Doctor Who:
Dreamland
By Phil Ford
The Doctor has arrived in
Dry Springs Nevada in the year of 1958 eleven years after a UFO had crashed
landed in that part of the USA. He
enters a diner looking to have some chili when he is met by a waitress named
Cassie and her friend Jimmy. While going
on about chili and everything else about 1958 America The Doctor spots
something that Cassie says is just junk her mother thought would be an interest
to tourists.
The Doctor notices that it
isn’t junk and goes ahead and activates it with his sonic screwdriver when all
of a sudden men in black appear in the diner and ask for the artifact. The three escape the men in black by running
out the back of the diner and leaving in Jimmy’s truck. Jimmy explains to The Doctor that something
has been killing his cattle and he thinks it is aliens. The Doctor is intrigued
and they head over to look. Jimmy shows
The Doctor the footprint and it is indeed alien. They are soon encountering a Viperox that is
about to destroy them. They are saved by
the military which takes them to Area 51 or Dreamland as The Doctor knows it
by. The Doctor is not all that comfortable
with Colonal Stark and the whole mind erasing thing and the alien tech that is
all over the place. He is right as Colonial
Stark is working with the Lord Azlok and the Viperox who The Doctor finds out
is planning to use the Earth for their own means.
Dreamland is the second
animated Doctor Who adventure since the show came back in 2005 and the third all-time
joining The Scream of the Shalka and The Infinity Quest. Dreamland came out in 2009 and was part of
David Tennant’s farewell to Doctor Who.
It was one of three surprises that Russell T. Davies had promised along
with the 4 specials that made up of the end of the Tenth Doctor’s era. The other two were Christmas Idents and an appearance
on The Sarah Jane Adventures.
Dreamland is actually a
pretty good and fun story. It is a
pretty simple story about saving the Earth from alien invaders. I liked how the story was paced and really
enjoyed the escape and get captured and escape again aspect of it as it
harkened back to the Hartnell era. This
animated story felt more like a classic Doctor Who story more than what we have
seen with the new series to date.
David Warner guest stars
as the villain Lord Azlok and does his usual bad guy performance. He has made numerous appearance in Doctor Who
with Big Finish and this time he does the voice of Lord Azlok and gives that bug
an evil feel to it. What is pretty funny
is that David Tennant’s future wife Georgia Moffat plays Cassie in Dreamland.
She played Jenny in the story The Doctor’s Daughter and I find it funny that husband and wife have done two Doctor
Who stories together.
What was cool about
Dreamland is that it could have fit as a Saturday morning cartoon. It had that type of feel and all the fun of a
cartoon from that bygone era. Watch it
with a child and you can see what I mean even more so as they can get a good
feel for the show as it is more there speed.
The only down fall is that the animation is kind of herky jerky. In the era of Star Wars The Clone Wars
animation series have gotten pretty good and wish they did something more along
the lines of that show. The animation
does not detract from the story and how fun it is all that much but does become
annoying at time.
Dreamland is a pretty good
story and a fun one to watch especially with children and does deserve repeat
viewing from time to time.
Grade B +
No comments:
Post a Comment