#8 (1.9 - 1.10): The Empty Child.

The Doctor receives a disturbing phone call...

2 episodes: The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances. Approx. 84 minutes. Written by: Steven Moffat. Directed by: James Hawes. Produced by: Phil Collinson.


THE PLOT

The TARDIS locks onto a dangerous object hurtling through the Time Vortex. Because the object is "jumping Time Tracks," the closest the Doctor is able to materialize is about a month after the object hits with a bang... Right in the center of London during the 1941 blitz!

This is the work of Capt. Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), a former Time Agent who now gets by as a con artist. He finds bits of space junk and uses them to attract the attention of time travelers, sending the debris back in time to coordinates where the objects will be destroyed by bombs or natural disasters. "The perfect, self-cleaning con," Jack boasts smugly. This object was an abandoned Chula hospital ship - completely harmless, Jack assures the Doctor.

But Jack has miscalculated, as the Doctor realizes when he meets Nancy (Florence Hoath), a young woman who does her best to look after the city's street orphans. Nancy lost her young brother, Jamie, the night the object fell to Earth. He was killed by a bomb, his skull so fractured that it was impossible to tell where the gas mask he was wearing ended and his face began.

Somehow, the ship has reanimated the dead child. Now he is "empty," wandering through the streets of London, asking one question endlessly: "Are you my mummy?" Everyone he touches is infected, doomed to become just like him - right down to the injuries, the gas mask, and the demand for "mummy." "Physical injury as plague," observes Dr. Constantine (Richard Wilson), the local physician.

As this plague spreads, the Doctor, Jack, and Rose find themselves on the run from an increasing horde of what could very accurately be labeled the undead. It's a race not only for their survival, but for the entire future of humanity!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: As soon as he realizes that the device was a Chula hospital ship, he has a pretty good idea of what happened - as demonstrated by his line, "Human DNA is being rewritten by an idiot. When he meets Jack, the disapproval radiates from him with almost physical force, and he responds to every one of Jack's protestations that this could not be his fault by tuning him out and ignoring him. Eccleston has fully found his Doctor by this point, and is simply superb, whether delivering an inspiration speech to Nancy about "one tiny, damp little island (that) says no" to the German war machine or snapping and glowering at Jack. Particularly good is the near-desperation at the end, that little crack of pure need that breaks through his self-confidence as he attempts to fix the problem, simultaneously pleading with the universe: "Give me a day like this. Give me this one!"

Rose: Is smitten with Jack right away - Which, given that Jack makes his entrance by saving her life, beaming her literally into his arms, is likely not surprising. She spends their entire first conversation so flustered that she only half-grasps what he's saying to her. Even so, she does not reveal the Doctor's background to him, instead bringing Jack to meet her associate, "Mr. Spock." Once Jack leaves, Rose's attraction to him is tied right back into her relationship with the Doctor, as she tells the Time Lord: "I trust him because he's like you. Except with dating and dancing."

Capt. Jack Harkness: The Empty Child introduces Capt. Jack Harkness, who would be a companion for the remainder of the season before being attached to the spinoff Torchwood. We get the information we need to make him an intriguing character: He's more morally gray than the Doctor, but attempts to avoid doing anything harmful. He is a con artist, but his primary goal isn't to make money - What he wants is to recover two years of missing memories. Barrowman is a strong enough screen presence to hold hiw own opposite Eccleston, and their banter over sonic guns vs. sonic screwdrivers or the Doctor's destruction of Jack's favorite weapons factory is enjoyable even as it points to the differences between the two characters.


THOUGHTS

"I need more days like this!"
-The Doctor, after one of his greatest triumphs, in one of his greatest stories.

The Empty Child is a big story for the new Doctor Who series: It introduced Captain Jack Harkness.  It was the first story written by Steven Moffat, who would write several of the best stories of the Russell T. Davies era before taking over as showrunner for Series Five. It was the first Doctor Who story to win a Hugo Award, and has been at or near the top of several "best story" polls of not only the new series, but of the now more than half a century of Doctor Who, ever since its airdate.

