Doctor Who 2009 Autumn Special - The Waters Of Mars - Review
Starring: David Tennant, Lindsay Duncan, Peter O'Brien, Aleksander Mikic & Gemma Chan
Written By: Russell T Davies & Phil Ford
Directed By: Graeme Harper
Up
until now, the 2008/9 Doctor Who specials seem to have had a
fairly lukewarm reception. It was always going to be difficult to
follow up the very well-regarded Series 4 (definitely my favourite
series of the revival) with just a handful of specials. But even
judged as standalone Doctor Who stories, the last two specials
haven't blown anyone away. The Next Doctor was …
alright, while Planet Of The Dead wasn't particularly
well received, and even though I liked it more than most people do,
I'll still admit it's far from being one of the best stories ever. So
can a guest appearance from Lindsay Duncan, the writing duo of
Russell T Davies and Phil Ford, and Graeme Harper in the director's
chair deliver brilliance in The Waters Of Mars?
The
Doctor lands on Mars on the 21st November 2059, and comes
across Earth's first colony on Mars, Bowie Base One. The 21st
November is the day the base is destroyed. Led by Captain Adelaide
Brooke, an ancient virus in the water supply begins to infect the
crew one by one. All it takes is to drink or even touch just one drop
of water for someone to become a monster. The Doctor finds himself
faced with a dilemma – the deaths of all the crew are fixed events
in time and mustn't be altered. But as more and more people become
infected, can the Doctor obey the laws of time and stand back to let
Adelaide and her few remaining crew die?
Although
it has an entirely different setting, story and characters, The
Waters Of Mars bares certain similarities to last year's The
Fires Of Pompeii (another favourite of mine), specifically
how it explores the cruel implications that time travel brings. I
love it when Doctor Who does something like this, and given
its central premise of focusing on a time-travelling alien, you'd
think it would do it more often. Putting the Doctor, someone who does
their best to help and save whoever he can, in a situation where he
knows he can't help, is just horrible, but it's a smart move from the
writers and creates some powerful television. In the last act of the
episode, it also brings out some of David Tennant's best work
performance-wise, and some of the worst in the Doctor as a character,
but I'll talk much more about that later. Russell T Davies and Phil
Ford bring these ideas about time travel to us in a tightly-scripted
story that never grows dull. The Waters Of Mars is all
the proof you need that many Doctor Who stories can be told to
maximum effect in a space of sixty minutes. With that time you can
develop characters, explore interesting ideas and concepts, establish
memorable villains, and still have room for high-speed robot and
water zombie chases, electrifying epilepsy, exploding shuttles and a
ton of spectacle and destruction.
Characterization
is another strong point for The Waters Of Mars, and
once again shows that it's Russell T Davies' greatest strength as a
writer. I'm not entirely sure which areas of the script were penned
by Russell T Davies and which areas were penned by Phil Ford, but
both writers have clearly done a spectacular job. Some of Russell T
Davies' best hallmarks are on show when it comes to characters, as
they are fleshed out and you're made to care about them, despite them
not being the main focus. Characters like Steffi or Roman may not be
the most developed ever put to screen, but tiny details like Steffi
watching a video of her children before she's taken by the Flood,
make them feel incredibly human. Other tiny details like Yuri telling
stories about his brother, Ed's implied history with Adelaide, or
Adelaide's childhood encounter with a Dalek make us care about this
very human crew. Adelaide herself is a really great character, and as
one-time companions go, she is a remarkable step-up from the most
recent: Christina in Planet Of The Dead. Lindsay Duncan
plays the tough but ultimately fair base captain very well, and
undergoes a constantly changing relationship with the Doctor over the
course of the episode. All this is achieved side-by-side with the
story, with the action and pacing rarely faltering.
With
great characters comes an equally great threat in The Waters Of
Mars. Actually scrap the 'equally', the Flood are one of the
most haunting and terrifying creations Doctor Who has
produced. Similarly to what Steven Moffat has regularly done in
taking something that's part of everyday life (i.e. statues, shadows
etc.), this episode does the same with something that's not just part
of everyday life, but a life necessity itself – water. The concept
of not being able to drink or even touch a drop of water, the basic
element that we need to survive, without becoming a monster is really
uncomfortable to think about, and perfectly executed in this episode.
