The Pre-Titles Sequence

Ben: This episode opens with a strange mix of old-timey fashion – the couple is very American Gothic – mixed with futuristic tech – it feels very Blade Runner (yes, I know Blade Runner was very fashion forward, but it’s more the mix of new and old I’m talking about). Anyways, the scene ends with the couple dying what sounds to be a painful death at the hands of something unknown. Cue The Doctor to come save the day!

Maureen: I know what you mean about the Blade Runner vibe, Ben. This is one of the Doctor Who sci fi concept episodes that does a lot of world-building very quickly. It’s a proper old-style Who episode! Even the smiling bureaucrat reminded me a little of Blade Runner!

The Companion

Ben: Poor Martha has a bit of a bad run this episode; first she asks The Doctor about Gallifrey, then he takes her to a place he’s already been with Rose, and not even to the nice parts! And then, to add insult to injury, she gets kidnapped! She’s doing a pretty good job managing on her own until her kidnappers drop the bombshell that their 10-mile trip to Brooklyn is going to take them 6 years!! According to her captors they’ve brought enough supplies to last them the trip, including such fun things as artificial muscle stimulants to fight off atrophy. What a world Martha and The Doctor have found themselves in!

Maureen: I just loved all the little world-building add-ons like the artifical muscle stimulants and that awfully disturbing scene where a woman bought mood pills to forget her own parents. But no, Martha was NOT having a good time. I love that The Doctor can’t help himself – he claimed he’d only take Martha on two adventures but now he can’t stop! I quite enjoyed the Gallifrey speech Ten made and his quip that going home wouldn’t be any fun and then whoops, Martha is kidnapped! I actually noted that this set-up reminds me a lot of Australian sci-fi shorts I’ve read. This episode really shows how often Doctor Who opts for fantasy tropes over sci fi ones. Though I enjoy both, it’s nice to have a change.

Ben: Things really start to go pear-shaped when the car Martha’s in makes it down to the fast lane at the bottom of the highway. And with all the turnoffs closed, there’s no way out of the fast lane and whatever else lives down there. It takes a black cat lady in what appears to be fetish gear invoking Jehovah’s name and then dying in the fast lane 50 yards behind them for Martha’s kidnappers to accept there is in fact something down there with them, and by then it’s too late to get out of the fast lane. (maybe that’s supposed to be a metaphor for living life in the fast lane … nah I’m probably overthinking things). Anyways, Martha’s quick thinking buys them some time when the Macra start attacking them, she’s the one who powers down the car – the Macra can’t detect them when they go dark.

Maureen: I am really loving how clever Martha is. I can’t believe I never appreciated this element of her character as a teen and a young adult. She feels much more consistently written than Rose so far. Even the irritating Doctor love is at least consistent with everything that’s come before.

Martha: You’ve got your hymns. I’ve got The Doctor.

That quote by the way, fits pretty neatly with the Season Three finale. This is probably one of the reasons why Season Three was always my overall favourite of the RTD era, even with the Doctor Jesus flaws.

Ben: Next, we get a great scene with Martha where she muses on the possible mistake she made in travelling with this strange man who calls himself The Doctor – she doesn’t know anything about him, her parents have no idea where she is. She could die billions of years into the future on a distant planet and nobody would know what has happened to her. This kind of reflection is completely different from anything we got from Rose, who jumped at the chance to travel with The Doctor and never looked back. She’s put her life in the hands of a complete stranger (who isn’t a medical doctor and therefore automatically trustworthy).

Maureen: I wonder how old Martha is meant to be? Early twenties vs. Rose’s nineteen? She feels a lot more mature and again I love how her musings here fit in with her finale exit. I suspect that if Martha ever met Rory, she’d get on with him like a house on fire.

Ben: After her introspective speech, Martha needs to get the power back on so she and her kidnappers don’t suffocate, so it’s back to dodging gigantic crab claws as best she can. I know they can’t move properly into the next lane up, but surely they can move up a little bit, just to be out of range of the claws. Luckily The Doctor manages to save the day, and Martha finally puts her foot down and gets some proper backstory out of The Doctor – he’s not just a Time Lord, he’s the last of the Time Lords. It’s been a while since The Doctor has gotten this serious, and it’s a great way to end the episode, mirroring how it started, with The Doctor telling Martha about Gallifrey.

The Doctor

Ben: Tennant does some pretty great acting at the start when Martha asks the Doctor about Gallifrey. The sad music playing as the Doctor describes the planet he lost to the Time War was getting close to tear inducing.

Maureen: God, I love the season three soundtrack! And the Gallifrey theme Murray Gold wrote for it is one of the best until ‘I am the Doctor’ came along in Season Five and blew everything that came before out of the water … but I digress.

Ben: The Doctor’s introspection doesn’t last long, as he chases adventure to defer grief. Bring on the 15th New York! After a very dramatic introduction to the city, the Doctor rushes off to rescue Martha – but not before pulling his angry holier-than-thou act on the street vendors who sell the emotions. Sure, going for the little guys is really gonna solve shit, Ten!

Maureen: Ah, Ten. This is why you’re not my favourite. You’re just so sanctimonious at the drop of a hat. Like, maybe try a little empathy for these people and the harsh world they live in? But then, The Doctor can be judgmental and at least Ten managed violent emotion, which is more than Thirteen managed in her entire season :/

Ben: Anyway, cutting to the motorway, The Doctor manages to hitch a ride with a lovely catman, his human wife and their kittens! Such an adorable little family THAT’S BEEN DRIVING ON THE MOTORWAY FOR TWELVE YEARS?!? Anyways, thanks to the assistance of a little old lady (I wonder how long her and her wife have been on the motorway for) who likes to carspot, the Doctor is able to pinpoint the car that Martha is in. The question now is how to get to her. It’s also the Doctor who realises what no one’s been wanting to say – that the highway has been abandoned by New New York – no police, no ambulance, just the motorway. I particularly loved the sequence of the Doctor jumping through car after car to get down to the fast lane – all the different car interiors and passengers was just really fun. Anyways, once The Doctor gets to the row of cars just above the fast lane we finally get a look at what’s really down there, and we find out the cat lady Boe sent to find the Doctor is hot on his tail! Novice Hame catches up to the Doctor just as he discovers the Macra and whisks him away to the Overcity of New New York. And THAT is when shit gets real.

24 years ago the entire population of NNY was wiped out by a new chemical called Bliss – a virus mutated inside Bliss and became airborne, killing everyone in 7 minutes. The only way to save the Undercity was to seal it off. The highway has been running on automatic for 24 years, with the Face of Boe and Novice Hame keeping everything running as best they can. Hell, Boe even wired himself to the mainframe, giving his lifeforce to keep things running and prevent the Undercity from falling into the sea. They couldn’t even call for help because the planet is under quarantine for 100 years.

Given this new information, The Doctor struggles to work his magic with what little power there is left in the system, which is when the Face of Boe gives everything he has left to power the system – enabling The Doctor to open the roof of the motorway and free everyone who’s been trapped there. Before Boe dies he gets to say his tearful (for everyone else) farewells, and impart a final secret to the Doctor – that he’s not alone, he isn’t in fact the last of the Time Lords.

Face of Boe: You are not alone, Doctor!

Maureen: Well, I have nothing to add to Ben. He’s on fire this week!

The Monster of the Week

Ben: Right from the beginning of the episode we know there’s something big and bad out there, big enough to break through a transport to get to the people inside. First, all we hear is some ominous creaking and groaning from below the car carrying Martha and we’re assured it’s just the air vents (which Martha points out are obviously non-functioning considering all the smog). Although we do then get a folk tale about how there’s in fact a huge scary monster down there who’s the reason a whole bunch of people have gone missing. I wonder which of the two reasons will turn out to be true … Well, if you guessed option B you’d be correct! Turns out it’s giant crabs called Macra that thrive in gas – the filthier the better according to The Doctor. Apparently, billions of years ago they used to rule the galaxy, with humans as their slaves. I dunno how crabs without opposable thumbs can rule anything, but I guess stranger things have happened. Anyways, they’ve devolved somewhat since then, but they’re still enough of a threat to the occasional carload of people who get within claw range. They don’t really suffer a defeat in the climax of the episode so much as everyone is able to move far enough away that they’re no longer a problem. So, victory? I guess?

Maureen: I sort of feel like there wasn’t really a villain this week. The Macra were minding their own business in the smog. It was only when humans got too close that they attacked. The humans with the synthetic emotions were making money off trauma, but well, why shouldn’t they in such a bleak dystopia? Maybe it was a civil service. As to the cat lady and the Face of Boe, they are ambiguous as to their innocence or villainy at first, but by the end of the episode we know the traffic jams have been caused for the greater good in a move of ultimate sacrifice on the part of Boe. Incidentally, I thought it was incredibly chilling when Martha and The Doctor walked through the skeletons of The Senate (how prequel Star Wars). That scene really showed why Boe did what he did, even if that meant consigning humanity to a boring and cruel existence in the smog indefinitely.

Final Thoughts

Ben: The Face of Boe showing up was a happy surprise, and initially with his cat companion arming her weapon I though he had nefarious designs for The Doctor. Turns out, no! And then adding to this vision of a dystopian future, there’s street vendors selling synthetic moods and feelings. 21st century drugs have nothing on them, that’s for sure. Selling a young woman ‘forget’ so she could forget her parents who went on the motorway? Oof. The world-building in this episode is insanely good. All those cars, spitting all those fumes inside a tunnel for decades! No wonder there’s a monster down there picking off cars. We get some more excellent world building in the second half of the episode with the dead Overcity, and a great dramatic conclusion to the episode with the Face of Boe making the ultimate sacrifice to save the city (and Martha). All in all, I really loved this episode, and any faults I have with it are relatively minor. I’m going to give it a 9/10.

Maureen: I think this is a weird Doctor Who episode. It’s not showy. It’s not wildly ambitious like some of Moffat’s work, but it tells an interesting future-set story with great world-building and doesn’t shy away from tough moral choices. And yes, I was happy to see the return of Boe. I also think this episode works hard to set-up Season Three’s overarching themes about what it is to be the last of your kind, what it is to travel as a human companion with The Doctor and why The Doctor matters. I loved this episode from the first time I saw it and my opinion on it has never changed. I also give Gridlock 9/10 inky stars

The Pre-title Sequence

Maureen: Quick aside: God, I hate that Thirteen doesn’t have pre-title sequences. They are just so silly and fun. Anyway. The Runaway Bride. I love the earth shot they start with every new series y’all. It makes me unreasonably happy inside. Also, even though I think Catherine Tate took some time to find her feet and definitely over-acted in her opening number (vanishing from her own wedding in gold light, materializing in the TARDIS), she was at least refreshingly different in her reaction to finding herself with The Doctor. Also, the Donna theme is gorgeous. Go Murray Gold!

Ben: Yeah, this episode certainly started off with a bang, with Catherine Tate screaming her way down the aisle in a truly hideous wedding dress, followed by her screaming at The Doctor when she suddenly vanishes from her wedding and reappears inside the TARDIS mere moments after he said goodbye to Rose. Talk about whiplash! It was, I guess, an acceptably interesting introduction to the episode.

Maureen: LOL. My summary was, ‘The Doctor repeats ‘what?’ over and over like a right numb skull and CT overacts.’ Moving on.

The Companion

Ben: Look, I’ll be honest, I hated Donna in this episode. She was shouty and over dramatic and scenery chewing in the worst kind of way. The best way for me to describe her is that she was acting as a caricature of the Donna we meet in Season Four with all the worst parts over-exaggerated. And the wedding dress was hateful.

Maureen: This is the first time in ages we’ve disagreed about something, Ben! When I was younger, I really hated Donna, including most of Series Four (the first time round I never finished it), but now I find her kind of refreshing. Yes, the humour was overdone this special. Yes, it took Catherine Tate time to figure out how to play things, but overall I liked Donna. What I didn’t like about her and about this episode was more to do with RTD’s writing, than the character herself.

Ben: Her ‘it’s smaller on the outside’ moment was all right, I guess, but it didn’t make up for all the attitude she gave The Doctor. Maybe she can blame it on the Huon particles?

Maureen: This is where we differ. I liked her saying the TARDIS was smaller on the outside (it’s a change!). I liked her being a bit freaked out by an alien and hey, if you were at a wedding and then suddenly on a spaceship, it would feel like an abduction. I thought a lot of the dialogue was quite funny upfront.

Donna: My husband, when he is my husband, him and I are gonna sue the backside of ya!

And:

Doctor: Human?
Donna: Yeah. Is that an option?
Doctor: For me it is.
Donna: Are you an alien?
Doctor: Yeah.

