New Earth

I'm a Chav!

The true kick-off story for the Tenth Doctor and Rose as the Doctor was out for so much of The Christmas Invasion. I recall this one not sitting well with me and I think it was more than just my general distaste for Rose in her early adventures with the Tenth Doctor. But when I went back and rewatched Tooth and Claw, it wasn't quite as bad as I remembered so maybe this one won't be as bad either.

Plot Summary

The Doctor and Rose land on New Earth, a colony planet established after Earth is destroyed. The Doctor has received a note via his psychic paper requesting his presence at a nearby hospital. As they walk there, they are spotted by a probe operated by Cassandra, the woman who was seemingly killed after the destruction of the original Earth. She orders her cloned servant Chip to bring Rose to her.

When they arrive at the hospital, Rose and the Doctor are split into separate elevators. The Doctor is taken up to the ward where he finds the Face of Bo who is dying. Rose on the other hand is taken under the hospital where she is lured into Cassandra's hideout by Chip. Rose is trapped and Cassandra transfers her mind into Rose's body, destroying her own body in the process. Summoned by the Doctor, she heads up to the ward.

As Cassandra arrives, the Doctor is confused by the fact that the sisterhood who runs the hospital has been able to supply cures to diseases that shouldn't be cured for centuries. Cassandra had observed the same thing and works with the Doctor to uncover a secret storage facility where thousands of cloned humans are infected with all known diseases to work out cures. The Doctor is outraged and confronts Novice Hame who had followed them while looking after the Face of Bo. Hame runs off to alert her superiors and Cassandra knocks the Doctor out when he notes that he knows that she is not Rose.

Cassandra places the Doctor in a spare cell, intending him to be infected by the various diseases pumped in to the cells. She is interrupted by Matron Casp and Sister Jatt. Cassandra attempts to blackmail them to keep their secret but when they refuse, she opens the cell doors on that block, allowing the people out. This inadvertently lets the Doctor out as well. One of the freed humans short circuits a control mechanism, killing himself but opening all the doors, freeing everyone. The Doctor, Cassandra and Chip all flee as the horde, begging for help, overrun and infect Sister Jatt, killing her.

The trio runs and hides in Cassandra's lair, although Chip is separated and forced to barricade himself in one of the cells. Most of the horde burst into the hospital, infecting visitors and patients alike. Matron Casp does manage to initiate quarantine, sealing the hospital. In the lair, the Doctor orders Cassandra out of Rose, which she does by taking over his mind.

They find a ladder leading up the elevator shaft and begin to climb it. They are pursued both by the horde and by Matron Casp. Casp catches up to them but she is caught by the horde and infected. She loses her grip on the ladder and plunges to her death. Cassandra and Rose reach the top of the shaft and Rose orders Cassandra to leave the Doctor so he can get them out using the sonic screwdriver. Cassandra jumps into Rose but the Doctor refuses to open the door as long as Cassandra is in Rose. She jumps back to the Doctor but is in the same predicament. With no other choice, Cassandra jumps into the lead infected person. The Doctor then opens the door and he and Rose hop through it. He closes it behind them but not before Cassandra jumps back into Rose.

Cassandra is momentarily overwhelmed by the loneliness she experienced in the infected woman's body, but the Doctor drags her into the main ward, which is where the high priority patients are. The Doctor has everyone grab the IV cocktails used to cure them while he rigs a repelling device. Gathering all the cocktails on his body, the Doctor reopens the elevator shaft. Convincing Cassandra to help him, they slide down to the stalled elevator on the ground floor.

The Doctor pours all the IVs into the decontamination bath tank on the roof of the elevator and orders Cassandra to hold elevator lever to keep it in place. He then jumps into the elevator and invites the infected horde in with him. As they enter, he activates the decontamination system and the horde in bathed in the curing cocktail. They begin to heal from their diseases and walk out of the elevator. The Doctor orders them to touch the others, passing the cure on to others. Deprived of human contact in their cells, the cured people eagerly hug and touch the others, spreading the cure throughout the hospital.

The quarantine is lifted and the authorities come and arrest most of the staff. The cured are gathered up to be integrated into society while the Doctor heads back up to see the Face of Bo. The Face of Bo tells the Doctor that he has a message for him but will wait until their third and final meeting to impart it. He then teleports elsewhere.

