Aliens of London

I adore this episode. I don't know if it's just the nostalgia from loving this episode as a child, but something about it perfectly scratches the itch in my brain when I just need a random, monster-of-the-week episode of Doctor Who to watch. I assess the elephant in the room, the fart jokes, as a well-meaning attempt to insert some humor into this otherwise slightly stuffy storyline. Upon a rewatch, the acting from the Slitheen family is better than many people would remember, and I feel that Eccleston (my personal favorite) absolutely shines as the Doctor in this episode. Overall, a good time.

And then an episode than is better than what I remembered.

I really like everything it does. Sure it has some flaws, we could have done without that much fart jokes, Mickey isn't a really good character and is written pretty poorly here and there is a lot of things introduced that are barely exploited but overall it still is an excellent political thriller.

I really like the first scenes of the episode. They are all strongly emotional and develop a lot more the relationship between The Doctor, Rose and her family and how the Doctor's world feels alien to them. Jackie also is written in a way that put an emphasis on his protective mother side, a side we didn't see of her before and while she still has a lot of comedic bits, it's nice to see her being developed in a way where she isn't reduced to that role.

The episode is surprisingly "normal" and "human" in it's writing. There is a lot of small trivial scenes that just follows the daily life of all the characters. Such as Harriet Jones that keeps talking about her hospital project during a national crisis, all of Rose's family that are gathered to celebrate her coming back only to end up watching the TV for instance are all moments I enjoyed a lot and helped a lot developing these characters and their traits. The fact that everyone is watching the invasion on the TV helps giving this episode a more grounded approach, it's something that would likely happens in case of an alien invasion.

This episode is also the come back of UNIT and while I don't care much about them (haven't watched the classics yet, sorry), they still have some good and funny scenes (like when the Doctor is held at gunpoint and when they all follow him without even knowing who is him simply because he knows what a delta formation is). The pig scene show that they still are pretty trigger happy but I like that it helps putting a stronger emphasis on the Doctor's empathic side and illustrate how him and UNIT still are different despite all this time.

The political satire is also on point. The whole episode is a satire on how the government handled the Iraq's war and it adds a lot to the comedy of the episode. Despite the fact that they are alien, the politicians are pretty realist and their handling of the crisis is pretty fun. I really enjoyed how the episode shamelessly mocks the government (like how there is a major political crisis and nobody is reacting) and even though it's not a central point of the episode, it was really fun and on the nose yet never corny.

I really liked the cliffhanger too, every character now facing a Slitheen each and then, the sequence alternating between the Doctor slowly figuring out their plan and realizing it's too late, Harriet and Rose being in danger in the meeting room and Jackie being corned in her own kitchen, it was a pretty effective scene and very well realized.

Aesthetically, the episode is great too with a strong focus on flashy colors and blue lights and other than 2 or 3 weird FXs, I really liked how it looked.

I just find it disappointing that Mickey's character is so poorly written and only relayed to the role of an unfunny comic relief, even though his scenes helps develop a new aspect of Rose personality, her egoistical side, Mickey ends up still being poorly written and straight up annoying at times.

Overall, it's an episode I liked a lot and that ended up being better than what I remembered. The episode helps a lot developing the main cast's personality while also adding a whole political comedy side to the script. It ends up being a pretty unique episode I loved rewatching.

YES

Aliens of London/World War Three is a landmark two parter for the show. Whilst aliens have invaded London before, this is the story where humanity wakes up and realises there are aliens out there. It also introduces one of the new series' most iconic monsters in the Slitheen and introduces the domestic side being a major part of the Russell T Davies Era of the show. Whilst we had seen this side in Rose, it wasn't evident it would be important until this two parter. Yet despite all this, this story is among the weakest of series 1.

Aliens of London/World War Three is actually quite dark for a family primetime drama when you strip it down. It features aliens stripping the skin of their victims in order to wear them like a sort of strange fancy dress costume. Yet bizarrely Russell T Davies decided to underplay this by adding farting effects and essentially making the Slitheen kid-friendly. It's impossible to take them seriously, yet if done right the Slitheen could have been a much more powerful monster that would have earned its iconic status rather than claiming it through their popularity with children. It's a shame that they were a monster introduced in the Russell T Davies Era as Steven Moffat (being a writer known for his dark stories) would have done the concept more justice given that it would have fit more in-line with his ideas. The Russell T Davies Era was great but it was better at the lighter ideas than the potentially dark ones.

