“Doctor Who” maven "Doctor Dan" was called away, but now he’s back - and he’s toting a review of “The Lazarus Experiment,” which aired over the BBC Saturday!
DOCTOR WHO – Episode 3.6
"The Lazarus Experiment"
WRITER:
Stephen Greenhorn
DIRECTOR:
Richard Clark
CAST:
David Tennant (The Doctor)
Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones)
Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Tish Jones)
Reggie Yates (Leo Jones)
Adjoa Andoh (Francine Jones)
Mark Gatiss (Professor Richard Lazarus)
Thelma Barlow (Lady Thaw)
Lucy O'Connell (Party Guest)
Bertie Carvel (Mysterious Man)
Martha arrives back home, only to find that her sister Tish is work ing for Professor Lazarus, a man who appears to have obtained immortality...
After the entertaining, yet ultimately underwhelming Dalek two-parter, the adventure continues courtesy of writer Stephen Clark (creator of Scottish soap River City ) with The Lazarus Experiment.
Mark Gatiss, himself a writer for the show, stars as the eponymous Lazarus, a 76-year-old genius who invents a machine that appears to be the fountain of youth. During his launch party one evening, Lazarus gives a demonstration of his system and accidentally unleashes a monster within...
The Lazarus Experiment is pure and simple stuff from writer Clark, not particularly concerned with giving audiences anything more than an honest and straight-forward story. The entire episode is just an elongated chase with a CGI monster (a skeletal scorpion with a human face), although it was nice to see Martha's family given some development.
Unlike Rose's family, Martha's clan seem to be more interesting already. It's particularly nice to see sister Tish (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and brother Leo (Reggie Yates) avoiding the "annoying hanger-on" trap that ruined Noel Clark's Mickey in series 1 and 2. But it was even better to find that Martha's mother Franchine (the excellent Adjoa Andoh) is opposed to her daughter's relationship with The Doctor, a neat juxtaposition to Jackie Tyler's flummoxed approval, especially considering how dangerous being a companion to The Doctor clearly is!
Without the layering of series 3 mythology (we even get clearer mention of the mysterious Mr Saxon), this episode would be a competent but ultimately hollow experience. This is by-the-numbers stuff that doesn't offer any surprises. If anything it made me frustrated by how The Doctor's all-purpose sonic screwdriver can be manipulated each week to do anything -- here it restructures DNA over sound waves and can locate a monster! Lazy writing, I've always though.
Overall, The Lazarus Experiment is perfectly entertaining fluff with a nice performance from Mark Gatiss, some impressive visuals and a finale that just about eradicate your memory of how shallow everything else has been. This is good honest fun for kids, interesting for fans with its nudges of mythology, but hardly essential viewing.
THE GOOD
1. Mark Gatiss -- another preening villain in the Doctor Who tradition.
2. Some great FX for the creature, 90% of the time.
3. Great use of the Jones family, particularly mother Francine.
4. Fans will get a kick out of the Mr Saxon mythology coming into play.
5. David Tennant (as usual) and Adjoa Andoh as Francine Jones.
6. The extended trailer shown at the end of the episode, with clips from the rest of series 3. It certainly looks fantastic, with plenty of stunning effects, the return of Jack Harkness and a look at Mr Saxon (John Simm).
THE BAD
1. A very, very predictable and unsurprising plot. The premise itself has also been done to death.
2. An overuse of the "writer's crutch" (sorry, sonic screwdriver)
THE GEEKY
1. Lazarus is a biblical character mentioned in John 11:41-44, whom Jesus raised from the dead.
2. The Doctor references Spinal Tap with his "have to turn it up to eleven" line, used in the famous spoof movie about volume levels on an amplifier.
3. Professor Lazarus mentions being born above a butcher's shop. Actor Mark Gatiss is famous as part of comedy troupe The League Of Gentlemen and one of this most popular characters, Hillary Briss, was a murderous local butcher.
4. Setting 754 on a sonic screwdriver will unlock doors.
5. Mark Gatiss is one of the few people to both write and star in Doctor Who. He wrote the revived series episodes The Unquiet Dead and The Idiot's Lantern, after penning numerous New Adventures novels. He also appeared in various Who-related sketches before the show's re-launch in 2005.
6. The Lazarus Labs logo of multiple circles is very similar to the Gallifreyan writing system. Was this intentional? It would seem so if the Mysterious Man's connections to Mr Saxon reveal him to be Time Lord adversary The Master.
7. The Doctor mentions it shouldn't have taken him long to "reverse the polarity", a phrase often used by the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee)
RATING: 3 / 5
IN 2 WEEKS: The Doctor must uncover saboteurs aboard a spaceship hurtling out of control towards a sun...
