42

Something different for Doctor Who, a "realtime" epsiode. My dad asked what that meant when he read it in his TV guide. So we knew we were in for something of a rollercoaster ride.

The Doctor and Martha answer a distress call and find themselves aboard a space ship which is crippled and headed for collision with a sun. Later it becomes clear that the sun, or something in its corona is alive and in illegally scooping up the star's energy for their engines the crew have sucked up the "heart" of the entity into thier ship....and understandably the creature is not overly happy about this!

One of the crew is taken over by the entity, whcih proceeds to take its revenge by picking off the crew one by one. Wearing a rather creepy face mask, every time it lifts the visor it shines what looks like sunlight onto its victim who is incinerated.

The Doctor and Martha of course have 42 minutes to save the day, which they do by finally realising what has happened and dumping the contents of the fuel chambers back into the area they scooped it from.

I liked the concept of a different kind of entity/lifeform. Its not entirely original but its unusual, a better idea perhaps than the Isolus from last year's "Fear Her".

Martha as a character came into her own when she was separated from the Doctor and trapped into an escape pod with a crew member. In that scene she earned her stripes as a top class character, companion and Freema is undisputably an excellent actress. The pod slowly, agonisingly moves away...and Martha bangs on the window asking for help, while the Doctor says "I'll save you" but of course neither can hear the other.

The tention is built up skillfully, something to do I think with Graeme Harper's direction and Chris Chibnal's script. At times this had a similar feel to "The Satan Pit", perhaps because of the claustrophobic space ship setting. The resolution was satisfactory, and we were finally treated to the poignant moment where the Doctor gives Martha the TARDIS key as a "frequent flier" bonus.

Then, the final scene...where Mrs Jones is clearly helping Mr Saxon track down the Doctor. Of course she believes Saxon is doing good, and is worried about her daughter. That was all done well. the Saxon references and the Jones family are being handled better than Torchwood and the Tylers generally were in 2005/6.

Overall I enjoyed, but it seems this series is stuck in fourth gear and unable to go up into top. Rather fourth than second, however.

8/10