Doctor Who: The Lodger

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Rating 2¾


Written by Gareth Roberts

Directed by Catherine Morshead

Starring Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), James Corden (Craig Owens), Daisy Haggard (Sophie), Owen Donovan (Steven), Babatunde Aleshe (Sean), Jem Wall (Michael) and Karen Seacombe (Sandra)


“All I have to do is pass myself off as an ordinary human being. Simple. What could possibly go wrong?”

The TARDIS arrives unplanned in Colchester, but when the Doctor steps out it immediately dematerialises, leaving him separated from his companion Amy. The Doctor turns up on the doorstep of Craig Owens, announcing that he is the new lodger and producing a small brown paper carrier bag full of money. Something very strange is happening upstairs that is preventing the TARDIS from materialising and the Doctor needs to find out what it is, but he is also not blind to Craig and his friend Sophie and the obvious unspoken feelings they have for one another.

...


We arrive at episode eleven. The next two episodes will see the latest season reach its climax and be brought to a close, so ‘The Lodger’ might be described as the calm before the storm. This is an episode that perhaps could be equated to ‘Love and Monsters’ in season two of the revived series or ‘Blink’ in season three. From comments I have read, some fans are critical of ‘The Lodger’ because they say it is not Doctor Who. When the Doctor should be concentrating on the mysterious and disturbing events taking place upstairs, the disappearance and we assume death of innocent people, he is out playing football or fooling around at the office where Craig works. This I feel completely misses the point and assumes that Doctor Who is a soulless sci-fi series with no humour and no interest in people and the minutiae of human drama. ‘The Lodger’s is a comic diversion, the story of two people who are in love with one another but find it impossible to openly express their true feelings. The science fiction element, the strange events at the top of the stairs, is not entirely without relevance, but it is to some degree incidental.

‘The Lodger’ is an episode that, after one viewing, I think starts brightly, has countless funny and memorable moments, but perhaps does not quite add up to the sum of its parts. However, it’s affectionate and warm-hearted and benefits from a pitch-perfect performance by Matt Smith, who has proved himself to have exquisite comic timing. There are several references back to the “classic series”, a now familiar refrain in this fifth season of the revived show. When asked if he plays football, the Doctor says, “Football? Is that the one with the sticks?” It’s a funny line in itself, coming in an episode that coincides with the start of the 2010 World Cup, but also a clever reference back to the fifth Doctor, who is incidentally the favourite of executive producer and head writer Steven Moffitt.

From many of the comments I have read about this episode it does seem that I was not alone in being dubious of the involvement of James Corden, who would clearly seem to be a love or hate figure, perhaps more so after his recent childish spat with the actor Patrick Stewart. And like many others, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he gives a restrained and likeable performance as the sweet natured and lovelorn Craig.

I enjoyed ‘The Lodger’ very much and it might just become more of a favourite in the fullness of time. For now it was a pleasant diversion that does not count amongst the best episodes of this season.

‘The Lodger’ was written Gareth Roberts, who has written several other episodes of the series and many episodes of its spin-off show ‘The Sarah Jane Adventures’. His previous work includes the soap operas ‘Emmerdale’ and ‘Brookside’, as well as the Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer revival of ‘Randall & Hopkirk Deceased’, which starred the longest serving and most successful Doctor of them all, Tom Baker, in a supporting role.

Review posted 13 June 2010


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Doctor Who: Vincent and the Doctor

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Rating 3¾


Written by Richard Curtis

Directed by Jonny Cambell

Starring Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Tony Curran (Vincent Van Gogh), Bill Nighy (Dr Black), Nik Howden (Maurice), Sarah Counsell (Waitress) and Nik Howden (Mother)


The Doctor takes Amy to the Musée d’Orsay in Paris to visit the Vincent Van Gogh collection. She mentions that he has taken her to many fabulous places recently and asks why he is treating her to such special attention, but he brushes aside her suspicious questioning. When the Doctor notices a malevolent face in Van Gogh’s painting of The Church at Auvers, he and Amy travel backwards in time in the TARDIS to find out what it was that Van Gogh had painted and discover that he is battling a giant invisible alien creature known as the Krafayis.

...


I have been deliberately keeping myself as uninformed as possible about each new episode of Doctor Who, wanting to be surprised by developments in the continuing storyline. Sometimes I have failed, such as the last episode, when I inadvertently discovered in advance that something terrible was going to happen and guessed what it would be. All I knew about ‘Vincent and the Doctor’ in advance of watching it was what I had seen in the trailer at the end of the previous week’s episode and, subsequently, the knowledge that it was written by Richard Curtis, whose work, generally speaking, I am not a fan of. I assumed it would be a jokey throwaway, perhaps along the lines of ‘The Shakespeare Code’ in the third season of the revived series. I was not expecting what we actually got.

On the face of it, ‘Vincent and the Doctor’ is a typical Doctor Who episode. There are several self-referential allusions to the past. Not for the first time in this latest season, there is a visual reference to the first Doctor (William Hartnall). The character played by Bill Nighy, an art expert conducting a tour of the Van Gogh collection, can be related back to John Cleese and Eleanor Bron, the art snobs seen in the Louvre in the famous 1979 Doctor Who serial ‘City of Death’, which was co-written by Douglas Adams.

