DOCTOR WHO: "THE LEGEND OF THE SEA DEVILS" (2022)

Regarding "The Legend of the Sea Devils," they had me with "pirate Sea Devils in the 19th Century." That said, while the story had its moments, and the improved Sea Devil makeup (with blinking eyes that I believe were CGI) was quite fun, not much was done with the return of this little-utilized threat from DOCTOR WHO's classic era. 

 

Unlike the Daleks and the Cybermen (and to a lesser extent, the Sontarans), the Sea Devils previously were unseen after 1972's "The Sea Devils" and 1984's"Warriors of the Deep" until the latest episode, so they have not had the opportunity to become stale from over-saturation. Therefore, the return of a beloved foe promised a lot, especially with the scenario in which they were resurrected, but we only really got one chief Sea Devil with whom the Doctor and friends interacted, and we did get to see a good number of the chief's crew, but they had no lines. And maybe I blinked, but what became of the Godzilla-sized sea monster that the Sea Devils controlled? I don't recall it being decisively dealt with by the conclusion. And do not get me started on the utter squandering of Madame Ching, a famous historical pirate

 

This story had a lot of potential that would have benefited from making it a two-parter, as there have been many stories in the rebooted series that got the two-part treatment without warranting it. The very idea of the Sea Devils as pirates in a flying pirate ship calls for epic treatment, but this being the BBC, I guess that just wasn't gonna happen. Too bad, really...

TIME RUNS OUT: R.I.P. ELISABETH SLADEN (1948-2011), THE DOCTOR'S MOST BELOVED COMPANION

Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, during her classic years on DOCTOR WHO (1973-1976).

It is with a very heavy heart that I bid a fond farewell to actress Elisabeth Sladen, known and beloved worldwide as plucky journalist Sarah Jane Smith, an ordinary Earthwoman whose life was forever changed upon meeting the Doctor and embarking on a three-year stint as a traveler through time and space on DOCTOR WHO. Sarah Jane is oft-cited as perhaps the greatest and most popular of the Doctor's many companions and she was brought back for some memorable guest appearances on the rebooted series (which began in 2005) before being spun off into THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES.

Sarah's special to us first-generation American DOCTOR WHO fans who first saw the show around 1978 or so, when it debuted in the States with the first arc featuring the fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker. Sarah first appeared as a companion to Jon Pertwee's third Doctor, sticking around after he regenerated into Baker, and she swiftly earned a dear place in the hearts of her newfound American audience. When Sarah was brought back in 2006's "School Reunion," Sladen added another layer to Sarah as she confronted the Doctor for abandoning her some twenty-nine years earlier, and the episode was emotional tour de force for both the characters and the fans.

So thank you, Miss Sladen, for all of the quality entertainment and for bringing to life an indelible everywoman who found herself constantly mired in the fantastic. I hope your passing from the scourge that is cancer was as swift as possible. To bid you good rest, I promise I'll watch "School Reunion" this evening.

Sarah Jane in the 2000's, dealing with some Slitheen scum.

THE INVASION BEGINS AT HOME

While England enjoyed its first serious snowfall in quite a while, my pal Chris Weston — uber-talented illustrator of THE TWELVE and storyboard artist for THE BOOK OF ELI — built this snow-Dalek with his sons. Go, geek-dad!

The nodes festooning the main body are coffee filters. Seriously, what's not to love?

DOCTOR WHO: SERIES FIVE-Part 3

And now, on to the final episodes of the current run!

Series Five-Episode 12: The Pandorica Opens (Part 1 of 2)

Van Gogh's depiction of the TARDIS exploding.

Within the space of this episode's first few minutes, we are bounced from France in 1890 to Churchill's headquarters in 1941 and then to locations in the year 5145, before the story proper gets underway in the Roman-occupied Britain of the 2nd Century A.D., so you just know this one's going to be big.

In the year 5145, an incarcerated River Song receives a mis-directed phone call from Winston Churchill who is searching for the Doctor, and from Churchill she receives info so startling that she immediately escapes from her cell and sets off in pursuit of what turns out to be a painting by Van Gogh that post-Impressionistically depicts the TARDIS violently exploding. Instigating the Doctor's arrival at the Roman camp (using a two-pronged scheme that made me laugh out loud), River greets him and Amy with the disturbing painting, which is entitled "The Pandorica Opens." In the earlier two-parter involving the Weeping Angels, River mentioned to the Doctor that she'd be there with him when the Pandorica, an object believed to be myth, opens, so now the Doctor is spurred to investigate.

Our heroes search Stonehenge for the hidden entrance to the Pandorica.

