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Doctor Who, Movies & TV

The Lazarus Experiment

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After being a bit disappointed with the return of the Daleks last week, I’m glad to say that the Lazarus Experiment was a definite return to form. Of course it was ripping off other sci-fi stories all over the place – The Fly and the Quatermass Experiment for a start, and of course the ambitious scientist whose experiment goes wrong has been done before in various forms during the history of Doctor Who, but it was thoroughly enjoyable none the less.

Amongst the cast, it also marked the first appearance of Mark Gatiss on screen in the series, him having penned The Unquiet Dead and The Idiot’s Lantern shown in the previous two seasons. Gatiss was given the pivotal role of Professor Richard Lazarus, the scientist whose great experiment on himself, alongside apparently making him younger, reawakens long dormant genes that transform him into a monster that rampages through the building. Considering that Gatiss is both primarily known as a comedy actor and is also a fan, his appearance could very well have been a hammy overacted disaster, but I am glad to say that it was great, with Lazarus being believable and well rounded, a notable scene being towards the end in Southwark Cathedral (although as the scissor arch in later scenes gives away was actually filmed in Wells) where Lazarus and the Doctor talk before their final battle.

Alongside the entertaining main plot, we also go quite a bit of significant seed sowing for later on in the season. During the course of the episode, Martha’s mother is warned by a mysterious guest at the party that the Doctor is dangerous. Initially you take it to be someone who works for Lazarus. However later on he reappears and tells her something else – something we as the audience do not hear, and later she slaps the Doctor. Then in the final moments of the episode she leaves a message on Martha’s answering machine saying that she knows who the Doctor really is, and the information comes from Harold Saxon himself. By this point it is too late for Martha to hear the warning – by this point she’s already talked herself into a permanent spot in the TARDIS, and is heading to new adventures…

Which leads nicely on to what is usually the ‘next time’ trailer. The episode next week has been postponed thanks to the Eurovision Song Contest. Since we’re also about halfway through this season, the production team gave us a special treat, a trailer for the whole of the rest of the season. In amongst clips of 42, you get to see quite a few moments from the much anticipated reworking of Paul Cornell’s 1995 novel Human Nature, plus Jack Harkness who is due to reappear in Utopia, and some more tantalising glimpses of John Simm as Harold Saxon – definitely looking good.

Doctor Who

Too Much TV Bad For You?

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Last night on Doctor Who we got the contribution from Mark Gatiss. After last year where the monsters came through the gas supply, this year his story was set in 1953, with the monster coming through the TV, in The Idiot’s Lantern.

Much as with his story last year, the Doctor hasn’t quite hit his target destination. Instead of his target of New York for a performance by Elvis, he instead ends up in early fifties London, who are preparing for the coronation. Along the street, a local electrical store is selling TV sets at knock down prices, apparently out of duty. However, strange things are happening – residents of the houses are being found, with their faces mysteriously gone, and no sooner does this happen do the Police turn up, and take the faceless people away.

As with his previous script, Gatiss has produced a great episode. The story is based around a lot of the warnings that parents used to give their children about what would happen if they watched too much TV, and there are some amusing jokes based around the whole TV monster idea, indeed the ultimate conclusion where the Doctor defeats the monster effectively by recording it onto a video tape continues the joke. As with some of the earlier stories, it’s all a bit of preposterous hokum, but enjoyable none the less. We again had the mixing of an alien threat, with a bit of domestic drama, and the character of the Doctor seemingly a lot more balanced than he has been – perhaps due to the friendship between David Tennant and Mark Gatiss himself. We also had Maureen Lipman doing her best BBC announcer – but becoming the monster…

Next week we have another of this seasons visits to a planet other than Earth. Although New Earth was set off world, it was on a planet that was supposed to be similar to Earth following the destruction of the original planet. The Impossible Planet is going all out for a really alien planet apparently, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out, as one of the often mentioned reasons for focusing on Earth based stories has been that the production team have been concerned that they couldn’t do an alien planet justice. The writer of the episode, Matt Jones although new to the series, is another who has been involved in writing Doctor Who before, in particular two stories in the New Adventures range.