David is coming to New Who for the first time, having loved Classic Who as a kid. Tehani is a recent convert, and ploughed through Seasons 1 to 6 (so far) in just a few weeks after becoming addicted thanks to Matt Smith – she’s rewatching to keep up with David! Tansy is the expert in the team, with a history in Doctor Who fandom that goes WAY back, and a passion for Doctor Who that inspires us all.

We are working our way through New Who, using season openers and closers, and Hugo shortlisted episodes, and sometimes a couple of extra episodes we love as our blogging points. Just for fun!

“Turn Left” – S04E11
The Doctor – David Tennant
Donna Noble – Catherine Tate
Rose Tyler – Billie Piper

TEHANI:
So here we are at “Turn Left”, the only other Hugo nominated episode from this season, which I think is a bit sad because the Doctor/Donna season is one of my favourites. We just passed “Midnight”, which despite being Donna-lite, is really rather exceptional, I thought. Certainly one of the creepier episodes, with a good hard look at human nature (and, weirdly, it reminds me of how reality tv shows work, when they shove a bunch of strangers into a small space and see what happens). Lesley Sharp as Sky Silvestry is really quite marvellous, doing some incredible dialogue with Tennant. And of course we get a bonus fandom points with Colin Morgan (Merlin) as Jethro and David Troughton (yes, Patrick Troughton’s son!) as Professor Hobbes.

TANSY:
I think that “Midnight” was definitely worth a nomination, though possibly not at the expense of the two stories picked – what, we couldn’t get our usual three spots for the Hugo Ballot?? I also think it’s RTD writing at his best. It feels like that is the one where he is trying least hard to impress us all with showiness and grandeur, and the small scale of the production combined with bang-up performances and script was really very effective. Seeing Merlin with cool hair is quite personally distressing to me.

DAVID:
It’s definitely a strong ending to the season! Was RTD (Russell T Davies) still the showrunner at this point, or did he have more editorial constraints? “Midnight” was a wonderfully claustrophobic episode, with some excellent performances, though I thought that the speed with which they turned on Sky was a little convenient. I was a little in awe of Lesley Sharp’s performance, that dialogue must have been terribly difficult!

TANSY:
He was still the showrunner – and I’m glad he chose now to remind everyone that he is in fact a kick ass, world class scriptwriter. Sometimes.

TEHANI:
As “Midnight” was Donna-lite, “Turn Left” is Doctor-lite, which I think is really interesting – the same as “Blink” made the Hugo-voters take notice, another fairly Tennant-less episode made the grade here (although unlike “Blink”, it didn’t get the gong that year, losing to Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog). But I wonder how much of the vote was for Catherine Tate’s fabulous portrayal of Donna, and how much was for the fact of Rose? I want to hope it was for Donna, but you never know.

TANSY:
I don’t think it’s necessarily the lack of Tennant that made this episode or indeed “Blink” particularly good, but the ones that Hugo nominators tend to notice are often those that break the mould or formula in some way.

Xena is the only other show I watched obsessively that had a similarly small ensemble (two main characters, rotating but no other regular support characters) and therefore had to do Protagonist-Lite episodes, both for Xena and Gabrielle. And while they often had brilliant material together, it was when one of them was gone that the scriptwriters really had to pull out all the stops because so much of their regular toolbox (and the reliable chemistry between the two actors) was missing. I could easily assemble a list of more than a dozen wonderful episodes of Xena which only featured one of the main leads, and it doesn’t surprise me at all that the episodes lacking the Doctor, the companion or both of them tend to be exceptional or at least very memorable.

I do think that it is very possible to tell a story entirely about the Doctor without showing him on screen, and that’s very much what we’re getting here. The story is absolutely a showcase for Catherine Tate, and one in the eye for anyone who thought she couldn’t cut it as a dramatic actress, but it’s also a story of a world without the Doctor, and what that might look like.

DAVID:
Catherine Tate is simply amazing in this. She is such a natural comedian that I think it can be easy to overlook her dramatic skills, but here she has a chance to show us what she is really made of, and hits it out of the park. The way that RTD explores her family dynamics provides some genuinely moving moments, and gives us a real insight into how her and her mother interact, in particular. Though, Bernard Cribbins is his usual excellent self!

TANSY:
Sylvia is marvellous in this – some great character growth for all of them. And I think it’s really essential to look at this family and see how they cope with horrible, life-changing circumstances without a bloke in his magic box – they’re not fine but they are surviving and all of them pull together. Wilf’s wartime spirit and Sylvia’s slow acceptance of their situation are both conveyed very well and most of all we see how resilient Donna is.

