The New Who Review for “The Unquiet Dead”
Posted By Kathleen David on March 29, 2006
*checks to see if anyone else has passed away that she needs to comment on…..Nope*
OK. Back to Doctor Who.
“The Unquiet Dead” for me harks back to a Tom Baker episode called “the Talons of Weng-Chiang.” Doctor takes companion back in time to a point in Earth’s past to impress them and ends up solving a mystery that involves something other worldly in just about every definition of the words. Overall it is a pretty good episode. Simon Callow is splendid as Dickens but then he is an actor who I have enjoyed in a number of roles on the big screen so I would expect no less of him. Yeah there were some slow and jerky parts to the episode. The writing was uneven. When it was good it was golden when it was bad it harked back to bad Doctor Who dialogue that everyone can quote and cringe at the same time.
I’m grateful that I got to sit down with my family and watch Doctor Who.
Of Course Spoilers behind the cut
I really liked Billy Piper in this one. Rose is concerned about Gwyneth and what happens to her but I also thing that Rose’s images in her mind gives Gwyneth the strength to kill herself in the end. Gwyneth can see what will happen if she makes the sacrifice and the Doctor informs her of what will happen it she doesn’t.
The Doctor is fun in this one. I do like the “I’m your number one fan” exchange with Dickens. I think the Edwin Drood reference was pushing it a bit but I do understand what it was there.
I don’t think this is the best episode of Doctor Who but it is quite good and kept me entertained. And entertainment is what this is all about.
Having seen the entire run of the new season of _Doctor Who_ on the CBC last year, I can tell you that you have a number of good episodes to look forward to. As you may or may not have heard, three of them- “Father’s Day”, and the two parter “The Empty Child”/”The Doctor Dances” have been nominated for Hugo Awards.
“Father’s Day”, for the record, is probably one of the season’s best.
One thing about “Unquiet Dead.” When CBC re-ran it over the summer, I happened to be house sitting at my parents’ the day that particular re-run aired, and was able to watch a clear picture via cable, rather than a somewhat snowy picture on my T.V. That may or may not have anything to do with it, but as I was watching the TARDIS materialize in that snow-bound alley, it reminded me-yet again- of just how brilliantly _cool_ the whole concept of the TARDIS is- and always has been. The TARDIS can pop up practically anywhere because of its small exterior size. That feature gives _Doctor Who_ a freedom other shows can never have.
Sure the various _Star Trek_ incarnations had the transporter, and _Blake’s 7_ had the teleport, but those devices moved individuals around in space, not time (well, except for that one _DS9_ episode involving the Bell Riots. The name of which escapes me at the moment).
Along similar lines, one of the novels I’m writing involves a team that travels across dimensions in a relatively small ship. But it’s still bigger than a Winnebego; and if they don’t want it to be noticed (for whatever reason) upon materializing in a particular dimension, hiding it can be a logistical nightmare. At times, my novel’s team probably wishes it had a TARDIS that could be quietly tucked away in some corner.
I know I wouldn’t mind having one.
But returning to the main point, you have some good _Doctor Who_ episodes to look forward to. Enjoy.
Rick
Now that I’ve seen all three of the episodes that have aired on Sci-Fi …
Me like. Me like much.
General comments: I think this is a great reintroduction to the series for those who aren’t familiar with it. “Rose” gave enough of a backstory that someone can figure out the characters, and both of the subsequent episodes have given hints of some dark secrets nobody knows about yet.
I also think that making Rose and the Doctor sound as contemporary as they do was probably a good idea. As much as I liked most of the past doctors, if you’re trying to reconnect with viewers after a long hiatus it helps if the guy is someone you could conceivably picture yourself running into.
Eccleston is marvelous. I particularly like the eyes — during the final scene in “The End of the World”, I was struck by how much he managed to communicate with them, both the humorous and the serious.
Billie Piper seems fine so far — she’s not grabbing me as much as some of the previous companions have, but she’s certainly not a negative.
For “The Unquiet Dead” in particular … I don’t recall Dickens having that much of a reputation for rationality, though that could just be me. I think the fact that Dickens wasn’t long for the world was telegraphed, but I was surprised when the Doctor said he’d die the next year — I almost wondered if history had him taking ill on the coach ride back to London and dying in a matter of days.
What seems particularly interesting to me from a character standpoint is how easily the Doctor was taken in. Based on his reaction to the words “time war”, it’s clear that there’s something serious going on there, and it looks like he let his own experiences in that color his judgment re: the Gelf (sp?). It’ll be very interesting to see if Rose calls him on that down the line — certainly she’s already seen evidence that he’s far from infallible.
I’m liking this very very much — I know a few spoilers for what’s to come and wish I didn’t, but my anticipation has been thoroughly whetted. Kudos to Russell Davies and the rest of his team.
