Since the Drama channel has started a run of Saturday triple bills I thought I'd start a re-watch from Season 2 onwards (I didn't feel the need to buy the BDs like I did for Eccles, Smith and Capaldi).
It becomes apparent very early on the RTD is largely repeating his Season 1 formula. We get a future Earth story with Cassandra making a return: The New Earth, an unmemorable affair that has a few amusing body-hopping scenes and some good Cat Nun makeup; then we get to meet a figure out of history: Tooth & Claw, featuring Queen Victoria, kung fu monks and an alien werewolf - it's my favourite episode of this series, not least because of its nods to The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes; next up is School Reunion, another mediocre story that stands out because of the return of Sarah-Jane Smith (and K9) which is even more poignant now that Lis Sladen is no longer with us; more historical fantasy with Madame de Pompadour in The Girl in the Fireplace which is much less effective watched now since Moffat reused several of the ideas that he premiered here in his own run; the first half of the season is rounded off with the two-parter Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel which began an RTD tradition of having mid-season two-parters featuring classic monsters in terrible stories and introduced the awful, stompy Cybus-men, probably the least interesting incarnation (inmetalation?) of these villains. By and large, a disappointing half season compared to Eccles' run and Tennant hasn't made much of an impact. Worse is to come in the second half of the season though...
I'll rate these stories as:
The New Earth 2.5/5
Tooth & Claw 4/5
School Reunion 3/5 (for Lis)
The Girl in the Fireplace 3/5
Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel 1.5/5
The Stolen Earth/Journey's End. Fairly typical of RTD's season finales in that it delivers mightily on the fanwank but has little going for it in terms of story and doesn't hold up to multiple viewings. The overload this time involves not only Davros and the Daleks but the return of all of the RTD era companions (and their families) as well as the surviving Torchwood team and the team from The Sarah Jane Adventures. It's always a pleasure to see Elizabeth Sladen and Bernard Cribbins but there's little for anyone to do and some of the performances aren't up to scratch (Freema Agyeman reaches her lowest point; I do wonder if replacing her with Catherine Tate affected her confidence). The writing is pretty sloppy - one wonders why Davros failed to pick up on the fact that Dalek Caan's prophecy that one of the Doctor's companions will die does rather suggest that his plan to kill all life in all universes might end up with a bit of an underwhelming outcome. 2.5/5