Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars (2009)

Nice effects though.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

The Doctor lands on the red planet, Mars 2059. He stumbles across the first Space Colony led by the charismatic bud domineering Adelaide Brooke, Bowie Base One. On site they have a massive garden on board, their very own Eden. One of the gardeners is quickly infected with something, and becomes quickly disfigured. A worried Doctor tries to escape but is encouraged to stay and help. Another gardener, Maggie, is discovered unconscious and placed in isolation, soon after something happens to her and she too becomes infected, as does yet another member, Tarak. Water begins streaming out of all of them and their skin becomes disfigured. The crew try to take off back to Earth, but the infected humans have other ideas. The Doctor has two choices, to leave the crew to their intended fate of death, or to intercede.I have to mention Lindsay Duncan, as a huge fan of hers from her many Stephen Poliakoff dramas i was overjoyed to see her guest in Doctor Who, she did not disappoint, she was fantastic. I enjoyed her discussion about seeing a Dalek.After the nightmare that was Planet of the Dead, this was a much better episode. The hour long format is good, it allows a great development of story and characters. A far more scary episode, this time there is real menace from the infected beings, the scene of Andy infecting Tarak is quite a nasty one. Much faster paced and more dramatic, there's a real feeling of danger and threat. A slightly sour ending, the Doctor's getting a little cocky, he's starting to play God. 7/10 (on the right day maybe an 8)

"The Waters of Mars" is the third episode of what most call 'series 4.5' and is definitely the most interesting of the 4 episodes (or 5 if you count the End of Time Part Two as a separate episode, which some do). Its plot is, well, passable, although nothing brilliant. The Doctor lands on the red planet on November 21st in the year 2059, which happens to be precisely the date of a very important event in history of what would eventually lead to human kind entering the realm of space travel. No inclination is given as to why The Doctor showed up at such dashing timing, but what can you say; it is Doctor Who. Anyway, so the Doctor stumbles across a station on mars not far from where he landed and, due to him being the Doctor, has to check it out. Of course, some shenanigans ensue and we have our hour long special. Now something quite surprising happened with this special, and with series 4.5 it was a quite singular thing for this one story (atleast for this reviewer); I never once felt the time. As I said, the special is an hour long and it kept me interested the whole time, moving at a brisk pace, whilst not sacrificing the time it needs to get acquainted with the episodes central characters, and managed not to overly annoy me too much with anything. (Well, there was this one scene when the Doctor was recognizing the crew of the station, and this rather annoying file on a computer kept showing up and presenting a small bio on each character, and would zoom in on a specific part of each file for ALL of the members, which was totally overused and annoying--after awhile I was like "We get it!") Now, and this may be a bit of a !!SPOILER!! but it turns out this base is under siege, as members of the crew are infected, and taken over by wa…water? A bit odd, yet quite effective choice that for the most part works quite well, and at times even presents us with a rather frightening villain. The story pits The Doctor, and the uninfected crew, against the water and its desire to get to Earth. Doesn't sound like much of a plot, and it really isn't, but its The Doctor's dilemma in the story that makes it work..When it comes to the series 4.5, this episode was pretty darned alright, especially when compared to an episode like The Next Doctor, oh then it was sodding brilliant, but I don't know, I just didn't feel it the way I should have. There was some good action and suspense, and I liked how the Doctor kept telling himself he should go but, being that he is Doctor, kept staying. That was entertaining, and I enjoyed seeing him fight between his time lordy don't break the rules type attitude, and Doctory not being able to just leave the people to die. Also liked the little 'Ice Warriors' reference in there. But I don't know, it just felt kind of bland. Kind of how '42' felt bland too, even though it was a good episode and really shouldn't have. Perhaps it's poor directing. The ending was interesting and a bit frightening, as he was leaving the stations the Doctor takes an interesting character turn (you who've seen it know what I mean), I liked the look on Tennants face, butI really didn't enjoy the little collection of thoughts, though. Again, seemed a bit overkill where it was endlessly saying things about time-lords. Just a bit over the top to the extent when I was just like "I get it, mate, that's enough" (just like with the computer thing earlier on). I liked Adelaide, as well. Nothing much to say there, though. I also liked that they brought the Ood back, there in the end, although I wasn't fond of how the Doctor behaved seconds before that. I respect the angle they were going for, it's a just a personal opinion of me not liking to see The Doctor like that. It made me think of Matt Smith's comment to Rory in series five ("I need you beside me"). It really marks the under current that flowed through series four of how much the Doctor needed someone (i.e. Donna) to keep him on the straight and narrow, and now that he's alone, he's gone far from where the Doctor should be. Had this (kind of) series been stronger this could have been a very interesting topic to explore, but the specials, apart from this serial, didn't really do enough with it, and when they tried too it seemed a little too much, and without enough buildup.All in all, better then both of its predecessors, and definitely better then it's successor(s). But compared to most episodes it was not something to write home about, and again a disappointment. ~6 of 10~ A bit below par for the series, but more than par for the specials.

