Doctor Who Retrospective Review - "The Unquiet Dead"
The Doctor Some of my favorite things involve how we recognize the Doctor as different incarnations of himself. In "The Eleventh Hour," the first episode of Series 5, the Doctor rants, "20 minutes to save the world and I've got a POST OFFICE. And it's SHUT!" That is done essentially in the same tone as one of my favorite lines from this episode: "I saw the Fall of Troy! World War Five! I pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party! Now I'm gonna die in a dungeon...in Cardiff!" Yes, Doctor, you do bravery marvelously. You do grandstanding marvelously. We can't blame you for wanting to go out in a blaze of glory. Or at least not in Cardiff. The Doctor in this episode makes a hilarious fanboy, but an awful sympathizer. When Rose balks at his willingness to provide hosts for the Gelth, he tells her to "get used to it or go home." He can't compliment his lovely companion because it's "considering...that you're a human." The man even compels poor Chuck Dickens to exclaim, "Now you tell me that the real world is a realm of spectres and jack-o'-lanterns. In which case, have I wasted my brief span here, Doctor? Has it all been for nothing?" I had to wonder at this point if we'd ever run into a LIKABLE version of the 9th Doctor. Certainly, he's a hilarious man and sage in unexpected ways, but I feel like quoting the future companion Donna Noble and asking him, "This friend of yours, just before she left, did she punch you in the face?" I do like that he tries to help the Gelth out of compassion and pity, but Nine scrapes out my respect by giving Dickens a reason to live in the end.