42

Burn with me.

When I found out Friday that Chris Chibnall will be taking over as show runner following Series 10 in 2017, I thought I should pull one of his episodes again to refresh myself on his work. This worked out fairly well as I had no memory of 42 the first time I watched it. The net result... eh.

Plot Summary

The Doctor and Martha receive a distress call and land on a ship that is crashing into a star and will impact in forty-two minutes. The room where the TARDIS is becomes flooded with super-heated steam, preventing the evacuation of the ship. What's more, one of the crew has been infected and has sabotaged the main engine controls. Martha and one crew member (Riley) head to the auxiliary engine control room which has been sealed off by a series of doors. The doors are password protected with the password being the answer to trivia questions the crew came up with during a drunken binge.

The Doctor attempts to help repair the engine controls but gets pulled off as the infected crew member attacks and vaporizes other members of the crew. Martha and Riley manage to avoid being killed but are trapped in an escape pod that is launched towards the sun. The infected crewman is neutralized temporarily and the Doctor journeys outside the ship and magnetically pulls the escape pod back to the ship. However, he is infected by the star and learns that the captain had mined the outer layer of the star for fuel, unwittingly stealing the heart of the star which is alive. Martha attempts to rid the Doctor of the infection but the infected crewman revives and cuts the power. The captain then grabs the infected crewman and casts him and herself out of the airlock and into the star. Unable to help, the Doctor sends Martha to the auxiliary engine control, which has been opened by Riley and another crewman, and orders her to dump the fuel. She does so and the engines come back on line allowing the ship to escape.

Analysis

When I first watched this episode, I was just following on from The Lazarus Experiment and thought I could stay up for another one, despite being tired and a little tipsy. Needless to say, it didn't register and when I was looking back at episodes I had seen, I realized I couldn't remember any plot details of this one. Watching it a second time, I can see why it didn't register with me.

The thing is, there is nothing particularly wrong with the episode, but it didn't really grab me either. My immediate thought was that it felt somewhat similar to The Impossible Planet in it's set up. But where that episode had engaging characters and a horror tone, this one gave me no reason to care about any character other than Riley and very little time to appreciate any tone other than urgency.

The hook for this episode is the real-time countdown to destruction. But I think that actually worked against it in a way. The little time that was spent in slower moments where you would develop character were tinged with a feeling of wasting time that undercut the potential character moment. The rest was just running around, rushing to make sure someone didn't die or attempting to unlock the puzzle of the moment. The countdown itself was the only driver and it left you a bit cold towards the characters.

Another flaw in terms of grip was the Captain's portrayal. The Captain came across as a bit weak. She seemed to be someone who let someone else make decisions for her, which would be fine if (like The Impossible Planet) she had been thrust suddenly into command, but she was the Captain from the get go. It was she who made the decision to mine the star for fuel and then seemed like someone hit on the head when trouble began. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't compelling either and just seemed out of place given that she was with the Doctor in nearly every scene.

There were some nice moments. Martha had a couple of nice scenes where she called her mom and she also had some nice chemistry moments with Riley. I would have preferred if the Saxon team with Martha's mom hadn't been revealed until the last scene but it still worked. Likewise, the Doctor had some nice moments especially when he was rescuing Martha and after he had been infected.

Still, I think the word for this episode is uneventful. It has elements that should make it compelling, but it never really gels and once it is over, it begins to slip way from your mind. There's nothing here to really grab you and make you want to watch it again. Again, not bad, just not particularly good either.

Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5