Doctor Who S03 E07 – Does this remind you of anything?

Previously: A scorpion monster and what it means to live forever.
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42

Marines: We start in the TARDIS with the Doctor rigging Martha’s flip phone so that it now has all-space-and-time roaming activated. Martha is impressed but before she can test it out, the TARDIS jerks and an alarm starts blaring. The Doctor announces that it’s a distress signal and he’s locking onto it.

After a bit more turbulence (thought it’s an oddly quick series of events. Like AHH distress signal AHH we’re here!) they land and the Doctor hurries out to investigate. Martha follows him out and they both comment on how hot wherever they’ve landed is. The Doctor walks out of that room and is promptly spotted by the sweaty crew of the ship who yell at him a lot. (K: NGL, this bit reminded me a lot of The Impossible Planet.) Martha says that they got their distress signal while the Doctor asks why he doesn’t hear any engines. The ship went dead 4 minutes ago. The automated ship… voice… PA… thing… (I’m so good at sci-fi) announces ship closure. The sweaty lady in charge asks who activated ship closure as another sweaty lady runs toward the group and says she almost got locked in some other part of the ship.

Sweaty Boss promises to get everyone out of this and the Doctor asks what exactly is going on. Martha meanwhile has walked over to a nearby window and freaks out at what she see. She calls for the Doctor and he runs over. They stare, wide-eyed as Sweaty Boss tells us they have 42 minutes until they crash into the sun.

DOO WEE OOOH.

After the credits, the Doctor has got his crazy face on. He asks Sweaty Boss how many people are on board. It’s 7 total. This is a transport ship that is mostly automated. The small crew basically just keeps the ship running. The Doctor runs back to the room where they landed, though the crew yells at him not to open the door. He does anyway, and he’s blown back by the force of perspiration and heat. (Man, science all over the place.) One of the crew members closes the door and uses a lot of words to basically say that the closer they get to the sun, the hotter that room is going to get so no getting to the TARDIS for the Doctor.

Kirsti: Cut off from the TARDIS, just like in The Impossible Planet! Sorry. I’ll stop pointing out the similarities now.

Mari: I think it’d be really cool to go back and look at all the reasons why the Doctor couldn’t get to the TARDIS during an episode. Stuck in an extreme sauna is a good entry into the list.

The Doctor says he’s going to run down to engineering and fix the engines. When he gets down there, though, someone has wrecked the engines. Sweaty Boss asks if anyone has seen Korwin or Ashton, but no one has. She calls for them on the intercom but there is no answer. The Doctor notices that the ship is still using something called “energy scoops” for fuel. The Doctor asks if that hasn’t been outlawed yet. Sweaty Boss says they are due for an upgrade next time they dock. The other crew member, Scannell, says the engines are real broke. The Doctor suggests the auxiliary engines but those are at the front of the ship– the part that’s been sealed off. Scannell is a huge negative Nancy about their odds of getting the doors unlocked but another crew member, Riley, says he knows most of the passwords but is going to need help. Martha volunteers and before she goes, the Doctor sweetly tells her to be careful.

Just then, Ashton calls through the intercom and says Sweaty Boss has to get to the med-center ASAP.

Med-center. A man and a woman are trying to hold Korwin down. The woman, Abi, tells Korwin to open his eyes so she can have a look at them. Sweaty Boss and the Doctor arrive as Korwin yells that something is burning him. The Doctor scans Korwin, but Sweaty Boss is prickly about it because Korwin is her husband.

K: It’s a pretty legit reason to be prickly, really… 

Mari: I’m sure we’ll see worse ones.

Ashton says that Korwin was the one who sabotaged the engines. The Doctor asks him to open his eyes again, but he insists that he can’t, so the Doctor sedates him. He tells Abi to keep him sedated and in the stasis chamber to regulate the body temperature. Sweaty Boss demands to know what’s going on. The Doctor says it’s an infection but they’ll know more after running tests. Now, allons-y, time to go back downstairs and see about those engines.

Riley explains to Martha how the doors work. The crew thought up answers to random questions so if they ever got hijacked, they’d be the only ones who could get through. Martha has to hold a big clamp on the door while Riley types in the answer. They only have one chance per door.

K: This idea is both terrible and ridiculous. It’s like a really intense pub quiz, but instead of winning a $20 drinks voucher, if you win, you get to live.

Mari: Pretty sure they made it up drunk.

The Doctor calls down to the med-center. Abi is still trying to make sense of the test data. Korwin stirs.

The Doctor next checks up on Martha and Riley, who aren’t moving fast enough for his liking. They read the next question out loud, which is a good thing, because the Doctor is the only one who knows what a happy prime is.