Eventually determining it to be located beneath Stonehenge, our heroes find the Pandorica and the Doctor determines the object to be a highly-sophisticated and heavily-fortified prison, but what could be so balls-out dangerous as to warrant such a containment vessel? It is also noted that the Pandorica's multiple layers of defenses are being deactivated from within while it also sends powerful transmissions out into deep space. In no time, spacecraft bearing representatives of damned near every race the Doctor has ever contended with arrive and clog the skies over Earth, leading the Doctor to believe that they are all there to claim whatever powerful entity lurks within the Pandorica. As Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Judoon and who the hell knows how many other aliens arrive in the flesh, the Doctor talks trash about how he's defeated them all in the past and will most likely do so again, and now the Pandorica is in his hands, so they'd all better behave.

The Doctor trash-talks the universe.

But ain't it funny how such hubris can come back to bite one on the ass? That's what the Doctor finds out in no uncertain terms when the Pandorica opens and its genuinely surprising secret is finally revealed. Meanwhile, as River Song pilots it, the predicted explosion of the TARDIS takes place...

Series Five-Episode 13: The Big Bang (Part 2 of 2)

River Song takes aim at...No! As River herself would say, "Spoilers!"

I reeeeeeally can't give away what happens in this very good series finale, but I will say that it all ties up quite satisfactorily.

So...I was very impressed with this first year of Matt Smith's Doctor and am eager to see how he makes the character his own in years to come. Out of the thirteen stories in this run, I would cite "The Vampires of Venice" as the weakest and that one wasn't even bad per se, just weaker than the rest. Unlike the Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant runs, there was not one dud in the lot and that's quite impressive. I'm also an unabashed River Song fan and loved every moment she was onscreen, so her promised return next year has me quite eager. However, I hope they don't give away absolutely everything about her, despite promises from the show's producer to finally fill us in on her backstory...

My one major gripe with this run is with the character of Amy Pond. As a great fan of the ginger ladies, I was caught up in the hype over how cute she is, but as the series progressed I came to find her quite irritating, making moves and decisions that didn't make a lick of sense. She started out okay, but then I felt like the writers mostly lost interest in caring about crafting her into a fully-realized character. Maybe I'm missing something, but I hope they do something to fix her in future installments. Oh, and I do not give a rat's ass about Rory. He had his uses, especially during the run's second half, but if you ask me both his and Amy's arcs have pretty much run their course by the end of the series, so having things end as they do doesn't really make sense to me. But, whatever. I'll be back for more when Series Six rolls around, so who the hell am I trying to kid?

DOCTOR WHO: SERIES FIVE-Part 2

And we're back, with more of the rundown on Matt Smith's first series as the Doctor!

Series Five-Episode 6: The Vampires of Venice

The Doctor's intention to take Amy and Rory on a romantic holiday gets derailed as the trio must deal with a pack of suckfaces in the Venice of 1580. Good for what it is, this is a somewhat lesser entry for this year's-worth of DOCTOR WHO and I wish the vampires could have been straight-up evil undead from out of Earth legend rather than aliens (in this case the fishlike Saturnynians), but the trope of monsters pretty much always turning out to have a scientific/sci-fi explanation has been part of this show's fabric almost since its inception back in 1963, so I guess I'm shit outta luck. Oh, and this episode also showcases the love triangle involving the Doctor, Amy (who very blatantly threw herself sexually at the Doctor in a previous episode) and the hapless Rory, a situation that evolves in interesting ways in subsequent episodes.

Series Five-Episode 7: Amy's Choice

Five years after the events with the vampires, Amy and Rory are happily married and awaiting the birth of their first child. But this is DOCTOR WHO, so there's no way things can be as they seem... Sorry, but I can't say anymore about this one without giving it all away, but I must mention that I love the insanely enormous pregnancy prosthetic that Karen Gillan sports throughout.

Series Five-Episode 8: The Hungry Earth (Part 1 of 2)

In a Welsh village in 2020, a drilling operation catches the attention of a previously unseen branch of the Doctor's old foes, the Silurians, a race of reptile-men who have hibernated for ages and now seek to wipe the human infestation off the face of an Earth that they see as rightfully theirs. Tensions swiftly reach the boiling point as some of the locals, along with Amy, find themselves in the clutches of the Silurians with vivisection slated for their immediate future. One of the Silurians, a ruthless warrior named Alaya, is likewise in the hands of some surface-dwellers and the Doctor, who seeks to negotiate peace, but how can this impasse be settled without great cost to both sides?

