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IT’S TIME FOR DOCTOR WHO

More than just another cult tv show, Doctor Who 2005 is bigger than it's ever been and a ratings winning flagship for the BBC. John Connors looks back on a remarkable thirteen weeks in which the off screen drama was sometimes as exciting as the Doctor’s adventures themselves.

Imagine you’re a Doctor Who fan. One day in the 1990s someone appears from the future (and, hey, he might be a bit Northern with prominent ears and a black coat, you never know) and tells you that your favourite telly show will be back on air in 2005 and not only will it be great, exciting, terrifying and epic but it will be a ratings trouncing success, the serious critics will rave and even people who previously thought it was all silly wobbly set laden kids stiff will swoon when they catch an eyeful. There will also, he adds with a twinkle in his eyes, be Daleks, millions of them. “Fantastic!” It sounds like something that could never happen but here we are in 2005 and it has happened. It were never been like this in the old days when effects were rarely special and Daleks were mostly cardboard cut outs and fans existed in their own enclosed world. A short write up in the `Radio Times`, the odd snippet wedged in the midst of a big `Saturday night on BBC1` trailer and that was your lot in the halcyon days of the 70s. Doctor Who, however successful it was, never had the cachet it has right now.
Throughout its run, this new series was constantly placed in the top 20 shows of each week, with audience shares that remained consistently high at around 35 -40% despite fluctuating ratings and was the most watched home grown drama series of the first half of the year. More than that it saw off direct opposition with such finality that ITV eventually gave up and started showing any old film instead. With average ratings of almost 8 million there is no doubting that the series is now more commercially successful than ever before. In these days of multi channels and declining overall audiences its roughly the same as if 70s Doctor Who had been watched by 15 million people each week, which it certainly wasn’t. Yet until February 2005 there was little sense of what was to come after an 18 month production schedule that had seemed to go on forever. Then, all of a sudden things began to lurch into gear with all the ruthlessness of an invasion.
There were trailers for weeks beforehand (even `special` trailers, reserved for the most identifiable and big shows). Public billboards sat proudly overlooking roads and railway stations proclaiming simply the time and date of the new series together with an enormous photo of Chris and Billie. `Radio Times` went into overkill mode talking up the series three weeks before transmission and spoiling us with a fold out TARDIS cover in the week itself. After that, it cleared space for a feature every single week. The tabloids had already been indulging themselves since last summer, speculating on the travails of Billie Piper’s marriage and sneaking onto sets to get not particularly exciting pictures. Now the broadsheets tuned in, offering enthusiastic previews written as if they were intellectualising when you knew they were actually playing Daleks on the office chairs! Needless to say Internet activity was legion; Outpost Gallifrey in particular logged and reported every nuance of news, gossip and speculation with feverish anticipation while the BBC themselves came up with a marvellous official site. Transmission of each episode was followed on BBC3 by Doctor Who Confidential, which mixed behind the scenes stuff with glances back at the old series. Fans, as ever, debated every morsel and millisecond of each episode; a feeding frenzy after fifteen years of meagre pickings and Rose itself was leaked onto the internet three weeks prior to transmission by a plucky Canadian fan who subsequently lost his job for his trouble.
In the week before broadcast began, television went Doctor Who crazy! Billie was on Parkinson being very chatty while Chris E was on Jonathan Ross and seemed nervous, perhaps because he was carrying a big secret. BBC2 weighed in with a `Dr Who Night` which was actually only about two hours, but included a documentary repeat and a Doctor Who Mastermind in which the person who knew least about the series won and Chris was already talking about the show in the past tense- a big clue we missed at the time. The 60s Dalek films were shown and both a Culture Show feature and Newsnight Review spot aired in the week leading up to the start of the series. Plus, if you want undeniable proof that the other channels would dearly love to have resurrected the show themselves, check out the films on Friday 24th March – Nicholas and Alexandria featuring Tom as Rasputin on ITV and One of our Dinosaurs Is Missing with Jon Pertwee on Four. No fan can remember a time when Doctor Who was so important and so feted and so…now! There was a palpable buzz about it all, something suggesting this was far, far more than just the relaunch of a once popular telefantasy series. There was a sense that this new Doctor Who did not so much have to succeed; rather it would have to fail spectacularly. You felt that the BBC really did see it as a flagship programme, which contrasts vividly with the way they tried to bury it during the second half of the eighties. Yet at the back of our minds, there was a sense of caution; surely something would go wrong?
Watching the opening few minutes of Rose– themselves a modern stylish blur- you couldn’t help feeling a little nervous for the programme and all it meant. Yet once Rose made her run into the TARDIS the programme would never mean quite the same thing again. The popular –if inaccurate – iconography that surrounded it was reshaped forever after just 45 minutes and now Doctor Who is hip, modern and most definitely fun. The sets don’t wobble, the effects aren’t cheap and not everyone is acting in the Queen’s English. Naturally other things have been lost as well but it’s important to mention that the absolute essentials- the things that have always been there – remain. I’m not just talking about the central character, the companion and the TARDIS, rather the sense of good overcoming evil, the moral tone, the `fear factor` as the BBC website has dubbed it and, crucially, the way the series reflects it’s television surroundings. Fans shocked by the stealth and relative gloss in this new look version have not been paying attention to the way that television has developed. Whether for the better is not the matter at stake here, but if you pick any old story at random, you’ll find it, too, is of its time. In that respect it would have been more unusual if Rose had been any different to the way it was. Like football fans and paid up members of political parties, Doctor Who fans do really love being annoyed with the object of their fervour; they are possessive and each of them really feels they know best how it should be made.
By mid season, however, we’d grown acclimatised to this new style and the changes it had brought. The incidental music for example seems much more integral than it used to with something like 90% of screen time featuring some musical adornment. Whereas it used to be there to underpin danger or terror, the music is now part of the canvas and Murray Gold’s approach gradually made sense once you get used to it. There was always something odd about the programme’s music anyway; listen to how horrible all that 70s electronics sounds today. Gold produced an eloquent score, full of surprises and with an urgency to match the pace of the production. While technically good – for example the themes from Rose pop back in new forms in The Parting of the Ways – it is sumptuous to listen to and something of a triumph.
Visually things were astoundingly good; with a big budget and a new generation of technical and design people nothing seemed beyond their reach to the extent that Downing Street was blown up and the centre of Cardiff suffered an earthquake. The monsters, old and new, were excellent. Daleks and Autons have never looked better; the former given a look that really implies metallic heavyweights, while the latter had a wonderful creaking sound when moving. The new crop lived up to the series’ tradition, especially the Slitheen with their weird blinking eyes and claws. The aliens assembled for End of the World were an especially impressive collection each of whom would have merited a 4 part story of their own back in the day; in particular it was a shame that the Moxx of Balhoon was seen so little as it was a tremendous costume in every respect.
The 45 minute format shows a programme made for the dvd age where you need to see it more than once to absorb all the nuances; for example it took ages for anyone to start noticing the Bad Wolf references. Unfortunately this fast style has come to be regarded as superficial by some people but one of the key strengths of the revival has been the way it plays to multiple audiences; showering the younger viewers with action and colour, delighting the older viewers with innuendo and contemporary references and ensuring fans see enough of the essence of the show to feel at home. It was said before transmission of the series started that the family audience does not exist in 2005 and that may well have been true up till March but the biggest legacy of this series could be to revive the idea of families watching together instead of vanishing to all points of the home with their own screens.
As for the content, Russell T Davies is a writer who will not allow plot to stand in the way of character and emotion and this approach has never been used in Doctor Who before. Essentially, this new version is a love story, not just between the Doctor and Rose but also between the writer Russell T Davies and the show. His interpretation of Doctor Who may have looked radically different but it maintained the moral axis around which the series has always spun whilst adding colours to the template quite successfully. Its there in the fibre of each episode; the Doctor’s apologies to victims, his confidence boosting talks to characters and, finally, when he can’t press those levers in the last episode because of what will result. In that sense he is very much the same Doctor who dallied with the two wires in Genesis of the Daleks. By linking each episode, rather like a thirteen part epic, Davies is also able to achieve something the old series never could; a real emotional line. There was always a lot of talk about companions’ `characters` but in effect they disappeared after each new assistant’s first story. The 2005 version however actually does develop Rose Tyler’s character and she is able to influence the Doctor to some extent as well. It makes you realise how poorly previous companion figures have been written or, to be more accurate, sketched. I can’t think of any who seemed as real as Rose.
The relationship between the two lead characters starts off as Rose being a wide eyed neophyte excited by the very idea of the Doctor, clearly the most interesting person she has ever met. He shows her weird times and places but she never allows herself to be overwhelmed; she talks normally to the cleaner in End of the World and relates to Gwyneth as a real person right to the end of The Unquiet Dead. She becomes fascinated by the idea of time travel, even in something as simple as placing her foot in 1860s snow, and absorbs the wonder. By the time of the Slitheen episodes she is quite prepared to trust the Doctor even if it means her own death proving she has pulled away from her Earthbound concerns and soaked up some of the Doctor’s outlook. The difference between her new and old life is illustrated in the comparison with her mother’s selfish concerns that the Doctor guarantees her daughter’s safety. It is in Dalek that we see Rose’s fully fledged independence when, just as the Doctor would, she stands up for the lone, humanised Dalek by confronting the Doctor himself who wants to destroy the creature because of his own past history with its race. “Its not him pointing the gun at me” points out Rose. This pivotal moment marks them out as equals from then on and the way that Rose blazes her way through subsequent adventures (some clearly off screen) and they become a team ultimately flips the relationship. The faith that both the Doctor and Rose have in each other leads to a grand finale when they both risk everything for the other. It’s also rewarding to see Davies tackling the feelings of those left behind (Mickey and Rose’s mum) and introducing a potential rival (as opposed to enemy) for the Doctor in Captain Jack. I’d say these moves are the work of superior scripting to anything we saw in the classic series.
Watching The Parting of the Ways leaves us in no doubt that Christopher Eccleston was only ever going to do a season. From the moment we meet him, the ninth Doctor is in a hurry and also a hero with something to hide. It’s interesting the way Davies has chosen to treat the Doctor; the new series seems to have harked back to the 1970s and in particular the fourth incarnation. Here was a complex interpretation of this most elusive role; this Doctor was harsh and demanding, yet he could also coax the best out of people. He wasn’t afraid to confront anything and he used flip humour to confuse and give him time to think. He grinned like a crazy man, said crazy things yet his mind was always two steps ahead of even his most dangerous enemy. The Ninth Doctor is very much in this mould; in fact at times Davies seems to literally interpret his name as time and again this Doctor heals situations. If you look at each of the episodes, it is only a couple of times that the Doctor himself does something directly to resolve the scenario. Everywhere else the situation is resolved because the Doctor has offered advice or encouragement or weedled intensions out of his enemy while someone else has been listening. Its as if this Doctor is afraid to take direct action because of what he did in the Time War; instead he coaches his companions, mingles with locals, gets his companions or even Charles Dickens to do it.
Together the Doctor and Rose are the most equal Doctor/companion team the programme has ever had. The characters enjoy a real relationship, with all that entails - they behave like lovers and they are there for each other. Russell T Davies’ greatest accomplishment has been to add this aspect to the show without diluting all the other things that make it great. His previous TV series have shown a penchant for romantic gestures and overblown crises and the idea that this could happen on Doctor Who is thankfully no longer unthinkable. The subtle, British reserve that used to characterise emotional moments would not work now and certainly not in a pacey series like this. There always was a sort of love between the Doctor and companion of course its just that this has been brought to the front of the story this time. Look at the Doctor / Sarah farewell or the most celebrated departure sequence in The Green Death. Now compare these with the moment in Bad Wolf when the Doctor thinks Rose has been vaporised. The turmoil and music create a swirl that will have viewer’s lips quivering not because they think Rose has been killed but because we know what it means to the Doctor. After seeing his own people wiped out- and playing a part in it- Rose is the first person he has found since that he can share his life with. It means that, finally, we have got inside the Doctor’s head a little, not by endless anecdotes about it being a warm Gallifreyan night or whatever but through the beauty of a relationship. The Doctor has become more realistic than ever before.
That is also true of the series as a whole. Davies’ decision to link all the stories and have them based on Earth has been a key factor in the high ratings. There isn’t anything intrinsically different about something like Curse of Peladon, which looks at monarchy and class and The Long Game’s examination of news control except that the latter is set in Earth’s future rather than an allegorical alien planet so we can identify more readily with the characters in it. As well as this the writers of the 2005 series are interested in people and relationships whereas the 1970s writers were concerned with ideas and concepts. Davies and co are not averse to glossing over the sort of technical detail which would have taken up half an episode, they know that today’s viewers will not put up with tedium. If you look at the actual amount of plot today it’s not really much less than before; they have just cut out all the runarounds and endless people being captured. The plotting shortcuts made in this series have mostly been for the good of the narrative; the psychic paper in particular is a marvellous device to avoid all those scenes where the Doctor arrives and is captured and questioned about who he is. The sonic screwdriver is back to get round doors and do all the boring scientific bits. All the slack has been taken away and the stories have been made more linear which is a relief for anyone who sat through the over complex late 80s stories, packed with strange non sequiters and confusing scene by scene progression.
Naturally, some fans were a little more circumspect, amongst the commonly reported gripes over early episodes were the 45 minute format negating any plot depth and the `easy` way villains were despatched. It seemed that whilst the public were happy with Rose being seen entirely from the companion’s point of view, fans had trouble with it, criticising anti-plastic and suchlike. While the reaction was overwhelmingly positive, to the point of worship in some cases, there were those who felt the new format did have flaws and it is certainly the case that Russell T Davies himself was not over bothered with logical conclusions to stories at the expense of dramatic endings; his love of and reliance on deux ex machina is clear in several stories.
The proof of the pudding has little if anything to do with fans – though the new series is largely made by them – and would come with the ratings and not even the most optimistic of fans could have forseen that Rose, rather than scraping some good, strong ratings of about 5 to 6 million (which was what the BBC itself was expecting), instead nabbed 10.81million viewers, one of the largest audiences the show has enjoyed since the 70s. The episode went down extremely well with the general public and most of the media who declared it a successful rejuvenation of everything that was good about the series. Of course, the BBC were nothing short of ecstatic; after years of trying to find something a bit like Doctor Who, but not of course `telefantasy` and watching each effort flop, here’s the real thing and it’s a huge success. Well, we could have told them that…
The next few days after, it was immediately clear that something big was happening here. Something else was happening to, with its star. However optimistically Christopher Eccleston talked last year about fitting in plays between seasons it is obvious that he was unwilling to become too linked to the one role and it could be that he was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the promotional campaign, all of it dominated by his image and his acting. A private sort of actor, he must have been seized by dread when he realised that, rather than fronting something cultish like The Cure, he’d just joined U2 instead! His nervousness was visible at the Cardiff launch and on Jonathan Ross. Thus, the announcement just a few days after the transmission of Rose that there would be a second season- and a Xmas special- but that the BBC weren’t sure if their lead actor would be in them should have prepared us for the revelation just the very next day that Eccleston was quitting. There hasn’t been a more amazing week in the series’ history since the famed cancellation crisis twenty years earlier and it took everyone by surprise.
A bland statement about fear of typecasting was issued by the BBC without consulting the actor which they had to apologise for the next day but speculation as to the real reasons was then free to run riot! Theories were various; Eccleston had already been talking on the Doctor Who Mastermind as if the series was in the past for him and he went out of his way in other interviews to say how gruelling the schedule was. There were reports, too, that he had been angered by tabloid attention while some websites reported that he was unwilling to take a pay cut to do another season; the budget for the second series will reportedly be lower than that of the first due to BBC cutbacks all round; that at least is something fans are familiar with! In May, the Sunday Times suggested that Eccleston left after being offered either two whole series or just half of the second one. The truth may lie somewhere in between. It was certainly never likely that the actor would do a long run in the show and the end of the season does seem like the logical conclusion to the arc. On the other hand you could easily have ended it without the regeneration and whether the claim that it was always planned this way really is true or not, we may never know. Whatever the real story it is suddenly difficult to imagine anyone else playing the Doctor, which shows how successful Christopher Eccleston has been. Of course, this shock announcement had fans on a roller coaster after the euphoria of the success of the first episode, which probably accounts for some of the more outrageous reactions posted onto the BBC’s website and other places. A handful even suggested they wouldn’t watch any more of the series or anything Eccleston does in the future! More reasoned fans of course did feel disappointed; after all while reaction to the new look show had been somewhat mixed inside fandom, almost everyone seemed in agreement that Eccleston was an excellent Doctor and that the chemistry with Rose was exquisite. The Rose situation is interesting because the potential by Xmas is that the companion will be much more popular and better known to the audience than the Doctor.
Unfortunately whatever the reasons, this kicked off speculation about who would take over with all the usual suspects being trotted out in the tabloids– Ken Dodd? Bill Nighy? Give it a rest please! David Tennant was hot favourite though even then, almost as if people knew something!
End of the World duly arrived as something of anticlimax, though did at last give us sight of the near mythical Moxx of Balhoon, thought to have been a made up monster name in Russell T Davies’ DWM column but actually for real! Yet despite the ratings falling to 7.28m, it turned out that all that week’s ratings were down so it was still Saturday’s most watched programme. With The Unquiet Dead getting better ratings and rumoured to have out performed the Royal Wedding as well as generating some good old fashioned controversy, the new series was on a roll that would keep its momentum for the rest of the season. David Tennant’s casting received far less publicity than anything else and it was to be the return of the Daleks that once again lit the touchpaper. A terrific trailer and a beautifully rendered `Radio Times` cover heralded the metal meanies’ return though it was all a bit misleading as people perhaps expected more than one Dalek at this point. However there is no denying that the magic of the series’ most successful enemies was worked once again
By the mid point of the series, a divide had opened up amongst fans as to the quality of Russell T Davies’ scripts against those of the other writers. Notwithstanding the fact that Davies pulled all the initial storylines together there was a feeling amongst a proportion of fan commentators that he was too quick to resort to inserting topical pot shots into scripts (eg the 45 second comment in World War Three) or spoil the tension with bad taste humour. Another big niggle was the way, as mentioned above, that the Doctor seemed to rely on other characters like Dickens, Mickey or Cathica to do the hands on sorting out at the climax of stories. His treatment of Adam in The Long Game was found to be very un Doctorish too, especially as he’d given the poor lad the unlimited credit and told him to go and explore. How much these elements really registered with the wider viewership isn’t clear but the placing of The Long Game wedged between two very popular episodes by other writers seemed to crystallise this debate; certainly that episode does play more like an old style one than either Dalek or Father’s Day. In the end of course, the full extent of Davies’ masterplan came to fruition and once you look at the series as a whole you can see it for the clever, multi layered story that it is. Some fans will never be satisfied of course, but debate and argument over the content was always part and parcel of the Doctor Who experience; hopefully the production team won’t take it too much to heart. It would be worse if people were saying very little.
It has been remarkable really just what has been swirling around. There’s been controversy abounding; first came a barrage of viewer’s complaints about the Gelth appearing out of people’s mouths which led to a BBC statement that the show was unsuitable for the under 8s. Then came more fuss over Dalek concerning its use of religious imagery and also Adam being told to “canoodle” Rose! The critics loved this episode in particular, one from the Daily Mirror even going as far as to claim it was the best television programme ever! It seems Robert Shearman’s script did capture something of a little more depth, satisfying those who’d been critical of what they called the superficial nature of the previous five weeks. As many critics pointed out, Dalek had a double whammy of having something to say about how the nature of war twists people and a new take on a cultural icon. Controversy reared again a couple of weeks later in mid May when it was revealed that the second and third dvds would be given `12` certificates due to elements in both Dalek and The Empty Child that were deemed to be too scary for kids. This flew in the face of the show’s tradition of frightening children so that they hid behind the sofa and if anyone’s seen how today’s children behave it’s difficult to believe a tv show would really frighten them. The Empty Child proved to be quite controversial even before transmission, with tabloid reports of cuts and a build up that deemed it the most scary episode ever! Certainly it is debateable whether Richard Wilson’s character’s demise was too frightening to go out at 6.30pm. The fuss over the horror aspect, a distinctly low key publicity run and the altered time caused by both the FA Cup Final and the Eurovision Song Contest being staged that day clearly all contributed to the episode having the lowest rating of the season to that point, a shame given that it contained more traditional elements than any other. Towards the end of the season, the arrival of Captain Jack gave the critics something else to fuss about, especially when he delivers a full on kiss to the Doctor in the last episode.
The series was the first new tv Doctor Who to be charted by the Internet, which was still relatively new to the wider public in 1996 when the TV Movie was made. Now, redoubtable sites like Outpost Gallifrey kept fans up to date with the every nuance and development behind and in front of the cameras. The dedication of the people who do these sites is admirable. The BBC too gave the show a strong on line presence with the official site being packed with behind the scenes info, photos and interviews and included a team of young kids discussing how scary each episode was. Meanwhile, there were also several mini websites related to the series’ content; one was based on Clive’s site in Rose, whilst the UNIT website seen in World War Three also made an appearance though instead of `buffalo` the password was `bison` for some reason. What is the difference between a buffalo and a bison anyhow? There was a Geocomtex one, too. However for fans the best teaser turned out to be Bad Wolf. In a mirror of the clear Buffy the Vampire Slayer influences at work in this season, this motif had already started to be dropped subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) into each episode. Apparently the Nestene Consciousness made the first reference though it’s anybody’s guess what it was saying really! Then the Moxx of Balhoon and Gwyneth mentioned it, graffiti was sprayed onto the TARDIS and it subsequently got a reference in several other episodes, such as Van Statten’s helicopter or the Corporation running the Games Station. Quite early on in the run it was discovered, presumably by people Googling Bad Wolf, that the BBC had registered a site called www.badwolf.co.uk which, when it went online, proved to be a teaser in itself, laying out all the clues and speculating on who Bad Wolf was. Lots of people thought they’d identified it of course with theories ranging from characters in this series like Adam or the Gelth to such old characters as Davros, the Emperor Dalek and The Master. In a move demonstrating Davies’ mastery over this sort of plotting it all turned out to be something different altogether, which we certainly weren’t even looking for!
Towards the end of the run the ratings began to slip though they did everywhere as summer began (the audience share remained very high); perhaps it might be an idea to try and start next season earlier in the year? Quite why people abandon their favourite telly in the early evening to go out in the sun remains one of life’s abiding mysteries. Or why don’t they tape it? The huge audiences that greeted earlier episodes thus missed the jaw dropping cliffhangers at the end of both The Empty Child and Bad Wolf as well as the epic vistas that stunned viewers of The Parting of the Ways. Summer weather was blamed (the day of the last episode saw the warmest day of the year to that point) but there was a sense that towards the end the series had perhaps lapsed a little too far into pure telly sci-fi, a switch off for many. However with 41% of the audience share the last episode was still the most watched programme of the day. The BBC played up the PR till the end plastering a Days To Go banner across the homepage for the week leading up to the last episode whilst the Doctor Who page itself advised everyone to avoid the Internet fro a week to avoid having all the surprises spoiled; a bit rich considering the Beeb had already blown some of the surprises this season in their own trailers. The best PR of all came a couple of days before the last episode’s broadcast when it was confirmed that a third season had now been confirmed. The BBC having recently initiated a policy of commissioning more than one season of successful series at a time could hardly have forgotten the year’s biggest new hit so the announcement was almost inevitable not that this stopped fans getting even more excited! Even better was the accompanying news that Billie Piper would, after all, be staying on for the whole second season, which will certainly give David Tennant a run for his money. The one thing on which every single reviewer, fan and casual watcher seems agreed on is her general wonderfulness, both in terms of acting skills and the character of Rose herself. As if all that were not enough, came the news that Graeme Harper will direct four episodes of season 2. Harper’s work created the last genuine classic of the old series in Caves of Androzani and he should certainly be able to fit in just fine with the new style programme and will no doubt relish the challenge of doing something other than motorway crashes. Oh and there’ll be Cybermen too. Not to mention that the BBC started trailing The Christmas Invasion a month before they even started making it!! It’s just getting ridiculous now of course, but in a good way.
Looking back it has been a whirl of activity and Russell T Davies and co can be proud of what they have achieved. A programme that had become a marginalized and misunderstood joke has become a ratings winning triumph that is simply good television way beyond its usual margins. Its maintained the elements that made it popular in the first place yet brought in a whole new approach. Trip of a lifetime was no exaggeration; it really is the time for Doctor Who and that is, as we all know, Fantastic!!!

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BY ANY OTHER NAME

ROSE: Sean Alexander

I’ve seen Rose three times now, including that sweaty palmed occasion at 7 o’clock one sunny, Saturday evening and, like all my fellow Whovians out there, I’ve had ample time to digest, evaluate, re-evaluate and place its forty-five minutes in the context of sixteen years of hope, fear and belief.
And I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s one massive disappointment.
There, I’ve said it. And believe me, I said worse at the time of that first, most anticipated viewing. It’s nowhere near as bad as I first thought - and I’m sure, for those who thought it marvellous at the time, there are now some who think it’s nowhere near as good as they first thought. However it’s still a huge let down and I’ll tell you why. Despite all the modern effects, the up-tempo pace and the efforts of Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper, not once in the whole forty-five minutes does this feel like Doctor Who. My disappointment stems from this simple fact: if the Yanks could practically nail it back in 1996, then why can’t the good old BBC - with the help of some actual, bona-fide fans writing it - come close in 2005? They’re a cruel lot, our Beeb. Not only did they give us a new show, a respected and compelling new Doctor and some top-notch creative talent, they even went as far as making it look great in the trailers. And, boy, did we get the chance to check out those trailers. From the time of the official press launch on March 8th - right up to even the BBC Weatherman name-checking the show an hour before transmission - you simply could not move for Doctor Who. Magazines, newspapers, even huge billboards all screamed at you that it really was going to be the bee’s knees this time. For a few weeks - and maybe beyond, who knows - being a Doctor Who fan was actually a pretty cool thing. People would ask you about it with ne’er a trace of ridicule in their voices and suddenly everyone seemed to have fond memories of ‘hiding behind the sofa’ or pretending to be a Dalek. Somehow, a once marginalized passion had become a national sport. By the time of Rose’s transmission, all lucid thought seemed to have gone out the window. Eccleston and Piper - not to mention Russell T. Davies - were on every chat show, radio programme and Internet feed going, while the BBC itself seemed to have lost all sense of its previous reticence; splashing the show’s imagery over every available media. Could any programme live up to the hype surrounding this most expectant or rebirths? And, indeed, should it? The months and years to come will surely place Rose in its rightful place within the Who legend but right now, the raw feeling of its broadcast has left some fans exhilarated, and others stupefied. Doctor Who inevitably elicits extreme poles of reaction in its hardcore cognoscenti; and it is no surprise that this most heralded of episodes has done just that.
Certainly, there’s no doubting the time, effort and money that’s gone into this new version. No wobbly sets or creaky dialogue of yore - not that we ever swallowed those myths, anyway - and the whole thing moves at a pace that threatens to tip-over its own running time. I mean, forty-five minutes is just the equivalent of an old two-parter, and they often struggled for clarity and good pacing even in those more sedate times. Given that this is reintroducing the show for a much broader audience than was left clinging on back in 1989, there is a need to satisfy the casual viewer over the hardcore addict and perhaps the hardest lesson that I - and, I’m sure, many others - will have to learn is that in order to survive the attention-diversions of a 21st Century audience, Doctor Who is going to have to move with the times. The old show had to do it, why should this one be any different? The only problem is that, in the almost total absence of any new material this past decade and a half, where is the comforting frame of reference for us long-term fans?
Okay, now to the nitty-gritty. What’s to like - and not to like - about this new show, based on just one opening forty-five minutes? Well, ironically enough given concerns regarding her involvement at all, Billie Piper never once puts a foot wrong. Gutsy, believable and more than capable of holding her own with Eccleston, Piper is without doubt the success story of this episode. And when I say she can only get better, it’s not an attempt at any kind of left-handed compliment. To all those Bonnie Langford-recalling nay-sayers, hang your head in shame. Just to underline how pedantically fanatic I can be, I report only good things of the show’s new theme tune and titles. Yes, we’d all have probably preferred the original Derbyshire version and diamond-shaped tunnel but considering this is a whole new show, the respect for the originals is nothing short of miraculous. Name me another series - Coronation Street aside - that would pander to its loyal fans to such a degree. Both the titles and the music perfectly complement the new show’s charged, furious pace.
In case you think I’m going soft, then I’ll temper this uncharacteristic spurt of praise with a balancing volley of derision. Murray Gold’s incidental score leaves a lot to be desired, coming close at times to completely ruining any tension the drama has built up. It’s fine when he’s doing mean and moody - as with the music accompanying the heads-down shot of Rose first entering the TARDIS - but his attempts at pacey, action-driven accompaniment evoke only painful memories of Keff McCulloch. Fortunately, Gold’s score to previous Russell T Davies drama The Second Coming was similarly schizophrenic, and it is hoped that later episodes will similarly witness a more balanced composition.
Likewise, Keith Boak’s direction is alternately worthy of praise and scorn in equal measures. The opening - showing Rose’s fast-paced, but strangely dull, existence - is contrasted well with the silence that descends as she steps out of Henrik’s basement lift whilst the subsequent revival of the Autons is creepily reminiscent of the show’s halcyon days. But it all falls somewhat flat as the Doctor steps in, and he and Rose make a somewhat untroubled escape from their pace-lacking nemeses. Later, as the plastic dummies all around Car… (I mean, London) spring to life, there’s a distinct lack of threat to their - seemingly - global menace. Also, the whole conclusion, deus ex machina cop-out ‘n’ all, leaves the viewer feeling seriously flat (though how much of this blame should lie at the feet of Boak, and how much to writer Davies, is open to debate). Where Boak seriously drops the ball is in the talismanic scene of Rose - and the viewer - first seeing inside the TARDIS. Sure, the BBC’s publicity machine had been splashing glimpses of it all over the trailers for weeks before; but this moment should still have been the signature shot of the episode. That we’re left with Rose prematurely entering the ship, then going out and walking back in again, completely destroys the effect the, admittedly impressive, interior should have had. Whatever happened to that tracking, POV shot that RTD mooted months ago?
And what of the Doctor himself? Well, if you can get beyond the somewhat forced humour and rather needless pandering to Eccleston’s own Northern roots, there is ample evidence of the talented actor now playing our beloved hero but it’s unfortunate that the episode chooses not to play to his strengths on more occasions. Eccleston is, rightly or wrongly, not known for his light-hearted, eccentric turns so to suddenly be confronted by an actor seemingly playing the fool comes as something of a shock. Put it all down to post-regenerative nerves, but at times he reminded me of a star football striker trying desperately hard to hit the back of the net on his debut outing. Time, not to mention experience, will surely yield a more measured performance. As for the serious bits, well we never had any doubt he could do those, did we?
My biggest bugbear, even after repeated viewings, is the episode’s excessive pandering to domesticity as a badge of gritty reality. Yes, it’s important to see Rose’s home-life in contrast to the fantastical trip she is about to take (although the ramming home of her mundane existence is a little gratuitous), but must it be through - on first sight - such stereotypically unlikeable people? Her mother Jackie comes across as a one-joke Cockney slapper; a mismatch of Paul Abbot working class issues and sitcom-style motherly dotage. While, spectacularly, boyfriend Mickey fares much worse. If there’s only one more truly cringe-inducing performance in the rest of the series, then it still won’t come close to Noel Clarke’s misconceived, misguided display here. For as - somewhat unnecessary - comic relief he just isn’t funny; and as a believable character he is, ironically enough, just laughable. Given the regularity of the Doctor and Rose’s future returns to contemporary Earth, much improvement on both these two parts would seem an absolute necessity.
There’s much more left to pick at - the wasting of Mark Benton in a tired, X-Files inspired conspiracy interlude, for one. Or the illogic inherent of so much of the show’s history (how does Rose’s Auton arm get back in her flat? And why does she take an age to notice ‘Plastic Mickey’s odd behaviour?). But more than anything else, you’re left disappointed that this all comes from the same pen that wrote The Second Coming (and that Eccleston was more effortlessly Doctorish in that than he ever is here). There is very little subtext to Russell T. Davies’ inaugural Who script (and little lyricism…except the evocative ‘spinning world’ speech, granted). It’s worrying to see such an original and insightful writer fall back on not one, but three Terminator 2 images (the lift-scene, Mickey’s hammer-like hands and the whole furnace-like climax) in order to bolster his paper-thin plot. Perhaps everyone should have taken a step back and had a look at how the Yanks do these things; a feature-length pilot would have allowed time for both exposition and a decent story. Instead we’re left with a forty-five minutes that doesn’t really start to go anywhere.
There is, as always, hope for the future. Eccleston and Piper’s chemistry is instantaneous and believable; here are two people you can genuinely imagine wanting to travel in time together. And I can’t believe that RTD could write something this bad, ever again. We have, of course, been down this road before. But back in 1996 Paul McGann’s best efforts were not enough to stop the show from being a one-night wonder. In their favour, Eccleston, Davies and co do at least have a full series of thirteen episodes to get things right. I for one strongly believe they’ll achieve that long before time, despite the sense of anti-climax this most anticipated of episodes left me feeling.

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LONG WAY FROM HOME

THE END OF THE WORLD: Andrew Darlington

For the original Doctor Who audiences, the vision of alien worlds serves as an adrenalin-rush dream of uncharted frontiers. Those watching Christopher Eccleston’s incarnation inhabit a more dour inward-looking space-time continuum where political leaders alert us we must surrender principles of freedom and justice in the face of security threats that, they tell us, are too terrible to be even spelled out. Space Opera, post-Buffy and the troubled Enterprise is no longer ‘boldly going’. So rumours that the new Doctor Who is to be more restricted, more Earth-bound does not bode well for those like us with a preference for galactic hyper-perspectives. But fear not, for this – only the second episode, travels five-billion years into the future. He spins the Tardis flywheel, pulls the lever, screws the dial, tings the bell. And we’re forward 100 years, the 22nd century? – a bit boring. You want to go further? The year 12,005? - the New Roman Empire. Then, in a single ‘welcome to the end of the world’ step, the grumpy spoilt-brat Doctor and his chavtastic plus-one, Rose Tyler, are gatecrashing the HG Wells, John ‘Twilight’ Campbell, Stephen Baxter ‘sense of wonder’ zone. Even though it’s with a decidedly Restaurant At The End Of The Universe take complete with weirdly Hitch-Hiker-ish electro soundtrack-quivers. The Maximum Hospitality Zone of the space-platform they’ve materialised in resembles a posh Cardiff Hotel and both sensibly forbid the use of ‘weapons, teleportation and religion’. Here, Observation Deck One is preparing to observe an ‘artistic event’ with which Rose is already familiar, “they did this once on Newsround Extra – the sun exploding”… followed by ‘drinks in the Manchester Suite’. Tight writing, wit, slick editing, and an enviable line in leather jackets follow. There’s jauntily ironic humour, throw-away absurdity (Rose’s mobile call to her Mum from the end of time, a mythic ‘fire-breathing ostrich with a 50ft wing-span’, and the Earth itself designated a Heritage Site – until the funding runs out, and ‘nature takes over’) all allied to strong production values. The weird menagerie of guests in particular Zoe Wanamaker’s devious preening Lady Cassandra, effectively ride the credibility-gap between strangeness and humour. There are Blue Munchkins, sun-filters rising and descending as spider-devices infiltrate, ‘Ladies & Gentlemen, trees and multiforms’, plus a Wurlitzer iPod that plays ‘traditional ballads’ “Tainted Love” by Soft Cell and Britney’s “Toxic” – on 7” vinyl (I think not)! There are even swirling retro-ventilation blades that serve the same plot-function as the giant piston-peril of Galaxy Quest. Soon, descending sun-filters incinerate the Steward; we know exactly what lies in wait for Rose – and then Jabe. Until Rose emerges post-ordeal delightfully dishevelled, to stand against the immense red disk of the seething sun and the spinning fragments of what once was the Earth. Then there’s an abrupt mood-switch into effective pathos as they re-emerge back into today. “Everything has its time, and everything dies. You think it’ll last forever. People. Cars. And concrete. Well, it won’t. One day it’s all gone… even the sky”. And why does the Doctor cry that single tear? Why does Jabe-the-tree offer her condolences when she recognises his DNA as Time-Lord? What’s happened to Gallifrey? In a neat parallel with the extinguished Earth, “my planet’s gone. It’s dead. It – burned... It’s just rock and dust. Before its time. There was a war. And we lost. I’m a Time-Lord. I’m the last of the Time-Lords. They’re all gone. I’m the only survivor.” This is a hook that should develop with the series, because we now realise all that carefully-wrought Jon Pertwee/Tom Baker myth-building… is deleted. But then again, as a time-traveller, surely extinction is a somewhat flexible concept?

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OLD HAUNTS

THE UNQUIET DEAD: Kev Aitchison

The change of format for the new Doctor Who was always going to be a bone of contention. A large part of the appeal of the original run was the fact that the series and characters (well the villains mainly) were allowed the opportunity to develop over the course of 90 minutes while the audience got to explore the worlds and concepts presented, but still be given a satisfactory well thought out conclusion. Sure, this did cause some padding to creep into a lot of scripts, in particular the cliché of episode three spent running around corridors springs to mind – but it was always preferable to the likes of Star Trek- The Next Generation’s blueprint of having a new world or experience to play with for 40 minutes before rushing through the last 5 minutes in a blur of techno-babble in order to reset everything to normal. Although techno-babble has now been virtually eliminated from Doctor Who a similar situation is present in the first two episodes of this new series. While its understandable enough with so much to be introduced in Rose that the Doctor comes up with a convenient solution (pardon the pun) it is less so when End of the World is resolved by merely flicking a couple of switches, which happen to be behind the Galaxy Quest like manufactured peril of the ridiculously placed giant fans. Then came The Unquiet Dead . Whereas Paul Cornell and Steven Moffatt have both worked regularly on series where the story is told within a single episode, Mark Gatiss is more used to the extended form of the novel or on his most famous work The League of Gentlemen telling the story over the course of a whole season which perhaps makes him an unlikely candidate to have delivered such a contained, claustrophobic and complete script. It helps that the central premise is simple, and introduced so well in the pre-credits tease, that no prior knowledge of zombie mythology is required and it may well be this simplicity that allows Gatiss to tell his story over the 45 minutes without sacrificing the plot turn as the Gelth are revealed as being behind the re-animations or the character moments that give a greater sense of depth to proceedings. The main flaw in the script is that it is not the Doctor who manages to work out how to defeat the villains, though that would have been more forgiveable had either of the previous episodes allowed him to demonstrably use his intelligence to provide a resolution.
It is the character touches and the uniformly superb cast who bring them to life that makes us care about the story. Whether it’s Dickens’ re-discovery of both life and his love of it, or his flustered and flattered coach ride with the Doctor the iconic character is wonderfully portrayed by Simon Callow. Eve Myles gives serving girl Gwyneth a sense of dignity, without losing her sense of fun, during her conversation with Rose in the kitchen, and then in her choice to allow herself to be the conduit for the Gelth through the rift. Alan David never allows Sneed to become a caricature of either the harsh master (as he pushes Gwyneth to use her gifts) or bumbling idiot (in the characters’ exasperated dealing in things beyond his control or experience). After just 2 episodes, Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper have established a great warmth, affection and respect between the Doctor and Rose, which gives a relevancy to their argument over whether Gwyneth should bridge the rift; we are far beyond anything that the Doctor / companion whining matches ever managed in the 1980s. While we all knew that Eccleston was a good actor, though I doubt we suspected just how well he would fit into his role as joyful childish Doctor, Billie Piper has proved herself to be exceptionally good as Rose. I would like to particularly commend her for the sequences showing her reactions to actually having travelled into history which peak in the “one small step” moment of stepping out of the TARDIS to leaver her footprint on the virgin snow. That moment, together with the wide shots showing the full sweep of the BBC’s commitment to the show that turned 21st Century Swansea into Victorian Cardiff are probably the best directed scenes of the story. Although undoubtedly an improvement over the previous episode’s bland style, Euros Lynn’s direction abilities do seem to be a little unimaginative. While he manages to get spot on performances from the cast you can’t help but feel that, while not the sole flaw, it is the simplistic `just point the camera at the actors` approach that really lets the overall production down and prevents it reaching classic status. Nevertheless it is here that we see the potential for the modern run of Doctor Who start to be fulfilled, giving us an episode with the right balance of wit with a dark streak, intelligent with a silly side slice of pure entertainment that made everyone involved in the series’ resurrection fans in the first place and is now doing the same for a whole new audience.

