Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead

Last night we had the first of the final adventures featuring David Tennant. Given this is a very Doctor Who lite year, I felt a little like a junkie awaiting his fix.

So, what to make of Planet of the Dead? It had one hell of a lot going for it. A mix of real-life and CGI monster, a coming storm bringing death, the sort of ludicrous ideas that make Doctor Who special (a bus driving through a wormhole, said bus flying through the wormhole because of an amalgamation of the bus, alien technology, and a old British treasure) and the sort of dependable yet manic performance that David Tennant does best. The best bit for me? When the Doctor started on the stolen ancient artifact with a hammer. Magic.

Yet, whilst this episode was far from bad, it also lacked a certain something. It is destined to be one of those middle-of-the-range editions of the show; remembered mainly by the fans as "the one with the bus" and will sit squarely in the middle of any polls of stories overall. Not a bad story, just not that memorable either.

Which leads me to ask why that is the case? What is it about Planet of the Dead that just fails to hit the mark? Yeah, there is an over-use of CGI, slapstick and flying buses, but this is a sci-fi show and it doesn't actually have to reflect reality. No, the problem was that the episode lacked soul.

Let me explain. Russell T Davies's big innovation with Doctor Who was to introduce an emotional core to the show. Before that, whilst still having emotional moments and starting to move in the direction of overall emotional character development with the Seventh Doctor and Ace, the show largely did very little in terms of giving the characters story arcs and exploring their emotions in relation to traveling in the TARDIS. RTD changed all that. Suddenly, you had Rose Tyler and the Doctor falling in love only to be separated forever (well, a couple of seasons, as it turns out), Martha falling for the Doctor only for him not to notice, and Donna changing from the ignorant Essex temp into a woman who quite literally changed the universe. Likewise, when we met the Doctor again he was a battle scarred warrior who had seen his own people die, who slowly learned to trust and love again only to lose his love saving the world. We then saw him confront the last member of his own race - someone who decided to die (although I suspect his deceased status may change before the end of the year) rather than spend the rest of eternity with the Doctor. And finally you had him watching a earth woman grow to become the DoctorDonna, before he had to return her to her previous, ignorant and self-absorbed state to save her life. The stories ceased to be just about fighting monsters and creeping people out - they had an emotional side to them as well.

Which is where Planet of the Dead fell down. The Doctor was pretty much content with his lot, his companion was a very confident and content thief, and the humans - whose characters were developed for about 15 seconds a piece only to be ignored for pretty much the rest of the episode - were simply there to raise the threat. The only real character development was Lee Evans's Malcolm. Who went from a geek respecting the Doctor to being a geek in love with the Doctor. Had his character been less of an irritating prat, we might have cared.

Of course, there needs to be an adventure in each episode of Doctor Who, and if it simply was about emotions and relationships then we may as well be watching Eastenders or something. But you could literally substitute Tennant for any of the classic series Doctors (except, possibly, McCoy) without denting the story in anyway. In fact, I think it would have made an outstanding Davison adventure, but that's by the by. It was a romp, that is all. And the problem with watching an adventure romp on the TV is that you tend to forget almost as soon as the end credits role.

So, roll on The Waters of Mars. Because, as enjoyable as it was, there is no real need to linger on Planet of the Dead.