Story #195 - Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead (2008)

Sarah -
River, at last! I don't think I've watched "Silence in the Library" and "Forest of the Dead" since they first aired and I've been really looking forward to our rewatch. It's a whole different experience after watching River's story arc play out. If I remember correctly, you weren't a big fan of Professor River Song the first time around.


Harry -
First off, let's have a toast to mark our 10th year here on the Sofa. This unhurried marathon of ours kicked off in 2010. It's been a fantastic experience not only rewatching everything together, but also compiling a record of our discussions of every Doctor Who ever. Granted, we didn't begin until late December 2010, but I'm making a big production of this now in case we forget in December. Cheers old girl!


Sarah -
Time flies when you’re watching Doctor Who! It doesn’t feel more than five years ago.


Harry -
One of the best things about our rewatches has been comparing our "now vs then" contemplations about each story. This one is a brilliant example.

I remember not liking River Song the first time this story aired. Then, we all experienced her through the Doctor's eyes. She was a mysterious character who knew a lot -- a hell of a lot -- about the Doctor's future. She had a fancy sonic screwdriver, she had a diary of their adventures together, she even knew his name. Astounding stuff, and I wanted to know more, know everything! She knew, but she wouldn't tell. It was frustrating that she wouldn't share anything because, "spoilers." You could see it eating away at the Doctor as the story progressed -- he's practically grinding his teeth in one scene where the diary sits within reach. However it's all brought home at the end when the Doctor offers Donna a peek inside the diary so she can learn her own future, and, like most of us probably would, she declines.


Sarah -
Given River’s reaction to meeting Donna, it’s understandable that she doesn’t want to know. Yet another companion who believes she’s going to spend the rest of her life with the Doctor.


Harry -
Donna's fate was being foreshadowed and we barely noticed.

As for River, the viewing experience is completely flipped this time around. We now know her entire history with the Doctor and we get to experience this encounter through her eyes. Of course she wouldn't reveal anything! Of course she'd let him know she was important to him but without spoiling anything. Now, her every action makes total sense. I loved that her "Hello Sweetie" went totally unremarked when she said it to the Doctor, even though there was so much meaning to it from her side.


Sarah -
It’s an entirely different experience this time around. I liked River immediately but it was so frustrating not knowing who she was or what was going on with her story. Honestly, it never occurred to me at the time that we’d see River again. In retrospect that seems naive, but I’m so grateful Moffat brought her back.


Harry -
We may never know just how much of the complete River Song story was already worked out by Moffat, but her instant popularity ensured that she'd become an entrenched character in the Whoniverse, returning again and again.


Sarah -
It makes me happy to know now that shortly before visiting the library, she spent a twenty-four year night on Darillium to see the Singing Towers with the Twelfth Doctor, where he gave River his sonic screwdriver. Imagine going from that experience to a new Doctor who has no idea who you are. It would be heartbreaking.

Running parallel to the Doctor-River story, we have a classic horror invasion story. The library is infested by the Vashta Nerada, microscopic, carnivorous creatures that use shadows to hunt and latch onto their prey. River is leading an archeological expedition to investigate the final message from the library -- "4022 saved, No survivors." I find the Vashta Nerada as terrifying today as I did the first time around. In classic horror style, they waste no time picking off members of River’s team one by one. Chilling.


Harry -
Moff did it again. He turned something as blasé as dust motes floating in sunlight into absolute horror. He's mad! He's brilliant!


Sarah -
Most of us probably don’t have angel statues in our houses, but there’s always plenty of dust around!


Harry -
The instantaneous destruction that the Vashta Nerada can wreak intensifies the horror. Watching the characters being freaked out by shadows was agonizing. Because Moffat is ruthless, he threw in the ghosting effect that occurred in the communicators of the newly deceased. Miss Evangelista's ghosting was brutal to witness. Other instances like "Hey, who turned out the lights?" were not as devastating as that first one.


Sarah -
I found all of the deaths very disturbing. The whole idea is so horrifying.


Harry -
It's all a fantastic puzzle that the Doctor has to work out over two episodes. Donna was whisked away to virtual reality for most of part two, but River was there to step in. It must have been obvious even on first viewing that Donna's sudden new life was not real. The pieces slowly came together to confirm this, but the agony she experienced over losing her imaginary family was still painful. Catherine Tate, delivering drama as well as comedy.


Sarah -
The virtual reality scenes were as disturbing as the dead people repeating themselves. Doctor Moon showing up to make suggestions, like, “Why don’t you take a walk by the river?” and then Donna suddenly walking along the river gives me the heebie-jeebies. (I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever typed heebie-jeebies.) And the girl changing channels to watch the Doctor and Donna’s stories along with us. So freaking creepy.


