Doctor Who Season 3 created by Russel T. Davies (2007)
4 January 2008Another great Season of the New Doctor Who. David Tennant is my favorite Doctor since Tom Baker and Freema Agyeman is a much better companion than Billie Piper ever was. Not only that, but the return of one of the Doctor’s best villains in the guise of John Simm is just fantastic. John Simm is great, and really makes the finally of this amazing show. I am a huge fan of Doctor Who and I really like this darker grittier Who, even if they still only film in SD (I would love to see it in HD). The worst thing is there are only specials going on in the next year since Tennat is going off to work with the Royal Shakespeare company for a year, so the won’t show any new episodes in the next year in the US. Another enjoyable season and the new companion who is much more of a mach for the doctor is certainly the best thing they could have done.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILER…
The 10th Doctor (David Tennat) returns with a second annual Christmas Special THE RUNAWAY BRIDE where a woman about to be married, Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) somehow ends up being beamed into the Tardis, a seeming impossibility. So the Doctor vows to return her to her wedding to Lance Bennett (Don Gilet). They head back to England, but are off target, and even worse the Christmas Robots from last year are back, and they kidnap Donna, so the Doctor sends the Tardis flying after her, and manages to get her back, but it seems that Lance doesn’t really love her, in fact it turns out he works for an alien, the Empress of Racnoss (Sarah Parish) and he has been feeding her time particles as fuel, so the Empress can eat her. The Doctor finds out hat the Racnoss in fact created the Earth around the Empresses Eggs, and they are on the way out. The Doctor saves Donna and then uses the Thames to flood the Racnoss spawn, and then takes out the Empress. Donna then goes back to her family, not wanting to travel with him.
SMITH AND JONES has the Doctor going into a hospital, after running into a medical Student Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman). Something is wrong at the hospital, and it starts raining backwards and the whole hospital is transported to the moon, and the mercenary police the Judoon show up looking for an Alien, which isn’t good for the Doctor. Not only that, but the hospital only has the air it has in it. It turns out their is an evil aline named Florence FInnegan (Anne Reid) who drinks Humans to look Human. The Doctor teems up with Martha and they run from the Judoon and try to stop Florence, who plans on killing everyone including the Judoon, but the Doctor lets her eat him, and so when the Judoon reach her they detect Alien, kill her and leave. Martha awakens the Doctor, and then the Judoon send the hospital back to Earth. The Doctor agrees to take Martha on one trip through time and then to leave her, as he is still missing Rose.
THE SHAKESPEARE CODE has the Doctor taking Martha back to 1599 to meet William Shakespeare (Dean Lennox Kelly) at the Globe Theater, but runs into 3 witches, including the young Lilith (Christina Cole). The Doctor realizes they are Aliens that use words as magic, and they are using Shakespeare to bring back their brethen, including the constuction of the Globe Theatre. The Theatre’s architect has gone mad and is in bedlam, and the witches did it, and the Doctor has to stop the Aliens plot, and even better Shakespeare figures out who the Doctor and Martha are. Great fun.
GRIDLOCK has the Doctor taking Martha on one more trip, this time to the future,and New New York where he previously took Rose (Billie Piper), but now things are different. Drug dealers are selling moods and losing memories, and Martha gets kidnapped by 2 people who take her onto the Freeway, so the Doctor must go. The Freeway is full of cars, and moving at a few miles a year, with total Gridlock, and the air full of pollution and people are spending their full lives in these cars trying to get to the city. Three people in a car can go to the fast lane, and that is why they took Martha, but the fast lane is filled with an ancient race that has devolved into giant crabs. The Doctor is trying to save her, but he is beemed out by Novice Hame (Anna Hope) the cat alien who the Doctor and rose met when they met the Face of Boe (Struan Rodger) who she is taking care of now. The whole city is gone, wiped out by a drug called bliss, and Boe is saving the people trapped in the freeway by using his own energy, and he and the Doctor save the people, though Boe dies, but first tells the Doctor he is not alone.
