Pyramids of Mars

Your evil is my good. I am Sutekh the Destroyer. Where I tread I leave nothing but dust and darkness. I find that good.

Pyramids of Mars is one of the widely known and celebrated stories. It does get the occasional bit of backlash for being overhyped though. Sutekh is also generally regarded as one of the best one-off villains ever seen on Doctor Who even with the famous snafu of "the hand of Sutekh". So the question is, does this story hold up to the hype it fosters, or are the nostalgia goggles a bit too thick on this one?

Plot Summary

An Egyptologist named Marcus Scarman enters an Egyptian tomb in 1911. His Egyptian workers flee when he tries to open a door marked with the eye of Horus. Scarman enters and is immediately felled in a wave of green light.

The Doctor and Sarah are journeying back to Earth with the Doctor in a foul mood as he doesn't like being at the Brigadier's beck and call. The TARDIS is suddenly thrown off and Sarah sees a jackal-like face appear briefly. The Doctor lands the TARDIS at the location of UNIT headquarters but finds they've landed in 1911 where a manor house stuffed with Egyptian artifacts is located.

The house is owned by Marcus Scarman and an old friend of his, Dr. Warlock, comes to check on him. The house is being maintained by an Egyptian servant named Ibrahim Namin. He tries to shoo Warlock off but they are distracted by the butler, Collins, being attacked and killed by something after warning the Doctor and Sarah out of the house. Namin feels Warlock has seen too much and shoots him, however the Doctor grabs him just before he fires and the shot only wounds Warlock rather than killing him.

The Doctor and Sarah help Warlock out of the house and into the woods surrounding it. Warlock collapses and the Doctor carries him while Sarah runs ahead to find Lawrence Scarman, Marcus' brother who was waiting in a guest cottage on the edge of the property. The group is pursued by Namin and three mummies, one of whom killed Collins. The Doctor and Warlock hide until they hear an organ playing, which recalls the mummies and Namin to the house.

Lawrence and Sarah find the Doctor and Warlock and carry him back to the cottage where they dress his wound. The Doctor is intrigued by Lawrence's experiment, an early form of a radio telescope. He activates it but a signal overloads it. The Doctor pulls out his own version and verifies that a strong signal is coming from Mars. The three of them head back to the house while Warlock rests.

Namin returns to the main hall and bows before a sarcophagus, which transforms into the end point of a time tunnel. A figure clad in black emerges and kills Namin, claiming that only he is the servant of Sutehk. The figure removes his suit to reveal the reanimated body of Marcus Scarman. Marcus pulls four pots out and orders them set up at the compass points to create a magnetic shield around the house.

After they leave, the Doctor, Lawrence and Sarah enter. The Doctor tells them that Sutehk was a member of a race called the Osirins who reveled in destruction. He was pursued across the galaxy before being imprisoned by his brother Horus. The battle was woven into Egyptian mythology and if Sutehk escapes his prison, he could destroy Earth. As he explains this, the Doctor steps too close to the time tunnel entrance and he is nearly sucked in. He tosses a fob aside and a small blast knocks him away and unconscious. Marcus and Sarah drag him into a priest hole nearby, fearing the return of the mummies.

Unwittingly trapped in the shield is a poacher named Ernie Clements who first observes a mummy pull himself out of one of his traps and then witnesses Marcus order a mummy to kill Warlock, whom he discovered while searching for Lawrence. Clements follows Marcus returning to the house and shoots him just before he discovers Lawrence, Sarah and the Doctor in the priest hole, believing him to be a burglar. The shot passes through Marcus but Sutekh reverses the shot, leaving him undamaged. Clements runs as Marcus orders two mummies after him and Marcus follows, allowing Sarah, Lawrence and the revived Doctor to escape.

The Doctor figures he can cancel Sutekh's information relay with Lawrence's machine and the control ring that Namin used on the mummies. They find his body and grab the ring but are forced to hide in the TARDIS when Marcus and two mummies enter to grab missile parts. The Doctor realizes that they are building a missile to destroy the power source of the field that is keeping Sutekh restrained. Sarah suggests they head back to 1980 to avoid everything. The Doctor transports the TARDIS forward in time to show a destroyed planet. He then takes them back to demonstrate that they must work to stop Sutekh.

They make their way back to the cottage where the Doctor adapts Lawrence's machine. He makes an offhand comment that the knocking out of the field will free Sutekh's control and finally kill Marcus. Lawrence tries to stop the Doctor but he activates the machine. Marcus collapses and Sutekh orders two mummies to destroy the interference, having just killed Clements outside the cottage. They enter and one destroys the machine, though it is electrocuted in the process. The second attacks the Doctor but Sarah sends it back to the house with the now dislodged control ring.

Unable to jam the signal, Lawrence suggests destroying the missile with blasting gel that Clements kept in his shack. The Doctor and Sarah go to retrieve it while Lawrence removes the bindings from the mummy robot. The Doctor and Sarah find one of the power sources for the magnetic shield and the Doctor is able to deactivate it with his sonic screwdriver. They find Clements' shack and the blasting gel, though no blasting caps.

The failure of one of the shield generators alerts Sutekh to an alien presence and he sends out Marcus. He finds the empty vessel and then heads to the cottage where he finds Lawrence, having just finished removing the wrappings. Lawrence appeals to Marcus and Marcus' memories come back for a moment before Sutekh reestablishes control. Marcus then kills Lawrence before heading back.

The Doctor places the blasting gel in a safe spot and heads back to the cottage. Alerted, Sutekh has ordered the missile guarded by the mummy robots. In the cottage, they find Lawrence's body and the Doctor orders Sarah to wrap him in the mummy outfit. Posing as a robot, he places the blasting gel on the missile platform and after also installing the launch coordinates from Marcus, walks away, allowing Sarah to shoot the gel with a rifle.

The gel starts to explode but Sutekh contains the explosion with his will, ordering Marcus to remove the gel. Seeing this, the Doctor sneaks into the house and passes through the time-space tunnel. He materializes in Sutekh's chamber, distracting him, allowing the gel to explode and destroy the missile. Angered, Sutekh interrogates the Doctor, still powerful enough to control him with his will. Sarah is captured and knocked out by Marcus and brought in the house. Sutekh realizes her value to the Doctor and probes the Doctor's mind to discover the TARDIS. He takes the TARDIS key from the Doctor and sends it through the time-space tunnel to Marcus, ordering him to bring the TARDIS to his prison on Mars.

The Doctor counters claiming the TARDIS will only work with him flying it. Sutekh then takes control of the Doctor's mind and has him fly the TARDIS with Marcus, Sarah and a mummy robot to the pyramid on Mars (Sarah being brought along as a hostage should the Doctor break free of Sutekh's control). They land on Mars and Marcus orders the robot to kill the Doctor. He strangles the Doctor and the two enter the next chamber. Sarah checks the Doctor and he revives himself, having regained partial control over his mind enough to shift his body dynamic so the attack wasn't fatal. Now fully released, they follow Marcus.

Sutekh control Marcus through a series of traps and logic puzzles. The Doctor and Sarah do the same. They are slowed by one last logic puzzle, allowing Marcus to reach the central chamber where the eye of Horus supplies power to the field entrapping Sutekh. Sutekh's mummy engages with the guardian robot, allowing Marcus to grab the power source and destroy it, just as the Doctor and Sarah enter. With it's destruction, Sutekh let's go of Marcus and he collapses, his body turning into cinders on the ground.

As the doors to the prison open, the Doctor and Sarah run back to the TARDIS and rematerialize in the house, knowing that it will take about two minutes for the failure of the power source to register due to the speed of light between Mars and Earth. The Doctor grabs the time-vortex controls from the TARDIS and hook them up to the sarcophagus that is the end of the tunnel between Mars and Earth. Freed of the force field, Sutekh steps into the tunnel to travel to Earth. Once activated, the Doctor engages the controls and moves the end point of the tunnel, trapping Sutekh in the tunnel. Sutekh lashes angrily but the Doctor stretches the tunnel out further and Sutekh eventually vanishes, trapped at the equivalent of 7,000 years in the future.

The sarcophagus catches fire due to the stored heat energy and Sarah recalls that the house burned down, allowing a new building to be built on the land which became UNIT headquarters. Sarah and the Doctor head back to the TARDIS and take off as the mansion burns to the ground.

Analysis

I like Pyramids of Mars a great deal. It has a dark, gothic edge for most of it, feeling very close to a genuine classic horror movie at certain points. It slips out of that horror towards the end of Episode Four, but you can forgive it somewhat as you still feel the menace brought in by Sutekh in the earlier parts of the story. The major key though is that even when the tone shifts, the story never feels like it drags and the ending doesn't feel too rushed, although I wish there could have been a better way to film Sutekh's destruction as his fading up the tunnel didn't feel quite satisfying enough.

The Doctor was very good in this story. Right from the start, there is a high level of seriousness and you buy the menace of Sutekh in the first two episodes almost solely on his reaction alone. He has moments of levity as you can see the huge amount of pleasure he gets from showing Lawrence around the TARDIS, but he doesn't pepper in that many jokes so as to take away the seriousness of the situation.

I also enjoy his straight-forward assessment of the situation. Sarah occasionally gives in to emotional shifts, clearly unaware of the true direness of the situation. This allows her to get overly emotional over things like Lawrence's death. The Doctor, quite correctly, takes a pragmatic approach and reminds her that other people have already died and more will if they don't move on from Lawrence. It's an important thing so as to not get overly sentimental and it's also a lesson I wish other Doctors (such as the Tenth) would have taken in.

Sarah is very good here. She runs the gambit of emotions all through the story but never allows herself to descend into a helpless damsel. She is adventurous throughout but also reserved enough to decide when to retreat, thinking that as it all happened in the past, it's not their concern. The emotional weight of seeing a destroyed Earth is also impressive as she doesn't get hysterical or argumentative. Once shown what the consequences are, she takes it in stride that it's up to them to stop that from happening.

Sarah also provides some levity. The Doctor stays mostly serious as he is fully aware of Sutekh's power. She however, doesn't have a frame of reference and so gets back to being cutesy on occasion. Her cavalier attitude about tossing the blasting gel is a good example of that. But she is also quite useful, saving the Doctor during the mummy robot attack and shooting the gel to destroy the missile. In every sense, Sarah fits the perfect role of a companion, having to have things explained to her (and the audience) but also being a useful helper to the Doctor.

