42

42
by Chris Chibnall
Originally Broadcasted: May 19th, 2007

The Doctor and Martha land aboard a spaceship just as starts a crash course with a sun. They have just 42 minutes to stop the spaceship from crashing, while at the same time attempting to thwart a reawakened man on the ship who wants everyone to "burn with him"...

42 is one of the few episodes of the David Tennant era I had actually mostly forgotten about, and I'm not sure why, because it was actually a pretty great episode! It was Chris Chibnall's first contribution to the series (he would later pen The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, and The Power of Three). Chibnall is infamous for going on a BBC talk show in the 1980s and brutally criticizing Pip and Jane Baker's writing during The Trial of the Time Lord season. How fitting is it that he himself ended up writing for the show. The director of this episode is one of my all time favorite Who directors, Graeme Harper, the only director of classic Who to return to direct new Who. In fact, he directed my two favorite stories from the classic era (The Caves of Androzani and Revelation of the Daleks). I remember when I first saw the title for this episode, I naively thought it would have something to do with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. After all, Douglas Adams tells us that 42 is the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything! But 42 actually means something different, something equally as interesting. The ship that the Doctor and Martha land on has just 42 minutes until it falls into the sun, and so the episode is told in real time. The sun is living and its angry at the spaceship (and by extension its inhabitants) for dumping fuel into the sun, and so somehow the ship has taken over a member of the crew and wants everyone else to "Burn with me". By this episode, Martha is truly the Doctor's companion, she is no longer just along for the ride as a thanks. When Martha accidentally gets ejected from the ship, we get a really great scene with the Doctor, looking back upon Martha from the spaceship, mouthing "I'll save you". This scene is played out in complete silence and is truly brilliant. The Doctor then heroically exits the ship to attempt to bring the escape pod back within the ship's orbit. He succeeds, but the sun manages to take over him too. This is as scary as you'll ever see the Doctor. He's burning on the inside, and for once, he's actually very visibly scared. Very interesting to see the Doctor let his emotions show on a level like this. Also in this episode, we get some early hints of the Saxon arc. When Martha calls her mother, a lady is shown listening into and guiding her conversation. It's revealed she works for Mr. Saxon (who we later find out is the Master). I can't believe I forgot about 42. It's actually a very interesting and great story, and Chris Chibnall is one of my favorite new Who writers, so what's not to like!

Luke's Rating: 8/10