Doctor Who - The Empty Child

First off more crazy piloting of the TARDIS, I like it. It looks like it's a handful to fly and that's pretty funny. Then the line about Mauve being the intergalactic colour of danger, whereas red is just camp. Ha ha.

Of course all the jolly jokes were just a setup to what was a very creepy and scary episode. Rose gets into trouble immediately, clinging in a somewhat unlikely fashion to a barrage balloon. Okay special effects but a bit silly. Still it got her out of the way so that the Doctor could investigate some spooky stuff.

A child in a gas mask calling "mommy, mommy". Very creepy. And a load of street kids sneaking into houses during air raids to eat their food, nice. I like the Doctor's ability to deal with the kids, even if he is 900 years old. And all this happening during the blitz just added to the drama. That's a time that everyone in the UK has heard stories of, often from grandparents, and we can't really begin to imagine how terrifying it must have been.

Then Rose meets a Time Agent who she obviously fancies, and he tries all his moves on her. I liked his funky spaceship, very Jules Verne. But of course the guy is a con merchant.

The Doctor goes to see "The Doctor" who turns out to be Richard Wilson! He gets to do his trademark grumpiness for a few minutes before a gas mask grows on his face. Good morph there, scary, suffocating use of the CGI.

And so it ends with the Time Agent bloke, The Doctor and Rose trapped in a room full of gas mask faced zombie people. Scary!

I thought that this was a great episode, even though it was just part one of the story. The gas mask child was genuinely creepy and I can imagine a few kids having nightmares about gas masks. Giving Rose a new person to banter with was a good idea, it worked well and the Doctor interacting with the kids was great.

I can't wait for the concluding episode, I hope it wraps up nicely...