This is an outstanding piece of television, one of those magical moments in which everything comes together exactly right. Steven Moffat's first script for the series remains, in my opinion, his best, making good use of the extra space afforded by two episodes to make the setting feel authentic and lived-in. Details such as the black market food on one homeowner's table, or the people enjoying themselves at a nightclub just before the air raid siren sounds, simply wouldn't be possible if the same story had to be squeezed into 45 minutes... And it's those moments of absolute authenticity that make this so very effective.

The ending is nothing short of extraordinary. I would say is the moment at which the battle-scarred Ninth Doctor truly becomes "The Doctor" again. Standing in the middle of a hopeless situation, a bomb about to drop from the sky and hordes of what can only be described as Undead approaching from all directions, it's clear that it's The End. "Nothing can stop it!" the Doctor has said, just a few minutes before.

But that was the shell-shocked Doctor, the one who has kept looking at the universe through the battered, blood-soaked haze of the Time War. As his eyes fall on the sobbing Nancy, as his ears take in the refrain of "Are you my mummy?", something in his mind wakes up, puts it all together, and snatches salvation from desolation - not just for himself and his companions, but for everybody present. In this moment, an exultant Doctor rediscovers himself. He stops insulting those around him and celebrates them instead, becoming the hero he used to be. In effect, as he cries out in the tag:

"I just remembered - I can dance!"


Overall Rating: 10/10.

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#7 (1.8): Father's Day.

Peter Alan Tyler (Shaun Dingwall):
An ordinary man who should not be alive.

1 episode. Approx. 43 minutes. Written by: Paul Cornell. Directed by: Joe Ahearne. Produced by: Phil Collinson.


THE PLOT

Pete Tyler (Shaun Dingwall), Rose's father, was killed by a hit-and-run driver in 1987. Rose begs the Doctor to take her to 1987, so that she can be with him when he dies. "He can't die alone," she pleads. Despite his misgivings, the Doctor agrees - only to watch in horror as Rose sprints out into the street and pushes her father out of the path of the oncoming car.

"There's a man alive who wasn't before... That's the most impotant thing in the world!" The Doctor recognizes the significance of what Rose has done. When he storms back to the TARDIS in anger, unlocks the door, and discovers that the inside has become na empty box - At that point, his worst fears are confirmed. Rose's actions have damaged time. Now the Reapers are coming to clean the wound... by destroying all life on Earth!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Somewhat ironically for a story in which he spends much of the running time furious with his companion, this is overall the gentlest characterization the prickly 9th Doctor has yet received. For all his anger at Rose, he still instinctively wants to protect her. He may snap at her, but he has no intention of allowing Pete to die again, even though he realizes that his death would end the Reapers' rampage. He also shows genuine compassion for the young couple whose church wedding becomes the site of the final standoff. When the bride asks if he can save them, he surveys this very ordinary young couple, asks a few personal questions, then gives them a warm smile as he assures them that he will do everything he can to get them out alive.

Rose: Has built her father up in her mind to a degree that insures that the real man will disappoint. "I thought he'd be taller," she says upon seeing him in person for the first time. No doubt the Imaginary Pete in her mind towered above all others. Why not? In the stories told by her mother, Pete is nearly perfect, clever and creative and "the most wonderful man in the world." The real Pete is not a bad man by any means, but he is ordinary: His so-called inventions are largely junk destined to go nowhere, and he has no problem with flirting with other women (and possibly more than just flirting) despite his marriage. When Rose describes him as the perfect father, Pete listens, then sadly admits, "That's just not me." 


THOUGHTS

"I'll get it right, love. One day soon, I promise you, I'll get it right."
-Peter Alan Tyler, on the last day of his life

Father's Day is very well-placed in the season. The Long Game ends with a would-be companion booted from the TARDIS for misusing time travel for his own gain. That is fresh in the viewer's mind as Rose does the same thing for different reasons, and therefore there's at least a doubt as to whether the Doctor does truly mean to leave her at this point. It's not a serious doubt - we'll always forgive those we love a lot more than those we barely tolerate - but even the slight doubt wouldn't exist if this had been placed any earlier in the season.

