Doctor Who (2005) 2-03: School Reunion

Episode:

713

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Serial:

170

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Writer:

Toby Whithouse

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Director:

James Hawes

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Air Date:

29-Apr-2006

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the 20th anniversary of the Tenth Doctor story School Reunion!

It was written by illustrator-turned-actor-turned writer Toby Whithouse, who'd go on to write another seven episodes for the series. He also turned back into an actor and played a German soldier, though that's in a later story. When he's not writing Doctor Who the guy creates TV series, including the UK version of supernatural comedy-drama Being Human.

The director this time was James Hawes, who'd already proven his skill with episodes like The Empty Child and The Christmas Invasion. This was his last episode however, he was busy on other shows. I don't actually know why directors tend to work on a bunch of episodes for a series and then never come back, maybe he just got too expensive.

Anyway, I'll be going through every scene of the episode, so beware of SPOILERS. I may even spoil elements of classic Doctor Who episodes from ancient times, but nothing from later stories.

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The episode begins with Rupert Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer back in a school! The series had only been over for three years and I'm sure a lot of Doctor Who viewers were also Buffy fans, so they knew what they were doing when they cast Anthony Head for this role.

This was a real school by the way. They filmed during the summer holidays so it was theirs all day. They even got to repaint some of it with these bold blue and green colours and I hope they left it like that as it's a nice look I reckon.

I'm sure it was meant to be unnerving though, as the headmaster is a little bit demonic. In fact he's blatantly evil, as he doesn't give a damn that this girl is feeling ill until he realises that she doesn't have parents who'll miss her. He brings her into his office and then eats her. That's a bit of a dark way to begin an episode!

Oh also the Doctor has been working here as a teacher. End of teaser!

OPENING CREDITS

The Doctor clearly hasn't got the first clue what he's doing, so he decides to ask some questions to see what his students know. Milo is always the one to put his hand up and it turns out that he knows everything. The others presumably know a lot too, but he's the one who keeps putting his hand up.

Funny thing is, that he's not displaying intelligence, he's displaying knowledge. He knows what non-coding DNA is, he knows how to travel faster than light, he knows what 65,983 multiplied by 5 is. Okay that last one does test intelligence, and he replied a lot faster than I could've. (Give me a minute and I would've answered 'around 330,000', because all you really need to do is half it and then add a zero.)

Anyway, his incredible intellect and alien knowledge makes him a bit of an unearthly child, so that begs further investigation.

It turns out that Rose is working there too as a dinner lady. They've been there for two days and she's already thoroughly sick of it, which is very in character for her. She loves the chips though. The menu here has been specifically designed by the headmaster to improve concentration and performance, apparently. Man, I could really do with some of that (they had me sold at 'chips').

The food's apparently doing the job as everyone here is very well behaved. The Doctor assumed that there'd be 'happy slapping hoodies with ASBOs and ringtones' which he has fun saying a few times.

I'm still mentally comparing this to Buffy and there are some real differences. Like how all the students are wearing British school uniforms. And they're not in their 20s.

Mr Wagner comes over to talk to a girl called Melissa. Apparently 'Milo's failed' so she's being moved up to the top class. This is never explained. He's not impressed by Kenny though, who's a little overweight and isn't allowed to eat the chips.

Kenny and Melissa were originally going to get a little more to do, but the script was really trimmed down. It kind of sucks for Kenny's actor as this was the only role he ever got on TV and they cut a chunk of it! Melissa did better though. She's played by Lucinda Dryzek, who had played Young Elizabeth at the start of Pirates of the Caribbean a few years earlier and has been in plenty of TV since then.

Milo was originally in the episode a little longer as well, as in the original script the Doctor's questions broke his brain, and he took him down to the nurse (who was pretty useless).

Turns out that Mickey was the one who discovered the weirdness at the school, using the computer skills he'd demonstrated in Aliens of London. So this is one of the rare episodes where someone called the TARDIS for help instead of it just materialising next to the problem.

The army logged 40 UFO sightings three months ago, but he can't discover anything more about them because they were classified by another group so secret that not even the Prime Minister is supposed to know their name. They're called "Torchwood", we see it flashing on his screen.

So Torchwood is aware of the weirdness going on but they failed to connect it to the school. Not very impressive.

Rose can't chat to Mickey for long though as the dinner ladies have an accident with whatever extremely hazardous and mysterious substance is in these barrels. In fact it sounds like one of them catches on fire, but Rose's boss tells her not to call an ambulance because "It's fine, she does that".