Whatever, Doctor. The only happy prime I know is when my packages from Amazon arrive in 2 days.

K: A+.

Mari: The answer works and the Doctor tells them to keep at it and once again tells Martha to be careful because there may be something aboard the ship. “Any time you want to unnerve me, feel free,” she snarkily replies.

The next question asks if Elvis or The Beatles have the most, pre-download number ones. Martha asks the Doctor and he goes back and forth on his answer before saying he’s a bit busy. Martha says she’ll ask someone else.

The Doctor rambles to himself about all their problems and arrives to the plan of using the generator to jump start the ship. It’s a tiny glimmer of hope.

Martha phones a friend on her new souped-up flip phone! She calls her mom who is all concerned after random people at a party told her the Doctor was dangerous. Martha doesn’t have time for that because she needs to know if Elvis or The Beatles had more number ones. Francine is real slow about getting to the answer and the face Martha makes is one I’m CERTAIN I’ve made after phoning my mom.

K: At least a thousand times. When I lived in Canberra, my mum would phone every Sunday night and she’d talk for at LEAST an hour while I sat there making this face repeatedly because talking on the phone is the woooooorst.

Mari: Abi calls up from the med-center because she’s worried about Korwin’s results. His biological make-up is changing. As she’s talking, she notices that Korwin’s now standing behind her so she calls for urgent assistance. The Doctor runs out of the engine room, but tells the others to stay there and keep working. Sweaty Boss and Scannell follow anyways.

Korwin keeps advancing on Abi and he’s got demonic voice as he says, “burn with me!” Very much like The Impossible Planet because you know. Demonic voice and fire.

K: Poor Martha. Yet another “I did basically this with Rose :(” expedition.

Mari: We cut briefly back to Francine and Martha. Francine says the answer is Elvis.

And back to Korwin, who really wants Abi to burn with him. He opens his eyes and there is a blinding white light.

Elvis was right and Martha and Riley are through. Abi’s screams are heard through the intercom and Francine worriedly asks about them. Martha says she has to go. In the med-center, Korwin is putting on a space-suit or some kind of protective suit. He lowers the visor on the helmet to shield his melt-o-vision.

K: It’s basically a welding mask, and it has the unfortunate side effect of reminding me that Flashdance exists. Ugh.

Mari: Martha asks the Doctor about the screams via the intercom and he tells her to just keep working on the doors. He runs into the med-center, Sweaty Boss and Scannell with him. Korwin’s gone and all that’s left of Abi is a seared outline against the wall. The Doctor starts piecing things together as Sweaty Boss is in denial in the background. Korwin’s whole system has been overwhelmed and overhauled, but he can’t figure out what caused it. The Doctor asks Sweaty Boss if the ship has made any external contact whatsoever and she non-answers. She uses the intercom to warn the rest of the crew that something has infected Korwin and probably they should avoid him so they don’t end up extra-crispy.

In the engine room, Ashton calls to hurry someone named Erina along because he needs the tools she’s fetching. Erina mutes the intercom and starts complaining about having to fetch tools. UGH, gosh, so inconvenient, right? Don’t you just hate when your ship is hurtling toward the sun and your boss tells you to get tools? Erina ends her super inappropriate but plot convenient bitch-session with a “kill me now,” so Korwin shows up to do just that.

K: Maybe I should dial back on how often I say that, just in case someone with incinerator eyes turns up…

Mari: Solid plan.

Med-center. Sweaty Boss asks the Doctor if he can cure Korwin. He’s like IDK but his face is full of pain. Sweaty Boss tells him to stop lying so he plainly tells her that Korwin’s gone. The Doctor asks again if nothing could’ve provoked this, if there aren’t any secrets on the ship. Sweaty Boss insists there is nothing so probably there is something real big.

Martha checks in. They are through to area 17. The Doctor tells her to keep going.

Ashton is still working on the engines but Korwin finds him. Instead of killing him outright, though, Korwin says that they have to share the light because things are getting too far. Korwin holds Ashton’s head and there’s steam and pain.

Ashton finds Martha and Riley in area 17 and demands that they burn with him. Riley is a little slow on the DANGER uptake, but Martha grabs him and runs. They head into what appears to just be a small room, but it turns out they are in an escape pod. Ashton initiates the jettison sequence. Martha freaks out and tells the Doctor that they are stuck in an escape pod. He takes off again, telling Sweaty Boss and Scannell to stay put FOR REAL this time.

Riley manages to use the computers in the pod to cancel the launch. Ashton uses the computers outside of the pod to initiate it again. It goes back and forth.

We cut back to engineering where Scannell now has something to really be negative about: someone hacked into the system and he can’t jump start the system. Korwin walks in and Sweaty Boss is all, “it’s me! Your wife!” Korwin kind of seems to recognize her, but not really. He just says, “it’s your fault.” That backfired.

