Attack of the Cybermen

Viewing recommendation: one at a time. If you can. I was honestly going to stop watching after episode one - I'm getting to the "Oh no! no more episodes!" point with the Sixth Doctor. I only have two left, and one of those is The Twin Dilemma. That isn't very many. But then they went and threatened Peri, and I was still thinking about Adric, so I had to keep watching. To, yknow, make sure she was OK...I do hate the Sixth Doctor 2 parters. One of the reasons I like the Classic series is the 25 min format. You can sneak 25 minutes in just before you go to bed, at lunchtime, while you do the laundry. 45 minutes is a commitment. It really highlights Timelash's faults too.

It's all about expectation.

For example, Attack of the Cybermen is a much maligned episode, by which token I figured I was going to enjoy it. I can't bring myself to truly loathe any Doctor Who episode - even Doctor's Daughter has it's moments. The very fact of the Doctor turning up instantly makes it superior to any other episode of any other show.

What I did not expect was, well...look, blood! Blood, from hands, leaking onto the floor. I mean, what?

I've always said that Six is the regeneration I'd like to come and rescue me. You really know what his agenda is (disqualifying One, Two and Seven immediately), and he doesn't have a reputatuion for appalling collateral damage (Four, Five). He's unhinged in a good way (unlike, say, 9), and while he's dedicated, he's not going to suddenly turn around and condemn people to the Pit of Eternal Night the way Eight or Ten tend to do when they get hardcore. I haven't mentioned Doctor Three - yes, I'd be pretty happy if I saw him show up (unless I was a UNIT grunt...)

In any case, he's efficient. He's tidy. He's good at saving the world, right? I certainly wasn't expecting it to go all Season 21 on me. At all. I can just about see the production meeting now - you'll have to imagine them discussing their evil machinations in cold, electronic voices.

"Stage one complete, Script Leader."
"Have you combined Earthshock and Resurrection of the Daleks as I instructed?"
"Yes, Script Leader."
"Excellent. Take the hybrid for Androzanification...then nothing will stand in our way of THE MOST HIGHLY RATED EPISODE OF ALL TIME mwahahahahaha"

It's too obvious to work properly, which is a shame because there's a great little plot going on here, and I'd have enjoyed this episode a lot more were I not playing "spot the debt". Oooh, it's the shiny hidden door underground from Arc of Infinity. Ooh, the marked-for-death extras wandering around in the opening sequence of Earthshock. Let's visit Tomb of the Cybermen, trap Peri on the set of Androzani Minor, go via Unearthly Child and throw Tenth Planet in for good measure. The point of those three references in particular is that they tell stories about botch-ups. One contains the only permenant death of a longtime companion ever, one holds the record for the highest death toll, and the third merely wipes out every named male cast member. All three are gloomy and downbeat, and frankly I thought the Sixth Doctor was too sensible to let something like that happen on his watch. More fool me.

It's not that he does anything no other Doc would do (except encouraging his companion to shoot things...) - it's the way he does it. Yes, folks, its that part of the review where I declare whichever Doctor is my absolute favourite (always has been, always will be) for the next hour or so. Oh, I do love the Sixth Doctor. He's just great. "I'm a man of science! Temperament! Passion!" That enormous ego, but he justifies it through being brilliant. I mean, spotting an armed man and diving straight at him. Oh yes. When I said he's efficient, I meant it. "I can do something about it!" he gleefully plunges into danger, all confidence and charm. No screwdriver? I'll get a sonic lance! Hmmm, chamelion circuit? I'll fix that! It's obvious the Doctor hasn't even considered it before. Prisoner causing trouble? "Shoot him, Peri." WHAT?! Sure, he's bluffing, but maybe I've finally discovered why people accuse this era of being too violent - because the Doctor beats up at least two people within a single episode, carries a rather nasty gun and wipes out half the Cyber-Force single handedly. And he's not Jon Pertwee, so he can't get away with it. I can buy it as a progression of his character, however. It's not just a reaction against the softly, softly approach of his predecessor: it's all about efficiency. The Sixth Doctor is about getting results. He's not quite up to the Seventh Doctor's level, but he's getting there, and he's worked out using a bit of muscle is sometimes required.

Not letting things bother him, that's another thing Six is great at. Look at his first reaction to discovering the Valeyard's identity: "Madam, this revelation should halt this Trial immediately."
Doubtless, he is like the rest of the country, bricking it - but he remains cool, clear and very calm. I was hoping for maybe a little Earthshock angst, and got it in abundance. Nothing is said, but the man clearly has issues. He is cool, and he is calm, and - oh, he's stabbing it to death with a sonic lance. Oh, well. Back to therepy now, Doctor. Let's just hope you don't, y'know, end up in a room full of Cybermen with a blaster to hand - it could put your treatment back for centuries. I don't really mind this. Can you blame him for taking no chances this time around? I was also intrigued by his movement towards the cat badge. Initially, I thought it was going to be made of gold - turns out not, because these Cybermen can be beaten by a rubber duckie, a pinch of salt, well, anything really. Maybe it was for luck? Or maybe it was, as my inner-fangirl presumes, really an Earthshock thing after all.