The episode highlights one of the largest divisions between the old series and the new: Emotion. Classic Who was rarely driven by emotion. The stories were external threats, almost invariably faced down by the regulars with courage and resourcefulness. Any emotional material had to squeeze itself around the plot.

This story is driven by emotion. There is no external threat, not until Rose's impulsive actions bring a threat into being. Even then, when the Reapers surround the church leaving the survivors under siege, they are not the story's focus: Rose and her father are. Just as Rose brings the Reapers down by saving her father, the Reapers are driven away by her father saving her and everyone else. Their two acts - one instinctive, the other thought out - bookend the threat, with both deeds based on their relationship as father and daughter.

Paul Cornell's script is manipulative, brazenly so. It's a good script, though: tightly structured, with no real fat at any point, and populated by characters who feel authentic. Pete is as flawed as his marriage to Jackie, which makes him feel real, and makes their marriage feel real. All of this makes the viewer's connection to him and to them so much stronger than might have been. The writer's heavy hand may be very evident, particularly near the end, but that doesn't stop it from packing a wallop.


Rating: 8/10.

Previous Story: The Long Game
Next Story: The Empty Child 

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#6 (1.7): The Long Game.

Adam (Bruno Langley) makes a fateful decision.

1 episode. Approx. 44 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Brian Grant. Produced by: Phil Collinson.


THE PLOT

It's the year 200,000, the time of the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. The human race at its height, the center of a vast interspecies civilization.

Only things are wrong. The TARDIS materializes aboard Satellite 5, a space station that transmits news an information to the hundreds of channels on Earth. The reporters have technology implanted in their heads, allowing their brains to be used to directly process the data. It's incredible technology...

Which the Doctor also recognizes as wrong. "Something has set the human race back about 90 years," he realizes. History is being manipulated through the news, Satellite 5 being used to keep humanity from advancing. 

Perhaps the man known as "The Editor" (Simon Pegg) has the answers. But The Editor sees all, and he is already tracking the Doctor's progress!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Early in the episode, the Doctor bundles Rose and Adam off while he investigates. He is extremely cheerful as he urges them: "Throw yourself in, eat the food, use the wrong verbs, get charged double, and end up kissing complete strangers." Then he turns away, and the cheer drops from his face an instant, replaced by grim determination. He knows history has been tampered with, and he pushes until he discovers why. Even when captured, he keeps thinking. He notices that Cathica (Christine Adams), the reporter he and Rose befriended, is lurking outside the door as the Editor interrogates him.  He makes sure to insert a few very well-chosen remarks in his replies to the Editor, essentially telling Cathica what to do to save him without tipping the villain off in the process. 

Rose: The Doctor gives Rose enough information to "show off" to Adam, letting her pretend to identify their new surroundings when they arrive on Satellite 5. Rose enjoys being allowed to essentially playact being the Doctor, though she happily hands things back off to the Doctor when a more complex explanation is required. Here, it's fairly charming, though in retrospect it's the first real sign of the smugness that would mar the Doctor/Rose relationship the following year. She is patient and sympathetic with Adam's culture shock, but it's clear she wants to help the Doctor. Clear to Adam too, who observes that "it will take a better man than (him) to get between" her and the Doctor.

Adam: After what was very much a background role in Dalek, he gets pushed forward in this episode. He mainly acts as a contrast with Rose, and by extension with future companions. While Rose and later companions will tend to act selflessly when presented with crises, Adam sees the level of technology here and focuses on how to use it to help himself. The Doctor responds decisively to Adam's transgression, dumping him off at his home and leaving him there, doomed to an average and quiet life.


THOUGHTS

The Long Game plays much better in retrospect than it did at the time. On original broadcast, it seemed like an adequate bit of filler, a mid-season runaround that was dwarfed by the episodes on either side of it. But writer/executive producer Russell T. Davies pulled a deft sleight of hand, making this apparently innocuous episode one of the key building blocks of the season, an episode that would directly feed the season finale.

