Stephen Fry’s armpit

The announcement of Karen Gillan’s casting in Doctor Who effectively announces that filming is due to start shortly on the first full Moffat series, we are less than a year away from its broadcast, and that’s an exciting thought.

I’m also reminded of one of the best magazine columns I’ve ever read, also from the pen of the Moff. It’s from a few years ago, before David Tennant had even made his full on-screen debut. I particularly sympathise with the views on hugging – confronted by a looming Stephen Fry, I imagine I would have done much the same…

hug in a moff

Doctor Smith

Today is a day that arrived a good ten years earlier than I expected. Today the next actor to play the Doctor is younger than me.

When the talking heads on Doctor Who Confidential let slip the first clue – that the new Doctor is the youngest ever – I envisaged writing something along the following lines in this post: a young Doctor strikes me as a mistake, but Steven Moffat is a great writer and producer who is rightly paid to take these decisions, and he will get it right and prove me wrong.

Moffat himself evidently had the same preconceptions, and expected to cast an actor in his forties.

But actually… my first reaction is that Matt Smith is likely to be very good. From the clips shown – and I’ll confess Ruby in the Smoke and Party Animals are both programmes I intended to watch and then didn’t, bar a perhaps unrepresentative ten minutes of the latter – he seems to have that magnetic charisma on-screen that the part requires. He also has a face that is 50% chisel-jawed heroism and 50% wonky excess head area – a quirky combination that must be right for the role.

So: four more David Tennant specials, then Matt Smith in 2010. Excellent!

Just in case anyone missed it: Smith’s first appearance is promised for Spring 2010. The date of Tennant’s last special has not been announced, but the latest rumour seems to be Easter 2010 rather than Christmas 2009. Could it be scheduled to kick-start the first Moffat-Smith series? Could be a great move, or a dreadful one. Or maybe it’ll be a Christmas Day regeneration after all.

Though, to come back to the age thing… if ever there’s something to make you feel like you’ve totally wasted your life to date, it’s seeing the title role in Doctor Who go to someone younger than you.

Christmas Invasion

In anticipation of this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special, here’s a deleted sequence from 2005’s The Christmas Invasion…

Headlong rush into fan sadness

Firstly, apologies for the lack of updates. It is likely to continue (if it’s possible for a lack to continue… I suppose it is) – I have rather less spare time now than I used to, and higher priorities for writing.

One casualty of this is likely to be my episode-by-episode reviews of Doctor Who. But while I’m here, I have some fan frustration to get off my chest. In The Stolen Earth, Davros was deliberately depicted with a mechanical hand, on the basis that the last time he was seen in the “classic” series – 1985’s Revelation of the Daleks – his real hand was seen being blown off.

Except… that wasn’t the last time he was seen in the old series! He was seen again in 1988’s Remembrance of the Daleks, and by that time he was reduced to a disembodied head inside a Dalek casing. Youtube handily backs me up on this…

So why has the new series deliberately trashed the old? There’s no possibility of a mistake: you’re dealing with proper fans on the Doctor Who production team – they would not even have had to look it up, and they certainly wouldn’t have forgotten. And if Davros supposedly grew himself a new body… why didn’t he grow himself a properly-functioning body, not a withered, disabled one? That can’t be the explanation.

Of course, acknowledging this change would have meant that the iconic image of Davros, half man and half Dalek, could not be recreated… but with all the ingenuity of RTD and the gang, there must have been a better way to get round this.

Also, this is the second bit of ret-conning relating to Remembrance of the Daleks: at the end of that story, Skaro is destroyed, but in Daleks in Manhattan last year it was stated that the Daleks’ planet was destroyed during the Time Wars. Now, the destruction of Skaro could have been the start of the wars I suppose, but more likely it was just a plain case of the new series riding roughsod over the old. Usually I’m impressed with how the show manages to reinvent past elements without trashing them, but it seems to be making a point of contradicting this one particular story.