You can always rely on the Doctor to be great, and in case it needed saying twice, you can almost certainly rely on Colin Baker to be the best thing in his episode. Not only because his episodes are reputedly shite either. More because he's awesome (see: favourite Doctor for 60 minutes, above). It's the range. He can do sensitive, and poetic, and curious, and then he can turn around and do great vengeance and furious anger, and all of them perfectly. I've also got a glorious idea about what might have happened to Mondas...I'd say "I really want to watch Tenth Planet" now, but I suspect that'd be a case of "get in line!"

I'm also interested in what we'll call, for want of something better, Trial of a Timelord foreshadowing. Season 22 is packed with Gallifrey references, and here is no different. He considers informing the Timelords, he uses it to bludgeon a captive with, the Cybermen point out they would have him "destroyed" for tampering with time, and discovering that they've dumped him there a la Brain of Morbius.

Right. Lytton.

Oh my. He always was a little bit too cool for Doctor Who. Lucky he never met the Master, really, they might have got along. Before attempting to double cross one another. Last time, he simply played second fiddle to the Daleks - though he did it with wonderful style. In particular, I love his cold murder of the only other surviving Dalek Trooper. Here, he pinches all the best dialogue, gets to be badass and enigmatic and goes out a hero. Lytton and the Doc bounce off each other very well, so well it almost prevented me noticing a little problem. Lytton and the Doctor don't actually meet in Resurrection of the Daleks. I suppose Lyt knows the Doc by reputation, but there is no good reason the Doctor should know of him at all. Probably good for the Doc, actually, as Lytton would doubtless have taken him to pieces in under three minutes had they met last time around...I think there's room for a Missing Adventure here. I like Lytton because he's more complex than simply what you see on screen - he appears to have a life outside it. It explains his motives for hanging around with the Daleks last time. Some people have criticised the "change of heart" element, which I disagree with. It implies that we knew what his agenda was all along - which we don't. It also risks breaking him down from "bad guy" to "good guy", two oversimplistic characterisations Doctor Who uses far too often. Helping the Cryons does not instantly redeem him, but it does give us a better oppertunity to admire his good qualities. I can't blame the Doctor for going to rescue him either: we're talking about the guy who's stuck his head out for the Master countless times. He's not going to abandon someone to Cyber-mercy, not if he has even the smallest excuse.

Speaking of Cyber-mercy, man, are these not the lamest Cybermen of all time? The fancy Classic Series Snob complaint is that the new series Cybs are worse than the old ones. Um, like these? They are very, very easy to kill, and have learnt nothing since Earthshock. They're sadistic bastards, who plan to throw something very large at Earth in a complex plan involving time travel, and their conversation is appalling. Looks like this is the beginning of Cyber-conversion, as embraced by the new series - this was more interesting. I do like that they make more of the Cybermen's "I'm all made of metal" strength: ignoring the obvious moment, when someone gets hit by a Cyberman they're bunched up for five minutes or sent flying across the room. This still doesn't make them anything other than rubbish.

Peri, well, she's whiny and useless but with good reason. "Don't patronise me!" she snipes. "I wouldn't dare," he replies with amusement, although also genuine pride. I like the antagonism, you can almost see Peri thinking "please, someone give me Peter Davison back! He wasn't nuts!" But I do sympathise. Frankly, I think few of us would be any more pleasant. I loved Griffiths too, great double act thing he had going on.

And I loved the Cryons. Watch the Doctor and Flast, then tell me Six was obnoxious.

Some random thoughts that don't fit into my essay:

1. Is that the same road from Rose where Clive lives?
2. Time distortion! Since listening to Sirens of Time, I get excited every time someone mentions time distortion...
3. It's written by a woman! Unless Paula's become a guy's name without me knowing.
4. When the Doctor was ambling around Foreman's junkyard, trying to remember what he'd forgotten, was it just me thinking Hand of Omega?
5. The music! Ew, nasty - although is one of the themes based on Earthshock?
6. "No one'd been down here for years" = classic dialogue. Somehow, I wouldn't bet on it...
7. Someone suggested "masculinity" of the Cybermen vs. the "femininity" of the Cryons. I like this.
8. "How thick is it?" "Less than you"
9. "Suddenly, I feel conspicuous"
10. "I say, are you looking for me? Well hurry up, I don't have all day!" in the grand old Doctor Who tradition of putting heroic Englishmen in space.
11. My notes also read "Then we'll destroy it" and "mocking the Cybs". I have no idea what either of these mean.
12. "Vindictive..."
13. "Really?"
14. I'm pleased to see the Doctor has a self destruct function with a huge counter. I'm tempted to think it is just a bluff - that'd be just like him.