Harry -
There was something exquisitely terrible about the fact that the Vashta Nerada rampage was triggered by the destruction of their forests. That destruction had been ordered just so that a library could be filled with specially-printed hardcover books. Augh, don't make books carry any culpability! Moffat really put us through the wringer with this one.


Sarah -
Angels bad? Fine. Dust bad? Fine. Most technology bad? Fine. Just leave the books alone, Moffat!

The Doctor and River are on the run in the library, trying to avoid Vashta Nerada and dead colleagues. The Doctor still doesn’t know what to make of River. She finally convinces him by whispering his name in his ear. It’s a quiet moment that shakes the Doctor’s world and convinces him that she’s going to be important to him in the future.

Donna eventually breaks out of the virtual reality, with a little help from Miss Evangelista, whose consciousness was uploaded when she died, and a meltdown on the part of the little girl. Turns out she’s the hard drive of the computer running the library. She was dying of an incurable disease, so her father made an imaginary world for her to live in with every book ever written and Doctor Moon to watch over her. The stress of having so many minds integrated into her own is causing her to overload, initiating the self-destruct to destroy the planet.

The more I think about this story, the more terrifying it becomes.


Harry -
Layers upon layers of fear and terrible things.

It culminates with River's death. The Doctor found a way to save Donna and the other thousands of people who were uploaded, by transferring them out of the data core. The computer's memory is insufficient to handle the transfer, so the Doctor plans to hook himself to the computer and let it borrow some of his. River objects, knocks the Doctor out, and wires herself into the computer instead. The Doctor goes apeshit, but River tells him that the moment was destined to play out this way. She knew all along that they would meet here. If he were to die, they would never have met, and River cannot give that up. So she sacrifices herself, to save everyone and preserve her timeline with the Doctor. What a way to go.


Sarah -
It's so heartbreaking!


Harry -
But she's not completely gone. The Doctor manages to upload her into the computer, where she can live on in virtual reality.


Sarah -
She looks so happy at the end, but in my head cannon, she's immediately working on way to break out of the VR universe.


Harry -
For sure!

This story is a keystone in the series. It introduces a character who will play a huge role throughout the coming Moffat era. It also foreshadows the coming end of Donna's journey. So many terrible things happen that it's hard to feel anything but drained at the end. I think it might be a while before we put ourselves through this one again, would you agree?


Sarah -
I loved watching it again, but I don't think I'll be putting it on for some light Doctor Who viewing anytime soon.


Harry -
Best Line: Among all the zingers delivered by River and Donna, I keep going back to phrases that have stuck in my mind all these years. Things like "Hey who turned out the lights?" and "Donna Noble has left the library, Donna Noble has been saved."

Favourite Moment: River enters the Doctor's life with a "Hello, Sweetie."

Lasting Image: the skeletons inside the suits.

7/10


Sarah -
Best Line: "Hello, Sweetie." It means so much more this time. 

Favorite moment: River telling the Doctor his name. 

Lasting Image: definitely the skeletons in the suits. 

7/10

Our marathon continues with Story #196: Midnight...

Story #194 - The Unicorn and the Wasp (2008)

Harry -
Ah, a Doctor Whodunnit with special guest detective Agatha Christie. What a treat!


Sarah -
A whodunnit at the country estate of retired impresario Henry Gordon Jago! (It’s my head cannon, so go with it.)


Harry -
The timing might line up just about right.


Sarah -
It’s lovely to have Christopher Benjamin back on the team!


Harry -
After putting Donna through several wringers, the TARDIS finally lands somewhere grand. "Never mind planet Zog. A party in the 1920s, that's more like it!"

And so she and the Doctor play party crashers and join the gathering guests at an Edwardian manor home. The set up was classic, as one by one we meet the cast of characters as they arrive for Colonel Hugh and Lady Clemency's garden party. It was so great to see Benjamin make his return, even if his colonel was bound to a wheelchair. Here come the others: the curious Professor Peach, the cheery Reverend Golightly, the glamorous Robina Redmond, young Roger Curbishley and the very attendant attendant, Davenport, and the guest of honour, Agatha Christie!

Gobsmacked, Donna and the Doctor barely get a chance to say hello before a cry of "murder!" rings out. Miss Chandrakala has found a body in the library, and the mystery begins.

There's something so quaint about a British murder mystery. The historic setting, the engaging characters, and the intrigue of a Christie plot. Even though someone is already dead, it still feels like a holiday.


