Doctor Who : New Earth - a review

This is my review of the first epsiode of season 2 of Doctor Who, New Earth...

This was a delightful episode with so much to enjoy. The leads were excellent. Whilst David is not perhaps as forceful as Chris (I'm not sure we will get the same worldstopping moments in Season 2), he gives a more even performance. The 10th Doctor seems more at ease with himself and the universe than the 9th. I had worried that it would be all arched eyebrows and eccentriticy but he was satisfyingly normal when required.

Billie gave an entertaining performance during Rose's possession (she is now Britain's muse) and David's "you like it" speech was great comic stuff. The "shop" section was great too and for all the lack of a story, RTD's dialogue was witty and joyful.

The production values were fairly olympian for a beeb production and I was particularly intrigued by the use of the hard sf concept of clones being grown for medical use. The vault scene reminded me of the Matrix. Pity the "mutant" humans of 5,000,000,023 looked so normal - I wish RTD had played around with the transhuman or posthuman idea that is so fashionable at the moment in sf. He did after all manage to bring us the idea of repeated New Earths and New New York? - well we were in 2000 AD territory here....

Nurse Pussy was well done - expressive enough to let the performance appear through the costume. I would have liked some backstory about their origin - were they just alien felines or bioengineered housecats? By 5 billion of course anything is possible and even likely.

Cassandra's death was peculiarly affecting. A character going from being a put upon nobody to suddenly portraying a powerful feeling is a clever device.

It bears a second viewing - I was dissappointed by my indifference on Easter Saturday, but then my senses had been battered by a Martian invasion earlier in the evening. The second time around, this was a wonderful, open episode with finally the excitment of going to a new world.

The plot was like a Roman road for its geometric straightness - the Beeb could have afforded at least one surprise twist after shellling out for air taxis. And the instrumental music was rather odd in places. In the Matrix Vault scenes I thought Murray was providing variations on Carry On or even, dare I mention it, the music from the Cushing films. We don't need music ALL the time...

So a great start and if this episode is supposed to be a let down, I am even more excited about the forthcoming season...