Any proper criticisms? The Baines and Stratton subplot is going nowhere and should have been cut in favour of something else. More Cryons. More Earthshock angst. More paint drying. Even though a massacre is good sometimes, killing off them and Griffiths off at the end just seems mean - they could have, t'know, escaped at that point! It would have been nice for the three of them to get out.

Right, got all that out of the way. As mentioned above, I did like the story. I've got several pages worth of comments: that says something. It's going to be a key point in my Huge Essay With Everything I've Ever Thought About The Doctor, which currently exists in fragments. I liked it too, it's just made me angry. Suddenly, I was watching a whole host of nasty deaths I did not want to see. By the time we hit the last ten minutes, I was already in "God no!" territory. It got to shutting my eyes point, which is something Doctor Who has never done. And as a comparison, neither has Tarantino.

Was Season 22 too violent? It's about expectation - Season 22 is more violent than we expect, but does it go too far? From an in-universe perspective, I can always find an excuse for the Doctor. He's definitely within his rights to start gunning down the Cybermen after Earthshock - he's not taking any chances. The Third Doc would have beaten up policemen too. After being threatened with a gun, it's OK to threaten back if only briefly. None of these are as questionable as Shockeye's death in The Two Doctors. But it's about tone. The question is, should this be shown? I'm not actually sure it should be. Nasty things happen in Doctor Who every week, they have to. The BBFC rank episodes more highly for "dwelling on the influction of injury". Now I'm sorry, but that's what this episode does. Evidence for the prosecution, item A) Flast. It's not what happens, nor exactly how it's done - people get killed in nasty ways all the time. But the camera really dwells on it. Item B) blood. Not something that happens in Doctor Who, except Deadly Assassin, Unearthly Child and Caves of Androzani, three episodes we can all agree are very intense. But it's the way it's used here. The scene has been compared to a similar one in Caves, but then you don't actually get to see the Doctor's arms ripped off. It's too much. Jesu, poor old Lytton...

Yes, maybe I've finally got ahang of those complaints leveled at this era - the violence, the nihilism, the trying to replicate Earthshock and defining the adjective "Saward-y". I understand them, if not wholly sympathising. Because I do enjoy the vicious episodes, even though my maternal instinct frets about the Classification System, and I do like the angsty ones too, even if they upset me. Right now this is simply the shock of sitting down to watch what I thought was a regular episode, and ending up with a bloodbath on my hands. It's about expectation.

Matrix

Suggested pre-viewing - Survival and Trial of a Timelord
Do not read after dark.

This is a book about the Valeyard.

Sorry to spoil the twist. It's not just that he's my favourite all-time villain, and that I'd have hated it for ticking everything on my bad Who book list if not for this fact - I feel the Valeyard does have the right to take the Doc to some dark places, in a way no other villain does.

It's because this is a book about dark sides.

The Doctor and the Valeyard. Ace, and Cheetah Ace. Malacroix who blackmails people by hanging onto their twisted secrets, and who it is hinted has a nasty secret himself. The Dark Matrix, the dark TARDIS, the evil past incarnations (oh, I'll be getting onto them in a minute...) Even dark London.


But on a deeper level, it's about the effects of supressing your dark side - and the answer isn't as simple as you'd expect. The Valeyard is everything the Doctor ignores in his character, just as the Dark matrix is everything the Gallifreyans have been supressing. But then there are the freaks - who in this particular Victorian setting, are the dark mirror of humanity. And they too are locked away by the world which is ashamed of them. Just as Ace strives to set them free, so it is strongly suggested the Valeyard's compassion* for the trapped Dark Matrix, which cannot help what it is, is perhaps his chief motivation.

*incongruously Fivey noun chosen very deliberately.

While black magic is an intrinsically crappy way of getting things done, I can honestly see the Valeyard relishing the Victoriana and coming up with something this showy and melodramatic. (One wonders what the Matrix Valeyard could have done to Clacice of Time's Champion. I bet he could have given her a proper black magic bitchslap...)

And naturally, the Valeyard would adore Victorian England - and it's as much of an atmospherically OTT representation as his Fantasy Factory was. Prostitutes! Circuses! Fog! But it works, it taps into that Dickensian ideal we've all got locked away. It's knowingly hackneyed, but that's why it works so well. It's been suggested more than once that using those five real life murders is tasteless. But Jack is more than that, as both this book and From Hell* suggest. It's not so much about him, but the idea of the ripper. I admit it's a powerful one - it instantly conjours slippery cobbles and gaslight. In a way, he's more of an admirable rebel than a murdering thug, showing the true underbelly of Victorian society amongst all it's high morals. At the time, the entire country was obsessed with the murders. The fact that we're still talking about five women who history would never have remembered otherwise proves that there's something intangible about the figure that won't go away.

*Alan Moore's Ripper epic, almost certainly inspiration.

