Episode #203 : Turn Left

"The Doctor is dead. Must have happened too fast for him to regenerate."

Episode #203:         Turn Left.
Companions:           10th Doctor and Donna Noble.
Air Date:                 21st June 2008.

On the an alien planet, Donna meets a fortune teller, who launches her into a world based on one question: "What would happen if Donna never met the Tenth Doctor?" Without the Doctor, the whole world is in ruin, and a mysterious blonde tries to warn Donna of the oncoming darkness... Now a simple refugee, Donna is the only one who can undo the damage. But how?

Turn Left is a "what if" story. In this case we see what happens to the Earth and to Donna Noble if the Doctor was killed defeating the Rachnoss without Donna there to save him. The events we see unfold without his interference are the SS Titanic crashing into London, the Adipos (in the US rather than UK), and ATMOS. Without the Doctor there to save us everything goes very very wrong. The episode is Doctor lite to make up for the previous companion lite episode, Midnight. What causes all this? It is strongly hinted at that it is the work of the Trickster (or his Brigade) although he has yet to ever appear in an episode by this time.

Rose Tyler makes another appearance in this story alongside UNIT trying to fix the time line before everything goes pear shaped for good. She drops hints about the possible events that have been cropping up all season and we see the culmination in the following episode. The ending of the episode gives me goosebumps watching it when everything is revealed to the Doctor.

As an episode it isn't fantastic but likewise it isn't a bad story either. Not a lot actually happens in it but rather we see a world without the Doctor there to save it and how Donna's life would turn out. The pay out is more where the story leads at the end of it and where we go next.

Episode #169 : Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways

"You don't just give up. You don’t just let things happen. You make a stand. You say "no." You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away, and I just can't!"

Episode 169:   Bad Wolf / Parting of the Ways.
Companions:   9th Doctor, Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness.
Air Date:        11th June 2005.

Separated and with no TARDIS, the Ninth Doctor, Rose, and Jack have to fight for their lives on board the Game Station, but a far more dangerous threat is lurking, just out of sight. The Doctor realises that the entire human race has been blinded to the threat on its doorstep, and Armageddon is fast approaching.

We have reached the end of the first season of the new series of Doctor Who and it culminates with an absolute corker. The Bad Wolf meme is realised and explained, and we learn a bit more about the Time War. The adventure also deals with the often unforeseen results of the Doctor's meddling in things. Had he not done what did during the events of The Long Game then things might have been very different here and now. His actions caused this future.

The Daleks are back, as is the Emperor Dalek last seen way back during the time of the 2nd Doctor. I doubt it is the same one but you never know. The Daleks here are different from those we know. In order to rebuild the Dalek race, the Emperor was forced to take human dead and create new Daleks from their remains. Nothing new there as we saw this in Revelation of the Daleks. In this story however, the events that allowed the Emperor to survive coupled with creating impure Daleks has driven them all somewhat insane. They now believe that the Emperor is a god and that Earth will be their new paradise. The only downside to them here is that I am now sick of seeing levitating Daleks!

Jack dies, along with pretty much everybody else and the Daleks, but is restored by Rose as the "Bad Wolf" using the power of the time vortex. This would have serious repercussions as he is now effectively immortal and reanimates minutes after death. Because of this, and we learn why much later, the Doctor abandons Jack on the space station. I really like Jack as a character, and he does go on to lead Torchwood, I would have liked him to remain longer as a companion simply because New Who seems intent on having just female companions.

After just one season, the Doctor regenerates. I don't know whether this was planned from the start or not, but it is a real shame that Eccleston didn't do at least one more. It does feel like a waste of a regeneration. Every other Doctor, barring the 8th as he only made the movie episode, did at least three years.

I may not have liked the persona very much but Eccleston did a grand job in bringing the character back to the TV screens for a new generation. What I disliked the most was the negativity and passive-aggressive approach. It may have fitted the character at the time but looking back this incarnation doesn't feel like the Doctor of old.

A great ending for the season and an excellent story. From here on things do get a lot better.

Episode #168 : Boom Town

Margaret Blaine: Why can't you leave me alone? What did I ever do to you?

