Previously: A fake Doctor with some real trauma.
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Planet of the Dead
Marines: International Gallery. Four armed guards take their positions around a force field meant to protect a big ass golden goblet. I’m going to show you how they are protecting this and you tell me if you see any lapses in security:
Kirsti: As a former museum curator, THIS IS THE WORST SECURITY OF ALL TIME. Why the eff would you spend that much on laser systems and paying security guards and, you know, NOT PUT THE FREAKING OBJECT IN A SHOWCASE WITH BUILT IN ALARMS AND BULLET PROOF GLASS?!?!?!?! Sense: this doesn’t any make.
Mari: Sure enough, next thing we know, a woman drops down Mission: Impossible style. She grabs the goblet and switches it out for something in a black bag. On her way up and out, she grabs the bag and reveals a beckoning cat. It was all really smooth and stealth until you left a thing that makes squeaky noises and calls attention to the stolen item, girl.
Sure enough part 2, when Real Stealth Girl pauses to remove her ski mask and look really pleased with herself, alarms start blaring. The actress is Michelle Ryan, who has been in a bunch of stuff, but I mostly know from Merlin and the short lived Bionic Woman. She looks put out, runs outside, but finds that the police are already onsite. They’ve apparently already apprehended Real Stealth Girl’s partner in crime. She’s all, “sorry lover,” and runs off in the opposite direction.
She doesn’t get very far because cops are every where. She’s surrounded and her only option seems to be to hop on a bus. She pays the driver with her diamond earrings and that’s good enough for him. Before they drive off, one more passenger gets on the bus and he’s got some Converse on. The police look around confused. The Doctor sits down next to Real Stealth Girl and cheerily wishes her a happy Easter while offering some of his chocolate bunny.
K: He… psychic papers the Oyster card reader. HOW DOES THAT EVEN WORK. Also, I kind of hate him for being the guy who sits down next to you on the bus when there are tons of totally empty rows to sit in.
Mari: Public transport etiquette, bro.
Doo wee oooh!
The police are still looking for Real Stealth, and because she’s A+ at being a criminal, she’s looking right out the bus window. The head cop spots her and starts yelling for everyone to follow that bus. On the bus, the Doctor is being weird, talking about the original Easter and fiddling around with one of his doohickeys for detecting things.
This bus driver is real committed to being an escape vehicle, because he keeps driving even with the police in hot pursuit. The bus enters a tunnel and the police block it off on the other end. In the tunnel, the Doctor’s doohickey is going nuts. An older woman at the back of the bus asks her husband if he can hear the voices calling out to them. The Doctor looks worried and tells everyone, including Real Stealth (whose real name is Christina), to hold on tight. The bus jerks and throws everyone about. Glass shatters, things go out of focus, everyone screams.
In the tunnel, Cop Boss reports that the bus has just disappeared.
The bus has landed in a vast desert. The Doctor is the first to get off the bus and he announces that they’ve gone a far way from Brixton.
K: THANK YOU, CAPTAIN OBVIOUS.
Mari: A skittering alien watches the bus on a TV screen.
The husband, Lou, wants to get off the bus but his wife says she’s not getting off because she can hear the voices of the dead calling out to them. They are surrounded by the dead. Outside, the Doctor is examining the sand. The blonde lady is exclaiming because there are three suns in the sky. The young black guy says they are definitely on another world. The bus driver is pretty impressed because the bus has held together fairly well, even though the wheels are stuck in the sand.
Back at the tunnel, Cop Boss is sealing off the tunnel again some more. (K: Just to be SUPER DUPER sure?)
Dead Planet. Christina is super self-satisfied because she has a pair of sunglasses, which she thinks makes her ready for any emergency. The Doctor takes off his glasses and sonics them into sunglasses. He’s still examining the sand. He tastes a bit and gives us a bit of tongue porn while making EW! noises.
K: Otherwise known in Australia as “I thought it was a good idea to eat a sandwich at the beach” face.
Mari: We have that face in Florida, too!
Christina is like, “yeah, well. It’s sand.” It’s clear the Doctor tasted something else, but he doesn’t say what. She wants to know who he is and we have our classic little “The Doctor” game.