It's this vibe the book taps into, and it's backed up by some truly brilliant atmosphere. On cold paper it all seems a bit daft. But the gorgeous style makes it effective. After years of whezzings and groanings, finally a description of the TARDIS' arrival which is not only mysterious and alien, but terrifying. Even to an audience who knows it so well - we share Jed's fear. I love the description of the Trial space station too.

It's also nice to have a book so defiantly about that particular Doctor. Setting the Valeyard against 6 works because he's just so heroic. One feels the shock factor would be lost on 9 and 10, who have the Time War as tangible proof that he is capable of intense darkness. But 7 walks a fine line with his behavior, so setting him against the Valeyard is perhaps the most interesting at all - because where 5* or 6 could say "I'm not like you", and 9 and 10 "I know I am you" - 7 is still trying to strike a balance. And the book is his - even the eerie Victorian setting brings up memories of Ghost Light style wackiness. Naturally, the Doc's not giving anything away - which gives it an extra layer of mystery - and though the novel can't resist a Utopia moment at the end, he clearly has a good feeling all along about what he's up against.

*and it's a shame this is a confrontation we'll never see, I'm curious to see what would happen. I did have a great dream once where Five was chasing the Valeyard through the London Underground and British Museum...

A deliberately unMcCoyly trait is the fact the Doctor is off guard and terrified the whole way through, which again I admire. Because the Valeyard has that right, to know him that well. And after that, the pace doesn't let up. One moment they're sitting on a beach, and then two pages later they've been plunged into living hell - very pacy, very exciting, and very dangerous all the way through. Disorientating in a good way, because we're exactly as confused as the heroes. In fact, "disorientating in a good way" would sum up the whole Seventh Doctor's era for me perfectly.

Ace, too, is the perfect companion for all this. Seven and Ace are very very close, and she trusts him absolutely; at the same time, Ace knows better than anyone the Doctor's ability to turn on a knife's edge and knows that often her trust is misplaced. Tell Rose or Sarah Jane that the Doctor was the Ripper, and they'd smile at you politely. Ace knows it's scarily plausible. And ultimately, the identity of the killer isn't ever given away, not obviously. Is it the Doctor? The Valeyard? Does the distinction even matter? I must face the fact I'm two years older than Ace, and can never hope to be that awesome. She's lovely, as always. She has a very hard time, but it remains gripping not exploitative, engaging with the practical difficulties someone stranded in the past would encounter.

As a whole, then, marvellously creepy. You can nitpick - yes, you can't deny the middle gets very repetitive - but taken together, it's a great achievement. I'm happy to see Ian and Barbara get together in a world without the Doctor. I've always liked the Wandering Jew, and though I'm not sure what the thematic point of having him there is, it was nice to see him. Continuity wasn't too heavy handed either - I loved the room of clocks, and though I feel "who am I..." could ultimately get old, I'm still enjoying it. But best of all, Ace turns up in a knackers yard. Brilliant

Would the Valeyard have hurt Ace? Interesting one. I can't quite...even though my origin story for him, as "Doctor 10.5" in Journey's End, almost certainly includes Rose's murder. But...it's Ace!

I've been devouring extended Valeyard media as fast as it's produced, and while none of them have produced what I regard to be a perfect interpretation, each of them show up a facet of his character in a different way. He Jests at Scars caught what I see to be a key character facet - his confusion at his past. He remembers being the Doctor, being the hero - so why doesn't it work any more? Why did he ever think all that good was a good idea? He slipped in and out of Doctorliness beautifully, sometimes with nostalga for his memories, sometimes with scorn. Mel's idea that he was still the Doctor was even convincing - you never knew which of the two you were dealing with.

But it was let down by bad dialogue and some dodgy universe-domination motivation. Time's Champion gave him a bit more presence, a more rounded personality on a scene-by-scene basis, some gravitas - even if I had issues with some of the directions they took him in, particularly when they shackled him to Timelord continuity.


Then Matrix does something different again. This Valeyard is terrifying.


I can't deny I've always found him very scary, and not only the intrinsically creepy fact that this is my Doctor either. It's the mirthless smile, the dead eyes and that cold voice. I spent most of Ultimate Foe murmuring "shit!" under my breath, and not in the usual way that the word "shit" is applied to Trial of a Timelord either. And when things started getting tense, I couldn't help but curl up into the corner in which I was reading and mutter under my breath.

Shit 13 tombs, shit Valeyard-TARDIS, revalation shit, OH SHIT NO* (and it's about now that the world just falls into pieces) and then yet another one for the Destroyer of Worlds bit - yet another bit of weird Time War foreshadowing that isn't actually foreshadowing.

*...and he really does, you know - that's what makes it so twisted. Watch it again.