The Doctor: You tried to kill me and destroy this entire planet.

Margaret Blaine: Apart from that.

Episode 168:   Boom Town.
Companions:   9th Doctor, Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness
Air Date:         4th June 2005.

The Ninth Doctor, and his companions, Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness travel to modern-day Cardiff and meet up with Rose's boyfriend, Mickey. There, they discover that their "enemy", Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen, is very much alive, if without an easy escape route from Earth, and is willing to rip apart the planet to ensure her freedom.

Boom Town is a sequel of sorts to Aliens of London / World War Three, as we learn that one of the Slitheen escaped at the end and is now hiding out in Cardiff plotting to escape the Earth, destroying it in the process. It is a very well thought out story that touches on the morality of the Doctor. Is he willing to kill, even second hand, a relatively "harmless" enemy? This plot element would never have come up before though it becomes fairly common throughout the new series.

Other than dealing with the Slitheen survivor, the adventure sets up the heart of the TARDIS for the season finale, and the Cardiff rift again for Torchwood. References are made back to The Unquiet Dead about the rift. It's a good fun episode but does feel more like a filler to set up future elements. I had the same issue with The Long Game but at least Boom Town has a self contained story and isn't so bad.

The time travellers get their first direct impression of the Bad Wolf meme in this story. The name of a local nuclear power plant is Welsh for Bad Wolf. Blon says that the name just came to her and the companions ignore it afterwards.

Boom Town has some interesting moral instances that we don't see previously. Does the punishment fit the crime if the punishment is going to be death? Can you take an individual back to their home world knowing full well that a painful execution awaits them? I'm not sure I could and you do see the Doctor and his friends wrestling with that question.

Episode #167 : The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances

"Are you my mummy?"

Episode 167:   The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances.
Companions:   9th Doctor and Rose Tyler.
Air Date:         21st to 28th May 2005.

Chasing a metallic object through the Time Vortex, the Ninth Doctor and his companion, Rose Tyler, arrive in London during the Blitz. While Rose meets "Captain Jack Harkness", the dashing Time Agent responsible for bringing the object, the Doctor finds a group of homeless children terrorised by Jamie, an "empty" child wearing a gas mask.

I love Doctor Who when it attempts horror, and with the production values of the new series the BBC can do some absolutely fantastic ones. This particular adventure is the first horror themed story of the new series and it is a gem of the first series. What makes it work is the strange psychological reaction we have towards something disturbing that involves children. The repeated cry of "are you my mummy?" certainly sends a chill down the spine.

This adventure introduces Captain Jack Harkness, a former time agent now working as a con man throughout time. He starts off as a criminal type with a heart of gold and grows to be a braver man and future companion. As we know he will eventually go on to lead the remains of the Torchwood institute but for now he is a great new companion, probably my favourite of all the new series companions.

As well as being a scary story, we also get a lot of humour in this one which at last actually begins to feel right. New Who certainly likes to be more amusing than it's classic predecessor. At the time of transmission I found this somewhat odd but have grown to see it as a necessary addition for modern family audiences. But this is the first adventure where it fits perfectly.

The Empty Child episode does not contain a Bad Wolf reference. Instead, it appears in the second part, written in German on the side of a bomb dropped during the air raid.

Episode #166 : Father's Day

"Rose, there's a man alive in the world who wasn't alive before. An ordinary man - that's the most important thing in creation! The whole world's different because he's alive!"

Episode 166:       Father's Day.
Companions:      9th Doctor and Rose Tyler.
Air Date:             14th May 2005.

Pete Alan Tyler, the father of Rose and husband of Jackie, died on November 7 1987, the day of Stuart Hoskins and Sarah Clark's wedding. Rose was just a baby at the time, Jackie told the young Rose that nobody was there for Pete when he died and that the hit-and-run driver was never found...
Now grown up, Rose asks the Ninth Doctor to take her to see him alive, but on a whim, ends up changing his fate, not realising the consequences of such a paradox. After all, the Doctor has saved so many lives...what could the real consequences be over a man alive in the world who wasn't alive before?

