Season 2, Episode 12 - Army of Ghosts
Right from the cold open we see this is the end of Rose. Not only does she lets us know we are about to see how she died, this is rammed home with a rather blatant shot of The Doctor asking how long Rose will be staying and her answering, "For ever." Having Rose narrate this opening gives it a touch of The Companion Show, featuring The Doctor. Of course, the reboot started very much from Rose's perspective, so her departure using that perspective is fairly natural.
The Doctor and Rose arrive back in London in time to witness an appearance of the now commonplace Ghosts. Jackie believes one of the Ghosts to be her long dead father, but The Doctor immediately brings her back to reality, theorising that something is pressing itself into our world. The Ghost's origins are rather quickly spoiled for us viewers with some cutaways of Torchwood doing their thing, complete with a familiar face
Hello, I'm Totally-Not-Martha
Of course, they could still be actual ghosts, even if Torchwood are responsible for it, right? Well, no. We get a pretty clear shot of a Cyberman early on as they attack Totally-Not-Martha. I feel it could have been better if this was left a bit more mysterious, keeping the blurry silhouette behind the plastic. Of course the ear buds could be a bit of a give away, but all the workers are wearing them, and if subtly shot, it would work quite well as a tease for the quicker viewers.
Add to that another of Torchwood's toys, The Sphere. It has a nice chunk of exposition which was delivered reasonably well and is set up as nicely menacing. The science doesn't really work, but that actually works to its advantage.
"As a scientist, nothing scares me more than poor science."
The Doctor manages to use some doohickeys (again, not the sonic) to follow the ghost energy back to Torchwood. Having him take Jackie and pass her off as Rose was quite funny but did highlight the Hot Young Things Only Policy he seems to have.
Their introduction to Torchwood plays out well and all of the "showing off" manages to introduce some key elements for the resolution of the story in a relatively natural way. The Doctor's reaction to the sphere, now identified as a Void Ship, shows us this is something to fear perhaps more so than the ghosts themselves. And I actually love Yvonne Hartman's reaction to The Doctor here.
Oh, exactly as the legends would have it. The Doctor, lording it over us. Assuming alien authority over the rights of Man.
And that's it, isn't it? It's fine when The Doctor messes about with something just because it's there, even if he doesn't know what he's doing. Nobody else is allowed to though. They are all too stupid.
Rose manages to sneak off to do some investigating on her own, psychic paper in hand. Apparently that stuff seems to work on ID card readers now. That was a bit annoying, but easily explained away, I suppose.
Rose manages to sneak off to do some investigating on her own, psychic paper in hand. Apparently that stuff seems to work on ID card readers now. That was a bit annoying, but easily explained away, I suppose.
There's a brain in every door.
And although things don't go exactly as planned for Rose, we get a nice little surprise with the return of Mickey, now with even more badass skills. God I love Mickey. The poor bloke had is so hard for so long. It was good to see him develop far beyond the joke he was at the start.
Anyway, as things start to predictably go wrong, we see the ghosts are in fact an army of Cybermen invading from the alternate universe seen in Rise of the Cybermen / Age of Steel. Mickey assumes the occupant of the Void Ship is some kind of Cyberman Leader, but in the closing moments we find out it is in fact...
Overall, this has some good pacing. As I've said before, pacing is usually less of an issue in two-parters though. Apart from going a bit too early on the full Cyberman reveal we are brought through what is essentially a whole bunch of plot exposition and set-up for part two with no real padding or boring bits.
Yep. Those guys again.
Overall, this has some good pacing. As I've said before, pacing is usually less of an issue in two-parters though. Apart from going a bit too early on the full Cyberman reveal we are brought through what is essentially a whole bunch of plot exposition and set-up for part two with no real padding or boring bits.
It was fun to see The Doctor put in his place a bit. He's always interesting when he's on the back foot. Yvonne was a bit weak as a pseudo villain though. Seems they tried to make her more of an officious manager than the domineering head of a secret alien-hunting task force. There were glimpses of that character there, but not really enough.
A good beginning of the end for Rose, and definitely worth subsequent viewings.
9/10
Can we fix it?
Only a few tweaks needed here. Simplest change is to lessen the initial Cyberman reveal to keep them secret a bit longer. A bit of classic monster-vision could have worked, or just the close up scream shot. The first time we should see any bit of an actual Cyberman is when they burst through the plastic sheeting in classic Tomb of the Cybermen style. This means watchers who haven't guessed from the earbuds or the sounds of upgrades are still reeling from this reveal as the invasion happens only to have that compounded by the emergence of the Daleks from the Void Ship.
Mostly I'd like to see a bit of a change in Yvonne Hartman. I feel she would have been better played as a bit of a cold-hearted bitch who slaps on the friendly façade as a "management tool". I reckon she may have been written like that but it didn't come through in the performance.
The dual personalities could easily work with little to no change in script. When Yvonne asks for hospitality to send Raj something she sounds friendly, but when she specifies "not alcohol" it's delivered as a bit of a joke. I think changing the delivery of this line to be more mean spirited would change the time of the character entirely. It goes from "get him something to cheer him up, but no booze because that could make him worse LOL!" to "get him something to distract him from the tedium of his task because that's bad for productivity, but not booze because we can't have too much fun."
There are points where Yvonne seems to drop the friendly exterior, such as when Jackie talks about using the gravity clamps to carry shopping, and when The Doctor demands they return the sphere to the void. Sadly she only gets a little condescending or snappish. It would be good to see this happen with the staff too. Maybe being a little more catty when Adeola and Gareth go off for their little liaison.
It would be nice to see that friendly mask slip more and more as the episode progresses. Eventually she is left ineffectually fuming at her loss of control, showing her as one of those bi-polar office tyrants that are your best mate when things are going well but go insane when things don't go their way.
Imagine someone like that in charge of a secret paramilitary alien hunting organisation.
Terrifying.
