Doctor Who-The Waters of Mars: After 46 Years, the Program Still Has Some Shockingly Dark Places to Take Us.

Posted by ScuzzBuster

November 16, 2009

Just one week before the 46th anniversary of Doctor Who you wouldn’t think there’d be many superlatives left. I’ve been an avid fan of the program for 25 years now and I don’t take the quality of the show lightly. The Russell T. Davies era has brought us multiple superlatives for better and worse. At least two stories since 2005 rank what I consider among the best in the show’s 45 year run. Unfortunately, the lowest point and worst episode in the show’s history also has come out of the RTD era. The Waters of Mars is neither the best nor the worst in the show’s history, but it is far and away the darkest episode in the the series’ long run.

After the lackluster underwhelming Planet of the Dead in April, The Waters of Mars is sure to start ripping up one of the largest worldwide sci-fi fan communities. I’ve resisted the urge to poke around the various fan forums yet so I can relay my honest personal feelings on what this means for the show and the character. The Waters of Mars is in many ways an example of what has made the Davies era of the show so often compelling. Basically, this is really just another run of the mill monster of the week story. Formula Doctor Who fair the likes of which we’ve seen a lot of over the last 4 years. This time it bears several striking similarities to the superior Impossible Planet. We have an isolated human colony being attacked by some unknown force slowly closing in on them. The Doctor as usual shows up at the wrong place at the right time. This time the dark and ominous tone is set very early and quite brilliantly. As the Doctor meets each of the fledgling Mars colonists we see flashes of each the main character’s obituaries as the Doctor comes to the uncomfortable realization that he meeting a group of people that are not only destined to die, but to die that very day. As he comes to this uncomfortable realization, he also realizes that he cannot, or at least is duty-bound not able to do anything to prevent it.

As fans of the new era of the show, it’s not the week to week grind of trying to present some unique plot or twist we’ve never seen before, it’s the fact the show has turned into an ongoing character study of a title character that had almost no significant development of over the show’s first 40 years. And it’s this aspect to new incarnation of Doctor Who that makes it great. And it’s also what makes the last 10 minutes of The Waters of Mars one of the most significant and shocking slaps in the face we’ve ever seen. For a show that treats traveling the roads of time so casually, so few moments have really dealt with the momentous implications of it.

The fall of the Last Time Lord is something that RTD has been setting up since the show’s return in 2005. RTD has created a whole new mythos for Doctor Who, and even thought we’ve gotten two very different characterizations between Chris Eccleston and David Tennant, the character has managed to maintain a growth and continuity over this period. Going back to the very first handful of episodes of the new series, we’ve started to see something we’ve never seen before: consequences for the main character’s actions. In series one, the reality of ripping someone away from their family was actually touched upon after 40 years of it being ever present, but never mentioned.

Davies has now spent the last couple of seasons bringing into focus his vision for the show and the character. This week, he’s left the Doctor teetering on the brink. The character has now completed his journey to the dark side and become the same type of megalomaniacal villain he’s opposed over his nearly thousand-year lifespan. And this is where it gets interesting. He’s going to have to pay for his transgression and superlative ego with his life, and he knows it.
And in the final moments of the show, knowing the laws which he’s broken and the wrong he’s done he convinces himself that he’s no longer the Last of the Time Lords, but that he is in fact THE Lord of Time. And the only thing that breaks his final step toward belief that he is in fact a god is the most surprisingly dark and ugly moment that you’re likely to ever see in something billed as a “family” program. I will not spoil this, but it is a shock. More shocking than the Doctor’s nearly out of control actions in The Runaway Bride two years ago, and even more controversial than the uproar caused by Colin Baker’s Doctor killing someone with his bare hands in March of 1985 in part 3 of The Two Doctors. In this case, we see how the act of saving a life can be more harmful than taking one.

In any case, dark is good. David Tennant has had a good run and it looks like we’re headed toward a bitter finish for Tennant’s run in the role, perhaps now the most popular actor to hold the title role in the history of the program, at the very least rivaling Tom Baker’s popularity. And it’s only fitting that the two actors who are probably most associated with light and comic moments in the program are also those that have had some of the darkest. And just as the Tom Baker era became somber in tone over the final season, so has Tennant’s, but only in a more subversive manner.

So for this long rambling review, I haven’t really said whether I actually like The Waters of Mars or not. In fact, I did, though the shocking turn of events at the end of the program elevated it for me. The production design was outstanding and effects top notch. The make up effects were not only excellent, but among the creepiest I’ve ever seen in the show, actually provoking as strong of an uncomfortable feeling as I’ve ever had watching the show in the last quarter century. Overall, a very fitting beginning of the end for both the David Tennant and Russell T. Davies eras, and as expected it looks like RTD plans to go out leaving the fans talking—and almost certainly divided right down the middle.

The Waters of Mars aired Sunday 11/15 in the U.K. is tentatively scheduled to premier on BBC America in the States on 12/19.