From MadCap's Couch - "Doctor Who: The Next Doctor"

C'mon, fellas! It's not the size, it's how you use it!

I kind of have a sort of love-hate relationship with the Cybermen in the New Series. They're one of the two most iconic creatures in the history of the show (due in no small part of their rampant use during the Second and Fifth Doctor's eras) alongside the Daleks. I really do like them a lot, it's just that the Revived Series of Doctor Who doesn't seem to have any real confidence in them.

Rather like The Next Doctor doesn't have a lot of confidence in its title - that being that the title is an outright stinking lie from start to finish. Does that make the episode itself bad?

. . .no, the episode is...okay. Just okay.

We begin with the TARDIS landing in an alleyway. The Doctor pokes his head out to find snow falling on London and that it is, in fact, Christmas Eve of 1851. A woman screams "Doctor!" and he rushes to her aid in another alley as something is trying to break through a steel-reinforced door. He attempts to soothe her as he prepares to handle whatever's breaking through...and she continues to shout out for the Doctor, insisting that there can't be two of him!

Enter David Morrisey playing "The Doctor". He insists that the Doctor step back, saying that this is a job for a Time Lord! The two Doctors pull out their sonic screwdrivers and give a cry of "Allons-y!" as we cut to the main title sequence, facing down against a furry creature on all fours with a reddish Cyberman faceplate.

Not-Doctor manages to get a rope tied on the creature, a Cybershade, and he and the Doctor are pulled after it through a building. The Doctor, being a master of tact, attempts to get information from what he believes is another one of his selves during a dangerous encounter with a monster. After, the two seem on good terms as Not-Doctor introduces the Doctor to the woman from earlier, Rosita. Despite the Doctor making several attempts to jog "his" memories, Not-Doctor has no memory of him or who he is. Not-Doctor apparently also has gaps in his memory that he can't recall, something he blames the Cybermen for.

Also, from the flashbacks that are horrendously dark and out of focus, it's clear that there's more than just a case of missing memory going on.

At the Cybermen hideout, they review video footage from the Cybershade and declare Not-Doctor as their enemy. The Cyber Controller speaks to a Miss Mercy Hartigan, who claims that the "Cyber-King" is going to rise.

He lost his mind when he realized he was in a Russell T. Davies script. 

The Doctor and the Not-Doctor break into a house (the Doctor pointing out the Not-Doctor's "sonic screwdriver") and Not-Doctor explains that his investigation has started with the murder of one Jackson Lake - a man who came to London three weeks ago and his body was never found. He found other disappearances had happened, including a Reverend. Eventually, the Doctor's questioning gets Not-Doctor to spill the beans on things...as time has gone on, something about the Doctor seems familiar, he knows him. When the Doctor points out the fob watch that Not-Doctor is wearing, the Doctor opens it...and nothing happens.

It's just a regular fob watch.

They find some Cyberman infostamps, which the Doctor demonstrates by projecting the history of London upon a mirror. Not-Doctor looks at another info-stamp, saying that he's seen it before. He saw it...the night that he regenerated. Somehow, the Doctor was there. The Cybermen then advance and, while the Doctor attempts to insist that he is the Doctor...Not-Doctor puts to use an info-stamp and literally blows the heads off of some Cybermen.

Not-Doctor insists he's done it before, while the Doctor checks for two hearts...and finds one.

Meanwhile, Miss Hartigan attends a funeral in a red dress and umbrella and gets the Cybermen a bunch of a new converts. Apparently, Hartigan operates a local poor house and has had it with the rich and their bullshit.

That's it. That's her entire character. Woman in Victorian London who has had enough of men's shit.

Back at the ranch, Rosita gives Not-Doctor a few words about wandering off for hours without her. The luggage of one Jackson Lake is there as evidence, and the Doctor goes through it while asking Rosita about how she met Not-Doctor. In Jackson Lake's luggage, he finds an info-stamp and tells Not-Doctor that the answer lies in the TARDIS.

. . .which is a hot-air balloon. TARDIS - "Tethered Aerial Release Developed In Style", which Not-Doctor has not actually travelled in. The Doctor, we can tell, has put two and two together and come out with twenty-two.

