Doctor Who: The Next Doctor (2008)

It's Christmas in Victorian London and The 10th Doctor shows up there currently companionless which will be important. On arriving he hears a woman screaming for The Doctor but when he gets there he meets what seems to be the product of a future regeneration (complete with a companion named Rosita -- Very subtle, Mr Davies!) but this new Doctor has no memory of anything from before he recently got attacked by Cybermen. This is an interesting idea that RTD wastes no time playing around with.The titular character is, of course, not an incarnation of The Doctor but is in fact a human named Jackson Lake who got attacked by a group of Cybermen and, through an astoundingly unlikely series of events came to believe he was a newly regenerated Doctor. David Morrisey plays the role and does a pretty good job of it too. It allows for a nice role-reversal as David Tennant's Tenth Doctor is relegated to companion to Lake's apparent Doctor and RTD uses this concept to its full potential, taking advantage of the current absence of a companion, and you'll really wish Morrisey could be The Doctor at some point in the future -- although that's pretty much impossible now.The weak point of the episode lands in the tricky balancing act of maintaining Lake's story at the same time as that of the villain, Mercy Hartigan, who is working with the Cybermen to awaken their king that they may conquer the universe. Hartigan is played by Dervla Kirwan who does her best with what she has to work with but sadly her character is wasted. What starts as a cruel and calculated menacing figure when she turns up at a funeral and deadpans that several invitees are to die doesn't take long to descend into pantomime territory as she ends up piloting a giant Cyberman that threatens to crush London.The giant Cyberman is the Cyberking and it is a poorly realised monster. It is effectively an oversized steampunk Cyberman and the production team seem very self-aware of the ridiculousness of it as we only get to see it properly a couple of times as The Doctor's main confrontation with it is actually with its pilot Miss Hartigan. Tennant and Kirwan both deliver a great performance here but the situation is a little daft and it falls to the two actors to make it work. Thankfully they do exactly that with ease and the end result is a very memorable confrontation as the villain is, upon her defeat, ultimately a victim of her own actions but her demise is still very unpleasant, especially for a Christmas Special.This is not quite an excellent episode but still very good and, most importantly for a Christmas Special, lots of fun. Davids Tennant and Morrisey are both excellent together and if you ignore the poor production of the Cyberking at the end you'll find an episode that is extremely creative and manages to pull off a bizarre set of ideas with a surprising level of success. 8/10

The Tardis lands in Victorian London at Christmas. Hearing someone calling his name, the Doctor rushes off, to find a young woman cowering in terror from something behind a locked door. A young man ( David Morrissey ) in Dickensian clothes appears, proudly announces himself as the Doctor, and takes charge of the situation...Another Christmas, another 'Dr.Who' Christmas Special. I enjoyed this one, but for a change I'll start this review by stating what I did not like about it. Firstly, the Cybershades were awful, reminiscent of the sticky tape and cardboard box monsters of the classic series. It was impossible to be unnerved by creatures that looked exactly like what they were - blokes in gorilla suits wearing coal scuttles. Worse, there was no need for them to be there. Cybermats could have been used instead. Secondly, the mystery of the 'next Doctor' was unnecessarily protracted. All the Doctor had to do was to whip out a stethoscope and listen to Lake's heart ( apparently such a scene was filmed but deleted from the finished broadcast ) to see if he was a Time Lord. Lake believed himself to be the Doctor after being exposed to a backfiring info stamp. Now we know Morrissey will not be the eleventh Doctor - thank heavens for that. Colin Baker was wrong when he said the role of the Doctor was 'actor proof'. The wrong person in the role would kill the show forever. Morrissey was hammy as 'the Doctor' yet first-rate as 'Lake'. Loved his 'sonic screwdriver'! His 'companion' was called 'Rosita' in a nice homage to Billie Piper's 'Rose'. The Cybermen seemed a bit wasted, getting to do little more than march about and look menacing. The scene in which they attacked funeral mourners was brilliant though, emerging through a snowstorm just as they did back in 1966's 'The Tenth Planet'. The real villainy came from sexy Dervla Kirwan as 'Miss Hartigan', easily the best female villain in the show for some time. She had joined forces with the Cybermen to help them construct a 'Cyber King', a giant Cyberman who proceeded to stamp Godzilla-like on poor old London Town.Why did the Cybermen need children to work in their factory? Surely adults could have done the job more efficiently.Tennant as ever performed wonders with what was basically an average script. The appearance of the earlier Doctors was nice, and there were some good jokes. As I said earlier, I liked this very much, and, following its repeat at Christmas 2010 ( presumably to take away the bad taste left by the appalling 'A Christmas Carol' ) enjoyed it even more. The Russell T.Davies era of 'Dr.Who' looks more and more impressive with each passing year.

The Next Doctor as a whole was "okay". The script was very dull. The saving grace was David Morrissey playing the said 'Next Doctor'. His performance was astoundingly good - really exceptional - he gave it all he had; but definitely wasn't OTT (like his counterpart). Mr Morrissey exhibited a quality well above this production, and it blew me away. I shall certainly be looking out for him in future. The stand-out factor of the show was the giant robot at the end rising from the Thames and stomping on Olde Worlde London; it really did look fantastic and the CGI dept did a very fine job indeed. The big aspect of the show that genuinely upset me was their use of a REAL graveyard to shoot a Cyberman group attack scene; it was covered with paper snow and the actors were running/falling all over the graves, which for me personally isn't acceptable for any production. The graveyard could easily have been constructed in a studio, thus negating this most disrespectful behaviour. Overall, not a bad show; however it was just the talent of David Morrissey and the giant robot that saved it, otherwise it would have been totally forgettable.

This Doctor Who episode was featured as the main programme of the evening on Christmas Day 2008, I have to admit I'm not really a Dr Who Fanatic as I've only dipped in and out of the Current Series although I have found David Tennant The Best 'Doctor' of all time a huge improvement on Christopher Eccleston who made the character Too cocky and unlikeable.The Story starts as The Doctor (David Tennant) arrives in London during the Christmas of 1851.... He soon becomes puzzled as there seems to be another 'Doctor' (David Morrissey) along with his companion Rosita (Velile Tshabalala)Soon enough The Cybermen are on their tail along with a mysterious lady, Mercy Harttigan (Dervla Kirwan) and both men have to work together to defeat Evil and save the World.Pretty Good Christmas Fare - One of the better episodes****1/2 out of *****