In which the Doctor takes a trip to the planet Mars. Exploring, he comes across an expedition from Earth. He finds himself captured by a small robot, and is forced to enter the base. Inside he meets the commander, Adelaide Brooke, and her colleagues. Second in command is Ed Gold, and the Doctor is also introduced to Yuri Kerenski, Mia Bennett, Steffi Ehrlich, Tarak Ital and Roman Groom. Two other crew members - Andy Stone and Maggie Caine - are in the hydroponics section, where Andy has just grown a crop of carrots - the first ever grown on Mars. The Doctor is initially held under suspicion as a member of a rival expedition, for this is supposed to be the first manned base on the planet - named Bowie Base One. The Doctor is shocked to hear this, as he knows something of the base's future. It was destroyed in an unexplained explosion on 21st November, 2059. The Doctor is horrified to discover that today is that day. He realises that he must leave, as this is a fixed point in time which cannot be altered. The death of Adelaide Brooke will inspire her granddaughter to become an astronaut, who will help usher in a new era of space exploration which will take the human race out into the cosmos. When the crew attempt to contact Andy and Maggie to come and meet the new arrival they hear an inhuman voice over the intercom.
The Doctor and Adelaide go with Tarak to the hydroponics dome where they find Maggie unconscious. They summon the robot, which Roman has nicknamed Gadget. They then see Andy attacking Tarak. His body is producing huge quantities of water which he is pouring onto Tarak. His eyes are white, and the skin around his mouth is cracked and blackened. Tarak becomes like him. The Doctor and Adelaide are forced to flee, with Andy and Tarak in pursuit. Maggie appears to be unharmed but is placed in an isolation booth in the sickbay. Yuri is the base medic and as he watches a video of his brother back on Earth, Maggie becomes fascinated with the images of the planet - especially its oceans. Yuri suddenly finds that Maggie has also been infected like Andy and Tarak. The Doctor tries to communicate with her and discovers that she is speaking an ancient Martian language. He and Adelaide investigate the cause of the infection. The base draws its water from an ice floe beneath the base. A filter in the hydroponics dome had failed, and the carrot crop has become infected. The Doctor recalls a parasite which the Ice Warriors had fought against, and he realises that it must have lain dormant in the ice. It was known as the Flood. He now knows why the base was destroyed, but still feels compelled to leave. He cannot prevent what is going to happen. Andy and Tarak continue to generate infected water, and are using it to break through the base's structure. Maggie has also managed to break out of the isolation area. A single drop of the infected water will mutate anyone it touches.
Adelaide has worked out that the Doctor knows something about what is happening, and forces him to tell her. He informs her of the base's destruction, but also about how it will inspire her granddaughter and what that will mean for the future of the human race. As the crew members begin to be taken over by the Flood, the Doctor dons his spacesuit and leaves the base. Ed is getting the rocket ready to take the survivors back to Earth when Maggie appears and infects him. He elects to self-destruct the vessel with himself on board, knowing that the Flood will infect everyone on Earth if it gets off Mars. The Doctor decides to go back to the base and save who he can. He is Time Lord - the last of the Time Lords - and is no longer bound by the laws of time. Adelaide is shocked by his actions, after everything he had told her about the future. She decides to activate the self-destruct - a nuclear explosive under the base. The Doctor uses Gadget to go and fetch the TARDIS, bringing it into the base just before it explodes, destroying the Flood. He manages to save Adelaide, Yuri and Mia. The TARDIS materialises outside Adelaide's home. Future history as been changed, and the Doctor exults in his new powers. Adelaide is appalled by his arrogant disregard for the future. She goes into her house and kills herself. History is put back on track, only now it is her grandmother's suicide which prompts Susie Fontana Brooke to follow in Adelaide's footsteps. The Doctor is left guilt-ridden at his hubris. He suddenly sees an image of Ood Sigma. Having gone too far, the Doctor thinks that perhaps it might be time for him to die. However, he returns to the TARDIS, determined to prolong the inevitable for as long as he can...
