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| First UK Transmission Date (BBC1) | Scheduled TX | Viewers |
| 28th May 2005 | 19:00 | 6.86m | Cast:
John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Richard Wilson (Dr. Constantine), Florence
Hoath (Nancy), Vilma Hollingberry (Mrs. Harcourt), Albert Valentine (Empty Child),
Cheryl Fergison, Damian Samuels, Robert Hands, Martin Hodgson, Joseph Tremain,
Jordan Murphy, Brandon Miller Crew:
Writer: Steven Moffat,
Director: James Hawes Synopsis: - The
Child’s plague is spreading throughout wartime London, and its zombie army
is on the march. 'The Doctor Dances' Background
and Summary: - Doctor Who had been restored to its usual time-slot,
word of mouth had spread the fact that The Empty Child had been excellent,
and even Radio One's Chris Moyles was waxing lyrical about the new series. For
whatever reasons, be it weather or the Bank Holiday, Doctor Who received
its lowest viewing figures to date.
It was, of course, a worse travesty
than the preceeding week because the resolution to the cliffhanger was extremely
clever, the last line before the title sequence extremely funny, and the rest
of the episode continued to build on that start.
Its hard not to write
a totally positive appraisal of The Doctor Dances. It resolves a superb
story with a lovely twist and the whole episode has a warmth which reminded many
a synical fan just why they loved this series so much. It is superbly written,
brilliantly acted, stunningly directed and is full of dialogue gems too many to
list.
The triangle of the Doctor, Rose and Jack continues to play out
brilliantly and results in some memorable exchanges. There are so many good jokes,
but they don't come at the expence of the flow of the narrative. The whole experience
of watching The Doctor Dances is heart-warming and by its conclusion, even
Captain Jack had won over many of his doubters.
In the ubiquitous fan-poll,
it scored almost identially to part one, with 92.9% rating it positively, of which
59.6% thought it was deserved full marks, and only 1.64% showing dislike. Fans
were, by this stage, overwhelmingly positive about episodes written by new writers
and generally cautious about episoes writted by Russell T Davies. Stephen Moffat
was the first writer to work on the new series who has not contributed something
significant to the Doctor Who universe such as New Adventure, or a Big
Finish audio, but his skill at handling television writing was very apparent.
Following this triumph, it was all a question of whether writer/producer
Russell T Davies could produce a satisfying lead-in to the season finale.
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Classic
Series Influences and References: | Buy
the Complete First Series
This
is an absolutely must for anyone who remotely enjoyed the new series of Doctor
Who. Unlikely the previous individual releases of episodes, the box set has extras
coming out of its ears. And whereas some box sets just have extras on the final
disc, this brilliant package has a selection of extras on each disk, plus the
entire set of Doctor Who confidential (cut down) on another disk.
Nothing
much needs saying about the episodes themselves but commentaries on certain episodes
are almost worth the price alone. The commentaries of Rose, The Unquiet
Dead and Dalek are of particular note and the video diaries of certain
members of the team are very interesting and fun. The TARDIS container is a nice
package and overall, believe me this set of DVDs is well worth the asking price,
or probably more! |
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