Doctor Who - "Boom Town"

WHOSCALE: 6.5 OUT OF 10

In typical Davies style, this episode opens with the return of the TARDIS to modern-day Cardiff. Margaret, the cunning Slitheen has apparently survived the Doctor's last encounter with her, and is now far into a plan to make a nuclear power plant go critical and explode, allowing her to "surf" the shockwave out of the Solar System.

Mickey gets word of the Doctor's and Rose's return, and arranges to meet them in Cardiff.

I originally had mostly misgivings about this episode, but after watching it again recently, and realized that there were hints here and there of the original series, and believe it or not, this was actually some of Davies' better attempts at paralleling the Who formula established during 1963 - 1989.

The initial plotline I described above is not a bad idea, but I think the bulk of what would have made this chiefly an episode of classic Who was over-stepped so that the most of the 45-minutes could be used on character development. That's basically what this episode became. I said it in my YouTube video review, and I'll say it again - when I discuss "Boom Town" with fellow fans, I often describe it as a radio show, because that's pretty much what it was - people sitting around talking to each other for relatively 45 minutes.

Again, the things most relevant to the PLOT were omitted, like how Margaret was even able to gain a political backing after that little spat in "Aliens of London." Additionally, we saw very little of Margaret's cunning plan unfold - instead, we jump in as it enters its final stages, and while last time she was able to evade the Doctor for two 45 minute episodes, this time she is quickly captured in the street with the Doctor doing nothing more than flicking a switch on his now-all-purpose sonic screwdriver.

While Margaret softens up the Doctor and Jack in the TARDIS, we catch up on Rose and Mickey's social life - which to this day I still cannot see how the Rose/Mickey bickering scenes was in the least relevant to what made this episode "Doctor Who." As I stated earlier, what WOULD have made this episode a decent Doctor Who story was more or less overstepped so that the episode could focus on characters interacting with one another.

We then get sit through a casual dinner for two. If not for Margaret's attempts to subdue the Doctor, these dinner scenes with pauses, dramatic, subtle conversation, eye contact and exhanges of glances across the table would have looked like something plucked out of a modern-day blockbuster flick.

After a few spats between Rose and Mickey, and the Doctor and Margaret have run out of things to chat about, things finally start looking up - an earthquake shakes the ground violently, and Margaret insists on sticking with the Doctor, fearing for her own safety. The Doctor races back to his TARDIS.

Upon re-entry, Margaret's motives become clear - that she was truthfully "buttering up" the Doctor so that she could get close enough to the TARDIS console to reinstate her original plan of surfing out of the Solar System.

Of all solutions, the TARDIS itself solves this one for us, by opening up one of its console panels and showing Margaret the time vortex, she gets reduced to an unhatched egg - of which the Doctor promptly decides to return to Raxicoricofallapatorius.

The few things this episode had in its favor were the slowed pace of the episode, which was more along the speed of classic Who; and the incidental music. Ofcourse, the slowed pace in this case not being a result of production, but being a result of lack of story. The subtle "Boom Town Suite" - or the parts complimenting Margaret's scenes anyway - was also reminiscent of the classic era.

Doctor Who - "The End of the World"

WHOSCALE: 7.5 out of 10

This was the second episode of the revived Doctor Who, and was also penned by Russel T Davies. This episode plunged us into the distant future, at the time of the sun's expansion and the natural destruction of our planet. This episode was overall well written and well produced, from a classic Who standpoint. The Steward alien was well-conceived and well-designed, reminding me of a classic Who character from the Colin Baker title, "Timelash."

The tree species were also neat, which being new to Rose, worked well for a later scene, when Rose was alone on the observation deck, and she attempts a conversation with a small plant, then tells herself, "I'm talking to a plant." There was little orchestral music used, and the music usually only complimented scenes without dialogue - another mark of the original series. Music-less dialogue scenes allowed us to listen, focus, and absorb what was being said, without being distracted by the scores. Additionally, the moods were not forced, so viewers were free to feel whatever they wanted to feel from the dialogue. Later episodes frequently used touching scores to accomodate "tear jerker" scenes, forcing viewers into a corner of emotional upheaveal.

I often said, however, that my biggest complaint with this episode was the obvious attempts by Davies to "dumb down" the stories so that channel surfers wouldn't be disgruntled by entertainment they couldn't understand. Some of the more obvious "dummy marks" were elements to help non-science fiction fans relate to the episode, such as a planet Earth below looking the same as it did when Rose lived on it, and the explanation being a gigantic company opted to move continents back to the way they were in the 21st century, merely for the sake of the planet being destroyed. Choosing 21st century Earth as "classic Earth" seemed a bit too conveinent. Other elements were the relics from Earth - all of them being from iGen's past. The 50's jukebox, referred to as an IPod, the songs heard - Softcell's "Tainted Love" and Britney Spears' "Toxic."

While Cassandra certainly made for a cunning villain, it was obvious what Davies intended her to be - a futuristic diva, with all of the traits of a 21st century diva.

I was pleased with the final scene in the episode, where the Doctor offers Rose one last chance to hop off - stressing that, "You've seen how dangerous it is..." The scene played out well in that the question of whether or not Rose wanted to continue based on her experience thusfar was quickly forgotten with the smell of chips filling the air, and we are left with the Doctor and Rose grabbing a quick bite to eat, and then off to the TARDIS for more adventure.

The End of the World remains one of my favorites of the new series, and still some of Davies' better attempts at a genuine Doctor Who plot.

