Well, this will both date the review and give more fuel to the fire of anger than usual. We might be at least three weeks removed from it, but I’ve just finished writing about series 12’s “The Timeless Children.” Right now, I want to throw Chris Chibnall into the sun, and I might harbor a bit of hatred for the show itself. No one thought to step-in on that and say, “We’re not signing off on the budget for this,” instead we got a limp-wristed look at suicide, that dog’s dinner of a mess, and people got angry because a character reacted to something. I’m so glad I came back to when Doctor Who wasn’t written by a child in their own excretion.

So, “The Unquiet Dead” is an episode I’ve said I’m not much a fan of. It is another one of those episodes that goes back in time and doesn’t do much interesting with it. On a small budget sci-fi show like Who, the best way to do historical sci-fi, and stay within budget is to shoot at night in a bit of town that’s still cobblestoned and partly untouched by time. Cardiff, you’ll do! There’s also the problem Mark Gatiss has of making a majority of his episodes dark, not in theme but aesthetic. This is something just as strong in his Series 2 episode “The Idiot’s Lantern,” he’s more acclimatized with the horror end of Who; the side I’m not too fond of myself.

As a premise, it is an interesting one, making the zombie-like body animation to the days of Dickens; a proper Dickensian period episode. Given we’ve just seen Jodie’s Doctor have her moment with the Shelley’s and more through her very poorly written series of classic-Who revivalism (series not episode). I hold no grudge towards her over those episodes, more so the one heading it all that was never pulled back by his reins. Yes, I’m still very angry. Nevertheless, on paper sounds it’s exciting, though much like “Tooth and Claw” or “The Shakespeare Code,” these 16th-20th century episodes fall flat with the supernatural elements for me.

To the episode, we open with a small Welsh funeral parlor run by a creepy older man that has massive grey side-burns. Already I don’t like him, not because of that, but because he says that a dead woman is only sleeping. If you work with dead people, don’t be creepy like that, next I’ll think you are doing something very unsettling and illegal with your clients. You creepy man! The surprise among surprises, the dead one reclining stiff-as-a-board re-animates and kills her grandson in an episode called “The Unquiet Dead.”

After she’s killed her grandson, she throws Mr. Sneed (the creepy one) across the room. She also runs off into the snowy 1869 night of Cardiff; The Baha Men were worried about who let the dogs, I’m more concerned with who let Mrs. Peace out. Sneed yells before his flying act, “Gwyneth! Get down here, we’ve got another one.” It was not the first time this happened, and won’t be the last in the episode. All the while The Doctor and Rose are both trying to fly the TARDIS, something he can hardly do on his own half the time.

Sneed is back to compos mentis, as much as one can be after being thrown by a re-animated corpse. He and Gwyneth have a bit of a back and forth. I’m focusing on her now because later on, I don’t want to. It’s Gwen; 21st century dull as a knob on a door Gwen from Torchwood, possibly the second-worst Who spin-off next to Class. If I didn’t say that now I’d yell about it in “The Stolen Earth” and “Journey’s End.” I’m sure we’ll hear enough about my hatred of Torchwood later.

The two boring characters aside, The Doctor and Rose arrive in what they think it December 1860; they are just nine years late and think it is Naples. This is where Rose ponders our existence and how Christmas 1860 only happened once and it was gone, but in the TARDIS you can live those days a hundred times. Moment over, she’s ready to pop through those creaky doors and smell that Naples (Cardiff) air. Just one problem, she looks like a 2004 teenager that hasn’t washed in three days. Time to raid that period-drama section of the BBC wardrobe, just past the bins, fifth door on the left.

Returning to the child catcher and Gwen Stacy’s Welsh grandmother, he’s back to being a bit weird. Not pervy, just that weird you get when an older man is pressuring a younger woman to “access the sight” in a supernatural episode of TV. Gwen is not just anyone, no she’s the McGuffin to tie the ghostly apparitions to the house. I won’t say it is followed by bad acting, it is just that séance acting that’s filled with just enough ham for Doctor Who, but also has a bit left over for all the other sci-fi/supernatural-style shows like Charmed.

That scene leads nicely into a dejected Dickens delicately deliberating the determination of his own life, as verbose and lonely is our Simon Callow playing Dickens, the standout for this, very literally, Dickensian episode of Who. With pomp, timbre in his voice, and valor in the character he feels alive and kicking. Which is more than I can say for the actual séance scene later on, where I’d rather watch paint dry.

I’ll not spend today hammering on about the spiritual and rather naff scenes where we play up the ghosts, spooky, and horror elements. I’ll just be going in circles saying, “I don’t care for this, I don’t like this.” I’d rather we moved on with the episode and spoke about what did work; for example, Dickens loving the ego boost of The Doctor saying “I’m your number one fan.” To which Dickens does get as The Doctor isn’t a means of keeping one’s self cool with a gentle breeze. The Americans among you were yet to spread the shortened version of a fanatic.

I like the wonder Rose has when she steps out into 1869. It is no Capaldi having his moment of bliss and joy that should just warm the heart of every Who fan, but it does what it needs to. This along with Dickens’ conviction when confronted by a ghostly figure as he talks about the knocker on Scrooge’s door gives the episode a real thrill. There is not just a sense of logic behind Dickens’ argument of what the ghostly figure is, but a sense of believing it to be true.

It is Doctor Who after all, with that logic, there is a sense of strangeness to it. Eccleston and Callow’s performances really pull the episode together against the acting opposite paranormal VFX of 2005. Though I’m returning to those problems I have; outside of the occult, it is mostly the acting around that and the semi-flirting The Doctor does with Rose.

Overall, I think most people wouldn’t have much of a problem jumping from the maniacal supervillain of The Lady Cassandra in “The End of the World” to the Raxacoricofallapatorians trying to sell off the earth in “Aliens of London” and “World War Three.” As has been established, this one wasn’t for me. Of all the things I want in my sci-fi, I want a bit of sci-fi and downright stupid rubber aliens that are eight feet tall. I’ll happily settle for an upside-down bin yelling about mass ethnic extermination; not a sentence that will get me job offers anytime soon.

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Doctor Who "The Unquiet Dead"

6

Score

6.0/10

Pros

• Simon Callow's Dickens performance.
• Fun character moments.

Cons

• Hokey supernatural elements.
• Reminders that Torchwood exists.