Episode 7: 42 (The Gaz Review)

A great number 42… according to the late Douglas Adams it’s the answer to the ultimate question or something like that. Douglas Adams also wrote a few episodes of Doctor Who, though sadly not this one.

This is not a bad episode, I’m not sure I agree with Jones that it indicates this series is getting better. The story sticks to a tried and true formula seen many times in Doctor Who, the one I instantly recall is the an early Tom Baker story, The Ark In Space. It’s the classic theme of an alien taking over a human, rightly or wrongly so it can just “be”, however it’s struggle comes into conflict with The Doctor, who must save the humans.

Whilst it’s a technically capable episode, I think it suffers from the role of making up the numbers to get a full series. The solar-monster is a good example of this, the expectations for the current Doctor Who is beyond a bloke in a crappy welding mask mated with an air-filter and spray-painted a garish red. It looks like it was knocked up in five minutes after a visit to the local Placemakers on the way to the set. Actually it’s not even that good! The whole set for 42 seemed to be suffering from production on a budget, I’m not sure why, since Doctor Who has been re-generated budget does not seem to be the issue it used to be.

Maybe hiring an ex-East Enders in the form of Michelle Collins blew out the budget? If that was the case, they should ask for some of their money back.

I think this was a great concept in terms of pacing the story, and the story itself was good it just felt that the whole thing was done a bit on the cheap.

But enough on the past, lets look to the future and see what the rumours are for the last couple of episodes:

• John Simm as Mr Saxon, the PM, gets taken over by The Master

• The Master did this by hiding from the time war in the Tardis and waiting for the right body to come along (like in Hellraiser 3)

• The Master becomes a Timelord again by splicing The Doctor's DNA and temporarily taking over Dr Who's body

• Cliff-hangers at end are whether The Doctor rids himself of The Master, and whether the big explosion you see is Galifrey or Earth