As Hartigan sends out the men who have the Cyberman earpods, the Doctor tells Not-Doctor and Rosita about the Cybermen and how they were defeated and sealed away, but recent events allowed them to escape and fall through time. This brought them to London in 1851...where a man named Jackson Lake was also coming to London. He encountered the Cybermen...and the infostamp he used to fight them had information about one particular man: the Doctor. With the stamp in question, we get stock footage of all of the Doctors to date, up to and including Ten.

The infostamp backfired and messed up Jackson's mind, making him believe that he was the Doctor.

Jackson calls himself a lie, and a fraud, and he definitely is. The Doctor tries to insist that his bravery and courage were things that Jackson had in himself, as well as his ingenuity in doing things like building the "TARDIS" and fighting the Cybermen.

It doesn't work. Not in convincing Jackson or the audience.

It also isn't helped that the Doctor then drops a bombshell on Jackson Lake - the man entered a fugue state, his mind not being able to accept something that happened. The memory returns to him, a memory of the Cybermen killing his wife.

"Hey, remember when I was in good episodes?
Yeah, Moffat ones!"

Then, because comedy, the infostamps all start beeping as the Cybermen have apparently had a call to arms. They're on the move!

A completely destroyed Jackson Lake tells Rosita to go, wanting to be alone in his grief and for her to help the real Doctor. On the streets, the orphans under the care of those men Hartigan had EarPod'd are on the move and being taken to the Cybermen...where they're brought into the "Court of the Cyber-King" and are apparently going to be used as slave labor.

Yes, the incredibly logical and efficient Cybermen are going to use children as slave labor.

Sure.

At his hideaway, Jackson begins digging around for something feverishly. It is now, a little over halfway through the episode, that we have the Doctor actually meet Miss Hartigan. The villain of the episode and we wait until past the halfway mark. Lovely.

She is as one-dimensional as ever, by the way. Even as the Doctor gives the Cybermen the corrected infostamp. When it seems that the Doctor and Rosita are doomed, Jackson Lake starts going infostamps akimbo on the Cybermen and saving the day. Irate, Hartigan declares that the Cyber-King will rise tonight! Jackson has also remembered another person in the room when his wife was murdered...his son, though we aren't told that quite yet.

Also, again, we have the Cybermen deciding to play Temple of Doom with a bunch of children.

Sure...that's not stupid at all.

In the basement, the Doctor and company find a clearly Dalek-device (where the Cybermen got the information from) and Hartigan is brought into what is definitely not a trap by the Cybermen. Brought to a throne, she is told that it is not the place for the Cyber-Controller, but for her. She will become the Cyber-King...for reasons.

Yes, by the way, this is dumber than what Moffat does with Cyber-Conversion in Closing Time, but that's a ways off from here...

"Hello, I am your boring villain for this evening."

Hartigan gets converted, but it doesn't work...Hartigan's will is too strong. She also gets the demon-black eyes from Supernatural!

The Doctor and company work out that the Cybermen are using the...child slave labor...to make a clockwork engine. Using a Cyber terminal, the Doctor is witness to the data rewriting itself, but has no idea what it means. Hartigan, on the other hand, uses her new power to destroy the Cybermen while claiming that she will create a new race built out of her rage and anger and...blah, blah, blah.

The remnants of the Cybermen bend to the will of their new Cyber-King, who orders the deletion of the work force. The Doctor, Jackson, and Rosita get the kids out. It is as they're doing this that Jackson realizes the missing person from his memories - his son, who was taken by the Cybermen as I already spoiled earlier.

The Doctor remembers he's the hero long enough to jump to the rescue...in a slightly embarrassing special-effects shot. Jackson and his son have an admittedly touching reunion as the Doctor wishes them a Merry Christmas and then leaves to get on with the episode.

. . .okay, they get out of the factory, first. But still.

The Cyber-King rises from the Thames and towers over London, the Doctor revealing to Jackson that the Cyber-King is a "dreadnaught class" ship...it's a mecha.

The Cyber-King is a Megazord. That's what this is.

As you can imagine, the people of London run in panic, much to Hartigan's confusion. The Doctor sends Jackson and his son off and then gets on with the leaving to finish out the episode. How? By taking a bit of Dalek technology, some infostamps, and getting into the hot air balloon to take Hartigan head on! Bit of a glory hound considering that was Jackson's dream to eventually fly in that...but never mind that now.

