Doctor Who - The Lazarus Experiement

[lokheed]

So, while Series Three started off with a bang and had a string of excellent episodes, I have to say the past two weeks were kind of a dud. The truth is that they have gone to the well a few too many times with the Daleks of late, and I am just tired of them. In the first series, Dalek was a spectacularly good episode. And bringing back the Dalek fleet at the series finale was just spectacular. Bringing them back again in series two to be in the same story with the Cybermen, well I guess that was ok but seemed a bit gimmicky to me. Bringing them back yet again this season, it just felt tired. There were plenty of decent things about Daleks in Manhattan, but frankly I just groaned at the big cliffhanger ending. Maybe because the final shot reminded me too much of the satiric Cthulhu character from the User Friendly comic strip, I don't know. But I laughed at the cliffhanger instead of being excited by it, so there you have it. The second part was really more of the same. Not awful, but certainly not as inspired and engaging as Gridlock had been.

So this week I was much relieved to have a new episode that I thoroughly enjoyed. The Lazarus Experiment was back on track with a fast-paced and entertaining story, and lots of great little character moments. It was fun to see Mark Gatiss get major screen time as an actor, after having been the writer for the previous episodes The Unquiet Dead and The Idiot's Lantern. Yeah, the cgi for the big monster was a bit dodgy, but that's just fine by me. The episode as a whole was another great one, and just cements why David Tennant is such a great doctor.

Unfortunately, there is no new episode next week due to a charity concert being aired in the regular timeslot next week. Bummer.