The extras do alright in their limited roles. Warlock and Clements mostly serve as fodder to show the seriousness of things. Lawrence is likeable and you feel real sympathy in how he refuses to believe that his brother is truly dead and in how he is proven wrong. They even give you that glimmer of hope as Marcus fights off Sutekh's control for a half a second before he kills Lawrence.

The villains escalate throughout the story. Namin functions much as the low level you would expect. Marcus is more menacing but there is still the limitations of him as a tool that show through. Sutekh is above them all and that is solely due to the voice acting of Gabriel Woolf.

Much like Omega, Sutekh is nothing more than a man in a mask with eyes that light up on occasion. This actually should make him less menacing than Omega because at least Omega could move and act in a threatening manner. But while Omega was over-the-top loud and clearly on the edge of insanity, Sutekh is calm, collected and in complete control of his mind. He's actually at his most menacing in the beginning of Episode Four when, thinking himself trapped still, he does not get angry with the Doctor, but calmly talks about the pain and suffering he will inflict upon him. It's the coldness of someone who has no value for life or the feelings of others and it is genuinely menacing.

The production values of this are quite good with lots of nice exterior filming. The sets on Earth are well done and even Sutekh's chamber is done well with a sense of ambiguity as to it's true nature. There is some padding regarding Clements' death but aside from that, the story pretty well hums along, keeping the tension up for nearly the entire story.

The production does start to fall apart a bit in Episode Four as the CSO on half the sets looks very out of place and is rather distracting. There is also the fact that it calls back to Death to the Daleks so much that Sarah actually comments on it, despite the fact that she did not actually go into the City of Exxilion and wouldn't have any idea of what that particular puzzle looked like. Of course, given that Death to the Daleks is often overlooked, I doubt anyone would have worried much about the similarities in the puzzle.

Another shortfall in the production is Sutekh's true form. In the mask, he is properly scary as the mask is something we're used to and looks good. The thin jackal head looks as though it's made of paper-mâché and undermines nearly all of Sutekh's menace. It's not killing but it's a bit of a let-down after the fear Sutekh inspired at the beginning of the episode.

Overall, I think this story is excellent. All the characters do well and it is engaging from the get-go. There are a couple of minor shortfalls in it, but they are so outweighed by the quality of the acting and overall story that I think they can be considered of little consequence. It is easily a story that could be popped in and watched for repeat viewing on any occasion.

Overall personal score: 5 out of 5

The Angels Take Manhattan

Melody... you look after him; and you be a good girl and you look after him.

The Angels Take Manhattan is the much hyped dismissal of Rory and Amy. I say much hyped because all of Season 7A was a very drawn out notice on the fact that they were leaving. This story hits you pretty well in all the right emotional points but there are elements where plot and emotional convenience cause things to fall by the wayside.

Plot Summary

A detective named Sam Garner is engaged by a rich mobster named Mr. Grayle. He is given an address to a building called Winter Quay and makes his way there, warned to beware of moving statues. Garner enters the building and finds an old version of himself lying in a bed. He runs but is blocked by a group of Weeping Angels. He runs to the roof where he is captured by an angel in the form of the Statue of Liberty.

In 2012, the Doctor, Rory and Amy are relaxing in Central Park, the Doctor reading a book he found in his pocket about a detective named Melody Malone. He rips out the last page and places it in their picnic basket, not wanting the story to end. Rory decides to go out and get coffee. He does but on his way back, he hears a strange noise. In a darkened portion of the park, he is attacked and transported back to 1938 where he comes face to face with River Song.

As he reads, the Doctor sees his, Amy and Rory's name in the book and how Rory disappeared while getting coffee. They go to search for him but find nothing. They then run to the TARDIS with Amy peeking ahead to get a date. The Doctor tries to land in 1938 but the angels have made so many manipulations of the time stream that the TARDIS is bounced out and they land in a graveyard outside the city back in 2012.

A confused Rory and River are taken by gunmen to the home of Mr. Grayle. Grayle, not interested in Rory, orders him locked in the basement. River is brought to the study where she finds a chained angel. Noting an odd translation on a piece of Chinese porcelain, she transmits the word through her vortex manipulator. Grayle flicks the lights, allowing the angel to grab River by the wrist. Grayle then demands to know everything about the angels.

Amy reads a bit more in the book, revealing that Grayle's house has several examples of Chin Dynasty. The two of them travel back to a porcelain house in the Chin dynasty to send the message. The Doctor also chastises Amy as she reads further along, noting that if she reads it, it will become a fixed point in time. They then receive the word signal from River that he had the painters put on several pieces in Chinese. He follows the signal, creating a large disturbance as he rips through the time distortions surrounding the period.

In the basement, Rory is in the dark and hears skittering around. He lights a match, given by one of the gunmen and sees small stone cherubs looking at him. He lights another match and notes that they have moved closer to him. He tries to back away but is trapped against a wall. He lights another match, only to have it blown out by a cherub next to him. He then vanishes from the dark basement.

As the TARDIS arrives in Grayle's home, there is an electrical discharge which knocks Grayle out. The Doctor finds River while Amy searches for Rory. He is dismayed to learn that he must either break River's wrist or the Angel's just as Amy read. Amy proposes reading the chapter titles of the book to learn things without risking spoilers. However, the Doctor becomes enraged when he reads the title of the last chapter "Amelia's Farewell" and angrily orders River to think of another way to escape the Angel's grasp.

The Doctor follows Amy and pulls her back from the basement, seeing a dropped book of matches and stone cherubs around. River emerges, trying to disguise the fact that she broke her own wrist to escape. They figure they can track Rory's signal as he has been transported in space but not time. Learning that River did break her wrist, the Doctor becomes angry but is chastised by Amy.

Amy waits for the tracker to narrow Rory's location while a chagrined Doctor apologizes to River and spends regeneration energy healing her wrist. This angers her as she sees it as a waste but their renewed spat is cut short by the tracker targeting Winter Quay. They steal a car and drive to the Battery while two angels, posing as statues outside, walk in the left open door to attack the waking Grayle.

The group arrives at Winter Quay and find Rory entering a room with his name on it. An old man calls to Amy from the bed. She goes over to find an old Rory who dies in her arms. The Doctor realizes that the Angels have created a farm, sending anyone who tries to escape back into the past of the building and continuously feeding on that energy. Amy proposes that they run for if Rory dies someplace else, it'll create a paradox and undo what the Angels have done, killing all of them.

Rory and Amy manage to run to the stairs but are cut off from the exit and run towards the roof. The Doctor and River are slightly behind and get attacked by a pack of Angels. They dash out the window and begin climbing up the fire escape.

On the roof, Rory and Amy are trapped by the Angel Statue of Liberty. Keeping their eyes on it, Rory climbs to the edge of the roof and urges Amy to push him off. He figures that if he dies now, it'll undo everything and he'll be fine but can't bring himself to actually jump. Amy, unwilling to lose him, climbs up with him and they fall together as the Doctor and River climb up. As they fall, the paradox manifests and the whole region collapses.

All four reappear in the graveyard where the TARDIS landed earlier. The Doctor proposes they go find a pub but as Amy and Rory walk towards the TARDIS, Rory stops to notice his name on a headstone. As he does, an Angel attacks him from behind, causing him to vanish. Devistated, Amy begs the Doctor to go get Rory in the TARDIS but he can't due to the paradox keeping all time travelers out. Amy then says her goodbyes and turns her back on the Angel, allowing it to send her back to Rory.

The Doctor and River leave in the TARDIS with River going over what she has to do to ensure the Doctor gets the book. She tells him that she will suggest that Amy include an afterward when she has the book published in the past. The Doctor directs the TARDIS back to Central Park and finds the basket with the last page in it. On it, Amy tells the Doctor that she and Rory are fine and charges him not to travel alone. He then travels in the TARDIS to give young Amelia a quick flyby for hope.

Analysis

The Angels Take Manhattan is a good story and resolves one of the main conflicts during the whole of Amy's travels with the Doctor: Rory or the Doctor. Now, I thought it was rather clear for the duration of her time that it was always Rory (which was what made The Asylum of the Daleks so odd) but others felt that needed to be a bit more spelled out so I can understand Steven Moffat being so explicit. It is not without it's flaws though.

The Doctor is fairly good here but he's also a bit overemotional. This is the first manifestation of the "hating goodbyes" and one of the only ones that I can recall. Obviously each personality of the Doctor takes on new characteristics but he seems so hamstrung on the can't say goodbye to Amy that it seems to weaken him to the point of not being able to function. Granted, the Eleventh Doctor has made a special bond with Amy but he should still be better than a gibbering wreck when it comes to losing her.

I do like his interaction with River and this is one of the few episodes where they function on the same plane of knowledge. Usually it's one of them having a leg up on the other in terms of knowledge. Here, they are both working towards the solution with the same info and it makes them function more as a team or even as a married couple. River helps make up for some of the shortfalls in the Doctor's emotional make up and it's a nice balance. I also happen to think that River looks very nice in the detective noir outfit.

Amy and Rory are pretty good although Rory doesn't get much. He gets the nice emotional scene on the rooftop with Amy but he's the damsel in most of this story, but that is where he did tend to be more often than not so it's fitting. Amy is also good as she is a bit more grounded in her reactions. She plays the adult more often than not between the Doctor and River and gives a certain amount of gravity to some scenes that might go awry. She also has two very nice emotional scenes with her commitment to die with Rory in the fall and then in the decision to let the Angel take her to Rory rather than stay with the Doctor. Overall a very strong story for her.

The Angels were pretty good in this. The scene with the cherubs in the basement was properly unnerving with all the various "monster in the dark" tropes you could want. The idea of an Angel farm actually makes a lot of sense, although I'm not sure how well the people could be contained within the building in the past unless it was of tighter security then. Yes the Angels could zap someone into the past but unless there was something in the past to hold them there, they could just escape and be running around turn of the century New York. I can also understand the desire for the visual of the Statue of Liberty as an Angel, but when you but any thought into it, it's really rather stupid, especially in the second scene where it just has to stand there while Amy and Rory decide whether or not to fall off the roof.