K: Womp.

Mari: The keypad battle is raging on. The Doctor yells that that’s enough. Ashton just super-punches the keypad which he probably should’ve done before, instead of wasting so much finger energy on the keypad battle. The jettison is reactivated and there is nothing Riley can do about it.

Sweaty Boss asks what Korwin means by it being her fault. He just sticks with replying, “burn with me!” He’s about to lift the visor when what I assume is dry ice comes out of the vent above him. Scannell is opening the vent.

The Doctor stands face to face with Ashton, who is about to lift his visor, but doubles over in pain when Korwin collapses. Ashton rights himself and walks away. The Doctor calls into the engineering room to tell them that Ashton is infected and heading for them. Scannell answers back that Korwin is dead.

The emergency pod is about to launch. The Doctor looks through the airlocked doors and tries to mouth to Martha that he’ll save her, but she can’t understand him. She just keeps shouting for him.

The pod ejects from the ship and drifts toward the sun.

K: This gave me all the feels. Martha’s never been in a situation where the Doctor didn’t arrive in the nick of time. She has total faith that he’ll fix things. And, like, obviously he will. But at this moment? He can’t fix things for her, and she knows it, no matter how much she tries to convince herself otherwise.

Mari: It’s rather heartbreaking that what she keeps yelling back is, “I can’t hear you.” She’s waiting for assurance or instructions but at this moment, they are beyond her.

Sweaty Boss kneels by Korwin’s body as Scannell wonders what he meant by this being Sweaty Boss’s fault. She yells at Scannell for killing her husband, but Scannell repeats the Doctor’s words about Korwin being already gone. The Doctor calls in and demands a space suit in area 17.

In the escape pod, Martha says the Doctor will come for them, but Riley is unconvinced. Martha says she believes in the Doctor and Riley thinks that’s lucky because he’s never found someone to believe in. They share sad stories– Riley is alone in the world and Martha has more family than she can handle. Martha realizes that her family won’t know what happened to her and Riley tells her to call them.

Ashton finds Sweaty Boss and she leads him to the med-center. There, she punches him in the stomach and pushes him into the stasis chamber. She reaches the switch and Ashton’s body temperature falls until he dies.

The Doctor is in a space suit now. Can we have Doctor in a space suit shots? It’s nice and alliterative. (K: Sure, why not? We don’t have enough Doctor Who shots.) Scannell tries to warn him that his plan is crazy, but it’s not going to stop the Doctor because he can’t lose Martha. He puts on his helmet nice and dramatically and steps into the airlock.

Martha phones her mom again. She tearily tells her mother that she loves her, even though she doesn’t say it enough. We see that behind Francine, there is a blond woman monitoring this call. Martha just wants to talk about normal things, but her mother keeps asking questions about what she’s up to and who she’s with. When Francine asks about the Doctor, Martha says she has to go and hangs up. Martha hugs Riley and they cry.

K: More feels. But with a side of rage at Francine. She’s verging on Mother Gothel from Tangled territory… 

Mari: The Doctor opens the airlock door and climbs outside. He’s reaching for the magnetic lock lever on the side of the ship but is is just out of his reach. Scannell, who has seen the error of his negative ways, tells the Doctor not to give up and with a yell, he grabs the lever and pulls. The escape pod gives a big jolt and Riley announces that they are being pulled back in. Martha says she knew the Doctor would do it, but she was just crying about dying like five seconds ago, so she probably didn’t know know.

The Doctor looks at the sun and says that it’s alive! It’s alive!

I would’ve put a Jello gif here, but Bill Cosby is an asshole.

K: This whole scene with the Doctor outside the ship made me think of the opening credits for Red Dwarf, and I spent the rest of this episode with the theme song stuck in my head.

Mari: The pod docks and the Doctor crawls out of the airlock. He’s got his eyes shut tight and when he opens his eyes briefly, we see that it is shining with white light. He yells for everyone to stay away from him. He tells Sweaty Boss that this is all her fault. Sweaty Boss sends Riley down to go help Scannell with the doors. The Doctor explains that the crew mined the surface of the sun for cheap fuel, but she should’ve scanned for life. The sun is a living organism and now it’s kind of pissed off about having its heart scooped out. He says he knows this because the pissed off sun is living in him.

K: Womp. 

Mari: Sweaty Boss feels the appropriate response is to say that they didn’t scan for life because it takes too long and fusion scoops are illegal. The Doctor tells them to take him to the stasis chamber and freeze him out.

Meanwhile, Korwin is defrosting or something because he comes back to life.