Sarah -
Despite the corpses, this story is an opportunity to catch a mid-series breath before we plunge into the rest of the series -- and we’re going to need it.

"The Unicorn and the Wasp" isn’t meant to be more than a romp and I have to admit I enjoyed the rewatch more than I expected. My memories of it weren’t terribly positive. The wasp is a little dodgy, but this is Doctor Who, after all, and Graeme Harper’s direction more than makes up for any challenges in the production.


Harry -
Graeme Harper can spin mud into gold, and he did it again here. Lots of quick cuts, interesting angles and nonstop pace.  If this is the only light story of the season, so be it.


Sarah -
Fenella Woolgar is an excellent Agatha Christie in our latest celebrity historical. I always have mixed feelings about these stories. It’s fun to see the TARDIS team interact with characters we know (or think we know), but things can quickly get annoying -- Rose trying to get Queen Victoria to say, “We are not amused,” the Doctor feeding lines to Shakespeare, etc. There are a few of those moments in this story, which I guess are inevitable.


Harry -
What I liked here was that the Doctor didn't immediately take over and dominate, with everyone trying to keep up. It felt like there was a distinct lack of chemistry between the Doctor and Agatha. She was perplexed by his rapid fire outbursts, but not swayed, and kept pursuing her own lines of investigation.

You are right about the wasp. It was too out of place because of its oversized scale and made the story too much of a fantasy. Perhaps if they had made the alien into a swarm of wasps instead of just one giant one, that might have worked better and upped the horror. Once the big bug lost its stinger, it lost its most threatening feature and it was just a matter of time before it got killed. After the hilarious kitchen detox scene, I expected the Doctor to return and whip up some kind of bug killing powder.


Sarah -
The detox scene is classic David Tennant.


Harry -
One of the few Doctors who can pull off that kind of manic physical comedy.

After a merry round around the house and a couple of close calls, we get to the traditional reveal scene. It played out very traditionally, with some funny moments to keep it light. The unicorn was exposed as -- gasp! -- none other than the glamorous (and actually very cockney) Robina. It's funny how in North American film and television a criminal is often made more villainous by giving them a received British accent, while in actual Britain, the criminals are often given cockney accents.

Anyway, shock horror, the real killer is a gigantic alien wasp. Run away!

And everyone scatters as Reverand Golightly morphs back into the Vespiform.  Christie drives off to a nearby lake, providing Donna with the setting to kill off the alien by drowning it.  With the menace defeated, Christie passes out with amnesia and the mystery of her 10-day disappearance is sorted.  

All of that to demonstrate why British people never call the police after a murder.


Sarah -
It’s been a fun romp, but now I’m ready for a library visit. Onward?


Harry -
I believe the term "game changer" was coming into popularity everywhere around this time, and we are about to run into one of Doctor Who's all-time game changers.  Let's do it!


Sarah -
Best Line: 
Agatha Christie: Agatha Christie.
Donna: What about her?
Agatha Christie: That’s me.
Donna: No! You’re kidding!

Favorite Moment: 
The detox scene

Lasting Image: 
Donna in her 20s garb.

6/10


Harry -
Best Line:
DOCTOR: A terrible day for all of us. The Professor struck down, Miss Chandrakala taken cruelly from us, and yet we still take dinner.
CLEMENCY: We are British, Doctor. What else must we do?

Favourite Moment: 
The detox scene for sure.

Lasting Image: 
Agatha and the Doctor conducting their investigation.

7/10

Our marathon continues into a new decade with Story #195: Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead...

Story #193 - The Doctor's Daughter (2008)

Harry -
Well it's not every day you see the Doctor get slapped in the face with a whole new perspective on life, this time courtesy of the ladies around him.

Naturally, Donna is there. And so is the Doctor's daughter. Freeze frame! Record scratch! The Doctor's what?

This cold open has to be the most bonkers in all of Nu Who. The TARDIS is roaring through time and space. The Doctor clings to the console along with not one but two of his recent companions, Donna and Martha. They land in a blighted tunnel, and are immediately seized by Grunts With Guns. The Doctor's arm is forced into a piece of machinery. Bingo Bango Bongo, a woman emerges out of a smoky chamber and says "Hello Dad." I mean really, where can it go from here?


Sarah -
Just another day in the TARDIS. But we can’t really blame her when she is, in fact, the Doctor’s Daughter -- the Fifth Doctor’s daughter, that is. Georgia Moffett, soon to be Georgia Tennant in this timeline, gives a spirited performance as the Doctor’s progeny. She shares his DNA and love of adventure.


