'Doctor Who': Dreamland - The Verdict

Move over Mulder and Scully! The Doctor is in Roswell's Area 51, armed with his sonic screwdriver and plenty of one-liners in this highly-watchable and undemanding animated adventure. About the length of your average television episode, it breezes along at a breakneck pace and never fails to entertain, despite some fairly bland companions and each character having about two facial expression settings.

Writer Phil Ford crams plenty of amusement into The Doctor's dialogue, and one can sense David Tennant's glee as he rattles them off throughout the adventure. Lines like "you never know when you might need to escape in a box" go down a treat, along with The Doctor's momentary confusion that The Reds are more of a Mancunian footballing threat than a nuked-up Soviet one.

It's also just as well that The Doctor drops in a reference to Aliens early on, as the story rips off pays huge homage to James Cameron's mighty movie with the Viperox Queen laying her egg pods underground. 'Dreamland' plunders other past material, too, but does so with enough gusto and pace to get away with it. However, the lightweight nature of the two makeshift companions Jimmy and Cassie isn't quite so forgivable, as neither makes an impression.

Animation allows a wider visual scope than the television series could feasibly realise, and this is taken advantage of through the exhilarating opening UFO chase and crash - and the epic sequence of the freshly hatched Viperox bursting through the desert terrain from their underground lair. Also, the 'camerawork', or whatever the animation equivalent term is, avoids many static shots and nicely roves around the landscape to give the action more of a dynamic feel.

On the visually negative side, the characters suffer from a severe lack of facial movement - even by animation standards. There's certainly an incongruous juxtaposition between Tennant's energetic vocals and The Doctor's expressions - which closely resemble Roger Moore doing his wooden eyebrow raising in the James Bond movies.

An over-reliance on the Sonic Screwdriver frustrates at times, but the story comes together in a satisfying manner and contains a range of well-worked cliffhangers. The emotional and moral nature of the revived Doctor Who is also well represented throughout, via the depiction of the two warring alien species and the repercussions of their conflict.

Overall, 'Dreamland' is certainly a worthwhile endeavour despite the flaws, and boasts fine vocal turns by Tennant and the imperious David Warner as Lorz Azlok. Anything that easily kills some time until 'The End Of Time' is most welcome indeed.
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