| $@%&! level: Low “Bedroom” level: None Violence level: Medium Back Cover: “Rose and the Doctor return to present-day Earth, and become intrigued by the latest craze—the video game, Death to Mantodeans. Is it as harmless as it seems? And why are so many local people going on holiday and never returning? Meanwhile, on another world, an alien war is raging. The Quevvils need to find a new means of attacking the ruthless Mantodeans. Searching the galaxy for cunning, warlike but gullible allies, they find the ideal soldiers—on Earth. Will Rose be able to save her family and friends from the alien threat? And can the Doctor play the game to the end—and win?” |
So it turns out that the Doctor is really very good at video games (no surprise there). Unfortunately, this being Doctor Who, being very good at things can get you abducted by aliens. It takes a while for the Doctor to figure out that he's not just playing a video game, and then they have to run around trying to figure out how to get to wherever the video game is actually taking place, so they can stop it. That's the mystery part of the story. Most Doctor Who stories have a bit of mystery to them. And a lot of running around. Although in this one, the Doctor spends a lot of time staying in one place while Rose does the running. (I'm trying really hard not to give spoilers here.)
The second half of the story, and the more interesting part, is an extremely complicated and extended hostage situation. No hostage negotiations either, of course. The Doctor just has to be clever and sneaky enough to outwit the giant porcupine aliens right under their pointy noses. I always enjoy watching the Doctor being clever, and this time he has to rely on Mickey to help, which just makes things all the more entertaining because he really hates having to rely on Mickey for anything. (I think it's jealousy of the ex-boyfriend, personally. Just because he's a 900-year-old Time Lord doesn't mean he's flawless.) Also, Rose manages to convince yet another young man that she is the epitome of perfection. Luckily, the young man in question manages to mostly hide his attraction, or the Doctor might not have been so nice to him, and the whole thing would have been ruined.
If you want a moral to the story, it's to stop playing video games so much and go out and live your own life. Doctor Who says things like that a lot. Most of the time, however, they don't go so far as to suggest that sitting quietly at home with your own computer is likely to get other people killed. Still, it's probably a pretty good moral to remember.