DAVID:
In this Doctor Who version of It’s a Wonderful Life, we get a convincing alternate world and see just how much impact the Doctor has in even that short period of time. I really liked how we see that there are people who still step up to try and save the world, but that the cost is so much higher without the Doctor there. But, as much as we see the importance of the Doctor, it’s even more fascinating to see how important Donna is. Right throughout Doctor Who the companions make much more difference than they realise, they aren’t just hangers on or a support act to the Doctor, and this is a great example of why.

TEHANI:
Okay, so I know I’m not the best judge of this, but I DO listen when other people discuss this stuff – am I right in thinking that New Who does this FAR better than Classic Who did? The companions are almost always shown to be really important, whether they actively save the day, or are just the moral compass that is there with the Doctor. And I don’t think this was as evident in Classic Who.

TANSY:
While I am an active defender of the companions of Classic Who, it’s true that the narrative of the show rarely gave them the kind of agency we get in New Who – while there were companions who were allowed actual growth and change through their run, you often get the impression that when it happened it was half accidental and half down to the actor in question portraying that despite the scripts. Very few of them got a) consistent, detailed backstory, b) family and friends back home, c) a coherent story arc or d) a leaving story worthy of them, and certainly few of them got more than one or two of those elements.

Even Ace, who was the last proper companion of Classic Who and is often held up as a forerunner to Rose (in all but the romantic aspect) was not given the same ‘protagonist here, coming through’ central role that Billie Piper’s character and her successors had.

Having said all that, one of the best examples of character development and the companions driving the plot comes with Ian and Barbara at the very beginning of the show, so you could argue that New Who is building upon something that was an essential element of the original 1960’s Doctor Who. At least, I would argue that!

RTD’s era of the show certainly pushes the idea that being around the Doctor turns ordinary people into heroes, but “Turn Left” goes one better by showing they can do that without him, too.

DAVID:
I largely agree with Tansy’s argument here, however I think you can point to a number of examples of how being around the Doctor pushed some of the Classic Companions into far more heroic roles. Romana played a major part in many of her stories, though it could be argued that she developed more in the tie in novels, as did Sarah Jane who, as we know, went off to be the star of her own show. And of course, Adric died saving the Earth (I think he is a vastly underrated companion, and one of the reasons I was disappointed that they didn’t persevere with Adam Mitchell).

Funnily enough, when it comes to one of the characters given the most interesting backstory you can hardly claim that it was intended all along – I am sure that Turlough’s revelations were written on the fly! [Tansy wrote a great article about this.]

But, it was far from the deliberate writing of arcs that we saw in New Who, which probably has as much to do with the changing nature of television as Doctor Who itself. The fact that you have to search for those examples, and that they are far less involved than almost every companion in New Who backs up Tansy’s argument.

The big thing with Classic Who was the secondary character dying a noble death. It was pretty much a given, if you started to like one of the supporting acts or there was a complex, interesting character, their days were numbered and they would likely die in the last ditch effort to foil whatever end of the world event was in progress.

I much preferred this Rose. She has such a great sense of purpose, and helps set up the finale so very well. There is an ominous feel to her appearances, especially when she says “I am so sorry”, always a scary thing to hear in Doctor Who! And the scene at the end with the “Bad Wolf” stuff – spectacular!

TANSY:
I actually really like Rose’s return in this season too, especially in this episode. The fact that she is there instead of the Doctor to point the way for Donna is pretty exceptional, and I like how tough and competent she is now. She’s all grown up!

It’s also quite nice to see her being awesome even when the Doctor isn’t around – there’s a kind of double theme going on with the various returns of companions in this season, which is that 1) the companions do much of their “levelling up” after parting company with the Doctor and 2) he doesn’t always like what they turn into when he’s not around to influence them. In this case Rose doesn’t meet the Doctor at all, so we don’t have to deal with that second part of it.

TEHANI:
I definitely liked Rose better in this than I did in her actual run. Possibly it’s actually due (in part at least) to an improvement in Billie Piper’s acting *ducks for cover* but I think it’s mostly because she’s a proactive player in the story, and I liked that.

DAVID:
That’s it, isn’t it? These are the companions who have left the nest and gone out on their own, who have grown up. And, like any parent, sometimes the Doctor struggles with the idea that they aren’t his “children” anymore!

TEHANI:
What did we think about the back bug thing? I’m still not sure I completely understand how that one works – do I need to employ hand-wavery?

