The 10th Doctor’s first entry comes from his first season, the lesser loved Series 2. Which in itself is a mystery: why don’t more people rate Series 2? After Chris Eccleston made such an impression in Series 1, it took someone special to come in & build on that success – step forward David Tennant1. RTD realised he had a hit, ironed out a few of the wrinkles from S1 and started to stretch his wings. We get bangers such as School Reunion, Girl in the Fireplace and this story; pound for pound I think the individual stories stand up better than any other RTD series.
I think that the reason people2 don’t rate this series comes down to one particular thing: the 10th Doctor and Rose. The 9th Doctor had a very subtle, romantic relationship with his companion: there is nothing subtle about it when the 10th Doctor arrives. Rusty bangs our face off the desk of how much these two love each other from New Earth onwards, until we’re left battered & bruised at Bad Wolf bay. Which is, of course, the point: RTD builds them up higher and higher, so that when he brings them crashing down it hurts us more.3
Which brings us to this story, which comes towards the end of the season and so has these two at the peak of their relationship. They are insufferably smug in the opening scene, and while the scene where they discuss settling down together without the TARDIS is better played, we are never far from being reminded that Rose and the Doctor ARE IN LOVE. It didn’t grate at the time, in fact I was very much swept along with it, so either I’m getting bitter & jaded in my old age, or it’s the sort of thing that plays out better when you watch the series week by week rather than dropping in for the odd episode, or bingeing.
That’s the downside of these two episodes. Much like Brexit4 there are only considerable upsides for the rest of the story. Because this is actually an underrated gem. It’s one of those stories where everything works: writing, direction, acting, along with set & costume design, VFX, music… it all just gels. There’s a real sense of tension, danger, terror & dread right from the start that few other stories manage.
Story wise it’s a pretty simple base-under-siege tale: monsters attack, they’re held off until they can be defeated. What Matt Jones5 does that makes this one stand out though is give us some very effective quiet moments where we get to ponder big questions of faith and the nature of evil. He gives us unbelievably rich, deep and well fleshed out characters – ones that we care for. Consider it a mark of good characterisation that the more it hurts when they die, the better they have been brought to life: we don’t get long with Scooti but when she’s the first to be killed, we feel it as much as the rest of the crew do. Part of the reason for that is how well Murray Gold scores that scene: before The Choir arrives in Season 3 Gold does some of his best work by just paring everything down, using just a couple of instruments to give us something really haunting.
The story is haunting but it’s also chilling and terrifying in places. Gabriel Woolfe storms back into Doctor Who, playing the Beast to perfection. Will Thorp gives us poor, tortured Toby Zed but also proper creepy possessed Toby. And we have the Ood, unsettling from the start, more so when possessed, faceless and relentless. It’s been said that this is the scariest episode of Doctor Who, and it’s hard to argue with that.
The story excels in its world building, using the old Bob Holmes trick of just dropping names & concepts in without explaining them and letting us fill in the blanks. And after a thrilling start, the story really comes to life when Jones separates the Doctor and Rose, doing a Davo and giving Tennant an older lady in the incomparable Ida Scott to work with instead: just like The Awakening, it’s a triumph here. And Rose gets to do a Lalla and be the Doctor, which also works really well – better so than in the Capaldi era when Clara does the same.
It’s easy to forget how good this story is: it’s not a flashy one full of daleks & cybermen or Sarah Jane & K9, but neither does it attract the sort of negative attention that Love & Monsters or Fear Her do. If you haven’t watched this one in a while, then I thoroughly recommend you do. There’s so much to love and appreciate, it’s an easy fit into the Top 60 Doctor Who Stories of all time…!
COMING TOMORROW: It’s a forest of words…
- And the rest is history… ↩︎
- I say people, I actually mean fans. I dare say that scourge of Doctor Who, the Casual Viewer, loves this series. ↩︎
- Rise higher than ever before and then fall so much further. Hmmm, catchy that… ↩︎
- Not like Brexit. Not like Brexit AT ALL. ↩︎
- And RTD: this story feels like it’s had more than its fair share of rewriting by the showrunner ↩︎
Skies Full of Diamonds 