Doctor Who: Smith And Jones

The first episode of the latest dumbed-down series of Doctor Who started off in the same way as usual…


1. Present day London.


2. Zombies.


3. Fairly high-profile alien activity forgotten by the final scene.


This was the new series’ third story to be set in an earth hospital, and was this time about the hospital itself getting stolen and dumped on the moon, complete with patients and staff. The first third of the programme hung on the awe-inspiring question of just why this had happened.


The ‘explanation’ for moving the hospital to the moon was because these intergalactic police drones don’t have jurisdiction over the earth. I'm sure I don't have to point out the inherent flaw in that reasoning.


New companion Martha notices that everyone can still breathe on the moon, an observation that the Doctor calls a “Very good point! Brilliant in fact!” All I can conclude is that she was wrong, and that the actual lack of oxygen was in fact distorting the Doctor’s judgement. The air discrepancy is something that just about everyone in the thousand-strong hospital would have picked-up on straight away, as was the gravity thing, and the temperature thing. But hey – this wasn’t written for anyone cleverer than Martha.


As if to prove this point, the plot-explanation “because the aliens are thick” gets used twice this week.

Further, in order to explain the appearance of the same actress in the last series, we’re told that the earlier character was her identical twin cousin.

In the light of that claim, I feel I must draw attention to how, upon paradoxically meeting the Doctor a second time, Martha automatically asks him if he has a brother, but not if he has a cousin.


David Tennant was brilliant as ever, but he was fighting a losing battle. The final irony must surely be that I was able to enjoy this episode, purely because, after the last two years, my expectations are now low enough to.