The Flood are a terrifying design, with the heavily cracked skin
around their mouths, the blackened teeth, the wild rabid eyes, and
the water constantly pouring out of their bodies and mouths. Looking
at the behind the scenes features for The Waters Of Mars,
it's not hard to see why the production team came close to making the
Flood too adult for Doctor Who's family audience, and the
final version isn't far away from straying into Torchwood
territory either. A big well done must be given to the actors
who had to play each “water zombie”, as being in that heavy
make-up and with cold water constantly drenching them on an even
colder set can't have been easy. The effort pays off though because
the Flood are truly the stuff of nightmares (the moment where an
infected Maggie, bathed in red light inhumanly screams, certainly
left a ten year-old me chilled to the bone). These are clever,
patient yet relentless and unforgiving villains that make for the
show's strongest sense of threat since Midnight. They
can and do kill nearly everyone on the base.
However,
the Flood aren't the only aspects of this production that look
stunning, as the technical side to everything else is on a similarly
high form here. The set design feels futuristic yet authentic, while
the exterior base, the surface of Mars and the way it's lit all look
absolutely beautiful. There's also some nice attention to detail,
such as the birds in the base's biodome, talks about protein packs,
or the fact that the base itself is named after David Bowie.
Visually, this episode reaches it peak once the shuttle is destroyed,
and the production values smash their way through the roof. The shot
of Gadget zooming across the Martian surface, and red dust billowing
behind him are gorgeous, and the firestorm and debris that's created
from the shuttle explosion... just wow! Do I care that fire of that
scale would never actually be able to ignite on Mars' oxygen-devoid
surface? No! When it looks that good and works to that much dramatic
effect, no! Murray Gold does another terrific job with the music
being fast, intense and always perfectly suited to each scene. I also
can't give enough praise to the simply amazing direction from Graeme
Harper, who is on form and delivering the same high standard of work
here. He is by far the best and my favourite director ever to work on
Doctor Who, and I'm so glad he was given a story this good to
work on. The camerawork is never boring but is instead constantly
lively, be it the expansive landscape shots (once again shot in
glorious HD), high-speed chases, Maggie's transformation, the
bombastic ending etc. etc.
Now
I've made sure to keep the best bit of The Waters Of Mars
till last ... and that's it's final twenty minutes. It's honestly one
of the most powerful and perfect final acts to an episode of Doctor
Who that I've ever seen. In fact, it's so good that my only
serious criticism of The Waters Of Mars could be that
because the ending is just so brilliant, it manages to overshadow
what came before it, as excellent as it was. (Skip ahead now to
the next paragraph to avoid spoilers!) We begin to lose all hope
as nearly all the crew meets their fate at the hands of the Flood,
the base starts losing oxygen, whilst fire and explosions surround
us. However, it isn't the Flood that we have to be scared about, but
the Doctor himself. Russell T Davies and Phil Ford do what so many
writers are sadly so hesitant to do, and that's letting the Doctor's
true dark side out for us to see, and making the Doctor the bad guy.
More of this please! It's here where David Tennant gives one of, if
not his best performance as the Doctor, and exudes raw power and fury
whilst surrounded by such destruction. It's one of the most intense
and angriest bits of Doctor Who I have ever seen and it never
fails to leave me captivated and with chills. Adelaide's decision to
commit suicide once the Doctor has saved her, as well as the Doctor's
arrogance and how drunk on power he becomes, is perfectly
realized. It's also Adelaide's suicide that makes the Doctor realize
how he's gone too far, and that with the appearance of a ghostly
apparition of Ood Sigma, leads us in perfectly to the 10th
Doctor's upcoming swansong, The End Of Time.
In
conclusion, The Waters Of Mars is a brutal, mature and
exhilarating sixty minutes of television. Appropriately, there is a
feel about it of dread and things coming to an end, and given that
David Tennant and Russell T Davies will soon be departing from the
show, The Waters Of Mars feels very timely. It's a
dramatic step-up in quality compared to the last two specials, left
me spellbound, and it's exactly the kind of Doctor Who story I
love. This is not only one of David Tennant's best stories, but one
of the best Doctor Who stories period.
The Waters Of Mars
9/10