Episode #186: The Lazarus Experiment

"I'm old enough to know that a longer life isn't always a better one. In the end, you just get tired; tired of the struggle, tired of losing everyone that matters to you, tired of watching everything you love turn to dust. If you live long enough, Lazarus, the only certainty left is that you'll end up alone."

Episode #186: The Lazarus Experiment.
Companions:   The 10th Doctor and Martha Jones.
Air Date:         5th May 2007.

After travelling backwards, forwards and backwards again in time, Martha Jones has returned home. However, before the tenth Doctor can bid farewell to her, he hears Professor Richard Lazarus announcing that he'll "change what it means to be human." What could this mean? And could it lead to something far more dangerous than a simple scientific failure?

Sometimes you don't need a story about time travel when you can write an excellent science fiction tale about the dangers of messing with science. That is exactly what we have here with this story and despite some bad CGI monster work the story does what it says on the tin. The Lazerus Experiment introduces us to Martha's dysfunctional family and her mother who really does not like the Doctor though with no good reason for it until she has someone try and point out the danger he places people in. Who is this stranger? Well, thats the build up for the end of season.

The story is nicely action packed and flows at a good pace, something that the first few stories of this season have failed to achieve. Some more money needed to be spent on the look of the "Lazarus monster" which unfortunately looks like a mid-1990's 3D computer graphic. Very disappointing.

The new Doctor Who seems to have a bit more thought provoking elements that never really made the surface of the classic show. In this episode we have the Doctor speaking the above quote to Professor Lazarus and we can see that he is getting old as an individual even if his body has youth. He's still an old man who has seen much and lost the people he loved. Where I found the fixation on the Time War a bit much in previous seasons I think you can feel for our hero a bit more when you have dialogue like this.

Re watching this season I have come to realise that I think this is the weakest season of new Doctor Who. Not sure why as I can't quite put my finger on it but it is like the writers were having trouble coming up with decent stories and plot points. It is a season that doesn't stand out very well. The Lazarus Experiment is certainly one of the better stories for this season though.

Episode #185 : Daleks in Manhatten / Evolution of the Daleks

"Daleks are bad enough at any time, but right now they're vulnerable, and that makes them more dangerous than ever."

Episode #185:  Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks.
Companions:   The 10th Doctor and Martha Jones.
Air Date:          21st to 28th April 2007.

During the building of the Empire State Building in 1930s New York, the Cult of Skaro continues their attempts to destroy humanity and reign supreme.

In this story the Doctor takes Martha to visit New York in the 1930s and finds that the Cult of Skaro having escaped from the Battle of Canary Wharf have travelled back in time to save their race. In this instance by combining human and Dalek DNA, an experiment that serves to split the surviving Daleks.

This is a story that I am never sure whether I actually like it or not. It reminds me a little of the early classic stories that featured historical situations as a learning experience. In this case Hooverville and the great depression. Add that to the Daleks and the typical Doctor Who troupes and you have a good episode. However it still follows the strange elements that haunt modern Who that don't really fit. In this case it is the pig workers primarily. They just don't feel like they belong. Once again it is an element that feels a bit too weird for me. Even so it is an entertaining story.

One of the complaints that started to appear around this time was that the Daleks were appearing too often in the show. The 4th Doctor only encountered them twice in seven years for instance. In the modern show however we need a major recurring villain and it brings the show in line with modern television formats. It is also nice to have a continuing storyline for them as well which continues through the rest of the series.

Episode #184 : Gridlock

"I lied to you, 'cause I liked it. I could pretend, just for a bit, I could imagine they were still alive... underneath that burnt orange sky. I'm not just a Time Lord, I'm the last of the Time Lords. The Face of Boe was wrong. There's no one else."

Episode #184:  Gridlock.
Companions:   The 10th Doctor and Martha Jones.
Air Date:          14th April 2007.

The Tenth Doctor takes Martha Jones to New Earth, in the far future, only to find that the entire city has become a deadly trap.

Gridlock is a bit of a disappointment for me. Rather than be a fully fleshed out episode we instead receive a filler story. It does set things up for the end of the season but that is tacked on to the end of the episode. The story itself just deals with the Doctor taking Martha to New Earth some time after his visit with Rose. She gets "kidnapped" and the Doctor chases through the underground highway to recover her. Once rescued we get a nice moment where he explains more about the Time War than we had before. It also reintroduces the Macra, though in a devolved form and they do not play a real part in the story. Everything about this story is just there to set up the "you are not alone" reference.

There is only two elements to this story that I fine entertaining. One is the various drivers on the highway and their own idiosyncrasies - a married woman and her catkind husband with their kittens, a pair of married old grannies and the rest. The other is the Doctors explanation to Martha at the end of the episode.

Gridlock is not even close to being the worst story out there but it is real waste of an episode. Had there been something more to it then my opinion would probably be very different. There just isn't enough to this story to make it worth while.

Episode #183: The Shakespeare Code

 

Martha: So, magic and stuff. That's a surprise. It's all a little bit Harry Potter.

The Doctor: Harry Potter. Wait 'til you read Book Seven. Oh, I cried.

Episode #183: The Shakespeare Code.
Companions:   The 10th Doctor and Martha Jones.
Air Date:         7th April 2007.

As a reward for her help in the last episode, Martha Jones gets a trip in the TARDIS. The Tenth Doctor takes her to 1599 England. After viewing a performance of Shakespeare's latest play, the time travellers are beset by apparent sorcery. Under threat of annihilation from a species from the Dark Times, the TARDIS team have to establish whether there is a connection between a witch they've met and Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Won — a play that was legendarily lost to time.

The Shakespeare Code is a typical Doctor Who adventure where the time travellers drop into historical events and become embroiled in the schemes of an extraterrestrial nature. Normally I would see this as a good adventure but as seems to be standard in the 10th Doctor stories the writers start messing about with things and it spoils the episode. In this case everything is fine until Shakespeare himself starts talking in an all too modern style. While it can be interpreted as being the effect of the villainous Carrionites I find it just a little too out of place and it spoils the entire thing for me.

One adventure in and Martha Jones has become infatuated with the Doctor. Why the writers and producers feel the need to do this especially after the perceived negativity from of the Doctor/Rose love story I don't know. At least in this case the Doctor doesn't reciprocate and seems to not be aware that Martha has fallen for him.

The Carrionites are the villains of the piece, ancient enemies of the Time Lords cast out into another reality prisoned for all eternity. Their powers manifest in the real universe as what we would consider magic. They make quite a cool villain for a one off episode.

At the end of the episode we get a short scene that sets up events not to be revealed for a few years. As the Doctor and Martha enter the TARDIS, Queen Elizabeth appears, spies the Doctor and orders her guards "off with his head!"