Colin’s Film Journal

The second series of Doctor Who has come to an end. This year was a bit of a rollercoaster both in terms of storylines and quality - we’ve seen some of the best the show has to offer, but we’ve also seen some of the worst.

David Tennant always had a difficult task in replacing Christopher Eccleston, but he did a fine job. Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty to criticise - the gurning, the overacting to name but two, but he had to be significantly different to the previous Doctor. Some of the problems were down to the way he was written, but on the whole Tennant was ‘The Doctor’ in every sense of the name.

Billie Piper on the other hand didn’t live up to her promise - after surprising everyone in her first year on the show, she’s been increasingly sidelined and it didn’t come as a surprise to anyone who had been paying attention that she was going to be written out of the show. Thankfully her swansong was a strong episode and perfectly judged by Russell T Davies. Piper’s acting had left something to be desired throughout most of this year but she lived up to the challenge of the finale.

The problem is, Davies has now taken the series further into the realms of fandom than ever before. Pitting the Daleks and Cybermen against eachother should have been every fan’s dream, but it played second fiddle to Piper’s departure and was a bit of a damp squib. I can only hope that the REAL Cybermen appear next year and show us just how they’re supposed to be - none of this crying nonsense!

Series 2 was good - not as good as series 1, but then that would have been difficult. Next year will be the one to make or break the new series and if some more adventurous stories and more serious writing don’t appear soon a lot of fans are likely to start abandoning ship. So, Russell, please can we avoid the council estates of ‘London’ and concentrate on more travels in Space and Time?