Review

Having introduced Rose to the future, the Doctor decides it's time to show her the past, December the 24th 1860 in Naples to be precise. Naturally the Doctor, who being male doesn't ask for directions, gets it slightly wrong and the Tardis touches down on December the 24th 1869 in Cardiff. Which is just as well as Mr Sneed, a local undertaker, is having problems with corpses that are apparently re-animating with murderous intent.

It just so happens that Charles Dickens, yes that Charles Dickens, is giving a recital at the town hall and one of the animated corpses has decided to attend. Naturally this freaks out the audience, possibly on both sides of the screen, and worlds collide as the Doctor and Rose along with Mr Sneed and his psychic maid Gwyneth rush to the scene. Can the Doctor work out what is happening or are we talking Night of the Living Dead 1869 style? A return to classic Doctor Who hide behind the sofa time ensues. Ready to exorcise the living dead?

Well it's taken a couple of episodes, but with The Unquiet Dead the new Doctor Who has finally found its beat. This episode hopefully ushers in the style of outing that made the original series a much-watch television event; namely the mixture of clever scripting, science fiction frame working, and lashings of horror. A couple of readers, who admittedly are from the States, have been confused as to why when they talk to anyone brought up on Doctor Who the "behind the sofa" thing gets mentioned, (and we haven't got to classic evil beings such as the Daleks or Cybermen yet). Thanks for dialling in team, and hopefully The Unquiet Dead answers your questions; this show is all about creeping the audience out rather than going all Star Trek science fiction on us. Lets get down in the trenches here.

Firstly, The Unquiet Dead delivers on the requirement of being firmly set in the past. I didn't note anything that looked out of place, well besides Rose and the Doctor, with the props, setting, and atmosphere looking steeped in the 1860s. Everything from the gas street lamps to the horse-drawn carriages looked authentic with the set designers clearly having an eye for detail. I can only assume it snows around Christmas time in Cardiff as that was the prevailing weather condition during the episode. If anyone wants to confirm that then give me a hoy with the answer.

The new Doctor has finally found it's voice, and that would be an excellent soprano delivery

You just got to love the horror elements in The Unquiet Dead writer Mark Gatiss and Director Euros Lyn aren't holding back the punches here, we're talking zombies left, right, and centre. Okay, our undead folk may not be of the flesh-eating variety but for sure they don't hold any shiny happy thoughts towards the living, with a number of people becoming victims of the walking dead during the episode. Naturally there's a Doctor-like explanation, which doesn't involve voodoo or space probes, it's more to do with time rifts and beings from the other side of the galaxy. Most viewers won't be fooled by this however; if it looks like a zombie, walks like a zombie, and moans like a zombie then hello and welcome to planet Romero. And here I thought we wouldn't be into core horror concepts with the first season, not a bad way to get one past the keeper and introduce a new generation to just how bad-arse Doctor Who can be.

Seems in season one we are going to have a whole bunch of ideas and plot arcs through the episodes. The "time war" is alluded to again so we can assume that will take on major significance at some stage of the season. Notably within The Unquiet Dead, it's used by our villains to work on the Doctor's sympathy and clear regrets regarding the destruction of both the Time Lords and maybe the Daleks. Also referenced is the "bad wolf" that apparently is some sort of motif for the season; Gwyneth the psychic maid mentions it in terms of Rose, so your guess is as good as mine as to what that may mean in future episodes.

Special mention of the makeup efforts in this episode: the zombie design was spot on and had me nodding my head in approval. The old dead lady at the recital looked even worse as a zombie than she did while being simply dead. And the zombie horde in the mortuary basement reminded me of the ones utilised by Romero in early subgenre movies. Excellent work and along with the moaning very effective in making the audience at least uneasy during the course of The Unquiet Dead.

Mark Gatiss' script was working for me, and I especially enjoyed the injection of Charles Dickens into the fray. We get plenty of one-liners for the Doctor to hum along to, a totally logical fantasy element, and a good relationship between Rose and Gwyneth. Notably the Doctor is slightly exasperated by Rose's 20th century sensibilities and points out on a couple of occasions that time travel involves a different morality that she will have to come to terms with or get off the boat. I would like to see this aspect developed during the course of the season, as Rose's clear distaste at the use of human corpses as an answer to the underlying problem causes the Doctor to change his mind about a solution. Of course Gatiss does have a major twist coming on this score in a sort of Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets Dawn of the Dead fashion.

Christopher Eccleston (Dr Who) is really warming to playing the eccentric and knowledgeable Time Lord. It simply shines through that Eccleston is having a lot of fun with the character and is digging the off the planet role (no pun intended). I might have been a bit harsh on Billie Piper (Rose) in previous reviews; though stunted and unable to bring method to her acting here, Piper does tend to grow on you after a while. Dear God in Heaven, that accent though! Simon Callow (Charles Dickens), Alan David (Mr Sneed), and Eve Miles (Gwyneth) all deliver and had me believing.

A slight hint of T&A seeped into the episode with Billie Piper showing some cleavage. I was actually feeling sorry for the chick, it looked bloody cold on the set and that top must have meant she was freezing her boobs off.

Excellent episode that delivered on the promise held out by the promos. Good horror elements, mixed with top notch science fiction explanations, and an intriguing script adds up to all the right ingredients for yours truly. The Unquiet Dead proved to be an episode that you could sink your teeth into, come away with a smile on your face from, and quite possibly deliver mixed metaphors upon. If wondering, yes I was wagging my tail and begging for more.

And in a bit of television trivia, the most recent Dr Who outing Voyage of the Damned, which aired Sunday 29th June, was the highest ever rating episode of the franchise in Australia. Voyage managed to attract 1.25 million viewers for the ABC and came in second in its timeslot behind the bogan orientated 60 Minutes from Channel Nine which managed 1.8 million audience members. In comparison, the top rating ABC show was locally made Spicks and Specks which managed 1.35 million viewers. Of course we could point to "our" Kylie, (and was that ever a crap performance, she hasn't improved over the years), firing up the audience numbers. The previous best was back in 2005 when debut episode Rose managed 1.1 million. So guess the Doctor is alive and well as far as Aussies are concerned.

Full recommendation on The Unquiet Dead it's a return to what made the original series rock the house down. You have the Doctor, you have some scary stuff, and you have a well crafted script. What more could you want? If they keep this level up during the rest of the season I'll be found behind the sofa.

Site of the Week: The Doctor Who Club of Australia run a blog site that sort of informs what they have going down, offers reviews of the current season, and ironical has a swag shop. I say ironic because the Club claims it's not for profit yet charges for membership and pushes it's clearly commerical shopping section. If in Australia, worth checking out for events coming on up.

ScaryMinds Rates this episode as ...