TV Today readers with good memories may recall that I described Cyberwoman, the fourth episode of Torchwood as:
“Cyberwoman ranks highly amongst the worst 50 minutes of drama I’ve ever seen.”
So it was with some trepidation that I approached 42, seeing as both it and Cyberwoman had the name Chris Chibnall on writing duties. Thankfully my fears were unfounded as 42 was a taut sci-fi thriller with some genuine scares and the best performance yet from Doctor Who’s lead actor.
The conceit of the episode is simple - the TARDIS lands on a spaceship in deep trouble. In 42 minutes, the vessel will plunge into the heart of a very hot, very big and very orange sun, and the crew don’t seem able to do anything about it. With the Doctor and Martha cut off from the TARDIS, they literally will be frying tonight if our heroic Time Lord can’t get past some deliciously Galaxy Quest-esque sci-fi obstacles and get the engines back on line. Oh, and this being Doctor Who, there’s a parasite infecting members of the crew that makes them go a bit psycho and breathe the chilling words “Burn with me” in deep, ominous I’ve-been-taken-over-by-an-alien tones.
42 whips along at a cracking real time pace. 42? Geddit? It’s a bit like 24… Of course, like 24, there’s some fudging of the conceit, but not enough to trouble the scorer. As the Doctor takes charge to get the engines back on line, we have Martha paired off with a fresh-faced crewmember to get through a sequence of locked down security doors. And then the mystery hits, as the parasite possessed crewmembers (including the captain’s husband for a bit of emotional thumbnail characterisation) start to sabotage the crew’s efforts to escape. Why? Could it be that the crew aren’t victims of terrible circumstance and have been up to something they shouldn’t?
Of course, it’s not long before Martha and her buddy are trapped in an escape pod which the nasty bad guys release and drop towards the sun, forcing the Doctor to go on a quick spacewalk to reset the controls and bring the pod back. Quick question - which idiot put the controls to achieve this on the OUTSIDE OF THE SHIP? I’ll let this usually ridiculous piece of sci-fi MacGuffin go, as it gets the Doctor outside to look into the heart of the sun and become infected by the parasite himself, leading to some of David Tennant’s finest work on the series.
The Doctor screams, he thrashes, he fights the infection, but ultimately it’s too strong for him and we’re faced with the sudden realisation that we can’t always rely on the him to save the day. Even I found this unsettling to see our hero so vulnerable, so Lord alone knows what my six-year old nephew made of it. We are now a world away from the sometimes-clownish Doctor we saw last year, and it lifts the series and takes us in new directions. And with the eagerly-anticipated Human Nature coming next week, I don’t think we’ve seen anything yet from one of the most talented actors we have.
With these sci-fi, spacey plots, we might have seen a loss of momentum from The Lazarus Experiment with the on-going story arc involving Martha’s family and the mysterious Mister Saxon. Cleverly, thanks to Martha’s now souped-up mobile, she’s able to phone her mum. And it looks like Saxon has got his claws into Mrs Jones, with some nasty looking people sitting in the background, tracing the intergalactic call. The fact the story allows room for this important sub-plot to still breathe is down to some nicely deft script editing. I don’t want to rush the series on, but I’m now pant-wettingly excited about the usually epic climax we’ve come to expect from previous series.
If there’s one final criticism of 42, it’s that the characters here aren’t particularly memorable. Even Michelle Collins (who I’ve never particularly rated) doesn’t really stand out as the ship’s captain. It’s no slur on the performers, they’re all good actors, but they fall victim to a story that is hung on image and moments rather than strong characterisation.
What 42 leaves you with is after-images of burning suns, scary Doctors, chilling bad guys, escape pods plunging into danger and Mister Saxon. And that’s no bad thing.
"Quick question – which idiot put the controls to achieve this on the OUTSIDE OF THE SHIP?"
The controls to do all that needed to be done were all on the inside of the ship - but had just been trashed (both the main controls and those by the pod release itself). The manual controls (presumably not normally needed in space) were the only ones outside (and in normal space conditions - again not likely to be that much of an issue to use).
I'm with you on this one Mark - though I know it's been slated from some corners I thought it was fine and your review identified the episodes forgivable problems. Shocked you didn't like Cyberwoman though - that was just golden!
Four words:
Doctor Who does Sunshine
"Four words: Doctor Who does Sunshine"
Huh? Apart from both featuring Suns I don't see the similarity.
Mark, you didn't like Cyberwoman? Reality was no one liked Torchwood with John "I'm a leading man" Barrowman!! What a panto!
Doctor Who... not bad at all. But rumour has it Cyberwoman returns as the very lovely Kylie!