What the Dickens?!

Ghosts and Charles Dickens.

That is the four-word summary of this episode.

Here is the longer summary:

What Happens?

There's a lovely dead woman.

But she must have missed part of the memo.

Favorite Color: Ectoplasm Blue
Hobbies: Going to book readings by famous authors.

"Don't judge me by my skin color. That's racist!"
"Ma'am, this is 1869."
"Point taken."

Fortunately for those who don't want to turn into the Walking Dead, Rose and the Doctor are here to save the day!

Oh, and there's Charles Dickens, who appears to enjoy compliments.

"Keep talking. I like hearing that I'm the best."

So everyone ends up fairly quickly at Sneed & Company, where Mr. Sneed and his perky assistant Gwyneth are trying to stop the stiffs from walking.

At the Doctor's suggestion, they hold a seance, and some weird ghost people appear.

And some of the guests are surprised.

This is my reaction to most of the show.

The ghostly things are the Gelth, who were killed in the Time War, whatever that was, and they need to inhabit the dead in order to gain physical form once again. The Doctor and Gwyneth are convinced that no harm will come from them, even though Gelth-Possessed Grandma strangled an innocent man.

This is actually the standard Gelth greeting.

So our gang of five gather in the morgue, where Gwyneth stands under an arch and opens some sort of doorway by puking ghosts.

"What in the world did you eat?"

Aaaaaaaaaaand not surprisingly, they turn out to be evil.

I totally did not see this coming.

They even murder and zombify poor Mr. Sneed, who totally didn't deserve it.

"She seemed like she might know something. This is a sensible thing to do."

Gwyneth decides that her "angels" might not be so angelic after all, and closes the rift, somewhat dramatically.

It wouldn't be a Doctor Who episode without an explosion.

And with the exception of Mr. Sneed and Gwyneth, everything gets wrapped up beautifully.

So overall, I actually did not like this episode, and I'll go over a few specific reasons why not.

Charles Dickens: Human or Quote Machine?

One fun thing you can do with a show about time travel is to stick long-dead historical characters into your episodes. But if you really want to do that effectively, you have to show their human side - what really makes them tick. This is not what was done with the character of Dickens, who served more as a plot device for Dickens-y quotes than anything else. 

I'll give you an example: 

Doctor: "I did try but Gwyneth was already dead. She had been for at least five minutes."

Rose: "What do you mean?"

Doctor: "I think she was dead from the minute she stood in that arch."

Rose: "But she can't have. She spoke to us. She helped us. She saved us. How could she have done that?"

Dickens: "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. Even for you, Doctor."

Look how snobby he looks while he's saying it.

Three points about that. 

First, two people just died. Why is this a good time to quote Shakespeare?

Second, Dickens has spent the entire episode doubting the Doctor's wild explanations, and now he believes them. But that does not mean that the Doctor has been close-minded. If anything, he should have said "my philosophy", since it was Dickens who had the limited philosophy in the first place.

Third, Dickens knows nothing about the Doctor's philosophy, nor does he know a whole lot about what there is on heaven or earth. So he can't really make a comment about how those two sets intersect.

And there are plenty more reasons why nobody would ever have said that in that context. My point is - the writers clearly wanted to add some sort of recognizable quote, and did so in a really clunky way.

My bigger point is that besides clunky quotes and the not-particularly-funny humor of having a story of Charles-Dickens-with-ghosts, Dickens didn't really add anything to the episode.

Charles Dickens: Human or Completely Unphased by Death?

A building explodes, killing at least two people that he just got to know. Three minutes later, the expression on Charles Dickens' face is this:

"Oh I've learned so much! What people look like when they're about to die! How the world could come to an abrupt end by people walking through the wrong doorways! This is so exciting! I'm going to go light my family on fire because everyone loves a Christmas fire! Hooray!"

It's almost as disturbing as how Rose just completely forgets about Mickey in Rose. 

The Gelth

When I was first presented with the Gelth and their problem, I thought that it could pose an interesting ethical problem for the Doctor and for Rose. And the Gelth kind of had a perfectly reasonable request. But then they turned into demons and started killing people unnecessarily, and it took away a large part of the moral dilemma, turning the ending of this episode into yet another good-versus-evil type drama.

Also, the Gelth are pretty stupid. Here's a picture of one explaining to Charles Dickens exactly how to kill them.

"Just flood the room with gas and we'll all die. Other effective weapons against us include famous authors, psychic girls, explosions, and bad jokes."

What Does Rose Have Against Cardiff?

When the Doctor is explaining that he messed up the TARDIS flight, Rose cheerfully doesn't care that it's 1869 or that it's not London, but she suddenly pauses and gets a bit nervous, it seems, when the Doctor says that they landed in Cardiff. What's wrong with Cardiff? That scene just struck me as either unnecessary or weird.

The Doctor's Super Vision

Not to be confused with the fact that he's supervising ... something.

When Rose is kidnapped by Sneed and Gwyneth, the Doctor runs out of the theater and somehow knows that she's inside the hearse. How does he know that? He was still in the theater when she got chloroformed.

"Follow that hearse! I love a good morgue. I'm sure Rose will be fine wherever she went."

Selfish Doctor

When Rose and the Doctor are trapped in the dungeon surrounded by zombies, they pretty much agree that Rose will die, and then the Doctor says this:

Doctor: "What about me? I saw the fall of Troy; World War V. I've pushed boxes in the Boston Tea Party. Now I'm gonna die in a dungeon! In Cardiff..."

That's got to be one of the more self-centered attitudes that I've seen from the Doctor so far, but I don't like it. You can even see Rose's disgust that that's what concerns him at this moment.

"Yeah, that's worse than dying in a dungeon in Cardiff after having spent my life working in a shop."

So as you might have guessed, overall, I did not enjoy this episode a whole lot. It had its moments, but I'd rate it the weakest of the first three (that's not exactly the lowest standard though...).

NEXT EPISODE: ALIENS OF LONDON

Aliens that destroy iconic buildings! Aliens in the middle of London! Aliens that look like people! Oh my!

Free zipper with every brain surgery. Limited time offer!
(Glowing blue brain not included)