Check back in an hour for the review of "Tooth and Claw."
DOCTOR WHO REWATCH: SERIES TWO, EPISODE ONE: “NEW EARTH”
On the tenth Doctor’s and Rose’s first trip, they go to New
Earth, the consequence of the Earth being consumed by the sun, and relive their
first “date,” providing some excellent continuity before moving onto new
adventures. Said date includes Lady
Cassandra back from the dead and the Face of Boe being… Face of Boe-y.
Doctor Who: 1x01: “New Earth” Written by Russell T. Davies
The Summary:
Rose says goodbye to her mother and Mickey and then she’s
off with the Doctor to New Earth. When
they arrive, they are completely adorable and show off the chemistry between
Tennant and Piper before it’s down to business.
Someone has sent the Doctor a message on his psychic paper telling him
to go to the hospital of New New York, Ward 26.
But while they’re chilling in the apple-grass, someone is spying on them
and recognizes Rose as one of her murderers – it’s Lady Cassandra from “The End
of the World”! So, the Doctor and Rose
go to the hospital which is run by felinoids,
and they get separated. This is
also the hide out of Cassandra and her companion/servant Chip. Rose ends up in Cassandra’s basement where
she’s immediately confronted with Chip – being intensely genre savvy while also
being insanely curious, Rose picks up a piece of rebar as a weapon but follows
him anyway. There, she meets Cassandra,
who through reverse psychology or some-such gets Rose in position to take-over
her body. Meanwhile, the Doctor has made
it to Ward 26, where he learns the felinoid nuns are far more advanced in
medicine than they should be and the Face of Boe is probably the one to send
him the message as he’s apparently dying there.
(Novice Haim tells the Doctor that she can hear the Face of Boe singing “such
old songs” some times and if he really is the billion-plus year old Jack
Harkness, I desperately want one of those songs to be “Sexyback” by Justin
Timberlake.) He calls the now
Cassandra-possessed-Rose (further refered to as Cass!Rose) to come up to Ward
26. When she gets there, she snogs the
Doctor then helps him figure out that he should check “intensive care.” The ICU (ICW? ICD?) turns out to be a
laboratory, where the felinoid nuns are using cloned humans (possibly?) to
experiment on with diseases and come up with cures for them. Cass!Rose attacks the Doctor when he figures
out (finally) that something happened to Rose and sticks him in one of the pods
(which had been emptied out earlier by the felinoid nuns). She then tries to bribe the nuns (who are the
real villains of the story) into giving her hush money. They refuse, so she lets all the
disease-ridden people (and the Doctor) free.
The Doctor saves Cass!Rose in order to save Rose because a single touch
from any of the laboratory people would kill them instantly. They get separated from Chip, and a mad chase
ensues with Cassandra switching bodies back and forth between Rose and the
Doctor and once one of the laboratory people, who she says simply crave to be
held. They end up back in Ward 26, where
they get everyone to help them collect all the medications. The Doctor with Cass!Rose’s help dumps all
the medications into the elevator disinfectant which the Doctor uses to heal
everyone through hugs. While everyone is
happy and celebrating, the Doctor remembers that the Face of Boe is dying, so
he and Cass!Rose run up to see him, but he reveals he’d just punk’d! the Doctor
and wasn’t really dying. Then, it’s time
for the Doctor to deal with Cassandra, who transfers herself into Chip’s body,
which is failing. The Doctor and Rose
bring Cass!Chip back in time so Cass!Chip can tell past!Cassandra that she’s
beautiful. This is the second time we’ve
seen the Face of Boe, or is it?
The Women:
Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, Lady Cassandra, Sister Jatt,
Novice Haim, Matron Casp
The Conversations:
1. Rose and Jackie:
Rose and Jackie say their goodbyes as Rose leaves for more adventures
with the Doctor in the TARDIS. The
rating: 0.5
2. Rose and Lady Cassandra:
Rose and Cassandra recap their past on Platform One and discuss the
state of humanity in the future-present.
Chip doesn’t really belong in the conversation, but does interject a
couple times, the rating: 0.5
3. Rose and Lady Cassandra:
Cassandra takes over the Doctor’s body, and the two try to figure out
how to save themselves from being killed by 1,000 diseases all at once, mostly
by talking about what the Doctor would do.
The rating: 0
The Woman to Woman Quote of the Episode:
“Good luck.” – Rose Tyler (to Lady Cassandra)
It isn’t much of a quote, but context is all. Despite everything that Cassandra has done,
Rose sincerely wishes her luck in her final moments so Cassandra can feel
beautiful one last time.
The Tally:
Episode 2x01 Total: 1
Series 2 Total: 2.5
10th Doctor Total: 2.5
Rose as Companion Total: 19.0
Russell T Davis Era Total: 19.0
For Further Discussion: The Lady Cassandra: Meaningful Development of
a Villain
No spoilers for future episodes
The Lady Cassandra is introduced in “The End of the World” as
a very traditional female villain – her motivation being primarily vain: she
wants money in order to further her cosmetic surgeries.
Although they don’t abandon this key motivation and part of
her personality (along with her bigotry against non-“pure”-humans), I do think
she gets some development as not just a villain but as a female character.
It’s a bit spotty throughout since Cassandra’s motivations
for her anti-heroics is bigotry and money, but the main evidence is in her
first conversation with Rose and her last scene. When Rose first encounters Lady Cassandra, she
reveals two things. One, that the film
showing is of an event during which someone told her she was beautiful for the
very last time. And two, that Chip is
based on her favorite model. I said in the
review for “The End of the World” that RTD drew a hard line when it came to
cosmetic modification and perhaps it was too hard of a line, but I think this
softens that line quite a lot. There is
nothing wrong with wanting to be considered beautiful, and plenty of women (and
men) go to extreme measures in order to be attractive, and the expansion on
Cassandra’s motivation isn’t meant to excuse who she hurt, but it does make her
a much more well-rounded character. It’s
also telling that the last person to tell her she was beautiful was in fact
herself – because she knew just how much of her self-worth was wrapped up in
her beauty and how important it was that just one more person one more time
told her that she was beautiful.
Finally, Cassandra is not inhumanely devoid of emotion. Chip is the body from which Cassandra speaks
to her past self so present self bases her companions off the model she had of
Chip. And it’s that. Her loneliness and longing for companionship
from someone who truly adores her is her true motivation in all of this. And in that way, she is someone who matches
the Doctor, who seeks out companionship, not in the same way, but for the
reason of loneliness and someone who doesn’t hate him like he hates himself.
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