DALEKS IN MANHATTAN and EVOLUTION OF THE DALEKS have the Docto taking Martha on another trip to early twentieth century American during the depression, when the Empire State is being built and Central Park is filled with Hoover Ville. It turns out that 4 Daleks survived the Time war, the Cult of Skaro and are trying to make a Dalek/Human hybrid with the lead Dalek made with a human Solomon (Hugh Quarshie) also running into a showgirl named Tallulah (Miranda Raison) and her boyfriend Lazlo (Ryan Carned) who the Daleks have made into the Pig Slaves. The Daleks are using the Empire State to collect energy from a Solar Flare and make all humanity into Dalek/HUmans, though Solomon wants to make them better than Daleks, but the other 3 Daleks take over and kill him and make human daleks, but The Doctor gets in the way of the flare, so the Dalek humans turn on the Daleks, and the Doctor wins, and only one Dalek gets away.
THE LAZARUS EXPERIMENT has the Doctor taking Martha back to Earth to leave her, but her sister Tish (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is working for someone named Lazarus (Mark Gitiss) who says he will change Humanity and the Doctor is intrigued. Lazarus uses his device, which almost explodes, except for the Doctor’s help, and he comes out a young man, but the changes haven’t stopped, and he keeps changing, and starts sucking down people, and wants Tish, so the Doctor has to use Tish and Martha as bate to get him.
42 has the Doctor and Martha getting hit by a distress call and ending up on a ship that is crashing into the sun with it’s engines dead, and someone is sabotaging the ship, and the Tardis is trapped in a heat junction. The captain is Kath McDonnell (MIchelle Collins) and she is hiding something, and something has gotten into her husband, and he is killing the crew. Meanwhile Martha and one of the crew members attempt to get to the bridge through a series of puzzles to try and jumpstart the engines, but they get attacked and end up getting ejected in an escape pod towards the sun. The Doctor has to go outside to bring back Martha, and just saves her, but he gets the Aliens in him, and they want to take over and use him to kill. It seems the sun is alive, and they scooped it up to steal power, but hurt the lifeforms, and they need to be released, so Martha has them dump the fuel and the aliens leave the doctor and they are saved.
HUMAN NATURE and THE FAMILY OF BLOOD has the Doctor and Martha in 1913 England, and even worse the Doctor is human. This is a great one. Aliens were chasing the doctor to eat his life and live forever so the Doctor ran, and used a machine to change him into a human, where a special watch has his lifeforce in it, and they are trying to hide. A young psychic child steals the watch, this is Tim Latimer (Thomas Sangster), and the Doctor has fallen in love with a nurse Joan Redfern (Jessica Hynes), and is pushing Martha away, but the Aliens have found them and are killing people and taking their bodies, and the Doctor uses the kids to fight the war, and Martha and the Matron have to convince him to kill himself and let the Doctor return, which he finally does with the help of Tim, and he comes back, and he reeks vengeance on The Family of Blood. He gives them eternal life, but life without movement, and he did it all to be merciful. The doctor asks Joan to go with them, but she refuses as the Doctor caused all the deaths.
BLINK is another great one, where The Doctor is not lead. This one is really good. It is about Sally Sparrow (Carey Mulligan) a girl who goes to an old abandoned house and strange things happen. There are some strange angel statues and she finds a message on the wall from the Doctor, that tells her to duck and is specifically to her. She goes back with her best friend Kathy Nightingale (Lucy Gaskell), but there is knock on the door, and someone who purports to be Kathy’s great grandson hands Sally a letter from Kathy and says she has been transported back to 1910 and lived a full life before she died, and Kathy is gone. Kathy also tells Sally to talk to her brother Larry (Finlay Robertson), which she does, but he shows her some DVD’s with weird easter eggs that have the Doctor talking on them, and he gives her the list, and it turns out to be the list of DVD’s that she has. He goes to meet her at the old house, and they throw on a dvd, and it is the Doctor talking to her, and Larry takes down her answers to put on the web. The aliens throw their villains back in time, and the Doctor and Martha are stuck in the 1960’s. They learn that the statues are aliens who turn to stone when seen, so they can’t blink or take their eyes off them. They get into the Tardis and it gets called to the Doctor, leaving the Aliens looking at each other, and thus trapped. Sally and Larry then move in together and run their video store together, but never have a relationship because she is still obsessed with the Doctor, until she sees the Doctor and Martha run by, and stops them, though it is before they know her, and she gives them the transcripts, which is how she knew about her! COOL!