They're good examples to pick, too, because I've never really noticed them. In my Time's Champion review, I dismissively complained: "The Doc doesn't really have a dark side. He's a complete hypocrite, often too nice for his own good, but I can't imagine a walking talking Evil!Doc being born merely from leaving Sarah Jane in Croydon and once, briefly, considering smashing a guy with a rock." I'm glad they didn't bring the rock into it. As an example of darkness, it's been overused. The examples they did choose knocked me out of the blue, because they are unusual but also far more meaningful.

It was like Ultimate Foe all over again, and when the book was all done I actually paced the university for goodness knows how long, then phoned a friend, just to get it all out of my head.

Yet while the reveal is brilliant, the resolution is pants. The same "this universe isn't big enough for the both of us" approach which never worked with the Master either. It's a shame that a novel this inventive couldn't come up with something more novel than a duel, the death is necessary but contrived, and the dialogue seems to get worse the higher up the tower they get. I didn't think Timelords were affected by altitude...? I admit to being knocked sideways by the suggestion that the Valeyard's motivation was deeper than vengeance and violence. But it was all, ultimately, so predictable. Shame, because it is a book which deserved better. The atmosphere would have been better sustained had the Valeyard got away, the same lingering sense of threat which Trial of a Timelord gaineed by its sneak reveal at the end.

But the twisted incarnations really stuck with me, and it's the chief thing. Not a book to read after dark. Unless you fancy reading it by candle light...

And now let's meet the eight, who are going to regenerate

So I've been angsting, but the fact remains that regeneration is something I'm qualified to talk about, having seen a greater percentage of regenerations than anything else (i.e. Dalek episodes, companion entry/departure episodes, episodes with "Time" in the title...).

So overanalysing what's going to be goin' down next year, what are the key features of a decent, final turn in the scarf?

It should be a GOOD EPISODE
Obviously - Planet of the Spiders is something of a let down, as regenerations go, because your sadness is overwhelmed by your relief that the damn thing is over. There's naturally a runaway winner in this catagory, but let's just pause to remember just how brilliant it really is, start to finish.



It should be FAIR TO THE NEW GUY

...who we're ALWAYS going to hate on sight, no matter how hard you try. But let's not make the process any worse than it needs to be? The Christmas Invasion does this brilliantly - by keeping Tennant out of the action, by the time he wakes up the situation is so dire you're just glad to see the Doctor - any Doctor! Relief smooths over any qualms one might have had.

It should be ALL ABOUT DEATH

Or should that be all about change? Logopolis-Castrovalva, a pair of episodes which can't be praised highly enough, never let you forget what they're doing - saying goodbye to the old Doctor, with the presence of the Watcher throughout, and welcoming the new. This process spans all eight episodes. Compare, if you like, Planet of the Spiders and Robot - which clearly want to get that actor-swapping process over as quickly as possible, to better get onto something with tentacles.

In a slightly more downbeat approach, Caves teases us throughout - "shooting" him in the first cliffhanger, and then proceeding to put him in virtually constant pain and/or danger for the next three parts - the underlying irony being that it doesn't matter how many times he dodges death, it's all heading that way anyway.

It should be THEMATICALLY SATISFYING

No just popping it in at the end, like an afterthought. It should be part of a culmination of everything that has come before. In that sense, the regeneration is a rebirth. Parting of the Ways is perfect for this reason - in rejecting the destruction of Earth, the events of the Time War have come full circle, and the angry "stupid apes" Doctor we are introduced to has found a sort of peace with his actions. You even feel you deserve that kiss.


Planet of the Spiders is the chief criminal of this approach - it's a shame the ultimate "face your fears" moral wasn't looped into earlier episodes. In returning the Master, Logopolis does have a stab at this - one last hurrah with a major villain, yet one who is utterly changed from the charming gent of the late 60s. It's a different world the Doctor is moving into. Caves too faces the thematic hurdle beautifully - after Earthshock, this is a Doc who absolutely positively cannot let Peri get hurt. You could also say it's the ultimate expression of the nastier the locale, the worse the Fifth Doctor fares - his major sucesses always seem to have a green tree within 100 metres, while the major botch-ups all occur on grim spacestations. I've always assumed, for lack of a better solution, that the backfiring Megabite Modem in the Fantasy Factory addled the Sixth Doctor's insides. This makes the Valeyard responsible, and I'm not sure there's anything more thematically apt than that. Seven too, as discussed below, gets a suitable passing.


It should STRIKE A BALANCE

I couldn't find a better way to put this: this is upsetting stuff. Typically, the production team either seem to attempt to make things as comforting as possible, or seemingly attempt to see just how traumatised they can leave their audience. One approach isn't necessarily more valid than another - I love Logopolis because, while it's sad and all, it does feel magesterial and bittersweet, and he's smiling. I've always regarded him as already on the way out - hence the presence of the Watcher - so you do feel that yes, the moment is prepared for and everything's going to be OK. Yet I also have admiration for the "...just when you thought things couldn't get any worse" school of regenerations, in all their Puccini-playing, blowhole-exploring, milk-drinking awfulness. Because it's unpleasant, and because it's ironic, and in the context of a kids TV show, making death a nasty painful process is a very brave thing to do.


