Play with Captain Jack!

Just put a few Character Options action figures on Amazon Marketplace, y'all, in addition to DWMs, books, videos, etc. Check them out!

Get them while they're hot!

Public service announcement:

Just put a couple of years' worth of Tennant-/Smith-era Doctor Who Magazine back-issues on Amazon Marketplace: check! Them! Out!

There's also assorted Doctor Who books, including a copy of Gareth Roberts' The Well-Mannered War - have a scroll through!


Next Time: THE GOD COMPLEX

Reaction: THE REBEL FLESH/THE ALMOST PEOPLE

Written by Matthew Graham, directed by Julian Simpson, 2011

You can find a version of my review of The Rebel Flesh here, on Kasterborous.

Tempting though it is to simply write “Shit sandwich” in lieu of a proper review, fanboy completism compels me to give it an at least slightly less desultory shot than that.

There’s nothing wrong with these two episodes – well, there is; they’re lazy and inconsistent and poorly developed, but Doctor Who’s been knocking out stories like this since… forever, so it feels a bit churlish to get the claws out. The thing that gets me is that, as showrunner, Steven Moffat can’t fail to be acutely aware of which stories in any given run are going to be the flabby also-rans that no-one’ll bother to rewatch on the DVD boxset. Maybe it’s necessary to throw the audience a bone and deliver some unreconstructed running-around-in-corridors, but… I don’t really by that that should be part of the programme’s structure, or that the series wouldn’t be improved if, as far as possible, it never let its ambition slip as low as this.

Okay, so, given a three out of four hit rate so far this season, and especially having the unenviable task of following up the impeccable Doctor's Wife, The Rebel Flesh suffers from not being an event episode. But then, I’m dubious about the mentality that says ‘event stories’ are fantastically important – I mean, using that phrase to describe the openers and finales where the narrative big-guns are cracked out. But then, title aside, The Doctor’s Wife isn’t easy to pigeonhole as an event episode in that way: no season-long plot strands come together, there’s no revelations about anyone’s character or origins… But it feels special just because it’s not only hugely imaginatiove, but well enough written to do justice to those ideas.

Even accepting the idea that dependable, nuts-and-bolts Doctor Who is desirable, what does this story have to work with? Karma-tempting overconfidence in scientific advances is hardly fresh territory, while having the Doctor wrestle with humanity's potential for inhumanity is becoming something of a shop-worn subgenre in itself – although, in fairness, at least the script attempts to engage with the resulting questions of what it is to be human. Throwing in the ever-present threat of acid is hardly the narrative flourish that might’ve redeemed matters.

In the interests of not being a totally unremitting bastard for a thousand words, Matthew Graham’s second contribution to the series may be unlikely to win many accolades, but despite a slow and somewhat infodump-heavy opening, it at least avoids the schematic seen-it-all-before pitfalls of stories like (most recently) The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood. It’s not even the worst story of the season – curseoftheblackspot, cough cough. As the action gives way to a more low-key creepiness – in keeping with season six's increased gothicism – Graham steers the story away from the action end of the Doctor Who spectrum into more engaging territory. The ganger head on a snaking neck – sort of an early-evening take on Cronenberg's version of The Thing – is pretty freaky, but it does feel there's still a lot of untapped potential for clammy who's-who paranoia which isn't entirely satisfied in the first instalment.

Unfortunately, I think any goodwill this territory might’ve clawed back is fairly comprehensibly squandered by The Almost People, which fails utterly to do anything interesting with the story. Again, The Doctor’s Wife plays against it; by comparison, this more straight down the line narrative can't help but feeling naggingly unsatisfying. Similarly, in launching the series with a story that matches or outdoes the complexity and relatively serious dramatic register previously built up over several episodes in previous seasons, it's a slight disappointment to regress (as in The Curse of the Black Spot) to a lighter, less character-driven approach. It's notable also that the more, uh, jobbing writers often fail to capture the regulars so effortlessly. Especially when it comes to the Doctor, unlike when written by Moffat or Gaiman, there is a risk of his becoming a collection of traits and wisecracks rather than a living, breathing interpretation – despite Matt Smith's continued dedication to the character.

