Planet of the Dead

My 2009 Easter Special Review:

Planet of the Dead

This was broadcast as an Easter Special in a year when there were only 4 new stories for fans to see on TV. I suspect that is why it seems to have received an overly negative response and dismissed as disappointing. Fans were eager for more Doctor Who that year and expected that if they only got 4 stories they should all be awesome classics. That is an understandable reaction and indeed this is not an awesome classic so I guess it failed to meet expectations but I do think it was a decent episode.

Michelle Ryan as guest character Lady Christina is very good, the other passenger characters are decent with future Hollywood star Daniel Kaluuya (star of Get Out and Oscar winner for Judas and the Black Messiah) doing as great a job as you would expect in a small early role. Interestingly, when people talk about big stars who have appeared in Doctor Who people always seem to forget Daniel for some reason.

David Tennant acts brilliantly as always but has less meaty material than in other recent stories. Comedian Lee Evans has a fun appearance and the Tritovores are a fun alien race although with not much to do.

The visuals of the episode are great and there is some nice action and dialogue.

The story and certain ideas and scenes are more suited to a mid series filler episode than a special and are not totally satisfying but it is still pretty good fun.

My Rating: 8/10.

It took me a minute or two to get round to watching this first of the specials that will see David Tennant give up the role of Dr Who to a teenager who won the role in an online raffle. Anyway, I'm not a massive Who fan or anything so I only approach Planet of the Dead as a piece of entertainment and, if it can entertain me then it is god enough for me. As it is though this special just seemed like it was in some sort of holding pattern in almost every regard. In terms of building up to Tennant's exit, it doesn't do anything other than end with a cryptic warning of the future but it is in the rest of the special where the "doing the basics to pass the time" aspect comes over.

The plot is a bit like Pitch Black but of course this is a Saturday evening family piece of entertainment so the darker, more thriller stuff is limited to what kids can cope. This is not a massive problem but it is when you temper it with so much noisy and silly stuff that it prevents the adults accepting it as well. This happens here as we have the usual "big, colourful" Doctor doing his stuff but too much silliness, weak comedy and daft action sequences that lack a reason to care or believe – they all pile up and the end result is a special that will work best for children and not the family as a whole. Things get a bit better in the second half as the creatures are introduced but even then the colourful spectacle of it all takes precedence over the rest. This in turn produces those terrible "cringe" moments that Doctor Who has occasionally – moments that remind you that this is not a massive American production but a BBC Wales production aimed at the Saturday evening telly crowd.

Indeed on such "moment" is all through the special, and that is the presence of Michelle Ryan. Fresh from her attempts to break America (how she got the opportunities she got mystifies me), Ryan attempts to be light, flirty fun while delivering an action character. The problem is that she never feels natural doing it at all. She attempts to match Tennant's larger-than-life approach but she hasn't got the acting skills nor the charisma to make it work and she ends up coming over either wooden or like she is overacting in a "big smile, lots of teeth" way. Tennant is his usual solid self and matches the "fun" approach of the special even if he doesn't have much else to do here aside from the usual running and shouting stuff. Evans is amusing but a bit too obvious while Dumezweni, Kaluuya, Ames, Thomas and others are all TV-standard.

Overall, Planet of the Dead will suffice for those younger viewers of Dr Who as it produces the standard requirements of the show. However for the casual viewer it will unavoidably come over as overly noisy, colourful and all a bit silly. As a "holding" film then I suppose it does the job, but the next few specials will need to step up their game somewhat as this is the sort of special/episode that you can forgive as the exception, not as the norm.

Christina de Souza's a thief, pursued by several police, now she's caught the wrong bus, there will be quite a fuss, and probably plenty of grief.

The Swarm will devour all whole, consume buses and bodies and souls, only dust will remain, a sandy-like grain, they move on through a series of holes.

Malcom Taylor's a Quatermass fan, he's managed to work out a plan, to close one of these holes, to prevent a dust bowl, and all from the back of his van.

Well, David Tennant is pretty much going through the motions these days, and it seems Russell T. Davies is doing the same.

Nothing really catches your eye in this 30 minute episode needlessly stretched out to an hour. Even the monsters don't make much of an effort; just a bunch of flying alien stingrays, and not a Steve Irwin joke in sight.

If your birthday is after 1998, then this might just keep your interest, but that's about it.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed there are better things to come, and that Matt Smith (the new Doctor Who) will not be the 21st century's equivalent of Sylvester McCoy and end up killing the franchise for another 15 years.

Not the best Doctor Who episode but certainly not the worst. Thought the storyline was a cross between Pitch Black, Entrapment, On the buses and that program about a time traveler in a blue box. Seriously it was OK not as bad as some comments say it is on here, the thing about Doctor Who is if you had the Daleks, Cybermen or the Master every week now eventually that would be boring. Dr. Malcalm (Lee Evans)is a cool character but maybe a bit over the top with the I love you Doctor stuff. Christiana played by Michelle Ryan comes straight out of the movie Entrapment and then once they reach the desert in the double decker bus you almost expect Vin Diesel to turn up. Them flying stingrays must be exceptionally hungry as one can eat two larger than life human sized flies in one after another!