The invisible creature, a kind of giant rooster, is nothing to get excited about and is, in itself, the least interesting aspect of the episode. However, it serves a purpose, one that I suppose draws on the influence of the classic 1956 science fiction film ‘Forbidden Planet’. In that film, the character Dr Morbius inadvertently creates a gigantic invisible monster with the power of his id. The Krafayis is not created by Van Gogh, but it can be viewed as a kind of manifestation of his illness, not least because ultimately, when it is too late, it is realised that the creature was fearful and disorientated and lashed out for that reason. The action here takes places just months before Van Gogh would commit suicide, a victim of severe depression that had haunted him for much of his life. In the episode we see his extreme mood swings, from great elation to soul-destroying melancholia.

Van Gogh is initially hostile towards the Doctor, although less so towards Amy. However, he craves companionship and people he can talk to who understand him. He soon begins to respond to them and a change can be seen in his manner, until in one tremendous scene we discover how desperately lonely he is. When he realises that the Doctor and Amy will soon leave him he immediately becomes angry and sinks into deep despair. It’s beautifully done, dealt with in a subtle and responsible way.

The episode contains many clever and nicely observed touches. Van Gogh, a native of the Netherlands, speaks in a broad Scottish accent. When the Doctor and Amy first encounter him he observes that Amy has a Dutch accent, because that is how he hears her. We, the audience, are likewise hearing Van Gogh the way that Amy, who is Scottish, does. Van Gogh, because of his acute awareness of the fragility of the mind, is able to recognise Amy’s inner sadness, something she herself is unaware of. Her conscious memory of Rory, her dead fiancé, has been erased, but not it seems her sub-conscious memory.

The episode possibly bludgeons us a little unnecessarily with the fact that Van Gogh was a genius whose paintings were unheralded and unsuccessful in his lifetime and that he was increasingly frustrated that he was unable to reproduce on canvas what he saw in the world around him and in his own head. However, this is leading up to the scene in which the Doctor and Amy bring Van Gogh forward in time so that he can see his work on display in the Musée d’Orsay and hear for himself the enormous admiration and wonder it inspires in people. This scene, complete with cheesy musical accompaniment, courtesy of a song by the dreadful Athlete, could so easily have been mawkish over-sentimental drivel, but against all the odds it works beautifully, in no small part due to the terrific performance by Tony Curran.

The closing scene, also, in which Amy insists that she and the Doctor return to the Musée d’Orsay after taking Van Gogh back to his own time, is effective and cleverly conceived. She expects to find new paintings, even greater works that Van Gogh would have created had he not killed himself when he did. Instead, she discovers that nothing has changed. Those few days of happiness and the renewal of spirit that Van Gogh experienced in the company of the Doctor and Amy were just that, a fleeting respite from his spiralling despair and mental illness.

The only jarring note for me was the “To Amy” message now appended to the painting of Still Life: Vase with Twelve Sunflowers. It was enough for us to suppose that Amy had inspired Van Gogh to create this celebrated painting, but this unnecessary addition made it became too artificial and pulled me away from the narrative.

This fifth season of the revived series is increasingly proving to be one of the best yet. It is certainly, for me, a return to the brilliance of the first two seasons back in 2005 and 2006. My rating for each episode has been deliberately on the low side. I do not want to fall into the trap of awarding a “5” based on my initial reaction after watching an episode once or twice at most. However, ‘Vincent and the Doctor’ is an episode that quite possibly will, in the fullness of time, prove to be just that.

Review posted 8 June 2010


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Doctor Who: The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood

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WARNING: major spoiler if you have not already watched these two episodes


Rating 2¾


Written by Chris Chibnall

Directed by Ashley Way

Starring Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory), Meera Syal (Nasreen Chaudhry), Robert Pugh (Tony Mack), Nina Roberts (Ambrose Northover), Alun Raglan (Mo Northover), Samuel Davies (Elliot Northover), Neve McIntosh (Alaya / Restac), Richard Hope (Malohkeh) and Stephen Moore (Eldane)


The TARDIS materialises in what the Doctor thinks is going to be Rio de Janeiro, but actually turns out to be the small Welsh village of Cwntaff, the centre of an ambitious drilling project going deeper into the core of the planet than has ever previously been achieved. When Amy is sucked into the ground, the Doctor realises that something deep inside the earth is coming up and soon he is faced with an old adversary, the Silurians.

...


The second two-part story of the fifth season, ‘The Hungry Earth’ and ‘Cold Blood’ pays homage to the old “classic series” and in particular the first season that starred Jon Pertwee in the lead role, originally broadcast in the first six months of 1970. That season, the seventh of the old series, introduced the Silurians in a tremendous story called ‘Doctor Who and the Silurians’ that followed a storyline very similar to this new one. The Silurians, who are also referred to as the Eocenes and “Homo reptilia”, made a second appearance in 1984 in the story ‘Warriors of the Deep’.

Watching ‘The Hungry Earth’, the first of these two new episodes, for the first time I came away feeling a little disappointed, but when I watched it a second time that changed completely. Not only did I thoroughly enjoy it, I also started to pick up on many little subtleties in the writing. I suspect my initial reaction was simply a subconscious expectation that it wouldn’t live up to my memories of the old series from what remains my favourite era of the show. ‘The Hungry Earth’, in fact, proved on second viewing to be a very tightly written and well structured episode with a real emotional resonance to it.

‘Cold Blood’ had a lot to live up to and, ultimately, probably did not quite manage to pull it off, despite a powerful ending. That ending, which should have come as a rather shocking surprise, was slightly dampened for me because of something I read in The Guardian newspaper that morning that alerted me to what was coming – and the television critic responsible should be ashamed of himself.