Okay, I feel a bit back spewing so much scorn. Perhaps it is too harsh to see The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People as anything other than a does-what-it-says-on-the-tin return to the age-old base under siege format (albeit under siege from within). There are elements which strike on first viewing at least as unconvincing or a little unfortunate: a solar storm? Uh-huh. And pumping acid? From... where, exactly?; the slightly sitcom-ish suddenly-messy TARDIS interior; the-woman-from-Teachers’ abruptly changeable character (surely in a story lazy with doppelgangers, well sketched out characterisation is something of a must?); the two-parter tendency to stretch out a story over double the usual length, rather than sustaining the single-parters’ pace for twice as long; Muse. At least we're given a setting rocking the inherently memorable collision of ancient and technological which has been working since, say, The Ice Warriors’ combination of country mansion and pop-art catsuits. And, at least they didn't miss the ganger-Doctor boat; we haven't had a Doctor-double since... well, okay, since Journey's End. But you can never have too many Doctors. 

But then you get the dispiritingly raft of schematic plot points that you can’t help but see coming from a mile off. Male Guest Character #1’s despicably saccharine son; painfully contrived Noble Self-Sacrifices so as to prune the narrative loose ends, rather than resolving it through organic storytelling (and conveniently leaving no doubles) so as to prune the narrative loose ends, rather than resolving it through organic storytelling (and conveniently leaving no doubles – you can’t tell me there REALLY was no alternative to both ganger-Teachers-woman and ganger-Doctor sacrificing themselves?!). And don’t forget to throw in an arbitrary eleventh-hour monster! (Speaking of which - is anyone else feeling withdrawal for full-blooded slavering monsters this season? Even the Silents were genteel enough to wear suits.)

 

Add to that some Castrovalva-style impressions of past Doctors’ catchphrases (the naffest kind of ‘kiss to the past’) and another example of this series’ repeated insistence on solving everything with numerous guest characters trooping into the TARDIS (I mean, I know Moffat has a chubby for the Davison era, but didn’t everyone hate that back then?), and you get an exceedingly disillusioned viewer.

And then, as if that weren’t enough, even more laughably - riddle me ree, but doesn’t the Doctor’s out-of-hand liquefication of Amy’s ganger negate the WHOLE BASTARD PREMISE of the story, which just shows what pointless posturing all its ‘we’re equally valid too’ bollocks was. Squirm your way out of that one, Graham.

It’s even more galling that the lacklustre entirety of these two parts exist only to facilitate its final scene. I didn’t see the ganger-Amy revelation coming… well, before the coda, anyway… but the prior hour and a half of mediocrity numbed my ability to care somewhat. And, as natal body horror cliffhangers go, nothing can or ever will beat the fully-grown head of Udo Kier being born at the conclusion of the first series of Lars von Trier’s diabolically brilliant The Kingdom.

…But, having said all that, my seven-year-old niece appreciatively dubbed The Rebel Flesh “the scariest one ever,” so what do I know?

Wild Horses of Fire mk. II

Oh dear - another dirty, dirty bit of self-publicity, I'm afraid. 

I posted a while back about my Blogspot movie review blog... but I've now jumped ship to Tumblr, home of kittens, porn, and wannabe-hipsters - so, CHECK IT OUT HERE! Hurrah!

PS Also, while I'm at it, still lots of Doctor Who goodies for sale on Amazon Marketplace HERE (second and third pages). Oooh!

PPS Day of the Moon, The Curse of the Black Spot, and The Doctor's Wife reviews coming soon, I promise! Watch this space, etc.

Wild Horses of Fire

Gosh, I just can't keep away can I? Partly I wanted to say, I will almost certainly be back to review the new series - partly because, being effectively half a season, I'm not going to feel hamstrung by doing it for thirteen weeks straight - but more importantly because I'm QUITE EXCITED about it all. 


Also though, I wanted to give a shout-out to a new (and possibly even more irregular) blog, Wild Horses of Fire, where I'm going to be posting film reviews, and which you can view HERE.

"There's never anything good at the end of a countdown – except New Years, and even that's rubbish”

Review: THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES, SERIES FOUR
CBBC spin-off series, 2010

This time round, there was a danger that The Sarah Jane Adventures were going to feel like an obsolete pre-Moffat relic, with its Siltheen and Graskes. Even a notable lack of any crossover monsters from series five (I can imagine the Silurians turning up) sits a little oddly, and would perhaps have reinforced the show’s ancestry given how much the parent series has moved on.

Of course, the appearance of the Eleventh Doctor, this season’s selling point, goes some way to addressing this, but opener The Nightmare Man - a very self conscious attempt at a scary story – seems a patent attempt to move the series on and try new things, perhaps to limit reliance on Doctor Who itself. In fact, this is almost the most characteristic thing about this season; aside from a couple of by-numbers lapses, most of the stories have tried to showcase a more varied and mature take on the show.

