by David Furritus

Created on: November 21, 2009

"I should leave"

Prophetic words spoken throughout what will probably be David Tennant's second-to-last episode of Doctor Who.

Due to budget cuts at the BBC, one of their best shows is on hiatus this season - sort of. What should be series five of Doctor Who has been broken down into a series of "specials" starting with last Christmas' "The Next Doctor", continuing at Easter with "Planet of the Dead", and now with "The Waters of Mars" (with the series ending with the Christmas special coming out in December).

In this special, The Doctor lands on Mars to just have a look around and, as usual, has no idea what date it is. He's pleasantly surprised to find a fully functional base and is brought inside at gunpoint (reminiscent of older episodes from the Jon Pertwe/Tom Baker eras). Inside he realizes that he's on the first manned base off of Earth. At first, he's impressed, and then he realizes that they're all going to die - on that particular day.

Down in the base's bio dome, the staff botanist has been infected with a bizarre microorganism that lives in the water of the human body. To make matters worse is that anyone touched by the water becomes infected as well. The Doctor and the crew of the station are in a fight for their lives against this strange force.

After the usual "Who are you?" "Why should we listen to you" and whatnot, the crew realize that The Doctor is right as usual and try to do what he tells them. All the while The Doctor wants to leave the base because he knows that it's doomed - and he cannot save it or else all of Human history will be altered for the worse.

In the end The Doctor decides that history be darned and the Laws of Time no longer apply (since he's the only one that could enforce it and he no longer cares). This leads to the usual rescue at the last second, but there's a great twist at the end that will leave the greatest emotional impact since The Doctor said goodbye to Rose Tyler at the end of series two.

This episode was a welcome sight after five months of the show's absence, but it wasn't one of the best episodes of the program. Not, by a long shot. Before tearing it apart, let's look at some of the positives:

Tennant

If this is truly the end of the David Tennant era, it's safe to assume that he wants to go out with a bang. Never has he been more passionate. Watching The Doctor's inner-turmoil throughout the episode actually brought tears to the eyes. He was still trying to save people, even knowing that he shouldn't

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