Doctor Who Review: 1-4 "Aliens of London" and 1-5 "World War Three"

Alternate Title: Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Time Travelers

Brief Synopsis: Rose returns to the present time, more or less. Things get domestic. Meanwhile, an alien invasion is going on but it's not the one you're expecting.

Five Words: Harriet Jones, MP Flydale North.

REVIEW

This is the one with the farting aliens. Which is too bad, because setting that bizarre distraction aside, it's a very good episode. Few Doctor Who plots deliver this many genuinely clever twists alongside meaty character development. Not to mention Harriet Jones, one of the more memorable guest characters in the new series.

This is the episode that shows us that Rose's backstory and supporting cast are going to be crucial elements of season one. And while they'll be revisited from time to time, such as during the finale, the bulk of the drama really plays out here. Rose comes home and discovers that her adventures come at the cost of neglecting her loved ones, and the Doctor has to admit that he can't guarantee the safety of his companions. It's a big statement too for the show itself, that we're going to be seeing this more realistic take on responsibility and consequences in New Who.

The downside to this story is, of course, the villains, who are not particularly frightening or amusing and show glaring consistency problems between animatronics and CGI. They aren't without their interesting aspects, to be fair. The head-zippers and discarded skin-suits are one way in which the Slitheen's cartoonishness is very effective, a delightfully lunatic kind of horror. There's also the classy confrontation between Margaret and the Doctor which fully merits said villain's return later on.

But it really just comes down to the farting, doesn't it? Fat people farting a lot, that's what you take away from these episodes. It's even a clever idea that big aliens could be squeezing down into rotund human disguises, but the script just won't stop hammering the FART JOKE button.

IN RETROSPECT

I really had forgotten how good this episode was. So much of season one's essential character drama is packed into this two-parter that you could just watch this and The Parting of the Ways and you'd get virtually all of the impact of the finale.

Harriet Jones is a tremendously likeable character, but also a very naive model of a perfect politician. She's from a small town. Polite but insistent about doing the right thing. Cares about her constituents and empathizes with them on a person-to-person basis. Smart and proper but she knows how to have fun("Pass it to the left"). Ushers in a new golden age. She's practically a walking campaign promise. The idea that she's going to be a revolutionary figure in politics seems far-fetched given that she is the image of the leader we want rather than the leader we need. Anyways, there wouldn't be any reason for me to mention this if she wasn't going to return in a more ambiguous role.

It was really fun to relive the excitement of the UNIT alert when the Doctor's name comes up on the screen. It's a nice, subtle nod to the show's long history, and it keeps the plot moving along effectively too.

By the way, when the Doctor is figuring out who Harriet Jones is, it reminds me of a future episode where he senses his memories changing to reflect altered history. I doubt that was the intent, but it's fun to make that connection.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

D9 and Rose's relationship is defined about as clearly here as it's ever going to be. According to Rose the Doctor is better and more important than a boyfriend. Rose's inability to explain this to Mickey and Jackie is poignant and makes perfect sense.

Mickey is still getting picked on, not just by the Doctor but also by the script which uses him for comic relief. At the same time, he makes a much better impression this time and even though he turns down the offer to become a true companion it's clear that he's more than the close-minded buffoon he appeared to be in the first episode. By any fair analysis he passes the companion test in World War Three and his lack of TARDIS experience is just a technicality.

Jackie is at her best here, challenging D9 with no respect for Time Lords or saving the world. Her question to the Doctor cuts right through his self-image and brings up the responsibilities he doesn't like to admit he has. She remains a likeable character throughout her appearances in future episodes but is never again as significant, even when acting as more of an official companion.

It's a nice moment for D9 when he grieves for the pig which is, after all, just a pig. I wonder how much the Doctor's ethics would have in common with Peter Singer's... Depends who's writing the episode, I suppose. Anyway, I get annoyed by aliens that are just humanoids with animal heads(a lazy cop-out that Doctor Who is quite capable of resorting to) and this is a clever subversion of the trope.

FIRSTS

First multi-part story for the new series.

First hammer repair job on the TARDIS.

