Doctor Who, season one, episodes 11-13

Boom Town

What happened: Margaret/Blon the Slitheen teleported herself before getting blown up in the Slitheen two-parter, and she’s become the Mayor of Cardiff. She plans to blow up the town with a nuclear plant she’s having built in the Gelth rift from episode three. The Doctor parks the TARDIS in the rift to charge it up. Apparently, it can fuel the time machine. Mickey meets up with them right before the Doctor sees Margaret’s picture in the paper. They grab her and take her to the TARDIS, planning to bring her back to her home planet where she will be executed for her crimes. The Doctor takes Margaret to a restaurant for her last meal, and Margaret begs for mercy, explaining that she’s been corrupted from her youth by her criminal family. Margaret is able to mess the rift up and take Rose hostage, but then she gets a look at the heart of the TARDIS, she is transformed into an egg, ready for a fresh start.

What we thought: A Slitheen is back! We weren’t nuts about the last Slitheen episodes, but that was because there were two. This was just one story, so it went a lot quicker. Rose looks great when she runs, doesn’t she? Blon/Margaret is unlikeable, even when she’s at her best behaved, but she’s intelligent. We liked her conversation with the Doctor. We wouldn’t have let her go. Mickey can’t move on. That’s so sad. Jack is growing on us. That’s an awfully valuable, wonderful thing to happen to Blon/Margaret. Getting to live her entire life over again and hopefully make good choices. She didn’t deserve it. Maybe that’s what makes it cool.

Episode grade: C+

Bad Wolf

What Happened: The Doctor gets zapped and teleported to the Big Brother house in the future. Rose ends up on The Weakest Link. Jack is on What Not to Wear. The penalty for losing is disintegration. The Doctor breaks out of the Big Brother house, taking another contestant, Lynda, with him. Jack escapes too, and the three run to save Rose. Rose is disintegrated right as they get there. The Doctor, Jack, and Lynda are arrested, but they escape and find out that Rose and the others weren’t killed, but teleported to a station orbiting the Earth. Rose wakes up- surrounded by the Dalek. They are the ones behind all this.

What we thought: Yay! A reality TV spoof. They did so well with the news a few episodes back, and they did well with this too. It was hilarious that the penalty for losing these shows was death. In real life, it wouldn’t be funny at all, but it’s Doctor Who. So it’s a pretty nice twist. There was great continuity here too. The Doctor seemed to be getting smarter and makes fewer mistakes since the first couple of episodes. We liked that, but then we found out that one whole episode was a huge mistake. Time is touchy. You have to be careful what you change. We liked Lynda. Nothing wrong with sweet. The Doctor’s reaction to Rose’s disintegration worked well. We didn’t believe she was permanently dead for a second. It’s funny that Jack is bisexual. More Daleks. Interesting. It ends on a cliffhanger. Man, this show really loves the two-parters.

Episode grade: B

The Parting of the Ways

What happened: After vowing to save Rose, the Doctor gets to work. He and Jack take the TARDIS into the Dalek ship and meet the Dalek’s “god” who has bred new Dalek from human bits and wants to take over the world. Fun! Jack and a group of humans band together to war against the Dalek while the Doctor takes Rose back home. Rose has trouble going back to normal life and gets pretty hysterical, but she recognizes messages left by herself, for herself. They help her take steps to get the TARDIS working again and go back to the future. She looks into the heart of the TARDIS and gets power. She uses that power to save the Doctor, but almost dies. The Doctor saves her, but he has to die and then immediately come back with a new body. Jack briefly dies, but Rose and the TARDIS power raise him back to life.

What we thought: Aw, this episode title is the same title of an insanely great Harry Potter chapter at the end of book four. Harry Potter was so good, it hurts to think about it. There’s a Harry Potter connection here. The new Doctor is Barty Crouch, Jr…from the fourth movie. Anyway, this episode was pretty good. There was a lot of waiting for the action to start and preparations for battle. We’ve grown to really love the funny Dalek voices. It’s cool how they were brought back. They are more hateful and insane than ever, and it makes sense. Jackie’s reaction to finding out Rose met her father was disappointing, but she was cool in the episode, overall. We’ve grown to like Jackie. We would have been sad to see Jack go, but it would have been a good death, and we appreciate when shows kill characters off. There aren’t consequences to this show sometimes, because everyone just comes back. Rose is so awesome. There was some sweet stuff between her and the Doctor, and we liked the kiss. While we left this season not hating Christopher Eccleston, we will be happy to see him go. We’re glad we got through this season. It was rough there toward the beginning.

Episode grade: B