Growing has obviously been a major topic, too, with The Nightmare Man particularly compounding a more teenage feel with its Skins-rated-U surprise party for Luke. It also shows a lot of confidence in opening the season with a first episode in which Sarah has very little direct involvement – although, in fact, she ended up seeming marginalised in a lot of the stories, especially Lost in Time and the final episode. Perhaps it’s a case of reality mirroring fiction and the actress’s age is actually catching up with her…? Despite this, as ever, it’s quite staggering to remember quite how marvellous Lis Sladen is; in all her little very human and idiosyncratic reactions, she seems far better than CBBC deserves and is of course the pièce de résistance of the show.

Ultimately, The Nightmare Man isn’t entirely satisfying, trying almost too hard to be teenage and scary, which seemed at odds with the series’ underlying positivity and niceness. Julian Bleach channelling Joel Grey’s Emcee from Cabaret or The League of Gentlemen’s Papa Lazarou, but not being as scary as either, though probably quite creepy for the actual demographic (just not the ming-mong quotient), is slightly disappointing. On balance, this is probably the least successful of his Torchwood/Doctor Who/SJA triumvirate of villains.

However, it’s good to see a certain amount of dreamlike surrealism in one of the new series family, something twenty-first century Doctor Who itself has mainly eschewed, perhaps for fear of alienating its carefully built mainstream audience (with even the dreamscape(s) of Amy’s Choice being played straight). The world of the Nightmare Man does demonstrate the potential danger of ‘anything goes’ dream-logic, as it becomes a bit ‘Well why should we care?’, which, I suppose, is always the danger. Sarah’s relative lack of involvement isn’t entirely successful, either, as it falls to Tommy Knight to carry the story - but it’s okay, cos by the end Luke’s gone! (They’ll have to update that cringy catch-up sequence that plays at the beginning of every episode. Or is that just on iPlayer?! The bleeping they’d added to K9 was hacking me off too, so he’s not a great loss either.)

(As an aside, without Luke around, does it not look a bit weird to the inhabitants of Bannerman Road for Sarah to be jetting around with two schoolkids? Maybe the finale of the next season will see her lynched by a mob of concerned members of the community?)

The Vault of Secrets is one of the weaker offerings of the season, with the otherwise irrelevant Pyramids of Mars reference being probably the most interesting thing in it. (It’s also slightly saddening that in a split second of footage the visual of Mars’ surface is miraculous, by comparison to what the show could pull off back in 1975.) The links to the Dreamland animation, in the Men in Black, are less welcome, being the kind of astonishingly obvious pop-cultural ‘pastiches’ (and that’s being generous) which are destined to be repeated, ad infinitum, for decades to come. And all without being anywhere near as creepy as Hugo Weaving.

Death of the Doctor forms the meat of this review, perhaps unfairly – but there’s relatively little to say about SJA's regular stories, which are almost so routine as to be beyond reproach; they do exactly what they say on the tin, and there isn’t a great deal to analyse. In consequence, it is welcome to have a writer like Russell T Davies, who’s not exactly hampered by restraint, coming along and providing an event episode to shake up the format – in a way that previous stabs at season finales, such as the somewhat fumbled reintroduction of the Brigadier, didn’t. An injection of big thinking (in contrast to the standard ‘the gang foils an alien incursion in suburbia’) goes a long way: not only in having the Doctor appear, but doing so in a story dealing with his apparent death and its repercussions, along with the reappearance of another long-gone former companion.

A writer immodest enough to take the format and give it a good shake is a rare thing in SJA, so although self-conscious ‘big stories’ aren’t really my bag, this one is almost a relief. (Big, that is, in terms of its emotional ramifications – turning out the sun, for example, may seem big, but doesn’t mean anything compared to meeting up with a familiar character from thirty years ago.)

I imagine a lot of people’ll focus on the sheer amount of elements crammed into Death of the Doctor, whereas most stories have only one or two main building blocks – say, The Vault of Secrets’ returnees Androvax versus the Men in Black. Here, not only do we have UNIT (and their Gerry Anderson-like base in Mount Snowden), but the Doctor and his apparent death, new monsters (the Shansheeth), old monsters (the Graske/Groske), an alien planet, Jo Grant’s return, and a Luke-alike in Jo’s grandson. While this would seem to suggest that Russell is up to his old Stolen Earth/End of Time ‘more is… MORE!!!’ tricks, these elements actually gel and feel far more organic than that comparison would suggest. In fact, it really shouldn’t work, yet I enjoyed this story far more than my generally low opinion of Davies’ writing would suggest. In fact, I kind of loved this story, apart from anything else for its atypically measured pace, which, in the first episode, gives Sarah and Jo a surprising – but welcome – amount of time to both reminisce and become acquainted.

