The Unquiet Dead

Classic episode! Very good show, and cool episode."The Unquiet Dead" is the third episode of the first series of the British science-fiction television programme Doctor Who, first broadcast on 9 April 2005 on BBC One. It was written by Mark Gatiss and directed by Euros Lyn.

In the episode, alien time traveler the Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) and his companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) travel to Victorian Cardiff on Christmas, 1869 where there have been sightings of strange gas-like creatures. The Doctor and Rose team up with Charles Dickens (Simon Callow) to investigate Mr Sneed (Alan David), a man who runs a funeral parlor where it seems that corpses have come to life. It is revealed that the gaseous Gelth (voiced by Zoe Thorne) have entered Cardiff through a Rift, and wish to survive by taking over the corpses.

"The Unquiet Dead" is the first episode of the revival to be set in the past, and was intended to show the series' range. The original brief and script included a focus on mediums and was grimmer in tone, but it evolved into a story about zombies and became more of a "romp". Callow, who had researched Dickens as well as portraying him on multiple occasions, accepted to guest star in "The Unquiet Dead" because he felt the historical figure was written accurately. The episode also features a guest appearance by actress Eve Myles; Myles would go on to play Gwen Cooper in the Doctor Who spin-off series Torchwood from 2006. As contemporary Cardiff, location of the Doctor Who production, did not have enough Victorian architecture, the episode was filmed in Swansea. Computer generated imagery (CGI) was used as the main visual effect for the Gelth. "The Unquiet Dead" was seen by 8.86 million viewers in the United Kingdom on first broadcast. It attracted generally positive reception, although some reviewers criticized some plot points and lack of moral dilemma. In addition, Doctor Who spin-off author Lawrence Miles accused the episode of having a xenophobic subtext, which caused a controversy. The direction and production are both amazing. The idea is out-of-the-box, and the writers of this show are brilliant.Good show. Thanks for making such an epic show, guys!!!

It is 1869, the Doctor and Barbarella Rose materialise in Cardiff on Christmas Eve where those passed are reanimating, leaving Charles Dickens hyperventilating, and a little bit flustered and confused. What are the gas light spectral forms that raise the dead from their coffin box dorms, enlivening cadavers into zombified forms. Friend or foe, we just do not know, until Gwyneth starts to radiate and glow, breaching the rift to set up the flow, a torch to a darker side woodn't you know.

The Unquiet Dead doesn't quite live up to to the first two episodes of the new Doctor Who series (especially the superb The End of the World), but it does feature ghosts, wit and the first example of a recurring gimmick throughout the series: the Doctor's interaction with historical figures.

The interaction is actually caused by accident: the Doctor wanted to take Rose to Naples for Christmas, but somehow the TARDIS has something to say about it and the two find themselves, much to the Doctor's dismay, in 1860 Cardiff. Trouble isn't very far away, either, since corpses have been mysteriously revived in the past few weeks, and the only people who can do something about it are the Doctor, a girl with psychic powers and a certain Charles Dickens (Simon Callow), who now makes a living performing magic tricks and hosting public readings of his body of work.

The main fascination of The Unquiet Dead is its postmodern approach to Dickens, something that was entirely to be expected from writer Mark Gatiss, given his experiences on The League of Gentlemen (the TV show, not the Sean Connery-starring nonsense): the great writer is depicted as a mixture of A Christmas Carol's Scrooge and Hard Times' Gradgrind, i.e. a man who has lost all faith in the magic he used to write about and now believes firmly in scientific facts. And all that goes without mentioning his wonderfully clever comment on the supernatural incidents in the story: "What the Shakespeare is going on here?". That line might also be a reference to the fact that Callow, always reliable for these parts, appeared in Shakespeare in Love and reportedly made a provocative statement about Hamlet in the original version of Four Weddings and a Funeral (Richard Curtis subsequently removed that scene, along with the back-stories of all the other characters as well).

On the flip-side, the episode has a darkness to it (given the zombie-style premise) that doesn't really sit well with the general tone of the show (Steven Moffat's two-part story later on in the season shows how to use that darkness in a good way), the (inevitable) gallows humor being more suitable for a Monty Python sketch or, given Gatiss' involvement, a League of Gentlemen story than Doctor Who. However, Eccleston's charisma manages to lighten up the mood when necessary, and Piper's natural warmth contributes hugely, too.

So no, it's not really good as the episodes written by Davies or Moffat, but what the heck, it's got Charles Dickens - that ought to be enough.

Whilst I would consider this episode marginally superior to the episodes that precede it, it still has that same quality to it. It is slightly more fantastical and scary, although it is still child friendly, and it is a very entertaining episode.

I can't think of anyone who could have played Dicken's better. Just like the the future Matt Smith episode with Van Gogh, absolutely perfect casting. This episode was very intriguing indeed, I thought it was brilliant.