Lady Christina: The Companion Who Never Was?
Planet of the Dead, Doctor Who's sole Easter special, introduced a unique new companion. Should she have stayed?
Plot Summary
Escaping from the police, a bored rich-girl-turned-cat-burglar is transported to a hostile, alien world when a bored alien-aristocrat-turned-adventurer sits next to her on a London bus.
Notable for:
One of the “season of specials” — David Tennant’s final run.
First Doctor Who story to be filmed in HD.
The part of Christina was written to be specifically more independent and interesting than “everygirl” companions of NuWho so far.
Location shoot in Dubai was notoriously difficult: the bus was heavily damaged in transit, forcing Russell T. Davies to write the damage into the script. Sandstorms on the first day of filming in the desert made things nearly impossible to film.
The bus is No. 200, the official Doctor Who story number for Planet of the Dead (PTO Codex calls it 203).
Pete commentary:
Opening scene in the “International Gallery” is intentionally OTT, with security that’s so “movie” (lasers, 4 guards back to back, a military-like changing of the guard), it’s hard to take much seriously after this point.
That said, they do a decent job of ratcheting up the tension with the Chase to get Christina, though you wonder why she made so many bad decisions: unmasking herself before she’s out, acting REALLY suspicious the moment she’s out of the museum, leaving the waving monkey that alerts the guards.
I’ve said it before, but anyone who thinks the Doctor is some kind of androgynous, asexual being… have you seen David Tennant? Of all the people on the bus he decides to befriend, it’s the sexy brunette in leather. He flirts with Christina repeatedly — most clearly when he mentions he “hopes she’s honorable” — and banters with her flirtations. When she kisses him, he may not kiss her back, but he’s not pushing her away either.
Speaking of flirting, so may great exchanges:
“To be precise, Lady Christina de Souza.” “Ooo, that's handy, because I'm a Lord.”
“You look human.” “You look Time Lord.”
“We could have been so great together.” “Christina — we were!”
How does the psychic paper work on the bus? It’s a bus — by definition not psychic.
Ellen Thomas is great as Carmen: perfectly cast, you want to listen to her, and when she tells Ten, “Your song is ending, sir,” it’s pure chills.
Love how Christina takes charge, and does a decent job of things too, until it became crystal clear how valuable the Doctor is.
Wormhole stingrays? Okay, I’ll buy that, if only for the mind-blowing idea of how lethal they are. It’s a bit convenient that only 3 of the things end up coming through the wormhole. The UNIT soldier spend several minutes shooting at the things. Why didn’t the other stingrays come? Were they that far behind? I think you might have to assume these are the ones from the Tritovore ship.
What did Pete’s family think?
Grace liked it very much. She thought Christina was amazing.
Four Questions to Doomsday - Pete
Why did the Randomizer take us here? It’s got a thing for Tennant and buses, having just brought us to Gridlock and taking us to Midnight early in our run.
What if the evil plot had succeeded? Whose evil plot? The stingrays just wanna live, man. But if more than 3 get through, things get really bad really fast.
Better evil plot is Captain Magambo’s: What if she murdered Malcolm? That would have been a pretty dark turn.
Where's the Clara splinter? In charge of security at the International Gallery. She was brought in specifically to make it more “cinematic.”
Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, Lady Cassandra, or Zarbi? Such a perfect example of a Lady Cassandra that I’m calling it a Dame Cassandra. Great fun, excellent guest cast, looks gorgeous, but not much going on here.
Chris commentary:
Stretches credulity in a lot of ways – even the Dubai scenes, as reviewers noted at the time, look CGI. But the most stretching of all? NOBODY ON THE UPPER DECK
Not RTD's fault, but maybe Dubai looked CGI because of the "swarm" layer atop it
"Alien taps at screen with claw" is the worst kind of classic Who cliche
The "joyful" tone is off in so many places – because everything since Fires of Pompeii was bittersweet, I get it RTD – but trying to make Macmillan the cop a grouch because he wants to catch a thief is the worst of it. We're just supposed to support someone who's clearly a top-level criminal escaping because … she's pretty? She's an aristocrat? Seeing everyone cheer (and UNIT do nothing?) when a thief under arrest drives off was rather jarring. "I only steal things for the adventure …" so what?
If Macmillan is supposed to be unsympathetic, make him so. Nothing in the script suggests he's bad per se. "There's someone on the bus, she's mine" is close but no cigar. In fact, being run roughshod over by the assholes of UNIT makes him more sympathetic.