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ENEMY WITHIN

ALIENS OF LONDON/WORLD WAR III: Matthew Kilburn

Reviewing a new episode of Doctor Who is a different process from reviewing an old story – particularly when, like Aliens of London and World War Three, the story is aggressively contemporary. With a story from the first twenty-six seasons of Doctor Who, one can draw on at least a shared cultural memory of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, as well as the reviewer’s own memories of the period in which the programme was made, if they are of an age to have any. Aliens of London and World War Three are both strongly written episodes, but they leave the viewer who watches Doctor Who exclusively through the lenses of the past behind.
It’s tempting to view the story as the final parts of a five-episode page one rewrite of the 1996 TV Movie. The first, fourth and fifth episodes – the first production block – provide the principal, earthbound framing device for the voyages into the future and the past missing from Philip Segal’s 1996 production, and also provide the spectacle of alien intelligence on Earth battling a Doctor introduced largely through a human identification figure. However, the new series tells its story with more flair than the TV Movie, exposing the latter as too often drily mechanical in its storytelling. Moreover, while the new series of Doctor Who pays homage to the past, such tribute is utterly in thrall to the purpose of gaining a new audience for a new series. Just such a homage to the past, perhaps surprisingly, is the prominence afforded in the two episodes to events in the complex of council flats where Rose and her mother live. The flats are cheekily named the Powell Estate, referencing the BBC 1 controller who cancelled the series in 1989. It’s tempting to view this choice of name as representing the series’ challenge to Powell’s dismissive remark, ‘It’s for children’, to Andrew Cartmel in 1987. The Russell T Davies interpretation of Doctor Who sees children as the core around which an audience is built; but the programme’s appeal potentially includes representatives of every group on the estate celebrating the landing of the aliens. Unfortunately it’s the stories in the first production block that appear to me to have most difficulty in negotiating the demographics. There’s a timidity to the episodes which suggests a lack of confidence in Doctor Who, absent from the other blocks. As a result, Aliens of London and World War Three send out very mixed messages.
The most appealing thematic thread in the story concerns human integrity and dignity, embodied most obviously by Harriet Jones in Downing Street. Harriet Jones’s politics are personal; she appears in Number 10 arguing that cottage hospitals do not have to be excluded from centres of excellence, and explains that her mother is a patient in Flydale Infirmary (presumably a cottage hospital in this context); there’s something about the way the line is written, and something about the way Penelope Wilton delivers it, which suggests that Harriet’s mother being in the hospital is meant to be an endorsement of community and not an indication that Harriet is acting out of narrow self-interest. Joseph Green’s snarl of ‘Get some perspective, woman! I’m busy!’ is rendered especially callous by its context.
Harriet’s pursuit of a meeting with the prime minister shows her to be tenacious, but her weapons are those of kindness and a fundamental belief that decency will win through. She seems to be the only person in Downing Street who knows about the importance of cups of coffee in a crisis (more current than the tea of English tradition), and the empathy she displays with Indra Ganesh and his predicament in a self-absorbed 10 Downing Street makes it all the more poignant when we learn following Indra’s death that she never knew his name. Harriet appreciates small, beautiful things – she appeals as someone with an innate understanding of the Doctor’s appreciation of the fine detail of a compassionate universe, something never appreciated by the series’ major villains.
Unfortunately Harriet’s credibility is undermined by the depiction of Downing Street. Russell T Davies has created a textured and believable background for Rose, a council estate as a microcosm of a society fractured by unemployment, consumer culture, and apathy. Unfortunately his political world is far less sophisticated. Who else was unsettled by the Doctor’s unironic praise of Harriet as the architect of Britain’s ‘golden age’ – this, from a series which in the past has expressed extreme scepticism about golden ages, as in ‘The Savages’, ‘Invasion of the Dinosaurs’ and ‘The Pirate Planet’, to name but three? All the indications are that Harriet belongs to the governing party – probably a Labour party once led by Tony Blair, given that she declares that she is not a ‘babe’ but a ‘humble backbencher’; and given that Joseph Green is chair of a parliamentary committee he is probably in the same party, surely they’d know each other. So, it doesn’t ring true that she addresses him as ‘Mr Green, sir’ and not by his first name. A valuable opportunity to create tension and doubly underline the strangeness of Green and his cohorts is thus missed.
The intention seems to have been to contrast Harriet’s belief in decency and politeness – qualities that are shown as going hand in hand with compassion, kindness, principle and above all strength – with the vulgarity of the Slitheen. The Joe Green Slitheen misunderstands what it means to be human, thinking that the continuing failure of the gas exchange system in the compression field makes the disguised Slitheen seem authentic. The idea of flatulent aliens proved not to disturb me as much as I’d expected, and the Slitheen’s bias towards low humour serves to emphasise their concentration on the raw material of the universe. However, the execution of this idea played into the playground humour I hated when I was a child and despair to see now running wild on children’s television programmes. The manner in which a joke is made out of the Slitheen can only occupy the skins of fat people made me feel apprehensive for the overweight children going to school the next Monday, who presumably have had to face a new range of taunts based on this episode; considering also the sneer about Michael Jackson in The End of the World, perhaps this series of Doctor Who is the first to side with the playground bullies.
The production means us to find the Slitheen funny; and the amusement value overcomes their potential to threaten the viewer. The extreme came at the end of Aliens of London; presumably the ‘silent but deadly’ line was meant to prefigure the murder of the assembled experts, but everything was dwelt on that little too long. It’s already been said in other reviews that the Margaret Blaine Slitheen’s pursuit of Rose and Harriet through the corridors of power was shot in a manner more reminiscent of Scooby Doo than Doctor Who; and while there is nothing wrong with Doctor Who acknowledging one of Hanna-Barbera’s best-loved series as a source, the spirit in which this story exposed this particular root didn’t particularly help its purpose. Perhaps curiously, though, I liked the broad satire included in World War Three. I watched this episode with a group of friends who roared with laughter at the mention of ‘massive weapons of destruction’, and the forty-five seconds claim. One of the group had a relative who worked for the United Nations and observed that the Security Council have never been known to decide any issue of importance so rapidly. The statement that Britain has transferred control of its nuclear arsenal to the UN is entirely credible within the optimistic liberal outlook of the UNIT stories of the 1970s, lovingly dissected and extrapolated by fans ever since.
I found so much about this two-parter disjointed, but there was so much that was very good. The pace was at times uneven, but it was easier to take than both Rose and The End of the World, and the gusto with which the whole was performed kept me involved. The Doctor’s line about Mr Chicken having been resident at 10 Downing Street in 1730 was in the tradition of information-relating begun with the speech about the Earth’s rotation in Rose, and honours Doctor Who’s original educational remit insofar as the series was rarely able, even in its earliest days, to successfully do anything more than relay points of fact. I thought the sequence involving the Doctor’s visit to Albion Hospital a good guide to the Eccleston Doctor’s character: he demonstrated natural leadership over the army unit at the hospital, reinforcing an impression that this is the soldier-Doctor, forged in the Time War and more used to the notion of a chain of command and that ends can justify means than any of his predecessors. The Doctor’s immediate empathy with the pig counters any tendency that may arise to see him as a hero on a military model, though; the traditions of the UNIT era are upheld. There is added distance, though, in that the Doctor never gets to interact with the UNIT personnel in the story before they are murdered, and consequently UNIT is domesticised when Mickey is shown as able to hack into their computer system with one password, which does wonders for this series’ thrust toward placing the Doctor and his foes in recognizable human settings, but little for UNIT’s credibility as an international security organization.
The sections where the first production block did very well were the domestic scenes. The Doctor’s cheery, innocent and anachronistic attempt to explain his relationship with Rose as his ‘companion’, as if he were an elderly upper-class woman of a century ago, followed by the policeman’s enquiry about this being a sexual relationship, pleasingly jarred with the expectations of an audience familiar with the sexlessness of Doctor Who; the assumption that the Doctor and Rose are a couple had not yet become as grating as it would in later episodes. I’ve heard the depiction of public reaction to the landing of the alien craft labelled as unrealistic; I found it quite credible that discussion would fall to top-up cards and local gossip as rolling news continued on television in the background; whether Blue Peter would have a recipe lined up is another matter, but it appeals to the viewer’s faith in Blue Peter and in the world of Doctor Who to think that it might, and so the clip helped the scene make its point. There were probably a number of viewers feeling as isolated and frustrated as the Doctor.
The final scenes, with Rose apparently settled down with her mother in the flat, as Jackie plans a meal for the Doctor only to see her daughter torn once more away from a safe life on the Powell Estate, were perhaps the most successful of the two episodes. The production didn’t seem to take the science fiction element of the story so seriously – perhaps this was why I found the tone so uneven. The episode’s dialogue about safety is presumably setting the scene for the final two episodes, where danger comes to Jackie’s world without her seeking it. Safety, presumably, is an illusory concept, or at least comes in part from ignoring challenges.
The final few seconds, as Jackie returns to her flat as if abandoned, while Mickey waits on the bin, represents the potential division of the audience as the first phase of the new series concludes. Mickey has been converted, up to a point. He’s not brave enough to live the Doctor’s life, and he knows it; but he still wants to engage with it, question it – but above all, watch it. Jackie goes in to watch Celebrity Wrestling and be comforted by Heat magazine and Baileys. We are back at the rewrite of the TV movie. In the original, neither of the companion figures join the Doctor; here one seizes the moment and the promise of widening experience that travelling with the Doctor brings. The narrative of Rose’s first journey in the TARDIS, to the far future, to the past and then to her own time, but changed in that she has missed a year, has introduced Rose and the audience to the possibilities Doctor Who and Doctor Who (credited as such because he is the series format personified, rather than just the lead character) offer. Aliens of London and World War Three were in part unsatisfying, but they adequately concluded a reintroduction of Doctor Who to the public that was rarely less than triumphant.

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HEAVY METAL

DALEK: Chris Orton

Ever felt sorry for a Dalek? You will have after viewing Rob Shearman’s superb episode. Make no mistake about it, Dalek is by far and away the most impressive episode of the revived Doctor Who seen so far. It is the best written episode, the best directed episode and the best performed episode. Its also the episode that everybody was waiting for, and after all of the will-they, won’t-they between the BBC and the Nation Estate concerning the possible appearance of the Daleks in the new series the metal meanies from Skaro have finally made it back to our screens. The BBC reportedly paid a huge sum to the Nation Estate to secure their return and judging from this episode you have to say that it has been money well spent. Rob Shearman apparently drafted a whole alternative script for episode six which did not feature the Daleks, but really, no other alien would have done. It is a shame that Shearman is not returning for the next series as it would be good to see him produce a story of his own that does not have pre-existing ingredients included.
The presentation of the Dalek that we see here is different from anything that we have seen for a long time, probably since the pre-Davros 1960s in fact. The lone Dalek that the rapacious Henry van Statten is holding prisoner in his museum is clever, cunning and
devious. By the end of the story, it is not prepared to see the world as a Dalek should. Trapped, alone and scared the Dalek has been tortured by one of van Statten’s minions and this, combined with some of it’s speeches succeed in making you feel great sympathy for it.
Despite the Dalek’s inherent nature, the humans are clearly the villains here. Van Statten is greedy. He wants things just because he can afford to buy them and the Dalek is his ultimate collectable. He is also a coward.
The Daleks have never looked better in the series before. Gone are the days of clunky, wobbling fibre glass and wood props – these new Daleks are chunky, solid and made of metal. It may sound odd to say it, but the Dalek feels real. The sucker arm truly is now a sucker arm and capable of much more than simply manipulating controls, and even when it does it looks much better than it used to. The mid-section is even more deadly and the fact that it can now rotate is such a simple, clever idea for a poorly manoeuvrable being that it is incredible to think that it was never utilised before. Even the new Daleks ‘globes’ have a clever and inventive use. If there is one thing that lets the episode down however, then it has to be the slightly ropey-looking computer-generated Dalek that we see ascending the stairs of the underground base. It really doesn’t look too good and in this day and age when we have become used to high-quality CGI, something like this just doesn’t cut the mustard. Thankfully though, the shot is brief and was worth including to dispel the myth amongst the general population that Daleks are unable to climb stairs. All of these things contribute to a real sense of menace and danger that the Daleks have not displayed for years. Witness the scene when the escaped Dalek ruthlessly causes the death of the soldiers by setting off the sprinkler system in the base and then firing off a shot that results in the troops being electrocuted. Nasty stuff. If the Nation Estate were ever worried about Skaro’s finest becoming figures of fun in the past then that concern is firmly and easily dispelled here.
One note of slight disquiet in the story however is the Doctor’s apparent willingness to kill, or allow things to die. We have seen it before in the series with his treatment of Cassandra and the Gelth, and again we witness our hero being perfectly willing and prepared to kill. In an echo of a similar scene in Resurrection of the Daleks, he finds a gun and aims it at his enemy with the intention of using it. Not exactly the kind of behaviour we saw on very many occasions in the old series, but you can easily imagine the Ninth Doctor picking up a gun at
any point. For all of his clowning, he seems to be a much more dangerous Doctor to the ones we have been used to. The Doctor also tries an approach used by the Seventh Doctor in his attempts to destroy the Dalek too, when he tries to talk the Dalek into killing itself.
Christopher Eccleston does give his best performance of the series so far here though, presenting us with a Doctor who shows a whole scope of emotions. He is less comedic here and the grave situation that he finds himself in makes him cut out the grinning that we have seen in the previous five episodes. The other problem with this Doctor is that he seems to let his companion get into trouble all too easily, which results in episodes being focussed largely on the companion and not the titular character.
Billie Piper once again proves what a great actress she is. She really has been the standout star of Doctor Who. Acting with a Dalek cannot be the easiest work for a performer, but Piper pulls it off admirably. You easily get the feeling that Rose really does care for this poor,
tormented creature. As a character Rose is leaving the Doctor way behind and it is to Doctor Who’s enormous benefit that Rose is going to return for the next series. Rose is best when she is away from the earth-based storylines involving her irritating mother and boyfriend
Mickey, when she finds herself in these types of situation. Hopefully the next Doctor will not be upstaged quite as often as the Ninth has been by Rose. Given that this Doctor is not much longer for the world he needs to do something pretty impressive pretty soon to make sure
that he is not simply remembered for his gurning.
Bruno Langley makes his debut here as Adam Mitchell, a character who joins the TARDIS crew at the end of the story. Adam doesn’t really do a great deal here, but his character shows potential. Given the Doctor’s bizarre dislike for Mickey, it will be interesting to see how he reacts to having Adam on board his team. At the time of writing there is no word on whether or not Adam makes it to the end of the current series (coupled with the imminent arrival of another companion in the shape of Captain Jack), which makes it seem possible that the character might be included purely as a form of cannon-fodder. Hopefully this will not be the case. A word of praise must go to Nick Briggs who provides the voice as well as the agonising tortured cries of the captive Dalek. Briggs is able to give a real performance as the Dalek, rather than merely having them rant and rave. At times Briggs makes the Dalek sound almost Davros-like: listen to the bit when he says to the Doctor “and yet the coward survives.” Possibly the best bit that Briggs does as the Dalek though is towards the end of the episode when the Dalek opens itself up (both literally and figuratively) to Rose and the Doctor. This scene is where any sympathy for the creature that the viewer might have comes in. Knowledgeable fans might realise that this scene is an echo of the Arthur Stengos death scene from Revelation of the Daleks, and in the same way that we felt sad for the Stengos / Dalek mutant, we can have similar feelings here. Despite having provided the voices for nearly all of the Daleks in the Big Finish audio plays, this is by far his best turn and hopefully he will return for any future episode that features them.
The destruction of his own people goes some way to explaining why the Doctor is so incensed and enraged at finding the Dalek. Another recurring theme of the series is referenced again here when we see that van Statten’s helicopter is named “Bad Wolf One”. This idea is clearly leading up to something too, and it might well tie in with the Time War
storyline.
The Daleks are menacing again. Given that a colleague told me that his friend’s two young children were unable to get to bed on Saturday night after seeing the episode I think that it is safe to say that the episode has done it’s job admirably. It is difficult to see how next weeks’ mid-point Episode Seven will manage to follow this triumphant forty-five minutes.

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GAME OFF

THE LONG GAME: Tim Worthington

The key to properly appreciating "Doctor Who" is to be able to laugh at it at the same time as enjoying it. To regard it with a healthy sense of absurdity, sarcasm and ridiculousness while also being able to understand what makes it intrinsically great. Of course this isn't unique to this particular series, and is applicable to just about anything, but when you're dealing with something that attracts more than its fair share (or indeed, more than anyone's fair share) of humourless bores it becomes arguably more important than ever. Without that ability to find amusement in stupid working titles, frantically padding Cybermen or David Bowie live backdrops that bear a curious resemblance to the original Pertwee title sequence, you might as well just give up and join the massed ranks of tedious lunatics who spend their time writing angry letters about the likelihood of a BBC programme being introduced by the letters 'B', 'B' and 'C' and thereby ruining their enjoyment completely.
This was, and still is, the level on which most hardened devotees (as opposed to casual viewers - and, trailer fans, that's something which will be returned to later on, although sadly we don't have any footage of Billie Piper glowering silently at the camera to draw your attention to the fact) enjoy the series. Was it really the self-consciously serious and would-be postmodernist/deconstructionist fan-written novels and the glossy and humourless 'Telemovie' that kept the entire concept of Doctor Who afloat during its prolonged absence from terrestrial television screens? Or was it more likely Andrew Pixley's endless supply of fantastic articles on increasingly ridiculous and peripheral elements of the show's history, DVD releases packed with extras that merged the serious with the silly with glorious abandon, "Doctor Who Magazine" allowing itself to temper even its driest features with tongue-in-cheek photo captions, and Jon Pertwee saying The Ghosts Of N-Space is number one in the hit parade!"? And let's face it, if you have watched Spearhead From Space and never pondered on why the Autons appear to have it in for old ladies and members of The Bluetones in particular, why the Autons all look like David McCallum, or who on Earth thought it was a good idea to employ that bloke in a hat on a bike (and we haven't even started on perrennial fan favourite and one time subject of a letter to "The Times" Wally The Workman) at the same time as thinking "hmm, that bit where the shop window dummies come to life and start attacking shoppers is well directed and no mistake", then you simply aren't getting all that you could out of it.
Times have changed, though, since the original series bowed out with Sylvester McCoy walking into a bush and saying "the tea's going cold, aye, unless it's not", and the television industry is no longer the same place that would happily allow hazardous amounts of CSO and nonsensical cliffhangers about clambering over ice ledges with the aid of an umbrella for no readily obvious reason to go out on air. Everything about the new series is by necessity streamlined, stage-managed and slickly presented, from the casting all the way down to the merchandising. There are no jarringly incongruous lines of dialogue (well, not in the old sense at least, but again that's a point for later on), no baffling editing decisions, no ludicrous character names, no endearingly tuneless pieces of incidental music, and no ridiculously miscast extras. It's all gloss, ringtones and thematic seamlessness around here, and every bit of 'amusement' has been scientifically created to fit the bill and run past a panel of experts before being adjudged suitable for broadcast. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is difficult to say. Certainly there is a much higher overall standard of production, but at the same time this removes all of the endearing, honest and uncynical qualities and whether or not people will still be talking about it in decades to come is open to question.
That, basically, is the main problem with the new series - in opting to update the concept of the original series, it has chosen the wrong elements to retain and the wrong elements to jettison. This isn't so much a subtle tweaking to suit a more advanced broadcast medium, but for the most part a deliberate attempt to divorce itself utterly from the stylistic, dramatic and even the linguistic elements that had proved so successful in the past. Of course such an approach is both acceptable and understandable given that the new series is playing to an entirely new audience but the production team really have cranked this up a little too much and the results speak for themselves. When the story leans more in the direction of a genuine updated take the old series - like Mark Gatiss' fantastic The Unquiet Dead, which with its historical setting infiltrated by alien entities, period figure helping out and ending up having to take the lead when Doctor and companion came a bit unstuck, amusing 'solution' to a genuine real-life historical puzzle (ie how "The Mystery Of Edwin Drood" might have concluded) and companion forced to adopt racy clothing for the purposes of 'practicality' (and indeed to get 'the dads' to watch, as they used to have it back in those long-lost pre-politically correct days) was a Hinchliffe/Baker story in all but name, cast and chronology - it works to tremendous effect. When it flounces off to play with the big-hitters from across the 'pond' and does all that silly lack-of-any-substantial-plot-leading-up-to-dramatic-last-ten-minutes nonsense, complete with 'moving' reaction shots, it's nowhere near as good and works about as well as Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's insult of a remake of Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased) did. Well, alright, maybe it never quite gets that bad.
Then there's the 'humour'. People with long memories may just about be able to recall angry rants in fan publications and letters pages about John Nathan-Turner turning the programme into 'pantomime' and Sylvester McCoy's supposed 'clownish exterior', whatever that might have been. Those with even longer memories, or indeed access to recent articles in "Doctor Who Magazine" mulling over this very point, may be aware of people frowning loudly in print about the flashes of humour that Douglas Adams and Graham Williams introduced in the late 1970s. Well, debate the relative merits of those particular eras of the show's history all you like, but at least they never stooped to relying on the repeated use of call-and-response celebrity references or tacky lavatorial humour that even Craig Charles would have rejected as being too childish for Captain Butler. The production team may well have had serious intent in using such devices as a way of adapting the show for a modern audience, but unfortunately for them it just doesn't incorporate well into proceedings and ends up looking as if they have observed the popularity of Little Britain and attempted to get in on the action themselves.
Overriding all of this, though, is the simple basic inescapable fact that Christopher Eccleston is entirely wrong for the role. All of that drivel he spouted on winning the part about "getting to the core of his essence as an alien" or whatever it was should have sounded alarm bells with most right thinking people, and as it turned out there was good reason for said alarm bells to be sounding. His portrayal of The Doctor has none of the infectious, irreverent charm nor the empowering sense of determination to put a decisive halt to wrongdoing that characterised his predecessors in the role. For the most part, this Doctor is not only verging on downright unsympathetic, but also failing to command the programme with his presence. Some would no doubt counter that this doesn't matter as it's a new interpretation of the concept, but can you really, really imagine the Eccleston Doctor smiling delightedly to himself and muttering "yes, we'll show them a thing or two!" after coming up with an ingenious method for tricking evil invaders into defeating themselves? Or continually taunting a megalomaniac logician with sarcastic one-liners? How about ridiculing the dictatorial ambitions of his oldest adversary with a genuine fury and indignance? Spluttering "but... what's it for?" in sheer disbelief? Not really. After all, this Doctor didn't even have the decency to pull ridiculous faces when confronting the Nestene Consciousness. Of course, he could have built on this in subsequent series, but his rather baffling decision to relinquish the role at the end of the first series has put paid to that.
Yet as much truth as it may or may not contain, the above reaction is very much from the perspective of a fan of the original show struggling to adjust to the fact that it no longer 'belongs' to them, and the success of the new version hangs entirely on its appeal to a new, younger audience who are more closely attuned to the nature of a television industry that thrives on immediate impact and isn't really geared towards longevity any more anyway. Maybe in time, if the new run is revealed to have a greater ratio of The Unquiet Dead to The End of the World, and the somewhat embarrassing tendencies of the first couple of episodes are quickly ironed out, even the most curmudgeonly of veteran readers of "Doctor Who Magazine" might grudgingly concede that even if it wasn't quite their 'bag', it had been quite well handled after all. Some would no doubt scoff at the expression of such reluctant praise, but in all honesty it's a lot less wince-inducing than the drivel that has been spouted in recent weeks by the over-the-top cheerleaders who see it as their duty to sing the praises of the new series to the skies in order to ensure its success. It's not good enough to simply say that they liked an episode of the new series; it has to be lauded with ludicrously disproportionate praise that credits it with single-handedly reviving the aliling genre of television drama, heralds it as the most important piece of fantasy television made since "Stainless Steel And The Star Spies", and most infuriatingly of all declares it to be infinitely superior to anything that was produced under the banner Doctor Who between 1979 and 1989 (as some predicted a while back, Paul McGann and his perfectly fitting shoes have been weirdly airbrushed from history by those striving to make their point louder than anyone else).
Anyway, in considering an instalment of the new series, it's important to try and remove it as far as possible from any preconceptions based on likes or dislikes of the old series, and within reason consider it on its own merits, but at the same time not shy away from subjecting it to the same level of critical dissection that has always been applied to the show by lovers and haters alike, to balance the incisive and prejudice-loaded perspective of a fan with the face-value appreciation shown by the average viewer.
The Long Game was written by Russell T. Davies, which on the evidence of his meandering efforts thus far in the run is hardly cause to start throwing the street parties just yet, and guest stars Simon Pegg as 'The Editor'. If the pre-transmission excitement in the various genre magazines is anything to go by, the presence of Pegg is the main selling point of this episode. This is quite understandable, as Pegg is not only a vaguely bankable television star in the eyes of the general public, but also likely to lend some much-needed credibility in the eyes of those pesky fans, owing to his own grounding in sci-fi fandom and constant namedropping of various culty artefacts. On the other hand, though, it could be argued that for all their plus points, his most well-known projects represent everything that has gone wrong with the entire concept of 'cult'. Glossy faux-high production values that add little or nothing to the generally perfectly good in its own right end product, forced and awkwardly crowbarred in 'references' to other films and TV shows that have no real contextual point and simply rely on a laugh of recognition from the viewer, carefully targeted merchandising without a single potentially embarrassing item in sight, general refusal to acknowledge anything that isn't considered 'cool' (or at the very least 'ironic'), endless legups given to less talented contemporaries who do little but weigh proceedings down, lines delivered in that voice, comical shocked-face 'reaction' expressions which would have looked stagey and over-the-top in an episode of "Galloping Galaxies!", jarring cameos by flavour-of-the-month guest stars, you'll find them all in the average Simon Pegg vehicle, normally stifling and obscuring a good joke or an impressive action set-piece. Then again, he was great in forgotten BBC2 sitcom "Hippies" and as the demented bookstore manager in an episode of "Black Books", so maybe it's just the sci-fi tinged stuff and the opportunity to explore personal fan fantasies that brings out his less palatable tendencies. The problem is, no matter how "Heat" magazine and its ilk may try to play down the fact, "Doctor Who" is that sci-fi tinged stuff, and no amount of jabbering about 'light family drama' will change that.
It's something of a pleasant surprise, then, to discover that if there are any problems with 'The Long Game', then Pegg certainly isn't one of them. True, he was hardly exactly giving the performance of his career while in the guise of a futuristic managerial type dressed as an emaciated Derren Brown, but his character wasn't the main villain of the piece and as such his performance was laudably restrained. No 'shocked face' reactions, no that voice, and no attempt to lightly garnish his character and performance with a subtle veneer of hipness. Billie Piper, as ever, is surprisingly good (so much so that the use of 'surprisingly' is rapidly becoming redundant), even if her unsettling resemblance to Bingo from "The Banana Splits" does tend to create the impression that she's constantly on the verge of getting squashed behind a door and turning into a lifesize cardboard cutout, or indeed that she is about to introduce some second division mid-show animation that couldn't be flogged elsewhere. The set designs and special effects are up to the same impressively high standard as the rest of the series (we'll leave aside the fact that the Tardis interior just doesn't seem, well, other-dimensional enough with its vast designer roundel-festooned slickness in lieu of 'off-white' walls, ormulu clocks and large light sources suspended above the console for now), and the direction is top notch too, particularly in the bustling and genuinely amusing crowd scenes near the start, which achieved a sense of authenticity that the three-people-in-the-studio-at-a-time-thank-you limitations of the original series could never have hoped to match.
Those are the areas in which 'The Long Game' got it absolutely right. Unfortunately, they had the rug pulled from under them by a monumentally lacklustre script. Like 'The Unquiet Dead', 'The Long Game' leaned heavily (whether intentionally or not, but more than likely intentionally) on an aspect of the show's past, namely John Nathan-Turner's predeliction for commissioning endless stories about a supposed idyllic paradise that has some sort of subjugating alien horror, ruthless moneymaking racket or deranged architect shouting "theyyyyyy buried me away" up to no good somewhere behind the scenes. This of course is a perfectly good basis for a story, and in this particular context lends an extra air of satisfaction with thoughts of the numbers of pronounced JNT-haters who probably watched it oblivious to these connotations and then declared it to be the best thing since sliced masterpiece. The problem, however, is that this basic concept is literally all that it borrows from the past, ignoring tried and tested structural and stylisitc elements that have been proven to work for "Doctor Who" in favour of striving towards the sort of plotline that might normally be seen on hour-long self-contained American fantasy shows like "Angel". And while "Angel" is a brilliant show in its own right, it has little of any real substance in common with "Doctor Who" old or new and nor should it have. In keeping with this apparent fascination with the world of the vampire with a song in his heart, 'The Long Game' suffered from much the same shortcomings as all of the other scripts that Russell T. Davies has provided for the series thus far, only multiplied by a factor of ten. The first, and most jarring of these, is that nothing in particular really happens until the last seven to ten minutes, when it suddenly splurges out all of its suspense and plot development in one disconcertingly concentrated burst. There's nothing wrong with the basic framework of this approach to storylining (which, if it isn't a word, frankly ought to be), especially when the series doesn't have the luxury of four to six shorter episodes over which to build mystery and intrigue, but the problem is that isn't so much slowly building in intensity towards an exhiliarating climax (like, say, "Angel" does with all its intense character relationships and backstories stretching over several centuries) as it is filling time with often stilted and occasionally downright embarrassing dialogue until the climax can be slotted in almost from nowhere. Compounding this is the frustrating tendency to allow events to just simply progress without anyone offering any real explanation or exposition for the plot development. Solutions to problems appear from nowhere without any significant discussion, aliens come and go with the briefest of generally sarcastic comments about their appearance deemed sufficient, and both Doctor and companion launch themselves into action in a manner that leaves the viewer playing catchup. Not that they often bother to provide anything to catch up on later anyway. Some may claim to prefer this new and more naturalistic and 'human' depiction of the central character, but is Christopher Eccleston silently pressing a couple of buttons on a small console while looking a bit disgruntled any sort of a match for, to use an entirely random example, Tom Baker pulling a foolish grin before jumping into a pit in which a dangerous alien is supposed to be living? The latter example may have no prior explanation of his motives, but there is enough in his performance, and in the fact that a scenario involving a mysteriously unanswered and unacknowledged question has already been set up, to indicate that something interesting and unexpected may be close on the horizon. Whereas the former can never really do more than leave viewers thinking "oh right, he's doing that now, whatever 'that' actually is". Add to this the fact there is precious little invention or ingenuity in the eventual solution to the problem (something of a persistent problem with the new series, and one that even casual viewers will almost certainly start to grumble about if something isn't done to rectify it soon), the uneccessary and viewer-alienating amount of time lavished on not-that-much in particular happening to short-stay 'companion' (in a world where Katarina and Sara Kingdom were in it for the long haul, obviously) Adam, intrusive overblown incidental music that makes Dudley Simpson sound like a master of restraint, and the aforementioned lack of any accidental moment that can be chortled at as well as enjoyed, and that's pretty much why 'The Long Game' just sort of meandered along where a handful of the other episodes of the new series have soared. With no small irony, 'The Long Game' is like a Simon Pegg show shorn (pun very much intended) of all the positive points that invariably manage to outweigh the more irritating excesses, leaving only the superficial glossiness and transparent attempts to emulate other people's successful work. More ironically still, absolutely none of this whatsoever can be attributed to Simon Pegg. This is all down to the production, and much like Chris Morris once observed about Sade, the ultimate ambition at work appears to be to eventually produce something with no 'music' whatsoever, but swathed in so much production that nobody actually notices. In effect, it's essentially a mirror image of nice-story-shame-about-the-presentation old series story 'Underworld', and we all know how well remembered and highly thought of that is. Whether you're a fan, a casual viewer or someone who spends their time colouring in pictures of Eric Saward, this sort of emptiness just won't wash.
Now, of course, if they'd had The Doctor calling Pegg 'frosty face' while attempting to drive him so insane with impotent fury that he activated a massive public address system which had been haphazardly reconfigured so that it drained away all of the power required for the alien's cooling system, and then seen his plan momentarily falter before Rose stepped in to join two accidentally disconnected plugs together, and then followed with some witty and/or pithy comment, well, then that would have been a different story..

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FAMILY TIES

FATHERS DAY: Matt Salusbury

The official BBC Doctor Who website gave Father's Day a 'fear factor' of two, but they didn't warn me that I would cry. The current Who is exciting rather than scary, but Who never made me cry before. Father's Day is the one where Rose goes back to 1987, to the day when her father is knocked down by a car and killed. When Rose on impulse leaps to push her father out of the way of a car and saves his life, all hell breaks loose - in a concept reminiscent of Terry Pratchett's Mort, time-dwelling beings come to destroy the anomaly, while the car and driver that knocked Peter Tyler down vanish and reappear in an endless loop like a doomed ghost.  Peter Tyler wasn't much of a dad to Rose, but when he cottons on that he should have been killed by the car, he saves the day by running out and getting run over.  That's when I cried.
Isn't the new Who good! It's up there with the early X-Files for quality and intensity, back when the X-Files was still subversive, before it began to disappear up its own bottom.  And it's so funny! Hilarity all round as Jackie Tyler, Rose's mum, carrying an earlier, baby version of Rose meets her estranged husband Peter with an adult Rose in tow. When Peter tells her that adult Rose is his daughter, Jackie assumes her tragic loser of a husband had another child around 17 years earlier and named their daughter after her  - "How sick is that!?" shouts Rose's mum.
The new Who also takes the canon of Doctor Who chronology, rips it up into small pieces and spits it out, which is the way picky picky nerdy continuity should be treated.  Although a very sad completist Who fan would point out that the new Who sticks to Who chronology by accepting the destruction of Gallifrey and the wiping out of the Time Lords - which happened in the Eighth Doctor BBC books - actually took place. Father's Day also tackles very neatly the time travel narrative problem of why you just can't go back a bit in time and stop the bad situation happening in the first place - because those scary bat-winged dragon creatures straight out of a Breughel painting ('Reapers', apparently) will come out of the fabric of time and wipe out time anomalies like white blood cells mopping up a virus.  Because it turns out that none of the action actually happens, we're even allowed to kill off the Doctor for a few minutes, as he hurls himself at a Breughel bat-winged reaper shouting "I'm the oldest thing here!" and disappears in a gold flash. Previously, "My people would have stopped this happening," as the Doctor says, but now that the Time Lords have gone down in the Great Time War, it's giant bat-winged time police germs all over the show.  We realize that something is very seriously wrong indeed when the Doctor, after an angry exchange with Rose for messing things up, returns to the TARDIS to find it's just a box, with nothing on the inside. The new series doesn't shy away from the ethics of time travel, the loneliness of time travel, and effects of time travel on those left behind - Rose's mum and Rose's long suffering boyfriend Mickey. Little Mickey as a toddler rather unconvincingly runs into the church back in the 1980s and meets the Tylers for the first time as 'monsters' take out his family. This is the only rubbish aspect of Father's Day but seeing as it turns out it never happened anyway, we can forgive it.  We're in the territory of the Tyler family again, with TARDIS-type camouflage letting Georgetown, Cardiff stand in for Waverley Street, London SE15.  Waverley Street is populated with rather sad eighties bad hair types with their failed Thatcher-era enterprise culture Herbal-Life salesman jobs and unimpressive get-rich quick schemes, with authentic dreadful old brown cars. It's like a parody of an early Eastenders episode, which is poetic justice after the soap effectively finished off Who in the eighties - first through nicking Who budget to pump into Eastenders five nights a week, and then by the steaming pile of poo that was the Doctor Who Children in Need special  Dimensions inTime (set in Albert Square, vote for which Eastenders character you think should be abducted by Sea Devils!) That was such a travesty that even dedicated completist Who fans pretend it never happened, just like most of the action in Father's Day, which turns out never to have happened. If we were in Red Dwarf at this point, the robot Kryten would have realized that as all the excess time from the events of the last half hour was being sucked into the white hole, then none of the events would have happened, and he would have said "...Infact, we will have no memory of these events, as none of these events will ever have happened. Which is why I'd like to take the opportunity to to tell you, Mr Rimmer, sir, that you are the biggest utter smeghead I have ever had the misfortune to meet." But Father's Day and the new Who, has plenty of the funny stuff along with the sad and the serious. And unlike the previous format of six episodes of silly car chases and running up and down corridors, it's all packed into 35 minutes.

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THE MUMMY

THE EMPTY CHILD/THE DOCTOR DANCES: Dave Rolinson

Ever since Press Gang (1989-93), my other favourite series in the whole world ever, I’ve been waiting for Steven Moffat to find a vehicle for the sheer breadth of his talent as a dramatist, and here it is! Although Press Gang respected its Children’s ITV audience (particularly in its early investigative and ‘issue’ episodes and dating gossip), Moffat’s boldness and versatility also made demands of that audience. Take ‘Monday-Tuesday’ and ‘The Last Word’, suspenseful and emotionally draining stories built upon ambitious time-schemes, unapologetically comedic farces like ‘In the Picture’ and the sex-obsessed ‘Food, Love and Insecurity’ (sample filthy dialogue: ‘Do you want to blow my cover?’ ‘Sounds great, when do we start?’), or the semi-mystical final episode ‘There Are Crocodiles’. Press Gang’s central relationship combines Moonlighting-style banter with emotional and psychological complexity: the Freudian nightmare of Lynda’s realisation of her similarity to Spike’s mother, or the just-plain perfect ‘Love and War’, in which we realise that Spike’s angry answerphone messages to his father are his way of dealing with his father’s death. High drama, fascinating ideas, cracking one-liners: for some of us, Moffat seemed destined for a glittering career as a dramatist.
Instead, he has enjoyed varying degrees of success as a sitcom writer. His comedies often balance intricately-plotted farce with explorations of (often sexual) relationships. At his best (the fabulous Joking Apart and a few ground-breaking episodes of Coupling) he taps raw nerves and experiments with forms of storytelling; at his worst (other bits of Coupling; quite a lot of Chalk) you’re left wondering why such a talented writer is faffing around with puerile bodily function jokes, smart-arse banalities and clunky plot contrivance. Therefore, although Doctor Who has rewarded his inner nerd (see the cult-TV themed Press Gang episode ‘Un-X-Pected’, his Doctor Who Magazine pieces, short stories and Comic Relief [Doctor Who in farting aliens shock!]). The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances do fit in with his previous work: he often uses unanswered telephones, has an entire episode of missing-leg humour in Coupling, also describes life as ‘nature’s way of keeping meat fresh’ in Joking Apart, and turns Russell T. Davies’s request for anxious antagonism between Rose and Jack into Press Gang flirting, with Captain Jack a smoother Spike Thomson. However, more importantly, Doctor Who has also given Moffat to write the way we always knew he could: with warmth, depth, crackling one-liners and an eagerness to flirt coquettishly with the target audience.
I won’t run through the highlights of the two episodes in too much depth, given that the internet age means that they’ve already been listed to the point of spoiling them. The odd thing is how conventional the plotting is: The Empty Child establishes a mystery, immediately separates the Doctor and Rose to explore it independently, and then reaches a climax as the threat is established (it may be yet another unimaginative ‘parallel’ cliffhanger, with an interlinked threat in two locations, but it’s handled much better than in Rose or Aliens of London, and also leads into that resolution in the second episode). The Doctor Dances is a rare new-series episode in that it answers its own questions, resolves the mystery, and allows the Doctor to use ingenuity to resolve the threat. The Doctor’s ‘dance’ isn’t the padding it might seem: it’s a glorious coda but also a resolution to many of the story’s strands (and not just the sex euphemism of ‘dancing’), just as much of an ‘ending’ as the scene on the bombsite.
Along the way, there are plenty of jokes for ‘fans’ which would be shared by the new audience, using iconography in interesting ways (the TARDIS’s telephone ringing was a bit of a jolt) and, more importantly, funny ways (Rose’s ‘at last, a professional’, the Doctor’s lament about ‘the “don’t wander off” thing’ and Captain Jack’s response to the sonic screwdriver: ‘Well, I’ve got a banana and in a pinch you could put up some shelves’). Plus, the threat itself is inventive and arises organically, and is well-motivated, avoiding an ‘evil’ protagonist in favour of the nanogenes, creatures who think they’re doing the right thing - in the best Malcolm Hulke tradition. The result is hugely satisfying, and the children I’ve seen playing ‘Are you my mummy?’ shows that kids respect having their intelligence respected rather than some CGI thing-in-search-of-a-plot. What’s not to like?
There’s wit here (Moffat’s critics may be surprised that it’s wit, City of Death wit, not ‘jokes’), but also much more. On Doctor Who Confidential, Russell T. Davies described the tone as ‘romantic’, and the banter between Rose and Captain Jack is pure Moffat. But there’s also a complexity of tone - just as Robert Shearman smuggled some of the series’ best jokes into the darkness of Dalek (creating a much more satisfying effect than stopping the action to congratulate himself on a joke, as Davies did in World War Three), so Moffat employs some rich and subtle subtexts into these episodes. The ‘threat’ is caused by the consequences of sexual repression (Nancy’s teenage childbirth; her escape by using knowledge of a gay fling with the butcher) and sexual abuse (the chilling, unspoken reasons for the children returning from evacuation). So, although the Doctor hails the symbolism of Britain’s fight against the Nazis (alarmingly, though presumably coincidentally, slightly rewording a film quote I used in a forum posting when welcoming Eccleston and Moffat’s casting: ‘I don’t know what you do to the enemy but you scare the shit out of me’), there are cracks beneath the surface.
This gives the episodes a real edge, although, with the children’s audience in mind, perhaps Captain Jack’s involvement is a bit problematic, as intimations of child abuse share an episode with a guy with a voracious sexual appetite (like the soundtrack he’s certainly In the Mood), and who ogles the ‘excellent bottom’ of a character associated with by child viewers. Perhaps, as in Moffat’s Press Gang child abuse two-parter ‘Something Terrible’, which combines incest revelations with jokes about Spike and Lynda’s rabbit-like leisure activities, it positively shows normative sexuality alongside exploitation, but this - and the Doctor’s sexual jealousy for a relatively young girl - make it a bit of a tone problem for me. Having said all that, I love Moffat’s handling of the Doctor’s discovery of his own ability to ‘dance’ (after initially deadpanning, in a great Doctor-ish line, ‘I’m trying to resonate concrete’) and the phallic comparison of sonic devices between him and Jack. I’m also unconvinced by the Doctor’s comment on the 1960s, as if time travellers are taking back our ‘superior’ sexual liberation. However, the episodes gamely explore the dark underbelly of the Second World War, in this case sexual repression: not characters who are sexually repressed, but the emotions and consequences. The repression theme is neatly worked-through: the ‘threat’ is caused, and resolved, by a mother’s struggle to talk to her son because of pressures in society.
Here, Moffat is superbly served by director James Hawes. These are two stunningly well-directed episodes. I’ve written on direction in Doctor Who before: how directors are restricted by budget and time pressures and also by the expectations of genre. The new series’ directors have been liberated from the intensity of multi-camera recording and time pressures experienced on the ‘old’ series. They have more money and time, so that they can light and shoot individual shots for their desired effect. But do they have more space for personal expression? Keith Boak might disagree with that, given his rumoured treatment: it would seem that the expectations of genre bite as much as they ever did, and the specific demands of Russell T. Davies provide limitations. The creative tensions circulating around the series, and the programme’s changing visual language, are subjects I hope to write about in more depth when I have time. (Somebody has to - Doctor Who Magazine’s new-episodes reviewer is stuck in the 1970s clichés of acting, design and ‘plausibility’ and has no analytical ability for the televisual - therefore criticising Dalek for one actor’s delivery while missing its political subtexts, and criticising Aliens of London and World War Three for their take on UN protocol rather than their insipid direction, slack editing and illogical set-piece writing. Sorry, rant over.)
Therefore, Hawes is ‘serving’ the script and operating within Davies’s requirements, but he does so beautifully. In such a speed-written article (and without the last decade’s comfy critical climate of re-viewing familiar episodes), I’ll take one shot as an example: when the Doctor and Nancy are in the passageway of the house and the telephone rings, it’s done in a shot in which the telephone is foregrounded and the camera angle is canted. The obvious effect of this is to emphasise the importance of the telephone through economic visual storytelling, but there’s more to it than that. It creates an unsettling effect, which builds upon the other uses of canted camera which similarly create menace and a nagging sense of unease, and serve to show the world through the eyes of the boy (compare these tilted images with the boy’s frequent tilting of his head), which emphasises the importance that his vision, his point of view, will play. The influence of film noir is blatantly obvious in the use of shadows, but - to pay Hawes an even greater compliment - his direction reminded me of the 1940s films of the British director Carol Reed. Like The Third Man, this is a world whose rubble-strewn landscape echoes its moral ambivalence; like The Fallen Idol it’s a story about the innocence of children and their ‘witnessing’ of the adult world (in The Empty Child, Nancy seeing the boy’s feet from under the table is pure Reed). This loss of innocence is integrated with the Second World War not simply in plot terms (the evacuated children scavenging in the Blitz) but more fundamentally than that, both in the script and Hawes’s shot strategies.
Compare these episodes with Peter William Evans’s description of Reed’s ‘interest in child’s-eye narratives’ (from his 2005 book on Reed) and the attempt by Reed and others ‘to use childhood as a convenient focus for reflection on the loss of pre-1939 innocence in the crucible of war, and the promise of renewal symbolised by child-centred narratives’. As in the films discussed by Evans, this is a story with absent or surrogate fathers; The Doctor Dances ends with the restoration of a family unit, but (unlike in Moffat’s original version) without a father. This isn’t as problematic as in Evans’s examples (the unconvincing returning father at the end of The Fallen Idol, for instance). The recurring motif of communication - telephones, typewriters, radios, spools - demonstrates that this story revolves around getting two people to talk to each other. The fact that the ringing telephones are shot in the ways I’ve described emphasises that it’s the boy who’s calling, but also that such communication will be disruptive and unsettling, at least to the normative view of society.
This creature emerged from a bombsite: he is literally the product of war. However, what’s fascinating here is that, despite the Doctor’s speeches and the romanticism brought by Captain Jack and Davies’s Saturday-night vision, the war is not the source of the stereotypical image of plucky, stoical Brits: not only is it every child for himself, not only is there an apparent rich-poor divide (as the Doctor says, either Marxism in action or a West End musical), but also war doesn’t provide the moral centre usually depicted in representations of the period: it provides an emptying. This is inextricably linked with the iconography of war, particularly that fabulous use of gas masks on ‘zombies’: it’s almost as though victory in war and the creation of the iconography of survival and stoicism have created an emptying myth, an emptying of our identity, of Britishness (Rose’s t-shirt here is very well-chosen). Is post-war Britain an empty child? The Doctor clearly revels in the iconography of wartime resistance, and dances with delight at being able to help, but then he’s the traumatised survivor (or, perhaps like the child, witness) of the Time War. Like the nanogenes, the British perhaps need to see that there is a human face beneath the gas mask, that the two are not interlinked, that (as at the end of the war) there is a need to reassert individual identity, to emerge from the zombified mass…
I’m nearly out of space and there’s so much gushing praise left unsaid: what about the parallel between the Doctor and Richard Wilson’s Doctor, more on the glorious resolution (‘everybody lives!’), the ‘Welfare State’ line, the Doctor’s final dance (which, despite my reservations above, desexualises Jack’s idea of ‘dancing’)? Why haven’t I gloated about my eerily accurate predictions of Eccleston and Moffat’s fabulousness? I haven’t even mentioned Billie Piper!! Even the Blitz sequence (the only bit that didn’t work for me) is so gorgeously executed…
You’ve probably guessed by now: I love this new series. As somebody whose entire writing output (both amateur and professional) has resisted received wisdom, I find that quite annoying! Davies needs no more adulation (he could do with some perspective going by his commentary on the DVD of The Second Coming, in which his self-congratulation is astounding even before the story wimps out from the implications of its central idea), and the hype machine is having negative effects (there’s clearly something wrong when Doctor Who Magazine’s Seventh Doctor Special discusses episodes purely as anticipating the 2005 series). And yet, and yet… I could cop out and use the ‘it’s for kids’ argument: someone I know was at a 10th birthday party at which children grumbled at the time spent opening presents because The Doctor Dances was about to start; the party stopped for Doctor Who; everyone fell about laughing at ‘go to your room!’ and shrieked during the scary bits. But no, I can’t get away with this: although it hasn’t been perfect by any means, I’ve loved most of it. And I find myself about to type a sentence that is pure Comic Book Guy, just as acquiescent as some of the people I’ve criticised, because I just can’t put it any other way: The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances are two of the very best Doctor Who episodes ever.

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HOW SLITHEEN WAS MY VALLEY?