That scene is actually one that contains one of the problems with the Angels in this story: inconsistency. It's well known that an Angel moves when you don't look at it. While Rory is climbing on the ledge, Amy locks eyes on the Angel and allows him to look away. However, when Rory is talking to Amy and she is deciding to jump with him, he looks down at her and she looks up at him. At that moment, the Angel should have taken them both. It's dramatic license but if you make such a big deal about your enemy in such a fashion, you shouldn't draw such attention to when you don't do it, especially with such a big Angel hovering in the background.

Everything else about the story worked pretty well. I liked the fact that it was very obviously the actual Central Park they were filming in at the beginning and the end. Most everything else had a nice moody feel to it and I liked the fact that Steven Moffat came as close as he's ever done to indulging in the no-win scenario. He almost never does it so it feels good when he does.

That being said, there is no good reason why the Doctor couldn't travel to New York in the 1940's, several years after Amy and Rory arrived and see them. Perhaps he makes the decision to not let them travel because of the dangers to the time line and I can buy that. But there is no reason he can't at least visit. River certainly makes it clear that she will be traveling to them to ensure the manuscript gets published by Amy so a certain amount of travel to them is not impossible.

My head cannon guess would be that with their deaths fixed in the past (70s-80s), he refuses to visit them for fear that he will take them back into the TARDIS and disrupt the timeline further. That's the only reason I can think of but it also makes the Doctor something of an emotional twat for being so dramatic. He can't trust himself so he has to act as though they've died. Again, Steven Moffat doesn't indulge in the no-win scenario much so his natural habit of trying to find a loophole to ensure a happy ending for all does create some rather nasty plot holes.

Still, especially if you lose yourself in it, the story makes a strong emotional impact and is very easy to enjoy. The good highly outweighs the bad and the bad really only kicks in if you're of the more pedantic nature, which I can be now and again. It's easily the best story of Season 7A and a good send off for Rory and Amy. I'd happily sit down with anyone to watch it, although I clearly wouldn't recommend it to anyone as their first story. There's far too much backstory and emotion required to initiate someone with a story like this.

Overall personal score: 4.5 out of 5

The Androids of Tara

Next time I will not be so lenient!

The fourth leg in the Key to Time saga is somewhat notable for having almost nothing to do with the actual Key to Time. The Doctor and Romana find the key almost immediately and then follow though on a fantasy style adventure that would not be out of place with the likes of The Princess Bride. When ranking stories in their various lists, The Androids of Tara almost always ends up near the top of Season 16, usually in a battle with The Ribos Operation for the top spot, although exceptions are to be found here and there.

Plot Summary

The TARDIS materializes on the planet Tara where the Doctor has decided to take a break and go fishing. Romana, in a fit of mild irritation, ventures off into the forest to find the fourth segment of the Key to Time. She comes across a statue and the segment is disguised as a portion of the statue. As she retrieves it, she is attacked by an ape-like creature. The creature is then driven away by a helmeted knight with an electrified sword.

The knight removes his visor and reveals himself as Count Grendel, the lord of the lands on they are found. Seeing Romana has sprained her ankle, he carries her to his horse and takes her back to his castle. Upon reaching the castle, he gives her over to his engineer, Madame Lamia, where both he and her have mistaken Romana for an android. Lamia prepares to disassemble Romana but Romana notes her ankle and upon seeing swelling, Lamia realizes that Romana is flesh and blood. Under orders from Grendel, she knocks her out with an injection.

While fishing, the Doctor falls asleep. He is woken by two men holding him with electrified swords. They are Zadek and Farrah, two soldiers serving Prince Reynart. They take the Doctor back to a cabin where the Prince is resting. Reynart appeals to the Doctor to help him fix an android double of himself. The Prince is scheduled to be crowned king tomorrow and he fears that Count Grendel might try to harm him on the way to the ceremony which if he misses, he will forfeit his right to the throne, allowing Grendel to put forth his claim.

The Doctor agrees and manages a patch job on the android. Reynart pulls out a flagon of wine to celebrate, inviting the two guards to imbibe as well. As all four drink, they pass out from the drugged wine. The door to the cabin opens and Grendel walks in. He kidnaps Reynart, leaving the other three.

Upon waking and realizing what has happened, the Doctor decides to use the android copy of Reynart to be crowned, thus thwarting Grendel's plan and buying them time to rescue him. He summons K-9 from the TARDIS and asks him if Romana has returned. When he answers negatively, Farrah informs the Doctor that if she went into the woods, she was probably captured and taken to Grendel's castle. The Doctor sends K-9 to the castle to see if Romana is there and then report back to him.

In Grendel's castle, Romana wakes and is taken into the dungeons where she is shown Princess Strella, whom Grendel intends to marry and then dispose up, putting him closer to the line of succession. Princess Strella also happens to look just like Romana, which caused Grendel's confusion earlier. She is then taken to Prince Reynart's cell where she is locked in with him to tend his wounds and the subsequent infection he is now suffering from.

The Doctor, Zadek, Farrah and the android Reynart make their way to a secret passage that leads to the castle. They knock out one of Grendel's guards stationed at the entrance and make their way in. When nearly there, they are discovered by more of Grendel's guards, forcing them to make a fighting retreat into the throne room. As the hour of crowning comes, the Archimandrite (the high priest) opens the doors to find Reynart already seated on the throne, flanked by Zadek, Farrah and the Doctor.

The Archimandrite crowns Reynart as king of Tara. Grendel hesitates but goes along with the submission to him, unwilling to expose his knowledge that this is a trick. The android Reynart gives his acceptance speech, although it jogs slightly during the speech. Princess Strella then approaches the throne and bows before Reynart. The Doctor suddenly leaps up and strikes Strella with the scepter, revealing her to be an android. At Count Grendel's insistence, the ceremony is adjourned until the following day to allow Reynart to rest and investigate the assassination attempt.

As Grendel returns to the castle, Lamia pulls Romana out of the dungeons to ask about the Key segment. Romana pretends to be unaware of it's properties but Lamia suspects she is lying. Grendel returns and orders Lamia to create a new android, but this time of Romana. He then sends his man servant to lure the Doctor into a trap by offering to return Romana at a cabin on Grendel's land. K-9 returns to confirm that Romana is being held by Grendel.

The Doctor and K-9 head to the exchange cabin after agreeing and hide themselves prior to the time of exchange. Lamia, Grendel the android Romana and several guards approach the cabin. Lamia enters and is surprised by the Doctor, who initiates the exchange earlier. She brings in the android Romana but K-9 warns the Doctor and he ducks before the android can shoot him. He maneuvers around, allowing K-9 to destroy the android. Hearing female screaming, Grendel orders his men to fire on the cabin. Lamia runs out, yelling at them to stop firing but is shot down.

Back at Grendel's castle, Romana picks the lock of her chains and frees herself. She unlocks Reynart but he is too weak to travel. He creates a ruse and knocks out the guard, allowing Romana to escape on Grendel's horse. She rides past the cabin just as K-9 finishes cutting a hole in the back, allowing the Doctor and himself to escape. The Doctor and Romana ride off while K-9 stuns the pursuing guards.

The Doctor returns to the house outside the city where he first met Reynart and the android has been taken for repairs. Shortly after arrival, Grendel appears under a flag of truce. He enters and offers the Doctor the chance to become king. The Doctor is amused but alerts Zadok to Grendel's plan. Grendel takes his spear to which his white flag is attached and throws it into the chest of the android Reynart. Grendel then flees, grabbing Romana and riding back to his castle with her.

Back at the castle, Grendel summons the Archimandrite to perform first the wedding between Reynart and Princess Strella (really Romana) and then his own to Princess Strella following Reynart's death. As the real Strella refuses to go along with it, he uses her life to threaten Romana and Reynart to agree to his plan.

The Doctor devises a plan to get into the castle and open the doors from the inside for Reynart's men. He and K-9 take a boat across the moat to a passageway under the castle. The passage is baracaded by a heavy door but K-9 cuts an opening for the Doctor. The Doctor sneaks in but leave K-9 to guard the boat in case they need a hasty escape.

The Doctor enters the main hall and stops the wedding before it finishes. Angered by the Doctor's interference, Grendel challenges the Doctor to single combat, going so far as to give him a sword for a proper fight. The Doctor toys with him a bit but soon has Grendel on his heels. He tells Reynart to open the gates and he does, allowing Zadok and his men to pour through the main gate.

Grendel's captain of the guard heads down to the dungeons to kill Princess Strella but Romana follows him and she and Strella knock him out before he can attack him. As the castle falls, Grendel and the Doctor fight on the rooftop. Realizing the battle is lost, Grendel retreats and dives off the battlements, into the moat and swims away.

A victorious Reynart offers the Doctor control of all of Grendel's lands but he declines. He collects Romana and then the Key segment from Lamia's lab. They then spy K-9 adrift on the boat in the middle of the moat. They move to collect him and depart the planet.

Analysis

I don't know that I could rate this one as high as The Ribos Operation, but this is a fun story to watch. While the androids and electric swords and crossbows officially push this over to science fiction, it's much more of a romantic epic in the lines of The Man in the Iron Mask and the like.

The Doctor is quite fun here. He's jokey but not over-the-top to the point of silliness. He has good lines and trades wit with both friends and foes alike. But he also has a few moments of seriousness that emphasize the danger to those involved. It's a good adventuring Doctor.

Romana is pretty good in this one and Mary Tamm actually gets a lot of extra work playing Princess Strella and two androids. She doesn't do much as Strella and the acting for an android is to play nearly dead, but it is still a lot of screen time. I rather enjoyed the beginning how she is off to shove it in the Doctor's face as to what their business is. She also has a good amount of spunk while still showing how green she is in the ways of the universe. Her attempting to get Grendel's horse to move is quite funny and you can tell that she is much more comfortable with something like K-9 than an actual animal.

Unquestionably, the star of the show is Count Grendel. He is mustache twirl-y but not so over-the-top as to become farcical. He also shows an odd dichotomy for both being a cheating asshole (such as promising not to shoot the Doctor and then ordering his men to shoot him) but also being a strict observer of the rules. Grendel clearly has the power to seize the throne by force or at least threaten the other nobles into supporting his claim, but he instead chooses to through a more complicated plan involving androids and murder just to ensure he has legal standing.

