We just got done watching the Doctor Who Easter Special. With the lack of the normal season this year, and Russell T Davis leaving at the end of the season, we had high hopes for the Easter special. Plus Doctor Who is now in HD! Everything is better in HD right?
WARNING: I tried not to write to many spoilers in this review, but there are some. So if you have not seen Planet of the Dead you have been warned!!!
As always David Tennant did a great job. He used his trademark facial expressions and quick whit to bring alive the Doctor that we had been waiting all these months to see. The “Humans on buses, always blaming me” line was great… However The Doctor (David Tennant) and Lady Christina (Michelle Ryan) seemed to have a very strange relationship throughout the whole episode. At times it seemed very forced and a distraction. Every time I heard something like “We make a good team” I found myself cringing and hoping that Lady Christina would not be the next companion. I do not thing this strange chemistry this is entirely the fault of Michelle Ryan, rather the character was not very convincing and the script chemistry of The Doctor and Lady Christina was not very good.
The script of The Planet of the Dead was just average. From the opening moment till about the first five minutes of the bus stuck on the sandy planet I found the script very good, however despite seeing the bus driver turned to a skeleton trying to return to Earth, the urgency did not hold up. Example: You would expect to see all the members of the bus trying to dig it out. I only saw one person. I found it hard to feel gripped by the situation when the actors did not appear to be gripped themselves. I mean would you just sit on the bus watching one guy dig out the wheels when that is your only way home?
Cell Phones? While I thought this novel with Rose being able to call home, I found this a distraction. I know, I know Doctor Who is sci-fi. But do you expect me to believe that cell phones are as sci-fi as we can get? After all there was a whole other spacecraft crashed in the desert that had all kind of alien technology.
The script jumped around a bit for me. I had read on some news sites that the script for Planet of the Dead at to be reworked to take in the fact that the double decker bus was damaged when being shipped to Dubai. So maybe subconsciously I was looking for where the rewriting and new film had to be added.
All in all the episode was a 6 out of 10 for me. It was a fun “Take your brain out and watch an hour of every one’s favorite Time Lord episode” but not much more. There were moments that I found funny and David Tennant showed why he is a great Doctor. I found my self frustrated with plot and wishing it was better.
Now before I close this review I have to say that the next episode looks great! But more on that some other time…