BOOM TOWN: Bob Stanley

After the high drama & excitement of the previous three episodes, a chance for cast and viewers not only to pause for breath before the big finale, but also to reflect on what’s happened so far. Something to thus consider is that in life, one’s actions inevitably lead to consequences, and “the trip of a lifetime” is no exception.
Russell T Davies has often said that he wanted to look at how the Doctor’s life affects those around him: believing that his travels can sometimes leave a nasty wake. How many times has the Doctor, at the end of an adventure, just left suddenly without a goodbye, and with no thought as to what he’s left behind? Ambassadors, Fang Rock, Aztecs are examples which spring to mind (not forgetting the 6th Doctor’s body count…). Well now RTD presents the Doctor with a dilemma: can he send even a heartless and vicious foe to their execution? The foe in this case being Margaret Blaine AKA Blon Fel Fach Passameer-Day Slitheen; only this time using her new position as Mayor of Cardiff to blow open the time rift in the city (and the rest of the Earth, natch) as a means of escape. I wasn’t really looking forward to seeing the Slitheen again, as they didn’t impress first time out (when I read the words “nuclear power station” in the previews I was hoping for the Axons), but for the kind of story RTD wanted to write it had to be a villain that the audience would recognise and remember the backstory of. Particularly the new audience who would have been non-plussed had it been Axons or anyone from the previous 26 seasons. Thankfully flatulence is kept to a minimum this time, and we now see Margaret facing the consequences of her own actions, which I believe is unique for a Who villain. As Margaret pleads with the Doctor to show mercy, it’s hard not to feel sympathy for her when she says she can mend her ways, even if she has just tried to kill the Doctor three times during the soup course. Its also helped by Annette Badland turning in a much better performance than previous.
Whilst RTD’s intentions for Boom Town are noble, the two main flaws in the story undermine them. Firstly this sort of navel-gazing isn’t suited to Eccleston’s Doctor. It’s worth noting that exactly thirty years ago we saw the most celebrated example of the Doctor having self-doubts: Tom’s “Just touch these two wires…have I that right?” in Genesis while the 3rd Doctor tries to explore all options with regard to the Silurians rather than the obvious one of blowing them up. And we mustn’t forget Davison, the “vulnerable” Doctor who sees the effects of his actions on society and his companions through most of Season 21. Boom Town would have been ideal for either of those three Doctors, but the 9th Doctor just isn’t the type. Already we’ve seen his lack of compassion towards Lady Cassandra as she literally cracked up, as well as his previous attempt to obliterate the Slitheen so the audience is never in any doubt that not only will this Doctor send Margaret to her execution, but probably pull the switch as well whilst grinning manically.
Far better is Rose’s own story, as she is forced to re-examine her relationship with Mickey. By luring him to Cardiff Rose believes that they can just pick up where they left off with an agenda of dinner, a film and a bit of hanky-panky to finish off until Mickey reveals that he’s already casting his net far and (especially with regard to Trish Delaney) wide. An attempt at reconciliation and a final search at the end of the story prove futile and Rose accepts that as a result of her travelling she has to let him go – “he deserves better”. What is clever about this subplot is how Mickey’s own situation is a mirror of Rose’s: he believes that by not joining the Doctor and Rose earlier (in World War III) he has weakened the bond between them. There is a genuine attempt by the newly-enlarged TARDIS crew to embrace Mickey to their collective bosom, as we see in the initial restaurant scene and the attempt to capture Margaret at the Town Hall. Ultimately Mickey realises that he can never be part of Rose’s nomadic lifestyle, especially since his theoretical place has been filled by Captain Jack, and so at the end he has to let Rose go.
Although Rose and Mickey’s story makes up for the shortcomings in the Doctor/Margaret plotline, the whole thing fails thanks to the ending, where RTD realises that “hang on, we’re boring the pants off the 8-year-olds watching and we need them to come back next week”. So we get big cracks appearing outside the Millennium Centre and CGI storm effects, Margaret reverting to type and losing any sympathy she had from the viewers, and everything being resolved by a deus ex machina. Thanks to a hitherto unknown property of the TARDIS Margaret is regressed to egg form ready to be hatched and brought up by a new family on the right side of the tracks. Erm…isn’t this what happens at the end of Leisure Hive? Perhaps it would have been better for the spark of humanity that Margaret experiences at the start as she’s quizzed by the journalist to slowly grow and consume her, so that at the end Margaret begs the Doctor to kiil her as she can’t deal with these emotions – oh dear, that’s the plot for Dalek.
Boom Town shows how confident the production team are of this new era of Who that they can put a more cerebral and talkative story into the mix. In the end though, it’s likely to go down in Who history as cheap filler and an advert for the Wales Tourist Board to boot (why get Mickey to hop on a train to Cardiff? Why not nip to London and pick him up?). Even more galling is that the inferior Long Game has elements that will be relevant to the conclusion of the season, which will shove it above Boom Town in that all-important DWM poll. Which is sad really as it at least tried to be different, and it has to be said that this episode has some of the sharpest and wittiest dialogue seen so far in this (Dark?) season. For all this Boom Town is not the absolute clunker I was expecting; a brave attempt then, but a gallant failure.

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GOLDEN TOUCH

BAD WOLF/THE PARTING OF THE WAYS: Sean Alexander

Love it or loath it, there’s no denying that reality television is the media phenomenon of the 21st Century. Sure, we had embarrassing game shows and ‘audience participation’ programmes before, where ordinary Joe Blogg-members of the public were encouraged to humiliate themselves for either fame or cash but the likes of Big Brother and The Weakest Link set a new benchmark for this and blurred the line forever between where viewing ended and participation began. Despite the Orwellian overtones of Big Brother, it’s never seemed to me to pay anything more than lip-service to its supposed 1984 influence. Surely the appeal - for those who have such a thing - of watching a bunch of strangers largely do little more than sit around, gossip and bitch and then vote each other off is little different to the reason millions of us are addicted to soap operas. Because it’s the thrill of voyeurism that arguably gives the likes of Big Brother its adrenaline rush; not to mention the sense of being involved while at the same time remaining distanced from these people’s lives. Something not so different from tuning in to the happenings of Weatherfield or Walford’s citizens week after week.
Rumours abounded for months that this new series of Doctor Who would have an episode spoofing the antics of Big Brother and the like. For not only did chief architect Russell T Davies wear his unashamed love of contemporary fantasy shows like Buffy on his sleeve, but the whole phenomena of reality TV was also known to be a great love of his. Arguably these two influences come together most blatantly in this and its season-ending conclusion. Back on Satellite Five - site of Davies’ earlier ‘The Long Game’ - and a further hundred years on, reality TV and high-stakes, high-rewards game shows have combined to show-up modern TV trends taken to their absolute zenith. The esteemed film critic Mark Kermode once nailed the appeal of Big Brother and humiliation-heavy game shows with the simple words ‘People like to see other people getting fucked’; and this modern take on the age-old delight of pornography is illustrated here by housemates who get disintegrated on eviction, and Weakest Link contestants whose failure to bank or answer questions correctly see them fried to oblivion. While the Doctor, to his great perplexity, is sitting down with Davina in the diary room, and Rose is swapping scathing bon-mots with the ‘Anne-Droid’, Captain Jack is enjoying a top-to-toe makeover with those other icons of self-improvement television, Trinny and Susannah. So with all modern TV bases firmly covered, Davies’ episode becomes a by turns scarily prescient and amusing satire of all these types of show which we as viewers currently demand. Think classic children’s game-show The Adventure Game writ large, as the now renamed ‘Game Station’ has been remodelled as a wall-to-wall industry of entertainment for the masses. Except in the intervening hundred years since the Doctor’s last visit, Satellite Five’s output is now received by a largely dormant mankind, whose ‘brainless sheep’ mentality is high on compliance and low on spirit. Seems like the Doctor’s interference for the good of mankind isn’t always beneficial.
How much you’ll enjoy this first section will probably depend on your tolerance threshold for such programmes. As an almost complete allergist to the likes of Big Brother I found its spoofing neither irritating nor so scalpel-sharp detailed as to completely go over my head. It’s not like you can avoid the basics of these shows, even if you try, so both formats of these futuristic versions were familiar enough for me to get the joke. Likewise with Trinny and Susannah, whose robotic counterparts could just be a dig at contemporary self-improvement obsessions for those unfamiliar with that type of show. That some have criticised these shows’ inclusion for being highly unlikely - seeing as the episode takes place some two hundred thousand years into our future - somewhat misses the point, as satire can only work about things you’re familiar with, and hardly with things you’re not.
Fortunately for some, the regulars are soon breaking free of their reality prisons, and are soon on the look-out for whatever force has brought them here. The Doctor adopts fellow refugee Lynda - with a ‘Y’ - as a pseudo companion, while Jack brings with him both a gung-ho new getup and a rather handy clothes disintegrator, which may prove handy later on. They are, apparently, too late to save Rose, however; as her final head-to-head with ruthless co-contestant Rodrick ends in her apparent disintegration (the moment of which witnesses arguably Christopher Eccleston’s most stunning moment in the series so far, as the Doctor’s emotional shutdown following his friend’s ‘death’ will move you more than a thousand rousing speeches).
Of course - as with ‘Bad Wolf’s overall theme - not everything is as it seems, and soon the real power behind the Game Station’s shenanigans is revealed. What impresses most about this is how both Davies and director Joe Ahearne give little hints that it’s the Daleks all along. Take the rather subtle ‘Dalek bumps’ that proliferate the faux Big Brother household, or the ‘Georgian State Dancers’-style gliding of Trin-E and Zu-Zana. The marvellously conceived Controller is herself a big clue as to what’s coming, being part Minority Report’s Agatha and - with her skirt of cables and lights - a direct link to the sixties’ Dalek Emperor. There’s even a glorious half-reveal of one of the creatures’ mirrored reflection as it exterminates her. And for those left pretty cold by the first half-hour’s reality runabout, the sight of the de-cloaked Dalek ships will likely bring a huge tear to the eye. This is Doctor Who as we’ve previously only dreamt of; a show of epic space battles and thousands of Daleks that has hitherto been denied by both budget and ambition.
The only disappointment is that, for an episode titled ‘Bad Wolf’, we’re really no nearer to finding out who or what Bad Wolf is (only the name of the company running the games suggests a direct causal link). While - as in ‘Boom Town’ - we’re treated to another heavy-handed exposition dump, name-checking all the Bad Wolf references thus far.
With Rose now a captive of the Daleks, the scene is finally set for an explosive final confrontation between the Doctor and his arch nemeses. The final moments of ‘Bad Wolf’ are as rousing a moment as this series has experienced, whilst the Doctor’s part Henry V / part Absalom Daak call to arms recalls the Fifth Doctor’s own refusal to yield at the end of ‘Caves of Androzani’ episode three.
The final episode had an awful lot to live up to given last week’s rousing finale, not to mention resolve the whole Time War / Bad Wolf arc that’s run since week one. It was tempting to think back to ‘Rose’s own debut and remember how incessant hype had all but destroyed the chance for that episode to receive objective criticism. So it was with some trepidation that I opened any newspaper or watched any TV links right up until transmission.
So did it disappoint? Not bloody likely; and this despite the fact that ‘The Parting of the Ways’ commits not one, but two of the cardinal sins of drama: the ‘deus-ex-machina’ device of resolving a plot point, and interrupting the frenetic pace with an, at first sight, spurious sub-plot completely unrelated to the main action.
On that last point, perhaps I’m being disingenuous. As despite Rose’s enforced return home to her life of domestic drudgery seeming like filler material, there is in fact a very pertinent comment on the series coming full circle. As the Doctor and a bunch of brave, fool-hardy individuals are giving their lives in the far future, all Rose has to do is listen to her Mum and boyfriend extolling the virtues of the latest pizza parlour while munching chips. At the heart of this lies the ethos of what makes the Doctor - and Doctor Who - so very special because as Rose says, it’s about making a difference when no-one else will. Of standing up when others won’t. And of finding ‘a better way of living your life’. That entire preamble about getting the TARDIS console open with, by turns, the help of a mini and a pickup truck disguises the fact that, for Rose, this really is the parting of the ways; she simply cannot go back to the life she had before entering the TARDIS.
And was it such a surprise to find the revelation of ‘Bad Wolf’ a disappointment? Up until ‘Boom Town’, just two episodes previous, arguably the majority of viewers hadn’t made much of all this ‘Bad Wolf’ stuff, anyway. The idea that Russell T Davies would have gone for any of the fan-pleasing choices as Davros, the Master or the Eighth Doctor would have been highly hypocritical given his attitude towards excessive continuity previously. And it does make some sense, albeit heavy on convenience. Rose uses the name of the TV company ‘Bad Wolf’ to remind her that the Doctor needs her help in the far future; that she scatters those words through time whilst a God makes it a conundrum and a paradox rolled into one. Yes, I was disappointed it wasn’t something else but how many casual viewers sat there wondering what the hell was going on?
Far more frustrating is this episode’s uncharacteristic reliance on technobabble in order to push the plot along. Both the delta wave and Rose’s TARDIS-fuelled ascension to a higher form smack of the worst kind of ‘deus-ex-machina’ plot conveniences that writer Davies usually avoids. While there’s a case for Joss Whedon’s lawyers to bring here, so ‘inspired’ (if that’s the correct legalese) is this episode by his seminal Buffy the Vampire Slayer (in particular Season Four’s ‘Primeval’, with a similarly God-empowered Buffy foreshadowing Rose’s powers). Davies is no shrinking violet when it comes to revealing his creative inspirations, and as with the Big Brother homage of ‘Bad Wolf’, here is a love poem to the kind of epic, though personalised season finales that Buffy did so well for its seven years.
Enough of the grouching; there’s a level of emotion throughout ‘The Parting of the Ways’ that more than makes you forgive its deficiencies elsewhere. Take Captain Jack’s farewell to his time-travelling friends, with a kiss to each which relishes in its bigot-baiting potential. Potentially offensive content for what is nominally a children’s show? No chance, as I would hope to think that the majority of kids didn’t even notice, and those that did are surely untainted by the prejudiced, knee-jerk myopia that some of us adults develop.
Then there’s that heart-tugging final look that the Doctor gives to his faithful ship, sure in the knowledge that he’ll never see her again. Followed by an even more emotive recording of what is essentially a suicide note, urging Rose to ‘have a fantastic life’ (a speech that more sums up Doctor Who’s heart it is currently difficult to think of). By now, the emotional brick-bats are coming thick and fast, coupled with a heart-in-the-mouth final confrontation between the show’s hero and his most durable of enemies. Had the show not been recommissioned, arguably here is as good a point as we could have left it; with the Doctor, finally, giving his life to save all of humanity. Fortunately it was, and with Rose’s startling transformation into a demi-God the scene was set for arguably the most anticipated moment of the episode.
Well, I cried. I’m sure you all cried too. Has there ever been a more heart-breaking, yet uplifting, regeneration scene in the whole series? The way the Ninth Doctor takes the time to prepare his friend for the change to come is arguably the most beautiful moment of the whole episode - and curiously, something that other Doctors never felt the need to do, being resolutely vague about the concept at best. There’s something of Davies’ previous protagonist Stephen Baxter about the whole of this scene, as - just like in The Second Coming - the hero of the piece resigns himself to his fate, ending with his head thrown back. And as season-ending moments go - with the bonus of a perfectly pitched cameo from new Doc David Tennant - it’s hard to think that we’ve all got six months to wait until its payoff.
Just as it was in 1996 - and before it 1989 - that was it. Except, of course, it wasn’t. Writing this now, we’re safe in the knowledge that Doctor Who won’t just be back for a new series next year, but for the year after that as well. Not to mention two Christmas specials. I had my doubts following ‘Rose’ that all this time, effort and dedication was going to be worth it, but I’m more than glad to say that this series has - on the whole - exceeded my expectations. Not that there aren’t a great many quirks to iron out - for one, the over-reliance on ‘domesticity’ to make things relevant for a new audience should surely by fazed out in favour of the promised ‘strange, new worlds’ of season two. And Russell T Davies’ own scripts this year have, on the whole, marked this series’ nadir. But this is, after all, just the first attempt and the likes of ‘Dalek’, ‘Father’s Day’ and the Steven Moffatt two-parter have proved that, when it gets it right, this new Who isn’t very far off perfection.
So, ‘The Trip of A Lifetime’? Fortunately not, because I think that is still yet to come...

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CAT'S LIFE

NEW EARTH: Chris Orton

It is very likely that when the new version of Doctor Who was commissioned very few people (the BBC especially) expected it to be quite the resounding success that it was, amongst the public, the press as well as amongst the all-too-hard-to-please fans. But following an impressive first run and a very good Christmas special, Season Two finally got underway during the Easter break in another blaze of publicity. David Tennant was an immediate success in his debut episode and continues to impress here, somehow bringing with 
him a very natural “Doctorness”. Tennant and Billie Piper make for and excellent Doctor-Companion team, with them looking here like they have been traveling together for years. The chemistry between then appears a little more genuine perhaps than it was between Piper and Eccleston, although hopefully this will not become the dominant theme of the series. The Doctor and Rose are very close friends, but this idea should not get in the way of them having adventures together. It will be interesting to see how the dynamic between them changes once Mickey joins them on board the TARDIS as a fully-fledged companion in future adventures.
So was the new series worth the wait? Of course it was, but that isn’t to say that New Earth is not without its problems. Firstly, the episode just doesn’t feel like a season opener very much at all. It comes across rather more like a mid-series filler episode, a la The Long Game or Boomtown, for some reason and not the kind of story that you want to launch a brand new run. For such a high-profile programme as Doctor Who it might have been expected that there would have been something a little more spectacular to start the new series. Many of the things seen in the episode were culled from familiar things from the first series. We have the return of Cassandra, the return of the Face of Boe we have a glimpse of Jackie and Mickey, and we have the spider-bots scurrying about. Fair enough, New Earth is set is a similar time period to The End of the World but utilizing so many of these things just feels a little over done. At one point in the story the Face of Boe enigmatically remarks that he and the Doctor will meet again in the future so we are likely to see more of this arena once more. Whether this reuse of recognizable elements is a genuine attempt at creating a believable universe for Doctor Who or simply a budgetary consideration is open to question. The tale itself concerns itself with a group of cat nurses called The Sisters of Plenitude who run a hospital where they are attempting to cure as many of humanities diseases as possible. As we might expect though, there is something rotten lurking in this particular Garden of Eden, and in this case it is a huge group of force-grown humans who function as little more than lab animals. The victims do not have any idea who they are what they are for and the Doctor discovers that they have been created purely to be infected by the cats with every disease in the universe in order to try to come up with cures for  those diseases. As is said at one point of the plague carriers:‘that’s all they are – flesh”. The cats do not seem to have any moral 
problem with treating their victims in this way, seeing them purely  as a mean to a worthwhile end. A less than subtle comment by Russell T. Davies on animal testing perhaps?
The other main plot strand relates to the return of Lady Cassandra O’ Brien. Despite apparently having been destroyed the last time that she encountered the Doctor twenty-three years previously, her brain somehow survived and she has been miraculously recreated using a new piece of skin. This time she is assisted by a camp servant named Chip. Chip caters to Cassandra’s every whim and will do anything to defend and protect her; being a force-grown clone he is the ultimate  plaything fro Cassandra. Billie Piper gets to flex her acting muscles in the scenes in which Cassandra takes over her body, while when he is briefly under the control of Cassandra the Doctor appears to be being influenced by some kind of camp Austin Powers type character. However, this only happens very briefly, and hopefully we will not be seeing too much more of the Doctor being made to behave as daft as  this in future. Zoe Wannamaker returns to provide the voice of the villainess, as well as making an appearance herself as the younger pre-trampoline-like Cassandra. Despite initially appearing to be just 
as evil as we know her to be with a crafty extortion plot Cassandra does manage to redeem herself somewhat in the end when she ultimately accepts that the time has come for her to die (taking poor Chip with her when she does). This enlightenment comes after she transferred  her conscious to one of the plague carriers and realised the lonely existence that they had endured. Interestingly we see that the Doctor appears to be thinking perhaps a 
little above his station during the coarse of this episode. He mentions that there is no higher authority than himself at one point, and this has already got the fans talking about the Tenth Doctor  having some kind of ‘god complex’. It seems as though this theme could be going to be a running undercurrent of the season and that  there might be some kind of comeback for him in episodes to come for  assuming such an attitude. Is this new Doctor too overconfident? Has he come to believe that he is more important than he really is just because he is apparently the last of the Time Lords? There was a small hint as to this new attitude in The Christmas Invasion when the  Doctor said after defeating the Sycorax leader: “no second chances”. The whole idea does seem very at odds with the more jokey, fun attitude that the Doctor has for much of the rest of the time.
Unfortunately, the resolution of the episode does not really work too  well and the solution is convenient in the extreme. In a stunning piece of logic and deduction, the Doctor realises that to cure  somebody with every known disease all that he has to do is to mix up  every known drug and treat them with the resultant mixture. Amazingly the plague carriers are cured by being showered with this new wonder  treatment despite the other patients at the hospital having to have  the drugs administered intravenously. It all feels a little  convenient and is utterly contrived. The hospital is then closed down  and the Sisters taken into custody by cops from New New York (who are  dressed almost identically to cops from old New York – despite being  billions of years into the future). A more positive side effect of  the devastation is that from the plague carriers comes a new race of  genetically pure human beings. An annoyance in this opening episode is the complete overkill from  Murray Gold with his incidental music. As it was in some instances  during the first run, the music can at times be just too loud, most 
noticeably during the action scenes. Turn it down a bit please  Murray! There are also one or two scenes where music cues appear to  have been recycled from earlier episodes. Another minor grumble is  that the location where the plague carriers are housed is quite  clearly the same location as the one that was used for the Nestene  lair in Rose last year (this fact is even remarked upon by members of  the production team in the audio commentary for the episode). Some of  the CGI in the episode isn’t really that impressive either – the shot of the hospital that we see from a distance looks as if it has been  painted onto a sheet of glass, while the flying cars do not quite  convince. However, the episode does have some good points. The make- up for the Sisters of Plenitude is very impressive indeed, while the plague victims all looks suitably horrific (although why they are all able to speak when they have had no contact with other people isn’t  explained). The gargantuan Duke of Manhattan is a good creation too, although it is a shame that some of his scenes were apparently cut from the episode. The use of the Millennium Centre in Cardiff as the  setting of the hospital is notable, with a few white sheets and some  CGI being cleverly used by the set designer to represent the  clinically clean wards. Despite the flaws of  his installment it is fantastic just to have the show back and it is  superb that the BBC appears to be continuing in its welcome support  for the series.

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TOOTH OR DARE

TOOTH AND CLAW: Bob Stanley

Kung-fu monks and werewolves! This is what we want: none of this hospitals and cat nuns nonsense! After the curate’s egg of New Earth, RTD and Co. decide to go back to the show’s roots and give us an episode calling on two of Doctor Who’s guaranteed bankers: Victorian Gothic horror and Base-under-siege.

I know we shouldn’t; I know the new series is catering for a different demographic, but older fans like myself can’t help but compare it to the show we grew up with in the 70s and 80s. There’s only so much Bad Wolf one can take after all, and we felt that the new production team should use the bigger budget and advanced techniques at their disposal to revisit a story like Talons or Fang Rock. Tooth and Claw, I’m pleased to say, disproves the old maxim of being careful what you wish for.
The BBC can’t go wrong when producing drama set in Victorian times: they’ve done it so often it’s now become second nature, and helped in no small part by the audience’s expectations. Victorian period drama can be divided into two sub-genres: Dickens’ grim realism, and the ‘Victoriana’ of Hammer films (pea-soupers, cheeky street urchins, fiendish orientals etc.); and whichever is used, the audience will lap it up. Swap ‘Victorian period drama’ for ‘Dr Who story’ and you get an automatic crowd pleaser.
As we’ve seen over the years, whenever Dr Who is dropped into a genre story, the genre ‘bends’ to suit the programme; and as a result of Who going Victorian so many times, it’s now developed it’s own clichés. For example; we have the bluff upper-class twit who has to risk everything to get to London before the Stock Exchange opens, damn your eyes Sir; the ‘savage’ companion who transforms, Pygmalion-like, into a ‘lady’; the mad scientist/alien threat, and (once the threat appears) the turning of one of the guest cast into a secondary companion for the Doctor to explain things to. So as well as expecting the new series team to make their Victorian forays look better than previous, we also expect them to avoid these clichés, which they thankfully do. For one thing there’s Scottish shaolins in what is probably the best opening to a British television programme, ever. And unusually for Victorian drama, we get Queenie herself appearing.
Just like Dickens last year, Queen Victoria is an active participant in proceedings as well as being essential to the plot. As such she is far from the stern and mournful matriarch of popular perception, blessed with an impish sense of humour courtesy of the script and Pauline Collins’ wonderful performance. She’s a bit handy with firearms too… The script itself is a revelation, especially after New Earth threatened “more of the same” from Russell: now we know he can deliver a tightly-plotted story to match the dialogue that is his trademark. I enjoyed the use of the ghost story to provide much of the background, since it meant that for once, a supporting character is explaining things to the Doctor. In fact the script gives all of the guest cast a chance to shine, none of whom disappoint. Special mention goes to Michelle Duncan as Lady Isobel, who by providing moral support to the kitchen staff and then rallying them all to the task of making the mistletoe infusion, proves herself more than the Hysterical Female Who The Companion Gets To Slap. Speaking of which, Billie is on top form as always, with Rose taking on some of the Doctor’s usual tasks in her conversation with the wolfman, again showing us how far this new series has come.
Which brings us to David Tennant. We know the guy can act, but maybe he needs to be directed rather than left to his own devices. His Doctor seems too forced, too manic, and not very convincing when trying to act angry; as though he’s prepared for the role by studying McCoy’s performance. At times it seems as though Tennant’s auditioning for the star role in the (as yet unmade) biopic of Kenny Everett. What’s also noticeable is that Billie doesn’t seem to gel with him (on screen at least) as well as she did with Eccleston last year, and they both appear to work better when separated. And is it just me or is there a definite smugness between the Doctor and Rose this year? They appear very blasé when faced with perilous situations, as well as taking the time-and-space travel experience for granted. That’s going to be their downfall later on, I’ll wager!
Tennant’s Doctor does get better as the series progresses, but needs a director like Graeme Harper to bring out his best. Leaving Tennant to emote in his own way is perhaps Euros Lyn’s only failing as a director here. Compared to his lacklustre efforts last series, Lyn now finds his feet with the format and along with his other stories this year shows a versatility we never expected. In Tooth and Claw he demonstrates a flair for action and suspense: the opening fight sequence and the Doctor listening to the wolf from behind the door standing out. Euros has also benefited from having the debuting Rory Taylor as Director of Photography, who adds to the atmosphere by lighting everything in very muted colours with the odd splash of red. And of course, there’s the werewolf itself. Not even Hinchcliffe and Holmes would have done a werewolf story since they knew the effects wouldn’t cut the mustard. Thanks to a stunning transformation sequence, and the expertise from already creating a werewolf for Harry Potter, it’s another triumph of The Mill.

So after a false start Doctor Who is back in business. When it’s all over for another year and the post-mortems are being carried out, Tooth and Claw will be the favourite of the new audience and grizzled old fans. It’s a fantastic tale which showcases the new series’ ability to excite a modern audience whilst being true to the spirit of the old series; and proves that Russell T Davies can actually write crackling plot to go with his crackling dialogue.
Naturally there are a few questions left unanswered. The house was surrounded by armed monks who just seemed to disappear at the end: what happened there (cut scene perhaps)? What was the point of the rather crass jokes about the Royal Family being werewolves? That’s scuppered the chances of getting all the missing episodes back from Her Majesty’s personal film library, hasn’t it?
And more importantly, why didn’t this one go out first?

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CLASS ACT

SCHOOL REUNION: Matthew Kilburn

‘School Reunion’ takes me back to childhood, when I would write lengthy stories heavily influenced by Doctor Who but (so my friends told me) owing something to The Famous Five (I was thinking more of The Tomorrow People, I expect) and often set in school. About fifteen years ago, I began to think about revisiting this scenario and turning it into a children’s book; I then opened Radio Times and saw that Russell T Davies’s Dark Season was scheduled. There, I thought, goes that idea; but it looks from ‘School Reunion’ that it still has a lot of life in it. I was always concerned about writing in credible threats to my stories; I’m not sure that the Krillitanes would have passed muster, because I was always keen to make sure that their plans added up. Monsters that exploded into slime might have been a bit too silly for my ten-year-old self; and if they did so there would have to be a reason. We are told in ‘School Reunion’ that the ‘oil’ of the Krillitanes has become poisonous to them; but can be fed to human children. It’s never explained what this oil is, but I presume that it’s a natural secretion. I’m sure that some kinds of wasp larvae produce a fluid which the adults drink and which helps bind together the colony. Perhaps Krillitane young are essentially larval, with their adult characteristics dormant; but their creativity is high and their secretions keep the minds of the adults sharp – a sort of Omega 3 for Krillitanes. However, the Krillitanes have now assimilated something that makes this oil poisonous – with explosive results. We know that the Doctor has encountered the Krillitanes at a period when they were humanoid, and it’s possible that this had made the oil compatible with human children. It appears that humans metabolise the oil in such a way that they remain edible to Krillitanes, as they munch their way through a good number of the pupils and most of the staff room in the course of the episode.
In concentrating on the Krillitanes I can be accused of missing the wood for the trees. I’d agree that most of what is most memorable about the episode came from the much-anticipated and much-promoted reunion of the Doctor and Sarah, and the promotion of the episode suggested that this was what the audience were meant to notice. However, there is no Doctor Who without a threat to the natural moral order. Finch, as a character, knows this – he accuses the Doctor of claiming to be a radical whereas all he does is uphold the status quo. In a scene, which I first thought curiously underplayed, but which after repeated viewings seems more appropriate, Sarah becomes the mouthpiece for the ‘Everything ends’ motif that has run through the revived Doctor Who from the beginning. Almost the first thing she said on learning that ‘John Smith’ was indeed the Doctor was ‘I got old’, and Sarah’s confrontation with Finch allows her to demonstrate that she can live with that.
Sarah’s vulnerability as presented in ‘School Reunion’ is, however, that of the 1970s family action heroine she remains; the questions she needs to ask of the Doctor evidently haven’t stopped her having a freelance career which can bring her credibly to Deffry Vale as a profile writer for The Sunday Times – presumably her credentials are solid ones. The return of the Doctor – ‘our’ tenth Doctor, not Sarah’s fourth - into Sarah’s life brings with it the implications of his much more openly emotionally-charged relationship with Rose. The argument over possession of the Doctor was one of the less successful scenes, but offered a parallel between Sarah accepting her feelings for the Doctor, and Rose struggling to come to terms with the idea that the Doctor has had travelling companions before her. The scene evoked the relationship that the revived series has with the old; for younger viewers Rose’s possessive attitude towards the Doctor is entirely justified, and within the broader narrative of the series she deserves the credit for reclaiming the Doctor and renewing his special relationship with humanity; but Sarah’s presence opens the series up to its past and points to a Rose-less future that the rest of the season fends off for longer than I found really credible.
For the Doctor, the prospect of Rose’s departure first aired in this episode is one of the inevitabilities of his life. Throughout this season Tennant’s performance leaves this viewer with the suspicion that the tenth Doctor is not as emotionally dependent on, or even just as involved with, Rose as was the ninth. The change from the ninth to the tenth Doctor softens the blow of a character development that would probably have occurred even if Christopher Eccleston hadn’t left. After his decision not to destroy the human race as a side-effect of destroying the Daleks, presumably in similar circumstances to the destruction of the Time Lords, the Doctor would probably have regained some of his self-confidence and willingness to intervene in the interests of the oppressed anyway. With these familiar qualities returning, it’s not surprising that he’s open to renewing his old attachment to Sarah.
David Tennant’s realisation of the Doctor’s first encounter with Sarah was perhaps the truest moment, emotionally, in the entire episode. Tennant effortlessly brought the love his five-year-old self had for Sarah with the Doctor’s own love, pride and clear sense of vindication; Sarah had become an earthbound Doctor, reminding me of the phrase towards the end of Steve Gallagher’s novelisation of ‘Terminus’, that his former companions, left throughout time and space at points of their choosing, or not, give the Doctor a kind of immortality.
Immortality is something the Doctor now seems to have anyway. He now envisages a future with no end, forever regenerating into new forms, while those who travel with him can choose either to grow old while he remains young, or - like Sarah – be abandoned. From ‘School Reunion’ onwards his smug banter with Rose – apparently deliberately irritating - makes sense largely as a foreshadowing of his betrayal of her loyalty – and love - in ‘Doomsday. Something that never quite comes off is the balance between the jovial, cocky, ‘gurning’ (as Charlie Brooker has it) Doctor and the altogether more sinister character who ‘used to have so much mercy’ and who prefaces each death he inflicts with ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry’.
It becomes a great problem for the season that it takes so long for the tension set up in the Doctor-Rose relationship to be resolved. Might the production team have wanted to hedge their bets, shooting Billie Piper’s departure episode fairly early on, so that the last recording blocks could possibly feature a new companion if Billie received a better offer which took her away from Doctor Who? This is a wild conjecture which I’ve no evidence to support other than the rumours of drastic rewrites which surrounded ‘The Impossible Planet’/’The Satan Pit’. Looking back, the structure of the season might have been better served if ‘School Reunion’ had taken place after ‘The Age of Steel’, with another set of circumstances being found to bring Mickey aboard the TARDIS. The ‘tin dog’ comparison doesn’t really hold water; Mickey is at this point further from the orbit of the Doctor than K9 ever was, something only confirmed by the early TARDIS scenes in ‘Rise of the Cybermen’, and the farewell in ‘The Age of Steel’. Noel Clarke, as usual since ‘Boom Town’, puts great effort into a difficult character, who is written and has to be played in such a way that the audience doesn’t take against Rose for abandoning him.
Ultimately, I can’t present as coherent analysis of ‘School Reunion’ as I would like. I warmed to the reunion of the Doctor and Sarah, thought Elisabeth Sladen acquitted herself very well indeed despite some cumbersome dialogue and characterization, and was intrigued by the Krillitanes. Tony Head was fun to watch, with a performance that knew that almost everything his character did was thoroughly predictable, but held back from going over the top. David Tennant gave one of his more consistent performances – I think he was at his best directed by either James Hawes or Graeme Harper – and Billie Piper was as usual excellent. The script threw lots of ideas at the audience; but there was so much that was thrown away. The presence of children in the story, an oddity in Doctor Who old or new at this point, was taken for granted; the inherent artificiality in any school situation underexploited, the sense of threat minimised, in contrast to Hawes’s handling of ‘The Empty Child’/’The Doctor Dances’. I still enjoyed the episode, but thought it could have been so much better with a little more consideration.

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WORTH THE MONSTERS

THE GIRL IN THE FIREPLACE: Dave Rolinson

Last year in This Way Up, I opened my review of The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances with a tribute to Steven Moffat, whose breadth and originality as a writer seemed to have been neglected by critics because much of his recent work had been in sitcoms. There’s no need for that kind of introduction this year, because of the widespread acclaim that Moffat has received for those two episodes. Moffat has since told Doctor Who Magazine that he was once known as someone who’d never write anything as good as Press Gang but would now be known as someone who’d never write anything as good as The Empty Child. For once, Moffat was wrong: The Girl in the Fireplace is every bit as good.

Moffat’s award-snaffling two-parter from 2005 has impressed BBC executives to such an extent that they’ve snapped up Jekyll, Moffat’s own attempt to reinterpret a ‘classic’ for Saturday night family viewing. Until recently the industry mocked this slot and target demographic (indeed, they denied that either actually existed), but now these ideas form a cornerstone of BBC television and multi-media policy. Moffat’s reinterpretation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde will apparently follow Doctor Who and Dominic Minghella’s Robin Hood (which features at least one episode by Who writer Paul Cornell) in this slot. At least one drama proposal of Moffat’s in the 1990s became stuck in development hell, but Moffat’s career is now on another level, and the man himself attributes this to a two-part Doctor Who story. This would be almost unbelievable, were it not for the fact that those episodes really are that good.

Everyone likes The Empty Child: me, reviewers, awards panels, my family, the industry, Michael Grade, my girlfriend (who didn’t start reading a book thirty seconds into it which, let me assure you, pisses all over James Cameron winning loads of Oscars for Titanic) and, even more surprisingly, Doctor Who fans. Clearly Russell T Davies loved it, because in an odd way Moffat has shaped Doctor Who’s sense of identity: it’s striking just how many episodes seem to be inspired, and improved, by it (to take just one example, New Earth recycles its most iconic sequences).

In old-skool fanzine terms, it still seems a bit soon to write about …Fireplace. I thought of this article as an immediate response piece, to come back to and refine in later years. However, in this age of the blog, the forum, the online poll and the podcast, I feel like there are many areas I can skip because they’ve already been so widely covered. So, let’s get the over-exposed stuff out of the way quickly. I loved Moffat’s justification of the kiss (that Madame de Pompadour’s fans would be angrier than Doctor Who fans because it’s clearly non-canonical to say that she snogged an alien). I don’t feel the need to defend the kiss, but, in the interests of coverage: (a) the Doctor isn’t asexual, because he had a granddaughter, (b) may I refer you to, for instance, the end of The Green Death, his flirting in Kinda and the whole Romana II thing, (c) Paul McGann does count, (d) meeting Rose started one of those ‘arc’ things whereby he started to shed his skin and (e) Steven Moffat writes great gags about relationships and sex, so let’s just enjoy it, shall we? Like last year, there are Moffat in-jokes that (like the best injokes) don’t get in the way: from The Empty Child (bananas, dancing) and at least one line from Coupling. He even gives the Doctor some quality adolescent stalking of Reinette which brought to mind Colin from Press Gang. The history is on shaky ground, but Madame de Pompadour here is as mythic as the Doctor himself.

Other stuff that I can skip quickly through: Moffat nails down the 45-minute episode. The pre-credits sequence is virtually a perfect old Episode One. There are so many dangling causes, so many little mysteries set up which dare the viewer to even think about not hanging around until they’re resolved. As big a ‘moment’ as the climax to Army of Ghosts is, it can’t touch Reinette’s call of ‘Doctor!’ as a pay-off to her initial comments: this is the first tingling excitement feeling I’ve had from Doctor Who for many years and a perfect Episode One cliff-hanger!

And then there’s the ending. Everything falls neatly into place with the last shot like, well, most of Moffat’s best sitcom scripts. Even the thickness of the service robots (whose similarity to the nanogenes in terms of motivation has been widely noted) plays upon classic science-fiction precepts – an erudite blogger over at Tachyon TV hit the nail on the head: yes, this is an emotional episode, but it’s also one of the few to have a genuine science fiction core. For me, it’s the way that these two work together that makes this a classic.

I won’t labour a comparison between this episode and School Reunion. They are sequenced together to great effect and to invite a comparison (though for me the original running order, with School Reunion after this episode, would have worked better in motivating the Doctor’s behaviour in that episode), to emphasise the Doctor’s inherent loneliness amidst more fallible humans who get old and die. (He also does precisely what Rose was afraid of last week, i.e. leaves her behind to run off with the next one, and sets up the eventual separation.) For me, though, whilst School Reunion has characters talk about these problems (albeit with moving and interesting results), …Fireplace demonstrates the problem (shows rather than tells) and invites the audience to experience them.

If I had to sum up what I mean by this with reference to (just the one) literary quotation (and I know I don’t have to, but you’ve probably learned not to try to stop me by now), I’d cite something Richard Gilman wrote about Anton Chekhov:

‘The inherent problem Chekhov faced in Three Sisters was, I think, how to write a drama about time, not simply taking place in time – all plays do that – but about how we exist in and with it as though it were a place and a being. [Samuel] Beckett’s “doubleheaded monster of damnation and salvation”, the cradle and ground of all we do, home of our myths, imaginings and actualities. Time as place, place as time, Proustian, Einsteinian, a pact among the tenses, the scene of an appointment for which we’re always too early or too late’

To borrow and change the meaning of these phrases, I suppose Moffat’s story is set in a space which constitutes ‘time as place’ and ‘place as time’, and the past, present and future tenses collide at several points during the episode. It’s not Warriors’ Gate (despite obvious visual echoes), it’s still an accessible, entertaining primetime adventure with lots of gags, but that doesn’t mean we have to ignore the skill at work here. Moffat makes use of inspired and inspirational imagery and brilliant narrative devices.

One of the things that these images and devices do is to encourage the audience to experience time/life as the Doctor must: we step into people’s lives at random moments with a position of greater overall knowledge but also an awareness of the ‘pact among the tenses’ and a melancholic inability to engage with day-to-day life beyond the monsters and the crises. Therefore, life here becomes compressed into set-pieces, and Reinette’s relative situation draws attention to the hyperactive nature of the series’ plotting as something out of pace with everyday life and emotion. The time windows and the logic of the narrative are inspired science-fiction conceits dependent upon relative time and the relativity of events. Reinette describes this beautifully as time being compressed like ‘chapters in a book’, which also reminds me of something I wrote once and stand by: that the TARDIS is not a sci-fi device but a literary one, and each story a different book in the library. (A few forum lurkers listed logical flaws in the programme’s use of time portals and argued that it really didn’t make sense. This not only misses the whole point of the episode but, given that the Doctor arrived in a police box that’s bigger on the inside than the outside, it’s tempting to quote the Doctor’s reply to Mickey’s worry about a horse being in a spaceship: given that pre-revolutionary France shouldn’t be on the spaceship either, he should probably get some perspective.)

The fireplace is also an echo of the TARDIS: the story is bookended by compositions with the fireplace and TARDIS in the same shot because they’re both anachronistic magic doors (and, ultimately, the TARDIS dematerialises to reveal the image of Reinette, who’s been on the other side of that magic door throughout). As with so much of Moffat’s imagery here, the detail is fundamentally about the Doctor. This is true also of the broken clocks: rather like the Parisian sketch of Romana in City of Death, the broken mask of the ‘face of time’ could also refer to the Doctor. Actually, those broken clocks are a lovely detail. They help Moffat to establish menace, with the second source of ticking as effective as the similar spooling tape recorder in The Doctor Dances (and ‘tick tock’ could easily become the new ‘Are you my mummy?’), but also emphasise time by stopping it (ahem, went a bit Edge of Destruction there) and show the Doctor’s subservience to (and, later, prevent the Doctor’s subservience to) time travel.

Mention of clock faces brings me to my favourite part of the whole thing: the clever interplay between disguises, masks and faces (human faces, clock faces). The clockwork men are heavily symbolic of the Doctor’s own personality: hollow men made of time but searching for a purpose, who go around wearing a mask. The Doctor does this all the time. Near the end, the King of France says that it’s ‘many years since I saw you last, and not a day of it on your face’, after which the Doctor pulls an ‘everything’s okay’ face to Rose, one of the masks we all wear sometimes. That is, as Moffat’s script directions indicate, quite a heartbreaking idea. The clockwork men wear masks which are designed as faces; remove those masks and you’re left with a clock face, but then faces are themselves masks. The Doctor and Reinette remove each others’ emotional masks; the Doctor plunges into Reinette’s mind (‘You’ve had some cowboys in here’ – there’s a genuinely adult line) and she does the same. Just as we see the inner workings of the clockwork men, Rose and Mickey see the heart in the inner workings of the spaceship and Reinette sees the inner workings of the Doctor. Whilst the Doctor first took Rose from a grey, nondescript world into the riotous colour of The End of the World, what’s striking here is that the Doctor’s ‘world’ – the science-fiction trappings of the spaceship – is the grey, nondescript space whilst Reinette’s world is the one that brings colour and texture. That last-scene dematerialisation shows that the TARDIS, and the journeys it represents, have literally obstructed the Doctor’s awareness of, and entry into, such a world. (What does this say about the programme itself, by the way? This isn’t Carnival of Monsters, otherwise I’d get a bit carried away with some of its self-aware features, picking out the points at which these doors and mirrors become screens, and wondering whether the detritus on the floor after the death of the fireplace is, as it appeared at first, reels of film.)

The connection between the Doctor and Reinette is so powerful because it is two-way (as she says, ‘A door once opened may be stepped through in either direction’). Meeting Sarah-Jane in School Reunion brought Rose up against barriers in her relationship with the Doctor, but for Reinette such barriers are mutable: she reverses his gaze just as the one-way mirrors become two-way mirrors, culminating in the simple but effectively jarring moment in which she steps from her world into his. It’s even more jarring because it echoes Reinette reading the Doctor’s mind – entering the Doctor’s world is the point when the symbolism relating to letting people in pays off, and she is left in a corridor with others who will ultimately be frozen out of his life. Throughout …Fireplace, walls and doors intermingle, obstacles are by turns transitory and permanent. That last sentence shows up a further parallel: the situation between the Doctor and Reinette obviously foreshadows what will happen between the Doctor and Rose in Doomsday, with a magic door that becomes a wall that closes forever. Whether this is because Davies was, ahem, inspired by Moffat, or because Davies asked Moffat to foreshadow that ending, is a moot point, and one which I’ll end by, er, mooting.

