NuWho Review: Series 2 Episode 1 "New Earth"

By: Russell T. Davies

**Spoilers**

If you have not yet watched this episode, please go and do so before proceeding.

 

           So Rose is going to take another trip into the future, this time with her new, new Doctor at the helm. At least she said goodbye to her mother this time, although I’m not sure what to make of the kiss she gives Mickey. I thought they broke up (this time for real) during the Christmas Special. I guess we’ll just have to assume that it was a rather lingering peck between friends.

            The destination is New Earth, the planet that humans eventually settled on after the destruction of Old Earth which we saw last series. New Earth lives up to its name – futuristic flying cars and all. Rose also takes a moment to indulge in a bit of sappy sentimentality with The Doctor, stating about how travelling with him is the best thing that’s ever happened to her. Somehow I don’t see her ever saying that to Nine and I don’t think it works for her to say to Ten either, especially when he responds. I know that The Doctor is a new man whenever he regenerates, but he’s also essentially the same character and - at the very least - his companions' reactions and treatment of him should stay the same for a while as they adjust to his new self. So this is horribly out-of-character for both Rose and The Doctor (maybe it was just a bit of the hormones that we'll hear about later).


Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:

- Whoa, whoa, wait! The End of the World was a first date? Since when? Sheesh, writers, pushing the romance a bit hard, aren’t we? 

- Great, return of the pesky spiderbots and…Holy Chameleon Circuit - is that Gollum?!?!?

- What’s he doing in Doctor Who? Did Jackson not pay him enough? Oh, he’s here to serve that pain-in-the-neck which is the return of the trampoline. Yes that’s right; Cassandra is back with a new piece of skin and twice the amount of lipstick, not to mention a nefarious scheme up her…er…sleeve?

- The disinfectant lift scene is something that I find inexplicably humorous for some strange reason. I mean, just look at it! The Doctor’s just chilling as he’s drenched, powdered, and dried while Rose is freaking out. To be fair, it would be quite a shock to be in a lift and then suddenly have it turn into a shower – but it’s still funny to watch their very different reactions.

- The Doctor ends up in his desired destination: Ward 26, while Rose is taken to the rundown basement and summoned to meet ‘Mistress’. Hey, at least she thought to get some sort of weapon before following Gollum-boy (always a wise move, given that the last person he called ‘Mistress’ was a giant, ravenous spider) but it is not Her Ladyship Shelob that awaits our blond heroine but Lady Cassandra, former villainess of Platform One and current skulking skin. Cassandra beckons Rose closer, but Rose backs up wisely. Unfortunately, Cassandra obviously knew that people would do this when confronted with her and planned accordingly, placing her illegal compression-thingy behind Rose so that the girl backed right into the trap. I almost feel sorry for her...

- While Rose is hobnobbing around the basement with Creep and Creepier, The Doctor is touring the ward in search of the sender of the psychic paper message. While there, he meets the Duke of Manhattan. At least, he would have met him if the Duke’s PA hadn’t been quite so uptight and concerned about what I’m assuming was the possibility of bad publicity. I guess there are still tabloids even in the year five billion or so. I weep for the future of the human race! The Duke is infected with some sort of disease that is turning him into stone (maybe he breathed in volcano fumes, had a staring contest with a Weeping Angel, or something foolish like that). At last The Doctor meets a familiar face…quite literally.

- Meanwhile in the basement, Cassandra has completely taken over the body of Rose Tyler, rejoicing in her new blond hair and curves, even though she says Rose has no class. Billie Piper does a perfect job of taking on the inflections of Zoë Wanamaker while playing Cassandra/Rose (I think I’ll just call her Cassandrose in future just because it’s slightly easier to type). 

- This episode was created so that Billie would have the chance to be funny, and boy does she ever deliver! I like Cassandrose much better than Rose. They could have kept her this way and I would have been delighted. Her efforts to speak in Old Earth Cockney are entertainingly bad and her reaction to The Doctor’s new look is that of wroth. “The same man with a new face? That hypocrite!”

- Matron What’s-her-face Kitty-Cat is really annoying from the moment she steps on screen, not in the least because she is so obviously evil? You have to try to be that obvious, really you do. She is also our introduction to the downfall of New Earth. No, I’m not talking an earthquake that’s going to split the planet apart like Atlantis. The downfall I speak of applies to the episode rather than the world and that downfall is called Intensive Care. So far this had been a mediocre episode; not great but not truly terrible either. It suffered from lack of focus and failure to deliver on a compelling mystery or piece of lore, yet had some genuinely (if only mildly so) enjoyable parts, courtesy of Billie Piper. But then we are taken down into the Intensive Care space and have social commentary rammed down our throats.

- More on that later. First we need to talk about one of two scenes that actually make this episode bearable to watch. Cassandrose notices that this new Doctor is rather attractive with his brainy specs and pinstripes and spends a bit of time eyeing him up as he bustles around the ward rambling on about science, medicine, and conspiracy theories. Then she does this to him:

  

  

- Cassandrose will meet her defeat at the terminals where her knowledge of computers tips The Doctor off that something is wrong. (He probably should have guessed from her initiating that kiss, but he seemed to put it down to his incredible hair working its magic). But whatever the reason, he keeps mum and keeps Cassandrose close at hand as he investigates the Intensive Care ward and finds all of the patients are really clones specially grown for lab use. Here the famous “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” makes its first appearance. Get used to it, you’re going to hear those words a lot during Tennant’s run.