And then the UNIT leader Magambo, fresh from harassing a poor detective who just wants to know what's going on, salutes the Doctor repeatedly, including on the phone. That comedy moment is a stretch for her no-nonsense character. Kate L-S loves the Doctor but you can't imagine her saluting him on the phone. Shouldn't there be a VERY BIG WARNING IN HIS FILE to NOT salute him? And shouldn't the Doctor have stern words after?
Also if you love him so much, maybe, I dunno, trust him instead of trying to trap him?
Conversely, the Doctor should remember that UNIT are very likely to do such a thing if you just hang up on them and don't convey the nature of the threat.
Professor Malcolm Taylor, you're letting the Taylor side down. Ugh. It's Lee Evans being Lee Evans but with a Welsh accent – the worst kind of stunt casting. Reminiscent of Ken Dodd
His repeated "I love you" and the notion that he's a parody of fans … um, ok.
But the Doctor kind of encouraged it. "You're my new best friend" – wow, the Doctor really is poly-frienderous …
"Which one was your favorite, the giant robot?" An RTD reference that actually works …
Quatermass was a clever reference at the time, given there had just been a remake of the 1953 BBC serial in 2005 starring … David Tennant.
If you're bringing up watts, invented by James Watt, then as an extremely smart scientist who's clearly aware of naming conventions, wouldn't you name your unit of measurement "Taylors"? Just saying …
This episode and its resolution relies too much on technobabble. RTD is usually more self-aware about that. The misdirect about the diamond driving the bus in a "super clever outer spacey way" is close
…
And that bloody music. What is this, a patriotic WWII propaganda film?
Count me among the fans who found Lady Christina insufferably smug. Aww, so sad, daddy gambled away all the family money so now you have to be a very well-equipped thief rather than live like the poors on a bus with their "Lobster" cards?
"The aristocracy survives for a reason – we're prepared for anything?" well, a) no you're not, as shown by the Lobster card nonsense; b) that's not why it has survived (cultural deference and inherited wealth would be nearer the mark) and c) isn't she supposed to be the equivalent of the Doctor, rejecting her people?
Still, you can definitely see her as a kind of Clara in embryo. Good thing we didn't get aristocratic Clara in any of her early forms.
Lady C's best moment is appointing herself leader, because it leans into her smugness, gives us a laugh at the Doctor actually having some competition for that role, and shows how she both does and doesn't have leadership qualities – a nicely complexifying thing that makes her seem real.
Why didn't she take the crystal, rather than leave it in the sand?
Speaking as a historian who studied Aethelstan, and a strong proponent of preserving artifacts, I winced at the Doctor bashing the goblet. Doesn't seem like him to do it so blithely. A line in there about "don't worry, I'll go back and give him another one" would have done double duty – also confirming to Lady C that he is indeed a time traveler. And why doesn't Macmillan even mention it?
It's a subtle bit of Welsh payback, given that A. cowed the Welsh kings – as in 73 Yards, RTD sort of wants us to know that the English were brutal. But then he hides it under this patriotic Brit stuff (the bus going to Victoria, the saluting, the music)
The phone stuff all seems dated now, but weirdly might be the best bit. Accidentally getting a pizza place because you transposed numbers – we've all been there. But why would the Doctor not know about pressing 0? It's such a Doctor-ish get-around. I guess he just learned
.
Once again, as we've encountered on a few of our adventures now, there's a genocide hiding in plain sight in the middle of this "joyful" tone. Not quite as jarring as Flux's 7 billion dead dogs, but close …
The Tritovores … kind of nice to see what happens when the TARDIS doesn't do autotranslate, I guess?
The flying bus is RTD stealing again – this time the Knight Bus from HP and the Chamber of Secrets – but it's just too obvious a homage this time.
The "not now, I'm busy" line when a companion/friend is trying to point out something important … can we just retire it now?
Why was the TARDIS inside the grounds of Buckingham Palace? Are we meant to infer that the Queen had a thing for the Doctor? Did she want to, er, convey her thanks for the whole Titanic thing?
The Doctor flashing his psychic paper to get out of the UNIT debrief/decontamination … makes a mockery of the process and makes him look like an aloof aristocratic asshole himself. And "I'll just step inside this police box and arrest myself" … and Macmillan lets him do that? Huh?
Four Two Questions to Doomsday - Chris
Where's the Clara splinter? Working at the bus depot, making sure the upper deck is blocked off because it's "out of order". Or working at UNIT, making sure that the Doctor gets out of all post-operation debriefing etc.
Dalek, Ogron, Professor Hayter, Viscount Banger, Fixed Point in Time, Lady Cassandra, or Zarbi? I'm measuring out this episode in units of Hayter!