ORBzine - 2005.07 UK Television Review: "Dr Who (2005+)"

ORBzine - "Dr Who (2005+)" July 2005

[Season 1 !Season 2 !Season 3 !Season 4 ]

  • Christopher Eccleston as The Doctor (#9) [ series 1 ]
  • Billie Piper as Rose Tyler
  • David Tennant as The Doctor (#10) [ episode 13+ ]

    recurring characters:

  • Camille Coduri as Jackie Tyler
  • Noel Clarke as Mickey Smith
  • John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness [ episode 9+ ]

    Season 1

  • Dr Who (2005+) [Season 1, Episode 1] Rose
    Shown 26th March 2005 [Saturday]

    The story starts simply enough. London High-school dropout Rose Tyler [ Billie Piper ] goes to work at her dead-end job in a department store. Unfortunately, as she closes up shop at the end of the day, the shop-window dummies come to life ...

    This is an exciting start to the new season of the show. Because it's been almost 2 decades since the last one, it has to cater for a new generation. But SPFX are far superior now to what they were back then, especially when you consider the costs involved.

    Piper and Eccleston are great, and will hold together as the centre of the Season. The supporting cast are a bit cheesy, but we don't have to put up with them much so it's no great loss. And the script? Squeezed into an American-format 45 minutes, we're bombarded with witty lines and a few great visual set-ups. Billie goes a bit Ace at the climax, but that's standard in TV shows these days.

    All in all, a great start to the new-look BBC. Hopefully they'll bring back Blake's Seven too! :-)

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 1, Episode 2] The End of the World
    Shown 2nd April 2005 [Saturday]

    This is a direct continuation of Episode One. The Doc takes Rose 5 billion years into the future, to the end of the Earth. They join a lot of dignitaries on a space station, like Milliways without the food. There are lots of aliens - great prosthetics and SPFX. Of note is Cassandra [ Zoe Wanamaker ], the last human.

    Robot spiders are on the loose - sabotage! Rose is too caught up in her own problems to worry about that. She gets homesick, and now queries the sanity in starting to time travel with a complete stranger!

    The Doc is now an action hero [smart and brave], to rescue the girl and save the day. However, he also displays a very dark, disturbing side.

    Of note, the soundtrack includes Tainted Love and Toxic!

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 1, Episode 3] The Unquiet Dead
    Shown 9th April 2005 [Saturday]

    An undead Granny is on the loose in Cardiff, 1869. The undertaker and his psychic housemaid search for her, and they find her at a lecture given by Charles Dickens!

    The Doctor and Rose drop by to celebrate Xmas. Rose gets to compare her life with the housemaid's. The Doctor, meanwhile, wants to help some alien refugees from The War. He feels guilty or something ...

    Of note, this was written by Mark Gattis [League of Gentlemen].

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 1, Episode 4] Aliens of London (1)
    Shown 16th April 2005 [Saturday]

    The Doctor takes Rose home, to tie up loose ends from the first episode. Then a spaceship crashes into Big Ben. We meet its occupant, in a hilarious and poigniant parody of a certain 1970s TV show.

    The PM is MIA, so a low-level MP is his stand-in. Unfortunately, Aliens have infiltrated the UK Government, and plot world domination. Surprise, surprise.

    The Doctor and UNIT meet [they get a brief mention, not in depth], and we get a great cliff-hanger!

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 1, Episode 5] World War Three (2)
    Shown 23rd April 2005 [Saturday]

    Most of the ep is a continuation of the cliffhanger. We get the resolution of the Jackie-Micky conflict - though they may be back in future episodes. The MP woman may reappear too.

    Does the UN control the UK's nuclear deterrent? Certainly not in reality, but in the Doctor's universe?. Also, in Battlefield the Brigadier is brought out of retirement for UNIT, and that appears to be in our future. This would mean that Winifred was a UN weapons inspector in Iraq in 2002, not 1992!

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 1, Episode 6] Dalek
    Shown 30th April 2005 [Saturday]

    The Doctor and Rose get a distress signal from a secret bunker in Utah, 2012. Unfortunately they're captured by the guards [a SWAT team]. Rose meets a new friend [an English boy, abou 20-years old, ex-Coronation St actor].

