Warning this post contains detailed spoilers for the 2009 Doctor Who Easter Special “Planet of the Dead”

One Sentence Review

Has both the best and worst traits of “new Who” and despite an ending that leaves you wanting more is distinctly average

Episode Summary (Major Spoilers)

The episode opens with a heist from a British Museum, the perpetrator “Lady Christina” manages to get away from the museum with  her prize but her partner is caught leading her to get on a bus in desperation. As the bus gets ready to depart, the Doctor gets on board and sits next to her and wishes her a happy Easter.

As the police clear the area, the detective in charge spots her on the bus and a chase ensues. On the bus, The Doctor pulls out a device that is detecting Rondion particles, one of the passengers on the bus (Carmen) tells her husband (Lou) that she can hear voices, a little later The Doctor then tells everyone to hold on tight and the bus is pulled through a wormhole and lands on a desert planet with 3 suns. Back on Earth the detective reports in shock that the bus has just vanished.

On the planet an insectoid hand watches the Doctor, and Carmen says the planet is surrounded by the dead. The bus is in bad shape and trapped in the sand but everyone survived. The Doctor tells everyone that they went through a hole in the fabric of reality, and shows them where it is, the driver of the bus then tries to run through it, but is killed and lands on Earth as a crispy skeleton,  causing the police to call in Unit. Back on the planet The Doctor tells them that they only survived as the bus acted a bit like a faraday cage, and Lady Christina appoints herself as leader.

On the planet Carmen tells the Doctor that someone made the wormhole in response to him saying it was an accident, and the Doctor says she has low level psychic ability amplified by the Alien Sun. Carmen then tells the Doctor that death is coming. The Doctor then calms everyone down and promises them that he will get them all home. Back on Earth Unit has arrived and Captain Erisa Magambo takes charge, she then orders her troops to shoot to kill if the situation warrants it.

On the planet they try to get the bus into working condition, and after the Doctor sets everyone to their tasks, he sets off into the desert with Lady Christina in tow. The Doctor and Christina then observe a massive storm approaching and rush back to the bus, he then modifies a mobile phone and contacts Unit, he is then put into contact with Captain Magambo, as the Doctor does not have access to the Tardis he gets help from the scientist on site Malcolm Taylor. As the Doctor wanders away and sees metal in the cloud, one of the creature who was watching them (a giant manfly) appears before them and orders them to its wrecked ship.

The creatures think that the Doctor is to blame fot them crashing, but he manages to convince them that he is not, and are there by accident. He then gets them to launch a probe, and finds they are on the planet San Helios, and there used to be a thriving planet but it has been destroyed in the space of a year turning it into a desert. The Doctor then gets contacted by Malcolm and gets told the wormhole is now 4 miles high, he then gets contacted from the bus, and is told that bus is out of petrol. He finally gets footage from the probe and finds that the storm is a swarm of metal creatures that look like Stingrays, and deduces that they are the cause of the wormhole.

The Doctor then finds out that the ships power source is intact and tries to open the access hatch to get it, while he is doing that Christina sets up her winch and jumps down. As Christina descends down, the Doctor goes through her possessions and finds the Cup of Athelstan which she stole. The Doctor then works out the ship crashed due to one of the creatures entering the vents, which was dormant but awakens thanks due to Christinas arrival. The Doctor and Christina then escape from the ship, but the remaining crew are killed.

The Doctor arrives at the bus and then sets the clamps from the crystals, and contacts Malcolm to let him know he will be coming through and to get ready to close the wormhole. The Doctor then convinces Christina to hand over the cup as he needs the gold to complete the fusion between the bus and alien systems, after promising to be careful to the cup he then starts bashing it with a hammer. Back on Earth Malcolm has set things up to close the wormhole, and Captain Magambo orders him to do it now, Malcolm refuses so she pulls a gun on him.

Back on San Helios, the Doctor has succeeded and the bus lifts off into the air, and it turns out the clamps were anti-gravity clamps. The bus then enters the wormhole and arrives back preventing Captain Magambo from killing Malcolm. A few of the creatures follow the bus through and Malcolm gets contacted by the Doctor and then closes the wormhole. After a tough battle Unit forces manage to kill the creatures and the bus lands.

After the bus lands Christina tries to go with the Doctor but he says no due to losing too many companions, and she is arrested. As the Doctor gets ready to go into the Tardis which Unit have brought to him, Carmen tells him to take care and that “his song is ending” and that “it is returning through the dark” and that “he will knock 4 times”.

As he turns to leave the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to release Lady Christina’s handcuffs, she then rushes onto the bus and takes off and flies away.

My Thoughts

It is a sad indictment of an episode if the only thing you really care about, is the set up for a later episode or more accurately special. The special itself would be a fairly average episode and there was little if anything to make it stand out from a standard episode of Doctor Who, which is disappointing given that there are only a limited number of specials, and the trailer for the next episode does not give me high expectations either.

In terms of the episode itself, the high point was probably Michelle Ryans, Lady Christina, who had enough about her to make me wish that she could have been a regular companion in a series. For me the low point was Lee Evans character “Doctor Malcolm” which is nothing to do with the acting, but rather that the character seemed shoehorned into the special as comic relief for kids, and for me detracted from an already average episode.

As for the special itself I cant think of anything particularly noteworthy or exciting, given that anything metal could get through and survive they could have easily just had the Doctor phone up and ask for a sturdy vehicle to be driven through and they could have got back that way, or better yet as the TARDIS is transportable ask UNIT to pick up the TARDIS and shove it through the wormhole, instead we have the standard RTD Deus ex Machina fix of alien technology which is compatible with the bus, if it had to come from the Alien ship why not have a short range shuttle instead? Overall then a distinctly average episode, and the sooner Moffat takes over the better.

Moving on to Carmens warning to the Doctor which was the highlight of the episode, then given what is already known about the Doctor regenerating at the end and the Ood like reference to Song, then the first part about his song ending is most likely a reference to his regeneration at what I assume will be the end of the final special before Moffat takes over and Season 5 begins. The big question is what do “it is returning through the dark” and “he will knock 4 times” refer to.

The chances are that these are referring to the same thing, though I cant disregard the possibility that the it and the he are two different things. When I first heard the warning my initial thoughts were that it is probably going to be the Master or the Daleks returning (possibly both Daleks = returning through the dark, Master = Knock 4 times), the Daleks are cliched are probably over used by RTD, and he writes himself into holes with the continual complete defeats, but he knows that they are popular and would be one way to go out with a bang. If it is the Daleks, I expect a Bad Wolf reference at some point in one of the later specials. Similarly the Master while killed off, would be viable given the ending and would provide a worthy adversary for the Doctor to be regenerated by.

A more obscure possibility is that the reference refers to something else the Doctor has faced since he has returned and the only two things that spring to mind are the mysterious entity from Midnight that almost got the Doctor killed and also “the Beast” from Impossible Planet/Satan pit. Both of these adversaries while not as well known as the Daleks or the Master, both proved fairly formidable and have the advantage of not being overused and having elements of mystery about them that can be used to create a new Mythology. The Midnight entity has the edge over the Beast in that in its initial appearance it knocked on the side of the space truck (or bus) giving symmetry to the events of Planet of the Dead, while the Beast has an edge given Carmens Ood like warning about the song and the Ood have previous with him from the Impossible Planet/ Satan Pit.

Having said all that despite RTD implying that it will not be what people think at the moment, given his previous track record, I am going to say that the chances are he will bring the Daleks back yet again, but I will be pleasantly surprised if I am wrong and suspect there will be more hints in the next special “The Waters of Mars”.

Episode Rating

[xrr rating=6/10]