Now, this is not a unanimous view with Doctor Who fandom, but Remembrance is generally one of the better-regarded McCoy stories – the era as a whole remains enormously divisive among fans, but I think it was in many respects one of the old show’s strongest periods. Perhaps RTD feels otherwise. Even if he does, it’s hard to see how he can justify picking and choosing what bits of the old show are now canonical and which are not. What’s the point of doing fanwank like bringing Davros back, and then getting it wrong?? It’s deeply sad, I know, but it just bothers me. That’s all.

Doctor Who – ‘The Doctor’s Daughter’

Firstly, I’m not doing a separate review for last week’s episode, The Poison Sky: by and large it continued the good work of the first instalment. Good CGI in places, liked that. Nice reference to the Brigadier – though they should have elevated him to the Lords, not just a knighthood!

And now… The Doctor’s Daughter is an episode that will have divided fandom. The trailing of it did rather imply Georgia Moffett would be playing some long-lost descendant, and as this would entail the Doctor having had some sort of reproductive congress in the past this would have been a big no-no for many fans (jealous of their hero for actually getting some action at some point in the last 900 years, no doubt). What we actually got was rather different – although the idea of the Doctor having a family still on Gallifrey at the time of the Time War is a bit implausible given the number of times he visited the planet in the old series without so much as dropping in for a cup of tea… Still, you can probably explain it away if you wish. And then there’s his grand-daughter Susan, living on a future Earth… Perhaps it’s just sad to get bothered by it, but for the most part RTD’s Doctor Who has invoked past elements of the show without massive contradictions or even ret-conning, and it’s a bit disappointing he’s not managed to strike the balance here…

Anyway, back, at length, to this week’s episode. First observation: it didn’t half look cheap. All those interiors, small cast… Second observation: contrary to claims in Doctor Who Confidential, Jenny’s death at the end of the episode was utterly predictable. In a pattern we’re already well familiar with, after Lynda-with-a-Y in Parting of the Ways and Madame de Pompadour in Girl In the Fireplace (I’m sure there’s at least one other example that’s escaping me), once the Doctor gets as far as saying he’s willing to welcome someone on board the TARDIS who hasn’t been announced as a new companion in the press, you know they’re a goner. That said, while the lack of a regeneration is a bit perplexing from an internal logic point of view, it’s good to see a new potential recurring character, particularly a slightly ambivalent Doctor-ish figure: it’s something RTD’s Whoniverse has lacked.

Overall, I actually rather liked this episode. The business of the short timeframe of the war was an original idea, and gave a neat pay-off to the business of Donna obsessing over the numbers. The interplay between Jenny and the Doctor was excellent, as their similarities gradually emerged and she challenged his moral authority. The pace of the running around was nicely judged, and Joe “Chris from Skins” Dempsie was engaging to watch.

I’ve no idea why Martha was brought along for this episode rather than left on Earth at the end of the last one: her runaround with the Hath seemed utterly tacked-on for the sake of getting her out of the way, and the self-sacrifice of her companion Hath was rather predictable and tedious. Nor am I totally sure whether I think the Hath design was totally successful, thinking about it – their initial appearance storming through the tunnels was eery, grotesque and striking… but prolonged screen time did make them look a bit silly.

Cob too was a failure as a character: a hackneyed mindless soldier of the type the series, both old and new, has presented far too often. But I don’t wish to criticise Stephen Greenhorn too much – for the Jenny-Doctor interplay alone his script deserves to be remembered with admiration.

I’ve paid relatively little attention to the running order of this series, to the point where, unlike for the last two years, I don’t know what episode is coming up next until the throw-forward at the end of the episode. Perhaps this series rewards that approach, as I’m enjoying it rather more than last year’s, to which I was paying closer attention. Not sure if this is a mark of good TV, but nevertheless this episode struck me as another that was, on balance, successful. But I hope there are higher peaks to come from this series – role on the Steven Moffat two-parter!

Doctor Who – ‘Planet of the Ood’

I’m glad the production team decided to give the Ood another run out – they are certainly the most effective new monster race created since the series returned (except the Space Pig maybe, but he was a one-off sadly). But I wish they had done a bit more with them. The sight of the screaming, rabid Ood was effectively frightening, but beyond that they became a bit predictable: enslaved by evil humans as a vague soft-left parable for sweatshop labour or imperialism or sumfink… The Ood’s subservient status was their defining characteristic when they first appeared, and the Doctor’s blithe acceptance of it does his credibility a bit of damage, given that it turned out they were enslaved. It’s a shame they couldn’t think of something more interesting to explain it.