Harry -
This is becoming a season of reunions, crossovers and familial attachments on multiple levels. The Davison-Moffett-Tennant mashup is something Steven Moffat might have concocted in his idle imaginings.


Sarah - 
I’m pretty sure all Doctor Who since 2005 is fans-turned-showrunners fulfilling their idle imaginings.


Harry -
What stood out most in this story was the Doctor going through a fairly standard adventure in a "colony in space" (obligatory Pertwee era shout out), but instead of wide-eyed companions in distress, he's surrounded by a team of speak-no-bullshit and take-no-prisoners types.


Sarah -
These people don’t play! Jenny is ready for battle from the moment of her creation.


Harry -
It begins right after the template separation of characters, when Martha is trapped behind a wall of rubble after the Doctor's "daughter" triggers an explosion in the tunnel in order to stave off an assault by an alien attack force. The explosion separates the two groups of combatants, and she then waves off the loss of a newcomer as collateral damage. Donna rounds on her immediately. "Her name's Martha. And she's not collateral damage, not for anyone. Have you got that, G.I. Jane?" Raging Donna is my favourite Donna.


Sarah -
You do not mess with Donna Noble.


Harry -
The Doctor announces that they are going to find Martha. Meanwhile, Martha makes a friend. It is through her eyes that we will experience the other side of this mysterious underground conflict. During the cave-in, one of the aliens suffered a dislocated shoulder. A doctor herself, Martha pops the shoulder back in and wins the favour of the Hath, a race of humanoid fish. As aliens go, I liked the design of the Hath, with their bubbling water tanks and soft expressions.

A parallel story ensues, with the Doctor and Martha leading the two separated trails back together.

Before we get there, the "daughter" gets some more character development. And I'm not sure she was all that likeable at the start. Despite containing the Doctor's DNA, her mind is programmed to remember only military history and tactics, making her a mindless instrument of war. As the Doctor and Donna learn more about the colony, it seems war is the only business here.


Sarah -
I like the way Jenny advocates for her own humanity while the Doctor dismisses her as soldier. I probably shouldn’t say humanity, as she does have two hearts and all. It’s like an episode of Jerry Springer meets Doctor Who -- “Yes, you are the father!”

The Doctor insists Jenny’s just an echo and being a Time Lord is so much more, which leads to more Gallifrey angst.

Martha and the Hath end up outside while Donna is paying attention to the numbers that are counting down as they proceed. She’s trying to crack the code, using her admin skills. The numbers are dates of completion for each section and the war has only been going on for seven days, with 20 generations per day. This is probably my favorite thing in this story -- that’s some proper sci-fi.


Harry -
Really the whole story plays out with the Doctor as a companion to the others.

Donna cracking the code reveals the reality of the situation. After losing her Hath friend to a pit of quicksand, Martha finds her own way back. And Jenny uses her physical skills to free everyone and guide them to the mysterious location on the map that everyone was driving towards. The Doctor still got to deliver his usual lines about hating guns and being the last of his kind, but he was just along for the ride.


Sarah -
I would be down with the Adventures of Martha, Donna, and Jenny as its own series.


Harry -
Everyone descends on the mysterious location and, as Donna quipped, it was something out of Kew Gardens. Lush plants and greenery. The source they were seeking out is a massive terraforming machine that was set up before hostilities between the clones broke out.


Sarah -
It feels magical after all the war and corridors and such.


Harry -
The pointlessness of the war becomes evident, and everyone in the colony can get back to their original mission and build a settlement on this planet. The Doctor declares the war to be over.

Unfortunately, General Cobb refuses to stand down. He takes aim and fires at the Doctor. Jenny steps in front of him and takes the bullet. Despite his attitudes earlier, the Doctor is devastated by her death. Cobb is presumably arrested and the colony begins to put itself back on course.

Jenny's body is left with the colonists, as the TARDIS takes off. Martha goes home and Donna continues her travels with the Doctor.

Back on the colony planet, Jenny suddenly revives. The mix of human and Gallifreyan DNA has produced someone who cannot regenerate, but can still come back to life. Having heard Donna's stories of travel through the stars, Jenny takes off in a spaceship to explore the universe.


Sarah -
I would like an alternate-universe series when Jenny joins the Doctor and Donna in the TARDIS for years of adventures. They’d have so much fun!


Harry -
And as far as we know she's still out there. Doctor Who has a knack for bringing everyone back eventually, so maybe we'll see her again.


Sarah -
I was disappointed Jenny never turned up again, but Big Finish has given Jenny her own life to live, so I won’t complain too much.


Harry -
I liked this story. It had some hard science elements, a far future setting, lots of dark settings, interesting aliens and fascinating exchanges between the main characters.


