Doctor Who New Series 2.1 - 'New Earth'

Plot – During a visit to New Earth, the Doctor receives a telepathic message sent from a New New York hospital. Upon investigating, the Doctor and Rose encounter an old enemy who's up to no good and discover a sinister scheme happening deep within the hospital's corridors.

The Christmas Invasion established an all new level of confidence within Davies' Doctor Who. Such audacity is what set it apart from that of series one, which was a little more cautious in its execution. It could be argued that New Earth follows in a similar fashion by delivering a story based on the events of a previous episode.

New Earth is a sequel to last year's The End of the World, set 25 years after the events of Platform One. As previously mentioned, The Christmas Invasion was confident enough – and quite rightly so – to use past characters; assuming audiences would be aware enough to know who they were and how they fitted into that particular story. The very same technique is applied here, as both Cassandra, the Face of Boe and the referencing of Platform One from The End of the World are all used within this story. Davies never once feels the need to apply heavy exposition in order to bring viewers up to speed, knowing that most viewers will already be aware of their significance.

As sure of itself as New Earth is, however, there are far more problems with this story than there were last time round. It's not the worst story of series two, but it's far from the strongest.

One of the issues is how straightforward it is for Tennant's second outing as the Doctor. There's really nothing wrong with a business-as-usual episode. To have stand alone romps popping up throughout any series is completely fine, as it assists in keeping casual viewers on board. We don't need epic game changing stories filled with arcs and bombastic moments week in week out, because quite frankly, it would make any given series far too noisy and over the top for its own good. But seeing as this is the first official episode of series two, and seeing as it's Tennant's first proper story since his introduction, something bigger and far more grand is surely deserved.

Firstly, New Earth spends a fair majority of its time pushing the two main protagonists out of the narrative. This worked in the previous episode because it made audiences hungry to see Tennant in action. Viewers had no idea what his relationship with Rose would be like, how he'll confront the villains of any given story and what new characteristics he would bring to the role of the Doctor. By the end of The Christmas Invasion, we were given a colourful – if somewhat brief – climactic sequence showcasing Doctor number ten in action. This worked as a way of ushering in a new era vai the method of withholding its main act, however by the time the end credits arrived we still didn't know entirely what the Tenth Doctor would really be like.

After the Christmas special, the series two pilot should have expanded upon the climax of The Christmas Invasion by fleshing out the Tenth Doctor further. He essentially needed to be at the centre of the stage, confronting obstacles and showing viewers what kind of a Doctor he was. Of course his character wouldn't be fully developed by this point – Tennant was still too new to the role to know exactly how he did and didn't want to play the Doctor – yet this was the moment where Davies should have put this new incarnation into situations where he could begin figuring out what sort of a man he was. It was also the perfect moment to begin establishing and developing his relationship with Rose Tyler. He may essentially still be the same man, but with each regeneration, the Doctor's personality changes in every way imaginable. Rose may be more or less the same as she was at the end of Parting of the Ways (to an extent), but seeing as her co-star certainly wasn't, the dynamics of the relationship between these two protagonists would now be inevitably different. Eventually, we will get to see this altered friendship play out before our very eyes, but for now, Davies believes it best to play it straight for 45 minutes and ignore the cataclysmic events that have recently occurred.

The villain of the story is Cassandra – the last human alive – who managed to survive the events of The End of the World and has since developed the technology to transport herself into other people's bodies. She spends most of New Earth possessing the bodies of our protagonists – particularly when it comes to Rose – in order to infiltrate the hospital ran by the the Sisters of Plenitude. Even though Billy Piper delivers an incredibly entertaining performance as Cassandra-in-Roses-body, the fact that she spends most of the 45 minutes not playing her usual self means we don't get to see the character of Rose interacting with the Tenth Doctor. This hinders their relationship from developing any further, meaning that by the end of the episode, their characters have not altered all that much since the opening credits.

When it comes to Tennant, he does get to spend far more screen time as himself than that of Piper, yet the story doesn't seem to give him all that much to play with. We get a couple of scenes where he roams around the hospital, chats to staff members, expresses concern over patients who are miraculously cured, critiques the The Sisters of Plentitude's hospital for lacking a gift shop, becomes enraged upon discovering the grown patients who've been infected with every illness in existence and jumps for joy after realising he can save everyone; yet there's nothing here that really pushes Tennant's acting skills to their limits. It's an episode where he sometimes gets angry, sometimes gets happy and sometimes gets to skip about saving strangers. There are no grand obstacles which reveals his true character or opens up this Doctor to knew and exciting possibilities. There's nothing at all wrong with Tennant's performance – in fact he seems to be having a whale of a time with the material he's given – it's just it feels as though he's on autopilot, which is strange considering he's not yet had enough screen time to warrant such a formulaic mode.

