Doctor Who Season 7 Basically Recycled Season 2, and No One Noticed
Doctor Who has been on air for nearly 60 years, so ideas for episodes are bound to be recycled once in a while.
However, Doctor Who season 7 is an unprecedented case of old episodes rewritten in new settings.
No wonder this season is considered the least memorable in the New Who – we’ve simply seen it all before!
Amy and Rory’s Cube Adventure Is Doomsday 2.0
Let’s take a look at the Ponds’ penultimate episode titled The Power of Three. The Earth is under a very slow attack from mysterious cubes that have taken over the planet. The aliens behind it all, the Shakri, spend a year watching humanity before they launch their attack, and the people actually get used to having the cubes around by that time.
The Doctor is forced to “travel in time” like any other person would – by taking it one day at a time (and it’s killing his ADHD self). This all sounds like an interesting concept, doesn’t it? The only problem is that we’ve all seen this story before, six years prior, in the Tenth Doctor’s episodes The Army of Ghosts and Doomsday.
Back in 2006, the Doctor and Rose arrive on Earth only to discover that weird “ghosts” have invaded the planet, making everyone think that they’re in no danger whatsoever before striking. The events are a lot more fast-paced than in the 2012 episode, sure, and the ghosts turn out to be Cybermen, not Shakri, but the core idea is the same.
Doctor Who’s two-parter season 2 finale, which features David Tennant’s Doctor saying his grand goodbye to Billie Piper’s Rose, is a fascinatingly well-written story with lots of twists and turns, and it’s one of the most beloved season finales to date.
The 2012 remake, starring Matt Smith ’s Eleventh Doctor, Karen Gillan ’s Amy, and Arthur Darvill’s Rory, fails to capture the same magic – the aliens are barely in the episode, the pacing is off, and the story feels a bit too familiar. The only good thing about it is that it introduces Kate Stewart, Brigadier’s daughter and the new head of UNIT.
Clara’s First Outing Is the Faceless Rose Remake
That’s not all! Modern Clara’s first episode titled The Bells of Saint John is essentially a remake of the infamous The Idiot’s Lantern. Yes, we’ll elaborate.
In both episodes, there is a scary monster entity that uploads people somewhere to feed on their energy, be it the 1950s tellies or the 21st-century Wi-Fi. Rose loses her face, and that becomes the Doctor’s main motivation to crash the bad guy (the Wire).
Well, years later, Clara’s face ends up in the cloud, serving exactly the same purpose for the plot. The only difference is that this time the main villain is not revealed at the end (at least, not to the Doctor).
Doctor Who season 7 really should’ve tried harder to come up with original stories.