10.47: The Waters of Mars

In which Russell experiments with setting a historical in the future, and also with magic suicide.

Broadcast: November 2009

Watched: October 2021

“Water is patient. Water always wins.”

Most of this is by far the best story of the specials year, and possibly the best base under siege of all time. Then it all goes wrong.

Good bits first. Some of the best world-building RTD ever does: Bowie Base One, “A world state flight” (why aren’t Spain or the Philippines in the international space programme?), and an unnervingly prescient hint that things would turn nasty in the second half of the 2010s. (”It’s been chaos back home. Forty long years. The climate, the ozone, the oil apocalypse...”)

There’s no messing about: we get less than five minutes as the Doctor as jolly space tourist, talking to himself, before the monsters first appear. Putting the infection in something as harmless and vital as water would make it genuinely scary, even if the monsters themselves weren’t terrifying. Which they are. 

The episode’s real power, though, comes from two things. One is that it’s structured like a tragedy, telling us the end at the beginning (if you prefer the fanboy version, it’s The Aztecs, only in the future). The really helps create a sense of escalation, of events spiralling inexorably out of control. The two most powerful moments are the slow motion bit with the Doctor watching everyone calmly carrying on, knowing that it’s hopeless, and the conversation over the intercom afterwards in which the Doctor finally tells Adelaide what he knows (Tennant is great in that scene, but Lindsay Duncan is incredible). [Composer] Murray Gold is at his height in this one, too.

The other thing – the one that sets it apart from most base under siege stories – is the guest characters. They’re likeable, they’re decent, they’re easy to distinguish, and so their deaths hurt. Adelaide is clearly a brilliant leader, staying calm when everything is going wrong. I love the hint of unexplained resentment towards her deputy, who is always desperately trying to win her approval. 

The American kid with the talking robot is annoying (he’s basically Rattigan in the Sontaran two parter?), but when he’s infected he doesn’t do the standard zombie film thing of pretending he’s fine, he tells them to leave him. In the same way, Ed blows the shuttle to stop it escaping. Steffi dies, watching a video of her daughter and sobbing, and be honest, you know exactly the bit I’m referring to there don’t you – how many red shirt deaths do you remember that well? 

So for 45 minutes it’s about forcing the Doctor to feel the cost his adventures have to his supporting casts – literally, that quote from Damaged Goods [RTD’s first official Who story, a novel published in 1996; this is a call back to the post from when I read that, but I haven’t published that yet so it looks odd here] – and it’s proper A+ “f- yeah Doctor Who!” story.

But then, it becomes a story about how the Doctor feels about the rules of time travel, and it becomes meaningless because those rules are just made up. 

I like the idea that by getting the TARDIS to rescue the survivors he’s breaking the laws of Doctor Who. But then we get the magic suicide bit which 

    a) is inherently a bit sick, 

    b) doesn’t make any sense whatsoever (no way does someone kill themselves to protect the timelines after knowing the Doctor for an hour), and 

    c) makes the death of a woman with a family a story about how the Doctor is sad. Again. 

Then spooky Ood Sigma appears to remind us that the thing we should really care about here is the fact that the Doctor is going to regenerate in six week’s time. Because obviously what we all associate Ood with is death. 

Maybe this the problem with trying to do The Aztecs about the future. There’s no dramatic way of resolving it. You can buy the “not one line” bit about history you know, but not about history the author invented. It’s too abstract. 

It’s a shame because, until that last act, this one’s bloody amazing. 

Inevitably, some other things. Actually loads of them, I’ve thought about this episode a lot. 

• I watched this episode early, thanks to a screener sourced by a journalism mate of mine. Unfortunately, quite an evil one. [If you’re reading this, though, thank you it was very kind of you to ask, hope you’re well mate!]

• This is a do-over of 42, with the clock ticking and the villain being water rather than fire. Is that a sign RTD thought Chibnall had wasted a good idea, or just that he was running on empty? 

• There’s a bit of the end of The Satan Pit in there, too, in the flood’s plan to take the Earth. I’m not quite sold on  that plan – if it can hide that Maggie is infected, why not wait longer, until it’s got everyone?  

• Something else I’m not quite sold on: I am not convinced you can load 9 months’ worth of food in half an hour. Also the link to Stolen Earth feels like gratuitous continuity, but I guess if it makes kids identify with the 60 year old woman it’s justifiable. 

• Only realised on this viewing that the famous granddaughter is the baby you see in the first shot of the episode. Cool.

• Several of the guest cast are meant to be American but don’t have American accents. Weird.

• I thought there was an implication that Yuri and Mia end up together but didn’t spot it this time – is that in the newspaper clips? (Checks:) Deleted scenes, huh. Nice Whitaker reference, though. [David, not Jodie: the show’s first script editor, who tended to have people coupling up in subplots of his stories.]

• Regarding those newspaper clips – is the implication meant to be that the Doctor’s memories of events change?

• Mia’s terror of the Doctor at the end prefigures Night of the Doctor.

• “Made in Liverpool, magnificent workmanship”.

• Again, why does the Doctor just assume four knocks means death? It could just mean the postman needs a signature. 

• Barry Letts tribute at the end. [The show’s producer for five seasons in the early 1970s, and exec producer for the first of the 1980s, and one of the show’s most important creative figures, died in 2009. Also, now I think of it, he was someone who I specifically named in the “about page” of this website as the sort of person I wouldn’t bother explaining to the uninitiated; oh well.] Weird to think he could have seen Planet of the Dead.

• If “action one” is evacuation and “action five” is detonation, what the hell are the other three?

Just realised… I am exactly one day off this being published on the episode’s anniversary. That’s strangely annoying. Oh well.