For all his mustache twirling, it was nice to see him be fairly competent. He successfully captures Reynart, successfully destroys the Reynart android and could have killed the Doctor to seal the wedding plan if he had not chosen to indulge in sport and a bit of chivalry. What's more, he is actually a very good swordsman and could have bested anyone else who challenged him, making his pretense of chivalry with the Doctor a lot less bluster than it would have been with other villains. Despite his being a bastard, in the end, there is a part of me that is happy to see him swim away, the odd taunt still on his lips.

The sword fight at the end was actually really well done. It's starts with a touch of silliness from the Doctor and a clear bit of irritation from Grendel. But it escalates quickly. What's even more interesting is that there is no music for the first part of the fight. It's just the open clash of the blades that fill the hall. It's not until Grendel is disarmed by the Doctor and he takes on a "this is serious tone" that we start getting some background music for their fight. What's more, the focus then begins to shift to the other aspects with Reynart retraining the manservant and opening the gate as well as Romana tracking down the captain of the guard in the dungeons. I only wish the middle portion of the fight in the passageway to the roof had been better lit. There is a nice play of shadow but Grendel gets the Doctor off-balance before he runs off and I would have liked to see that better rather that have the Doctor just be consumed by one area of darkness and then shown to be on the ground.

Most of the rest of the cast was also decent, though they didn't have that much to contribute. Reynart was probably the strongest of the lower tier, managing to pull off a man who did seem truly suited to be king. Lamia was probably the weakest as she was a little too emotionally stunted for my taste. I think she was going for bored indifference, but it came across as more stiff than anything else. Even her death seemed like weak acting, as though she couldn't show emotion even then. It just didn't play that well.

There were some nice little touches made in the production. I found the clock with extra hours a nice addition and there was a good diversity among the clothing of the nobles, giving it a strong period vibe. There was also a nice blend of exterior and interior shooting, including some clear night shots which gave the story an added layer of depth and realism that I enjoyed.

I also enjoyed how this story used K-9 as a true member of the crew though it did expose one reason why he isn't used that often. The Doctor clearly needed him to get out of the one trap and to breach the castle in another. But in the escape from the cottage trap, K-9 mows down four or five of Grendel's guards and that does remind the audience just how overpowered he is. K-9 could easily have been used to destroy the entire garrison of Grendel's castle single-handedly should the Doctor have wanted to blast his way through, but keeping him to the boat as a trusted sentry, actually makes sense and was a way to keep him from doing something like that. It's smart use, even if it does highlight other problems.

It did slow down in a couple of points and when the Doctor and Grendel were not directly involved, it bogged down a bit, but this story still moved along fairly well and is well worth watching for Count Grendel alone. I will say that I think you have to be in the right mood for it as the structure and tone is much closer to The Princess Bride rather than any traditional Doctor Who. But I think most folks would be happy to sit down with this story most of the time. I know I would and could easily have some fun with it at any time.

Overall personal score:

Planet of the Dead

He will knock four times.

Planet of the Dead was not that well received when first broadcast, mostly due to fans being a bit put out in getting what is a bit of a romp after a four month hiatus and looking into a further six month wait until The Waters of Mars. RTD later went back and explained that given the dark nature of The Waters of Mars and the end of the Tenth Doctor in The End of Time, he wanted to keep this story fairly light. Watched in isolation and removed from the wait, it is better than original fan reaction, though not without it's flaws.

Plot Summary

A thief, Lady Christina de Souza, breaks into a museum and steals a thousand year old gold cup. The alarms go off as she nears the exit of the building and the police arrive, cutting off her planned escape. She then gets on a bus to hide. Just before the bus leaves, the Doctor gets on, tracking an anomaly in space. The bus drives along and Christina is spotted by the detective who leads a pursuit of the bus. He also has the police set a blockade at the other end of the tunnel the bus has just driven in. As it nears the exit, the bus suddenly vanishes, disappearing through a wormhole.

The bus emerges on the other side, beaten up but intact, and lodges itself in the middle of a desert. The Doctor points out the wormhole they just passed through and before he can stop him, the driver tries to go back. He emerges on the other side, all his flesh having been boiled off. Stunned, the police call in UNIT to take over. On the planet, Lady Christina organizes the other passengers and sets the Doctor to getting them back home.

The Doctor figures the bus protected them like a Faraday cage and that if they can get it moving, they can go back. The passengers are set at various tasks, digging out the wheels, laying them on flats and cleaning the sand out of the engine. As the Doctor and Christina look around, they notice a sand storm approaching, but that contains glints of metal. One of the passengers, a woman named Carmen, has a level of psychic perception that is amplified by the planet, she senses death approaching from the cloud.

The Doctor makes contact with UNIT via a modified cell phone, talking first with the UNIT commander, Captain Magambo, and then with the team scientist, Dr. Malcolm Taylor. The Doctor sets Malcolm on measuring the wormhole and then figuring a way to close it. The Doctor and Lady Christina return to the top of the dune to chart the storm when they are approached by a fly-like alien called a Tritovore. It takes them back to its ship to see the captain.

The captain believes the Doctor and the passengers on the bus are responsible for the attack on his ship, which crashed while attempting to set up a trade between planets. The Doctor convinces the captain that they are not responsible and fellow crash victims. He then helps restore power enough to launch a probe to study the storm. The Doctor learns that the planet they are on was inhabited by 100 billion people and showed no sign of distress only a year ago. Now, the Tritovore ship is crashed in the middle of what was once the capital city. As the probe reaches the storm, they learn that it is not a sand storm, but billions of metallic stingray-like creatures. He reasons they stripped the planet clean and are now flying in formation around the planet, creating a wormhole to fly to the next planet for them to feed.

The Doctor receives a call from the bus passengers informing him that the bus is out of gas, leaving it without power. He decides to extract the main power source of the Tritovore ship to help them. Lady Christina sets up her repelling rig and descends into the shaft before the Doctor can stop her. He then guides her through until she reaches the bottom. She manages to extract the crystal and it's mounting plate but discovers one of the stingray creatures in the shaft, dormant due to the cold, but waking due to her body heat. Once the extraction is done, the Doctor pulls her out and she resets the security field, trapping the creature in the shaft. However, several other creatures were in the hull when it crashed and they are also waking up. The Doctor urges the Tritovore captain to abandon the ship but he refuses. One of the creatures emerges from the hull and eats him. The other Tritovore shoots repeatedly at the creature but it has no effect and he is also eaten. The Doctor and Lady Christina flee the ship, only a short way ahead of the swarm.

Upon reaching the bus, the Doctor tosses the power crystal and attaches the anti-gravity clamps to the bus wheels. He attaches the interface to the bus wheel but find that they won't integrate. Realizing he needs gold to make the interface work, he asks Christina for the cup she stole, having seen it and figuring her for a thief during her descent into the power shaft. She reluctantly agrees and he smashes it apart to make the interface. The Doctor also calls Malcolm to have him be ready to close the wormhole just after they emerge. Captain Magambo overhears this and threatens to shoot Malcolm if he does not close it immediately.

With the interface complete, the Doctor engages the anti-gravity and then flies the bus back through the wormhole. Malcolm refuses to close the wormhole until hearing of the Doctor's pass through. One through, he tries to close it but his machine malfunctions. The Doctor calls him and walks him through the process and the wormhole closes with only three stingrays having gotten through. Those three are killed by the UNIT soldiers waiting on the other side.

Upon landing, the passengers are escorted away, though Lady Christina breaks off to join the Doctor. She asks to come with him, having had the TARDIS delivered to him by UNIT, but he refuses, feeling that it's too dangerous for anyone to travel with him at the moment. Lady Christina is then arrested by the detective who had been waiting around with UNIT during the crisis.

Seeing the passengers off, Carmen gives a warning to the Doctor that his song is ending, that he is returning and that he will knock four times. The Doctor acknowledges the warning and then quietly frees Christina from her handcuffs. She slips out of the police car, steals the bus and flies off into the night as the Doctor disappears in the TARDIS.

Analysis

Planet of the Dead is a mostly fun rompy story but it does have a few flaws. The two most prominent are a couple of the acting portrayals and the occasional hard shifts in tone reflected in the two different styles of the writers: Russell T. Davies and Gareth Roberts. Nonetheless, it is far better than it is generally given credit for.

This is pretty much the last we see of the light side of the Tenth Doctor and he revels in it. He is in full command and very enjoyable. There are glimmers of darkness, such as when he recalls Donna (although not by name) and when he says no to Lady Christina to traveling with him. But even there, he beats back the darkness and indulges in the fun. It's at times silly, but never over-the-top or badly done.

Lady Christina is a fun pseudo-companion. She matches well with the Tenth Doctor, matching him with wit and resource, but also having enough respect for him that she defers to his knowledge when appropriate. Her cockiness would probably have been her undoing had she continued and I think I can see shades of Clara in her, both in the good and the bad. But in this one story, she does well, although I was disappointed in the indulgence of the trope at the beginning where she removed her mask before leaving the museum. No proper thief would ever do something that stupid. She also should have ducked down in the bus, obscuring her face rather than looking directly at the detective. But the plot needed to start in some way.

The folks on the bus are pretty non-descript as they are more rescue objects than actual characters. There is some minor development with a couple and they also provide a touch of comedy here and there but you could have left the bus empty and it wouldn't have changed the story much.

The exception is Carmen and I do not like her. I think the acting was sub-par and the attitude of the character was a distraction whenever it shifted to her. The psychic stuff had no bearing on what happened and if anything it defused the tension rather than accelerating it because it put the Doctor on his guard rather than being totally surprised at the nature of the swarm. The prophecy at the end was far too heavy handed and poorly delivered as well. I would have actually thought it better if as the people walked away, Ood Sigma was left standing (so only the Doctor could see) and stated the line about him knocking four times. It still would have been heavy handed but it would have played in to previous uses of the Ood and their psychic abilities and provided continuity to the use of Ood Sigma in The Waters of Mars and The End of Time.

UNIT was fairly non-descript in this story. Captain Magambo was fine as a stand-in for the Brigadier but I didn't care for the false tension of her threatening Malcolm before the Doctor emerged. It just seemed a bit much and you can see how a character like this was morphed into Kate Stewart in the Eleventh Doctor era. Malcolm was a light bit of humor but also not overly memorable. His main point is to provide the quick Deus Ex Machina fix at the end with the closing of the wormhole. Not bad, but not standout either.