Father's Day deals with the concept of what happens when you go back and make a major change to history. The concept of paradox is nothing new to the show but this is the first time that it occurs on such a scale. It is hinted at that this sort of thing didn't happen when the Time Lords still existed. It also sets up the back story to the Tyler family in preperation for future stories involving Rose.

Once again the Doctor turns nasty in this one. At this point the whole "stupid ape" attitude is getting old and tired. We get the point already. On the flip side, it is a story for Rose and we see how she could react when the opportunity presents itself. It never happens again so either Rose learns her lesson or the story element is somewhat of a throw away.

The story is ok, but is all too slow in it's pacing. It is only the interesting paradox elements that give the story any real body. Even the back story for Rose's family doesn't really help float it very well. It really needed something else to give it a kick up the backside. That's not to say that the story is in any way bad, but it is lacking something.

Episode #165 : The Long Game

"The Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. And there it is: planet Earth at its height. Covered with megacities, five moons, population 96 billion. The hub of a galactic domain, stretching across a million planets, a million species. With mankind right in the middle."

Episode 165:   The Long Game.
Companions:   9th Doctor and Rose Tyler.
Air Date:         7th May 2005.

New companion of the Ninth Doctor, Adam Mitchell, takes his first trip in the TARDIS. The ship materialises in Satellite 5, a space station that broadcasts across the entire Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. However, the Empire's attidude and technology is backwards, those who are promoted to Floor 500 simply disappear, humanity is possibly being manipulated by the news, and who exactly is the sinister Editor's employer?

At the end of the previous adventure the Doctor and Rose pick up Adam Mitchell, a former worker at the facility where they encountered the Dalek. On his first and only trip in the TARDIS they come to the far future where mankind seems enslaved by the media. Hundreds of channels beaming news out from all around the human empire.

In the story Adam tries to be naughty and bring back future knowledge so that he can profit from it in the 21st century. Surprised that no one else has tried that to be honest, but the Doctor does overreact and feels somewhat out of character in the way that he handles it though it is probably in keeping with the current personna.

Bad Wolf is referenced this time in the form of the Bad Wolf news channel.

The problem with this story is that it is part filler where nothing really happens and exists just to set up the story at the end of this first season. As such I find it all rather dissapointing.

Episode #164 : Dalek

 

The Doctor: They're never going to come! Your race is dead! You all burnt, all of you! Ten million ships on fire! The entire Dalek race wiped out in one second!

Dalek: You lie!

The Doctor: I watched it happen! I made it happen!

Dalek: You destroyed us?!

The Doctor: [somber] I had no choice.

Dalek: And what of the Time Lords?

The Doctor: Dead. They burnt with you. The end of the last great Time War. Everyone lost.

Episode 164:   Dalek.
Companions:   9th Doctor and Rose Tyler.
Air Date:         30th April 2005.

The Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler arrive in 2012 to answer a distress signal and meet a collector of alien artefacts who has one living specimen. However, the Doctor is horrified to find out that the creature is a member of a race he thought was destroyed: a Dalek.

Dalek is both our first look at the new Dalek design and a deeper explaination of what happened in the Time War. We learn that the Time Lords and the Daleks were destroyed, wiped out it appears by the Doctor himself. Filled with regret and anger at what he has done, this is why his demeanour in this incarnation is as blunt and abrassive as it is. As the story progresses we see that underneath it all the Doctor is still the same person, but one having to live with what has happened and what he did.

Way back in Remembrance of the Daleks we saw that the Daleks could levitate up stairs and once again we see that here. No more jokes can be made about escaping the Daleks by going upstairs. In this story it shows that the Daleks have had a bit of a nifty redesign. They have the same old appearance but now look a lot more menaching by the addition of a more solid metal design.

The story itself is basically a reintroduction of the Daleks for a new generation who probably only knows of them as a pop culture reference. Here the Daleks certainly come across as a lot more fearsome than before. However, in Dalek, the titular entity is restored by Rose Tyler and begins to develop human emotions mixed with the Dalek hate, eventually being forced to destroy itself because of it's corruption.

The Bad Wolf reference in this story is the call sign of a helicopter landing at the hidden base where the episode takes place.