TWL
Robin had to explain the Drood reference to me, about a half minute before they did the same in the episode. 🙂
Hi, Kathleen! I’m a semi-regular poster on Peter’s board, but this is my first post to yours. Sorry, but it’s a negative one. I’ll say this about the new Doctor Who: it sure looks pretty. Other than that, I have yet to be impressed by either the writing or the acting. Eccleston just doesn’t seem like the Doctor to me. I don’t know what it is about him. Piper just grates on my nerves. I’ve heard that there are some good episodes, so I’m going to keep watching. I hope they shape up soon. I bailed out on Smallville a lot sooner.
Tom, you’ll probably enjoy David Tennant’s version of the Doctor more – two lines in and he’d already convinced me that he was better suited to the role.
Assuming you’re all getting the series in order, there are definitely some good episodes still to come. On the other hand there are some worse ones to come – particularly the episodes with the farting baby-faced aliens (Sliveen or something like that), which works well as a juvenile pantomime, but not so well as decent television.
I’m curious, Tom — what about Eccleston seems like a bad fit? I know you said you weren’t really sure what, but I’m genuinely curious to see if you can put it in words somehow, since I think he’s a terrific fit. (I can readily see how people would find Billie Piper’s performance irritating — I’m fine with it so far, but I recognize the things that people might not like.)
TWL
Tim,
Regarding the spoilers you mention, depending on their nature, you may find they’re not quite what they seem. Case in point: years ago, Starlog Magazine ran an episode guide for _Robin of Sherwood_. The episode description for the final episode of the series includes the line (slightly paraphrased) “when Marian finds a lifeless body in the Ring of the Nine Maidens, her world is shattered, but nothing is ever forgotten.” From that line, you expect that Robin dies in the end, as he does in some versions of the Robin Hood legend (such as the one where the mortally wounded Robin fires a final arrow and asks to be buried where it lands).
Well, sometime after this, my local PBS station started airing the show, and I saw that last episode. The scene described- and what came after it- was not at all what I’d expected, based on that line from the episode guide. Not even close. Perhaps whomever wrote the episode guide was trying to create a bit of suspense, so readers would try to seek out the show. Even so, there was a “but” there, but not the one suggested by the words that followed it.
Similarly, when the original _Incredible Hulk_ TV movie aired back in 1978, I missed it. I asked my teen-aged (or early 20s at most) next door neighbor, who had seen it, what had happened. He got a number of things completely out of order. The way he described it (as best as I can remember after all these years) was that they (whomever “they” were; the government?) believed Banner had commited a murder, and that he agreed to take part in a gamma radiation experiment (I guess as some sort of alternative to prison). There was more to his summary, but when I finally saw the TV movie, I also saw that the plot summary I’d been given was completely off base. As everyone familiar with the _Incredible Hulk_ TV show knows, Banner experimented on himself with the gamma device _of his own free will_; and the creature- not Banner- was believed responsible for murder- Banner’s.
So perhaps your spoilers are of a similar nature to either of the above two examples. And even if they’re not, unless they’re very detailed spoilers, I’m sure you’ll still find a few surprises connected to whatever is being “spoiled.” There usually are.
Rick
Thanks for that, Rick, though I’m not that worried. (The main spoilers are about things like the “bad wolf” reference.) So far, I’m certainly finding lots of things I didn’t already know — and even if there will be somewhat fewer surprises for me than for my wife, we’re both enjoying the ride.
TWL
Tim,
Re: Bad Wolf.
As anyone who’s read “The True Story of the Three Little Pigs” (by A. Wolf) knows, the wolf was framed.
Rick
Tim,
Well, for one thing, he just seems angry all the time. Not gruff like Troughton, but POed. Another thing is his wardrobe. The Doctor should be distinctive. Eccleston just looks like any other guy off the street.
Tom,
I can certainly see why you’d object if you think he seems angry all the time — I completely agree that that’s not how the Doctor should be portrayed. I’m not seeing Eccleston’s portrayal as angry-all-the-time, so I don’t share that objection, but I certainly understand it.
(He does tend to come off as fairly intense much of the time, but I don’t see that as the same thing. The closing scene of “The End of the World” did a lot to convince me that the guy’s got what it takes, both for intensity and for the lighter scenes. Besides, anyone who can take that “happy medium” exchange and make it work is okay in my book. 🙂
As for the wardrobe, I’ve two comments. First … wouldn’t that be an issue of the producers’ choice, not Eccleston’s performance? Second, while it’s been a long time since I watched any of the Hartnell-era Who, but didn’t he look … well, not horribly out of place for an elderly gentleman circa 1963? A bit old-fashioned, maybe, but not especially outrageous.
If he always dressed to blend in, I’d agree with you — but when, for example, he makes Rose change in “The Unquiet Dead” but stays as-is during the trip to 1869, that says to me that he’s still picking one “look” and sticking to it — it just happens to be something that we in 2006 find contemporary. I can live with that.
TWL