TANSY:
I loved the concept – not only did the creepy ‘something on your back’ remind me of the Spiders, my favourite Classic Who monster, but I think it’s also quite clever – basically a time parasite that also works as a fairy tale concept? So it allows/forces a person to make a different life choice back in their timeline, and feeds on the resulting energy, which makes it similar to the Weeping Angels, actually.

DAVID:
I found the parasite very creepy! I remember walking through a web in the dark once and not realising for quite awhile that I now had a passenger in the form of a massive orb spider on my back. So, a bit too close to home. *shudder*

It was probably a bit more effective when we only saw glimpses, but lots of monsters are like that. I do agree, the concept of a time parasite is quite clever. I’ve always enjoyed the idea of time having its own ecosystem and would love to see it explored a bit more. We had the Chronovores in Classic Who, and I am trying to think of a few more examples – I am sure there must be!

TANSY:
There were the Reapers in “Father’s Day” that turned up to ‘sterilise the wound in time’ – but my favourite example of this is the vortisaurs in Big Finish – like time pterodactyls that live in the time vortex! But I agree, this is a great idea that perhaps has a lot more potential to be re-used in the future. The Doctor may be ‘Time’s Champion’ but you can see how anyone with a greater understanding to time might see him as more of a vandal and saboteur…

TEHANI:
Ooh, and Tansy, MARKETPLACE! That’s what I kept thinking of when the Verity! podcast team were discussing “The Rings of Akhaten” a few weeks ago! (sorry David, no other talking about things you haven’t seen yet!)

TANSY:
Yes, this is the closest thing we get to a space marketplace before that episode we’re not going to discuss – though as I recall it caused a few eyebrows to go up because of the racial stereotyping. On the one hand it’s quite nice to arrive on a planet which isn’t defaulting to white or Anglo culture, on the other hand it does feel a touch like wandering through a pantomime of Aladdin. (we totally went to a small town pantomime of Aladdin the Christmas before last and omg it was DEEPLY uncomfortable, I was squirming as I watched a bunch of white Aussie kids in yellowface making chop suey jokes and all I could think over and over again was “I am so glad the internet is not in this audience”.)

At least they did cast actual Asian actors. So there’s that. And the marketplace is a tiny, discrete bit of this episode, so you can (I think) enjoy the story regardless. The actual performance of Tennant and Tate wandering through the space market is pretty awesome, though it’s not my FAVOURITE market wandering scene in this season which is of course back in “The Fires of Pompeii”.

DAVID:
I am afraid I am going to put my name down in the unimpressed camp here. I remember when I watched it wondering if there was any sort of controversy over it, because I found it very stereotypical. Not so much the market itself, but the scenes inside the tent seemed very heavy handed to me. Not “The Talons of Weng-Chiang” bad, though, but hopefully we are setting a higher bar than that!

TANSY:
Yep sadly ‘slightly less racist than “The Talons of Weng-Chiang”’ is not something anyone would want on their CV.

DAVID:
Overall, though, I think RTD has delivered a stand out episode here, and one that sets us up for a stunning finale…

TEHANI:
I think you’re right – loved the focus on Donna, really enjoyed Rose this time around, and yes, “stunning” (in all its connotations) is one word for what comes next…

Previous Episodes
“Rose”, S01E01
“Dalek”, S01E06
“Father’s Day”, S01E08
“The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances”, S01E09/10
“Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways”, S01E12/13
Season One Report Card – David, Tansy, Tehani
“The Christmas Invasion”, 2005 Christmas Special
“New Earth”, S02E01
“School Reunion”, S02E03
“The Girl in the Fireplace”, S02E04
“Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel”, S02E05/06
“Army of Ghosts/Doomsday”, S02E12/13
Season Two Report Card – David, Tansy, Tehani
“Smith and Jones”, S03E01
“The Shakespeare Code/Gridlock”, S03E02/03″
“Human Nature/Family of Blood”. S03E08/09″
“Blink”. S03E10″
“Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Timelords”, S03E12/13/14
Classic Who Conversation podcast – Spearhead from Space (1970)
Season Three Report Card – David, Tansy, Tehani
Classic Who Conversation podcast – Genesis of the Daleks (1975)
“Partners in Crime”, S04E01
“The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky, S04E0708”
“Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, S04E0910”

David is coming to New Who for the first time, having loved Classic Who as a kid. Tehani is a recent convert, and ploughed through Seasons 1 to 6 (so far) in just a few weeks after becoming addicted thanks to Matt Smith – she’s rewatching to keep up with David! Tansy is the expert in the team, with a history in Doctor Who fandom that goes WAY back, and a passion for Doctor Who that inspires us all.

