Boom Town [TV/2005.6.4]

★★★☆☆

  For one glorious episode, Russell T Davies asks a bold question: 'What would Dr. Who be like as a soap?' The result is that Cardiff almost disappears from the face of the Earth, which honestly isn't gonna get any disagreements from me.

  No, but seriously. Like its reputation, the biggest strength of Boom Town is that it's willing to go that extra mile, be like the best of soap and let these characters' emotions burst out of their bubble, over-the-top or not. Subtlety's for cowards, and RTD got the memo when writing that one brilliant sequence between Rose and Mickey. That's my favourite scene of the episode, and there's no doubt on that -- sorry, dinner table conversation between the Doctor and Margaret, but as well-written as you are, you're not a patch on the emotional outbursts that Rose and Mickey have during their heated argument. This is the episode that makes Mickey a real character, genuinely someone you'd see in the pub talking about his long-distance girlfriend. He delivers one of the most memorable lines of the new series for me, when he nervously asks Rose if she'd like to stay with him for the night at a hotel, he has some money, it's okay... and then tries to brush it off in case she refuses. It's so painfully real in a way that so very few lines in Dr. Who are because I was literally in both sides of the conversation, in Mickey's side and Rose's. Their argument, over Mickey lying about his own feelings to make her feel jealous and over Rose feeling betrayed and subsequently learning that she had genuinely hurt her (ex-)boyfriend. Incredible work from both actors, really, hard to pick one over the other. 

  I'm sorry that I picked over one specific sequence to base this entire review over, but that's what spoke to me the most. Boom Town's willing to make a person out of a character, and in that scant moment as Rose and Mickey talk, it rises up the echelons to the very best of British soap -- and I don't mean this in a snarky, ironic way. I love how soap can portray very real emotions in the face of very real traumatic incidents, and a couple's inability to reconcile with themselves after an inevitable lifestyle change for all of time and space is as good as any for Dr. Who. The episode itself is cute and dramatic, with the Doctor getting his own examination done by a Slitheen who knows how to get under his skin, but that Rose/Mickey aspect is what I chose to focus on. That aspect is just so good, isn't it? Jack's a cute addition to the TARDIS team as well.