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.
The Doctor’s Daughter tries to position itself as a seminal episode, exploring big ideas but it is unable to live up to its ambition.
The Review
Jenny has two hearts, and apparently a twinkle of regeneration energy
Well, just last story I discussed how disinterested it was in interrogating the Doctor and militarism, and then this one rolls along. It gives it the old college try, but still doesn’t really work. The Doctor, Donna, and Martha are dropped in an eternal struggle between humans and the Hath in the tunnels of a failed colony world. Soldiers are quickly grown as full adults out of machines, the Doctor has his hand stuck in one, out rolls Jenny, blonde, perky, his daughter. (Georgia Moffett is the daughter of the 5th Doctor Pete Davison…and then marries David Tennant). The Doctor immediately takes a disliking to her a soldier, a generalization that was not effective in Series 8 and isn’t here. A better reason is the Doctor explaining to Donna that she reminds him of his dead child(ren), a big lore reveal I had forgotten about. For as harsh as he is initially to her, the Doctor is very quickly won over by her. Jenny’s best moment comes when explaining that the Doctor is a soldier, perhaps the best soldier of them all, flustering her. This story could’ve used one more twist of the knife in that respect, not the shooting of Jenny and the Doctor proudly proclaiming he is a pacifist. Jenny is a classic lore character, which explains her popularity, but I didn’t find myself really wanting more.
Martha getting a lot of attention from the Hath
Unfortunately, we get little Donna/Martha time as Martha is exiled on her own side quest with a Hath. It is emotional when the Hath sacrifices himself to save her from some quicksand or something, but really Martha feels out alone on her own little island. The acting of the soldiers and General Cobb isn’t too great, with Cobb looking like a bad John Hurt impression. What works very well is the revelation that this eternal war has only lasted a week despite generations being massacred, which should serve to show the futility of combat but again, not really pressed on more. The performance from David Tennant is quite emotional and affecting, and it shows just how much he cared for his daughter. Another person close to the Doctor getting burned. The theme of the season is what the Doctor does to other people, but we also get looks into what they do to him. In the best scene, Donna tells the Doctor that he speaks so much but never really says anything, and that sums up the Tenth Doctor. He is not as far from the war-shattered veteran that the Ninth Doctor was as he would like to think, and it is clear that the Doctor’s mask for his pain has only grown in intensity. I just wish this story better explored that, and gave Martha something cool to do for God’s sake.
This story finally isn’t a romp, but it unfortunately is mediocre. I don’t think Doctor Who would finally get the anti-war thing down until The Zygon Inversion.
7.5/10 Fun in the moment, but not much staying power for what should be a seminal story.
Don’t worry, you’ll be seeing each other a LOT more
Story 192, Episodes 742-743, Series 4 Episodes 4-5
Doctor: The Tenth Doctor
Companions: Donna Noble, Martha Jones, Wilfred Mott
The RTD era finally gets its big UNIT story as Martha recalls the Doctor to Earth to uncover an insidious Sontaran plot.
The Review
The Tenth Doctor’s hatred of guns and saluting is at center stage.
It’s been seven years since I’d seen Series 4, and I’d forgotten: it’s the romp season. There is a lot happening in The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky, and it gives us our best look at RTD-era UNIT. UNIT has existed on the periphery of the RTD era so far, but here it takes center stage, and it is its usual militaristic self. Now funded by homeland security, there could be room to comment on, I don’t know, the militarization of police (and UNIT got a bad bad look in Torchwood), but this story is not that interested in it. We do get Colonel Mace, who admits he is no Brigadier, but the Brigadier is stranded in Peru right now. As well, we get the heroic soldier Ross, whose death is a brutal part of the episode. Cars across the world have installed ATMOS, which eliminates carbon emissions from cars completely, but the Doctor points out this might lead to more cars being made and oil being drained. There’s not really an environmental angle here either, this story is about saving the world! The most infamous element of this story is 18-year old super genius Luke Rattigan who is a dumb annoying shrill brat, by design, and Ryan Sampson does his best to hold the performance together but it still misses at times.
Luke blows himself up to save the Doctor from having to like Ko Sharmus will. How many people do that for the Doctor? Luke did have to atone for sanctioning a ton of murder though.
I remembered the Sontarans being silly in this episode, but maybe having seen more of them I think they’re pretty effective, their crazed devotion to war and identical appearance making them memorable foes. This is still the only episode in the new series to have them as villains, and I think we are overdue for more Sontarans (perhaps with Rutons?). Martha is back on screen, newly engaged, but the question of if the Doctor turned her into a soldier is batted down (for now). Martha and Donna get along very well, but unfortunately Martha gets replaced with a clone so we get precious little time with the genuine article. Donna is perfectly Donna in this story, saving the day, roasting the Doctor, and gaining in confidence by the minute. Bernard Cribbins is still everyone’s favorite grandfather as Wilf, and Sylvia Noble continues to be rude and nagging (though her saving Wilf by shattering his car window with an axe is fun). This is a story that could choose to say a lot about the environment, the police, the futility of war, and basically chooses not too. However, it was better than I remembered and I had a fun time seeing David Tennant bounce off the walls to get it done. Just good fun saving the planet!
