N.B. there might (or might not) be spoilers in this article!
The Lazarus Experiment sees the Doctor bring Martha home after that “one trip to say thanks” which saw them visit Shakespeare, new New York, old New York — and possibly take on a quest — although that doesn’t get a mention here!
“You were never really just a passenger, were you?”
The Doctor, The Lazarus Experiment
Mums, it seems, do not like the Doctor. I don’t remember Jackie Tyler ever clouting him one, but she rarely, if ever, seemed to trust him. And even before Mr Saxon’s man whispered in her ear, Francine Jones appeared to take an instant dislike to Martha’s new friend.
Martha’s return home in The Lazarus Experiment actually offers us a neat juxtaposition to Rose’s first trip back.
In Rose’s case she’d only been on a couple of adventures before the Doctor got his coordinates disastrously wrong and brought her home 12 months rather than 12 hours later. As as result Jackie had long reported Rose as missing and there was no undoing that, not even for the Doctor (probably something to do with the Blinovitch Limitation Effect).
For Martha, the disconnect is caused by all of her adventures occurring in what is only one day for her family. She’s not seen them for comparatively ages, but to Francine, Trish and Leo it might seem like Martha might have hit the sauce early that night, such is her enthusiasm when greeting them all.
The rest of the episode? Well, it’s fairly standard stuff. Scientist experiments on himself — oh not it goes wrong — mayhem ensues! Mark Gatiss is rather good as the aforementioned scientist, the eponymous Professor Richard Lazarus, as is Thelma Barlow in all-too-brief turn as Lady Thaw.
Martha is again excellent (getting Lazarus’s DNA from his kiss on her hand was smart-thinking) and the Doctor is suitably dinner-jacketed and charming, even if he does get a slap for his troubles, and it all zips along at a nice pace.
It just never really gets above mildly diverting. Perhaps though, after the unintentional hilarity of the uneven Dalek two-parter, that’s not such a terrible thing.