    The owner [a mediocre American actor] and his aide [a babe from Stargate SG-1 ???] are torturing a mysterious alien - hmm ... What's the episode title again? Last week's trailer gave it away, but there's great suspense built up.

    The alien escapes and goes on a kill-crazy rampage. It's far more hi-tech than previous versions. And the Doctor's new incarnation is a good match for it in a war of words.

    There's a sappy ending, but lots of background on the Temporal Wars.

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 1, Episode 7] The Long Game
    Shown 7th May 2005 [Saturday]

    The Doctor takes Rose and Adam to a Space Station in the year 200k CE. Adam goes exploring, to get the maximum info home. Tamsin Geig [Black Books] is a nurse who oversees his surgery ...

    The Doctor and Rose dscover something's wrong. The Editor [Simon Pegg - Black Books, Shaun of the Dead ] is up to no good.

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 1, Episode 8] Father's Day
    Shown 14th May 2005 [Saturday]

    The Doctor takes Rose to 1987, when her Father died. Before she was even born! Luckily he gets it exactly right the first time round. Unfortunately, she saves her dad and creates a paradox.

    Rose and the Doctor have nothing better to do than hang around with her dad. She gets to know the father she never knew, and learns unpleasant truths about him. Rose's mum is 20 years younger, while we learn Micky is older than Rose [he's a toddler].

    The paradox weakens the interdimensional walls, and reapers [CGI monsters] fly in and eat everyone on Earth. The Time Lords used to keep them at bay ...

    The rule you can't touch yourself is used. It goes back to Mawdryn Undead, a Peter Davidson ep, and predates Timecop by ten years.

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 1, Episode 9] The Empty Child (1)
    Shown 21st May 2005 [Saturday]

    1941, London .. The Blitz! The Doctor teams up with local urchins, while Rose finds Cap'n Jack [a Love Interest!], a time-travelling con-man who hinks she's a temporal agent.

    There's an alien ship and a strange plague. a Boy with a gas mask stalks the urchins, spreading the plague.

    The explanation is obvious at the end of the episode, but it's a 2-parter!

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 1, Episode 10] The Doctor Dances (2)
    Shown 28th May 2005 [Saturday]

    Can the Doctor save the world? Hmm.

    There are lots of sonic screwdriver jokes. Cap'n Jack's a great character, but that doesn't mean he'll be around forever.

    The Doctor's relationship with Rose is very strange. He seems jealous of Jack!?

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 1, Episode 11] Boom Town
    Shown 4th June 2005 [Saturday]

    The TARDIS lands in Cardiff, 2005, where there's been a temporal rift since the Victorian era. This allows Micky to meet the competition - Cap'n jack!

    Unfortunately the Slyveen female is still around, and is going to destroy the world again. Will the Doctor send the Slyveen home to face the death penalty? Since the TARDIS is refuelling it's an overnight stay, which gives her time to play mind games on the good guys. The Doctor treats her to dinner in a Carfiff restuarant, allowing for a nice duel of words and wits.

    The Doctor is very cold-hearted in this regeneration. Luckily we get a Deus Ex Machina ending ...

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 1, Episode 12] Bad Wolf (1)
    Shown 11th June 2005 [Saturday]

    The Doc, Rose and Jack find themselves inside a parody of 3 contemporary TV shows - Weakest Link, Makeover, Big Brother [with Channel 4's consent!]. The twist - robots and executions! This is not unlike the Simon Pegg ep - which is a deliberate reference!

    The TV company is the Bad Wolf Corporation, causing the Doctor to list the other references ... The Victorian maid mentioned the Big bad wolf, in the Dalek episode the chopper callsign was Bad Wolf One and the Slyveen's project in Cardiff was Bad Wolf in Welsh. Are the words stalking the TARDIS through time?

    We get more clues to who's behind it [the BBC trailer at the end of each ep ruins the suspense and cliffhangers]. Apart from that, nice how the Season has a story arc. Also ... Cap'n Jack is humorously heroic, smart ... and bisexual!

