Episode 7: 42 (The Jones Review)

The tagline for this should be "In space, no one can hear David Tennant shout his lines". With 42 it seems that the good-to-bad episode ratio seems to be righting itself again. I enjoyed this one and even though it was derivative, dodgily acted and miscast in places - it was still a good episode. Perhaps this is where the modern Who finds it's feet, in tight spaces, short timeframes and classic plots.

42 minutes of deadline breaking mania, a significant nod to 24 and apparently the movie "Sunshine" brings a simple plot with no complicated logic or reasoning to contend with. The trivia quiz element to door opening was novel, if not that secure (though a twentieth century music history question? Oh come on!). The Cyclopsian helmet and glowing eyes added some nice anthropomorphisation to the eventual reveal of the antagonist of the story. The dips away to Martha's mum were good tension breakers, as was the silence of space when the pod disengages. Not so quiet when the Doctor pops out for a space walk, but consistency is never a Who strong point.

The Saxon elements are heating up and so is my dislike for Martha's mum, hope she meets a sticky end (though she probably won't - dammit!). Michelle Collins as the ship's captain was hopelessly miscast and wet, and the bit players seemed like they had personalities and histories that were once longer, but don't make sense in the 42 minutes of the main story arc.

All in all this reminds me of an old episode I can't quite put my finger on at the moment. Or maybe it's a classic Star Trek Original series story? It's hard to fault, becasue while watching it I had occasional niggles in the back of my head about where things were derived from, but like with the Lazarus experiment, it didn't seem to matter to me too much. I watched, I enjoyed and apart from the near death pod bit with Martha, paid attention to it.

David acts out his shoutiness a little less, and it has toned down a lot, though in amongst the noise and tension - the volume was not so bad. Once again his wit and pop references at the beginning lended a bit of weight to his Doctor as a character instead of the cardboard cutout hero of the dalek/cyber episodes.

Next week has zombie scarecrows, a boarding school background and a classic period piece that usually works well in Doctor Who. Add to this Jessica Stevenson, all we need now is a visit by Nick Frost and the 'Spaced trifecta' will have been played!

Episode 6: The Lazarus Experiment (The Jones Review)

After the disappointing Dalek arc, it's good to see Doctor Who get back on track again in episode 6. Much like the ealier success of Gridlock, this is another small episode, based mostly around one building with a short-ish timeframe and a very uncomplicated story.

The Doctor is shouty still, but not so much that it interferes with your ability to sympathise with the charcater. The references to being 'the last' and 'the oldest' play well to Lazarus's insanity and desire for the longevity that the Doctor feels cursed with. The Doctor is also playful and witty again; the pithy pop culture references bring his child-like tone back into play. There's some nice banter and the Doctor's curiousity seems to re-emerge from behind the facade of righteuosness that plagued the last two episodes.

Professor Lazarus as an old man looked pretty decent I thought, and while you know Mark Gatiss is under there it was easy enough to believe. However when Gatiss comes out for the 'young' professor, I suddenly found it much harder to take. While he does a wonderful line in unrecognisable (Hialry Briss, Mickey et al) Mark Gatiss is wholely unbelievable when not made up. All of his best efforts in this episode are in make-up or as the CGI monster. Still what a lucky bugger he is, isn't he? A fan, an author, a writer and now as an actor on Doctor Who. I hate him. Freema/Martha works out her 'relationship issues' right at the end, but only just so the final reference from the concerned mum can play itself out fully. Martha's mum is a bitch, who would have thought that maybe someones mum may object to having a child be a companion to the Doctor? Seriously, haven't they done this already? There's some ham-fisted 'Mister Saxon' references, and the sly aisdes to Mrs Jones from a complete stranger seem like pantomine villainy and grated a little.

This feels like an old episode, just done much better. The rogue scientist doing things he should not be doing, and creating a monster in the process. The science is only slightly covered off, so no embarassingly bad gaffes in reality. The genetic throwback angle is a bit lame (and inspired by 'The Relic' - columns and all), but it's better than the hackneyed Freudian ID monster. However overall it is a good episode and made me want to watch the whole way through instead of dissecting every other line, unlike the abysmal 'Evolution' story.The best bit though? A glimpse of John Simm as Mister Saxon in upcoming scenes from the rest of the season. Evil looking, if he's not the Master then he's going to be pretty good menace regardless.