I felt that in the middle of the episode ‘Cold Blood’ seemed to veer off into ‘Star Trek’ territory, with the Doctor acting as a kind of slightly high-handed diplomatic envoy, creating, by using almost bullying tactics, an atmosphere in which negotiations could take place between two opposing factions, a la Captain Picard. These scenes were effective enough, without injecting much drama into the proceedings, but more than that they were never very believable, even within a context that is already, if we think about it, fairly far-fetched to start with.

The storyline dabbled in some moral issues. The Silurians, although aggressive, were not the aggressors per se and the humans failed to, as the Doctor put it, “be the best of humanity.” Whether or not, however, this ultimately amounted to very much is somewhat debatable. It worked well enough, without really giving pause for thought. Having said this, it was more than made up for by the simple fact that the two episodes had a good feel to them. For an old-timer like me it did feel like “old Doctor Who”, without stripping away all the things that have made the revived series so successful.

There was a nice little nod in ‘Cold Blood’ to the Peter Davison era, with the Doctor’s comical reference to celery and all in all it was not too much of a letdown after the tremendous opening episode. The closing scenes, however, made it a whole lot more important, with the death of Rory. A central character dying in Doctor Who is still something of a rarity, enough so that it does come as a shock when it is not expected. Joss Whedon made killing off main characters into an art form, but he has done it so often now that it has become very tired and boring, simply too predictable. Rory’s death in Doctor Who didn’t fall into this trap, although I am very sorry to see him go so soon. However, many fans doubt this is the last we will see of him and suspect he will be back in some guise or other before the season is done.

‘The Hungry Earth’ and ‘Cold Blood’ were watched by what might be the lowest audience numbers since the series was revived back in 2005. That is a pity because this new season is proving to be very good indeed, although the low viewing figures are probably not quite the cause for alarm that some fans have been suggesting. Somehow, I do not think the series is in danger of being cancelled just yet.

Review posted 31 May 2010


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Doctor Who: Amy’s Choice

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Rating 3¾


Written by Simon Nye

Directed by Catherine Morshead

Starring Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory), Toby Jones (Dream Lord), Nick Hobbs (Mr Nainby), Joan Linder (Mrs Hamill) and Audrey Ardington (Mrs Poggit)


“If you can’t save him, then what is the point of you?”

The Doctor unexpectedly arrives in the small village of Upper Leadworth to visit Amy, who is heavily pregnant, and Rory, five years after they last travelled with him. All three fall asleep while sitting on a bench and wake up back in the TARDIS. It has, or so it seems, been a shared dream. They encounter a mysterious figure who has somehow managed to infiltrate the TARDIS. He calls himself the Dream Lord and tells them they must decide which reality is real. Death awaits them if they make the wrong choice.

...


‘Amy’s Choice’ is the seventh episode of the fifth season of the revived series. With the exception of the somewhat under-par ‘Victory of the Daleks’, the standard has been very high so far, closer to that of the first two seasons than the slightly tired latter stages of David Tennant’s time in the role, when the episodes, especially the “specials” broadcast in 2009, were becoming a little brash, if still just about the best thing on television.

Matt Smith settled into the lead role immediately. As has been commented elsewhere, he seems to have an uncanny ability to project the fact that although the Doctor now has the appearance of a young man and outwardly behaves as such, he is, in fact, extremely old and carries the weight of often painful and traumatic experience. Karen Gillan, also in her first season, has proved to be excellent and should be given extra points for getting the Daily Mail worked up into a froth of moral outrage. I like the character Rory and the performance of Arthur Darvill, but this character does seem to have been greeted with scepticism by many fans.

‘Amy’s Choice’ instantly became a favourite episode on first viewing and that didn’t change when I watched it for a second time. It put me in mind of episodes of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, in particular ‘Nightmares’ from the first season of that show, ‘Restless’, the inspired season four closer, and, to some degree, ‘Dead Things’, a dark and controversial episode from the sixth season. Although there is no reason to assume that ‘Amy’s Choice’ drew any direct inspiration from these episodes, it would not be the first time the revived series has been influenced by Buffy. Former executive producer and head writer Russell T Davies never hid his love of that show or his admiration for Joss Whedon.

The episode is very cleverly pieced together, as the Doctor and his two companions move between two possible realities – one inside a dead TARDIS, where they are rapidly freezing to death, and the other in what initially appears to by an idyllic rural setting, one that the Doctor thinks is “boring” and then very quickly realises is not as it seems on the surface. It also manages to incorporate some very well judged and genuinely laugh-out-loud humour into what otherwise proves to be an ultimately rather dark episode with a real sting in its tail.

Added to this, the Doctor is left with the riddle of the true identity of the Dream Lord (brilliantly played by Toby Jones), which proves to be a particularly compelling component of the episode and one that promises to provide some more twists in the future.

‘Amy’s Choice’ was written by Simon Nye, creator of the 1990s sitcom ‘Men Behaving Badly’ and more recently the co-writer of the misfiring ‘Reggie Perrin’ update.

