Doctor Who "Empress of Mars" Review

Give em credit for trying to put a new twist on things. Victorian soldiers on Mars, that's pretty new. Ice Warriors...eh not so new, but more memorable than they were in the last episode they were in. Granted the honourable soldier schtick is arguably overplayed, but it's a solid cliche to fall back on in my opinion. Though part of me is wondering what would happen if the Ice Warriors had an issue with the water virus from 'The Waters of Mars' episode, two Doctor Who villains (Does a virus count as a villain?) going at it? That could be fun.

In case you're wondering, yes, that opening paragraph does seem a little vague in actually critiquing the episode, and that's because there is little to critique here. It's like the episode a few weeks ago 'Oxygen', it just comes across as a very standard episode of Doctor Who. The villains are standard, the plot is standard, the dialogue is standard. Even the set-up which I said was a clever twist is still pretty standard by Doctor Who terms. Give the show credit, simply being "kind of" creative isn't enough for the show, I'm not sure if that standard of quality I hold the show too could be seen as a good or bad thing, both I guess?

But unfortunately that kind of middle of the road episode doesn't do any good for me, because it means there is almost nothing to talk about. This is why if I had a choice between an episode that is sometimes great/sometimes terrible or an episode that is just okay, I take the former every time, because at least then I have stuff to talk about! Because the biggest thing to stand-out to me in this episode is the fact that The Doctor has seemingly never heard of The Terminator! Or The Thing! Hell, remember in a prior season when he said he'd never heard of Alien? I guess you could argue The Doctor has no need for sci-fi films when his whole life is sci-fi, but the dude has referenced Back to the Future before, so he's not a moron at it. He's also apparently seen Frozen...and has quoted The Lion King in a prior season, so I guess The Doctor is a big Disney fan? The only other thing to standout is the question of why The Doctor and co were at NASA in the first place? And why did the Tardis leave? All very small problems in an average episode. So screw it, let's just give it a 6/10 and move on with our lives.

-Danny