Series 2 - David Tennant - Love and Monsters

Love and Monsters is a very interesting and exciting episode from the second series since the 2005 reboot. The most interesting thing about this episode is simply that it doesn’t feature the Doctor much at all. Though there have been a few episodes which have followed a similar formula in subsequent series, this is the first time we see a storyline play out like this one. Rather than a story centring around the Doctor, Rose and their adventures this episode follows the  lives of a group of people who have all have been touched by the Doctor in some way, exploring the effect he can have on the people around him whether good or bad. 

In this episode we meet Elton, a young man who has met the Doctor several times in both his childhood and his adult life, though has never had more than a moment of communication with him before the Doctor is gone. Elton happens upon a group of people who have all had similar experiences to him, they call themselves ‘LINDA’ which stands for the ‘London Investigation N Detective Agency’ and they meet up on a regular basis to talk about and investigate appearances of the Doctor as well as the existence of worlds beyond the stars.

In our story LINDA is taken over by a monster known as the ‘Abzorbaloff’ which has disguised itself as a man named Victor Kennedy played by Peter Kay. Victor is adamant that LINDA are losing focus and he begins to teach them surveillance techniques in his urgency to find the Doctor for himself. The Abzorbaloff was a creature that was actually designed by a 9 year old boy named William Grantham who entered a Blue Peter competition. 

This particular monster is both ugly and disgusting. As the name suggests just one momentary touch of the alien’s skin and you would find yourself absorbed into its mass of green flesh where you consciousness would remain alive but you would become a part of its monstrous flab. A truly horrible way to go, however after the Abzorbaloff absorbs the bodies of every member of LINDA bar Elton it finds itself weak to their will, and in the end its victims are its undoing. 

The stories of Elton, Ursula and the other members of LINDA are really interesting to hear and all tragic in their own ways but the story that stands out the most is the story of Jackie Tyler. Elton meets Jackie whilst looking for Rose in his attempts to track down the Doctor and we learn just how much of an effect Rose’s absence has on her mother. 

Jackie reacts just as any mother would, she is worried for her daugter’s well-being and annoyed that she barely hears from her but most of all she is lonely and in her desperation for human contact she comes close to being intimate with Elton. In the end though, despite Jackie’s heartache at the absence of her daughter and her anger with the Doctor for taking Rose away she refuses to reveal any of his secrets to Elton and proves that she remains loyal to the Doctor no matter what. 

Elton’s parting words on the subject are really quite enlightening and have a certain air of foreshadowing about them as the doctor would soon be forced to leave Rose and Jackie in a parallel universe. 

“Maybe that's what happens if you touch the Doctor. Even for a second. I keep thinking of Rose and Jackie. And how much longer before they pay the price?”

Overall a brilliant episode which we have decided to give a 4/5, for an episode which was pieced together in order to overcome filming constraints it is very well written, very engaging and a testament to the skills of Russell T Davies.