Doctor Who TV Show

The quintessential “mortgage lifter” for many a financially flagging PBS station, the long-running British science fiction series Doctor Who was not always a big favorite in America. The series detailed the wide-ranging adventures of Doctor Who, a 750-year-old denizen of the planet Gallifrey, who came to earth in human form by way of a London police call box. In truth, it wasn’t a call box at all, but instead the doctor’s TARDIS, a vehicle which enabled him to travel through space and time. Garbed in a floppy hat, tattered overcoat, and colorful muffler, and hopelessly addicted to “jelly babies,” Doctor Who embarked upon his various journeys through the cosmos, accompanied by a succession of attractive female earthlings. Debuting in England on November 23, 1963, Doctor Who ended up the longest-running science fiction series of its kind in TV history, remaining in active production until the fall of 1989 (not counting the 1965 feature film Doctor Who & the Daleks and a brace of “revival” episodes in 1993 and 1996).

Since no one actor could be expected to devote his life to the series, it was decided early on for Doctor Who to be periodically “regenerated,” obtaining a new body and personality in the process. Thus, the character was portrayed by eight different actors: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and Paul McGann (Richard Hurndall briefly essayed the role in the series’ special 20th anniversary episode in 1983). Though incredibly popular in England and Europe, the series had a hard time getting started in the United States. Time-Life Inc. offered the series for commercial syndication in 1970, 1972, and 1978. Each time, station managers were either resistant to the property or ran the program in “fringe” time slots, often showing the serialized episodes out of their proper order. It helped matters not at all that American TV reviewers poked cruel fun at the series, reserving their nastiest comments for the program’s tacky production values (which, to dyed-in-the-wool fans, was actually part of its charm). Only when the series began popping up on local PBS stations in the late ’70s did Doctor Who finally build up a loyal and dedicated fan following in America. By the mid-’80s, the series was one of the highest-rated noncommercial programs on the market, literally rescuing more than one educational TV outlet from bankruptcy. The BBC revived Doctor Who in 2005, with a new cast.

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Doctor Who: The Stolen Earth

(S04E12) Russell T. Davies seems to include everyone and the kitchen sink in this episode. Appearing in the parent program are Captain Jack, Ianto and Gwen from Torchwood and Sarah Jane and Luke Smith from The Sarah Jane Adventures. Also making appearances are Martha Jones, Martha’s mother Francine, Harriet Jones (former Prime Minister…yes, we know who you are), and British celebrities Richard Dawkins (real-life husband of former Doctor Who companion Lalla Ward) and Paul O’Grady as themselves. Oh, and Rose is back.

The Daleks prove themselves to be the cockroaches of the universe when they once again save themselves from extinction. I find it hard to believe that the emergency temporal shift of Dalek Caan at the end of “Evolution of the Daleks” saved Davros (who is a marvelous combination of Hitler and Stephen Hawking) from certain death in the Time War. Why could a Dalek, no matter how enhanced, get through the time lock on the event? Caan’s insane, precognitive ramblings are kind of fun to watch. No Dalek has ever behaved like that before.

I like how the Medusa Cascade and the Shadow Proclamation are finally defined. The Shadow Proclamation is a weird name for a police force though. Why wasn’t it mentioned in the Judoon’s first appearance in “Smith and Jones” that they worked for the Shadow Proclamation? Did I miss that part? At least we now know why the bees went missing and we get a piece of the puzzle regarding the missing planets.

I liked how the sets from Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures are used for those scenes involving the characters. It’s a good way for the series to save money by using pre-built sets.

The episode was building to a Doctor/Rose reunion, but that was interrupted by a Dalek gun. To my knowledge, this is the first time the Doctor has ever been directly shot by a Dalek. The Dalek guns scramble organic matter, so you’d think they would prevent regeneration. Still, what a great cliffhanger! We all know that David Tennant is signed through next year, so what will happen with the regeneration? Will the Doctor regenerate into Tennant again? Will some sort of timey-wimey stuff happen that prevents it from happening in the first place? Will he regenerate into someone new and next year’s episodes will be “missing” ones? Will they retcon the first four seasons? The mind boggles.

It’s interesting how former-Prime Minister Harriet Jones reappears in a situation much like the one she once described to the Doctor, in which the Earth is in danger and he isn’t there to help. This resulted in the Doctor getting her thrown out of office and I find it hard to believe she doesn’t hold a grudge. We never did see her actually exterminated. I liked how Harriet Jones’ sub-wave network was designed by Mr. Copper, an extra-terrestrial that the Doctor met in “Voyage of the Damned” (he didn’t strike me as an engineer, though).

The core scene of the episode has to be when one of the women working for the Shadow Proclamation approach Donna while she’s sitting on some stairs. The woman apologizes for the loss that is yet to come. One storyline has been blatantly missing in this episode: the one involving the return of the Master from last season. It would better explain how Dalek Caan got through the time lock. What was with the sound of the heartbeat at the beginning of the scene? And how did Donna get the ring she’s wearing?

This episodes represents the culmination of storylines from all four seasons of the relaunched Doctor Who and is loads of fun to watch, even if the plot is so riddled with holes that one could drive a truck through them. The non-stop action and fun in-jokes and references of the episode make up for the superficial plotting. I look forward to next week’s season finale.

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