April 12, 2009

Planet of the Dead (2009)

The first of the specials is one that is very different from other Doctor Who.

Michelle Ryan was actually very good in this story. I wasn’t quite convinced about the whole posh lady accent partly because of her stint in Eastenders or about why she was Lady Da Souza title as it didn’t really serve much of a purpose. However she did the temporary companion role well. David Tennant was very good in this story as he didn’t have any silly emotional stuff to try and deal with. He did have a brief snog with Ryan but that was about it.

The crew on the bus were all well written and all served a purpose which I though was going to be difficult as it was just one episode and a lot to fit in. None of them were annoying and they all reacted as anyone would. Thought the death of the bus driver was quite good and afterwards I thought that it was kind of obvious as at least one person dies in these situations.

The introduction of UNIT was an important part of it as the Doctor without his TARDIS would have struggled to get back to Earth. The idea that UNIT were going to abandon the Doctor seemed quite unreal because of everything that the Doctor has done for UNIT it seemed like being slapped in the face. It was a nice bit of continuity using the Captain that appeared in Turn Left. We saw a peculiar site of a UNIT officer pointing a gun at someone that wasn’t a monster or baddie.

The flying aliens (forget their name) were very impressive and the explanation about what they do and the reason for how the wormhole was caused were very impressive. The idea that the sand was once buildings and trees and other human things made the setting even more grimmer than the title could suggest.

If I do have one problem with this story is Lee Evans. I like the character of Malcolm and I thought that there was some wonderful scenes between him and the Doctor but I am not sure that Lee Evans was right for the role.

Overall I really enjoyed the episode, it was a nice simple enjoyable story that had everything you could want from a special.

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