Both aliens were good in this. I like the idea of the somewhat mindless swarm of stingrays that fly from planet to planet like a swarm of locusts. Not evil, just hungry. I also liked the feint with the Tritovores, given our natural disgust towards flies, and having them be victims just as much as the bus folk. I was a little disappointed that they were gotten rid of so quickly as having at least one of them make it back to the bus and interact with the passengers would have provided an interesting little dynamic at the end.

The overall story was pretty good if relatively thin. There is a darker tone that permeates most of the story but with lighter bits here and there. However the end gets a bit too silly for my taste. The sting rays are essentially on top of them and they have time to banter and wave about in the air before going through the wormhole. Likewise there are the soaring aerial shots of London which look very nice, but in that time, much more than three stingrays should have gotten through and been terrorizing UNIT. Christina's escape at the end was also rather farcical as if overly attempting to compensate for the darkness of predicting the Doctor's death. This was rather unnecessary as everyone knew that David Tenant was leaving at the end of the gap year so there wasn't really a need to lighten the tone in such a huge way.

I don't know that much can be said about the effects or direction. The stingrays are dated CGI but it's fairly easy to ignore them as they are not dwelt on for very long. Similarly, I know that parts of this were shot in Dubai but it's rather difficult to tell and I was told that all of it was shot on a sound stage, I would have easily believed it. It has the standard Doctor Who level of engagingness but also cheapness that we expect from British television. The ultimate point is that they don't distract from the overall story which is about as good as you can ask for in any effects heavy story.

Overall, given time and the ability to see this story as it's own thing rather than an island in the midst of a sea of waiting, it is fairly entertaining. Most everyone is either at the top of their game or at least in a position of high entertainment with the prominent exception I noted earlier. If you wanted to treat someone to a decent bit of stand-alone Doctor Who, this would not be a bad choice. It's fun and if you don't expect too much of it, you won't be disappointed.

Overall personal score: 4 out of 5

The Mind of Evil

He's free to come and go where he pleases and I'm stuck here on Earth... with you Brigadier!

The Mind of Evil was one of those stories that never seemed to get talked about very much. I suppose it got lost in the shuffle of all the Master stories of Season Eight and doesn't have that memorable hook item or character like others. It also is rather notable in that there isn't any real monster. Yes, there is a parasite in the Keller Machine, but the visible antagonists are just ordinary men, which probably makes this story probably the closest Doctor Who got to being a James Bond rip-off in the Bond-like Third Doctor era.

Plot Summary

The Doctor and Jo head to a high security prison where a new method of treating prisoners is being demonstrated. Dr. Kettering demonstrates the Keller Machine on a prisoner named Barnham, explaining that the evil thoughts are drained from a man's mind, leaving him safe for society. The Doctor is skeptical and becomes concerned when Barnham seems to have a bad reaction, leaving him with the mind of a child. While examining him in another room, another observer of the machine is found dead of heart failure, his face covered in bites and scratches.

The man's body is examined and it is suspected that he died due to fright. His medical records indicate an extreme fear of rats, which were consistent with the marks on his face. Dr. Kettering dismisses this and insults the Doctor's scientific prowess. However, a short time later, Dr. Kettering himself is found dead with symptoms consistent with drowning.

At the same time, the Brigadier is overseeing security at a UN peace conference in London. He is informed that he is also to provide security for a shipment of a missile scheduled for destruction, a task he delegates to Captain Yates. He is then informed by the head of the Chinese delegation's security, Captain Chin Lee, that important papers are missing. The Brigadier instigates a search for them while Captain Lee heads out and burns a set of papers, seemingly under the influence of a metallic orb behind her ear.

The Brigadier's men conduct their search but find nothing. They are soon informed that a member of the Chinese delegation has been murdered. The Brigadier conducts an investigation but finds an inconsistency in Captain Lee's story about finding the body and suspects her of murder. He also sends a request for the Doctor to join him at the conference.

After examining Dr. Kettering's body, Dr. Summers and the Governor of the prison agree to suspend use of the Keller Machine but lack the authority to dismantle it. The Doctor sets about examining the machine, hoping to get proof for it's destruction. As he examines it, he begins to envision himself on fire. Jo comes in and breaks the connection between the Doctor and the machine. The Doctor relates how the machine conjured a memory of seeing a planet on fire and projected it on him.

Captain Yates enters and informs the Doctor that he is to come to the peace conference to help investigate the murder of the Chinese general. Annoyed, the Doctor agrees and tells Jo to order the prison governor to have the room sealed, to which she agrees.

In London, Captain Lee uses the power of the Keller Machine, through the implant behind her ear to cause Sargent Benton, who had been tailing her, to pass out. She then slips away into the crowd. She passes a man setting up a tap line to a phone junction box. The man then ducks into a tent and is revealed as the Master. He then heads to a limo where he listens on Captain Yates' plan to escort the missile to it's drop off point.

After dressing down Benton, the Brigadier speaks with the Doctor. He agrees to the Doctor's demand to dismantle the Keller machine once the peace conference is over. He then takes the Doctor to meet the new Chinese delegate, Fu Peng. The Doctor ingratiates himself with Fu Peng as they chat in Mandarin. Peng eventually invites the Doctor to come back for dinner and the Doctor departs, leaving the Brig annoyed at the slow pace of discussion.

Afterwards, the Brigadier informs the Doctor that they are searching for Captain Lee on suspicion of murder and the Doctor becomes convinced that she is the same Chinese woman who assisted Professor Keller in the installation of the Keller Machine. Captain Lee meanwhile goes to see the Master. He reinforces his hypnotic control over her and orders her to kill the American delegate.

Back at the prison, a new cell is being prepared and the janitor slips a revolver under the pillow. When the new prisoner, Mailer, is brought in, he grabs the planted gun and takes the guards hostage. He heads down to the infirmary and takes Dr. Summers and Jo hostage as well.

Captain Lee calls the American delegate, Senator Alcott, over to have a secret discussion with the Chinese delegation. Alcott enters the darkened suite where Chin Lee projects a dragon fear into him using the Keller Machine. At that moment, the Doctor, the Brigadier and Fu Peng enter for their prearranged dinner. The Brigadier sees the dragon and tries to shoot it but the Doctor deflects his shot. The gunshot however does break the connection between Chin Lee and the Keller Machine and she resumes normal form and passes out. Senator Alcott also survives.

Fu Peng heads back to his embassy while the Brigadier heads back to the office. The Doctor removes her implant and lets her recover on the couch. In the morning, having convinced her that he is on her side, he takes her to see the Brigadier. She relates that she met Professor Keller at a diplomatic conference and he invited her to go with him to the prison to learn about the process. After their arrival, her memories become fuzzy. From her description, the Doctor becomes convinced that Professor Keller is the Master, intent on starting a war on Earth.

Aware that Chin Lee's hypnosis was broken, the Master monitors communications more closely and becomes aware of the Doctor's theories about his machine. He heads up to the prison to wait for him.

Mailer attempts to negotiate with the governor for his and the other prisoner's release. The governor resists, going so far as to inform UNIT of Jo's capture. This arouses the Doctor and he departs for the prison. Eventually the governor agrees to talk to the prisoners. Mailer tries to set up for him but in a moment of distraction, Jo disarms him and the guards swarm in and subjugate the prisoners. Mailer is returned to his cell as are the other prisoners.

The Master arrives and offers to fix the Keller Machine but asks to see Mailer, who was next on the list for Keller Machine treatment, first. Alone with him, he gives him a gun and a gas mask and the two of them create a mass breakout with the guards either knocked out due to gas or shot in the chaos. Jo and Dr. Summers are once again captured and placed in a cell. The prisoners take the guard uniforms and take their places.

The Doctor arrives and is brought in under guard to see the Master. The Master informs him that while he intends to kill him, he needs his help to fix the Keller Machine. He also informs the Doctor that he intends to steal the missile being transported by Yates and Benton and use it to destroy the peace conference and thus start a war.

The Doctor kicks over the desk and runs out, evading the prisoner guards. Hearing Jo and Summers crying out to him from a cell, the Doctor cuts through the Keller Machine room where the Master and Mailer are waiting for him. The Master cuffs the Doctor and hooks him to the machine, which he has temporarily repaired. He then turns on the machine and leaves the room while the Doctor begins to see visions of previous monsters he has faced.

One of the Doctor's hearts stop and he passes out. However the power of the Keller Machine expands to the rest of the prison and the Master is forced to rush back in and shut it down. He restarts the Doctor's heart and has Mailer drag him to the cell with Jo and Dr. Summers. Summers looks him over and is then taken to another part of the prison. Before passing out, the Doctor warns Jo that the Keller Machine in inhabited by a mental parasite, feeding off dark thoughts.

The Master heads back to check on the Keller Machine but finds that the creature inside the machine is not bending to his will. The creature projects the Master's fear and an apparition of the Doctor appears, laughing derisively at the Master. The Master flees the room and bars the door, determined to starve the creature into submission.

Meeting in the governor's office later, Mailer demands to know the Master's plan as to why they don't just escape. The Master informs Mailer that he plans to send the prisoners out to steal the missile being transported. He tells Mailer that he intends to threaten the peace conference and hold London hostage. In the morning sends them out to a specified location to set an ambush.

Jo calls to the guards for breakfast and the guard brings in some food. Jo attacks him and the Doctor knocks out the other guard. They hide in the governor's office and observe the prisoners and the Master leaving the prison.

The prisoners attack the convoy, killing or wounding most of the escort and knocking out Yates' radio, although he does get a distress signal off. Yates plays dead for a bit and then follows the stolen missile on a motorcycle. He spies them hiding it in a warehouse but is seen and captured before he can ride off.

Alerted by Yates' signal, the Brigadier and UNIT drive up to find the ambush. A recovering Benton tells the Brigadier that he saw a police van as part of the ambush and the Brigadier immediately suspects it came from the prison where the Doctor was headed.

In the prison, the creature in the Keller Machine manages to teleport itself out of the room and kills one of the prisoners guarding the room. His screams attract both Jo and the Doctor and Mailer and another prisoner. They enter the room to find the holding jar gone, although it quickly reappears. It kills the other prisoner and then attacks Mailer, the Doctor and Jo at once. Mailer flees and the machine goes after him, being a stronger source of evil. The Doctor and Jo head for an exit where they spy a UNIT helicopter with the Brigadier in it. They wave at it but are recaptured by the prisoners before they can do anything else.

