New Who Review for “The Lazarus Experiment”
Posted By Kathleen David on August 13, 2007
For this one we are back on Earth and we learn a little more about Martha and Martha’s family. This is one of those Doctor Who mysteries which also has repercussions into the end of the season. The quest for eternal youth is one that has been used in our mythology and literature since probably the beginning of storytelling. This time it is told with technology as the catalyst and of course something goes wrong because something always goes wrong in these sorts of stories.
Again we are not in my favorite episode territory but after the Daleks last week, I found this much improved. The monster is pretty well done with CGI. I would almost be scared to see what they would have come up with if this had been shot in the Tom Baker era. It is also nice to have another glimpse of Martha’s family and the dynamics within the family. Her sister seems upwardly mobile but a bit clueless. She reminds me of other pretty young things that get promoted and then panic on whether they can do the job they were hired for.
I am grateful for sleeping cats.
Mr. Saxon is mentioned and just keep that in the back of your head. It becomes more important later (remember no spoilers past this episode). Martha’s mother is quite a pistol. She is very protective of her children and you can tell that she is also proud of them. The casting of Martha’s family is just brilliant. I could see this set of people being a family.
The transformation into Monster is an old theme in Doctor Who. In this case it is again human’s meddling with forces that are beyond them. And the Doctor is there yet again to tell the humans how stupid they are being. And we have the mad scientist not seeing the harm in what he is doing. This is kind of a by the numbers episode of Doctor Who with a few twists along the way.
The dialogue is strong especially some of the exchanges between the Doctor and Martha. I will give this season two thumbs up for good dialogue even in so-so episodes.
Next week the Doctor has 42 minutes to save Martha and then we are onto the really good stuff.
I was glad to see that the Doctor actually did return Martha about when he promised – not a year later. It took about one minute of TV show time for the TV24 comment about changing what it means to be human to register in the Doctor’s head.
The commentary for this episode was done by Reggie Yates (who plays Leo Jones – Martha’s brother) and Will Cohen (from the Mill which does the special effects). This was the first time Reggie saw the episode. Reggie mentioned that they were requested to supply the photos that we see in Martha’s apartment. So those are from the various actor’s youths. He said that the family got along very well as actors. He also mentioned that in the church while Martha and her sister were running, the actresses were not running in heels. They had switched to “trainers” for that sequence.
The person speaking to Martha’s mother was listed as “mysterious stranger” in the script.
Some things were also mentioned that are in the Fact File at http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/episodes/2007/facts/fact_306.shtml
Neil Ottenstein
This was only the second new episode I was able to sit and watch in its entirety, and I was rather disappointed. The monster reminded me of nothing but Clash of the Titans. I almost would have preferred to see it in the TB era, because I wouldn’t have expected as much. I do like the Doctor and Martha, and the story line was good. I’m still adjusting to seeing location shots as 21st century and not James Herriot Land.
Hmmm. This was much more an interesting episode in retrospect.
I was disappointed with the monster as well — it just came off as too obviously CGI (especially with things like the let’s-walk-on-the-ceiling moment). I enjoyed most of the dialogue, and am certainly intrigued by all the Saxon references, but the primary plot this time was so-so for me.
(Of course, when the Doctor is trying to lure Lazarus up to the bell tower, I can’t have been the only one here thinking about Spider-Man and the black costume pre-Venom!)
TWL