Under the Lake

Good god damn. That was brilliant. That was everything Doctor Who should be.

45 minutes of sustained tension and mystery. Problem solving. I love problem solving! But especially for this show, especially in a show about a travelling alien supergenius - and more broadly, a show about inquiry, endeavor and discovery.

When I saw the trailer for this, I rolled my eyes because it was clearly the series clunker. A crew picked off one by one by poorly animated villains. On a seabase! How very lazy. This episode excels because "who dies next" is only half of the tension. Most of the suspense came from wanting to know *what* they were. And the brilliant thing about that, is that we're following the Doctor's emotional journey - because nothing gets this Doc excited like knowledge.


I know who he is now. He's the discovery Doc. This episode tied together a lot of things for me, and I know what to look for going forward. The Doctor has always been the same twelve or so qualities mixed in different combinations, and this is his thirst for knowledge come right to the fore. He really means it, about wanting to know what death is - and that is his top priority.

He's otherworldly. He's tuned into the TARDIS when she's unhappy, and more clearly alien - more clearly struggling with passing as a human among humans. "He was our friend", the translator interrupts the Doctor's delight at investigating the ghosts. Clara's cue cards are an obvious plot device, perhaps, but it fits in with the "no hugs!". I loved the scene where the Doctor has identified that Clara maybe is thrill-seeking in an unsafe way, and struggles to put it into words. Beyond that, his bitchy comments are, often as not, his attempt to parse bizzare human foibles - like having a peanut allergy, or communicating via semaphore. (The semaphore gag - that the Doctor has forgotten BSL in favour of semaphore - was this episode's one crushing dud note. A++ for Deaf representation, having a signing character on the show! It's less cool to turn that into a gag about weird communication methods, and were I a Deaf viewer, I would have felt hurt that the Doctor did not know how to communicate with me.)

Despite his rather hamfisted understanding of human nature, manipulation he does know. He knows exactly how to get to his fan O'Donnell and ask her to switch off the lights, by praising her skills. Clara knows that he's guiltripping the crew into staying, but lets it go with a smile. Smiling less, of coure, when the Doctor is separated from them and leaves in the TARDIS. She's thinking exactly what I was thinking last week, which is - I don't trust this Doctor to save me. But all the same - when he talks to the crew about "choosing an anonymous and selfish life", that's real enough.



Clara and the Doc seem sweeter this week. I liked Clara a lot, but in previous episodes I've loved her because she was being the hero and main character in a way the Doctor wasn't. No problem with that this week - he had agency, ideas, drove the plot. Ahhhhhh the problem solving. Little touches like - they kill the money-grabbing moron (rich morons never live long in Who - a perennial baddie), but not the translator or the Doctor; they can't get into the Faraday cage or come out at night; they can interact with objects, but they do struggle to, say, lift the axe so they're not entirely corporeal either; they whisper, but what?

 I immediately liked the crew, which is always a good start - and was already upset when the captain died in the pre-title sequence (partly, I confess, because it left only pretty young things on the crew - what about some representation for the older gent, eh?). Quick sketches of people, people who act like a real crew. All of them, all of them managed to create a real human being from nothing, from a line here or there. I've already mentioned the new captain, but I liked her such a lot. A brilliant woman, accompanied by her translator, obviously reminded me of Joey Lucas in the West Wing, and she was no less excellent. *Her* first priority is saving her crew. The scene where her translator is trapped and in danger was terrifying, not because he was cute but because of her reactions in the control hub - facing so much more than the loss of a friend, but more than that, the loss of agency and control that might follow.

OK, so it lost it in the last ten minutes for me. I didn't quite buy the "dark sword forsaken temple" puzzle, nor the idea that the words somehow memetically rewrite your brain, nor the sudden "There's a flood! On the seabase! With the nuclear reactor!" - BUT, this was somewhat redeemed because it was the cliffhanger, merely setting up for part 2. I didn't know there was a part 2!

BRING ON PART 2.

Also.

Toby Whithouse for showrunner please.

Whithouse has written a number of stunning episodes. School Reunion handled the return of Sarah Jane with heartbreaking delicacy, and was a highlight of S2. The God Complex was a standout, scary, moving thing: there will never be another episode like it. A Town Called Mercy too was the best of its series. He has show-run Being Human, and I think he would be an excellent candidate to take on the top job when Moff leaves.

Other thoughts

• I don't understand the TARDIS logic. If they can't use it to pop over and grab Clara, because they're already involved in events etc, then why are they able to go back in time to when it all began? Surely that's also interference? 
• I love the submarine controler.
• Unusual level of violence for Who! You get to see the floating body, and the methods of murder are all very real - a gun, a knife, an axe and a spanner. We noted that due to Strictly, the last 15 mins of this show was actually post-Watershed.
• Has there been a chat about the women problem at HQ? It's been three episodes so far, and I've yet to feel uncomfortable. Also, there are two women writing and two women directing this season.
• The Portreve, who watched the episode with me, has already worked out why the ghosts didn't kill the translator. Have you? I didn't ^_^

Number of people the Doctor has rescued: 0

The Magician's Apprentice

What a promising mess.

The new series has constantly, constantly suffered from this sort of flabby, indulgent plot. Moff and RTD both. It's contrived, and charcters behave bizzarely just to navigate the plot to the BIG EMOTIONAL MOMENTS which the writer wants to steer to. I'll be happy if there was never a prophecy about the Doctor's death never again. No more "his time has come", no more cryptic "Davros remembers". For what it's worth, I don't buy a Doctor who would go gentle into that good night. Coward - every time.

The Doctor walks into a trap, and is surprised when it's traumatic? He's smarter than that - he ought to have a plan. My favourite Doc-Villain confrontation of all time is in Timelash, that well-known stinker of an episode. In that episode, Six also willingly walks in to appeal to a villain's better nature. But by god he has a plan in case that doesn't work. Believe the best, and plan for the worst - that seems like the only logical course of action for a 900 year old genius to take. Now I liked self-hate as a Nine and Ten thing, but I don't think willingly walking to his death for no good reason bar angst is an innately Doctorish quality. It's not just out of character, though - it's unsatisfying for the audience. So far in this series, our hero has had no agency. I'd really rather watch the Missy-And-Clara show.

Clara continues to be the best damn thing in this show. I loved her last series, and continue to do so. She is the hero I want. I continue to struggle with Capaldi's performance - he's too prickly, too cold. But Clara is smart, compassionate, enthusiastic, bursting with life and generally proactive. I feel safe with her on screen, in a way I don't about the Doctor - and that is a serious flaw.

Last night I caught some Sylvester McCoy, and it just hit home what is missing. Doctor Seven is arguably the most terrifying and chilly of the incarnations. Doctor Seven saw everything on an infinite scale, and was constantly crushing butterflies to prevent them flapping their wings and causing hurricaines down the line. Time's Champion - the Oncoming Storm - the Destroyer of Worlds - the Cosmic Chessmaster. He's small and unassuming, and you underestimate him at your peril because there's a chance he's already defeated you before you start your war. He's also manipulating his companion, Ace, constantly pulling strings behind her back for her own good. Yet Seven and Ace's relationship is one of the warmest, one of the sweetest in the whole series. He loves jazz; he plays the spoons; he whistles like a bird. I feel safe with Doc Seven - even though he does some lousy things, you do like him and you can see why Ace flies with him. Not so Twelve - I wouldn't trust him not to ditch me on a planet on a whim, without looking through all the other options first.

