1.11 - Boom Town

This episode is somewhat of a sequel to the earlier two parter with the Slitheen. Here one of the Slitheen is Mayor in Cardiff overseeing the building of a nuclear power plant with hidden plans. She turns out to have survived the earlier apparent destruction of the Slitheen due a rather overly convenient plot point of her secretly having the one and only teleport device of the Slitheen which she had not apparently found any previous use for in that prior story. In fact the main problem with this episode is the number of convenient plot points which pop up such as The Doctor taking the unusual action of recharging the TARDIS just when 'Margaret' of the Slitheen is bringing a plan to fruition, Margaret managing to become Mayor without having her picture taken, her picture finally getting taken and printed in a sensational front page when The Doctor happens to be in town, that newspaper seemingly being printed and released later the same day as the picture was taken (a funny link back to a plot hole from the 1st Doctor's The War Machines), the shaking of the ship happening to cause a panel to fall open (which has to be wrenched very forcefully open a couple of episodes later) and reveal the heart of the TARDIS right at the key moment in front of Margaret (which is a either bizarre coincidence or deliberate action by the TARDIS in which case why did it not do that to The Master or another foe while they were in the TARDIS?) etc. This type of plot or logic issue is rare in the RT Davies era, it became far more common under Steven Moffatt and has then reduced again under Chibnall. Of course Moffatt had many strengths and wrote some great episodes but I simply observe this is a rare example of plot problems of this type under RTD.

On the plus side there are some good elements to this which lift the episode back up despite these plot problems. Russell T. Davies era was almost always fun and this is quite fun in a few scenes. RTD also always had great, believable character interaction and in this episode there is a lovely scene of the Doctor having fun with his friends which was a great touch and there is a very good aspect of showing how Rose going off in the TARDIS affects Mickey and he is shown to have had enough. The dialogue between Margaret and The Doctor is very interesting with her challenging his moral code. This again brings me to discuss Steven Moffatt who as Showrunner seemed to like to suggest The Doctor's darkness quite strongly pretty much suggesting sometimes he was a ruthless killer. I found that a bit of a confused and contradictory whereas RTD manages to question the hard decisions and judgements The Doctor makes and have him question himself but essentially his good intentions, heroic character and decency are clearly intact.

Sadly although the negative aspects are counteracted to some extent by positives there are too many niggles and not enough qualities to lift this above 6.5 or 7/10 at best.

Pretty underrated episode, Margaret is really good here, as is Mickey, who finally gets to tell Rose how frustrated he is with her.

The lunch scene with the Doctor, Jack, Rose and Mickey is really good, it feels as though they really are good friends. The chase scene with Margaret is also hilarious and really fun. Finally, the dinner scene is absolutely fantastic, with the doctor deflecting Margaret's attacks without effort and a really effective and tense bit where they discuss the morality of the death sentence.

Unfortunately the ending is a bit rubbish, it seems very rushed and makes the dinner scene feel a bit useless but the rest of the episode is really good. 7/10, could be fantastic if the ending was improved.

Boom Town is probably hurt by between being smack dab in the middle between two epic two parters, but is a very good story in its own right that has the Doctor returning to face Margaret of the Slitheen.

The story has a lot of good stuff in the episode with some surprising mixes. It manages to have some great comic hijinks early on with Margaret's escape attempt, and her alleging the Doctor was persecuting here and asking what she ever did to him. When the Doctor points out, "You tried to kill me and destroy this entire planet." And Margaret asks, "Besides that?"

In the second half of the show, the Doctor and Margaret turn far more serious as she seems to try and get sympathy and be released. The point where the Doctor describes how a killer acts and will sometimes spare someone so they can live with themselves is great television

Noel Clarke brings his A-game as Mickey. It's the episode where he finally lets out all his frustration with Rose's disregard for him. It's an honest and powerful scene, only spoiled slightly by the script taking things too far.

The ending does feel like a bit of a cheat which is why I don't rate it higher. Margaret had built up a moral dilemma for the TARDIS crew on whether they could take her home to face severe Capital punishment or let her go. The ending skirts that entirely.

One other comment is that this episode showed how utterly unnecessary it was for all of the "passing gas" noises that were overdone in Aliens of London/World War III and hurt many fans enjoyment of the show. After the first third of this episode, you hear almost nothing from Margaret in that regards which is good because Annette Badland turned in a solid character performance which is hard to do when your character has to keep apologizing for body sounds.

Plaudits for Annette Badlands return. I wouldn't want to cross her!