Aliens of London

"The nations of the world are watching the United Kingdom."

Writer: Russell T Davies

Format: TV

Broadcast: 16 April 2005

Series: 1.04

Featuring: Ninth Doctor, Rose

Synopsis

The Doctor takes Rome home, but when a spaceship crash-lands in the Thames, London is closed off and the whole world goes on red alert. While the Doctor investigates the alien survivor, Rose discovers that her home is no longer a safe haven.

Verdict

Aliens of London was an excellent episode of Doctor Who to continue my rewatching of the first series of the modern era! As will be the case for all of the modern stories I am re-blogging, I was once again watching with Gemma and I have to admit that I did enjoy seeing her jump as the skinned body of the Prime Minister fell out of the cupboard in Downing Street. This is certainly another bold episode considering how new Doctor Who was to many viewers at the time and I am sure that a lot of the old viewers were still adjusting to the new format, so giving them a cliffhanger finish was nice and I thought the moments leading up to that conclusion were superb. It really is an excellent conclusion with the the Doctor, Rose and Jackie all in separate trouble. One thing I really did notice is how terrible the timing of the 'Next Time' trailer is because literally a few seconds after seeing the Doctor being electrocuted, we know he's going to be absolutely fine and running around next week. Now, that's no issue with the episode itself that just caught me off guard and I'd have been disappointed had I seen this on broadcast. Now, the episode starts in a fun way with the Doctor telling Rose it's only been 12 hours since she kissed Mickey goodbye and ran away with the Doctor at the end of Rose. In actuality, it had been 12 months! Jackie's reaction to seeing her daughter who she thought was dead was fantastic and the reality of this episode was hugely impressive. Jackie was magnificent and her 'stitch this' line to the Doctor followed by the slap was superb. The moment where the alien spaceship descends over London and crashes into Big Ben before plunging into the Thames was brilliant and I loved the reaction of the Doctor when he realised he was living in genuine history. I am getting a newfound love for Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor and I really do think I'm enjoying this incarnation more on this rewatch. He was absolutely revelling in the situation which was lovely to see and how much he enjoyed being escorted to Downing Street was terrific. Rose also found herself overwhelmed which was good to see and it sold the importance of the episode's events. I thought the introduction of Harriet Jones was a great deal of fun and she's such a likeable character and it works so well to have her in hiding find out the truth about the Slitheen and them literally being behind those in power in Britain following the enactment of the Emergency Protocols. The involvement of UNIT is a lovely nod to the past and Mickey picking up on the Doctor's past with them was marvellous stuff. I thought he was wonderful in this episode with him knowing exactly where Rose had gone for twelve months so when he saw the Doctor he got desperate. The banter surrounding his name being Ricky was a lot of fun! The constant farting of the Slitheen is a bit silly, but it does actually make sense from a logical standpoint with them squeezing into human skin. The sequence of the UFO crash itself coupled with all of the news reporting is sublime and I love how the Doctor is just stuck at Rose's watching history unfold on the television. I was a big fan of the subtle introduction of the character who would go onto become Tosh in Torchwood and her work on the Space Pig was fantastic. The whole concept of aliens faking an alien landing and having the world on red alert is brilliant because the Doctor's realisation of the plot being to get the world's experts together to kill them off was magnificent. It's a great cliffhanger combined with Rose and Harriet in trouble upstairs whilst Jackie is having trouble with a Slitheen policeman. Overall, a brilliant episode!

Rating: 9/10