We are working our way through New Who, using season openers and closers, and Hugo shortlisted episodes, and sometimes a couple of extra episodes we love as our blogging points. Just for fun!

We would like to thank everyone who nominated our “New Who in Conversation” series for the William Atheling Jr Award again this year – it’ was great honour to be on the ballot!

“Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead” – S04E0910
The Doctor – David Tennant
Donna Noble – Catherine Tate
River Song – Alex Kingston

TEHANI:

We skip ahead again to the first Hugo nomination for the fourth season (there were only two Doctor Who episodes shortlisted that year – well, three, but this counts as a single nomination). This is interesting to me, as the fourth season – Donna’s season – is definitely one of my favourites. More competition in that year?

The two episodes between our last post and this one were “The Doctor’s Daughter” and “The Unicorn and the Wasp”. Although “The Doctor’s Daughter” is a bit off in pacing and emotional points for me, I do think it’s a fascinating episode, particularly in hindsight! I think Moffat has well and truly riffed off this episode in recent times, but I can’t say more than that until David catches up! I like that we get a bit more Martha/Donna/Doctor, and watching this again after our recent viewing of “Genesis of the Daleks” made me laugh because it felt like there are a lot of similarities there! Just me?

TANSY:

I think “The Doctor’s Daughter” is a bit of a mess but can’t really pinpoint why – there are so many bits that are individually good, but somehow it never quite reaches cohesion for me. But yes seeing Martha back in the crew is pretty awesome.

DAVID:

I quite enjoyed “The Doctor’s Daughter”, but I agree – it did have a bit of a “Genesis of the Daleks” feel! I could watch a whole season of Martha/Doctor/Donna, I really could.

TANSY:
Two companions in the TARDIS is the best thing! And it happens so rarely with two women. Martha and Donna together were just plain love. (We almost didn’t need the Doctor!)

TEHANI:

“The Unicorn and the Wasp” is a lot of fun, another historical based on a literary figure (Agatha Christie) – written by the same person as “The Shakespeare Code”! I love that the fact Agatha disappeared for 10 days with no explanation is a REAL THING and could be used by the show like that. Not sure the humour of the episode always worked for me, but it was fun.

TANSY:

I really like that one – especially for the Doctor and Donna comedy team, but also I enjoy Agatha Christie stuff generally and Fenella Woolgar is spectacular in the role. Plus Felicity Kendall in Doctor Who for the first time. The plot resolution is silly but I still have a fondness.

DAVID:

I had to jump on Wikipedia to see whether the disappearance was for real! It’s one of those incredible historical facts that authors love – so many story ideas. I enjoyed this episode a great deal, it was a nice little play on all those British shows I watch with the family. From Miss Marple to Midsomer Murders, it riffed beautifully on the genre, while still managing to add a few little twists. And, David Tennant had way too much fun playing the detective! The byplay between the Doctor and Donna in this is absolutely wonderful, and we see Catherine Tate’s vast comedic talent given room to shine. Just love her when they go to the party!

TANSY:
I would take Donna time travelling with me any day of the week.

TEHANI:

And now, “Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead”. Where to start?! RIVER SONG! BIG PLANET LIBRARY! HORRIBLE SCARY SHADOWS!

TANSY:
Everything I say about River Song will be a spoiler for David. I don’t know how to handle this at all.

DAVID:

I could close my eyes? But then an angel might get me…!

I’m quite liking these little intros at the start of episodes. it’s a wonderful setup with the little girl (and what a great performance throughout, I must say). One of the things I personally enjoy when it is done well is the contrast between a mundane, domestic setting and whatever the spec fic element of a story is, and I think here it is particularly effective. It’s a great hook, and the rest of the episode certainly doesn’t disappoint.

Moving on to the episode itself, the first thing I thought was how much I would give to go to a library like that! And, I loved the concept of people not being able to give up paper copies of books, though of course it is a very human-centric view of what books look like (insert gratuitous plug for Ken Liu’s wonderful “The Book Keeping Habits of Select Species” here). It’s a beautiful slow burn of mood setting, as we realise that something is not quite right.

TEHANI:

That library! Right up there with the Beast’s library in the Disney version… I’m a librarian, let me drool!

TANSY:
The lack of people in it not only makes the episodes more affordable, but makes it better in my eyes. One of the more spectacular and clever sets that they have come up with as far as alien landscapes … so far.