Series Five-Episode 9: Cold Blood (Part 2 of 2)

In this very satisfactory conclusion, the situation gets resolved in ways that are both deeply saddening and thought-provoking, particularly in how a child character will perceive his mother after this tale's events. More than any other story in this run, this two-parter feels a lot like an old school DOCTOR WHO story, particularly one from the Jon Pertwee era, and to me there's little better. That said, this story makes me long to have the Ice Warriors brought back, and I know I'm not alone in that wish.

Series Five-Episode 10: Vincent and the Doctor

NOTE: this is the only story in this run that does not in some way reference the tear in time/space.

Upon discovering something strange in a painting by Vincent Van Gogh while checking out a gallery exhibition of the artist's work, the Doctor and Amy jaunt back to 1890 to investigate. Meeting Van Gogh proves to be a thrill for both of our time-traveling heroes (they're huge fans), and it's soon made clear that the artist's mental instability allows him to see a large monster that has been horribly killing off innocent locals.

Written by Richard Curtis, the co-writer of all the best episodes of BLACKADDER, this episode is a celebration of Van Gogh's work as contrasted against his tragic madness, and I have to admit that upon my first viewing I did not care for it. However, upon further consideration (and how this story very importantly figures into later episodes) I recant my initial misgivings, though I did find the monster to be kind of beside the point and wish instead that the story could have simply focused on the Doctor's time spent with the tortured artist. Yeah, I know there would have been hardcore DOCTOR WHO fans who would have bitched and moaned if there should even be one episode without some kind of alien or monster as a threat, but I find such flights of scary fancy to pale in comparison before the all-too-real horror of gradually losing control of one's faculties, an aspect that lends this story a great sense of poignancy in the face of the inevitable. Of particular note is the episode's coda, which at first struck me as incredibly cruel, but now makes great sense in a way that will make all art-lovers in the audience bawl like children. Myself included.

Series Five-Episode 11: The Lodger

A strange anomaly traps the TARDIS and Amy in a materialization loop while stranding the Doctor in present day England, where he moves in as a lodger at the house from whence the unknown force emanates and lures unsuspecting people off the streets to their deaths. Sharing a flat with corpulent Craig Owens (James Corden), a sweet sort who is madly in love with his friend, Sophie (Daisy Haggard), the Doctor sets to work at sorting out whatever is messing with the TARDIS while also gently nudging Craig to express his feelings to Sophie, an act that would shake him from his cozy rut.

This is another story where I found the human interest of the narrative to be far more involving than its sci-fi elements, but I doubt that the average DOCTOR WHO viewer would have gone for a whole episode of the Doctor acting as matchmaker. Craig's shy and obvious affection for Sophie pulls at the heart-strings and the viewer will be compelled to see how this quiet little love story turns out, but to get to that denouement we have to go through the usual sci-fi motions, which in this case are quite beside the point. Then again, if the sci-fi element were not a part of it, there would have been no reason for the Doctor to fit logically into the narrative, so I guess I should just shut the hell up and be happy with it as it stands.

TO BE CONCLUDED

DOCTOR WHO: SERIES FIVE-Part 1

The Matt Smith era of DOCTOR WHO has begun in earnest, complete with new logo, so let's get down to it!

When photos of then-upcoming eleventh Doctor Matt Smith began hitting the Internet, there was much speculation as to whether he would be any good. That speculation was based solely upon his look in the part and I have to admit that I was one of those early nay-sayers. The guy sported appalling "hipster" hair, facially resembled the result of a matter transporter mishap involving Daryl Hall and Neil Patrick Harris and, worst of all, looked like he would have been right at home fronting an emo band named "The Dour Huguenots." In other words, he looked like The Doctor as re-interpreted for the Jonas Brothers generation.

Matt Smith: the eleventh Doctor, or some emo puss?

But DOCTOR WHO has often been more than what it looks like and I would have done well to remember that oft-proven fact. It turns out that Smith is indeed a very good fit and it will be interesting to see how he makes the character his own over the next few years, hopefully losing that verbal delivery that sounds like equal parts David Tennant and Patrick Troughton. DOCTOR WHO is only as strong as the actor playing the title character, and I think Smith bears watching.

And so, on to the episodes!

Series Five-Episode 1: The Eleventh Hour

Landing the damaged TARDIS in a Leadworth garden in 1996, the still-regenerating Doctor meets young Amelia Pond (Caitlin Blackwood), a little Scottish girl whose room houses a strange crack in time/space that simply should not be (and is also the connecting thread for this entire series). After giving the phenomenon a quick once-over and hearing an ominous voice state that "Prisoner Zero has escaped," the Doctor heads back to the TARDIS to sort out its issues (it's regenerating as well) and promises Amelia that he will return in five minutes (which, when taking the TARDIS' time-traveling capabilities into account, can be stretched to however long the Doctor needs to affect repairs). Once the TARDIS is sorted, the Doctor does indeed return, but it's twelve years later and cute little ginger Amelia has grown up into very cute ginger nineteen-year-old Amy (Karen Gillan), now a costumed kiss-o-gram girl.

