Water of Mars...wow, I just really did not like it.

[Aldo]

Up until this point I've come to expect that the Doctor Who specials will usually have a different feel than the episodes themselves. At least this has been how it's been to me...and in those cases they were usually of a higher grade than the show, whether it was because of the extra runtime allowing a bit more breathing room in the story, or because as a special they were afforded a bit more in the budget...but this time none of that was the case.

Don't get me wrong, I liked the general idea of the story, in that the doctor runs across a group of people he knows has to die in order for history to continue, and yet he can't allow that to happen...but the way it was executed, just did not work for me at all.

Not once did it really feel like a Doctor Who story to me. Sure it had Tennant, sure it had the Tardis, but outside of those two elements it could have been any old show. The setting was drab (and not to mention really confined), and just nothing interesting happened.

It's such a shame too, cause Tennant is my favorite Doctor and I want to be able to cherish the remaining shows I have with him, and to see him wasted in a crummy episode like this is just heartbreaking.

 

[Sci]

On the other hand, I happen to think that "The Waters of Mars" is probably one of the ten best episodes modern Doctor Who has ever done. I love the interplay between the Doctor and Captain Brooke, and I love how the Doctor spends so much of the episode being so genuinely cowardly... only to flirt with megalomania. The monster also manages to be genuinely creepy in a way that most DW monsters never are -- I suspect because we never really learn what they want. Lindsay Duncan is wonderful as Captain Brooke, and the scene with the Dalek is both magical and heartbreaking. Love this episode so much.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I thought it was one of the strongest of the specials leading up to "End of Time". It was a fairly dark and dour story and the Doctor didn't really have any grand moments. He was set up to fail in the special and I agree with Sci there are lots of wonderful little moments between Captain Brooke and the Doctor. He's not in a very good place in his life at this point.

 

[Aldo]

It just didn't really do anything for me, especially watching it right after the wonderful "The Next Doctor." Yes, I know Planet of the Dead is technically the previous special, but Netflix didn't have it available for streaming.

 

[Admiral_Young]

^ Maybe that's why you didn't like it then. "Planet of the Dead" is perhaps my favorite of the specials along with "Water of Mars". "The Next Doctor" and "Water of Mars" are two drastically different episodes in tone and structure. "Planet of the Dead" is a perfect inbetweener.

 

[Aldo]

Perhaps. It was either that or stop watching Who for a while (at first I was dead set against continuing if it meant skipping a special). But I'm really keen on seeing what Matt Smith brings to the role, so missing out on one special was preferable to me than not watching Who until I was able to aquire said special.

 

[Mr Light]

I thought Waters of Mars was decent. It was the Next Doctor that I didn't care for.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I'm not a fan of "Waters of Mars." I don't buy the Doctor's character arc, and without that the story doesn't work. (It also doesn't help that RTD chucks the Doctor's character development out the nearest airlock for "The End of Time, Part One." The doom-and-gloom ending here is replaced with the tenth Doctor at his most facile at the start of the next episode.)

The problems are two-fold. One, the Doctor has no reason to get involved, as he tells everyone at every opportunity. It's clear that the only thing he can and should do is bugger off, only for some inexplicable reason he stays. And two, when the Doctor does decide to get involved, there's absolutely no reason for it.

I think that Russell T. Davies was relying on the cries of a million British children screaming at their televisions — "Doctor, why aren't you doing anything" and "Doctor, why don't you go and save them?" — to sell the Doctor's character. The end result of this creative decision, however, is that the Doctor's actions feel entirely like a handwave. The groundwork isn't there.

"Waters" is unfortunately, like much of Davies' work, entirely fixable. The obvious solution is for the Doctor to have a companion in the episode, someone who motivates him to stick around and get involved. No disrespect to Lindsay Duncan, but Captain Adelaide Brooke was not that character; she was too much of a professional (and she had to be, because of her situation) to let emotional concerns sway her. If, however, the Doctor had brought Lady Christina along, if she had cajoled him into getting involved, and if she had been infected by the water (which would prompt the Doctor's change in behavior), then the Doctor's character arc becomes clear. The groundwork is there.

But this would require "big picture" thinking from Davies, and as The Writer's Tale makes clear, Davies had no "big picture" in mind for the season of specials. They were just a couple of extra episodes, a victory lap of sorts.

"Waters" could have been and should have been better than it was.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I thought it was the best special (although End of Time had some great moments too). The monsters were genuinely creepy. I thought the Doctor's character arc played well. Certainly much better than the hammed up Next Doctor. Whatever good moments that episode had (and with cat/monkey/whatever Cybermen, I can't say for a fact it really did) they were absolutely ruined by the end.