And:

Donna: How many women have you abducted? [in relation to Rose] … where’s she gone? For a space walk?

But even leaving aside the humour, I think sometimes Ten is a right wanker and he needs someone like Donna to put him in his place. I didn’t mind her slapping him. He deserved it.

Ben: I guess, but my main gripe was that none of the jokes/comedy involving Donna were remotely funny, and a fair few of them were just plain offensive. The joke about Donna missing all the previous alien escapades on Earth for ridiculous reasons was really the only exception to that, but it was then followed up with a ‘joke’ about how Donna is basically worthless and not special apart from the mysterious Huon particles, so it didn’t really count.

Maureen: OK, I see your point of view here. I didn’t like this either. Ten being a sanctimonious arsehat again. Woot.

Ben: And then there’s the scene with Donna harassing Lance into marrying her? Like, was that meant to be incredibly unfunny and cringe-worthy?

Maureen: Yeah, I don’t know what RTD was going for here. I quite liked Donna till this scene and then that turned me right off her. Harassment is never funny. I feel like aside from this moment however, the rooftop scene was quite beautiful and Catherine Tate calmed down enough to deliver her lines sans shouting. That whole scene was like a promise of what was to come with her friendship with Ten later. I wish the whole episode could have been this.

Ben: And honestly, the less said about the reception scenes the better.

Maureen: Oii, what was wrong with them? I didn’t like Donna’s Mum (does anyone?), but RTD has some weird thing about writing bitchy Mum’s so *shrugs.* I thought it was sad, showing how bland and poor Donna’s life is, but also the scene where she fake cried shows she is cleverer than she acts, another hint as to the depths she will achieve in Series Four.

Ben: Meh. The scene where Lance is revealed as a double crosser was incredibly brutal, and perhaps the only good scene in the first forty minutes of the episode. Really, this whole episode was like a ‘let’s everyone pile on Donna’ that everyone was in on except her. And the to add insult to injury she sees her fiancé die, and then is swung into a metal something by The Doctor. Which, again, is played for comedy and not ‘Gee Donna, you basically fell from the roof into a hard metal surface, are you all right?’

Maureen: I agree that the everyone piling on Donna thing for cheap laughs was weird and icky, but I think that was less about Donna the character and more about how the writer, RTD, positioned her in the story. Here is why I think RTD is more sexist than Moffat by the way. His sexism is far more insidious and permeates every story line. In my opinion, Moffat’s sexism comes down to crack writing nine times out of ten, rather than actual sexism, but that’s an essay you can read elsewhere.

Ben: At least by the end of the episode the caricature of Donna had settled down somewhat, and we got a good serious conversation between her and The Doctor. There may have been talk about how Donna was nobody special throughout the episode, but she fully has The Doctor’s number, talking about how he needs someone to travel with to tell him when to stop. Oof. Even the shouting at the end of the episode was better. All I can say is, I’m excited to see more of this Donna in season four!

Maureen: Me too! The end scene was aces!!! I loved Donna claiming she would go see the world (even though we know she won’t), I love Ten telling Donna to be magnificent and I love Donna telling Ten he needs human companions to keep him in line. Ironically, I think Donna understood The Doctor more than any other new who companion bar maybe Amy Pond.

The Doctor

Ben: The poor Doctor was really put through the ringer this episode by this over-dramatic woman who was hell bent on getting to her wedding. There were a few moments that I think were supposed to be funny? Or something? Like when the Doctor was in a hurry to get cash and had to wait behind some slow person using the ATM.

Maureen: I also had question marks over this scene. I really noticed The Doctor over-relying on the sonic this episode, but also with him getting cash from the ATM, who exactly was giving him that cash? Was he robbing other people? Inquiring minds wish to know. Also, when him and Donna flagged down a taxi and realised they didn’t have money so were turned out, my first thought was, ‘Y U no pay at the church?’ The amount of times I have paid a taxi driver at the end of a trip running into the house to find cash isn’t even funny.

Ben: Mostly, it felt like all these ridiculous scenes were padding out an episode that really had nothing going for it. I’m not sure if the TARDIS flying down the highway was supposed to be funny or impressive, but I just found it nonsensical. How did he even find Donna? The whole scene with the bio-dampener in the shape of a ring was just so on the nose, another scene with an attempt at comedy that just fell flat? I guess we’ll never know. Plus, the whole absentminded mutterings about how she’s not special as he scans her were really frustrating. Anywho, moving on to the reception, where the less said about the scene at the reception the better. You’re gonna supercharge a phone to find out more about HC Clements and then just hand it back?

Maureen: As usual, Ben thinks through the story logic more than I do (which is ironic really!). I didn’t think of any of this at the reception scene. I was more thinking, OH LOOK PLASTIC SANTA, OH LOOK CHRISTMAS TREE, OH LOOK BAUBLES FLOATING AROUND THE PLACE. IS THIS CHRISTMASSY ENOUGH YET, IS IT? Also, I feel like the reception song was significant. It sounded like its lyrics alluded to Ten/Rose with, ‘coz my body’s tired of travelling and my heart don’t wish to roam,’ and ‘Now, all I have’s this anguished heart, for you have vanished too. Oh, my girl, my girl, my precious girl, just what is this man to do?’

Ben: One thing I did appreciate is that the technobabble this episode had some logical consistency, e.g. The Doctor’s analogy and usage of the Huon particles made sense. And, on the plus side, Donna calls out The Doctor on him enjoying the danger too much and gives him a well-deserved slap or two.

Maureen: I counted three slaps in total this episode and I was cheering Donna on!

Ben: I appreciate that The Doctor treated Donna with kindness after the betrayal of Lance, and really after that scene I noticed a marked improvement in the overall quality of the episode. I’m not sure if the production team decided that because Catherine Tate, comedienne extraordinaire was in the episode they needed to ramp up the comedy, but it really just didn’t work in any way, shape, or form. Anyways, the conclusion of the episode was quite satisfactory, we got some good Dark Doctor faces as he drowned the Racnoss babies, and a touching conversation with Donna at the end where he asks her to travel with him.

Maureen: I actually hate that bit where Ten drowns The Racnoss. He just looks so damn whiny and I just know the angst gets dialled up to eleven in later episodes. I’m so glad Donna came back to call him out on his shitty behavior in a later season! PS: Sorry guys, I don’t like Ten.

The Alien of the Week

Ben: The Santa army is back! Such shenanigans and tomfoolery abound. And of course, the killer Christmas Trees return too. In continuing with the nonsensical slapstick humour, one of the party goers gets hit by one of the killer tree baubles and goes face first into the wedding cake? Time and place, people …

Maureen: Damn, I forgot about that! Thanks for bloody reminding me!

Ben: Also, how does the queen alien lady (correction, Empress of the Racnoss) know that it’s Christmas Eve? She has a strangely comprehensive knowledge of Earth. And what was with the over dramatic camera shots of her over acting at the camera? It was all very unnecessary. Plus!! She laughs at the ‘this time, it’s personnel’ joke. And then she makes a wedding joke! She really was a very naturalised alien.

Maureen: She was definitely not the strong point of the episode, that’s for sure. The SFX have really dated and her voice was grating and her jokes kind of weird. As you say, Ben, a lot of the jokes don’t land properly this episode. I did kind of lol at the ‘I do,’ ‘I don’t,’ bit in a cheesy B grade horror movie kind of way. Also, I dig the delivery of Catherine’s ‘a spider’s just a spider and an axe is an axe,’ line. I don’t know why actually.

Ben: I’m not entirely sure how the Racnoss babies and ship survived for billions of years under immense pressure inside the core of the Earth, or why it took the Queen of the Racnoss so long to initiate her plan for global domination, or even why Lance decided to be her consort or whatever, but she did come to satisfying end. But like, is it not worth checking out the Racnoss ship to disable things or something? Surely that can’t be the end of that.

Maureen: The Lance thing is really under-developed. Like the episode claims he did it because the Queen showed him how small human life was in the scale of the universe or some shit, but like, what? Surely he’s smart enough to know she’s going to bump him off at the first opportunity. I really feel like Lance got short-changed in the characterization department. My notebook comment on The Racnoss storyline is, ‘the whole alien of the week storyline is a bit ridic.’

Final Thoughts

Ben: I really didn’t enjoy this episode (except for the last 20 minutes or so). Donna was awful. None of the jokes have aged particularly well. And like, why could the Doctor not just take Donna back to just after she vanished? This ‘not going back on someone’s personal timeline’ is such rubbish and is only used as a clumsy plot device whenever the writers get lazy. The whole episode just reminded me of Rose. The Doctor rescues a damsel in distress, there’s her boyfriend that she has no chemistry with, the ditzy caricature of a mother, a secret base hidden underneath a London landmark, and an alien who’s the last of their kind and has decided Earth is the ideal planet from which to repopulate. Unoriginal, unfunny, and just horrendous treatment of Donna as a character. And why, oh why, did they think having them use Segways as transport was going to age well. Another example of a scene that I think was supposed to be funny when it aired but just reeks of disappointment and wasted air time now. Things picked up in the final twenty minutes, and we got some really good moments from Donna and The Doctor, but it really wasn’t enough to make up for the truly awful first forty minutes. I’m giving it a 3/10

Maureen: This is the first time in quite some time I’ve disagreed with Ben. I don’t think this was a good episode. I think it highlights a lot of RTD’s more problematic writing styles and choices. I think the alien of the week story was silly and that Lance and Donna’s Mum were boring caricatures, but I like Donna, even with Catherine Tate over-acting in parts. I liked the scene on the roof-top when Donna gives up on making her wedding, and the scene at the end, and I like that Donna doesn’t just succumb to Ten’s charms immediately. She displays some critical thought, which I liked. Also, I liked the Torchwood references and re the use of segways as transport. I liked it. My notebook comment is, ‘Donna/Lance/Ten riding segways is true zany Who personified and I unreasonably love it.’ I oscillate wildly between hating and enjoying this episode every time I re-watch it so I’m going to give this 5/10 inky stars.

So what went down? Rose and The Doctor greet Jackie in her modern day London estate home, only to find out ghosts have been returning … only the footprints aren’t a boot and bam it’s another threat altogether. Plus bonus aggressive Torchwood (which feels oddly prescient on the topic of make Britain great again given Brexit) and non-Martha Freema Agyeman guest appearance episode.

The Pre-title Sequence

Ben: “Planet Earth – this is where I was born, and this is where I died.” What a dramatic way to open the first episode of this two-part finale! Although the number of humans who have died off earth you could probably count on one hand so like, Rose you’re not that special. Still, this recap was nice, and really adds to the inevitability of the tragedy about to unfold.

Maureen: Yep, I too was all, hello angstalicious Rose. But also, I love Billie. What an actress! So all is forgiven. But also, the below quote is stupid:

Rose: For the first nineteen years of my life, nothing happened at all. Nothing.

Enough with telling the viewer companions are nothing without The Doctor, RTD!

The Companions

Ben: Jackie was excellent in this season. I love how she’s developed as a character. She’s gone from flirting with The Doctor to stealing a kiss or two off him! And she’s pulling off double denim like the fashion icon she is. Apart from the few moments of ‘oh god she thinks her dead father is back from the dead is she going senile?’ Rose comments, Jackie is incredibly sharp this episode, calling out both The Doctor and Rose on their shenanigans. Rose gets the biggest smackdown, when Jackie says once she’s dead Rose will have nothing to return to earth for. The whole speech she gives describing this future version of Rose losing her humanity was pretty grim. But I get the feeling Rose would be fine with that outcome as long as she had The Doctor. And! Jackie gets to be the companion for a bit!

Ten: When Torchwood comes to write up my history, don’t mention I travelled with her mother.

Maureen: I love the transformation of Jackie Tyler. She started out as such an annoying whore style stereotype. I feel like the second half of this series has upped the characterisation stakes and made the core gang of The Doctor, Rose and Jackie all a lot more understandable in terms of motivation. I also liked the opening with Jackie where we see Rose wearing a back pack like she’s been travelling to another country rather than through space. Rose gifts Jackie a souvenir that tells the weather and Jackie doesn’t care because she’s too busy loving Rose so hard because she’s been worried. This felt like such a realistic little scene to me.

Ben: As to Rose, the Rose we get this episode is Rose at the peak of her companionship with the Doctor. Having not seen any of her run I imagine this is where Sarah Jane Smith was at when she was abandoned by The Doctor. Rose has learnt how to use the TARDIS’s equipment, investigate on her own, and thinks it’ll last forever. To be honest, in this first episode Jackie contributes more than Rose, but this is still an important part of her journey.