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 1, Episode 13] The Parting of the Ways (2)
    Shown 18th June 2005 [Saturday]

    The Doctor sends Rose home. He and Cap'n Jack, along with a few others, stage a last stand against the attackers.

    Rose, meanwhile, finds out who the Bad Wolf is. Ad the conclusion? All the foreshadowing in the world can't disguise a Deus Ex Machina. Worse, this is ripped from a pevious [much-derided] Doctor Who story!

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who [Inter-Season] Children in Need

    This is a special teaser - a single scene, really. But it's better than nothing. And it's for charity.

    The new Doctor [David Tennant] introduces himself to Billie Piper/Rose. She doesn't trust him!

    To calm her he sets the TARDIS to take her somewhere safe - her mum's flat, on Xmas Eve. Unfortunately, just then something bad happens ...

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who [Inter-Season] The Christmas Invasion

    Following on from the Children in Need clip, the new Doctor takes Rose to her mum's for Xmas. Mickey's apparently back with Rose again, all flings forgotten. Unfortunately, some Aliens have decided to invade Earth.

    The Doctor is recovering from a traumatic regeneration, so Rose and Mickey must do what they can to save the world. Luckily for the plot, he recovers in time to have a swordfight!

    The climax is a bit predictable. However, the real twist is after the climax. It asks more questions than it answers. What happened 10 yrs ago?

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season , Episode ]
    Shown th April 200 [Saturday]

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  • Dr Who (2005+) [Season 2, Episode 1] New Earth
    Shown 15th April 2006 [Saturday]

    Yes, the Doctor is back! The return of the show, much awaited since the Xmas Special, has been somewhat downplayed by the BBC. Not by the UK newspapers, however - they gave away half the plot!

    Rose and the Doc [in his new costume, a nice suit in the mid-20th Century style] arrive on New Earth, the planet used as Humanity's new homeworld after the events of Season 1, Episode 2 The End of the World.

    Their arrival is not unnoticed. A familar-looking spider-robot, and the voice of Zoe Wanamaker , give us some idea of what we are in for.

    The Doctor and Rose visit a nearby hospital, run by cat-faced nuns. The Doc states he isn't fond of hospitals, perhaps a reference to Season 1, Episode 10 The Doctor Dances (2) . These nuns can cure any disease, but naturally they conceal a terrible secret.

    The ep is in some ways a rehash of a couple of eps from the previous Season. But there are some nice touches to it. There's a lot of development for the new Doctor - he's very stubborn, but a lot more forgiving and humane than the previous incarnation.

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 2, Episode 2] Tooth and Claw
    Shown 22nd April 2006 [Saturday]

    1879, Scotland, and a country mansion is taken over by mysterious monks. They're caucasian and bald, and they know kung-fu!

    The Doc and Rose, full of buddy-buddy banter, encounter Queen Victoria. She's en route to Balmoral with a military escort. The Doc and Rose tag along, pretending to be from Balamory, and spend the night with her at the monks' mansion ...

    The monks have a caged beastie. It is the survivor of a crashed alien ship. A lot of that seems to have happened - a Sontaran, an Terraleptil and Julian Glover all ended up on Earth in similar stories.

    The ending is quite dramatic. Queen Vic sets up the Torchwood Institute to defend the Empire from hostile aliens ... such as the Doctor!

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 2, Episode 3] School Reunion
    Shown 29th April 2006 [Saturday]

    There are suspicious goings-on at a London school. Tony Head [ Buffy the Vampire Slayer ] is a creepy school employee who manipulates the kids for supernatural reasons. Unlike Rupert Giles, he's Headmaster instead of Head Librarian!

    The Doctor gets a job there as Physics teacher, while Rose is a Dinner lady. Mickey does tech support. He discovers that 3 months previously, at the time the new teachers arrived, there were UFO sightings. There are classified photos, but nobody is investigating. Not UNIT, not Torchwood ...

    The kids get fish and chips for lunch. It seems to work - some of them are super-intelligent, and nobody at school has ring-tones or ASBOs! How terrible, a school that teaches children something. They even have freeze-dried rats in the biology labs, while Rose claims that A-level candidates haven't dissected rats in years. Am I out of date, or is Rose just BSing? After all, she's a chav who dropped out of school and never amounted to anything.