With that in mind, I loved his introduction this series. You have no idea how important seeing this Doctor rescue someone is to me - I have yet to see enough hero. "You have a thousand to one chance of living. So concetrate on the one." is a template for how this Doc ought to be written going forward. He can be pessimistic and blunt, but that must be tempered by hope and heroism somewhere down the line.

Of course - he didn't save the kid. But we live in hope.

Ohhh, and Missy. When UNIT figured out that the schtick with the planes was someone looking for attention - I should have guessed. This episode was such a gift to Master fans. I like her. I think she is potentially the greatest Master ever - or at least, certianly a worthy successor, a clear part of what came before. She's goofy, dangerous, cold, anarchic, and she manages to capture
the kiss-you-or-kill-you relationship with the Doc with perfect ambiguity. When they are plonked on the floor in the Dalek cell, Missy doesn't sit like a woman - or even an adult. And she doesn't move or sit like she knows she's wearing a dress (if you've ever worn a full skirt and a corset, you know it changes your entire posture and bearing - Missy might as well be wearing a hologram). The way she moves is indefinably alien, uncanny valley in a bustle and boots. Like the best Doctors and Masters both, you forget at your peril that they are not human.

I've always liked the idea of the Master travelling with a companion, and Clara is a perfect foil. That scene in the square as the Master takes tea makes canon the things which were long subtextual.

Of course the Doctor let the Master survive and didn't tell anyone; and "of course" the Doctor's will was delivered to her too. "Since always" is probably the best encapsulation of their friendship that could be (childish and insistant, in defiance of all the facts). I have always privately believed that Timelord sexuality is considerably more weird and cerebral than ours, so the Master's comment "don't be disgusting, we're Timelords, not animals" makes perfect sense. Timelords, in the books at least, are birthed in looms - and when you see them, they are cold and staid. You can tell that indulging in emotions and the senses is unbecoming. The Doctor, in contrast, is so passionate - he loves good food, and wine, and humans with all their funny emotions, and probably sex too. One imagines the Timelords are embarassed by how far he's gone native - getting involved when he should merely watch and record, and drinking fine red wines and buying a car and all manner of unmentionable indulgences. With all that already in my mind - I like an onscreen clarification that the Master-Doctor's relationship is canonically important, but also far huger and weirder than Clara can really wrap her head around.

OK, let's talk about the Daleks and Davros now.

Who else guessed that was Skaro? A radioactive wasteland with bows and arrows, bombs and weird mutated things. The hand mines are one of the first Moff gimmick monsters I've loved in ages - very scary, but kinda camp and pun-full at the same time. How brilliantly 80s Who.

Stories about the Doctor wiping out the Daleks - especially ones where he wipes them out before they are created - is an old, familiar tale. Some might say, too iconic to touch again. But you could also say that it is an important part of the Dalek trope, and it's as impossible to do Daleks without that conversation as it is to do it without "exterminate". Moff acknowledges this hallowed ground by incorporating the old Doctor quotes - especially Four in Genesis of the Daleks, which is the touchstone for this plot. I liked Davros' reintroduction - tired and old, almost Vaderlike in his coccoon.

I'm not sure how far the Doctor's choice not to save baby Davros made sense - not least because maybe the name "Davros" is like Smith, Khan or Singh on Skaro. Did he think that Davros would die there...? Seeing as, presumably, the Daleks were always going to be created anyway - wouldn't it be better to do the right thing and save him? Maybe I have such a feeble sense of this doctor's personality because his leading trait is vacillation - neither saving nor killing a child, but opting out of responsibility or interest.

This was a deeply continuity-based episode, and I wonder how that was recieved by the Not-We. Clearly, Davros backstory + Skaro + revisiting Genesis + the relationship counselling with the Master is ortolans and caviar to the We, but for a casual fan those things lack emotional depth and significance. If you haven't seen Genesis of the Daleks, and don't already know who Davros is, and didn't squeal over the old-style Daleks - there's not much for you here. Nevertheless, I loved the ambition - hopping from planet to planet and time to time to knot one huge plot together. Brave and brilliant.

I am looking forward to seeing where this goes, but my expectations are quite low - I expect part 2 will suffer from the same fluffy, angst-driven plotting as part 1 was.

A lot will depend on the Doctor - especially now Missy and Clara are out of action. What I need to see is a sense of person, of an inner man - I still can't do you a thumbnail sketch of either of Moff's Doctors, they seem too diffuse, too much a collection of ideas that never quite come together to form a complete personality. I would also like to see, as I said, some heroism. Doctors have always been dangerous, petulant, abrasive and able to make tough choices. But that's only half of it. Give me the other half.


Great lines
"I spent yesterday in a bow tie. I spent the day before in a long scarf."
"How scared must you be to seal your own kind in tanks"

"Jane Austen - phenomenal kisser"

"tread softly"

Miscellany

• Massive unbelieveable plothole - the moment Clara says "Quick, kids! Turn on your phones!". What sort of secondary school allows students mobile phones?!
• Did you see them include a Sixth Doctor quote? I say this because when they do "old-Doctor-montages", they inevitably cut the Sixth Doctor out.
• Kate! 
• Anyone else spot they are playing Nick Cave in the cantina in the future?
• I loved the idea of a character who is, in fact, a Colony. That's a pleasing bit of future-writing. 
• When i wrote my master spinoff, he liked the song Micky.
• The Master and Clara stepping out into the stars is a 100% Fiona Cummings moment, and no one will tell me otherwise. 
• I love the title. Does anyone know why they chose it? I love it because I've no idea what it means, and that reminds me of the enigmatic Fifth Doctor episode titles. Enlightenment. Four to Doomsday (four what?!). Castrovalva. 

Timanov's Ongoing Count Of Times The Master Mentions Burning: 2
Steve Moffat Tropewatch: important children: 1
Number of people the Doctor has rescued: 0

Kill The Moon

Awesome episode.

HELL YEAH Courtney makes a great companion, not least because she starts the episode by telling him where he can get off for being a dickbag. I honeslty think this alone makes her a brilliant companion for Twelve. He needs Courtney (or Donna, or Martha) - someone who will call him on his bollocks. And I love that through seeing Courtney do this, Clara gets the gumption to do the same at the end: "Respected isn't how I feel!". Clara, meet Tegan, Tegan, Clara. As it should be.

Scenes like this make me feel better about the earlier episodes. There's a big difference between a character being a rotter as part of an arc, and accidentally, where the author is unaware of their character's flaws. Seeing that we're talking about the former makes all the difference. 

Everything about this episode is cool. The spiders are scary, and used sparingly enough that they remain so. They are a red herring threat to keep us entertained, until the story segues effortlessly into its true form. So the feminine Moon is this big, floating, abortion metaphor in space ("Your moon, your choice" says the Doctor, before leaving a room of women to decide). I love that. That's what sci-fi should be - exploring real world issues through a lens of unreality. And what a charming way to pass the Bechdel test too.

Courtney is brilliant, asking all the sensible questions like "did you bring guns". Being in space with Courtney illustrates Clara's double life far more poignantly than the previous episode, as she struggles to be a companion, and a teacher at the same time.

The Doctor has some beautiful lines in this one - the one about the little blinks especially. "Amniotic fluid - I have to go down there!" is brilliant Doctorism, and I love his barely contained glee as he pronounces "the moon is hatching", while the rest of the cast bring their game so the moment can be as serious as it is absurd. 

Fun trivia! I saw in the credits this was filmed at Timanfaya national pakrk. That's in Lanzarotte, last seen in Planet of Fire.

Doctor Who at its very finest. 9/10

(What a title. Kill the Moon.)

