Christmas Invasion and New Earth Comments
The track record for a new Doctor's first story is frequently mixed. There are some that are amongst the best in the series -- both Power of the Daleks and Spearhead from Space come to mind. But others, like The Twin Dilemma and Time and the Rani, are amongst the worst.
I've placed my full comments in the comment section of this post, so you can avoid for spoiler purposes.
Note that the commentaries for all of the series two episodes are available on the BBC site.
Labels: reviews
1 Comments:
Fortunately, The Christmas Invasion works. Keeping the Doctor out of the action for most of it means that when he arrives you wonder what took him so long. And David Tennant proves immediately that it was his destiny to play this role. He settles in immediately and naturally as the Doctor.
One thing that this shares with Doctor Who stories like Power of the Daleks and Castrovalva is to take elements from the past to smooth over the casting of the new Doctor. Where those two stories bring the Daleks and the Master back, this is a sequel to Aliens of London, with echoes of Rose thrown in as well. And in many ways, this revisit is a chance to revisit elements of that first batch of episodes with more confidence and an even better understanding on how to make Doctor Who in the 21st century.
The "Song For Ten" by Murray Gold is all the justification I need for the inevitable Doctor Who soundtrack.
New Earth has gotten a bit of a bad rap -- and it's certainly not a perfect episode of Doctor Who. But it's a chance to see Billie Piper in a more comedic role than she gets even in the previous comedic scripts. But we see an ambition with the shots of New New York that would have been unthinkable in Doctor Who a couple of years ago, and the Cat Nuns are generally a fantastic alien design.
I am actually less bothered about the Doctor working out the wonder cure at the end of the episode than you might think -- the cures were being manufactured based on the diseases that the all have, so there is some logic that it would work in reverse. It is not totally realistic, and much more important symbolically that literally. It does suffer somewhat as being similar to the end of The Doctor Dances.
I'd rate The Christmas Invasion above New Earth. New Earth is a fairly average Doctor Who story, where The Christmas Invasion is an above average one.
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