guards deposited me on my arse in an alley behind their building.)  Therefore, I now sit across the street from the famed television studio atop the roof of another Marlyebone High Street office building, hunkered down and prepared for some advance science fiction reconnaissance.

Having fashioned a MacGyver-esque receiver consisting of an old Direct TV satellite mini-dish, some rubber bands and a tad bit of duck tape, I am once again poised (under a tarp of course… rains like hell in this bloody country) to provide you with the most up to date assessment of your favorite Time Lord’s third season traipsing about the galaxy in the TARDIS.  There are high hopes that the departure of Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) will bring  about a much needed serious  push in the tone of  the show,  as well as allow David

Tennant's Doctor to develop a greater sense of individuality beyond the relationships forged by his predecessor, Christopher Eccleston. And so without further delay, please read on to get a sneak peek on season three of the new Doctor Who. 

Please be warned – mild spoilers ahead!

(Never a good idea, as it only serves to alienate previous viewers.)  Would our hero be cranky the whole episode then learn to be happy again as a cheesy sort of ‘Christmas lesson’?  (A tired cliché, and Who uses enough of those as it is.)

Luckily I was wrong on both counts, and we ended up with a decent enough holiday adventure.  Essentially it’s the typical old alien “I’m here to take over Earth!” plotline set in modern day London, but recycled to involve our temporary companion Donna (the afore mentioned bride, played by Catherine Tate) as well  as include a few unexpected plot twists.  Surprisingly I enjoyed this

story more than last years special, mainly due to the fact that it was packed with a lot more action and less blubbery family emotions.  I suspect Tennant’s familiarity with the role of the Doctor also lent some added enjoyment to it.

The Good...
- The TARDIS spinning wildly down the freeway after a runaway cab.  Rarely have I found myself cheering out loud at an episode of Doctor Who.
- British comedienne Cathrine Tate as the bride.  This Emmy winning comic’s sharp wit and humor helped carry along what could have been some drab scenes.

- The quick jaunt in the TARDIS to the beginning of the Earth’s formation… a beautifully pensive moment in Who history as our two companions gaze out at a cosmic wonder.

The Bad...
- The recycling of the plot.  Aren’t aliens out to do more than just take over the world and use our planet’s resources?
- The inclusion of the evil Santa robot guys… I’m sure we can get a tad bit more original with our minions, even during Christmas time.
- The freeway chase (yes it can be good and bad).  I can’t help but wonder if a physically flying TARDIS infringes a little on Who mythos for the sake of action.

03/31/07 - Smith & Jones begins the regular season three with a fantastic balance of story and introductory plot for our new companion, Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman). The Doctor has checked himself into a London hospital because of some strange energy he sensed with his Spidey-sense Time Lord Instincts, where he meets Martha.  It turns out the strange energy was a ‘teleportation’ beam of sorts, as shortly after he arrives the hospital is whooshed off the Earth in a big blue beam, and appears neatly on the surface of the Moon.  Thankfully supplied neatly with a force field to hold the air in and full Earth-strength gravity, otherwise we would have just had an episode full of a bunch of floating blue corpses.  Although I still  haven’t worked out how they kept warm…

It shortly becomes apparent that the Judoon, intergalactic rhino-esque mercenaries, have relocated the hospital in order to search for what they simply describe as “an alien.”  However, it turns out they’re not after our favorite Time Lord, but are instead searching for a blood sucking, shape-shifting assassin.  What follows is an entertaining game of cat and mouse between the Judoon, our heroes, and the blood-sucking baddie.  In the end, the Doctor offers Martha a single ride through time to thank her for her assistance in saving the unfortunate hospital staff members and patients who were caught up in the hunt.

The Good...
- Our new companion, Martha.  Far more charismatic and playful than the annoyingly giddy second season Rose, she brings a well needed human touch to the new season.
- The Judoon’s effects.  Even after two well done seasons, it’s still fantastic to see believable aliens in what used to be a severely budget challenged show.
- The music… A haunting, unique chorus that rings slightly familiar of the first season’s score.  Very memorable and certainly mood enhancing.

The Bad...
- The older woman playing the blood-sucking alien.  She just wasn’t… menacing enough.  Imagine a little old lady advancing on you with a drinking straw…
- …Speaking of, her positively lame use of a regular old plastic straw to suck blood.  Fucking dumb.
- The inclusion of Martha’s family.  I know it’s necessary to set up the character, but I really hope we don’t get caught up the family drama (a la last season’s continual Tyler family escapades).

