New Earth

Dear Gary—

“Oh, I don’t know; just larking about. New Earth; new me.”

This is the first full adventure for the Tenth Doctor and Rose, and after the dark and somber season with the Ninth Doctor it is refreshing to have a romp. New Earth is a romp. It is the Doctor and Rose and familiar foe Cassandra from The End of the World larking about.

But it’s not entirely appropriate.

It is something like—and I cringe to think of and refer to and leap ahead to—The Silence. Everything seems fine on the surface, but out of the corner of one’s eye, on the fringe of one’s mind, there is something that doesn’t quite fit but is too slippery to pin down.

And I really wish I had not thought of that analogy, Gary, because now I have that stuck in my mind as I go forward in my viewing. Something has co-opted my beloved Doctor Who, something that is behind the scenes manipulating and shaping and hidden from view. However, I’m not going to start recording slash marks to commemorate.

I prefer to skim along the surface and take this as the entertaining lark it pretends to.

So let me start again. A new New Earth if you will.

At last the Doctor and Rose have made it to an alien planet, even if it is New Earth. Baby steps. It’s only taken an entire season, but baby steps. Rose even comments on the alien ground beneath her feet, fragrant with apple grass; although given previous comments this is not her first visit to another world, only the first that has made it to screen.

Rose is a bit too gushy to start, staring adoringly at the Doctor, reminiscing about their ‘first date’ and declaring her love of . . . traveling. The Doctor, too, basks a little too much in this attention, but the light and airy tone is a welcome change. This New New Doctor has set aside the grief and guilt and gloom of his previous generation, or at least has buried it deep within.

“This is beyond coincidence; this is destiny” Cassandra says upon discovering Rose in the New Earth hospital where she has been lurking and listening since her supposed demise. It’s an even bigger coincidence that it is the Face of Boe who has brought the Doctor and Rose to this hospital, especially since Boe doesn’t stick around to impart his momentous secret to the Doctor. His only purpose seems to have been to gather the three together. Perhaps he knew of Cassandra’s presence, or perhaps it is one vast coincidence, or as Cassandra concludes, destiny.

I also have to wonder why Cassandra has waited all these years before transferring herself. Surely she could have found a suitable body from the thousands of cured patients and visitors who pass through the hospital every day. Or is this part of the unbelievable coincidence that her transference process wasn’t ready until that particular moment when Rose and the Doctor happened to arrive?

Whatever the reason the result is great fun. Billie Piper playing Cassandra inhabiting Rose’s body is hilarious. When Cassandra crosses over into the Doctor the farce reaches some over-the-top heights. It is curious that Cassandra, who has spent billions of dollars and undergone hundreds of operations in order to flatten herself suddenly delights in having curves. It kind of renders pointless all of the deaths she has caused in order to maintain her trampoline figure. That’s one of those slippery, out of the corner of one’s eye distractions that is forgotten with the bouncy castle comedy.

Accompanying the humor is action. When things start getting too dark, when the Doctor’s ire is raised, when the Sisters of Plentitude’s hideous secret is exposed, the walking plague starts sweeping through the hospital putting the Doctor/Cassandra and Rose/Cassandra on the run. There is no time for exploring the philosophical and ethical questions evoked by the Sisters’ living flesh. There is no time to consider the Doctor’s rather bold statement: “I’m the Doctor, and if you don’t like it, if you want to take it to a higher authority, then there isn’t one. It stops with me.”

And when they run out of room it’s time for some unrestrained, joyous, simplistic, and highly improbable resolution. Having mixed up a medicinal cocktail from various IV bags, the Doctor exults, “I’m the Doctor, and I cured them,” as he walks around simply touching the infected with his miracle hands.

“A brand new form of life,” the Doctor proclaims. He doesn’t stick around to find out what kind of life this is, though. Grown specifically to be disease carriers, restricted to miniscule cells for their entire existence, having no contact, no stimulation, no learning; what kind of life will it be for these suddenly freed beings? How will they be treated by the city at large? How will they care for themselves? That’s not a concern for the Doctor, though.

Rounding it all out is a bit of pathos, provided by Cassandra of all people. We get a hint of it when she re-inhabits Rose after having just left one of the diseased. “They’re so alone,” she says in a brief moment of reflection before the Doctor whisks her back into the action. It is left for the Chip inhabiting Cassandra, however, to deliver the real goods. Chip, the half-life, the force grown clone existing solely to cater to Cassandra. Chip offers himself up freely to his mistress, a body for the taking.

“Oh sweet Lord, I’m a walking doodle,” Cassandra/Chip says. And then, uncharacteristically, unexpectedly, the Cassandra/Chip comes to the realization: “I’m dying, but that’s fine.”  Cassandra of vain and murderous intent has suddenly grown a conscience or a soul or something. Perhaps it has been all of the body jumping she has done; or perhaps it is simply convenience of the plot as much of New Earth has been. Whatever the reason, Cassandra has decided that everything has it’s time and her time is done. And the Doctor overlooks all the evil that she has done and takes mercy on her in this her last hour.

Don’t look too closely, Gary. Just sit back and enjoy this sentimental moment as the Doctor takes Cassandra/Chip back to a simpler time to meet herself at the precise instance that had been captured in a good old fashioned home movie (where on New Earth did Cassandra dig up that millions year old projector anyway?) when she was last told that she looked beautiful. It is so very touching as human Cassandra cradles the dying Cassandra/Chip. She does have a heart, or at least had a heart at one time. A poignant and ironic end to ‘the last human’ Cassandra. (Although, Gary, I wouldn’t put it past her to have body jumped again into one of those party goers; but don’t look too closely.)

I don’t want to look too closely at New Earth; I don’t want to see The Silence; I don’t want to record slash marks. But I do have to note this: “It’s said he’ll talk to a wanderer; to the man without a home; the lonely god.”

Oh good God, Gary. “The lonely god.” Just look away . . .