Then there's super dramatic music as the sinister teachers get the students typing on rows of computers. Though it's not clear what they're actually doing.

It looks like they've got the old Xbox dashboard on the screen, but I don't see anyone loading up Halo, Blinx the Time Sweeper or Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus.

Meanwhile the headmaster, Mr Finch, is in a hallway talking to a journalist, Miss Smith, and he's very eager to show off. He just comes right out and says that school dinners are both free and compulsory, and asks her to try the chips. This side of the story is probably inspired by Jamie Oliver's campaign to improve school dinners, with the twist being that Finch is trying to make kids eat more chips. Because he's evil.

Miss Smith comes over to talk to the other teachers and this is one of the first times that classic fans and new fans get a radically different experience from a scene.

Modern fans would notice the Doctor is a bit stunned, some might even assume Miss Smith is a companion from classic Who. Especially when he tells her his alias of John Smith and she replies that she once knew someone who sometimes went by that name.

Though for people who've seen the Tom Baker era, it's Sarah Jane Smith, the most iconic companion the series ever had, back after leaving exactly 30 years ago!

The modern series has been accused (by me) of reintroducing characters in a way that leaves new viewers feeling left out, but I think they handled this about as well as they could've done. For one thing she's not the payoff to a mystery, she's a bit of a mystery herself. Though she's introduced as a reporter investigating the school, so everyone watching knows that she's an investigative reporter. And Buffy fans already got to recognise Giles showing up, so they get it.

After Xbox class is over, Kenny is curious and has a look inside, finding a CGI creature doing something under a desk. But when he stands up it's Mr Wagner!

The CGI creature in this isn't perfect, it might not even be as good as the werewolf from the previous story, but that was a good transition. Plus he doesn't kill Kenny afterwards, which is nice.

That evening the Doctor and Rose decide to do a bit of snooping around and get a sample of the oil they're putting on the chips, and Mickey's part of the team too! It's just like Boom Town again. Though the Doctor doesn't like the word 'team' and struggles to think of an alternative. It's a very Jodie Whittaker scene... not that I know who that is yet.

Unbeknownst to them, Sarah Jane is also doing her own investigation in the school and she's spooked by some worrying sounds. She ducks into a room and is shocked by what she finds in there... though the episode takes a couple of seconds to reveal what she's so horrified by.

It's the TARDIS, looking very menacing down here in the dark.

Sarah Jane forgets about whatever sent her running in here and backs out again, to discover John Smith standing there. Hang on, John Smith, Sarah Jane Smith, Mickey Smith... half the characters in this episode are called Smith!

Man, this bit of the episode is so well done, they really nailed it.

Sarah Jane realises right away that it's the Doctor, she was there for the Third Doctor's regeneration into Four, she knows how this works. Though he's been Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann and Christopher Eccleston in the meantime, and we finally know that this is all still canon, because her presence in the episode confirms it.

She says that when he didn't come back she thought he died and he replies that everyone else died, which is annoyingly vague. But the Time Lords dying is important for later in the episode.

Rose and Sarah Jane are immediately catty, with Rose taking offence at being called the Doctor's assistant. She's been confronted with the concept that he had adventures with someone else before her and she doesn't like it.

They heard a scream but it was just Mickey getting surprised during his investigating. Honestly, if a bunch of vacuum-packed rats fell on me I'd be making loud noises too. The other two are focused on each other though, with Sarah Jane wondering if Rose is even old enough to have dissected rats in school and Rose replying that they don't do that any more. In fact her exact words are "Where are you from, the Dark Ages?" which is funny as Sarah Jane's first trip was to the Dark Ages.

The important thing is that Mickey's loving watching the Doctor having to deal with his missus meeting his ex.

They soon discover that the rats are food for the CGI bat people sleeping in the school. There are 13 of them in here, so that's 7 teachers, 4 dinner ladies, 1 nurse and Finch.

The team races out of the school, which is a bit awkward as the Doctor needs the TARDIS to analyse their oil sample and they left it inside. Fortunately Sarah Jane's got a safer option.

She has K9 in her car! Unfortunately he's a bit beat up, because taking him to get fixed might rewrite the future of human technology. They have actually given him some properly sci-fi looking components too, inside the rusty shell of a prop from the '70s.

The Doctor makes a point of clarifying this is actually "K9 Mark III", so everyone can be happy that they got the continuity straight. Even though all three K9s look the same and have the same voice actor, so it's easy to just pretend that they're the same robot dog.

