lone and not particularly level

The Cosmic Wossnames were bizarrely favourable in placing me randomly in Britain over Easter, as I was able to watch the Doctor Who Easter special right, so to speak, at the horse's mouth... or almost, given that I had to wait for a couple of days until the living room had cleared of various random relatives before I could monopolise the TV. Fortunately the BBC seems to follow a saturation procedure with airing these specials, at daily intervals until everyone in Britain and their porcupine have seen the damned thing at least 2.4 times.

So: Planet of the Dead. This was fun, visually spectacular (Dubai sand dunes ftw), not particularly rife with plot holes, and refreshingly free of the usual Russell Davies overblown set piece quotient. I really liked the aliens (either clicky, metallic or both) and the classically Doctor-Whoish piece of pseudo-scientific hokum which holds it all together. One of the strengths of the series, to me (although I'm happy to accept that it may drive more rigorously-minded sf fans cordially demented) is the way that it cheerfully subordinates scientific logic to the emotional demands of the story.

The bit that didn't quite work for me was the Doctor's relationship with the Temp Companion, TM. She's chirpy, kick-butt, attractive, sassy and basically a spoiled brat, and I felt as though his final capitulation to her essentially amoral nature was a cop-out that badly flawed the operation of the Doctor as a moral centre. It's as if the writers got all confused and allowed the Doctor's grief at losing a whole string of companions to ultimately flaw the Doctor's need to temper his incredible, time-spanning powers with a rigorous sense of justice. Feel-good is important, but it has to be earned, and this wasn't.