Review posted 25 April 2010


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Doctor Who: The Vampires of Venice

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WARNING: spoilers if you have not watched this episode

Rating 3


Written by Toby Whithouse

Directed by Jonny Campbell

Starring Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams), Helen McCrory (Rosanna Calvierri), Alex Price (Francesco Calvierri), Lucian Msarnati (Guido), Alisha Bailey (Isabella) and Simon Gregor (Steward)


Following “the kiss”*, the Doctor reunites Amy with her fiancé Rory and takes them in the TARDIS to Venice in 1580 for a romantic weekend to get their relationship back on track. Once there, the Doctor immediately realises that something is wrong and when he investigates a mysterious school for girls run by the city’s patron Rosanna Calvierri it seems that he has uncovered a nest of vampires.

(*See the episode ‘Flesh and Stone’.)

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Toby Whithouse, who wrote ‘The Vampires of Venice’, is the creator and main writer of the BBC3 series ‘Being Human’, an inspired mix of comedy, drama, thriller and horror that tells the story of a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost who share a house. He previously wrote the season two Doctor Who episode ‘School Reunion’, which saw the return of Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, and was responsible for my favourite ‘Torchwood’ episode ‘Greeks Bearing Gifts’.

Before I realised that ‘The Vampires of Venice’ was written by Toby Whithouse I had been slightly wary of it. Vampires have started to become rather tired and clichéd recently due to over-exposure, what with the ‘Twilight’ film franchise and the television series ‘True Blood’, amongst others. In the event, it proved to be a very enjoyable episode, with plenty of humour typical of Whithouse, although not without its faults.

Bringing back Rory, who we first encountered in ‘The Eleventh Hour’ (the first episode of this latest season), worked very well. In a clever twist, he was not overwhelmed that the TARDIS is bigger on the inside than outside, immediately guessing that the inside exists within a different dimension. His anger at the Doctor when he tells him “you have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves” was powerful and palpable, although we might wonder how he has been able to form such an incisive impression of the Doctor so quickly. Perhaps there is more to Rory than meets the eye and we are in for some surprises later on. The prospect is intriguing.

The vampire storyline works well for the first twenty minutes or so, with its echoes of the 1989 story ‘The Curse of Fenric’, but it seems as if one minute they are not affected by light and the next minute they are, something that occurs time and time again. Having watched the episode twice and taken care the second time to look for clues to explain this, it still seems like an inconsistency in the story, unless I am missing a subtle explanation for it. Once we discover that the vampires are, in fact, no such thing the episode does begin to unravel a little bit, but this is always going to be a problem when trying to tell a story in 45 minutes. Everything starts to become rather rushed and frenetic as the action builds up towards its climax.

Signora Calvierri (played by Helen McCrory, who I recently saw in the now cancelled American crime-drama series ‘Life’) clearly knows exactly who the Doctor is once she has discovered that he comes from Gallifrey, although this is not particularly well explained to us. She knows of the fate of the Time Lords and of the part the Doctor played in the Time War, suggesting to him that he is now responsible for the extinction of two races, hers as well as his own. This new season is clearly harking back to the first season of the revived series, both in theme and content.

It does seem a little odd that knowing the creatures are still in the water beneath Venice, the Doctor just leaves them there to die, but I suppose there is nothing he can do to save them. Once again, though, it does seem like an inconsistency in the story. After all, they will presumably continue to devour anyone unfortunate enough to fall into the water. Equally, it seems inconceivable that earlier in the story Signori Calvierri would just allow the Doctor to walk away once she has discovered who he is and that he intends to stop her plans. Surely she would have had him killed immediately or at least hold him captive.

I don’t think this is ultimately destined to be remembered as a classic Doctor Who episode, but it is a very good one and there seems to be a lot here that will become much more relevant as we see future episodes in this season.

‘The Vampires of Venice’ was filmed in Trogir, Croatia, on the Adriatic coast, and at St Donat’s Castle in Glamorgan. It looks fantastic, a very realistic depiction of Venice.

Review posted 9 May 2010

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Doctor Who: ‘The Time of Angels’ and ‘Flesh & Stone’

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WARNING: spoilers if you have not watched these episodes.


Rating 3½


Written by Steven Moffat

Directed by Adam Smith

Starring Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amy Pond), Alex Kingston (River Song), Ian Glen (Octavian), David Atkins (Bob), Darren Morfitt (Marco), Mark Monero (Pedro), George Russo (Phillip), Mark Springer (Christian), Troy Glasgow (Angelo), Simon Dutton (Alistair) and Mike Skinner (Security Guard)


The Doctor spots a 12,000 year old “home box” (a starship version of a black box) in a museum, with a message burnt into it written in ancient Gallifreyan text. Recognising that he is the intended recipient of the message, he takes the TARDIS back in time to rescue River Song from the starship Byzantium, which then crashes into an ancient and long deserted monastery on the planet Alfava Metraxis. A group of soldier clerics led by Father Octavian arrive and the Doctor is informed that a Weeping Angel was in the bowels of the ship and they must now go down into a catacomb of tunnels known as the Maze of the Dead in search of it.

...


The fifth season of the revived Doctor Who (the thirty-first season in total, not including “specials”) started promisingly with ‘The Eleventh Hour’. The second episode ‘The Beast Below’ felt slightest flat first time around, but has benefited from repeat viewings. The rather rushed ‘Victory of the Daleks’ was a slight disappointment, but now the season has hit a high with a two-part story that sees the return of River Song and the Weeping Angels.

