Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 1, Episode 5 - World War III

Revisiting Doctor Who - Series 1, Episode 5 - World War III

We return from last week’s cliffhanger of the world about to fall into alien hands, to see that The Doctor has managed to disable them all by turning their own electricity things on them. Mickey rescues Jacqui and Harriet Jones and Rose search for the emergency protocols, getting stalked by a Slitheen as they do so. The Doctor has to flee as his perfectly truthful ‘The Prime Minister is an alien’ speech doesn’t fool the army, and although he is soon captured and threatened with execution, he escapes using the lift. As he runs around various floors, Harriet Jones and Rose hide from the Slitheen chasing them. The Slitheen dressed as the Acting Prime Minister and General decide that they’d rather be naked together in the lift, so we leave them to it. After a bit more running around, the three Slitheen meet up and discuss eating Harriet Jones and Rose, but just as they’re discovered The Doctor squirts them with a fire extinguisher, giving them chance to escape.

Finally, in the main cabinet office, The Doctor manages to get some answers out of the Slitheen, after Harriet Jones very helpfully points out that she thinks they’re aliens. Although she didn’t think The Doctor was an alien because of his Northern accent. He IS very Northern, isn’t he? Anyway, it turns out that ‘Slitheen’ is just their surname, and that the three of them are a family business. They’re out to make a profit, although they’re not giving away any details. When the Slitheen start getting a bit uppity, The Doctor locks them safely away inside the cabinet room, before realising that they’re now trapped.

Mickey and Jacqui make their to Mickey’s flat with the Slitheen in Police clothing still searching for them, and we get a nice little cameo from Andrew Marr outside Downing street, who introduces us (unknowingly) to more Slitheen in disguise, who fart to let us know this. The farting is explained at last, as a by-product of squeezing their large form into human disguises, so we should probably let them off if they can’t help it. Back in the cabinet rooms, The Doctor makes Ricky Mickey look bits up on the internet, as Jacqui demands to know whether Rose will be safe with him, but he is saved having to answer as Mickey accesses U.N.I.T.’s databases. The Slitheen interrupts Jacqui and Mickey, leaving The Doctor, Rose and Harriet Jones to desperately find the reason behind the invasion – calcium decay. And therefore, they obviously come from Raxacoricofallapatorius, which I really think was rather obvious and they should have got earlier on, but hey ho. Vinegar is the key to defeating them (again, obvious if you think about it), so lobbing some pickled eggs at it blows the Slitheen up in Mickey’s apartment.

Following this, The Acting Prime Minister makes a speech making up alien forces in the clouds so that they can get their hands on the nuclear access codes from the United Nations. The Doctor opens the cabinet rooms up again to confront the Slitheen, and we finally learn that their plan is to nuke the Earth to reduce it to molten slag and then sell it on for profit. The radioactive chunks of planet can power plenty of spaceships it seems, but this isn’t the sort of deal that The Doctor is going to allow, so he threatens them again in his best Northern way, and closes the cabinet rooms off once more.

Overnight, news reports detail how the United Nations are meeting to prepare for humanity’s first inter-planetary war. In the cabinet rooms, The Doctor declares that there is a way out, but he can’t guarantee Rose’s safety. Although if he doesn’t do it, everyone on the planet will die. Rose does what we expect of her, and says he needs to do it anyway, even though she doesn’t know what it is, and we fall in love with her that little bit more. Harriet Jones then pipes up and shows her dominant side as the only formally elected person in the room by commanding The Doctor to do it, saving him the burden of having to make the choice. The Slitheen seem more concerned again by getting naked to celebrate, which I have plenty of sympathy with, but as we all know, this is probably going to be a premature call. Mickey hacks into the Royal Navy databases and fires a missile at Downing Street, which now we now the plan, would certainly seem to be the sort of thing that would put Rose in danger. The Doctor, Rose and Harriet Jones hide under some shelves and manage to survive the blast, but the Slitheen are decidedly more dead. As our intrepid trio climb out of the rubble, Harriet Jones brings out her dominant side again, so much so that The Doctor suggests she become the next Prime Minister. Ha, they wouldn’t would they? Well, apparently she’s going to be elected for three successive terms and lead humanity’s golden age, so I’m sure that’s all going to work out just fine.