Moffat has influenced the development of new Who, but only a rabidly anti-Davies critic could ignore the influences running in the other direction. Moffat respects Davies, and his approach to Doctor Who. Davies is the guv’nor – he’s the ‘showrunner’ in American terms, and the work of individual authors such as Moffat is located within the overall plan (dare I say ‘story arc’?). Moffat’s Doctor Who scripts so far originated in proposals by Davies: Davies provided settings and characters (Captain Jack, Madame de Pompadour) and requested particular styles and tones, casting Moffat for a greater wit and emotional heart. Looking back at that quote about Chekhov earlier, there’s a Beckett line that sums up one of the themes of Season Two (which is why I used it, not to invite a problematic comparison between Moffat and Chekhov): time as the ‘doubleheaded monster of damnation and salvation’. The fact that Russell T Davies virtually quotes this in his description of the Doctor at the end of Love & Monsters (although this is again unsubtle telling, in this case to-camera, rather than Moffat’s showing) dovetails beautifully with …Fireplace.
It’s hard to quantify just how much of the impact of …Fireplace is owed to the overarching strategy imposed by Davies to prepare the audience for the departure of Rose, and is heightened by its sequencing alongside School Reunion. This is not to understate Moffat’s achievement, but to praise him even more highly. Davies told Doctor Who Magazine recently that he has rewritten scripts by several writers for Doctor Who and Torchwood, but would not interfere with such respected senior writers as Moffat and Matthew Graham (intimating that they would not have become involved otherwise). However, this respect would not prevent Davies from rewriting something that was weak (and Graham was quickly driven away from his initial alien planet idea), or which did not subscribe to Davies’s vision. Younger, lesser writers work to fulfil detailed briefs, which at worst can result in them simply filling the dots: producing scripts which Davies would write himself if he had time, which he rewrites to his own specifications, pads out with better scenes and essentially writes by proxy (going by the episodes themselves, I’d possibly unfairly suggest Tom McRae as an example of this). With Moffat, the emphasis is different: he has taken a brief, served it to the satisfaction of the boss but also made it distinctively his own. For writers of any merit, maintaining individuality and identity remains one of the hardest parts of writing for continuing series with detailed formats. Moffat has stamped a firm imprint on Doctor Who, and may do so from a slightly more executive position as the series continues.
Meanwhile, the Doctor’s character has further hurdles to come. Moffat paraphrased a line from one of Paul Cornell’s New Adventures when the Doctor told Reinette that he was what monsters had nightmares about. However, in light of this adventure, I’d also borrow a quotation from Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception which Cornell uses as an epigram in his New Adventure Revelation: ‘The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out.’

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THE LATEST UPGRADE

RISE OF THE CYBERMEN/THE AGE OF STEEL: Sean Alexander

Unlike Rob Shearman, whose Who credentials as both fan and writer stretched back long before scripting the similarly icon-reinventing ‘Dalek’ of last year, Tom MacRae’s exposure to the show’s mythology is curiously scant given the task of resurrecting another of the show’s fundamental jigsaw pieces. Which is no bad thing, seeing as ‘Rise of the Cybermen’ strips down the over-convoluted Cyber-history that the original show often seemed to drown under, leaving instead the original concept of a race of technological pioneers gone bad. The fact that this all takes place in one of those handy ‘parallel worlds’ also allows those who worry about such things to reconcile ‘established’ continuity with this bottom-up ret-conning of the steel giants.
One thing that can’t be denied is that ‘Rise of the Cybermen’ thinks big; whether it be in the visual splendour of giant zeppelins floating in the alternate London’s skyline, or in Roger Lloyd-Pack’s somewhat arch performance as Cyber-daddy John Lumic. Opinions are much divided on this last point, but given that much of ‘Rise of the Cybermen’ - both as eye-candy and in thematic terms - wants to ape the James Bond aesthetic of the classic Connery and Moore eras, then his gravely-voiced puns hardly look out of place. It isn’t just from Bond that the opening instalment draws its resonance; not for the first time in Who’s deeply-rooted history there’s more than a passing nod at Frankenstein, especially in the pre-credit ‘awakening’ of Lumic’s creation and his labelling of them as his ‘children’ and like Mary Shelley’s seminal science-fiction novel, the creation of the Cybermen here - much as it was way back in Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis’ original genesis - comes from a very human desire to hold back death and cure disease.
Of course this being new Doctor Who, we’re never very far from the issues of family and filial responsibilities either. Given the opportunities that this ‘Gingerbread House’ of a parallel Earth affords, the TARDIS crew’s first impulse is to check out the potential ‘second chances’ that circumstance has given them. So while Rose gets to play the ’getting to know her dead Dad’ game all over again , Mickey gets to similarly check out his no-longer-dead Grandmother. What’s jarring most about this - given the pivotal role he’s played for the past year as Rose’s domestic anchor - is just how little about Mickey’s background we know; and how well Noel Clarke rises to the occasion when finally given some decent material to get his teeth into. The scene where he meets his alternate Gran and alludes to the guilt he feels for the death of her ‘real-world’ counterpart is genuinely moving and only elicits further regret that the production team waited until they knew Noel Clarke was leaving before giving him something more than the whinging, spare-part persona that, sadly, most viewers will always remember Mickey for.
The parallel world scenario has been a much favoured tool of many a science-fiction show, Doctor Who included. And as in ‘Inferno’, much of the fun of this episode comes from seeing regular characters in a slightly different light (though, would there really be a Cuba Gooding jnr in a parallel world?). There’s also a deliciously subversive swipe at society’s ongoing obsession with the latest electronic gizmo, be it mobile phones or I-pods, not to mention how Cybus Industries - and you can take your pick from any of a dozen or so contemporary corporations here - manipulates even government to its own ends. That Mickey’s alternate, Ricky, leads a rag-tag group of technology-luddites called ‘The Preachers’ is as much a critique on allowing technology to dominate your life as it is a metaphor for freedom being something you must earn, rather than have it bestowed.
What really holds ‘Rise of the Cybermen’ together is the welcome return to directorial duties of 80s maestro Graeme Harper. Given that he made his shoestring efforts of the mid-eighties look like Hollywood blockbusters, it comes as little surprise to find that a much bigger budget allows Harper’s trademark flourishes to shine. But this is a director for whom restraint is as important as grandstand spectacle; witness the tight close-ups that he uses on Lumic’s face - very similar to the shots of Stengos’ mutant-encased head from ‘Revelation…’ - and how Harper really makes us wait before revealing the new-look Cybermen in all their art-deco glory; offering only a teardrop here and a chest-unit there. Most glorious is the neat foreshadowing of the iconic ‘handlebar’ design with the ear-pod headpiece sported by alternate Jackie. To top it all we’ve got a splendid cast to flesh out the proceedings - from Harper favourite Colin Spaull as Lumic-henchman Mr Crane, to a typically mannered and charismatic turn from Don Warrington as the doomed President. Then there’s some typically Harper-esque black humour - you’ll never hear ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ in quite the same way again - and the sight of David Tennant in a tux just for those viewers who hadn’t got the James Bond allusions already. And finally a cliff-hanger that actually lives up to its name; the power of which comes not so much from the sight of our heroes completely surrounded by Cybermen, but from the way the Doctor literally begs them to surrender.
You can usually judge the quality of a good cliff-hanger by how poorly it is resolved the following week. And ‘The Age of Steel’ is no exception. One minute the Doctor’s looking death in the face with seemingly no way out; the next he’s blasting away a whole semi-circle of Cybermen with some little gizmo from the TARDIS that he just happened to have with him on recharge. Still, at least the way the Cybermen disintegrate is consistent with the similarly vortex-vanquished Daleks in ‘The Parting of the Ways’.
The biggest disappointment about ‘The Age of Steel’ is its meek willingness to be little more than a run-around. It’s hardly alone in starting the second part of a new Who with the cast running about like headless chickens, but whereas the likes of ‘The Doctor Dances’ settled down to produce some thoughtful, even heart-warming, TV, ‘The Age of Steel’ wears its meandering colours on its sleeve. Never more so than with the ‘Five Doctors’ style pairing off of the principals into an above-between-below assault on the Cyber-factory. In fact the only surprise in the whole forty-five minutes is the death of Ricky so soon into proceedings; it’s a good job that Mickey has somewhat inexplicably already donned a replica of his outfit!
If the script’s run out of ideas, then at least Graeme Harper hasn’t. Finally given free reign to depict the show’s steel giants after some well-judged restraint in part one, Harper is quick to fetishise the Cybermen; from their newly-sculpted skull-like visages to the militaristic marching that makes their approach a little too noisy to spring any surprise. On which point, I can’t remember the Cybermen of old being so regimented, and it’s one addition to their mythos here that clearly isn’t an improvement. And the Doctor and Mrs Moore really should have heard that one creeping up behind them, shouldn’t they? Still, at least those scenes of the Doctor and Mrs Moore in the sewers - sorry, I mean cooling tunnels - are atmospheric and more than a little reminiscent of previous Cyber-adventures ‘The Invasion’ and ‘Tomb…’.
The episode does at least remember that Cybermen are best illustrated by what they’ve lost rather than what they’ve gained. If ‘The Age of Steel’ has any kind of philosophy it’s that emotions - as painful as they sometimes are - are what make us human; with even the Doctor’s own experiences of loss in the Time War throwing such ideology into sharp relief. Coupled with the story’s underlying theme of technological advancement signalling ‘progress’, it’s heartening to see that the idea behind the Cybermen remains as fresh today as their inception back in the 1960s. Then their creation was fuelled by a fear of spare-part surgery; now they’re as much the ultimate expression of the human need to ‘upgrade’ itself as anything else.
I doubt that this is the last we’ll see of Mickey; not to mention the rest of this parallel Earth but it’s to be earnestly hoped that Who doesn’t fall down the same trap that Star Trek did in making a parallel Earth as easily accessible as the corner shop! And one final thing. Seeing as the episode ends with Mickey and Jake heading off into a Max & Paddy-style trek to Paris, does anyone else wonder what happened to Ricky’s Gran and that troublesome stair-carpet? I mean, she was the whole reason that Mickey wanted to stay behind and take his counterpart’s place, wasn’t she..?

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CORONATION TREAT

THE IDIOT'S LANTERN: Tim Worthington

If anyone knows their ancient black and white television sci-fi shows, it's Mark Gatiss and The Idiot's Lantern, is a clear homage to this particular oft-overlooked strain of sci-fi. While his work with The League Of Gentlemen is awash with references to classic British horror films, Gatiss himself also has a pronounced fondness for the Quatermass serials, A For Andromeda, Night Of The Big Heat, The Trollenberg Terror and any other monochrome gem containing an overabundance of research stations, indecipherable signals from outer space, and men in long coats from 'The Ministry'.
His enthusiasm for Professor Quatermass and his flickeringly-telerecorded chums is easy to understand; even despite the mannerisms and technical limitations of the age, these are all terrific shows that display remarkable imagination and superb directed, often relying on little more than lighting and shadows to create a sense of terror. But does their influence have any place in a programme that has purposefully reinvented itself and abandoned all of the perceived limitations and shortcomings of 'classic' BBC science fiction? Recent BBC4 remakes of The Quatermass Experiment and - slightly less successfully - A For Andromeda have stayed true to the original storylines but have given them a thoroughly modern interpretation. And that's straightforward 'modern', as opposed to the trying-to-appeal-to-all-ages dialogue and excessive application of cutting edge technology to be found in present day Doctor Who.
Countless articles in ancient issues of Doctor Who Magazine may have repeatedly proclaimed it as the 'great grandfather' of the adventures of the TARDIS crew, but in a less abstract sense Doctor Who is about as far removed from the original version of The Quatermass Experiment as it's possible for small-screen science fiction to be. For a start there have been countless technological advances in the intervening years, and the Doctor and Rose weren't exactly likely to be going out live and in black and white, let alone struggling with ten-minute plus single takes on one small set (or indeed battling with a giant radioactive fly landing on the broadcast equipment). The new series also relies just as much on visual spectacle as it does on atmosphere and ambience, which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but isn't really suited to the style of storytelling being pastiched. On top of that, with the best will in the world, the average script for new Doctor Who is hardly on a par with the work of Fred Hoyle or Nigel Kneale (who reputedly hated Doctor Who and turned down repeated requests to contribute to it, so Lord alone knows what he makes of the new version).
If anyone can pull this ambitious conceit off, though, it's Mark Gatiss. Not only does he have a genuine affection for the source material, with the previous series' The Unquiet Dead he proved himself the most adept writer so far at reconnecting this all-singing all-dancing all-too-much-bloody-CGI concept with the dramatic values and stylistic devices that had characterised the best moments of the show's past. While The Unquiet Dead was where the first series really found its feet after a couple of decidedly patchy opening episodes, this run has already seen two undisputed fully certified moments of greatness - Tooth And Claw and The Girl In The Fireplace - so there was less pressure for The Idiot's Lantern to do something truly spectacular.
What The Idiot's Lantern did achieve, though, was something far more remarkable. Whether by accident or design, the writer, the production team and the performers all managed to finally perfect that 'retro sci-fi' template that former producer John Nathan-Turner was striving towards in so many of his later stories. Although JNT, bless him, was forever hampered by budgetary and technological interference from BBC 'Top Brass', brainless scheduling, dodgy casting decisions and his own inability to see that contrived 'celebrity' cameos by people who weren't even that well known were never a good idea, he always desperately wanted to produce something that could simultaneously appeal to both lovers of cerebral science fiction and family audiences while still staying on the right side of programme planners with their brow furrowed over John Birt's latest nonsensical bureaucratic comissioning edict. There's no denying that he was adept at all of these, including on very rare occasions the last one, but what he could never really manage to do was to make them work together. If he'd been given an 'adult' sci-fi slot to play with the results would at the very least have been less akin to watching the world's slowest-drying paint than Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts' Moonbase 3, and (as this writer has speculated on numerous previous occasions) only a couple of years later he'd have been right at home in the 1950s-tinged world of massive viewing figures for Heartbeat and The Darling Buds Of May, but attempts to bridge the two with Doctor Who never quite worked.
That's not to say that the results weren't often good, as best evidenced by Remembrance Of The Daleks and Delta And The Bannermen, but as great as such stories may have been, they were really just an indication of what could have been achieved with more available time and resources. New Doctor Who, of course, has both of these in droves, and as such there was never any question of being unable to match a well-realised script with suitably well-realised visuals - witness how closely the opening scenes resembled those of Remembrance Of The Daleks with a touch more visual panache. The storyline itself was hardly the most original of plot devices, calling to mind reference points as diverse as the Ace Of Wands story The Beautiful People (itself more than a little indebted to Doctor Who's own Terror Of The Autons), that episode of Angel where he gets turned into a puppet, and most disconcertingly - if probably unintentionally - Life On Mars. However the script was so well-realised that this didn't really matter at all. Rather than directly pastiche the source material and cast The Doctor and Rose as hapless bystanders whilst a small army of government scientists did all the work, Gatiss opted instead to set the episode amongst the backdrop of 'real' Britain, the ordinary men and women whom the Quatermass serials and their ilk only ever really featured as gawping onlookers at archaeological digs or, on rare occasions, hard-of-thinking interviewees in comic interludes. This had the effect of retaining the flavour of those ancient sci-fi serials whilst giving the main characters something tangible and substantial to interact with, something that was much needed as frankly Rose has been standing around like a spare Polly in a Troughton story far too often of late.
There were inevitably a couple of minus points; it would have been far better to show the trapped characters wandering around aimlessly in some sort of parody of the BBC's interminable 'interlude' films of the era, as the wailing faces against blackness lacked dramatic impact and simply didn't look very good. On the more nitpicky side, having the television announcer character repeat what were actually popular radio phrases (and famously so) was rather distracting, and Maureen Lipman tended to camp up her performance a little too much, veering towards a Fenella Fielding style of delivery when the clipped, emotionless authoritarian tones of the postwar BBC would have proved a lot more chilling. Gatiss' 'discovery' of Women's Lib was also a little hard to avoid wincing at, although at least it's a step up from the worrying undercurrent of violent misogyny to be found in the average episode of The League Of Gentlemen.
Having already succeeded in translating the Hinchcliffe-era Gothic horror-comedy overtones into the modern format with The Unquiet Dead, Mark Gatiss has now done what many indignant JNT-bashers would have doubtless have deemed impossible, and belatedly made good on the tragically overlooked promise of the ailing last couple of years of original Doctor Who. Here's hoping that he fancies having a go at a series five-style techno-chiller, or even a First Doctor-style pure historical yarn, next time round. Upon which we can all start speculating about those copies of Marco Polo he has stashed away somewhere.

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TALK OF THE DEVIL

THE IMPOSSIBLE PLANET/THE SATAN PIT: Chris Orton

This is more like it! This is what new Doctor Who should be doing – going out and exploring the strange and wonderful farthest reaches of  the universe, not be shackled to a South London council estate every  few episodes. We want to have proper adventures across time and space and not just alien invasions of Earth. For only the second time in the new series we get to travel to an alien world, and for this outing the viewer joins the Doctor and Rose in their  jaunt to the far-flung Sanctuary Base, where a group of intrepid  human explorers are attempting to discover the secrets of the planet  on which they find themselves. Rather than merely being a new version of Earth (like the planet that we saw in the season opener), this 
planet is truly alien and feels genuinely dangerous. There is none of the familiarity  or comfort of home that New Earth provided. In fact, this is the first episode of the revived Who that does not feature Earth at all.  We also have a story in which the Doctor comes face-to-face  with an enemy so much bigger than any of those. An enemy even bigger and more deadly than those most recognisable Doctor Who villains, the  Daleks. Having been on a number of adventures together now the Tenth  Doctor and Rose seem closer here than they have ever been before, and  this journey is something of a voyage of discovery for them both,  involving for the Doctor at one point, a quite literal leap of faith. When the TARDIS bumpily lands at the start of the adventure the  Doctor and Rose genuinely have no idea where they are it is not long  at all before the pair find themselves immersed in the lives of the  people that they meet there. As has been the case many times before, his newfound associates immediately accept the Doctor, and quite soon we are at the heart of a rip-roaring adventure. The base immediately comes across as a real working environment, and Russell T. Davies has got it dead right when says that he wanted the place to have a dirty, industrial feel. There are lots of flashing light, jets of steam and plenty of machinery. Ed Thomas and his team (as well as the location managers) have managed to come up with a series of sets that really do feel as if they are bona fide. The feel of the film Alien is supposed to have been something of an influence on this pair of episodes, but for this reviewer things feel even more real than that. The use of a real factory to represent part of Sanctuary Base only adds to this sense of realism.
When the Doctor and Rose arrive they find a team who are exploring for the sake of exploring; curious adventurers who want to know why the planet can exist beneath a black hole without being sucked in to it. They aren’t doing what they are doing for personal 
glory or for wealth, but merely because they are inquisitive and the Doctor revels in this attitude – a far cry from the derisory snorts that the Ninth Doctor used to have for humans. The Doctor and Rose get the chance to see the wondrous sight of the black hole, and are 
warned that the sight of it has driven people insane in the past. It isn’t long until very strange things begin to happen though. The base is shaken by an impact wave, causing similar effects to that of an earthquake, while one of the team – Toby Zed - begins to hear voices 
in his head. For most of the first episode things feel very tense, with nobody quite sure what is going on and why the planet can exist beneath a black hole. The early scenes have quite a similar feel to The Robots of Death, in that there is a group of humans isolated years away from everything in a dangerous working environment.
As in Robots , the human are being waited on by a seemingly subservient race  of slaves. The Ood are content to remain slaves because they know no different: they cook, clean, tidy, fix and wait on for the human staff and are happy to do so. The comparison can be taken further in that the Ood speak in a similar, polite way to the Super Voc robots from the Tom Baker story. The Ood are a nicely realised clone slave  race from the mind of Neill Gorton’s design studios. Their faces look intricate and detailed, with creatures from the sea being brought to mind. The elaborate masks contrast well with the bland and functional boiler suits that they are all dressed in. We learn that the Ood are empaths and communicate with each other telepathically, and it is this that leads to them being influenced by the Beast. When they turn nasty, the simple device of turning their eyes red does enough to make the apparently harmless Ood genuinely threatening.  Coupled to this, their apparently innocuous translation devices somehow become deadly killing instruments. Unfortunately for the Ood  none of them manage to survive the climactic events of the story.  This is a bit of shame, as it seems to reinforce the view that the life of a slave is not worth a great deal. Zachary thinks differently 
though as when he records the final record of the base he lists the  Ood amongst those who died with honours.
Of the big bad villain in the story we don’t actually learn a great deal. We do not discover exactly who or what the villain is and it is left to the viewer to make up his or her own minds as to whether the Beast in the pit really is Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub or merely the idea that influenced the many different versions of the myth. Nor do we learn about who captured the Beast, but they must obviously have been an extremely powerful race. Questions are posed and left for the viewer to answer in their own way, although pointers are given to the audience in that the number 6 is all found over during the story and one of the two parts was broadcast in the week that contained 6.6.06.  Christian themes and biblical misquotes are scattered throughout the episodes too, with many references to hell.
The Mill really go to town in this pair of episodes and have pulled out all of the stops to create a believable environment, nowhere more so than with the Beast. It is very well realised indeed, and is quite possibly a little too scary for very small viewers. Due to the size and scale of the cavern in which it is located the viewer gets the impression that this creature really is massive. Before the series aired, the production team made mention of the fact that for the first time in new Doctor Who they were going to use a quarry to shoot in, and by doing the filming at night the environment comes across very impressively as the alien landscape. The Mill work their magic on the scenes set in the pit too, with grand statues lining the edges of the space. The black hole is another triumph of CGI too – who cares if it isn’t a scientifically accurate representation of a black hole? It looks good and that is all that matters. It isn’t the first time that Doctor Who has featured black holes, but this story makes the best use of the idea. Particularly good effects-wise is the scene in which the unfortunate Scooti is sucked into the hole having been killed by the Beast-influenced Toby. A combination of CGI and a physical underwater effect involving the actress  MyAnna Burling the  idea works exceptionally well.
The cast that director James Strong has assembled is uniformly good, with special mention going to Shaun Parkes as the base de facto leader Zachary Cross Flame. Despite being confined to one room and not involved in the action for much of the time, Parkes invests his
character with a real drive to succeed and Zachary makes for a good makeshift leader of the team. Ex-Casualty regular Will Thorpe is eerily frightening as the possessed Toby, with the make-up and red contact lenses that are used for his transformation adding well to the overall effect. Alien3 veteran Danny Webb is impressive as the doomed security office Jefferson. The rest of the cast have a little less to do, but they all feel like valued members of the Base team.  Only two of the team live to survive the events of the story, Zachary and Danny who manage to escape from the planet on a rocket. And of course, this pair of episodes heralds the return of Gabriel Woolf to the world of Doctor Who. His performance as the beast shows that he still has one of the best and most distinctive voices around. The beast speaks with a deep, rich voice that carries with it menace and threat. Musically, these episodes have some rather good music from Murray Gold. In the past he has perhaps been a little to heavy-handed with his use of incidental music (not to mention TOO LOUD), but the sounds and themes that he uses here seem to fit like a glove.  Throughout the two episodes there is the recurrent use of a solo violin, which works well, and the overall feel of the music sounds quite similar at times to the kind of soundtrack that was used on the short-lived US series Firefly.
Over the last few episodes David Tennant has grown into the role of the Doctor, but it still seems to be the case that he is much better when he is playing a more pensive, reflective version of the Time Lord. The scenes in which he dangles into the pit on a rope talking to Ida work very well indeed, but less convincing are the scenes in which he is required to portray anger – a problem that people have accused Sylvester McCoy of having in the past. Billie is good too, but during this season it does not seem as though Rose has been particularly well served by the storylines as quite often she is not given very much to do. For quite a while in this story she is restricted to speaking to the Doctor via a walkie-talkie, and then when she does get some action scenes she spends much of the time crawling around in service ducts.
This pair of episodes really does work very well indeed. They are exciting, they are dangerous, they are well acted, well directed and the effects look very good indeed. Two-part stories give things a chance to unfold at a more sensible pace than trying to cram
everything into a single forty-five minute instalment. Director of Photography Ernie Vincze deserves a mention for his work on this pair of episodes too.
We should have more of this kind of rip-roaring, dangerous adventuring in the new series of Doctor Who and more two-parters  would be nice too. And bring back James Strong for Season Three!

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WHATEVER LOVE MEANS

LOVE AND MONSTERS: Sean Alexander

Here are just some of the perceived notions about episode ten of this second series: it’s an embarrassment; it’s a less than veiled dig at the anality of Doctor Who fans; it alienates even the casual viewer with slapstick humour, a monster designed by a nine-year-old and stunt-casting to make Ked Dodd’s 80s turn look like artistic creativity. Don’t believe a word of it. This is perhaps the most beautiful piece of television - let alone Doctor Who - that you’re likely to see this year.
So for all you nay-sayers, cynics and tunnel-visioners whose only acceptance of our programme is the tried-and-tested formula of base-under-siege, alien invasion, gothic horror (I could go on) templates of the past forty-plus years, here is the key if you want to stop worrying and love ‘Love and Monsters’: it’s not even an episode of Doctor Who; it’s an episode about loving Doctor Who.
Every modern genre programme’s done it, so why should ours be any exception: relegate the regulars to the status of bit-part players in their own show, whilst highlighting the Doctor’s world in a way that the viewers see it. It’s the sort of ninety-degree angle that the likes of The X Files (‘Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’’) and Buffy (‘Normal Again’) did to great critical success; and the only real shock comes from the realisation that it’s taken so long to have such a heartfelt pop at the show’s many and multifarious icons. If John Nathan-Turner had commissioned this story back in the late 80s, no doubt it would have been held up as either a brave experiment or the final nail in the show’s coffin of dramatic credibility. Today it has divided fandom on the merits or otherwise of Russell T Davies-visioned Who.
So, what makes this particular piece of Doctor Who rise above so much of the traditional - yet often dull - fare we have already been served up this season? Well, despite the faults that both this and many of his scripts have had these past two years (faults too numerous to go into here) there’s one thing you can say is never lacking in a Russell T Davies script; and that’s heart. Whether it be in the oh-so painfully accurate depiction of LI‘n’DA’s mix of misfits and lost souls - and hey, that’s us people, in case you were feeling too superior to notice - or in the sweet and tender romance that blossoms between Marc Warren’s Elton and Shirley Henderson’s Ursula (giving the sort of sweet-but-slightly-scary performance she seems to have forged a career out of) it’s pretty certain that you’ll spend most of the time watching ‘Love & Monsters’ with either a smile on your face or a lump in your throat, often both at the same time. If ever you thought that the show’s chief architect was losing touch with the childhood touchstone that he (like us) has loved since a child and which he resurrected with such style and passion, then fear no more. ‘Love & Monsters’ is arguably the most unashamed love-letter to both a television programme and its passionate enthusiasts as you’re ever likely to see.
How it achieves such resonance is nothing if not a curiosity, given that arguably the show’s two icons - the Doctor and Rose - are hardly present, other than in a shared communal obsession amongst the episode’s supporting cast. On which note, it has to be said that ‘Love & Monsters’ ability to navigate its fine line between rejoice and ridicule rests squarely on the shoulders of just one performer: Marc Warren. Had this been a horribly stereotypical depiction of a Doctor Who fan as some reclusive loner then no doubt even the most sane-minded aspects of fandom would have been baying for Russell T Davies’ blood. But the mix of Warren’s shy, sweet (and yes, nerdy) performance with Davies’ own reverence for a sub-culture that kept their belief and passion alive, despite living for oh-so long in a televisual wilderness, shines through like a beacon.
Because - if you hadn’t guessed already - ‘Love & Monsters’ is not about an alien who absorbs people, despite the focus that both Blue Peter and a certain northern comedian’s casting in the role would have you believe. It’s about the shared passion that brings a disparate group of individuals together and the beautiful friendships - and more - that develop as a result. It’s also about the huge part that Doctor Who has played in its enthusiasts’ lives right from their formative years (like Elton, most fans’ first experience of the Doctor is in the living rooms of their childhood homes). Who else nodded their heads in agreement at Elton’s description of the TARDIS’ engines as ‘the most beautiful sound in the world’? Or laughed at how his video diary sacrificed narrative cohesion for the purposes of kinetic spectacle (on which point, even Elton’s perception of the Doctor and Rose’s slapstick running around could arguably be explained away as some heightened view of the time-traveller’s world)?
if there’s an underlying metaphor for ‘Love & Monsters’ - and indeed Doctor Who as a whole - it’s in being touched. Whether it be Victor Kennedy’s ec-zee-ma-induced inability to touch people, the Abzorbaloff’s signature trait that with ‘just one touch’ absorbs its victims, or in Ursula’s painfully sad regret at Elton no longer being able to ‘touch her’, the episode equates both physical and emotional contact as something quite profound (and how fitting that Elton’s first reaction on seeing the TARDIS is to touch it…). Even the sensitively handled interlude involving Jackie Tyler’s loneliness is endemic of this perception of human contact being the most important thing there is. On which point, how refreshing was it to finally see Camille Coduri given something with more meat than the usual domestic anchor role her part as Rose’s abandoned mother usually affords. That she rises to the occasion with a performance so warm and sympathetic only causes greater regret that something better wasn’t done with her character sooner.
If all this lovey-dovey, touchy-feely stuff’s too much for you, there is of course the ‘monster’ aspect of ‘Love & Monsters’. Which bring us to the Abzorbaloff. Now, it’s a neat idea to be fair: a creature that literally absorbs its victims, leaving their tortured visages on display around its gross, green bulk. In practice - given the mix of Peter Kay in a fat-suit, the Travis Bickle-style Mohawk and an accent straight out of a John Smiths beer ad. (oh, I’m forgetting…every planet’s got a North, hasn’t it Russell) - it’s utterly ridiculous but, strangely, entirely in keeping with the rest of the episode’s leftfield view of the show’s format. Peter Kay himself is actually very funny, whether it’s as the thinly-veiled uber-fan that we’ll all secretly recognise, or as the clichéd eye-rolling monster that he gives a unique working-class spin to. And as childhood experience taught us, if we can laugh at the monsters as well as cower from them, then they’ll be that little bit less scary, won’t they?
All of which is arguably little more than mere window-dressing for the episode’s fundamental themes of love and loss. And never more so than in the denouement revealing that Elton’s formative encounter with the Doctor hides the painful memory of his mother’s death. It’s here that Davies’ script reaches a zenith if emotional resonance, as his eulogy to his own dead mother - who died while the current Who-meister was scripting Mine All Mine - reminds us, like Doctor Who itself, of the little boy (and girl) in all of us. Even the cynical and the unconverted shouldn’t have had a dry eye by this point. Plus, I’ve not even mentioned the sublime ELO soundtrack that underpins everything - surely Mr Blue Sky is now on the personal soundtrack of every Who aficionado’s heart - or the slightly dark ending which reminds us all of the ongoing price to pay when the Doctor’s dangerous lifestyle touches you, even for a second.
So, that’s ‘Love & Monsters’ , once again: let go of your prejudices and open your heart. And love it. I promise you won’t regret doing so.

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PAPER CUTS

FEAR HER: Chris Arnsby

lf you can spot trends in a series that is only two years old then it looks as if each season there will be one episode that is overlooked by the audience because of its position before the big series finale and because it seems to have been written as a relatively low budget script to allow money to be spent elsewhere. Last year it was Bad Wolf, this year it's Fear Her.
Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way first. Yes, this is the story that ends with the Doctor lighting the Olympic flame. It's not great and it's not helped by Huw Edwards' performance or the lines he is given to say. While the produsion team's desire to add an air of authenticity to the news reports is understandable, this is probably one of those times when an actor would have been able to handle the script more effectively. Alternatively if the script had been structured to give more focus to "the battle of Torchwood" (instead of a single reference buried almost inaudibly in the background) then the news reports could have explained how in the years after the events of Army of Ghosts and Doomsday (obviously without giving away what those terrible events were) the London Olympics became a focus for people as they rebuilt their lives and might have put all that 'it's a symbol of love" guff more into context and of course act as a tasty teaser for the story to come. What makes Fear Her so interesting are some of the concepts that it is playing with. Doctor who has always set out to scare kids but there seem to have been a lot of stories or scenes this year that were written purely to play on childhood fears. Hospitals in New Earth the literal cloister under the beds scene in The Girl In The Fireplace television in The idiot's Lantern (this is, presumably, the point where I discover that I was the only
person in the country to believe Noel Edmonds when he used to claim that he could see through the tv set and spot people watching Swap Shop in their pyjamas) but in a way Fear Her is almost the purest example of this.
lt's easy to make a werewolf scary', it just has to eat someone. It's easy to be scary in an alien environment; both eighteenth century France and 1950s London are so unfamiliar as to almost be alien places to most people. It's easy to scare by turning out the lights. But to bring the scares home to a modern brightly lit house in a street like the one the audience lives in takes a lot of nerve because it's incredibly hard to do. Equally, having an abusive dad as the monster is an astonishingly dark thing for a family show to do and it's not just the children that Fear Her is targeting. With its scenes of children disappearing from safe suburban streets it's also aiming itself squarely at the watching adults. There's even a hint - and I'll grant you that I may be reaching on this one - that the little girl Chloe has simply switched one abusive relationship for another. The Isolus may claim to be Chloe's friend but it's using her for its own ends playing on her fear of being alone and telling her that it is doing it out of love.
There's a lot to like about Fear Her; not just it's ideas. Abisola Agbaje puts in an excellent performance as Chloe and the Isolus. She manages to keep both characters separate, allowing you to feel sorry for this scared, lonely little girl and angry at the selfishness of the Isolus, who rejects the Doctor's attempts to help and at the end is quite happy to abandon this girl, who it had claimed was its friend, when a way of escape comes along.
Maybe the execution of the episode isn't always up to scratch and judging by the reaction on the internet it's true that there are a lot of people who feel that it isn't, but reading some of the comments made by people after Fear Her aired it was depressing to see the number of people who didn't even want to talk about the show, preferring instead just to rave about the Next Week trailer.
Fear Her deserves better than to just be remembered as that one where the Doctor saves the Olympics, but it's position right in front of the story in which the Daleks and Cybermen face off in Canary Wharf means that it's probably going to be overlooked for a while yet.

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EXIT STRATEGIES

ARMY OF GHOSTS/DOOMSDAY: Anthony Malone

UNIT had a cooler HQ. Come to think of it, so did that cackling ham Lumic, who was so rubbish he knocked about in a zeppelin that didn't have wheelchair access. With Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, Torchwood finally made splash down and guess what? lt looked like an internet cafe and the behind the scenes bit of an Argos store. Ooh, scary.
Year two of Diet Doctor Who ended with yet another postcard from Battlefield London, this time with one successfully reborn enemy duking it out (as far as anyone is ever likely to ''duke it out'' in a Russell T Davies script) with another somewhat less successfully upgraded familiar face. As with New Earth, this twoparter had a wearying manifesto: provide a spectacle, write out (you think?) Rose Tyler and her no-tail family, set up an entire spin-off series, lead in to Chrimbo Special v2 and pray to God that the bubble doesn't burst. With so many plates spinning the biggest surprise was what a blast it all was. After Fear Her there was cause for concern.
Is it churlish to pick holes in something so popular, so unpretentious, so full of joie de vivre? The relaunched Cybermen was a ground-up redo of such epic wrongness even Graeme Harper couldn't make them work and their return in AOG/Doomsday was not exactly feverishly anticipated (except by 7 million viewers - ed). Whoever pointed to the concept drawing and said "Yep, that's the one'' should be shoved down the Satan Pit along with whoever leaked the Cyberman/Dalek spoiler pic. Sounding like Nick Briggs after a tracheotomy and stomping around the place like an army of constipated Krytens this was, with the possible exception of the Slitheen, the first real indication that the instincts of Team Cardiff are not always on the button. Up against Daleks with bulletproof forcefields any drama in the encounter was quickly thwarted; Lumic's upgrades were scrap metal the second that ball bearing opened. The shoot-outs were deliciously realised. if sparingly deployed but given the premise of a Dalek/Cyberman dust up it did seem a little, well, local. No visions of a scorched Earth for us this year. However, it was nice to see that the boys at The Mill (and they are all boys, aren't they?) have 'Generate Dalek Army' and 'Blitz London buttons, though.
Although Moffat had already done 'sci-fi macguffin causes Doctor Kiddult to lose love of his life' and Macrae/Platt 'self-aware Cybergirl mourns loss of humanity', that didn't stop Dangerous Davies doing a remix, although in this case Rose Tyler at least made it out alive, despite what the Timotei ad at the beginning wanted us to believe. Rose Tyler? Rubbish fate. So, Rose is going to send her CV to an acquisitive organisation that shoots down fleeing spaceships and appropriates foreign technology for military purposes? Nice work Doc, Better pray the parallel Torchwood has a conscience. AlI told. it's difficult not to feel strangely blah at Rose's departure - she is, after all just losing her chauffeur - and the character was poorly served this year, Nevertheless, Piper has played a difficult wicket far better than anyone imagined she would and she's clearly going places. Unfortunately, on the basis of Spirit Trap and Things To Do Before You're 30 it's straight to video so here's hoping Philip Pullman can work his magic.
The dimensionally transcendental prison ship was a nice idea but God knows why it was called the Genesis Ark (although it did raise the prospect of Ricardo Montalban stepping out and hissing ''I spit at thee" and the image of the Daleks and Cybermen being flushed down the Time Toilet was great fun; mad and delirious and with a barmy disregard for logic which pretty much sums up the series although nul points for ''Emergency Temporal shift"; glib writing from the recipient of the 2006 Dennis Potter Award. Russell T Davies has said ''the motor of all drama is sex'' and yes when l'm watching Cavegirl I'm not thinking about dinosaurs but really this is a surprisingly unsophisticated opinion from someone in his position. Music to the ears of those compiling World's Curviest Celebs lists, of course, but ominously, it suggests we haven't seen the back of the Ick Factor or indeed, John Barrowman discussing bisexuality on Newsround.
Noel Clarke. Very, very underestimated. A man who has embraced fandom, deigned to appear in disposable Tardisodes and spent his free time winding up the Daily Mail by making ''Kidulthood" - he had bigger acting challenges this year than La Piper and went about them with aplomb. He gets less to do in AOG|/Doomsday but his reappearance was nonetheless agreeable (more so than the CBBC gun nut) and it did at least produce a great lunge for a gun from him as all hell broke loose. As for Doctor Boy Scout...ten out of ten for effort. Just lay off the Red Bull.
So which way will the series turn now that Doctor Cocker is on the rebound? We have the delicious prospect of him rooming with Martha Kitt next year and while Freema Agyeman's performance in Ghosts didn't exactly set the screen on fire she was only playing a horny typist who gets blanked five minutes in. We can look forward to Shakespeares Haemovo... sorry, Plasmavores... and possibly Ice Warriors – a species wide open for exploitation and, more to the point cool posters. When Doomsday closed and viewers had stopped saying surely, that wasn't... no it couldn't be...'' there was only one question being asked after this rousing end to an eclectic series: ''What are we going to watch on Saturdays now?"

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WALKING ON THE MOON

SMITH AND JONES: Sean Alexander

So, here we are again. With the return of Doctor Who now so entrenched in the collective viewer consciousness, it’s hard to imagine how just two short years ago the debut episode of a new season would be scrutinised, criticised and vilified like pretty much no other. Two years on and the one thing that ‘Rose’s debut didn’t have can finally be ascribed to its Season Three equivalent: perspective. So you’ll not get here any gnashing of teeth or any lambasting of the betrayal of a television legend for what is - in essence - just a rather humdrum episode of Doctor Who. No sir; just a mild shrug of the shoulders and a comforting realisation that better - much, much better - is soon to come. In short then, this episode is the creosote of Doctor Who: it does exactly what it says on the tin.
Faced with a Rose-shaped hole and having been away from our screens for nigh-on nine months bar a Catherine Tate-contriving Christmas special, Doctor Who has to remind the masses once again of the reasons why upwards of eight million viewers have been hooked since that 2005 resurrection and ‘Smith and Jones’ largely does that in spades. He’s got many faults as a writer has our Russell T Davies, but you could never accuse him of not thinking big. Hospital on the moon? Great big rhino-creatures stomping around in their Sontaran-issue jackboots? A plan to fry half the Earth with an MRI scanner? You can just imagine Ed Thomas’ face when they sat round the table for this one’s tone meeting. But as much as it pains me to say that sometimes spectacle is more important than substance, any season opener has to hook the viewers - all the viewers - in a way that only this type of big-budget, no-brainer kind of entertainment can do.
So, seeing as Russell himself didn’t spend much time on it, let’s get that threadbare plot out of the way first, shall we? A quasi-paramilitary race of rhino-headed aliens abduct the hospital where the Doctor’s new companion-in-waiting works in order to isolate a murderous alien who…oh, who cares really? All that matters is that the Doctor gets to meet his new plus-one and she gets a chance to prove her mettle and worthiness for a trip through those police box doors. On this latter point, ‘Smith and Jones’ certainly doesn’t disappoint. For while David Tennant may still be overdoing the eccentric, teeth-grinding, over-enunciating shtick that he overdid last year (whilst showing yet again in his quieter moments that less really is more) debutant Freema Agyeman doesn’t put a foot wrong, making Martha gutsy, likeable and more than able to remove fears that Billie Piper’s replacement was going to be a Rose by any other name. Even her family’s an improvement, though I am basing that last point on the fact that - bar some opening scene cameos and a pre-coda coda in which their domestic strife is ladled on with a trowel - they barely have a thing to contribute.
So, Martha’s normal day of juggling work with the ever-demanding responsibilities of her fractured family is changed forever when the Doctor - quite literally - walks into her life. The tie scene is a nice little moment just to remind the casuals out there about the limitless possibilities this show affords; that a man you only met today could have already met you without you even knowing it. Or something. Any road, bar the fact that Martha seems to be the only medical person who thinks to check the Doctor’s hearts, the hospital stuff prior to the arrival of the Judoon platoon is nicely handled; resplendent with some clever humour (as the Doctor engages with his favourite pastime of name-dropping famous people) and a couple of decent turns from stalwarts Roy Marsden and Anne Reid (though the latter, sadly, does find the lure of panto-villain a tad too hard to resist later on). As far as spectacle goes the sight of rain going upwards into a single cloud and a hospital being literally sucked from the Earth and onto the moon certainly ticks all the demographic boxes.
But - and I’m paraphrasing Douglas Adams here - what’s it for??? As an ideas man Russell T Davies has been absolutely crucial to this show’s unmitigated success post-2005 but as a man capable of knocking out literate, logical scripts in the style of a Steven Moffatt or a Paul Cornell, he pretty much falls short every single time. I mean besides the whole notion of why a race of mercenary policemen feel the need to hijack buildings just to capture criminals, the science of the thing barely even begins to pass muster. Then there’s Anne Reid’s Plasmovore scheme to turn a hospital scanner into some kind of galactic laser beam; seemingly only as part of some last ditch, off-the-cuff plan to steal the Judoon ships. And of course, with Russell being Russell, he can’t resist throwing in a few elements just to remind us that he’s in charge. Compare and contrast, if you will, the following with any two of RTD’s scripts these last two years: lots of running down corridors, a liberal smattering of pop-culture references (the ‘Slabs’ are from ‘Planet Zovirax’, according to Martha at one point) and at least one moment of sheer cringe-inducing slapstick (Tennant, as in ‘New Earth’ a year go, just can’t do wacky). Then there’s the kiss-that-isn’t-a-kiss - ‘genetic transfer’ replacing last year’s ‘body swap’ - and the whole prospect of the Doctor farting residual radiation out of where the sun don’t shine (and I’m not talking the dark side of the moon…). Thankfully, here RTD pulls his punches - whilst no doubt barely containing himself at the thought of all those fan-boys groaning in anticipation - and in its defence ‘Smith and Jones’ does play with our expectations once or twice, given the necessary mimicking of its ‘Rose’ template. So while Rose at first declines the Doctor’s offer, Martha accepts and where Miss Tyler was more in awe of our Time Lord chum, Martha demands more respect; even dissing the TARDIS at one point for being a spaceship made of wood.
It’s the similarities with ‘Rose’ that keep coming back the more you watch ‘Smith and Jones’ - the haunted Doctor not really looking for a companion but finding one anyway, the new girl having to earn her spurs and saving the Doctor’s life into the bargain. The family from hell that drive Martha away in much the way that Jackie’s bleating and Mickey’s lack of gumption did with Rose. On which point, are we to read anything at all sinister into the fact that the Doctor now appears to hang around street corners to offer young girls the trip of a lifetime? Anyway, that charming TARDIS coda is worth all the previous forty-minutes of science-slamming, slapstick-shuddering nonsense that Russell seems to reserve only for season debuts and Christmas specials. Whether it be Freema Agyeman’s gosh-wow reaction to the spacious interior, or David Tennant lip-synching the inevitable ‘it’s bigger on the inside’ revelation, those last five minutes leave a smile on the face that the previous forty only occasional threatened. If nothing else, with its human-seeking police and chameleonic villain, ‘Smith and Jones does set this season’s trend for episodes obsessed with what it means to be human.