And overall, the episode had a rather dull, linear structure: the storyline, such as it was, centred on the Doctor and Donna wandering around. Now, I really like the Tenth Doctor and Donna combination, and it’s obvious the writers are really enjoying getting their teeth into writing the dialogue, but I wish there had been something else going on alongside it. The corporation types are rather one-dimensional, and almost certainly intended to be disliked by the viewer; though the choice of the marketing girl to stick to her job and dob the Doctor and Donna in was, I felt, actually a more plausible human reaction than it would have been if she had broken ranks and assisted them – sad she was shown to get “just desserts” for it.

By the end, we were staring at a giant brain… Well, did Time and the Rani teach Russell T Davies nothing?

As a saving grace, Tim Mcinnerny’s transformation into an Ood was phenomenally effective – indeed, rather stomach-turning for a family show; I doubt The X-Files would have shown much more. But his back-story was rather unconvincing; all that business about his father made this intergalactic slave corporation seem incredibly tin-pot.

This wasn’t bad TV by any stretch of the imagination, and I rate it more highly than a lot of the journeyman-written episodes from last year… But even so, it didn’t leave me feeling I’d been watching the most brilliant TV programme ever made – and as it was an episode of Doctor Who, that represents a failure, albeit a narrow and on the whole enjoyable one.

Doctor Who – ‘The Fires of Pompeii’

As with Gridlock last year, this episode promised a lot more than it delivered, but while it was in its promising phase, it was very good indeed.

The Pompeii set-up was marvellous: the use of the Cinecitta sets was thoroughly worthwhile, and the use of the Cambridge Latin Course family names certainly amused me – particularly the “you’ll be remembered” line to Caecilius at the end. It’s a shame there were a few shots of Lucius striding up a very obviously Welsh hillside to double for Vesuvius at one point.

The guest cast were excellent, particularly Phil Cornwell and Peter Capaldi. The Welsh gags were also nice touches. The use of make-up design, with eyes painted on hands, was downright eery; and the shrivelled old seer was effectively repulsive. Above all, the build-up was fantastic: how could the Pompeiians know so much about the Doctor and Donna, but not about the eruption? What did he mean by “there is something on your back”?! What is going on with the volcano? Fantastic.

And then, with only fifteen minutes left, they decide they need to explain it all… and the whole thing becomes utterly bog-standard. Aliens stranded on Earth for millennia, will destroy the planet… the Doctor stops them. Tsk. I mean, how many buried alien spacecrafts can one planet accumulate? The Racnoss, this lot, Daemons, Zygons, there must be loads more… And the Doctor fixes it all with the sonic screwdriver and outruns a volcanic eruption. Cheap peril, and even cheaper resolutions.

Also, it rather seems as though the Doctor and Donna can just nip back and forth between Pompeii and the Volcano as if they were right next to each other – in fact they’re about seven miles apart. Nor did the business with the household gods at the end, nor the coining of the term volcano, really add anything.

Still, it was a top-notch production, and certainly enjoyable. Just a shame about the plot.

Doctor Who – ‘The Sontaran Strategem’

There are a couple of trends in RTD-era Doctor Who that are potentially relevant to this episode. One is that episode four of each series is always the first of a two-part aliens-invade-Earth type story, which is usually a bit below par. The second is that many episodes are good at the build-up, but offer poor, or at least overly simple, resolutions. The Sontaran Stratagem might fit the latter characteristic, though as it’s part one of two and is all build-up, as an episode in its own right it won’t suffer as a result; but it has so far not disappointed.