Yet speaking as someone who actually has to go out and make a cup of tea during the TV Movie, however, it's possible that that one goes too far. My critical juices adore the irony of the Cosmic Chessmaster being cut down out of the blue and completely by accident, then dying through a non-heroic medical botch up. It's cruel, it's post-modern - it's too hard to watch.


To my mind, Planet of the Spiders gets it just right, because you have the comfort factor of his address to Sarah Jane, not to mention the Brigadier's aside, yet it's coupled with the sheer unpleasantness of radiation as a way to go (not helped by Paul Cornell's retconning of an extra eight years in the TARDIS home) and the crushing sadness of an unfinished "where there's life there's...". Not too cosy, but not too upsetting either.


It should JUST FEEL RIGHT


A culmination, then - not too sweet, not too sour, suited to the Doctor and his past adventures, yet leaving room for the new one to slot in alongside.




So what does this leave for 10?


It's going to be BIG and it's going to be CHEESY and the strings are going to make it THE SADDEST THING IN THE WORLD. Even though I can critically say that the best deaths are ironic and nasty, and that maybe it would be nice to do a "small" regeneration story - I'm not sure that a huge RTD-fest isn't genuinely what I want. In other words, I may actually have a breakdown if they go for the full Androzani, and take comfort from the fact it's almost 99% certain they won't.


I'd look to Logopolis for my template - with the whole story being set up with foreshadowing throughout, and that great heavy sense of loss and passing. And while it's very sad and very moving, it isn't too too traumatic, especially compared to other regenerations I could mention. He goes, saving pretty much everything in the process.


And if we're doing Tom Baker parallels, losing our immensely popular Doctor to this suspiciously young pretender, then why not bring the Master back just once more? He really is DT's ultimate villain, especially considering we really can't do Daleks yet again. And bringing him back would give the whole thing some serious thematic punch. We're almost certainly going to have one of those flashback montages, although it's seriously doubtful whether I'll be able to see the screen for Kleenex by that point. I'm quite upset by the idea he's going to be all on his own, but that doesn't mean I think bringing an old companion back is a good idea. Not in the slightest. Especially not Rose. Jack might work, now he's turning into the new series Brigadier.



God. All that came out pretty sane and lucid. Maybe I'll be able to cope after all :)

What can we expect from Moffat-Who?

"Life is short and you are hot"
The greatest asset Steve Moffat will bring to the role of Head Honcho is his skill for character; in particular, establishing very likeable characters in a short period of time. Quite a talent for a show where half the extras exist as cannon fodder. Top prize goes to Blink - Kathy "you told him you were 18!" Nightingale, everyone’s inner geek Larry, and especially Billy Shipton. He only has a few lines to cement his identity, yet minutes later people across the country are pretending they've just got something in their eye. He can write leads just as well - the charming Sally Sparrow, supporting Blink so well you barely miss the Doctor; Madame de Pompadour, getting away with kissing, "dancing" and the Doctor being in love(?) with her, all those things Grace Holloway caused heart attacks with back in 1996. The Empty Child introduced us to a Captain Jack who genuinely hasn't been so interesting since leaving Moffat's hands. Silence in the Library has introduced six characters all with the life expectancy of a Spinal Tap drummer, yet he dredges sympathy for sacrificial lamb Miss Evangelista seemingly from nowhere, and gives Proper Dave and Other Dave real character just through their names.

“I let you keep Mickey!"
This goes for the regulars too. Lovely, lovely sparkly Doctor-companion dialogue. The good naturedly antagonistic Doc-Rose-Jack love triangle in Doctor Dances. The other good naturedly antagonistic Doc-Rose-Mickey love triangle in Girl in the Fireplace. It didn't work so well for Blink, where Martha vanished in the mix, but I've always thought she was an ineffectual and dull character except when placed center stage (she's brill in Human Nature and Last of the Timelords, but most authors gave her nothing of substance to do in series 3). It seems its impossible to go wrong with Donna, especially watching her react to the future of face-donation and neural communicators. Don't make me quote it all, I'm sure you have your favourite bit...

"Are you my mummy?"
Expect more catchy phrases in series 5, as every episode so far has been anchored in a key line or command. "Don't blink, blink at you're dead", more recently "stay out of the shadows". Silence in the Library also had the nerve to give us creepy repeated phrases "Hey, who turned out the lights?" and "Donna Noble has left the library. Donna Noble has been saved" at the same time. He's even started with his own running jokes in advance - bananas and dancing (see below for more of that).

