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Original Transmission
Cast
The TARDIS materialises in Martha's flat. The Doctor tells her that they had agreed - one trip and home. It is about twelve hours after they left. Martha's phone rings, but she does not pick it up; it is her mother, Francine, saying that her sister Tish is on the news. Martha turns the television on and, alongside Tish, an elderly man, Professor Richard Lazarus, announces that tonight he "will change what it means to be human." The Doctor says goodbye to Martha and, oblivious to her upset, steps into the TARDIS. It dematerialises, but quickly rematerialises. "No, I'm sorry, did he say he was going to change what it meant to be human?" At Lazarus Labs, Professor Lazarus and Lady Thaw discuss the need for the experiment to work, with Thaw mentioning that Mr Saxon is funding their research. Tish comes in and Lazarus attempts to flirt with her. The Doctor and Martha attend Professor Lazarus' reception that evening, as do Martha's mother and her brother Leo. Martha introduces the Doctor to her family; Francine is suspicious of him. Lazarus announces he is to perform a "miracle", and steps into the manipulator's capsule. As technicians operate the machine, the Doctor notices that the system is overloaded and jumps in to avert disaster. Lazarus emerges, looking decades younger. Despite the momentary crisis, his experiment appears to have been a success - but the Doctor is certain there are dangers the professor has overlooked. Lazarus scoffs at the Doctor's warnings, so the Doctor and Martha sneak off to conduct their own tests, taking a DNA sample from Martha's hand, which Lazarus has just kissed. They see that his sonically "hacked" DNA is unstable: Lazarus is changing.
Meanwhile, Lazarus speaks with Lady Thaw. She wants to be the next to be rejuvenated, and to continue their partnership both personally and professionally. He rejects her. As she threatens to complain to Mr. Saxon, Lazarus' financial backer, he transforms into a large, scorpion-like monster with Lazarus' face, and kills her. Downstairs, Francine asks Tish and Leo whether Martha has ever mentioned the Doctor to them before. She worries there is "something going on". Lazarus returns to the reception, apparently human and wearing a different suit, and invites Tish upstairs with him. The Doctor and Martha find Lady Thaw's body; the Doctor says she had all the life energy drained to supply energy to the processes caused by Lazarus' fluctuating DNA. Worried he will kill again, they go back downstairs, only to learn that he has gone off with Tish. They rush off, the Doctor accidentally spilling a drink on Francine. Another man replaces her drink, and darkly warns that Martha should be more careful in choosing her friends.
Lazarus takes Tish to the roof, where he talks about nearby Southwark Cathedral and quotes T.S. Eliot, a quote the Doctor completes. As they argue, Martha gets Tish away from Lazarus before he transforms again into a monster. The Doctor comments that what Lazarus has transformed into is an accidentally-unlocked evolutionary dead-end lying dormant in human genes (resembling Brontoscorpio, see Walking with Monsters). They run away, tripping a security lockdown. The Doctor gives Martha the sonic screwdriver to unlock the doors, and warns everyone at the reception to get out; but Lazarus kills one woman and Leo suffers a concussion. The Doctor draws Lazarus away from Francine. Lazarus chases the Doctor down a corridor. Martha examines Leo, gets everyone out of the building, and goes back inside to help the Doctor despite Francine's protests. Tish guesses that "maybe she loves him". The man who replaced Francine's drink earlier calls the Doctor "dangerous", and whispers in Francine's ear the things he says she "should know" about him.
The Doctor turns on the gas in a lab and leaps away from the resulting fireball, but the Lazarus monster survives. Martha returns the sonic screwdriver to the Doctor. They flee together into the capsule of Lazarus' machine, on the Doctor's hunch that Lazarus is unlikely to destroy his own creation. Instead, Lazarus turns it on. The Doctor "reverses the polarity" so that it affects the outside of the capsule instead of the inside, transforming Lazarus back to human in appearance - and killing him.