River Song, a role originally written with Kate Winslet in mind, but ultimately played by the actress Alex Kingston, first appeared in ‘Silence in the Library’ and ‘Forest of the Dead’, a two-part story in the fourth season of the revived series in 2008. It was hinted at the time that she might have been the Doctor’s wife and in the first of those episodes she asked the Doctor if he yet knew about the crash of the Byzantium, creating a link to this new story. This time around we have stronger hints that River Song is the Doctor’s wife in the future, although it is never explicitly confirmed and denied.

The Weeping Angels made their first appearance in ‘Blink’. That highly-acclaimed episode from 2007 starred Carey Mulligan, who has since received a best actress Academy Award nomination and is tipped for big things in the future, including, so it is claimed, the lead role in a remake of ‘My Fair Lady’. ‘Blink’, ‘Silence in the Library’ and ‘Forest of the Dead’ were all written by Steven Moffat, who has subsequently assumed the role of executive producer and head writer from Russell T Davies. He wrote these two new episodes.

I liked ‘Blink’ very much and thought the Weeping Angels were a fascinating creation. However, because that was such an unusual episode I was not sure about their use again. As it turns out, they work brilliantly here. I didn’t have any strong opinion about River Song following her first appearance, although watching those two episodes again very recently has led me to the conclusion that they are much better than I had remembered, not that I disliked them first time around. I think she works extremely well in these new episodes, but my own preference would be that we don’t meet her again too frequently in the future. The occasional encounter would work best and help to maintain the air of mystery and ambiguity.

I think I am right in saying the budget for this new season of Doctor Who has been cut. It certainly doesn’t show here. These episodes look spectacular and there are some superb special effects. As is the style of Doctor Who now, it is very fast paced, but telling the story across two episodes has allowed for it to build up without the rushed and rather under-cooked feel of ‘Victory of the Daleks’. There is a well-judged aura of foreboding and claustrophobia throughout the two episodes, but particularly in part one. This reaches a crescendo when the young soldier-cleric Bob radios Octavian and the Doctor and it is discovered that he is, in fact, already dead.

There are one or two moments that don’t really work that well and are perhaps best not given too much thought – for example, Amy walking with her eyes shut amongst the Weeping Angels, tricking them into believing that she can see them. I guess this works if we assume the Doctor did not have any better solution to the problem and this was the only thing he could think of in a seemingly hopeless situation. His demeanour and loss of temper with River Song certainly suggests that he was feeling the pressure and I for one am pleased to see this side of him, previously evident in Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor, starting to come to the surface again.

I still do have a sense of déjà vu, something that has been with me since ‘The Beast Below’. Apart from the return of River Song and the Weeping Angels, there are many other things here to remind us of previous stories in the revived series. Episodes that immediately came to my mind include ‘The Satan Pit’ and ‘The Waters of Mars’.

The closing scene in which Amy passionately kisses the Doctor and tries to entice him into bed has caused some debate and disquiet. I had not read about this before watching ‘Flesh & Stone’ and it did come as a surprise on first viewing. I have subsequently learned that the Daily Mail has rather predictably taken against it. That newspaper has already previously complained about Karen Gillan being too sexy, laughably and implausibly claiming that at no time previously could any of the Doctor’s companions be described as “sexy”. Having watched ‘Flesh & Stone’ again, I think the scene works very well. I am not going to worry unduly about where it might lead to just yet.

Reaction to the new Doctor and to this new season has been generally very positive, but there have been some dissenting voices. One particularly angry fan comment I have read in response to ‘The Time of Angels’ and ‘Flesh & Stone’ suggests that it is now so bad on every level that it should be cancelled immediately. The only reason I am not more taken aback by such opinions, apparently coming from fans of the show, is that I encountered exactly the same thing in the days of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’. At that time I was quite shocked that a large minority of fans seemed so angry and critical and so quick to voice their disapproval, but now I realise it is just a symptom of such loyal and fanatical fandoms.

The cameo appearance by Mike Skinner in the opening scene of ‘The Time of Angels’ passed me by completely because, up to that moment, I did not actually know what he looked like.

My expectations of this new season are probably still too high just now, but this was very good. I don’t think there is a better show on television at the moment.

Review posted 2 May 2010


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Doctor Who: Victory of the Daleks

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Rating 2


Written by Mark Gatiss

Directed by Andrew Gunn

Starring Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amelia ‘Amy’ Pond), Ian McNeice (Winston Churchill), Bill Patterson (Professor Edwin Bracewell), Tim Wallers (Captain Childers), Susannah Fielding (Lillian), Nina de Cosimo (Blanche) and Colin Procktor (ARP Warden)


The Doctor receives a call from Winston Churchill and the TARDIS materialises in the cabinet war rooms beneath London. The British have a new secret weapon in their war against the Nazis; “ironsides” invented and built by Professor Edwin Bracewell. The Doctor instantly recognises these new weapons as Daleks and desperately attempts to warn Churchill of the deadly danger he has unleashed, while trying to unravel Bracewell’s motivation for his apparent deception and discover the secret plan of the Daleks.

...


The third episode of season five of the revived series brings back the Doctor’s most deadly and iconic adversaries, the Daleks. I am not particularly a fan of the Daleks and I do feel, as do others, that they are in danger of becoming overused. They first appeared in a Doctor Who story called ‘The Daleks’ (or ‘The Mutants’) in December 1963. They appeared in sixteen stories in total in the so-called “classic series”, making their final appearance in ‘Remembrance of the Daleks’ in October 1988. This is their sixth appearance since the revival of the series in 2005.

