Review – Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead
This Easter, the first of four specials was screened and we got to see one of the last times David Tennant gets to have fun as the Doctor. Planet of the Dead is a classic Doctor Who stand-alone, rubber-suit aliens and all.
The show opens up with a robbery at a gallery in London, establishing the weak backstory of Lady Christina de Souza. Basically, all that does is set up an excuse for them to have a backpack full of tools and a reason for her to be running (if you can’t tell, that’s been a bit of a recurring theme with Tennant’s Doctor). I’ll let this weak backstory go though, as it is only a standalone episode purely for fun. Running from the police, she escapes on a bus, the same one the Doctor happens to get on to looking for ‘holes in reality’; apparently it’s a hobby.
This bus then drives through a wormhole and winds up on a desert planet. Once there, the Doctor has to console the poor scared humans and we’re subjected to another touching moment where the Doctor makes the humans’ mundane lives seam ‘so very special’. Every Doctor Who special has to have it’s moments of cheese…
Once everyone feels happy and hopeful, the Doctor walks off to explore with Lady de Souza on his heels, giving us a chance for some of that British banter and wit (that probably sounds sarcastic, but truth be told, I love the wit). This is when we get introduced to our rubber suit aliens of the week; humanoid flies. Again, cheesy, but given that it’s Doctor Who and cheesiness is as expected as a certain blue box, I’ll let it slide again. Apparently these aliens crashed on the planet, a planet that was supposed to be green and life-filled, and assume that it was the Doctor that killed them all. After a very brief conversation, the Doctor convinces them to launch a probe and we learn that it’s a swarm of flying metallic sting-ray things that caused the wormhole and ate everything on the planet.
Back on Earth, U.N.I.T. (the Unified Intelligence Taskforce) is working on a way to close the wormhole with a nerdy scientist (who apparently loves the Doctor) and Captain Magambo. It’s nice to see a returning character; Captain Magambo was last seen in the episode ‘Turn Left.’
To bring this book report to a close, the Doctor manages to scavenge a piece of technology off of the crashed alien ship that allows him to fly the bus back through the wormhole and save everyone. Of course, a couple of the flying metal space stingrays make it through so U.N.I.T. gets to shoot some stuff up. The Doctor of course goes on his way alone, still torn up over the loss of his last companion (get over it, already).
Given that this was one of only four specials being shown this year I was expecting a little bit more; maybe more of an interesting plot, maybe a bit more depth, something else. One thing that gives me hope for the future specials was that one of the passengers on the bus (who has some weak psychic abilities) foreshadows the Doctor’s death and says “it is returning, it is returning through the dark. And then, Doctor… Oh but then, he will knock four times.” ‘It is returning through the dark’; does this mean Davros is coming back? ‘He will knock four times’; does this mean the Master is coming back? If so, then maybe some of the specials will be better than this one. David Tennant has been one of the better actors to portray the Doctor, and I hope he goes out in a way that honours his work. I give this special 3.5 out of 5.
