207: The Lazarus Experiment
Doctor : 10th (David Tennant)
Companions : Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman)
Series : 3 (New Series)
Originally Transmitted: 5th May 2007
The Lazarus Experiment is one of those mid series episodes that is just kind of there to fill space, and that's about it. Even before it aired there was very little to get excited about. The only real highlight of the episode is that we finally get to see long time Doctor Who fan & writer Mark Gatiss (He of The League Of Gentlemen & Sherlock fame) appear in an episode of Doctor Who. And it has to be said, he deserved a lot better than this.
The only other thing to get excited about is that Thelma Barlow who played Mavis in Coronation Street is in this episode as well playing Lady Thaw, so you can see the level we're dealing with here.
Also I suppose if you're a David Tennant fangirl (or boy) you get to squee all over him being suited & booted in a dinner jacket again, sadly Martha only gets to wear a brown dress that looks like a potato sack. You'd think the costume designers would have at least made a better effort there. Come on Russell, I know Doctor Who has a huge gay male following but give us straight fans a bit of eye candy too once in a while.
Tennant in a suit for the laydees
This episode was written by Stephen Greenhorn who's past credits include The Bill, Where The Heart Is, creating the Scottish soap opera River City and also adapting his own musical play about The Proclaimers called Sunshine On Leith into a movie.
Would he use this attempt at writing for something totally different like Doctor Who as a chance to really use his imagination and to blind the viewer with interesting and thought provoking concepts?
Well no actually, it's a story about a mad scientist. Which, to be fair to the man is exactly what Russell T Davies asked him for. A Marvel Comics style mad professor.
Did I mention I hate Marvel Comics?
I guess now would be a good time to explain the plot, although in fairness you could probably write it on the back of a postage stamp . But I shall attempt to go into a little more detail.
The Doctor takes Martha home after her promised one trip in the Tardis, totally oblivious to her disappointment when she realises he's materialised inside her living room and wants to dump her there. While he's saying goodbye to her Martha's mother phones and tells her to turn the TV on because her sister is on the news.
She turns on the TV to see her sister Tish alongside professor Richard Lazarus, who she is doing public relations work for. Lazarus announces to the assembled press that he will change what it means to be human.
The Doctor leaves Martha behind in the Tardis but then comes back seconds later when he realises what Lazarus said.
Later that evening they arrive at Lazarus black tie presentation being run by Tish. Tish seems impressed by good looking guy that her sister has bought to the event but soon leaves when she realises he's a 'science geek'. Martha's mother shows up and moans a lot which will be a reoccurring theme during this series. Although it is quite funny when the Doctor is trying to make small talk with her and accidentally gives her the impression that he & Martha have been up all night screwing each other.
Lazarus enters the room and announces he is about to perform a miracle that will change the coarse of human history. He tells everybody that he is 76 years old and walks into the machine behind him.
Why is there never a big red butt.... Oh wait, there is this time.
The machine is started up, and look it has a big red button. That would please the War Doctor. The machine begins to go haywire and the Doctor is forced to step in before the building blows up.
A much younger man emerges from the machine and tells the crowd that he is Richard Lazarus and he is 76 years old and he is reborn. The Doctor speaks to Lazarus warning him that he couldn't possibly have solved all the variables in the experiment and that if it wasn't for him the place would have exploded but Lazarus and his partner Lady Thaw are dismissive. Martha & the Doctor is horrified when Lazarus & Thaw tells them their plans to have the machine made commercially. Lady Thaw and Lazarus retreat to his laboratory to discuss things, the Doctor says he wants to run his own tests using the DNA from Lazarus where he kissed Martha's hand.
Lazarus reborn, He's 76 you know. Doesn't he look well.
In his laboratory talks to Lady Thaw about growing up the London blitz and that he would feel safe in Southwark Cathedral (There is also a model of the cathedral in his laboratory) . Lady Thaw tells him that she wants to be the next person to use the machine so they can both be young again but Lazarus refuses. When she tells him she'll get his funding cut he begins to have cramps and starts to change form into a giant scorpion creature that looks a lot like David Bowie for some reason and kills Lady Thaw.
Ch-Ch-Ch-Chaaaaanges
The Doctor meanwhile is doing tests and discovers that Lazarus has totally changed his DNA reactivating dormant genes and that they are mutating. He goes to Lazarus's laboratory and finds the skeletal husk of Lady Thaw with all of the life sucked out of her. The Doctor realises that Lazarus needs to do this to keep the DNA stable, Lazarus has since returned to the party in human form. At the party Lazarus is with Tish and taking her to the roof, when the Doctor & Martha are told this they rush off after then, soaking Martha's mother with wine. While she is cleaning herself up a mysterious man offers her a glass of wine and tells her that Martha should choose her friends more wisely.
