Doctor Who (2005) s04e05 – The Poison Sky

Despite some good acting and fine direction, The Poison Sky is unambitious for even an unambitious “Doctor Who” two-parter resolve. A lot of the plot hinges on teleportation and maybe teleportation really is just one sci-fi genre shortcut too many. “Who” can’t handle it.

And then this episode’s (relatively) out of nowhere cliffhanger is a great setup for the next episode, turning Sky into a strange bridging episode.

There’s a lot of weird drama and a lot of David Tennant not being right about things. He tries to convince military guy Rupert Holliday-Evans they can’t attack the invading aliens because they’re killing machines but the 21st century “Doctor Who” army guys do just fine. Then there’s a completely undramatic Kobayashi Maru, which maybe gets some okay acting from Catherine Tate and Freema Agyeman but it’s just forced melodrama. It doesn’t even give Tennant anything particularly good to do in that moment, instead relying on Ryan Sampson, who takes an interesting path to becoming a Tennant protege but apparently not companion material? Sampson was good last episode, bad this episode. All the other acting is about the same, including Bernard Cribbins getting tiring fast and Jacqueline King being bad.

Good direction from Douglas Mackinnon, good performances from Tate and Agyeman (who gets to play her third different person in three seasons on “Who”) while Tennant’s… eh. It’s not a good two-parter for anyone but it’s particularly not good one for Tennant, except when he’s seemingly messing with Agyeman’s character’s evil clone.

But those scenes never go anywhere, not really. Agyeman ends up with a surprisingly solid character arc on it though, which is a surprise because writer Helen Raynor initially seems to be using the clone as a device to avoid writing Agyeman’s regular character. Though maybe it’s just waiting out the runtime to avoid having to have any hard talks with Tennant; has there ever been any scholarly work on the psychology of the Doctor’s “friendships” with his companions and so on.

Good cliffhanger though. Very enthused for next episode. And Raynor does better with this two-parter than the last one. This one’s just a middling Earth two-parter, not a bad Earth two-parter.

Doctor Who (2005) s04e04 – The Sontaran Stratagem

Based on the teaser—which spoils Freema Agyeman’s return—I wasn’t looking forward to The Sontaran Stratagem. Mind you, I also didn’t know the Sontaran were a return alien race from the original series so maybe if I was a Sontaran fan….

They’re all right, though they’re functionally really similar to the rhino guys without being adorable. Quite the opposite.

Though they’re affable-looking enough. The episode makes a big deal out of them being strange-looking but they’re not, not for “Doctor Who” London where there are at least annual alien invasions.

The episode also does the first “Doctor Who” revival companion-team-up. There was the episode where Elisabeth Sladen guested but she was a companion on the original series. Agyeman and Catherine Tate have a proper team-up, which—much to David Tennant’s chagrin—doesn’t involve them mooning or cat-fighting over him.

This reunion is a little while after last season’s finale with Agyeman and this season’s Christmas special, which introduces Bernard Cribbins as Tate’s grandfather (though he’s not introduced in that capacity in his first appearance). Although it hasn’t been long, Agyeman’s gotten engaged to the dude she was after from the alternate future and also started working for UNIT, which is basically the SHIELD for “Doctor Who,” including the helicarrier. They’ve apparently been around since the old series but didn’t get involved with any of the alien attacks until fourth season of the new show.

Rupert Holliday-Evans is the UNIT boss. He’s pretty good. Christopher Ryan is the main Sontaran. He’s fine. Ryan Sampson plays a Mark Zuckerberg analogue who sells out humanity to the aliens; he’s not bad.

The episode’s a solid team-up between current and previous companions, with some nice moments for Agyeman and Tennant, and the danger plot—Sampson’s globally ubiquitous car GPS plugin is a weapon—is exciting.

Though Jacqueline King continues the show’s trend of obnoxious companion moms. And Cribbins is best in small doses; the show overuses him.

And it’s great to have Agyeman around.

I was worried as writer Helen Raynor and producer Susie Liggat—who only produces Raynor episodes—didn’t turn in a particularly good two-parter last time but this time… solid. Solid two-parter.

Though the cliffhanger’s a little less world-shattering than usual.