The Caretaker

"MOHAMMED PUT THAT DOWN"

I love that Doctor Who is reaching out to every teacher who shouted "Mohammed, put that down!" across a playground this week ^_^ That was the best bit. 


Besides that, though - oh I don't know :/ The whole theme of this one annoyed me. I've had my loved ones have pissing contests like that over me, and I don't like seeing that plot resolved as an expression of how loved Clara is. It's horrible. I'd rather like to see it resolved with someone pointing out how unacceptable and controlling the Doc and Danny are both being in this episode. The Doctor not understanding how humans work can be a funny trope when it's something little like jokes about Clara washing, or thinking that he and Clara are the same age. But when it's about relationship dynamics, it steps into actively upsetting territory. It's not funny when the Doctor demands Clara explain why she is dating Danny because that's not a cute, alien misunderstanding - that's creepass behavior from someone who explicitly said he wasn't her boyfriend. I've had people demand I justify why I am dating the person I am dating more than once in the past, and accepting the premise of the question was a m i s t a k e because those people never say "oh, I see - awesome :D" no matter what you tell them.

This made it rather hard for me to enjoy the episode as an episode - it brought up far too much personal upset. Who has done this plot before, with Micky-Rose-Doctor, and Sarah-Rose-Doctor, and to a lesser extent Amy-Rory-Doctor, and I'm bored of it. Mostly because of the quasi-controlling relationship dynamics which come up, but which are never properly explored. When Harry Met Sally is 30 years old. You would have thought that nowadays, we understood that men and women can be "just friends" (As a bisexual, this reasoning always strikes me as particularly obtuse - as clearly it would imply I could never have a friend ever again)

I loved when Donna met Martha, and instead of scrapping, they had a good ole chatter - it was lovely. Now, that wouldn't exactly match with Twelve's abrasive style. But his behavior is totally out of line in this episode, in every way - even the idea that Danny has to match his standards of "good enough" for her to be able to date him is utterly out of line. I don't enjoy watching that.

The beginning montage with Clara dashing from space adventure to date is gorgeous - lovely editing, lovely character development. Because also, it's focused around *Clara*. It's about the difficulty *she* is having leading a busy, double life. The pissing contest is about everything but her. It's about how two men, both of whom regard her as partially theirs, feel about her having friendships with other men. No one in this episode asks Clara how she feels, or demonstrates some compassion for her wanting to have a boyfriend as well as travelling in time. I feel like it's pretty obvious why super cutie boyfriend + ability to explore all existence and save the world would both be things which a person would want to do, but there's no leeway from either character.

I am rather bored of the Doctor being unheroic now. I like a good anti-hero as much as the next person, but the key to a good anti-hero is having redeeming features. I can't see any. He won't demonstrate empathy for anyone around him, and he does it in a very explicit way which is pretty offputting. I suppose this is how other people feel about Doctor Six. But for me, Six is redeemed in his utter delight in things, and his driving passion for justice, and the sincerity of his anger when injustice is done. With Twelve, I can't feel a passion for anything. I am only picking up on his "go away humans" vibe, and reacting accordingly - I want to go away, and I'd rather like Clara to too and find someone who values her and is nice sometimes instead. Being mean to his companions, and letting people die, and what are this person's heroic qualities again? I don't even know where his drive to save the planet comes from. Completeness, perhaps. Neatness.

(The only way they can redeem this for me is if this is revealed to be a canonical decision tying Doctor Twelve's development into the Valeyard. They won't do that, so I'm not interested in rewriting the series every episode to suit my requirements - I'd actually rather like a hero I can admire and feel some empathy for. The role of a companion is to be a placeholder for the audience. I'm looking at Clara and thinking r u n girl, so there's clearly a problem with his characterisation.)

Part of the problem is, I really like Danny. I think being upset about being lied to is reasonable. He comes across as a genuinely nice guy. The actor conveys his mistrust of the Doctor's officer-like qualities and his aristocratic status in a way which seems genuine, which seems like it comes from within, rather than a blind prejudice from a guy whose best buddy was a Brigadier for over 300 years. It reveals character, and is a reasonable complaint. His scene with Clara on the sofa at the end is genuinely very beautiful. Here, he does show he understands why Clara stays with the Doc, and that seems so real.


Trying to ignore the central theme of the episode, there were lots of lovely moments. I have warmed to Clara so much, especially when she thinks of the safety of her pupils first when the Doc starts talking about aliens at the school. I thought it was a cute touch for the Doc to think she likes the geeky teacher with the bowtie, and for the Pink Floyd. I think Courtney is a great character. It'd be so easy to do inner-city-London-pupil in a stereotypical fashion, but this episode seems like a really warm, knowing characterisation rather than something cruel or crude. She's adorable, and I love her and the Doctor bonding over being a disruptive influence. The moment when she pointed out the sign said "Keep Out Humans" cracked me up. COURTNEY FOR FULL TIME COMPANION. Absolutely I would watch that series. Oh, and I loved the moment Clara's annoyance at being flicked on the nose turned into delight at the Doctor's invisibility.

Bad moments? Apart from the entire theme of the episode, I think correcting a caretaker who knows about English Literature by saying "you are a caretaker this is not what you do" is ill advised - I know what the joke was meant to be, about the Doctor not understanding what a caretaker is, but it sounded to me like "go back to washing windows, pleb". And while it was a great like for Clara to point out she is the Doctor's conscience, and he'd need to get his own if she left...why is she saying things like that and not hearing alarm bells?


6/10 bored of this plot. Would have been 5/10, but for Courtney and the scene on the sofa.

Time Heist

Also 5. Don't Think

This episode was a real mixed bag for me.

Doctor Who has always operated by genre-snatching. The TARDIS is a plot engine enabling them to do anything - and so they do. The last time they did the heist caper was the Ribos Operation, which is incidentally, my favourite Fourth Doctor episode. Don't think I didn't spot those Inception references! (the Architect + Clara's costume referencing Ariadne's + "old and full of regret") The writers might have considered, given those cinematic touchpoints, that if you you steal from the best you have to be the best.

Look, the writers simply don't understand the heist genre. I spent two years obsessively watching heist movies. Walking in slo-motion to your heist in suits with a briefcase does not a classic make. Neither does drilling through a ceiling - it just reminds me how not post-modern-reinvention-of-a-genre, and also how not Rififi you are. This episode had no tension. It had brief moments of terror interspesed with a criminally slow pace. Unless you're clever enough to be Reservoir Dogs, or inventive enough to be Inception, the key to a great heist movie is constant nerve shredding terror + being one step ahead of your audience.

The monster was scary in conception, but in practice it amounted to two humanoids standing still and gurning at each other. An alarm bell and announcement "intruders on the 7th floor!" isn't tension, cus you know they're gonna get out of it. The idea of a time traveller robbing a bank with future knowledge was cool, but it just felt like they were constantly inventing problems they already knew how to solve. Where was the tension? What's the point of a heist if it's not tense?

I loved the future worldbuilding a lot. The shapeshifter was cool, as was the crook and their backstories. I can only assume they both come from the future, otherwise why wouldn't the best bank in the universe have guards against shapeshifters and also surveillance for people who loudly talk about how they are robbing a bank while they rob a bank. And I was interested in the episode, if always moderately pissed off at it for not being better. I liked the idea of a time heist; I liked the idea of the Doctor preplanning everything, even though that was an obvious twist.