Mavis from Coronation Street looking a little husky
On the roof The Doctor confronts Lazarus and Lazarus changes form. The Doctor manages to lock him out onto the roof but because Lazarus starts trying to break the door down the buildings security system goes into lockdown shutting everybody inside. At the party the Doctor gives Martha the sonic screwdriver and tells her to get everybody out. He announces to the crowd that they are in serious danger and should leave. A woman tells the Doctor that the only danger in the building is choking on an olive, Lazarus shows up and kills her first. In the credits she's referred to as 'Olive Women' which amused me for some unknown reason.
Olive Woman is about to cop it before we even find out her real name.
The Doctor managed to distract Lazarus by getting him to chase him around the building while Martha gets all the guests out. She goes back in to help the Doctor against her mothers wishes. The man in the suit appears again and tells her mother that the Doctor is dangerous and whispers something in her ear. The Doctor meanwhile sets a trap for Lazarus in his laboratory causing it to blow up but Lazarus escapes, Martha hears the explosion and they both run into the machine, the Doctor saying that it's the one thing that Lazarus won't destroy. While they are trapped in the machine Lazarus switches it on but the Doctor manages to reverse the polarity (Pertwee reference YAY!!) of the machine so it affects Lazarus outside. When they exit the machine they find him lying naked on the floor in human form apparently dead.
Lazarus's body is taken in an ambulance, meanwhile Martha's mother slaps the Doctor's face (A running theme in the new series) The ambulance crashes and the Doctor discovers the ambulance crew drained of life. Using the sonic screwdriver to track Lazarus's DNA he tracks him down to Southwark Cathedral. Lazarus tells him during the blitz he vowed that he would never die and that he will feed to continue his life, the Doctor tells him that he can't allow him to. The Doctor tells Martha and Tish to go to the top bell tower, Lazarus changes and begins to follow them up. The Doctor plugs his sonic screwdriver into the church organ and turns it up to 11 (The first and only Spinal Tap reference in Doctor Who ..YAY!!).
Big bottom, big bottom. Talk about mud flaps, my girl's got 'em
The vibrations cause Lazarus to fall off the bell tower to his death, although Martha who is hanging on for dear life and can't block her ears seems totally unaffected by it ... hmmm lazy writing.
Nudity at 7.35 in the evening? Wait till I write to Points of View about this.
Back at Martha's flat she is preparing to say goodbye but the Doctor tells he she can stay with him. after she departs in the Tardis her mother phones her and tells her that she isn't safe and that Harold Saxon himself says this.
Some trivia : Both David Tennant & Mark Gatiss were also in the BBC's live broadcast of The Quatermass Experiment in 2005, Tennant played the character of Dr. Gordon Briscoe. It was during the rehearsals for this that David Tennant discovered that he had got the role of The Doctor. During the live broadcast Jason Flemyng who was playing the role of Bernard Quatermass ribbed him about this by changed his first line from 'Good to have you back Gordon' to 'Good to have you back Doctor'.
Extra Trivia : Jason Flemyng's father Gordon directed the two Dalek movies in the 60s.
The Lazarus Experiment isn't a bad story as such it's just a bog standard idea with a really bad CGI monster and a really silly ending.
There are a couple of witty bits of dialogue but that's more down to the regular cast and subtle in jokes rather than through the story itself. The only real moments of drama in this are when Tennant & Gatiss are together, Martha is good also in that she's brave & smart but in a kind of generic way that most Doctor Who companions are, although her being a Doctor is shown when she treats her brother for a possible concussion. The rest of her family are just annoying. Her mother is constantly moaning, her sister is just obnoxious and her brother stands around like stuffed suit looking like he's waiting around for his cue to announce who is number one this week.(Her brother is played by former Top Of The Pops presenter Reggie Yates).
This is the kind of stuff the new series does when it's on auto pilot, it's predictable, it's been done to death already and that's just in the Doctor Who universe. In the Peter Davison story Mawdyrn Undead the same topic is used where a race of beings wanting to live forever, and it is covered in a much better way with more plot twists, ideas and peril for the Doctor to overcome than anything this story could manage. There are a few plot elements that would crop up later in the series but they are minimal really. You could easily miss this story out and it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to the series as a whole.
I can handle Doctor Who being bad, I can handle it having no money, I can even handle really bad special effects but what I really hate is when it's totally devoid of ideas and poor writing. I wouldn't say this story is boring because it's not. I wouldn't even say it's forgettable either. It's just really really predictable and the only reason you'll remember this story is because you've seen it done so many many times before.