Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: B | 2 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT World War Three (2)
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 5 | Aired on 04.06.2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Part II finds everyone still imperiled by the chubby Slitheen. The Doctor electrocutes one of them with his ID card, and the lot go twitchy all around London. Mickey grabs Jackie and rushes her away from the flat; Rose and Harriet -- and the Doctor, now accused by the PM of killing the alien expert assembly -- all go running around 10 Downing Street like it's Scooby Doo for a good long while, during which the Doctor and Harriet decide that they are friends. The Doctor discusses the whole snarled plot with the Slitheen over a decanter of port, and figures out that they're actually a family of criminals planning on roasting Earth with the UK's nuclear weapons, and selling off the scrap. Harriet, Rose, and the Doctor lock themselves behind blast doors in the Cabinet Room, and use Rose's beefed-up mobile to communicate with Jackie and Mickey. As more government-placed aliens arrive at Downing Street -- and the Doctor begins to remember Harriet's name from somewhere or another -- Mickey and Jackie use the Doctor's UNIT connections to hack into some kind of political über-website. Contra the Doctor's promise to protect Rose, Rose okays her mum and boyfriend to launch a missile at Downing Street. The Slitheen are dispatched and our kids emerge safe from the wreckage of yet another London monument; the Doctor recommends Harriet as the new Prime Minister, and remembers who she'll be: the three-term future architect of Britannia's Golden Age. Back at Jackie's, there is much emotional processing about where everybody will end up. The Doctor offers Mickey a place on the TARDIS, but he's still too anxious about all the death-defying feats, so the Doctor tells Rose that he's absolutely uninvited. It's sweeter and less humiliating than it sounds, because now that the Doctor likes Mickey, he is cool. He gives Mickey a computer virus that, if activated, will destroy all references to the Doctor on Earth. Jackie -- and Rose -- accept that Rose is in for the adventure, no matter what. There's an emotional goodbye outside the TARDIS, between Rose and her family, and she reminds them that (barring any more twelve-hour/twelve-month fuckups), she could be back in ten subjective seconds. The Doctor and Rose take off again, and Jackie and Mickey settle in to wait, and move on whilst waiting. It's everything that Rose's first goodbye wasn't, and what it means is that the show's about to kick in all over again. (Math: in a thirteen-episode season, this would be your U.S. "episode seven" act break.) High hopes for Daleks in 2012! Want more? The full recap starts right below!
The Doctor shakes off last week's electrical attack by the Slitheen. (Remember that he is being held by them at 10 Downing Street while, upstairs, Rose and Harriet are also trapped. Rose's mum Jackie is with another one in her kitchen, and Rose's boyfriend Mickey is tearing around London very worriedly.) While the Doctor is sweating and clearly traumatized, he is not dead. He holds up the device with which the aliens are killing everybody, points out intensely that he's not human -- maybe it's the two hearts? -- and shoves it into the Slitheen's chest. PM Joseph Green -- still in human form -- and the Slitheen formerly known as Asquith scream in pain.
Credits. Elsewhere, we see that former MI-5 Margaret, still busily killing Indra the Undersecretary, is also affected. The cop Slitheen in Jackie's kitchen goes down as well. The Doctor jumps the bodies in the Briefing Room and heads out, just as Rose and Harriet, hands clasped, whimper and slide past Margaret and out of the room. Jackie watches her alien freaking out, and stays crouched on the floor. Mickey appears, and smacks the overwrought alien with a chair. He snatches Jackie, and then snaps a photo of the Slitheen with his phone, grinning. Well done, Mickey. They bounce.
The Doctor yells at the security officers in the corridor that the aliens they were looking for are indubitably present inside Downing Street, and then impatiently claps his hands to get their attention. I love that. He leads them back to the Briefing Room, guns at the ready, while inside, Joseph Green has managed to deactivate the electricity weapon. He picks up the General Asquith skin suit and helps his whining brother back into it.
Rose and Harriet are running around upstairs, still, kind of hysterically. Harriet finally stops her, remembering the Emergency Protocols that are still in the Cabinet Room. With MI-5 Margaret, who is no longer being electrocuted. Harriet screams in this very funny Brit TV Lady way, like this "Whoawaaah!" Harriet runs back, Rose behind her, but they see Margaret coming, and are forced to jump down the hallway and into another room.
The Doctor and security guys come back into the meeting room, where Green is just finishing up with Asquith's human look. Green asks where the security's been, considering that they've almost all been murdered in there...by the Doctor. He still thinks he's so very much in the movie Clue, and it bugs me, but to be fair, all the Slitheen are like that, very broad and panto -- I've been alerted that "commedia dell'arte" is not as precise a reference, and I don't use the term "camp" unless I'm having pretentious tea with Susan Sontag, who is dead, so: panto -- so maybe it's me. "I think you will find the Prime Minister is an alien in disguise," says the Doctor, and I wonder if maybe leaving the title out of that sentence wouldn't make it seem just a tad less unlikely. Green stares, arms folded, and the Doctor asks the security officer next to him if this is maybe the best strategy. The cop tells him matter-of-factly that it really isn't going to work, and the Doctor nods and takes off down the hallway. They catch him up pretty quickly, and he smiles with his hands in the air. Asquith cites the Emergency Protocols and authorizes the Doctor's execution. The officers all pull on him, and he stalls: "Uh, well, now, yes. You see, eh...the thing is...if I was [sic] you, if I was [sic] going to execute someone by backing them against the wall, between you and me, little word of advice --" The elevator bings open behind him. "Don't stand them against the lift!" He steps backwards, shutting the door with his sonic screwdriver, flashing the requisite cheeky grin.