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WORD PLAY

THE SHAKESPEARE CODE: Matthew Kilburn

Russell T. Davies’s scripts are very good at extracting emotive drama from simple settings, and more complex situations tend to have been left to other writers. The late Elizabethan London of The Shakespeare Code, harbouring witches who are not really witches, and a playwright whose mastery of the language and gift of showmanship has made him the focus of a celebrity cult, proved perhaps too rich a mixture for its forty-five minutes. The intention was to portray Shakespeare as a rock star, according to the publicity; and, while drawing broadly on the myth as it has evolved since the eighteenth century (acknowledged by the ‘you’re Bard’ joke), this story is particularly keen to stress Shakespeare as performer, though there is no mention of him performing in his plays in the episode. Instead he’s a celebrity playwright, and his explosion onto the stage suggests that Martha hasn’t invented the cry of author, author: he’s used to acclaim and to addressing the audience. It’s him that this audience have come to see, to heckle and to find out the gossip about the next play. There’s enough in the literature of the period to give this characterisation an historical basis, too. Shakespeare’s entourage includes characters called Dick and Kempe, who are presumably based on Richard Burbage, leading actor of Shakespeare’s company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, and the company’s comic actor, Will Kempe.
Not surprisingly for an episode which sets out by eliminating a character named after Shakespeare scholarship’s most prominent Doctor Who fan, the association of the ‘London, 1599’ of The Shakespeare Code with the historical London is tangential. The Globe is depicted as the heart of a metropolis, and not on the edge of the built-up area, as it was. It wasn’t a new building in 1598, but a reconstruction, the wooden structure of ‘The Theatre’ having been dismantled after the landlord evicted the Lord Chamberlain’s Men from their old site in Shoreditch, so (if this level of historical detail is to be born in mind) Peter Streete would probably not have had the freedom to redesign the theatre to the Carrionites’ designs. However, the only note which seriously threatened the illusion was the depiction of the exterior of Bedlam in an anachronistic architectural style, derived in part from Albion Hospital from the first series. This was a pity as The Mill seem to have consulted maps of the period to see what buildings and streets looked like, as seen by London Bridge and the silhouette of old St Paul’s, and there is a plan of 1559 available on the internet which shows Bedlam as it was in the late sixteenth century.
The Shakespeare Code, however, is metahistory if it is any history at all. Shakespeare scholar Jonathan Bate, in his article in The Daily Telegraph (21 April 2007) to accompany his new edition of the Complete Works, notes that 1599 is the title of a recent book about a year in Shakespeare’s life, by James Shapiro; and as the Doctor says, Love’s Labour’s Won is a lost play, a greater loss in Shakespeare studies, perhaps, than even The Tenth Planet part 4 is to Doctor Who fandom. The episode sets itself up from the outset as a jokily self-conscious commentary on Shakespeare and our attitudes to him and his times, perhaps because it knows that it’s going to open up too many cans of worms.
Building on an established Doctor Who tradition, The Shakespeare Code mingles information with myth and draws on established fictional representations of the period. The theatrical world of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has been seen in Stage Beauty and (of course) Shakespeare in Love. There are echoes of that film’s playful construction of an Elizabethan theatrical world in The Shakespeare Code, but Dean Lennox Kelly’s Shakespeare was more self-confident than the fragile Joseph Fiennes who had yet to find his muse. Kelly would have needed no Gwyneth Paltrow to discover his Juliet – and his wooing of Martha and flirtation with the Doctor show that he is fully conversant with his sexuality.
While it’s doubtful that anyone expects The Shakespeare Code to follow the conventions of the modern drama-documentary style, the attention to detail in the design, and the much-advertised use of Shakespeare’s Globe on the South Bank and houses in Warwick and Coventry as locations comes close to bringing it into re-enactment territory. This jars a little with Doctor Who’s storytelling, which in its present form isn’t bounded by literalism; storytelling is the key word here, as a concept is taken and extrapolated with an emphasis on making it comprehensible to the viewer in their own terms. The Doctor’s adventures become a legendary corpus and the viewer is told a version of events which fit their own environment. The Shakespeare Code is poised unhappily between an avowedly fantastical 1599 and a more literalist model.
Various elements of the story suffered from conflicts between the numerous influences. The Carrionites were a case in point burdened by having to serve as a model, within the fiction of the episode, for the witches in Macbeth. The pattern of two older witches, one older than the other, and a young witch, representing the maiden-mother-crone triple depiction of womanhood/goddesshood beloved by today’s neopagans, is often followed by modern productions of Macbeth, though it is not suggested by the text itself. At the same time the Carrionites were described as creatures from the ‘dawn of the universe’ using words and shapes instead of mathematics to understand the fundamental principles of the cosmos. The latter explanation doesn’t make much sense at all, and the idea of a Carrionite empire based upon ‘bones and blood and witchcraft’ introduced as the fate of Earth if they take over leaves us none the wiser. The origins of the Carrionites draw on the internal mythology of Doctor Who, not only with its explicit citation of the defeat of the Carrionites by the Eternals, but also evoking memories of the Great Vampires of State of Decay, and their defeat by the Time Lords in the era of Rassilon. The appearance of the Carrionites borrows heavily from Buffy’s vampires, complete with the tendency for the spokesperson-Carrionite to appear with a human face most of the time.
Given the Buffy heritage, it’s a pity that the Carrionites present witchcraft in a reactionary way. The opening scene, with the seduction and devouring of Wiggins, was a timeslot-friendly rendering of the myth of the succubus, the demon seductress who drains men of their seed and their energy, sometimes identified with the figure of Adam’s first wife from Jewish mythology, whose name, Lilith, Gareth Roberts has borrowed for his young Carrionite. Lilith is clearly used to controlling Shakespeare, and has probably been visiting him at night for a long time, plundering his literary creativity rather than his reproductive capacity. Given Lilith’s status as an icon to some feminists, the presentation of the Carrionites as predatory women led by a seducer of human (and Time Lord) males is at the least provocative. The strong suggestion that all Carrionites are female, conjoined with their appetite for motiveless destruction (‘blasted heath’, indeed) plays into the hands of those who accuse Doctor Who writers of misogyny. I suspect clumsiness, but it is unfortunate that it is the king of the all-male Elizabethan stage who eventually expels the Carrionites, making the episode look like a triumphalist male blow in the gender wars.
The counterpoint to the Carrionites where The Shakespeare Code’s depiction of women is concerned should be Martha Jones, but in this episode she is weaker than in the two surrounding ones. The danger with writing a Doctor Who companion is that her talents and traits can shift according to the demands of the episode, and it’s unfortunate that in her second episode Martha displays more insight into literature than she does into medical history. Her failure to know about Bedlam, when she knew enough about the literary context, reflects Gareth Roberts’s interests, but cuts across the focused, scientific coding established for the character in Smith and Jones, and more importantly loses Martha an opportunity to display some knowledge of medical history to the Doctor, suggesting in turn that the much vaunted establishment of the companion as a partner to the Doctor rather than an assistant, achieved successfully with Rose, might not carry forward.
There’s an emphasis on the Doctor’s literate nature too here. He’s unafraid to quote his Dylan Thomas alongside suggesting lines to Shakespeare. He understands the emotional impact of words, in a way that he might not have done when he looked like William Hartnell. However, he knows that this is not his central skill, and that Shakespeare is the greater wordsmith. Here it’s Shakespeare who has created the weapon, which can’t be rendered inactive by the sonic screwdriver (though as the screwdriver presumably works by manipulating sound waves, the Doctor probably could legitimately use it here) and has to banish the Carrionites with what turns out to be a bit of Hogwartsish cod Latin. The broadcast of the spoken co-ordinates is not only reminiscent of the climax of Logopolis, but disappointing considering the emphasis placed on the Carrionites’ aversion to mathematics earlier, and exposes again the problems inherent in the false dichotomy between mathematics and language. I’d have liked to have seen the location of the Carrionites’ banishment expressed without recourse to spoken numbers. Nonetheless this recognises the magical sensibility many in the early modern period attributed to mathematics, as developed in modern historical fiction by Peter Ackroyd in Hawksmoor; Ackroyd is also well-known as a biographer of Shakespeare.
David Tennant’s Doctor is still much faster, more angular, than the solid and brooding performance of Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor who forced time for reflection within the breakneck pace of the series. Tennant does not, and statements that there is a darkness inside the Doctor or that the personality the Doctor displays to the people he encounters is an act don’t make up for it. The payoff comes in Gridlock, but more indications of substance were needed in the first two episodes of the series.
The 2007 series sees Doctor Who at its most popular ever and. In The Shakespeare Code the programme’s ascendancy is implicitly recognised as William Shakespeare himself is presented as the star of his own ‘mass entertainment’. The Doctor is not just meeting his intellectual equal in Shakespeare, he is meeting a fellow icon of popular culture, which for the Doctor (who likes his seven million viewers) is the best and only kind.
There was so much about The Shakespeare Code that could have been so much better; perhaps an extra episode would have helped all the ideas Gareth Roberts included in the script develop into a more solid offering. Instead much was promised but the production failed to deliver as sophisticated an episode as the ingredients deserved.

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CRAB MEET

GRIDLOCK: Martin Pollard

In many ways, `Gridlock` is just about the most traditional episode of Doctor Who we’ve seen during David Tennant’s tenure. Actually, it’s positively retro, what with its small sets, underground threat and range of quirky incidental characters. The only thing missing is corridors, although they too are represented in surrogate form, with the running (well, moving) taking place in an underground motorway network instead. It starts with a clip of futuristic TV news, in a continuation of the New Who’s self-aware obsession with the power of the box (see also `Aliens of London`, `Bad Wolf`, `The Idiot’s Lantern` etc.). It’s also a useful introduction to a set-up in which the characters, almost always limited physically by space, have to rely on outside forces: the news, the police, the reliability of the automated road system. This being Doctor Who, of course, said forces are not wholly reliable, to the point that no-one has actually seen a police car in all the decades spent driving (it takes the Doctor to point this out, in another example of the glibly implausible exposition that Russell T Davies seems to think is forgivable at all times).
After an initial confrontation with some “car-jackers” (in the future they steal the person, not the car), the episode settles down into a good old-fashioned two-way split: the Doctor working things out and upsetting a well-oiled system in the process, while his companion works things out a bit more slowly in a way that affects fewer people’s lives. This may sound like a complaint about the show being too formulaic, but it isn’t intended to be. In fact these ‘traditional’ stories tend to work because they play to Doctor Who’s strengths: plucky underdogs, the (re)introduction of anarchy into a compliant society, and the three-way set-up of terror in the deeps, faceless masters above and lots of good-hearted, ordinary people in between.
Davies seems to be in his element with what must be one of the smallest budgets of any recent episode. He relishes the characterisation of the various minor characters whose cars the Doctor and Martha end up in, and spins out the “what lurks beneath?” plot element for just the right amount of time before changing direction. Equally, a lot of fun is had with making the sets individually convincing, and with the generally low-tech feel of the camerawork - the low budget is actually one of the things that makes this episode come alive. As in `Horror of Fang Rock`, the director (in this case Richard Clark) understands that small can be highly effective and that people in restricted environments make for interesting viewing becoming more sympathetic characters. As a result, I felt more for the plight of the human race during `Gridlock` than I did during, say, last season’s `Doomsday`. The Doctor, meanwhile, wearily reflects on human nature once again – a recurring theme during Eccleston and Tennant’s time, even more so than in the old series – with the species this time coming off on the more disappointing side of the creative/self-destructive divide.
This is also the moment in which Martha comes into her own, having spent two episodes stuck somewhere in between awe at the amazing universe and disappointment that the Doctor doesn’t take her seriously. Their first proper conversation takes place right at the end of the episode – with the simplest set-up of all, two chairs facing each other – and it is genuinely touching, with the Doctor giving his first extended dialogue about Gallifrey since the series was revived. As if to underscore the episode’s roots, there are echoes of past stories too. The idea that “everyone goes to the motorway in the end” reminded me of the hypnotic attraction of `The Greatest Show in the Galaxy`, while the mood drugs recall the forced emotions of `The Happiness Patrol`.
There has been much comment about the pacy, energetic feel of these new series of Doctor Who, and this is certainly one of its great strengths as Saturday evening adventure fare. Yet it can also be a weakness, with characters introduced in broad brushstrokes, hugely important exposition provided in a flash, and too many comic one-liners where there should be a conversation. By being a fairly simple adventure story, `Gridlock` largely avoids such pitfalls, with two main exceptions. First, the unexpected reintroduction of the Macra is logical and well built up, but they’re only in it properly for a few minutes before being written off as “devolved” and left to die.Second, I have a problem with the series’ insistence of everything being the last of something: the last Daleks, the last Time Lord, the last great Time War…and now the Face of Boe, one of the best-written alien characters to have appeared, is revealed as the last of his kind too. Why? Is this a necessary plot device (two last survivors share a final important discussion…hmmm, maybe) or is it just a lazy shortcut to audience empathy? Is it too much to ask that the death of something great is allowed to speak for itself, without the adjunct that a whole species becomes extinct?
These relatively minor quibbles aside, `Gridlock` was a solid, well-conceived episode which is just the sort of thing Davies should be writing more of. When he leans less heavily on the jokes and fun, he tends to create something more interesting and durable.

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SEC'S IN THE CITY

DALEKS IN MANHATTAN/EVOLUTION OF THE DALEKS: Chris Orton

The BBC is certainly making sure that it is wringing every bit of value that it can from whatever deal that was negotiated with the Nation Estate; following the successful appearances in the last two series, the few remaining Daleks are back here with a good old- fashioned scheming plan of grand proportions. The Cult of Skaro are seemingly the only Daleks left in the universe following the events of `Doomsday`, and by now they are a pretty desperate bunch. Bedraggled and tattered, they are forced to rely on their cunning and guile and as we discover during the course of the first part of this adventure, the leader of the group, Sec, is prepared to go to extraordinary lengths for a Dalek to ensure the survival and proliferation of its race. This is a brave attempt to try and put an interesting new spin on villains that don’t traditionally have the widest range of motives. But… this story is a curious beast. Like Sec after his transformation it doesn’t quite know what it wants to be and is a bit of a mish-mash of lots of different things -plot elements are crammed in and it must have been incredibly tricky for writer Helen Raynor to craft the adventure, given that it seems as though she was saddled with a shopping list of requirements to shoehorn into the story. Giving a 
writer an inventory of elements to include is like something that used to happen during the JNT era, and naturally restricts them in what they can do. Thankfully though the tale is a two-parter, which allows matters to develop at a less manic pace than it would have had it been just a single episode. The Daleks are incredibly popular with the modern audience, and while it is great to see them back to their devious and calculating best where they use cunning like they did back in the 1960s there is something not quite right about what happens in the story. The transformation of Sec into a Dalek / Human hybrid is an interesting turn of events for group of desperate Daleks, but it is patently obvious that the rest of the Cult will destroy their leader just like they turned on Davros in `Genesis of the Daleks`. When Sec is changed, he immediately becomes un-Daleklike, which the others just will not stand for. As we all know Daleks, don’t change their spots (or bumps). Unlike the very human Talluleh, the Daleks are not prepared to accent this degree of change. It is strange to think that Sec is quite prepared to introduce human ‘weaknesses’ in order to ensure the survival of his race, but these are desperate, stranded Daleks. Sec thinks that the only way to live on and proliferate is to take on human aspects (an idea that has been done before way back in `Power of the Daleks`) thus combining the best of both Dalek and Human kind. The desperation of the Daleks (good title for an episode that!), is mirrored by the desperation of the inhabitants of Hooverville too. They are prepared to do almost any kind of dangerous work due to their circumstances, including volunteering to work on the dangerous construction of the Empire State Building while some of them are fighting for bread in Hooverville, which highlights the vast inequality in the society. 
After the Doctor and Martha arrive in New York it isn’t long before we are plunged headlong into the action. `Daleks in Manhattan` is a fairly typical old-school style of Doctor Who story with lots of corridor (or, in this case, sewer) running scenes and comes across as being quite talky too, with lots of exposition being related across the course of the forty-five minutes. In `Evolution of the Daleks` the pace picks up considerably as the Doctor and Martha begin to uncover what the villains are up to.
Unfortunately logic flies out of the window with some of the plotting. Why, for example, was the Dalekanium needed at the top of the tower, rather than just an ordinary conductor? Why didn’t the Dalek leader destroy the human Daleks before the latter destroyed the other members of the Cult? Where did the hitherto unknown Dalek ability to meld with humans come from? How on Skaro did the reborn Dalek Sec appear with a pristine, clean suit? How did the business with the lightning strike on the Doctor work exactly? How does electricity carry DNA? How did the DNA get into the human husks? Why do the Daleks take Dalek Sec around on a chain, rather than just exterminating him? They parade their prisoner on stage in the 1930’s New York theatre in the same way that King Kong was by his captors. There seems to be too many questions posed that do not have satisfactory answers.
The realisation of 1930s New York is carried out pretty well. Setting the story in the past made it easier for the production team to blend in the elements shot in the UK, while the money spent on travelling to the Big Apple to obtain background plate footage was well spent. Doing this is a much better idea than simply using stock footage, even if some of the background plates don’t always appear to blend seamlessly with the Hooverville scenes that were shot in Cardiff. Design-wise the story is very good, with a number of contrasting locations used.The theatre set looks quite good, and the song-and-dance routine that we see – which had the potential to look very out of place – works well, introducing a touch of lightness into what is quite a dark story. Costumes are good too, with the residents of Hooverville suitably bedraggled, Mr  Diagoras in a sharp, expensive suit and the dancers at the theatre very glamorous.
Here, the Daleks find themselves in somewhat reduced circumstances and have taken to cannibalising bits of themselves to carry out their plans (despite which, they still look in better shape than some of the Daleks that appeared back in the classic series). Dalek Sec is a distinctly odd looking creation (the surprise appearance of whom was ruined, by the `Radio Times` in the week before the episode was shown), looking something like a huge slimy brain on legs (or given the fact  that he only has one eye, a bit like Scaroth). Eric Loren who plays Sec, gives it his all in his performance, but his delivery is oddly stilted and jarring after he makes the change from being Mr Diagoras to being Dalek Sec. Amazingly, Dalek Sec even manages to somehow absorb the American accent of Diagoras! The transformation
is really quite well done however, with his absorbtion and rebirth containing enough suitably “eughhh” aspects. Whatever processes that go on really do look quite horrible and are well realised via a combination of CGI and physical effects. The other major design innovation in the story comes with the pig slaves, which look very good indeed. Decked out in boiler suits the slaves are following in the footsteps of the Robomen and the Ogrons, serving no purpose other than to do as they are told, and cursed with a limited life-span. The creation of such creatures again demonstrates the Daleks’ predilection for genetic meddling, but perhaps it was a bit odd for the story to have chosen a pig as the template given that we have already seen a pig creature in the new series (another aspect from recent Doctor Who that is repeated in this story is the Doctor’s scaling of a tower and being hit by some kind of electrical force).
Martha gets stuck in the action quite a bit here showing good initiative, and doesn’t appear to be phased by what is going on around her, considering she is from present day. Freema is doing her job very nicely, but there is a nagging feeling that the character isn’t quite developing as well as she might. The frequent references back to Rose by the Doctor need to stop now, and allow Martha to take centre stage as the Doctor’s new companion. She shows great promise, but needs to be allowed to stop bathing in the resonating glow of a character that has now left. The idea of Martha being in love with the Doctor is built upon in this pair of episodes and it will be interesting to see what direction the writers of future episodes take this idea in. The theme is unprecedented in Doctor Who and it will be interesting to see how brave the writers will be with the storyline.
The main guest star in the story is Hugh Quarshie, who is excellent in what he does, but the character, Solomon seems a little underwritten and does not make it far into the second part of the story, while other secondary characters make it to the end. Having said that, his death scene is particularly nicely done, following his impassioned speech in Hooverville to the hovering Dalek, he is almost immediately exterminated as the Dalek shows its utter ruthlessness. David Tennant comes across as a little less manic than he has been previously in this story, but he does seem quite shouty at times, particularly in his confrontations with Dalek Caan in the second episode. Ryan Carnes as Laszlo gives a good performance and it is to the credit of the producers that they cast a real American in one of the main roles (having said that, Hugh Quarshie gives a fairly convincing performance as an American too). Miranda Raison (her off Spooks)  plays Talluleh, the girlfriend of the seemingly doomed Laszlo and gets some of the story’s more comedic lines, although her character does seem a bit of a bit-part player at times. For much of the story she is paired up with Martha, and it is them who provide crucial help in defeating the Daleks.
This pair of episodes isn’t particularly bad, but they are very average. After his excellent work on `The Impossible Planet` and `The Satan Pit` last year, James Strong showed great promise, but here his direction even seems a little middling (although the scenes where the Cult of Skaro were seen to be secretly conspiring against Sec were a nice touch). And perhaps the story could have done with being run through another script-editing pass to iron out the flaws inherent in it (it is surprising that the very obvious failings were not spotted by Russell T. Davies or one of the other producers at some point), and to solve some of the illogical aspects that are thrown up.  Although it was inevitable that they would manage to make it through the end of the episode (using the hardly-surprising and very convenient “Emergency Temporal Shift Maguffin), perhaps next year it would be wise to have a break from the Daleks. Yes, they are the most iconic and well known of all of the Doctor Who villains, but the show needs new monsters to develop too, and keeping the Daleks back for a really special story might be a wiser move than rolling them out every series. As exciting as it is to see these old enemies, the series needs to build its own mythology at some point. Given that they are popular with the kids and appear to be selling lots of toys it would not be at all a surprise if they were brought back next time around.

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GRAY POWER

THE LAZARUS EXPERIMENT: Ashley Stewart

It's The Fly at 87mph, isn't it? Blokey goes in to a McGuffin to do something, it goes wrong and he turns in to a monster. In the case of The Fly, it's a teleporter and he gets turned in to a fly-monster. Here, in `The Lazarus Experiment`, he's trying to turn back the clock and become younger and somehow wakes up dormant DNA and, erm, turns in to a monster. It's a curious thing, though, that given that the episode is centred around a monster that’s the least interesting aspect of it. It is, frankly, a rubbish looking monster. It looks as if it's been knocked together in five minutes from the left over bits that got rejected from all the better monsters. You can picture the monster makers patching those bits together last thing on a Friday afternoon, just about to head off to the pub thinking “oh, that'll do.” This is, as the DW Confidential showed, not the case as a great deal of effort went in to making the monster. But, no matter what they might think, the face still looks tacked on... And looks nothing like Mark Gatiss, which was the intention.
The more interesting moments are the small moments. The scenes between the Doctor and Martha that top and tail the episode move their relationship forward quite a lot. From “just one trip” to the regular companion she deserves to be. For a second there at the start of the episode you really think he's going. You know he's not, but that thought is there. And you cheer when he comes back “Did he just say he's going to change what it means to be human...?” Oh, yes! There is also some great characterisation of Lazarus, as well; the scene where he describes his childhood to Lady Thaw, and the horrors of the Blitz help you understand his motivations for starting his experiment in the first place. The performances from both Mark Gatiss and Thelma Barlow are quite superb, and subtle; you really do believe in the characters. In fact, Gatiss' performance is one of the highlights of the episode.
The subtlety soon gives way to a fairly middling approximation of a Dr Who take on a horror movie. Trouble is, we know that the Doc, Martha and Tish aren't going to die, so there's never any real peril. Ooh, look an extra makes a flippant comment. Oh, they're dead. What a surprise. Nor is there any great sense of “how are they going to get out of this one?” I found myself hoping that my expectations would be confounded and that at least the monster would get to munch on Tish... but no.
And, yeah; that ending. It would have been a little more original and exciting if I'd not seen pretty much the same thing happen in Spider Man 3 the day before (substitute church bells for church organ and you've got Spidey ridding himself of the black costume; a storyline from the Amazing Spider Man comics in the 80s). Oh, and a person who changes in to a monster, and then back to normal again, and then back to a monster again... It's all a bit Jekyll and Hyde, isn't it? The more I think of it, the more the `Lazarus Expriment` seems less of a story, and more of a patchwork of elements taken – consciously or not – from elsewhere.
There are some interesting themes in the episode; the fear of old age, and how such technology as seen in the episode would be exploited. But all these are subsumed by the horrible monster. I can't help but think that had the monster been rather more subtle – and thus able to be played by Gatiss in prosthetics – that we'd have had a much better story.
I just found it a little hard to get worked up at all about `The Lazarus Experiment`. It wasn't that it was bad; it wasn't. It just wasn't that good either. It was a typical example of a “spider and the fly” plot, but with nothing to raise it up in to being something special.

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HEAT OF THE MOMENT

42: Chris Arnsby

`42` should become the definitive example of an average script rescued by its production. What we see on screen is not a bad episode, it's exciting and moves forwards so fast there is never time to pause and consider the writing itself which feels deeply formulaic. It's appropriate that the title refers to the series 24 because this may be the most homage packed story ever. Other episodes have taken inspiration from a film or book before heading off in another direction but there's a world of difference between using someone else’s idea as a springboard and, apparently, constructing your script around moments from other films. It's easy to imagine Chris Chibnall’s shooting script being full of stage directions reading “... just like in [INSERT FILM NAME]”. The light streams out of the possessed crewmembers eyes just like Cyclops in X-Men and they stalk through the ship wearing boiler suits and masks just like Friday The 13th's Jason crossed with Michael Myers. The Doctor's trip outside the ship is just like a similar sequence in The Core. Korwin's revival from frozen, mostly dead, status is a standard not-finished-yet revival from almost any film you could name.
All the characters call each other by their surname (as people in space do while having gritty outer-space adventures like Alien) even the Captain when talking to her husband of eleven years; in the airlock; as she plans to kill him and commit suicide. There’s a familiar dysfunctional relationship between the small crew to the extent that when doomed crewwoman Lessak is ordered around her response is to launch into a bitchy monologue despite having also just heard that the captain’s husband has murdered the ship’s doctor. By the time Captain McDonnell kills herself it feels less like a character who sees no other way to take responsibility for what she’s done than because redemption through self-sacrifice is the traditional way for films to dispose of characters who have done wrong.
As well as being constructed to reference as many films as possible there is the sneaking suspicion that the writer is changing the basics of the story when required. How come freezing kills one of the possessed crew but not the other? When the Doctor has to travel outside the ship why, as Galaxy Quest pointed out years ago, are essential controls located so inaccessibly? Plus, if the Doctor's spacesuit can protect him from the heat of the sun outside then why can't he use it to enter the vent chamber and recover the TARDIS? Just what does the intelligent sun want? If it wants the return of its essence then why go through all the hassle of smashing the engines and locking the crew out from the bridge? Just hit the fuel dump button. If it wants revenge then why are the survivors allowed to go at the end? The answer is that all these things have to happen so that the next bit of the plot can unfold but shifting the dramatic goalposts gives the impression that the writer is less interested in the situation and characters than mechanically joining up all the cool scenes he’s got planned.
Yet it's not all bad. The Doctor's happy primes speech and “here comes the sun” gag work and the cast do their best to make their chess piece characters feel like people as the writer moves them through the plot. Freema Agyeman deserves particular praise for making the most of a script that serves the character of Martha Jones very poorly, seemingly determined to give her all the same character beats as Rose with a universal mobile phone, TARDIS key and phone calls home to mum. In the escape pod she takes a speech about her family and having faith in the Doctor that is, in its themes, almost identical to one she also gives in `Gridlock`, and makes it work again.
This is a story that shows the production team at their best. The editing, lighting, design, effects work, none of it can be faulted. Special mention needs to go to the use of sound in the escape pod sequence as the muffled voices and sound of Martha's palms slapping at the glass fades to silence before the roaring of the sun bursts in. Here's to Graham Harper and Phil Collinson and all the too numerous to mention behind the scenes people listed on the closing credits. `42` may turn out to be the best silk purse ever made.

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BLOOD AND WAR

HUMAN NATURE/FAMILY OF BLOOD: Ashley Stewart

“Once upon a time, not so long ago, there was a book.”

At work recently, we were given guidelines as to how to structure a report. It said that we should not build to the point of a report; it should be there right at the start, and we should then go on to justify that start in the rest of the report. So, I'm going to take that advice and start this review with a big, bold, statement;

Human Nature/Family of Blood is the best Dr Who story. Ever. Not just in the Russell T Davies era, but from the whole 44 year history of the TV show.

And here's why...

Human Nature (and for convenience's sake, from this point on, whenever I refer to “Human Nature”, please take this as meaning the story as a whole, not just the first part) is on face value a simple story. The Doctor takes human form to escape the clutches of a family of aliens who will hunt him down throughout space and time and kill him. The story at its most basic level is then what happens when they find him but Human Nature is anything but basic.

The best books, films, TV, etc, work at many different levels. You can experience them at a superficial level paying attention solely to what happens, or you can look deeper at the underlying themes running throughout. Here, set in 1913, there is an air of doom hanging over proceedings. The viewer (and Martha) know what is to come the following year so seeing boys playing as “tin soldiers” is somewhat moving. They would never have expected that they would, so soon, be fighting on foreign fields so far away, finding out the hard way the lie that is “dulce et decorum est pro patria mori”. (That is, “it is sweet and right to die for your country.”) This is brought in to sharp relief in the second episode where you have the Scarecrow massacre, which is one of the most moving moments in a Dr Who episode; boys who had trained to kill, now that they were faced with the enemy, start to cry. They know they have to fight, but the emotion wells up inside them and the tears flow. Even here there are parallels with World War One, as the Scarecrows walk to their “death”; soldiers in WW1 were ordered to walk, not run, across No Man's Land, and as a result there were many massacres of soldiers. It's these touches that elevate Human Nature to something special.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself...

Human Nature was originally one of the Virgin published “New Adventures”, and was frequently hailed as being the very best (admittedly, not by me; I'd always placed Love & War, Damaged Goods and Just War ahead of it). As in the TV show, the Doctor had turned himself human; however, here he had turned human to better understand human emotions such as grief after his then companion, Bernice, had lost a good friend. There were, of course, other differences; the bad guys were not the Family of Blood. They were a family called the Aubertides, Bernice wasn't a servant, there were more characters, and there was even an appearance from a fake Tenth Doctor... but I could spend the whole of this review listing differences. Here's what's the same,

The Doctor falls in love. Or rather, John Smith, his human identity, falls in love. And this is something that the Time Lord Doctor does not plan for, it does not even enter his head that this could happen but happen, it does. The romance between Smith and Joan is wonderfully tender; here are a couple who are a little at uneasy around each other, unsure how to approach the affection they have. Joan, because she still recalls her late husband, Smith because nothing like this has happened to him before. The scenes as they are getting closer to each other are heartbreakingly wonderful and the rapport between Tennant and Jessica Hynes is quite natural. You can believe that these two could, and indeed should, fall in love and live happily ever after in a quiet English village.

And this is the rub; as the story rushes headlong to its conclusion, you really do not want Smith to open the pocket watch that stores the Doctor's Time Lord essence. You want him to somehow find a way to ensure he lives the future glimpsed in a flash forward sequence (and what a wonderful piece of misdirection in the “next week” trailer it was to show so much of this...). You want him to get married and have kids, and live that happily ever after life. This is how it's supposed to be. Somehow, you do not want the Doctor, the hero of the show, the reason we watch the show, to come back.
Yet, just one scene later, when Smith pulls on those glasses and he's obviously the Doctor you punch the air and you cheer that he's back. And this takes great skill to pull off making you experience such contrary feelings in a script, and for it to be an entirely natural way for you to think.

Oh, there's so much more... there are times when everything, writing, direction, acting, effects, everything, just come together perfectly. This is one of them. It's hard to find fault with anything. Some have said that the “olfactory misdirection” is a little too convenient and if it was so easy to do, why could the Doctor not just have done it before? I would suggest that this is because to pull off this trick, the Family had to be convinced that the Doctor was human. Had he appeared, suddenly, to be human, it would not have worked. That he had been human for so long (two months) worked in his favour. These things don't just happen by chance, you know...

Somehow, all of the supporting cast seem perfect for their roles. It's hard to imagine anyone else in these roles, yet when reading the book, we would all have had pictures in our heads as to what they looked like that varied wildly from what we saw on screen(1). Thomas Sangster is just so right as the slightly odd Timothy Latimer (curiously renamed from Timothy Dean as he is in the novel; is it a coincidence that the TV name is an anagram of “The Immortality”...? Mind you, it's also an anagram of “thy tit memorial”, which conjures up an entirely different image...). He suggests both vulnerability and strength in the same breath. Here is a child that is clearly different, in an environment – a boarding school – where conformity and homogeny is encouraged. It's hard to be different when everyone else is the same.

This was also the first Doctor Who story to make me cry. Yeah, there's been a couple that have brought a tear to my eye, but Human Nature made me blub like a big jessie. It was that last scene that did it, the coda where an old Tim is sat in a wheelchair at a memorial service, holding the pocket watch. Such a simple moment, yet so effective. The tears were already welling up from the scene where the Doctor goes to visit Joan, but old Tim just let them loose.

I'm looking at my notes now, and I see I've missed out so much from this review. No mention of the pictures in the notebook, the references to the Master(2), the casual racism, the Doctor's punishments, why the balloon is important, Sydney & Verity, the “fire and ice and rage” speech, why all the local farmers have identical scarecrows, how Tim can see who Smith and Martha really are, the voices that Tim hears from the watch... Curiously I've written “music reference Rem”, but I've no idea what that means...

It is a testament to how packed these episodes are that I can write so much without touching on so many aspects of the story. But there is one last note I have to mention, and that is something Joan says; “If the Doctor had never visited us, never chosen this place on a whim, would anyone here have died?” The answer, of course, has to be “no”. Everything that has happened here has been because the Doctor came to visit. He's not here to save the day. He is the cause of the village's problems in that he has led the Family there. Usually the Doctor wades in, finds a problem, and solves it. Here, he is the problem.

Human Nature, as I said right at the top of this review, is to my mind the finest Doctor Who story ever made. It's a perfect blend of action and adventure and romance and joy and pain and sorrow. And I love it to bits.

Postscript: when they announced the writers for season 4, there were two names (other than Russell) I expected to see on the list. Steven Moffat was one, and there he was, doing a two-parter. The other was Paul Cornell. But he wasn't on the list... and this really surprised me. If, by some bizarre fluke of chance, a copy of this fanzine ends up in the hands of someone in Cardiff with influence; I implore you, we must have at least one Cornell episode every season. Please.

  1. As an aside here; there's a whole essay to be written here about how TV or movie versions of books inevitably subsume the original in the public consciousness, and people will automatically think of what the character looks like in the visual medium when re-reading the book, and the lines will be heard in their voice with their intonation. As an example, think of Alex from A Clockwork Orange. I bet you any money the image of Malcolm McDowell, clad in white, with those braces and that bowler hat has come straight in to your mind... Now pick up the book and read how Anthony Burgess describes him...
  2. I should at least touch on this; the song played near the start “He who would valiant be” not only contains the line “follow the Master”, but also mentions, obviously, “valiant”, being the ship the Master has designed by the time of the season finale. Mmm... could be coincidence, could also be a reference to the Lindsay Anderson film “if....” which features a similar setting and features the same song... but in something so immaculately crafted as Human Nature, surely everything has a meaning...?
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TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL

BLINK: Sean Alexander

In these modern days of big-budget, big-concept Doctor Who it’s hard to remember that this show is still beholden to many of the practical limitations that plagued the original version all those years ago. Budgets that stretch only so far, special effects that can’t quite keep up with the imagination of writers and that oh-so interminable dilemma that faces any TV drama: time. So it is that last season’s solution to providing fourteen new episodes when a cast is used to thirteen rears its head again in this year’s almost Doctor-less episode ‘Blink’. And where ‘Love & Monsters’ sidestepped the show’s regular format for a journey into the very heart of Doctor Who’s hardcore audience, ‘Blink’ looks instead at the effects the absence of the Doctor might have on a story and its outcome.
Tricky things, these standalone double-banked episodes. For a show which pretty much nails its colours to the mast with the opening titles, the idea of Doctor Who without the Doctor must seem as bizarre now as it did when the show first tried its hand at alternative narrative back in the 1960s with ‘Mission to the Unknown’. So it’s a good thing that - whether by accident or design - show guru Russell T Davies turned to arguably the safest pair of writing hands to script the latest in the show’s occasional walks on the quirky side. It’s difficult to talk about Steven Moffat and his superlative brace of Season One and Two stories without resorting to cliché and hyperbole, such has been the impact of ‘The Empty Child’ and ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’ on both fandom and the television cognoscenti at large. Awards have rained down on the former Coupling scribe like Manchester weather, and it seemed inevitable that whatever the Scotsman did next, no matter how good, would seem an anti-climax. How wrong people can be…
‘Blink’ is possibly the finest piece of off-the-cuff writing since the days of Robert Holmes, and I’m aware immediately how I need to qualify that. Back in the day, the one-time script-editor and writer used to bang out rewrites of other authors’ unsuitable work like some sort of conveyor belt script Doctor, turning unwieldy and over-ambitious stories into liquid Who gold. Robert Holmes has arguably never been bettered since those halcyon days of 1976, but I’ve a feeling that his position is facing its stiffest challenge yet. Having already produced three of the finest nu Who episodes of the past two years, Moffat’s third entry had an almost Holmes-like conception before reaching the screen. Pushed further and further down the production schedule by his commitments elsewhere to a radical reinterpretation of Jekyll for the Beeb, Moffat finally offered to write the budget-friendly Doctor-lite episode that had seen ‘Love & Monsters’ achieve mixed success the previous year. The result, he feared, would be an automatic banishing to the wrong end of the DWM season poll. How wrong Steven Moffat can be…
To say that ‘Blink’ is audacious is to only partially cover the many, many reasons that make this arguably the year’s best episode. What comes as no surprise is how its convoluted and occasionally brain-wracking narrative makes perfect sense come the final frame (you only have to look at last year’s slice of Moffat genius to see that we’ve been down this road at least once before). But what is surprising - in fact, quite breath-taking actually - is how Moffat’s mystery within a puzzle wrapped up in an enigma comes packaged in one of the most heart-warming, tragic and often quite profound tales of the fragility of time and the brevity with which each of our lives come. As in his previous Who works, ‘Blink’ comes with no great malevolent force looking to devour the universe or conquer a populace for its own subjugation. Instead, we have a race of quantum-locked angels whose only desire is to feed off the lost days of life that their time-warped victims have missed out on; and like the nanogenes of ‘The Empty Child’ and the Clockwork Droids from ‘Girl in the Fireplace’, the weeping angels’ malevolence is never more than misguided. And it’s perhaps this understated risk posed by the everyday loss of time and opportunity that gives ‘Blink’ its greatest poignancy because essentially the episode boils down to two lost lives. There’s Cathy Nightingale’s make-best trip to 1920, where she finds love and happiness despite her swift and unexplained ‘death’ in 2007. And then there’s the somewhat more tragic fate that befalls policeman Billy Shipton, flung back to the year 1969 just when he has met the woman of his dreams and destined to live a lonely and unfulfilled life waiting to give a message that only one person can understand. Moffat never really dwells on the implications of these two characters’ post-2007 fate, merely concentrating on how human beings make the best of a bad situation. So while both Cathy and Billy’s lives may have ended the moment their inability to keep their eyes open in 2007 condemned them to the past, it’s their adjustment to their new fates - and how they will ultimately affect Sally Sparrow - that Moffat prefers to reflect on.
So how do the Doctor and Martha fit into this moebius strip of self-fulfilling prophecies and cyclical fate? Arguably it’s the integration of the time-travellers’ own story into this episode’s already convoluted plot which provides ‘Blink’ with its coup-de-grace. The impenetrable scenes in which the Doctor makes seemingly random statements as a DVD extra yield to possibly the most ingenious use of exposition in this series yet; as our heroine Sally Sparrow (the cute as a button Carey Mulligan) slowly pieces together the jigsaw puzzle of written warnings, mysterious letters and easter eggs which make up ‘Blink’s narrative DNA. It’s very typical of modern storytelling - not to mention storytelling that’s very aware of the kind of audience that most makes up Doctor Who’s hardcore fanbase - to have a storyline that makes full use of the mediums on which it will be later bought, viewed and re-viewed ad nauseum. So in many respects here we have the ultimate Doctor Who adventure for the multi-media savvy techno-nerd: one whose very secret is buried inside a DVD extra, forming the closest thing yet to an interactive adventure in which the viewer himself is party to the story’s outcome.
Moffat being Moffat we’re never very far from his core obsessions: the mechanics of human relationships and his own undying love for the show which first captured his fervent imagination all those years ago. So on the one hand we’ve got a pseudo-Coupling cast of characters who are as instantly likeable as they are believable, while on the other we’ve got one or two sly digs at the self-appointed cognoscenti of Doctor Who fandom; the likes of which would bang on and on about the size of the new TARDIS’ windows or recreate utterly meaningless statements in the form of enigmatic T-shirt slogans. ‘Blink’ more even than ‘Love & Monsters’ delights in tweaking the nose of the aesthetic that feeds it, even down to the clichéd haunted-house setting of the opening scene or how the Doctor and Martha are engaged on yet another monster-hunt just as Sally’s realisation of her part in their story comes clear.
In a story as tightly written as this, it’s easy to overlook the myriad elements that make up that whole. Such as Carey Mulligan’s delightful cameo as the best companion the Doctor never had, or Murray Gold’s hauntingly minimalist score (especially the blackboard-scraping theme for the weeping angels). And how refreshing to find in an episode that pushes all the buttons both sartorially and intellectually that oh-so rare element behind the scenes: a woman at the helm. Hettie McDonald’s direction is never less than as tight as Moffat’s script, and in her stone-clad nemeses she creates a genuinely eerie and memorable image of everyday ordinariness given a sinister bent sure to send school-children in parks and museums running. And buoyed by an eclectic and natural cast, McDonald’s assured hand gives these characters room to breathe and grow; a factor which adds to ‘Blink’s underlying sense of the everyday macabre. I’m not even going to make the same mistake of wondering how Steven Moffat can top this, given his track-record of proving me wrong these past two years. Though it’s safe to say that, what with his already commissioned two-parter for next year and continuing rumblings about his possible elevation to executive status come RTD’s much-rumoured departure, Steven Moffat is still the one writer for whom you just cannot use brackets on this show. Everything he does is different and fresh, and the only safe prediction you can make is that whatever he produces next it will be memorable. I for one simply can’t wait to see how he’s going to surprise me…

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BACK ONCE AGAIN (WITH THE RENEGADE MASTER)

UTOPIA: Tim Worthington

Trailers used to be such simple things. As any number of 'old skool' Doctor Who DVDs will attest, the average TV show was once content to promote itself with a short and usually not that exciting clip, with minimal assistance from an avuncular voiceover man and a day and time caption. Then it all changed. Some time in the 1980s American TV networks started to ape the bombastic cliffhanging style of trailer favoured by big-screen blockbusters, heavy on dramatic music, fast edits and clips suggesting heaps of nailbiting tension to come, even if it later turned out that there wasn't. It took a long time for the influence to filter through to British TV but filter through it did, and now even the most innocuous of shows is pushed to the viewer with blaring sounds and dizzying images. And such is the need to pack them with glimpses of things to come that, thanks to a short break in transmission (which people complained about, even though it was a fraction of the length of the ones they had in the sixties), viewers had their first sight of Captain Jack doing his slow-motion tribute to Del Boy falling through the bar over two months before `Utopia` aired. It’s a long time in television. Well, not really, but it’s enough time for rumours to spread and hype to spiral out of control. Captain Jack’s The Master! No, he’s The Face Of Boe! I think he's The Shrivenzale! The returning villains in this story will be The Monoids! Or possibly The Pirate Captain! OK, so frankly for believing such self-invented tripe the rumourmongers deserve not to enjoy the story, but the hype is a more serious problem, especially when the two-month gap contains the superlative `Human Nature`/`Family Of Blood`, the lightweight but enormously fun `Blink`, and the at least enjoyable `42`. That's quite a lot to live up to.
Even aside from such contextual considerations, the omens for `Utopia` were not good. The `Radio Times`, always so quick to talk up the latest episode of Doctor Who in amongst all their witless cheerleading for the latest join-the-dots ITV 9pm drama and whatever show this week features un-reconstituted bigotry cunningly disguised as 'deliciously non-PC', had no hesitation in describing it as a 'clunker'. The preview clips at the end of `Blink` weren't overly pulse-quickening either (although to be far, once you'd actually seen the episode it became clear that this was probably down to them not wanting to give too much away).
Well, one viewer's 'clunker' is another viewer's exhilarating edge-of-the-seat television. Any story that starts with Captain Jack clinging to the TARDIS whilst hurtling through the time vortex (wonder if he bumped into Salamander on the way?) and continues with Rene 'The Zag' Zagger putting the skills he learned as Grange Hill's champion runner Mike Bentley to good use while being pursued by savage-looking tribal characters who looked as though they'd just run head-first into a still-drying example of those 'ethnic woodcut' paintings that were popular in the eighties is always going to be pretty far removed from clunkerdom, no matter what those with access to preview tapes might argue.
Although clearly intended from the outset as a build-up to the climactic closing two-parter, `Utopia` was no mere scene-setter and some thought had clearly gone into making it a worthwhile episode in its own right, something that the production team have noticeably skimped on for previous outings. In fact, the episode was pretty much a distillation of everything that the new series does best - a hostile dying planet, a saboteur driven purely by primal rage, a tense 'this must be done in the right order' scene overlaid with humour, a comic relief character with an amusingly irritating turn of phrase, you name it and it was slammed together in this one single episode that shook just like the starbound rocket did on take off.
These thrills were effectively just a sideshow though - something that was subtly underlined by the way that the fate of the Utopia-bound travellers was so quickly and totally forgotten about - and the main purpose of the episode was to reintroduce The Master. Of course, it's true that many viewers will have guessed long ago that the bearded jackanapes was likely to find his black-clad way back into the series eventually, but who would have guessed at him being both Professor Yana and Harold Saxon? And the element of surprise didn't end there either - despite it having stared the entire audience in the face for weeks on end, the revelation that he had survived the Time War and escaped subsequent detection by using one of those Time Lord pocket watches came as a real jolt with a genuine sense of nervous realisation creeping in throughout the scene. The intercutting between Yana's initials and The Face Of Boe's ominous proclamation was an inspired move, as was the sound of Anthony Ainley and Roger Delgado's voices issuing from the watch which must have caused a great number of older viewers to shiver as if they were still behind that imaginary sofa that nobody ever hid behind.