I really want to see the Doc save someone again. I want him to try. I was really rather upset with him sitting back and letting the shapeshifter lady die. The discovery that it was a teleport was not enough - it was the scene where he just sat there and said nothing could be done. Hrm. Similarly, how about saving the rest of the planet? When the bank is totally destroyed by fire, I couldn't help but think...

This is the second episode of the season with "...and Steve Moffat" in the credits, and I find this interesting. Why? Is this a greater creative control thing, or did a lot of people hand in subpar episodes, or...? In any case, the crook with memory deletion is classic Moff.

All in all, it's a 6/10 from me for promising bits, but overall too many problems.

miscellany
My notes included the following phrases I now do not know what they mean: 

solitude is the obly peace

weird hug face

Review: Listen

1. Don't blink.
2. Stay out of the shadows.
3. Don't breathe.
4. Listen

Steve Moffat has sure given us a lot of survival tips over the series. It's effective, but I can't have been the only one who thought "oh, that again" at the promo. The delight of this episode is was emphatically not that again - it entirely mixed up the formula.

What this episode did so brilliantly was interweaving an emotional plot with a plot plot. This is the kind of episode I had assumed I wouldn't see from Moff again. It's a generalisation, of course, but there's a truth in there, and when I lost characters I could relate to, I lost interest in the series period.

Here the characters are perfect. I love the idea of the doc just going on an investigation mission because there's something he's curious about, and spending a decade looking at fish and meditating on top of the box. He is channeling professory this week (I love this new TARDIS, with the books everywhere and the chalk). Clara-as-teacher comes through a lot here, and this whole episode is so quiet, just observing her feels for a lot of the time, and I really like that. I love their relationship together. The Doctor waiting by the mirror like that's not weird at all, and Clara curled up on the bed after a failed date; both of them so clearly from different worlds.

We've seen timeywimey relationship messes before, but this episode is the first which really felt "right" to me. Clara is given time and space to process who Orson might be, and what that means, and it's beautiful. This is what I wanted and never got from Rory/Amy/River. And Listen doesn't exactly do anything special with it, except let the idea breathe.

Above all, the character elements made the story totally unexpected. This is what I want from Doctor Who. I want plot and character working together so subtley that I can't tell where the plot is going, but feel rewarded when we get there. The Doctor taking on a mysterious beast at end of the universe; a stranded time traveller; then surprise Gallifrey. And yet the emotional threads tie it all back together.

PLUS the direction is gorgeous. From that opening sequence, which escapes gimmickry because the camerawork is so lovely; to the first date sequence, with the subtle camerawork mapping out a whole evening in a few strokes. AND I love that he subverted the position of the "scary episode" in the season to talk about the strength of being afraid.

Such an easy 9/10.

Miscellany
I love the running trope of the TARDIS being parked in odd places (stock cupboard. The kitchen. Clara's bedroom, so she has to squeeze through.)

Not so sure about this meeting sexy-in-the-future characters as kids thing. That makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. I'm not sure, in Clara's position, I'd be all "yeahhhh I want to meet and mother this person I'm going to date in the future".

The only flaw was the music in Clara's final speech to the Doc, where it got ladled on way too heavy.

Telepathic circuits! Psychic paper!

Shouldn't Gallifrey be timelocked tho?

Clara/Danny's relationship is reminding me - in a bad way - of Sam and Lori on West Wing. Sam meets Lori at a party, but finds out the morning after that she is also a sex worker; Lori calls him on the shitty stuff he says to her about her job, but then mystifingly remains friends with him even though every scene of theirs is him making shitty comments. To me, that whole storyline doesn't work because I can't believe her staying in a relationship with someone who disrespects her like that. Similarly, Clara keeps making cutesy-awkward shitty comments about Danny's history as a soldier, and I really can't buy them staying together. They are an adorable couple, they have chemistry. But I feel like in that situation, you get to screw up once and then after that you do better, or you get dumped. Soldiers and sex workers are generally hard-as-nails; I can't buy either Danny or Lori staying in a relationship which requires enduring constant snide comments.

Review: Into the Dalek

A pleasing mess of better things. Into The Dalek has lots of good bits, but we've seen them all done better before.

Capaldi vs Dalek was brilliant. Dalek made that the basis of an entire episode (seriously, how much of a dope do you have to be to go up against Dalek, easily one of the greatest Who episodes of all time?).

The Doctor letting people die while trying to be the better man is always a rewarding plotline, diving into the ethics of intervening (or not) and what pacifism means. But in this episode, it felt rushed, like a shorthand for complexity, compared to the sickening slow pace of Warriors of the Deep to name just one other episode which explores this. WotD's brilliance is in using all 80 horrible minutes to build up to that conclusion. You don't know it's an episode about the moral failure to act until the last five, when the Doctor is standing and looking about at the mounds of corpses, realising he hasn't saved anyone from either side. Into the Dalek tries to tread the same ground, but doesn't have the time - whereas WotD shows a hero making the wrong decisions but trying his damndest, IotD has him pick an appalling time to attempt a moral victory.

Crammed in there is some stuff about the nature of soldiering (the comparison between Blue and Pink) which it never has time to explore, nor to look deeper into why the Doctor objects to them when so much of soldiering overlaps with stuff the Doctor likes (does he seriously believe no planets should have armies? What, then, was his solution for this civilization to get rid of the Daleks? Is it just an anti-authority thing? I would totally watch that episode.)

(presumably-liberal TV writers should not be allowed to write soldier characters; they've clearly never been near an army base all their life. I mean, neither have I, but TV soldiers are always Made Of Feelings and Drama, arguing in combat situations and having a lot of emotions. I don't buy any of these people as professional soldiers.)

Any one of these things would have been a brilliant standalone episode. I imagine Clara's cute teacher friend is the beginning of a new subplot, and I understand they need to introduce that sometime, but this episode desperately needed that extra 10 minutes. I don't even think it had enough worldbuilding time. Why does a civilisation with the technology to shrink humans not also have the technology to analyse/fix a Dalek without going through such a silly process? And what did anyone think was going to happen when they fixed the Dalek - what was the goal?

(no misogyny tho, so that was something)

If you ignore all that, there were plenty of good bits (the only problem with them was they were bits). There was some good dialogue ("She's my carer; she cares so I don't have to". Other Doctors, it would have been a joke; Twelve is more abrasive and far less huggy, and I can easily believe he means it.)

I can already feel there is a Twelth Doctor emerging, even though I can't define it in words. Not not sentimental, but very particular about what he cares about. Six or Seven would have rejoiced in getting a Dalek to blow up its own kind; Five or Ten would have got caught up in the human bloodshed. Twelve's interest here seems far more abstract.  For him, victory would have been a good Dalek and all that represents - he is more interested that than the immediacies of the situation.
He certainly is quite uninvolved in minor things like the deaths of minor characters, stuff which would have tied Ten in knots for the rest of the episode. I'm liking the chilly practicality. 

All in all: a 6/10, with regrets. The good stuff was good, but fell short of all the other brilliant episodes it could have been.

Grab bag of other thoughts:

We loved the bookshelves in the TARDIS console room 


(As far as I can tell, the most common criticism of WotD is the sets are "overlit". This seems an odd complaint in a show which constantly suffered from a small budget; and the WotD seabase seems far more plausible to me as an actual base compared to the shadowy/creepy corridors critics would prefer. Plus, now we live in the future - we can easily imagine the seabase was built by Apple.)

Deep Breath - Review

Overall, I felt really positive about this episode.

(I've not reviewed a Doctor Who episode in over 2 years, so you will have to be gentle with such clunky sentences until I get back into the groove)

But saying that much is still saying quite a lot. I stopped watching for a little bit, because the casual sexism made me feel so cruddy, and the lack of character development was frustrating, and it got to a point where I couldn't ignore it.