Sarah -
It’s a solid, pacey story that was better than I remembered. Ready to meet Agatha Christie?


Harry -
Best Line:
JENNY: So what do you do?
DOCTOR: I travel through time and space.
DONNA: He saves planets, rescues civilizations, defeats terrible creatures. And runs a lot. Seriously, there's an outrageous amount of running involved.

Favourite Moment: Jenny blasts off for adventure.

Lasting Image: the Hath.

8/10


Sarah -
Best Line: Donna to the Doctor:  “You talk all the time, but you don't say anything.”

Favorite Moment: When Donna tells Martha she’s going to travel with the Doctor forever. It’s bittersweet, but it fills me with so much love for Donna. 

Lasting Image: Jenny. She’s just adorable. 

6/10

Our marathon continues with Story #194: The Unicorn and the Wasp...

Story #192: The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky (2008)

Harry -
As we kicked off the DoctorDonna season, I was interested to see what my reaction would be when we got around to this two-parter.

"The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky" had an asterisk stuck to it virtually from the moment it was announced. Helen Raynor was the writer who gave us "Daleks in Manhattan" the season before -- a story that ranks very low among Whovians, us included. There were a lot of things that went wrong with that one, but Raynor bore the brunt of it. There's a section in The Writer's Tale where Russell T. Davies recounts the night when that story was first broadcast and received instant condemnation online. Really nasty stuff, as only a fandom could deliver. Raynor was shaken by the experience, but to his credit RTD backed her up and asked her back for another story. At the time I remember being wary of another story coming from this writer. When it first aired, I remember not being overly impressed, but not feeling as negative as I had over the Dalek story.

That's why I was looking forward to watching it again a decade later. Do you remember any of the buildup to this story?


Sarah -
I have to admit that don’t remember much about the anticipation of this story. While "Daleks in Manhattan" is my all-time, least-favorite Doctor Who story, "The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky" is a solid story. It’s not the best of the season, but it’s far from the worst.

Perhaps the story’s biggest weakness is its lack of originality. There are few tropes left unturned in this two-parter, but I still enjoyed it because a good trope never bothers me!


Harry -
I seem to say this a lot, but this one felt like a Pertwee-era throwback. Once again, we see a collision of alien invaders and rogue technology, with an action-heavy TARDIS team coming to the rescue. And UNIT!


Sarah -
I think you’re right. It’s very Pertwee-ish and that’s probably what I like about it.

The story begins with journalist Jo Nakashima being thrown out of the Rattigan Academy. She drives away in her car, which is fitted with ATMOS (Atmospheric Omission System), a device that reduces carbon emissions and includes a GPS. Jo is suspicious of ATMOS, which has been developed at the Rattigan Academy, founded by Luke Rattigan. While she’s trying to contact UNIT, Jo’s car drives itself into a river, where it sinks with her inside.


Harry -
I wonder how many GPS-skeptics watched that and went "I knew it!"


Sarah -
Right? This is not the first Doctor Who story to take a common item and make it terrifying. This trope will reach its zenith in the Steven Moffat era, but RTD has a strong record of making us question technology. It’s hard to believe this story predates the smartphone era, but a GPS system was definitely a fancy thing to have in 2008. And who wouldn’t want a device that reduces carbon emissions? That said, I was really happy not to have a GPS after watching this story.


Harry -
I'll stick with paper maps and/or my uncanny sense of direction, and I don't care who knows it.


Sarah -
If we’re not already knee-deep in tropes, bring on Rattigan. (Some signaling going on with that name? I just referred to him as Ratt in my notes.) Oh, look, another stupid human who thinks he’s going to partner up with aliens and come out ahead. He’s Tobias Vaughn all over again -- but without the charisma.


Harry -
I remember HATING Rattigan the first time around. So obnoxious and condescending. The only redeeming thing about him were his cool Pumas.

But this time around, with the Doctor's helpful observations, I saw the struggling smart kid beneath the bratty exterior. Still, he was woefully over his head with the aliens and all-too-willing to sell out the planet to chase his own utopian visions. So yeah, I still hated him.


Sarah -
He’s one of those characters with whom you can almost empathize when they get their comeuppance, which is definitely on its way.


Harry -
Amid all of this scene-setting, RTD and Raynor treat us to a fantastic mid-season reunion. A phone rings inside the TARDIS, and it's Martha. She calls the Doctor back to contemporary Earth, and the TARDIS lands outside the ATMOS factory. No sooner have the Doctor and Martha welcomed each other, and Donna and the Martha immediately struck up a companions friendship, than the scene is interrupted by a UNIT raid.


