Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 1, Episode 4 - Aliens of London

Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 1, Episode 4 - Aliens of London

Following a quick recap on what happened in the opening episode, the Tardis appears on Rose's council estate, 12 hours after she originally left. She goes home to say hi to her Mum, and is a little shocked to learn that The Doctor got the date wrong again, and really it's been 12 months. I hope he's going to pay for Jackie's broken mug, as she drops it in shock when Rose appears, too late for The Doctor to warn her.

After the credits, Jackie rants at Rose and slaps The Doctor, while a policeman sits quietly to one side wishing he was back at the station. Calming down a little, Jackie questions Rose again for answers as to where she's been, but Rose only tells her 'travelling'. Well, she isn't lying.

Later, on the roof of their block of flats, Rose and The Doctor laugh about him getting slapped and how Jackie is never going to come travelling with them, and he confesses that he is 900 years old. Rose laments being unable to tell anyone about aliens as no-one else knows they exist, when an alien spacecraft flies overhead, crashing into Big Ben and then The Thames. You were saying, Rose? Naturally, then run off to investigate, and The Doctor is very excited to see humanity's first contact with aliens, telling Rose that this is the reason he travels through time, to see history. Also, the army are there within about 15 seconds, so if we ever have a real alien invasion I'm afraid my expectations have been raised.  

Returning to the flat to watch it all on TV, despite Jackie and friends talking over it all, they learn that an alien body has been found. We follow a General into the hospital where it has been taken, and Tosh from Torchwood is the pathologist, covering for Owen who has a hangover (so we later learn in an episode of Torchwood). The General tells her experts are being flown in, and to hide the body for now. She questions whether it's true about what everyone is saying about the Prime Minister, which a news report in the next scene suggests is that he is missing. At No.10, Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North is hanging around (something she will do far more of in the near future) waiting for a meeting, but is rebuffed as Joseph Green MP is declared Acting Prime Minister, who likes to fart in public. Green is met by Magaret Blaine of Mi5 and Oliver Charles, Transport Liaison, where Blaine reports she personally escorted the Prime Minister to his car, which appears to have vanished. The three of them retreat to the Prime Minsiter's cabinet room, to fart some more and look over the emergency protocols in place for an alien invasion. They also like to laugh evilly along with farting, which can mean only one thing - they think farting is funny! And also, they're aliens.

Back at the flat, Rose questions The Doctor when he goes for a wander. He gets excited again thinking about first contact, but she makes him promise he won't disappear before he goes. Unknown to The Doctor however, Mickey has spotted him but arrives too late to stop the Tardis leaving, crashing head first into a wall in spectacular fashion. There's a bit more of The Doctor's patented 'smack-the-Tardis-until-it-works-properly' technique, and then we're back with Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North trying to charm Kurt from Teachers into letting her see Green, but when she tries a direct approach he tells her to stop being hysterical and to bugger off. She doesn't bugger off however, and heads into the cabinet room, where she discovers the emergency protocols. There's clearly something strange about them however, as the music darkens and she looks shocked.

Tosh hears a lot of banging down in the morgue, and The Doctor manages to materialise next to a room full of soldiers, who take him captive. When Tosh screams however, he uses his magic powers of shouting at them to get them to abandon the plan to hold him captive and instead obey his every mood, running to find her. After he sends them to search the rest of the hospital for the alien, it turns out that it never actually left the room they are in, but unfortunately one guard panics at the sight of a small pig on two legs running at it grunting and shoots it dead (God knows what he'd have done with Animal Farm). The Doctor berates him, pointing out that the alien was just scared, and shooting a scared person might have been a little bit over the top.

Back in the cabinet room, Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North hides as Green and the General argue. Green, Blaine and Charles tire of the conversation, farting in his general (hi-oh!) direction, revealing themselves to be aliens by unzipping their foreheads and stepping out of the human skin they've been wearing. The General screams as Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North looks on, so presumably they've eaten him.

As The Doctor and Tosh look over the body, he explains that it isn't an alien at all, but a regular pig which has been modified and placed in an alien ship. Tosh babbles on a little bit, not noticing that The Doctor has left to save the planet.

