Tenth Doctor, Second Series, First Impressions

Watched Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion and the “New Earth” episode of Doctor Who on the DVR last night.

Okay, so David Tennant isn’t bad. He hasn’t established a key presence yet the way Chris Eccleston did, and both the character and the actor are still trying to establish similarities and differences between the Ninth and Tenth Doctors (just not seeing the Ninth doing the sword fight sort of thing, and Tennant seems to get a bit more shrill, vs. forceful, than Eccleston).

Actually, it’s an odd pair of episodes to introduce the new Doctor/Companion dynamic, given both the Doctor’s status through most of the Invasion and the presence (and I do mean presence) of the villain through much of “New Earth.” It’s hard to explore how Rose and the Doctor are interacting when, for much of the time, they aren’t.

Storywise, “Invasion” has some excellent bits (the PM, UNIT, hints and bits of other stuff to come, the Button that Oughtn’t Be Touched, as well as all the Rose/Mickey/Jackie interaction), It’s a long episode, but it fills the time fairly well, albeit at times there was much more a sense of the protagonists simply observing events, rather than acting on them.

“New Earth” is more of a mixed bag — the cat-nun make-up is fabulous, and there are elements of the story that are interesting (the Face of Boe!). Other parts, though, are almost classic Doctor Who, and not necessarily of the good kind (transfer it to cheap video, ratchet down the mixed effects, and I could imagine this as a Fourth Doctor tale with Sarah Jane Smythe). The villain’s actions and attitudes are inconsistent with an earlier appearance, and everything wraps up far too neatly
at the end, deus ex machina. It’s, ironically, the weakest episode of the new Doctor Who to date.

That said, it was still a lot of fun, and I look forward to the rest of the Series.