I always look forward to a new Doctor Who episode, but perhaps the Dalek episodes are not amongst my favourites. However, Phelim O’Neill wrote in the Guardian about ‘Victory of the Daleks’, “Many are fearing the return of the overused Daleks for all the wrong reasons. Tonight should see those same doubters eagerly awaiting their next appearance... This is the new Doctor’s first outright classic episode.” I also noticed that the episode was written by Mark Gatiss. This made me go in with much higher expectations, but in the end I came away slightly disappointed. It was another fairly typical Dalek episode. It was quite enjoyable in a frenetic kind of way, but it was flawed. I don’t think it was a classic and ultimately I found it rather unsatisfying.

The premise was an interesting one, but it needed more than 45 minutes to tell the story. It felt rushed to me and I continue to believe that it isn’t necessary for every single story to be told at such a frenetic pace. It is all a bit exhausting.

Once the Doctor has established what the Daleks are planning the story does start to unravel a little bit. There has been criticism of the Dalek ship, but surely the slightly comical no-expense-spent DIY look of it was deliberate. My initial reaction to the preposterous sight of the Spitfires attacking the spaceship in outer space beyond the atmosphere of the planet Earth (in what I take to be a nod towards the climactic scenes in the original ‘Star Wars’ film) was to find it quite insulting in its stupidity. However, it was clearly intended with tongue firmly in cheek and the silliness and humour of it all should be greeted with a smile. There has been criticism about the somewhat anti-climactic ending, but clearly this is just a prelude to another story, presumably to be told at the end of this season.

The crack in time witnessed in the opening episode of season five has now reappeared at the close of the next two episodes, signalling that something similar to the “Bad Wolf” story-arc of season one is coming.

Ian McNeice gives a broad impersonation of Churchill and unlike some fans I didn’t mind the implication that he and the Doctor are old friends, despite there being no suggestion of that in the history of the series before now. I do, however, appreciate that the portrayal of someone as complex and contentious as Churchill as a genial old cove is considerably wide of the mark. It was nice to see Bill Patterson – and Professor Bracewell proved to be a effective character. However, where Russell T Davies was a master of bringing life to even the most peripheral characters and inhabiting them with real emotional resonance, it is perhaps something this new season is going to lack.

‘Victory of the Daleks’ contained some very nice touches and the story was given extra frisson by the knowledge that when Terry Nation first created the Daleks 47 years ago he based them on the Nazis. Having said that, I do not imagine it is destined to become one of my favourites and I don’t think it is the “outright classic” suggested by Phelim O’Neill. I have given the episode a rating of two, which acknowledges the high standards of the series in general and my own high expectations of it.

Early indications are that ‘Victory of the Daleks’ was watched by an audience in the region of 6.2 million viewers, just under 33% of the total television audience during that timeslot. Although this is not an exceptional result, it is still a very strong showing.

Review posted 18 April 2010


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Doctor Who: The Beast Below

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Rating 2¾


Written by Steven Moffat

Directed by Andrew Gunn

Starring Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amelia ‘Amy’ Pond), Sophie Okonedo (Liz Ten), Hannah Sharp (Mandy), Alfie Field (Timmy), Terrence Hardiman (Hawthorne), Christopher Good (Morgan) and David Ajala (Peter)


This is Amy’s first journey in the TARDIS. The Doctor takes her far into the future to a spacecraft that look like a skyline of skyscrapers suspended in space, each one bearing the name of a different English county. He says this is what remains of the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland after the planet Earth was destroyed by solar flares, although it does not include Scotland because the Scottish people wanted their own ship. They discover a young girl who is crying and yet being ignored by all those around her and the Doctor tells Amy to find out why the girl is upset. He also wants her to find out more about the strange painted “fairground” heads that sit motionless in glass-fronted booths. Meanwhile, he goes off to investigate why there is not even the faintest hint of vibration on the giant spacecraft and discovers it has no engine. During these investigations he encounters Liz Ten, the incumbent British monarch, who already knows who he is.

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‘The Beast Below’ is the second episode of the fifth season of the revived series and the second episode to feature the new doctor and companion. As was the case with the opening episode, ‘The Eleventh Hour’, it was written by Steven Moffat, who has assumed the role of head writer and executive producer following the departure of Russell T Davies.

This is an episode that contains many of the classic elements of Doctor Who and mirrors several themes already seen in the revived series, including the underlying alien nature of the Doctor and the consequences of the burden he is constantly required to shoulder. It contains some memorable moments, but on first viewing I came away from it with a sense of déjà vu. Somehow it just felt like we’d seen all this before and the episode as a whole was slightly underwhelming. Some fans have already noted the similarity to the episode ‘The Long Game’ in the first season of the revived series. There are also clear links back to ‘The Idiot Lantern’ in season two and, in terms at least of the subtext drawing a parallel with the political landscape of Britain, perhaps even a comparison to ‘The Happiness Patrol’ from the Sylvester McCoy era of the late 1980s.

There is an amusing little joke about Scotland – the character Amelia Pond is Scottish, as is Karen Gillan, the actress who plays her, and indeed Steven Moffat. There is also a cleverly timed statement about elections and voting and the fact that the right to protest in this country has been greatly eroded in the lifetime of the current government. The Doctor tellingly comments, “Once every five years everyone chooses to forget what they’ve learned – democracy in action”, and at one point directly refers to the Britain of the far future as displaying all the signs of a police state.