All of that was there in this episode. But I feel like Peter Capaldi is going to take the edge off it. I like him a lot, and I look forward in hope to seeing how his character evolves over time.

Twelve

I especially liked the shot where he held up the silver plate, and realised that he too had been changing so many elements of himself that he cannot necessarily be said to be the same man. So too the suggestion that he has taken on this face because it is a lesson he needs to be taught (PC appeared before twice in the Whoniverse, once in Fires of Pompeii as a family the Doctor only saves because his companion reminds him that he can; and once in Torchwood: Children of Earth as a morally compromised civil servant who fucked up very badly before killing himself and his whole family. The Doctor wasn't around in the latter crisis, so there is perhaps a message there instead.) I liked the subtlety with which this was done, and also the reference to Girl in the Fireplace - it doesn't matter if you don't know where the reference is, because the Doctor also can't remember and doesn't much care.

(Colin Baker also appeared in Who before he took on the main role, as imperious Timelord soldier Commander Maxil. Some links:

• Commander Maxil was a defender of Gallifrey. During Trial of a Timelord, Six exposed the corruption at the heart of Gallifrey and
• Commander Maxil shot the Doctor. Six's greatest villain was also a future version of himself.
• Both have the same personality attributes of being a real stick up the arse to anyone who disagreed.) 

The true test of any Doctor is the sitting-down-and-talking-to-the-villain scene. I guess we all knew PC would be capable of it, seeing as his acting opposite an empty fishtank in Children of Earth was so spine-prickling. Talking someone into killing themselves is definitely a Doctorlike attribute - a man who likes to think of himself as a man who doesn't kill. I don't think the robot jumped, I think by and large robots - even ones which use human body parts - don't tend to do things like that.

(I guess it's going to be some time before I use "Twelve" as a name for an individual. Give me time. It'll happen)

Eleven
The phone call from Doctor 11 was a really cool idea. I have some misgivings about it, in that I felt it kinda undermined the new Doctor. Regeneration episodes tend to have the Doctor pass out a lot, so that the danger feels so great that by the time he wakes up, you're just so darn glad to see him that you don't care there's a new face. Reintroducing 11 after that process has happened is therefore cheating, but it's a kinda cool idea.

But what I realised is that I really hate the Eleventh Doctor. That feeling I was getting when I stopped watching the show, and which had been mostly absent during this episode, came hammering back as soon as he picked up the phone. What a horrible, emotionally manipulative thing to do to your companion. I know the Doctor does that stuff all the time, but when I look back Eleven now feels...particularly involved in his companion's hearts and lives to a somewhat unhealthy extent.

The Castelanne, fellow member of Team Traken, suggested that he was an incredibly needy person and ended up doing bad things because he couldn't master his emotions; I rather like that interpretation. I always had trouble figuring out where Eleven came in the Doctor's emotional development, but I would accept that in his desire to regenerate into a more carefree person, he became emotionally irresponsible. I feel like I could rewatch his series interpreting the character as pretty damaged but in a less obvious, more damaging way and enjoy them more for that understanding. "I'm not your boyfriend...I didn't say it was your mistake" is a colossal admission, and I think a large key to 11's character.

And maybe one reason I found the casual sexism less objectionable in this episode is because the Doctor was not involved in it. I don't mind the Doctor having romantic plots in principle, but if "involved in romance" means "involved in the weird sexual/gender politics of the post-RTD series", I'm happy to see it go.

Everything Else

I would watch a whole series of just Jenny and Madam Vastra. I am so glad they've become reoccuring characters.

I've never liked Clara before, and I feel like her relationship together with the Doctor is going to be fun.

The plot was fun tosh. I'm a sucker for all things steampunk. I think the concept of the clockwork robots was cleverer in Girl in The Fireplace, because it was set in a non-traditional steampunk era. Seeing the robots in top hats in the fog is always fun, but translating that meme to 18th century France adds a clever touch.

"Don't breathe" is up there with the other Moffisms ("don't blink" being the most famous; but I know there have been others; but I can't remember them, because the time has passed when this information was on the surface of my brain. "Stay out of the shadows" in Forest of the Dead. Others, I can't remember.) but I liked this one a lot.

"Doctor Who ‘lesbian-lizard’ kiss will not face investigation" is the best headline I've ever seen. There were six complaints; my Companion suggests that he hopes at least one was because it broke class barriers. A lady kissing a maid? Shocking!

Don't talk to me about Missy. I don't want to think about this subplot. Like this show needs another River-Song-template woman person. Could that paradise they were in be the cloisters of a TARDIS, and could she be the Rani? Perhaps, but I already find this character unbearable.

Sexismwatch

So one thing I want to do in these reviews is be not critical, because complaining all the time ruins the show for people - primarily me. That said, I can't switch my brain off and - indeed - I have no desire to. People shouldn't have to give up dignified representations of themselves in exchange for enjoyable telly, great telly should do both.

Preditory lesbian characters? Check! (Listen up Clara, and also straight ladies of the world. Just because you're talking to a lesbian, it doesn't mean she's secretly attracted to you. What a crass addition to the episode). Dodgy relationship politics? Check! (Listen up, Moff! I feel like 80% of the point of being a lesbian is that your partner doesn't casually objectify you by demanding you stand half-naked and be decorative while she works. And while there clearly are creepass lesbians in the world, this felt more like translating a heterosexual power imbalance straight into a gay relationship, in a way which felt utterly inauthentic.)

A longer post following on this topic. For now, though, let's give this a 7/10 for a promising standard episode.

Caves of Androzani

"I'm telling you the truth, I keep telling you the truth, why does no one believe me?!"


246 days. That's the amount of time I've been putting off Caves of Androzani. At first it made sense - I had other 5 episodes to watch. And then I didn't any more. And then I watched Stolen Earth, had a three day breakdown and realised however well meant an action it was to watch it, it was a bout of depression in a box at a time when that's the last thing I need.

Goes without saying that I take my fiction too seriously when a death of someone who never existed, not even a death - a departure of an actor for another one I esteem as highly, when I've always claimed actors don't matter, and its not even the end because I've still got five or six other episodes, countless books and audios anyway; that all that can worry me more than my A-level results. Although having something that really doesn't matter to worry about is something of a comfort - it means you spend less time worrying about something that does.

It goes without saying that I'm very, very traumatised - more or less than usual I'm not sure, but the recovery phone call took 74 minutes instead of the 45 that Stolen Earth occupied. I felt chatty instead of quiet, but apparently I didn't make much sense. I ambled about a bit in the way I always do after serious fictional shellshock. I tried to think of something to do, and quite frankly the only thing I came up with was watching it again - that's the quickest episode turnaround I've managed since Utopia.