Sarah -
Martha and Donna immediate becoming besties is flat out my favorite thing in this story. The Doctor almost looks disappointed that they’re not fighting over him. Big Finish should develop a Donna and Martha series. I would be all over that.


Harry -
How about UNIT! Oh, it was a thrill to see a 21st century UNIT roll into action. Very butch, with heavy vehicles and waves of troopers in black uniform swarming all over the facility and a mobile command centre overseeing the assault. Long gone are the days when Benton and three other grunts would charge an alien menace by themselves.


Sarah -
If they still had Benton, UNIT wouldn’t need all that gear to fight the aliens. There’s something to be said for homespun.


Harry -
With the Brigadier in Peru, the UNIT operation is headed by Colonel Mace, a very by-the-book officer who greets the Doctor with a salute. The Doctor cringes at this, but Donna happily requests a salute of her own. Throughout the story, the Doctor and Mace will keep up some back and forth heckling over each other's ideologies. One of the things that felt overdone in this story was the Doctor repeatedly whinging about salutes and guns. He's right of course, but his "OH DON'T SALUTE" and "WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT GUNS" lines were repetitive. Mace, meanwhile was unable to break from the military code ingrained in his own personality. The story bounced along at such a rapid pace that there was no room to explore his character more fully, nor for he and the Doctor to reach more than a superficial understanding of one another.


Sarah -
While the Doctor is faffing about with Mace, Donna puts her temp skills to work and discovers that there has never been a sick day at the ATMOS factory. Things are getting curiouser and curiouser.


Harry -
I love how Donna's HR knowledge comes in handy throughout this season. It turns out there's a lot of weird stuff going down at the ATMOS facility. The Doctor discovers that while ATMOS is carbon-friendly, it is also capable of turning 800 million cars into weapons at the disposal of whomever controls the ATMOS devices. We the viewers also discover -- through the explorations of two UNIT soldiers -- that there's some kind of homunculus being grown inside a bubbling tank down in the basement.

The soldiers' presence triggers an alarm. The aliens behind the scheme decide to show themselves. Their leader beams down to confront the soldiers, and we are given our first glimpse of RTD's 21st century Sontarans in the person of General Staal.


Sarah -
Christopher “Mike Thecoolperson” Ryan is back, UNIT b*tches! Twenty-two years after his triumph in Mindwarp, Lord Kiv is here to give us Sontaran realness. I wouldn’t call it pulling for the baddies, but this Trial of Time Lord fan girl will always have her biases.


Harry -
Ryan's Doctor Who resume spans the classic era to the Tennant years, but he's always been submerged under layers of alien makeup. Hopefully he'll get to play a human someday... unless he prefers wild aliens.


Sarah -
Still, Staal and I can never be friends because he’s used the UNIT soldiers to lure our dear Martha Jones to the basement where she’s cloned onto the creature in the tank!


Harry -
Sontarans doing Sontaran things. I did like how the New Who Sontarans were given fresh uniforms and the quickest of backstories without getting bogged down in details. One of the weaknesses of the Classic Who Sontarans was that, considering they are a clone race, their appearance and voices kept changing from story to story. And I'm almost positive that they were made to look like giants in one of the classic stories.

Here, they really play up their militaristic imperatives. Staal can barely contain his lust for war.


Sarah -
Meanwhile, after a chat with Martha in which she reveals that her family suffered because she didn’t tell them about her relationship with the Doctor, Donna decides she needs to check in on Wilf and Sylvia. When she tells the Doctor she’s going home, he goes into a long spiel thanking her for traveling with him and telling her how much their time together meant to him. Enjoying the moment, Donna lets him wind himself up before he realizes that she’s only planning to go home for a visit. Tennant and Tate play this scene perfectly.


Harry -
"You dumbo." That was brilliantly done.


Sarah -
While Donna pops off, the Doctor heads to the Rattigan Academy with Ross, a UNIT private.


Harry -
At this point in the RTD era, I'm not going to bother wondering why yet another companion mum got painted as a negative character. Wilf and Donna are thick as thieves and she tells him all about space, aliens, and her adventures with the Doctor, while Sylvia is a big ball of misery in the background. Whatever.


Sarah -
It’s one of my least-favorite aspects of his era.


Harry -
The Doctor's confrontation with the Ratt having gone nowhere, and having escaped a near-fatal act of vehicular death by ATMOS, he joins the Nobles just in time for the part one cliffhanger. Their cover blown, the Sontarans trigger poison gas to pour out of every ATMOS-equipped vehicle on Earth. Wilf is trapped inside the family car just as he was moving it out of the street. The episode ends with a nice shot of a frustrated Doctor silhouetted against a sunlit sky filling with poison gas.

