Summary: The Doctor has great expectations for his latest adventure when he and Rose join forces with Charles Dickens to investigate a mysterious plague of zombies.
Characters: Doctor, Rose, Charles Dickens, Gwyneth
Antagonist: The Undead/ The Gelth
Episode Rating: 6/10
Message
Ordinary people can be heroes. Gwyneth is just a common serving girl at the start of the episode but come the end she has saved the world from the Gelth and sacrificed herself in the process. The notion that ordinary people can turn extraordinary through brave and selfless actions is one that runs throughout Doctor Who as a TV show.
Genre
This episode definitely has a horror element to do, the look and feel of the Gelth and the reanimated corpses is very creepy. However this episode is also the first time that the Doctor travels back to the past in the reboot so this episode has a historical element to its genre. Genre features such as costume and location conform to the genre of historical as well as the fact that historical figure, Charles Dickens features in the episode.
Representation
This episode has some very interesting representations within it regarding class and gender. A central character within the plot is Gwyneth, a serving girl belonging to the working class Victorian era. Having the episode set in the 1800s means that automatically women are put in a position of inferiority when compared to men and this is evident in the episode as Rose and her opinions are overlooked by the people in society and so is Gwyneth. Gwyneth is presented as subservient through her role as a serving girl and is oppressed by her master. This representation of class ties in well with the themes of Dicken's novels as he often wrote commentry on the state of the working class and how they were treated by their superiors.
General Thoughts
I like this episode purely because it's set in the Victorian times and that Charles Dickens is in it- I love Dickens and his works so the references and quotations in this episode make me very happy.
That said, I don't love this episode, I think the story is a little bland and only really picks up in the final sequence when the Gelth reveal their intentions. Most of the story I find quite uninteresting but I do like the spooky atmosphere and horror elements evident within the episode.