Face to face with the Cyber-King, the Doctor tries to appeal to Hartigan's skilled mind and tries to pull a Space Seed and give her and her Cybermen a new world. She refuses. The Doctor proceeds to use his skills at hullabaloo to overload Hartigan's mind, breaking the Cyber connection. She sees what she has created...what she has become...and is horrified. She screams, and she and the Cybermen are all destroyed. The Cyber-King falls on London...only to be scooped up cleanly into the Time Vortex by the Doctor with that bit of technology.

"STRONGER THAN BEFORE!
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CYBER!"

. . .I'd question how he does this, seeing as he said it was a dimensional cannon and not a time travel device, but it's honestly one of the least ridiculous things in this episode and you'll forget about it as soon as it happens.

Jackson Lake gets a monologue praising the Doctor for being this Jesus-like badass and the people of London cheer for him. We'll get back to this in a bit.

Later, the Doctor and Jackson have the wrap up. Jackson invites the Doctor to Christmas dinner with the family, though he realizes that the Doctor won't stay. The Doctor does, however, show him the actual TARDIS, and Jackson is understandably overwhelmed by it, even calling it "wonderful nonsense" (the best description for Doctor Who there ever was, if I'm being honest).

But the Doctor is traveling on, and Jackson asks him about his companions...the Doctor telling him that they've all moved on. In the end, they break his heart. Seeing his sad state, Jackson insists upon Christmas dinner...and the Doctor, finally, accepts. He locks up the TARDIS, and tells Jackson that if anyone had to be the Doctor, he's glad that it was him.

The two head off for a Christmas feast in memory of those they've lost.

Like I said before, The Next Doctor is...okay. Just okay. It's doesn't really have anything in it noteable enough to make it good or terrible enough to condemn it.

It's your stock Cyberman story, just with a heightened budget and (more) ridiculously over the top plan.

Hartigan is so one-note that she might as well be invisible and, like much of the Russell T. Davies era, she is a walking textbook example of "Show, don't tell". I have nothing against the actress, Dervla Kirwan, she does okay. It's just that the writing is so bad for her character.

We are told things about her. These are things that lead to the Doctor wanting to show mercy to her. What we see is a one-dimensional man-hating Victorian woman who kidnaps children and has no qualms about sending people (including said children) to their deaths to achieve her ends. Also, he calls her a "brilliant mind" for being able to resist the Cyber-Conversion process...apparently, the Doctor has completely forgotten Lytton.

(Yes, I know he was only partially converted. Shut up.)

David Morrisey does a good turn as Jackson Lake and, to the episode's credit, he is a very grounded and believable character who you really do feel for. His "Doctor" persona also reminds me of Gilderoy Lockhart, but as someone likeable. This is all undercut somewhat by Ten being a bit of an asshole glory hound (not exactly a new character quirk) and almost unapologetically destroying the man's entire sense of personal identity because he just so happens to be unintentionally impersonating him.

"Yep...yep...time to find a better episode!" 

Russell T. Davies' need for the Doctor to be some Jesus-like figure is just tiresome and it's only more tiresome in one other episode that we haven't yet gotten to. The Doctor is an alien who travels through time and space righting wrongs, he occasionally picks up humans to help him out, and something inevitably explodes at some point. That's it. That's all he (or she) actually needs to be. It's something that Russell, for some reason, could not get through his head through his entire tenure.

To be fair, it's also something Steven Moffat couldn't get through his head through his entire tenure, but at least he did it better. Mostly.

We'll be getting into that later.

The Next Doctor, besides being an outright stinking lie in the title (David Morrisey, for those of you paying attention, is not Matt Smith), is also noteable as the last episode of Doctor Who ever to be filmed in Standard Defintion. Every episode since, from 2009 all the way through to the time of this writing (2021) has been in HD.

Next time, we'll be getting into the very first episode of Doctor Who filmed in HD...and the crap fest begins! Three episodes remain between us and the end of the Russell T. Davies era (technically four, but I'm counting The End of Time as one). One of them is good. This isn't that episode.

Planet of the Dead, coming soon!