The young black guy starts coming for the Doctor because he had his weird doohickey on the bus.
The Doctor says he was tracing a hole in the fabric of reality, but it was a small thing and somehow they drove right through it. The bus driver asks where this hole is so the Doctor shows it to them by flinging sand at it. It wobbles so that everyone can see it both on the Dead Planet and by the tunnel. The Doctor says it’s a door in space. The bus driver is all, “cool! Let’s go home!” The Doctor tries to tell him that it won’t work, but the bus driver runs for the door anyway. Ge fries up instantly and comes out as a skeleton on the other side. Cop Boss sees this and says he’s out of his depth. He calls in for UNIT, code one.
K: The first time I saw this episode, I was 100% expecting Martha to turn up. Sigh.
Mari: SAME. If only.
Back on Dead Planet, the Doctor points out that it was the box of metal that protected them when they went through the space door. Christina and the young white man reason between them that it’s like a Faraday cage, like sitting in a car in a lightning storm. Christina says the bus has been ripped open and a Faraday cage needs to be closed. The Doctor says the dynamics are slightly different with a wormhole and it seems they still have enough metal to make it work. Christina says they need to drive five tons of bus through the wormhole and they have nothing but their hands. The Doctor corrects her that it’s nine and a half tons, but otherwise yes. Christina thinks they have to apply themselves to the problem with discipline, which involves appointing a leader. The Doctor assumes it’ll be him, but Christina steamrolls all over that and elects herself. She tells everyone to get back on the bus, because whether it’s safe of not, it’s got to beat roasting in the open sun.
K: I mean, she’s not wrong? But I can’t imagine being inside the bus is much cooler on account of IT’S MADE OF METAL AND IS STATIONERY. Really, you want to sit outside, on the shady side of the bus.
Mari: Well reasoned.
We cut to everyone on the bus and Christina going over some survival points which include “stop panicking because you are all sweating and it stinks,” more or less. Next up is team identification. She’s Christina, she points to the Doctor. The young white man is Nathan. The young black man is Barclay. The older blonde woman is Angela. The older couple in the back are Lou and Carmen. Next, is utilizing team strengths and knowledge. Christina hands it over to the Doctor. He’s surprised, but Christina says a good leader uses her resources and he’s the “brain box.”
The Doctor hops up on his seat and says that the wormhole was just a mistake. Wrong place, wrong time. Carmen pipes up and says that’s not true. Someone opened that door. The Doctor wants to know how she knows. Lou explains that Carmen sees things and has ever since she was a little girl. They play the lotto twice a week and win ten pounds every time. The Doctor holds up three fingers behind his back and asks her how many he has up. She guesses 3 correctly so he adds a finger and she changes her answer to 4. The Doctor determines it’s low-level psychic abilities exacerbated by an alien sun. He asks her what she sees, and she says something is coming, riding on the wind. Death is coming.
Everyone freaks the heck out about, you know, death. They all start yelling over each other until the Doctor yells at them to calm down and redirects their attentions. He starts with Angela, asking her where she was going when she got on the bus. He goes around to each of them, asking where they were going. He tells them to hold on to those things, to food and home and people, because it’s more important than alien planets and sand and wormholes. He promises to get them all home.
Back on Earth, UNIT has arrived at the scene of the wormhole. (K: Still sad Martha’s not on the team, TBH.) UNIT Boss walks purposefully toward the scene, giving orders to soldiers to secure the area, move the media back, arrest anyone giving them trouble, and clear the police out of the area. Cop Boss tries to explain about the criminal on the bus, but UNIT Boss has 0 time for him. She stands behind a line of soldiers just outside the wormhole, guns aimed. She tells them to shoot to kill at any sign of anything.
Dead Planet. The team is stripping the bus seats of the cushions so they can roll on it through the wormhole. Christina has a mini-shovel in her pack and hands it over to Barclay to start digging. Angela tries to turn the bus on, but it sputters miserably. The Doctor and Christina take a look under the hood and it’s full of sand. Christina asks if anyone knows any mechanics. Barclay does a little, so he’s tasked with trying to unclog the engine.