Outside, as the ambulance carrying Lazarus' body pulls away, Francine slaps the Doctor, and tells him to keep away from Martha. The Doctor hears the ambulance crash and rushes toward it, followed by Martha and Tish. They find two more of Lazarus' victims in it; Lazarus has come back to life. They find him in human form inside Southwark Cathedral, where as a child he took refuge during the London Blitz. The Doctor says he was present during the Blitz, but Lazarus says that he is not old enough to have been there. They argue again about the benefits and curse of longevity. Martha (accompanied by Tish) then lures Lazarus away to the top of the bell tower; the Doctor told her earlier that Lazarus could be defeated if he could just get him up there. As the Lazarus monster chases the Jones sisters at the top of the cathedral, the Doctor pulls out all the stops on the pipe organ, inserts the sonic screwdriver, and plays it at maximum volume, setting up a resonance in the bell above Lazarus that interferes with his sonic-based experiment. Lazarus falls to the cathedral floor below, transforming one last time - back into the elderly man he once was. Back in Martha's flat, the Doctor offers Martha one more trip, but
Martha refuses to go with him on that basis, as a mere passenger being
given a treat. The Doctor says "Okay, then, if that's what you
want." She thinks he means to leave her again, but he indicates
with a nod that she is welcome to rejoin him on her terms, and admits
she was "never really just a passenger". They leave together
in the TARDIS. As it disappears, Martha's phone rings; it's Francine.
She warns Martha about "who this Doctor really is", saying,
"This information comes from Harold Saxon himself. You're not
safe!"
Analysis by Cuisle Did anyone over thirty NOT think about Joe 90 when the Lazarus machine started spinning? Apart from that, this was NOT a kids story. This story needed you to pay attention in a mature way. And not just because of the references to T.S. Elliot’s Wasteland that kept popping up.
The dialogue scenes between The Doctor and Lazarus were deep and meaningful and well written. Mark Gattis as Lazarus put a great deal of empathy into his reasons for submitting himself to the rejuvenation. The Doctor put even more into his reasons why Human beings should die at their proper time and not try to extend their life. In some ways it might seem as if he is being hypocritical. He has lived near enough 1,000 years but when a Human tries to do the same he rages against it. But it isn’t because he wants to be the only old person with a young face. He knows from bitter personal experience that longevity is a curse. It harks back to his words to Sarah Jane in School Reunion. But it added more. This time he talked openly of the loneliness of seeing everyone pass away until he is alone. It was a deeply emotional speech, well written, well delivered by him.
The camera work as he made that speech was especially cinematic and deserves mention. The Doctor walked around the cathedral, circling Lazarus and the camera followed him, mostly from Lazarus’s point of view. It animated what would otherwise have been a static scene with long pieces of dialogue and allowed the architecture of the setting in Wells Cathedral to be fully utilised. Before the speech there was a monster that was one of the Mill’s finest pieces of work. The grey skeletal form, dead looking flesh hanging off it as if it had been buried in a crypt for years; a torso that looked like a Human that had gone badly wrong and a scorpion tail. Add to that a jaw that expanded like an anaconada’s from something that still looked vaguely like Mark Gattis’s face. It was a fantastic interpretation of the brief given to them by the scriptwriters. And this time, surely, not intended for the toy market. The scenes with it chasing The Doctor through the laboratories and later in the cathedral were excellent. The more so since David Tennant and all the other actors involved had to play to an empty space while the monster was added later in post-production. Although ‘pretending’ is the first thing any of us learn in the school play ground, and improvising is the basis of most work at stage school, it is still quite hard for actors to get acting to nothing right. But on Doctor Who, between CGI monsters and green screen, they have plenty of practice. Kudos goes to the special effects for the drained bodies of the victims, too. They were very convincing.
Between the monster and The Doctor’s attempt to make Lazarus see the error of his ways, there was the complication of Martha’s family. Her brother and sister seem to have the right idea. Leo recognised that The Doctor had helped them all. Tish joined Martha in a double effort to assist him in the final confrontation. But their mother had clearly lost the plot even before she was poisoned against The Doctor by a messenger from Mr. Saxon. Martha must be at least 20. She is training to be a doctor. She is an adult. It is past time that her mother had any say in who she should be seeing, and yet there was a constant carping and sniping, interrogating The Doctor about his relationship with Martha. He must have longed for the good old days with Jackie. And then he got a sock on the jaw to remind him. I really could not feel any sympathy for Francine. She was an over-protective harpy trying to control her children long after they were old enough to make their own decisions, mistakes or no mistakes. But her opposition to The Doctor provides a way of introducing the sinister Mr Saxon as somebody who wishes The Doctor harm. And for now, that seems to be her role in the ongoing story.
With so many elements in the story it actually worked very well.
The balance between action and dialogue was much better managed than
in Evolution of The Daleks. The ‘soap’ bits with Martha
and family were kept to what was necessary to move the story along.
Martha’s recruitment as a full time TARDIS traveller was nicely
done to finish it off.
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