Mars, 2059, Bowie Base One. Last recorded message: “Don’t drink the water. Don’t even touch it. Not one drop.”
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8 Likes
I think that this is brilliant. It uses the loneliness at the base perfectly and the monster is terrifying. 5/5
11 Likes
One of the best 10 episodes. I love the Flood and how 10 is trying to avoid messing with time but ends up getting involved. The crew are fantastic especially Adelaide
11 Likes
Personally I love this one. One of the best of the best.
This also scored very well on the “episodes my fiance has agreed to watch” scale.
Current fiance scores:
Loved it: 73 Yards, Waters of Mars, The Unquiet Dead
Liked it: Dalek, Father’s Day, Blink, A Christmas Carol
Meh: Rose, The End of the World, The Christmas Invasion, The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances
Overstimulating: Aliens of London, World War III, The Runaway Bride
10 Likes
It’s a classic for a reason, brilliant setting, characters, acting, and one of the few Doctor Who stories to genuinely scare me, 9/10
7 Likes
This is another of those episodes that I don’t personally like to watch as I absolutely hate watching my favorite characters go through it , but also say it was a very well made story. Returning to Mars and being put in another position where the Doctor can’t actually intervene was a great concept, and I thought the entire episode was well acted and well directed. It is another good example of why the Doctor shouldn’t travel alone. Midnight is a good representation of the Doctor needing someone to help them bridge their strange being with others. Waters of Mars, much like the Fires of Pompeii showed the Doctor needs someone who can ground them.
9 Likes
I love this one. The Flood are a great monster concept and they’re utilised really effectively here. There’s no point in this episode where the characters feel safe. I also really like how the episode uses the Doctor’s knowledge of these events which he knows will be important in the history of humanity. It’s all just really well used to ratchet up the tension throughout the episode. The climax here is one of the most exhilarating sequences in the show’s history.
I also love the supporting cast, especially Captain Adelaide Brooke played by the great Lindsay Duncan. But honestly they’re all really well fleshed out characters, which makes the inevitable tragedy of the episode hit all the harder.
It’s just a damn near perfect DW episode both in concept and execution.
10 Likes
Easy top five episodes of the show ever. RTD fascinates me as a writer because the idea that somebody can write something as nuanced, exciting, terrifying and original as this can also write The Reality War feels entirely incongruous.
Ten’s best episode by far, the Doctor’s never lost control in quite as believable and fascinating a way as this before. Adelaide is probably the best one-off companion/character the show’s ever made, she’s a brilliant concept and performance. The setting of Bowie Base One is immaculate, the ensemble cast is thankfully incredibly memorable. I adore the Flood as an antagonist, the idea of turning something as integral to life as water against us is terrifying and both their visuals and presence are exceptional.
And then that ending! God, it might just be the best scene of the original RTD era, the dialogue, the twist, the culmination of where the Doctor’s been headed since Rose. This may very well be a perfect episode, I can find little to no flaws in it.
10/10
14 Likes
It’s just so cool to have a future historical! It does a great job of establishing the crew as historical figures and what their impact is (better than some actual historical tbh).
The previews/leaks all said this was the scariest episode since Blink, so I was underwhelmed by the flood, but then Ten goes off the rails, and it is absolutely that scary
8 Likes
I’m gonna be honest this one isn’t my fav
It’s at 3.5 but idk I just didn’t click with it as much as some other specials? Could also be cause I was binging this plus end of time 1&2 on New Year’s Eve to finish 10 before 12, so other than flashes I don’t remember it much.
7 Likes
What @speechless said 
3 Likes
Easily one of the best episodes of the revival, and certainly one of the best of the RTD1 run and the best of the 2009 Specials. I absolutely love this one, it works at being completely terrifying for younger viewers without going too far. The Flood themselves are one of the best one-off villains the show has ever produced and the supporting cast are all excellent in this.
Always been one of my favourites since I watched it at broadcast as a young boy, it has the perfect scare factor (as mentioned above) and also the emotional weight from both the Tenth Doctor and the rest of the cast. It’s interesting to rewatch it now as I find the dynamic between the first people on Mars to be incredibly well done and their deaths even more gut-punching, especially when Steffi dies whilst watching the video from her daughter. One slight problem I have with this though is that as a child it was my first introduction to the idea of the Ice Warriors and I don’t think that any Martian story has ever quite been able to live up to this for me, which is a bit unfortunate as the Ice Warriors have some great stories themselves, but in the back of my mind there’s always the thought: Yeah, but it wasn’t as good as The Waters of Mars was it?
8 Likes
Great story!
I’m hoping TLV does a good job exploring where the Doctor went from this.
3 Likes
Tension? 
Action?
Cool monster?
Silly robot? sadly
Base under siege?
Sticky-uppy hair?
It ticks so many boxes and is just a really good story. I’m a fan.