The Doctor says he’ll be back in a bit, but Christina follows him, not wanting to let him out of her sight.
The skittering alien is still watching Doctor TV. (K: Who wouldn’t??)
The Doctor walks with Christina and wonders about her, with her bag full of shovels and axes. She says the Doctor is one to talk about mysteries. He agrees that they make quite a couple but she’s like UM NO because they are no kind of couple. She introduces herself properly as Lady Christina de Souza. He says that’s nifty because he’s a Lord of quite a large estate. Christina doesn’t completely buy it, but she does suspect he’s different. ~*Special*~
Out on the horizon, they spot what looks like a rapidly approaching sand storm. The Doctor says it may not be sand though. Back on the bus, Carmen says they are getting closer and closer.
The Doctor and Christina run back to the bus, and Barclay directs them to his cell phone. The Doctor sonics it until he gets a signal and calls UNIT.
On the ground, a soldier passes the call to UNIT Boss (Captain Erisa Magambo). She’s obviously pretty chuffed to be talking to the Doctor and even salutes him through the phone, which he somehow hears in her address.
Mari: On to business, the Doctor is on the bus, on a strange planet, and he needs to analyze the wormhole, but he’s without his TARDIS. You’ve got to imagine the Doctor gets a little more nervous when he’s traveling sans TARDIS. I wonder if it makes him feel naked? Like when you leave the house without your cell phone, but you keep reaching for it anyway.
Anyway, Erisa has a solution for the Doctor. They have a scientific advisor onsite, a Dr. Malcolm Taylor. We cut to a scientist with fingerless gloves and little round glasses so you just know what kind of character he is. (K: Malcolm is played by Lee Evans, so I immediately want to watch There’s Something About Mary, followed by The Fifth Element…) Erisa brings him the cell phone, and he freaks out over the Doctor. Erisa is like, “I know. We all want to meet him one day, but we know what that day will bring.” The Doctor shouts that he can hear everything they are saying.
Malcolm picks up the phone and has a few more fanboy moments before the Doctor gets down to business. He moves to the front of the bus and tells Malcolm they need a full analysis of the wormhole. They exchange some science-y talk in which the Doctor is at first hesitant and put-off (namely because Malcolm named a unit of measurement after himself) and then impressed and excited as Malcolm has indeed found a way to measure the wormhole. The Doctor tells him to get to it and signs the call off by saying Malcolm is his new best friend. Malcolm excitedly says the Doctor is his new best friend too.
K: Bless.
Mari: The Doctor runs off the bus. We get a quick cut back to Malcolm still saying, “you’re mine too!” to the cell phone even though the Doctor is gone. It’s rather precious. Back on Dead Planet, the Doctor takes pictures of the storm to send back to Malcolm. This time, he and Christina can see something metallic in the storm. We get an extreme close-up of Carmen’s face as she gives more dour predictions.
The Doctor is busy taking Instagram shots, or whatever, but Christina hears some weird noises. The shot changes and we see her through insect-like alien eyes. She spots the Fly Alien and calls the Doctor’s attention to it. The Fly Alien approaches and the Doctor begs for mercy in the fly language, but Fly Alien still makes them walk with him.
K: David Tennant speaking fly language is possibly the least attractive thing I’ve ever seen him do. Including tasting sand.
Mari: Fly Alien leads them to his wrecked space ship. Inside, the Doctor admires how cool the ship is. They have several moments of misunderstanding, where the Fly Aliens threaten them and such, but luckily they have translators that also double as lie-detectors. They can understand the Doctor crash landed as well, and they believe him. LUCKY.
The Doctor helps them restore power to their ship and then sends out a probe into the metal storm. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Christina use some nifty screens on board the Fly ship to see where they are in the universe, on a planet called San Helios. The flies were coming to consume poo, as that is what they do. Christina says to remind her not to kiss the flies. She is also amazed, but guesses that the Doctor has done all of this before. He admits he has. He’s a Timelord, aka an alien, and he tells Christina she doesn’t have to kiss him either. They share a loaded look because the Doctor loves having sexual chemistry with one off female guest stars, I guess.
