Doctor Who (2005) 1-03: The Unquiet Dead (Quick Review)

Episode:

699

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Serial:

159

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Writer:

Mark Gatiss

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Director:

Euros Lyn

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Air Date:

09-Apr-2005

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the 20th anniversary... of the third episode of the 2005 Doctor Who revival. The season had started airing a couple of weeks earlier with Rose, but I've already reviewed that one. I've also reviewed episode 2, The End of the World. But I haven't reviewed this one, so this is the story I'm writing about to celebrate 20 years of (additional) Doctor Who.

The first season of the revival had 13 episodes and 8 of them were written by showrunner Russell T Davies, so there wasn't much room for other writers to come in and make their mark, especially seeing as Davies had planned the season out in advance and was rewriting people's scripts. But there were other people who helped define this new Doctor Who, and one of them was Mark Gatiss. The guy kept coming back as a writer (and an actor) until season 10, and this was his first story.

That title, The Unquiet Dead, feels very classic Doctor Who to me, like there must be half a dozen serials that end in 'Dead'. There aren't though, not even one. There's The Seeds of Death, The Ambassadors of Death, The Green Death, The Robots of Death and City of Death, but if it's 'Dead' you're after, you have to go to the RTD era.

Wow, that is a surprisingly good collection of serials I just listed, each one (arguably) better than the last. I can say that now because I've watched all (existing) episodes of classic Who. I still haven't seen all of modern Who though, and Unquiet Dead was one of the ones I missed, so this was actually written after my very first viewing. I'd been spoiled on what happened though. Oh, that reminds me...

This is the kind of review that's full of SPOILERS.

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RECAP

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The Doctor takes Rose on her first trip to the past, bringing her to Naples in the 1860s. Though the TARDIS actually ends up in Cardiff, to Rose's dismay. On the plus side, it's Christmas Eve!

They rush to investigate the appearance of a ghost at a theatre, which leads to Rose getting kidnapped by an undertaker. Meanwhile the Doctor meets Charles Dickens and gets a ride in his carriage. They all end up at a funeral parlour where the dead refuse to stay put. The undertaker's servant, Gwyneth, is a little bit psychic, and she helps them hold a séance to communicate with the ghosts. They learn that they're aliens called the Gelth who were victims of the Time War and need to possess bodies to survive.

The Doctor and Gwyneth decide to open the Rift to let more of them come through. Unfortunately, it turns out that they're kind of evil and the Doctor and Rose end up trapped in the morgue by Gelth zombies. Dickens has had enough and runs off, but he runs back once he's figured out the Gelth's weakness. He floods the room with gas, drawing the aliens out of the corpses. Gwyneth then sacrifices herself by igniting the gas and destroying the Gelth, which is weird as she had apparently been dead since the moment she opened the Rift.

The Doctor reveals to Rose that Dickens only has a year left to live, so his knowledge of aliens won't change history, but the adventure has brought him out of his depression and he watches the TARDIS dematerialise with awe.


REVIEW

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I had no idea that the Ninth Doctor got a Christmas episode! It's just not a Christmas special like the others got. In fact, there isn't really anything special about this episode, aside from it being the first episode by someone other than RTD, the first to visit the past, the first to feature a historical character and so on. Even the explosion at the end is very typical Doctor Who, seeing as this is third episode in a row to end with a bang.

The Unquiet Dead grabbed my attention from the start and held it to roughly the halfway point. But once all the characters were in the house and discussing gas aliens my mind was ready to call the story done. Granted I'd already been spoiled on what the aliens were really up to, so there was no mystery there for me, but I had no idea how the Doctor was going to save the day and I wasn't really that curious.

I suppose part of the problem is that the episode wasn't really set up to give the Doctor and Rose anything to do, so I was only mildly surprised when they ended up trapped behind a gate during the dramatic climax, while Charles Dickens saved the day for them. Oh, plus Gwyneth took care of all the aliens with her psychic rift powers, despite being dead, which just makes the living protagonists look even more useless.

On the positive side, the episode looked great at times, with some fantastic location shots. The Cardiff-based show did a great job of recreating 19th century Cardiff, even if they had to go over to Swansea instead to find buildings that looked right.

In fact all the stuff about Rose taking her first steps into the past and properly understanding what that meant was good. This is the kind of thoughtful character-focused content that was sometimes missing from the classic series. I was less impressed with how she seemed unable to get why she can die in the past and still be alive in the present, and the Doctor didn't do a great job of explaining it. But hey she'd just been drugged unconscious, so it's understandable that she wasn't at her best.

Plus having the guest stars save the day doesn't sting as bad when they're well performed, and all three characters here were pretty good.

Gwyneth worked especially well with Rose, giving her someone she could relate to. Plus things took an interesting turn when she realised that Rose was from the future and gave us the second mention of Bad Wolf. It was just a throwaway line in The End of the World, but this time the viewer's attention is drawn to it, as it's what she reads in her mind. I can't speculate on what that means though, as I already know.

I also liked all the scenes with the rogue undertaker doing what he could to keep his wandering corpses under wraps, up to and including kidnapping. But he became much less of a character halfway through, especially once his neck was snapped. And then there's Charles Dickens...

Having a famous historical figure as a major character isn't something Doctor Who had done much in its earlier incarnation, so putting Charles Dickens in a story about alien ghosts was maybe a bit of a risk.

Fortunately they wrote the character well enough that even Dickens expert Simon Callow was impressed. Which is good, because they wanted him to play the part. The episode seems to care about who Dickens was as a real person instead of just throwing him in as a name, and it definitely gets bonus points for that. If I can walk away from a historical knowing more about history than I did when I started, then I'm calling that a win.

It's pretty tragic how his new lease of life after being visited by ghosts only lasted a few months due to the man's real life fate, but at least this Christmas adventure didn't turn out to inspire a Christmas Carol or anything like that. They did that already with H. G. Wells in Timelash, and the Doctor can't inspire every important work of fiction.


RATING

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I have to be honest, I thought that this was the worst episode of Doctor Who yet. I mean of the 2005 revival, not the whole series overall. It was way more enjoyable to watch than the original episode 3, An Unearthly Child, Part 3 - The Forest of Fear, that's for sure. But Rose and The End of the World were both more my kind of television and did a better job of keeping my interest to the end, leaving this in third place.

So I'm giving The Unquiet Dead... 5/10.

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NEXT EPISODE

Alright, if I'm going to keep reviewing episodes on their 20th anniversary that means that I should be moving on to Aliens of London next.

But the new season is starting in a few days with The Robot Revolution so that throws a wrench into my plans! I guess I have to write about that instead. Or maybe I can write about both of them? Can I even review two episodes that quickly, while also writing about games on Super Adventures at the same time? I guess we'll all find out together.