Anyway, I'm back in one piece enough to write about it now, and they're right, you know. They're always right about the good ones. For the record, its better than Genesis of the Daleks too. That episode is a classic because of the introduction of Davros, for some fantastic scenes and a great story. But there are still problems which we ignore because the rest is so damn awesome. The padding. The whole Sarah-on-the-rocket subplot. The clam. Not so Caves - the plot is clockwork perfect - a little human story set against a big human background. The Doc is the catalyst for everything that happens, but he's never a part of it. It's a tragedy in slow motion, if you like - we know our heroes are slowly slipping off for the entire episode, and their struggle is occasionally interrupted by almost irrelevant short scenes about the background war, which gets more and more absurd and complex as it goes. It's all heading to a dead stop - but after setting off the chain of events, the Doctor plays no part in the surrounding mess. Brilliant! Two awesome stories at once, almost unconnected. It also holds the peculiar distinction of being the only episode ever where the doctorless bits have retained the same level of interest for me throughout. I always tend to switch off a little - they're important, of course, but once you've heard one meglomaniac tell an underling that this is the final stage in their master plan, you've heard them all. In the name of Moffat, what was the point of those Silurian scenes in Warriors of the Deep? These things are unconvincing unless actors are around to help them out with a little bluff.
Anyway. Thematically this makes sense too. Even after he stopped calling Adric "Jamie" in Castrovalva, working out who he is has been a major problem. Earthshock, Resurrection, Planet of Fire, Warriors of the Deep - he just can't make it work. Too much violence? Not enough? Mercy in the wrong places, or at the wrong time? Lots of lovely angst. Here, it's like giving up - he's come out of Planet of Fire a different fellow. Lots of people have been saying "more determined", but I'd suggest his priorities have changed. He doesn't bother helping the good guys or bad guys, as if he's tried so hard and failed so often he can't go through it again. Instead he focuses on rescuing Peri for the whole thing - one good action, without a single shade of grey. I'm actually tempted to say this is a few months after Planet of Fire - even though giving up his life for a total stranger is an irresistibly Doctorish thing to do, he seems to be a lot more determined and resolved in this one - as if time has passed in between. Makes space for the audios too. And of course, it's an Adric thing too. Yes, it's something any Doctor would do, but it takes on a special significance here - after Adric and Kamelion, he just can't lose another companion.
Perhaps because of his lack of involvement with everyone else, the Doc gets a lot a lot of action in this one. I quite like that. Most episodes when he gets imprisoned, the prison is just a plot impediment - he's out in two shakes and ready to move onto the next scenario. Take a look at episode 3's climactic excape. A whole five minutes - he breaks the thing on the wall, it clunks to the floor - but no one comes in - then he's got to break the cuffs open, and so on. We get the whole process in tense detail. Suddenly, it's James Bond - we've got close ups and cuts, and it feels like we're in the middle of a movie - not some static TV show with lots of standing about in corridors. One of those episodes which would make a fantastic movie, even without the DW tag.

I've heard a lot said about how much better 5 is here than anywhere else. It's the Deadly Assassin factor - the favourite Master episode of people who don't really like the Master that much. In that episode, he's barely the bearded chuckler we all love - and people who claim its his finest hour either hate the character basics, or mean it's the best episode which just happened to involve him. Five is different in this, and I'm not sure why - not script or performance. All his notable traits are there, but it feels more like its been written for another Doctor. Perhaps it's the determination of ignoring everything but Peri, the certainty it gives him in not having to worry about anything else. It certainly feels like he's decided who he is. But its still not exactly the Doctor I fell in love with, which probably explains why its so much more popular than any other episode...it certainly deserves the label of the best episode he's ever happened to be involved in, maybe even the best performance. But something is wrong and I can't quite place it.

You can almost feel him turning into 6 as it goes - the regeneration just crystallises the change. He turns up and investigates in a very 6like manner, and the comment that Jek is arrogant in assuming their intelligence is equal is also pure 6. Can't you see him in this just as easily? In fact, can't you see any Doctor?


But I do like it. In Planet of Fire, even though there isn't a visible sign like the Watcher, I feel he's ready to go. Now I love it when heroes die accidentally, and you can put the Spectrox down to a case of damn bad luck. But time really does run out for the Fifth Doctor here, and Androzani isn't going to let him leave alive. The Doctor makes an occupation of escaping death - here, it's always moments away. Ripped apart by androids? Shot by angry gun runners? Or beaten up by them? Or beaten up by Morgus' heavies? Shot by Chellak's guard? Or by the android? He really does stay on his toes, with the underlying irony that however many times he dodges immediate death, that's where its all heading anyway. The twin abilities to look like it really hurts and to pull off scared are really the best assets PD brought to the role, and he gets to use both aplenty here. Despite this, and despite the surrounding misery of the world, the episode is on the whole uplifting - the focus is on going out a hero, instead of dying by accident. Compare, for example, Logopolis which feels weary and tragic from the start. And I should know - I was expecting to have a miserable time of this, especially because death is the theme the whole way through - but despite the grim surroundings, the tone is thrilling, not depressing. You genuinely want to find out what happens next, leaving no time to dwell at all.


Onto everything else. Peri was awesome in this, and its not a word I apply to companions all that often (Donna excepted). Particularly her scene with Jek - "Do you think I am mad?" "Are you afraid". Man, companions who act?! She and the Doctor are just too cute, and their joint scenes with Sharak Jek are priceless. Kudos to the direction too - its quite a pretty stylistic ballet the characters have got going on there, with how they are placed in relation to each other et al. And I always approve of companionhugging.

I've forgotten the villains - they deserve mention. Or rather, the fact I've forgotten to mention them is a tribute to their performances. Weren't they good? Rather, give half of their lines to a lesser actor and its reduced to pantomime. I mean seriously, have you heard Sharak Jek's dialogue? Basically, its awful. But oh how good is the delivery that you barely notice. Morgus is also good, and again its a role created by the performance not the words. Though the words are good as well. Having the lift engineer shot, reducing a minutes silence to thirty seconds - classic cold villainy.

It was also very, very, very violent. And mean too. Have you ever noticed the all time greats are invariably ones you wouldn't show to children? The scene where Gun Runner 1 threatens his partner with poison, knife and drop simultaneously was particularly intense. And blood! How many times do you see that on our show - if you answered The Deadly Assassin, then you are correct. TV Movie too. Aside from that, you'd think we were made of straw inside. Not only violent, threatening. I'm sure I've noted before how hard it is to make an audience believe the characters are in danger. Even if you aren't looking at the casting news, companions will only die towards the end of series and then rarely, the Doctor won't die at all. Getting worried for such untouchables is surely a waste of time; situations where we feel afraid deserve special congratulations. I felt afraid. I also think that the closer you look at Jek's lines, the faster you'll want to move your children out of the room.

What else? Wonderful direction - actually, any direction passes as impressive for Doctor Who. Wonderful sets - it feels like a real world, and I love the exterior shots. The beautiful final image of Sevateem-android following Jek's final command as the mud crashes through - this is deep stuff.

It's every bit as good as you've been told it is, and more besides.

Warriors of the Deep - here we go again

As soon as I sat down to watch Another Irredeemably Terrible Episode of Doctor Who, had a nasty inkling what might happen. As it happened with King's Demons or Trial of a Timelord.

So lets get the first bit out of the way quickly - yes, the effects were darned dodgy even by my standards; yes, there was about as much running and rescuing as the Visitation; yes, it desperately needed to use the word "Russian" instead of "our human enemies" (though with the translation circuit functioning, arguably the "enemies" could turn out to be the Americans. That'd add another layer of ambiguity...but my point is, it was blatantly more about 1984 than 2084) - and there's only so much you can do with a base under siege: the plot basics are nothing you won't recognise.

But the sets were brilliant, the Myrka could have been worse (best monster in the episode - the Silurians and Sea Devils were the true disappointments here), the supporting cast were a lot of fun and as with all my faves, morally pitch black at times - "there should have been a better way" could be setting the tone for the entire season.

I just want to love this show - let me. It's so easy to criticise, but what's the point? It just means I've spent an hour and a half watching something terrible instead of something great? Always look on the overlit side of life - ignore what was irredeemably bad, let memory work on the things that were almost OK, and cling to the good stuff like a liferaft. How the hell do you approach the classic series without blind faith and optimism? I've still only seen one episode which was painfully bad in every way - that's Fear Her. Not even the Doctor was good in that.

