The Doctor has great expectations for his latest adventure when he and Rose join forces with Charles Dickens to investigate a mysterious plague of zombies.
Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends.
If your account is linked with Facebook and you have turned on sharing, this will show up in your activity feed. If not, you can turn on sharing
here
.
The members of the Torchwood Institute, a secret organization founded by the British Crown, fight to protect the Earth from extraterrestrial and supernatural threats.
When an old enemy, the Cylons, resurface and obliterate the 12 colonies, the crew of the aged Galactica protects a small civilian fleet - the last of humanity - as they journey toward the fabled 13th colony of Earth.
Stars:
Edward James Olmos,
Mary McDonnell,
Jamie Bamber
Five hundred years in the future, a renegade crew aboard a small spacecraft tries to survive as they travel the unknown parts of the galaxy and evade warring factions as well as authority agents out to get them.
A young Clark Kent struggles to find his place in the world as he learns to harness his alien powers for good and deals with the typical troubles of teenage life in Smallville.
Framed for murder and on the run, a former thief struggles to expose the vanguard of an alien invasion with the help of a conspiracy theorist and newly discovered prophecies of Nostradamus.
Stars:
Sebastian Spence,
Rob LaBelle,
Roger R. Cross
An international team of scientists and military personnel discover a Stargate network in the Pegasus Galaxy and come face-to-face with a new, powerful enemy, The Wraith.
Stars:
Joe Flanigan,
Rachel Luttrell,
David Hewlett
After an encounter with UFOs, a line worker feels undeniably drawn to an isolated area in the wilderness where something spectacular is about to happen.
Director:
Steven Spielberg
Stars:
Richard Dreyfuss,
François Truffaut,
Teri Garr
Rose takes her first trip back in time and she and the Doctor travel to 1869 London. They take in a reading from none other than Charles Dickens but in the middle of the performance, a zombie-like creature interrupts the performance and there is a ghostly apparition. Rose is kidnapped and taken to the home of an undertaker where alien creatures are living in the gas lighting system and taken possession of the dead. Rose manages to get information from Gwyneth, the parlor maid, that points to her as the central point of contact for the alien beings. Written by
garykmcd
Bad Wolf Reference: Gwyneth looks into Rose's mind and sees "...the darkness...The Big Bad Wolf!" See more »
Goofs
The doctor claims to have landed on December 24th, 1869. He runs into a lecturing Charles Dickens. A stroke earlier in the year prevented Dickens from lecturing until January, 1870. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Gabriel Sneed:
Sneed and Company offer their sincerest condolences, sir, in this most trying hour.
Redpath:
Grandmama had a good innings, Mr. Sneed. She was so full of life. I can't believe she's gone.
Gabriel Sneed:
Not gone, Mr. Redpath. Merely sleeping.
Redpath:
May I have a moment?
Gabriel Sneed:
Yes, of course. I shall be in the next room should you require anything.
[after Sneed leaves, the body rises up and strangles Redpath. Sneed rushes back in]
Gabriel Sneed:
Oh, no. Gwyneth! Get down here now! We've got another one!
See more »
The Unquiet Dead doesn't quite live up to to the first two episodes of the new Doctor Who series (especially the superb The End of the World), but it does feature ghosts, wit and the first example of a recurring gimmick throughout the series: the Doctor's interaction with historical figures.
The interaction is actually caused by accident: the Doctor wanted to take Rose to Naples for Christmas, but somehow the TARDIS has something to say about it and the two find themselves, much to the Doctor's dismay, in 1860 Cardiff. Trouble isn't very far away, either, since corpses have been mysteriously revived in the past few weeks, and the only people who can do something about it are the Doctor, a girl with psychic powers and a certain Charles Dickens (Simon Callow), who now makes a living performing magic tricks and hosting public readings of his body of work.
The main fascination of The Unquiet Dead is its postmodern approach to Dickens, something that was entirely to be expected from writer Mark Gatiss, given his experiences on The League of Gentlemen (the TV show, not the Sean Connery-starring nonsense): the great writer is depicted as a mixture of A Christmas Carol's Scrooge and Hard Times' Gradgrind, i.e. a man who has lost all faith in the magic he used to write about and now believes firmly in scientific facts. And all that goes without mentioning his wonderfully clever comment on the supernatural incidents in the story: "What the Shakespeare is going on here?". That line might also be a reference to the fact that Callow, always reliable for these parts, appeared in Shakespeare in Love and reportedly made a provocative statement about Hamlet in the original version of Four Weddings and a Funeral (Richard Curtis subsequently removed that scene, along with the back-stories of all the other characters as well).
On the flip-side, the episode has a darkness to it (given the zombie-style premise) that doesn't really sit well with the general tone of the show (Steven Moffat's two-part story later on in the season shows how to use that darkness in a good way), the (inevitable) gallows humor being more suitable for a Monty Python sketch or, given Gatiss' involvement, a League of Gentlemen story than Doctor Who. However, Eccleston's charisma manages to lighten up the mood when necessary, and Piper's natural warmth contributes hugely, too.
So no, it's not really good as the episodes written by Davies or Moffat, but what the heck, it's got Charles Dickens - that ought to be enough.
11 of 13 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful to you?
The Unquiet Dead doesn't quite live up to to the first two episodes of the new Doctor Who series (especially the superb The End of the World), but it does feature ghosts, wit and the first example of a recurring gimmick throughout the series: the Doctor's interaction with historical figures.
The interaction is actually caused by accident: the Doctor wanted to take Rose to Naples for Christmas, but somehow the TARDIS has something to say about it and the two find themselves, much to the Doctor's dismay, in 1860 Cardiff. Trouble isn't very far away, either, since corpses have been mysteriously revived in the past few weeks, and the only people who can do something about it are the Doctor, a girl with psychic powers and a certain Charles Dickens (Simon Callow), who now makes a living performing magic tricks and hosting public readings of his body of work.
The main fascination of The Unquiet Dead is its postmodern approach to Dickens, something that was entirely to be expected from writer Mark Gatiss, given his experiences on The League of Gentlemen (the TV show, not the Sean Connery-starring nonsense): the great writer is depicted as a mixture of A Christmas Carol's Scrooge and Hard Times' Gradgrind, i.e. a man who has lost all faith in the magic he used to write about and now believes firmly in scientific facts. And all that goes without mentioning his wonderfully clever comment on the supernatural incidents in the story: "What the Shakespeare is going on here?". That line might also be a reference to the fact that Callow, always reliable for these parts, appeared in Shakespeare in Love and reportedly made a provocative statement about Hamlet in the original version of Four Weddings and a Funeral (Richard Curtis subsequently removed that scene, along with the back-stories of all the other characters as well).
On the flip-side, the episode has a darkness to it (given the zombie-style premise) that doesn't really sit well with the general tone of the show (Steven Moffat's two-part story later on in the season shows how to use that darkness in a good way), the (inevitable) gallows humor being more suitable for a Monty Python sketch or, given Gatiss' involvement, a League of Gentlemen story than Doctor Who. However, Eccleston's charisma manages to lighten up the mood when necessary, and Piper's natural warmth contributes hugely, too.
So no, it's not really good as the episodes written by Davies or Moffat, but what the heck, it's got Charles Dickens - that ought to be enough.