The Waters of Mars was written by Russell T Davies and Phil Ford, and was first broadcast on 15th November, 2009. It was the third of the one hour special episodes which followed Series 4, leading up to David Tennant's departure. The story had an on screen dedication to Barry Letts, producer of Doctor Who from 1970 - 1974, and exec-producer on Season 18. He had passed away on 9th October, 2009.
Originally, it was planned that this story would be broadcast at Christmas, with Tennant's swansong the following week at New Year. This is why the street where the TARDIS lands is covered in snow, and we would have seen the Bowie Base crew preparing for their first Christmas dinner on Mars. A working title had been "Red Christmas". As The End of Time expanded, it was decided to move this story to an earlier broadcast date. It was to have been shown on Saturday 21st November - the date which features in the story 50 years hence - but scheduling by the BBC moved it to the Sunday before this.
Phi Ford, who had become the lead writer on The Sarah Jane Adventures, had come up with a quite different story, called "A Midwinter's Tale", which would have featured an alien princess arrive on Earth, pursued by her enemies in what would have been more of a festive romp.
As with all of the 2009 Specials, the Doctor is partnered with a one-off "companion" - in this case Captain Adelaide Brooke, played by Lindsay Duncan. Davies had hoped to secure the services of Helen Mirren for the role, and the character was originally going to be Russian.
Ed Gold is played by former Neighbours star Peter O'Brien. He had featured in the second season of Davies' Queer As Folk, playing Doctor Who fan Vince's would be boyfriend - who gets dumped when he can't name all the actors who played the Doctor. Yuri is Bosnian actor Aleksandar Mikic. Mia is Gemma Chan. Playing Andy Stone we have the first appearance of Alan Ruscoe without being hidden under layers of latex. In Series 1 in 2005 he had been an Auton, a Slitheen, one of the Forest of Cheem, Trin-E and the Anne-Droid. Chook Ibtain (Tarak) had featured in Warriors of Kudlak - one of The Sarah Jane Adventures - as the villainous Mr Grantham. Maggie Caine is Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Roman Groom is Michael Goldsmith, and Steffi Erhlich is Cosima Shaw. Ironically, Shaw would go on to appear in the National Geographic TV series Mars.
Paul Kasey also makes an appearance - as Ood Sigma.
The Waters of Mars also features a cameo from a Dalek - their only appearance in David Tennant's final year. We see a flashback to an incident from Adelaide's youth, set during the events of The Stolen Earth, when she saw a Dalek flying in the sky outside her bedroom window which spared her life.
Overall, a fast paced adventure with some pretty scary monsters, of the old base-under-siege school.
Things you might like to know:
- This was director Graeme Harper' final Doctor Who story. He had directed fifteen stories in total, starting with 1984's Caves of Androzani, plus some SJA's.
- In deleted dialogue, the Doctor claimed that the Ice Warriors had failed to defeat the Flood, which is why they had abandoned Mars.
- The base is named after David Bowie, who had recorded the song Life on Mars for his 1971 album Hunky Dory. There is another Bowie reference hidden in the dialogue when Adelaide tells her crew that they won't see another human being for five years - Five Years being another Bowie title.
- The Doctor's spacesuit is the one he picked up on Sanctuary Base 6 on Krop Tor, in The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit.
- There is a mistake in one of the web news pages which we see about the destruction of the base. It claims that Adelaide had 7 people in her crew, when there were in fact 8.
- As the Doctor struggles with his decision whether or not to leave the base crew to their fate, we hear snippets of dialogue from earlier stories. These include Rise of the Cybermen, Doomsday, Gridlock, Utopia and The Doctor's Daughter.
- Carmen's prophesy from Planet of the Dead - presaging his demise - appears to be coming to fruition when the Doctor hears Andy knock three times on the door. The Doctor sends an electric shock through the door to prevent him knocking for the fourth time.
- Davies was inspired to create the robot Gadget after watching the Pixar movie Wall-E.
No comments:
Post a Comment