Doctor Who: The Skin of the Sleek

This is the first half of a two-part story, concluded in The Thief of Time. I am reviewing both parts here.

This is relatively high-concept for a Doctor Who story, being set on a paradoxical planet with a surface that doesn't quite obey the normal laws of physics - an ocean world where it's possible (with some difficulty) to walk on the water. A spaceship chartered by a video blogger has set out to explore its mysteries and make contact with the natives. As one might expect, not everything has gone as planned.

The story is as much about the crew of the ship as it is about the mystery itself, which turns out to be an extension of existing DW lore. It starts out fairly slow, giving us time to get used to the unusual culture of the locals, but things build up in the second half as we discover what the villain of the piece actually wants.

The strength of the story is largely the treatment of Romana, whose backstory turns out to be relevant to events. She's rather put through the ringer in places, but it's her personality and insecurities that are at the core of the final act, giving her as much a role in the resolution as the Doctor himself, and perhaps more so.

On the other hand, a weakness is that the planet itself seems to be largely devoid of women. In fact, I did wonder at one point whether there were any at all, until one turned up around the half-way mark. That's arguably a weakness in portraying its culture, making it feel less like a real place than a random oddity (of course, it's meant to be weird, but not, as it turns out, in that way). Even the strength of Romana's role is offset in the third act by her being temporarily reduced to a damsel in distress. And, because the mood is based on Four's final season, there aren't a lot of laughs in it, which one might otherwise expect from this particular Doctor.

I came close to giving it four stars based on the originality of the setting and some of the imagery it conjures up, but, in the end, the flaws just add up to too much.