Mailer, who escaped the machine, calls the Master and demands he come back. The Master reluctantly agrees, though he is not yet finished setting up the missile. He leaves Captain Yates as a hostage in the event something goes wrong with the missile. After he leaves, Yates manages to free himself, knock out his guard, and flee the warehouse.

The Master arrives at the prison and forces the Doctor to assist him in bringing the creature in the Keller Machine to heel. The Doctor rigs a device mimicking the wave patterns of a human brain and is able to place the signaler around the creature's dome before being overwhelmed by thoughts of his enemies. He warns the Master that it is only a temporary solution and the Master takes him back to his cell to rest, where he relates his meeting with Sir Walter Raleigh to Jo.

Convinced the missile has been stored at the prison, the Brigadier plans to assault the prison. He splits his forces into two groups. He poses as a delivery man bringing food to the prison. As he is let in, soldiers leap out the back of the truck and overwhelm the guards. They fight their way in but get pinned down in the courtyard. A second group, led by Benton, sneaks through an old underground passage and catches the prisoners from the rear. With the courtyard secure, the Brigadier opens the gates to let more soldiers in.

Mailer, hearing the soldiers overwhelm his men, grabs Jo and the Doctor as hostages. He pulls them out and Jo tries to get a drop on him on the stairs. She fails and Mailer prepares to shoot the Doctor, needing only one hostage. However, the Brigadier enters and shoots Mailer first. They have secured the prison but the Master escaped. The Doctor also tells the Brigadier that the missile is not at the prison.

After taking the surviving prisoners back to their cells, the Doctor and the Brigadier examine a map to figure out where the Master might have stored the missile. They receive a call from Captain Yates who tells them of the missile location. The Brigadier leaves Benton in charge the prison and heads down to take care of the missile. The Doctor stays behind with Jo to try and figure out how to stop the creature in the Keller Machine.

The creature manages to overload the machine the Doctor has created and it teleports outside the room and kills two guards. The Doctor and Jo discover the murder and head back to the room to investigate. The Keller Machine reappears and attacks them but it's attack is thwarted when Barnham wanders into the room looking for Jo, to whom he has developed a bond since his incapacitation. The Doctor realizes that since Barnham has already had his evil thoughts eaten by the creature, he acts as a neutralizing agent against it. The Doctor order Jo to keep Barnham in the room with the creature while he gets equipment to kill it.

While in the governor's office with Benton, the Master calls and discovers that UNIT has retaken the prison. The Master speaks with the Doctor, informing him of his intentions. The Doctor offers the Master a deal: he will return the dematerialization circuit he stole from the Master's TARDIS in exchange for the missile. The Master agrees but says he will launch the missile if any attack is made. The Doctor calls the Brigadier who calls off his planned attack and also sends a man to UNIT HQ to retrieve the circuit.

The Doctor gets an idea of how to destroy the creature and the Master. He and Jo have Barnham carry the creature into a van and they ride with it to see the Brigadier, who gives him the circuit. The Brigadier also informs the Doctor that the missile is equipped with a self destruct but that it has been disabled by the Master.

The Doctor drives to the airfield in the van with Jo, Barnham and the creature hidden in the back. As he distracts the Master with the circuit, Jo and Barnham slip out carrying the creature. The Doctor disarms the Master and knocks him down while Jo and Barnham run to the side, leaving the Master with the creature. The creature attacks the Master and he is unable to stop the Doctor running in to the hanger to reactivate the self destruct. A helicopter arrives and the Doctor and Jo run to board it. Barnham also runs but in his child-like state, he tries to help the Master. He blocks the influence of the creature and the Master gets up and climbs into the van. He runs over Barnham and flees the field.

The Doctor and Jo run back to find the impact has killed Barnham and they flee back to the helicopter. As they take off, the Brigadier activates the self destruct and the missile explodes, destroying the hanger and the creature in the Keller Machine.

Afterwards, the Doctor discovers the circuit has fallen out of his pocket. He receives a call from the Master who informs him that he has recovered the circuit and will be leaving for a while but will be back.

Analysis

The Mind of Evil is decent overall. It has some good moments and some not so good moments. It has a good amount of action, but it also has a lot of padding. Overall, I'd say it's good, but I can understand why it gets lost in the shuffle and is never really picked out as anyone's favorite Third Doctor story.

I think my highest enjoyment came from the Master in this story. He doesn't appear until halfway through Episode Two so there is a bit of a mystery about him and unlike some of his other plans, this is actually a well thought out idea of his. He screws it up of course as he fails to see that he will lose control of the mind parasite, though he does seem to have anticipated that it would grow stronger and require him to return. Still, he is not randomly siding with the Doctor or begging for the Doctor's help as in other stories. He does use the Doctor but only while he has the upper hand and is threatening Jo. In this story at least, the Master is more akin to a slightly more competent Bond villain.
For only her second story, this one was a real boost for Jo. Unlike Terror of the Autons, Jo never succumbs to mind control, she is caring and competent in her duties and she has several strong action scenes. At no point does Jo make a major contribution to the overall plot resolution, but she does her job well and does not provide any level of harm to the plans. I found Jo quite enjoyable here.

The Doctor is fairly good here, but he is a real ass as well. He starts off wrong by being openly rude about the Keller Machine. If he knew, or even suspected that it was dangerous, he should have been softer and less of a jerk and maybe they would have believed him sooner. Similarly, despite her best efforts and a lack of mistakes, the Doctor is rather rude to Jo. It is still clear that while he cares for her in a fatherly sort of way, he still does not respect her and can be overly short and snide with her. His pomposity might be alright if he was in control of the situation but for nearly the whole story, he's playing catch-up to the Master and the inmates of the prison. Arrogance comes across rather badly when you're being thwarted by others.

I rather liked that there wasn't much of a alien villain in this one. Yes, the Keller Machine parasite was of alien origin but it wasn't this lumbering monster. It wasn't even the main focus for several parts of the story as things shifted to the Master and the prisoner's plans to take the missile. I do wish the prisoners had a bit more depth to them. Mailer was the primary focus but he seemed a bit of a one-note tough and that got a bit boring after awhile. The Master was better, having more nuance in his performance, even if his plans were fairly simple.

There was padding in this story but not to an egregious degree. I think the biggest point of padding was in how much back and forth there was in how the prison was taken over, order restored, retaken over, etc. As much as I liked Jo's bit of kick ass in suppressing the initial prison uprising prior to the Master's arrival, that was clearly a point where a concept had been stretched out. I'm guessing in the initial treatment, the prison uprising didn't actually happen until after the Master arrived. Similarly, there is a lot of capture, escape and recapture by the Doctor that I'm sure was initially just one incident in the original idea. Like most Third Doctor stories, there is enough in this one that it could be pared down to four episodes and you'd lose very little in terms of story content.

I thought the direction of the story was ok. The fight scene where the prisoners take the missile was very well done with some nice location shooting. Some of the prison scenes were nice but others were somewhat bland. I'd say that this particular director had a good eye for action but was a bit drab in the standard part of the story. But I saw more positive than negative. At no point did I ever think of a shot as being bad, save the tilting and whirling of the Keller Machine escaping the Doctor's ring trap. I actually had to look away from the screen at that point as the visual was making me motion sick. But at worst, all the other shots were simply non-notable, which is still better than being outright bad.

I think this would be a fine story to show someone not familiar with the Third Doctor era or the Delgado Master as they will be reasonably entertained by it. However, there still remains the lack of a good hook and the somewhat unlikable nature of the Third Doctor in this story. The good outweighs the bad but it's not a story that you're going to put high on the re-watch list as there are better interactions between the Doctor and the Master I think.

Overall personal score: 3 out of 5

The Beast Below

Of course, once you've stopped torturing the pilot.

The Beast Below was a curious follow up to The Eleventh Hour. It was more in the generic monster-mystery style but the bigger thing for me was that after defining himself so well, the Eleventh Doctor had a relapse into Tenth Doctor mode. When I watched this the first time around several years ago, I was quite surprised at how unpleasant the Eleventh Doctor appeared when he tried to channel the Tenth Doctor's dark rage. It just didn't work for me. Sitting down with it several years later, it went down a bit better, but still not great.

Plot Summary

On a floating city in space, a boy named Timmy receives a bad mark in class, earning a reprimand from a statue in class. His friend Mandy warns him to walk home but he takes the elevator. As he does, the floor drops out and he falls into a pit.

The Doctor and Amy fly nearby in the TARDIS and the Doctor observes Mandy crying on the scanner. He goes out to comfort her but she runs away. Amy follows and the Doctor becomes distracted by a glass of water. He gives Amy Mandy's pass and tells her to follow her while he investigates another issue.

Amy follows Mandy and meets her outside a tent blocking off a damaged bit of street. Defying warnings, Amy picks the lock and enters the tent where she finds a snake-like tendril sticking up. She backs out and is surrounded by guards. They take her to a voting booth where she will watch a video. If she accepts it, she will vote to forget what she watched while the alternative is to file a protest. Amy watches the video and wakes to find that she has voted to forget and filmed a short video warning her to get the Doctor away.

The Doctor makes his way to the engine room where he is shocked to find no hookups and evidence that there is no engine at all. He is met by a mysterious masked woman called Liz Ten who echoes his suspicions. She gives him a tracker to help him find Amy, whom she has learned is in trouble.

The Doctor locates Amy's voting cube as she finishes watching her warning video. Mandy was waiting outside. The Doctor enters but cannot vote as he does not register as human. Curious, he votes to protest and the floor drops out. He and Amy fall through a tube into a large mouth, resting on the tongue. The Doctor triggers an upset stomach in the beast and a wave of vomit erupts from the stomach, pushing them back up to a service passage.

The Doctor attempts to open the door but it will only open if he presses a forget button. When he refuses, two smiler statues emerge from their kiosks and attack him and Amy. The door opens and Liz Ten pops out and shoots both robots. She and Mandy found the Doctor as he was still carrying her tracker. Liz Ten takes them out where she reveals herself as Elizabeth X, queen of Spaceship UK, a ship crafted to escape the Earth when it was devastated by solar flares in the 29th century.

