Doctor Who – Army of Ghosts – Review

Army of Ghosts
by Russell T. Davies

The final two-part story of the series has begun and, as we’ve known for a long time, the Cybermen are invading Earth, but they’re doing it very, very slowly, which is what can be said for this episode, too. There’s not much happening, really.

Of course, the big story (if there isn’t more than one) is that this is Rose’s swan song, and we’ve been really primed to believe she’s going to die. In fact, in the beginning of this episode she explains to us in narration that this is how she dies.

I still maintain that “dead” is a euphemistic term for some transformation, as Rose is clearly at least “alive” enough to tell us she’s dead. (I still think Rose will somehow become The Face of Boe. [See my earlier post.])

The episode opens with the Doctor and Rose arriving back on Earth to visit Jackie, who has apaprently gone mad because she insists that her dead father is about to arrive. It turns out that for the last 2 months “ghosts” have been showing up all over the planet, in shifts. Everyone is all quite good with it by now and it is revealed that Torchwood has been causing it.

Torchwood and the Doctor come together, there’s lots of unnecessary exposition and we learn that Torchwood holds a sphere that doesn’t exist. The Doctor identifies it as a void ship – a craft capable of existing in the void between dimensions.

Meanwhile Cybermen are taking over people at Torchwood, who then turn up the ghost shift to full power and ghosts reveal themselves to be… Cybermen. (No surprise there.) They’ve now arrived in their millions all over the Earth.

Meanwhile, Rose encounters Mickey, who has apparently also come through to continue his fight against the Cybermen, who disappeared off his adopted planet. He thinks that the sphere contains the Cybercontroller, or some such, and is there to destroy it. It turns out it contains Daleks.

End of episode. In other words, the whole episode was just setup for the next one, and in that respect, I don’t think it was a very good episode – really just filler.

A few observations, the Dalek (including a black Dalek, which signifies rank) do not look like the Imperial Daleks from the Parting of the Ways, so presumably they are real original Daleks who escaped this universe when the Doctor wiped them and the Timelords out of existence. Perhaps they are Daleks who escaped even earlier, perhaps when the 7th Doctor wiped out Skaro’s sun.

Bad news for the Doctor, unless the Timelords got out of town, too.

Since nothing really happens in this episode, the trailer for next time is much more interesting. The three Daleks (there appear to be only three – or perhaps four) are escorting a Dalek-like case containing “The Genesis Ark” and the Cybermen are taking over the planet – in fact, there’s even talk of cooperation rather than war between them.

Two possibilities come to mind, the Genesis Ark contains the power (or a gene bank, or who knows what) to recreate the Dalek race – could it be Davros? Is it a device which Rose destroys and sacrifices her “life” in the process?

Time will tell, I just hope the next episode actually gets off its butt and does something.

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