The Doctor and Amy Pond (in a sexy policewoman outfit).

Over the twelve years between her last sighting of the Doctor, Amy was shunted from psychiatrist to psychiatrist, eventually being tarred as somewhat mentally ill for her insistence that "the raggedy Doctor" was not a figment of her imagination, and she is not exactly pleased to see him again. But that gripe is put aside when the Doctor points out a non-existent room in Amy's house that has provided the aforementioned Prisoner Zero with a refuge for the past fourteen years. Needless to say, the shit hits the fan, involving Prisoner Zero, an alien race called the Atraxi, Amy's childhood friends Rory (Arthur Darvill) and Jeff, and the Doctor once more having to bail the Earth out of total destruction at the hands (?) of alien mega-weaponry. When all is said and done the Doctor promises to be right back, intending to take the TARDIS on a short trip to the moon to make sure it's in proper working order, but he once more overshoots his arrival time and ends up in Amy's garden two years after leaving. An overjoyed Amy is glad to see him again and accepts the Doctor's offer to travel with him, yet stipulating that she be back by the next morning. What Amy does not tell the Doctor is that she's due to marry Rory the next day... (Hey, a lot can happen in two years.)

Series Five-Episode 2: The Beast Below

In the 33rd century, after man has left the Earth to avoid the solar flare that will torch the planet — an event mentioned several times in previous DOCTOR WHO stories, I believe going back as far as 1975's classic "The Ark in Space" (which if you ask me was shamelessly ripped-off for ALIEN, which was released over four years later) — the Doctor and Amy find themselves aboard Starship UK, a huge spacecraft incorporating the entirety of the United Kingdom (and Northern Ireland).

Starship UK.

Once there, they find themselves unraveling the mystery of why the moving spaceship seems to produce no engine vibrations and why anyone inquiring into the ship's history has their memory erased. Once revealed, the ship's secret does not paint the human race in the best light and the Doctor is faced with what appears to be a major no-win situation...

A very good installment with several surprises (well, surprises for folks who aren't lifelong geeks, anyway), this story is notable for the introduction of Queen Elizabeth X, played by Sophie Okonedo, whom you may recognize from the movie of AEON FLUX; she was the operative with those disturbing hand-feet. Oh, and she was also nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in HOTEL RWANDA.

"I'm the bloody queen, mate. Basically, I rule." And how!

Known informally as Liz Ten, she's the coolest thing to happen to the Monarchy since who knows when and I would looooove to see a lot more of her. (Doubtful, since she's stuck in deep space ruling the dispossessed United Kingdom, but there you go.)

Series Five-Episode 3: Victory of the Daleks

The Doctor is called to London during the Blitz by none other than old acquaintance Winston Churchill (Ian McNiece) and is horrified to discover Daleks — and their attendant lethal tech — being created for deploy as "ironsides" soldiers in the trenches of WWII. The Doctor tries and fails to convince Churchill of the evil that is literally staring him in the face, and why does Amy not recognize Daleks when she sees them? The Daleks attacked the Earth in "Doomsday" and "The Stolen Earth"during the early 2000's and as a resident of the planet, Amy could not possibly have missed them, so what's up with that?

Everything's better with the inclusion of Winston Churchill!

From this confusion emerges the new Dalek Paradigm, a larger and presumably more ominous re-design of the classic DOCTOR WHO nemesis that, to me, looks far less appealing than what came before and now bears an aspect waaaaay too close to toys (which I'm betting is no coincidence). Nonetheless, this episode's tons of fun and Ian McNiece's Churchill warrants return engagements.

Series Five-Episode 4: The Time of Angels (Part 1 of 2)

In a story that smacks a tad of ALIENS, we are re-introduced to both the mysterious River Song (Alex Kingston) and the horrifying Weeping Angels from the exceptional Series Three episode "Blink." Involving a search through a downed spacecraft for what is believed to be a single Weeping Angel, the characters soon discover there's more going on than they imagined and that they are royally, utterly screwed. This time around, we get a bit more info on the Weeping Angels and their bizarre capabilities, including the fact that anything that captures the image of an Angel becomes an Angel. Therefore, it is a very bad idea to capture one on videotape, which Amy finds out the hard way as she watches a tape supplied by River Song.

The Weeping Angel tape: definitely not a Netflix recommendation.

And exactly why is River helping out a pack of military clerics under the command of Father Octavian, who seems to have encountered the Doctor before?