Wilf begins to choke on the fumes and Donna pounds on the side window in futility, when Sylvia appears out of nowhere with a firefighter's axe (!) and smashes the windshield open. I feel like I really need a firefighter's axe in the home now.


Sarah -
Sylvia saves the day while everyone else is running around in circles! That’s the woman you want around in an emergency.


Harry -
Crisis averted for the moment, but the Sontarans have only just begun their war footing. With their never-before-heard "Sontar Ha!" chants ringing out, they snatch the TARDIS and beam it up to their mother ship as war booty. The Pertwee-era throwback is now complete: the Doctor is stranded on Earth and must work with UNIT to repel an alien invasion.


Sarah -
When Ratt starts chanting "Sontar Ha!" along with the Sontarans, he looks like the lonely kid tagging along at the edge of the popular group. Trying to fit in with the aliens after all of his students walked out on him felt so sad this time around.


Harry -
In the Doctor's absence, UNIT has ramped things up at a ludicrous rate and are preparing to launch nuclear missiles from all over the Earth (including North Korea, hmmm...).

Clone Martha is the Sontarans' eyes and ears at UNIT HQ, but the Doctor knows she's not real. He's barely holding things together during the nuclear countdown as UNIT soldiers get massacred in the ATMOS factory and it is Donna who is forced to take the bravest action ever. Having been teleported into the Sontaran ship while inside the TARDIS, Donna must sneak outside, slip past an assortment of Sontarans and teleport the TARDIS back to Earth.  I would crack for sure.


Sarah -
That’s our girl! She more than earned her TARDIS key in this story.


Harry -
UNIT counterpunches by bringing in the Valiant to clear the skies over London, setting up the final confrontation between the Doctor and Staal aboard the Sontaran ship.


Sarah -
The Valiant is quite the ship. UNIT really has come a long way.


Harry -
Normally, I'm not a fan of stories that are resolved by someone committing suicide to foil the enemy, but it kind of worked here. The character was Rattigan, whose utopian fantasy was shattered by Staal's revelation that they were all a pack of lies to enlist his cooperation in the betrayal of Earth. The Sontarans had no plans to aid him in creating a new human colony on a distant planet. Instead, they intended to purge the Earth of all life and turn it into a clone hatchery. Devastated beyond recovery, Rattigan rigged up a final teleport to switch places with the Doctor and blow himself up, taking all the aliens down with him.

Overall I'd say this two-parter has aged well over the years.


Sarah -
Who doesn’t love a redemption story? Heartstrings are pulled again when clone Martha dies, having met the real Martha, whose memories she has.


Harry -
That's another moment where I would have cracked.  Imagine watching yourself die.  How do you bounce back from that?


Sarah -
With order restored, Martha plans to head back to her life when the TARDIS door slams and she, Donna, and the Doctor are swept off to another adventure.


Harry -
This whirlwind season is really picking up now.  Let's see where they land next.


Sarah -
Best Line: "Yeah, long time ago. Back in the 70's. Or was it the 80's? But it was all a bit more homespun back then."

Favorite Moment: Donna and Martha’s meeting

Lasting Image: the new Sontaran look

6/10


Harry -
Best Line: I'll stick with "You Dumbo."  It captures that great kind of partnership where one person can insult the other but totally not mean it.

Favourite Moment: modern-day UNIT rolls into action

Lasting Image: pathetic Rattigan with the Sontarans

7/10

Our marathon continues with Story #193: The Doctor's Daughter...

Story #191 - Planet of the Ood (2008)

Sarah -
It's interesting timing that we watched this story in the month that marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first African slaves in North America. When we first met the Ood in "The Impossible Planet", they were presented as a race of empathetic servants, not the actual chattel slaves they are. I guess it's all in the marketing. It's been a while since I've watched "Planet of the Ood", so my sense of horror was almost as fresh as the first time.


Harry -
We spent so much time waiting for the DoctorDonna era. "It will be loads of fun!" we told ourselves. Whew! No fun to be had here on the Ood Sphere. Even Donna starts having second thoughts.


Sarah -
What a situation for Donna to find herself in on her first-ever alien planet. After raiding the TARDIS wardrobe for a warm winter coat, she and the Doctor discover an Ood, Delta Fifty, that has been shot. Donna keeps him talking while the Doctor examines him, but Delta Fifty doesn't last long.