Even disregarding that and just looking at The Long Game in isolation, it holds up much better than its initial reception would indicate. Like most single-part Who episodes, the story unfolds at a rapid pace. Unlike too many episodes, though, it doesn't feel rushed or overstuffed. The way in which the story is resolved is planted ahead of time so that it makes sense and feels like an organic part of the narrative. It's well-structured and holds together, with no sense of things being skipped over to fit 70 or so minutes of material into 45.

Simon Pegg is effective as "The Editor," the most visible villain of the piece. His performance mixes camp and menace in equal measure, particularly when he faces down a would-be assassin with cries of "Liar!" when she attempts to hide behind her cover story. It's a disappointment that his confrontation with the Doctor is such a short scene, as watching Pegg and Eccleston go at it is a prospect with much more potential than their screentime here can capitalize on. 

I wouldn't begin to argue against this being a second-tier episode. The self-contained narrative is very simplistic, amounting to having to defeat a monster on the Satellite's top level, and the attempts to work in social commentary about media manipulation aren't nearly as sharp as they should be. Still, this is well-made and highly entertaining, with Eccleston in particularly good form. A solid episode, in my view, far better than the "weak link" in the season it generally is remembered as.


Rating: 7/10.

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#5 (1.6): Dalek.

The best of enemies: The Doctor and the Dalek.

1 episode. Approx. 45 minutes. Written by: Robert Shearman. Directed by: Joe Ahearne. Produced by: Phil Collinson.


THE PLOT

The Doctor follows a distress signal to Utah, 2012 - specifically, to the underground museum of Internet billionaire Henry van Statten (Corey Johnson). Van Statten has turned a fortune into an empire by studying alien artifacts that have fallen to Earth, adapting their technology for the marketplace ("Broadband? Roswell!").

But the prize of his collection is a living being which he has dubbed "The Metaltron." The creature is encased in a protective machine, and it refuses to speak. Van Statten's men have tortured it to make it scream, but it still won't talk. Until the Doctor walks into its cage, determined to rescue it from captivity.

Only this machine is no simple victim. It is the last surviving member of the most evil race the Doctor has ever faced. It is a Dalek!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: For the Ninth Doctor, the cheerful cover was never more than a very thin veneer even at the best of times. Christopher Eccleston delivers his best Who performance, showing that cover not so much stripped away as shattered. From the instant he recognizes the Dalek right up to the story's end, he is intensely and nakedly emotional: terrified, desperate, and overflowing with rage. The Doctor's not wrong to call for the creature's death, as the entire first 30 minutes chillingly demonstrate, but it's still disconcerting to see spittle literally fly from his lips as he screams at the Dalek: "Why don't you just die!?!"

Rose: Her compassion compels her to rush to the Dalek's cage when she sees van Statten's men torturing it. She knows nothing of its nature, and it is easily able to manipulate her into touching it - allowing it to extrapolate from her DNA to repair itself. In this way, Rose's compassion sets off the events that lead to so many deaths, something the Doctor's harshness would have prevented had he not been stopped. Still, Rose's ability to identify with the Dalek stops the killing in the end, as the Dalek extrapolates too much of her into itself. More importantly, she is able to defuse the Doctor's rage, leading him back to his usual self by the show's end.

Adam: The first of two stories featuring interim companion Adam Mitchell (Bruno Langley). Rose responds strongly to Adam, openly flirting in their very first proper scene together. Adam's intelligence and lack of respect for authority remind her of the Doctor - a younger, sexually available version of the Doctor. Adam does manage to get on the Doctor's bad side by saving himself by ducking under a descending bulkhead rather than trying to help Rose, but I don't think he can be condemned there. Rose was too many steps behind - All he would have accomplished by lingering would be trapping himself on the wrong side of the bulkhead with her, which would surely have ended in his death in a way that would have been no help to Rose at all.

