Doctor Who - The Infinite Quest.

The Infinite Quest was a Doctor Who cartoon that originally aired in three-and-a-bit minute chunks on Totally Doctor Who, which was sort of like Doctor Who Confidential for the CBBC set. (That’s Children’s BBC for any American readers). The show itself was a bit redundant, to be honest, not covering any different ground than Confidential itself, so it got canned. The Infinite Quest itself was re-edited into a complete story, running around 50 minutes, which is now released on DVD.

Or at least, it is if you live in the UK - or have access to a handy Region 2 supplier. I don’t know if it will be released in Region 1, but it wouldn’t surprise me sooner or later.

The Infinite Quest is set at some point during Season 3, with the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones, during an unknown gap in episodes. It has to be set after The Lazarus Experiment, as Martha is traveling full time, and before Utopia (for obvious reasons). David Tennant and Freema Agyeman return to voice the characters.

The story itself is a breezy, fast paced affair, written by Alan Barnes - best known for writing a lot of stories for the BBC’s Doctor Who comic strip. The Doctor defeats an evil pirate called Balthazar, played by Tony Head, who swears revenge. Balthazar finds out about a legendary ship that can give you your heart’s desire, and decides to get revenge AND ultimate power in one fell swoop. He tricks our heroes into going on a quest for the location of the ship, and plans to swoop in at the end and grab it for himself.

It’s not a highly original plot, but it does the job. The story pops along at an even faster clip than a normal episode, managing to fit four distinct locations into the fifty minutes, and not lingering for much. The animated status means the writers don’t have to worry about budget concerns, and we get locations we’d never be able to see in the show itself - a desert filled with giant walking oil rigs, a jungle planet filled with millions of giant mantises and humans in power armor, a planet of giant mechanical birds. The art direction is great, and there’s always something interesting to look at.

The animation itself isn’t great - it looks a lot like flash animation, with added cell shading. It’s a bit stiff, and the human characters are slightly expressionless. The acting does do a lot of good to counteract that though - Tennant and Agyeman are great as ever, and Tony Head and Steven Greif play great bad guys. The Doctor and Martha’s relationship is well played too - even with the slightly naff animation, their chemistry shines through.

There’s not a lot of time for characterization here - though we do get some nice touches here and there, with the Doctor proving adept at managing to sort people’s problems out and end wars in under three minutes. Of course, if he can do that, why does it take him 45-90 minutes to normally do it then? I think he’s just not trying most of the time, to be honest. I mean, he’s crap at flying the Tardis, but then, when he really HAS to, he’s capable of pin point accuracy. Clearly, he just needs to apply himself.

Summing up, The Infinite Quest is slight, but fun. It won’t win any awards, but it fits nicely into Season 3, acting as a sort of side step. It’s a shame that we probably won’t be seeing any more cartoon Doctor Who, now that Totally Doctor Who has been canned, but it’s a fun one off to have. Nice characterization of the leads, breezy plot, fun villains, great art direction. Slightly marred by dodgy animation and shallow characterization, but a good yarn all the same.

The DVD has the 50 minute episode itself, plus some interviews with the main creative staff. It’s not as loaded as other Doctor Who stories, but the low price point makes up for that. Picture and sound are excellent, as ever for BBC releases. Recommended for Who fans.