I had dellusions of writing a ‘first impressions’ review of Planet of the Dead – it was going to be short and snappy, not too much chatty bollocks, I would just be straight to the point. Well… then this happened. Enjoy.

I think I first have to admit that I went into this wanting to dislike Christina de Souza because of tabloid fluff I had read which pictured the smooch between her and the Doctor; then I later read an interview with the director where he states their ‘romance’ is reciprocal and I couldn’t help thinking—for fucks sake, can’t we just give the Doctor and romance a bit of a rest now? So, I will concede that my view of her character going in to this episode was slightly denigrated because of that.

The beginning of the episode was a bit cheesy, while the wire work in the museum was quite swish and nicely executed by Michelle Ryan; in typical Doctor Who fashion the minor details are left threadbare and you kind of have to suspend your disbelief when you watch these bright blue lasers (what happened to the standard invisible red/green variety?) sizzle away in a perfect box around the precious cup that looked like something I made earlier on Blue Peter. Anyway, I don’t want to slag it off too much, because this is typical of Doctor Who and if you can let these things go then generally you can watch an episode happily.
Except that bit at the end where the police officers were shouting at Christina to open the bus door—THERE’S A FREAKIN’ ‘OPEN DOOR’ BUTTON ON THE OUTSIDE! Christ almighty… but that’s skipping ahead.

I loved the Doctor’s wackiness that you often get oodles of in Russell T. Davies’ scripts. I enjoyed the ‘where are you going?’ speech, as it shows the Doctor’s boundless affection for the human race—those are always the best scenes. I think the audience does need reminding from time to time why the Doctor sees Earth as his second home and why he is so ‘addicted’ to humans, as it were.

Christina de Souza was a bit of a stereotypical character, the English aristocrat who is abominably wealthy, speaks fluent French oh and is so bored with her life that she’s dedicated herself to the art of high stakes theft. She’s Thomas Crown crossed with Lara Croft and has all the personality of the latter too. I didn’t dislike her, by any means; I thought she would probably make a good companion to the Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor. But I didn’t really see much depth in her character; she might of been quite interesting as a sort of anti-companion. Someone who tries to screw the Doctor over, perhaps? I think because of her initial scenes where she ditches her partner to the police quite happily, I envision her as someone being quite out for herself and would use the Doctor to swing to her next big adventure and possibly to her demise? Or she could end up being lovely and wonderful and the Rose Tyler to the 11th Doctor. Really, I hope the latter doesn’t happen… I still think the Moff is going to have the 11th Doctor be a bit of a cad—a girl in every corner of the galaxy, type Doctor.

Anyway, where was I? Oh right, Lady Christina. I loved the banter between her and the Doctor; that was classic Russell with his quick fire, to and fro wit which worked so well between Rose and the Doctor. The director was right when he said their relationship harkens back to Rose. It was fun, and I enjoyed that aspect of their interaction. In fact, I found myself on Christina’s side when the Doctor got ratty about her taking dive down the gravity well to retrieve the crystal. She had it covered! He seemed to be a bit of a moody killjoy in those scenes, but I think that’s one of Russell’s clever tricks where screen writing is concerned; he shows different sides to the Doctor so you can love him one minute and be infuriated with him the next.
I liked the Fly-like aliens, it was a bit shitty that they died, the Doctor seems to always be able to save the humans but poor random aliens from wherever are always left for dinner. The metallic aliens were quite well done too, they reminded me of stingrays. It was a big budget stunt I would imagine; to have them swarming over the screen. Sometimes it was quite noticeable that they were CGI, but otherwise it was a nice improvement over the visuals of Journey’s End. Good job to The Mill.

The other passengers on the bus were okay; I thought Carmen (the voices lady) was going to play a bigger part. She seemed quite pivotal at first—being able to see what is coming etc, but then she got relegated to shrieking ‘they’re coming!’ on the bus for the rest of the episode. She served her purpose in the end with her cryptic message no doubt referring to a certain character that has already been confirmed as returning from set reports, but still… she seemed a bit wasted as a character and ultimately ended up coming off as a plot device to rather obviously hint at the future—nothing particularly clever and Doctor Who-like about that. So I have to say, that was a bit of weak writing.

Lee Evans worked well as a geeky genius, his ‘I love you!’ mantra at the end was fleetingly amusing but ultimately it seemed like they left Evans cold; he didn’t really shine. He did well with what little they gave him, don’t get me wrong, but he wasn’t as good as you would expect from a comedy A-list-er; perhaps if he was actually funny?

Now finally, the big nasty… Captain Erisa Magumbo. What a brilliant character she was for those fleeting seconds in Turn Left. She had so little to work with but has stuck in the fandom memory simply for saying ‘…this is to combat dehydration.’ How can she not be class? I kind of expected they would do something to screw her up, and turning a gun on the geeky scientist because he wouldn’t condemn the Doctor to death was it. Well done.

The story itself was pretty simplistic, it was good that way though—just as Russell T. Davies promised, it was a bit of an adventurous romp before the doom and gloom of the 10th Doctor’s demise. I loved the locations, going to Dubai rather than filling a sound stage with sand really played a big part in the story telling by being an unnoticeable detail… something that doesn’t jump out at you and makes you think FAKE! Which makes me wonder how much bigger Doctor Who could be if they could only figure out how to do that all the time! Bigger budget, I expect.

The crowning touch of this episode was where Christina approaches the Doctor expecting to dash off to see the stars and he stops her dead in her tracks. It was the first proper reference to what had come before and I liked how it was shown in such a minimal way. The Doctor lost his true love, Rose again in a rather unexpected twist of fate that must have ripped his hearts out and threw them in a bucket of TCP. Then he lost Donna in one of the cruellest Doctor Who companion exits ever. It was good to see that this had an effect; that this time he wasn’t going to be swayed—no more companions. This was the end of the line for him because the hurt cut too deep this time. It was the emotional clincher of this episode that really gets you. From his earlier flirtations with Christina with comments like; ‘the worse it gets the more I love it’ to right back to that cold dark place, where he remembers that his love for the danger ultimately costs him everything he holds dear. Somber.

But! Not to keep a good man down, the Doctor assists Christina in one last little adventure before they part ways. It was everything Russell T. Davies promised—I could even live with that kiss! Which says something about the episode as a whole I think.