It's all about character. Where else do you get the opportunity to see the Doc beat someone up, and apologise to them at the same time? Lecturing the, how shall we put this, Russian agent about putting the Silurian threat above petty human concerns, then chasing instantly off after Tegan. And most priceless of all, grimly suggesting Tegan politely ask the Myrka to go away while rigging up the light gun; or, a little mocking at the approach which has worked so spectacularly for the previous two seasons - I don't know what Frontios and Awakening are like, but there's a definite theme running in the other three. Caves isn't meant to be much of a picnic either.

Now I can't deny there is some dodgy characterisation in here too - the questionable action of setting the reactor on overload, for example; or the aforementioned fight sequence, which was fun, but not quite Five - but you can give me the last episode, surely? It's another one where everything goes to pot, where he can't talk anyone around to his point of view, and he can't start firing either.

Even the last ten minutes are priceless enough for me - the Doc letting the countdown tick while he looks for a non-lethal solution, getting the gas switched off as quickly as possible, attempting to revive the dead Silurians with oxygen while he defuses the missiles, and companions shooting them while he's out of the way.

Everybody dies! Funtimes! Dead sea devils, dead crew, and a little more dead idealism. It's a tragedy in slow motion - they run across the gas in the first few minutes, and from that moment its inevitable. We all know that it's the most sensible option - even the Doctor - which is what makes this for such an interesting episode. Everyone knows how it has to end, its just how long the Doc can keep thinking of alternatives.

And this is why our show is unfailingly better than Torchwood, who'd have sprung the gas as soon as they'd found it (while sleeping with half the extras), and produced a show half as complex and half as long. Probably would have saved more people in the long run too, but that's not the point. Not shooting always makes for better television.

Turlough and Tegan have a lot of good stuff too - this TARDIS team is just irresistible. It makes for a pretty good examination of Turlough's bravery, for example - the times he fights, or runs, attempts to be doctorly, or goes back to being his old squirmy self are great fun. They all spend a lot of the time rescuing each other, but while in the Visitation it just seems like a way to stretch the plot out to four episodes, here the situations are just too cute, and it ramps up the mad claustrophobia of the situation.

I just want to get ahold of the DVD, and take a digital scrape to it. Dim the lights, CG in a better monster, cut all the scenes when men in monster suits are talking to other men in monster suits. Because I've got a damn good imagination, these things rarely matter to me. I don't notice - if the actors have the decency to mime scared, then I'm scared. So to damn an episode (seemingly) on this alone has always seemed a bit meaningless to me. And I didn't even think the lighting was too bad. The bright white gave the station a definite sense of atmosphere. Not a creepy, dark and foggy atmosphere, for sure, which maybe did make it less scary, but it did feel like a real place. Crucially, it marks it out as different from Resurrection of the Daleks' dankfest prisonship. With all the chasing around that happens in that later episode, they might feel too similar if not visually so different. We'd already done industrial-base with Terminus and Earthshock too - you'd think that any civilisation desigining a military base wouldn't deliberately make it morale-destroyingly ugly. In addition, the misery of the crew is integral to both Terminus and Resurrection - and Earthshock's captain isn't that happy either. Liked the uniforms too.

Having taken a good look at internet criticisms, I hardly have the heart to go through and refute them one at a time - I still can't quite see what everyone's problem is. Everyone's so busy picking on the Myrka that they don't quite get around to the plot. It's a poor man's Resurrection of the Daleks, from the marked-for-death crew to the use of lethal gas. But I still enjoyed it. I'm also talking from the perspective of a new fan - I haven't seen the older Silurian eps, so the continuity messes passed me by, and the reappearance of a great monster didn't come as a disappointment.

And roll on season 21! It all starts here - I'm not sure whether as much thought went into series arcs as it does now, but there's definitely something to be found if you want to look. The first person we're introduced to here is Maddox, who is alright to be a part of firing the missiles, but doesn't want to actually do it. Even if someone else is responsible, it's still him who causes it. It's a wonderful little performance, and maybe deliberately meant to remind you of someone in particular? It certainly sets the tone. Look at the little links - here, the massacre on the base and (almost) destruction of Earth all comes because he spends an hour and a half trying not to gas the reptiles. But he's the first to break out the Movellan Virus in Resurrection, almost as soon as he works out what it is. The death toll is already horrific by then, but he wastes no time. Its the action of someone who's had a think back on the last time he was in this situation. The same goes for his failure to correct a previous mistake with Davros' death - it's almost certainly the catalyst for letting the Master fry in Planet of Fire. Just don't get me started on the Turlough-Adric connection.
It all depends on your priorities. Canon-bunnies will hide behind their Pertwees, SFX-gurus will point and laugh at the effects and a certain cabal of Tom Baker fans endlessly remind us that the difference between a good story and a bad story is merely how bright the lights are. I like the characters, episodes which have the gall to criticise its hero, and I like the heartbreakers. Tick tick tick. Bring on The Awakening!

King of Terror - alright by me

It took me all of five minutes, dutifully electing to start on the 8th Doctor books I had been lent, to decide to return downstairs and read King of Terror instead. Not hard to spot why - Tegan, Turlough and the Brigadier, an irresistible combination.

But then Paynter and Barrington turned up, and before I knew what I was doing, I'd fallen completely in love. This isn't something I do very often. For me, the minor characters are usually a distraction from what the regulars are doing, which is always my top priority in these things. Furthermore, liking extras in Doctor Who is a bit of a wasted experience - they're there soley to die. But both were wonderfully written (especially Paynter, I know someone just like that), as was their friendship and the casual way their professional life weaves into their private conversations. And I did spend a lot of time worrying about their chances of survival.

The Doc didn't have a lot to do, but I suppose that's in keeping with the realistic tone of the book. The author tries very hard to give us realistic reactions to getting hurt, seeing violence and being in a tense situation, which I somewhat approve of. Particularly in terms of placing, with it being very near the ultra-violent Resurrection of the Daleks (I'm led to believe Warriors of the Deep is no picnic either). The downside is, its then unrealistic for the Doctor to zoom in, play cricket with the Jax for the right to conquer Earth, or talk them out of it, or whatever. Giving them The Sontaran Stratagem treatment just wouldn't work; so instead, the Doctor lets UNIT and the CIA do all the hard work, which doesn't exactly gel with me. He couldn't be less involved if he tried. Not only is he only on the periphery of the alien invasion plot, he doesn't find time to rescue Tegan or Turlough either. He doesn't want to attack the aliens, but doesn't object to the Brig doing it too strenuously, and doesn't seem to have a plan to talk to them either. I know Five had a reputation for being a bit of a useless case, but this is taking it to extremes.

What was there was very good though. I picked on Goth Opera for exposing the core of the character too much. Here there were shades of everything, I felt it was all there, but nothing was made obvious.

I like how well it fitted into the TV canon too, especially in terms of character development. Haven't seen Frontios and Awakening, but we've got some shadows about Trion, and both Tegan and the Doctor have a nod towards their psychological state in a few episodes time - she, going through another unpleasant and violent experience, starting towards her breakdown in Resurrection, and he starting to become introspective about the right level of violence to use and whether his efforts are helping at all (and they don't in this book).