Dalek is a good introduction to the backstory of the show for new viewers but I think could have perhaps been done better. The "human element" does detract slightly for me as it goes against the Daleks that we know from old.

Episode #163 : Aliens of London / World War Three

"Excuse me, do you mind not farting while I'm saving the world?"

Episode 163:   Aliens of London / World War Three.
Companions:   9th Doctor and Rose Tyler.
Air Date:         16th to 23rd April 2005.

Rose returns home to discover that she has been missing for a whole year, although for her, it's been a couple of days. However, before she can explain her absence, a spaceship crashes into Big Ben, causing a worldwide catastrophe. Worse still, the Prime Minister has mysteriously disappeared... The Doctor's investigation puts him in the spotlight with the British government, as his long history of defending Earth finally catches up with him. But there are sinister goings on at 10 Downing Street, and politician Harriet Jones' quest to get some answers brings her into a brave new world... of aliens. Meanwhile, Rose finds trouble closer to home, as her past mistakes threaten to tear her family apart.

This story introduces a concept that hasn't been seen before, dealing with the repercussions of what happens at home when a companion takes off with the Doctor. A fair chunk of the first part is taken over by this plot element. It is well done and nice to see that a plot element that has been long in coming.

Aliens of London introduces a new villain, the Slitheen family, unscrupulous aliens seeking to make a profit from the destruction of the Earth. This is first story of the new series to combine CGI and the classic "man in a suit" style creatures. I remember being oddly pleased with this adventure when it first aired for continuing to have the "man in an alien costume" approach. I had feared that we would not see that again. What makes the Slitheen stand out is the childish farting that they do. At first it is amusing but soon becomes all too silly even though within the story it is explained.

We are also introduced to new characters who would reappear later on, Harriet Jones (MP for Flydale North), and Toshiko Sato who we learn later on is part of an organisation called Torchwood. UNIT appears for the first time in the new series though the name has changed to the Unified Intelligence Taskforce. The reason for the name change is because the real world United Nations did not want to be associated with the show. I find this really odd as there is no better program to be associated with in my opinion.

Bad Wolf appears in this story as a graffiti spray painted onto the side of the TARDIS.

Aliens of London / World War Three is a fun entertaining romp though it falls into the childish at times.

Episode #162 : The Unquiet Dead

"I saw the Fall of Troy! World War Five! I pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party! Now I'm gonna die in a dungeon...  in Cardiff!"

Episode 162:   The Unquiet Dead.
Companions:   9th Doctor and Rose Tyler.
Air Date:         9th April 2005.

The dead are roaming the streets of 1869 Cardiff when the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler arrive, just in time for Christmas. Teaming up with Charles Dickens, the TARDIS team encounter the Gelth, creatures sucked through the Cardiff Rift from the other end of the universe, their home lost. Surely inhabiting dead bodies is wrong, though! Can both sides be helped, or are these gaseous creatures not to be trusted?

The Unquiet Dead is an excellent story that focuses on a horror element to good effect. I've always enjoyed the horror stories in Doctor Who but the new series does it so much better. Here we have a story based featuring Charles Dickens, aliens spirit creatures animating the bodies of the dead and another reference to the Time War. Three episodes in and finally I think the new show has found its new roots with this one.

We get more interaction between the Doctor and Rose as they discuss the morality of allowing these entities to use dead human bodies to continue existing. It is a tough question and is handled well here within the confines of the story. Ultimately however the Doctor continues to come across as a little arrogant here and it is hard to like this incarnation at times.

The Bad Wolf reference here comes from the serving girl Gweneth, who has the psychic gift, who sees into the future for Rose and mentions the big bad wolf. Gweneth is played by Eve Myles who would later appear in Torchwood, which ironically is based around the very time/space rift that the alien Gelth use in this episode. I do wonder whether Torchwood was first thought up around this episode and then much later transferred into it's own show.

The Undead Quiet is a very good episode, of much better quality than the previous two. I don't think there are any faults to this one at all though more of the Gelth might have been interesting.

Episode #161 : The End of the World

The Doctor: You think it'll last forever: people and cars and concrete. But it won't. One day it's all gone. Even the sky. My planet's gone. It's dead. It burned, like the Earth. It's just rocks and dust. Before its time.