If I had to pick a list of more or less stand-alone Doctor Who episodes I'd have people watch to get a sample of the show, this episode is on my list.

 

[Capt_Pickirk]

Tennant's best when he's 'phoning it in', like The Doctor's Daughter episode

 

[WillsBabe]

I didn't much care for this, either. In fact I don't think I cared for any of the "specials". I think its only redeeming feature was that they had a woman of a certain age as the lead. That's something you don't see much of on tv these days.

 

[Cutter John]

I guess I'm a bit dim in my old age, as I like having things explained. So I was really rather annoyed by the lack of background for the virus, and what exactly was under the ice that the infected seemed so anxious to uncover.

Otoh, I thought the last ten minutes were just amazing. I remember at the time a lot of us wondering if the Doc had finally snapped. A shame they just sort of glossed over it in the next story.

 

[Butters]

It got interesting at the end with time lord victorious thing and the ominious arrival of the ood guy, but that went nowhere. That was annoying.

And the fixed time thing shouldn't have been issue. He could have taken the survivors anywhere in the universe and history would be none the wiser. Taking them home was the mistake i wouldn't expect the Doctor to make.

 

[Timby]

I'm a sucker for "base under siege" stories, so "The Waters of Mars" really hit the mark for me. And given that the rest of the specials ranged from mediocre ("The End of Time, Part II") to bad ("The Next Doctor," "The End of Time, Part I") to fucking awful ("Planet of the Dead"), this was easily my favorite Doctor Who story of 2009 and probably up there with the best of Tennant's entire run.

Taking them home was the mistake i wouldn't expect the Doctor to make.

And normally he wouldn't have made that mistake ... but since he had decided that he was now KING SHIT OF TIME MOUNTAIN, he didn't care about the rules anymore. Unfortunately that element was dropped entirely too quickly, but I appreciated its presence.

 

[Cutter John]

Having Ten power-tripping his way through a specials, only to have his ego knocked back down to size in the final episode would have made one hell of a story arc. What a missed opportunity.

 

[Starkers]

I'm not a big fan of it, and I say that as someone who normally loves base under seige stories...

The infected as very interesting at first, but they're effectively sidelined so we can have Tennant dithering for 40 minutes. Should I/Shouldn't I...and then when he goes all uber Timelord on us, his fall from grace lasts for approximately 10 seconds

Not to mention the fact that supposely Brookes' granddaughter was so inspired by her grandmother comitting suicide (which makes as much sense as her Grandmother using the self destruct for some unknown reason...)

It should have been great, and I'm with Allyn, the specials would have been so much better if he'd had Christina as a companion and then she'd died in this, that would have been a great set up for his regeneration.

 

[Aldo]

Allyn Gibson actually eloquated my feelings on why this episode didn't work for me. I just didn't buy the Doctor's character arc. It rang hollow for me when he showed back up to try and save the day, it didn't feel like something the Doctor would do.

 

[RoJoHen]

Perhaps. It was either that or stop watching Who for a while (at first I was dead set against continuing if it meant skipping a special). But I'm really keen on seeing what Matt Smith brings to the role, so missing out on one special was preferable to me than not watching Who until I was able to aquire said special.

Yeah, that 2 days it would've taken Netflix to send you the disc would've been unbearable.

Allyn Gibson actually eloquated my feelings on why this episode didn't work for me. I just didn't buy the Doctor's character arc. It rang hollow for me when he showed back up to try and save the day, it didn't feel like something the Doctor would do.

I thought it made perfect sense. It wasn't that he was trying to save the day. It's that he was trying to save himself. The arc is about the Oods' foreshadowing of the Doctor's death, and he was determined to prove them wrong. If he could save the Mars team and change one of those unchangeable "fixed" moments in time, he would be one step closer to doing that. However, as soon as Captain Brooke killed herself, he knew he was doomed.

 

[Skywalker]

I thought The Waters of Mars was the only one of the 2009 specials that was worth a damn. Though the first half of The Next Doctor was pretty sweet, too.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I have to disagree with Allyn about the character development at the start of "End of Time Part I". It's perfectly reconcilable with how the Doctor behaved at the end of "Waters of Mars". He was being selfish, he knew the gravity of the Ood's call, he simply was taken a bit of time for himself to push it away and not deal with it right away. A final distraction from reality if you will before the shit hit the fan for him. He pretty much admits this.