The original K9 was given to Leela, a few seasons later Romana left with K9 Mark II, and then... well, Sarah Jane was already gone by this point, so she got nothing. But she did get a spin-off series called K-9 and Company, which started with her discovering that the Doctor had left her a robot dog as a gift. 

The Five Doctors

The series never made it past the pilot episode, but K9 Mark III did make one appearance in actual Doctor Who, as he returned for a cameo in the Five Doctors special. So did Sarah Jane actually, but this episode ignores that completely.

Rose wonders why he looks so disco and the Doctor says this was cutting edge in the year 5000, which is the perfect answer. I feel the same way about the USS Enterprise from the original Star Trek series; yeah it looks a bit dated now, but in 2266 that ship was top of the line.

They take the dog to a coffee shop so the Doctor can do some repairs and Mickey can have fun saying 'I told you so' to Rose. But Finch is lurking outside on a nearby building, spying on them.

I wasn't sure if Finch was a bat creature in disguise like the others, but they said earlier that there were 13 of them sleeping in the school, so I suppose he must be. Plus it's pretty hard to get up here without wings.

Down in the cafe, Sarah Jane and the Doctor have a chance to talk and she asks him why he didn't come back for her. Which is a good question!

14-08: The Hand of Fear, Part Four

New viewers might feel a bit left out, assuming that they've missed a lot of the backstory. Nah, Sarah Jane was basically his Rose for a while, and he had to leave her. That's it.

She left at the end of the serial The Hand of Fear, and the Doctor sums up what happened by saying "I was called back home and in those days humans weren't allowed." He probably made the right choice there, seeing as the last time he'd brought people to Gallifrey they got their memories wiped and sent back to their own times.

The episode makes it seem like he made a habit of leaving his companions, but the truth is that most either met sad ends or chose to stop travelling with him. To my recollection it was really only Sarah Jane and his granddaughter Susan that he left behind. Well, aside from Adam and Jack last season.

Interesting Sarah Jane fact: she's actually from the future, though only slightly. The serial Pyramids of Mars aired in 1975 but she claimed to be from 1980, and School Reunion takes place in 2007 even though it aired in 2006.

The Doctor has K9 scan the sample Rose took and he determines that it's Krillitane oil. They're facing a group of Krillitanes who have changed their bodies so much that their own oil is deadly to them. (The script clarifies that it's oil from their own planet, not oil from their own bodies, so it's a bit of a kryptonite situation).

We learn that Krillitanes are a composite race who alter their own bodies to incorporate the best aspects of the races they destroy, which is a pretty interesting idea for an alien race actually. They're a bit like the Suliban from Star Trek: Enterprise. It's just a shame that the episode does practically nothing with the concept. They could've just been bat aliens and nothing would've changed.

Mickey and Sarah Jane have a scene of their own here, as she asks what his role is and he says he's their Man in Havana, their technical support. Though it sounds like he's saying he's their "man in the van", and I suppose that would've worked too, if he's imagining a van with computers in it. Anyway, Our Man in Havana is a story about a local informant who gives fake information to MI6, so he's doing a little better than that.

But then he realises the horrible truth... he's the tin dog. Except he doesn't really know who that tin dog is! He's so determined to prove he's not the useless comic relief that he isn't paying attention to how effective even a damaged K9 with low batteries can be.

Meanwhile Rose reveals she's annoyed because she thought she had something special, when she's really just the latest assistant who'll be abandoned like all the rest. The Doctor's struggling here, as he can't just come out and say that bringing a companion back to the series means talking the actor into returning and paying them, and coming up with a story good enough to justify it.

He also stops just short of saying that his companions are people that he loves. But he does admit that it hurts too much to watch them grow old and die. This is actually a pretty important bit of characterisation for the Doctor, as aside for the occasional line like "I'm not a human being. I walk in eternity," he's never gone full "mopey ageless vampire" before now to my recollection. So that's fitting, seeing as it's the Buffy episode.

Though it's weird that he calls his semi-immortality 'The Curse of the Time Lords', which is surely only the case if they interacted a lot with people outside their own kind. Which they apparently didn't. Anyway, the line's there so that Finch can overhear it and fly off. So now both sides know who they're dealing with.

The next morning, teacher John Smith brings a journalist, a dinner lady, and her ex to the school to find out what the Krillitanes are up to. Though Mickey's staying outside to do surveillance, for some reason. There was a line in the script that said he should phone Rose if something happens, but I can forgive him for thinking they're just getting him out of the way.

