Vashta Nerada to back off by getting them to look his name up in the largest library in the universe: the Doctor’s best badass boast yet. Everyone is saved, River dies, the status quo is preserved with a heartbreaking ending. (The Doctor tells Donna he’s ‘alright’ when he obviously is not, and I haven’t related to the Tenth Doctor more. I love how these moments show the emotional turmoil still there beneath the surface). That said, it can’t end like this, the Doctor simply doesn’t allow it. Hidden in River’s screwdriver is a little data device preserving her as a data ghost, and the Doctor makes a heroic dash to save her and upload River to the library forever. Everybody lives. This story is immense, powerful, incredible, and is everything RTD’s second two-parters have delivered. Although we all remember River, let us not forget Donna and the work Catherine Tate does to make her story just as heartbreaking as the Doctor’s. River having never met her, but knowing her horrible fate is disturbing, and Donna is put through the ringer. This story is crazy complex, imaginative, and perfect. Steven Moffat at his best.
We meet River Song in a dark, scary, inventive story that is one of the best ever made.
10/10 Oh and how Moffat wrapped it all around with Husbands of River Song… perfection. I didn’t even mention ‘saved’ being saved to a hard drive this episode man.
It’s a classic murder mystery with Agatha Christie at the center, in one of the best portrayals of a historical celebrity in a story that’s just too silly to be perfect.
The Review
The big-ass wasp in all it’s not glory
So who are the unicorn and the wasp? Well, the unicorn is pretty inconsequential, she’s a jewel thief that has next to nothing to do with the plot, but it is an early Felicity Jones! The wasp is where things get weird and silly, I understand wanting to do a lighthearted Agatha Christie murder mystery, but why make the villain a giant wasp? Because wasps are in one of her books? It is not given the best CGI, and the whole thing is just silly camp. Also, the plot hinges on the fact that 40 years ago Lady Eddison had sex with a giant wasp, and gave birth to another giant wasp. That wasp is the Reverend, who gets precious little screen-time until the big reveal, I’d almost forgotten he was a character for a minute. Also, the head maid gets killed by a falling gargoyle and makes no attempt to get out of the way. It’s all rather too silly. It is fun to see Christopher Benjamin, Professor Jago from The Talons of Weng-Chiang back on the show and in a similar time period as the Colonel. There is just a lot of silly things going on here, but this is a story about Agatha Christie and it does her justice.
An absolutely golden scene showing Tennant and Tate’s comedic chemistry on full display
Portrayed brilliantly by Fenella Woolgar, there is a depth to Agatha Christie’s character that has rarely been there in these celebrity historicals. Starting with admonishing the Doctor for acting excited upon discovering the first murder, Fenella Woolgar is perfect as Christie. Still full of self-doubt, she still picks up clues that other people would miss, and shows why she is one of the greatest writers ever. I didn’t like how much the Doctor and Donna kept accidentally name-dropping future stories, don’t minimize her genius! Christie both grounds the story and serves as its subtle focus, even in scenes like the all-time funny Doctor pantomiming as he asks for ingredients to recover from cyanide poisoning to Donna leading to her kissing him to shock him. Other than the alien bit at the end, it is Christie who deduces the full mystery (though the Colonel being able to walk is something she didn’t even seen coming) and attempts to sacrifice herself to kill the Vespiform. Donna ends up growing it, Christie suffers some amnesia, explaining her mysterious 1926 disappearance. It’s a silly old tale, but it’s a great Christie story. Seriously though, why the giant wasp?
There’s tons of silly ridiculousness, but it’s all good fun in the end. Catherine Tate is a genius.
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 