Centre stage is largely given over to Amy to further establish this character. The early signs are very positive and I am inclined to say that Karen Gillan may prove to be the best companion since Bille Piper. Matt Smith has also quickly settled into the role of the Doctor and entertainingly so, although it is too early to judge how he will ultimately compare to his ten predecessors. The character Liz Ten did not work at all for me and the other characters unique to the episode are too sketchy to make much impact, none of them occupying much more than a few minutes of screen time, although the 12-year-old Mandy is actually a quite effective character, being very aware of what is happening around her, unlike the adults who bury their heads in the sand and ignore her, partly because she is a child and partly because she is not yet old enough to vote.

At the moment I suspect my expectations of the fifth season is creating a sense of anti-climax. With a new Doctor, a new companion, a new head writer and new producers I was hoping for a change of direction, a new approach to the series. However, what we seem to have is a rehash of what we’ve already seen during the previous five years. Time will tell, of course, and there are still eleven episodes remaining in this new season. ‘The Beast Below’ may well be an episode that improves with repeated viewings, but my initial reaction is one of slight disappointment.

Additional: Having watched the episode for a second time my opinion about the character Liz Ten remains unchanged, but overall I thought it was much better than my initial reaction to it suggested and it certainly deserves a nod for the use of the word “minging”.

Review posted 11 April 2010


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Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour

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Rating 3


Written by Steven Moffat

Directed by Adam Smith

Starring Matt Smith (The Doctor), Karen Gillan (Amelia ‘Amy’ Pond), Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams), Annette Crosbie (Mrs Angelo), Tom Hopper (Jeff), Nina Wadia (Dr Ramsden), Marcello Magni (Barney Collins), Olivia Colman (Mother), Perry Benson (Ice Cream Man), Caitlin Blackwood (Amelia Pond as a child) and Patrick Moore (himself)


The newly regenerated Doctor is clinging to the outside of his TARDIS as it hurtles out of control and crashes into the garden of a house in the English countryside, where he encounters seven-year-old Amelia Pond. She is not scared of him or perturbed by his bizarre behaviour, but she tells him about a crack in her bedroom wall that frightens her. He investigates and discovers a crack in time and space, through which “Prisoner Zero” has escaped. Returning to his TARDIS, he tells Amelia he will be back in five minutes, but does not rematerialise again until twelve years later. Amy, as she is now known, is less than impressed with his tardiness, but they still have to deal with the alien creature that has been hiding in her house that whole time.

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‘The Eleventh Hour’ marks the beginning of the new era of Doctor Who, introducing the eleventh Doctor, played by Matt Smith, and a new companion, played by Karen Gillan. Steven Moffat has assumed the role of Head Writer, taking over from the departing Russell T Davies. It also marks the arrival of Piers Wenger, who took over the role of Head of Drama at BBC Wales from Julie Gardner in January 2009.

The return of Doctor Who in March 2005 after what had more or less amounted to fifteen years in television wilderness, give or take the brief reign of the eighth Doctor, Paul McGann, in a not entirely successful film-length version in 1996, had seemed like a risky proposition. The decision of Russell T Davies to cast Christopher Eccleston in the lead role undoubtedly took some people by surprise, but it was surely not as contentious as his decision to cast Billie Piper as the Doctor’s companion. It proved to be a triumph, although Eccleston stood down after just one season and most fans seem to prefer his successor David Tennant.

Tennant played the role for three seasons, plus various “specials”, between December 2005 and December 2009, by which time I think the show was starting to feel a little tired and in need of some fresh ideas. To be clear, Russell T Davies did a remarkable job of resurrecting something that seemed to be dead and buried outside of a very loyal and long existing but decidedly entrenched fanbase. This fanbase continues to debate and argue with vehement intensity the merits or otherwise of the Davies era and the changes he brought to what remains the longest-surviving and possibly most successful sci-fi series in television history.

I am great supporter of Russell T Davies and I liked David Tennant as the Doctor, but I do think they chose the right time to step down. I hoped that Steven Moffat, who wrote ‘Blink’, which many fans would argue is the best episode of the RTD era, would take the show in a new direction. Having watched ‘The Eleventh Hour’, plus the clips of forthcoming episodes, I am not sure to what degree this is going to happen. For my own personal tastes, Doctor Who with David Tennant had latterly started to become rather too frenetic. The stories no longer had time to breathe; the Doctor had little time for reflection. If anything, Matt Smith seems to be an even more frenetic incarnation of the character. One television critic has already compared him to Jim Carrey.

I do appreciate that the Doctor Who of 2010 is made for quite a different audience to that of 1985 or 1975 or 1965. This is an audience brought up on computer games; in an era when celebrities are expected to “twitter” every minute of every day so that we can become their artificial “virtual” friends. I am clearly showing my age, but I do increasingly feel slightly out-of-step with a world in which everything is instant.

‘The Eleventh Hour’ draws on themes from previous Doctor Who episodes. An obvious example would be ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’, another Steve Moffat script, that took place during David Tennant’s first season in 2006. There is, perhaps, a slight sense of déjà-vu for this reason. The story felt like it quickly ran out of ideas, but to contradict myself somewhat, at the same time I think it would have benefited from being told across two episodes or as a 90-minute extended episode. I was impressed how quickly Matt Smith seems to have settled into the role, but it would have been nice to have spent a bit more time introducing this new Doctor and also his new companion and done so with a little less haste.