04/07/07 - Our heroes are off to the past to visit 1599 London.  The plan?  Laugh at a few beggars, step lightly around the open air in-street sewage system, and see an original play by William Shakespeare.  Martha and the Doctor arrive (conveniently of course) as some mysterious events begin to plague the arts district history’s favorite scribe is working in.  Some further investigations lead to a discovery of what appears to be a coven of three diabolical witches.  Even stranger, they seem to be taking a keen interest in a particular theater with a rather unusual architectural design.  The Doctor intuits that the three witches aren’t witches at all, but an ancient race of creatures banished to an alternate  dimension  long  ago…  except  these  three  of  course…    Their interest in the

theater, and in one of Shakespeare’s lost plays with a particular word sequence, all have to do with efforts to recover the lost members of their banished race.

In the end the Doctor, Martha and old Will Shakespeare himself (charismatically played by Dean Lennox Kelly) manage to stave off the invasion of evil beings from their banished dimension.  In fact it’s Martha who comes through at the last minute of a ‘reverse banishment’ spell with the use of a Harry Potter inspired magical word (the Doctor even exclaims “Thank you, J.K!” as in

JK Rowling).  Is her quick thinking in a moment of danger reason enough for the Doctor to keep traveling with Ms. Jones?  I’ll venture a guess and say yes.

The Good...
- Clever plot!  The stage, the lost Shakespearian play, the ‘power words’… there is some excellent sci-fi writing here that will have the geek inside you giddy for more.
- The witches were played up enough to be a suitably evil and disturbing nemesis for the Doctor.
- Setting.  1599 London has never been done so well for a Who episode.  The increased budged continues to serve its viewers well.

04/14/07 - Every once in a few episodes, Doctor Who manages to really get in touch with its heart, the emotions which connect us to our favorite alien in an oh-so human way.  Gridlock is a fine example of just such occurring.  On first glance it was a satisfying sci-fi themed adventure.  The Doctor and Martha visit New Earth (a planet previously seen season two’s premiere episode, cleverly title New Earth), yet this time he lands the TARDIS in the seedy under-belly of the city rather than the beautiful topside world he visited with Rose.  He and Martha discover what appears at first to be a mind bogglingly huge traffic jam where people literally spend their lives moving in cars.  Further investigation  overturns  a deeper mystery tied into a long dead city,  and we are treated to

a colorful cast of humans and humanoid type aliens throughout the journey of discovery.

But the real treat is the emotional connection between our two heroes, and the revelation the Face of Boe (a large alien who exists more or less as a giant head floating in a big glass fish tank) has for the Doctor before he dies in the end (hint: the last of the Time Lords?  Maybe not…).  Although somewhat unsatisfying in initial conflict resolution, the episode makes up for these shortcomings with overall series plot arc movement.  And kudos to the writers for allowing Martha’s character to develop as she has so far, and not just using her as a sounding board for the Doctor or a Rose Tyler retread.

The Good...
- The moments of revelation and reflection about the Doctor’s loss of his home world.  Although similar to Eccleston’s revealing moments with Rose, it still ends up being quite touching.
- An amusing cast of supporting characters.  The cat people, the wolf-lady, the hippies… good stuff.
- Well done pacing.  Although it’s hard to drag down a forty-five minute show, it’s been done before.  Not here though... the episode truly just flew by.

The Bad...
- Plot resolution.  Did we… forget about the giant crabs living on the bottom of the streets?  Maybe they just… went away or… something.
- Recycling of dramatic moments… the Face of Boe’s revelation was originally supposed to appear at the beginning of season two, but was moved here, most likely when the show was renewed for a third season.
- New Earth again?  Can we maybe… go somewhere… well, new?

Cult of Skaro, as they call themselves, from the battle of Canary Wharf in last season’s finale) settled in 1930 New York City with a dastardly plan to evolve and revitalize their species.

The depression era city is awash with strange disappearances, and our heroes stumble into an opportunity to dive straight into this while visiting Hoverville in Central Park (don’t you know your American history?  Look it up, kids).  They are brought down to the sewers where they unwittingly discover some mutated pig/human hybrids that are soon revealed to be working as slaves for the Daleks.  This is but a glimpse of the morphing technology the four remaining metal baddies intend to use to help them evolve.  Their chosen hybrid race?  Why humans of course!  The logical Dalek mind had deduced that since the humans are able

to continue to survive but they themselves do not, it is time to combine their races.  We’re left with a cliffhanger ending as Martha and the Doctor are held prisoner along with other humans chosen for the hybrid experiment, as they bear witness to the head Dalek emerge as the first newly evolved member of his race.

The Good...
- Convincing setting and accents.  Rather than hindering the story with fake looking backdrops, the well done scenery actually helps you feel right in the city.
- The Doctor is suitably wary of the Daleks, going so far as to have Martha ask a question out of the group of

humans so he’s not discovered.  It gives his fear of them some real tangibility.
- Daleks!