Harry -
We watched Delta Fifty use its translator ball to murder a corporate honcho before fleeing into the snow. The Ood was just one of thousands that are raised, processed and shipped out around three galaxies for use as docile servants. From the opening death scenes, there is a dark strain to this story. This is one of the more uncomfortable ones to watch, but that's the point. "Planet of the Ood" reminded me of the Pertwee-era stories of Malcolm Hulke with their strong moral tone. It's something that has been largely missing in the new era of Who so far.


Sarah -
I hadn’t thought of it, but you’re spot on about its Hulke-ish feeling. Mac, of course, would have been even more excoriating.


Harry -
The story jumps between the corporate enterprise that humans have established on this planet (with a marketing session that is getting underway), and the DoctorDonna's infiltration and investigation.

The guest cast is mostly forgettable except for Tim McInnerny. Beloved as goofy Percy on the Blackadder series, here he plays the vile CEO of the enterprise.


Sarah -
I commented to Mr. Smith on the casting of McInnerny and that, really, Percy should never have been left in charge of anything.


Harry -
Percy is a beloved character from our younger days, so seeing McInnerny play a villain was a jarring surprise, especially as he pulled it off brilliantly.


Sarah -
He really worked the rat-bastard vibes, didn’t he?


Harry -
The fact that he inherited this family business seems to give him licence to be extra vile. Arriving after a string of recent deaths onsite, he is there in person to get to the bottom of things. In between gulps of hair tonic, he reacts in disgust to the news that a group of Ood have become infected with a red-eye disease that makes them volatile. He rages at his employees and orders that a rabid Ood be shot dead.

Donna is all of us, reacting with growing horror as she and the Doctor investigate the facility, finding Ood cowering in cages and locked in shipping containers. The Ood keep telling them that "the circle must be broken" but the meaning of the message eludes them.


Sarah -
The circle must be broken so they can sing, but Donna is the only one who is listening.


Harry -
Breaking the circle is the ongoing theme of the Ood plight, and it takes some further investigating for the DoctorDonna to figure it out. I don't think I've watched this story since the original broadcast because the suffering of the Ood was very heavy. Slavery and the Holocaust bound together with grisly scenes of captivity and violence. Watching it again this time, it has lost none of its impact. Donna's distress over it all is completely relatable.


Sarah -
I’m sure I haven’t watched it since first broadcast. I didn’t remember much these many years later, so the story definitely hit me. What I did remember was Donna’s general awesomeness and her defense of the Ood.


Harry -
Being Donna, however, she turns that distress into rage against the corporate monstrosity that brought this all about.


Sarah -
Donna don’t play. Everyone else may be willing to stand by, but Donna is having none of it. This is why Donna is still my favorite companion of the current era.


Harry -
The final showdown features some more gross-out moments. The Oods have been kept passive and subservient because their hive brain is imprisoned inside Warehouse 15. With all hell breaking loose and the Ood rampaging, McInnerny's villain orders it to be destroyed with explosives. The DoctorDonna save the day, and McInnerny meets his fate: the hair tonic that he's been chugging has been prepared by the Ood, and now comes their terrible revenge: he converts into the very thing he has exploited and abused.


Sarah -
That is definitely playing the long game!


Harry -
The Ood being wonderful, they take him in as one of their own now.


Sarah -
Because it’s the right thing to do.


Harry -
And they are free to sing!


Sarah -
Huzzah!


Harry -
I found the singing voices didn't quite line up with the Ood's speaking voices, but then they are aliens. The story ends with some tasty foreshadowing, as the Doctor is told that his song will soon end. He makes a face and swings back inside the TARDIS.


Sarah -
And so begins the drama of the Tenth Doctor. So much kvetching about his coming regeneration. I’ll do my best not to dwell on it too much. Probably.


Harry -
This story was pretty much as I remembered. It's not an enjoyable watch. RTD and writer Keith Temple took us to a dark corner of the universe.

So after three adventures with lots of traumatic scenes and near-death experiences, Donna has been put through the wringer and then some. I always think of her season as a fun one, but hopefully the fun starts soon.


Sarah -
It’s a solid story with an excellent performance by Catherine Tate. Ready for some Sontarans?


Harry -
Best Line:
DOCTOR: "These are really good handcuffs."
DONNA: "Well, at least we've got quality."

Favourite Moment: Donna rages at the system.

Lasting Image: the caged Ood.

6/10


Sarah -
Best Line: "If you don't do what she says, you're really in trouble. Not from me, from her."

Favorite Moment:  Donna’s empathy towards the Ood. 

Lasting Image: The Caged Ood.

6/10

Our marathon continues with Story #192: The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky...