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

Episode:

699

|

Serial:

159

|

Writer:

Mark Gatiss

|

Director:

Euros Lyn

|

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.

Doctor Who (2005) 1-02: The End of the World

Episode:

698

|

Serial:

158

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Euros Lyn

|

Air Date:

26-Mar-2005

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally getting around to the second episode of the 2005 Doctor Who revival: The End of the World! I wrote about episode 1, Rose, back in 2018 when I was covering all the modern regeneration stories leading up to the debut of the Thirteenth Doctor. Now we're about to get the Fourteenth Doctor, and I'm writing about episode 2, so at this rate I should be done with series 1 by the time the Twenty-Fifth Doctor comes around.

I'll be screencapping the whole episode and sharing my thoughts and observations as I go, so there will be SPOILERS here, but probably only really for this and Rose. I definitely won't be spoiling anything that comes after them.