Back at the flat, Mickey arrives to see Rose, and we learn he was taken in for questioning five times, suffering a lot of accusations and abuse from the locals. On the cusp of telling Jackie the truth, Rose flees when she learns The Doctor has disappeared, but just as they argue about whether he is Rose's boyfriend, the Tardis re-appears. Looks like Jackie will be finding out after all. Mickey gets all up in The Doctor's face as Jackie does the usual fleeing job, ringing an alien helpline to report that she has seen an alien. This flags up a warning, which Kurt from Teachers notices. Back in the Tardis, The Doctor does some maintenance, as Rose tries to make up with Mickey. He forgives her when she chews on her lip, and then The Doctor discovers that the ship came from Earth in the first place.

Back in the cabinet, Charles wears the General's skin instead of his previous disguise, although they keep farting just as much. Kurt from Teachers rushes to tell them that The Doctor has been found, and that he is the ultimate expert who needs locating. In the Tardis, The Doctor spots UNIT on the a TV report. Mickey says that he's been researching The Doctor over the last year, and has found loads of dirt on him, but none of this matters when the army grab them all outside the Tardis. Mickey somehow escapes behind some bins, despite running away in full view of an entire army squadron, but as it turns out they were just being escorted to Downing Street, he probably chose the wrong option. The Doctor reminisces about the old days and drinking Lloyd George under the table, and Jackie talks to a rather farty policeman. Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North mingles at the politicians meeting which The Doctor is cleared to attend, but as Rose isn't and Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North wants information, Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North decides to stay outside with her.

The Doctor tells everyone that the ship was a diversion to stop a crash in the North Sea from being investigated too carefully. The Prime Minister then falls out of a cupboard in front of Rose, Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North and Kurt from Teachers, and he looks a bit dead. The Doctor declares that the crash is a trap, designed to get the senior members of cabinet together. Blaine confronts Rose, Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North and Kurt from Teachers, and the policeman goes all unzippy on Jackie. Green reveals himself as an alien to the room by farting (always a dead giveaway). as the General unzips to reveal the alien underneath. Blaine does the same, and everyone all looks a bit shocked to meet The Slitheen. The whole of the cabinet room are immobilised by an alien device, kind of like an alien taser, and we leave the episode on a cliffhanger as the aliens laugh manically.

Luckily for the room, the farting should stop now though.

I can remember thinking at the time, and I'm feeling it again, that this was when I really started to like Doctor Who. It's got an alien crash landing, aliens posing as humans, Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North, and a terrific cliffhanger. If there's one thing you'll hear Doctor Who fans say about Russell T Davies, it's that he knows how to write a brilliant cliffhanger. Not always satisfactorally resolve them, but he sure as hell can do the build up.

One of the great things about the show is the amount of classic British television actors that you recognise, and they're in abundance here, from David Verrey as MP Green, to Navin Chowdhry as Indra Ganesh (Kurt from Teachers) - no, I couldn't tell you every show they've been in, but they're familiar faces and it's great to have so many on board.

The acting is top notch again - the Slitheen in human form are all deliciously evil, and there's some top acting between Billie Piper, Camille Coduri and Noel Clarke as Rose, Jackie and Mickey come to terms with her returning after a year. There's more fine acting from Eccleston too, when he berates the guard for shooting dead the pig - even the simple words 'it was scared!' are laced with sadness, anger, confusion, particularly when we learn soon after that it was just an ordinary pig. Maybe I'm hyper-emotional at the moment - I've been reading Emma Donaghue's Room, which you'll understand why if you've read it - but this almost had me sobbing at the thought of what that pig would have gone through.

There's more classic Mickey, with the following exchange:

Rose: So...twelve months... have you been seeing anyone else?

Mickey: No.

Rose: (Smiling) Ok...

Mickey: Mainly because everyone thinks I murdered you.

Rose: Right...

It's delivered so wonderfully deadpan by Noel Clarke, and although the development of Rose and The Doctor's relationship was better for being just the two of them in the first few episodes, it's great to now how Mickey and Jackie taking a more active role. The bickering betwen The Doctor, Rose, Mickey and Jackie, no matter which combination, was always something I enjoyed first time round, and I'm loving it again. In many ways, I think this is one of the reasons why I find Rose to be my favourite companion - the relationships she had with others was such a strong point of the show, and maybe this is why Martha never gets as high accolades - although we see the rest of Martha's family, they aren't memorable like Jackie and Mickey, and the writer's seem to rectify this with Donna and Wilf, and Donna's mum to a lesser extent.