Meanwhile Rose and Sarah Jane have a mission to get into the computers. It's hard to spot with the extras walking by, but he offers them the sonic screwdriver to use, Rose puts out her hand to take it, and he passes it to Sarah Jane instead. So that's more salt on the wound.

The Doctor's job is to confront Finch and he leads him to the pool. Man, why didn't my school have a pool?

Finch is on exposition duty, explaining that he's called Brother Lassar and telling us a bit about the Time Lords too. He calls them ancient, dusty senators, frightened of change... and chaos. Peaceful to the point of indolence. I mean, he's not wrong. (Though I had to look up the word 'indolence'. It means they avoid taking action). 

The Doctor goes into 'no second chances, I'm that kind of man' mode, but Finch replies they're not even enemies. In fact he'll join their side! If he's clever enough to work out what they're doing. Good scene, good actors, nice job.

Meanwhile Rose and Sarah Jane still aren't getting on and it leads to them having a Classic Who vs Modern Who contest to find out who's seen the wildest things while travelling in the TARDIS.

Sarah Jane: Mummies. (Pyramids of Mars)
Rose: I've met ghosts. (The Unquiet Dead)
Sarah Jane: Robots. Lots of robots. (Robot, The Android Invasion)
Rose: Slitheen, in Downing Street. (Aliens of London)
Sarah Jane: Daleks! (Death to the Daleks, Genesis of the Daleks)
Rose: Met the Emperor. (The Parting of the Ways)
Sarah Jane: Anti-matter monsters. (Planet of Evil)
Rose: Gas masked zombies. (The Empty Child)
Sarah Jane: Real living dinosaurs. (Invasion of the Dinosaurs)
Rose: Real living werewolf. (Tooth and Claw)

(No mention of Sontarans, Cybermen, Zygons, Davros or Sutekh though.)

Sarah Jane ends with "The Loch Ness Monster!" (Terror of the Zygons) and Rose has to admit that's pretty amazing. She decides she doesn't even want this to be a rivalry and they start comparing notes about the Doctor instead, bursting out into laughter when he enters the room. The director apparently achieved this convincing reaction by having David Tennant come in with a fake moustache on.

I like how the Krillitanes look very sharp compared to the other teachers, with their morphic illusion suits. They also eat a lot more people and with their big project entering its final phase there's no need to keep the rest of the staff around any more.

They call the kids to class early and seal all the doors, which is a feature they apparently felt they had to install into the school. Melissa's hyped about break finishing early, but Kenny's less enthusiastic.

The Doctor's team have their classroom to themselves as Rose sent the students to another class, but they can't get into the computer due to a sonic screwdriver-proof 'deadlock seal' (a concept first mentioned last season in Bad Wolf). I don't know how that works, it just does. Here's some trivia for you: Tardis Wiki claims that deadlock seals were invented by a guy called Arthur Deadlock.

Kenny calls Mickey for help, so Mickey goes to K9, under the assumption that he has some gadget that'll get them through the door. 

All the dog will say is "We are in a car", ignoring all of Mickey's specific inquiries. It sounds like he's broken or unable to take action while contained within an automobile, but Mickey eventually figures it out and tells Kenny to get back from the door.

I love the colour in this shot, all those glowing CRT screens.

The Doctor figures out that the Killitanes are trying to crack the Skasis Paradigm, which will basically give them godlike control over the universe through the power of maths. They couldn't calculate it with the computers alone though (they're probably only single-core Pentium 4s), they needed the childrens' imagination.

It's kind of a ridiculous concept... and it was introduced into the series way back in Logopolis, the final episode of Tom Baker's run. They called it 'block transfer computations' but it's basically the same thing.

Finch turns up, happy that the Doctor's finally figured it out. The script says he should have his wings out and look like an angel here, but he doesn't.

He's here to tempt the Doctor, to offer him that godlike power to bring back Gallifrey and save his companions from ageing - the two things that have been tormenting him this episode (aside from Mickey). But this is Sarah Jane's time to step up as a veteran companion and do a bit of a Captain Kirk speech about pain and loss defining us, ending with the 'Everything has its time. And everything ends,' line the Doctor himself used in The End of the World.

So the Doctor just lets it go, all that power, by putting a chair through the whiteboard. This makes all the computers in the room go dark and gives him a chance to get a head start running from Finch. Meanwhile Mickey puts Sarah Jane's Volkswagon through the school's doors... just like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer!

