DOCTOR WHO PREVIEW: THE WATERS OF MARS

When you look at it, Waters of Mars almost lost this year. There’s plenty of hype surrounding David Tennant’s final two episodes as the Doctor, plus Planet of the Dead had the bonus of being both ‘The First-Ever Easter Episode’ and ‘The First 2009 Special’. Plus, there’s a fair gap between the Easter story and this upcoming tale. Seven whole months we were given to forget what’s been going on in the Whoniverse, before having more Doctor Who then you could possibly handle shoved into the final two months of the year.

The Waters of Mars heads up a massive sudden ‘Last Shove’ for Russell T Davis and Tennant, which actually began a couple of weeks ago when Tennant popped up in The Sarah-Jane Adventures. His cameo lifted the show not only critically, but also commercially, the programme recording record viewing figures. Will Waters be seeing a similar success? We see no reason why not, as the episode looks fantastic.

So far, in the couple of trailers we’ve had, we’ve seen the Doctor’s life being in genuine danger, (Tennant hinted that there’s some sort of ‘trigger’ leading up to the events of the final End of Time double header.) a number of laugh-out-loud moments, a few creepy-looking CGI planets and an awful lot of water.

The water in question is deadly, though. One drop is enough to kill someone- The BBC may be 16 days late for Halloween, but they certainly have all the right ingredients in the right place.

We’re itching to the see the episode, being shown out-of-place on a Sunday instead of its usual Saturday slot, but it does retain the 7:00PM time, and it’s endless appeal to all generations. The move hopefully won’t mean too much in terms of people missing it, as it would be a massive shame if they did. It’s shaping up to be a cracker that certainly doesn’t deserve to get lost amongst other shows...