4,5/5 
10 Likes
From the moment Ten leaves the airlock, and soulfully walks back to the TARDIS accompanied by a tragic chorus of children’s voices, valiant desperation and noble sacrifices…you can feel that this is proper powerhouse television.
Now, we know the show, we know drama. We’ve been given the set up, told the rules and established the facts. No intervention this time, more important to just walk away…but we know the Doctor, we know that despite all this, he’s going to head back.
And yet…it still doesn’t lessen the impact of that hero shot, that rendition of ‘All The Strange, Strange Creatures’…that return, and ultimately what it all means.
We know he’s f#cking up, for all the right reasons…and it’s electrifying.
Tennant is at the top of his game here. His frantic spitballing, his focussed determination and his supreme arrogance. When he declares…
"We’re not just fighting The Flood, we’re fighting time itself…AND I’M GONNA WIN!.
. …I get goose pimples. Every time.
Not only great Doctor Who, but genuinely great drama. Love it.
8 Likes
I absolutely adore this episode. There’s not much to say that hasn’t already been said. Definitely one of the best RTD1 episodes for me. I watched this episode when I nine, a few years after it originally aired. All of my friends had hyped up Blink or The Empty Child as the scariest episode, but this was the scariest one for me. For one, the Flood is terrifying, both visually and conceptually (“water is patient” has always stuck with me). The other thing that freaked me out was the ending scene. The writing in this episode is phenomenal, and it really is a culmination of the doctor’s character arc up to that point. When I was a kid, Ten declaring himself the timelord victorious felt as scary as any monster in the show. David Tennant is a phenomenal actor.
8 Likes
I love this story! I remember watching it when it first came out and I was absolutely terrified, and even though I know what is coming it still has all the same power.
The Time Lord Victorious stuff is so good too, and is probably the scariest the Doctor ever gets themself, which adds even more depth to what is a fantastic story.
The fate of the crewmates always get to me, especially Steffi, because they are all such amazing characters.
One of the finest stories of all of NewWho.
11 Likes
It’s Waters of Mars. Nuff said.
6 Likes
It scared me the first time I saw it (to the point that I can refer to ‘the scary one’ and my dad knows exactly which episode I’m talking about). It scared me again when I rewatched it recently. Before I saw this episode, I would have said it was impressive that someone could make water scary. But, no, you know what, water is scary. Water is terrifying. It’s powerful and it’s everywhere and it never, ever stops. It’ll be after you forever. It’s in everything. You can’t get away from it. It’s persistent, it just. keeps. working.
(Okay, but aside from that, the crackled mouths are super scary, too. Like, I remember my dad wanting to watch the behind the scenes[1] for it and I couldn’t finish because even with that just watching the water flow out of their mouths was… [shudder].)
(blanking on what they were calling it then) ↩︎
6 Likes
Tenth gets a long overdue ego check. Yeah, Midnight to an extent fulfilled a similar function, but that was also followed by Turn Left to show that, no matter how ineffectively full of himself he may be, the universe still needs him. But there are no such concessions made here. The Doctor completely embraces his ‘Last Of The Time Lords’ status, the assumed sense of authority he’s so used to swinging around wherever he goes… and is actively confronted with how bad of an idea that is.
The base under siege formula is used to amazing effect here, with The Flood as one of the most terrifying one-off monsters the show has ever produced. There’s something deeply, inescapably unsettling about the idea that the very water in our bodies can become weaponised into this sentient pathogen. Insert joke about the dangers of unprotected fluid exchange here.
Also, Adelaide Brooke is legit one of my favourite companions (and yes, she took a trip on the TARDIS, she counts). The climax is admittedly a big part of that with how unprecedented her decision was; no other story before or since made it feel like that was even a possibility, let alone actually go through with it. I admit to having a hair trigger when it comes to su*cide as a dramatic ploy in fiction, but it is done really well here. It’s believable, it serves a genuine character purpose, it isn’t wrapped in cheap mental health appeals, and again with its uniqueness as a companion action in mind, it is one hell of an indicator that the Doctor well and truly ■■■■■■ up.
The nature of said ■■■■-up is fascinating too. I’ve mentioned this before in other threads, but the notion that the Doctor choosing to save lives could be the worst decision he could make was an inspired choice. With how wonky NuWho can be in depicting the Doctor as a pacifist, it’d be one thing to show him spiralling after deciding to break from that ideal. But to show him going to the other extreme, and highlighting that as his dark side starting to blossom, is a level of nuance that the show rarely allows itself.
The previous two specials were a sign that RTD’s departure was probably for the best, as he seemed to be running on fumes (a sensation that will become even more glaring later…). But Waters Of Mars showed that he still had one great story to tell with Tenth, and even though I maintain that he had a couple of even better scripts under his belt when it came time for RTD2, it still makes for some of his best work within the Whoniverse.
9 Likes