Edmund and I have been re-watching the Doctor Who reboot from the beginning, and I’m writing mini-reviews; I post them one season at a time. The info is cribbed from Wikipedia, and I added my scores and comments.
The scores go thus:
- This is embarrassing. Go away.
- Weak. I’m not going to try convincing my friends to watch the show based on this.
- Average for a Doctor Who episode.
- That was a good one!
- One of the best ever.
This one is for “Series 2″ of the recent collection, released in 2006 and starring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. I wasn’t too enthusiastic about it; I don’t think the chemistry between Billie Piper (playing Rose Tyler) and Tennant was as good as the one she had with Christopher Eccleston, the Ninth Doctor. Same with Noel Clarke (playing Rose’s ex-boyfriend Mickey), his exchanges with Eccleston had more flair.
| No | Title | Score | Comments | Code | Episodes | Writer | Director | Original airdate |
| 168 | “New Earth“ | 2 | Poor. Fairly nonsensical plot, providing excuses to reconnect with some of the earlier foreshadowing. | 2.1 | 1 episode | Russell T Davies | James Hawes | 15 April 2006 |
| 169 | “Tooth and Claw“ | 3 | Not great, but had nice performance of Pauline Collins as Queen Victoria, and fun characterizations by several other supporting actors. | 2.2 | 1 episode | Russell T Davies | Euros Lyn | 22 April 2006 |
| 170 | “School Reunion“ | 3 | Not great, but had the return of Elizabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane, Noel Clarke as Mickey, and Anthony Head as Mr. Finch. | 2.3 | 1 episode | Toby Whithouse | James Hawes | 29 April 2006 |
| 171 | “The Girl in the Fireplace“ | 2.5 | Meh. At least Noel Clarke was there, and Sophia Myles was rather nice, even if she doesn’t look anything like Mme de Pompadour. Costuming was superbly inaccurate. | 2.4 | 1 episode | Steven Moffat | Euros Lyn | 6 May 2006 |
| 172 | “Rise of the Cybermen” “The Age of Steel“ |
3/2.5 | Best part was Ricky (alternate Mickey) as leader of the Street Preachers. Shaun Dingwall is still nice as Pete Tyler. Other than that, oh-hum plot, gratuitous explosions, and Rose was completely useless. | 2.5 2.6 |
2 episodes | Tom MacRae | Graeme Harper | 13 May 2006 20 May 2006 |
| 173 | “The Idiot’s Lantern“ | 2.5 | The 1950s technology and aesthetics are cute, and the nostalgia must be fun for the UK. The Wire (the villain) was woefully underused, however. The episode started well with Rose doing some independent investigation, but fizzled out and returned to the boilerplate Time Lord technology to fix everything. | 2.7 | 1 episode | Mark Gatiss | Euros Lyn | 27 May 2006 |
| 174 | “The Impossible Planet” “The Satan Pit“ |
4/3.5 | First appearance of the Ood; first decidedly futuristic episode since the visit to Satellite 5 at the end of the previous season. Good visuals, and good Aliens-like atmosphere. The Big Bad is a let-down, however, and the interminable pit plot in the second episode seriously hampers the tempo. | 2.8 2.9 |
2 episodes | Matt Jones (and Russell T Davies)[17] | James Strong | 3 June 2006 10 June 2006 |
| 175 | “Love & Monsters“ | 4 | Refreshing approach to telling the story, and an excellent performance by Marc Warren (a nice change from seeing him play low-lives and psychos in Life on Mars, Discworld serials, or The Good Wife…) A little off on timing, a little too long spent on epilogues to epilogues. | 2.10 | 1 episode | Russell T Davies | Dan Zeff | 17 June 2006 |
| 176 | “Fear Her“ | 3 | Not a terribly bad or terribly good plot, but the rhythm was off; it felt like someone was stretching for, ahem, time. The flirting between Rose and the Doctor was tedious. | 2.11 | 1 episode | Matthew Graham | Euros Lyn | 24 June 2006 |
| 177 | “Army of Ghosts” “Doomsday“ |
3/4 | “Army of Ghosts” jumped a little too soon to the Cybermen but it had good atmosphere in the first part. Cute to see Freema Agyeman in a bit role before she plays Martha Jones in the next season. “Doomsday” earns a better score because in spite of a balderdash plot, it has the wonderful trash-talk scenes between Cybermen and Daleks, and it tackles the problem that Cybermen are just Dalek-minus. | 2.12 2.13 |
2 episodes | Russell T Davies | Graeme Harper | 1 July 2006 8 July 2006 |
| 178 | “The Runaway Bride“ | 2 | Ugh. Donna Noble. A character apparently written by Miss O. Jinny. The episode is twice as well written as the previous Christmas special, so it gets a 2. It sure managed to fill a lot of running time with very little plot. | 3.X | Christmas special (60 mins) | Russell T Davies | Euros Lyn | 25 December 2006 |
The Reef 