UTOPIA kicks off the Season finale with the return of Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) when the Doctor takes the Tardis to the rift he caused in Cardiff, and Jack hears the Tardis and runs, and jumps on. The fact Jack is now out of time, and can’t die throws the Tardis into overdrive and sends it to the end of time, where Martha and the Doctor find Jack dead, but he jumps back to life, and they see a human being hunted, and follow him, and find the last human establishment, with people and a ship planning to go to Utopia, the last Human refuge. The Doctor assists a Professor Yana (Derek Jacobi) to fix the rocket, and saves them, but Martha sees the Professor’s watch and it is just like the Doctor’s from earlier in the season, realizing he is a timelord, and after the ship launches, the Professor opens his watch and becomes, the Master, but his assistant shoots him, so he regenerates again into a new Master (John Simm), and he takes the Tardis, the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to jamn the time controls, and the Master leaves.
THE SOUND OF DRUMS has the Doctor fixing Jack’s time watch and sending him and Jack and Martha back to the Present, where they find that the Master has been there for 8 months and he is in fact John Saxon the new prime minister of England, who has told the Earth that aliens will be coming to great them and he will lead, though the US tries to take over on the international floating air craft carrier of UNIT. The Master sends all of England against our 3 heroes, and when Martha’s mother Francine (Adjoa Andoh) tries to rat on the Doctor, using info from Saxon, she and her ex husband and their whole family is taken captive by Saxon. The Doctor, Martha and Jack use the Tardis rings to hide themselves and beam to the carrier, and find that the Tardis has been changed into a paradox machine, allowing the Aliens to come back and kill humans. The Master brings the Aliens back and they start wreaking havoc, and he captures Jack and the Doctor, but the Doctor talks to Martha and she leaves with the teleporter.
THE LAST TIMELORD takes place a year later. The Master has used his laser screwdriver and Lazarus technology to get rid of the Doctor’s regeneration ability and to age him to a tiny being. The Jone’s and Jack run a scam to get the Doctor the laser screwdriver, but it will only work for the Master. Meanwhile Martha is roaming the earth to collect a Unit weapon to kill the master, but is in fact telling the story of the Doctor to all humanity. They go and see a Professor Doherty to learn about the aliens, and they are the humans from the future trying to survive at the end of time, and the paradox machine is in place to allow the future humans to kill their predecessors and still survive. She goes to find the last piece of the weapon, but Doherty betrays her, and she is taken by the Master who wants to kill her in front of the Doctor, but she laughs, and the Doctor explains. The Master was controlling humanity with his global satellite network for cell phones, and the Doctor had Martha tell humanity of him and when the Master’s countdown goes they will all think of the Doctor, and he returns to power, and stops the Master. His wife Lucy (Alexandra Moen) then shoots the Master. The Doctor tries to get him to regenerate, but he refuses and dies, but his ring survives. The Doctor then tries to get Martha to go with him, but she stays to take care of her family, but gives him her cell phone. Jack returns to Torchwood and tells them he used to be called the face of Boe! Nice. And the Doctor gets in the Tardis, but the Titanic crashes into the inside of the Tardis! WHAT!!!
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Another great Season of Doctor Who, honestly this show just keeps getting better. I just hope the next Season is this good, and really wish I was in England so I could watch the XMAS special online! Hate to wait for another season.