My only real gripe is that, although I like the odd fart joke, it still makes it seem a bit too childish, particularly Eccleston's 'Do you mind not farting?' line, which doesn't work for me at all. Yes, again I accept it's a children's show, particularly so in Series 1, but that doesn't make me like it any more.

How It Fits Into The Show As A Whole

Certainly by the Christmas episode of Series 2, aliens will definitely have become known to Earth, but as of this episode it's unclear as to whether or not the pig crash landing and the Slitheen invasion will count as First Contact.

Bad Wolf Sightings

A horrible little child spray paints Bad Wolf onto the side of the Tardis. Yes, it's all part of Rose's plan in the final episode to spread the Bad Wolf meme through the universe and ultimately this will help save it, but it's still criminal damage. I hope they catch him, and show no leniency.

Overall

The strongest episode so far, it's full of excitement and intrigue, with some excellent development in the relationships between characters, and it ends on a cracking cliffhanger.

9/10

Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 1, Episode 3 - The Unquiet Dead

Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 1, Episode 3 - The Unquiet Dead

In 1860 Naples, a man looks on as his Grandmother lies in her coffin. She'd dead to start with, but when a strange blue/grey smoke flies into her, she becomes a little bit less dead, killing her Grandson and knocking out the undertaker, and then she heads off into the night moaning.

Meanwhile, The Doctor suggests that, as she's seen the future, Rose might like to see the past - 1860 to be precise. I can see trouble ahead...

The undertaker talks to Gwen from Torchwood - sorry, her long lost relation (what's a Welsh girl doing in 1860 Naples?) - and tells her they are heading out to find the dead lady.

Rose and The Doctor climb off the floor, having fallen in a bumpy landing, and prepare to head out into Naples. Rose gets misty-eyed looking at The Doctor as she realises he gets to live every day over and over again if he wants to, but he misses the moment and asks her to get changed instead.

We learn that Gwen - Gwyneth, sorry - has the power of 'sight'. It's hinted that this is different to regular sight however, as she seems to know what the old lady is up to from a distance. She's very excited apparently, and was going to see a great man that evening before death interfered.

It appears that the great man is Charles Dickens, who is brooding alone before a performance on stage. He gets a pep talk from a stage hand, which at least succeeds in getting him out of his chair, even if it doesn't make him any less grumpy.

Back in the Tardis, Rose has changed, looking lovely and Victorian, and they head on out into the snow. Gwen - GWYNETH, dammit! - are close behind, and Gwen's sight allows her to detect that the old lady is watching Charles Dicken's performance in the building that Rose and The Doctor have walked near, although we know this already because we've seen her drooling over him from the audience a few seconds earlier.

The Doctor realises that it's actually 1869, not 1860, but Rose tells him not to be so OCD about it, until he tells her it's Cardiff and not Naples, and then she looks a bit more fed up. That explains why there's a Welsh girl in Naples then.

Back to Mr Dickens, who is reciting A Christmas Carol, when he notices the old lady giving off the blue/grey smoke. She moans a bit again, perhaps annoyed that he stopped the performance when she was enjoying it so, which attracts the attention of Gwyneth, the undertaker, The Doctor and Rose, who come in to see the smoke flying around looking evil, which The Doctor finds fantastic, but freaks everyone else out. Gwyneth tries to spirit the old lady's now cold body away, but when Rose tries to stop them, the undertaker chloroforms her, as you do. The Doctor and Charles Dickens leave the theatre, having discovered the smoke is actually gas, to see Rose being kidnapped. They persue, The Doctor getting very excited and Northern when he realises who he is sharing a cab with, although don't call him Charlie.

At the undertaker's house, Rose is placed on a table, but when he and Gwyneth leave, the lights start flickering ominously. Rose wakes up just as the gas inhabits the old lady's grandson. The Doctor and Dickens arrive at this point, as Rose nearly falls victim to the grandson, and then the old lady as she decides to join the fun again, and are just in time to help her out of the locked room. The Doctor questions the gas, which reveals that they are dying as some sort of rift can't be sustained.

Rose tears a strip off the undertaker whilst the others take tea, and the undertaker reveals that they house is haunted which led to the dead walking a few months ago. Charles Dickens refuses to believe it, but The Doctor tells him to stop being a silly bugger, and that the rift is obviously widening for the problems to be getting worse.