Rose: What happened?

The Doctor: There was a war, and we lost.

Episode 161:   The End of the World.
Companions:   9th Doctor and Rose Tyler.
Air Date:         2nd April 2005.

The Ninth Doctor takes his new companion, Rose Tyler, to the year 5,000,000,000 to see the sun expand and destroy the Earth. The observation deck space station, Platform One, is holding an event with the richest beings of the time observing the Earth's destruction, but mysterious metal spiders gifted by the Adherents of the Repeated Meme to the other guests are secretly infiltrating and sabotaging the station.

After a reasonable but perhaps shaky start, Doctor Who continues with story set against the backdrop of the Earth's last hour before destruction. But the Doctor isn't here to save it, the Earth has had her time. Instead, he thinks bringing Rose to the far future will be an adventure but doesn't consider the impact it will have on his new companion. That is one of the things I especially like about this episode. Previous companions seem to get past the culture shock quite quickly and adapt with ease. Rose however gets rather upset that she is seeing the Earth die even though it is billions of years in her future. We also see her reaction to suddenly realising that she has just picked up and off into time and space with a complete stranger. Again, something we didn't see under the classic show. For the criticism that was levelled at RTD during his time as producer of the show, it is elements like this that really help define the new Who.

This story also features the first instance of the phrase Bad Wolf which would appear in every episode of this first series from here on. Here it is spoke by one of the alien visitors who mentions "the Bad Wolf scenario".

As you see in the above quotation, this story starts to introduce the back story which we have missed while the show was off air. It appears that Gallifrey has been destroyed in some sort of conflict with an unnamed enemy and that the Doctor is the last of the Time Lords. At the time of air, I didn't like this as I am rather fond of stories that feature the Time Lords but as we go along we eventually learn of Gallifrey's fate.

There are quite a few elements in this story which will return as the show goes along, including the Face of Boe and Lady Cassandra, in addition to the Bad Wolf plot line. The End of the World is a very good example of Doctor Who but I can't help but feel that it might have been better if stretched out to two parts. There is a lot crammed in here and doesn't get nearly enough air time. However it does end with some thought provoking comments and all good science fiction should entertain and make you think.

Episode #46 : The Invasion

"I hate computers and refuse to be bullied by them!"

 

 

Episode 46:   The Invasion.
Companions: The 2nd Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot.
Air Date:       Eight episodes. 2nd November to 21st December 1968.

 

Investigating the disappearance of an eminent scientist, the Doctor and his companions follow his trail to the London headquarters of International Electromatics, a global supplier of electronic equipment run by the formidable Tobias Vaughn. Teaming up with the newly-formed United Nations Intelligence Taskforce - UNIT - under the control of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, it soon becomes apparent that Vaughn is working to his own sinister agenda. As Cybermen invade in cities all over the world, can the Doctor convince Vaughn to help him defeat their plan for global domination?

 

The Invasion is another story that is heavily in the vein of James Bond for the most part, as the Doctor investigates an evil megalomaniac villain. The real villains, the Cybermen, don't actually turn up till over half way through the serial and then it goes traditional Who. It does seem that a fair bit of Troughton's time as the Doctor includes elements like this and with The Invasion it certainly works well.

 

This story sees the return of Lethbridge-Stewart who has since we last saw him, been put in charge of a new international organisation to help defend the Earth against threats from outer space, UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce). UNIT will go on to be a major element throughout the show, especially for the 3rd Doctor. We also have the introduction of John Benton, a UNIT regular.

 

There is an unexplained (if you need such things) issue with the Cybermen however. The events of this story predate The Ten Planet by about twenty five years chronologically but there is no explanation as to how and when the Cybermen arrived and why they hid in the sewers beneath London. But this story is, alongside The Tenth Planet, referenced in the Attack of the Cybermen.

 

Because a couple episodes were lost this story was the first to receive the animation treatment that other stories are now receiving. As a bit of fun, the animators dropped a "Bad Wolf" reference in for the keen eyed to find.

 

The Invasion isn't a bad story but at 8 episodes it is really far far too long and it drags in more than a few places.