Not that anyone should expect anything less from an actor of his calibre, but Derek Jacobi's performance was little short of, erm, masterful, beautifully sketching the slow and gradual degeneration from the benevolent, kindly Professor Yana (a performance that called to mind no less avuncular a figure than Douglas Adams' long-forgotten animated friend of the animals Dr. Snuggles) to a new version of The Master with one foot in malevolent snarling - his sneering dismissal of the idea of 'Utopia' was genuinely chilling - and the other in a studied childishness ("killed by an insect... a girl!"). Equally impressively John Simm seemed to immediately take the post-regeneration character off in an entirely different direction, coming across as somewhere between an arrogant politician and a sinister Timothy Claypole, especially when mocking the old series' habit of having The Master arrogantly reveal his plans in full in order to engineer his own defeat. Meanwhile, holding her own against these two heavyweights (and the not-that-bad-on-the-acting-front-either regular cast too) was Chipo Chung, who managed to imbue the faintly ridiculous Chantho with a genuine sympathy and depth that made her fate all the more shocking.
Anyway, never mind The Master, it was great to see Captain Jack back in the thick of the show, and indeed effectively back in character, having been slightly overshadowed in Torchwood by the more interesting Toshiko and Ianto, the more foul-mouthed Gwen, and the more distractingly quick-cart-him-off-to-acting-school Owen. This was exactly the right moment for John Barrowman to be back straddling that fine line between comedy and white-knuckle-ride excitement, as the series has been subtly and cleverly moving in that direction throughout. As indeed did the episode itself, slowly but surely ratcheting up the tension until the climactic final few minutes, when the audience held their breath en masse, and for once Murray Gold's incidental music didn't sound at all excessively dramatic or over the top. And extra points for the erstwhile musical contributor to Radio 1's short-lived comedy 'rock history' The Knowledge for sneaking in a subtle echo of the Torchwood theme, although forgetting to do likewise with Dudley Simpson's old 'Master Theme' from the Pertwee era was a real missed opportunity. Less impressive was the big reveal of Captain Jack's post-`The Parting Of The Ways` pre-Torchwood backstory. Not in any way because of the content - in fact, it was nice for once to have an explanation that both made sense and fitted exactly with everything else that has already been established - nor indeed because of the direction, acting or scripting of the scenes themselves. Rather it was down to the overwrought gravitas applied whenever the subject was touched on in Torchwood, which hinted at something far darker and jolting than simply 'I had to wait around for a very long time'. Still, that's more Torchwood's problem than it is Doctor Who's, and in any case it was far better we had that than "I'm The Doctor's son... ".
On top of everything else, `Utopia` was followed by a tremendous instalment of Doctor Who Confidential. Even just a fortnight ago, the words 'tremendous', 'Doctor', 'Confidential' and 'Who' seemed like words that were scientifically unable to appear in the same sentence as each other. David Tennant's bizarre hallucinogenic diversion into trying to create a visual version of those old World Distributors annual articles about the making of the series aside, it's been pretty much unwatchable for the most part this run. Well, alright, maybe that's a tad harsh, but it's not unfair to say that by and large they run out of anything genuinely interesting to say within a third or less of its ludicrously overlong running time, filling up the rest with members of the production team saying very little about nothing in particular.
Some would doubtless argue that Doctor Who is a special case that deserves special treatment even if it does mean that length outweighs interestingness. Well, it isn't, and how exciting would the 'classic' series have been had every episode been followed by interminable footage of JNT trying to explain why nobody watched The Two Doctors? Not to mention if the practice had been extended to the rest of the schedules and audiences passim had thrilled to Blake's 7 Confidential, Beachcombers Confidential, Captain Zep Confidential and Sorry Mate, I Didn't See You! Confidential. Thankfully this time, with three articulate actors who haven't been in the rest of the series on hand, things get a little more interesting. If Simm, Jacobi and Barrowman aren't on commentary duties when the DVD release rolls around, somebody really will have missed a trick.
We've come so far technologically since the days when it was all done live and in black and white, but some things never change, and just for a second, audiences watching in 2007 must have felt the same sort of jangle of nerves as their counterparts did when witnessing a hapless spaceman chancing upon the Daleks and their ridiculously-costumed pals plotting total universal conquest in another 'teaser episode' over four decades previously. Sometimes trailers do give away far too much, but nothing - least of all a leaping Barrowman - had hinted at just how much impact `Utopia` would have. Hype means nothing when its subject exceeds all expectations, nor indeed when it points towards the following two episodes being something rather spectacular through sheer on-screen action alone. And who would have thought this sort of praise would ever be heaped on an episode written by Russell T Davies?
All we need now is for The Master to the thwarted in the final episode by DI Gene Hunt appearing from nowhere shouting "what's all this about Tyler you great ponce?", and perfection will have been achieved.

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SIMM CAD

THE SOUND OF DRUMS//LAST OF THE TIME LORDS: John Connors

There’s a sound constantly drumming in Russell T Davies’ head and that’s the noise of the old series urging him to include more and more of it. He can’t resist and when it plays like this, then neither can we. He’s pulled off a minor miracle really in making The Master- the most two dimensional Doctor Who villain of all – into someone just as intriguing as the Doctor himself. As if that were not an impressive enough achievement he almost manages to defeat him without the old `oh well we’d better work together then` line. In fact, throughout the story and back into `Utopia`, our expectations of the old jackanapes are constantly undermined to surprising effect. Ahh, but do I mean RTD or The Master himself when I say that? Well, both really. Russell comes in for a lot of stick for this and that, you know for daring to take a tired concept and emerge with a gleaming talisman. For re-inventing family telly and making every programme maker worth their salt realise there is mileage in telefantasy/sci-fi/ whatever you call it. Little things like that. Worst of all he gets stick for making the whole thing too heroic. Yikes, it shows how we view things that this is now seen as a bad thing by some people. Our literature is built on heroes, our classic (and not so classic) fiction is bursting with them, even the biggest films of all time are all fronted by heroes, but some people whinge and whine about Rose looking into the TARDIS, about enigmatic Face of Boe messages and of course about the Doctor floating at the end of episode 13. Those people will never change- they baulked at the `Parting of the Ways` kiss which is surely the best `this is what we’re building up to` moment the programme has ever pulled off so why they’re still watching I don’t know.
Let’s forget about them anyway and revel in the heroism on display here. It suits our times more than ever; look outwards and the world is weirder than it’s been in a long time. There are enemies but, unlike previous conflicts and divisions, we don’t know who or sometimes even where they are. The weather is changing but we don’t know what to do about it. If fiction- especially big telly fiction- can provide our kids with heroes and heroines, maybe, just maybe some of them will grow up with a can-do attitude to tackle the things that bug and befuddle our leaders and politicians today. Yes, I know it’s a romantic outlook but if Doctor Who is about anything, then it’s about heroism, about doing the right thing.
Just think what this wonderfully shaped story is telling us- Martha Jones walked round the world telling a story that is the catalyst to save the day; something that, as the Master scoffs is just `hope`. I think this is just such an inspiring idea and if you don’t believe it could happen, then I’m sorry for you. Like a lot of Russell T’s ideas it does take some grasping and the fallback response is to say “but that could never happen…” followed by some plausible reason why it couldn’t. Sometimes though isn’t it great to believe that it could? I think when The Master describes humans as “the greatest monsters of them all” he’s wrong and that somewhere there is always a hero like Martha or like the Doctor to win the day whether on a small or a large scale.
Russell T also gets stick for his plots not making sense- not that many so called classics from the old days always make sense either- but here he weaves something that does take the strain of analysis. The Paradox Machine may be a gimmick (then again you might as well say the TARDIS is a gimmick) but it’s just scenery. Nobody goes to see a Shakespeare and says `oh well the sets were unconvincing”. Now I’m not making a direct comparison here, but you know what I mean. RTD’s scripts wallow like hippos in the mud in the beauty of language; just like the old master Robert Holmes and his fellow 70s scripters did. The lyricism of these episodes brings them to life and the performances bristle with an energy than 95% of television sorely needs these days. The confidence that these things can be done comes from RTD and trickles down to everyone taking part. Plus it does actually all make sense, more of less, give or take Caoptain Jack’s last line.
In the end it is the most audacious gambles that pay off best- the key to the Master’s success here is to make him just like the Doctor- crazy, wayward and yet strangely entertaining. John Simm has never acted like this before- he’s one of our best younger actors but he usually shows off in more `worthy` dramas or had to play the straight man to Gene Hunt in Life on Mars. Just as the similarly typecast Christopher Eccleston did two years back, Simm sheds his shackles as he gasses the Cabinet or dances across the Valiant’s deck making threats as he twirls the captive Doctor around in a chair. The sort of high comedy he performs when mugging it up in front of the US President works because of Simm. It’s a riveting performance but far from the showboating it could be; instead it allows terrifying glimpses into the madness that lurks inside the character’s head. It works to such magic effect that you still don’t hate him when he’s turned his fellow Time Lord into a sort of Gollumesque parrot. The series stands tallest in scenes like this and it all goes back to Davies’ spiralling script. It has the feel of a big budget film and even if the limitations show on occasion, there is a ton of spectacle on screen for us to lap up and plenty of tricks and twists to trip the unwary. Like I believed the gun with four chemicals bit for a while!
Davies’ love of heroism and the BIG story means we can take this season as just as much one long story as the 2005 one yet it’s been grittier as it’s progressed and has been shaped by Martha Jones whose arrival has made the show less overtly sentimental (this in turn makes the emotional moments work even better) and more aggressive. The Doctor is portrayed as something of an avenging angel – his streaks of callous justice have already been shown a few times so it completely wrong foots us when all he wants to do is help The Master. If this confuses us, then it is Martha’s bravery and heroism that we can understand and admire. Freema Ageyman has a difficult job in this story and delivers with aplomb, refusing to let us believe that Martha is anything but confident of her success. I did feel that towards the end the sheer weight of the narrative almost overwhelmed her ability to be inspiring but then again, was I missing the point? Martha is ordinary; Rose wasn’t even though her background was clearly less affluent. Rose was one of those special charismatic people whereas Martha’s ordinariness is what makes her connect; we’ve seen throughout the season how easily she connected to the ordinary and extraordinary people she encountered and how despite her travels her family come first. The way she runs off to help them in `Drums` is the best clue as to how the story will play out but it was with a tinge of regret that we see her depart, unlike Rose, there still seems a little more of Martha’s story to be teased out.
Of course what lots of people love about Russell T’s Doctor Who is it’s sheer absurdity and there is more of that to be enjoyed here; the gas masked Saxon tapping on the Cabinet table, he and his wife’s looks as they kind of enjoy the decapitation in the room next door, the deliberate Thunderbirds look of the Valiant, the use of recent pop music on two occasions to underpin scenes of first danger and then cruelty. Most of all when the Doctor with all 900 years showing is seen in a bird cage it is just a wonderfully bizarre moment. There’s also the revived series’ trademark pseudo reality which takes just enough of modern life to make it recognisable just like the series used to do in the 1970s. So, while it’s too slim to be political satire, `The Sound of Drums` nonetheless shows us a politician who can sweep to power by stringing together platitudes of the sort everyone wants to hear; surely the cynics’ definition of what real politicians do anyway. That the episode aired in the final week of Tony Blair’s premiership only added to the bite. Harold Saxon’s smile, too, was very disturbing and not unlike a certain sickly grin we’ve become very familiar with the past decade. It’s all in good fun though one suspects Gordon Brown was taking notes during the scene when the new PM gases his whole Cabinet! Just in case!
The series’ use of newscasts to tell us what’s happening reaches its zenith here and even though we didn’t know the story had a reset button built in when watching `Drums`, it is clearly time to avoid big public invasions for a while. They did it in the old days by constant use of research centres and country houses and you could well believe the public were kept uninformed. Oddly enough, UNIT gets a lot of mentions in this story and as there is no such thing as a casual reference in an RTD script, we can surmise that they’ll be back more prominently next year. Perhaps the twice referenced Axons too?The faux news does work well here though, showing you can use the same trick five or six times and it still works.
I suppose my only gripe about this fantastic season has been the teams seeming inability to create something both memorable and recurring of their own. Some of the monsters have been classic- season 1’s Empty Child and gas masked hordes, the Ood (whom young kids adore) and this year we’ve had very, very scary scarecrows and even scarier statues. Yet these are one offs, unlikely to return because they can only do again what they did before. Surely RTD has a classic monster of his own in his head somewhere; something that can be brought back for an end of season finale in 2038? However, here we do have the Toclafane whose origins are quite nasty when we find out and it is refreshing to have something brand new in the season finale. Davies works overtime to keep their origins a mystery and while some may have guessed it was a horrid little surprise for me and made the concluding episode even stronger. When there are Daleks and Cybermen about it does look cool but the emotional investment in `Last` was stronger because of what we’d seen in `Utopia`.
In what’s been the best of the three 00s seasons, this was a thrilling, amusing and breathtaking finale and shows a television show at its artistic peak. Where will to go from here? I, for one, can’t wait to find out…

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TWO’S COMPANY

Partners In Crime reviewed by Daniel O’Mahony

When Billie Piper makes an insubstantial but not entirely unexpected appearance near the end of Partners in Crime, we’re reminded of how much Doctor Who has changed in the last three years. This is still visibly the programme that began (or resumed) back in 2005, but it isn’t Rose which three years on, is ramshackle by comparison. Partners in Crime is a smooth, polished production, full of a confidence that Rose – for all its gloss – lacked. Even in comparison with obvious cost-cutter episodes further down the line, Rose looks ropey. Partly this is down to poor direction, but we’ve had worse since without evoking that same sense of uncertainty and inexperience. No, Rose shakes because it’s nervous. It’s a first flight, a big risk, no one involved knows if they’re doing it right, if it’s going to work, if people will want to tune in. Watching the opening sequence, as we fast forward through Billie Piper’s unremarkable life, is like seeing panic in action, creative panic. Rose pitches itself into the air, hoping to take flight, and – miraculously – it does. Partners in Crime, by contrast, moves like an Adipose. It waddles around amiably and, rather than flying, it’s lifted gently into the heavens, sustained confidently on beams of light. There’s no real danger of it falling to earth, not after three years of Doctor Who’s success. This isn’t new. After the whoosh of Rose, every new season has begun with a story that feels pedestrian by contrast with that first, stuttering leap. What’s changed is obvious: Doctor Who is a hit now and the season premieres have been tailored to a new set of expectations. Rose needed to grab an audience that would be sceptical, dismissive or absent, but New Earth, Smith and Jones, and now Partners in Crime don’t have that worry. Instead they want to reassure audiences that this is the same series as before, that nothing has changed, and that any surprises they may hold will be found only in the tweaks and twists of a familiar plot, or maybe a startling new visual effect (and Partners in Crime fails to show us anything like, say, the quintessentially Whoish image of a London hospital displaced to the moon). There’s certainly nothing in Partners in Crime like the ninth Doctor’s little speech to Rose about the inherent unreliability of the world beneath her feet. That can come later; first episodes are meant to be comfortable now.

This is the frustrating part of watching Partners in Crime. Doctor Who has never looked better, but the confidence of the production is mirrored by the timid conception of the story. It feels like a leftover Sarah Jane Adventure – but with more money spent on it, and therefore rather less garish and rather less fun. Compare the bland and anonymous office spaces where most of the action takes place here with the much more visually interesting Bubbleshock Factory in the very similar Invasion of the Bane. Sarah Jane moves at a fair old zip, so might be said to be the true inheritor of the Rose ethic. More polished it may be, but most of Partners in Crime is spent waiting for something – anything – to happen, and while big effects scenes like the first appearance of the Adipose (and their integration into the live action work) are technically a huge improvement on Keith Boak’s inept staging of, for example, the Nestene wheelie bin, there’s a certain spontaneity lacking, because the director and the writer-producer are no longer winging it. James Strong’s direction is never worse than (and never better than) competent here, and the weaker moments aren’t fumbles like Boak’s, but the visual standards are now so high that those lapses feel like mistakes in the story rather than technical cock-ups. The ‘shock’ reveal of Billie Piper, in a dog-end scene telegraphed as significant, is a case in point. It isn’t just ineptly done, it’s an insult to the viewer’s intelligence; it can’t just be a case of a director (not actually Strong by this point) framing a shot poorly, it must have been written that way. The conceptual conservatism that’s come to characterise Doctor Who’s first nights isn’t entirely down to laurels, resting on. Each year, to varying degrees, the series has had to reinvent itself and the comfortable baggage of these stories is like padding round the unfamiliar element, as if trying to insulate the series from the (usually mild) shock of the new. New Earth had arguably the trickiest job, introducing not so much a new Doctor as establishing a new relationship between the Doctor and his companion (which didn’t turn out to be far removed from the old relationship). Smith and Jones gives us a new companion, though the comfort factor – and the unavoidable degree to which the audience now knows how this sort of thing is supposed to work – means that Martha’s introduction into the Doctor’s world never has anything like the resonance of Rose’s initiation. Partners in Crime doesn’t have this problem, as Donna already knows the ground rules – and the gesticulating-at-the-windows recap is by far the funniest and most memorable sequence in the whole of the story. Instead we have a reintroduction, and a reshaping, and in the process this gives us the star of the show, and the spark that almost but doesn’t quite animate the dead flesh around her.

For all the howls of outrage in fandom when Catherine Tate’s return was announced no one could deny that the Donna of The Runaway Bride is one of Russell T. Davies’s most magnificently grotesque characters, nor that Catherine Tate dominates the good half of that story, before she ends up having to play second fiddle to a shockingly awful performance by a Proper Serious Actress (so that’s okay) playing a pantomime spider. It’s a forgivable shame that she’s had to be toned down from her debut, but Tate is the best thing in Partners in Crime and – in the little screen time they share together – does the trick of both complementing and eclipsing David Tennant that Rose and Martha were never allowed to get away with. Partly it’s because Donna doesn’t have a puppy crush on the Doctor – a theme which, after two companions, Madame du Pompadour and Astrid, feels like narcissism rather than genuine characterisation. More importantly, it’s because Donna is ordinary. Unlike Rose or Martha she isn’t set up as the Chosen One, and it’s hard to imagine the superenergetic Rose seeming as becalmed as Donna does in her domestic scenes. Donna feels like a real person rather than a love letter and this can only be for the good. Tennant, who announced what his Doctor was going to be like about 50 minutes into The Christmas Invasion and has stuck with that even since, might suddenly have a reason to change. These two actors bounce off each other, and one of the more frustrating elements of Partners in Crime is the extent to which the script contrives to keep them apart. The parallel plotting that separates them for the first half of the episode is leaden, and can’t have looked witty even on paper.

Donna, unlike Martha, unlike the Rose of season two, is an accident. She brings a spontaneity to Partners in Crime that’s otherwise missing, which is down to more than just fortuitous casting. For three years now we’ve got used to the idea that the companions are fitted to the task by fate (Russell T. Davies wearing a Greek God mask). The foregrounding of the Doctor/companion relationship is obvious – though not as much of a departure from the 1963-1989 series as it’s often painted – but it comes fitted with an ongoing subtext about the Doctor’s need to recruit the right travelling companion. We’ve seen: Christopher Eccleston constantly faced with potential alternatives to Rose, who are then offed by authorial fiat; Martha’s arc occasionally resembling a series of tasks (rewrite Shakespeare, impersonate a maid, save the world) set by a cosmic Sir Alan Sugar; and, most recently, Mr Copper delivering the moral of Voyage of the Damned, to the effect that Kylie Minogue was just too busy and too expensive to keep on as a regular. Donna’s unanticipated return short-circuits all this, and gives us an unplanned companion who is here because a guest character grew a life of her own. The script seems to be fighting this – having Donna travelling round ready-packed in expectation of running into the Doctor seems like a harmless attempt to undercut any sense of the accidental – and it may have taken a year for the wheels to grind, but something of the wing-and-a-prayer spirit that animated Rose (and much of Doctor Who before that) is back and this can only be a good thing.

It remains to be seen if this spirit will last over the next twelve weeks (and the ghostly intrusion of Billie Piper is, perhaps, a sign that it won’t). A lot depends on the instincts of whichever of the many Russell T. Davies’s is running the show. There are several and it’s important to make the distinction. There’s the Russell T. Davies who brought Doctor Who back to life, and produces it, and whose work (even on Rose) is exemplary; there’s the Russell T. Davies who created Torchwood, and who’s probably barred from working on television ever again; and there are several writers using that name, some of them good, some not so good, one great in small doses, one who wrote Last of the Time Lords and isn’t allowed sharp implements, and one palpably bored with the rigmarole of Doctor Who. The last is the one who wrote Voyage of the Damned and much of season three, and also Partners in Crime, and whose work is lifeless. Seriously, Russell T. Davies’s strengths are hardly negligible but they’re apparent nowhere in this episode. Those intimate character exchanges, little insights and observations and quirky pieces of business that characterise his work at its most charming have gone, replaced by slapstick – sometimes almost effective, as with Miss Foster’s Wile E. Coyote-style comeuppance – and sentiment. (The music doesn’t help, particularly in the hillside scenes with Bernard Cribbins.) Most tellingly, the satire is gone. Admittedly in episodes like Aliens of London or Gridlock this was always blunt and sometimes hamfisted, but at least it was an authorial characteristic. For a minute Partners in Crime looks like it’s going to be saying something (maybe serious, maybe not) about obesity ‘epidemics’, no-effort diets, dodgy medical ethics, telemarketing, consumerism, something, but nothing comes of any of this. The Adipose are literally just ‘monsters’ (body horror at its cutest), and a small amount of fun is poked at fat people (mainly women) but not at slimming fads. There is an odd moment early on where Miss Foster sounds like she’s about to tell her sales team to Always Be Closing and Doctor Who is going to do a kid-friendly version of Glengarry Glen Ross – an opportunity that I can’t imagine the Russell T. Davies of series one passing over – but this is just a backdrop to a sluggish scene of the Doctor and Donna failing to spot each other, and besides the telesales folk have already served their plot purpose and consequently disappear from the rest of the story. In a sharper mood Davies might have made something of the theme of humans giving birth to monsters conceived out of their own perceived physical ‘imperfections’, and would certainly have run with the potential Supernanny-spoof that’s offered and then forgotten. Sarah Lancashire is perfectly okay doing what actors playing baddies do in Doctor Who nowadays, but the character is generic and the notion of her as an intergalactic alien midwife turns out to have little impact on the story, beyond putting this week’s spin on the usual template villain spiel. She doesn’t even get to threaten the Doctor with the Naughty Step. Partners in Crime is, in short, nothing more than an efficient engine to put Donna into the TARDIS (which is a good thing) and give us a Billie Piper cameo (which is perhaps foreshadowing an arc-plot less cynical than it appears to be here). It does its job without any flair or diversions, as if all the passion has been siphoned out of the body of Doctor Who leaving very little except fat. It’s not an accident that we don’t get to see the adult Adipose, who are clearly something more than just cute, and whose presence beyond their Close Encounters light show might have introduced complications or ambiguities that the story couldn’t cope with. Better to have Miss Foster as a surrogate, one the adult Adipose can kill off at the moment the plot no longer needs her so we can all go home. Partners in Crime is very much like a baby Adipose. It looks great, smooth and adorable and friendly, seamlessly integrated into its surroundings, and commanding the attention of millions. But sweet as they are, the Adipose lack charm or danger. They are not strange and otherworldly, as Doctor Who at its best should be. They don’t bite. And, like Partners in Crime, they’re all flab.

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POMPEII AND CIRCUMSTANCE

Fires of Pompeii reviewed by Sean Alexander

Arguably, the biggest risk to Doctor Who’s movers-and-shakers in the modern world of ratings smashes and critical plaudits ad nauseum is complacency. Gone well and truly are the mid-eighties days of the show struggling for respect and recognition, replaced instead by an inevitable sense that the creative hothouse of BBC Cardiff can do no wrong. This of course is not the case, and nor should it ever be. Doctor Who’s ability to swing almost effortlessly from the sublime to the ridiculous on a week-to-week basis is as much a truism as that oft repeated ‘infinite format’ label which old-school fans still rely on to big up their show in the face of some frequently stiff modern competition. Perhaps the first signs of complacency are often the most benign. Four years in and the Russell T Davies era of Doctor Who has well and truly found its niche amongst the brickbats and bouquets of a modern, multi-media television environment. Nowhere can this format be better illustrated than in the now set-in-stone format of a modern-day, run-around opener being followed immediately by a trip to some iconic point in the past, replete with either recognisable locations or a real-life figure on which to hang out the narrative washing. Season one did it with Dickens and Victorian gaslight, season two saw Queen Victoria and a werewolf and season three - most self-consciously - turned to Renaissance London and a meet-up with the Great Bard himself in order to provide that perfect one-line pitch For season four there is no ‘celebrity’ cameo (not here, at least; Agatha Christie’s appearance in `The Unicorn and the Wasp` is yet to come) but `The Fires of Pompeii`’s adherence to the tried-and-tested format is no less obvious for that.

If a little seasonal repetition is insufficient to prove that Davies and co’s confidence in their adopted baby is strong enough to withstand any accusations of water treading, then one more dip into the Big Finish pool of audio scripts pretty much nails it. I’ve not listened to the 7th Doctor / Mel play of a few years back, but I don’t think I’m making too bold a leap by suggesting that its story of the Doctor and his companion arriving in Pompeii on the day of you-know-what was something of an inspiration to James Moran’s script. Certainly the moral dilemma - whether the time travellers let history run it course, despite the overwhelming tragedy of watching 20,000 people buried alive in molten ash - is present and correct. As is perhaps the oldest thematic element of Doctor Who’s formative DNA: what exactly are the opportunities offered to anyone with the ability to travel in time, and how do they deal with the repercussions of it. So what we’re essentially offered here is `The Aztecs`, but for a more modern, less morally ambivalent generation. It’s reassuring to know that, more than forty years on, such fundamental storytelling is as important now as it ever was in the days of Lambert and Whittaker forging their thematic identities on a then embryonic show. Of course new Who’s mandate to be more emotionally and spiritually relevant to its era lends this type of approach a poignancy that the original series would only fleetingly have; making the tragedy of Pompeii more about the individual experiences of one family rather than, as you suspect, a navel-gazing debate on human ethics that the show’s black and white days would have served up. When Barbara challenged the Doctor about ending human sacrifice she was told she could never change history, “not one line of it”’; forty-odd years later and while the rules are still the same, the willingness of a more touchy-feely Time Lord to bend them every now and again is as much about the show’s new-found emotional core as it is any laziness on the part of the script-writers. But perhaps the most obvious thing to say about The Fires of Pompeii is how absolutely splendid it looks. Afforded the first genuine overseas shooting since the show’s reboot, the episode makes fantastic use of the Cinecitta studios most familiar to viewers of the BBC co-production Rome with the late September sunshine adding a sheen of richness that even the previous years’ period romps never quite achieved. Tied to this is a genuinely stellar cast of A-list television faces; Peter Capaldi as the stoic Caecilius, head of our touchstone Pompeiian family, Phil Davis eschewing his usual cockney gangster shtick for once to deliver a soothsayer with a soupcon of sinister menace, and Dead Ringers impressionist Phil Cornwall popping up in a nothing cameo as a stallholder that’s less Lurcio and more Del Boy Trotter.

And despite the funeral air of inevitability that hangs like a cloud of volcanic ash over the episode’s proceedings, Moran injects his script with a level of wit and panache that even fellow period-piecer Gareth Roberts would doff a metaphorical hat to. The whole idea of Latin sounding like Welsh is nicely handled, and not over-egged like in some previous period forays (yes, `Tooth and Claw’s “We are not amused”, I’m looking at you). The Tennant and Tate comedy partnership is in full swing after the more chase-heavy template of Partners in Crime. Indeed, you could argue that an air of levity is essential for once in an episode where the viewer is already savvy to the fate of its characters, undercutting the more fatalistic and morose elements without compromising on the moving finale.

It’s not an episode without its share of scares either. The Pyroville are a nicely unpleasant combination of prosthetics and CGI that for once have you fearing for the good guys, while the prophesising Cybelline - replete with Guillermo Del Toro inspired ‘eye hands’ - are nicely chilling, and more than a little reminiscent of the Sisterhood of Khan from The Brain of Morbius. And for all those looking for the narrative threads to be found throughout season four, there’s more than enough to keep the message board posters happy. The Doctor is told that ‘she’ is returning; Donna is warned about ‘something’ being on her back; and the Pyroville’s need to ransack the Earth for its revitalising magma is as a result of its own planet disappearing. Following the Adipose’s similar experiences of the previous week, this really is becoming a case of curiouser and curiouser. Add to that a couple of references to the Shadow Proclamation and you’ve got enough dangling threads to knit a woolly scarf with.

If there’s a weakness then it’s one common to much of modern Who’s truncated format. The level of exposition dumping is often leaving the viewer none the wiser as to what’s going on until at least one or two repeated viewings, and even the machine-gun delivery of David Tennant on full power is frequently insufficient in the face of convoluted monologues and the incessant crescendo of Murray Gold’s music. It’s a shame, as more often than not these problems can be ironed out quite easily with a more underplayed soundtrack and more varied beats in the story. Put it down to Moran’s inexperience as - his Torchwood entry notwithstanding - he makes an assured Who debut here.

But perhaps the episode’s unlikeliest jewel is Catherine Tate. Finally given the chance to show Donna to be more than the bolshy, mouthy caricature of either `The Runaway Bride` or her comeback last week, Tate rises to the challenge; fulfilling not just the remit of companion-in-peril at one point, but also providing the Doctor with his least easy-going of TARDIS travellers since Tegan Jovanka moaned her way through three years of eighties Who. When she demands that he saves at least one person from the conflagration of Pompeii, you’re tempted to think that neither Rose nor Martha would have had either the right nor the indignation to get him to change his mind. And as Oscar Schindler would no doubt have agreed, “he that saves one life saves the world entire”; and it is solely down to Donna that the Doctor recognises the need - both for himself and for the audience at home - to do just that. It’s ironic that Tate’s recasting stirred most of the fandom ire back in July, seeing as both here and last week she is by far the best element on show not to mention being a welcome change from the recent trend of companions seemingly besotted with the Doctor. Plus ca change it seems is always the case with the populist opinion in fandom but with regards both Tate and Moran, at least on the evidence here, ‘Welcome Aboard’ just about covers it.

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OOD MUSIC

Planet Of The Ood reviewed by Ben Baker

Ah, the Ood. Who doesn’t love the Ood? Kids love them for their lame puppy dog meets a RADA-trained Dr. Zoidberg in delicious Cornish pasty casing personalities. Adults love them because they can secretly imagine having one around the house to knock about and release their private Boris Johnson-style frustrations. And of course lazy writers like me love the Ood because they can then crowbar in as many cheap ‘ood’ containing words and banal puns as they can humanly come up with – ‘Very ‘Ood Work’, ‘Not Too R-Ood For TV’ and ‘The Label Blur Were Signed To Before It Folded Into EMI And Latterly Parlophone In The Late Nineties Was Ood Records’ etc etc. Standard stuff, really. So, with this brand of top flight punnery in mind, how did “Planet Of the Ood” shape up exactly?

Well, um – it was alright. I suppose. My initial problem with the episode quickly manifested itself in the pre-title sequence – in which a faceless executive is offed by one of the title creatures – feels a little flat and telefantasy generic with nothing truly announces itself as “Its Doctor Who Time!”, which for a series already battling against surreal time changes and the sticky breath of summer down its neck seems a little misjudged, not least for an episode in the first three of the run. So where does that leave the increasingly CGI terra of the title? Well, looking like an episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures to be honest. Newcomer to the series, writer Keith Temple may have had big thoughts during the creative process imagining the episode evoking the sweeping wintery plains where Luke Skywalker battled for his very existence in the bleak vistas of Hoth. But what made it to screen was, due to BBC budget limitations, more akin to the set of Ice Age 2 with bonus ‘squinting Tim McInnerny’ (as the roughage cereal-evoking Klineman Halpen). Of course, there’s always Everton from Chef! skulking in the corner to heal the blow slightly.

Still, it’s the characters that make a series, not the surroundings and as The Doctor and Donna finally trundle into the action in their full Winter best, it’s a genuine lift with their already trademark mixture of bickering and cross-talk really fitting into a comfortable groove. A sneerier reviewer would have a lot to say about Tate’s acting being unimpressive and based resolutely in sketch comedy – indeed, there’s the latest utterance of the regular disclaimer "We're not married" as if to merrily bait those looking for hooks to hang their already-formed opinions on. And then they go and mention those missing bees again! Of course, this writing of Tate as an incompetent actress away from comedy is complete nonsense and seeing through Donna’s eyes is understandably the focus for this episode, as she struggles to come to terms with such heavy premises as slavery, battery storage, human traffic, capitalistic cruelty and the humanitarian resolve that exists in us all when injustice is performed. Plus there’s that bit at 13’04” when that Ood spurts up its filthy “Ood muck” everywhere. It all adds up to a lot of central themes which whilst mixed with the usual Who badinage and adventure, still leaves a lot in the minds of an audience sitting down to watch it whilst eating their tea.

Unfortunately, the relentlessness of all this does mean that as the episode grinds on to its seemingly distant conclusion, the unflinching cynic can be released inside and it’d be a lie if I didn’t suggest that after 20 minutes some distant part of me wanted to see the Ood merrily smushed into oblivion by whatever heavy implement happened to be lying around. In fact, that giant metal claw Everton from Chef! tried to catch the Doctor with will do. It’s certainly better than the grabbing machines in our town centre. A living Time Lord is slightly better than a bozz-eyed Peter Griffin with the mumps…

Eventually, as the Ood begin to strike back with their electrified Pokeballs and “The Ood Sing Your 20 Favourite Negro Spirituals” records on full volume, the episode starts to slip back into more familiar teatime territory with mouthy businessmen getting their what for, all that inevitable running and the emergence of the Zoidberg Zombies pouncing from any and everywhere as their glowing red eyes take on the characteristics of a knackered Xbox 360. And as brains and organs start to plop out here and there in a slightly Garbage Pail Kids cartoony style, it once again seems to fall into the territory of Ms Sarah Jane Smith and her inexplicable sonic lipstick. That said, upon reaching its conclusion, the transformation of the slightly out of his depth McInnerny (playing to all intents and purposes Space Captain Darling with far too many elements of his Severance ‘Angry Shouting Businessman’ character – especially ironic as the writer of that had done a great job with Pompeii the week before) into one of the creatures he’d long abused will surely go on to live on in the minds of a nation of school children just like all good Doctor Who villains truly should. Whilst not being the strongest of this series run so far, “Planet Of the Ood” nonetheless remained effortlessly charming and more than a little evoking of the Earth-bound era of Pertwee’s Third Doctor. In fact, title aside, it’s possible that grounding this episode on Earth might have given it a little more of the structure and credibility it could have perhaps done with. With the superbly done Adipose of the series opener and the gorgeous work on “The Fires Of Pompeii”, it was inevitable the money was going to have to come from somewhere and whilst the CGI elements in this episode (and the series in general) remain some of the best of TV today, in this case the cartoon look often detracted from the story which made it ever harder to remove from the back of my mind that it might have been more suitable as a trip-out for Sarah Jane Smith and her gormless pre-teen pals.

Now there’s f-ood for thought.

Ben Baker loves his Ood puns. 'G-ood' ones anyway. You didnt get that with the Sensorites, did you? Well, not unless you wanted to do a Desmond Dekker parody anyway...

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HOT POTATO!

The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky reviewed by John Connors

For the past three seasons, this has been the jinxed act in the Doctor Who carnival; the big flawed epic that doesn’t quite work for whatever reason. Well, no more. Helen Raynor has cracked it with this crackling story that seems to have forced people to take sides, just like UNIT against the Sontarans. You either love this story or you don’t. If you don’t you may care to leap to the next review. Good, they’ve gone now.

Since 2005 the series had given us lots of classic episodes and plenty of excellent ones; in fact I can count the number of episodes I haven’t enjoyed on the fingers of one hand. The show has provided emotional moments, thrilling moments (I think the Master reborn sequence in `Utopia` is my fave bit of telly out of everything in 2007), bizarre moments and scary monsters galore. Yet I’m not sure its given us anything that is simply this entertaining, something like the second Spiderman film which, lets face it, you didn’t think would be that good but turned out to be brilliant. Now, whenever I want to watch a Doctor Who story that has substance, style and is a lot of fun I will choose this one. In a way it is the `Seeds of Doom` of its day. Y’see this double potato header brings out the inner child; its impossible not to feel ten again as soldiers and aliens battle it out, there’s a green gunk tank containing something nasty and at the end the sky burns and there’s a big explosion. Plus, the series needs stories like this otherwise it would sink back into becoming the big bore it was in the 80s. There is nothing worse than making Doctor Who just for adults. Yet that being said, this is quite a sophisticated story, not in a Moffatt type of way but in a knowing manner that is endearingly entertaining. After her debut Dalek story, Helen Raynor wasn’t the most popular of the new crop of writers; in 1920s Manhattan she struggled to stitch together a narrative that contained Skaro’s finest as well as Pig Men, the Great Depression and showgirls. You just look at that list and it doesn’t fit. This time round she has Sontarans, UNIT, a crazy kid genius and Sat Nav gone loopy. Now that clearly is going to work and allied to a fresh director Douglas Mackinnon we are given something extra special, something that pays tribute to some of the series’ iconic signatures while also reinventing them and has fun telling us what it’s done. Finally, the more you look at TSS/TPS as we shall clumsily call it, the more you realise it’s a masterclass in how to write and make good television. Possessed with a literary confidence it contains a confluence of ideas that blend and balance, develop and climax just like a good book. There really is something for everyone – those who felt awkward with last season’s messianic climax, those who like monsters and those who don’t, those who felt Martha left too soon, those who wish the show could be more like it was in the 70s and those who like it just as it is now. Remarkably all will feel fulfilled.

Its already a story with quotable moments and you’ve probably found your favourite whether it’s the quip about that perennial fan head scratcher of dating 70s UNIT stories, or the Doctor’’s dealings with Staal the first time they exchange insults or maybe the narrative referencing the Sontaran’s resemblance to baked potatoes or perhaps the sheer silliness of Lethbridge Stewart being stuck in Peru. Or perhaps, in the privacy of your own home, you join in every time the chorus of “Sontar – ha” starts up. Go on, you know you want to. The episodes play with us; this may be the first of the series’ scripts confident enough to have the Doctor mimic a previous enemy as he does when donning a gas mask – in another story this would seem as odd as Hartnell’s Xmas toast - yet this is the character not the actor making the gag. At times it feels as if Raynor has constructed an elaborate tribute to the show; we have the Doctor entering the notorious UNIT dating fray, brief references to Rose and the Brigadier, a big country house and a big spaceship. There’s UNIT of course, only this time instead of using the other soldiers as cannon fodder, we meet three of them. The one who accompanies the Doctor into Rattigan Academy though, instead of being killed after a minute or two as he would have been in 1972, gets to make sarcastic comments and call the first Sontaran he sees a baked potato, the description so beloved of commentators. That’s got to be better than a mockney “Holy moses”! You could argue that everything in the story is a version of something we’ve seen before, not just UNIT but the mad sat nav is just the same as the mobile phone and internet stuff used in two other stories, the duplicate Martha is a traditional thing for a character in a sci-fi series to experience and even the Valiant is something we’ve seen. Mad villain in a country house – well we know where that’s from. There’s even a classic sci-fi situation of two soldiers wandering into what will obviously be a dangerous situation. Yet there is always the surest of touches to make these things seem fresh, always a new dynamic or a different approach to the point where at the end the story feels very new indeed.

The key is Raynor’s script that is so multi layered and complete that a lot of people probably don’t notice how good it is. You might, for example, imagine she made the “Sontar – ha” chant just so that Rattigan could use it mockingly at the end. There’s the squash racket which is introduced earlier just so that the Doctor can pick it up later to utilise. We sit looking at the transporter in Rattigan’s room for ages in the first episode and then it becomes vital to the story’s conclusion. Bigger things too – the Sontaran’s plans seem far more credible than a lot of alien invasions we’ve been privy too and they always look like they know what they’re doing. We know someone will smash the car window to rescue Wilf but we’d never guess it would be Mrs Noble. In one act her character arc grows exponentially; till now she’s been a nagging mum but now we can see why she nags so much because she’s so practical and Donna has dallied with her life and also why Donna feels she has to prove herself and how she feels the Doctor will help her. All that because of one swing of an axe! Rattigan’s planet fall ideas later service the Doctor’s method of defeating the Atmos poison. It could feel contrived and too circular but somehow it doesn’t. It seems, in fact, like a most complete, thought through and rational story.

Her characters are equally convincing. Luke Rattigan had fan critics carping because he seemed brattish and prone to tantrums. Surely that is the point? Luke may be a genius but he has no social skills or friends and dreams of staring afresh on a new planet like a ten year old would. His final act of self sacrifice fits because it’s exactly the over-reaction someone that immature would make. He’s like the Doctor really, except without the latter’s purpose or integrity. The Sontarans are at their best since their first appearance and Raynor sketches their military bravado and love of the fight very effectively, more so even than their creator ever stretched to. UNIT is given similarly deft treatment and until the snog at the end we have no idea of Col Mace and his assistant are having an office romance but we see it all in one tiny scene. Each of these- and too many more to mention- show how lovingly this script is fashioned and how thoughtfully it’s been assembled. Not that is appears contrived. Thanks to Douglas Mackinnon’s brisk direction – he handles the action sequences very well and plays his cameras squarely on people’s faces during the talky scenes- the story feels fresh and vibrant. The perfomers look as if they’re having a great time- Christopher Ryan is tremendous as he tempers Staal’s belligerence with levity and realism. You can see how riled he is that the Sontarans were not even invited to the Time War! Ryan Sampson utilises his considerable talents to ensure we aren’t totally alienated by Rattigan and pitches the character’s fall from confidence particularly well. Having seen him in four different roles over the last year, I’m convinced he’s headed for even greater things (not After You've Gone then? Bob). The returning Freema Ageyman does a good job as clone Martha by not over playing it while Catherine Tate continues to put in superb performances, as some of us knew she would. The thing about Donna is her humanity; she is not the charismatic love struck individual her predecessors were but a real woman, flaws and all. Tate’s handling of her varied scenes is perfect, none more so than her sortie on the Sontaran spaceship where she is coaxed by the Doctor over the phone and ends up quite pleased with herself.

The story pivots on the idea that you need knowledge, experience and some power to be the complete package. Staal’s cleverer than your average invader with a well thought through military strategy but it does include some cunning as well. Luke Rattigan’s intelligence is not matched by his thinking so he is used and eventually disposed of by Staal. The Doctor may have the edge on both but lacks the power; in several excellent sequences he seems desperate to scrabble something together and it is important to have this contrast for when he wins in the end. As mentioned earlier, the staging of this episode is quality – its rare to find a director with an eye ewually attuned to the chaos of battle and the fallibility of characters. The battle sequence in particular is shot with the criss cross cacophony of a real engagement and the frantic struggle to free WIlf cut with the Sontarans war chant makes for a breathtaking cliffhanger. McKinnon never forgets Raynor’s well written characters though and some of the best scences are the less showy- the Doctor and Jenkins’ jokey chat in the car, Donna and Wilf at the kitchen table and Martha’s tender treatment of her clone. I’ve been stunned, spooked and excited by Doctor Who stories right, left and centre lately but I can’t remember one that has just been such sheer entertainment from start to finish with so few – if any-flaws.

