Doctor Who - The Waters of Mars - Review

If you want an example of why Doctor Who is so brilliant, check out the latest story, ‘The Waters of Mars’. This story had everything - great writing, wonderful directing, decent acting and the effects weren’t bad for something that is done on a relative shoestring. Well, it is compared to American television anyway!

I know I’m biased, but to be fair Doctor Who fans are the show’s biggest critics. At times they can be too hard on something that is just a harmless bit of fun for the family. That is the biggest aspect that makes Doctor Who as good as it is – it’s a program for everybody, not just select types of people, geeks if you will. It pulls people of all ages around the telly, in an age when watching telly as a family isn’t the done thing. An episode can easily swing from being all-out comic to heartbreakingly dark, like this one.

The Doctor (played by David Tennant) lands on Mars and goes out for a stroll, as you do, when he is quickly captured by Gadget - a ‘hilarious’ robot. It turns out that The Doctor has landed on Mars at the time of the first human colony - but he learns it’s the day that the base is destroyed - which is a famous moment in history. The Doctor realises he must get away quickly, to avoid mucking up time. Meanwhile, something seems to be infecting the water supply, something which turns people into mindless zombies who are intent on infecting everyone else, in order to get to Earth and its endless supply of water. The Doctor now knows the reason Captain Adelaide Brooke (Lindsay Duncan) blew up the base in November 2059 and went down in history.

It’s a cracking story - if you’re into disaster movies, you’ll be amazed (but not surprised) at how something like water could be so frightening. If you watch ‘Doctor Who Confidential’ (a ‘behind-the-scenes’ documentary, aired after every episode) you’ll see how much of a problem getting water to work the way they wanted, actually was! Top marks to the CGI team who did an amazing job of making a Welsh quarry look like Mars, too!

It’s an episode sprinkled with wonderful moments of conversation, metaphors and actions. A bit that I really liked was when one of the crew members, Steffi (Cosima Shaw) is trapped in a locked room, with the water about to infect her, she just switches on her screen to look at a video message from her family, for one last time. Such a horrible moment, but beautifully poetic at the same time.

David Tennant is to leave his role after the two-part Christmas story, where he will regenerate into Matt Smith. The end of this episode in particular, built up the tension of his impending exit very well, as he turned into a right bastard! Can’t say much more than that – you’ll just need to check it out for yourself. Let’s just say that if you’re a fan of the 10th Doctor - you’ll love it (maybe)!

I better end this review before gushing any more, which will end up not making any sense and you would just think I’m a ‘love-it-all fan-boy’. Well I’m not - I really dislike (most of) series 2!

Be sure to check out Tennant’s final two stories at Christmas, in the biggest extravaganza since...erm...last year! No seriously, there are a few decent actors in this one, some you’ll probably know very well!

In the meantime…don’t touch the water…not one drop!

Don't forget to check out a scene from the Christmas episode which will shown between 8-8.30pm on the Children in Need night this Friday

'The End of Time' Christmas Trailer