3x06 The Lazarus Experiment

I know everybody hates this episode, and they have good reason to. That creature design is horrifically ugly and terribly rendered. Honestly this might be the episode I'm most curious about knowing the behind the scenes of because I can't imagine THAT was what they were hoping ot put out into the world.

But besides that the meat of the episode was really good. Mark Gatiss is really good s Richard Lazarus the man. He has a slimy menace to him that works perfect but also evokes the emotional core of the character, a desperation to live at all costs rooted in fear really well. That final exchange between him and the Doctor in the cathedral was really compelling in no small part to how well Gatiss plays the scene.

We also see the return of Martha's family. Unfortunately I don't think used it's to as strong an effect as it could have been. I think this episode is trying to get across how much Martha has been changed by her adventures but it doesn't quite work because Martha seemed ready to jump into an adventure from Smith and Jones and in most of her adventures she takes to the action with vigour.So when her sister teases her implying she's a homebody and when her mother claims she's acting completely out of character its hard to understand where those sentiments were coming from. A home-away-home narrative is a great way to show the arc of a companion but this series never really commits to giving Martha an arc outside of her romantic connection to the doctor so understanding her relationship to traveling outside of that is very difficult.

I also found story beats throughout the episodes pretty weak. Moments like Trish cozying up with Lazarus made no sense in wider context. Sure the machine made Lazarus younger but he looks 40 and, no offense to Gatiss, he's not hot in any way. So them getting romantic on the roof is just a contrivance to put her in danger and actively contradicts Trish rejecting his creepy advances earlier in the ep. These moments of narrative contrivance, also seen in Mrs Jones randomly getting malicious information on the doctor and instantly believing it and Lazarus magically recovering after the Doctor first beats him, make the plotting and pacing of this episode clunkier than I would have liked.

But despite the very clear amounts of jank I did enjoy this episode. Again Gatiss does justice to the role but more broadly the themes of this episode about the destructive desire to live forever and the reality of the loneliness of that endeavor really connected with me.