It’s a relief that such a continuity-heavy concept is fictively justified by a plot which revolves around memory. Similarly, Jo’s appearance feels entirely appropriate to the idea of the Doctor’s funeral, rather than something arbitrarily slotted in, thus dismissing the idea that maybe her’s and the Doctor’s appearances in this series would be better used in separate stories.

For a continuity fest, it’s impressive how fleet-footed it mainly manages to be – even without the Shansheeth drawing out Sarah and Jo’s memories for their own nefarious purposes, it is natural that the two ex-companions would share these things. Likewise, a rare nod to Liz Shaw seems natural in the circumstances – and, oddly, links into her presence on a moonbase in late New Adventure Eternity Weeps. Strangely enough, I doubt that makes her horrific, sulphuric acid-spewing death canon though.

I’m no fan of Jo, though I do have a certain grudging fondness for her; I coincidentally watched the (yes, dire) Time Monster for the first time before seeing this, and the contrast between her twentieth and twenty-first century appearances brings home how much emotionally-driven characterisation the new series has given to the companion role. On the basis of stories like The Time Monster it’s hard to credit Jo with any original thought at all, so though her wild post-Doctor life is laid on a bit thick here, it’s almost revelatory to hear her actually talking about the Doctor in retrospect, when we were never allowed any access to her thoughts about her life with him back in the seventies. (She does look a bit… desiccated, though.)

Perhaps because the character is effectively brought up to date, or brought in line with her modern counterparts, I felt a lot more pleased to see her than I expected. For all that I’m cynical about his generally overinflated reputation as a writer, Davies has certainly got a handle on Jo in presenting her – though exaggeratedly – as a batty, be-ringed free spirit. She’s well on her way to becoming one of Doctor Who’s fabulously mad old dears, á la Amelias Rumsford and Ducat. I like how Rani immediately thinks she’s “fantastic,” and Santiago is unembarrassed by her – I mean, she would be an awesome mad relative, who all the normal grown-ups’d shake their heads about. (Though quite why she brought her grandson to the funeral is anyone’s guess. Santiago is slightly hatefully right-on, though that might be mainly down to the excessively low-cut T-shirt, but at least the cons of his globetrotting life are brought up in the second part.)

That Jo’s aspirational post-Green Death lifestyle, which is sketched in rather than being left to the imagination, is implicitly due to the seize-the-day mentality that rubbed off from the Doctor, is one of those Russell tropes which irritate me slightly, but which overall didn’t stop me enjoying his return to the Doctor Who universe. (See also the sledgehammer emotiveness of concepts like ‘the Doctor died saving hundreds of children’; portentous dialogue (“You smell of time; he is coming”); pseudo-mystical alien-dialogue (“brothers of the wing”); a penchant for spuriously ‘exotic’ names (Santiago Jones); tortuous coincidences bent to shape the story (the sonic being in the TARDIS and Sarah’s lipstick having been ‘drained’); and the Doctor as the stuff of intergalactic legend; etc, etc.)

However, these things are tempered by the more sympathetic attitude to continuity that has become the norm since 2005, with it being more about events’ emotional consequences than an excuse to roll out old monsters. It still heartens me to hear characters react to the most outlandish elements of Doctor Who in broadly real ways; ie, Sarah Jane wondering what face the dead Doctor has – in a way no-one did in the old series.

That the explicit references to previous stories include less-obvious ones like Jo and Sarah’s Peladon jaunts or The Masque of Mandragora is quite lovely, because it’s less the events in question that are important than the characters' tactile memories of those experiences (ie, Sarah remembers the orange grove the TARDIS landed in in the latter story, rather than Heironymous and the Helix energy). Davies effectively couches continuity in terms of memory rather than relating it in dry, ‘factual’ terms. That he also gets in a reference to the unseen Third Doctor excursion mentioned in Timelash takes continuity references to a new level of tortuousness – again, though, it is justifiable as a simply tactile memory for Jo, and so doesn’t feel painfully fanwanky.

Incidentally, as a fan who’s used to numerous returns and reappearances in various media, it’s easy to be all too blasé about characters returning to the world of the show thirty-odd years down the line; but it is insane, and we should be so grateful that Doctor Who brings out the kind of good feeling that makes people want to return to characters decades later. This must be pretty unprecedented, mustn’t it?!