K: See also: Kylie Minogue, Georgia Moffett, Sophia Myles.
Mari: They turn their attention back to business as the Fly Aliens explain that the desert is San Helios. In just one year, the whole city and all its people got turned to sand. The voices Carmen is hearing is the voices of all of the people dying. Christina has a weird freakout about dead people sand in her hair. It’s not that the sentiment is weird, but that she acts it in a weird way. It’s almost too… jaunty. IDK.
Anyway, Malcolm calls back with bad news: the wormhole is getting bigger, to the point where Erisa has grounded all flights above London, just in case. On the other line, the Doctor gets a call from Nathan with more bad news: the bus is out of petrol so there is no way they are getting out now. The Doctor zones out and Nathan reminds him of his promise to bring them home. He’s brought back by an alarm blaring on the Fly ship. The probe has caught up to the storm, which isn’t a storm at all: it’s a swarm. They are stingray looking aliens that fly, have sharp teeth and are made of metal. The probe soon gets eaten, but the Fly Aliens have a nice little graphic of the alien in question. The Doctor reasons out that the speed and number of the Stingraliens (K: A+) rip open a wormhole which can they survive because they are made of metal. It’s brilliant and even though they are now threatening Earth, the Doctor smiles. Christina calls him on it and he admits that the worse it gets, the more he likes it. She says her too.
On the bus, things are miserable. It sounds like a storm, but buzzkill Carmen is on hand to tell them it’s not water, just more dust.
On the ship, Christina tells the Doctor he’s missed something obvious. They came through the wormhole, but why did the Fly Aliens crash? He asks them and they explain that something bad and crash-y happened while they were above the planet. The Doctor runs into their engine room and finds a very special science-y crystal that will somehow work to fuel their bus. Don’t worry about it. The Doctor doesn’t have time to explain so we move on. (K: “BECAUSE, THAT’S WHY” has long been a feature of Traumaland. Holiday specials are no different!) The crystal has fallen to the bottom of a gravity shaft. He runs off to find a way in, but Christina looks down the long shaft and smiles.
The Doctor is fiddling with some things at the main console, calling to Christina to see if it works. It doesn’t, but she’s all, no worries, I got this. The Doctor runs back to her just in time to see her jump down after some gross nonsense about how the aristocracy always survives by being prepared. (K: Tell that to the Romanovs, Christina…) She drops down, but the Doctor sonics her to a stop before she hits the security grid. He tells her to turn it off with the big red button. She does and continues down while the Doctor says she’s quite a mystery. He also takes this chance to go through her bag and find the stolen cup, The Cup of Athelstan. The Doctor says that since the cup has been in the International Gallery for the last 200 years, that makes Christina a thief. She’s got a #basic daddy lost everything story, but the Doctor calls the thieving thing being more of a lifestyle. The Doctor disapproves, but then again, he stole his little blue box from his own people…
Christina gets to the bottom of the shaft and can now see what caused the crash: one of the Stingraliens, caught in the vent. It’s dormant because the ship is super cold, but Christina’s body temperature will wake him soon. Christina struggles to grab the crystal and attached plate, but she manages to grab it just as the Stingralien comes to. The Doctor sonics her up, and the Stingralien follows, but Christina turns the security grid back on as she passes it and the Stingralien gets caught.
They’ve got the crystal and are ready to run, but the Fly Aliens are hesitant to leave their ship. They hear something banging about in the ship, though, so it seems there are more Stingraliens about. Christina promise to find the Fly Aliens a home and so they start to run, but a Stingralien breaks through and eats both the Fly Aliens. (K: WOMP.) The Doctor and Christina run all the way back to the bus. The Doctor grabs the crystal and throws it out, saying that he doesn’t need it, just the clamps that were holding it. He puts one clamp on each wheel and starts to affix the last part onto the steering wheel. He calls Malcolm back and says they need to close the wormhole right behind them. Malcolm’s ready with a genius idea. Erisa wants to know what the threat is but Doctor’s like, “uh, G2G.” Erisa calls a Code Red anyway.
Code Red involves pointing a lot of guns at the wormhole.