Following the child-friendly colour and noise of Planet of the Dead (complete with flying London bus for sh1ts, giggles and "cool-Britannia brand recognition), I was looking forward to the next specials as they were sold as being a lot darker and more suited to adults than their children. Of course it was still going to be family-friendly but what I knew of the plot going in suggested it would be more than that. The first 15 minutes confirm that the potential is definitely there and indeed it does seem like we are on our way to something particularly good. The monsters have the deadly patience and determination of zombies and visually are well filmed to be unsettling and frightening. The Doctor's knowledge of the fate of the base (and its importance in time) introduces a familiar theme but one that still has legs – his ability to stand back and watch events that have already happened unfold as they have already done – whether they are right or fair.Does it deliver on this potential? Well, the fair answer is "sort of", because while it never produces something really impressive, it is still pretty good. The fast moving plot benefits from decreasing options and the inevitable nature of the plotting but at the same time it never really nails any one aspect as well as I would have liked. The infected/possessed characters are indeed creepy and feel unstoppable, while the infection of some of the characters do indeed have some emotional impact – as Theo has said already, there is an air of 28 Days Later about it and I think that this is one of the things it did well. The weaknesses come in with the more complex character themes that the show tries to deal with beyond the specific adventure plot. If you wrote these conflicting inner turmoil down in a couple of sentences then you would have developed them as fully as this special does. Mostly it is done by having the Doctor square his jaw and look determined and/or in deep thought. This I have no real problem with but it is not backed up by good dialogue or clever character observations – the final few moments of the special maybe do this but it is just as superficial. Maybe I am being unfair since this is still a Sunday evening piece of family entertainment but it did give the special a tone of "doing the basics", with the "importance" of certain things painted on rather than being engrained into the characters and plot in the way that works best.The supporting aspects of the special can either shore it up to be stronger or give it a weaker base that doesn't help. In this case the threat of the infected is definitely a shoring factor but everything else doesn't help that much. The Gadget robot put me in mind of Tweaky in Buck Rodgers or that bl00dy dog in the original Battlestar Galactica. It was an unnecessarily silly addition and the impact of two infecting chasing the Doctor and Adelaide was undercut somewhat by having them escape on a "tricked-out" Gadget, complete with flames coming from the exhaust. The supporting cast were solid and I did think that Duncan was good but could really have done with a little bit less running and a bit more time to process her character's actions to produce something more memorable. The computer effects were OK but the use of music was mostly poor – often being obvious and intrusive. Tennant is on typical good form though as he approaches the end of his tenure – he is capable of doing more with the darker character stuff but this special didn't give him the time.Waters of Mars is certainly a massive improvement on the last special even if it doesn't live up to its potential and fudges some aspects it should have been strong on. One more special remains, containing the Master; I suspect that it will be similar to this special in the mix of running, threats and darker aspects, I would just hope that it can match the impact of the better parts of this special while also doing a better job on the more interesting thematic/character aspects, which I didn't think were that good here (even if they were present).

What we have here is your basic traditional zombie film plot. The doctor and sundry others are trapped in an environment from which they cannot escape; first one person is infected, then another - the heroes barricade themselves in, anyone touched becomes a zombie - jeez, its just Night Of The Living Dead all over again. This could work if the dialogue was witty and interesting and if the characters were better defined and developed but it isn't and they aren't. There's an interesting attempt at the beginning to create some friction between the captain and her second-in-command but it doesn't go anywhere. When Dr Who is at its best it features intricate, interesting well written plots - this ain't one of them. Fresh writing blood is urgently needed.