New Earth

I'll warn you, dear reader, I'm not happy. My short review is that that New Earth was childish, camp and lazy. The long version follows...

First good bits: It looked good most of the time. Billy and David are exceptionally good at what they do though neither of them made me laugh. (It's too early in the series to be trying comedy with the leads). The themes of clinicians' scientific detachment from patients in need of emotional contact were interesting (though virtually unexplored). The end was quite imaginitive.

Now my quibbles really begin...

Bipedal Cats as medical nuns is a very strange idea. It's a bit pantomimey, a bit simple and a bit easy. You could imagine them as incidental characters in a children's book populated by dog firemen and Duck taxi-drivers. However they're weird and outlandish enough to be really fantastic sci-fi/fantasy creations- but only if they are more than just nurses with cat faces. For some reason I'd expected some kind of interesting and imaginitive explanation for their existence- something a bit clever or a bit mysterious or maybe a bit allegorical. But no- they were just there. They are there ONLY because they're a bit weird and might look good- nothing to do with plot, nothing with any reason or thought behind it.

This is a bit symptomatic of this episode and RTD's Doctor Who writing in general. This is such a shame as he can be so good when he's on form- by the time we'd got to 'The Parting of the Ways' I'd completely fogotten how much I'd cringed at the burping bin and fart-driven plots in last year's series. The brilliant character work in the script and in the perfomances shone so brightly I'd completely forgotten everything that was awful. Whoops.

New Earth did have some good moments and ideas- the ending focussing on Cassandra was a lovely idea and could have been moving if it wasn't completely unbelievable given what we seen up to then. In fact the episode teemed with characters and themes that were supposed to be heart-wrenchinlgy profound but came across as vapid and camp...

The hordes of imprisoned disease-carriers were supposed to be so heart-breaking having spent their existence craving human contact and suffering from every disease possible. But the groups of pleading and beckoning extras looked awful- the performances were laughable. If you'd turned on half way through you might think it was a quirky comedy sketch show. Perhaps a Doctor Who spoof? And then one of them cuddles up to David Tennant after he's cured them with an unbelievably childish plot device.

It's as though RTD is saying all that matters is you have people who look needy and pathetic, they get sprayed with magic by the Doctor and are fixed so then we think the Doctor is wonderful. There- That's drama. Tick. It really seems as though he doesn't think anything else in the script matters and he can slip in the simplest and most childish explanation for anything and get away with it because somewhere there's some camp sparkling dialogue.

My real problem with this is that a very similar thing was going on in Steven Moffat's WWII two-parter last year where Christopher Eccleston showered broken people with what was effectively fairy dust for non-scifi fans but there was SO MUCH MORE going on behind it. The nano-gene premise, the issues of motherhood and guilt in the social context of 1940s Britain, the themes of redemption and forgiveness an these being what brings about change in a scene with amazing semi-religious imagery but an intelligent explanation about DNA hierarchies and re-programming the fairy-dust. How can you go from something that good to New Earth?

The previews of next week (and the big stretch of guest writers' episodes following it) look really good and there are some writers that we know produce brilliant scripts. I was looking forward to this series SO MUCH and I'm hoping that there's some truly wonderful Doctor Who coming out way.