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FAMILY VALUES

The Doctor’s Daughter reviewed by Darrell Jones

Stephen Greenhorn’s first contribution to the series, 2007’s “The Lazarus Experiment”, was an unassuming, straightforward runaround – forty minutes of highly enjoyable set pieces and comic book dialogue that almost wilfully avoided any sort of substance in the pursuit of good old fashioned schlock thrills. Having just about got away with this, it’s then understandable that Greenhorn would want to attempt something a bit deeper and more ponderous for his return this year, “The Doctor’s Daughter”. Given an outline which is perhaps the biggest gift yet presented to a contributing writer, and a guest star who ensured that his would get, outside the finale, the most press coverage all year, does he manage to pull it off? I still can’t make my mind up, to be honest. Hell, even Russell T Davies himself can’t either, judging by the thinking aloud he commits to the corresponding podcast commentary.

I think the reason I find it difficult to fully judge whether I like it or not is down to its bizarrely unique style - the only way to adequately describe it really being to say that it feels like an episode that’s fallen from an alternate universe. It’s an episode that has very little of the character of the Davies era about it, and in fact it’s the closest the new series has come so far to what I and probably most others, pre-“Rose”, perceived the new series would have been made like – slightly stark, terminally studio bound, and with a curious lack of energy about it. Learning its lessons from BUGS rather than from Buffy. And no-one wants that.

It’s fair then to say that if the new series was like this every week, it would never have found its way past 2005, but equally my gut feeling tells me it’s utterly unreasonable to condemn it as a bad episode. It’s not another “Fear Her” or “42”, which are instantly identifiable as good ideas flattened by scripts and productions which never come to life. There’s far too much of interest about it, and the few parts of it that work really are incredibly good.

The most obvious benefit of the episode is Georgia Moffett providing a bravura turn as Jenny, bringing both a believable zest and genuine development to a character who on paper is one of the blankest things ever put down. Her chemistry with Tennant is something special too – this episode manages to bring the best out of him throughout despite Greenhorn never quite hitting the right level for him or Donna in terms of dialogue. Indeed, Tate struggles admirably throughout a piece which presents her essentially as a sanctimonious smartarse, who is simultaneously regressed to “Runaway Bride” curtness and over-developed into some sort of boy genius all at once, with the character’s rapid solving of the eventual mystery not seeming believable in any sense. It is only in the three-hander scenes, playing off the spark between Tennant and Moffett, that Tate is able to actually bring Donna to life out of the little she’s been given, and this episode unarguably provides the worst material for her of the series. The scene in particular where Jenny joins the TARDIS team contains barely a word that sits right in anybody’s mouths.

The regular characters being so scattily scripted affects the production much more, as the guest characters, all written as faceless ciphers, are all performed on different levels. Joe Dempsie is utterly brilliant as Cline, adding a quiet, naturalistic intensity that truly sells the humans’ predicament, but next to Nigel Terry as Cobb, who is too transparently attempting a hyper-real, out-of-date idea of ‘Doctor Who acting’, nothing gels and it rather undersells the entire production. No character is consistently served by the script, resulting in everyone pulling in a different direction to try and make their part come to life.

Not wanting to pick on Greenhorn (although there is plenty more to go on – all the sub-Steven-Moffat postmodernism with “I love the running” and Martha’s “I love this bit” seems to be trying to curry favour with the house style in all the wrong ways, too), it’s definitely worth mentioning what he does get right. Perhaps helped by his previous experience on series three, he provides some brilliant material for Martha, serving the character even better than Davies himself does in the finale. It is in the Martha segments, with Freema Agyeman doing an utterly absorbing job of both carrying half an episode essential on her and selling the Hath as believable creatures, where the episode succeeds the most, actually. The death of Hath Peck is genuinely affecting and Agyeman’s tearful wailing really does hit you right in the gut. The Hath are an odd beast to start with – a brilliant idea, a brilliant design, and a brilliant build, but distractingly the most obviously old-style man-in-a-suit monster the new series has had since the Slitheen. It’s to the credit of both Greenhorn and Agyeman, as well as suit performer Paul Kasey, that you buy into these sequences so readily. Even the shot of the quicksand drowning, which should be a ridiculous image by any standard, is sold completely by the utter conviction all the Hath segments somehow manage to pull from thin air. It’s a shame then really that we lose Martha again at the end – with a bizarrely over the top departure considering her return six weeks later.

With the characters all but messed up – it leaves the overriding plot to pull it through. Sadly, it’s a very good idea that is far too confusingly explained through mangled exposition to ever work as it should (and Cobb’s old age adds another unnecessary layer of grease to the lens), and its failure isn’t even dressed up by the barrage of offbeat set pieces that have become a trademark of the revived series’ style. A clumsy and morally dubious scene of Jenny cod-seducing Cline and the damp squib that is the laser-dodging acrobatic stunt (done much better in Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, and with a smashing fart gag to boot) is all we get in distraction. There aren’t even any good jokes – Donna’s turkey baster anecdote raises a smile, but there’s nothing laugh out loud worthy, unlike all the other shows this year without exception.

It’s then a delight to recall that the episode at least partially redeems itself around in the last ten minutes, when the humans and Hath meet at the energy source. The Doctor’s lecturing and explanation of the terraform plan feels tangibly magical in a way the rest of the episode feels it should do. Even Nigel Terry raises his game – Cobb’s betrayal of the Doctor and murder of Jenny feels compulsively, uncomfortably real. Moffett’s death scene with Tennant is undeniably the best sequence in the show, and one of the outright finest moments of the Tenth Doctor’s reign so far. You can actually see the paternal glint in Tennant’s eye – somehow he manages to convey all the pain of losing a loved one into a few restrained moments of resigned helplessness. Equally, no matter how many times I see it, the unhinged intensity of the Doctor’s gun-toting at Cobb makes me wonder if this time, just maybe, he’s going to shoot. Donna’s still not catered for but other than that, really, if Greenhorn had written the other three quarters of the episode this well then it could have been one of the all-time classics.

The episode closes with the real surprise resurrection (i.e. not ruined nine months early by obsequious fan websites) of Jenny, and her quickly setting up an obvious return in the next series, by personal request of Steven Moffat, by escaping in a stolen ship, a nice, presumably intentional, nod to the Doctor’s backstory. This, as well as a few brief cherry-picked moments as appreciated above, is the real legacy of “The Doctor’s Daughter” – that which may follow. It all concludes on a note that promises more than its first instalment ultimately delivered in the end, which is perhaps the most it can really leave us with.

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BUZZ WORDS

The Unicorn and the Wasp reviewed by Chris Orton

Following the events on Messaline last week the TARDIS brings the Doctor and Donna to a garden party given by a Lady Eddison, on the very day before Agatha Christie mysteriously disappeared for ten days in 1926. Using the old psychic paper trick the Doctor inveigles his way in and it isn’t long  before the pair have a mystery to solve. `The Unicorn and the Wasp` seeks to provide answers as to why the great writer went missing, and rather than a relatively simple explanation of a domestic issue being  the sole reason, here we find that it is all to do with a big old  wasp. The episode appears to have divided opinion amongst the fans  (or as Russell T. Davies might call them, Ming Mongs) with some loving it and some sharply critical. It isn’t the first time that Doctor Who has used the Christie style of plotting in a story of course – `The Robots of Death’ is an obvious example – but this is the first time that we have met the lady herself. Shoehorning in of Christie book and play titles, a trick that Gareth  Roberts also used in his episode last series with Shakespeare play  titles, is employed here (although the rather obvious Wasp’s Nest didn’t seem to be name-checked) and if you know your onions they tend  to stand out. One or two titles, subtly dropped in knowingly by the Doctor might have been okay, but when you have lots of different characters mentioning them in everyday conversation it begins to get a little obvious and feels that bit laboured after a while. When the dialogue isn’t throwing up Christie titles, there are visual reminders dotted around the house. All of the required  Christie boxes are ticked here – from the quirky cast of characters, to the poisoning, to the gathering of the suspects for the reveal. Poirot and Miss Marple get mentions aplenty too, with Donna accidentally revealing details of Agatha’s future on more than one occasion.

The episode is a light comedy romp despite it covering rather dark ground with the nature of Lady Eddison’s secret. Alongside the genuinely amusing moments however it also features a frankly embarrassing sequence in which the Doctor is poisoned. After ingesting some cyanide, we watch the Doctor attempt to rid himself of it before he is damaged permanently. We’ve had these silly gurning turns from David Tennant in the past (most notably, during the  radiation scene in` Smith and Jones`), but here he takes it to a whole  new level of daftness. Perhaps this sort of thing goes down well with  the younger viewers, but it just looks very silly to somebody a few  years older, and somehow puts you in mind of Jack Douglas’s beer- spilling character from the Carry On films, Alf Ippititimus. And speaking of Mr Tennant… Whydoeshehavetosayeverythingsofastduringmomentsofpanicordanger? Is it a consequence of trying to fit so much script and exposition into 40- odd minutes or so, or merely just a quirk of his acting style?  Whatever it is, it is becoming quite irritating. The Tenth Doctor started out very promisingly but just seems to be coming across as too silly at times these days. You simply cannot imagine the Ninth Doctor behaving in this way. During the course of this overlong scene the Donna shocks the Doctor by kissing him, as part of the detoxification process. Kissing a companion seems to be a de facto part of the series now and it is becoming tired. It seems as though it is an idea that is just being included now for the sake of it. Fair enough, for it to happen once is understandable if the writers want to create a little bit of controversy, but to have it happen with every companion that the Doctor has is just inane. Despite this, it is pointed out that the Doctor and Donna aren’t married. Again. It would be refreshing to go back to something of an old series way of dealing with the Doctor and his companion - i.e. they are just out to have a magical time exploring the universe and righting wrongs. That formula worked for almost thirty years and there is no reason as to why it can't again.

As with any good Christie story, all of the supporting characters in `The Unicorn and the Wasp` have secrets, but we don’t really get the opportunity for them to be explored too deeply because of the constraints of the running time. Given that single modern-day Doctor Who episodes are only 44 minutes long or so, we aren’t ever going to get any in-depth characterisation. The cast is very good, with some of the best actors seen in the revived series assembled; Fenella Woolgar in particular being worthy of particular praise as Agatha Christie, while Felicity Kendall also good as Lady Eddison. It seems that part of Lady Eddison’s back story is similar to that of Kendall herself, who was brought up in India, although as far as we are aware she wasn’t ever impregnated by a wasp disguised as a person. It was great to see Christopher Benjamin involved and he appears to relish his role.

The Unicorn of the title was a bit wasted however - Felicity Jones as a jewel thief masquerading as a toff barely got any screen time. It turns out that the Unicorn was in fact, a red herring (yes, an imaginary horse creature turns out to be a coloured fish – do keep up) and the episode is really about the Wasp. Other than providing a catchy title for the episode, the Unicorn doesn’t really contribute much at all (simply calling the episode The Wasp wouldn’t have been much good really). This was apparently the first episode that Catherine Tate filmed since she returned to the role of Donna and it shows slightly. Donna is slightly more ‘comedy’ than she has been in some of the earlier episodes of the season. The scene where she has a chat with Agatha is rather good though, and shows her caring side. Donna didn’t convince as a companion in the Xmas Special in which she appeared, but over recent weeks the character has come across as more likeable than she did earlier. She’s more grown up than any of the previous companions from the new series and seems able to empathise with the people that she meets more.  No longer is she the purely noisy, irritating woman that she was back when she first met the Doctor thankfully. There are one or two moments when she seems to stop acting and revert to bellowing words out, but these seem to be diminishing as the weeks go by.

A big let-down in the episode comes with the transformation of the vicar to the Vespiform. It is achieved very basically via a combination of some purple lighting and cutting (not to mention the Reverend Golightly doing his best Timothy West in the Tales of the Unexpected episode Royal Jelly impersonation), and looks almost as if they were trying to save money by not showing it more overtly. A more explicit transformation (something akin to Jeff Goldblum in The Fly perhaps?) would have been much more interesting to see, although it may have been just that too frightening for younger viewers. The CGI creature is quite well-realised in its fleeting appearances although quite how it managed to grasp the lead pipe with which it killed Professor Peach is anybody’s guess. One clever bit of plotting is revealed when we learn that the reverend believes that life is played out like the world of Agatha Christie’s books, as Lady Eddison was reading one when his alien biology is triggered. Despite his anger (and the fact that he kills people) the Vespiform isn’t really a true villain – being confused and unsure of his true nature, and it is this that leads him to commit the murders. At the end of the story he is redeemed by saving Agathas life when both she and the Vespiform are physically linked via the Firestone jewel.

On the plus side, the episode looks marvellous. The period is very well realised through the superb-looking house, its kitchens, the large lawn where the party takes place, the cars, costumes and all of the other 1920s ephemera. It’s well known that the BBC is particularly good at crafting period dramas generally, and this episode is no exception. The direction isn’t bad either, although Graeme Harper could well have done with reigning in Tennant for the poisoning / charades scene and perhaps the wibbly-wobbly going back in timey-wimey effect is employed just once or twice too often. A couple of factual errors are evident in the episode, particularly relating to Christie’s real-life disappearance, although Gareth Roberts will of course have been fully aware of the true events. Quite why these facts were altered for creative licence or dramatic effect isn’t clear, as the replacement ideas probably aren’t as interesting as the true ones (wouldn’t a car hanging over the edge of a cliff Italian Job-style have been more interesting than a car sitting by the side of a lake?).

The Unicorn and the Wasp is a light, romp of an episode and perhaps acts as something of a breather before the apparently darker episodes that make up the second half of the series begin.

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WRAPPED UP IN BOOKS

Silence in the Library / Forest of Death reviewed by Tim Worthington

The problem with trying to review Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead is how can you really do it justice when you’ve already used every single superlative in existence twice over when discussing Steven Moffat’s previous Doctor Who episodes, even though they weren’t what you were supposed to be reviewing in the first place? But hang on, don’t go scrambling for your copy of The Third Doctor Who Quiz Book just yet; it’s not that there wouldn’t be gratitude for your superlative-scouting efforts, just that there might not actually be any need for them. You see, these two episodes are great, but do they really match up to the established might of `The Girl In The Fireplace`, `Blink` and `The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances`, in either its combined or individual incarnations?

In strict adherence to the Dewey Decimal System (probably), let’s start with `Silence In The Library` and work our way across the shelves from there. Even by New Doctor Who standards, this episode was awash with anticipation and high expectation. The deservedly lofty reputation of Steven Moffat’s previous contributions to the series is a troublesome enough thing to have to live up to, but this episode also had to contend with another of those excitement-multiplying ‘mid season break’ thingymajigs replete with the attendant fan speculation (which we’ll come back to in a minute), and a really rather splendid teaser countdown on the BBC’s own Doctor Who website where an astutely-judged collection of fan-pleasing tomes (including the works of Douglas Adams, Monty Python and, erm, Terrance Dicks) jostled for shelf space with well-worn prop books from the original series, and a battered handwritten diary that, brilliantly, flicked past a pencil sketch of Rose Tyler at midnight every day. So, not much riding on it then.

Following all of that build-up, some of it intentional and some purely inadvertent, `Silence In The Library almost delivers`. Almost, but not quite. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it in itself. No, in fact, there’s an extraordinary amount right with it. The tension takes a long time to start building up, but when it finally does it proves well worth the wait; the idea that the whole sense of danger is based on nothing more clever or sophisticated than making sure you don’t stand in the wrong place, like an episode of The Adventure Game gone nightmarishly wrong, works fantastically and is nastier than any amount of spaceships straying too close to dangerous things could ever hope to be, and Donna being ‘saved’ at the most casual and innocuous of moments imaginable is a genuine jolt. Meanwhile, the flashing between the library and the mysterious little girl who claims to be able to see it all in her head really does keep the viewer guessing, and hands up who else mistakenly thought that they’d spotted the forthcoming end-of-series story arc and that The Doctor and Donna had accidentally slipped into some sort of non-reality while the ‘real’ universe carried on oblivious.

The same goes for `Forest Of The Dead`, pretty much. Although the tension seems to flag very quickly indeed, the journey through Donna’s apparent dream world is nicely surreal and unsettling, and the twist when it comes is startling but makes perfect sense, unlike so many other attempts at ‘big reveals’ in New Who and Torchwood (well, mainly Torchwood). Despite the obvious disadvantage of using a big gleaming clinical modern library rather than a creepy old wood-panelled look, both episodes are visually impressive and strongly directed particularly in the literal physical spacing of the performers, which isn’t something you’d really normally notice in Doctor Who, except for when laughing at howling bad late sixties examples of the art of course. There’s also plenty of well-judged dialogue and character interaction, although Steve Pemberton seemed curiously underused – particularly annoying given the strength of the Douglas Adams allusions, as he was pretty much the only even halfway good thing about that awful movie version of The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. And then there’s the ‘corrupted’ face, the poignant final non-encounter between Donna and Lee, the way that the Vashta Nerada even sounded genuinely frightening... and, erm, Alex Kingston.

So, where to start with Professor River Song? The idea of The Doctor meeting a character from his future, who knows all about him in all sorts of intimate ways that he doesn’t even know of himself yet, is a fantastic one. However, something about it just failed to work, and in the end she seemed nothing more than Just Another Character, failing to elicit much sympathy from the audience (who probably cared more about Lee to be honest) nor indeed much interest in her sonic-screwdriver-owning-Tardis-diary-waving-typically-RTD-named-event-referencing antics. It’s hard to pinpoint where this went wrong exactly, as there was nothing amiss about the character’s scripting or portrayal, but she just somehow failed to make quite the same sort of impact as her close conceptual counterpart Jenny (although in fairness Jenny stood out in a largely shabby episode that seemed to have stolen its plot from the old Viz strip The Adventures Of The Human League In Outer Space, whereas River was jostling for space on a largely fantastic one). Because of this, her knowledge of The Doctor’s name seemed insufferably smug rather than a moment of audience shock, though on the other hand her obsession with ‘spoilers’ was one of the highlights of the story. In these days of rampant spoilermania it’s hard to know which side of the fence you’re on, with the glory-hunting fans determined to be the first to know even the most inconsequential detail (and in a moment of impressive postmodernity, Steven Moffat felt compelled to wade into a speculative online discussion of `Silence In The Library`, still some months away from broadcast, to remonstrate with one particular repeat offender) seeming every bit as ridiculous as the media lunatics who explode their own heads in an effort to keep details of even the most pathetically inconsequential sitcom ‘under wraps’, so it’s nice to see the whole concept being broadly mocked in such a disdainful fashion. Take that, feeling like you have to have an opinion on things!

‘Hang on’, you’re probably not unreasonably asking yourself, ‘if these two episodes are so good then what was all that ‘almost, but not quite’ business about’? Some minor yet still severely niggling problems with them is what it’s all about, and not just that pretty dodgy attempt at making a joke out of stammering. As impressive as both episodes were, there was a sense that regular viewers had pretty much seen them done before, only better, and usually by Steven Moffat too. Plot twists aside, nothing about them seemed particularly unexpected or ‘new’, and the overall effect was a bit like when a band (naming no Portisheads or Blurs) follow up a highly successful and acclaimed album with one that, while intrinsically good, pretty much does the same thing only to noticeably less impressive effect. In addition, the two episodes seemed to sit very awkwardly next to each other, with the sharp detour from the nailbiting end of the first into the surreal ambience of the second not quite working as well for the viewer as might have been hoped. Still, no matter how much they may or may not impact on enjoyment, these are really cosmetic issues (you could even argue that the variation in pace and style might be a result of their being designed for rewatching, something that was never really a consideration in the cliffhanging days of old), and they’re still pretty impressive in their own right.

As if to labour this point, if for some obscure and quite possibly bonkers reason you were really, really desperate to find a ‘proper’ fault with either episode you could try sniping at a couple of the elements that seem to have been noticeably ‘inspired’ by other works – once again, there’s a definite touch of Sapphire & Steel emulation at work, while the Little Girl character is so litigation-invitingly close to a certain other Little Girl from a certain other currently popular sci-fi TV series that they might as well have just had her say “there’s someone worse than Sylar… and when I look for him, he can see me” and be done with it – but this would be about as futile as futility gets; whether they were consciously influenced by the above or not, these elements are woven into the story so skilfully as to create something totally fresh and exciting.

If there is a genuine bona fide fly in the ointment, then it’s one that has nothing to do with Steven Moffat, Alex Kingston, Euros Lyn or even `Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead` itself. No, it’s more down to the reaction of the fans, or to be more accurate a certain and very vocal subsector of the fans, and it’s so depressing and frustrating that it makes even the thought of singing the praises of this two-parter seem like the most patience-testing task imaginable. Obviously there’s never going to be an episode of Doctor Who, or of anything for that matter, that pleases all of the people all of the time. For what it’s worth this very writer has strong memories of wishing that `The Two Doctors`, `Meglos` and `The Curse Of Fenric` (ha, weren’t expecting that, were you!) would just sod off, not to mention the more pertinent example of about eighty percent of series two of New Who. And this is more than fair enough; sometimes people just don’t like something, and if they can pinpoint why they don’t then that’s all the better but they are under no obligation whatsoever to explain themselves. Except, obviously, when writing a review (although that never stopped Alison Graham, boom boom).

Even the staunchest supporter of the first half of this series would have to concede that it was largely composed of throwaway fun runarounds, and some of them more fun than others at that. It’s a collection of stories that was always going to divide opinion, and for everyone who thrilled to the return of the Sontarans there’ll be someone who thought that they’d really gone and spoiled the glorious legacy of that one where they met Jimmy Savile. There’s those who adore Catherine Tate and those who just can’t stand her. There’s even never going to be accord over David Tennant, or Steven Moffat’s scripts for that matter. That’s just the way it works with entertainment. But there’s a frustratingly large contingent of fans who seem determined to get extremely angry about something, however increasingly detached from reality it might make them seem. There’s the frothing-mouthed indignance over the non-existent ‘gay agenda’ (which, this time around, somehow involves the casting of an attractive young woman as the Doctor’s daughter); the talking-to-the-wall blunt rubbishing, with a strong undercurrent of misogyny, of Catherine Tate; baffling complaints about the show being featured on the front of the Radio Times too often; more than one online reviewer has moaned, without a word of lie, about the show being ‘too successful’. And of course it’s all an ‘insult’ to the so-called ‘classic’ series and worse than anything else ever to appear under the banner previously, as if there people out there who genuinely do consider `Smith & Jones` to be lacking the depth of characterisation of `The Ambassadors Of Death`, the epic visual flair of `Underworld`, and the dynamic pace of those film trims from `The Space Pirates`. The sound, in other words, of big fish in an increasingly small pond who cannot and will not get over the fact that the programme no longer ‘belongs’ to them.

Uniting them all is the demented mantra ‘RTD must go!!’. Look, as anyone who has had the misfortune to read this particular writer pontificating on the previous instalments of the revived series will know only too well, this is no ‘fanboy’ of or even apologist for Russell T. Davies speaking here, but isn’t this all extremely silly? If nothing else, whatever your personal opinion of the contents of the episodes, he deserves plaudits for a job well done, so well done in fact that it’s actually pleased the BBC, and indeed for doggedly and determinedly fighting – and it must have been some fight – to get the show back on the air in the first place. A certain generation of readers will probably be sighing wearily at all this, as they’ve seen it all before, back when ‘the fans’ decided for themselves that they had the right to demand the removal of a certain producer, and look where that got everyone. Still, it’s a moot point now as RTD is indeed leaving, but even this wasn’t enough to silence the headcases. Oh no, he wasn’t stepping down because he was exhausted after working flat out on the show and two spinoffs for five years solid and probably has a stack of other interesting offers on the table too, it was down to their vociferous opposition of him, and they had ‘won’.

This is why it was so tempting to just do a complete hatchet job on both episodes, from the perspective that playing devil’s advocate is definitely the lesser of two evils when set up against a silly pissing competition fuelled largely by attention seeking and possibly even dubious personal politics. As hard as it admittedly was to find something new to say in praise of these episodes (as opposed, it has to be stressed, to finding something to say in praise of them), this just wouldn’t have been a reasonable course of action, not least because it would both invite casual dismissals and not unfairly provoke accusations of basically doing the exact same thing. Still, with a bit of luck, the big Library Of Fandom might just bring some words back to haunt some people at some point.

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HUMAN NATURE

Midnight reviewed by Chris Arnsby

Russell T. Davies is a writer who often seems to produce his best work when he's going against his own personal philosophies. Who would have expected an atheist to write `Gridlock` in which a society is held together by shared religion? Likewise, if you asked me to pick one word to sum up his writing I'd have to go with optimistic; there's something so fundamentally upbeat about his work that even a story like `Love and Monsters` never feels too bleak although most of the main cast die horribly. `Last of the Timelords` has a similar twist, the writer who gave us so many "humans! brilliant!" moments condemns the human race to spend its last days trapped and insane, screaming into a dying universe. `Midnight` (`Turn Left` as well) is another story where Davies seems to deliberately go against his optimistic tendency and may well be the finest story of the fourth series if not of all Doctor Who since its return.

The preview made `Midnight` look like a mixture of The Haunting (the good 1963 version not the 1999 remake for which everyone involved should be thoroughly ashamed; or pushed out of the door along with Mrs Silvestry) and The Twilight Zone story `Nightmare at 20000 Feet`. It writes itself doesn’t it? A spooky trip, hammering on the hull, the monster picking people off one by one until the Doctor saves the day. Not necessarily one of the great stories but an enjoyable forty five minutes.

Instead we get a cleverly constructed script where the first ten minutes are given over purely to establishing the characters. After the truck stops events takes a darker turn as the characters panic and follow their worst instincts. Driving the script is the way each character is given a chance to make the right decision only to frustratingly mess it up. An out of her depth hostess is only able to suggest, at the wrong time, throwing Mrs Silvestry out. Professor Hobbes reliance on observation leads him to the wrong conclusion. Dee Dee proves unable to stand up for herself in the face of the professor's arrogance. Jethro fails twice, firstly by being suspicious of the Doctor enjoying himself and then by lacking the confidence to contradict his parents after they claim to have seen something jump between Mrs Silvestry and the Doctor. Mr and Mrs Cane are simply revealed as fearful bigots. In the end even the creature makes a mistake by focusing on the Doctor and ignoring the hostess as just one of the scared humans which leads to it being ejected from the truck once the hostess proves finally to be the person willing to really take responsibility for her actions and sacrifices herself to save everyone.

Of all the characters it's arguably the Doctor who makes the worst mistakes while remaining completely true to character. Almost everything he does goes wrong; fiddling with the wiring, using the psychic paper, talking about how clever he is - all of his usual tricks drive a wedge between him and his fellow passengers. Caught up in the excitement of discovering new life he ignores the way events are spinning out of control and, despite his experience of this sort of situation, he forgets his responsibility to the other passengers in favour of an entity that has already killed twice and forcibly possessed Mrs Silvestry. It may be Mr Cain who first alerts the creature to there being something inside the truck but it's the Doctor who deliberately bangs on the hull four times and tells it there is intelligence within. Jethro is right, the Doctor does start out enjoying what is happening (look at the way he says "knock, knock" as the creature first bangs on the hull he's too wrapped up in the mystery to see how this scares everyone else) and his blanket refusal to consider throwing out Mrs Silvestry nearly kills him and does lead to the additional death of the hostess.

Topping off the excellent script is clever design work which emphasises the truck's similarity to an aeroplane and helps the audience understand how the characters feel trapped. There is also fantastic work by the sound crew, shifting the focus of Mrs Silvestry's echoing from voice to voice, sometimes even within a single line of dialogue. Well thought out direction from Alice Troughton (at the end look at the way the hostess is standing away from the group around Mrs Silvestry as if she is somehow outside of its influence) uses extensive closeups to add to the claustrophobia of the single set. Once the entity is on board it's very rare to get a long shot of the interior with the exception of those scenes where a character talks in the foreground and Mrs Silvestry echos in the background.

The ending resonates. Once the creature is gone no one apologises or tries to justify themselves they simply sit in stunned silence. Even this most talkative Doctor is quiet. There's no attempt at explanation, just the mystery of what happened and the knowledge that the being probably remains on the surface of Midnight waiting for a second chance. I'd like to believe that as he sits shocked the Doctor is remembering words he spoke back in his second regeneration. " There are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things. Things which act against everything that we believe in. They must be fought”.

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PHONEY BEETLE MANIA

Turn Left reviewed by Ashley Stewart

In 1977 Marvel created a comic called "What if...?" The idea behind the comic was that it would tell the stories that would have happened had events happened slightly differently, such as "What if Gwen Stacy had lived?" or "What if Daredevil killed the Kingpin?" or "What if The Fantastic Four all had the same power?". Although often fun, these tales had no bearing on their respective comics' actual continuities as they stood alone, almost as footnotes to the main events. And this is the route, at least initially, `Turn Left` seemed to be taking. The main thrust of the episode is a "what if"; in this case "What if Donna Noble never met The Doctor?". But by the end of the episode, it is quite clear that this episode is no mere footnote, rather it's a vital integral part of the season's ongoing arc. Of course, `Turn Left` is notable as being The One Where Rose Comes Back. We've seen her three times already in the season, but these were all blink and you'll miss it cameos, all of which could easily have been excised from their respective episodes and no-one would have noticed, nor had any detrimental effect on their respective plots. It's here where she's back... but what is she doing? And what has gone wrong with her teeth?

Anyhow... this is the annual Doctor-lite episode; only the difference is this year it's very much a companion heavy episode (after the preceding episode in the season was the polar opposite). The Doctor is in a scene at the top and tail of the episode, and corpse aside, that's it. Oh, yes. Corpse. Remember that "What if...?" question earlier? The answer is that the Doctor dies. And I mean proper dies. Due to some spurious reason he is unable to regenerate. But, think about it; how many of you would have loved to have seen an alternative Doctor 11? I would have! I really think they missed a trick there... I can imagine for a one-off, single episode gig, with the profile the show has at the moment they could have got pretty much anyone they wanted to guest as the Doc... anyhow, I digrees...

So, without the Doctor around who is there to save the world? Well, no-one it seems. Martha dies, Sarah Jane dies, Gwen and Ianto die; all offscreen, of course. We don't actually get to see them until next week... ho-hum. And the world goes to pot, lots of people die, and slowly, without any fuss, the stars go out... (Oh, as an aside; I should mention that when planning my review of this episode I decided that whatever happened I would write it, and submit it, before episode 12 airs. Which means that if I make some daft statement about the next two episodes that doesn't prove to be true, it's 'cos I've not seen them yet. Mind you, from the gallery of faces in the trailer I wouldn't bat an eyelid if, say, Professor Zaroff turns up. I'm sure I saw a kitchen sink in there somewhere...)

So. Donna doesn't meet the Doctor, he dies, various other companions die. And because of the Doctor not being there the Titanic crashes in to London, spewing radiation across South East England rendering it uninhabitable. The Atmos gases bugger up the atmosphere. About a fifth of America is killed by the Adipose. Britain turns in to a fascist state with internment camps. Mick Hucknall tops the hit parade again. Essentially a lot of bad things happen and a lot of people die because the Doctor isn't around... which, of course, we've not seen happen since... ooh, `Last of the Timelords` when he spends a year on the Valiant whilst The Master rules, and enslaves, the Earth... However, the main difference here is that we see much more of what happens at grass roots this time, and it is more effective for it.

All the while, Donna is occasionally visited by some blonde woman with strange teeth - she never tells Donna her name, but we all know it. Rose is hopping between parallel universes for a reason that's never really properly explained beyond some guff to do with "The Darkness", which is apparently coming. I know it's all meant to be doom-mongering and ominous this darkness talk, but whenever it's mentioned I can't help but hear a snatch of "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" in my head, and the mood is somewhat lightened! Rose knows this universe is wrong - she is to this episode what Guinan in to Star Trek; TNG's `Yesterday's Enterprise`; which is pretty much the standard bearer for alternate universe shenanigans in Sci-fi drama shows - and also knows that Donna won't accept it until she's ready. Which is at about the same time she realises that she's had some big insect on her back for the last couple of years. An easy thing not to notice that... Also the insect thing was clearly on the outside of her clothing, so does that mean every time she took off her coat the insect then had to re-attach itself to her new attire? I don't know... maybe I shouldn't over-analyse things.  

Eventually, of course, through some time-travel mirrors (in a nice nod to `Evil of the Daleks`) Donna goes back and puts right what once went wrong. Everything goes all wibbly wobbly timey wimey and the insect falls off her back. Then, we get to the bit that turns the episode on its head; the message from Rose, "Bad Wolf", and the message appearing on all those posters and banners and the TARDIS... All of which showed that somehow the events of the episode were real, and not just a speculative "What if...?"; Donna is so important to everything that a complete new parallel universe sprang up as a result of a decision she made to turn right instead of left... one path leading to the events we've seen the whole season, the other... the alternative in this episode. Now that's important.

So many questions are raised by the episode; what exactly is Rose doing jumping between these universes? What's the story with the stars going out? Is this the forthcoming darkness? Why is Donna so important? Also, the insect was stated to be something to do with The Trickster, who popped up in one of the stories in the Sarah-Jane spin off in which he created a reality where Sarah-Jane died as a child. I can't help but think he's going to pop up in here as the person behind The Darkness. Exactly what role Davros will perform, I don't know...

Taking `Turn Left` as an episode in its own right, before having seen the last two episode, leaves me thinking that there is much within this episode that will not have any significance until later. Whereas Season 3's `Utopia`, as well as being essentially part one of three, was a complete story in its own right, I can't help but think that `Turn Left` is just setting things up for the forthcoming finale. It's not that it was a bad episode, far from it; I was gripped throughout. There were some great performances, most notably from Bernard Cribbins and Catherine Tate; their scenes together are always touching. The single best scene in the episode is the one where some of the people they are living with are carted off on the back of a truck to go to a "labour camp"; Cribbins' reaction there is spot on. Understated and subtle. Frankly it's the sort of performance that should get those who give out awards writing down the name "Bernard Cribbins" at the head of their lists.

After watching Turn Left, I very much feel in the same frame of mind as when I've just eaten my starter of baked figs stuffed with blue cheese, drizzled with balsamic apple vinegar... roll on the main course next week, and pudding the week after... I've enjoyed it, but the best is yet to come...

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WAR STORIES

The Stolen Earth / Journey’s End reviewed by Matthew Kilburn

On 5 July 2008 the Doctor Who production team of Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and Phil Collinson made its final bow with what was by the most obvious measurement its greatest achievement. Doctor Who: Journey’s End was not only the most watched television programme of the night, but the most watched programme of the week. Those of us who can remember waiting for the ratings each week and hoping that Doctor Who wouldn’t drop out of the top 100 are made aware of just how much time has passed and how different this Doctor Who is to the one that clung to life at the end of the 1980s.

It’s perhaps flattering it too much to write that Doctor Who as brought to the viewing public by John Nathan-Turner, Andrew Cartmel and friends challenged the zeitgeist. If so, it was from often conflicting directions and with a lack of enthusiasm visible across ill-coordinated productions. The success of the Davies-Gardner-Collinson era has been to run with the spirit of the times, judging what the Saturday night audience might want and delivering the goods, with the help of a committed publicity machine and an increasing obsession with the series from the wider media. Battlescarred veteran fans might with justification feel overtaken and hemmed in on many sides. One of these is the modern multi-platform mediasphere, who declare their eternal love for the programme when a few years before it was only to be sneered at. If it was to be revived at all it was as a possible novelty vehicle for latterday reality-variety stars like Lawrence Llywelyn-Bowen. Russell and company took the artificial verisimilitude of reality TV and other contemporary media trends and how they reflected contemporary society; mixed them in with models of contemporary heroism and everyday concerns; and in reflecting them back through something like Theodore Maxtible’s one hundred and forty-four separate mirrors, fashioned something that wasn’t just workable, but triumphant, and it has surely ensured the endurance of Doctor Who in British folk culture for another generation or two. Whenever one comes across people who want the New Adventures back, remind them of this.

One trend that might owe something to the arcs of which the various book series were fond is the incorporation of hints in earlier episodes about the crisis which will become the focus of a future story. This in turn is presented to the audience as a special event, in this case the ‘season finale’. When John asked me to write this review, I queried whether Turn Left should not have been included as part of the finale as well, though as it turned out John was probably right to treat Turn Left as a freestanding episode, though more closely connected to the finale than any others. The plastering of the words Bad Wolf across the final scenes of Turn Left turned out to be little more than a flourish and, while providing a successful dramatic bridge into The Stolen Earth and the return of Rose, was abandoned at the start of the next episode unexplained; the first of many dead ends offered throughout the final two-parter.

This was an example of Russell T Davies’s preference for not dwelling on plot devices where an explanation would distract the audience from the business at hand, in this case establishing that the return of Rose, while personally welcome to the Doctor, is a harbinger of disaster. This appears to be confirmed when the audience is shown the disappearance of Earth both from the point of view of the Doctor and Donna, and from how the various semi-regulars and spin-off series regulars experience the displacement of the planet.

As an introduction or reintroduction for these characters – four of them new to Doctor Who, in the shapes of Luke, Mr Smith (whose fanfare has survived his rebooting, though it appears not for much longer after Sarah’s self-aware put-down), Gwen and Ianto - these scenes work fairly well, though Gwen’s one-sided exchange with Rhys (“I love you, you big idiot”) was somehow unconvincing and felt redundant. Jack’s relationship with Ianto is sketched in through not-that-subtle detail, but then the Doctor Who audience already knows of Jack’s omnisexuality; more effort is put into establishing that Sarah now has a son, and their bond is played much more intensely.

The principal addition of The Stolen Earth to the Doctor Who mythos (not a term one sees around very much nowadays) was the Shadow Proclamation. When first mentioned in Rose I’d assumed it was a treaty, but since Partners in Crime at least, it seems to be the organisation administering the treaty as well. Perhaps it is a Shadow Self-Proclamation, which has opportunistically moved into the role of universal authority. Its members are uniform – black-clad females with reddened eyes – and this, the blandness of their headquarters, and their role in the story, which is to dole out some exposition and give the Doctor some force of authority to run away from, make them unimpressive ersatz Time Lords. (The intention seems to have been to surround the black-laced ladies with lots of aliens from the previous four series, not only the Judoon, which might have given a different effect.) As the Shadow Proclamation are not seen again in the story, one wonders whether they will be taken forward at all in the 2009 specials, or whether they are simply there to act as authority figures who can give the Doctor information, build up the mystery around Donna and then give the Doctor someone to rebel against and emphasise that he is not anybody’s general. We may never see the Time War, but we are left with a sense of its key moves being replayed over and over again.

It’s been justly said, often, that Rose succeeded as a relaunch episode because it avoided the ‘kisses to the past’ approach which clogged the TV Movie of 1996. The Stolen Earth and Journey’s End looked at times as if they had invited the past of Doctor Who to an orgy. Parallels were invited from the beginning. (The association of a milkman as a symbol of normal life, surely an anachronism in most parts of Britain nowadays, is probably much-used, but it seemed to acknowledge Shughie MacFee’s discovery of the abandoned milk float in the opening chapter of Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion.) The most obvious candidate was The Dalek Invasion of Earth; although the attempt to move the planet could easily have been the successful one by the Time Lords in The Trial of a Time Lord. That matters little, as there has been a rough equivalence between Time Lords and Daleks presented to the viewer throughout the series. The invasion was largely presented through one street scene, but this reminded me of the self-consciously theatrical painted flats against which potential slaves and Robomen were herded into the Dalek spaceship in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, in the way that it concentrated the epic into one locality. Here, the CGI shots of the Daleks’ time-shifted pocket of planet-filled space parallel the film sequences of Daleks at Westminster Bridge or the Albert Memorial in the 1964 story, because this is a different kind of invasion from a production that needs to convey more levels of a sense of scale. Full marks for bravado for depicting New York as an office full of people with American accents (if tending towards the mid-Atlantic), and getting away with it.

This story gets away with a lot, because of its exuberance; and it’s an exuberance which casts most props of structure and logic to the winds. This is reflected in this review. I confess to being easily seduced by the idea that the Doctor could be pulled through into the same time zone as the missing planets by his friends dialling his number. I know lots of people with expertise or theoretical knowledge of mobile telephony found the scene difficult to accept, and I too regret the loss of the nods to Sydney Newman’s dreams of the programme’s educational purpose which would appear now and then in the 2005 season. Nonetheless, it has a kind of poetic sense. After all, the TARDIS does look like a telephone box. It all seems somehow right, as is the idea that the waves would appear in space like a piece of pop art.

As with previous finales, Russell T Davies has here put to one side (but not, as becomes apparent, entirely repressed) the grown-up musings on the weaknesses of human nature dramatised in Midnight and Turn Left, and returned to his inner eight-year-old for inspiration. The Daleks again return in force, swarming across the screen by themselves or in the TV Century 21-inspired saucers, and now living in a spherical base like a wasps’ nest. What is the biggest thing the Daleks can seek to destroy? Reality itself! exclaims Russell in his playground. Who can stop them? The Doctor, and all his friends – or at least, all the ones the kids can remember. (A few hundred people, by now, will have written stories in which we learn that victory was really down to several other sets of the Doctor’s former companions, with added help or hindrance from the Rani, whose return obsesses a substantial section of online fandom. Or maybe Adam from Dalek.) Everyone gets to live their fantasy. The mother in the tower block, too, gets to wield her space gun and blast a Dalek to smithereens. There are a lot of explosions in this episode which will satisfy one part of the audience and stave off any allergies to the kissing that might be about among the small boys of today.

The big idea that helped Doctor Who to the top of the charts for Journey’s End was another concept that, once thought up, was too tempting not to use. David Tennant’s Doctor rapidly developed a huge personal following; it’s evident from a surf around the internet that a lot of the new generation of Doctor Who fans are, to some extent, David Tennant fans, and that their loyalty to the series would be tested if he was replaced. The decision to slow Doctor Who’s production next year has been well-publicised; and, as the star has often remarked, he’s been asked about his departure date almost from the moment he took over. Public expectations that David Tennant might leave were skilfully manipulated, but for those of us who knew that he was contracted for the 2008/2009 specials, and had seen the location reports on the internet (though there were some who believed that the BBC would stage effectively a few days of street theatre for the benefit of the residents of Gloucester as a smokescreen for Tennant’s departure) the question was how the regeneration would be avoided, and what purpose the misdirection would serve. The regeneration probably didn’t need be there to energise the Doctor’s spare hand, as something else could have been found, but given that the destiny of the hand appears to have been to put this extra character on the board, then for all the sense of anticlimax at the start of Journey’s End (though one evidently not felt by the majority of viewers, who didn’t switch off) the regeneration was probably the best contrivance, and more than adequately reinforced the Doctor’s Time Lord identity to the viewer as well as underline the special relationship this Doctor has with Rose.

For a little while in the week following the broadcast of Journey’s End, I thought that the Doctor’s decision to retain his tenth form was an act of selfishness that ultimately led to the Doctor committing genocide again and condemned Donna to her fate. It was pointed out to me that this isn’t the case; a potentially incapacitated and amnesiac eleventh Doctor would have been no help at all in the fight against the Daleks, who could well have launched the reality bomb by the time the Doctor became fully active. It’s also easy to be thrown by the smug and self-regarding way in which David Tennant sometimes plays the Doctor, a quality which was at its worst during his first season. One of the great strengths of the incorporation of the re-engineered Donna in the series is that Catherine Tate can give the companion the maturity to offset the Doctor’s enthusiasm and his (often feigned) self-confidence, and is able to see where this is a cover for deep uncertainty and – one of the great tropes of RTD-Who – loneliness. Here, though, there were no moments where the Doctor and Rose could resurrect their mutual admiration society, except for Rose’s confession about the purpose of the dimension cannon, when their happiness in each other’s company; and when the crisis is over the Doctor loses no time in returning Rose to the parallel universe. Though the Doctor has sometimes appeared (particularly to Donna and Martha) to be searching for Rose, he knows that what Rose clearly wants from their relationship can never be. For all the importance of Rose as a character – she embodies the successful revival of the programme more than any other figure in the series – she was on notice from School Reunion onwards, and the Doctor’s actions throughout Doomsday were geared towards creating a family unit in which he could place her.

The Daleks look impressive in numbers, but it seems a pity that we have to take the Doctor’s word for it that this is a new Dalek empire; indeed, given the high concentration of Daleks in one region of space, skulking a second away from the rest of the universe, it would be more credible if it was thought of as a Dalek empire in waiting. The strategy of destroying everything in the universe until only Daleks are left is one of desperation; Daleks in the past have relied on a slave labour force, as if they need to constantly prove to themselves that they are the superior life form in the universe by oppressing others; what will Daleks do when there is a universe only comprised of Dalek-kind and their technology? I’m reminded of the idea proposed in The Discontinuity Guide, that the Daleks are permanently weakened by the survival of Davros and can never be the force in the universe which they once were. In proposing to destroy everything they admit the futility of their own existence, which perhaps they hate as much as the hybrids of The Parting of the Ways did theirs. To enter further into the fiction, these Daleks are all engineered directly from Davros’s cells, presumably without the genetic diversity which characterized the original Daleks.

