Despite this episode bringing back legendary characters from the original series in the form of Sarah Jane Smith and K-9, it contained very little if any of the traditional Doctor Who elements established in the original series.
The distance at which this episode strayed from the classic Who history is one of the contributing factors to it's low score.
Since the the only plus bits were the reintroduction of Sarah Jane and K-9, I'll focus this review on the things about this episode that caused it to score so low on the "Whoscale."
First and foremost, the pre-title sequence and inital setting for this episode in my opinion was intentionally aimed at the fangirls - that being of a high school where their dreamy heartthrob Time Lord David Tennant is an instructor - I'm sure back in 2006 when this episode aired, every fangirl that was swooning over Tennant would have loved to have him as their teacher.
What really got irritating for me is how often we had to take a break from the crisis at hand for dramatic soap scenes between the Doctor and Sarah, Sarah and Rose, the Doctor and Rose, or Rose and Mickey. Doctor Who has always been straighforward with it's plot format. As an episode progressed, we learned more about the crisis, but we were never given a moment to breathe, because that's valuable time that could be contributed to an effective close to the story.
That's why Davies' "New Earth" and "Tooth and Claw" scored so high, despite his knack for writing episodes specficially aimed at fangirls and channel surfers - those two episodes were straightforward, through and through devoted to the solution of the crisis at hand.
However, like so many of the Doctor Who episodes of the Davies era, the "Doctor Who" plotline - the plan of the Krillitane - seemed to be a loosely woven "back burner" story that was sprinkled in so that the script could pass as an episode of Doctor Who. The REAL plot, as well as much of the episode, seemed to focus on the Doctor's companions....ALL of them. This was even evident with the episode's title, which seemed to reflect more of the characters involved in the episode rather than the Krillitane. Such discussions like Mickey's place in the Doctor/Rose/Mickey trio. And ofcourse, there was Rose's usual jealousey that another woman had travelled with her precious Doctor before - which Rose does say it best - "One more in a long line.."
Another mark of typical Davies-era Who was the misplaced bombastic, dramatic orchestrated music that accompanied the simple scenes of the students at their computers rapidly typing. It was obvious that the music in those scenes was there to act as a huge crutch for drama and the stability of the faster-paced new Doctor Who episodes; had it been in the 70s or 80s, the slower pace of the scene would have been natural, but in this case, to avoid the episode temporarily falling into a few seconds of slowed pace, Davies used pumped up music to keep the fangirls clutching their pillows.
Probably the biggest blow dealt to classic Whovians from this episode though, was the mis-representation of Sarah's relationship with the Doctor. It was made obvious by dialogue onscreen in this episode that Sarah felt the same about about the Doctor when she travelled with him as Rose does now. Ahem -- check your Time Lord history books, Davies. When Sarah hopped aboard the TARDIS in the 70s, the Doctor was in his 3rd incarnation, meaning Jon Pertwee was at the controls. Then at the end of "Planet of Spiders" and the beginning of "Robot," Tom Baker took over as the 4th Doctor. Sarah was written in the original series as being in her very early 20s, and even IF you assumed that the Doctor wasn't a 600+ old Time Lord at the time, he still didn't exactly meet the physical requirements for attracting young females' attentions and melting the hearts like Tennant obviously did. Additionally, there was never any hint of romantic affection between the Doctor and Sarah in the original series, so I can only conclude that this tidbit was inserted into the story so that the fangirls could more easily relate to a companion from the past - their thinking is, he's gorgeous and there's no way any companion could resist him, so Sarah must have obviously been in love with him, too. What Whithouse DOESN'T tell viewers in this episode though, is that this was Sarah's first time to see the 10th Doctor - she left the TARDIS when the 4th was still in his prime.
It amazed me that they went to such great lengths to ensure continuity between the original series and this episode but chose to make this one oversight. All Sarah's experiences she recounts were direct references to episodes of the Pertwee/Baker era, and then the inclusion of the Doctor specifying K-9 as "Mark III," which also follows the events of "K-9 and Company." I find it hard to believe that they would have gone to that length to ensure accuracy and never bother to examine the kind of relationship Sarah had with her Doctor(s). That's how I could only conclude that it was there for the fangirls.
Yet another irritating sequence we had to repeatedly endure throughout this episode was the occasional scenes of a Krillitane with its wings covering its face, and suddenly swooping them open and roaring at the camera. Maybe it was because they were entirely CGI and not all convincing, but to me, it felt like one of those moments when your best friend does something to try and scare the hell out of you but it doesn't even make you twitch - in fact, you just turn to him/her and say, "Nice try." I'm not even sure those Krillitane scenes were scary to kids watching.
One blooper I noticed when watching a moment ago was the during the scenes of Mickey sitting in the car with K-9, if you notice, K-9's sensor disc that normally is afixed to his "eyes" is missing.
Another HUGE plothole that perhaps someone may be able to fill for me, is throughout the episode, we know that the TARDIS was located INSIDE the school, which was blown up at the end (a companion saves the day....another mark of the Davies-era.) In the next scene, the TARDIS is seen sitting in a small courtyard. So how did the TARDIS get moved from a blown-up school to the courtyard?
Finally, Mickey elects to join the TARDIS crew, and Rose's love triangle finally gets thwarted, because now she can't flirt around with the Doctor like she could before. Thank goodness. Personally, I thought it was downright dirty what she did to Mickey - I've been in his shoes. We endure a few seconds of a disgruntled Rose and then a "Gone with the Wind" farewell scene between the Doctor and Sarah, and the TARDIS then dematerializes.
The final few seconds were great - the Doctor rebuilt K-9 (does this mean he's Mark IV?) and Sarah happily strolls away as the "sting" of the Doctor Who theme closes the episode. Certainly not the best episode of Tennant's first year.
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