River Song (Alex Kingston) is back, and I totally welcome her return.

Series Five-Episode 5: Flesh and Stone (Part 2 of 2)

Things go from bad to worse as the retrieval force gets whittled down one by one, and that pesky fissure in time/space drops in. What more need be said about a cosmic phenomenon that puts the frighteners on the Weeping Angels?

I was afraid that bringing back the Weeping Angels would cheapen their impact, but that was definitely not the case here. This two-parter is certainly no "Blink," but equalling or besting that story would have been virtually impossible, so be thankful that this was as good as it is. Also worth mentioning is the ongoing fun and mystery of River Song. Just who the hell is this woman and exactly how does she fit into the Doctor's life? What minute details we glean this time around give us more than enough to ensure continued interest and that's just fine with me.

TO BE CONTINUED

DOCTOR WHO: THE END OF THE DAVID TENNANT ERA

I finally got my hands on the last year and a half's worth of DOCTOR WHO and after all that waiting I've gotten a chance to watch all of it. Given the choice when it comes to my favorite TV shows, I prefer to get several of them and just spend a weekend watching as much of it in sequence as possible, thus fully immersing myself in outright geekery. Anyway...

And so David Tennant's run as the tenth Doctor came to an end and ushered in an eleventh in the form of Matt Smith, so here's a roundup of the specials leading up to Smith's arrival.

Special #1-The Next Doctor

Picking up where the previous series left off and finding the Doctor greatly saddened by what he had to do to save companion Donna Noble's life, our hero's cosmic/temporal vagabonding brings the last Time Lord to Christmas Eve in Victorian England, 1851, where he finds some seemingly random dude running around with a sonic screwdriver and a hot companion who also calls himself the Doctor? Needless to say, what's up with that? We find out the answer to that question along with the real Doctor and the results are tepid at best, featuring a squirm-nducingly trite ending. Moving on...

Special #2-Planet of the Dead

Returning to the U.K. in the early 21st century, the Doctor ends up on a London bus that gets transported to a barren desert world where he and the bus' passengers must figure out a way to return home before they are horribly eaten alive by the millions of flying stingray-like creatures that destroyed the place. This is a nice little self-contained story that is notable for Lady Christina de Souza (Michelle Ryan from EASTENDERS and the BIONIC WOMAN reboot attempt), an aristocratic thief who is every inch the Doctor's equal and a great foil for him. de Souza is something of a thrill-junkie and she's introduced while making like Tom Cruise in MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE as she steals a priceless artifact from a museum while suspended from a retractable wire array. However, it is her skilled larcenous capabilities that cause the Doctor to reject her as a companion, without even letting her set one foot inside the TARDIS, but I hope she returns at some point, however briefly. Also among the unwittingly transported is Carmen (Ellen Thomas), a woman possessed of psychic abilities who enigmatically warns the Doctor of ominous things to come...

Special #3-The Waters of Mars

A strong contender for the title of bleakest DOCTOR WHO story ever, this one finds our cosmic vagabond turning up on Mars in the year 2059 and encountering the first manned scientific base on the red planet. A fully-functioning bio-dome system, the base runs into grave problems when they use water tapped from a buried deposit of ice that appears to have been sealed off for a reason by a race indigenous to Mars (presumably the Ice Warriors), and it soon becomes apparent that no one is getting out of there alive. The Doctor knows for a fact that this is indeed the case because the entire crew have gone down in history for dying in an unexplained thermo-nuclear blast, and he is torn between simply leaving the scientists to their historic fate, stating that their deaths are one of the events that is permanently fixed in time, or ignoring what has been written and allowing them to escape the horror they unintentionally set free, a horror with its eye set on the Earth. I won't give away what happens, but the Doctor learns a very hard lesson about fucking with what was/is to be, a lesson taught to him in a way I was genuinely shocked to see on what is still considered by many to be a kid's show...

Special #4-The End of Time Part 1

It's back to present day Earth on Christmas Eve of 2009 after an extended holiday before his prophesied demise, and the Doctor has to contend with the Master's (John Simm) umpteenth resurrection while also re-encountering Wilfred (the excellent Bernard Cribbins), Donna Noble's grand-dad, who wants the Doctor to restore his daughter's memories of her time with the Doctor and once more set her free from her mundane go-nowhere life for adventures in time and space. Donna herself (a returning Catherine Tate) is about to get married, but she's beginning to have visions of her supposedly suppressed experiences with the Doctor. Also, once back in action, the Master enacts a plan of such villainously brilliant magnitude that I had to admire what he accomplished. Oh, and there's also a biiiiiiiig development involving the status of the Doctor and the Master's status as the presumed last of the Time Lords...

