1)Here we have the story that bridges the gap between the departure of Martha Jones and the return of Donna Noble. The main news is the stunt-casting of singer Kylie Minogue (I get the impression from RTD's book that he was just a wee bit star-struck by her) as space waitress Astrid Peth. Minogue does fairly well in the part - I never really thought of her as an actress, has she done much acting?

 

2)Tennant seems a bit washed out in this - although you could say it was the Doctor still recovering from the Master's latest shenanigans. He does get some good lines off, however.

 

3)We also see the return of a number of Doctor Who actors - the redoubtable Geofrrey Palmer, who appeared in a couple of Jon Pertwee stories, but who I will always think of as "the old guy from that one Britcom that the Old Man liked, and who plays the Captain here, Clive Swift, who played Jobel in the Colin Baker Dalek story ("Resurrection"? "Revelation"? "Recycling"?), and who plays Mr. Copper here, and of course, the mighty Bernard Cribbins, who played PC Campbell way back in the second Dalek movie, and who here plays a newsagent, who will later be retconned into Donna's granddad, Wilfred Mott.

 

4)The chief heel is Max Capricorn, who is sort of a cheerfully venal Davros, who would doubtless twirl his mustache if he had any arms.  His henchmen are the sufficiently creepy Heavenly Host, who remind me a bit of the Sand-Miner robots from "Robots of Death".

 

5)And of course, we get Midshipman Frame, played by Russell Tovey, whom our Russell seems to have a bit of a crush on, and whose character exists solely so that the Doctor can finally get to say "Allons-y, Alonzo!"

 

6)My big question about this story is, if these people are aliens from the planet Sto, how come they have Earth-derived names like "Copper", Astrid" and "Max Capricorn"?

 

7)I thought the bit with the Queen at the end was kind of goofy.

 

8)Some fun quotes:

  • "Information: You are all going to die."  Sort of like Marvel's Recorders.
  • "I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterberous".  First mention of Kasterberous in the new show, I think.
  • "What happened? Did they find a doughnut?"
  • "You might be a Time King form Gannaby, but you still need to eat."
  • "You look good for 903."  "You should see me in the mornings." "OK" 
  • "Take me to your leader. I've always wanted to say that."

 

Overall  An acceptable re-hash of The Posiedon Adventure that essentially exists to give Astrid her touching death scene and emphasize how lonely the Doctor is.

 

"In Memory of Verity Lambert, OBE 1935-2007"  Farewell to the Doctor's mother...

 

[Part of list of Doctor Who episodes here.]

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  • 3)We also see the return of a number ofDoctor Whoactors - the redoubtable Geofrrey Palmer, who appeared in a couple of Jon Pertwee stories, but who I will always think of as "the old guy from that one Britcom that the Old Man liked, and who plays the Captain here, Clive Swift, who played Jobel in the Colin Baker Dalek story ("Resurrection"? "Revelation"? "Recycling"?), and who plays Mr. Copper here, and of course, the mighty Bernard Cribbins, who played PC Campbell way back in the second Dalek movie, and who here plays a newsagent, who will later be retconned into Donna's granddad, Wilfred Mott.

    You know, I think I'd be happy just watching Geoffrey Palmer, Clive Swift and Bernard Cribbins stting around and shooting the breeze over coffee and doughnuts.

  • I bet there'd be alot of interesting stories, there.

  • The young Minogue had a popular role in a soap called Neighbours. It lead to her singing career. Jason Donovan, who played her boyfriend, got a singing career in Britain the same way.

     

    Her other roles include a part in Street Fighter (1994).

  • Interesting - never seen either of those, although I have played the video game Street Fighter.

  • Incidentally, the description "in the constellation of Kasterborous" is dubious, because the stars in a constellation need not be anywhere near each other. An individual looking at the same stars from another part of space would see different constellations.

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