    Sarah Jane Smith arrives as a journalist. She was the Doctor's Assistant - 30 years ago! The IMDB reveals she is 58 years old, though she looks 20 younger. However, she and Rose have some issues ... And when K9 is re-activated, it's obvious that his modern counterpart is Mickey! Both these pairings lead on to some excellent dialogue scenes!

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 2, Episode 4] The Girl in the Fireplace
    Shown 6th May 2006 [Saturday]

    After seeing Sarah Jane Smith looking 20 years younger, we get guest star Sophia Myles . She's the UK's newest genre star, perhaps best known for being 20 years too young to convincingly play Lady Penelope in Thunderbirds . Here, she is Madame La Pompadour, from the ages of 22 through 37!

    The Doc, Rose and Mickey land on a crippled spaceship in the year 5000. The clockwork repair robots harvest human organs to repair their ship, and have opened time-windows into 18th Century France.

    The Doc's back to the creepy genius with kick-ass tendencies that we were introduced to in the Xmas Special.

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 2, Episode 5] Rise of the Cybermen (1)
    Shown 13th May 2006 [Saturday]

    The Tardis accidentally flips through a hole in space-time. The team end up trapped on a parallel Earth. Great Britain has a President - a corrupt politician, of course. Strangely no mention of the UK ... presumably NI was nationalised. No mention of the EU either!

    Rose's mum is a shallow bitch - like she usually is, but with more cash. Rose's dad is still alive. He's a wheeler-dealer made good, on close terms with the Prez. By incredible coincidence, Ricky [the parallel Mickey] is a gun-toting revolutionary! Totally unlike the normally spineless Mickey!

    Everyone in GB has upgraded their mobile phone to earplugs that download info into the brain. The next upgrade is to turn humans into ... Cybermen!

    The Cybermen have been revamped with a nice retro look. They have a Dalek-style war-cry ... Delete!

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 2, Episode 6] Rise of the Cybermen (2)
    Shown 20th May 2006 [Saturday]

    Our heroes have to escape certain death, then somehow defeat the Cybermen.

    Mickey bears the brunt of this ep. It's important in his character arc - and the behind-the-scenes bit shown afterwards is all about him.

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 2, Episode 7] The Idiot's Lantern
    Shown 27th May 2006 [Saturday]

    1953, the run-up to the Queen's coronation. Everyone rushes out to buy a TV so they can watch it. But creepy TV presenter Maureen Lipman is sucking peoples' faces through the screen.

    This was written by Mark Gatiss, who also did the Dickins ep last year.

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 2, Episode 8] The Satan Pit (1)
    Shown 3rd June 2006 [Saturday]

    Rose and the Doc appear on a space station. It's on an asteroid in the orbit of a black hole!

    They're trapped beyond time, and the asteroid's core was once inhabited by an alien race so powerful it could withstand the black hole, and so old that the Tardis can't translate its writing.

    Worse, an ancient evil from within the asteroid has been woken. Like in Event Horizon . Only they're actually ON an Event Horizon!

    This is a wonderfully dramatic ep, with amazing SPFX. And a cliffhanger ending!

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 2, Episode 10] The Satan Pit (2)
    Shown 10th June 2006 [Saturday]

    The Doctor is trapped down the mineshaft. With only an hours worth of air, he has no option but to keep exploring. Of course, everyone forgets that he went to find the TARDIS - so his imminent survival is obvious to the viewers!

    Rose keeps things together on the surface, taking command of the military crew. Well, they're part of Torchwood rather than the SAS, but the point still stands. Last ep started as The Black Hole , but here it becomes Aliens .

    The Beast, when discovered, looks like Eddie - mascottfor Iron Maiden! Great CGI, great production values, great plan and great conclusion.

    The Beast claims precognition, and says Rose will die in battle soon. Presumably this is just blather, and it intends to kill her itself ...

