February 21: "The Infinite Quest"

But before we get to the climactic series 3 finale, there's a piece of Doctor Who to deal with first...

Throughout series 3, the spin-off show Totally Doctor Who (which was a show designed primarily for children, giving them behind-the-scenes looks and testing their knowledge and resourcefulness) has been running an animated story -- with the voices of David Tennant and Freema Agyeman -- in roughly three-minute installments (so, strictly speaking, I haven't followed this story chronologically with the rest of series 3).  The final installment aired at the end of the edited-together "Omnibus" edition, which was broadcast immediately before "Last of the Time Lords" (if I'm reading the BBC's Genome website correctly, that is).  Hence why I've decided to watch it at this point in series 3.¹⁸⁸

Technically it's rather well done.  The animation is really quite gorgeous, with lots of clean lines and some very smooth movement -- we've come a long way since Scream of the Shalka four years ago.  It also helps that everyone in the cast seems fully committed to making this as good as possible, with no one phoning it in.  (It probably doesn't hurt that a number of the cast -- David Tennant included -- are veterans of the Big Finish audio dramas.)  Anthony Head does a fine job as the main villain Baltazar, and Freema Agyeman seems to be having a good time with this too.

The Doctor and Martha confront Baltazar. ("The Infinite Quest") ©BBC

Where it falls down is the storyline.  Writer Alan Barnes (one of the more talented and prolific spin-off writers -- particularly in the audio format) has given us a relatively simple and straightforward quest storyline, as the Doctor and Martha try to track down an ancient spaceship called the Infinite before Baltazar can get his evil hands on it.  This is pretty clearly because the story is broken up into segments -- most of the locations are only on-screen for seven minutes or so -- but, watched all together, this is oddly like viewing a version of The Keys of Marinus that's been compressed into 45 minutes -- right down to the nature of the quest (data chips instead of keys, but the principle's the same).  Barnes tries to make a virtue of this, with lots of exotic locations and strange creatures (with the dung city and the giant insect queen being a highlight), but ultimately there's not much he can do.

Still, it's not too dumb or anything, and it generally remains entertaining throughout.  It's about as deep as a kiddie pool, but again, this is because of the nature of the beast.  No, in the end this is another pleasantly average and inoffensive story: fun enough while it lasts, but nothing particularly memorable about it.







¹⁸⁸ In terms of internal chronology, it's worth noting that Martha's still wearing the outfit she wore in the first few episodes, when she was on her "one trip."  I'm going to tentatively suggest this takes place between "Gridlock" and "Daleks in Manhattan", but your mileage may vary.