As a return for both the Sontarans and UNIT, this potentially had fanwank written all over it, but overall restrained itself. Inevitably, the Doctor entering the mobile HQ was reminiscent of the last full-on appearance on UNIT, in 1989’s Battlefield; it’s a shame the UN’s unhappiness at being associated with a military force dedicated to defending humanity (!) has meant they have had to dispense with the blue berets and change the name to “Unified Intelligence Task Force” – but on the up-side, the joke about UNIT dating was, to me at least, hilarious. I didn’t get much of a sense of today’s UNIT, however: the commanding officer was well-played, but lacked depth – much as Lethbridge-Stewart did at times, of course, but Nicholas Courtney’s strangely bluff charisma was sadly not replicated. I do hope he gets a cameo in next week’s episode – it will be a sad opportunity missed if not.

As for the Sontarans, I am a bit baffled that RTD chose them from among numerous other potential “second tier” monsters to bring back – they were always a bit rubbish really, weren’t they? Still, their visualisation worked better than the initial promotional pictures had suggested – their faces had been made to look rather too cute in the stills I saw. Overall, they are a credible monster, though I’m not sure their “returning” status really adds anything to them. Still, no point reinventing the wheel, I suppose.

Also returning to the show, throughout this year’s series, is some surprisingly strong horror: after the Ood transformation last week, the shrivelled old woman the week before and the grotesque belly-bulging antics of the season opener, the clone-in-a-tank was perhaps the most grotesque and unnerving monster ever seen on the show. Utterly horrible, brilliantly realised. But is it really appropriate for a pre-7pm transmission? Well, it’s the BBC’s problem.

Oh, and also also returning: Martha Jones. I tried hard last year to give Martha the benefit of the doubt, but after the series ended, and after her stint in Torchwood, I concluded rather sadly that Freema Agyeman just can’t cut it, unless (as in Human Nature, for instance) she’s given some really good material to work with. Obviously Helen Raynor’s script provided sufficient grist to Freema’s mill, as for the most part she was decent here, although at times, for instance the “I’m bringing you back to Earth” line she still seemed a bit too stagey.

But Martha’s character development is excellent: I can’t recall seeing a companion come back having been in many ways transformed: engaged, newly qualified, and in a new line of work. The only comparison is Ace’s development into a battle-hardened soldier in the New Adventures – thinking about it, it’s hard not to think there might have been a bit of an influence going on there.

And before I forget, also also also returning: that bloody bridge at Cardiff docks! As seen in Army of Ghosts, the Torchwood episode with the people being taken and returned by the Rift, and now as the (admittedly very effective) backdrop to the episode-opening car crash (yet more strong horror for a 6:20 TX!)… They really need to find some more varied locations. The re-use in Partners in Crime of the corridor in the Millennium Stadium previously seen in Dalek and The Runaway Bride – even shot at almost exactly the same angle as in the latter – has also been blindingly obvious, and I’m sure there must be other examples of re-used locations that have been spotted by people more eagle-eyed than I.

The story itself in many ways re-assembled the staples of an Earth-set Doctor Who story, but with enough twists to make it interesting. So, an alien attack plunges the planet into chaos – but this time it’s a threat on the ground rather than a spaceship looming out of the sky or marching alien hoards breaking cover. Again, the Doctor meets the companion’s family – but this time, actually, he’s met them before. Again, UNIT responds – but this time, the Doctor is an integral part of the operation, and the outfit takes centre stage in the narrative. Indeed, the matching-up of the militaristic Sontarans with the military UNIT is surely a deliberate decision.

The teenage genius… not sure we really needed another riff on this, but I suppose Doctor Who hasn’t done it before (has it? Maybe Adam in the 2005 series…). I particularly liked the Doctor’s reaction at the academy-thing: striding around, identifying all the massively sophisticated technology at a glance, teleporting casually off the planet and back again, then defeating the alien with some improvisation using everyday sporting equipment – it doesn’t get much more Jon Pertwee, albeit the pacing has been appropriately upped.

All told, this episode does very little that’s totally new, but manages to get a lot of thing spot-on right that have only been more-or-less right, or worse, in the past. And for that reason, it counts as one of the more successful episodes of its kind.

Doctor Who – ‘Partners in Crime’

Warning: this review contains a big spoiler, so if you haven’t seen this episode yet, don’t read it and don’t scroll down to look at the screen grabs!