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 2, Episode 10] Love and Monsters
    Shown 17th June 2006 [Saturday]

    This is told from the perspective of a 20-something Londoner named Elton. He's an amateur UFO-hunter who keeps a video-diary, and recounts his encounters with the Doctor.

    Elton's UFO-Watcher group, LINDA, is taken over by a control-freak who vaguely resembles the guy from the pilot ep, Rose. He orders Elton to go undercover and seduce Rose's mum, Jackie!

    This is an unusual ep - a lot of it is cliche, but it manages to avoid the usual Eastenders-In-Space feel to the Jackie eps. And we don't feel the loss of Mickey, which is quite nice.

    There's yet more death of Rose foreshadowing ...

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 2, Episode 11] Fear Her
    Shown 24th June 2006 [Saturday]

    In 1953, around the time of the Coronation, London people were sucked into TV sets. In 2012, at the time of the Olympics, London people are sucked into a child's drawings.

    The child is daughter of a single parent, played by Tennant's co-star fromCasanova.

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 2, Episode 12] Army of Ghosts (1)
    Shown 1st July 2006 [Saturday]

    Rose tells us she's going to die. Of course, this has been foreshadowed in previous eps, and the UK tabloids were full of spoilers, so this is no surprise.

    The Doctor and Rose arrive in London, which is now full of ghosts. This is part of popular culture, meaning that there are cameos by other BBC TV shows [Eastenders, ironically].

    The problem stems from the Torchwood Institute, which is running experiments using unknown alien tech. Worse, their HQ's lack of security means that there are evil aliens running around it!

    There are a couple of surprises which weren't ruined by the trailer, though. One is an unexpected ally, another is an old enemy!

    Dr Who (2005+) [Season 2, Episode 13] Doomsday (2)
    Shown 8th July 2006 [Saturday]

    This is an incredible climax to the season, and involves 2 alien races having a planet-wide battle!

    The resolution comes at a terrible cost. The whole Eastenders in Space bit comes to an end, as Billie Piper's 2-Season contract expires. But it's actually well-written, and worth watching.

    Torchwood's a bit crap, though. The soldiers may have cool guns [not SA80s or MP5s, oddly enough] but despite a bit of shoot-em-up on the streets there's no actual military stuff done by Torchwood itself. An organisation supposed to be over 100 years old, significantly older than UNIT, yet they have no idea how to deal with Cybermen!

    Hopefully they'll do things better in their own show, especially if they keep the patriotic Cyber-person!

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Inter-Season] The Runaway Bride
    Shown Xmas 2006 [Saturday]

    We get to see the end of Ep 2.13 again, from the perspective of the Bride [ Catherine Tate ]. "Who's Catherine Tate" you're no doubt asking, echoing Cordelia in Angel . Ms Tate appeared overnight as a UK comedienne. She had her own sketch show on the BBC, and they're obviously trying hard to get their money's worth out of her. In comparison, Hale and Pace were famous long before they appeared in Survival, and now the biggest thing they've been in is the Extras Xmas Special!

    The Runaway Bride is being chased by last year's robot santas, who are now being controlled by the spider queen. A race of spider-people are going to take over the world. They're survivors of an ancient war, and the Doctor thought them long extinct.

    There's mention of Torchwood's London branch, but it's worse than useless at preventing alien invasions. OK, they shot down the Alien ship last Xmas, but at the least useful moment. Here they do nothing useful at all!

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 3, Episode 1] Smith and Jones
    Shown 31st March 2007 [Saturday]

    Young Dr Martha Jones [cousin of a Canary Tower worker] is treating a patient who calls himself John Smith. Her hospital is stolen by an army of Sontaran-looking Rhino-men and transplanted to the moon!

    It turns out that one of the patients is a vampiric Plasmavore, who uses a drinking straw [like the Sirens in Red Dwarf]. This is bad news for Dr Stoker!

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 3, Episode 2] The Shakespeare Code
    Shown 7th April 2007 [Saturday]

    The Doctor takes Martha to London, 1599, to meet Shakespeare. Unfortunately, 3 Witches are murdering people ...

    Shakespeare's apparently a super-perfect genius that even the Doctor is in awe of. Well, I suppose this IS scifi, after all. The Doctor has already met Shakespeare - in City of Death and Empire of Glass.