Maureen: I was struck by the great chemistry between Rose and The Doctor again. It’s not a ship that always works, but when it does, damn it’s a lot of fun. Billie and David have a lot of chemistry when the script doesn’t weigh them down with stupid jealousy sub-plots! I loved the Ghostbusters moment especially! I also enjoyed Rose having fun with psychic paper and having the whole thing backfire because Torchwood has training y’all. Also, lol at Rose thinking the ghosts could be Gelth related, The Doctor’s look and Rose’s subdued, cheeky smile as she says no.

Ben: Then this episode also introduces Yvonne of the fabulous hair – the leader of Torchwood and a woman who I imagine got on very well with Harriet Jones. Although her talk of British Empires and imperial tonnes was a bit concerning. Still, it’s nice to see a charismatic woman in power. Plus, it does take some nerve to call The Doctor out when he’s in his element, even if it is to tell him he’s gone left when he should have gone right. The Doctor does make some very valid points that you don’t need to poke every anomaly you find with a stick to see what happens, but this does come off as a bit sanctimonious and hypocritical when that’s exactly what The Doctor does on a regular basis.

Maureen: I loved the Torchwood stuff. Great call back to Queen Vic and of course she would have left instructions about The Doctor that were less than flattering! The scene were Yvonne and Torchwood lackeys cheer on The Doctor were so disconcerting and Ten was off-kilter completely. Yvonne was such a powerhouse CEO type, who genuinely believed she was doing the right thing for her country. I hated her morals, but she remained oddly likeable throughout the episode.

Ben: Finally, Mickey returns! I don’t know how he got through to this reality/got through early enough to get a position at Torchwood and work his way up the ranks to be working at what I would guess is one of their higher-level projects. He also felt more like Ricky than Mickey, and of course in his first sentence to Rose he calls her babe. Eww. Also, he barely even looks at Rose! War against the cybermen has changed him, and not necessarily for the better. He’s become like Rachel from Animorphs (which is a bit of an obscure reference these days, I know), a soldier who loves war. Also, how the hell did Mickey hide such a huge gun in what is supposedly such a secure building?

Maureen: I thought the point of Mickey replacing Rickey in the parallel universe was to give him a chance to become that stronger, more confident version of himself. ‘My name is Mickey. Mickey Smith. Defending the earth.’ I didn’t begrudge him his moment of limelight or think too hard about hows and wherefore’s, though I agree the babe was a bit much.

The Doctor

Ben: Another episode where The Doctor’s nowhere to be seen when something starts to go awry on Earth! Maybe Harriet Jones was onto something …

Maureen: Yes, this is why I really dug the Series Three finale back in the day. The Doctor was given some big consequences for his Harriet Jones holier-than-thou-even-tho-I’m-clearly-wrong actions.

Ben: Still, his “a footprint doesn’t look like a boot’ response to Jackie saying the ghosts look human was memorable.

Maureen: I thought it was rather poignant when Jackie describes the smell of her Dad and The Doctor and Rose reveal they can’t smell a thing. She’s wished her father onto the image of the ghost, which is deeply sad to me.

Ben: Anywho, we get some general Doctoring as Ten investigates the ghosts, paired with the usual technobabble. And then we get the debut of both allons-y and the usage of 3D glasses as he discovers the source of the ghosts! Now for a Bad Wolf reference and we’ll have bingo.

Maureen: I very much enjoyed Ten with his allons-y and 3d glasses and huge ass technology to trap ghosts with this episode. Holy shit, he be growing on me!

Ben: The Doctor’s demonstration at Torchwood Tower of what happened to the fabric of reality when the Void Ship came through was impressive, because even though I knew the glass was going to shatter I was still holding on to every word he said. Ten really does have a commanding charisma.

Maureen: I don’t always agree, but this second half of the series, Tennant has been superb. I thought he was pitch perfect in the scene you describe.

Ben: To nobody’s surprise it all goes to hell and there’s nothing The Doctor can do about it because this is part one of a finale. And we end the episode with The Doctor surrounded by cybermen! Not the best position to turn things around from!

The Alien of the Week

Ben: Ghosts! RTD really got the foreshadowing right this week, with the man on the television talking about the ‘military parade’ of ghosts at Westminster. I did love the little scene of Team TARDIS changing through the tv channels with ghost mania taking hold of the planet. I’m not sure how this psychic link is pulling the ghosts through, if they have that link then why the particle accelerators in Torchwood Tower?

Maureen: Damn it, Ben! I didn’t even think that plot hole through to know it was one. Why must you always pick up on these things?

Ben: Speaking of Torchwood Tower, the IM flirting between Not-Martha and Gareth was pretty cringeworthy. It definitely brought back memories of talking to people on MSN Messenger.

Maureen: It was very Renee Zellweger/Hugh Grant in Bridget Jones Diary!

Ben: But the payoff was worth it as we got the reveal of the real alien of the week – the cybermen are back!

Maureen: How cool was the Freema scream as she faced off a cyberman. That must have been so fun to act, and just so iconic too.

Ben: How no one noticed Not-Martha and Gareth were looking like total douchebags with ear pieces in both ears is beyond me. The dramatic music that played every time they did something cybermen related was a bit heavy handed – I kept having to turn my headphones down whenever it played.

Maureen: Ah yes, the beginning of Murry Gold being played up to eleven every time something dramatic is happening because we idiotic audience members won’t know it’s dramatic UNLESS THE MUSIC IS VERY LOUD DUM DUM DUM.

Ben: It’s a bit of a nit-picky point, but I also found the dramatic scene with the levers rather annoying – the idea of having physical levers to activate something is so that if something goes wrong software wise you still have a way of shutting things off. There shouldn’t be a way for the levers to be moving by themselves! But maybe there’s cybermen shenanigans involved in that somehow. Also, Torchwood doesn’t have any armed guards in this room, the room containing their most important project? Or any meaningful fail safes?

Maureen: I didn’t think about this at the time, but maybe it’s a sign of the Torchwood hubris at play. Yvonne and Co. are so cocksure of themselves and their ability to fend off invasions and things going wrong, they figure they don’t need extra security and fail safes because no one could ever get that far.

Ben: Hmm, another thing I don’t understand is the random cut to the tv channels discussing the increase in ghost activity after the cybermen activate the ghost shift. There was a police chief there! Those kind of press conferences don’t just happen instantaneously. And the time it took for the ghosts to appear/manifest as cybermen wasn’t that long a time.

Maureen: Eh, I’m not sure I follow you here. I thought the reason for the news stations and the chief of police was because there was an unusual increase in ghost activity. The police commissioner was on air to reassure the public everything was fine, but then the cybermen attack and it’s obvious things aren’t fine. I kind of enjoyed these scenes and the scenes of cybermen mayhem. If I’d been a little kid, this would have been hide behind my sofa scary!

Ben: And then we have the mysterious sphere in the basement of Torchwood Tower, that gets in your head and doesn’t seem to exist. Of course, The Doctor knows what it is instantly – it’s a Void Ship. A ship that exists outside of time and space. So, kinda like a TARDIS but not. And surprise, surprise, it’s packed full of Daleks! It doesn’t do much this episode but loom threateningly over everyone, but it was a great B-plot.

Maureen: And now Rose, Mickey and random Torchwood lackey are trapped in a sealed room with hundreds of Daleks! How will they escape??? What an old school, classic cliff hanger. Love it.

Ten: It’s not an invasion. It’s too late for that. It’s a victory.

Final Thoughts

Ben: I absolutely loved this episode. I don’t know what else to say beyond what I’ve already written. I’m giving this episode a 9/10.

Maureen: Aside from Mickey’s ‘babe’ moment and The Doctor sniping at Jackie in a rather ageist way, I enjoyed this immensely. Enough that I didn’t notice half of the plot holes Ben has pointed out in this review! I’m giving this 9 outta 10 inky stars too and am mad keen for next week.

Pre-title sequence

Ben: This episode started with a feeling of disquiet between the warnings of the old lady, Maeve, and Chloe singing Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree. Then a kid named Dale gets trapped in a drawing! I wonder how Maeve knew it was about to happen? Plus, it’s pretty clear that Trish knows what’s going on from the beginning and doesn’t know what to do. #mysterious

Maureen: I was too busy being all,’hey didn’t this come out in 2006 and like wasn’t the Olympics in 2012? Was the UK forward planning that much? Damn!’ and ‘what have I seen the actress playing Trish in before’ and ‘why an aussie song? How very specific.’ Ahem. I promise I can be a TV critic! Anyway, I thought the opening had a great sense of horror atmosphere until the cheesy drawing of the kid wearing the Union Jack shirt.

The Companion

Ben: Maybe it’s because I’ve been watching the current season of Doctor Who and the Thirteenth Doctor and her three companions just don’t have any chemistry to speak of, but I could practically feel the crackling in the air between Rose and the Doctor.

Maureen: OMG BEN I AM SO HAPPY YOU THINK THIS BECAUSE I WAS BEGINNING TO THINK I WAS GOING MAD. But enough current show slamming. I am not the biggest fan of Ten/Rose, but there’s no denying that they’re always better sans Mickey and other quasi companions. If Mickey had never existed on this show, I would have dug these two a lot more. You can just tell that in the scenes where it’s all on Billie and David, they are having a right laugh and it bleeds into every scene. I loved them laughing over hot banana and I even shipped them at the end when they held hands and I never ship these two.

Ben: Plus, her hair and makeup was nice.

Maureen: Superficial. But I cannot deny it. I wrote that in my notebook too. Also, yellow does not Billie Piper suit when the fake tan she embraces.

Ben: I also (to be a broken record) really loved how much Rose got to do this episode. She was the first one to suspect Chloe, not the Doctor. And she was the one who investigated Chloe’s room, and the one who figured out where the Isolus’ ship was! Not only that, but she’s instrumental in restoring the ship to a working order, and guided Chloe and her mum through the attack by nightmare dad. You go Rose! Her and the Doctor have become a great team in the time they’ve been together, but that doesn’t mean she can’t do her own thing if she has to!

Maureen: Yeah, which is why I’ve never understood the show’s obsession with having Rose spout lines about being nothing without The Doctor (but more on that in next week’s episode). Also, nice callback to The Idiot’s Lantern as The Doctor runs off as Rose is mid-sentence … again. My favourite Rose moment was actually the scene in Chloe’s room when she’s all, I’m not gonna open it (the box), I’m not gonna open it, and does only to get attacked by a scribble.

The Doctor

Ben: Ahh yes! It’s been awhile since we’ve had a ‘the Doctor can’t drive the TARDIS’ gag.

Maureen: God, I can’t wait for River Song!

Ben: And then we get the whole ‘Doctor gets lost in his memories and ignores his companion pointing something abnormal out’ chestnut. And then we get the ‘Doctor gets too focused on checking out A Clue and gets himself in trouble’ situation. Luckily the psychic paper sorts that out quick.

Maureen: I’m loving these trope names. You missed the whole lonely God trope though, which is surprising, BECAUSE THIS IS ALL OF TEN’S SHTICK.

Ben: The gag with the cat and the back combing was worth a chortle or two. Then we get to the heavy stuff, as the Doctor deduces Chloe is using ionic energy to trap people in her drawings. It’s just a shame that the parallels between the Doctor and the Isolus never really were explored, but they’re both lonely travellers who’ve been travelling the universe for years upon years.

Maureen: Wait. What? I thought they were about as subtle as a sledgehammer. But then, I have like bells going off in my head or something every time there’s even a hint of Ten’s lonely God. I present to you the key last of my kind moment:

Rose: You knew the Isolus was lonely before it told you. How?
Doctor: I know what it is to be alone.

But also, I found this throw away line intriguing.

Rose: Kids can’t have it all their own way.
Ten: They deserve understanding … I had a son once.

From such dialogue whole new series arcs are born. I was way less keen on everything that happened from The TARDIS vanishing. So Rose whispers ‘the magic of love’ to Chloe and somehow that makes the alien leave Chloe, except the leftover alien energy manifests as Chloe’s violent and abusive Dad? What now? Also The Doctor running with the Olympic flame and the onscreen reporter saying he’s a symbol of love and hope can fuck right on off. Leave the love stuff to Moffat. And even then not always.

The Alien of the Week

Ben: The episode’s premise was really interesting to begin with – children vanishing, energy being drained from the street, and the strange smell of ionised air left behind wherever someone vanished. Then we see the kids living in Chloe’s drawings, and the nightmare dad coming to life in her closet. It’s a shame Chloe’s actress was a bit out of her depth as the Isolus and it’s motivations were really quite compelling, plus they set up the parallels between it and Chloe – two lonely kids just managing the best they can in a bad situation. It made a lot of sense that the Isolus is a child, it makes emotional and illogical decisions and can’t be reasoned with. It’s also a shame that the resolution of this episode was rather ridiculous, with the Olympic torch and the power of love reawakening the Isolus’ ship. And then we get the ridiculous spectre of nightmare dad, which really didn’t make sense to me.