The season of fun rolls on with Donna meeting Martha, Sontarans meeting UNIT, and David Tennant gluing the whole thing together.
8.25/10 Donna calling the Doctor a space dunce was great
Doctor Who revisits the Ood, and a story that never fails to be timely and features a truly beautiful ending.
The Review
Donna’s ‘normie-ness’ keeps beguiling the Doctor and it is hilarious
Although The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit was a classic, there was more to explore with the incredibly effective Ood. With an instantly classic design and their insistence on being a subservient race, there were some uncomfortable undertones not fully explored, which brings us to Planet of the Ood. The Doctor and Donna arrive at the Ood Sphere, cousin to the Sense Sphere, making it two straight stories with First Doctor references. Here a human company is involved in processing the Ood, but they are gradually going mad with ‘red eye’. The idea of a supposedly peaceful group of servants all justifiably going mad and attacking is straight out of the movie Westworld and it is effective here. The villain is the callous CEO businessman Halpern, who has no regard at all for Ood life. It’s a small point, but I appreciated the diversity of the humans in this story, by the 42nd century, all races are united in bigotry toward the Ood. This story is actually very similar to The Fires of Pompeii, it’s not a classic and has a few rough spots but completely sticks the landing (the reverse of a lot of stories). The reveal that the doctor character was helping the Ood comes out of nowhere and he is promptly killed, so what was the point of that?
The Ood sing
As has been the case throughout the first three stories, Donna Noble is the star of the episode. By this point the Tenth Doctor is an old friend, we know what he’s like, but it is Donna’s big heart that keeps revealing itself to us. Her tears hearing the Ood’s song of captivity, raw empathy realizing they’re born with brains in their hands, and wonder as the Ood Brain is freed allowing the Ood to sing again is simply beautiful. The science behind it is nonsensical, but Ood Sigma slowly turning Halpern into an Ood over a decade with ‘hair tonic’ is just brilliant and an incredibly karmic ending for their slave master. Although we do not have literal slaves today, this story is an excellent reminder to have compassion and care for those lesser than us. You may think this is a sequel to The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, but going by the story’s dates, it takes place a century earlier. In a century, there are still some Ood with translators serving (perhaps Ood have very long lifespans), a disheartening reminder that change does not come with a single stroke. This is another good story with a great message that feels like an essential Doctor Who tale.
Planet of the Ood continues Series 4’s run of stories that aren’t perfect, but pack a punch.
8.5/10 Seriously though, you can drink some stuff and turn into an alien?
It’s not perfect, but The Fires of Pompeii turns out to be one of Doctor Who‘s most important stories.
The Review
A pyrovile because sure
This story is papered with RTD-era silliness, but has a devastating gut punch at its heart. Creating a story about Pompeii took audacity, and it helps that such a horrible event took place 2000 years ago allowing us to think of it impersonally. Throughout the story, Donna continues to try and save the people of Pompeii, but they will not listen to her. The Doctor first introduces us to the idea of a fixed point in time, with the destruction on Pompeii a seismic historical event that far too much depends upon to change. Even more brutally, the Doctor and Donna are forced to destroy Pompeii themselves, to prevent the alien Pyroviles (aliens made of stone propagating through dust that look like stone soldiers because of course) from conquering the planet. The Pyroviles look pretty cool, but are one of the least interesting parts of the story. The idea of carving a circuit board out of rock is really cool though! I’m not sure any other companion would’ve acted quite like Donna, daring to challenge the Doctor in such a way. The story doesn’t shy away from it either, we see people run in tear and Pompeii’s obliteration. The day is saved, but no one feels good about it.
Capaldi doesn’t do anything special, but it’s not a role with a lot of opportunities to do so
This episode not only features soon to be companion Karen Gillan as a soothsayer (all prophecies have been completely true for 17 years in Pompeii thanks to some time rift Vesuvius causes), but Peter Capaldi! I haven’t seen this story since Capaldi became the Twelfth Doctor, and it was a delight to see him again but his performance isn’t anything special. At the end of the story, Donna pleads with the Doctor to just save one family, one act of kindness and mercy, and it is Capaldi’s Caecilius and his family that he does save. The scene is so powerful that seven years from now in The Girl Who Died it can be pulled back with devastating effect. In this story, we see just how hard it can be to be a Time Lord, carrying the burden of truth and having to watch helplessly as scores of people die. Of course, we will see what happens when a Time Lord chooses not to be so helpless, but that’s for another time. Even through all the cheesy moments like Caecilius forming the word ‘volcano’, this story still has a massive heart, and makes it a well-respected imperfect classic of the series. It even reveals that if you try to intentionally speak in the language you’re being translated into, they hear you speaking a foreign language, in this case Celtic, and who can hate that?
The Fires of Pompeii is a standard Doctor Who story with cheesy aliens and drama until it comes to a screeching turning point.
8.5/10 The ending really ratchets it up, justifiably famous.
Do you think Karen Gillian, Peter Capaldi, David Tennant, and Catherine Tate all got drinks or
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 