Dickens goes to look at the bodies and see if he can work out how the trick has been done, but The Doctor tries to convince him that just because he hasn't ever seen aliens and gas together, doesn't mean they can't mix to produce something weird, and to stop being a sissy.

Rose and Gwyneth bond over being women, and Rose is appalled to learn that women weren't treated well back then, which is somehow a surprise. And the japes they both got up to! Oh man, they used to skip school, crush on boys, do sums...Anyway, Gwyneth accidentally reveals her sight when she says she knows about Rose's father dying, and them having come a long way from London, which is a much different version than Gwyneth has seen in drawings. The Doctor decides that, if Gwyneth has the sight,they may as well try a seance.

As Gwyneth does her best Most Haunted impression, the gas begins to descend, leaving Dickens looking rather sheepish. Gwyneth establishes a link with the gas, who beg for help, and want her taking to the rift itself. Apparently, the gas have no home, as it fell victim to the Time War, and have no physical bodies any longer. They want to use the dead. Rose protests, but The Doctor plays Devil's Advocate and asks why not if it could save a species? Bit of a guilt trip going on there at is was all his fault...

The undertaker believes the aliens are from Scotland, but everyone else understands what's happening, and then they have a discussion about the ethics of using a dead body to host another species - The Doctor makes an excellent point about it being the same as a donor card, but Rose remains unconvinced, so he tells her to bugger off home if it's a problem. Gwyneth wants to have her say, and thinks of them as angels, having sang to her all her life, and wants to save them.

When they reach their destination, Rose tells The Doctor that she knows the gas aliens (OK, they're called the Gelf, but I can't think of anything but Red Dwarf and GELFS, so for the sake of this article, they're just gas aliens) don't succeed because they haven't in her own time, but The Doctor tells her that time is in flux and can be re-written at any time (he hasn't coined 'Timey-Wimey' yet). The room becomes colder as the gas aliens arrive. The Doctor tells them it isn't permanent solution, and that he will take them elsewhere to a new world later. Gwyneth establishes contact again, becoming 'the Bridge', but then they go all psycho nasty and turn into what appear to be baby-Balrogs, killing the undertaker. There are a few more of the gas aliens than they originally let on, and they look set to claim humanity. Dickens runs away, as The Doctor traps himself and Rose behind a gate, and talks smack to them. However, as Dickens leaves the house, the aliens that follow him realise the atmosphere is hostile outside, and he realises that he can save the day by turning off the flame for the gas lamp and ramping the gas itself up (I wish he wrote stories like this, they'd have been so much better), sucking them out of their hosts and into the air. Well, The Doctor did give them a chance. He tells Gwyneth that they aren't angels, and to send them back - she says that she can't, but she can hold them in place while she lights a match and blows them away, which will mean sacrificing herself. Though The Doctor promises Rose he won't leave her, he realises that it's the only way, and runs before the explosion occurs. Though Rose is hurt that he couldn't do more, The Doctor explains that he thinks she was dead from the minute she opened the bridge. They reflect on her sacrifice to some stirring and emotional music whilst gazing into the air, in one quite bizarre uniform turn of their heads upwards.

They bid Dickens goodbye, who has been inspired to write about his adventures, which again sound far more exciting than any Dickens I've ever actually read. The ending extends longer than the end of The Return of The King, but eventually they depart, assuring him that his books will live forever. Although he'll die in a few weeks time, so swings and roundabouts.

He also leaves laughing manically and shouting to himself, so I think he might be drunk.

So, from the future last time into the past this time. And, although I can't remember anything from this episode the first time round, for me it's a definite improvement on Episode 2. The mystery behind it is stronger, and the moral conundrum at the heart of it (until the reveal of the gas aliens' true evil nature towards the end) make it far more interesting.

There are a few genuine scares as well - there's something about old ladies with creepy eyes walking towards a camera that puts the willies up me, and the opening scene was no exception. Not on a Weeping Angels level, certainly, but it creeped me out a bit.

Key to The Doctor's character here as well is having him meet aliens affrected by the fallout from the Time War. His actions have led them to lose their world, and it's clear that he feels extra responsibility to try and help them. Are they evil in the end because of what happened in the Time War, or would they have been even before their world was destroyed? It all adds up to how I see Eccleston's Doctor as being a much grumpier character.

Knowing now that she'll play Gwen in Torchwood, it's strange seeing Eve Myles play a much more laid back character - there's no way Gwen would take any of this so mildly! 