Maureen: What Ben said. I also felt like the abusive dad side story and Mum not talking about him could have made for deeper exploration. I wondered at the end with the rushed sugar sweet denouement if this shouldn’t have been a two-parter.

Final Thoughts

Ben: Having an episode set in 2012 being in the not too distant future definitely made me feel old. And in a lot of ways this episode reminded me of The Idiot’s Lantern episode, a good/interesting premise let down by a shocker of an ending. The shoehorning in of the Olympics was a bit awkward too, similar to the Queen’s coronation. Additionally, Chloe’s mum Trish was really the highlight of this episode. She’s an excellent actress portraying a complicated woman. A woman who’s scared of her child, but at the same time trying to protect her. Which unfortunately only helped to highlight how bad Chloe’s acting was. The casual racism at the start of the episode also felt really out of place with the accusation of the black council worker of being behind the vanishing kids, but I guess is now surprisingly realistic in today’s climate. All in all, it was an episode that started off well but then lost it’s way. I’m giving it a 5/10.

Maureen: I’m with Ben as usual. I think you’re right about The Idiot’s Lantern comparisons. With a second script edit and perhaps a second part, this could have been a lot stronger. Given the rushed and cheesy ending and some bad acting at times, I’m giving this 4/10 inky stars. I gave it one star less than Idiot’s Lantern because my attention wondered after the first twenty minutes in a way it didn’t with the latter.

So, we’re up to the infamous Love and Monsters. When this episode first aired, I hated it with a fiery passion. I thought the character drama was boring, Moaning Myrtle was annoying, the comedy misguided and the alien of the week pants. The last part still holds true, but actually, I quite enjoyed this re-watch. Yes, even Shirley Henderson. This episode is deliberately experimental in a way that RTD often wasn’t, pushing the envelope of what an episode could be and establishing the Doctor lite genre. It also served as a pretty nifty metaphor for fandom. I timed where the story jumped the shark and it was at exactly 30 minutes in, so we’re not even talking a lot of bad episode.

The Pre-Title Sequence

Ben: This was a bit of a weird way to start what is admittedly a very weird episode. The first non-Doctor/companion centric episode, in fact! I wonder what David Tennant and Billie Piper did with the time off …

Maureen: Put their feet up, Ben!

Ben: Also, I would have liked the title sequence to have been pushed back a bit, and started right after the Doctor pauses, looks at Elton and says, “Don’t I know you?” But that’s just nit picking on my part.

Maureen: To be honest, I really liked the opening. I usually identify Marc Warren as a guy who plays the seedy villain in hard-hitting dramas or as Teatime in Hogfather so it was nice to see him get to play a socially awkward nice guy and do comedy. Maybe I’m reading too much into the opening, but I thought the Elton chasing after the TARDIS scenes were meant to play on audience expectations. Normally, Marc Warren is a villain so we assume he will be this episode. Except he isn’t. From the beginning there’s a note of farce about the proceedings which establishes this will be a different kind of Who episode (Rose/Ten chasing an alien up and down a corridor with a bucket and Ten talking to the alien like it’s a pet). Also, I kind of like Elton talking to the audience through his video camera. He’s endearing in the same way Rory was.

The Companions Who Never Were

Ben: Elton is a pretty loveable goof with a ~mysterious past~ with the Doctor, having encountered him in his house when he was 4 when a shadow escaped from the Howling Halls and killed his mum. And since then he’s borne witness to a few other of the Doctor’s Earth based adventures, in a nice little call back to seasons past.

Maureen: So many callbacks! The plastic Nestine in Rose, the Slitheen invasion in Aliens of London/WW3 and then the Sycarax invasion of The Christmas Invasion. There’s even references to Torchwood and Bad Wolf. Also, the whole Elton past thing … I wonder if Moffat was inspired a little by it with Amy Pond. Maybe I just see reflections of The Eleventh Hour in everything, but it reminded me.

Ben: I don’t really have much else to say about Elton. He was a relatable lens through which we got to experience this episode, and he was dumb and sweet.

Maureen: He was incredibly likeable. I had a huge grin on my face when he danced around the room to ELO on camera and cracked jokes about being different to Elton John. I also thought his romance with Ursula (until the shitty end) was very sweet in a Richard Curtis kind of way. He was under-confident, awkward, shy and a bit of a coward too, but kind and gentle and good too underneath it all. I’m kind of sad he didn’t get a two-parter.

Ben: Perhaps my favourite scene of the episode was the scene in the laundromat where Elton attempts to make contact with Jackie and finds himself way out of his depth.

Maureen: I liked this Elton scene a lot too, but it wasn’t my favourite. My favourite would be him realising the Doctor conspiracy stuff has made him lose sight of what matters and what’s moral and tells Jackie he’s going to order them both a pizza and watch TV with Jackie, “just mates.” In fact, all of the Jackie Tyler scenes were solid gold.

Ben: Elton’s way of asking out Ursula left something to be desired, but at least he realised his feelings and acted on them finally. There was passion behind that proposition that he and Ursula grab some Chinese.

Maureen: Just quickly on Ursula, I kind of liked her too. She started off so damn awkward (check out the bench scene where she sits at an angle that positions her body away from Elton even as she’s talking to him and her shy little smiles) and then I just love her and LINDA and their little band and then when she loses her temper at Victor. OK, so she wimped out on hurting the alien when she shouldn’t have, but I kind of enjoy Henderson doing mad. She’s just so slight and small, but has this crazy voice. It works for her.

Ben: I also love Elton’s hell of a speech at the end of the episode about how The Doctor brings death and destruction to those in their orbit, which was a nice little bit of foreshadowing of what’s to come in the finale.

Maureen: I liked his final quote too. I’m sure Rose used something similar before. (Any commentators, please feel free to confirm me right or wrong with the particular episode.)

Elton: When you’re a kid, they tell you it’s all … grow up. Get a job. Get married. Get a house. Have a kid, and that’s it. But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. It’s so much darker. And so much madder. And so much better.

That’s the kind of hopeful, life affirming Who quote I love!!!

Ben: Jackie Tyler also had some great moments of characterisation this episode. It was really refreshing to see her living her life sans Rose or The Doctor. You get a real glimpse of a lonely mother, forever waiting for her daughter to return to her. It was really humanising, and you see in her a person who just craves company (“I can’t stand the quiet”) and the human touch, just like everyone does.

Maureen: Jackie Tyler has never really worked properly for me as a character. She too often descends into the ‘has been whore’ stereotype women always get lumped in (alongside virgin and crone tropes) and it annoys me. I didn’t understand the point of these Love and Monsters scenes as a teenager, but now I can understand their significance. They show why Jackie tries to fill her life with a string of men. Because she’s so lonely and feels so inadequate and so, so scared.

Ben: Yeah, my heart really broke for her when, after talking to Rose on the phone, she discovers the photo of Rose in Elton’s jacket and she realises Elton is being kind to her not for herself, but because of her connection with The Doctor. And then she gives this amazing speech about how the people who get left behind get hard, because it’s hard to be abandoned. I mean, couldn’t Rose have brought her mum along for an adventure or two? Jackie has a point!

Maureen: God my heart broke when Jackie she used to have a mate called Mickey who used to do all her handy man work.

The Alien of the Week

Ben: The alien this week, Mr Victor the Absorbaloff from planet Clom was, well, he was a choice. I get what they were going for but … he was definitely the weakest part of the episode.

Maureen: Just an FYI, Ben, this alien was designed by a ten year old as part of a Blue Peter competition so the fault doesn’t entirely lie with RTD and co.

Ben: True and I’m not sure what I would have done differently with the alien of the episode to keep the story/ideas they were trying to explore, but I feel like the alien was the result of no one saying no in the writer’s room. And what was the point of the Slitheen reference?

Maureen: I feel like perhaps this should have been a two-parter. There was thirty minutes of set-up and about ten minutes to reveal the alien threat and deal with it. Everything felt rushed and silly in the denouement.

Ben: At least the alien’s motives were sound with him wanting to absorb The Doctor to experience his life and existence through the power of digestion. But why did he only have the faces of the members of LINDA? Were they his first ever victims? I feel like he needed a bit more of a back story, or something.

Maureen: I found it odd that LINDA didn’t get more suspicious with all of their members vanishing one by one on flimsy pretexts and why they didn’t arc up sooner with Victor being so mean. Also, the denouement where The Doctor saves Ursula as a concrete slab to be Elton’s blow job on tap can go die in a fiery hole of sexism. Which is what that writing was.

Fandom Meta

Ben: The whole story of LINDA (that name is so dumb) is something of a metaphor for fandom, with passion for a thing bringing people together.

Maureen: Oiii, Ben. I liked the LINDA name. It was funny.

Ben: LINDA evolves from a conspiracy Doctor group to a community about genuine friendship. People have different reasons for joining LINDA and they go way beyond The Doctor. For Bridget, it was escaping the reality of her missing daughter, for Bliss it was a way to explore her artistic side. For Elton and Ursula, a way to make “proper mates.” And then, it becomes it’s own thing, almost a family of sorts.

Maureen: God, I love LINDA cooking meals and forming a band and listening to Mr Skinner read his novel. That’s my best experiences of fandom right there.

Ben: The arrival of Victor stretches the metaphor a bit, but I interpret him as the embodiment of toxic fandom.

Maureen: I don’t think it’s that much of a stretch. RTD is known for his on the nose satire. Also, for his involvement in Who fandom before becoming show runner.

Ben: With Victor’s arrival, LINDA becomes all work and no play. Gone is the food and the jam sessions, and instead they’ve been put to work hunting The Doctor.

Elton: Better get to work.
Ursula: I’ve never thought of it as work before.

And then one by one LINDA was dispatched as Victor or ‘toxic fandom’ absorbs each and every member bar Elton. The only way toxic fandom endures is by sucking people in to the point where they can’t leave. There’s something to be said about the way that Victor treats the members of LINDA like garbage, and it’s not until they stand up to him that the tides start to change. Each of the members of LINDA was charming in their own way, and I would have loved to have had more time with each of them.

Maureen: I agree. They were all sweet and good and innocent.

Final Thoughts

Ben: I’m not sure if the scene with The Doctor and Rose chasing/being chased by the alien at the start of the episode was supposed to be comedic, but I found it rather dumb. I had this same experience multiple times in the episode, of the tone feeling a bit off. Like when Elton’s computer blew up because the internet was going into meltdown about theories on the spaceship? Was that supposed to be a humorous recreation, or what actually happened? Anyway, I digress. About 70% of the episode was quite good, and then right at the end it completely jumps the shark. Ursula’s fate was particularly egregious. I feel like if they’d had another episode to properly explore the backstories and lives of the members of LINDA, and maybe had another go at the alien/ending they could have ended up with a truly fantastic episode. As it is, I’m going to give it 7/10.

Maureen: I agree with most of what you say, Ben. Sometimes the tone felt wrong and the alien of the week didn’t work given the denouement RTD went with. Also, have I mentioned before how much I loathe Ursula’s fate? Let me go again: it’s really, really, really fucking sexist. But then, for thirty minutes this was a sweet, funny, experimental look at what running into The Doctor does to people and how he brings them together which made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. So I’m also giving this odd beast 7/10 inky stars.

The Pre-Titles

Ben: So many two parters this season! This one opened with Rose being funny, ominous ancient writing the TARDIS can’t translate, and then creepy betentacled aliens repeating ‘we must feed’ over and over. Creepy!

Maureen: I found it pretty terrifying when Rose said ‘welcome to hell’ and The Doctor doesn’t laugh. What an odd, yet fascinating two-parter this was.

The Companion/s

Ben: Rose doesn’t do a whole lot in The Impossible Planet, except to be occasionally funny and stand up for the Ood. Oh, and get mysterious messages from an unknown spooky person. She did have some romantic moments with The Doctor though which was nice. The kissing of The Doctor’s helmet before he went down into the pit was a new evolution of their relationship, one the Doctor continues when he asks Ida to pass a message onto Rose before falling into the pit.

Maureen: I did enjoy Rose’s Ood puns! Also, I liked the return of Rose giving a shit about the under-trodden again. When a crew member says Rose should be part of an Ood freedom movement, my response was, HA SHE WOULD.

The Ood: There is nothing.
Rose: Yeah. I used to think that way.

Good old Rose comparing her chip-serving boredom to the Ood serving her slop.

