Doctor Who Season 2

Let this stand as the season wherein I said, "I understand why they like it."

What We Know Going In

The first season of the cult British series was maddeningly awful in most places. Despite some bits of brilliance, and the wholly unfettered performance from Christopher Eccleston, Season One struggled under the weight of Russel T. Davies' abysmal screenwriting, an epidemic of Deus Ex Doctorus, and the unsolvable problem of Rose Tyler, who is a whole host of bad adjectives ranging from "obnoxious" to "useless." At the end of the season, Useless swallowed up the time vortex and used her sudden influx of god-powers to solve all the problems of the season. This action necessitated her death, which would have been a good thing, except that Doctor #9 kissed the time vortex out of her, sacrificing himself. At least, sacrificing that iteration of himself: he regenerated immediately into David Tennant, Doctor #10 and perhaps the show's most iconic figure. If my sources are correct, Tennant ushers in a new age of Doctor Who, dragging the whole series into higher quality. Here's hoping.

What We Found Out

Tennant does, in fact, usher in a whole new age of Doctor Who, but the quality doesn't show up immediately. Let's look in more detail (spoilers).

2.00, The Christmas Invasion: While the Doctor naps in an attempt to regenerate, an army of aliens show up on Earth to feed off his energy (because, of course, the world revolves around the Doctor). Useless, Useless's Mom, and Useless's Whipped Ex-Boyfriend have to figure out how to stave them off for several hours while Doc regenerates, giving them all a chance to show off how handicapped they are. Useless nearly succeeds in distracting the aliens, but ultimately fails. Never fear, though! Doc wakes up, apparently after imbibing tea (how very British of him). He fends off the invaders through a duel with a sword, and sends them away peacefully, only for the British government to vaporize them. The British PM thinks this was a wise decision because, y'know, ALIEN INVADERS, but the Doc disagrees, and deposes the leader whom he predicted would usher in Britain's Golden Age. So, in sum, Deus Ex Doctorus, Deus Est Doctorus, and Moralitas est Doctorus. 1/5

2.01, New Earth: Rose and the Doctor fly into the future, where Earth is peaceful and harmonious. They visit a hospital with a sinister secret: the nun-nurses (who are cat-people) have a horde of humans in their basement, all created for the express purpose of having deadly diseases so the cat-nurses can study/cure those diseases. A very meh episode, in all. 2/5

2.02, Tooth and Claw: Doc and Rose visit 19th Century Scotland and meet Queen Victoria. Rose spends the entire episode trying to get Queen Vicky to say "We are not amused" (and we really aren't, Rose why won't you just shut up already) while sinister monks sic a werewolf on everybody. Also a generally meh episode, but ties into the myth arc: Torchwood, which is this season's Big Mystery. 2/5

2.03, School Reunion: Mickey alerts Doc&Useless to a school which seems sinister. They infiltrate it by masquerading as a physics teacher and a lunch lady, meaning Useless talks less which is always a good thing. They meet Sarah Jane Smith and K-9, a former Companion and a robot dog (respectively) from the old Doctor Who series, and together discover that the school is run by bat-people who are using children's brains to crack the Universe Code and achieve godhood. 

Notably, this is the first episode in which the Doctor is vilified instead of worshiped and that is wonderful. Sarah Jane Smith serves as a sharp foil to the Doctor, pointing out that he only keeps mortals around while they're young and pretty and then dumps them without warning back into a mundane life. THANK YOU SARAH JANE SMITH FOR POINTING THIS OUT. THIS NEEDED TO BE SAID. Also, Mickey gets some satisfying character development and Anthony Head as the vampire principal is terrifying. 4/5

2.04, The Girl in the Fireplace: Doc, Useless, and Mickey land on a derelict spaceship which has time-windows open to the life of Madame du Pompadour, a French aristocrat/mistress. She's being menaced by creepy robots wearing party masks, which was unsettling in the preview but only mildly worrying in the episode itself. The robots are trying to harvest the lady's brain so they can restart their ship, while the Doctor ends up being her guardian angel. Drawn to a satisfying conclusion, though the saddening conclusion rings hollow because the only reason it's sad is that the Doctor made an exceedingly stupid mistake. It's Diabolus Ex Doctorus, which is a welcome change but still unsatisfying. Still, 5/5

2.05, Rise of the Cybermen: In an alternate universe, Bartemius Crouch Sr. creates a race of cybernetic people, Useless tries to reunite with her dead father again, and transhumanism gets generally disdained. 2/5

2.06, The Age of Steel: Bartemius Crouch Jr. and his tagalongs foil Bartemius Crouch Sr.'s plans to convert the entire human race into low-grade aluminum Cylons. Fortunately, however, most of the climax is solved by Helpless Mickey, rather than Doc—a very welcome change. 4/5

2.07, The Idiot's Lantern: Television serves as a tool to steal the faces/voices/selves of the British citizenry. (How subtle.) Also, Doc gets very worked up about Rose being one of these faceless things. I can't for the life of me fathom why—it's not as if she contributes that much. 3/5

2.08, The Impossible Planet: In a story that is true, honest-to-goodness Scifi-Horror, Doc and Useless land on a barren asteroid, inhabited by a research crew and creepy telepathic slaves that look like this. The asteroid is inexplicably lodged in a geostationary orbit around a black hole. Doc loses the TARDIS  in an earthquake, the archaeologist gets possessed (see picture), and people start dying. It's creepy and terrifying and exceptionally well-done. 5/5

2.09, The Satan Pit: In the follow-up, Doc explores the hole in the center of the asteroid, finding that all myths are true when he has a run-in with the original Satan. Meanwhile, Satan telepathically menaces Useless and the rest of the crew, predicting that Rose Tyler will soon die in battle (YES! YES! YES! HOORAY!). Everyone escapes, Doc and the TARDIS are reunited, and Useless manages not to screw everything up completely. 5/5

2.10, Love and Monsters: My immediate reaction to the opener of this episode was, "Please, no, not more Davies episodes. You can't do this to us!" I was, however, pleasantly surprised.