Dalek: Quite possibly the only new series story in which the Daleks really work.  The story strips the threat down to a single Dalek. Battered and old, it looks more pathetic than frightening. Which makes it all the more effective as it rips through van Statten's small army of guards with no effort at all. We are shown its intelligence, not only through decoding the lock to its cage and "absorbing the Internet," but also viscerally. Surrounded by guards, the Dalek takes in the room. It observes the fire alarm, the sprinkler system, the metal all around... and in three expertly-judged shots, a matter of seconds, it performs a massacre. The spectacle is enough to make Van Statten finally take the thing seriously - and more than enough to sell every viewer on the threat of the Daleks.


THOUGHTS

The episode opens with an effective aside, working both as a nod to the old series and the old fans and as a thematic tie-in with this story. The Doctor and Rose are poking around Van Statten's private museum, when the Doctor comes across the head of a classic series Cyberman. He stares at it through the glass, shocked and a little disgusted at seeing "the stuff of nightmares reduced to an exhibit." There's not even a pause in breath between him observing that and stating that he's "getting old."

Like the Cybermen, the Time Lords and the Daleks are all gone. The stuff of myth and nightmares, reduced to one Time Lord and one Dalek, living relics of an age long past. If van Statten has his way, both Dalek and Doctor will be reduced to museum exhibits - intelligent animals, kept in a private cage for his own entertainment.

Dalek is loosely based on writer Robert Shearman's Big Finish audio, Jubilee. The two stories are very different, however.  Their only real similarities are the idea of a single, imprisioned Dalek and a similar (though not identical) Doctor/Dalek confrontation scene.

I like Jubilee better overall, but the Doctor/Dalek scene in Dalek is by far the stronger confrontation. With the Time War backstory, it's more meaningful. Instead of simply being a verbal confrontation between the Doctor and a Dalek, it is a confrontation between the last Time Lord and the last Dalek, the start of what would seem to be the final battle of that war. All "Doctorish" elements drop away from Eccleston's performance in an instant, as he taunts his enemy, blocks out its words about them being the same, and finally embraces that charge by attempting to kill the Dalek - even preceding his attempt by intoning the Dalek catchphrase: "Exterminate!" It's been seven years since Doctor Who returned to television as I write this, and this remains the most intense scene the series has presented.

The first thirty minutes of Dalek are magnificent. It's a very stripped-down episode: a single Dalek on a rampage, Rose and Adam on the run from it, and the Doctor determined to not only stop it but obliterate it. The script is taut, smart, and suspenseful, the pace driving relentlessly right up to the instant that bulkhead closes with Rose caught on the wrong side of it.

And then, it all falls apart.

There is nothing in the first thirty minutes of Dalek that does not work for me. Unfortunately, there is little in the last ten minutes that does work. The Dalek doesn't transform gradually. Despite an attempt to plant something early on in the Dalek focusing on Rose, it still behaves as a traditional Dalek - albeit a traditional Dalek on steroids. But once that bulkhead closes, it suddenly becomes a completely different entity.

Maybe if the Dalek spared only Rose, because of its connection with her, but continued to exterminate everyone else... Maybe then it wouldn't feel so completely out of place dramatically. But its sparing of van Statten and Goddard (Anna-Louise Plowman) is a step too far. The Dalek goes from "alien death machine" to "grumpy puppy" with practically no transition, and that last ten minutes feels like it belongs to a very different episode, a very much worse one.

If I was as enthusiastic about the show's ending as I am about the rest of it, this would be the best Ninth Doctor episode. It's still a decidedly above-average episode, with a stunning performance by Christopher Eccleston and some of the best moments in the entire new series. The ending fails badly for me, though, transforming a great episode into merely a very good one.


Rating: 8/10.

#3 (1.3): The Unquiet Dead.

1 episode, approx. 44 minutes. Written by: Mark Gatiss. Directed by: Euros Lyn. Produced by: Phil Collinson.


THE PLOT

Now that he's shown her the future, the Doctor decides to take Rose into the past: Naples, 1860. But the TARDIS doesn't quite hit that destination, instead materializing in 1869, Cardiff. It is here that the Doctor discovers a dimensional rift, a tiny tear in time and space. That rift is growing wider, and something is beginning to probe through.