What I liked a lot about this two-parter was the amount of quiet talky scenes that played out. Rose and Ten and Ten and Ida get the lion’s share of them (but more on Ida later). It’s ominously sad when Rose reveals that her phone has no signal and the dialogue below leading into the idea of Rose/Ten living together is one of the only times I’ve bought Ten/Rose.

Ten: Me? Living in a house?
Rose: You’d have to get a mortgage.
Ten: No. Me? Getting a mortgage? Now that’s terrifying.

Ten: I’ll catch ya later.
Rose: Not if I catch you later.

Ben: We at least get more good Rose scenes in The Satan Pit though. For starters, she stands up to Jefferson when he goes to kill Toby, then gets a gutload of foreshadowing – the thing in the pit thinks she’s going to die in battle and soon! She recovers from that pretty quickly though, taking charge of the team and getting them to think through the problems at hand. This is the kind of Rose action that I love: she’s away from The Doctor, thinking on her feet, and trying her very best to save the day. And save the day she does! Not only was she essential in getting the team to stop the Ood, she saves the survivors from The Beast possessed Toby. What a badass! And she gets her Doctor in the end, who she was so determined to wait for. Careful Rose, or you’ll end up waiting for a long time, just like Sarah Jane did. Still, all’s well that ends well, hey?

Maureen: Rose shows her idealism in a big way in The Satan Pit. She says if any crew member is shot, she has to be too. And I too love that she begs her fellow crew members to think for themselves and that she shows real bravery when she enters the Ood complex knowing the air supply is shot. We also got equal opportunity butt jokes! Also the below:

The Devil: I shall never die. Nothing shall ever defeat me.
Rose: Go to hell! (And she shoots).

Ben: I also liked how each of the team members gets a proper introduction and each gets a good chunk of screen time. Plus, good storylines! Toby gets a good horror storyline and is featured in some seriously scary scenes. The ‘don’t turn around’ scene, for starters. It’s typical possession stuff, but done well. The scene at the end of The Impossible Planet reminded me a lot of the séance scene from Penny Dreadful. Being able to spout intensely personal secrets about people is never going to end well, but it sure makes for a tense, dramatic scene. Poor Scooti died early on, but on the bright side it wasn’t because she was a dumb blonde in a horror movie.

Maureen: Yes, and I thought the scene where we see her floating through space was strangely beautiful cinematography. It’s also one of the first times I’ve really noticed just how perfect Murry Gold’s score can be for New Who.

Ben: Ida got the best scenes of the team, but that’s mostly because she spent a lot of time with the Doctor. The actress did an excellent job and I’d love to see her come back for another adventure one day.

Maureen: Yes, I had my fingers crossed for most of the two-parter that Ida wouldn’t die. I couldn’t figure out where I’d seen Ida before, but it turns out she played an older prostitute in Ashes to Ashes in another great part. Ida reminded me a bit of a proto-type River Song and I loved her intelligence, heart and leadership qualities, even in the face of extreme fear.

Ben: The Captain, Zach, was cool, calm, and collected initially, but does fall apart a bit when the going gets tough. The main thing is, he rises to the occasion, working together with the rest of the team to make an escape in The Satan Pit. Plus, it was refreshing to see a capable black man in a position of power.

Maureen: Yay for black representation and the black guy not being hated on by the story! *cough* Mickey *cough*

Ben: Danny, the Ood keeper doesn’t do a great deal except panic, but he does figure out a way to stop the Ood in The Satan Pit. The actor maybe committed a bit of overacting at times, but that could also be seen as the incredible panic he was experiencing. I did find Mr Jefferson to be a bit of a ridiculous character, but that could be because of the weird special effects they used for gunfire. Plus what kind of head of security can only kill one Ood after unloading a whole magazine of bullets? He is stormtrooper levels of bad at shooting.

Maureen: I liked the ambiguity of the Mr Jefferson character. The way The Devil played on his insecurities about his wife was bitterly sad. I cared, really cared, about every single crew member. I’m not sure any other New Who episode involving a big crew has ever managed to make me care for the crew so deeply.

Ben: Yes, overall, every one of the named characters was able to contribute substantially to the episode in one way or another, which was pleasing. I was invested in these characters and their fight to survive.

[about Zack]

The Beast: The captain, so scared of command.

[about Jefferson]

The Beast: The soldier, haunted by the eyes of his wife.

[about Ida]

The Beast: The scientist, still running from Daddy.

[about Danny]

The Beast: The little boy who lied.

[about Toby]

The Beast: The virgin.

The Doctor

Ben: The Doctor takes a while to get down to business in The Impossible Planet, performing general doctoring until discovering the TARDIS is gone in the section collapse. We get a cool tidbit about the TARDIS though. They’re grown not built. Although, in The Doctor’s Wife he does build a franken-tardis, but I guess that was out of old TARDIS bits. The Doctor realising he’ll have to go and live a normal life was kinda cute, plus him and Rose got to be awkwardly romantic for a few seconds. It was a nice scene. But the good stuff doesn’t really start happening until he gets to the centre of the planet, point zero.

Maureen: I’m with Ben on this one too. Ida/Ten is where things are really at. Also, a lot of the speeches and stand-alone lines are gorgeous. In some ways this is a classic horror two-parter. We are afraid because the protagonist, who is normally unflappable, is scared too.

Ida Scott: We should go down. I’d go. What about you?

The Doctor: Oh, oh in a second! But then again… That’s so human. Where angels fear to tread… Even now, standing on the edge, it’s that feeling you get, yea? Right at the back of your head. That impulse… That strange little impulse… That mad little voice saying, “Go on! Go on! Go on!… Go over! Go on!…” Maybe it’s relying on that… For once in my life, Officer Scott, I’m going to say… retreat. Ugh, now I know I’m getting old.

Watching The Doctor descend into an entirely black, silent pit was even scarier!

Ben: The Doctor’s first confrontation with the Beast goes fairly well. After it gets into the minds of Rose and the gang he’s able to bring them back to sanity. The scenes of him discovering the mind games the Beast and his jailers have set up for him were actually kinda funny, to be honest. Him shouting “oh!” repeatedly and giving the same speech from different angles was some unexpected comedic relief.

The Doctor: [the Doctor has realized that, if he releases the Beast and destroys it, both he and Rose will die] So that’s the trap, the great test, the final judgement, I dunno. But if I kill you, I kill her. But that implies, in this big grand scheme of gods and devils, that she’s just a victim. Well, I’ve seen a lot of this universe. I’ve seen fake gods and bad gods and demi-gods and would-be gods. I’ve had the whole pantheon. But if I believe in one thing… just one thing… I believe in her!

And of course the TARDIS had to reappear by means of some form of deus ex machina, meaning the Doctor could rescue Rose and the rest of the team and save the day. Although I was a bit annoyed at him not saving the Ood. Not enough time? You’re in a time machine!

The Alien of the Week

Ben: The Impossible Planet doesn’t feature much of the main baddie, focusing on the Ood being weird and Toby’s possession storyline. It’s horror 101, but it’s done quite well. The foreshadowing set up with the computer system and the Ood delivering ominous lines was unnerving, and while I didn’t know what was going on with the telepathic field getting stronger, I knew it meant Bad Things. Then comes the Beast and tell you what though, that guy sure knows how to give a good baddie speech. Although if he was chained there before time, before this universe was created, did the black hole even exist yet? It’s a big grand gesture to say you’ve been trapped there since before the beginning of, well, everything, but practically I dunno how it holds up.

Maureen: I didn’t think too hard about the how and the why of the Beast. I think the story is meant to be an ambiguous philosophical experiment. Because the Beast exists and has become an idea the devil exists across all of time and space in every culture, the Devil exists.

The Beast: [in the possesed body of Toby Zed] I am the rage and the vile and the voracity. I am the Prince and the Fallen. I am the Enemy, I am the Sin and the fear and darkness. I shall never die. The thought of me is forever; in the bleeding hearts of men, in their vanity and obsecrate and lust.

The Doctor: You get representations of the horned Beast right across the universe in myths and legends of a million worlds. Earth, Draconia, Vel Consadine, Daemos… The Kaled god of war, the same image, over and over again. Maybe, that idea came from somewhere. Bleeding through, a thought of every sentient mind…

Ida Scott: Originating from here?

The Doctor: Could be.

Ida Scott: But if this is the original, does that make it real? Does that make it the actual Devil?

The Doctor: Well, if that’s what you want to believe. Maybe that’s what the Devil is, in the end. An idea.

Ben: Be that as it may, I found the possessed Ood and Toby to be scarier than the Beast as it was unveiled, but that could be because the Beast was almost beyond the scope of human comprehension. The Beast is the truth behind the ultimate evil of every religion ever? And has existed since before things could exist? I prefer my Doctor Who baddies to be a bit smaller scale, but this story did well by having both the small scale and big scale, with Toby and the Ood paired with the Beast to make a formidable horror offering. I did feel like the method of defeat was a bit of a cop out, but I’m not quite sure how else you’re supposed to defeat an enemy that’s basically on the Lovecraftian scale of elder ones.

Maureen: Look Ben, we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I loved the Beast as a representation of an idea. It was all very Pratchett. I think the point of this two-parter is that there are some things that are beyond comprehension, some things that we shouldn’t try to understand. Somethings, even for The Doctor, aren’t worth the knowledge or the adventure. Sure, the Beast’s CGI was dodgy, but it was the early 2000s so I can forgive the production team that.

Final Thoughts

Ben: Okay, so I have some issues with the science around the black hole in these episodes. For starters, it’s not impossible to have a planet orbiting a black hole. Sure, it’s unlikely, but if you replaced the Sun with a black hole of equal mass Earth would be just fine. Well, we’d all die because of the no sunlight deal, but it’s not getting sucked into the black hole or anything. Yes, everything gets pulled in once you pass the event horizon, but beyond that a stable orbit is achievable. So, unless the planet is orbiting within the event horizon, which they don’t specify, there’s some bad science going on. Plus, the whole gravity field thing? I dunno. I don’t mind sciency technobabble, but when they reference established science is it too much to ask for some research? I dunno how big this black hole is, but to pull in whole solar systems from who knows where and consume them in a matter of seconds. It’s just not realistic. Anywho, other than a few science-based critiques, I actually really enjoyed these two episodes. I did struggle to review it because I found it to be a unique Doctor Who adventure, but that didn’t lessen my enjoyment of these episodes. I’m going to give it an 8/10

Maureen: Science scmience. I am one of those annoying viewers who doesn’t give a shit about science logic if I care about the characters and the themes of a Who episode. I loved this two-parter to bits. I loved the spaceship crew and how they all developed, especially Ida, I loved the cinematography and the score, I loved The Doctor facing off an idea personified, I loved the ambiguity of the ending. Sure, there was some weird plot mcguffins, like the black hole and the TARDIS magically re-materializing and the hand wave for why The Doctor couldn’t save The Ood but he could save Ida, BUT I DIDN’T CARE. These episodes are odd and beautiful with the ephemeral lunacy of a dream. I’m giving this one 10/10 inky stars.

Ok, ok, I ship this a little … ok … a lot.

Pre-Title Sequence

Ben: The pre-title sequence was rather long this week! There was a lot of scene setting, a man down on his luck and a family discussing getting a tv. And then bam! Mr Magpie is getting his face sucked into the tv by a strange woman with an evil laugh.

Maureen: I feel like people of my Mum’s generation would relate to this opening. After all, they would have been the kids watching with wide-eyed wonder as their disapproving parents watched on.

Grandma to grandson: TV pulls your brains outta your ears.

Re Mr Magpie, I was all OMG HOW GILLIAN ANDERSON IN AMERICAN GODS. Except this came first. Clearly, the producer was watching Also, there was another pre-title audience wink-wink, nudge-nudge moment from the villain of the week.

The Wire: Are you sitting comfortably? Now. We begin.

The Companion

Ben: Rose is looking quite lovely in the beginning of this episode. I can almost forgive her for calling the Doctor ‘daddio’. Even typing the word makes me shudder.

Maureen: Billie is always gorgeous anyway. But also, I liked the ‘daddio.’ Rose minus other companions just works so much better with The Doctor and you can tell Billie Piper is having the time of her acting life.

Ben: I must sound like a broken record by this point, but Rose gets to actually participate in things this episode! At least until she gets her face sucked off. I particularly liked the Union Jack/Flag bit, and not just because that was a piece of trivia I didn’t know. And! She gets to do some proper detective work of her own! Beginning with spotting the weird electricity coming from the TV, she traces it back to its source and finds out what’s happening before The Doctor! She was quite the interrogator, getting in Mr Magpie’s face like that. It’s a shame that that was the extent of Rose’s contribution until the end of the episode. But on the bright side, her fridging was only temporary?