The beauty of the early half of series one was that Davies used his scripts to push, the Ninth Doctor to his limits and reveal new truths about his past and personality. The End of the World allowed the Ninth Doctor to open up as a character, shedding light on his traumatic past and developing his relationship with Rose further. There was no 'autopilot' mode in that story; instead it was an episode forcing him to express his emotions in a way that helped build toward what defined him as a character. The revelation of the Time War, the death of Jabe and the resistance Rose had toward the nature of who he is as a person all assist in pushing his character into a place completely different to where he was in Rose. In New Earth, we have none of this. All we really get is a happy/shouty Doctor who's not doing anything different to what we had in The Christmas Invasion. Nothing new is brought to the table, making it a rather bland first episode to the series.

Davies' decision to do a frothy romp of an episode doesn't help matters either. The excessive running through corridors, constant body swapping and zip-lining down elevator shafts diverts the attention away from the Tenth Doctor and Rose somewhat. Again, these sorts of episodes are completely fine and are a core part of Doctor Who's existence, however New Earth arrives at a time where the Tenth Doctor is still more or less a blank slate. We need to see how his character works properly before we can do a bog standard tale like this one. A story that focuses on Ten and Rose more fastidiously (or at least to a degree) would be far more beneficial as a follow on from that of The Christmas Invasion.

It could be argued, however, that taking the focus away from Ten and Rose was in fact the right direction to take the show in at this point in time. The Christmas Invasion didn't try to convince audiences as to what Doctor Who now was, but instead told them. Davies' decision to do a business-as-usual story in the following episode could have been his way of carrying on the show without feeling the need to do something grandiose or character-defining straight after the Tenth Doctor's debut. Nonetheless, the decision to put such a standard story at the beginning of an era feels like the wrong place to put it. Two stories in and we still have little idea on what direction the Tenth Doctor's era is headed in.

The second issue with New Earth is its use of retrofitting. Throughout the episode, Davies writes in a number of plot twists that seem to pop up out of nowhere.

One example of this is the Face of Boe. In The End of the World, the face of Boe is nothing more than a fancy creature design who serves no real purpose to the larger story playing out. He's a well-designed alien who sits among a larger group of well-designed aliens. He doesn't even get a line of dialogue in that story. Yet in New Earth, from the moment he's spotted by the Doctor, both Murray Gold's score and Tennant's performance suggests he's an important character who's presence is vital to the narrative. He's a ancient alien who's knowledge stems further than that of the Doctor's. Before the end credits role, he tells the Doctor that they will meet again in the near future and that when they do, he will impart a great secret upon him. There's nothing wrong with the Face of Boe being a grand force of the universe who is somehow bigger than the Doctor, yet the fact that this was never raised in The End of the World makes it feel forced, unrealistic and somewhat random. While in his first encounter he was a fancy prop, the Face of Boe is used here as an important plot piece that will influence the show's narrative in the future. There's no moment prior to this episode where the Doctor realises the volume of this character's importance, instead he just states that he met him on Platform One 25 years ago and gazes at him in awe every time he's on screen. Instead of building toward this change in direction regarding such a character, it feels as though Davies spontaneously decided to make him significant so that he could use this expensive creature design as much as he possibly could.

Another example is Cassandra's character arc. Way back in the days of The End of the World, Cassandra was portrayed as a vain, self-centred murderer who would happily cause destruction in order to advance her own selfish needs. Here, Davies tries to redeem her character by portraying her in a more sympathetic light. There's nothing wrong in doing this, yet once again, Davies fails to subtly thread any kind of theme into her character throughout her screen time which can help her ascend from an evil villain into a reformed individual. Instead, what he does is decides to have the Doctor send her back in time during her dying moments, so that she can tell herself – while possessing her assistant's body – that she's beautiful. Cassandra does mention this event from her past early on in the episode, which does establish the moment before it's played out, yet the whole meaning of that climactic scene doesn't really make much sense.

The whole point seems to be that this was the last time she was ever called beautiful by another. From that moment on, no one satisfied her pride, supposedly pushing her into becoming the vanity-riddled monster that she inevitably grew into. The final scene is executed from an angle of sympathy. Gold's score and the emphasis on young Cassandra's melancholic face attempts to manipulate the viewer into thinking that this is a heartbreaking moment that shows Cassandra to be a flawed human as opposed to a heartless monster.

