5 Forgettable Episodes of New Who
Guest contributor Sam Forshaw picks out the ones that he thinks were lost in time.
Every episode of Doctor Who is diverse and unique. But then there are some that aren’t, really. These aren’t conversation-starters, nor amazingly thrilling or amazingly terrible. That’s not necessarily the fault of the episode, but just because of its lack of recurring or prominent enemies, or features that set it apart from other episodes. Or maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m wrong. Feel free to disagree with me in the comments after my list.
5. The Idiot’s Lantern
Rose Tyler minus a face!
But I didn’t find it memorable. There was nothing new introduced, it didn’t anger or annoy anybody. It is mildly disliked, at worst. There was never a whole lot to say on this episode, but the concept at heart is scary. Faceless people. They don’t speak, don’t do anything, just stand there. Faceless.
It was a fun episode, in my opinion, but the Wire as a villain was very forgettable and weak—she sat in a box and laughed and screamed, and that was it — and maybe that is the episode’s downfall.
4. Tooth and Claw
This was written very quickly according to RTD himself, and this shows through the simplicity of the plot. The werewolf was a very *insert bad guy here* kind of monster and the CGI was OK, for 2006; not bad enough to be moaned about by fans and not great enough to stand out for us.
The plot was bland. A werewolf attacks the people living in Queen Victoria’s house.
Um… That’s it.
Or maybe it’s the colour which makes it forgettable. Virtually the entire episode is the same dark colour. Other episodes, take Asylum of the Daleks for example, can be memorable regardless of their story, for their strong contrasts in colour throughout: overwhelmingly gold in the Parliament, red and black in Oswin’s imagined room, and bright white snow on the planet surface. Tooth and Claw has none of this. The contrasts between colour are very dull — bleak and cloudy outside where Rose and the Doctor land, and dark and grim inside the castle, where they spend most of the time.
There are certain things I’m able to remember off the top of my head about this story—most importantly, the ending, with Queen Victoria announcing that she’ll start off the Torchwood institute. However, this isn’t relevant to the story. If you disagree with me that this episode is forgettable, think back and tell me: do you remember how the werewolf was killed?
3. Unicorn and the Wasp
It never helps when there’s no strong opinion or divide on an episode. Series 4 is frequently discussed — mainly about the finale, but also River’s first appearance, whether Partners in Crime is good or not, the brilliance of Midnight and Turn Left, Peter Capaldi’s and Karen Gillan’s first appearances in Fires of Pompeii… This episode though gets ignored.
I liked it. All except the CGI wasp. Why was there a wasp there? It just felt so shoehorned in, almost like it was only there for trailers. And the effects team did the best they could, but… it was almost worse than the werewolf.
2. Planet of the Dead
Planet of the what? This episode was an Easter special. It’s unmemorable because it was rarely repeated on BBC Three, it’s not on Netflix, it wasn’t publicised too much and it was one of only three episodes to come out in 2009. Of those three, it’s overshadowed by the widely loved The Waters of Mars and the widely hated/loved The End of Time. Whether you love the two episodes coming after it, you probably remember them well, since one has been voted as one of the best in New Who, while the other is a regeneration story. Planet of the Dead: it was a completely unremarkable by comparison.
However, it’s a wonderful episode, in my opinion, because you can certainly see both writers shining through. We have Russell T Davies exploring characters again, by putting them all in the same bus and making them talk to each other, like we’ve seen in Midnight, and a bit in Gridlock, even. Then we have Gareth Robert’s lovely humour shining through Malcolm, played by Lee Evans.
It just wasn’t good enough to be memorable, that’s all. There was a companion played by Michelle Ryan, who was refreshingly different from others because she was a thief, but it can’t be remembered for being a companion opener story because the Doctor rejected her. Probably the most average episode of all time. And being one of only three episodes that year, it needed to be more than that.
1. Gridlock
This episode was the reason why I decided to write this article. I watched this recently and realised that it was actually quite beautiful. It’s most memorable for David Tennant’s line, “I’m not just a Time Lord… I’m the last of the Time Lords.” But for a long time, every time I heard that quote, I could never remember what episode it was from.
The plot isn’t memorable at all. It’s a traffic jam in the future. It’s a nice, low budget idea, and helped build character development between the Doctor and Martha by separating them from each other and making them talk to new characters about each other. But being in the same league as fantastic Utopia, Sound of Drums, Blink and Human Nature, it’s easily forgotten.
Loved it. Without a doubt, hands down, the best story of Series 3. Beats Blink every time.
Joking. It wasn’t amazing, and I’ll probably forget about it again in a few days’ time, but go back and watch it. There are some lovely moments. It’s only remembered for the Gallifrey imagery and the Face of Boe’s last words, but when everyone begins to sing, it’s a tearjerker. It’s also lovely the way the Doctor treats Martha by the end of the episode: he admits that he lied, and tells her about where he comes from.
(Dis?)Honourable Mentions
Last Christmas
I felt like I had to include at least one Moffat story, and this one is one of the most forgettable, in my opinion. In time, I don’t think this will fare well because we ended up not saying goodbye to Clara after all that build-up. It was just Clara’s third Christmas special, so nothing really outstanding there. The colour scheme was quite dark and moody, matching the feel of the episode but not standing out in that area. We seem to have spent more time debating whether Shona will be the next companion or not than discussing whether the episode was any good. Few seem to really hate it, few people really LOVE it. I don’t think this will fare well over time.
Father’s Day
It showed the audience about time paradoxes, but after Kazran hugged Young Kazran in A Christmas Carol with no consequences, it all became a bit irrelevant. Plus, the Reapers as an enemy were much too similar to the more popular Krilitanes, which only appeared a series later. It fades from memory pretty quickly.
Conclusion
What conclusions can I draw? Maybe none. Maybe no one else agrees with me. But at least some of you may see I’m coming from: Blink, Day of the Doctor, and Love and Monsters will never end up on this list.
There are plenty of correlations. The vast majority of them come from the RTD era. Maybe that’s because they are more distant in memory. Episodes from Series 5 may make their way onto the list, and maybe from Series 8 in the distant future, but Series 6 and 7, I doubt it. Series 6 had no middle ground—there were amazing episodes and rubbish ones. And the idea with Series 7 to make each episode dynamic and unique paid off—we remember all of them, whether it be good or bad.
Some of the episodes listed might have been more memorable with better direction, I think, rather than the script being badly thought out or written. Gridlock and Tooth and Claw particularly—I’ll stop banging on about colour schemes from now on, but they really do make the story better. It gives episodes variety, and that’s something that Doctor Who episodes thrive upon.
Somehow I doubt Moffat’s stories will ever appear on here, either because they are wonderful or horrible or divide the fandom (Dark Water, Death in Heaven, and the Wedding of River Song, for example) — Moffat doesn’t have a lot of average or middle ground episodes. Maybe in the future.
[DISCLAIMER: I’m not a Russell ‘hater’. Think of me as a ‘Moffat preferrer’.]