Special #5-The End of Time Part 2

I can't really discuss this episode without giving away its many twists, but let it suffice to say that it is a satisfying coda to David Tennant's run as the Doctor. And longtime DOCTOR WHO fans only need to look at the accompanying photo to know what's in this one, and yes, that is former-007 Timothy Dalton as, well...Watch it for yourself.

Though skeptical at first, I soon came to enjoy David Tennant's take on the Doctor — though he could be at times questionably unstable and out of character compared to what we know of the vagabond Time Lord — and I admit that I'm sad to see him go. His infectious sense of wonder at the universe around him, even after ages of traipsing all over creation, was a terrific character touch and breathed fresh life into what had become something of a moribund series (which is not to slag off Christopher Eccleston's work during the first year of the show's reboot, not by any means). Now we have Matt Smith, who looks to me like the unintended results of a matter transporter accident involving Daryl Hall and Neil Patrick Harris, and I'm curious to see what he brings to the table.

TO BE CONTINUED

DOCTOR WHO: SERIES FOUR (OF THE NEW STUFF)-Part 4

Episode 12-"The Stolen Earth"

Fuck the Scooby Gang: it's the Who Crew!

The Earth is stolen from its orbit and transported to another galaxy where it finds itself among twenty-six other hijacked worlds, and as if that's not bad enough the Daleks show up and pretty much conquer the planet. Yeah, things are pretty damned dire, but the Doctor has a group of valiant (if not a small tad ragtag) supporters to help in the fight — dubbed "the Children of Time" by the Daleks — , namely UNIT agent Dr. Martha Jones, Captain Jack Harkness (crossing over from TORCHWOOD), Sarah Jane Smith (crossing over from THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES), Rose Tyler, Mickey, and Rose's mum, Jackie (all having sneaked in from the parallel universe from which all of them could supposedly never return). As that motley crew does what they can to combat the Daleks, the Doctor and Donna make a beeline to the Shadow Proclamation to find out just what the hell is going on and hopefully get some help, but when they arrive the Doctor discovers that planets have been kidnapped out of time as well as space, and that when properly aligned the fit together to perform some sinister purpose. Meanwhile on Earth, Martha Jones is entrusted with "the Osterhagen Key," a key to be used only when things look bleakest for the Earth, and she makes her way to Germany to put the key to use. A whole bunch of other stuff happens, including the umpteenth return of Davros, creator of the Daleks,

The new, improved Davros, with a bitchin' metal gauntlet.

and the Doctor getting shot by a Dalek and starting his regeneration process again, all of which leads to the best cliffhanger in sci-fi TV since STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION's "The Best of Both Worlds Part 1."

Episode 13-"Journey's End"

After the Doctor regenerates enough to heal from the Dalek blast, he transfers the remaining regenerative energy into his severed hand (kept in a jar in the TARDIS' control room) and opts not to change his appearance, while Martha discovers that the Osterhagen Key enables the detonation of twenty-five nuclear bombs hidden beneath the Earth's crust, completely obliterating the planet but not allowing it to fall into alien hands. Then a whole lot of convoluted and idiotic shit happens, including:

• The Doctor's severed hand flowing the excess energy through Donna Noble, thereby inexplicably creating a duplicate Doctor that has only one heart and is half-human, and infusing Donna with half of the original Doctor's fantastic intellect, thus rendering her half-Time Lord.
• Davros's master plan turns out to be the detonation of a "reality bomb," causing a cataclysm that will wipe out everything in every universe, parallel or otherwise. Now I don't know about what you think, but doesn't that mean Davros and the Daleks will also end up wiped out of existence?
• The duplicate Doctor, presumably because of his human influence, wipes out the entire Dalek fleet using the reality bomb equipment, somehow managing to single out the Dalek race and commit genocide.
• Upon returning Jackie and Rose to their alternate Earth, the Doctor leaves his duplicate with Rose in hope that her influence will have an effect on his genocidal twin. Rose at first protests getting stuck with the duplicate, but when he whispers in her ear what the original Doctor couldn't bring himself to say to her when he first left her in the other reality — presumably "I love you" — and upon hearing those words Rose immediately accepts the duplicate as her potential lifemate. Yeah, right.
• The totally useless and uninteresting Mickey stays on the regular Earth, where he came from in the first place, and fucks off with Jack Harkness and Martha Jones. I was terribly disappointed that he was not among the guinea pigs the reality bomb was tested upon.
  

