Boom Town

"We've got a prisoner. The police box really is a police box!"

Writer: Russell T Davies

Format: TV

Broadcast: 4th June 2005

Series: 1.11

Featuring: Ninth Doctor, Rose, Captain Jack, Mickey

Synopsis 

The Doctor and his companions, Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness travel to modern day Cardiff and meet up with Rose's boyfriend, Mickey. There, they discover that their thought dead foe, Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen is very much alive. Without an easy escape route from the planet, she is willing to rip the planet apart to ensure her freedom.

Verdict 

Boom Town was a fantastic penultimate story to the first series of the revived Doctor Who! It's fair to say that the series as a whole has been a major success with some instant classics such as Dalek and The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. But here we had a sequel to Aliens of London/World War Three and it was excellent! I really liked the storytelling of the characters as well as the plot itself which was pretty basic yet effective. The return of a Slitheen is a good thing I think as I'd think they'd be popular amongst the youth but after a successful novel in The Monsters Inside I think they're more popular with the more astute fans such as myself. The fact that Margaret was the sole survivor of the missile strike of Downing Street was very good and the reason of her survival was logical which was nice. Something that can't be said for the Dalek in Victory of the Daleks. The humour between Margaret and the Doctor was brilliant throughout the episode with the Doctor going to her office, preventing teleportation and then having dinner and stopping himself from being poisoned. After the events of the yet to be blogged previous story, the TARDIS team really has improved with the addition of Captain Jack and I love how someone with a similar knowledge and presence as the Doctor is now companion. The humour regarding the plan in the Mayor's building was fantastic. I really liked the many references to past stories with An Unearthly Child, The End of the World and The Unquiet Dead all wonderfully referenced. I loved in particular how the Doctor loved having the TARDIS stuck as a police box. It's nice to know that he's fond of a glitch that occurred all those years ago in 1963. The continuation of the rift from the latter mentioned episode was good and it's nice to see, with Jack here to experience it, that the origins of Torchwood are being created. The way Margaret was touched in the toilet scene was nice, she wouldn't bring herself to murder a pregnant women having lost all her family. I wasn't keen on the Doctor dismaying the 'Blaidd Drwg' reference. For someone so intelligent he really is quite blind in missing continued links that form the series arc. The use of the extrapolator locking on to the TARDIS and draining its power was a good plan and the fact that the heart of the TARDIS caused the defeat was pretty good too! I'm not sure if I liked that Margaret became an egg but the idea of second chances is cool with me. Mickey was a bit out of his depth here and I'm not a fan of his character during series one I must admit. He's just annoying and stupid really which is a shame because someone like Rose would deserve so much better than a whiny idiot. Overall, a good episode with great storytelling! Very enjoyable. 

Rating: 8/10