The Doctor then orders Cassandra to exit Rose's body for either trial by the authorities or death. Cassandra balks but goes into Chip's body when he is revealed to have survived. However, Chip, as a half clone is already dying. But Cassandra decides to accept death in exchange for one favor. The Doctor and Rose take her into the TARDIS and transport her back to a party she mentioned earlier. Cassandra comes up to herself, cloaked to hide the clone markers, and tells herself how beautiful she is. The past Cassandra is touched and calls for help as the future Cassandra collapses and dies. The Doctor and Rose quietly slip away in the TARDIS.

Analysis

I can see why I didn't care for this one the first time around, yet my memory was cheating on me a bit as again, it was not as bad as I remembered. There are a number of flaws in this story and if you are not quite into zombie stories, the action will not excite you. But to say that it is actively bad would be an exaggeration.

First, let's hit some of the positives. Most of the acting was pretty good in this. It is rather funny to watch this story with the whole rest of his run to see how many of the Tenth Doctor tropes formulated in this story. His "I'm so, so sorry" line, the exuberance at the mundane, the fundamental pleasure of seeing people delivered from certain death scenarios and the almost instantaneous rage at enforced suffering. If you want the Tenth Doctor in a nearly pure form, you will get it here. Of course, that includes some of his more annoying traits as well but we'll get to those.

Probably more than any other story in her regular run, this was the story that Billie Piper got to show herself as a decent actress. The distance between Rose and Cassandra was probably not that big but there was a change in how the characters carried themselves and I could appreciate the effort there. It probably speaks more to my opinion of Rose that I preferred the Cassandra personification more than the Rose. Of course, I'm a sucker for a good sarcastic wit as well as a bit of rogue demeanor so I thought she simply sparked more when she was Cassandra rather than Rose.

You wouldn't have thought that Cassandra would be a repeat villain but she is and she makes for a rather decent one. In The End of the World, she is just the annoying socialite who happens to be the dinner guest that ends up being the murderer (very Agatha Christie). Here she has a bit more depth and personality. She also gets to add nuances that come from being in different bodies and given a different spin by the actors. Though her motivation is still just money and youth, there is a brief moment where you get caught up in her helping the Doctor with his investigations and rather enjoying her extra take on things.

The sets and direction were also nice. You could tell that the budget was a concern due both to the tightness of a number of shots as well as the fact that only three of the cat nurses showed their faces. All others wore full veils, eliminating the need for the expensive and time consuming makeup. But for what it was, I thought it was a decent job in trying to convey a sense of largeness while also trying to get that sense of intimacy.

Now on to the less than stellar bits. I mentioned the good things and the tropes of the Tenth Doctor that cropped up. But that also includes some over-the-top moments. His celebration at having cured the people was a bit much. I can understand joy at the situation but there was an excessiveness that seemed unbecoming of the Doctor. I thought his instantaneous anger at the cat nurses was also a bit much. There should have been a slightly slower build to his rage. It wasn't bad but I thought it was too quick a turn into making the nurses the villains of the story.

Staying with the solution, I thought the fix for this was a bit too pat. Yes the cat nurses had developed cures to various diseases using these people as lab rats but if a cure had been developed, why keep the rat that still has that disease? Were they keeping them for synthesis purposes? Also, didn't some of these people have diseases for which a cure had not yet been developed? Those would have been unaffected by the cocktail and they still would have infectious. Also, if the cures were delivered intravenously, why does mixing them in a steam bath produce a cure and how is that cure able to be transmitted simply by surface contact? It is a very slap dash solution and it seems hokey even while watching.

Another small problem with this story is that the special effects look a bit cheap. Of course we're not expecting absolute magic, but usually there's a bit better work done rather than just a straight CGI effect that cannot possibly compete with Hollywood effects. But in this case, there were several shots where the camera just trained on the person and CGI was expected to tell the tale. It just had the unfortunate effect of making the story look cheap.

So overall, there is a bit to like in this story but it does fail on a number of levels as well. Yet the parts that don't work aren't so bad to cause the story to completely fall apart and they never detract from the fun ride. It feels more like what it is: an early story where kinks are being worked out. It can be fun and if you don't think about it too hard, it is serviceable enough. Decidedly middling seems about right.

Overall personal score: 2.5 out of 5