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It seems the good Doctor is running out of time in
the fourth season of "Doctor Who". The fourth season opens
with a special feature produced for the charity Children
in Need Telethons that run every year in the UK where the
tenth Doctor (David Tennant)literally runs into the fifth
Doctor (Peter Davison) as their TARDIS crash into each other.
The two men who are different incarnations of the same man
must figure out how to patch the hole in time that their
collision has created. Writer Steven Moffat creates a miniature
masterpiece that runs under nine minutes but still has enough
plot for a full episode. ***
The first proper episode was the annual Christmas episode
focusing on the Doctor trying to prevent the S.S. Titanic
a huge space luxury liner visiting 21st Century Earth during
the Holidays. Unaware that its namesake sank dooming most
of its crew and passengers to the oblivion of the deep sea,
the crew prepares to buy trinkets and party on Earth with
an ill-informed guide who has no idea about the true traditions
of the planet they are visiting. When the robot servants
go berserk only the Doctor (Tennant) can save the ship from
going the way of its 20th century namesake. Featuring Kylie
Minogue as a human server who ends up assisting the Doctor,
"Voyage of the Damned" sets the bar high for the rest of
season four with its memorable witty script, strong performances,
direction and dazzling visual effects. Luckily, the production
cast and crew were up to the challenge and most of season
four is of a similar quality. ***
The Doctors new companion is an old one sort of. Donna
(Catherine Tate) who appeared in the cliffhanger from season
two and the Christmas episode for 2006 as the bride of…a
monster (sort of). Tate brings her comedic talents to the
show playing well off of Tennant throughout this season.
I have to give Russell T. Davies credit for deciding to
cast a full figured woman in a TV world obsessed with wafer
thin wane looking models. ***
There are a number of strong episodes from this season
including "Silence in the Library" a bizarre episode on
the surface where the Doctor and Donna find the library
planet completely abandoned and the only defense for the
duo is a little girl who is very much in the 21st century.
The second episode "Forest of the Dead" plays with a plot
that has never been tackled before. What if the Doctor meets
someone from HIS future that he hasn't met in THIS incarnation?
It's a dazzling episode with some truly spooky creatures
that live "in the shadows". I don't want to spoil the plot
for those who missed this terrific two part episode (written
by Stephen Moffat who quickly became THE best writer on
the show). Other episodes are strong as well such as "The
Fires of Pomepii" where the Doctor and Donna visit the ancient
city before the eruption of the volcano that will consume
it and "The Doctor's Daughter" which looks both to the past
(American audiences probably weren't aware that the Doctor
did have a daughter who traveled with him in the first season)
and, perhaps, to the future. The Doctor and Donna land on
a world that was to be colonized but, instead, that has
been lost in a mindless war between two factions using clones
to augment their numbers. The Doctor himself gets "sampled"
with the resulting "daughter" being full grown within a
matter of minutes and instilled with language skills, intelligence
and a history of the conflict. ***
As with previous seasons Davies pens the two part season
conclusion (with a major cliffhanger) bringing back Martha
Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, Captain Jack, Prime Minister Harriet
Jones and his first companion in the revived series Rose
Tyler. The two episodes are among Davies best and bring
the fourth season to a solid close. ---
Image & Sound:
"Doctor Who" has always looked pretty good in its DVD
presentation. As with previous seasons the show is presented
in a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer. There have been some problems
with past sets for example blacks tended to look dark blue
(perhaps a problem created in the process of converting
the shows from PAL to NTSC the two different and incompatible
standards for video for the rest of the World and the U.S.
That problem is still somewhat evident with blacks not looking
quite right but the overall look, detail and crispness of
the images are extremely good with flesh tones always looking
extremely accurate. ***
Audio sounds extremely good. The 5.1 mix still puts
dialog first but the musical scores and sound effects are
given their due as well. We also get English subtitles for
those of us who can't understand the actors because of their
accents (I'm not one of them but my wife is). ---
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