20 years on, Doctor Who’s Love & Monsters deserves another look

Fans disagree on the worst Doctor Who episode, but one of the series’ lowest-rated entries comes from season 2 of New Who: Love & Monsters. That rank is striking because the season with David Tennant and Billie Piper is widely seen as a high point of the revival.

The episode’s absence of the Doctor–Rose chemistry and a plot thread involving a man receiving sexual favors from a woman trapped in a slab of cement have left many viewers skipping it. Love & Monsters centres on Elton Pope (Marc Warren), whose life is changed when the Doctor rescues him as a child.

Years later his search for the Time Lord leads him to LINDA, a group of people who have also encountered the Doctor, until Victor Kennedy (Peter Kay), an alien known as an Abzorbaloff, seeks to absorb the Doctor’s body and knowledge. Russell T. Davies and director Dan Zeff use the episode to underline the all-consuming influence of the Doctor.

doctor who, love &, david tennant, billie piper, elton pope, marc warren, dan zeff, abzorbaloff, peter kay, linda