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 | Reviews for The Creeping Death |
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| By: | David Layton, Los Angeles, United States |
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| Date: | Tuesday 26 November 2024 |
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| Rating: |   6 |
This entry into the Doctor-Donna series will probably appeal to those who think this was the greatest combination for Doctor Who ever. It would have very much fit into that series. That is where I have the problems with this one. It fits too much, so that it has all the flaws of that series as well as the virtues. Aiming for swinging 60s London, the TARDIS crew arrive in not so swinging 50s London, on the first day of the worst smog ever to hit that city. Making it worse is an alien species, the fumifugium, who of course live up to their name by eating, or at least thriving in the toxic gasses that will kill a few thousand Londoners across four days. They are making the smog worse, so The Doctor has to put a stop to it. The Doctor, of course, co-opts a ragtag group to help him in that task. Some of them die. He offers the aliens a chance to go somewhere else and stop killing people. The aliens, typically, have no morals apart from "eating good," so refuse. What is wrong here? Well, among other things, in the ragtag crew we get a gratuitous gay couple (whether they are gay or not has no effect on the story), some pontificating about how terrible attitudes were in the past, a plucky young proto-feminist, an alien species with no sophistication of culture or mentality, and tons of "smart" dialogue that just rolls off the tongues of characters, especially Donna, as if they had a repertoire of quips lined up for that purpose. It's entertaining enough, but I find the lack of sophistication at all levels - plot, character, motivation, theme - to be a major drawback.