Liz takes them to her apartment where she and the Doctor figure out that the ship is being transported by a large beast and that people are being fed to it. Her chamberlain, Hawthorne, has her guard enter and escort her to the control tower. There she watches a video made by herself that the creature is a star whale who came towards Earth during the time of the flares and they built their escape ship on it's back. The Doctor further reveals that she has also had her metabolism slowed so that she is actually 300 years old and votes to forget what they have done.

An angry Doctor amplifies the sound coming from one of the tendrils to show that the whale is screaming in pain from the electrical shocks they keep pumping into it's brain to keep it moving. He also turns on Amy, realizing that she told herself to get him away because he would be forced to either let the whale live in agony or condemn the colony to destruction. He decides to try a third option of sending a huge electrical shock into it's brain, rendering it a vegetable, depriving it of pain but keeping it alive to keep the ship alive. But he is furious with the choice and informs Amy that he will be taking her home after he has finished.

Amy is distracted by a group of children entering carrying tools. Hawthorne notes that the whale does not eat children that fall into it's mouth. She also sees the tendril playfully tap Mandy and tease her hair. Amy suddenly shouts for the Doctor to stop. She grabs Liz's hand and forces her to slap the abdicate button. The electrical impulses into the whale's brain stop but rather than it shaking the ship loose and destroying it, the whale increases it's speed.

Amy tells the astonished crowd that the whale came because it was alone and could not bear the cries of the children. It came to help and the humans were only holding it back in their misunderstanding of it's intentions. Liz thanks her and drops the mask, vowing to deal openly with the people for the rest of their journey.

Later, the Doctor asks Amy how she realized the nature of the whale. She responds that she saw similar patterns in how the Doctor behaved with Mandy. They head back to the TARDIS where the phone is ringing. Amy answers it to find Winston Churchill on the other end. He asks the Doctor to come to London to help him and the Doctor agrees.

Analysis

There is something off on this story and I quite put my finger on it. It has a moderately threatening villain, mystery and relatively quick pace. Yet I find myself being bored by it.

The Doctor is a little off in this story. He's not bad but he's not the full Eleventh Doctor that we grow accustomed to. I think that he might actually be trying a bit too hard here, which is rather interesting given that this story was shot after Flesh and Stone and The Time of Angels. But to me, he feels like he's trying a bit too hard at the whimsy or strange bits and then he goes way over the top with the anger at the end. In that scene in the tower, he feels like someone trying to do the Tenth Doctor rather than the Eleventh Doctor and it just does not work.

His vindictive spite towards Amy for trying to deceive him prior to her memory erasure at that moment is also very uncharacteristic. It recalls the contempt the Ninth Doctor had towards Adam after augmenting himself or he had briefly towards Rose when she saved her father. But in both those cases, there was a deliberate screwing or potential screwing with the flow of time. Here, he is just mad that Amy thought to keep the Doctor from a terrible choice. Terminating her travelling with him for that seems excessive even by other Doctor standards. It is a solidly unlikeable moment for the Eleventh Doctor and one for which he does not apologize. He simply moves on because Amy found an alternate solution.

Amy is pretty good in this. She has that starry-eyed whimsy going that you would expect from a first adventure out. She is compassionate and adventurous at the same time. She also employs the Doctor's technique of observation to solve the problem, something that the Doctor himself should have done if he didn't have his head up his ass at the end.

Liz Ten is about the only other member of the cast of note as Mandy is a pretty generic girl through the story. Liz Ten is alright but I felt like they were trying to hard with her. Her talking of herself as a badass was amusing but it had an over-the-top quality that I didn't quite care for. I also thought it a little lame that it repeatedly took her more than ten years to figure out the nature of the secret. Someone as sharp and as determined as she is portrayed to be should have put the pieces of the puzzle together much quicker. There is just a disconnect between the character as portrayed and what we are told about the character and it creates a schism for me.

I liked how the ship was laid out with the slightly grimy quality of it. It wasn't full Alien levels of grime but it had a lived in quality that made it believable. The smilers were something of a red herring and I couldn't figure out why Timmy was sent to the mouth of the whale in the beginning. It is one thing if a person votes to protest and may spill the beans, but scoring poorly in school and taking an elevator when told to walk home doesn't seem like proper justification for attempting to murder a child, especially when you know the whale doesn't eat children. It creates more of a headache to start. If you think he is going to be trouble, why not wipe his memory and then return him to society? It's a plot hole that is needed to get things started but it just sticks with me.

I think the story was pretty straight forward and reasonably well told so I don't think the script is really to blame for this not working. There are some lines that fed into how the characters were formed and that obviously contributed, but I think the overarching story was fine for a simple space adventure. It wasn't deep but second episode stories usually aren't meant to be.

In the end, this story didn't gel for me. It should work, not as a great story but one that works fairly well and it just didn't. I think it was just in how the characters were and interacted and the little problems that built up over time. It's a reasonable adventure and works fine as a have it on in the background story, but for me it just work and I felt a bit unsatisfied at the end.

Overall personal score: 2 out of 5

The Stolen Earth/Journey's End

The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun. But this is the truth Doctor, you take ordinary people and fashion them into weapons.

As has been stated by many others besides me, The Stolen Earth and Journey's End were the real goodbye stories for Russell T. Davies. Yes he stuck around for another year but he tried to replicate these in a way with The End of Time and it didn't really work. These were much more of a natural end with the old sitcom style of bringing back cast that had left the show and having a big send off at the end. But even in that, it is not without it's flaws.

Plot Summary

Having been warned of trouble at the end of Turn Left, the Doctor and Donna arrive back on Earth but find everything seemingly normal. However, upon going back in the TARDIS, the Earth is instantaneously transported away and the TARDIS is left in space. Around the world, reactions are observed by Martha with UNIT in Manhattan, Jack Harkness and his fellow Torchwood team Ianto Jones and Gwen Cooper in Cardiff, Sarah Jane with her son Luke and supercomputer, Mr. Smith, in London and Wilfred and Sylvia also in London. As people notice the change in sky, Rose teleports in, just outside Wilfred and Sylvia's home.

Unable to figure out what happened, the Doctor and Donna travel to the Shadow Proclamation where they learn of twenty four other planets disappearing. While going over the list, Donna recalls that the hatchery planet of the Adipose and the planet of the Pyroviles was also missing. The Doctor adds those to the list along with the lost moon of Poosh and they are projected outward and reform themselves into a perfect engine alignment.

Above Earth, the Daleks prepare an invasion force and move towards Earth, attacking the various armed installations and rounding up humans for transport back to the Dalek command ship, the Crucible. Martha' command post is Manhattan is overrun and the commanding general fits her with a experimental teleport based off Sontaran technology. He also gives her a command disk called the Osterhagen Key. She then teleports to her mother's place in London. With the defenses down, Earth surrenders.

The Doctor and Donna try to figure out how to trace the missing planets and Donna mentions the stories of the missing bees. This triggers an idea as a certain alien insect interbreeds with Earth bees and may have warned them. They scan for signals and trace the alien signature to just outside the Medusa Cascade. The Shadow Proclamation tries to requisition the Doctor but he and Donna leave in the TARDIS before they can take control. They reappear outside the Medusa Cascade but find nothing and the end of the signal trail.

Wilfred and Sylvia step out to fight the Daleks but are rescued by Rose, looking for the Doctor. They head back to their home where Rose detects a signal from Wilfred's computer. It doesn't have a webcamera so she can only receive and not transmit. She observes as Harriet Jones, former PM, sends a signal over the subwave network and contacts Torchwood, Sarah Jane and Martha. She networks with Mr. Smith and the Cardiff rift power source to boost the phone signal to call the Doctor, which succeeds but also alerts the Daleks to Harriet Jones' location. She transfers control to Captain Jack at Torchwood just before the Daleks break into her home and kill her.

The Doctor receives the signal and contacts with Jack, Martha and Sara Jane. Wilfred and Sylvia are relieved to see Donna just behind the Doctor. As they talk, the signal is overridden by The Crucible and the Doctor sees Davros, who was rescued from death in the Time War by Dalek Caan, after escaping the events of Evolution of the Daleks. The Doctor deactivates and lands on Earth in London. The Daleks also send an attack force to the new subwave control center at Torchwood.

After landing, the Doctor and Donna exit and spot Rose who left Wilfred and Sylvia's house. The Doctor runs towards her but is shot down by a passing Dalek. The Dalek is destroyed by Jack who teleports in to help. He and Rose drag the Doctor into the TARDIS where he begins to regenerate. However, after healing the wound, the Doctor transfers the regeneration energy into the severed hand cut off by the Sycorax and recovered from the Master following Last of the Time Lords. The Daleks meanwhile move and surround the TARDIS.

Sarah Jane leaves her house to go help the Doctor but runs into a Dalek patrol. They mean to kill her but are destroyed by Mickey and Jackie Tyler who teleport in from the parallel dimension. They approach the TARDIS and see it placed in a temporal lock which drains it's power. It is then taken up to The Crucible. Knowing it's the only way to get on to the ship, Sarah Jane, Mickey and Jackie surrender to the Daleks and are put with a group of human prisoners for transport.

On The Crucible, the Daleks deactivate the defenses of the TARDIS and order the people out. The Doctor, Rose and Jack all come but Donna is distracted by a heartbeat and the TARDIS door shuts before she can follow. Suspecting treachery, the Supreme Dalek drops the TARDIS into the core of The Crucible where the TARDIS will be destroyed. As the TARDIS begins to burn, Donna touches the hand filled with regeneration energy. It explodes out of it's case and a clone of the Doctor materializes. The clone brings up the TARDIS' power and dematerializes, making it look like the TARDIS was destroyed.

Jack attacks the Supreme Dalek but is gunned down. The Doctor observes him quietly coming back to life but plays along, though Rose is unaware of Jack's ability and thinks him really dead. The Doctor and Rose are taken to Davros' lair while Jack's body is dumped in the incinerator. He escapes and crawls through the ducts while the Doctor and Rose are placed in isolation cells.