Maureen: This episode reminded me quite a bit of one of Mark Gatiss’ contributions to Big Finish in the Eighth Doctor range, actually. The 1920s alien invasion story with Orson Welles one. We had detectives, we had interesting companion adventure, we had conspiracy, we had villains manipulating a major human point in history. Compared to previous episodes too, I agree Rose got to do so much more and use her intellect to get to the bottom of the mystery. I didn’t mind the Rose face-wipe as such, though I do think the denouement of the episode was rushed, and the story would have benefited from being a two-parter.

Ben: I wasn’t particularly happy with the advice Rose gave to Tommy at the end of the episode either. Years of abuse shouldn’t be that easy to forget. But I guess they had to have a happy ending for everyone involved.

Maureen: I get what you mean with this, Ben. It felt contrived after how horrible Tommy’s Dad was painted throughout the episode. Sexist AND violent. What a guy. If anything, the Tommy ending just raised more questions for me. Will Tommy grow up to be like his father, and will sustained contact encourage that negative growth, or is Tommy truly shaped by his adventure with Rose and The Doctor and will forgive his father even as he doesn’t endorse who he is?

Ben: Hmmm, from the get go the family dynamic was weird, and then you discover the Dad’s such a piece of work. Eddie is a slimy abusive son-of-a-bitch. Poor Rita is the down-trodden housewife, and their son Tommy rounds out the family. Tommy is trying to do the best he can, considering the circumstances. The actor who played Eddie was actually very good, from the look he gives when his wife starts opening up to The Doctor, to the overwhelming guilt on his face when Tommy is talking about how the police are showing up to take people away and no one knows how they know. This episode was much subtler than the cybermen episodes before it, where everything was big and loud. The line about beating the mummy’s boy out of Tommy was particularly horrific, though. Anyway, it comes as no surprise that Eddy has been ratting everyone out to maintain his reputation and position. Masculinity can be so fragile. It all happened rather quick with Rita kicking her out, perhaps it would have been better stretched across two episodes. Things get a bit more blunt towards the end with the family, with Rita talking about how the Coronation is just the thing to make you forget all your troubles.

Maureen: I actually think that the family drama was the most interesting part of The Idiot’s Lantern. What a disturbing portrait of misogyny and patriotism and cowardice! I agree with Ben that the guy playing Eddie was phenomenal. The alien story of the week wasn’t that interesting in comparison once The Wire’s real intent was revealed.

The Doctor

Ben: Once again, the Doctor demonstrates he never passed his driving test (you will note he ignores the question when Rose asks him that after their little car chase). Landing in London instead of New York is quite a remarkable miss.

Maureen: I’d forgotten how much The Doctor being a bad driver was an on-going New Who joke. I thought the River comments came from Eleven, but now I can really see how that quip was set-up over time. Ten might be a new version of The Doctor, but some things just never change.

Ben: I did like the Doctor’s immediate assessment and subsequent take down of Eddie. In previous episodes, writers have been quite happy to partake in some bullying, fat shaming, and other general nastiness. It’s nice to see they’ve drawn the line somewhere. It’s a shame the Doctor’s bamboozling doesn’t last for long, as Eddie is back to his old ways as soon as he sees the power dynamic inside the house shift away from him and retaliates by knocking The Doctor out.

Maureen: I enjoyed that Rose and Ten bounce off each other in their Eddie put-down. They really lull him into a false sense of calm and then let the insults fly!

Eddie: Don’t mind the wife. She rattles a bit.
Ten: Maybe she should rattle more.

Ten: Do you suggest The Queen does the housework?

Eddie: I am talking.
Ten: And I’m not listening.

Ben: At least The Doctor gets a peek at old Gran before he gets knocked out. And then, after a slightly more successful car chase, he finds out there’s plenty more where Gran came from! The atmosphere in these scenes was spooky, with the faceless people looming ominously around the Doctor. It reminded me a lot of the mannequins from the first episode of New Who.

Maureen: I found it hilarious that The Doctor told Rose to hurry up and follow him, before promptly jumping on his motorbike and leaving her in the dust. My favourite part of the episode was actually Rose telling Eddie, ‘only an idiot hangs a Union Jack upside down,’ before dashing away with a manic grin to have her own adventure. The way The Doctor made zero sense to both Ben and I which did pull the episode’s score quite a way down from what it could have been. A real shame and brings us to …

The Alien of the Week

Ben: An electric alien that can live in tvs and eat peoples faces is a weird concept, that’s for sure! And The Wire gives a good villain speech too! The name ‘the wire’ is a bit dumb, though.

Maureen: I found The Wire to be the weakest part of this episode by far. She transitioned from scary to cheesy quite a few times throughout the episode. For example, the constant ‘feed me’s’ felt OTT, but some of her lines like, ‘goodnight children. Everywhere,’ were genuinely frightening. Then, her back story felt tacked on. I get she was an exile and was trying to win a safe place for herself, but her plan was so villainous I just didn’t sympathize with her at all. The Wire is another reason I think a two-parter would have worked better for this story.

Ben: The reveal of Gran was quite terrifying at least, with faceless Gran bumping around in the attic. I guess this is supposed to be a literal interpretation of the ‘tv makes you brainless’ speech Gran gave in the pre-title sequence.

Maureen: Yes, I found the faceless people sub-plot quite touching and sad. Rose mouthing in the TV, helpless, was brutal. It was The Wire herself who didn’t work for me.

Ben: I didn’t understand how she was defeated at all. If she feeds on the electrical power of the brain, why steal human faces? Or is that just an unfortunate side effect of the feeding process? Also, are millions and millions of people just going to forget the whole faces being sucked into their tv sets during the coronation? People seemed to brush it off remarkably quickly. I have to say, being taped over as your mode of demise was a pretty fitting end to what was at best, a very one note villain.

Maureen: The last ten minutes were really where the episode came unstuck for me. I can cope with one-note villains when there’s so much character drama to admire, but The Doctor’s solution simply confused me. Mr Magpie and Ten climbing the transmission tower was a rather mad-cap and dangerous solution from The Doctor and I’m not sure how The Wire generated the electricity to kill Magpie. As for the VCR hand-wave … my only comment was, ‘wait. what?’

Final Thoughts

Ben: This episode wasn’t amazing, brilliant Doctor Who, but it was better than the Cybermen double feature at least. The episode starts of incredibly strong, and then loses steam as it goes. There were a few wasted scenes, or scenes that went on longer than strictly necessary. But the music was a lot better than last week, and on the whole it was a more enjoyable episode. I just wish Gatiss had had time to flesh everyone out a bit more and then this could have been a good horror themed two-parter. I’m going to give The Idiot’s Lantern 5/10.

Maureen: I feel kind of bad for our scores always matching up, but we really do view New Who in a similar way most of the time. I second everything you say. A two-parter would have turned this episode from ordinary to extraordinary. A second script look-in re The Wire would have helped too. Still, I enjoyed the character drama a lot. 5/10 inky stars.

Can you tell I’m an evil, mad villain?

The Opening Titles

Ben: The first episode’s pre-title sequence was hammy. It gave me strong ‘overacting villain from a James Bond movie’ vibes. The John Lumic character was chewing the scenery something awful, and I found the music to be very obtrusive. I know that music is used to help encourage the right emotional reaction out of the audience, but I feel like it was being used like a blunt weapon in this instance. The pre-title sequence for Age of Steel was, as usual for multi episode arcs, a recap. And honestly, a much better telling of the events of the previous episode than the episode itself.

Maureen: I have to agree with you, Ben. My only notebook comment re Lumic beyond how irritatingly over-the-top his voice and acting is, was this is an unfortunate representation of disability. But also, it occurred to me later that the cybermen info dump was kinda stupid. Wouldn’t suspense have been so much better if the audience hadn’t known about cybermen involvement till Jackie Tyler? I feel like all the surprise in the episode was undone by the opening sequence.

The Companion/s

Ben: After liking Rose so much last episode, I was disappointed to see she’s back on the treating Mickey like dirt bandwagon.

Maureen: I give up on Rose. She’s a bloody awful companion. Poor Billie Piper getting stuck with her. The Rose/Ten dynamic completely doesn’t work whenever a third party is involved because the writers use this as an excuse for constant bickering, bitchiness and ugly jealousies. It’s sexist. It’s annoying. Stop it, show. God, I’m glad Mickey got a backbone this episode and walked for real. Rose deserved it.

Ben: In AU Britain, Rose wants to go and see her parents, and the Doctor whinges about that without giving a good explanation for why the hell not (in my opinion, at least).

Maureen: Nope. I’m with you, Ben. The whole time Ten whinged I was like, what? Shut-up.

Ben: I mean, Nine agreed to let Rose go into her past and see her real dad before he died, so what’s the harm in Rose visiting her parents in this alternative universe? She doesn’t exist in this universe, after all. Hell, if getting involved in parallel universes is such a big no-no, why did he let Mickey stay at the end of Age of Steel? But at least Rose got to have another awkward one sided flirty conversation with her dad at the party plus another rather unpleasant one with her mum, right?

Maureen: I was really disappointed in the Rose/Pete interactions. Father’s Day set-up a nice dynamic that felt squicky this time around. We get it. Everyone crushes on Rose. Even her Dad.

Ben: I don’t know if we were supposed to like Jackie in this, but I felt nothing for her. She’s supposed to be some fancy rich lady, but her dress doesn’t even fit properly! And she’s just nasty to everyone! You really see her true colours in the exchange she has with Rose at her party. I get that she’s feeling vulnerable because her and Pete have separated, but that was just nasty. So it wasn’t exactly an emotional blow when we discover she’s been turned into a cyberman in Age of Steel.

Maureen: Yeah, I’m not sure what was going on with Jackie in this either. I mean, generally speaking I’m not mad keen on Jackie Tyler, but at least in the real world she has some redeeming qualities. Unless the idea is that she is a nicer person because she brought up human Rose in the real world? Because, ya know, Rose is perfect and without her everyone on this show is incomplete /sarcasm.

Ben: Rose’s Dad is just as bad, but in different ways. He’s a bit of a wet rag, really. The revelation that he was feeding information to the rebels just fell so flat! I don’t know if it’s the writing or the direction in these episodes, but so many of the scenes just felt off. Then poor Mickey was treated like dirt through the entirety of these two episodes.

Maureen: I know right? From the get go Rose and Ten being arseholes to Mickey set my teeth on edge. I thought the Rose/Ten banter was cute too … till I realised it was at Mickey’s expense. And I hated all the times The Doctor got all worried about Rose, but said outright he didn’t have time to care about Mickey. Jaysus. No wonder Mickey went off to do his own thing!

Ben: Maybe it’s just a sign of the times, but Rose’s description of his grandmother as this amazing woman who used to slap him as a boy was uncomfortable.

Maureen: Yeah, what was with that? Rose laughing about it just made me hate her in this two-parter even more than I’d been hating on her previously. Haha domestic abuse. Haha Mickey deserves it. Fuck off, Rose.

Ben: I guess Grandma’s the only family he has left, but … it definitely explains why Mickey puts up with Rose and The Doctor for so long and is kind of disturbing to boot. In another episode this scene might have been touching, but instead it just felt awkward. The music was loud and emotional, Mickey was getting slapped around, and then his grandma treats us to a trope filled information dump. But hey, at least Mickey has some cool new friends now? Who then immediately treat us to another info dump. And then we get to one of the worst parts of these episodes – Mickey and Rickey. I don’t know what it is, Mickey’s actor usually does a fine job, but as soon as Rickey and Mickey are on the screen together it all goes to crap. I found all the scenes with the two of them just awkward. Ricky was just as badly overacted as the villains, in my opinion. And considering his failed rescue of Rose, Pete and The Doctor he’s just about as useful as Mickey too (the most wanted man in London due to unpaid parking tickets). Happily, Ricky is killed off at the start of Age of Steel and Mickey discovers his courage. Mickey gets a proper redemption with the last half hour of this episode – hacking computers, flying zeppelins and generally being a bad ass who’s saving the day. Onwards and upwards, Mickey!

Maureen: For me, Mickey was the saving grace of this dismal two-parter! I wish Noel Clarke had been given a real chance with this character. I think he was pretty shabbily treated by the show.

The Doctor

Maureen: My opinion of The Doctor in this two-parter is pretty basic. Fuck him. Fuck him and the unicorn he rode in on. Fuck him and his Mickey insults. Fuck him and his obsessive Rose protectionism. Fuck him and his sanctimonious lectures to all and sundry. And especially fuck him in the moment when he makes Mickey hold a TARDIS lever and doesn’t tell him to let go, then laughs at Mickey. What a bully.