The Bad...
- How… did they get from Ellis Island to the city?  I know it’s all for the effect to have them land at the Statue of Liberty… but come on now…
- The foreman, Mr Diagoras.  Kind of a tired power hungry stereo-type henchman for my tastes.  Very two dimensional character.
- The Daleks seemed a little off on their patrolling given that they’re highly evolved killing machines.  Seems they can scan and pick up our heroes when it’s convenient for the plot, and when it isn’t they can skip around right behind them and no-one notices.

he appeals to his sense of science and evolution, but the remaining three ‘true’ Daleks have other plans. Amidst the scientific hubbub, they replace the evolved Dalek gene-solution with their own, creating what becomes an army of human Daleks, complete with gray makeup with slicked back hair.  Eek.

Martha, meanwhile, fights her own battle.  Balancing her suddenly heavily overwhelming crush on the Doctor with some almost too convenient problem solving, she completes this and that miscellaneous task to help our story along.  Would we have got on just fine without her in this adventure?  And when exactly it was the Doctor decided to keep her along for more than one trip.  Did this take place off screen at some point?  Or is Martha his Rose rebound?  And why am I worried about the Doctor’s love life?  Is that how Davies resurrected the series… but turning it into a cleverly hidden… *collective gasp* soap opera?  Christ, I hope not.  Moving on, the Doctor and Martha do manage to stop the Daleks from taking over Earth (again) but in the process the four remaining Daleks are reduced to one.  The hybrid and two of his rebellious crew go down with a bang, and the last one does an “emergency phase shift” (which is writer’s code for “emergency plot-hole filler”) at the last minute. 

The Good...
- The Doctor growing as a character.  His hopeful outlook that “one person in the right place and the right time can change history.”  Quite inspiring actually!
- Nifty effects… the Dalek lab was almost overwhelming in scope, even on the tiny screen from the top secret spy television I’m using.
- And… well… Daleks!

The Bad...
- I’m still not sold on the Daleks wanting to mesh themselves with humans.  Seems like a retread of the 2005 episode, aptly titled: Dalek.
- Speaking of, the ‘emotionless alien develops human feelings’ story-line is a tad bit played out in general.
- How exactly did Martha become so suddenly in love with the Doctor?  Are they all going to fall for him now?

and soon we see that there is a terrible cost for messing about with one’s genes.  Old DNA imprints, having lain dormant for thousands of years, can bring out terrible monsters and dead-ends of evolution.  It’s up to the Doctor to help save Martha and her family (her sister works for Dr. Lazarus) before it’s too late.

This was a well enough done episode of Who, but I found myself still a little unsatisfied with the return to Earth for a setting.  The location and timing seemed a little forced, and the story itself followed a tired cliché of the mad scientist who puts aside his humanity in favor of great leaps in knowledge.  Although I do wonder if the perceived ‘grounding’ of the show is an effort by the BBC to retain viewers and not get too sci-fi-ish.  In either event, something new has reared its head over here lately with all the Doctor Who marketing.  It’s Mr. Saxon.  His name has been getting dropped here and there since the end of last season (similar to the Bad Wolf theme from the first season), and now the public is starting to wonder.  The third season’s finale has been reported as being named The Last of the Time Lords, and John Simm (Life on Mars) is subtly being rumored to have been cast in the role of the Doctor’s infamousenemy, the Master.  Indeed, a teaser for the second half of the season has a flash of him sitting in a board room, a gas mask on, tapping his fingers while those around him collapse.  One can’t help but connect the dots…

The Good...
- Dr. Lazarus (Mark Gatiss) is a well developed bad-guy, with a suitable balance of sane and insane moments.  Despite his cliché role, there were several times you really felt for him.
- Martha’s family being used as a reasonable plot device, and not a crutch like Rose’s family seemed to be.
- Converse sneakers with a tux?  Brilliant.  Only the Doctor could pull that off and make it look good.

The Bad...
- The afore mentioned recycling of Earth and plotline.  I am satiated only by the knowledge that the next episode supposedly takes place on a dying spacecraft drifting into a star.
- Effects on the baddie weren’t quite as good as they could be… but given the quality so far this year, I suppose you’ve got to skimp somewhere.
- The Doctor’s organ-playing plan in the church, whereby the baddie was distracted by the massive amount of noise and slipped and fell from the bell tower, was a little cheesy.  At first I had visions of the Spider-Man-esque type plan (a la the symbiot suit) but the ending really did get a little weak.

David Tennant is really starting to cement his vision of the Doctor.  Martha, meanwhile, is an absolute delight to watch.  Yet by far the biggest anticipation about this season is turning out to be the rumored return of the evil arch-nemesis, the Master…

Check back with The Talking Crow soon for the recap on the last seven episodes of Doctor Who, Season Three.  From my secret rooftop hiding spot across the street from the BBC in London, this is Jay Devers – signing off.