Rose and Gwyneth talking together is very enjoyable as a character building moment, showing Rose's good nature and wild side together. I might have joked about it in the actual review, but it's these little character moments that make Doctor Who such a good show.

The Doctor really does love strange things - he has a massive grin as the undertaker reveals all this zombie-lark has been great for business, which is hilarious. That huge grin is one of my main memories of the Ninth Doctor, and I can't help but grin along whenever it appears. It contrasts so much with his stern stare that he reserves for those he is trying to stop from doing evil, much more than occurs with David Tennant or Matt Smith. For me, you can lump Tennant and Smith together into two Doctor's that have a lot of similarities, whereas Eccleston is much further removed. And not just because he's Northern.

How It Fits Into The Series As A Whole
The rift is of course the rift in Cardiff that is mentioned throughout the series.

Bad Wolf
Gwyneth mentions that she sees the Big Bad Wolf when she uses the 'sight' on Rose.

Overall
A much stronger episode than previously, with a couple of genuine scares, and a great moral conundrum and myster at the heart.

8/10

Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 1, Episode 2 - The End of the World

Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 1, Episode 2 - The End of the World

As The Doctor and Rose begin their travels together, The Doctor asks her where she wants to go. After deciding to see the future and then not going far enough to be interesting, they travel 5 billion years into the future to witness the death of our Sun, and by extension, Earth. Following a brilliant nod to The National Trust (thoroughly British, don't you know), a member of the Blue Man Group allows them entry to the main party after The Doctor fools him with his psychic paper. At the party, we meet many guests who are all very alien, such as a flirty tree, another blue thing (the something of something), the Face of Boe, and then the last surviving human, the Lady Cassandra, who's had rather a lot of plastic surgery done. Although she is now paper thin. There are also the 'hooded people with dark, evil voices', or the 'repeated meme', who hand out balls in the name of peace, proclaiming this with their dark, evil voices. And very trustworthy they seem too.

Rose wanders off, a bit freaked out by what the human race has become, and meets the first female member of the Blue Man Group, who speaks to Rose to tell her that Rose has to give her permission in order for her to speak. After Rose admits that maybe running off with a strange alien was a little bit of a rash decision, she leaves to find The Doctor, and the Blue Lady then gets attacked by a bunch of the peace balls which have turned into spiders. Those hooded people with, dark evil voices weren't so peaceful after all.

When she meets up with The Doctor again, Rose continues to freak out, until he walks off in his own moody Northern way. They make up again when he hacks her phone to give her a free calling plan, and she calls her Mum across time and space just to check it works. Soon afterwards, tremors start running through the station, and the Blue Man Group representative gets roasted when one of the spiders deactivates the sun filter.

Flirty Tree offers to help The Doctor find the engine room, whilst Rose decides to mingle. She talks to Cassandra, who declares herself the last 'pure' human, although Rose gives her a 'pff, please' talk when she points out Cassandra's 700+ operations. Meanwhile, Flirty Tree tells The Doctor that she is at the party out of respect for her ancestors who come from Earth. She also reveals that she knows he is a Time Lord and that this is a bit of a shock, which gives us our first clue that he is the last of his species, although it isn't spelt out as such quite yet. The Obviously Evil Hoods kidnap Rose and lock her in a room where the sun filter is being shut off, and The Doctor discovers that the engine room is cooler than it should be, putting it down to the spider hiding in the control box. Back at the party, Cassandra gives a speech about mourning the end of the world, although as this is a world that let's Britney Spears' Toxic become a traditional ballad that has lasted 5 billion years, perhaps the mourning period won't last too long. Rose comes perilously close to becoming a burnt crisp, although she does very well not to be blinded by the rays of sunlight shining directly over her head, less than a foot away. Once he stops the filter from disappearing, The Doctor heads off to the party to solve the mystery of the spiders, leaving Rose to wait it out.

