happydalek | A week late, but, "Smith and Jones"....

...Was decent. Hampered with the need to introduce a new companion, "Smith & Jones" couldn't help but find itself retreading the usual stuff (the Doctor proving he's alien, initial reaction to the TARDIS, the Doctor "testing" the new girl to make sure she's up to snuff [which seems to be a particular characteristic RTD likes to give the Doctor, apparently,] etc.), but did so at a quick pace and with some very inventive little twists. For the latter, I have to mention the Doctor's "Like so!" moment with the tie in the very beginning of the episode, which was SO wonderfully whack, and left me waiting for an explanation the entire episode ("Hospital on the moon, plasmavore, who cares? I wanna know what the tie thing was about!" I'm not nitpicky at all, nope!)

The Judoon were impressively realized, I just wish they hadn't been so OBVIOUSLY space-rhino. After space-spiders, space-cats and space-trees it's starting to get a bit repetitious, but I'm the first to grant the Mill that it's difficult to come up with something like the Ood every week! But when those ships landed and I saw the size of those Judoon helmets I was just aching for it to be Sontarans inside, you have no idea. The upsidedown rain was another great concept, very eerie! Though I found it more than a little incredulous that the Judoon could put the hospital right back where it came from with no adverse structural problems, and I won't even mention how ridiculous the plasmavore's deadly MRI machine was (that was thwarted by simply UNPLUGGING it, which was a nicely Doctor-ish type resolution, but slightly lacking in dramatic tension).

Tennant positively sparkled in this episode, probably the first story I've seen him in where he was really, unequivocably "The Doctor" to me. It might have been the casual reference to being a child on Gallifrey (cue a major Galli-squee! on that line), but from the moment he did the tie thing, to channeling the radiation into his shoe, to his gradually worsening hairdo, to name-checking the helmic regulator (another big selling point), and especially when he accidentally melted his sonic screwdriver (cue major flashback to "Visitation"), I felt like I was watching a spectacular bit of Classic Who, even more so than during "Empty Child/Doctor Dances."

Freema Agyeman is certainly a capable actress, but I want to wait for a few more episodes before I pass judgement on Martha Jones. The Doctor's companion has a very narrow role to fill and Martha didn't strike me as being too much of a departure from Rose (aside from being a bit more forthright and attitude-y), but given the circumstances she wasn't really given the opportunity to.

All in all, a very solid, very entertaining opener that proves just how much RTD has finally settled in and figured out what makes good "Doctor Who." More than that, "Smith & Jones" is a generally excellent Tenth Doctor story, the kind I've been waiting for since "The Christmas Invasion."