I agree with much of what has been said above. There waa a good setup with the introduction of New New York (would have been nice to see a bit more of the city & get a feel for the society though), the hospital, the nuns & the reveal of Cassandra.
Unfortunately after that things started to get a bit silly. Billie’s interpretation of Cassandra was good & it gave her a chance to play “sexy”, but Tennant’s was just cringe for me - way too camp & OTT. And here we see the seeds of the sexualisation of the Doctor/Companion relationship being sewn in earnest - IMO one of the very worst things about NuWho in general.
And the resolution was an early example of one of RTD’s “deus ex machina” endings he is so fond of. It wouldn’t have been so bad if there had been huge quantities of the mixture and it had been administered through a building-wide sprinkler system - but just to have a small quantity sprayed over a couple of people in one lift & then spread it around by touch was absolutely ridiculous, sorry.
It was nice to see the Face of Boe again though. And no, the Doctor/companion dynamic aside, it was still better than Space Babies!
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Watching this one now. Still trying to catch up with the Club (plus I really need to rate most of this season). This will kind of be a bit rambling as I write as I watch.
The Doctor apparently still doesn’t like hospitals. Already separated from the Doctor, at Rose has the sense to pick up a weapon of sorts. The Face of Boe is an impressive prop/effect. Is it just me, or does the guy kissing Cassandra’s hand in the home movies look a bit like Captain John Hart? I have to admit, Billie’s a good actress. As much as I don’t care for Cassandra, or the whole body swap part of this story, Billie’s definitely showing her range.
So I finished this. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great. It’s a very servicable, middle-of-the-road episode. Both David and Billie are excellent when acting as Cassandra, the hospital and the super-cure plot is quite interesting, and the Face of Boe is an interesting character (made even more interesting if you take the hint from the end of Series 3 that the Face of Boe is a super ancient Jack Harkness seriously). This will never be a favorite of mine, but it is a fun episode with some decent action set pieces.
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Also, lots of interesting tidbits in the Story Notes section of the wiki article for this story: New Earth (TV story) - Tardis Wiki.
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It’s lightweight and fluffy, and purposefully comedic for Tennant and Piper. I don’t mind it. I don’t love it though. It feels a bit of a shame that Tennant spends most of his debut asleep, and then his first proper episode is spent faffing about with body swaps - when we just want to see the new Doctor with Rose doing their thing and learning about each other.
Fun to have Cassandra return as a recurring villain though, and I think it was wise to bump the Face of Boe’s message into Series 3 instead. It would’ve been odd, and maybe far too early, here.
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