But the most appalling development is the final fate of Donna Noble, a character who when introduced was grating in the extreme, but as she progressed she became one of the classic companions and the audience grew to love her. But, I guess because of Catherine Tate's other commitments, they wrote Donna out by having her turn out to be highly unstable once she became half-Time Lord, necessitating the Doctor to erase her memories of all the time she spent with him and strip her of her Time Lordiness, finally stranding her back in her mundane existence none the wiser. As the Doctor set off once more into time and space, alone and not scheduled to resume a regular full series until 2010, I almost threw my TV out the window and loudly cursed Russell T. Davies — the series' executive producer and head writer since the show's relaunch in 2005 — for fucking a good thing straight up the ass before his announced departure. My hot and brilliant pal Red Stapler warned me about this and when asked to lend her words to this post by way of a second opinion on the awfulness, she allowed me to crib the following from her own live journal:

Boy, am I mad at what happened to Donna. Like, wow.

RTD Catherine Tate did an amazing job of taking the most irritating character I have ever seen on a show, and turning her into the most amazing personification of AWESOME ever. Every week, Donna became more and more awesome. So to take her memories away? To negate the last two years of her life? Oh fuck YOU, RTD. Fuck you twice.

Blah, blah, blah, human physiology can't take Timelord Consciousness. Eat me.

While Donna is inherently awesome, it was meeting the Doctor that made her realize it. She may one day yet be awesome again, but yikes. Way to cut someone's emotional growth off at the knees. I wanted to see Donna on Torchwood. THAT would have been rad. (Mickey? Really?)

And also...

I haven't written about the finale yet. I knew as soon as it was over what bit would stick with me, and why. And I wasn't incorrect. The whole bit about The Other Doctor, and sending Rose back to Pete's Universe just....what. Mickey got to come home, why not Rose? And The Other Doctor? WHAT? It's like bad fanfic. I mean, I get why, and textually, I'm glad it happened, but what. I've been in long distance relationships. I've been the wild-might-have-been. I've wondered what would happen if...? In short, I've been Rose. And I've never gotten "my clone-of-the-object-of-my-desire;" it's like the ultimate wish fulfillment, in everything. Not just Doctor Who. I'm frustrated enough with the wild-might-have-beens and almost-was's and maybe-will-be's of my own life; I wasn't really interested in seeing a "Staples-Easy-Button Happy" resolution of one in the finale of Doctor Who.

Well said, RS. I'll give the new stuff a chance, but this season ender was every bit as bad as part 2 of STTNG's "The Best of Both Worlds" and in many ways is far, far worse. But when taken as a whole, series four only had two outright stinkers — "Midnight" and "Journey's End" — and a horrible Christmas special to hold it back from being an across the board winner, and when you only have thirteen episodes per year (and one Christmas special) that's not a terrible average.

OKAY, SO MAYBE THE CRIBBING IS MORE RECENT THAN THE "SPACE KOOK"

After reading yesterday's DOCTOR WHO rundown and seeing my comparison between the zombie spaceman in the episode "Silence in the Library" (see above) and the "Space Kook" from SCOOBY-DOO (see below),

illustrator and co-creator of Vertigo's Y: THE LAST MAN, — as well as uber-DOCTOR WHO-geek — Pia Guerra wrote in to remind me of another possible source for the creature's look:

J.G. Jones' symbolic cover image for the collected edition of the "One Small Step" story arc. Having edited this book, I'm kicking myself for having forgotten about it, but thankfully Pia's there to remind me.

So what do you say, dear readers? Blatant ripoff, or "homage?"

DOCTOR WHO: SERIES FOUR (OF THE NEW STUFF)-Part 3

Episode 8-"Silence in the Library"

Responding to a request to stop off there, our heroes materialize in the 51st century on the planet-sized book repository known as the Library and discover that the planet's populace is nowhere to be found, but there's little time to stop and ponder that mystery as the Doctor and Donna flee from an unseen and dangerous presence. Taking shelter in one of the Library's wings, the pair are soon joined by a crew of space-suited explorers, led by archaeologist River Song, who seek to discover exactly why the planet has been sealed off for the past hundred years. The Doctor warns the team to stay out of the shadows because they are infested by the Vashta Nerada, a microscopic species of carnivores that can reduce a man to mere bones in an instant, but once that warning is given the Vashta Nerada show up in search of supper and they are very, very hungry... (There's also a subplot involving a little girl's therapy sessions with a Dr. Moon but I can't really discuss that without giving things away, so I won't.)

The aftermath of the Vashta Nerada attacks leads to truly creepy results (see the above photo), providing a new kind of zombie and visually cribbing from SCOOBY-DOO, WHERE ARE YOU?

The "Space Kook" from SCOOBY-DOO, WHERE ARE YOU? (1969)

This story is quite compelling and will have viewers going nuts trying to figure out exactly what the hell is going on and just how the characters are going to get out of their no-win situation, but those answers will have to wait until the next episode.