DAVID:

One of the things I admire so much about Moffat is that he does emotions so well. There are some really moving moments in this episode where he gets the balance just right, though of course that is helped by some excellent performances by the actor. The scene with Miss Evangelista was particularly powerful. He does a great job of making us feel sorry for her to start with, and then the pathos of her death scene really hits hard. You can sense the shame of the other characters, and Donna’s reaction is a masterful piece of acting and writing.

TANSY:
I agree that in this era the Moffat stories are generally the ones that feel most human to me. He’s also very good at creating characters that you get very quickly, though they’re never completely standard archetypes. Miss Evangelista is a great creation – the character who is pretty and dumb and no one likes because of that, and then such a horrible fate – ugh. And her redemption in cyberspace.

TEHANI:

Moffat is a master of taking the ordinary and everyday and mundane and turning it into something to scare the pants off us! Statues, shadows, stuff we can’t talk about yet because David isn’t caught up…

DAVID:

Yes, yes – I must catch up! lol

Another moment I found extremely effective was where Doctor Moon asks to speak to Charlotte alone, and tells her that her nightmares are real, and that the world is not. Just the change from his normal manner, and the complete unexpectedness, gave me chills. He was great the whole way through, though. I found it interesting how many times Moffat managed to toy with my expectations, I wasn’t sure whether Moon was bad or a good guy for a quite a while, and my initial dissatisfaction with what I thought was very a stereotypical character in the form of Strackman was turned on its head when we discover he is actually just trying to help his ancestor, a little girl. That’s the sort of thing that turns this from good writing into great writing.

TEHANI:

Rewatching this I had to laugh at Doctor Moon, because he’s one of a few DW actors to show up in Arrow, which has just hit our screens here! They’re poaching all the people…

TANSY:

I am enjoying Arrow as a guilty pleasure – not only does it have Captain Jack and Doctor Moon but a certain Doctor Song is supposed to turn up before the season is out… Cast David Tennant as Green Lantern for Season 2 please! And Billie Piper would make a much better Black Canary than the one currently inhabiting the role…

Cough. There’s so much packed into this story that I often forget about some of the narrative threads and narratives, ie. any scene Alex Kingston isn’t in. But the Doctor Moon stuff is so creepy and effective, where we don’t know what’s real and what isn’t. And, more to the point, we don’t know whether “Cal” is a victim or something scarier.

TEHANI:

The whole created world thing, especially for Donna, just made me so sad! Poor Donna lived a life in there, with a wonderful fellow, and then lost it all. I know it wasn’t REAL, but it was, to her!

DAVID:

Another reason for me to put Arrow on my “to watch” list! Ahem, after I have caught up on New Who, of course.

I felt so sorry for Donna, that was so sad. Tate is magnificent, too, she really makes the emotions so convincing. That moment where she promises never to close her eyes, and then the children are gone … sigh. And, the whole love story with her husband, and then losing him and the moment he is on the teleporter made get a little sniffly. I really hope that she finds him again.

TANSY:

It’s a tragic story, though to add a controversial note I might add – how much did that picture perfect romance/family actually feel like Donna? It’s certainly not anything like the future she is imagining for herself over the rest of the season when she tells the Doctor she plans to stay with him forever (NEVER SAY THIS, COMPANIONS).

TEHANI:

Okay, fair call – though in light of what comes later… Hard to say!

TANSY:

But I want to ask David a question: what do you think about River Song? Had you been spoiled about her before you reached this point? I remember when this story first came out it started all kinds of discussions – many fans resented her smugness for knowing more about some things than the Doctor. And others (like me) were desperate to see her back and started counting down the episodes to come with alarm, trying to figure out if a return trip could be scheduled in before David Tennant left the role…

DAVID:

I’ve done a reasonably good job of avoiding spoilers so far, though there are some things you just can’t miss. For example, I know there are some people called the Ponds coming up and I knew that there would be angels that you should avoid blinking around, even if I didn’t know why! Your blog is a dangerous place, incidentally!

TEHANI:

But now you know why we often say, “Spoilers, sweetie”!!

DAVID:

You’ve both been very good at not spoiling me!

So, I had heard the name River Song before, but I had managed to avert my eyes. I think I have made it pretty clear I am a little conservative about Doctor Who and relationships, but I have to say that I much preferred his dynamic with River Song than, for example, Rose. There was a much greater sense of them being on a reasonably equal footing in their relationship (even though the Doctor didn’t know who she was!) and the idea of her being from the Doctor’s future was quite compelling. They’ve touch on the idea of the Doctor’s future impacting his past a little before (“Battlefield” being an example that springs to mind), but not to this degree, but it does make sense. I’m looking forward to seeing more of River Song, she seems like a great character. She’s intelligent, capable and completely unawed by the Doctor, which I find much more enjoyable to watch.

