Doctor Who series 1 The Unquiet Dead review

Here's what you need to know; the Doctor and Rose travel back to Cardiff in 1869, where they unearth strange goings on in a funeral home, and the dead roaming the streets. Having run across none other than Charles Dickens, the unlikely team must do battle against the strange force that is waking the dead.

Right away this is a creepier episode than Rose and The End of the World, with a dead old lady literally bursting out of her coffin and taking to the streets, shambling like a zombie and wailing like a banshee. This episode does however retain the humour of the previous 2 episodes, with is very good. Now let's get to what I really like in this episode; the ghosts. This episode takes a fun and fascinating look at ghosts, how history has seen them and what they are in reality, at least in this episode. This episode also explores the rift, a very important part of Doctor Who, which is essentially a hole in time and space beneath Cardiff that, in this episode, allows body stealing gas creatures to venture though from their world to Cardiff. Despite having a Doctor Whoy reason for all the spooky happenings, The Unquiet Dead doesn't venture too far from it's supernatural themes, if you haven't seen my profile, the paranormal is a little interest of mine. The Unquiet Dead goes into Rose's history too, in a scene where her and Gwyneth talk about Rose's father briefly. The history of the Doctor gets some development here too, with the Gelth being casualties of the Time War. It also has some fun with Charles Dickens, who, in his life of scepticism, has suddenly been thrown into a frightening new world that he struggles to deal with. Now for some negative, I felt that the Doctor was bit too trusting of the Gelth, and the reveal of their true nature is somewhat abrupt, and while predictable, goes unexplained. And, while dated effects rarely get in the way of enjoyment, at least for me, at least when there's substance to what I'm watching, in this episode the ghosts are blue, ethereal CG effects that look terrible, and it really detracts from the spookiness towards the end when the Gelth reveal their true nature.

Aside from the goofy and un spooky CG towards the end that really shows it's age, and a few nit picks I have with the story, I do like this episode of Doctor Who, it's funny, clever, and spooky, and provides a peek at the history of the 2 main characters, as well as having fun with a past time and place and a famous writer. All in all another good episode of Doctor Who.