In a way, perhaps because such a Doctor-centric idea is at its centre, and because of its less furiously paced speed than is normal in SJA, this feels more ‘Doctor Who’ than the spin-off show, even if it isn’t necessarily ‘like’ an actual episode of Doctor Who. David Tennant’s appearance in The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith did feel like an excursion for the Doctor into spin-off territory, even though in both appearances the Doctor doesn’t turn up until the end of the first part (which, given the ratings-winning kudos of bagging these leading actors, is nicely judged not to overshadow SJA’s regular cast). In some ways, it does feel odd throwing away such a fertile concept as the Doctor’s death/funeral (think Alien Bodies) in a ‘mere’ CBBC spin-off, but it comes off well, and gives a bit of scale and gravitas to a series often more disposable than this.

As for Sarah, with a fourth Doctor under her belt (as it were), Sarah has effectively become a latterday Brigadier-figure; that is, a friend rather than companion per se, who repeatedly encounters different Doctors. I’d love for her to still be popping up when she’s the age Nicholas Courtney is now. Speaking of which, I’m not sure how much longer that ‘the Brigadier’s stuck in Peru’ excuse will hold up – I mean, there are airports in South America.

It comes as something of a surprise for me to say it, but overall this story is outrageously lovely, and probably one of my favourite of Davies’ stories - which isn’t saying that much, but it's nice that his return doesn’t make me want him to piss off even more permanently. It’s in scenes like the Doctor’s talk with Jo where Davies shines, and which I actually found quite moving, especially because of how nicely the reason for her departure in The Green Death links with Amy and Rory’s recent marriage. That Jo tried to get in touch with the Doctor at UNIT is specifically strangely affecting, especially since, as he was based on earth at the time, there’s no reason she’d expect the definitive end to her association which we, as viewers, know to expect.

As for the past-companion namechecking, though shamelessly fannish, hearing mention of Ian and Barbara and Ben and Polly (and even Ace*) on BBC1 in 2010 made me giddy as a schoolgirl. The fact that all those mentioned are doing something inspirational is an example of Davies’ quite literal thinking, which grates on me slightly, but as it isn’t exactly an exhaustive summary I can live with it; personally, I prefer the broader idea that they aren’t all necessarily on top of the world, but obviously that wouldn’t be as appropriate to SJA’s optimistic outlook (on more general principles, it is undeniably limiting to demand that Doctor Who can never be sad). I don’t quite believe in, say, Tegan as a right-on campaigner for Aboriginal rights, but former companions wouldn’t seem human if it wasn’t implied that their travels with the Doctor had affected them, and injecting humanity into them is Davies’ forte.

While bizarre, the idea that a still-young Ian and Babs are mooching around Oxford is also inexpressibly lovely. It could be seen as presumptuous of Davies to furnish these characters with post-Doctor lives, but I guess that’s the price of having someone take a more hands-on approach to the series’ past. Also, it does tie the series together in a charming way to realise even sixties companions who seem like ancient history are still alive and kicking, if only in the Doctor Who universe.

On the other hand, that the Doctor’s rounds in the coda to The End of Time actually took in EACH AND EVERY companion is absurd, and another example of Davies’ utter lack of restraint. The idea of the Tenth Doctor tracking down, say, Dodo, Turlough, Steven, Mel or Grace is ludicrous, but makes me laugh at its audacity rather than heaving a weary sigh. That wilful ludicrousness is quite representative of Davies’ output, but I’m glad it has seen an expression, in this somewhat unassuming form, in a story I really enjoyed. (This even more extended ‘reward’ does smacks of fanboy completism – did the Doctor do it alphabetically or chronologically?!) I’d also throw my vote in with the idea that referencing back to past characters isn’t alienating for newer audiences (if done right), but rather provides a glimpse of history and backstory - which, frankly, Doctor Who has enough of to spare.

More prosaically, I don’t like Matt Smith’s new shirt/jacket; it looks like he’s cosplaying… as himself… badly. (But at least this variation in his costume was due to technical considerations, the usual Paul Smith shirt vibrating with the SJA cameras.) The Shansheeth are possibly the worst new series/spin-off monsters, both in realisation and design, and certainly the most tawdry of Davies’ animal-aliens; they look like refugees from a particularly cash-strapped production of Alice in Wonderland. But let’s just peg that as a cash issue and move swiftly on.

