Doctor Who Series 1 Episode 3 - The Unquiet Dead - Review

Starring: Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, Simon Callow & Eve Myles

Written By: Mark Gatiss

Directed By: Euros Lyn

 

Three weeks in and this new revived series of Doctor Who has proved many things to us. While keeping the spirit of the original series, episodes like Rose proved the show is now more suited for a 21st Century audience, while The End Of The World showed just how big and dangerous Doctor Who can now get. But understandably, the show hasn't yet let us see its full range of places to go and people to meet. However, The Unquiet Dead is set to change this, bringing us back from the year 5,000,000,000 to visit Christmas, 1869.

 

Trying to show Rose some of the past, the Doctor attempts to bring the TARDIS to Naples, 1860. Instead, the two arrive in Cardiff, 1869, on Christmas Eve. At a nearby funeral parlour, trouble is afoot as the dead start returning to life, taken over by a mysterious blue vapour. When a public show, hosted by Charles Dickens, is interrupted by one of the corpses, the Doctor and Rose team up with him in an attempt to find out what's bringing the dead back to life.

Right from the offset, The Unquiet Dead does a fantastic job at immersing you into its 19th Century setting. Though the Doctor and Rose might not be glad to be here, 1869 Cardiff looks beautiful and the production team have really nailed the aesthetic and sense of atmosphere. Being set at Christmas, the snow-covered streets look stunning, and are always convincing thanks to being populated with plenty of people, as well as the roads featuring several passing horse and carriages. The interior sets fare just as well, being appropriately designed in a Victorian style, with either subdued yet warm lighting, or darker and more Gothic lighting for areas such as the morgue.

 

Not only does it look great, but The Unquiet Dead is wonderfully written and brought to life (pun intended!) by Mark Gatiss's script. Over the course of the episode, it becomes clear that the characters and their dialogue are possibly its greatest strength. Firstly, we have the undertaker Mr Sneed, and while it can be easy to dislike him, I personally find that Alan David manages to combine a sense of fun, charm, mischief and straightforward-ness in his performance, and this is something even the Doctor seems to recognise. Most notably, we also have Simon Callow turning in a brilliant guest performance as Charles Dickens. This version of Dickens is immensely likeable and shares an irresistible relationship with the Doctor, whilst also undergoing the most change over the course of the episode – something I'll talk more about later.

 

However, among all these great characters, the servant girl Gwyneth acts as something of a weak link. Now I did like her character, and she has a very soft-spoken and friendly persona … but that's about it. In a lesser quality story, this wouldn't be so much of a problem, but here the events of the episode focus on and revolve around her, and when compared to other great, well-written characters like Charles Dickens or Mr Sneed, Gwyneth does feel glossed over. That being said, Gwyneth does still share a great and believable relationship with Rose, and despite coming from two entirely different times, there are interesting parallels between the two. Rose herself continues to improve vastly from where she was two weeks ago, and we're getting to see less attitude in favour of a more caring side.

 

This week, we have the Gelth serving as our main villains, and I personally found them to be an engaging race, well-suited to the Victorian time period. Their gaseous design looks particularly creepy and well-realized when it comes to the quality of CGI. As I've said, they look great in this time period, even more so given the fact that during this episode, we see Charles Dickens delivering a rendition of A Christmas Carol – something the episode clearly plays to its advantage. While the Gelth do reveal their true intentions once our characters enter the morgue, for a large part of the episode, they present quite a moral dilemma. I won't spoil it too much here, but given how they were affected by the events of the Time War, this dilemma is quite a personal one for the Doctor and helps link the Gelth into the established continuity of the show.

 

This episode further ends on yet more strong notes, with the last five minutes managing to balance both heart-warming and tragedy. While the way the Gelth are dealt with is dramatic, tragic and suitably poignant for the characters involved, we also have Charles Dickens' final scenes which will really make you smile. Again, I won't spoil it too much as it's much better if seen for yourself, but his last moments in this episode never fail to cheer me up, and it's so wonderful to see just how far he has changed over the course of forty-five minutes. Essentially, his character goes from an ageing man that only sees the world as fact over fiction, to someone who knows that there are more untold wonders in the world than he could possibly imagine, and ends up leaving with a new outlook on life.

 

In conclusion, The Unquiet Dead can safely join the ranks of many other Doctor Who's ventures into history, standing among stories such as Horror Of Fang Rock, The Time Warrior and The Aztecs. Sucking us into its amazingly-realized 19th Century setting, introducing us to great characters such as Charles Dickens, and presenting us with quite the moral dilemma concerning the Gelth, this is the strongest entry to new Doctor Who so far.

 

 

The Unquiet Dead



9/10