But which series did the scene better? Doctor Who (left) or Buffy (right)?

In Buffy it's more of 'the car goes through the door and then other stuff happens' moment, while Doctor Who really milks it, filming the crash from three different angles, including inside the car. So I've got to give this round to Doctor Who.

Mickey gets Kenny inside and they meet up with the others as Finch gathers his troops and chases them into the cafeteria. Everyone else cowers from the CGI creatures swooping around above them, but the Doctor demonstrates his incredible intelligence and years of experience by waving a chair at them.

Fortunately K9 came in with Mickey and his laser nose still works, for a little while. This scene shows why they wanted to write him out of the classic series, as he's just too effective. Mickey wishes he could fire lasers from his nose.

I like how Finch is just standing there perfectly still in the middle of the chaos. That's very much his character in this. Meanwhile the heroes run off and find a place to think for a moment.

The Doctor works out that they can use the Krillitanes' oil against them but they need to disable them for a moment to reach the kitchen... and it's Kenny that thinks of hitting the fire alarm. This doesn't quite work for me, as the Doctor's the one who figures out how to defeat monsters, while the companions notice things he missed or find simpler solutions when he overthinks things. I would've preferred the Doctor being a teacher one last time, testing Kenny to see if he's figured the solution.

Meanwhile Mickey has been given the job of getting all the kids out of the building.

The epic music gets even more epic as all the kids continue typing and he struggles to free them from the hypnotic power of the Xbox dashboard. But he thinks through the problem, follows the cables, and heroically... pulls the plug. 

I think it kind of works as a pay off, with the overly dramatic music building up to the least dramatic solution. The script even specifies that it's just a standard 13 amp plug, nothing remotely special. But Mickey got it right, he solved the puzzle and he saved everyone. Hopefully that'll help his self-esteem a bit.

Unfortunately the Krillitane oil barrels are deadlock sealed as well! K9 can detonate them with his laser, but he only has the power left for a single close-range shot. To kill the Krillitanes the Doctor will have to let his metal dog sacrifice himself... while he flees to safety.

Do they really need to kill the Krillitanes though? I suppose they have been literally eating children and are working on getting ultimate godlike power over the universe. That's not the kind of thing they'll give up on just because the Doctor broke a whiteboard.

The Doctor tells K9 he's a good dog, which the robot confirms. Then K9 waits for Finch and his teaching staff to arrive, before shooting the barrels.

Finch tells him he's a bad dog, which the robot confirms.

Boom! It's a very Buffy the Vampire Slayer solution to a problem.

Melissa asks if Kenny had anything to do with this, and he says yes, probably not realising that she'll tell everyone that he blew up the school. You don't tell people that! Though all the other kids are cheering, so they seem to be back to normal now. In the original version of the story this would've shown that outcast Kenny is now accepted by the others, but I can live without that cliché subplot.

It's a happy ending, except for poor Sarah Jane, who's distraught about losing her dog. It was just a robot, but it was her dog!

An unknown amount of time later, Sarah Jane gets to see the new TARDIS console room and she likes it, just not as much as the old one. Which old one though? They had two during her time.

The Doctor has decided to stop being weird and invite her back, if she wants more adventures. But her arc this episode was about getting over him and now she can get on with her own life. Though it turns out Mickey's had his own arc and he's finally decided to join the TARDIS crew properly! 

The last thing Rose wants is another person from her normal life joining her fantasy life and being special like her, in fact she's not even sure she wants to stay. But Sarah Jane tells her that some things are worth getting your heart broken for, which is something that Doctor Who fans also have to go through every time a companion leaves or a Doctor regenerates. If the series has been doing its job right.

Sarah Jane's last scene is very familiar, as she walks away from the TARDIS again, sad about having to say goodbye. And just like in The Hand of Fear, she turns around as the TARDIS dematerialises and finds a dog to talk to.

But this time it's a fully repaired K9! In fact this is the K9, the original radio-controlled prop, which held up better over time than the rusty robot dog who appeared in the rest of the story.

It turns out that the Doctor rebuilt him with improved features, which gives Sarah Jane the chance to say "Oh he replaced you with a brand new model. Yeah, he does that." Such a great line. It's not exactly true, seeing as he was rebuilt, not replaced, but I don't care.

