Aliens of London

Monday, 25 April 2005 - Reviewed by Geoff Wessel

Forget all the haters, this episode frickin' ruled it.

And dammit it's about time we saw several things in that episode.

Like, for example, what happens when a companion goes off with the Doctor and then comes back. In Rose Tyler's case, she accidentally comes back a YEAR after Rose. Oops. Jackie's filed missing persons reports and gone on a childsearch campaign, whereas Micky was at home heartbroken. Rose and the Doctor act like business as usual. Such is life in the TARDIS I guess.

The other thing I wanted to see was a PUBLIC alien landing. FINALLY. No coverups, no sleepy villages in the North of England, I wanted full-on raging BBC and CNN covered alien landing, and dammit I got one. FINALLY! YES! BBC splashed out the FX budget on this one, and Big Ben suffers for it! WHOOOOOO!!!

But wait! There's plots afoot. The Doctor determines the alien corpse pulled from the Thames is a fake! Specifically, a genetic chop-job on a pig. So is that ship a fake too? Yeah, probably. But are there real aliens?

Yes. At 10 Downing Street. The Slitheen have taken over the bodies of several key government members, and killed the (not Tony Blair) Prime Minister in the process. And BOY are they gassy.

Yes, there's a lot of fart-jokes in the episode. Not typical, pretty childish, but when you see the Slitheen for what they are, it makes sense, when they compress themselves into a human body. Because they're frickin' huge. And...babydoll-faced. Which is actually...a bit frightening really.

And look! Our first cliffhanger of the new series! And UNIT! WHEEEEE!!!

Yes, sorry, I love this series. No, wait. I'm not sorry for loving it. Not in the slightest.





FILTER: - Series 1/27 - Ninth Doctor - Television