TEHANI:

OOH! Maybe we’ll get a River/Ten interaction in the anniversary episode!

TANSY:

Could happen.

Previous Episodes
“Rose”, S01E01
“Dalek”, S01E06
“Father’s Day”, S01E08
“The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances”, S01E09/10
“Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways”, S01E12/13
Season One Report Card – David, Tansy, Tehani
“The Christmas Invasion”, 2005 Christmas Special
“New Earth”, S02E01
“School Reunion”, S02E03
“The Girl in the Fireplace”, S02E04
“Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel”, S02E05/06
“Army of Ghosts/Doomsday”, S02E12/13
Season Two Report Card – David, Tansy, Tehani
“Smith and Jones”, S03E01
“The Shakespeare Code/Gridlock”, S03E02/03″
“Human Nature/Family of Blood”. S03E08/09″
“Blink”. S03E10″
“Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Timelords”, S03E12/13/14
Classic Who Conversation podcast – Spearhead from Space (1970)
Season Three Report Card – David, Tansy, Tehani
Classic Who Conversation podcast – Genesis of the Daleks (1975)
“Partners in Crime”, S04E01
“The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky, S04E0910”

David is coming to New Who for the first time, having loved Classic Who as a kid. Tehani is a recent convert, and ploughed through Seasons 1 to 6 (so far) in just a few weeks after becoming addicted thanks to Matt Smith – she’s rewatching to keep up with David! Tansy is the expert in the team, with a history in Doctor Who fandom that goes WAY back, and a passion for Doctor Who that inspires us all.

We are working our way through New Who, using season openers and closers, and Hugo shortlisted episodes, and sometimes a couple of extra episodes we love as our blogging points. Just for fun!

We would like to thank everyone who nominated our “New Who in Conversation” series for the William Atheling Jr Award again this year – it’s a great honour to be on the ballot! Voting for the annual Ditmar Awards (which the Atheling is included in) is open to all members of  Craftinomicon (2012 Natcon – Melbourne) and Conflux 9 (2013 Natcon – Canberra), and can be done online.

“The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky” – S04E0506
The Doctor – David Tennant
Donna Noble – Catherine Tate

TEHANI:

Righto, so we’ve skipped over “The Fires of Pompeii” and “Planet of the Ood”, moving along to “The Sontaran Strategem/Poison Sky” double episode (not Hugo nominated, but Tansy felt they were important to talk about – we agreed!). I would like to mention a couple of things about the preceding two episodes though. In “The Fires of Pompeii”, we saw Donna make the Doctor to rescue just one family from the eruption, effectively forcing him to remember that EVERYONE MATTERS, and clearly setting her up as his conscience and moral compass. This is interesting when followed by “Planet of the Ood”, when his compassion is demonstrated in his fight to save the Ood despite their apparently murderous tendencies. Donna’s impact is swift and cannot be overstated, as it becomes so important later on!

DAVID:

“Planet of the Ood” is an excellent episode, because it highlights the idea of the Doctor as an outsider who challenges the status quo of the times and places that he and his companions arrive in. The episode manages to ask some important moral questions and has some genuinely creepy and shocking moments, like when we find out what their translation sphere has actually replaced.

And, I always enjoy a good historical episode, especially one where we know exactly what *has* to happen to fit into history as we know it, and wonder how the Doctor is going to save the day (or the people in the episode that we care about) given that catastrophe is going to strike, no matter what.

TANSY:
“The Fires of Pompeii” is one of my favourites. Not only did they use some of the very authentic sets from HBO’s Rome, but they also used some really delicious snippets of real Roman social history. And Donna is wonderful in it. He needs her so much … and it’s wonderful to see how much she blossoms and grows in confidence as she realises that.

TEHANI:

Two good episodes to set us on the right path for the Donna/Doctor relationship. And then we come to “The Sontaran Strategem/Poison Sky” duo!

DAVID:

Given the title, it is hardly a spoiler to talk about how excited I was to see the return of one of my favourite alien races from Classic Who. I always loved the concept of the Sontarans and their endless war with the Rutans, so this was a bit of a fanboy moment. We’ve noted how there has been a concerted effort to show the New Who is a continuation of what has gone before, and it always thrills me to see one of the familiar foes of the Doctor. They may not be the Daleks, but the Sontarans have certainly given the Doctor some trouble. In fact, they are one of the few races to successfully attack Gallifrey itself, IIRC.