So now Sarah Jane has her dog back and she's got work to do... in The Sarah Jane Adventures! Coming in 2007. There aren't many TV characters who have been well loved enough to get two spin-offs. Funnily enough K9 is another one, as he got a second show of his own in 2009.


CONCLUSION

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Two of the biggest inspirations for the 2005 Doctor Who revival were Buffy the Vampire Slayer and classic Doctor Who, so I suppose it makes sense that the two fit together here very naturally.

Buffy was known for its sharp writing, using its supernatural threats as a metaphor for teenage issues, and having its young protagonist in love with an ageless immortal being, and School Reunion certainly ticks some of those boxes. Plus it has the actual Anthony Head in a school full of monsters with evil plans, who are opposed by a blonde teenage girl, her wise older mentor and her friend with self-esteem issues who doesn't want to be the Zeppo tin dog of the group. 

It also has the actual Elizabeth Sladen returning as Third and Fourth Doctor companion Sarah Jane Smith, back to stop an alien plan to crack a Logopolis-style code that'll let them rewrite reality. For the first time the 2005 series had to properly answer the question of whether the show is a reimagining or if it's season 28, and the answer was it's season 28! Everything still happened!

I wasn't a classic Doctor Who fan, in fact I didn't even begin watching the series until the Matt Smith era, but I think that this is the best choice they could've made. In fact, I think this episode shows why it was the right decision, as you don't have to know anything about Sarah Jane at all to appreciate her arc and Rose's reaction to her. She's basically Rose from the classic series, that's all you need. She went on journeys in the TARDIS, she had intense experiences, and then she was just left behind.

But the fans who do already know her get the joy of seeing her again and finding out what happened to her. It's win-win, another example of Russell T Davies' approach to continuity paying off. Honestly, it's a shame he wasn't around to teach the dude who did the Ncuti Gatwa era how to reboot a show and make it accessible to new viewers, because this guy gets it.

The last surprise in the episode is that they didn't really bring K9 back just to kill him off, which is something else that writers could learn from! The first time I watched this I had no idea who K9 was, so I was just happy they managed to avoid making the kid-friendly dog droid too cringey. Though now I've seen all the classic series, I can appreciate that they did him justice. K9's awesome and it's a shame Mickey can't see that.

The second to last surprise is that Mickey's scenes were a lot more important than they seemed, as he has become the latest companion to join the TARDIS, and the first black companion in the show's history. The guy's been around since Rose, and he's probably had the most growth out of all the characters from that episode. He was certainly one of the most effective characters in this story, plus he had the best lines, so I'm happy that he's joining the crew. Happier than Rose is anyway.

To be fair, the episode hits pretty close to home for her. There was a deleted line where Sarah Jane mentions it'll be harder for her when the Doctor leaves her behind as she has no job or education, and that's part of the horror for her. We already know from The Parting of the Ways that she can't stand her normal life any more, so the idea of being left behind by the love of her life and having to go work as a dinner lady is terrifying to her.

This is something the revival series does well: looking at concepts from the classic series and taking more time to examine them. Classic Doctor Who wasn't all plot all the time, but it would've never done an episode like School Reunion.

I could carry on praising the episode, but there are some flaws, like the story. I mean it's fine, even if 'child-eating bat aliens take over a school and make the students super-intelligent to get godlike power over the universe' is a bit ridiculous on paper. And on screen.

The villains also fell short of their potential I thought. As characters they're good, with Anthony Head getting a lot of mileage out of slicking his hair back and standing very rigid. Even the CGI was fine for the time. But the Krillitanes are just too interesting an idea for this plot. I don't see how being a composite species has any connection to the themes of the story, it's not even necessary to explain the oil being deadly to them. They would've been better used in an episode that was about something more connected to their nature.

And that music was way too over the top. I'm assuming it was supposed to be, especially as it leads to the gag of Mickey just pulling the plug on the computers to free everyone, but it still took me out of the episode.


RATING

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Overall I think the positives well outweigh the negatives for this one. The classic characters are core to the story in a way that serves the current cast, and the sci-fi plot is just strong enough to make it all work. It's not necessarily one of the greatest episodes in Doctor Who history, but it is one of the most important.

  8/10

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NEXT EPISODE

Next time, writer Steven Moffat is back with The Girl in the Fireplace. Here's some post-review trivia: 67% of all Doctor Who episodes with 'girl' in the title are by Moffat, as are 100% of all episodes with 'fireplace' in the title.

Anyway, if you've got opinions about School Reunion you should share them below!