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Time Crash Format Reviewed: TV Review After a break for a year, the Doctor Who teqam have yet again produced a short episode fro Children in Need night, airing on 16th November 2007. Celebrated writer Steven Moffatt pens this short scene, amid many rumours that he is take over from Russell T Davies as Executive Producer of Doctor Who. Whether or not these rumours are true, Moffatt's continued involvement in the series is most welcome. Following the defeat of The Master, The Doctor is piloting the TARDIS when one of his former selves appears in the TARDIS console room. Not recognising his future self, The Fifth Doctor argues with his future self, until The current Doctor reveals that he knows what will happen as he has already lived the scene. Realisation dawns on The Fifth Doctor as to the identity of the other person present, and they acnowledge each other whilst still managing to bicker. Eventually, The Fifth Doctor fades away and a ship Titanic crashes through the wall of the TARDIS. Following the scene after the regeneration from Christopher Eccleston into David Tennant that was aired on Children in Need some two years previously, I was expecting another scene that was relevant to the plot of the series overall and something to further whet the appetite in advance of the next Christmas special episode. What we got instead was a few minutes of bickering between Peter Davison and David Tennant that seemed to largely disregard continuity and established lore. By integrating Peter Davison into the scene, you are bringing with you all the baggage of the classic series, coupled with its continuity. To then stanp all over that largely for cheap laughs doesn't really smack of Doctor Who for me. Two characters appeared in Time Crash, David Tennant playing The Doctor and Peter Davison playing The Fifth Doctor. Davison's performance is not greatly typical of his reign as The Doctor, but considering that was 25 yeqars ago this is not massively surprising. Unfortunately he was reduced largely to a figure of fun, shouting and whinging about everything, but he did his best with the material. Tenannt gives a typical performance, one that will neither disappoint or excite fans. The biggest problem with Time Crash is that it appears to have been completely done as an afterthought, whereas what we may have been expecting was a seemless addition to the series, akin to the previous scene shown for Children in Need. Having levelled this criticism though, I am prepared to accept a couple of points. Firstly that this scene was not really designed to appeal to people watching it for the reasons I did, and also it was not produced to help explain something, like the previous Children in Neen scene helped bridge the explanation gap left by a bodily regeneration of the lead character. Overall, anyone watching Time Crash expecting to see a poignant few minutes of Doictor Who will be sadly disappointed. Anyone wanting a few minutes of Doctor Who themed childrens entertainment will no doubt enjoy Time Crash, as long as it's treated as a 'throwaway scene'. Rating:  |