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.