New Earth

[Craig @craig Emperor]

It’s a new Doctor and he’s gonna take Rose further than he’s ever done before. Ooh er.

In the year five billion and twenty-three, after the destruction of the Earth, the Doctor takes Rose to New Earth. In a hospital facility the feline Sisters of Plenitude can, strangely, cure any diseases. And in the basement an old enemy of the Doctor is out for revenge.

[The Krynoid Man @thekrynoidman]

I have to admit, this one is a bit of a guilty pleasure. I know it’s bad but I can’t help but enjoy it. It’s all the things wrong with RTD2’s era put together to form a masterpiece of glorious stupidity.
You may be thinking how I can like this yet complain about episodes such as Aliens of London being stupid, well the difference is this episode made me laugh. For example I find the scenes Cassandra impersonating Rose and The Doctor hilarious. You can tell that Billie and David are really enjoying camping it up.
I dislike the ending though, it doesn’t really fit with the tone of the rest of the episode. It’s like RTD2 is saying “all right kiddies, for the first 40 minutes we’re going to have campy fun, but in the last 5 I’m going to teach you an important lesson about death being a natural part of life”. Yes, that is an important lesson for kids to learn, but considering what came before it, it feels really jarring.

Anyway, I still enjoy this episode no matter what anyone else thinks.

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

So after the Christmas Special onto the new tenure and this is the first story we viewers get to see a different planet (everything so far in series 1 was on Earth, or in something in orbit around the Earth).

So, where are we off to Doctor?! Oh, New Earth…bugger. 😉

Rewatching this, I’d possibly say that this is least favourite of the series openers. There is a lot to enjoy though, so let’s dwell on those.

• The production design and CGI for the establishing shots is lovely.

• The prosthetics and makeup on the Cat Nuns is really marvellous. Fantastic job, even though I think the “animal head on a humanoid” thing got a bit out of hand later.

• Billie is excellent in the switching body roles. Very funny channelling Cassandras snobbishness. Her “I’m a Chav!” line gets me every time.

• Largely, Tennant is excellent in this, investing a lot of energy from the off.

I say “Largely” because the scenes where he is possessed by Cassandra, I find pretty toe-curling. It’s simultaneously self consciously wacky, and pitched in mannerisms more towards a caricature of a “screaming queen”.

I basically want to do that thing that Tennant did so well. I think it starts in the next episode actually, when Rose tries a Scottish accent. He looks at her in a bemused way and says “no…no, don’t do that”. I want to repeat those lines to him every time I watch this.

Because I’m testing a hypothesis, this week’s “oh Doctor, aren’t you so marvellously brilliant” moment was bought to you by the Duke of Manhattan.

I found Cassandra an entertaining enough character in End of the World, but to be honest she wouldn’t have been my choice to bring back. Thing is though, Zoe Wanamaker’s voice work is really well done, and I like that they did something different here in exploring her weaknesses and revealing a different side. The blind devotion of Chip is entertaining and the end is quite emotional as Cassandra gets to make the day of her younger self.

Overall though, somehow this just feels a little off to me.

[PhaseShift @phaseshift Time Lord]

@bluesqueakpip posted the mini-sode done for CIN last week, and it reminded me that series 2 actually saw the first attempts by the BBC to use electronic media to promote the show with about 10 “Tardisodes”. I was a bit surprised that they didn’t include them on the DVD. But here is the one for New Earth, an advert for the Hospital.

[YourFavoriteTimeLady @yourfavoritetimelady]

I liked this episode to tell you the truth.  I thought it was funny when Cassandra was possessing Rose and the Doctor.  But I’m not gonna lie, the Flesh kinda scared me.  That’s kinda embarrassing, considering I’m 19 years old.  LOL!  But the thing is, when the Flesh escaped, it reminded me of a zombie outbreak, and those type of things kinda scare me, so that’s why.  I tend to react or shout out loud when I’m watching a Doctor Who episode for some reason, so I was cringing and squealing all throughout this story.  You have no idea how relieved/happy I was when the Doctor found a way to heal the Flesh.

[Epikrocket @epikrocket]

This is easily one of my favorite episodes. I can not stop watching that one scene where Cassandra goes into the Doctor’s body for the first time. “Two hearts! Oh baby, I’m beating out a samba!” Honestly, I could probably act out the entire scene if  I had the lack of shame required. 😉

[The 10th Forever @ryan1888mclaughlin]

I love this episode. The thing that makes it special though has to be the face of boe’s appearence and the music, absolutely fantastic.

[Rewvian @rewvian]

The 10th forever makes a good point, it is always good to see The Face of Boe in an episode.  New Earth also aims to be this companion episode to The End of the World, and while it isn’t quite as good as that episode it does have a lot of memorable moments.  In particular, Cassandra body-hopping between Rose and the Doctor.

I feel like Tenth Doctor episodes usually deal with the Doctor wanting to save as many lives as possible, and this one is no exception.  The problem is that the solution is so obvious – just give some of those vaccines to the sick people and they’re good as new.

Whenever Cassandra did the body hop thing I’ll admit I was concerned because where did Rose “go”?  And I didn’t remember Cassandra could just go from person to person all willy-nilly.  The ending was a little sad, I remember from seeing it ages ago, but at least Cassandra got to go out complimenting herself.  You know it occurred to me it seemed a little sudden how quickly this episode came up, and that Cassandra is over and done with – her two episodes left an impact on the brain of this Whovian years ago.

Really a fun and campy little episode more than anything.  Right down to the sanitizing elevators and Cassandra body snatching.  And I guess you can cure a bajillion infected people with the amount of vaccines poured into a single bucket.

@phaseshift thanks for sharing that Tardisode.  It’s funny how they take the time to make stuff like that and then just let it go by the wayside.

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