Empire of the Racnoss

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: Fallen Angels

5 is really getting to play out all of 10's best moments huh? First a story in the vein of Blink and now one very much like The Runaway Bride, only without the humour and banter between the Doctor and Donna. Still, that doesn't detract from this story too much and it does a lot of other things that I appreciate.

We get to delve into the conflict between the Time Lords and the Racnoss, something mentioned only in passing in their debut story. If I understood the ending correctly I believe the Racnoss is now another species that the Doctor was responsible for the creation of, it's funny how he makes his own worst enemies.

Adjoa Andoh gives an electrifying performance as the Empress of the Racnoss. I can see how it would put people off as it's very over-the-top and a little grating. It's very accurate to the original story though which I appreciate. Peter Davison gets some great monologues aswell, some that I really should have noted down.

Overall, this is a great story, especially if you want to partly understand why the Doctor treated the Racnoss as he did in The Runaway Bride, it's got some great moral dilemmas and generally an all-round interesting idea to explore.

Next Story: Aimed at the Body