Hogan Reviews

The latest series of Ninth Doctor adventures are the biggie as it has Christopher Eccleston reunite with Billie Piper, reforming the Doctor/Rose combo that made up the entirety of their TV run. After three series’ worth of boxsets featuring the Ninth Doctor travelling by himself this a nice break and is a fun story to start on, and one that crucially feels very “of the time”, which is admittedly weird way to talk about 2005, but hey-ho… Let’s take a look!

“Snare” focuses on a new character from the Powell Estate called Kevin (Alex Austin) who has returned to the flats to empty his father’s place after his death with his fellow student Marlene (Hannah Brown) but when he opens the bathroom door he’s met with a literal alien jungle. He runs across the way to the Tylers in a panic and meets not only Jackie (Camille Coduri) and Rose (Billie Piper) but also Rose’s new friend The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) who is naturally very interested in the whole thing. As The Doctor investigates we hear more about Kevin and his Dad and how the latter was nicknamed “Spider” because his handwriting was all jagged like a spiders web and how he’d be aggressive and put threatening notes through the doors one day and be nice as anyone another. As the investigation continues Marlene, Kevin and Jackie get sucked into a full-on alien forest by entering a random door and eventually find a strange alien gardener who then sets a bunch of killer insects on Marlene, killing her just as The Doctor and Rose arrive.

The Doctor leads them out of the forest partially using some of “Spider’s” crazy drawings, which turn out to correspond to some of the signage in the forest, which for the record is actually on a large alien ship in another dimension known as a “Snare” as it attaches itself to other dimensions which can cause the destruction of whatever is attached on the other end (which in this case is the block of flats in the Powell Estate) The Doctor manages to get everyone out through an escape hatch that leads out of a kitchen cupboard and later starts to mull over ways to detach the ship while in the TARDIS as Rose brings a depressed Kevin on board to cheer him up. Kevin asks if the alien spores are what drove his Dad to be the way he was but The Doctor immediately stomps on that hope by saying the Snare would’ve only been attached for a year at best, leaving Kevin to run off and Rose to give The Doctor an earful about thinking about other’s feelings, only for the Doctor to lament humans having issues with their Dads recently, giving us a solid point in the show’s timeline to place these adventures in (which we already knew from press releases and such, but whatever…)

When the duo return to the flat they find out that Kevin had gone alone back into the garden as he couldn’t let go of the fact that the Gardener had used a nickname for him his father had used and needed answers…

As I said, it’s a fun little story and feels very suited to “Series 1”, especially having an emotional beat running through the zany alien-ness.

The Continuity:

Good, eye-grabbing cover, as usual.

The only real continuity to mention here is that its set right after the TV story “Father’s Day”, The Doctor treating Rose to an extended stay with her mother after the emotional roller coaster that episode was.

Overall Thoughts:

“Snare” is a good start to this new / finally returning era of the Ninth Doctor adventures, feeling very 2005 in its story and lead performances, Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper haven’t missed a beat. Basically after a lot of samey stories for the Ninth Doctor recently, I’m looking forward to more.

The Doctor and Rose return to the jungle knowing they have little time left, followed shortly by Jackie much to The Doctor’s surprise. They find Kevin talking to the Gardener and find out that while it’s not his Dad his Dad’s mind had been “imprinted” onto it, making it essentially but not quite his Dad, who for the record liked houseplants and always wanted a garden, which is why this imprinted version of him is so happy and wants to be left alone. Anyway, Kevin is hurt (as in physically, though probably mentally as well!) so Jackie takes him out of the place and then The Doctor manages to tell Spider/The Gardener how to detach the ship safely and then he and Rose escape just in the nick of time. Later The Doctor tricks Kevin into telling him all about the life he’s led in the past year and how well he’s doing while actually broadcasting it to The Gardener as a favour, to which he is grateful before he heads into the unknown with his special garden.