For my money, Death of the Doctor has a hell of a lot more interesting concept - and, let’s face it: is just better - than any of the 2009 specials; maybe Davies really did just need time to recharge. Similarly, perhaps stories without the pressure of building up to regeneration/end of an era, suit him better. Having said that, he does manage to make this return to the fold act as a coda to The End of Time (cos the twenty-minute one actually in that story obviously wasn‘t enough...), in its discussion of regeneration, and an epitaph for the Tenth Doctor. Some people might see this as further self-indulgence from Davies, but I kind of like the emphasis put on the Doctor's ‘death’ and renewal, because it’s natural the characters should discuss it. It's the opposite thinking of earlier versions of Doctor Who, where the production teams bizarrely never felt the need to put these thoughts into the mouths of earlier companions - an extreme example being TARDIS newcomer Tegan’s total non-reaction to the Fourth Doctor’s regeneration, in Logopolis/Castrovalva.

Overall, Death of the Doctor may be an exercise in linking the old series to its Davies and Moffat eras, but the story is a lot less clunky than that implies. The fact that the actual plot boils down to a scheme to get hold of the TARDIS, and the Shansheeth’s plan being somewhat more ambiguous than straight-down-the-line villainy, is welcome. A corrupt UNIT officer is quite a nice inversion of the generally faceless UNIT of the new series, too, and shows a tendency to tackle sacred cows which also sees expression in the story’s (albeit affectionate) mockery of Sarah’s “staggering” piousness and the show’s home-in-time-for-tea ethos.

The main thing this story made me wonder, with fearfully predictable geekiness, was which other old-school characters I’d like to see return? I guess Leela is the obvious one - being popular and memorable, but unusual - though it might be harder to flesh her out as a believable human being. Or, apparent Captain Jack-like immortality aside, Ian Chesterton - ironically, as William Russell’s age could give some real scale to the Doctor’s recurring association with human companions.  
 
Well.

Following Russell's return was always going to be hard to equal, but in taking a completely opposed, sparer approach, The Empty Planet pretty much does. I’m going to skip over that though, as you can read a fuller review I wrote for this episode, on Kasterborous.

Lost in Time, perhaps most explicitly of this run, continues to push the series into new areas: I like its multi-location format, even if it doesn’t go into demented Chase-like territory, and it’s a relief that the Bannerman Road Gang aren’t explicitly ‘fighting aliens’ for once, persevering with a looser approach to the format. There’s a surprising, and welcome, degree of pathos to Jane Grey; in fact, all the strands are surprisingly satisfying considering their brevity, and how easily this could have turned into a bitty, disjointed mess (ahem, The Chase again). I particularly enjoyed the pip-pip derring-do of the budget Eagle Has Landed – especially the gun-wielding schoolmarm-cum-spy! – although this probably only serves to highlight the (relative) limitations of Daniel Anthony, giving him an action-based rather than emotionally probing mini-story. Though there are moments – for example, when the Nazi commandant calls him a ‘negro’ – where the script does veer into more emotional-driven territory.

There is a certain Moffat-ness to this episode (Matt Smith aside, one of few concessions to the spin-off’s relationship with its newly-rejuvenated parent series), in Jane’s shades of Madame de Pompadour, and the climactically timey-wimey (sorry!) delivery of the key. It’s also rather lovely that a kids’ program is prepared to give an emotional kick – even if it could be accused of being a little ‘schematic’ – of a type that Doctor Who itself seldom delivered prior to its revival.

And so to Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith: SJA doesn’t have a very good track-record with finales, and - regrettably - this one doesn’t fail in delivering an underwhelming story, continuing a characteristic and slightly annoying insistence on ‘high-concept’ finales (tag-teaming returning villains; a Sarah-equivalent figure). I think SJA falls down in this department because the big, showboating approach it tries to crib from the parent series just doesn’t suit its own style, which is at its most effective when tackling a more intimate tone and scale. 


Having said that, Goodbye… does try for the kind of sensitivity which the series often succeeds at surprisingly well, but falls a bit flat with Sarah’s fears about ageing. Plus, the manipulation of her life feels like a retread of The Wedding of…, and isn’t quite compelling enough to justify the lack of any major threat for the majority of the first episode. Also, the non-appearance of the Trickster (who I’m starting to warm to, if only because his nemesis-status makes him feel ‘significant’) is countered by a ‘Ruby’s evil!’ reveal that’s a bit meh (a disembodied stomach?!), while also invalidating even more the rather weak cowl-wearing budget alien threat from earlier. Plus, Ruby’s true nature also nullifies her role as a Sarah-analogue, the heavy-handedness of which is a bit much; ‘Mr White’, the Alfa Romeo, the secret cellar.

I mean, Hickman and Roberts – shouldn’t that have been fun?! Instead it was desultory and charmless. (An evil exile? Jesus.)

Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith has none of the ambition of stories like Lost in Time to broaden the series’ tenets. Maybe that’s appropriate to a finale, but as I have serious issues with the way all Doctor Who-family series tend to end with some slightly desperate ‘big’ story, it feels disappointing in comparison to the best mid-season stories of this run. Lost in Time would have made a more memorable and ambitious finale, without ticking the ‘this is a finale!’ boxes, which are so very tedious.

Anyway, I’ve said waaay more than is strictly necessary in regard to a CBBC programme, especially since I’m only really interested in it as an adjunct to Doctor Who (though it still has its own charms) - so I will end on this note: has Luke been doing crystal meth at uni, or what? He looks like he’s dying!


*Ace’s fate as a philanthropist billionaire doesn’t necessarily negate the character’s Space Bitch and 'Time’s Vigilante' phases in the New Adventures, or her time-travelling motorbike and eventual life in seventeenth century France (…or whatever).

Reaction: VICTORY OF THE DALEKS

Written by Mark Gatiss, directed by Andrew Gunn, 2010

A slightly different version of this article can be read here, on Kasterborous.

Let’s not beat around the bush. Yes, Victory of the Daleks features an entirely successful redesign of the Daleks. Unfortunately, it’s the British Army versions, which are as striking as the iconoclastic gold-and-white of Revelation and Remembrance. Who ever thought green Daleks would work?! The Union Flag is a neat little touch too.

As for the new new Daleks, I must admit my heart fell at not only the idea of redesigned Daleks, but also the initial pictures, when I stumbled across them on the Radio Times’ site. (Who had clearly decided to continue their sterling tradition of spoilerising up-coming stories.)

These gay pride Daleks will undoubtedly have some fans squeeing in their Tom Baker Y-fronts - but equally, Marmite-like, they’re not going to appeal to everyone. The colours particularly may well prove contentious. However, it goes without saying an overhaul of such a classic design is a brave move (certainly compared to previous cosmetic changes), and shows Steven Moffat’s willingness to put his own stamp on every aspect of the series.

Where the previous twenty-first century incarnation was injected with a bulk and realism, making them credible bits of hardware, there’s certainly something very sixties about these versions, perhaps a nod to their TV Comic antecedents. At least the production team isn’t trying to make them look cool, which is death to Doctor Who.

Moffat has talked about the magic of the show being its ability to appeal to our inner eight-year-old, and these Daleks seem unabashedly targeted at that mentality. It’s appropriate, then, that their clearest antecedent within the program is not one of the TV series’ designs proper, but rather the Aaru movie version hijacked for a role as the Supreme in Planet of the Daleks…

The wisdom of having the balls – or hubris? – to tamper with something as iconic as the Daleks is quite staggering, but we’ll wait and see whether it comes off. There’s a sort of bulbous purity of form which, interestingly – and not unpleasingly - sweeps away all the detail added to the bare bones of the design in 2005.

Actually, despite my initial distaste, it took me about, ooh, half an hour to kind of fall in love with this new design (...if not the colours). I’m a bit of a sucker for variants on the familiar; I like them exactly because they genuinely have a totally new look, and there’s something to be said for how scandalous that should seem. (The organic eyes are a nice touch, too.)

Used - as under Russell T Davies - to illustrate the show’s potential and variety, Victory of the Daleks’ unassuming slot makes for a surprisingly early excursion for the Daleks in this run. As the creation of the dodgem-Daleks is its entire raison d’être, amounting to an expository set-up for further encounters, it’s perhaps unsurprising that this feels like a slightly hollow Victory – and perhaps it’s for the best that this was got out of the way early. It may be too slight to be an entirely satisfying story in its own right – and manages to feel rather rushed, despite not a great deal actually happening - but let’s reserve judgement for when these Daleks really come into their own.

The traditionalism of Mark Gatiss’ script also feels a little inadequate after Moffat got stuck into the format in the last two stories; by comparison this is very insubstantial – do robots and averted countdowns cut it any more? Having said that, it is the riffs on Power of the Daleks, recasting the creatures as something insidious, with only the Doctor knowing the truth, which are arguably the most effective elements of this story. It’s a shame this, and their unlikely dialogue (“WOULD YOU CARE FOR SOME TEEEA?”) couldn’t have been taken further.

Trying to cram an epic resurrection and Star Wars dogfights into the runtime is perhaps less effective. Although, spitfires in space – along with holding the Daleks at bay with a jammy dodger (“Don’t mess with me, sweetheart”) are memorably daft Doctor Who concepts… Although I can’t shake a cynical feeling that they are a bit too manufactured.

