DOCTOR WHO: THE UNQUIET DEAD Review 1

Reviewed By: Paul Mount

Starring: Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, Simon Callow, Eve Myles, Alan David,

Written By: Mark Gatiss

Three episodes in and twenty-first century DOCTOR WHO is starting to settle quite nicely into its new forty-five minute house-style. In fact - and with no disrespect to the remarkable Russell T Davies, the architect of this exciting new enterprise - Mark Gatiss’s splendid script is not only the best episode yet of the new series but also the first to feel really totally comfortable in the single-episode format and the first to show how well the format can work with the right story. After the exhausting excitement and sheer vigour of ‘Rose’ and the in-your-face extraordinariness of ‘The End of the World’, ‘The Unquiet Dead’ with its Victorian setting and animated cadavers took DOCTOR WHO right back behind the sofa where, apparently, it belongs and was in every way the most traditional story of the new series to date. It’s hard to reconcile the first two episodes to the old show because the look and style of the thing has been so utterly different to what’s gone before. But ‘The Unquiet Dead’ was DOCTOR WHO through and through - but with a good script and decent production values. Basically, a triumph from start to finish.