First Trinity Wells, dramatic American newsreader.

First Harriet Jones' incessant introductions.

KEEPING SCORE

Does the Doctor save the day? Yeah, pretty much. Earth would've been toasted and sold off as radioactive scrap to aliens without his intervention, and D9 gets plenty of good hero bits. When he comes up with the vinegar bomb idea it's a great scene that we'll see played out in different ways in the future - The Doctor trapped in a room and armed only with facts.

Does the Doctor inspire someone else to save the day? Partially. He gets Jackie and Mickey on his side enough that they'll push the button for him.

Semi-Companion: Jackie, Mickey, and Harriet Jones.

WTF Factor: Farts!

Not All That Nice Person Who Talked to Harriet And Died: Indra Ganesh, the humbly named junior secretary. He gets a "Sorry" for his trouble.

TARDIS Facts: Aliens of London and The Unquiet Dead both bring up a classic TARDIS bug/feature - it takes you to the most exciting place and time within a certain range of where you were actually trying to go.

Personal Confuser: Mickey gains access to military weapons in a scene that is hardly any less absurd than an Eddie Izzard comedy routine: "Hacking into Pentagon computer... Double-click on YES."

Surprise Time Lord Super-Power #2: Instant Charisma. The Doctor hardly has to say a single sentence before he's taken charge of the soldiers, which is perfectly in character, really. Some prior Doctors(D2, D5 and D7 in particular) would be less assertive and just wait for the soldiers to figure out who the alpha male is. But you just know all the Doctors can do this when they want to.

Surprise Time Lord Super-Power #3: Electricity Resistance. For all that the cliffhanger built up the electric shock trap, the Doctor didn't have that much trouble with it.

Surprise Time Lord Super-Power #4: Weaponized Technobabble. Okay, it's not technically a super-power, but it's still surprisingly useful. I wonder if he doesn't use this power more often than we realize.

The Big List

1. The End of the World

2. Aliens of London / World War Three

3. Rose

4. The Unquiet Dead

Doctor Who Review: 1-3 "The Unquiet Dead"

(Spoilers!)

Alternate Title: These Zombies Are Just Gas-tly!

Brief Synopsis: Rose and the Doctor visit Charles Dickens in Cardiff and find out that ghosts are made of gas.

Five Words: Bad science versus bad faith.

REVIEW

This one's enjoyable but it's a big step down from the previous episode. The bad guys are lame and the plot doesn't hold together. Let's start with the Gelth. Sometimes they are zombies. New Who gets a lot of mileage out of zombie-like monsters, but plain old zombies seem so unimaginative compared to Autons or people with gas masks or patients suffering from every disease in the universe. Then the Gelth become gas-ghosts, still boring but with an added level of not-making-sense. Then they're angels, which almost works, but of course they're really demons, which is unbelievably boring.

Then there's Charles Dickens, who just doesn't fit in. There's a point where the Doctor says "We might need you," and of course, they do. They need the addled mind of the elderly Dickens to think that turning up the gas is going to be bad for the aliens who are made of gas, which somehow turns out to be right.

A lot of the plotting is just stuff happening at random - the zombie showing up at the Dickens reading, Rose getting caught by Sneed - and weird shifts of character like the Doctor suddenly trusting Sneed and the Gelth who together were doing a good job of killing Rose only moments earlier.

The biggest problem, though, has to do with the treatment of the overall themes of faith and betrayal, and the inconsistent behavior of the characters. It's most painful when the Doctor is chiding Dickens for being skeptical, which seems radically out of character. While one must at some point believe in ghosts and zombies if they present themselves, as big a science nerd as the Doctor should be supportive of healthy skepticism, especially when it comes to ghosts and seances in Dickens's time.

The Doctor is also remarkably stupid to trust the Gelth. They want to "stand tall and feel the sunlight." Which is presumably why they kill people? Like they almost did to Rose? Which is why Rose is justifiably mistrusting of them, and ends up being completely right about everything(excepting maybe the value of corpses). There's an attempt to justify the Doctor's behavior by pushing his Time War guilt buttons, and it is certainly possible for him to be arrogant and to make mistakes, but in this case he's just being a doofus the whole time and it's painful to watch.