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 3, Episode 3] Gridlock
    Shown 14th April 2007 [Saturday]

    The Doctor takes Martha to New New York, where he took Rose in Season 2. Martha gets kidnapped, and the Doctor must brave the Motorway to find her. Ardal O'Hanlon [a big cat-man with the voice of Father Dougal] helps.

    The Motorway has flying vans, like Fifth Element - but the gridlock is so bad that people have been flying around trying to escape the slums for 23 years! Worse, something's lurking in the lowest level.

    The Face of Boe is in charge of the city now, and sends a cat-faced nun to find the Doctor.

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 3, Episode 4] Daleks in Manhattan (1)
    Shown 21st April 2007 [Saturday]

    The Tardis appears in NYC, during the Great Depression. The Doctor and Martha make friends with the hobos of Hooverville, a squatter camp in Central Park.

    The Empire State Building is being completed. It's been extended and improved - its already much taller than the Chrystler building. And its new owners are from a long way out of town!

    The 4 super-daleks from the Canary Wharf battle are back. They're splicing humans with pigs, to create beastman minions. And they have a plan to empower the Dalek race ...

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 3, Episode 5] Evolution of the Daleks (2)
    Shown 28th April 2007 [Saturday]

    The new Dalek leader wants the Doctor's help. But the other Daleks aren't overly happy about this.

    The climax is predictable, and all in all its a disappointing ep. That said, there have been very few decent Dalek eps in the revived series.

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 3, Episode 6] The Lazarus Experiment
    Shown 5 May 07

    In modern Earth, a scientist named Dr Lazarus claims to have changed what it means to be human. His experiments are backed by the mysterious Mr Saxon. Lazarus publicly tests his machine on himself ...

    Martha's sister is on Lazarus' staff. This is convenient, because it means that Martha and the Doctor are nearby when the Experiment all goes badly wrong.

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 3, Episode 7] 42
    Shown 12 May 07

    The Tardis materialises aboard a spaceship that is about to crash into a sun. They have 42 minutes (the length of an episode, and a nice reversal of 24) to fix the ship and save themselves ...

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 3, Episode 8] Human Nature (1)
    Shown 19 May 07

    The Doctor and Martha are pursued by hostile aliens, the Family of Blood. They hide in England, 1913. The Doctor turns himself human, and becomes a teacher. He even falls in love with a woman [from Spaced].

    Martha stays on as a maidservant. She knows that the human teacher is more ruthless than the Doctor, an unpleasant change to come over him.

    The Family of Blood are on the trail. Like the Slitheen, they can take over human bodies. And they start with an upper-class git with the initials J.B. [as in James Bond] ...

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 3, Episode 9] Family of Blood (2)
    Shown 26 May 07

    The Family of Blood besiege the school. This allows for a typical anti-War cliche, with the comparison with the First World War. Of course, this is quite comical as we see scarecrows get shot in slo-mo!

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 3, Episode 10] Blink
    Shown 2 Jun 07

    The Doctor and Martha visit present-day England. They investigate a creepy old house, and run into the freakiest monster of the series!

    This is most like last Season's episode [Season 2, Episode 10] Love and Monsters. The Doctor and Martha are peripheral figures, and the main protagonist is a young woman investigating disappearances at the house. The story has some light-hearted moments, but the climax is real hide-behind-the-sofa stuff!

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 3, Episode 11] Utopia
    Shown 9 Jun 07

    The Tardis stops at Cardiff to refuel. Captain Jack hitches a lift, but the Tardis tries to ditch him. It goes to the end of the universe ...

    The Tardis lands in a quarry, typical of the show in the old days. They get chased by extras from Ghosts of Mars !

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 3, Episode 12] The Sound of Drums (1)
    Shown 16 Jun 07

    In one of the greatest anticlimactic escapes, our heroes end up in modern-day London. The election is over, and Mr Saxon has won.

