The Lazarus Experiment

The Thing if it sucked

I think The Lazerus Experiment is bad in the worst way possible for any Doctor Who story - it's kind of bland and forgettable, even when it's crummy effects suggest it should be at least a memorable mess. No joke though, I've seen Youtube reviews going over this era of Doctor Who that forgot this episode exists entirely. It's hard to blame them, either. The one nice moment where Doctor and Matha get to dress up fancy (and they both look great doing it) I really like, but that just leads to Mark Gatiss' character announcing his plans to turn into some sort of monster in the pursuit of immortality. That's all the story really has to offer, a pretty cheap take on the science goes wrong motif. It's nice having our characters dressed up for a story and it is cool seeing the very talented Gugu Mbatha-Raw in an early role in her career, but that's literally about all the entire episode has on offer. The CGI monster looks *so* bad and the story really doesn't do much of interest with him.

This is part of a really rough run of Series 3 episodes, made up for by the fact that it is followed by one of the best runs of Doctor Who episodes in the franchise's history.

This is the first Stephen Greenhorn script and I can’t say I’m all that impressed. There’s some fun big ideas - involving Martha’s family and a prominent scientist defy the aging process, turning back his biological clock. Unfortunately these don’t get very far.

Firstly, Francine and Leo Jones are not given anything to do that is not incidental to the plot. I wish more was done to involve them and create more points of interaction between them.

Tish Jones is then given a rather unpleasant storyline. She finds Lazarus creepy and unattractive right up until the moment he turns into a young person, then, seemingly to get ahead in her career starts falling over herself for him. Part of the issue is that Mark Gatiss is playing Lazarus, as he is still too old for Tish and isn’t blessed with such overwhelmingly beautiful looks that would overcome a creepy, meanspirited first impression. It just doesn’t work.

This is a rare CGI mess up. The monster that Lazarus turns into doesn’t even have Mark Gatiss’ face stuck on it. It’s also been created in such a way where most talking must take place off screen.

In the most part, the performances are enjoyable. But some major elements just don’t click here.