Ben: Yeah, right off the bat the Doctor is bullying Mickey again. I thought we’d gotten over this stupidity, but no. And then suddenly the TARDIS is dead. This scene felt really weird, the music was loud, and the acting just felt off. And that was just the beginning. Time and time again I had issues with The Doctor in these episodes; he was bossy to Rose, mean to Mickey, and his use of technobabble was especially egregious. All the explanations around the TARDIS and their getting in and out of this parallel universe were dumb. On the bright side, Rose and the Doctor get to go undercover at Jackie’s party, and The Doctor does look rather fetching in a tux. An episode high point.

Maureen: Well, until the next dick move on The Doctor’s part. The Doctor laughing at dog Rose was just the next dick move in a long line of dick moves.

Ben: I didn’t really understand the point of the scene in the tunnels with Angela Price/Mrs Moore. In retrospect, it feels like the only reason we got a proper introduction to her – family, history, motives – was so that her death would have an impact when she was no longer useful to the story.

Maureen: Urgh yes. She was the only interesting character in the whole damn story so of course she had to die (though maybe I only warmed to her coz her name matches Angela Lansbury’s in Bedknobs and Broomsticks). I can spot the trope a mile off and I predicted she would die as soon as she got a back-story.

Ben: I also thoroughly did not enjoy The Doctor’s encounter with Lumic. His speech was very much holier-than-thou. And speaking of ridiculous technological explain-aways, having this advanced mechanical system compatible with Rose’s old flip phone is a level of ridiculous and dumb I don’t even have the words for …

The Alien of the Week

Ben: I didn’t like Mr Lumic as a villain. He felt like a caricature of every Bond villain ever. Is he completely insane? Check. Does he have a dastardly plan to take over the world? Check. Is he good for a dramatic speech and presentation at the drop of a hat? Check. I even had issues with his motive. Clearly the man is physically unwell, so this is a way to extend his life beyond the failings of mortal flesh. But beyond that we didn’t get any exploration of his motives. Similarly, Mr Crane (the Alfred to his John Wayne) was about as stereotypical a British butler as you can get. Of course, we don’t find out anything about his reasons for aligning with Mr Lumic, he is just The Help after all. The arc involving his whole sudden-but-inevitable betrayal of Mr Lumic was, to me, disappointing. Were we to believe that Mr Crane was fine with picking up transients off the street and turning them into cybermen against their will (that scene was also at least 17 different kinds of bad, and then he seemed to thoroughly enjoy putting the newly subservient men through their paces a few scenes later?), knew the fine details of Mr Lumic’s schemes, and that was the best assassination attempt he could muster? Plus it was a dramatic change of mindset from a man who used a song from The Lion King to drown out the sounds of men being torturously transformed into cybermen earlier on. He didn’t even get to give a speech about what Mr Lumic doing was wrong! And again, I constantly found the music obtrusive and distracting.

Maureen: Damn Ben! You just said everything I was gonna say. I’m just gonna pour a glass, sit back and enjoy the hate watch ride … ps: I agree, The Lion Sleeps Tonight scene was shark jumping of the highest order.

Ben: Moving on, the scene where The Doctor and Rose were in the crowd of people as they got their daily download was pretty creepy – everyone frozen in unison, then laughing in unison was creepy. But that is maybe the one good scene in these two episodes.

Maureen: The darkness of this scene reminded me a little of the hive mind suicide jumpers in The Christmas Invasion. Also, this was the only time I actually woke up and started paying attention.

Ben: Alas, after that it was all downhill when it came to scenes involving Mr Lumic’s technology. The revolving arms of blades and general horror that turned people into cybermen was just incredibly stupid. It’s the kind of thing that would be played for laughs in a Scary Movie or something similar. And I really didn’t find the cybermen scary when they were properly introduced at the end of Rise of the Cybermen, their repeated exclamations of “delete! Delete!” just made me feel like they were budget Daleks.

And, just like a James Bond villain, these cybermen have a fatal weakness. Of course the emotional inhibitor would be easily accessible and easy to disable. And of course disabling the emotional inhibitor will make all the cybermen go insane and kill themselves. That’s not a fatal design flaw at all. Speaking of design flaws, Mr Lumic’s final cyber form is what you see when you look up overkill in the dictionary. Anyways, due to some enraging uses of technology the cybermen met a fiery, self destructive end, and I can pretend it never happened.

Maureen: How noisy was that ending? I wrote, ‘what a fire and brimstone ending.’ I was beginning to want to stab my own eyeballs out. But then the episode ended. Thank God.

Final Thoughts

Ben: Look, I hated it. I hated all of it. There were very few redeeming moments, the music was really distracting, Mickey was being treated like crap, there was an over-reliance on technobabble to explain away plot points, and I wasn’t invested in any of the characters or their arcs. Maybe in an alternative universe this episode would have been received better, but I’m giving this Cyberman story a 0/10.

Maureen: At first I came over all nostalgic and was all well Mickey got out of this cluster fuck so I should award a point, but nope. No, I cannot. Because even Mickey’s exit was over the top and a bit shit. Like I’m glad he left, but gosh this wasn’t a well acted or produced episode in which to go out with a bang. Also, I loathe Ten and Rose and want them to fall into a black hole and stay there. I don’t give a damn about Pete or Jackie Tyler. I certainly didn’t give a damn about the two-dimensional cardboard cut-out big bad of the week and his cybermen, toothless pets. 0/10 inky stars

Image by Tom Newsom (I think).

The pre-title sequence

Maureen: Wow this episode is visually beautiful. Versailles, France, is wonderfully brought to life and we’re back into horror fairy story territory with Reinette telling us her clock on the mantle is broken as she calls for help from The Doctor.

Ben: This episode really opens with a bang doesn’t it! We get screams, panic, talk of love, duty, and a beautiful woman pleading for The Doctor to come and save the day! You gotta hand it to him, Moffat sure knows how to write an intro.

Maureen: Yes, I’ve always admired Moffat for his combination of rug-pulling against expectation and intriguing hooks to his episode openings.

The Companion/s

Ben: Rose and Mickey are definitely on the backburner this episode, but you can really see the formings of Rory and Amy in their pairing. Or at least, Rose and Mickey gave me strong Amy and Rory vibes.

Maureen: I’ll talk about this again later, but I definitely see The Girl in the Fireplace as Moffat’s thesis for his entire approach to New Who. Having said that, I didn’t get an Amy/Rory vibe from Rose/Mickey so much as I got a Reinette being the precurser to Amy vibe. Reinette waits many times for The Doctor, just as Amy did with, ‘you said five minutes.’ I wonder if anyone has written the Reinette/Amy fan fic. I’m there! There are elements of River Song’s relationship with The Doctor in Reinette too. Both pairings love is doomed to tragedy. And the fairy story visuals are here too. But back to Ben …

Ben: I love Rose’s makeup and hair this episode.

Maureen: I liked Rose and Mickey toting guns around.

Ben: I also loved Mickey’s shock that the TARDIS can even translate French.

Maureen: I love Mickey’s TARDIS joy.

Mickey: I got a spaceship on my first go.
Rose: Mickey Smith. Meet the universe.

Ben: Rose and Mickey are really good together, quietly exploring the ship, even if they do find some pretty horrible facts out. And Rose get’s to do something of substance! Her scene with Reinette was particularly sweet. If anyone can relate to what Reinette is going through, it’s Rose.

Reinette: I’m very afraid, but you and I both know Rose … The Doctor is worth the monsters.

Maureen: I liked that we got a Series One Rose this time around too who knows to ask the pertinent question/s. This time, why the aliens want Reinette in particular.

Ben: Onwards to Reinette who really is at this episode’s heart as a companion who never was. The inquisitive child was a great way to introduce this character, in my opinion. Kids and the Doctor in general do well. They can accept things that shouldn’t be much better than adults can. The child actress playing her did a pretty good job, and was suitably terrified at the monster The Doctor found under her bed.

Maureen: Talk about an The Eleventh Hour parallel. Instead of a crack in a child’s wall, it’s a clockwork creature.

Ben: Yep, next time we meet Reinette she’s an adult.

Maureen: Yep, just like Amy …

Ben: And boy does she know how to sweep a Doctor off her feet. What a brain she has too! You can practically see the sparks flying between the two as she steals a kiss from The Doctor. And then we find out her true identity! Madame de Pompadour, future Mistress to the King of France and all around overachiever. It’s hard to imagine who would be the more formidable in that pairing.

Maureen: I’d love some Big Finish spin-off, but what if Reinette met River Song? Also, I googled Madame de Pompadour after viewing this episode and what an interesting woman in real life!

Ben: We get to see snippets of Reinette’s life like her strolling through some magnificent gardens and such. Then, the clockwork robots made another appearance, and we get some more information: the clockwork robots need her, specifically her 37 year old brain, to repair their ship. The Doctor looks through her memories to try and find the answer, and in doing so opens the door for Reinette to look through The Doctor’s memories.

Reinette: Such a lonely boy. Lonely then and lonely now. Dance with me … Doctor who? It’s more than just a secret.

Maureen: I may have killed this episode a little by re-watching it so very much, but it has some beautiful scenes and quotes and the one you mention Ben, was definitely one of them. The scene also reveals another Moffat interest, the real identity of The Doctor and the metaphor of his name. It became a central theme in Series Six and Seven under Moffat. I also loved the throwback to Series One and The Doctor Dances with:

Ten: What did you see?
Reinette: That there comes a time, Time Lord, when every little boy must learn to dance.

I don’t think she was talking just dancing, either!

Ben: At the final clockwork confrontation, Reinette is as fiery as ever, commanding silence of her audience.

Reinette (to the crowd of panicking noblemen and women): Kindly remember that this is Versailles and we are French.

The Doctor saves the day magnificently, but then Reinette goes and saves The Doctor! What an excellent twist.

Maureen: Yes. There was such quiet beauty in Reinette when she tells Ten:

Reinette: So here you are. My lonely angel. Stuck on the slow path with me.

Even now she knows he has a way out and she loves him too much to stop him from going.

Ben: She really is his equal, which makes me all the sadder that in the end she dies before getting to travel with The Doctor. Her final letter absolutely ripped my heart out. I’m not used to this level of tragedy from Doctor Who!

Maureen: Yes, even having viewed this episode many a time, I still felt emotional. *I’m not crying, it’s raining on my face*. And the Rose/Ten exchange killed me too.

Rose: You all right?
Ten: I’m always all right.

What a terribly sad lie!

The Doctor

Ben: The Doctor really gets into things quickly this episode! General Doctoring is dispensed with in the first few minutes, consoles are poked at and the scene is set on a spaceship AND on Versailles. And then appears our Girl in the Fireplace! I actually looked up the reference about August of 1727 and there’s nothing of significance that happened, that we know of at least. Maybe it really was just awful weather that month. Then we get to the first amazingly creepy scene of the episode, when the Doctor notices the ticking noise that shouldn’t be. This scene really reminded me of a scene or two with Mr Are You My Mummy back in season one and is really scary stuff. I loved the quick exchange he and Reinette had before the end of the scene. She might have nightmares with monsters in them, but monsters have nightmares with him in them. That’s the kind of imaginary friend you want as a 7 year old.

Maureen: I also found The Doctor’s response to the clockwork creature interesting. He acknowledges its alien beauty even as some of Nine’s anger shines through, showing that Moffat at least, hasn’t forgotten about The Doctor’s bitter past.

Ten: You’re beautiful. I mean it. You’re gorgeous. It would be a crime to dissemble you, but that won’t stop me.

And then I just loved the scene after The Doctor and Reinette ‘danced’ where Rose and Mickey are surrounded by clockwork aliens with Rose about to get sliced up and a drunk Doctor turns up going on about inventing banana daiquiris early and defeating the clockwork alien by pouring wine into its parts. This version of Ten is one I can really get behind!

Ben: It’s not often the Doctor encounters someone who can hold their own against him and really sweep him off his feet in that way. The measures The Doctor goes to to save Reinette’s life are, I think, a testament to the feelings The Doctor has for her, even though he’s only known her for half an hour. Plus his smarmy “oh yeah? Well I’m the lord of Time” response when introduced to the King of France said a lot. Anywho, breaking the time window was a hell of a way to defeat the clockwork robots, but it came at a cost – there’s no way back. Plus, Rose and Mickey are stuck on the ship, unable to fly the TARDIS without him. Whoops.

Maureen: I personally found Ten riding a horse through a wall into the royal court of Versailles a bit full on, but having said that, it was a bombastic and brash moment that had probably been earnt by the quality of the rest of the episode. I loved The Doctor’s manic expressions as he realised Reinette’s fireplace could return him to his TARDIS and it’s telling that he’d forgotten all about his relationship with Rose in the presence of Reinette.