Doctor Who - "Rose"

WHOSCALE: 6 out of 10

This marked the beginning of the new era of Doctor Who. It was the first episode of the revived series, as well as the first penned by Russell T Davies. An OK episode, but my biggest complaint was that Davies went a bit overboard in his efforts to casually reintroduce the series. Rather than introduce it to the sci-fi community, he started off extemely light on sci-fi so that channel surfers would buy in, too. The show was titled "Doctor Who," but instead of writing an episode introducing the lead character, The Doctor, and the chief antagonists of that story - the Autons - RTD decided to write about a girl named Rose, whose daily life takes a turn for the unusual when she bumps into a stranger calling himself The Doctor. Davies even went so far as to title the episode after what he wrote to be the main character - Rose. Lending further evidence that the episode was mainly about Rose, interspersed with scenes of the Doctor, with Autons sprinkled on top. In contrast, Autons make for great "Earth-based" DW stories, but including them in an episode mainly focusing on the characters seemed a bit obvious - that the Autons were only there so that the script could pass for an episode of Doctor Who.

Eccleston portrayed the Doctor very well, with some great scenes hinting at his past personalities - namely when he flutters a deck of playing cards in Rose's flat, when he gazes at himself in a mirror and comments on his regeneration, and when he used a deactivated, disembodied mannequin arm to wave "goodbye" to Rose. There are other memorable moments that I still recite at appropriate times, like when someone suggest pizza for supper, I recite Mickey's Auton equivalent...."Pee-Zah! Puh - Puh- Pee-Zah!"

While the episode mostly focused on Rose, overall it was good. It was too early to tell what direction the series was going in, so I patiently waited to see where the Doctor would be taking us next.

Hello, my name is Ethan. I am without a doubt one of the most diehard sci-fi fans you will meet. I have enjoyed anything that has been solid sci-fi, and didn't need a love story or gorgeous actors to prop up the plots.

My experience includes Blake's 7, Star Trek (TOS, TNG, DS9, Voyager, Hidden Frontier, Odyssey, & Helena Chronicles/ all of the films with the exception of the 2009 film by Abrams.) Red Dwarf, StarGate (the film), Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica (the original), Star Wars (both trilogies), Indiana Jones, Space: 1999, Buck Rodgers, and ofcourse, Doctor Who.

When I was the age of 7 (in 1989), I often heard my older brother and Dad talk about a show that wasn't on PBS anymore, called Doctor Who. All I knew was that it was science fiction, but I knew if my brother and Dad liked it, it must have been good.

In the early 90s, when satellite TV was becoming all the buzz, we got news of a new channel solely devoted to science fiction - the Sci-Fi Channel. That's not a mispelling by the way, I know its now referred to as SyFy, but in the old days it was OK and a normal part of society be uncool and geeky, and it was "science fiction," not "SyFy" to be cool. When Sci-fi came on the air, their programming was a gift from Heaven - the early morning hours were filled with Gerry Anderson's Stingray, and other sci-fi cartoons like Transformers. Mid day offered Space:1999, Lost In Space, Buck Rodgers, The Prisoner, Amazing Stories, Tales from the Darkside, and others. Commercial breaks were also a minimum. During the weekdays at 1 PM, the Sci-Fi channel hosted "The Doctor Who Hour." I finally got a taste of this priceless nugget of science fiction. At 1 - 1:30 was an episode of Doctor Who, and from 1:30 to 2 PM was a classic cliffhanger, such classics like "Zombies of the Stratosphere," "Flying Disc Man from Mars," and "The Purple Monster Strikes." The Sci-fi channel could only get their hands on a string of Tom Baker episodes, starting with "Robot," and ending with "The Androids of Tara." Nevertheless, it was more than enough for me to get addicted.
Ever since then, I have been following Doctor Who religiously - inspite of NuWho's many shortcomings brought on by Mr. Davies. I refer to them as "shortcomings" because from a pure bred sci-fi fan's perspective, thats what they were, but to the iGens, soccer moms, teenage girlies, Twilight fans, and channel surfers, they were blessings, because for them, DW without those shortcomings would otherwise be a "boring, geeky show only for nerds." Incidentally, that's more or less what the original series was. It's creator, Sidney Newman, even said, "it's a show for smart kids."
Now that you have my background on golden television, let me explain the purpose of this blog. I have loyally followed the new series of Doctor Who, even though there are many things I disliked about it (it was difficult to find dislikes in old Who). Nevertheless, I always try to view episodes from a classic Whovian's perspective, since that is the only way to tell how much an episode is staying true to what the show was intended to be. Mind you, intended by Newman, not Davies. In this blog, I will rank each episode's closeness to that of the original Who, on a scale of 1 - 10. 1 meaning that the episode was a horrible example of Doctor Who, and not in the least bit paralleled the original series. 10 meaning the episode was bloody brilliant, and that it often unfolded, sounded, and felt like something plucked out of the original series. In the event of a just utter dislike for an episode, "0" may be used, in which case, no review would be necessary - there was nothing appealing about that episode at all. That's unlikely, though. RTD has wrote some stinkers, but I don't think any of them were that bad. Just as I do on my YouTube channel, (sixstanger00) I welcome comments, discussions, and thoughts as long as they are contructive and civilized. So that means no ranting "You suck!!! David Tennant is hot!!! Rose was the best!!!" and ending all of your sentences with seven or eight exclamation marks or question marks.

One final thing, I pride myself on appeciating great television, sci-fi or not, so if you would like to know what some of my other favorites are besides sci-fi, just let me know.