Written by Steven Moffat
Directed by James Hawes
“Before this war started, I was a father and a grandfather. Now I’m neither…but I’m still a doctor.”
“Yeah…I know the feeling.”
That was absolutely bloody BRILLIANT! A smashing, evocative return to the heights of Doctor Who’s mid 1970s gothic reign of darkness.
What’s more interesting is that this was both the most frightening, dark, and terrifying episode of the season to date AND the funniest episode of the entire run. Bow down before the writing skills of Steven Moffat, life-long Who fan, and creator of the brilliant, raunchy BBC sitcom Coupling. His enthusiasm for what makes Doctor Who work best, combined with his comic genius, creates something truly special.
Now, let’s get the one thing out of the way that’s keeping this from being a 10 out of 10: the plot. There isn’t much of one — the episode is divided into (1) the Doctor stumbling into a situation, and investigating, and (2) Rose flirting with new boy Captain Jack Harkness. The entire episode is more concerned with mood, set up, backstory, and striking images. Not exactly substantial storytelling, but utterly compelling to watch.
Now that THAT’S out of the way…
Let’s say a word about Captain Jack, played with wonderful, smarmy hunkiness by John Barrowman. He’s an temporal-inter-galactic con-man, rouge, flirt, and sweet-natured criminal…lots of potential, yet to be tapped. We’ll see what part 2 brings, but so far, I like what I see…
…and what I see is some of the most outrageous flirting yet in this series! Rose and Jack are just the most cagey, lovey-doveys I’ve ever seen — they KNOW each other’s tricks, and they also realize how ridiculous the situation is, dancing on a cloaked ship, tethered to Big Ben, in the middle of the Blitz! Only Doctor Who does this sort of thing.
Then there’s the creepy horror stuffed into every nook and cranny of this episode. Take your pick:
—“Mummy…are you my mummy?” The creepiest kid EVER in television, walking around dark, bombed-out London, tuning on phones and radios, pleading for his mummy from behind his gas-mask. Wholesome, family entertainment, this show…
—Albion Hospital, with its cadre of dead, gas-masked stiffs, rising and falling in tandem
—Richard Wilson as the gravel-voiced, dying Dr. Constantine, whispering of what has happened before a horrifying transformation into one of the gas-masked freaks…
—the dark, gorgeous, creepy back streets and back alleys of a bombed-out London
This episode also has more good lines per square inch than any other Doctor Who story since 1979! Moffats peppers his script with humour that ranges from the sublime to the bawdy:
As Captain Jack rescues Rose in mid-fall…
JACK: “Can you turn off your cell phone? It’s interfering with my instruments.”
ROSE: “Who ever believes that?”
Jack, frustrated with the appearance of Rose and the Doctor…
JACK (about Rose, then the Doctor): “Flag girl is bad enough, but U-Boat capitan!?!?”
And THIS exchange…
JACK: “Nice to meet you, Mr. Spock.”
DOCTOR: “Mr. Spock?”
ROSE: “What was I supposed to say? You don’t even have a name! Don’t you ever get tired of DOCTOR? Doctor who?”
DOCTOR: “Nine centuries in, I’m coping.”
The Empty Child is an exercise in outrageous comedy and out and out horror. It would have been nice to get a bit more actual story, but there’s no denying that it’s a superb piece of creepy television. It gives us Christopher Eccleston’s most Doctor-ish performance, a companion both out of her depth AND totally in her element, and nightmarish scenes that would have scared the living hell out of me if I had watched this at the age of eight…
…and it ends brilliantly with a cliffhanger that tops Aliens of London! Tune in next week…
10…because it actually gets BETTER with age!