“One day, just one day, maybe, I'm going to meet somebody who gets the whole "don't wander off" thing.”
Nothing beats having someone who loves and understands the show at the head. Just as RTD's claim that the new series of Doctor Who would feature “the same man who fought the Drahvins, The Macra, The Axons, The Wirrn, the Terileptils, the Borad, the Bannermen and the Master in San Francisco on New Year's Eve 1999," so Mr M has constantly proved he knows what he's dealing with. Silence's "spoilers", "Why does nobody ever just go to the police!" and Billy pointing out the TARDIS windows are the wrong size. I don't just mean in terms of humour - sneaking in all those cryptic hints about the Doctor's real name just because it feels right, giving him the "lonely angel" tag, and "everybody lives!" show a good understanding of our favourite Timelord

“It was raining when we met”
Expect a smart mix of comedy, heart and...ah hell, no interesting analysis here - I just wanted an excuse to use my favourite quote. It’s still a good point though - he doesn’t sacrifice tragedy for laughs, or vice versa - even the affecting Girl in the Fireplace had its share of smart wit.

“Why is it pointing at the light?”
Name me some great scenes from the new series. Chances are, you're thinking of the moment the tape runs out on the Empty Child, maybe the opening of Blink with the writing, the whole sequence with the DVD easter egg or the lights beginning to flicker in the basement…if there’s something the man can do really well, it’s set pieces - little chunks of brilliance scattered about. Expect more great solid and memorable sequences from series 5.

"It's not the books, is it? I mean, books can't be alive, can they?"
A universal theme in his episodes so far has been terror in the everyday. Doctor Who likes to do this one a lot, from Atmos to Autons, but the emphasis here is TERROR in the everyday. The earpieces were just a way to get the Cybermen into the story, Atmos a massive Macguffin, and Magpie's TVs weren't scary. Ticking clocks, statues, the dark, small children - all obvious targets, but very well exploited. Expect more in the same vein. There's a flipside to this praise. Steven Moffat's episodes have all focused on very contained concepts, the sort of "monsters under the bed" horror which incidentally worked so well in Torchwood the few times they tried it instead of bolting an unlikely invasion into 45 minutes. Sorry, rant over. Doctor Who, being at its heart a kids show about an alien who considers celery the height of fashion, can get away with putting the Earth into dyre peril. Having not yet seen him try, it'll be interesting to see how he can handle the biggies, the end-of-series climactic double bills, and how they turn out. Moffat has so far had the luxury of interesting episodes - he can be experimental, because ultimately he’s never been in a position where he has to be generic. The same can be said for other fan-fave Paul Cornell - lets see them make challenging television when landed with an “invasion Earth” plot, eh? (and as a flipside to that, wasn’t it fun to watch the Davies-detractors shut up and gulp after Midnight?) He’ll certainly bring his own touch to the Big Episodes - the question is, will he merely kink the clichés or go for something completely unusual? Already Silence in the Library has given us the paradoxical casting of the Doctor as the villain (bursting through the doors before the credits, traditional monster role; not to mention sonicing the security camera), the mock reveal of the books as the bad guys and a door the Doctor can't sonic - not deadlocked, just wood. Another question is whether he'll be able to handle an arc. Daft question in my book, when you count the number of concepts he can bung into a single episode and still remain effective. But its not all sunshine and roses. Despite my enthusiasm for a change - I always loved RTD, but if he feels its his time to go then I’m excited to see what new blood will give to the show - I refuse to ignore the drawbacks. The following are all based on actual events and genuine quotes.

"Half this street thinks your missus must be messing about with Mr. Avistock - the butcher. But she's not, is she...?"
Behind the Sofa.org recently published a pre-reboot interview with some new series writers, before there was even a new series for them to write for (reread it here) One of the most disturbing quotes was our new Producer claiming it was, first and foremost, "a children’s programme. No ifs. No buts. Definitely!”. In fact the way he put it was "Now, a few of you might not like what I’m going to say next. Grip the arms of your chair, grind your teeth and wrap your head around this", and he's absolutely right. We like to have it both ways - we watch this stuff aimed at the 9-13s market, but we praise it when it gets challenging and dark. Which is why the farting Aliens of London gets consistantly derided, while the edgy, grim "real sci-fi" Genesis of the Daleks is held aloft as our highest beacon. Despite the quote, I don’t quite believe him - at least not from available evidence. Mr M. has written some of the most defiantly child unfriendly pieces so far. Most obviously, the terror factor - Blink scored "Off the Scale" on Fear Factor, and Empty Child/Doctor Dances came with a warning for parents to watch it in the daytime. A warning I, as a oh-so-brave 15 year old ignored, and then found I couldn't sleep after watching the last ten minutes from behind a cushion. But children do secretly like being scared (Empty Child's in my new series top 20), and there has never been anything I felt went too far. Maybe Doctor Constantine's transformation was on the line.