Doc and Useless have almost no direct contact to this particular storyline, in which a group of socially inept Brits gather once weekly to hang out and discuss the Doctor. (Wow, really subtle commentary on your target audience there.) Their meetings quickly grow to resemble church services (wherein the Doctor is God, surprise surprise) until a fat man with eczema shows up and whips them into shape, determined to find the Doctor. Elton, our protagonist, grows tired of this mission and attempts to liberate his fellow Doctorites from Eczema-man's fist, only to find that he's an alien and he's been eating them. The Doc shows up in the last five minutes, but only in time to pick up pieces, and he's wonderfully uninvolved in the climax. 4/5

2.11, Fear Her: A fascinating concept ("schoolgirl gains godlike power to create or trap things using her colored pencils and imagination") gets wasted on weak writing and a child actress who, for all that she tries, just can't keep pace with Tennant, or the script. Also, the Doctor gets to light the Olympic Torch because hey, why not? 2/5

2.12, Army of Ghosts: Russel T. Davies returns for the two-part finale, and I shudder. The episode opens with Useless explaining that "this is the story of how [she] died." (I had to step away for a moment, so I could react appropriately.)

The world has been invaded by ghosts, but everyone got acclimated to it within two months. (Really? Really? America is still jazzed at the fact that we finally elected a black president, and black people have been on this planet, like, the whole time. Humans are not this good at accepting new things. -10 points.) Turns out that the ghost phenomenon originates at Torchwood, the anti-alien institute Queen Victoria set up after being attacked by a werewolf. They're meddling with the fabric of space-time, and this eventually results in a global catastrophic event: an invasion by Cybermen. 

But that's not all! It turns out that the Cybermen were just hitchhiking through dimensional cracks. The real villains are, once again...the Daleks. 2/5

2.13, Doomsday: Daleks vs. Cybermen vs. Doctor #10. As per usual, the universe drops a neat solution into the Doctor's lap, this time in the form of "void stuff" and a trans-dimensional vacuum cleaner. The place in between universes is called "the void," or sometimes hell, and it leaves residue when you travel through it. The Cybermen and the Daleks have all spent lots of time inside the void, meaning that when Doc opens it up, they're all sucked in, because the void draws all void-things back into itself. However, because Useless&Co. have all been to another universe, they have void-stuff on them, too. The Doctor is forced to sacrifice Rose—sending her into an alternate dimension, the one place he can't go—in order to save the world. It's Deus Ex Doctorus again, but this time it costs him, and the cost is Rose Tyler. (Pardon me while I rejoice again.)

The episode closes with Doc burning up a sun so he can project himself through a crack in the universe, in order to say goodbye to Useless. Useless immediately asks him if he can come through, to which he says:

"The whole thing would fracture. Two universes would collapse."

To which Useless says...

"So?"

You know what, Rose Tyler? Good riddance.

Doc almost confesses that he loves her, but the projection times out before his dramatic silence is finished, and Rose Tyler is deprived of the chance to be worshiped one final time. Doc sets about grieving quietly aboard the TARDIS, but there is no doubt in my mind that poor Mickey—who will marry Rose despite herself, and despite the Doctor—will never see Rose get over this one moment, where the god of time and adventure almost said "I love you." (Rose Tyler is a bottomless pit of self-absorption and destruction, and I will not miss her even a little.) 3/5

What's Good?

Everything in this season takes a noticeable uptick in quality, though it takes three or four episodes to get there. Davies only writes six of them, and half of those episodes are even palatable. The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit are extraordinary, School Reunion is a strong departure from the "Let's worship the Doctor!" philosophy, and Doomsday finally did away with Rose Tyler (and it even did it in a satisfactory way!). Tennant takes a few episodes to stride fully into the Doctor's shoes, but by 2.02, he's fully in command of the Doctor's persona. It's easy to see why Whovians love him.

What's Bad?

As before, so too now: Russel T. Davies, Rose Tyler, Deus Ex Doctorus and the inconsistent magic system. In defense of this season, however, none of these elements are as bad as they were in Season 1. Davies' writing gets better near the end of the season and Rose assumes her destined role in the distant past. The Deus Ex Doctorus problem and the inconsistencies in the magic system are moderated a little bit (though not entirely—most of the Doctor's problems are still solved by elements introduced in the third act, and he's rarely responsible for them existing). Skip Christmas Invasion, New Earth, and Tooth and Claw if you have the choice; they add little to nothing to the story.

So, then...

Is it quality? Yes, in places. It's getting there.

Is it family-friendly? Depending on one's scale, yes. The monsters could potentially scare young viewers, and particularly young children might develop a pathological fear of toilet plungers. Those, however, are the only major content issues.

Is it daring? Getting there. Meeting Satan and removing Rose Tyler were both steps in the right direction.

What's the rating? For the second season: 6.8/10, a marked improvement. Just remove Davies, guys. Everything will be okay once you remove Davies, I promise.

Allons-y.