At Mr. Sneed (Alan David)'s funeral home, the dead are not staying dead. The corpses are getting up and walking... and killing. One old woman leaves the funeral home and takes in a free show held by "the great man," Charles Dickens (Simon Callow). It is here that the Doctor and Rose catch up with the spectres. Soon, they are all back at Sneed's funeral home, with the Doctor using Gwyneth (Eve Myles), Sneed's young servant who has "the sight," in order to make contact with the Gelth.


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: The Doctor is intrigued by the walking corpses, and fairly quickly determines that the cause is a rift. He has no use for pointless denial, and snaps at Dickens to "shut up" when the author tries to deny what he has just seen. He apologizes for this harshness. But after he makes contact with the Gelth, they invoke the magic words: "Time War." That is all it takes for the Doctor to lose perspective. He abandons caution, shuts down Rose's protests, and focuses intently on helping the Gelth - probably because, if he can save them, then he thinks he'll undo some of what happened in the Time War. It never crosses his mind that the Gelth are not the innocent victims they're pretending to be, not with them playing directly to his own guilt. He sees a chance of an at least partial redemption, and won't allow any doubts to cloud his leaping for it.

Rose: She is excited to go into the past, and really processes that for the Doctor, events past are never really gone. Gwyneth observes that Rose has been thinking more and more about her dead father. Put these two character beats together, and this episode puts in place a lot of the groundwork for Father's Day. She has sympathy for Gwyneth, but not much empathy - She pities the girl, but as Gwyneth observes, she also "thinks (Gwyneth is) stupid," which makes Gwyneth less inclined to listen to her when she protests the Doctor's plan.

Charles Dickens: The always excellent Simon Callow gives this episode a huge lift as Dickens. As scripted, the character could quickly become tiresome. He spends the bulk of it wallowing first in self-pity, then in skepticism that gradually passes into pure denial. But Callow gives the character an added dimension.


THOUGHTS

Though I have several issues with this episode, I'll start with a big positive: This has the best teaser scene of probably the new series' entire first season. The ill-fated Mr. Redpath's dead grandmother coming back to life in the funeral home and killing her grandson while Mr. Sneed groans, "Not another one," and then the dead old woman moaning as she stalks out onto the snow-covered streets... It's a perfect mix of ghoulish and darkly funny, and the new series' first "great" teaser.

The episode that follows rarely lives up to that opening, though it's not a bad turn by any means. All of the performances are good, with Alan David's hilariously disreputable Mr. Sneed an obvious Robert Holmes throwback, very much a distant Welsh cousin of Henry Gordon Jago. Euros Lyn helms with a strong sense of atmosphere and an excellent visual eye. Even some bits that go on a touch too long (such as any scene between Rose and Gwyneth) are kept watchable by Lyn's ability to maintain the atmosphere.

The episode's biggest problem is that it's structurally top-heavy. Most of the episode is set-up, with too much time devoted to the debate over whether or not use Gwyneth to let the Gelth come through. Given the teaser, I doubt any viewer is truly in doubt as to the Gelth's intentions. And while the Doctor's reactions may be good character stuff, this entire segment of the episode just goes on too long. When the payoff - the Gelth's arrival - finally comes, there is too little left of the episode to make much of them before they have to be hurriedly dispatched for the episode's end. Tightening up the setup would have allowed for more time with the Gelth on the rampage, perhaps even letting us get them out of the funeral home and into the streets. As it is, the problem is established with no time to allow it to complicate before it needs a (very quick) solution.

Lest I overemphasize the negative, I should say that this episode is never less than entertaining. By introducing the Cardiff rift, it establishes a plot point that will be very important to later Who episodes, as well as being a large part of the basis for the Torchwood spinoff. It has excellent character work for the two regulars, and very good performances across the board. I might wish it was a bit less top-heavy, or a bit longer to allow the payoff to be less rushed when it arrives. But while this will never be a favorite of mine, it's still quite a decent episode, netting a solid:


Rating: 6/10.

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