In the med-center, Martha looks over the manual to see if she can work the stasis chamber. Sweaty Boss doesn’t think anyone can survive the freezing temperature so Martha explains that the Doctor isn’t human. If he says he can survive, he can. Sweaty Boss wants to help but Martha replies that she’s done enough damage. It’s true. Wouldn’t want Sweaty Boss scooping out the Doctor’s heart by accident, am I right?

K: Hearts, Mari. He’s got two, remember?

Mari: HOW COULD I FORGET?

The Doctor is in pain and he tells Martha that if this doesn’t work, he could kill them all. He’s scared. Martha tries to reassure him, saying that he saved her and now she’s going to return the favor. He tries to tell her about the process he goes through when he’s about to die (nice with the heads up!) but she cuts him off because there will be no dying today. It’s only episode 7.

Martha sends the Doctor into the stasis chamber. He screams and all the while the ship keeps hurtling toward the sun.

Korwin sees a handy alert on a random computer in engineering that tells him that the stasis chamber is active. There is a handy lever there that lets him turn off the power. (K: Thanks, contrivance.) Sweaty Boss realizes that the power has been cut down in engineering and runs down to take care of it.

The Doctor has defrosted. He yells that Martha has to go to the front of the ship and give back whatever sun particles they took. Martha doesn’t want to leave but the Doctor yells a lot so she does.

Engineering. Before Sweaty can reach the power lever, Korwin cuts her off. She admits that this was all her fault, but that doesn’t actually convince Korwin to let her turn the power back on, so she runs away. Thankfully, the sun living in Korwin is the kind of villain that only gives chase at a confident, steady walk.

K: It’s amazing how often those kind of villains pop up. 

Mari: She leads him into an airlock. She apologizes to the sun and tells her husband she loves him. She intercoms Scannell and Riley and apologizes to them as well. She opens the airlock and out they go, straight into the sun.

K: Except that, like, they don’t instantly turn to ash from the heat like would actually happen. They have sufficient time to float dramatically away before the camera moves on. 

Mari: Martha runs, Riley and Scannell make it past the last door, and the Doctor can’t fight the sun any longer. Over the intercom he tells Martha to give back the sun particles or else… BURN WITH ME. Riley and Scannell try jump starting the ship but it doesn’t work. Martha runs in and tells them to vent the engines and dump the fuel. They look at her doubtfully but she yells for them to do it NOW and they get into gear.

The fuel gets dumped. The white light leaves the Doctor’s eyes. The engines fire up. The ship flies away from the sun. Riley and Scannell share a hug and Martha smiles for a moment before she remembers the Doctor and runs back toward him. They meet and have one of their reunion hugs.

We cut to the Doctor and Martha preparing to take off. Riley and Scannell have sent out a mayday and figure they’ll be picked up soon. Scannell doesn’t know what to even say to the authorities, but the Doctor advises that he just tell the truth. Suns need love and care too, apparently. The Doctor heads inside the TARDIS and Martha is about to follow, but Riley grabs her back. He asks if there’s any chance of them ever seeing each other again. She says no, but it was nice not dying with him. She launches herself at him and gives him a kiss. Scannell is the in background doing something between averting and rolling his eyes. Martha pulls back and says, “well done. Very hot,” before she heads into the TARDIS.

K: This scene was totally ridiculous, and yet I still really liked it. You go, Martha Jones. Don’t let the Doctor be the only one to kiss all the pretty people and then swan off in the TARDIS. 

Mari: She skips inside and tells the Doctor that they didn’t need him in the end.

The Doctor is brooding at the console so Martha apologizes. She asks how he is, but he snaps out of it and suggests their next adventure. Martha looks bummed, I guess because he’s not sharing his feelings. The Doctor notices and decides this would be a good moment to distract her with a key to the TARDIS. It works like a charm. He also thanks her.

Martha suddenly remembers about her mom and calls her again. She apologizes for earlier. Francine invites Martha over for tea and Martha asks what day it is again. It’s election day. Martha says she’ll try to make it around for tea and hangs up before her mom can say anything else.

After the call, Francine hands her cell phone over to the blond lady. She thanks Francine for all she’s doing, saying that Mr. Saxon will be very grateful.

K: FORESHADOWING SHOTS. 

Mari: I couldn’t help that this episode reminded me so much of The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit. Those episodes were really excellent and this one was less than that. It’s kind of a shame that they are so similar because this isn’t a bad episode by any means. In fact, after some of the episodes we’ve had this season, it was damn near a fast-paced breath of fresh air. It seemed to be more about working against the clock than any real theme or deep exploration of anything. The only lesson here seems to be scan stuff for life before you dig out its heart.

 

Next time on Doctor Who: The Doctor has to lay low as a human professor in S03 E08 – Human Nature.