Telling the spiders to go back to their owner, we learn that the Repeating Meme is the perpetrator, although not really, because they're just an idea, even though they're real, but they're robots so they aren't really real, and an arm comes off, and it turns out it's really Cassandra. She threatens The Doctor, but he lays down the ultimate smackdown ('What are you gonna do? Moisturise me?' Ooh, BURN!), and lets her rant about how she's going to make loads of money from it all. Referencing yet another 20th Century song (seriously? Was there no original composing going on after this time?), she tells everyone they're going to burn and then teleports out of the party, as the spaceship starts to declare Earth Death in 2 minutes. Flirty Tree comes to the rescue in the engine room as she buys The Doctor the time he needs to get the shields up by evolving into Fiery Tree, Rose gets attacked by laser bolts from the Sun, and everyone in the party appears to get blinded by the Sun's rays, although they all seem to have the same magical ability of anti-blindness as Rose, because none of them are actually blinded despite directly looking into the Sun.

The Doctor brings Cassandra to justice, by reversing her teleport, and then allowing her to dry out without her moisturisers present. He's definitely still suffering from post-Time War syndrome here, as he declares 'everything has its time, and everything dies', before letting her face explode, literally. Rose then gets sentimental about the fact that we couldn't use the sheer power of the universe itself from stopping the Earth die, even though The National Trust clearly allowed it to carry on for billions of years longer than it should have. There really is no pleasing some people.

However, this clearly touches The Doctor, as he mentions for the first time that Gallifrey burned, and that the Time War happened and the Time Lords lost, leaving him as the last of his race. He offers Rose the chance to go home, but she decides that, as there's 11 episodes to go, she'd better stay with him.

Following on from last weeks very grounded episode, we set straight off into space to witness the death of our Sun, and the Earth with it. Very jolly! While there are some very nice spacey visuals, and it's great seeing what aliens have been created for the show, looking back on it now it's not quite as exciting an episode as I remember. Great seeing Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper settling into their roles, but overall this feels like a slight step down from the first episode.

One of the problems, I think, is that some of the humour is very...I don't know what the term is - 'childish', maybe? I know, I know - Doctor Who is primarily a children's show, but I'd argue (strongly) that it doesn't feel like a children's show to me nowadays, or hasn't really since Series 2. It's the things like having Britney Spear's Toxic as a 'traditional ballad' that make me cringe in a very bad way, almost like the writers are trying too hard to get a laugh. They can do humour fantastically on Doctor Who, but that misses the mark.

The feel of the episode then is still very much of the show in its infancy, but that isn't meant to be a particular criticism (except for the aforementioned dodgy humour...). If anything, it makes me look back on it with a certain nostalgic fondness for how I felt when the show first came out. It's just that, with the benefit of hindsight (which is what this series of reviews is about), it doesn't stand up with the best of what's to come.

Having said all that, the cartoon villain feel of Cassandra, something that we see less nowadays, is splendid fun. I don't think we have bad guys like her anymore, certainly not in the Matt Smith era, or at least not that I can recall at the moment. I can think of a few more in the Eccleston era and I'm looking forward to them very much.

We also get a bit more of a hint as to what The Doctor went through during The Time War - we know now that he is the last of the Time Lords, and Eccleston's face is perfect in showing the angst he is carrying, and goes some way to explaining his rather more grumpy portrayal of The Doctor. One of my favourite parts of Eccleston's portrayal overall is his huge beaming grin, and it's wonderfully done here. Also his general 'Northern' air. Such a strange thing that people pick up on this, but I know exactly what they mean.

If anything, Billie Piper has slotted into her role as Rose better than Eccleston as The Doctor at this point. She has the perfect blend of excitement and trepidation, and her slight air of feistiness begins to shine through here, which would come to be a common trait with all The Doctor's companions to date (except for Wilf, bless him). She's not as larger-than-life or in your face as Donna, Amy or Clara, but there's something about her that keeps her towards the top of my favourite companions.

There's also the start of the running 'we're not a couple' type gags that crop up throughout the earlier series (it'll reach its comedic peak in Series 4) - this time Jabe questions whether Rose is The Doctor's wife, partner, concubine or prostitute. Child-friendly indeed!

How It Fits Into The Series As A Whole
We learn that The Doctor is the last of the Time Lords

The Bad Wolf Sightings
The Moxx of Balhoon tells The Face of Boe that the current situation is 'the classic Bad Wolf scenario', referring to the fact that the balls given by the Repeated Meme are evil in disguise, as the bad wolf was disguised as Red Riding Hood's granny in Red Riding Hood. At least, I presume that's what they mean.

Overall
It's got it's moments, particularly the bits we learn of The Doctor's backstory, but it doesn't as well as some other episodes, and the 'funny' bits about traditional Earth ballads are just embarassing.

4/10