By the third season of its reboot, Doctor Who had become one of the biggest shows on British television, was starting to become more globally successful and had shown a degree of verve and confidence that was quite impressive. With David Tennant already becoming one of the most popular Doctors of all time, the show now had to navigate losing its second star, Billie Piper, who departed as Rose Tyler at the end of the second series.
The series opens with a second Christmas episode featuring then-superhot comedian Catherine Tate as the "companion of the week," Donna. Tate isn't the subtlest or most skilled of actresses, but in a comedic story where she is effectively playing herself, she acquits herself well. For the season proper, Freema Agyeman joins the cast as medical student Martha Jones, a different character to Rose. Martha has a career and a relatively affluent family and joins the Doctor on his travels for the somewhat dubious reason of developing a crush on him: this story point, rather than being played purely for laughs, becomes a key subplot through the season and its potential toxicity is explored in the season finale. It's a surprisingly well-handled bit of emotional storytelling in a series which sometimes loses the heart in favour of bombast (though, at this stage, it usually finds it again before too long). Agyeman gives a charming and winning performance, which makes it a shame her stint in the TARDIS is relatively short (although she also gets the benefit of being one of the very few companions in the modern era to simply leave with her life, sanity and memories intact).
Martha's debut episode, Smith & Jones, also introduces the Judoon, the somewhat comical interstellar police force for hire (complete with their own compensation forms for mistreatment). The imagery of a London hospital teleported onto the moon (shades of Paul Cornell's novel Revelation, although there it was a church) is fantastically uncanny. The rest of the episode is pretty rote, but entertainingly handled. The Shakespeare Code is pretty much Doctor Who at its most formulaic: entertaining but nothing more than a reskin of Tooth and Claw and The Unquiet Dead: the Doctor travels to the past and gets into alien scrapes involving a famous historical figure, with diminishing returns each time.
Things perk up with Gridlock, where the inhabitants of New New York find themselves trapped in a never-ending traffic jam. It's not particularly credible, but the result is hugely entertaining, with some very funny scenes, great side-characters and a loose narrative arc linking the story to The End of the World and New Earth. It's also the first episode of the rebooted Doctor Who to really wow with the effects, particularly the closing scenes set amidst the skyscrapers of New New York.
Daleks in Manhattan and Evolution of the Daleks are, on paper, a story that works very well: the four-Dalek Cult of Skaro has infiltrated the construction of the Empire State Building in New York in 1930 and is manipulating the after-effects of the Wall Street Crash to hoover up the poor and destitute to use in their experiments. It's a great idea requiring the Daleks to be at their most cunning and conniving rather than running around shooting things as disposable grunts. The first half of the story is very promising, with a fine guest cast (including future Spider-Man Andrew Garfield) and a semi-credible presentation of the characters being in New York rather than in front of green screens in Cardiff. Unfortunately, the second half is a massive letdown, mainly due to the idea of the Dalek-human hybrid just looking very, very daft. A shame because the idea of the famously purity-obsessed Daleks evolving has a lot of potential.
The Lazarus Experiment, featuring regular Doctor Who writer Mark Gatiss as the antagonist, again starts off excellently, with lots of riffing from the Doctor on seeking immortality being a bad idea but this also being hypocritical from a 900+ year old Time Lord who can avoid death almost at will. The second half of the episode turns into silly nonsense, though, with a poorly-realised CGI monster running around roaring and not doing much else that is interesting.
Things improve remarkably in 42, the first script by future Doctor Who showrunner Chris Chibnall, who has been much maligned (sometimes fairly, sometimes less so). Chibnall's debut script is surprisingly excellent, featuring disturbing monsters plaguing a ship heading towards a star. A weakness of the episode at the time was that it was a bit too similar to contemporary Danny Boyle movie Sunshine, but separated from that reference point the episode emerges as an underrated horror piece.
The series sees a big uptick towards the end. Human Nature and The Family of Blood is a rewrite by Paul Cornell of his novel Human Nature, and follows the same premise of the Doctor avoiding detection by physically transforming himself into a human and wiping his alien memories. It's a fabulous piece which is part tragedy and part romance, with David Tennant delivering one of his finest performances and Jessica Hynes being outstanding in the main guest role. It's also fun to spot future Game of Thrones actors Harry Lloyd and Thomas Brodie-Sangster in very early roles. The two-parter loses a little impetus in the second half because there isn't quite enough story to support 90 minutes, but it's still a superb character piece.
Steven Moffat follows that up with Blink, arguably still the finest episode of Doctor Who to air since its return in 2005. The Doctor and Martha take a back seat to newcomer Sally Sparrow (an outstanding performance by future movie star Carey Mulligan) who has to follow a trail of breadcrumbs left by a time-displaced Doctor to both rescue him and Martha but also defeat the machinations of the disturbing Weeping Angels. A brilliant stand-alone piece, Blink deservedly won a Hugo Award, two BAFTAs and a Constellation Award.
The season ends with a crowd-pleasing three-parter which sees the Doctor confront his nemesis, the Master (played by both Derek Jacobi and John Simm, both outstanding). Utopia is a great story with one of Doctor Who's very finest endings, but it's let down by the rather poor characterisation and realisation of the "Humankind" antagonists. The Sound of Drums is an effectively apocalyptic story of cat-and-mouse, but the resolution in Last of the Time Lords is let down by a very, very cheesy ending. Still, it's good to see Captain Jack back in the mix and the Doctor forced into the uncomfortable position of finding his only kin in the entire universe is a monstrous psychopath.
The third series of the rebooted Doctor Who (****½) is very good, featuring possibly the two finest episodes of the series since its return and several other very strong outings, with only a couple of episodes that are letdowns. Tennant and Agyeman are a winning combination, and Simm is a formidable opponent that the Doctor has to overcome in a battle of wills. The result is arguably the strongest run of episodes the series has enjoyed since its reboot. The season is currently available in the UK via BBC iPlayer and in the USA via HBO Max.
- 3X: The Runaway Bride ***½
- 301: Smith & Jones ***½
- 302: The Shakespeare Code ***
- 303: Gridlock ****½
- 304: Daleks in Manhattan ***½
- 305: Evolution of the Daleks **½
- 306: The Lazarus Experiment **½
- 307: 42 ****
- 308: Human Nature *****
- 309: The Family of Blood ****½
- 310: Blink *****
- 311: Utopia ****½
- 312: The Sound of Drums ****
- 313: Last of the Time Lords ***½
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