10.48: Dreamland

In which we learn that Doctor Who still can’t do animation.

Broadcast: November 2009

Watched: October 2021

You thought it was End of Time next didn’t you? Nope, some cartoon nonsense to get through first.

This production team’s last attempt to make a Doctor Who cartoon didn’t work very well. This one, somehow, is not as good. At least Infinite Quest did the whole sense-of-wonder thing, bringing in stuff you couldn’t do on TV. This is just a TV episode, but animated and worse. And the animation is rubbish. 

It should be okay. It moves like a motherf***er, and has loads of ideas in it. It sets out its stall with the Roswell sign before the credits (oh, Georgia Moffat, the Doctor’s daughter/wife, is back, only this time she’s in the credits). Then you get, variously, UFOs, men in black, something mysteriously eating cattle, black helicopters, Roswell, Area 51, mind wipes (the script suggests we actually have these by the 2000s? What?), a ghost town, and a minecart on rails... every alien conspiracy or American west cliche you can think of. 

The first cliffhanger is the US military and the aliens being in cahoots, which should be exciting, but isn’t. The Doctor later unconvincingly talks Colonel Stark into switching sides, in a scene weirdly reminiscent of the end of The Eleventh Hour, which at this point had been filmed but not released I think?

Only two bits struck me as good. One is some characterisation. Cassie doesn’t think the army is allowed to hurt US citizens. Her native American friend Jimmy – who somewhat unexpectedly is played by the singer out of the revived version of Mike + The Mechanics – is not so naive. 

The other is the bit where the Doctor has to escape while hiding in a box. That bit’s sweet. 

Why Doctor Who, which seems perfect for a cartoon version, consistently sucks when people try it is not exactly clear. I mean, it’s directed by Gary Russell, yes, but it’s not like there’s been a good version, is it?

Why on earth did this go out after The Waters of Mars, at a time when it was all about the regeneration? And why did nobody working on it check that they were looking at an accurate map of the USSR?

Clarke Peters deserved a better Doctor Who story.