"Doctor Who" Boom Town (2005)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Joe Ahearne

Writer:

Russell T. Davies (written by)

TV Series:

"Doctor Who" (2005)

Original Air Date:

4 June 2005 (Season 1, Episode 11)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Sci-Fi

Plot:

Stopping off in present-day Cardiff to recharge the TARDIS, The Doctor, Rose and Jack encounter an old foe in the midst of hatching a scheme that could destroy the entire planet.

Plot Keywords:

Fantasy Episode | Alien | Time Lord | Tardis | Companion

Cast

Christopher Eccleston	...	Doctor Who
Billie Piper	...	Rose Tyler
William Thomas	...	Mr. Cleaver
Annette Badland	...	Margaret
John Barrowman	...	Captain Jack
Noel Clarke	...	Mickey
Mali Harries	...	Cathy
Aled Pedrick	...	Idris Hopper
Alan Ruscoe	...	Slitheen

Runtime:

45 min | 45 min (50 episodes)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:PG | USA:TV-PG

Trivia:

The extras were not actually on set with the cast. They were filmed separately and edited in afterwards.

Goofs:

Continuity: The Doctor has obviously forgotten his vow to Peri at the end of the Sixth Doctor episode "The Two Doctors", where he stated it would be a healthy vegetarian diet for the both of them from then on, since in his dinner with Margaret he orders steak and chips.

Quotes:

Idris Hopper: The Lord Mayor says... thank you for popping by to have a chat but, um, she's up to her eyes in paperwork... perhaps if you could make an appointment, for, for next week...?
The Doctor: She's climbing out the window, isn't she?
Idris Hopper: ...Yes, she is.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Doctor Who: Bad Wolf (#1.12)" (2005)

Entertaining But Too Heavy Handed

I'll watch any old crap that's transmitted under the DOCTOR WHO banner but when The Sun newspaper revealed that The Slitheen would be making a return visit to the series I wasn't exactly ecstatic about watching Boom Town since the Siltheen are amongst the most silly aliens to have appeared in the show I mean farting aliens how stupid is that ? I'm also cynical enough to suggest that Russell T Davies introduced the aliens to start off a merchandising craze featuring these fat unlovable creatures . Terry Nation gave us The Daleks , RTD gave us The Slitheen . I'll leave you to decide who is the better writer

To be fair to Davies he knows he's writing for a family audience so he's brought back the Slitheen which he knows will appeal to kids while he's written a story with the death penalty at the heart of the subtext which will hold the interest of adult viewers . Unfortunately RTD has included camp elements of dialogue where Magaret Slitheen refers to people being bumped off who were going to stop the building of a nuclear station in Cardiff and Murray Gold's music in the chase sequence reminded me of the music in the show from the late 1980s and that's not a compliment . Thankfully director Joe Ahearne manages to stop everything falling into high camp unlike Keith Boak did with The Slitheen debut