Planet of the Dead, now with added wallpaper

60s Planet of the DeadSo… I was wondering what you all thought of the latest episode of Doctor Who?

Bloody good fun, I thought. Punch-the-air fantastic in places. Not convinced it had an original bone in its fluffy body (I expected it to riff on Pitch Black, Flight of the Phoenix, Indiana Jones, but Back to the Future Part 3??) but who cares when so many disparate elements were slotted together with such aplomb. Some lovely turns from the guest stars too. I hope we’ll see more of the adventures of Lady Christina and Lee Evans’s Malcolm was fun - could have been a nightmare, but somehow he fitted the story perfectly. The other guest was the gorgeous desert setting - I’m not 100% convinced they couldn’t have made do with a Welsh beach and The Mill, but as the episode went on we were treated to some stunning widescreen vistas quite unlike anything seen on Doctor Who before. Bet it looked amazing in HD. (By coincidence I watched the desert-set first episode of ‘The Chase’ last night. Although I’d argue that ‘The Chase’ is funnier…)

Anyway, I’ll write more after I’ve watched it again. For now, leave a comment and let me know if you enjoyed it as much as I did.

WALLPAPER: Due to overwhelming pressure (well, two of you, but I’m easily overwhelmed) here’s a wallpaper-sized version of the John Cura telesnap above. Click for 1280×960.

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  1. ANDY HACKETT’s avatar

    Really BTTF Part 3? Hadnt thought that way til you said…
    I enjoyed it for what it was Colin, as you say, bit of fluffy Easter fun . The kids, daughter, niece, and nephew thought it was great and sat glued for an hour. So well done all….
    Cant be doing with not enjoying it when we’ve so long to wait between episodes. The next one looks to be superb already, and bloody scary to boot.
    Hey this place could be the new DWF!! Stuff em…:)

    Reply

    1. Colin’s avatar

      Actually, I’m now thinking it was more Harry Potter than Doc Brown. Either way, the flying bus grated, as did the round of applause when it landed…

      The Waters of Mars does look promising, but the line “Water always wins” spoilt it - probably utterly trouser-dampening in context, but here it just sounded ridiculous!

      Reply

  2. Matthew Kilburn’s avatar

    Great fun and certainly more together than ‘The Next Doctor’. My review should be on the other side of the link…

    I love the Hartnell image above.

    Reply

    1. Matthew Kilburn’s avatar

      Correction - it will be on the other side of the link in this comment (just add an ‘l’) - and it’s a mini-review because something longer is promised elsewhere.

      Reply

  3. Thomas Swift’s avatar

    It was a fun, one off adventure, really really good actually, but i’d rather a conventional series to one movie any day. :p

    Although towards the end it did become a bit obvious that it was Plot point A leads to B leads to C leads to D, a bit by the numbers, but no less enjoyable for it. I just wish there had been more than four ‘real’ characters in it as only the Doctor, Christina, Malcolm and the Unit captain had enough screen time and dialogue to really flesh out, and thats despite the necessary scene in the bus where everyone forcible reveals their forboils, and then is forgotten about for the rest of the play…
    Thumb up :)

    Reply

  4. Mark Clapham’s avatar

    I enjoyed it a lot, although unlike Mr Kilburn I preferred the Next Doctor - there’s nothing in PotD that has the depth of Jackson Lake’s predicament.

    Love the Hartnell image - can we have that wallpaper size please, Colin?

    Reply

    1. Matthew Kilburn’s avatar

      True, but I think that a greater consistency of tone was achieved overall.

      I echo your Hartnell image request!

      Reply

      1. Colin’s avatar

        Re the Hartnell image, I’ll see what I can do, but as it’s made up of screengrabs from a poor quality AVI of ‘The Chase’, it’s really not meant to be viewed any larger!

        Reply

      2. Colin’s avatar

        OK Mark and Matthew, wallpaper now attached to original post. Looks all right, actually…

        Reply

        1. Matthew Kilburn’s avatar

          Thanks, Colin - I have also spread the word to the potentially interested.

          Reply

          1. Colin’s avatar

            Matthew, thank you. I need all the publicity I can get!!

            Reply

  5. Paul Farnsworth’s avatar

    Blimey, I quite enjoyed it. And to be honest this is quite a concern. I don’t know whether it’s that my expectations have been lowered, or a kind of mellowing that comes with my advancing years, but the fact is that this episode didn’t make me nearly as angry as it ought to have done. I was shocked to find that I was not spitting blood at the lack of a coherent plot, nor was I tearing my hair out in apoplectic rage at Tennant’s decidedly unsubtle ‘love me I’m weird, honestly’ performance (actually I thought this was Dave at his best). I even laughed at one point - for real, out loud. Okay, so the obligatory snog still managed to occasion the perennial grumble that this running joke was never funny in the first place, and the clunky dialogue fell somewhat short of what we really ought to expect from the saviour of 21st century drama (well everybody who works for him seems to think of him in those terms), but I was happy to just sit back and allow myself to be entertained. Perhaps - and this it what worries me the most - I’m entering a phase when I’ll happily be diverted by any old junk. I must admit that, apparently flying in the face of popular opinion, I’ve quite enjoyed the new Red Dwarf episodes (actually I thought this was Dave at its best). What next? Will I cheerfully curl up on the sofa with a cup of tea and a chocolate digestive to watch Holby City or The Royal? Perhaps I’ll find myself laughing at reruns of My Family of The Vicar of Dibley. Hell, maybe that won’t be so bad. That said, my wife has strict instructions that if she should ever catch me watching Robin Hood, she’s to burn out my eyes with a red hot poker. After all, there are limits.

    Reply

  6. combom’s avatar

    very interesting! great idea for a pic :) now do more modern eps as 60s eps :) thanx

    http://lifetheuniverseandcombom.blogspot.com/

    Reply

  7. Lewis Maddox’s avatar

    I adore this picture - it’s currently my desktop. Hope you make more!

    Reply

  8. John Connors’s avatar

    Oddly I have no reaction to it at all, kind of like the Xmas one. I just think RTD finished with the end of season 4 and is hanging around for no real reason. There were things I would have preferred, like the bus driver to not have been kille d and just moaned the whole time & for one of the Tritovores to have survived and been the only character who bonded with the bus driver! Michelle Ryan was great, the swarm were good (till all but three of them parked up instead of flooding thru the wormhole) and I liked the UNIT general but she should have shot the scientist! Had it just been an episode in a season it would have been fine but as our only DW for most of the year, I found it oddly uninvolving. Perhaps its just me..

    Reply

  9. Hooligan Tuesday’s avatar

    *Ring Ring* “Hello U.N.I.T, this is The Doctor, metal goes through the wormhole just fine so just drive a Tank or an APC through and we’ll be home in 5 minutes tops. Bye.”

    I really wish i could turn my brain off when i watch Doctor Who. Or they spent a little more time at the planning stage so they didn’t have glaring flaws like that. If they simply left the phone plot line alone and had the aliens pick up techno-babble duty in the place of pantomime scientist i think it would have been a much stronger episode. With a ’small stranded group’ plot line like this you really need to keep your group isolated in order to keep any sense of danger about their situation, when you have them on the phone to a group with the desire, equipment and expertise to help them resolve their situation then you’re really selling the story short.

    Reply

  10. Alejandra Gamgeek’s avatar

    I said it once, and I’ll say it again: Brilliant!

    Reply