Oh dear. And it all seemed to be going rather well…

There’s something about the first two parter of the season that seems to bring out the worst in New Who- the big, attention-grabbing 2 parters have almost never actually worked, and this week’s episode was very clearly from the same mind as the severely below-par Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks two parter from last season. Attempting to both update classic Who villains the Sontarans, and provide a new angle on the idea of UNIT and the Doctor being involved in a paramilitary organisation (most of which takes a predictably cliched view of the military mind), this was an episode that was mainly stuck in a holding pattern. Despite lots of running around, very little seemed to actually happen – after twenty minutes of setup, we then got another twenty five minutes of “lets stretch the story out”, and less-than-wise ideas like the annoying evil teenage genius. Tate was given less opportunities for full-blown comedy this week, and the positive setup between her and Donna seemed to work fairly well, although after having Martha as a regular damsel in distress in Torchwood, it would have been nice if they could have waited a little longer before tying her up and giving her an evil clone. The treatment of UNIT also seems to be verging on the obvious (They’re far too militaristic! Guns=Evil!) and Tennant’s Doctor is in danger of getting back into annoyingly chirpy ‘Mad as a badger’ mode here. The two-parters often feel like there’s not quite enough plot for the whole running time, and there were plenty of moments that felt over-extended– especially the end cliffhanger, with all of its panicking, random smoke blowing, and the Sontarans doing an impression of the New Zealand All-Blacks, which seemed to go on forever. Christopher Ryan was very good as the chief Sontaran, and they’re handling the race fairly well, although New Who’s habit of trying to make the obvious gags before anyone else can is getting pretty weak when you’ve got a character saying “Oh- he looks like a baked potato!” The effects work was good, but the characterisation and plotting was unimpressive – this was a bit of a come down after last week’s largely impressive episode, and definitely the least effective Who outing this season. My hopes are not exactly high for the second episode…