Doctor Who - Easter 2009 - Planet of the Dead (spoilers)

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A wonderful little caper at the beginning from Lady Christina just before meeting the Doctor.
Nice to see Captain Erisa Magambo again but was disappointed that she was prepared to abandon the Doctor when it was ready to shut the wormhole.
What a delightful character of Malcolm and was taken aback when he mentioned Quatermass!
Delightful when the Doctor mentioned UNIT's Giant Robot file a reference to the first Tom Baker adventure.
Definite highlight of this adventure is the flying bus. Since the Doctor had turned a spaceship into a TARDIS in Shada it should not be a surprised that the Doctor could make a bus fly. (Incidentally Time Lady Iris Wildthyme who has appeared in the books and audios had a double decker bus as her TARDIS but is not seen at all in Planet of the Dead, notwithstanding the BBC charter preventing the TV series making story connections to non-TV adventures).
This has been a very fun adventure especially served well by the rapport between the Doctor and Christina. So very disappointed when the Doctor says no to Christina but does sort of make up for it by helping her to escape from the police. Ooh she even gets to have the flying bus.
A chilling warning to the Doctor undoubtedly foreshadowing his impending regeneration.

 

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Featured in Planet of the Dead was Ellen Thomas (Carmen). She actually appeared in Doctor Who before in Girl In the Fireplace as Clockwork Woman which meant we did not see her face back then.

Ellen Thomas was a regular on Teachers and other Teachers cast members to have appeared in Doctor Who are Lloyd McGuire (Face of Evil), Navin Chowdhry (Aliens of London) and Nina Sosanya (Fear Her).

Upon finding themselves on an alien world the bus driver says that his boss was going to murder. He meant that metaphorically. Moments later the driver did get killed not by his boss but by walking through the wormhole.

There is an old joke amongst Star Trek fans that any non-regular character who appeared in the original Star Trek wearing a red shirt tends to be killed off pretty quickly. Wonder if Star Trek fans watching Planet of the Dead noted the irony that neither of the two people from the bus wearing a red shirt or a red jumper was the one casualty from the bus.

The bus has the number 200 due to the fact that this is the 200th story. That is if you discount the unbroadcast Shada, count Trial of A Time Lord as one story instead of four and counting the last three episodes of season 33 as one three-parter rather than as one episode and a two-parter.

In the corresponding Doctor Who Confidential episode Russell T Davies says that the two Tritovore had to be killed off to prevent complications from them being brought to Earth such as what UNIT was going to do with them.

Shortly after Planet of the Dead's UK broadcast it had been reported that there were talks of doing a spin-off featuring Malcolm and Captain Magambo. So far nothing has come of this.

Omitted from transmission on ABC1 is the trailer of the next special Waters of Mars.