Episode 9-"Forest of the Dead"

River Song tells it like it is. But exactly who the hell is she?

The Vashta Nerada are closing in and it's only a matter of time until the Doctor, Donna, and what remains of River Song's crew end up as Vashta Nerada shit, and there are still no answers as to the whereabouts of the Library's populace or exactly what's up with that little girl and her therapist, but the real mystery here is just who exactly is this River Song? She's clearly traveled with the Doctor, but she's from his future so he hasn't met her yet, a state of affairs that causes her not to answer the majority of his questions about how she knows him. It's also clear from something she whispers to him (to prove she's absolutely trustworthy beyond the shadow of a doubt) that their relationship was quite intimate, and when the Doctor can be as shaken as he is by her, that's really saying something. That said, I will say no more other than that this is a satisfying conclusion to the first part's setup, and I eagerly awaiting meeting River Song for the first time again. (I know that last bit reads as confusing, but deal with it. This is time travel, dammit!)

I'm sure you've gathered that I liked the enigmatic River Song quite a bit, and I bet you ER fans out there recognize her as actor Alex Kingston, who played Dr. Elizabeth Corday on the long-running NBC series for roughly seven seasons.

Alex Kingston during her days on ER (1997-2004).

Believe it or not I've only seen one episode of ER after all the years it's been on but I knew Kingston looked familiar from somewhere, and that somewhere was the 2003 British TV film BOUDICA that ran in the States in 2006 as WARRIOR QUEEN on MASTERPIECE THEATER.

Alex Kingston as Boudica.

It was about as historically accurate as any given episode of XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS, but as long as it had chicks with swords it had my attention and it was certainly entertaining. But enough about chicks with swords, back to the Time Lord!

Episode 10-"Midnight"

"Doctor...you do know this episode is a complete and utter load of bollocks, right?"

Donna wisely sits this episode out and enjoys the full spa treatment on the planet Midnight while the Doctor takes a four-hour shuttle to observe one of the planet's natural wonders, but since this is a DOCTOR WHO story things of course go awry. The shuttle breaks down and strands the Doctor and the passengers and crew in the middle of nowhere, and then the shuttle is menaced by a presumably evil and unseen presence. The presence tears off the cockpit, killing the pilot and ship's mechanic, then possesses one of the passengers and engages in some bizarre (though uninteresting) wordplay with the Doctor, during which the freaked-out passengers turn on the Doctor and decide to gang up and chuck him out of the airlock. The shuttle attendant instead grabs the possessed passenger and sacrifices herself by flinging the two of them outside, vaporizing them instantly, leaving the Doctor and passengers to await rescue, after which the Doctor reunites with Donna.

If this sounds like a slapdash mess, it is. There is no explanation of or name for the presence, and it has no discernible agenda other than to scare the shuttle passengers. The incidental characters are all devoid of interest, and the episode's running time drags on aimlessly with no worthwhile resolution. Just like "The Doctor's Daughter," you can skip this episode and miss nothing of the season's connecting story arc elements, so I'd advise you to do just that.

Episode 11-"Turn Left"

Rose Tyler re-enters the fray.

When Donna visits a fortune-teller, she is mysteriously given a "do-over" for her recent life when her past self opts to turn right rather than left, a choice that leads to her never meeting the Doctor. As Donna's reality is re-written, the Doctor perishes following the events of series three's Christmas special — "The Runaway Bride" — , which sets in motion a domino effect of incidents from previous stories that would have been handled by the Doctor turning out as worst-possible-scenarios (Martha Jones and Sarah-Jane Smith die when the Judoon transport the Royal Hope Hospital to the Moon, the Adipose situation kills millions in America, The Sontaran ATMOS is never thwarted, the space-liner Titanic crashes and levels London, etc.). It only gets worse from there, and Rose Tyler keeps popping up, attempting to get Donna to come with her. But how the hell did Rose escape from the alternate universe, and what is it that she wants Donna to do? And just how was Donna's reality rewritten anyway? You'll have to watch it for yourself, bunky, 'cause I ain't telling! And if you're a Donna fan this episode is tailor-made for you.

I will say that this largely Doctorless installment is very well-written and Catherine Tate is really given a chance to show what she can do dramatically. Billie Piper's return as Rose is quite welcome (although her considerable weight loss only accentuates her Chavvy chipmunk buck teeth), and the maturation of Rose's capabilities is cool to see. And any of you who may have a phobia of beetles are advised to proceed with caution...

That's all for now, but I'll be back soon with a rundown on the two-part, guest-star-crammed series four finale!