Episode 5 - Evolution of the Daleks (The Jones Review)

Colour me disappointed.

The second part of this seasons Dalek epic falls apart quite badly:

• Tennant shouts his lines, again.
• The Daleks repeatedly have the Doctor in their sights only to let him go, again.
• The science is appallingly bad (seriously when is Gamma Radiation and Lightning the same thing?), again.
• Martha is pining for a relationship and whining about Rose, again.

Each twist, turn and betrayal in the plot was obvious and cliched, and the amount of speechifying contained in the dialogue (and the numerous times that someone stands up and makes a speech!) was embarassing and made me cringe from the very first to the very last. The melodrama level was far too high and lessons should have been learned from Aaron Sorkin if they had wanted to make social comment at this level.

The visual elements were heavily borrowed from many sources, from King Kong to Back to the Future and added some enjoyment for spotting the homages. The operatic musical score added some tension to the chase scenes, and underlined the grand scope of the venture, the Dalek plan, the threat level and of course the giant building itself. Unfortunately the actual scripting and plot were pants.

While I thought the first part of this story was a weak beginning, I had hopes for the second part lifting the game and bringing it all together. It failed. A number of people/characters die in this episode and I could have cared less about them. In fact there were at least two more that I think should have died that survived in the end. The final escapee was probably my favourite in the story, at least something better may come of that later.

Poor episode and worst of the season so far.

Episode 4 - Daleks In Manhattan (The Gaz Review)

Okay, I had a look at this last night…

It’s great to see the Daleks become actual characters, not just nonsense spouting bits of wobbly cardboard and tinfoil. The scene where the Dalek and Diagoras look over New York and it speaks of humanity in such admiration, is really quite good.

This was an episode with big ambitions, lots of human and non-human drama told against a rich back drop, which it occasionally struggles to pull off. I know this is a TV drama, but the residents of Hooverville taking cues from a black man is a bit much, in reality they’d probably eat him… crass yes, true… possibly?

As it’s New York in the 1930’s they’d have been better to mix it up with accents, rather than everybody in the cast doing a terrible nasal Bronx whine, or Franks odd Tennessee drawl. I doubt viewers would notice Irish, English and Italian accents as much as we do the crap ones the actors are straining with.

However placing the dance hall girl and the pig-man at the centre of the action is a nice take, even if it borrows heavily from the 1980’s Beauty and the Beast TV show.

My main issue with the episode is the inconsistencies, one moment the Daleks are being all observational, the next moment they are being all shouty and spouting nonsense. For efficient war machines with abilities rivalling a Time Lord, why do they not spot The Doctor lurking ever so suspiciously behind Martha, or that she is a time-traveller? The musical number seems to have been thrown is as an after-thought, when it could have been used a bit more, a great example is Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Oddly I thought The Doctor and Martha seemed to be swamped a little by everything else going on, the best lines went to the Daleks and the grunting pigs!

As Jones said, it’s not Muppets in Manhattan, but it occasionally veers a lot closer than it should!!

Episode 3 - Gridlock (The Gaz Review)

Considering the Face of Boe has lived millions of years with the sole purpose of delivering a message to The Doctor... you are not alone does not meet with the pre-advertised product, which is a shame as this was shaping up to be a cracker of an episode.

A shouty Doctor takes Martha to see the future, but as per a standard Doctor Who plot vehicle, she gets herself kidnapped in the first five minutes of arriving on the planet. It then sets off the separate adventures of The Doctor and Martha as they meet people stuck in a life-long traffic jam who in fact turn out to be a nice group who like to sing hymns and chatter away to each other... oh and marry cats. Meanwhile the whole place is being held together by a former nursing cat and the good old Boe Face.

It's an episode with some excellent turns from the guest stars, including an almost unrecognisable Ardal O'Hanlon, well unrecognisable until he speaks... was it just me or did you want him to suddenly turn toward DT and say I'm not sure about that Ted! Hey it also had the Macra, or rather a form of Macra, but they were up for shits and giggles and a nice touch to the past.

I'm not sold on Martha yet, something is not quite coming together, there is something in the tone that's not causing me to warm to her, it's almost like she is failing to show any wonder about what she is seeing.

Gridlock is a good episode with solid SFX, great cast, a nice nudge to the shows own past and even a sly wink to great British sci-fi from Judge Dredd and Clockwork Orange, the third series seems it may be about to find it's own feet.