No, I mean the sex 'n' violence, and adult themes. Miss Evangelista's fading struggle is virtually a one off death scene in a kids show. Fine, she's already dead - that's the excuse. But imagine the same scene, only she wasn't killed in "less than seconds"; instead, she's got a wound in a major artery or a bullet somewhere unpleasant. You could leave the scene untouched, and the emotional impact would be as powerful. Only you couldn't show it on kids TV any more. How many other characters, in the whole history of the show, get three minutes of panicked last words before passing on? Daleks and Cybermen hit you with a nice, clean fall over blast; so do new series Sontarans. What about the other themes? The Empty Child/Doctor Dances combo packs the most gay agenda than any other episode yet, not to mention seduction, drunken threesomes, love triangles, the eponymous "dancing". Girl in the Fireplace gets the Doctor closer to a proper canonical shag than ever before, packed full of hints for people who remembered what "dancing" was all about last time around, along with being about loss, death and misery. Expect him to lighten up now he's responsible for everything...maybe? After all, it can't be this creepy all the time...can it?

"Us kids want Narnia, not the wardrobe!"
I remembered this pithy quote of his for two reasons. The first is that it is well phrased and witty. The second is that it is wrong. The fundamental difference is that a wardrobe really is just a wooden box - the TARDIS has a swimming pool in Evolution, a garden in Genocide, lovvely big leafy cloisters in the TV movie and Logopolis, endless corridors in Castrovalva, companion bedrooms in the Visitation. The most the new series has given us has been the console room and an oversized wardrobe. With the changeover, looks like we're even further away from seeing that massive, ancient, chaotic library which we all know must be in there somewhere. Its an especially mean comment from one of the few people writing for the new show who have actually used time travel as a plot device, in both Girl in the Fireplace and Blink. The TARDIS is at its worst as a walking plot randomiser. Most episodes follow the pattern of land-leave-lose, have adventure and then conveniently find it in time for the "next week on". But maybe all is not lost - if I recall correctly, the powers that be vetoed his idea of his keeping Arthur the horse in the TARDIS stables. So I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

"Children are no respecters of reputation and are bored by tradition, so keeping faith with the past they never knew means nothing. They want, and are entitled to, their own hero and their own show.”
Fair enough. But that doesn't mean he's going to cut gratuitous referencing out of the series? Does it...? Despite the fact the word Gallifrey didn't get in until the end of series 2, old-series referencing has steadily been on the increase. Now naturally, the new series lives and dies on its own merits. But it doesn't negate the flush of love we all feel when the Master reminisces about Sea Devils and Axons. I'm a passionate, flag-waving member of that cabal that believes there is no "classic" or "new", and certainly one is not better than the other - it's all one ongoing canon. Letting the Eternals round up the Carrionites, or walk out on the Time War just give me ammunition to prove it's the same chap who was striding about in Enlightenment. Will Steve Moffat ditch old series referencing entirely? I hope not, although it has been absent in his regular episodes so far. On the other hand, he did get to head up Time Crash - and that gave the new series "Nyssa and Tegan, Timelords in silly hats". Nice to see the Doc remembering Arc of Infinity, even if some of us would rather not. We can only live in hope. And speaking of living...

“Everybody lives!”
When this line first came out in Doctor Dances, it was a true airpunching moment. Because the last thing you want to be is an extra in Doctor Who, and after decades of gutpunching misery as they are wiped out in droves, finally a complete and joyful success. Its what came afterwards that worries me. Jenny’s departure from the show annoyed me by trying to have it both ways - a tragic death, but one undermined by her then resurrection. He didn’t write the episode, but he did persuade the author to keep her alive. A few weeks later we had River Song - even more affecting for not involving the lame “step in front of a bullet” trick. But again, we were cheated of real death. The horrific otherworld that we and Donna were meant to fear, that Miss Evangelista stalks in black with dyre warnings, suddenly becomes a glowy-white afterlife. The image of the Doctor realising his future self had come up with a way to save her was priceless - but the way it was done, and the voiceover in particular, undid the pathos of their parting. Even in Blink, the emphasis for both Billy and Kathy was not that they had died, but that they had had good lives. Girl in the Fireplace has proved he can do uncompromising tragedy properly. So please - no more lame almost-deaths. Either kill them or don’t. Most of my favourite episodes, both classic and new, are the downbeat massacres - the ones where things get so dire the Doctor starts shooting things, the ones where he has to abandon whole parallel worlds to destruction or resign himself to losing the entire cast at a rate of one every two minutes. And while we certainly can’t have that all the time, one every now and then never hurts.


In the excitement of the new series most acclaimed writer getting into a position where he gets more than two episodes a series, lets not forget to give thanks where thanks due. He put emotion back at the forefront of the show, when in the past we mostly had to grip subtext (and, as flickfilosopher.com puts it, sometimes we had to imagine the subtext too). For the first time, he put the focus on the emotional cost of such a life for both the Doctor and companions, and whether the attempt to broach an openly romantic plot and giving companions a family was too kitchen sink for you, or the highlight of the show, it remains a brave effort to so something new. It'll be fun to see what influences stay and what goes - both from his own work and the series plan set up so far.