Julian Bleach gives an impressive performance as Davros, even if Davros doesn’t have very much to do. The Doctor’s dismissal of Davros as the Daleks’ ‘pet’ doesn’t seem quite right, as he is clearly allowed some authority. If the Daleks indulge his claim to be ‘Lord and Creator of the Daleks’, then he could even be seen as a constitutional monarch. His relationship with the Supreme Dalek seems to have been sketched as one of mutual interdependence - Davros as a Merlin, perhaps, to the Supreme Dalek’s King Arthur - but in the event the revelations of part two seem to contradict the assertions of part one. A vault is where something valuable is kept – at worst, Davros is treated by the Daleks as a privileged archive facility, to be raided for expertise or cells as appropriate. As with much of the episode, too much is happening for this relationship to be brought out in detail. Much depends on Bleach, whose Davros avoids the gurgling back-street psychopathy into which Terry Molloy sometimes lapsed. The care with which Bleach delivers each word make Davros a genuinely dangerous figure, and the intensity with which he hails the destruction of everything is completely frightening.

By this time in the story the various companions have been drawn together and almost everyone has been united in the Vault. The way in which the plot strand involving the Osterhagen key turned out to be something of a red herring, showing how the Doctor has inspired those who follow him to commit destructive acts while abhorring violence himself, was an over-extended parable. It did allow for more homage to The Dalek Invasion of Earth – the Old Woman’s memories of London were very reminiscent of the older ‘Woman in the Wood’’s description of the city in that story. Once the Osterhagen key and Sarah’s warp star were easily sidelined, for all Russell’s point, one felt cheated. Davros’s claim that he was showing the Doctor himself, too, was surely something the Doctor already knew, and dramatically was simply a recapitulation of much we had seen before.

The whole business of there being three Doctors – the Doctor proper, the one-hearted Doctor and the Doctor-Donna – is a gimmick, and beyond that I’m not sure what it actually does other than allow Russell to move some more of his pieces around on the board, perhaps for future use. It does allow Donna to transcend her self-doubt, and it is very good to see Catherine Tate play a Donna suddenly endowed with the Doctor’s knowledge and memories and who is not swamped by them. Donna’s disabling of the Daleks undercuts the pretensions of Davros and the Daleks well, emphasising how useful being a temp from Chiswick can be (something that has already been built up earlier in the season, but then pulled back from, presumably because Russell wanted to use it in the finale).

With the Daleks disabled, they simply become dodgem cars, and we move from The Dalek Invasion of Earth crossed with Resurrection of the Daleks to The Five Doctors, as Sarah and Rose at last exchange greetings. The decision of the half-human Doctor to blow up all the Daleks is treated rather lightly in the context, particularly as it’s not clear what the Doctor proper would have done, and the Doctor-Donna certainly has no alternative plan herself other than wait. Davros’s refusal to come aboard the TARDIS robs that part of the audience who were children in the late 1970s of a true Cloppa Castle moment, Davros perhaps becoming the friendly enemy who sits down to tea. Anything suddenly seems possible as the Doctors and their friends tow the Earth home. This is a joyous scene, gleefully defying sense as it turns the world into a rollercoaster ride. The depiction of the gathering on board the TARDIS involves the audience with the Doctor’s pleasure at the company; when Martha grins and winks at the camera, the camera is standing in the position which the next shot reveals is the Doctor’s place. There are some well-done comic touches, largely confirming prejudices about the characters – Jackie might have blasted a Dalek with an energy weapon, but the Doctor will never quite be confident in her technical abilities. Donna still wants to hug Jack. Elisabeth Sladen’s posture and facial expression as she is cast aside underlined why it’s Sarah Jane Smith who has been restored to the Doctor’s life for the new series.

Dramatically, the concluding fifteen minutes rely on the Doctor’s solutions to problems being too pat. Although presented as closures, by their nature all of them are open-ended. The spin-offs are respun, to the extent that Torchwood’s new regulars (or so the indications are at the time of writing) don’t seem to be getting introductions within that series. Sarah runs off to her son and her own series. Rose and Jackie are returned to Bad Wolf Bay, with a man sufficiently like the Doctor Rose loves to be the target of several years of unrelieved sexual tension for sufficiently long for ‘our’ Doctor to make a getaway. As Billie Piper noted in Confidential afterwards, this wasn’t necessarily the end of Rose Tyler.

The episode’s wrapping-up reached a peak of unsettlingness with the despatch of the Doctor-Donna. What the Doctor does to Donna isn’t explained completely – surely if he had wiped her mind as fully as he first suggests, there would be no possibility of Donna remembering. Julie Gardner and Phil Collinson revealed in their commentary for the episode that a sequence was recorded showing Donna recognising the sound of the TARDIS dematerialising, and then dismissing it. This would have restored some agency to Donna, who is not allowed the choice of dying as the Doctor-Donna or of living as her old, pre-Doctor self. The Doctor makes the choice for her. Some critics – including, at first, me – have seen this as a decision by the programme-makers suggestive of misogyny, but it’s been pointed out to me that this is entirely in keeping with the Doctor’s character. He sees himself as responsible for his companions, and more generally for the wider world. One can take him as the ‘lonely god without a home’ of New Earth if one wants, but his behaviour is open to other interpretations. The unsatisfactoriness of the end of season settlement is deliberate, because it shows the Doctor’s limitations as a hero; his connections with human beings are inevitably fleeting, and his solutions imperfect.

The internet rumour mill, as I write in this last full week of July, is suggesting that Donna will be returning at Christmas 2009, and with her will, reportedly, come Wilf. This series has been much the better for the inclusion of Bernard Cribbins among the cast, simply because his portrayal of Wilf encapsulates so much of why the Doctor loves human beings. Russell T Davies has a more ambivalent relationship with humanity, as seen most starkly in Midnight; but Wilf, presumably somewhere in his eighties, has refused to retire, selling newspapers even on an empty street at Christmas, and looks to the future and the possibilities of life among the stars. When that life turns out to be malevolent, he goes out to face it with a cricket bat. Indomitable, as the fourth Doctor might have said.

The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End was full of frustrating moments where one wished for further development. In addition to the underuse of the Shadow Proclamation, the sidelining of Gwen and Ianto in their timelocked Hub seemed a disappointment at the time, but it left them in place to help co-ordinate the rescue of the Earth, with Luke, Mr Smith and K9 doing their bit. There were other moments of detail which largely worked as good gags, such as the German-speaking Daleks. “Vernichten!” or “Ausradieren!” might, I’ve been reliably informed, have been better than “Exterminieren!” apparently. It was surely right to avoid the temptation to have the Daleks saluting with their sucker arms in that scene, assuming that it presented itself…

Doctor Who is a banquet of many courses made with a range of ingredients to suit as many tastes as possible. Stories like Blink, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead and, yes, Midnight, are made with choice ingredients and to recipes which are calculated to surprise and bear the risk of alienating some parts of the table. The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End is more of a traditional British standard, a fry-up of what has gone before. Even Murray Gold’s music seemed largely made up of themes which he had used earlier in the past four series. The fry-up, though, was distinguished by the quality of all the old ingredients and the sauce, a heady blend of nostalgia, affection, and satisfaction for a job well done, that softens the disappointment at the opportunities not taken, and makes one look forward to the dishes to be served as an encore by the departing chef, as well as the feast being prepared by his successor.

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Season 4 pod reviews

The Season 4 reviews above are those published in the first issue of Jargon, some time after it finished. The following are the reviews that already existed on the site, called "pod" reviews" since these were written on the day each story was transmitted and uploaded to the old Fringeworld site a day later. These should give you an idea of the impact each story had on first watching.


PARTNERS IN CRIME

Everything has a formula in the end so four seasons in, we sort of know what to expect from the resurgent Doctor Who. There’s your three 2 parters; one a work of genius, one a hugely ambitious season finale, the other a bit of a mess. There’s your celebrity historical, your spaceship one, the one all the hardcore fans hate, the Doctor lite one, your token alien planet one, the one that contains a big clue about the season arc and of course your bright n’ breezy season opener. And `Partners In Crime` fits the bill – high concept idea, contemporary setting, family bickering to introduce the new companion who we will meet in as familiar an activity- ie rushing about doing real life- as possible.
Only snag here is- Donna is not new. We’ve already met her, we’ve seen her introduced to the world of the Doctor and as a character she exists in what is now a post alien contact world. Plus she’s a thirtysomething woman whose mum talks to her like she’s six in a way that no modern mum would I suspect ; no wonder Donna’s got her bags packed. Thankfully Russell T acknowledges this and instead of an introduction we get a delightfully comedic route to a reunion. Like a (good) farce, the Doctor and Donna are up to the same subterfuge in the same place with the same purpose but just keep missing each other. When they do finally clock each other - in a sort of light hearted riff on last year’s dramatic scene in `42`- the result is as funny a moment as this series has yet offered. David Tennant and Catherine Tate seem to be terrific together, promising much in the way of a different Doctor / companion dynamic. There’s also a great action sequence involving a window cleaning hoist that proves to be the episode’s only sustained adrenalin rush but it’s wonderfully shot by director James Strong.
Elsewhere though the episode lacks the requisite bite, which is mostly the fault of the Adipose. However well realised and cute these creatures are – and if I was 7 I would want a foam Adipose right now- they don’t provide the menace a season opener needs; aliens without teeth are really no fun at all! Unlike last year’s Judoon there is nothing remotely terrifying about them and the script fails to explore their origins with anything more than cursory attention. Plus when they emerge en masse they just toddle about a bit. The basic idea is strong and will certainly strike a chord in view of recent news stories about obesity but once again it seems as if all the writers do is read a headline and say `oh we must do a story about this contemporary issue` and then proceed not to explore that issue at all. Also, if you want to be picky - and I wouldn’t be if there was more fat on the story- how come it takes Mrs Noble’s mate minutes to shed her little friends and she ends up Ok when the other Adipose are trotting about outside on their way to the spaceship.
Sarah Lancashire does her best with a role that will be familiar to anyone who saw (the superior) Miss Wormwood in Sarah Jane Adventures but with a measly two security guards and not even the courtesy of changing into a slobbering monster at 40 minutes, she’s on a hiding to nothing. Better is Bernard Cribbins’ delightfully old fashioned uncle, who should surely be allowed to save the planet before the season is out? Visually there’s a good mix with lots of dark blues and blacks lit up by the impressive Close Encounters style spaceship at the end, though you’d think Londerners would just yawn at another alien craft.
I suspect this episode will occupy a similar place to `The Long Game`, `New Earth` and `Fear Her`, episodes that are just OK. It’s not a patch on last year’s `Smith and Jones` but it does offer us a little mystery (is that Rose or someone who looks like her, hmm?) and a potentially explosive new TARDIS crew so you can’t grumble too much.

THE FIRES OF POMPEII

Fiery in word and deed, this is a class episode that fulfils that tricky balancing act of being exciting and dramatic while also packing in quite a large amount of exposition. The whipcrack pace looks at times as if the story will trip itself up but somehow it ploughs on to an epic climax that pulls a dilemma out of the hat that makes you glad you don’t have to solve it. Building on last week’s opener, the chemistry between David Tennant and Catherine Tate is bubbling over; it’s as if they’ve been together for ages and the way she treats him as an equal and gets to have her say is a satisfying dynamic we’ve never really seen before. This maturity opens up previously unavailable shortcuts and avenues for writers and James Moran certainly uses the opportunity.
From the busy opening its clear this is going to be a good one, it’s strident sense of purpose and strong guest cast (Peter Capaldi and Phil Davis in the same episode!!) mark that much out and with Colin Teague finding ever more ingenious ways to build up to our monster and the issue of whether or not they should tell the citizens a constant concern of Donna’s the different levels work superbly. The use of tone and colour, the fearsome sound of the Pyvallians before we even see and the intrigue over how exactly Romans have pictures of circuit boards all add to a mix. Another canny decision is to have our Roman family talking in contemporary tones which would no doubt help wavering viewers stick with it. In that sense the story works better than last year’s Shakespeare Code which sometimes seems a little too smug for its own good; here you don’t need any working knowledge of ancient Rome to get what’s going on.
The story deals with two fundamental tenants of the show. The language thing has been mentioned in passing before- an exchange in Masque of Mandragora explained it for the first time to us- and here the comedic angle was taken with Donna’s Latin sounding like Celtic to the real Romans! The more serious theme was interfering (or not) in history which was once an intriguing angle but which has probably worn out its welcome over the decades to the point where whole franchises are built on it. Doctor Who has for the most part stepped away from the whole mind bending topic but rather like Steven Moffatt’s `timey wimey` explanation last year, its treated with a lightness than makes it somehow more convincing. The idea that the Doctor can interpret things on a wholly different level to us plays into his alien-ness superbly and as Tennant becomes less human-like it fits this most satisfying incarnation well. Purists may moan that it sidesteps the debate but of course in James Moran’s hands it doesn’t and the Doctor ultimatelty faces a terrible choice, a not dissimilar one to that which he bottled out of in The Parting of the Ways. As often in the series nowadays the thing is humanised by the companion’s reaction- in this case Donna’s heartfelt plea for him to save at least the one family. It would probably break the `always end optimistically` rule but it might have been extra special to have shown the family at the end actually sorry they had been saved though perhaps that’s a story beat too many. Imagine if you saw your entire city and everyone you knew killed – do you think you’d be that blissful six months on?
A minor grumble though because `Fires of Pompeii` is a great, striking episode and young ‘uns can ignore the issues and just yelp when they see the mutated high priest and the extremely impressive Pyvallians. If producers and writers of other series want an example of how to make a near perfect modern family adventure for telly they should just watch this.

PLANET OF THE OOD

A hugely enjoyable episode as long as you don’t engage your brain, ironically enough given it includes a massive brain! For most of the time, this is a pacy adventure with more than a touch of James Bond about the snowy location, the Doctor’s exciting encounter with a large metal claw and most of all Tim McInnery’s well pitched villain Halpin. He makes an entertaining character whose speech cadences suggest a man teetering on the brink of madness. Donna’s reaction to new experiences continues to delight and it’s a shame she’s likely to be overshadowed by various elements as the season progresses. Catherine Tate has certainly answered her critics and on the showing of these three episodes looks set to be one of the more memorable companions. The ongoing story arc concerning thing vanishing remains tantalisingly vague and as bees actually are disappearing in real life, that’s some tie in!
Having been the best new enemy dreamt up in Cardiff to date, the Ood’s return was inevitable and this story adds much to their race while the creatures themselves are versatile enough to be both scary and sympathetic when required. Ever the skilled controller of action sequences, director Graeme Harper marshals the story’s elements to near perfection and presents some effective scenes, especially when the Ood attack; with cross cuts and edits it looks like there’s dozens of them. Plus, for the first time ever in the series, fake snow looks like real snow!
Keith Temple’s script is adept at providing the requisite thrills but falls flat when required to make some sense of the narrative. Nominally about slavery, it fails to work up a storytelling lather as the slaves are so vulnerable and a series of mishandled revelations reduces the ending to nonsense. There’s a giant brain you see and whenever you see a giant brain it looks silly and anyway, wouldn’t a telepathic race communicate without the need for a physical organ of this kind? And if they do have a giant brain, wouldn’t the impact of someone falling into it cause some sort of problem? Finally, and most preposterously there’s Halpin’s fate – would consuming anything, however powerful, turn someone into a perfectly formed member of another race? Surely the most that might happen could be they’d end up as a sort of mutant or, more likely, their head would explode (out of shot of course). This sort of thing strays beyond the show’s internal realism and, like last year’s equally ridiculous Dalek / human hybrid, is just not credible. A shame, as these weak story strands detract from what is otherwise a lively and well staged episode.

THE SONTARAN STRATEGEM

If you ever wondered what 70s concept Doctor Who would be like in the present day then here’s your answer. Not cheap, but very cheerful `The Sontaran Stratagem` is looking like the story that might finally break that early season 2 parter jinx. The slot has hitherto hosted a trio of over ambitious stories crammed to the rafters with elements that were, for whatever reason, never arranged in a satisfactory way. In particular last year’s Daleks double header suffered from too much of everything so it was to be hoped that the same writer- Helen Raynor- had more success with 90 minutes this time round. Happily, she does; in fact this first half plays superbly. Just as UNIT’s new smooth operator Martha Jones leads the soldiers into the Atmos factory so this episode weaves its way towards a gripping cliffhanger. Along the way sundry modern and traditional series staples help each other out; UNIT finally looks like a force to be reckoned with, there is something everyday turned into something menacing, we meet a mad villain in a big house but he’s almost a kid and hear an alien plot where you think: mmm, that really could work.
The writer’s first Who script did show Raynor to be pretty nifty when it came to sketching characters effectively yet economically and she pulls this off more successfully here as well as giving each of the regulars enough to do. Her use of Donna and Martha is sharp, playing on our expectation that the former will be pushed into the background for a story when her going back home leads directly to the big finish. Then to acknowledge it in an amusing scene where the Doctor thinks she’s leaving for good…now that’s funny. In fact Raynor seems adept at utilising familiarity with the UNIT concept as her gag about the Doctor helping them “in the 70s…or was it the 80s…” which plays to the age old debate about the dating of old UNIT stories. She even has the Doctor accompanied by a UNIT guard but instead of him being blown apart at the first opportunity she gives him a dryness and a comment about baked potatoes when he sees a Sontaran! It’s got to be better than “Holy Moses- what are those!” Brilliant stuff!!
The Sontarans themselves are rendered and performed impressively; certainly any younger viewer who’d never heard of them would be bowled over I reckon and for those of us who do recall good old Kevin Lindsey, its certainly about time these most distinctive aliens once again had a decent platform. Their military planning and sharp tongues are most welcome and as for that green half finished clone, it is certainly an unexpectedly scary addition to proceedings.
The cast are uniformly strong and it’s good to see Ryan Sampson, who never seems to get enough to do on programmes, being given a bit more meat here; at half time Rattigan remains enough of an enigma to develop and the way he join in the Sontaran war dance is quite weird indeed. Freema Agyeman and Catherine Tate turn in excellent performances as the way we view and understand the traditional `companion` figure continues to evolve. Perhaps that, rather than vanishing planets, is to be the season’s arcing theme? Bernard Cribbins continues to make a huge impact as Wilfrid, he’s already a key character for this season and makes every scene he’s in twinkle with mischief.
I do have the odd niggle about a couple of points but d’you know what? I’m not even going to mention them because this episode is excellent Doctor Who by any standards. Please don’t botch it in part 2…

THE POISON SKY

A good story well told, `The Poison Sky` is every bit the equal of its busy predecessor delivering the requisite thrills and drama in equal, if sometimes breathless measure. The momentum with which the Sontaran invasion takes hold is a blessed relief after 45 years of slow coach invasions and its to Helen Raynor’s credit that they seem meticulously military with a strong sense of what they are doing and even a nasty back up plan that inspires a moment of true heroism from our often flippant current Doctor. You sense that as well as readily referencing the 60s and 70s as this story does, the engine of the show is harking back to traditional values too with the Doctor appearing a hapless bystander while all the time his head is whirring with ways to solve the problems. Raynor’s deft storytelling allows these developments to appear at perfect moments and the way she handles such a large canvas is to be applauded. Equally strong is Douglas Mackinnon’s spirited direction in which he makes us truly believe there are dozens and dozens of Sontarans and soldiers. The sense of scale and chaos he manages is far more believable than the more obvious CGIscapes of the likes of `Doomsday` or `Last of the Time Lords` and you feel a sense of palpable excitement throughout.
David Tennant is in his element here and Catherine Tate’s terrified but willing to try performance on the Sontaran ship shows the value of her prescence in the series; I simply could not imagine any recent companion handling an awkward sequence with such acting skill. Equally Ryan Sampson’s trip from supremely confident to emotionally wounded Rattigan was pitched perfectly. This character’s journey encapsulates the stories’ concern with intelligence versus intution and only in the Doctor do you get both till the end when Rattigan makes his sacrifice. Somebody give Ryan Sampson a series where he can do this more often! Then there’s Christopher Ryan achieves the seemingly impossible and makes us understand the Sontaran way with the aid of an amazingly versatile prosthetic and his vocal skills. Though to be fair everyone plays their part perfectly here.
As with `The Sontaran Stratagem`, the episode is peppered with clever continuity (Rose’s face flashes onto the TARDIS scanner for a second, a little mention of Lethbridge Stewart) but these only serve to enrich an already satisfying story.
At times I have questioned the wisdom of not only setting so many stories on contemporary Earth but having more invasions that they did in the 70s but this 2 parter shows that when it works on every level- exciting, emotional, dramatic, epic, interesting- then it is what Doctor Who is for. There may well be some internet fans baying for a change in the programme’s stewardship but in the face of a story like this their flimsy arguments fade away. Against the odds, this is the early front runner for story of the season and even a certain Mr Moffatt is going to have a run for his money this time round.

THE DOCTOR'S DAUGHTER

Swerving smartly away from the path littered with potentially troublesome fan continuity questions such as `is Chris from Skins Susan’s Dad then`, Stephen Greenhorn’s tantalisingly titled episode instead ends up somewhere akin to a 1970s style peace and love vibe. It gets the paternity issue out of the way in two minutes flat and spends much of its running time wrong footing the viewer’s expectations. What starts off looking and sounding like the hoary old `civilisation develops from ancient space travellers lark` ends up with a Star Trek-like lecture on the virtue of flowers over guns.
It’s a little ragged round the edges and would probably translate better as a book, but there is much to enjoy and, for the first time in this season, a little to think about too. The Doctor’s “Dad shock” and Donna’s familiarity with his condition makes for yet more hugely enjoyable dialogue between the two- aren’t they just the coolest couple ever to space travel? David Tennant and Catherine Tate- even at a generally less frantic pace this week- have really gelled and you can’t wait for their scenes. Georgia Moffatt’s feisty but adapting Jenny is a dream role whatever the parentage of either the actor or the character though I found Jenny a bit too self conspicuously smug at first and an unlikely product of a machine.
The episode is owned by Freema Agyeman who makes a difficult sequence of events bloom into life thanks to her best performance yet as Martha. For the first time we really see the drive that made Martha walk round the world in last season’s climax and her reaction to the Hath and friendship with one of them makes for strong and emotional viewing against the odds. Not having the Hath talk, their communication composed entirely of liquidy bubbling, works because of Martha’s intuitive reaction to them and it’s the series’ loss that Freema will probably (hopefully) be too busy to return at any point after this season. Jenny, you suspect, will be back if not this season then in one of next year’s specials or even her own series?
Unusually for Who, which is cursed with poor endings to great stories, this so-so plot has a great ending as Donna’s translation of the numbers and the sudden appearance of shrubs and trees sends the narrative pivoting into something else entirely. There is a whiff of over contrivance- why would Cobb try to shoot the Doctor really? – and too many questions unanswered from the early part of the story- why would Martha really go outside like that? And how can people be cloned to different ages and types? And why does the Hath map change as well? Nevertheless the momentum and Alice Troughton’s economical direction keep it interesting and there is the suspicion that some of its dialogue is far more important for the future of the series than other things going on.

THE UNICORN AND THE WASP

Like last season’s `Shakespeare Code`, writer Gareth Roberts invites us to wallow playfully in a literary conceit, on this occasion Agatha Christie land. This episode goes further though, as it also toys with the conventions of television adaptations of Christie such as Poirot and Marple. The trouble is that both these series have established such a rhythm that we don’t expect it to be upset. `The Unicorn and The Wasp` is fine pootling about throwing book titles and Christie staples into the air but the Doctor Who-ish strands start to overwhelm and push the subtlety out of the way the further into proceedings we go. The increasingly strident non period music and a denouement that owes very little to Christie un picks a lot of the intricate work woven early on.
This is a pity, because thanks to the witty script and some atypical Graeme Harper direction, we have the makings of a perfectly judged episode. The flashbacks complete with wobbly picture, the constant insertion of book titles into the dialogue, the suspects who are all deceiving the inspector (or in this case the Doctor) and Donna’s gauche efforts to integrate into the1920s make for a delightful first half and I’d have been quite satisfied for it to have continued thus and be the sort of story `Black Orchid` failed to be. However every time we hear the buzzing noise it’s like an alarm signalling disappointment – just like a real wasp, our Vespiform friend is a nuisance and messes things up . Little is made of the `Unicorn`- surely a shape shifting thief is much more interesting than a giant wasp? Also we don’t really get to know much about Agatha herself; unlike previous historical celebs, she is increasingly pushed to the back of the story and ends up taking a surrogate companion role leaving the Doctor and Donna to do all the sorting out. There’s little insight into what makes her tick and while the plot plays well into the famed 10 day disappearance the ending is so flat you feel as if the whole story has been created just to explain that disappearance and even then they barely do. As for that end, after Donna’s sympathy for the Ood and all the fuss last week from Martha over the dead Hath, to despatch of Waspy so casually and with only a half hearted gripe from the Doctor seems a little at odds with the tone of this season.
There are some good bits- Catherine Tate’s continued strong work as Donna makes everything more comprehensible; she really has become a surprisingly versatile tool for the writers and allows David Tennant to become increasingly detached and alien (he’s like Tom Baker on speed). Waspy is terrifying enough if you hate wasps and who doesn’t and the location is used well; this season apart from one visit to those Millennium Stadium corridors, there’s been a fresh look to things generally. Love the priest buzzing just before he changes too, quite weird.
In the end though this is an unsatisfying episode that seems unsure what it is and ends up being neither a strong Christie pastiche nor a top class Doctor Who episode.

SILENCE IN THE LIBRARY

It’s difficult to watch this episode in any other manner than through the prism of the news that its writer Steven Moffatt will take over as the series’ chief conceptualist next year and also the high expectations created by his first three Who scripts, each of which is a humdinger of a classic.
Once again he’s taken something very obvious – fear of the dark- and created something intriguing and scary with it though in terms of structure the episode doesn’t quite gel in the way it should. The early scenes allow us extended time with the Doctor and Donna which is always good, yet for the first time this season a writer seems unable to quite give them dialogue that works. After the arrival of the archaeologists – their acting hampered by awkward costumes and even more awkward lack of character- matters seem to meander until Moffatt creates jeopardy by having someone wander un-seen by several people looking directly towards her into danger. The sequence with her `ghosting` (clever) is initially affecting but then drags on too long and seems there to repeat Donna’s empathy with everyone and everything which must surely be the season’s arc (or one of them). Despite some flashes, director Euros Lynn seems unable to convey the tension while the actors are cursed to stand about rather than react to anything meaning that what on paper would sound amazing, is too drawn out on TV. Which is ironic considering the whole thing’s set in a library.
Much more interesting is how the girl relates to the library and what Dr Moon has to do with it all and as the episode progresses you feel you’re watching two stories and that the skeleton spaceman is chucked in to give us some running about- great image though.
At the end it felt like I’d been watching for ages and very little had happened- there is certainly a sense of waiting for a cliffhanger though when it comes it’s actually very good.
It set me thinking though about whether Moffatt appreciates that the reason why Doctor Who is successful now is due to the way it plays to all ages and contains a humanity missing from some of its past excesses. Also what is has in abundance is variety- a 13 week season of this sort of episode might please the inhabitants of message boards but it will not captivate a nation. `Silence in the Library` is not as interesting or scary or clever as it thinks it is and on this evidence I would say it’s a 1 part story stretched to 2, when the extra episode should have gone to the `Fires of Pompeii`. Its still good but perhaps for Moffett, the law of diminishing returns has set in which is worrying in view of the pre-eminence he is about to assume.

FOREST OF THE DEAD

There’s a lot to digest in what is the richest episode of the season to date and as a result far more satisfying than part one despite the feeling that Steven Moffatt enjoys creating temporal mind crunchers at the expense of coherent storylines. Like last year’s `Blink` the ending seems to negate the preceding events suggesting none of it would therefore take place but as it did it gets confusing. Perhaps he should take a leaf out of Russell T Davies’ book and not explain quite so much. The writer repeats his `everybody lives` mantra of `The Doctor Dances`, albeit tempered by the fact that the archaeologists are all dead but destined to live their lives wearing pastel clothes inside a computer. It says a lot about the Doctor that he’s prepared to live with this during his entire future relationship with River though again if you think too much about it, it makes less sense. And if fans were upset over what they saw as the religious imagery of the Doctor’s resurrection at the end of last season, what do they make of the idea of an electronic existence depicted as heavenly?
Having met both the Doctor’s wife and daughter this year, you have to wonder whether the show is developing a `soap agenda`. Alex Kingston does her best but River is a smug, cold character from another type of programme (perhaps a Steven Moffatt programme?) and this makes it difficult for us to see what he sees in her, unlike Rose for example. Moffat’s continual revolving dialogue is shut down with the word “spoilers” just when it threatens to become interesting and doesn’t help our sympathy with the situation either. He also seems too prone to scripting the Doctor as if he’s an ordinary –albeit clever – bloke and needs to remember the Doctor is not human and that’s something special about the show.
Elsewhere, Donna’s story plays more effectively as domestic wish fulfilment and Catherine Tate’s motherly performance is spot on making the inevitable separation all the more poignant. These scenes seem to be from an altogether better story and Tate’s work pays off in spades. Equally good is Colin Salmon whose switch – in our eyes- from probable villain to benign helper is subtly achieved. Euros Lynn is clearly more at home in this sketchy half world, giving us Sapphire and Steel like flashes and bringing Moffatt’s post modern splashes to life. Notice how when the chid is watching the library stuff on the TV, she hears the incidental music! This is where we get the stories’ two unexpected jolts too- when the veil is lifted (cue a nation dropping its cup of tea!) and when we’re told all the kids in the playground are identical to Donnas (who’d noticed? Brilliant!). Compared to this, the library plot becomes progressively more wearing and repetitive with David Tennant shouting half his dialogue while running and the deaths of several others passing by without surprise. With no proper monsters- you can’t throw in a great line about “piranhas of the air” and not show us them! – and a lot of dashing about it resembles old fashioned Doctor Who till the climax which, as mentioned, brings its own problems.
It is refreshing to have paused for two more cerebral episodes after the restless urgency of the season yet I can’t help feeling there are two excellent stories here. One is a terror filled race from shadow monsters, the other an existential crisis. If separated into two, we’d be looking at the season poll toppers but conjoined by an awkward, tricksy and in fact blatantly timey wimey gimmick, neither fulfils their potential and Moffatt struggles to wrangle the elements together. In tone, intent and style they are just too jarring to make a truly satisfying whole.

MIDNIGHT

This season has really confounded expectations - the companion people said wouldn’t work has turned out to be excellent, the early 2 parter became the season high water mark that was starting to look unassailable as both Graeme Harper and Steven Moffett delivered less than their usual classic material. And now, who would have imagined that this hitherto forgotten episode, tucked away behind the Big Moffett 2 parter and Russell T Davies’ Big season finale would turn out to be the best of the first ten episodes?
Sometimes less is more; here under Alice Troughton’s taut direction, the showy visuals are barely needed, the music is switched down to a threatening murmur and a strong cast give their all for Davies’ most accomplished solo script since `Tooth and Claw`. Even the idea is simple and initially something we feel we’ve seen before, but the programme rarely strays beyond it’s monsters and running remit these days unless it’s to deliver some rousing emotional climax. `Midnight` is different; it’s certainly emotional but unusually for Davies the emotions are suspicion and paranoia. For a writer (and indeed a series) that usually sees the best in people, whatever their faults, this is new territory and the way he achieves it is by a careful, sustained build up that sits comfortably over 45 minutes. He is careful though to bat the arguments back and forth; there are no sudden answers or out of the blue acusations- Davies builds his script and characters like a game of chess keeping the attentive viewer waiting and waiting to see which way things would turn. Younger viewers might have been bored or even freaked by this but there’s something for them too; the opportunity to spend the next week repeating everything their parents says! The anticipation as the camera cut from one to another to another was riveting and the unceasing counter arguments fascinating to absorb. In presenting the passengers as people who are basically from 2008, whatever the futuristic trappings, Davies ensures we pay careful attention. You can see everyone’s perspective even Lindsey Coulson’s Val who switches her allegiance and jumps to the worst conclusions and then weasles out of them later and David Troughton’s professorial bore. Its creepy and claustrophobic, the increasingly staccato exchanges between the passengers matched by tight editing and a script that spins like a dervish, planting intrigue and accusations every minute. Caught up in a situation they cannot understand, the eight diverse passengers turn into a hunting pack, cornered and frightened and while this in itself is not exactly new (there are plenty of base under siege stories as fans call them) what makes this episode special is the way the Doctor is increasingly flailing to control events. We’ve got used to this Doctor’s flippant hi-jacking of command, organising people and getting the best out of them but here his assertions of his own cleverness and the way he tries to reason things through make him a target for the others. Even more so when the invisible invader realises what is happening and gradually manipulates everyone into throwing him out of the space shuttle in which they are stranded above a hostile atmosphere. The sheer tension of these last ten minutes is the equal of many a more spectacular sequence we’ve seen in other, bigger stories. Plus, as Davies himself said this is probably the more realistic reaction any of us would take to finding ourselves in a Doctor Who type of situation.
The cast are tremendous each of them utterly believable and conflicted in their response to the situation but you have to single out Lesley Sharp who pitches her initially suspicious and then controlled Sky brilliantly, the way she overlaps other’s dialogue may well be a trick partly achieved in the mixing room but her detachment is all acting. David Tennant gives his best performance to date this season, the fear and horror as the Doctor sees events sliding out of his control palpable. This is an astoundingly good episode and I would say, though the Sontaran 2 parter came pretty close, the first out and out classic of season 4.

TURN LEFT

Alternative timeline stories only work if they tell you something about the protagonist that you couldn’t learn from their real time storyline and `Turn Left` is bereft of much new insight into Donna. She’s already a character we know and understand well - and she had a far more satisfying and revelatory alternative story just two weeks ago. Here she isn’t allowed the more interesting angle of knowing that the world has changed so what new angle are we left with? The answer is an underwhelming, leapfrogging story that has too much of a time span to cover in 45 minutes and which struggles to built up momentum. Russell T Davies let the cat out of the bag in Confidential` when he said this was supposed to be the “cheap” story and thanks to a barrage of familiar clips as we see previously shown events from a different perspective so it proves while still managing to look expensive. The plot itself has Rose popping up to pass Donna the most infuriatingly enigmatic nuggets, the sort of things Doctor Who rarely indulges in which lead to an unlikely TARDIS driven machine. And you have to ask yourself- if Donna sees these alien attacks and accepts them, how come she is so incredulous every time she meets Rose?
Of course, Rose’s return is the least secret secret ever, which has really robbed it of all surprise and you wonder whether the story would have worked better with Martha. Billie Piper seems a shadow of her former subtlety looking cavalier when she’s supposed to be be imparting doom laden info and given lines that betray how much the series has developed since she left. Rose no longer fits in current Doctor Who and bizarrely now seems more out of place than Sarah or the Sontarans but I sense we heading towards RTD’s farewell party episodes to which everyone is invited. Judging from the `next time` clip only the Zarbi will be absent from the event!
What is worth watching this episode for however is the superb performances of Catherine Tate and Jacqueline King. The former remains this season’s touchstone, her energetic, emotional range has served Donna well and made her a far more memorable companion than was predicted by many. Here, faced with an awkwardly written script that requires her to leap from `Runaway Bride` Donna to current Donna in a way that makes little sense, she actually pulls it off despite her often banal dialogue. She really is an actor of considerable talent. Jacqueline King has blossomed in the role of Donna’s mum, who was a slightly annoying nag in `Partners in Crime` but who has become something much more special; Sylvia’s gradual defeatism in this episode was very well played and one of the more convincing elements.
Graeme Harper built his Who reputation on visual gritty material but this story shows how well he can muster the right level of performances from the actors too. He also plays the `thing on Donna’s back` aspect well with characters continually looking at her shoulder. He even manages to disguise the rubbery time beatle which looks like something from the series’ dodgier past, a rare FX mis-step. The ending, while not a patch on last year’s jaw dropping `Utopia` climax, makes you realise how sluggish the rest of the episode has been. There’s a good idea lurking here, but perhaps would have been better utilised in a different season. I suspect after seeing the trailer for next week, everyone will have forgotten `Turn Left` which is destined, despite Catherine Tate’s sterling efforts, to lurk in the `Fear Her`/ `New Earth` bottom shelf.

THE STOLEN EARTH

The first thing to say is how brilliant it is to have this sort of telly on at all- other programmes cannot do this kind of thing – though I suspect Eastenders would be measurably improved with a decent alien invasion- so Doctor Who should. All you can do most of the time is gawp and gape at the spectacular, screen filling stuff being shown.
The episode pulls together RTD’s twin obsessions of new technology and old fashioned romance in one gigantic adventure that is the closest the series has ever come to big screen size. There is an awesome sense of scale, not just in the stunning visuals but also in the Universe spanning journeys and the world spanning communications that link everything together. Yet however enormous it threatens to become, there are moments when you know it couldn’t be anything else than this show. Only in Doctor Who, no scratch that, only in RTD’s Doctor Who would it be Harriet Jones on her beloved country cottage (remember how she was campaigning for cottage hospitals when we first met her?) who would bring together the Doctor’s secret army (shades of Harry Potter here). Perhaps more than a man of his age should, RTD wants us to see every modern technological device but he has learned that they can be used to circumnavigate the most ambitious plot.
A smorgasboard of old friends and enemies, `The Stolen Earth` is a Doctor Who comic strip brought to life; we even see radio signal circles pulsing out from the planet! It’s richly coloured, packed with brash incident- the Dalek saucer over the high street is great, the stolen planets in the Medusa Cascade simply beautiful- and events are manouvered by our old mate Davros who now resembles a dried prune. It really is like watching a greatest hits show, with all your favourites and the odd surprise- “gosh, the Judoon” “ooh, Sarah’s tiny car”, “Calufrax!!” and biggest of all “Harriet Jones!!” You can wallow in it because you just know that some time wimey thingamajig will reverse all this destruction and put Earth back to where it was by the end of next week’s episode. Well I mean it has to, doesn’t it? It’s probably something to do with the fact that the planets in the Cascade are slightly out of time. That is, unless we’ve been in the parallel world all the time or something. Don’t you just love the way they didn’t have a `next time` trailer either? No hints or clues though being RTD we have probably been looking at all the hints and clues these past 12 weeks. Remember; there is no throwaway dialogue in his version of the show.
So, was it actually any good? I have no idea. I loved it, of course, how could a fan or regular viewer not. There are scenes of utter gobsmacking delight – like when Davros tilts his head sideways and you can see the malice on Julian Bleach’s face through the prosthetics or when Dalek Caan does his silly laugh while acting as a deranged Narrator of events or when the former companions all link up online and interact. There’s every second of Harriet Jones in her cosy cottage or the line about Mr Smith’s fanfare or Rose’s plaintive looks when she can’t get onto the conference call. It is jam packed with back references, cross references and things we’ve heard of but not seen till now.
Bleach as Davros is terrific because of what he doesn’t do. More than any of his predecessors – and helped by a superb prosthetic- he comes over as exhausted but kept alive by ambition and hate. Past Davroses always seemed to have too much vim but Bleach’s version carries the weight of centuries. The performance is unlike any other villain the revived series has presented and the better for it.
Yet is it any good? Well it is really, but its just that we have seen RTD’s tricks just one time too many and we know everything will not be as it seems, we know how there’ll be a gimmick or gadget that will allow a reset and most of all we know the Doctor will not regenerate because his successor has not been named in the press. It’s ironic that after three years of speculation about when David Tennant’s leaving the moment we see him seemingly regenerating we know he isn’t leaving.
The ending though is powerfully done with a triple headed cliffhanger, predominant amongst them the apparent regeneration. Though how is Sarah going to get out of her pickle? Does her tiny car have armour plating? Good Doctor Who leaves you gasping for more and this episode has enough breathtaking spectacle for that but I won’t really know if this story is any good till we find the answers which next weeks 65 minute (!) epic will provide. At half time though, it’s an amazing start.

JOURNEY'S END

Perhaps it’s the weather, perhaps its just coincidence but the belief that during harder times people flock to escapist entertainment may suggest why interest in Doctor Who seems to have been particularly buoyant this year culminating in the biggest regular episode rating since `Rose` re-started things back in 2005. Fittingly its the episode that appears to conclude most of the twisting story arcs that have developed since then. It’s quite strange to criticise the show, as we fans are wont to do, when all over Britain 10 million people are getting a real kick out of it. It feels churlish to bang on about plot inconsistencies, too many characters and a surfeit of continuity when you know kids- and plenty of adults- around the UK are whooping and hollering and really getting into it. `Journey’s End` then is not so much an episode of Doctor Who but a big Doctor Who party to which all our favourites are invited and at which it would be rude to make a scene.The first time I watched it, I couldn’t work out whether I really liked it or not. It was like an enormous meal; too much of everything. Second time round, it starts to make more sense.
On one level it’s Russell T Davies saying farewell to regular Who and I wish I’d read his comments about not writing for the series once he steps down as showrunner because in that context I feel he deserves this episode. It may be indulgent- though it’s an indulgence millions share- but why not pull your story strands together and deliver a conclusion, however wobbly it sometimes seems. TV –especially genre tv- is full of shows that tease and tease and never deliver so it is good to see him wrapping things up to leave a clean slate for his successor. It’s also the season finale and we should know what to expect now- lots of OTT stuff, big gestures, some mixed emotions and most of all a plot that does not bear much scrutiny. I can’t help thinking it might have worked better with fewer participants though. The long parade of returning companions becomes repetitive and the narrative struggles to include them at each step of the way leaving odd gaps, like Sarah presumably sitting in her tiny car for half an hour cowering from the Daleks. Given the number of McGuffins lying around, it might have been more rewarding to cut the superfluous people like Gwen, Ianto, Luke, Jackie and Mickey, none of whom contributed much nor even acted particularly in character and given the main ones- Rose, Martha, Sarah and Jack- more to do. Cut the unnecessary German excursion (surely there would be a station in the UK?) and entertainingly robust though it was cut the Red Dalek so that Davros is centre stage and in charge with the jabbering Caan like his Fool. Just those few changes would have made this an all time classic because the intention and the themes are certainly there. The message of the story seems to be that the Doctor, for all his good deeds, has tutored a budding army of warmongers, training others to make and use the sort of weapons he abhors his enemies using. It’s a strong moral topic- though has already been spotted by several fan commentators in the revived series’ modus operandi- but is frittered away amidst the chaos surrounding it. Instead of having the debate properly we end up with a frantic exchange during which time lots of other things are happening.
Despite this you have to admit that Russell T has the most brilliant story beats yet is often unwilling to navigate a logical path between them. The episode’s third function was to finish Donna’s story and however illogically they got there, it is this aspect that really pays off. You can only marvel at the final dilemma which they get away with for one reason only- the way Catherine Tate plays it. In true RTD style, I’ll come back to that shortly.
Davies oscillates more than any tv writer I know. He can pen pearls of wisdom that hit issue squarely on target ; he wrote `Midnight` for goodness sake, surely the revived series most intelligent piece and here he gives Donna the most tragic of goodbyes. Yet earlier we’d seen a couple of prisoners wander off without the Daleks even noticing , we have people popping up to rescue each other with no knowledge of where they’d be and we have the Doctor stopping in the midst of everything to reference a 2005 story because Gwen is played by the same actress. You can’t believe the same writer would ebb and flow between the sublime and the ridiculous.
It is because of the cacophony that a lot of the characters don’t shine but those who do are terrific. Julian Bleach oozes calculating malice and eventually frenzy with a performance that makes you wish they’d brought Davros back sooner; I’d still love to see a story with him but no Daleks in it. David Tennant gives his all in dual roles and you have to mention Nicholas Brigg’s impressive range of Dalek voices from the imperious Red Dalek to the crazed giddy Caan. Ultimately though it is the Nobles whose less flashy material steals the episode. Wilfrid and Sylvia have been our human touchstones this season and both Bernard Cribbins and Jaqcueline King excel despite having little to do but react to events. Catherine Tate has already silenced her critics time and again this series and now ups her game still further in a way that neither Billie Piper nor Freema Ageyman were quite able to do in their respective finales. She is dynamite in this episode, filling her scenes with comedy, mystery, angst and boldness. Her final pleas to the Doctor not to take her memory away must rank as some of the most heartrending in the series’ history because we’d glimpsed her potential, seen how much she enjoyed her time with the Doctor and now this was all being taken away.
Graeme Harper directs with his wonderfully tuned sense of occasion and it’s often his work that makes incidents you would normally question somehow work, binding the clashing constituents of this wild story into something with shape and purpose. And only a curmudgeon would begrudge the TARDIS towing the Earth scene which must rank as the most joyous moment in the series’ history. Notice too how we see the companions sharing the fun supposedly exchanging grins but twice they look directly at us cos everyone knows this is the triumphant moment. Murray Gold’s theme for this sequence is note perfect too.
`Journeys End` then is a fascinating, irritating, vibrant, exciting, over populated, occasionally clumsy, narratively uneven, awe inspiring, noisy, hectic piece of work. And I’ve already changed my mind about six times! Yet knowing the way Doctor Who works, I rather suspect it will be this story we’ll be dipping back to long after we’ve tired of some of its more exalted contemporaries.

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