    PM Saxon wipes out all his threats and rivals. Then he announces that he has been contacted by an alien race that he calls the Toclafane. They look like the flying death-spheres in the Phantasm movies. He and certain VIPs will meet the aliens aboard UNIT's flying HQ. Yes, UNIT has a Helicopter-Carrier, just like SHIELD in the Marvel Comics.

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 3, Episode 13] Last of the Timelords (2)
    Shown 23 Jun 07

    Martha is the only one who can thwart the Master's plan. She spends a year walking the Earth, gathering support ... while humanity is enslaved to build interstellar missiles so the Master can attack the rest of the galaxy.

    We finally find out why the Face of Boe was such a great friend of the Doctor's! And the very last scene sets up the next Xmas special ...

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Inter-Season] Voyage of the Damned
    Shown Xmas 2007 [Tuesday]

    The Doctor boards the SS Titanic, and discovers that Kylie Minogue is one of the waitresses. Her skirt is too short for 1912 - but this is actually a starship from the Capricorn belt. How it came to be crewed by Humans when the year is 2007 is never explained.

    Naturally, the Titanic hits rough circumstances. The Doctor must lead a handful of survivors to safety, like in The Poseidon Adventure .

    In previous episodes the villains have been robot santas and evil angels. Here we have robot angels as the villains!

    After the last 2 Xmas specials, the inhabitants of London have decided to spend Xmas elsewhere. Except the Queen, of course, which is ironic because Buckingham Palace is where the Titanic will crash!

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 4, Episode 1 ] Partners in Crime
    Shown 5th April 2008

    Donna is back! Back on Earth, that is - reminiscing with her amateur astronomer Grandad, Bernard Cribbins [Carry On films]. She wants to see the Doctor again, and the Doctor is now getting over his recent loss.

    Donna and the Doctor, unaware of each others investigations, are posing as Health & Safety Inspectors. The conspiracy is headed by Miss Foster [ Sarah Lancashire ], boss of a sinister Corporation - Adipose Industries. They sell a diet pill, and their slogan is The Fat just walks away. This is strangely reminiscent of the pilot episode of Sarah Jane Adventures , although Miss Foster is modelled on the TV show Super Nanny.

    The Doctor and Donna seperately make their way to Miss Foster's HQ, which strangely resembles the location of the climax of Ep 2.1 of Torchwood !

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 4, Episode 2] The Fires of Pompeii
    Shown 12 Apr 08

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 4, Episode 3] Planet of the Ood
    Shown 19 Apr 08

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 4, Episode 4] The Sontaran Stratagem (1)
    Shown 26 Apr 08

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 4, Episode 5] The Poison Sky (2)
    Shown 3 May 08

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 4, Episode 6] The Doctor's Daughter
    Shown 10 May 08

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 4, Episode 7] The Unicorn and the Wasp
    Shown 17 May 08

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 4, Episode 8] Silence in the Library (1)
    Shown 31 May 08

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 4, Episode 9] Forest of the Dead (2)
    Shown 7th June 2008

    Donna wakes up and finds herself living a perfect life. She gets married and has children - which RTD's Gay Dr Who Fan Club find offensive, but who cares?

    The Doctor must solve the mystery of Dr River Song. Why did he give her his screwdriver, and his name?

    It turns out that the planet has an AI and a massive planetary data-core [like in The Matrix ]. So WTF did they need to pulp a planet's worth of forests to create a paper library? Also, the datacore is linked to a very convenient system of global Star Trek style teleporters. They can store a person's pattern for a century, and still materialise them. But as in Trek, nobody takes this to its natural logical conclusion!

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 4, Episode 10] Midnight
    Shown 14th June 2008

    The Doctor leaves Donna so he can go on a day-trip. He's in an airtight passenger coach riding across Midnight, a planet devoid of atmosphere, bathed in deadly radiation. Nothing could survive on the planet's surface - but since nobody's ever been outside, they can never be certain!

    Predicably, things go wrong. The Doctor and the other passengers are trapped, with a monster on the loose. However, the real danger is psychological. The Doctor must decide who the real monsters are - mind-controlling aliens, or an all-too-human lynch mob?

    Dr Who (2005+) Dr Who (2005) [Season 4, Episode 11]
    Shown

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