- I feel like this episode is just chock-full of Davies Forced Exposition, especially once the clones show up. Novice Hame, for instance, gets a ridiculously long monologue where she recites all of the clichéd justification about cloning for the purpose of science, managing to sound rather like a calmer version of Hitler’s infamous Jews Are Not Fully Human speeches. That just is out of place in an episode like this. The tone has already been established as light-hearted, fluffy fun, thanks to Cassandrose, and adding in a serious social commentary/satire about a dividing and serious matter just makes for the biggest 180 an episode could make. And it doesn’t work. The tone should have been kept frivolous and the main mystery focused on the Face of Boe and Cassandra’s Machinations, not trying to make an ethical point through long, tedious discussions.

- So Cassandrose knocks out The Doctor with some perfume and demands to see the Matron. Novice Hame, speech interrupted, scurries away and by the time she returns Cassandrose has locked The Doctor inside one of the empty clone cells. 

- How did she lift The Doctor to get him inside that cell? Rose needed both Mickey and her mother to carry him in the last episode and he was just as unconscious then as he is now! Did having two minds compressed into her skull somehow make Rose's body a bit stronger?

- Matron Whooligig refuses Cassandrose’s demands for money and threats of blackmail and Cassandrose, for some reason, brings up the fact that the sisters aren’t armed. 

- “Who needs arms when we have claws?” I can’t believe Dona Croll actually managed to say that line and make those motions without cracking up in incredulity. It’s just so painfully comical to watch and fails so much at being awesome or brilliant or epic or even just good. Did Davies even edit this script? And how did the plague zombies learn to speak and walk if they had never been outside their cells? Mentally they would have been babies, unable to form that coherent argument which so amazed the sisters.

- Hang on! If it’s every disease in the world, why do they all look like they’ve got a nightmare case of acne? Moffat’s Gas-Mask zombies were far more effective than these plague victims could ever dream of being. The empty child inspired fear and terror through the pitiable cries of Jamie, and the hospital full of transformed people was both creepy and horrifying. Here I just feel like I’m watching a cheap Halloween movie or a poorly-made spoof of The Walking Dead! So when a zombie touches you, you instantly break out into what’s supposed to be boils so why is the Matron looking like she’s a piece of cheese being baked? 

- Gosh! This is so awful. I felt no fear or adrenaline while watching this, despite the best efforts of Murray Gold to move us through music. Even when the zombies descended on the rest of the hospital I felt nothing. Not when people ran away screaming and not when a random lady was caught by the plague-carriers. So you tell me this: why did random lady just stand there as she broke out rather than trying to pull away with everything? Was she looking deep into the afflicteds’ eyes? That action makes even less sense than her having temporary paralysis.

- While The Doctor and Cassandrose race down the stairs and back to Cassie’s lair to escape the freed clones, Chip finds his own hidey-hole to escape their lethal touch. Somehow, though, I don’t think a medical waste barrel would be any more sanitary than those zombies. So while Chip is squatting in old needles and dirty bandages, The Doctor orders Cassandra to leave Rose’s body. Then we get the second worth-enduring-the-rest-to-see scene in the form of this:

- If you look closely you can see Billie desperately trying not to laugh while David hams it up as Cassandra-Possessed-Doctor. This scene and the kiss are about the only thing that makes this episode bearable. Tennant’s facial expressions are hilarious and his comic timing is excellent as always. He completely owns the character whether it’s rudely calling Rose ‘Blondie’, saying that two hearts beat out a Samba, or screaming like a little girl when the zombies catch up with them. 

- The careless way he’s holding the sonic at the top of the ladder makes me scared that he’s gonna drop it.

- Matron Blankety Blank (who followed Rose and Doctor Cassandra up a ladder to escape from her former patients) has a Disney Villain Death where she is infected before plummeting who knows how many feet to her off-camera death. Good riddance.

- After much body-swapping, and to avoid suffering the same fate as the Matron, Cassandra momentarily inhabits the body of one of the clones so that The Doctor will sonic the door open for them. Before he can close it, though, she quickly jumps back inside Rose’s head again. What I would like to know is how did Cassandra go from an indignant “I look disgusting” while in the clone to “All their lives they’ve never been touched” once back inside Rose? That was a dreadfully quick change-of-heart, especially for the sort of shallow villainess they’ve built Cassandra up to be. Thankfully, though, this moment doesn’t last long as The Doctor runs into the Duke of Manhattan’s PA again and decides to use his extensive medical degree to cook up a healing cocktail.

- Somehow I don’t think mixing medicine is a particularly safe way to do things (that is, if it’s even medicine…it looks more like hummingbird nectar) and definitely opening them with your teeth like that is not at all sanitary. It probably wouldn’t cure everyone with a single touch like that anyways…they’d all need to go through the showers and be completely soaked through. I guess the giant love fest is designed to highlight The Doctor’s healing touch and put a smile on our faces, but all it got out of me was a yawn.

- This tedious affair wraps up with an unnecessary and stupid scene where the shallow Cassandra goes into Chip and is taken back to tell herself that she is beautiful before finally kicking the bucket (a decision that she came to only too quickly: one minute she’s sobbing about not wanting to die and then waxing poetic about ‘all things must end’ the next. She makes Rose look consistent!). Somehow I don’t think that Cassandra would have ever been so good to someone who looks like Chip. The scene is cumbersome and really has no place with the rest of the episode, despite the original intended feelings of poignancy.

So what do I think of New Earth? It’s almost bearable the first watch, but dull the second. There are really only a few good spots (see videos above) and those can be found on YouTube. The episode had no imagination, no cohesive plot, and was full of Davies Forced Exposition. Not to mention in-your-face and out-of-place social commentary. It was an experiment that did not pay off. I rate it as a 1/5. 

What did you think? Do you agree with my rating? If not - what would you say differently?