The Empty Child

To put my review in context I need to give you some background to my Doctor Who past.

I am in my late thirties and grew up as a kid watching Doctor Who. When I was nine my family relocated to darkest Africa, this meant that my TV knowledge of Doctor Who ended during the Tom Baker era. He was my fave doctor followed by Pertwee.

In the absence of the TV show in Nigeria, I read a few novels but not many. Hence my knowledge of Dr. Who while not insignificant is nowhere near geek level.

With this in mind when I moved back to England, I tried to watch episodes of the Doctor that I had missed but could not help but find it cheesy and very unscary!

But I was among the people who eagerly awaited the launch of this new series. The first episode left me a bit cold and so did the next two.

I decided that I will watch it for a couple more and if it does not improve I'd jack it in.

Well along came the episode "Dalek" which I liked and decided to stay for a few more, then we got "Father's Day" which in my opinion is the best episode so far and is a classic in the making.

Now "Empty Child" had a tough act to follow but guess what? It is a good gripping yarn.

There is always something chilling about kids acting strange. And in this episode the image of a kid with a gas mark walking around continually asking if you are it's mum, was as scary as the cybermen (they scared me the most as a kid).

In this episode we are introduced to the concepts of time agents, which is a new one to me but may be something others are aware of and which I missed.

The acting in this episode is of great quality and Richard Wilson's (good ol' Victor Meldrew) portrayal of an undersiege medical Doctor was top class.

The thing I like about this new series of Doctor Who is that it has a unique British feel to it, the manifestation of the symptoms of the disease on it's victims was something I'd only expect from an Brit's mind, it was twisted!

The whole idea of how Rose gets picked up by a blimp and just happens to be spotted by the time agent I found a bit implausible. And is it me but does Rose seem to get smitten quite often? I mean I know that Mikey is a bit of a wet blanket but he hasn't been offically dumped yet has he?

I liked though the idea of the time travelling con artist and how he tried to sting the Doctor but surely as a time traveller money shouldn't really be a problem should it.

Another good touch was how Rose vocalised the fact that the Doctor does not act in the manner of most american Sci-fi characters with thier scans and more stereotypical ways and she finds the conman more comforting when he acts more like Spock.

This is a two parter and I found it gripping enough to make me eager to watch the concluding part.