Doctor Who: the Waters of Mars

Original Air Date (USA): December 19, 2009
Run Time: 60 minutes

“The Waters of Mars” is a recent “special” (a.k.a. extended episode) of the British science fiction series “Doctor Who.” For those who aren’t intimately familiar with the Doctor Who (DW) series, the titular character is an alien known as a Time Lord who has the ability to travel through time pretty much at will via his “spaceship in a box,” the TARDIS. The series has existed on and off (mostly on) since 1963, and the most recent incarnation has been in production since 2005. There have been ten different actors to play The Doctor, and this is explained in the series through The Doctor’s ability to regenerate himself when he is seriously physically injured, and the regeneration process produces a new look and personality for him. The current version of the show tackles a wide variety of story ideas and themes, as evidenced by the episode we are currently reviewing. I am a fan of the series and have seen many of the DW episodes since 2005, and when I read this episode’s description of featuring “water zombies,” I knew this was one particular episode I had to go out of my way to check out.

The TARDIS deposits The Doctor on Mars in the year 2159, on the exact day that, according to history, the first human colony on Mars meets an unknown threat and is destroyed.