Doctor Who: The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances (2005)

Original Air Date (USA): May 21 and May 28, 2005
Run Time: 90 minutes

The great thing about sci-fi shows on television is that many of them like to explore a variety of different unusual and out-of-the-ordinary topics to help differentiate themselves from your more “standard” television fare. The recent incarnation of the “Doctor Who” (“DW”) series, while probably seeming a little quirky and a little “British” to American audiences, really seems to enjoy creating storylines about a wide variety of interesting subjects, ranging from a planet full of Time Lords locked in a temporal bubble to a galactic Starship Titanic that conveniently takes excursion stops on present-day Earth to stories set in the past, present, and future.

I recently reviewed a 2009 episode of “DW” called “The Waters of Mars” that involved the rather unique concept of “water zombies.” It was brought to my attention by a reader that “DW” has previously covered zombies as well, in a two-story arc from the 2005 “first season” of the current incarnation of the show. A funny side note here: I had actually started watching the 2005 season of “DW” when it first came out, as I was intrigued by the “re-birth” of such a classic sci-fi series. Unfortunately things got busy in my personal life, as personal things tend to do, and I couldn’t keep up with watching the series, only being able to see the first seven episodes before losing the ability to view regularly. The two episodes we are reviewing now were numbers nine and ten in this season, so I only missed seeing these zombie-centric episodes when they were brand-new by a matter of weeks!