TANSY:
Oh, Sontarans. I love them. I may love them more that Cybermen and Daleks, even if mostly when I think of them it’s of the first appearance of one Sontaran in “The Time Warrior”, a wonderful Pertwee story which was also Sarah Jane Smith’s debut.

I really like what the new series has done with this classic monster, and this story by Helen Rayner (the only female writer of the new series!) is a really good reintroduction to them. The premise of the Sontarans as a ruthless clone race eternally at war, and their motives for what they are doing to the Earth in this particular strategem of theirs, all comes together really nicely. The clone aspect was not overly significant in the old series, so I like the way that is emphasised here along with the military obsessions.

They’re short but feisty! I know some fans winced a bit at the Sontar haka, but I loved it as a pointed, effective way to show what the Sontarans are like to a modern audience. It’s also great to see Christopher Ryan back in Doctor Who playing the leader, and oh I did spot Dan Starkey and the gap between his teeth as one (or many?) of the less high ranked Sontarans. I WONDER IF HE’LL BE IMPORTANT TO US IN THE FUTURE.

TEHANI:

There’s a lot to like about these episodes. I hadn’t encountered Sontarans before, from memory, and it was good to revisit this double episode in light of more recent ones! I got a bit annoyed with the American genius this time around (hello, X-Men riff, anyone?) but the tie-back of the work of the genius school to the ending was well done.

TANSY:
I don’t think you’re supposed to like him! I think the idea is that if you had a super SUPER genius kid (which is a common SF trope) who also happened to be a millionaire then realistically they would be more likely to end up a supervillain than a hero. Also, he had been less annoying his sacrifice would have been far more tragic. I really love the scene where his fellow students use to join him on his quest because it’s just not a good idea. His grand plans come to nothing because they’re not sociopaths. It’s a very effective moment.

TEHANI:

I thoroughly enjoyed Wilf again – he’s just fabulous! And I liked the little nods to continuity: in particular, “Are you my mummy?” made me giggle out loud!

DAVID:

Of course, Wilf and the Sontarans aren’t the only familiar faces to pop up in this episode! There is another moment for the old school fans with the return of UNIT, but I think everyone would have been delighted to see the return of Martha. I like this version of Martha, I thought she showed that she had grown as a person since she had left the Doctor and was a bit more mature and more sure of herself that she had been previously.

TANSY:

Oh Martha, I do love her really. So glad to have her over that whole crush thing and she can get on with being awesome. I feel like she gets a bad rap as a companion because the crush on the Doctor gets more and more annoying in hindsight and it’s hard for many fans to see past that. I worry I might be one of those fans.

But she’s so good here – she’s found her own life and the fact that it’s one the Doctor disapproves of it’s actually quite satisfying. I am not keen on the whole ‘UNIT pushed my degree through’ aspect, though, would prefer it if she had qualified properly and this was a few years later.

Martha and Donna together are one of the great joyful aspects of new series Doctor Who, and it’s sad that it didn’t last long. Even less time than Jack-Rose-Nine, sob! The scene in which the Doctor expects them to fight and instead they hug and start gossiping and refuse to be jealous of each other is GLORIOUS and THE BEST THING EVER.

DAVID:

It’s definitely refreshing to see two woman NOT fighting over a man in a TV series, rather than the usual trope. There was an element of that in “School Reunion”, for example, that I didn’t really enjoy. It makes sense to me that Martha and Donna would bond over the shared frustrations of travelling with the Doctor. After all, how many people are you ever going to get to talk to who understand what it is like? So, I am glad that they went that way with their encounter.

As I’ve said before, Martha is one of my favourite aspects of New Who, and it is great to see that she hasn’t simply stopped living her life because of the Doctor, but is getting on with things and being who she wants to be. Just like we know Sarah Jane did, whatever “School Reunion” might have implied!

TEHANI:

It’s definitely nice to see more of Martha, and find out that yes, she’s doing pretty well actually. It makes me even more sad for what happens to certain other companions when they leave the TARDIS…

TANSY:

Having UNIT back is also important to me, and while they’ve flirted with it in the past this is the first one that feels like a real UNIT story. It does however make me miss Nicholas Courtney quite fiercely. The Doctor gets to use military resources while grumbling about guns, which is a nice Doctorish thing to do. His misappropriation of Ross into a kind of alternative companion was really sweet and I like that Ross had a snarky sense of humour that came out after an hour or two in the Doctor’s company. We like Ross! Don’t kill off Ross!

