Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Doctor Who (The Second Series): “Planet of the Dead”

Geez, all this time since the last episode (which aired around Christmastime) and now we gotta wait until November until the next episode. It's a good time there's so much classic Who on DVD because, otherwise, the wait would be unbearable.

As for the episode itself...

Well, I enjoyed it but I saw no real reason why it had to be filmed in Dubai. (Other countries do have sand, you know.)

Michelle Ryan was okay as the female lead character, Lady Christina de Souza -- though I'm a bit stumped as to why the first character on new Who to bear a Spanish name thus far got to be a streetwalker -- and quite possibly a nanny as well -- while the first character to bear a Portuguese surname -- Ms. de Souza, natch -- gets to be an aristocrat. True, she's a crooked aristocrat, but still... Way to counter those obnoxious ethnic stereotypes, Russell T. Davies. Fight the power.

Anyway, apart from that, the story was not all that bad though I could have done without a character who looked suspiciously like Donna Noble's grandfather and another who looked suspiciously like Jackie Tyler and yet another who looked suspiciously like Mickey Smith and so on and so forth. Yes, we get it. Mr. Davies. You love these characters. I love these characters too. But I'd love them a lot more if you gave them a rest every once in a while.

And if you're going to introduce flylike aliens just so you can make a joke about excrement -- well, you're not writing a screenplay for The Dark Light-Years so I'd just prefer it if you didn't go there.

On the other hand, the Quatermass reference was way cool. So kudos for that.

I'm not sure why UNIT -- and not Torchwood -- showed up to help out -- but at least you didn't depict the good folks of UNIT as imbeciles... So good on you again, Mr. Davies.

It's still going to be a long, long wait until November, though.