Rose and Jacqui are reunited safely once more, and start arguing for a change. Jacqui wants to cook him a shepherd’s pie and safety pin meal, but he rings Rose to tell her he’ll be back in a couple of hours after surfing a nebula. While he waits for Rose to choose the TARDIS over hear tea, he tells Mickey that he’s done well, and asks him to upload a virus that will erase all mention of him from the internet. After an emotional goodbye, The Doctor and Rose head off, leaving Mickey and Jacqui awaiting their return in ten seconds time. Although the TARDIS doesn’t materialise. Tut tut.

If you read any criticisms about the Russell T Davies era of Doctor Who, one of the main ones will be that he can write an amazing cliffhanger, but he can’t satisfy the conclusion. Well, I’ve got two minds about it in this episode. At the end of the last episode, we saw the Slitheen kill a load of important political figures and look like doing the same to The Doctor, whilst basically looking set to take over the world – whilst this was a great cliffhanger, The Doctor throwing the electrifying object back at Slitheen and electrocuting them all through some (as far as I can remember) hitherto unannounced psychic link has a little bit of a cop-out feel to it. Having said that, I really enjoyed the episode as a whole, and thought the Slitheen’s plan and method for achieving it was great, with a genuine sense that there was a possibility it would partially succeed the first time I watched it.

The scene where The Doctor declares that he can save the day but he can’t guarantee Rose’s safety is one of the best acted so far this series. Eccleston's expression when he says ‘I could lose you’ tells us everything we need to know about how The Doctor and Rose’s relationship is developing. Rose’s declaration that he needs to do it even though she doesn’t know what it is that will put her in danger is also another showing of the bravery that a companion of The Doctor must have, and coupling this with Jacqui and Mickey’s panic at Rose being put into a dangerous situation makes it all the more powerful. It really is a stand out scene in a show that it full of them. There’s also a tender moment at the end of the episode where Jacqui begs Rose not to go, and considering Jacqui’s normal feisty persona, it really comes across as a desperate plea.

At the very end of the episode, The Doctor asks Mickey to upload a virus to destroy every mention of him, because he’s dangerous, and he doesn’t want people following him. In terms of contrast between The Doctor at the beginning of the series relaunch, and Series 6 where he reaches the height of his notoriety across the galaxy, this is huge. This Doctor has come recently from The Time War and wants to stay in the shadows because of what he’s done, but starting with the Tenth Doctor and continuing particularly with the Eleventh, the name of ‘The Doctor’ will continue to grow in recognition until it becomes so infamous that he has to choose to shrink back into the shadows for the good of the universe. What’s brilliant about re-watching these episodes now is discovering little pieces like this that mean far more now than they did when the show was first broadcast. Whilst I highly doubt that Russell T Davies ever knew that The Doctor’s name would become so feared he would have to erase all knowledge of himself again in five series’ time, I love that the show develops in such a way that I can connect the two eras together like this.

The Doctor’s plan to save the day by destroying Downing Street goes to show the extent he will go to to ensure that justice is served and the innocent don’t suffer. He only chooses to kill the Slitheen when he has no other choice and has warned them several times. It’s a trait of The Doctor that is shown time and time again, and is very apparent here.

The Slitheen themselves are a little bit too cartoonish for me, whilst accepting that Doctor Who is primarily meant to be a children’s show. Part of the problem is that whilst the costumes are very good, even close up, they appear really clumsy overall and not really that threatening. The plan itself is very threatening, and the fact that they can dress up as humans helps to give them this dark edge.

It’s good as well to see Mickey finally making some headway in impressing The Doctor, and Jacqui’s hard feelings toward him are also starting to soften. Whilst I’m pleased that The Doctor is becoming more accepting of Mickey and is growing on Jacqui, some of the funniest moments of the show so far this series have been around Mickey and The Doctor’s banter, or just Jacqui being Jacqui, so I hope things don’t get too amenable too quickly.

How It Fits Into The Show as a Whole

The alien invasion is dismissed as fake, so first contact isn't counted as occurring yet.

Bad Wolf Sightings

The American newsreader is named ‘Mal Loup’, with is French for Bad wolf.

Overall

A strong conclusion to the first two-parter of the modern Doctor Who. There are some truly excellent moments, particularly when The Doctor shows how much he cares about Rose with the despair about putting her in danger, and the plan the Slitheen have for the destruction of Earth is fiendish and scarily easy to pull off.

9/10