But the point Davies is trying to make is difficult to figure out. Is he trying to say that Cassandra going back in time and complimenting herself before she dies is the reason why she became a villain? If so, how does that work? If she never went back in time and told herself this, then surely it would just mean the second from last person to call her beautiful would be the last individual to compliment her and would still turn her into a vanity-riddled monster. Or was the point of it trying to show that Cassandra does have the ability to be kind to another? But how does going back into her past and being nice to herself prove this? We can't really obtain sympathy for someone just because they said something nice to themselves. It doesn't redeem her character in any way whatsoever.

Here, it seems that Davies wanted to find a way to justify Cassandra's return. He wanted to give her character more meaning by establishing her in a far more sympathetic light than the last time. Even though the soundtrack and visual execution during these final moments play out in a compassionate and melancholic fashion, the reasons behind why feel so rushed and ill thought out that it comes across as superficial and nonsensical.

New Earth maybe a little too bland for Tennant's first full Doctor Who story and the plot twists may feel as poorly thought out last minute decisions, but there are some positive aspects to its existence which do deserve a mention.

One advantage is just how much Billie Piper and David Tennant seem to be enjoying themselves here. Although the whole body swapping premise means the two leads get to spend less time fleshing out the dynamics of their relationship, Piper and Tennant use it to their strengths. Both of them camp it up to the nines each time they are possessed, they deliver a performance which is highly entertaining and rip-roaringly fun. It helps make the episode far more captivating and helps to show off the chemistry between these two performers. They clearly work well together and aren't taking themselves too seriously; assuring audiences that the Tennant/Piper duo is a marvellous casting choice for the second series.

Their willingness to engage and enjoy the material provided to them in New Earth's script also helps to strengthen the nature of this episode. Even though there are some issues with putting a frothy romp this early on in series two, the fact they are having such a blast during filming certainly helps to make it far more competent and jolly than it may have initially been.

Another advantage to this story is the effort put into the overall aesthetics of the episode, particularly when it comes to set designs. While the production values of series one were nothing short of fantastic, series two decides to step things up a notch. Everything feels far richer and luscious than ever before. New Earth is no exception to this fact. The shimmering marble corridors of the hospital complex, the surreal lifelike costume designs of the Sisters of Plentitude and the grotesque boil-coated make-up of the infected patients make this opening episode a visual spectacle for all to marvel at. Considering Doctor Who was once seen as a show notorious for being supposedly full of dodgy special effects, New Earth – much like The End of the World – assists in pushing such assumptions even further away from the public consciousness than ever before. Such eye candy doesn't redeem any of the flaws which the script seemingly possesses, yet it goes a long way toward strengthening the confidence of series two. Furthermore, it goes to show the love and effort which the production team are clearly putting into this program.

Which is why it is somewhat difficult to attack New Earth too harshly, because for all the issues that this episode has, those involved in making it seem to be working their backsides off in order to create something special. The cast are having a corker of a time and the production team are excelling themselves further than ever before. Sure, it's no game changer of an episode and no one's trying to reinvent the wheel here, but when it's clear that everyone involved is striving to create something as colourful and stimulating as is possible, it's hard to really call it a bad episode.

In many ways, New Earth is a slightly problematic episode. It comes at a time where something different is needed to flesh out Doctor number ten. It's also a story which at times feels rushed and a poorly thought out on Davies' behalf. Having said this, it's also a rip-roaring 45 minutes of camp entertainment which everyone involved seems to love making. Even Davies himself has fun with the script; indulging in reintroducing past characters of his own creation, plentiful quantities of comical dialogue and energetic chase sequences through corridors and elevator shafts. Much like Tennant and Piper, he's having getting a great deal of joy out of penning the story he wishes to tell.

Furthermore, he appears to be in an incredibly optimistic frame of mind during this point of his tenure. He even opts for a more upbeat ending than many of his previous scripts. The decision to save all the infected patients at the end of the episode may have been suggested by Steven Moffat (who noticed that Russell had a habit of including high body counts in his stories), the fact that he decided to change his original ending speaks volumes about the state of mind he was in when it came to the tone of this series opener. It also goes to show that he's not as arrogant as he may sometimes appear when it comes to his work, as instead of rejecting Moffat's statement he took it on board and altered his work in accordance.

Even the use of the Face of Boe can be looked at in terms of such optimism. This character's importance may have been haphazardly retrofitted in at the last minute, yet it also goes to show how much Davies now believes in the future of this program. Last year, the production team behind Doctor Who had no idea whether or not this revived version of the show would exist after 13 episodes. The decision to foreshadow a plot line for a third series (which is when Boe's secret will eventually be revealed) means that the creative force behind the series knows that it will continue beyond 2006. Davies is flirting with the future of Doctor Who beyond that of series two, as he knows its lifeline is far from near its end.

All in all, off to a pretty average start. There are some characteristics to applaud in New Earth, whereas there are also some to gripe over, but let's face it, things could have been far worse for Tennant's second story.