Where The Eleventh Hour felt like every element had been lovingly oiled and put together meticulously, Victory’s combination of trad and new series styles is more uneasy. Also, notably, as the first non-Moffat-penned Eleventh Doctor adventure, it lacks the much-vaunted ‘fairytale’ feel of the two series openers. However, it isn’t unsuccessful as a rollicking wartime adventure.

Where those previous two stories were hung around Amy getting to grips with the Doctor, this could almost be slotted anywhere in the run. Consequentially – and slightly disappointingly – Ms Pond feels far less uniquely ‘Wendy Darling’ here. And, once again, despite her instrumental part in saving the day, Amy feels marginalised; we need a story which has space to breathe (perhaps a return to Leadworth?), where she – and we – can take stock of her still-new situation.

The Blitz is a surprisingly specific period to return to relatively soon after The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, especially given how effectively it was used there. Nevertheless, it completes the set of contemporary, future, and past settings, and it is welcome to effectively get to see behind the scenes of the earlier story’s milieu. Some less tokenistic characters besides Churchill and Bracewell would have been welcome, but that just goes to show that the series can still struggle with the 45 minute format.

Obviously, the Doctor’s ticket into the war rooms is the concept of his having had previous adventures with Churchill – to the extent that the PM is blasé about the Doctor’s change of face. This is not only a brilliant twist on the Doctor’s inveterate namedropping (the Doctor and Baroness Thatcher versus the Vervoids in series six, anyone…?), but, only three stories in, also continues a trait for characters already knowing the Doctor. (Liz Ten and the inhabitants of Leadworth knew him by reputation, while perhaps the ultimate example of this, River Song, returns next week.)

As Gatiss rightly pointed out on Confidential, Churchill is a controversial, ambiguous figure, but, while I'm slightly uncomfortable with his being turned into a jolly caricature, it’s appropriate that these issues aren’t raised here, and that we are instead presented with a canny distillation of ‘the Churchill of legend’. Miraculous too that the series was allowed to show him smoking. (How many years has it been since someone last lit up in Doctor Who?! Resurrection? Answers on a postcard.)

(Picky point, but, I found it quite distracting that Ian McNeice is the wrong sort of fat for Churchill. Which, I suppose, is the disadvantage of celebrity historicals for whom the characters’ real appearances are a matter of record, but I’ll let it go.)

Anyway, I don’t think it’d be fair to damn this as series fnarg’s first stinker; it’s a step down – or maybe back – but as we’re returning to Moffatland next week, I’m not going to despair just yet. Also, I feel inclined to let this story off because I like Mark Gatiss’ three-piece suits.

One thing I did find interesting, in addition to the newfound prevalence of the Doctor’s reputation preceding him, is that the Moffat administration have reacted to the ubiquity of large-scale alien activity over the last few years by seemingly resetting this knowledge to zero. As with the new Daleks’ destruction of their predecessors, the willingness to take a sledgehammer to the past five years if necessary is startlingly apparent. If only a qualified success in other areas, in this at least, Victory is victorious.

Kasterborous article

Another shameless plug!

Christian Cawley very generously gave me the opportunity to pitch for the Opinion section of online magazine Kasterborous – you can read the resulting brief article HERE.

It’s about Matt Smith’s youthfulness (although he’s older than me, haha) and the marginalisation of older figures in the media. It namechecks Donald Pleasance, Angela Lansbury, and Johnny Ball. Go read!

The Mythological Dimensions of Doctor Who

A shameless plug here. This is a book of essays, one of which by yours truly, which is being released in the next couple of months. It's edited by Anthony S Burdge, Jessica Burke, and Kristine Larsen, with a preface by Barnaby Edwards and foreward by Simon Guerrier. Here is the blurb:

"This volume of essays examines the abundant mythological elements underpinning the 46-year-run (and many more!) of popular BBC television series Doctor Who. Contributors include a well-known Doctor Who novelist, an organizer of one of the largest Doctor Who online communities, plus several university scholars and founders of the American Northeast Tolkien Society. Explore the universe of the Doctor as seen through the eyes of myth and legend."

There will be a UK launched, hosted by the BSFA, featuring a panel chaired by Tony Keen, and consisting of Melissa Beattie, Simon Guerrier and Colin Harvey. Other contributors, Leslie McMurtry and Dr Matt Hills, will also be on hand:

Wednesday, May 26, 2010, 7pm.
British Science Fiction Association UK Launch.
Upstairs Room, The Antelope Tavern, 22 Eaton Terrace, Belgravia, London, SW1W 8EZ.

In the US, the official launch will be on May 20th at The Waystation, 7pm.

Available for pre-order now - check it out!

The Facebook and Twitter pages have a lot more information.