Rose reasons that this can't happen because it would change the future, which seems fair, but the Doctor says "time is in flux" and apparently this means it's okay to meddle with history. This is a lampshading exercise that new Who will rely on regularly, and with some success; here it completely fails to address Rose's point that bringing alien zombies to Earth in the 1800s would have enormous consequences. But maybe the Doctor already knows what we will see for ourselves before too long: Humans immediately repress any memories they acquire of alien invasions.

In the end there's a reversal where faith in angels ends up being a horrible trap but given that we like Gwyneth and want the Doctor to be right, it comes as a disappointment. And then Gwyneth is hanging on after death, animated but still conscious, and maybe this is some kind of miracle? But Gwyneth was wrong about faith, and the Doctor was wrong about trust, and Dickens was wrong about skepticism... The idea may have been to sow mystery and ambiguity but it just comes across as a meaningless series of events where reason and faith are equally likely to be wrong and the Doctor will happily play Jenga with history as long as "time is in flux."

IN RETROSPECT

I remember being annoyed with this episode the first time I watched it, and revisiting it for this review let me figure out why. Still, it was the first episode my girlfriend watched with me, and that turned out well, so happy ending there.

Another little gripe that I noticed this time was the overuse of false color. This has become a pet peeve of mine in movies and TV. Night-time scenes are drenched in blue and the interiors are equally awash in oranges and browns. It's unconvincing and hard on the eyes.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

This is the first in what will be a recurring cycle of jaunts to the past to meet a historical guest star. In that context it makes a little bit more sense than it did to me upon my first viewing, when I was perplexed by the selection of Charles Dickens and 19th century Wales to be featured in New Who's first episode set in the past. Later seasons will show what they can do with a historical set piece when they haven't blown the budget on sci-fi extravaganza already.

A reference to Rose's dead father gets worked in ratherly cleverly, and Bad Wolf gets its first real call-out, referred to specifically as the BIG Bad Wolf, driving home the Little Red Riding Hood symbolism which... I guess makes just as little sense as anything else about the whole Bad wolf thing.

Gwyneth is so charming and well-played in this episode that it makes Torchwood that much more disappointing. More of this sentiment to follow, I'm sure!

FIRSTS

First Shamelessly Cliche Opening. It's saved somewhat by Mister Sneed's weary "Oh no..." as he responds to the blood-curdling scream.

First Christmas Episode. Out of season.

First strong hints of Rose/D9 romance. Practically flirting.

First I'm Sorry. Not be confused with I'm So Sorry.

First non-subliminal Bad Wolf.

First The Rift in Cardiff.

First TARDIS accuracy problem for the new series. We also find out that there are other rooms, though we'll never find out how one gets to them.

SCOREKEEPING

Does the Doctor save the day in this one? No.

Does the Doctor inspire somebody else to save the day? Not really. He antagonizes Dickens the whole time but the rescue comes from Dickens's own courage and resourcefulness.

Does the Doctor even do good in this one? Kind of a mixed bag. He solves the outbreak of zombie-ism but it comes at a high price.

Best Scene: Rose's chat with Gwyneth.

Best Joke: Rose's rhetorical question about horror movies ending up in morgues as opposed to gazebos.

Cheesiest: The minute the Gelth get what they want, they turn red and get skull-faces and scary monster voices. Any point the episode might have made about misjudging alien life forms goes right out the window when the aliens turn out to perfectly conform to human expectations of what evil looks like.

Semi-Companion: Charles Dickens

Nice Person Who Talks to Rose and Dies: Gwyneth

WTF Factor: Spirits - I mean, disembodied aliens, can manifest in our world if there's gas. Also, they can move around as gas at will, but increasing the amount of gas makes it so they can't move anymore. Even though it's the medium they're able to move in... Oh, nevermind.

Quick, Suspend Your Disbelief: That's sure some fake snow Rose is setting her foot into in close-up.

And of course, the Big Rating List:

1. The End of the World

2. Rose

3. The Unquiet Dead