(I do think that the Doctor went a bit far with chiding the general at the end for not treating Ross like a real person after his death – DUDE, think about how many letters home this man has had to write in his career, put your judgy hat back on the judgy hatstand…)

One aspect of this story that I think could easily get lost in all the awesomesauce is the great use of Sylvia, Donna’s mum. Sylvia is a hard character to like, because her role is to show us all the reasons Donna doesn’t think she’s worth anything, and to balance out the supportiveness of Wilf. But I think they realised their mistake with Francine in the previous season, who was written as so unrelentingly horrible (all her scenes have her complaining about Martha or someone else in her family, and then she betrays Martha and then she hates the Master – she never gets to crack a smile).

Sylvia then gets some nice positive moments amongst all the negative ones, and it’s good because we really need to sympathise with her later in the season, and this is the story that sets us up to do that. The cliffhanger in the middle of this one is one of my favourites – Wilf is trapped in the car choking to death, the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver can’t get him out of the car, and the same thing is happening to everyone around the world. the Doctor is in total despair … and when the second episode starts, Sylvia (last seen cowering in her doorway) turns up with an AXE because she’s not an IDIOT, and does the obvious but still valiant thing of smashing the window in to save her dad.

TEHANI:

The mum/daughter relationships of New Who are interesting. Rose and Martha do still clearly love their mums, despite the flaws we are shown, but Donna, being a bit older, is less obviously a loving daughter. Part of that could also be she gets to have a much more supportive relationship with Wilf, but I agree Tansy, it’s good to see Sylvia get to be a bit of a hero in that scene. And perhaps the companions’ families are something to chat more about when we get to Amy and Rory, eh… Interesting to see what effects a different show runner has!

TANSY:

I know that Jackie has had a massive re-evaluation by fans retrospectively (and some of us loved her all along) and she’s still the cuddliest of the mums, but I do appreciate Sylvia more and more. She’s every bit as trapped in mundanity as Donna was – where was the Doctor thirty years ago, eh? A trip in the TARDIS back then could have done her the world of good.

DAVID:

By the end, I had grown to appreciate Jackie a whole lot more, but Francine really grated on me. I think it is a mistake to write completely unsympathetic characters because, really, it’s very hard to keep them believable. Francine sometimes seemed more like a plot device, acting in certain ways to ensure the story went in a certain direction, rather than a real person. I’m looking forward to seeing where they go with Sylvia, and the whole dynamic of Donna’s family, because already it is very interesting.

TEHANI:

I never really minded Francine – I felt like she’d had a pretty rough trot with Martha’s dad, and her bitterness was quite understandable! And in all, she really was just trying to look out for Martha, only she had no clue what was going on.

To bring us back to these episodes, I was pleased with the ending – I thought boy genius Rattigan’s sacrifice to save the Earth was logical and nicely redeeming.

And I’m interested to know what David thought of the cameo appearance of Rose again?

DAVID:

Didn’t she do something similar in “Partners in Crime”? It’s intriguing, I assume it is setting up for something in future episodes. I never really believed that Rose was completely cut off from the main universe, I had a feeling that she’d be back at some point. But, I hope we find out she has moved on from the Doctor, except for fond memories, and has built a fulfilling new life for herself. But, I think I might be setting myself up for disappointment!

TEHANI:

Well, we should just get a hurry on through the episodes so YOU CAN FIND OUT! Onwards!

Previous Episodes
“Rose”, S01E01
“Dalek”, S01E06
“Father’s Day”, S01E08
“The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances”, S01E09/10
“Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways”, S01E12/13
Season One Report Card – David, Tansy, Tehani
“The Christmas Invasion”, 2005 Christmas Special
“New Earth”, S02E01
“School Reunion”, S02E03
“The Girl in the Fireplace”, S02E04
“Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel”, S02E05/06
“Army of Ghosts/Doomsday”, S02E12/13
Season Two Report Card – David, Tansy, Tehani
“Smith and Jones”, S03E01
“The Shakespeare Code/Gridlock”, S03E02/03″
“Human Nature/Family of Blood”. S03E08/09″
“Blink”. S03E10″
“Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Timelords”, S03E12/13/14
Classic Who Conversation podcast – Spearhead from Space (1970)
Season Three Report Card – David, Tansy, Tehani
Classic Who Conversation podcast – Genesis of the Daleks (1975)
“Partners in Crime”, S04E01