As the humans arrive on The Crucible, a woman falls over, distracting the Daleks. Sarah Jane and Mickey make a dash and hide behind a door but Jackie is left in the crowd. The Supreme Dalek orders a test and Davros informs the Doctor of the new weapon, the reality bomb, which destroys the electrical connection between atoms, reducing all matter in it's field to subatomic particles. As it prepares to fire on the crowd, the thirty minute recharge on Jackie's teleport ends and she is able to teleport to Mickey and Sarah Jane while the rest of the humans are disintegrated. Jack pops out of a duct and Sarah Jane gives him a warp star that had been presented to her in the past and Jack hooks it up, preparing to destroy the ship.

On Earth, Martha teleports to Germany where she enters and activates one of the Osterhagen key stations. She radios out to the other stations and two other stations respond: one in China and the other in Africa. They ready their stations, which will trigger twenty-five nuclear warheads buried in the crust, cracking it and destroying the Earth.

At nearly the same time, Martha and Jack radio The Crucible and threaten to activate their weapons if the Daleks do not release the Doctor and return their planets. The Daleks however lock on to the signaling locations and teleport Martha, Jack, Sarah Jane and Mickey to Davros' lair. All four are placed in isolation cells similar to the Doctor and Rose. The Supreme Dalek then orders the powering of the reality bomb to full power to destroy the universe while the Daleks fall back to the protection of The Crucible.

With the failure of other options, the clone Doctor builds a small weapon and rematerializes the TARDIS in Davros' lair. He bursts out but Davros stuns him with a burst of electricity. Donna runs out to grab the weapon and Davros electrocutes her as well. Unbeknownst to him though, the electrical burst energizes the regeneration energy she absorbed from the Doctor's hand, giving her and infusion of the Doctor's mind.

Donna, with the Doctor's mind, access the control panel and deactivates the reality bomb. She then neutralizes Davros' and the Dalek's weaponry. She frees the prisoners who push the Daleks out of the way and she, the Doctor and the clone Doctor return the planets to their proper locations. Davros manages to destroy part of the control panel before they can return the Earth but he is neutralized once again. The Supreme Dalek comes down to attack but it is destroyed by a shot from Mickey.

The Doctor runs back into the TARDIS and contacts Torchwood, who had been caught in a time bubble to protect them from the Dalek attack, and Luke and Mr. Smith. Together they plan to create a reinforced energy line between the Earth and the TARDIS, allowing the TARDIS to pull the Earth across space. To access the TARDIS mainframe, Sarah Jane activates K-9, who feeds the TARDIS information to Mr. Smith. As the Doctor does this, Donna and the clone Doctor realize that the Daleks will still come after them and are highly dangerous. The clone Doctor activates a feedback loop which destroys the Dalek fleet and sets The Crucible on fire.

The Doctor hurries everyone into the TARDIS and appeals to Davros to come with them. Davros curses him and refuses. Dalek Caan, who had arranged everything to ensure the destruction of his own race, shouts a warning that one of his companions still must die. The TARDIS leaves The Crucible as it explodes and pulls the Earth across space and places it back in it's proper orbit.

The Doctor lands on Earth and drops of Martha, Jack, and Sarah Jane. Mickey also comes with them as his grandmother has passed away in the parallel dimension and he feels he has no place there. The Doctor then lands the TARDIS in the parallel dimension in Bad Wolf Bay to return Rose and Jackie, informing them that access between the dimensions will be sealed once more. He also sends the clone Doctor, who, being half human, will age and not regenerate. Rose accepts him as a substitute for the Doctor and the three are left as the TARDIS takes off again.

On the TARDIS, Donna's mind begins to become overwhelmed as the Doctor's mind is too great for her human brain. Knowing that she will die if he doesn't, though she begs him not to, he purges her mind of her knowledge of him, leaving her as she was before being transported to the TARDIS at the beginning of The Runaway Bride. He returns her to Wilfred and Sylvia's and tells them that they must never reveal what happened to her.

Donna wakes and assumes that she missed things once again. She dismisses the Doctor with a bare glance and he leaves the house. Wilfred however sees him off, saluting him as he goes. The Doctor then dematerializes in the TARDIS, alone once more.

Analysis

It's a bit cliché to talk again about how RTD starts off a story like a house on fire but always peters out. But the cliché does apply to this story as it has in previous ones. However, I would note that I don't think the fall off here was as bad as some fans make it. It is still a good story and still fundamentally entertaining even if there are some sour notes in the second half.

I'll just go ahead and cut to the chase, the problem in Journey's End is the tone shift. The Stolen Earth and the first 30 minutes or so of Journey's End played like a solid sci-fi adventure story. There was a small cheese factor but the overall tone was mostly dark and serious with some real weight behind the various moments such as the Doctor getting shot by a stray Dalek, the Daleks destroying a house with a family inside it and the death of Harriet Jones.

That tone continued until the arrival of Doctor-Donna. While I love Donna, the flippancy that suddenly took over regarding the situation and her own cavalier attitude towards the situation was just so jarring. Millions of people had died and they are laughing and pushing the Daleks and Davros around like the props they actually are. I don't even mind the usual complaint people have about the shut down being a single button on a panel in Davros' lair. For me, it is all about the flippancy of the moment.

The silliness gets compounded with the TARDIS towing the Earth across space. That just seems a bridge too far and how do you reconcile that silly, cartoony tone with the idea of Daleks mowing people down or even what happens to Donna later? The story was dark and brooding, then it got silly, then pukingly saccharine, then dark and depressing again. It's just so inconsistent in what it thinks the audience should feel about it that it becomes aggravating.

So let's jump to the saccharine moment: leaving Rose on Bad Wolf bay a second time. I'm fairly open about not liking Rose very much but I appreciated the emotion of that scene in Doomsday. There was raw feeling and even if you didn't like Rose, you could appreciate the loss she was feeling with regard to the Doctor. Fast forward two years later and while Rose is dropped off again, she now gets the clone Doctor to grow old with while keeping her parents and little brother. Not only did this throw all the emotion of the first scene into the garbage, it wasn't done particularly well because it was noticeable dubbed with studio recordings (presumably due to the wind issues). It was just the show bending over backwards once more to give the spoiled brat that is Rose whatever she wants.

I say spoiled brat because while Rose was improved in most of her appearances in Series Four, the scene where she is listening to the discussion between Harriet Jones and the others, she can't help but talk about how she was important as well. Her resentment about the status of Martha as a companion of the Doctor who has gone on to better things shows that petulant side of Rose that I couldn't stand when she was a regular companion.

A third point where Rose bothered me was when the Doctor was preparing to regenerate. Of the three of them, Rose should have been the least bothered by his regeneration. She was close to the Ninth Doctor, who selected her in the first place. Her mourning over the potential loss of the Tenth Doctor spoke to her shallowness regarding the Tenth Doctor. She knew that the Doctor would still be the Doctor, but it was the physical appearance and nuances of the Tenth Doctor's personality that she really liked. She mourned over the potential death of the Tenth Doctor because it was that form and not the Doctor himself that she desired. Again, it was just a reinforcement of the shallowness of Rose.

As for the Doctor himself, I quite liked him in this. He got dark and brooding and I always appreciate him in those situations. I also liked that, unlike Rose, he balanced out praise for everyone. He lavishes praise twice on Donna for her contributions when the try to figure things out at the Shadow Proclamation. He praises Martha and all the other contributors in their fight against the Daleks, showing no favoritism and working together. I would have liked to see him offer a bit more of a contribution in the final equation but it all works fairly well in the end.

All of the rest of the companions do well. I remember watching this story for the first time and actually thinking about watching Torchwood because I enjoyed Ianto and Gwen in this story. Other information I heard about Torchwood dissuaded me but that doesn't mean I can't enjoy it. I liked Jack a bit more than Martha but both were still good. Jackie and Mickey didn't do much except for rescue Sarah Jane at the beginning of Journey's End so they were a bit wasted but that's not the actor's fault. Donna also was pushed into the background a bit after leaving the Shadow Proclamation but with so many others pulling focus, that a bit understandable. I did enjoy the scene between her and the clone Doctor as he mimics her outrage and speech patterns. That was an amusing little scene.

The clone Doctor was fine. I don't really understand why people get bent out of shape about him. Obviously they had to avoid the proper regeneration of the Tenth Doctor and funneling the regeneration energy into a clone seemed perfectly fine. I also appreciated that he did what the regular Doctor could not and that was to destroy the Daleks properly. The Doctor is outraged at what the clone has done, but he raises a good point in that there are millions of Daleks, just as dangerous as before and now no Time Lords to oppose them. Genocide may be a sin in the eyes of the damaged Tenth Doctor, but how many lives would have been lost if the Daleks been permitted to continue? I side with the clone in this case. That he gets stuck with Rose is not his fault.

This story also saw the return of Davros and he had both excellent and silly moments. In a way, he was a microcosm of the whole story. Some of my favorite moments are Davros quietly taunting the Doctor, exposing him to his true nature. But then he goes and dials it up to eleven and goes way over-the-top. I compare it to not being able to fully decide whether to channel the Davros from Genesis of the Daleks or to give over to the ranting Davros of Revelation of the Daleks. I'm also not sure why he suddenly got Emperor Palpatine power in the form of projected lightening. That seemed a bit odd. Overall good, but not without flawed moments.

The overall story as I said worked well aside from the tone shifts. I felt bad for Donna but understood why they had to write her out the way she was. Whether you liked the Doctor Donna or not, Donna was fully prepared to keep travelling with the Doctor in either capacity. Only her outright death or other great tragedy would have stopped her. I suspect that her outright death was debated but that would have vindicated Sylvia and crushed Wilfred so I can understand keeping her alive. Those final moments between the Doctor and Wilf were very good and the clear impetus in making Wilf a proper companion in The End of Time. That everyone agrees that those moments between him and the Doctor were the best parts of The End of Time justifies that decision.

So overall, I'd say that the story is fun but the first part outpaces the second. As much as I dislike Rose and as much as I dislike the hokey tone the story takes for those few minutes, the majority of both parts work very well. I would also say that Journey's End does well in that it ends on a true and somber note and that does quite a bit to mitigate the overt silliness of the previous fifteen minutes.

This is the proper RTD farewell and he does a good job with that send off. Obviously there are better Tenth Doctor stories but it handles the epic scope fairly well and will give you a pretty good ride, even if there are a few bumps in the road here and there.

Overall personal score: The Stolen Earth - 4.5 out of 5; Journey's End - 3 out of 5