Ten: Pick a star. Any star.

Alas, he came back for Reinette too late. Time was the boss of him and he’d just missed her death carriage. Ten’s expression as he read Reinette’s letter was truly sad. All of that guilt and loneliness and love was locked up tight, and not even Rose could get Ten to confide in her of his secret pain.

The Alien of the Week

Ben: Clockwork robots! What an excellent concept. The French costumes just add to their terror, quite frankly. And then we get to the real horror when we discover the ship The Doctor and his crew are on is running on human body parts mixed with machinery! A human eye in a surveillance camera, a human heart in the midst of some circuitry. And then the central mystery: why has this spaceship 3000 years in the future punched so many holes in space and time to follow the life of Madame de Pompadour? The grand reveal? The spaceship was damaged, these clockwork robots are repairbots and they used the crew to repair the ship. And Reinette is the last part!

Maureen: In RTD era Who, Moffat doesn’t do straight evil villains. In his Series One two-parter, the aliens were also repairbots of a kind, albeit little microbes that healed all they came in contact with even if their understanding of what was and wasn’t healthy was impaired. Similarly, the clockwork aliens are just trying to make sure their spaceship continues on. Programmed to repair, when they ran out of parts they had to make do with what materials they had available to them … too bad that was their human crew.

Ben: The clockwork aliens meet something of an ignoble end, separated from their ship with no way to wind up their gears again. Scary as they were, it’s hard not to feel sorry for them in the end. And that final moment of the episode when the camera zooms out and you see the name of the ship? The Madame de Pompadour? Why, that’s the cherry on the top of this episode. In the end, just as the clockwork robots had claimed all along, Reinette and the robots were indeed linked.

Maureen: Yes, that was such a clever touch! The ship was named Madame de Pompadour so for fix-it alien types, it made sense that they thought Reinette’s brain could re-boot the ship.

Final Thoughts

Ben: This episode was both wondrous and wondrously sad by the end. Moffat really is incomparable in writing these standalone episodes. This combination of whimsy and horror with a little dash of steampunk is exactly the kind of episode I love from Doctor Who. It’s about as close to a perfect episode as you can get, in my opinion. I’m giving it a 10/10.

Maureen: I’ve re-watched this episode more times than I can count and as a result, its lustre has worn off a little over time. It’s probably my least favourite Moffat episode of RTD era Who. Which given how good his other episodes are, isn’t saying much. I kept teetering between a 9 and a 10, but if I’m honest, this is a pretty wonderful Who episode and the first time someone saw it, I can really see how they’d be blown away. I’m sitting with 10/10 inky stars for now.

The Pre-title Sequence

Ben: It’s what’s his face from BBC Merlin! Oh, and Buffy too, I guess. I found this title sequence to be pretty standard fare. It gives you a good idea of what to expect from the episode – a school setting, an evil principal, and The Doctor as a teacher!

Ten: Good morning, class. Are we sitting comfortably?

Maureen: A third wall audience shout-out if ever I heard one! I quite enjoyed The Doctor wearing glasses and teaching kids in suitable frenetic style. I wonder if Clara teaching Jane Austin in the Capaldi era was influenced by this episode?

Giles was seriously ominous.

Mr Finch (upon discovering the student outside his office was an orphan): No one to miss you. You poor child… thing… child.

The Companion/s

Ben: Miserable lunch lady Rose amused me greatly, particularly considering how poorly she treats Sarah-Jane later on in the episode. It’s like karma in advance. Although I do appreciate she got to do some investigating of her own.

Maureen: I thought it was also ironic that Rose escaped a life of chip eating and shitty retail jobs to travel with The Doctor, but in this adventure mundanity still catches her up. At least, Rose figures out something is suss with the chips… especially after a lunch lady is doused in it and an ambulance isn’t called as she screams and screams behind closed blinds! This whole episode reminded me very much of the TV show, Goosebumps, in terms of the ‘horror that’s relatable to young people’ fare. Young, nerdy Miles blowing up the school and the aliens to cheers from his classmates is one such example.

Anyway, Rose was fine to start with this episode, but her jealous swipes at Sarah-Jane over her past relationship with The Doctor can go die in a deep vat of spitting hot oil. Now I’m no longer a teen, Rose’s behavior isn’t relatable. It’s bitchy, needy and shows she defines herself through her romantic and sexual relationships with men. Her digs at other women can fuck right on off. Give it a rest already, RTD!

Ben: Yes, I agree. I understand there’s going to be some turbulence in having an old companion meet a current companion, but this whole ex-girlfriend meeting the new girlfriend-esque bickering is just immature.

Maureen: It’s sexist, thoughtless writing and it can go die in a hole. I suspect the only reason such scenes were includes in School Reunion were to reinforce to the viewer how important and special Rose is and how her and Ten have twu-love to move mountains or some such shit. I was relieved when Sarah-Jane and Rose finally bonded towards the end of the episode, even if their bonding was still in relation to The Doctor.

Ben: Onwards! Poor Mickey is still far too attached to Rose. His realisation that he’s basically the K9 of the Ten/Rose/Mickey trio was apt, considering he ends up being about as useful as K9. And K9 doesn’t make snide remarks about how Rose should lay off the chips if she wants to keep The Doctor…

Maureen: Yeah, that was a low moment from Mickey. Every time he redeems himself, he does or says something petty and jealous to try and win Rose back. Unappealing! Ten and Mickey arguing about Mickey being afraid of dead rats echoed the bickering of Sarah-Jane and Rose and was just as irritating. Stop trying to one-up each other, folks! It’s turning into Doctor Who Eastenders!

Ben: Now, having not watched any of Classic Who I’m not at all familiar with the character of Sarah-Jane Smith, but from the moment she laid eyes on the TARDIS I was invested. The emotional journey she goes through this episode is compelling, to say the least.

Maureen: I’d seen bits of Baker/Sarah-Jane here and there. Sarah-Jane reminded me in this episode of Harriet Jones in how she goes undercover as a journalist to dig up an alien plot. I enjoyed her spunk. When she realises Ten is a Doctor you feel her unresolved trauma and pain.

Sarah-Jane: I waited for you and I thought you’d died. You didn’t come back… did I do something wrong coz you just dumped me? You were my life.

Aside: echoes of Amy Pond? But this speech serves to remind the viewer of the alien danger of The Doctor. He’s alluring, yes, but time marches on and so must he. He ditches Sarah-Jane for Aberdeen, Scotland and doesn’t mention her again (or at least he hasn’t to Rose).

Ben: This reunion has re-opened some old and deep wounds. And this is something we’ve seen before, with The Doctor leaving mess after mess behind after he’s done saving the day. The Doctor really isn’t that great at follow ups. At least Sarah Jane gets the ending she deserves from the start – finally she can move on with her life. She is offered the chance to travel with The Doctor, but instead she’s going to start living for herself.

Maureen: I wasn’t a fan of the ending’s implication that Sarah-Jane is this sexless, love-lorn Doctor fan-girl, but I liked that she said no to further TARDIS travel and like Martha and later Amy decided to stop waiting.

The Doctor

Ben: My first impression of this episode is that if I hear The Doctor say the word ‘physics’ again it’ll be too soon. The second impression I got was how creepy kids who know things they shouldn’t are. Answering physics questions in a deadpan voice is not quite ‘twins playing in a hotel corridor’ levels of creepy, but it’s up there. And then Sarah-Jane Smith comes along and sweeps The Doctor off his feet! It’s not often we get to see The Doctor dumbfounded, but it was well worth it. Their second meeting was just as emotionally charged, but this time they’re on equal footing; this John Smith really is /her/ John smith.

Maureen: This episode showed the beginning of Ten’s real descent into the last of the Time Lord’s lonely God damage. Take this conversation between him and Rose:

Rose Tyler: I’ve been to the year five million, but this, this is really seeing the future- you just leave us behind! Is that what you’re going to do to me?
The Doctor: No. Not you.
Rose Tyler: But, Sarah Jane- you were that close to her once, and now… you never even mention her. Why not?
The Doctor: I don’t age. I regenerate. But humans decay. You wither and you die. Imagine watching that happen to someone you…
Rose Tyler: What, Doctor?
The Doctor: You can spend the rest of your life with me. But I can’t spend the rest of mine with you. I have to live on, alone. That’s the curse of the Timelords.

It makes one wonder what The Doctor would have done with Rose had the Series Two finale not happened!

Ben: The Doctor’s confrontation with the leader of the Krillitane, Mr Finch, was quite charged, and then he gives The Doctor the chance to join with him! I guess with the power of this God Maker plus a Time Lord they’ll be able to rule the universe or something.

Maureen: Yeah, I was pretty confused at Mr Finch’s motivations at this point too. My notebook simply says, ‘huh? O.K.’ On the plus side, Anthony Head was great as Mr Finch and delivered his lines so beautifully I didn’t care I couldn’t figure his character out.

Mr Finch: Your people were peaceful to the point of indolence.
Ten: I used to have so much mercy.

Ben: Luckily Sarah-Jane has wise words of wisdom to say about how everything has to move on, and that pain and suffering is part of existing, and The Doctor snaps out of his daydream and smashes a tv screen.

Sarah-Jane: No. The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it’s a world, or a relationship… Everything has its time. And everything ends.

It’s all very dramatic and doesn’t make much sense. I’m not entirely sure what this episode was trying to focus on? I definitely think it was a case of biting off more than they can chew. Why not focus on The Doctor struggling with the idea of being in control of this God Maker code? Now that would have been an interesting episode. Anyways this episode ends with the Doctor finally saying a proper goodbye to Sarah Jane Smith and presenting her with a new and improved K9. Shame he didn’t change the voice too. To say K9’s voice grates on the ears is an understatement.

The Alien of the Week

Ben: Even though you know the principal is up to No Good, we’re left with more questions than answers for the first chunk of School Reunion. E.g. Surely you’d find a more secure way to transport a mysterious dangerous substance than a rickety old trolley; why the obsession with the chips? And finally, why are kids frantically mashing keyboards whilst staring blankly at creepy green screens while dramatic music plays in the background? Oh, and why are the kids freakishly smart, I guess.

Maureen: I thought the freakishly smart thing was explained! It was because of what was in the lunch chips! And the kids were mashing keyboards to break the Skasis Paradigm. Because aliens had reasons?

Ben: After some creepy night-time investigating the gang discovers that these mysterious aliens are in fact Krillitanes – an alien race that takes on traits of races they conquer. And they’re doing something to the children in the school! Other than eating them, as we saw in the intro. I had a couple of issues with the evil plot these Krillitane have come up with, particularly how well integrated the Principal is after being on Earth for all of three months? He knows about orphanages and the Sunday Times, and how to successfully make small talk with a journalist. Their nefarious scheme to crack the Skasis Paradigm – the God Maker – didn’t really make sense to me. How exactly are these schoolkids cracking it? All it looks like they’re doing is mashing their keyboards while a weird green screen of technobabble flashes in front of them. Plus, I take issue with the fact that they need kids to do it because they need their imagination. Plenty of adults have great imaginations and pure souls, or whatever else the Doctor thinks they need. And if it was such an easy thing to crack, this code to the universe, surely the Time Lords would have done it ages ago.

Maureen: The Skasis Paradigm thing was so much what?!? A mcguffin if ever I watched one!

Ben: Anyways, the way they’re defeated is very Superman and kryptonite – the aliens have changed their own physiology so much that oil native to their planet is now toxic to them. Sure. And for some reason they explode so violently upon contact with this oil the schoolkids think the school has been blown up and celebrate. It’s a very strange ending.

Maureen: It was a very noisy ending that doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny, that’s for sure!

Final Thoughts

Ben: Overall, this was a very average episode of Doctor Who. I loved Sarah Jane Smith’s arc, I hated the frenetic keyboard smashing the kids did when they were hacking the universe. But overall it was just a bit too… vague for me. It felt like they came up with the idea of wanting a Sarah Jane episode and then shoehorned the rest to fit. I dunno, maybe the script needed another round of refinement. And less K9. I liked a lot of individual ideas in this episode, but the coming together left a lot to be desired. I’m giving it a 5/10.

Maureen: The overall episode tone reminded me of another RTD penned script in a crime show called Touching Evil. The elements just didn’t come together and whether intentional or otherwise, hints of nastiness bled in the script to make the episode mean. I feel like the same thing happened with School Reunion. Bringing Sarah Jane back was a great idea, but RTD ran into trouble with the Ten/Rose ship and explaining Sarah Jane’s meaning to The Doctor which led to un-neccessary female to female nastiness. And I agree Mr Finch’s plan made little sense. 6/10 inky stars