(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
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