Opening episodes can be tricky things, whether of a new series or of returning shows. The first series of Skins had an opening episode that focused on introducing the characters, but did not even hint at the dramatic power of later instalments; its second series, by contrast, opened up by audaciously defying the viewers’ expectations. Robin Hood has established a pattern of having a couple of duff episodes at the start of each series, before getting rather good – by which time the critics have already set themselves against it. Ashes to Ashes started extremely well in my opinion, though most people’s reaction was a bit more lukewarm.

Doctor Who has a mixed track record with opening episodes. In 2005, Rose was not the best episode the series has produced, but it was certainly decent when set alongside many that followed; as an introduction to the format, and a bold manifesto for Russell T Davies’s vision of the show, however, it was a brilliantly successful 45 minutes – certainly it blew the doors off Philip Segal’s effort in 1996, and he had 80-odd minutes to play with. But in 2006 and 2007 the opening episodes suffered from being a bit slight: in particular, New Earth didn’t give us a chance to get to know the new Doctor, and was otherwise pleasant but unremarkable Last year, Smith and Jones made a virtue of the 45 minute format by presenting a reasonably small-scale plot, with some big set-piece concepts – trouble was, it was introducing a set of characters that, ultimately, didn’t work.

So, where does Partners in Crime fit in? As probably the most successful opening episode since Rose, in my opinion. As last year, it took a simple-ish plot, though it presented quite an intense load of fast-paced running around, and at time painted on a rather broad canvas. As with School Reunion in 2006, we join the characters as they are already getting into the adventure, so screen-time is not wasted on a “what’s going on?” set-up (unlike, say, The Lazarus Experiment). The plot itself has some subtle dimensions – the villains are ultimately wrong, but the monsters are not at fault, and a lot of people actually benefit from the weight loss. RTD never quite goes into a “fat isn’t necessarily bad” tack as he has elsewhere (Century Falls, for instance, where the central character is the school fat kid), although Donna’s comments about the Doctor being skinny chime in quite well with the rest of the episode.

Ah yes – Donna. Initially I had a horrible feeling that getting Catherine Tate on board for a whole series could be disastrous – nothing against Ms Tate, who deserves recognition as a great performer as well as a comedienne, but because the character threatened to combine the worst of Tegan and Mel. Ouch. But in practice, I think Donna will be a breath of fresh air from younger companions and “I’m in wub wiv ver Doctah” – I’m definitely enjoying the loud and bruising repartee between the two so far, and the mime-led chance meeting between the two was unashamedly hilarious; classically inventive writing from yer man Davies.

But of course both of the smitten former companions will be back later on in the series – though I was not expecting the cameo from Billie Piper at the end, which was an excellent surprise. Although, seeing Rose on screen again, it occurred to me that I hadn’t really missed her very much, and it’s a bit sad that the team only felt it could go for one series without exhuming her. Though it was good to hear Krautrocky the Doomsday theme from Murray Gold re-used as a new motif for Rose – it remains the best ever use of incidental music in Doctor Who.

One niggle: in a development slightly reminiscent of 1985, when a Doctor Who series written with a 6:30 timeslot ended up being broadcast at 5:30 and consequently seemed unsuitably violent for the timeslot, I really think the decision to broadcast at 6:20 meant the skin-stretching scenes were unsuitably grotesque. Worse still, the BBC seem intent on shifting it around the schedules, with a slightly different start time each week. RTD’s concerns about this are wholly justified – ratings will fall, and the risk is that the show will be blamed, not the schedulers.

All told, a pleasant surprise of a first episode: effectively paced, delightfully played by a small cast (Bernard Cribbins was excellent, although his entry in the cast was due to unfortunate circumstances), and an episode that has left me feeling more eager for the next episode than the start of either of the last two series managed. It was also highly amusing to see Doctor Who Confidential cannily edited to avoid naming Jo Frost explicitly; and a gold star to those who spotted the only-slightly-subtly edited-out “fuck off!” from RTD.

Government property

This is what David Tennant v. John Simm should have been like…