The concept of a criminal family of aliens trying to sell the Earth as fuel is a great one and could have been well-realised if it wasn't for these poor decisions. Annette Badland is suitably menacing as Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen though and does great with the material she has. It's easy to see why Russell T Davies decided to bring her back in the much superior episode Boom Town. She's one of the new series' best villains and one that deserved to be a recurring one. Annette Badland comes close to saving the Slitheen and making them a race to be feared but ultimately can't overcome the silliness of the fart effects. The Slitheen have a great look too; there's something undeniably alien about this design:

And that's what's most important about this story: as the Doctor says, it's our race's first concrete proof of alien existence. Other alien invasions in the show's history have had some way or other they can be brushed off by governments...but a spaceship crashing into Big Ben? That's different. Nobody would purposely fly a military unidentified flying object into Big Ben unless they hate London landmarks for some reason and they find an alien pig in a spacesuit in the ship. This is a story about what happens when humanity stops being ignorant as they must have during the events of stories such as The Invasion (never referred to by anyone post-1968 unless they're UNIT personnel) and on that angle it succeeds. If it wasn't for the poor choices with the Slitheen, this would be a great story about what may one day hopefully become a landmark in real life history. I'm a believer that we're not alone and aliens are out there somewhere and I fully believe we will experience a real-life Aliens of London (although hopefully with friendly aliens rather than a criminal family). I think it's just a question of when. I think this story also nails it on the head on how we would react, with spaceships being made on Blue Peter, wall-to-wall news coverage and taking the alien occupant (in this case, a space pig) to an autopsy.

It's also interesting how we see Rose's mother Jackie Tyler (Camille Coduri) and Mickey Smith (Noel Clarke) react to Rose being missing for an entire year due to a miscalculation on the Doctor's part. Mickey has been accused of murder and Jackie being her mother is just naturally very worried about her whereabouts. Noel Clarke and Camille Coduri both deliver powerful performances and help cement this as a take on the show where consequences to domestic life matter. Those companions' family and friends matter now. They're arguably just as important as the companion now and quite right too. Of course, Billie Piper is great too. Christopher Eccleston is it okay but he doesn't feel entirely comfortable in the role of the Doctor. This is arguably more about Jackie and Mickey, however, who put up an impressive amount of resistance against the Slitheen.

Overall, Aliens of London/World War Three is a fairly average two parter spoilt by poor decisions in regards to the Slitheen, ignoring the darker aspects of the ideas. Annette Badland makes for a brilliant villain though and Camille Coduri and Noel Clarke are great.

Aliens of London is a great first instalment of the first multi-episode story of the revival, starting strong and continuing to hit each story beat dead centre. Yes, the farting is a bit much, and yes some of the acting could do with a bit of work, and there’s a hell of a lot going on that isn’t explored fully… but I can’t in good conscience call this anything other than fantastic.

A smooth TARDIS landing should set Rose on edge after this- a whole year late home, and the Doctor, despite setting the coordinates, completely oblivious until he’s already put his foot in it. We get some wonderful acting from Camille Coduri, the worried mum turning protective, slapping Nine across the face in the first of an ongoing series of angry mothers and whiplash.

The majority of the episode is so human, despite the plot revolving around aliens. There are so many little parts of everyday life captured by RTD - Harriet Jones continuing to push for her meeting about Cottage Hospitals despite a national emergency, people gathering in Jackie’s flat to welcome Rose home and watch the telly - like Rose says, it’s what everyone does in that sort of situation…

Life doesn’t stop for these people, just because something new and alien is happening a few miles away, even the Doctor comments on it:

• It's just a bit human in there for me. History just happened and they're talking about where you can buy dodgy top-up cards for half price.

It just feels so real, I know that sort of National Situation, it’s exactly how we’d respond to a First Contact scenario. Pop the kettle on, gather round the TV, but don’t let it completely stop whatever you had planned for the day.

Albion Hospital plays a key part of the episode - and it’ll come back in a few episodes time. We get our first glimpse of a modern UNIT, see that they’re still a bit trigger happy but not much else. It’s a little odd that they follow the Doctor’s orders without even knowing who he is, just because he knows what defence pattern delta is, but it’s a nice sequence - running down corridors to save not-Tosh from a not-really-an-alien-just-a-terrified-pig. (And the Doctor’s empathy with such a creature, the only one of its kind, confused and lost in this strange environment…)

Annette Badland hasn’t got much time to shine here, most of the alien action comes from the male Slitheen, but she does brilliantly with what she’s got. (I don’t want to talk about “I’m shaking my booty”).

I’m not sure if it’s just because the previous episode was so gloomy, but the early scenes of the Doctor and Rose seem so saturated, Rose’s pink shirt (style icon) seems so bright, and the Doctor’s eyes are so vividly blue for some reason.

The cliffhanger is great, splitting the main characters into three, giving each of them a different Slitheen (or two) to face off against… and it’s made all the better by iPlayer’s subtitles: ‘Really Evil Guffaws’ and ‘Slithery Squelching’ - they make the tense cliffhanger a little less climactic, but they really fit the tone of the episode.