The Doctor can’t get his space clamps to work right. He needs something to weld the wheel to the clamps. Something like… gold. Barclay offers up his watch and the Doctor is like, “oh, they saw you coming.” Poor Barclay, she writes while laughing. The Doctor really needs Christina’s stolen cup. She’s hesitant to give it to him, but it’s either that or die by Stingralien. She gives it to him and tells him to be careful with it. He says he will be… before he hammers the crap out of it.
Mari: Between the bad transport etiquette, speaking Fly and damaging objects, this has not been a good episode for you and Ten.
Malcolm’s ready to close the wormhole, and Erisa wants him to do it now, before the Doctor gets out, in order to protect the Earth. Malcolm won’t do it, so Erisa pull a gun on him.
The Doctors all done and, hey, did he mention these were anti-gravity clamps? The bus can fly now! (K: How very… Chamber of Secrets.) He flies it up just as the Stingraliens make it over the horizon and straight for them. The Doctor flies them through the wormhole and up above the soldiers on the other side, right above London. A few Stingraliens come out right behind them.
A soldier runs to the bus and bangs on the door to let Erisa know that the bus is back. She looks so frightened by her own actions and backs out to go see the bus for herself. The Doctor calls Malcolm and tells him to close that wormhole. It doesn’t work at first, but the Doctor tells him how to fix it, and they get it closed before more Stingraliens come through.
UNIT shoots at the few that made it out and the Doctor even whips one in the face with his flying bus. True story. Everything is well! The Stingraliens are dead. Christina is so happy and impressed that she kisses the Doctor, and he gives her his patented doofy look before landing the bus safely. Everyone cheers.
On the ground, all the passengers get led away for a scan. The Doctor goes straight for Erisa and gets Malcolm hugs and professions of love instead. After a bit, Erisa tells Malcolm to get back to his station and he obeys. Erisa salutes the Doctor, whether he likes it or not, and confirms that the Stingraliens are no longer a threat. The Doctor says they’ll open a new wormhole, but he’ll work on nudging it to an uninhabited planet. He also tells Erisa that Nathan and Barclay did well in a crisis and would work well for UNIT. Aw. That’s really nice of him.
Erisa surprises the Doctor with the TARDIS, which she found hanging out in Buckingham Palace. Though the Doctor says that “she” doesn’t mind, it’s clear he’s happy to see his blue box. And with that, he’s on his way, because he doesn’t stay behind for clean-up or paperwork. Christina runs over and asks the Doctor to show her the stars. He says no. Her face falls as she asks why not. She wants adventure, just like he said, and they are a good team, just like he said. The Doctor says that he’s lost everyone he’s traveled with in the past. “Never again.”
Cop Boss comes up and giddily arrests Christina for suspicion of theft. The Doctor just stands by as she’s lead away.
Carmen tells the Doctor to take care of himself. The Doctor is all, “yep! Lovely! Right!” but Carmen is serious. She tells him to be careful because his song is soon ending. It is returning through the dark and he will knock four times. The Doctor looks Real Worried for a few seconds before he takes out his sonic screwdriver and sonics Christina out of her handcuffs. Adventure music starts back up again as Christina escapes from the cops and runs back onto the flying bus. The Doctor isn’t ready to take her, to take anyone, but he gave her a way to have adventure anyway.
Cop Boss yells a lot, but the Doctor walks away to his TARDIS and Christina flies away on her bus.
Mari: Yeah, I don’t have any major feelings. It seems that the show was going for one more romp, you know? The final three episodes all have darker tones as we say goodbye to Ten, but here, it just kind of ends up being a more smiley adventure. Things turn out alright, with only the bus driver casualty, though that was because he didn’t listen to the Doctor. Christina is kind of a shallow companion stand-in, to me. I didn’t particularly care about her story or her rich bad girl schtick, but that only adds to the feeling that this episode was just one more run around for our Doctor. There is a little light of the bad time he’s having. He refuses to take Christina with him. Also, the line about him enjoying it most the worse it gets makes me have feelings about The Waters of Mars, but we’ll get there soon enough.
Next time on Doctor Who: An infection on Mars in S04 E16 – The Waters of Mars.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