One criticism of the revived series that I have previously disagreed with really hit home here. The background music was very intrusive, especially in the opening scenes, rather taking away from the otherwise near perfect mix of humour and creepiness and the sense of claustrophobic foreboding that was clearly the intended ambience. Equally, the alien creature was uninteresting. Patrick Moore makes a pointless and uninvolving cameo apperance as himself, which is a bit of a letdown. However, of much more importance than any of this, I liked the new Doctor and the new companion.

Although not perfect, ‘The Eleventh Hour’ is a very good start to the new era and I am very interested to see how the series unfolds over the next twelve episodes leading up to the Christmas special in December 2010. It does seem that the Daleks and the Cybermen will be making an appearance in this new series, which I find disappointing. Personally, I think they could do with a rest, but then I have never particularly been a fan of either.

‘The Eleventh Hour’ was watched by an audience of appoximately 8 million viewers, nearly 37% of the total television audience in its timeslot.

Review posted 5 April 2010


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Doctor Who

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Doctor Who: The Classic Series
Favourite episodes

Doctor Who: Jon Pertwee’s first season (classic series)

Season Seven 1970

Doctor Who: An Unearthly Child (classic series)
Season One 1963

Doctor Who: The War Games (classic series)
Season Six 1969

Doctor Who: Planet of Evil (classic series)

Season Thirteen 1975

Doctor Who: Planet of Fire (classic series)
Season Twenty-One 1984

Doctor Who: The Twin Dilemma (classic series)
Season Twenty-One 1984

Doctor Who: The Two Doctors (classic series)
Season Twenty-Two 1985

Doctor Who: The Happiness Patrol (classic series)

Season Twenty-Five 1988

Doctor Who: Battlefield (classic series)
Season Twenty-Six 1989

Doctor Who
Revived Show - Introduction

Doctor Who
Season One Episodes

Doctor Who
Season Two Episodes

Doctor Who
Review of Seasons One and Two

Doctor Who: Blink
Season Three
Episode Ten

Doctor Who: Voyage Of The Damned
Christmas Special 2007

Doctor Who: Partners in Crime
Season Four
Episode One

Doctor Who: The Next Doctor
Christmas Special 2008

Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead
Easter Special 2009

Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars
November Special 2009

Doctor Who: The End of Time

Christmas (& New Year) Special 2009

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour
Season Five
Episode One

Doctor Who: The Beast Below
Season Five
Episode Two

Doctor Who: Victory of the Daleks
Season Five
Episode Three

Doctor Who: The Time of Angels and Flesh & Stone
Season Five
Episodes Four and Five

Doctor Who: The Vampires of Venice
Season Five
Episode Six

Doctor Who: Amy’s Choice
Season Five
Episode Seven

Doctor Who: The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood
Season Five
Episodes Eight and Nine

Doctor Who: Vincent and the Doctor
Season Five
Episode Ten

Doctor Who: The Lodger
Season Five
Episode Eleven

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The Shadow in the North

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Directed by John Alexander

Written by Adrian Hodges from the novel by Philip Pullman

Starring Billie Piper, JJ Feild, Jared Harris, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Matt Smith, John Standing and Hayley Atwell


I somehow managed to miss ‘The Ruby in the Smoke’, the first of the BBC adaptations of the Sally Lockhart Mysteries, when it was shown at Christmas 2006. I have not read any of the four Philip Pullman novels. In fact, I have never read any of Pullman’s work, including the ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy, from which the fantasy film ‘The Golden Compass’ is drawn. Therefore, I went into ‘The Shadow in the North’ with little prior knowledge of what to expect.

Pullman has written four Sally Lockhart novels. They are set in Victorian Britain during a ten year period between 1872 and 1882. The BBC plans to adapt all four for television. ‘The Shadow in the North’ is the second book in the series. In the first book the amateur sleuth Sally Lockhart, played by Billie Piper, is just sixteen-years-old. By the time of the second book she is twenty-two and a successful financial consultant.

The 95-minute television adaptation plays like a mixture of Charles Dickens, the Gothic novelist Wilkie Collins (‘The Woman in White’) and Sherlock Holmes, with lashings of extra hokum poured on top for good measure. It particularly reminded me of the 1970 Billy Wilder film ‘The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes’, but that might just be because of the Victorian setting and the theme of destructive invention in the great industrial era of the 19th century.

The story is told at a breakneck pace and might have benefited from a longer running time, possibly being spilt over two parts. The climax of the story seemed a little rushed and didn’t quite manage to achieve the impact that was obviously intended, but the portrayal of Victorian London is a definite plus point and it was never less than an enjoyable hour and a half’s viewing. Some reviews have suggested it doesn’t quite have the charm of ‘The Ruby in the Smoke’, but I am unable to comment on that.

The constantly excellent Billie Piper is a peculiarly modern actress and I don’t think she is especially suited to period costume drama. The ITV adaptation of ‘Mansfield Park’ is a case in point. This might also explain why she was so good in the adaptations of ‘The Miller’s Tale’ and ‘Much Ado About Nothing’, which were both set in the modern day. However, it works to her advantage in ‘The Shadow in the North’ because although Sally is necessarily very straight-laced, prim and proper, she refuses to be held back by the constraints that Victorian society places on her as a woman. It’s just the latest in a sequence of impressive performances by Piper.

I will need to pick up a DVD copy of ‘The Ruby in the Smoke’ – and ‘The Shadow in the North’, allowing me to watch it again – and I now look forward to the third and fourth parts of the series.


Screencap courtesy of billie-piper.net



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