The companions were both well done. I've heard it said Turlough doesn't work well in the novels, and I can understand why - his character is entirely built on Mr Strickson's twitchy performance, and hardly on the lines he is given. In addition, he's a favourite companion, so I was extra concerned. But I knew things were alright from his first entrance - having gone to see his Trion solicitor, he returns with both a bloodied nose and a smile. Classic Turlough, and while he's not given much to do, what he is passes my seal of approval. Particularly some details about Brendon. I also like the fact he suffers from apparent asthma and migrane, which is actually an alien reaction to the climate. Never mentioned in the show, but it seems to fit. Poor chap has, how shall we put this, something of a hard time in the book - which, while I didn't enjoy, did seem strangely fitting. I feel more people should make Turlough cry - it just reinforces the fact he is shamelessly puny. Tegan is well caught also. The miniromance didn't annoy me as much as it should have.

And the Brig! The opening dialogue with the Doctor is just wonderfully done, although I'm amused by the various plot-kinks people have used over the years to keep him in the story. Quite frankly, I don't remember him ever coming out of anything badly. He's just too well loved by pretty much everyone for anyone to dare do him badly.

In many ways, it's the polar opposite of Goth Opera - the "better book" but one I liked less. Overall, it hung together well, but the little things really got on my nerves. Here, the plot - and particularly, the character involvement - leaves a lot to be desired, but the individual scenes are irresistable. Things like Paynter explaining the Doctor to himself, as he talks about the Charge of the Light Brigade; or a throwaway reference to an unseen adventure in which the Doctor, Himmler and Heydrich chasing the Master through Berlin on the Night of the Long Knives. I like all the references to all the other Doctors - The Brig and members of both UNIT and the CIA are naturally familiar with several different versions, leading to some wonderful moments. I love the Doctor defining why Tegan is so important to him (and, unlike in Goth Opera, he does it when she's out of the room).

The one thing that really wound me up was the minor-character description. Saying someone looks like a cross between Alesteir Crowley and Ringo Starr is fine if you recognise the reference (which I do, in this case), but not if you don't (which I normally didn't). It's just lazy and annoying. And I'm furious that some readers have spotted continuity crossovers with Cold Fusion, my favourite so far, that I have missed (turns out I did spot it, but it was at the very start so I'd forgotten). I'm also amused that Tegan remarks on the Doctor's ability to "talk himself out of confrontations with Cybermen", because as my memory of Earthshock goes, the Cyberleader was doing all the talking.

All in all, depending on why you read these things, it wouldn't be wasted time to check this out. Especially because its one of the few still on shelves.

A new-old fan's list of resolutions - redux

"Peer pressure is a killer. And hence, I produce the list of eight resolutions that I need to write down so I don't forget them while associating with my fellow fans. "
I wrote this list three months ago for http://www.pagefillers.com/dwrg/, the best Whoreivew site on the web. I feel its time for a small edit - so lets go through and see if my resolutions still stand.
1. I will never stop loving Adric.
When I made the leap back, fate sent a copy of Keeper of Traken into my hands. The first thing that struck me about this pre-Rose world was his character. A companion who isn't a 20-something Earth girl - an alien, a chap and someone who can hold their own in the sci-fi world. I thought his relationship with the Doctor was really watchable. With a show based around a hero with the infectious enthusiasm of a ten year old, the idea of pairing him with a genius child was very appealing. I even liked his costume!
As soon as I got onto the web, I discovered I was in a minority of one.
I'm not sure where the hate comes from. Like liking one Baker, or disliking the other, this just seems to be one of those things you do. He's bratty and annoying - but how many 14-year-old kids do you know? Or people who are really clever, and know it? I'm also not sure where anyone got the idea his acting is worse than anyone else's, especially when paired with Tegan (who would improve somewhere after Time Flight) and Nyssa (who, to my knowledge, doesn't have the faintest idea what acting is or what possible use it could have). But a dodgy performance never prevented me from loving Nyssa, or coming to love Tegan, and it sure as hell won't put me off Adric.
Is it just a generation of bitter kids who've grown up and realised with the cynicism of middle age that he was meant to persuade them to study hard at school? In any case, kudos to the writers who granted him one of the most brilliant companion exits ever. It's hard to deny Earthshock is a good episode and even his militant haters couldn't ignore the impact of its ending. (I speak from experience here - somewhere a few episodes into Logopolis, me and Miss Jovanka fell out. From that point, she annoyed me no end - I cheered when she was temporarily left behind at Heathrow. I was quite looking forward to her real departure - but when it came, it was so good I rethought her whole character, fell in love and watched her remaining episodes in a totally new light.)
On this matter I am still inflexible. Adric is a worthy companion, his relationship with both his doctors is priceless, and it really is peer pressure that prevents more people from giving him a chance.
2. I will never stop loving Rose.
I never had an opinion one way or the other on Rose. Adorable, certainly, and also my benchmark for what a companion should look like. Now I've watched a bit wider, she also seems to be the Doctor's benchmark too - he shows a marked preference for young Earthgirls lacking in knowledge but make up for it with a sort of native intelligence (Jo, Ace and Rose to name three)
Wheras enquiring after Adric brought me a barrage of baseless hate, meeting the Rose fans had quite the opposite effect. Somehow, her character is inextricably tangled with the were-they-weren't-they of the first series. The people making videos to Coldplay tunes, and overlaying romantic lyrics on colour-tinted wallpapers. The other people, carrying the "you're a beautiful woman, probably" quote as a banner of distinction.
For the record: I don't have an objection to the Doctor being in love; I think it's highly unlikely someone as caring as he could spend that long alone and not be. I think there are several people in the Doctor's history you can point to and argue for perfectly eloquently (Jo and Rose being two of them). But please, it's done subtle in the show, so leave it subtle in the fanon...
But I digress. Dealing with these people was like dealing with the religious. There are hundreds of quietly practicing Rose fans out there, happily loving her and whatever relationship she may or may not have shared with our favourite Timelord. And then there are the extremists, the people who come to your door and give you leaflets, and start wars about it.
It's not the idea of it, but the way it was done - not by the show, but by that slice of fandom. The sheer cheesiness of the fanfiction. The use of Coldplay; never forgiveable. The implication that she was the love of his life. A love, yes, but life does go on. It might be hard, but he will get over it eventually. After all, it's not like she's dead; separated from him, but with everybody she loves (see: #1 Adric)
For me, the Ninth Doctor was all about the Time War. He ended it, resulting in the destruction of his planet, his race and the Daleks - and after that, his every act was one of repentance. From trying to help the Gelth and Nestine Consciousness whom he robbed of a home, to refusing to make the same decision a second time in Parting of the Ways. He's even thinking like a Gallifreyan when he arrives on Earth, with his callous comment about Mickey's death being insignificant compared to the bigger picture, while the concept of destroying the planet to save the universe is the ultimate Sensible Time Lord Decision. Rose is everything the Time Lords weren't. They are old and wise, she's nineteen and filled with life. She cares about a single Dalek, despite the threat it poses; the High Council were prepared to execute the Doctor for the potential threat he posed in Arc of Infinity, or remove San Fransisco from history to deal with a few vampires in Vampire Science. And he's on his own. Under the circumstances, we can allow him to lose at least one of his hearts.
Watching Sarah Jane's relationship with the Fourth Doctor has restored my faith (very similar to the Doctor and Rose in series 2; larking around the universe in a pretty cute way, and occasionally rescuing it from peril), while selective internet browsing has cut down on the amount of infuriating people I have to put up with. Let me revel in how nice Rose really was.
No, I haven't stopped liking her. Loving her, maybe. I still think she's brilliant in context - i.e. Series 1 and 2. Her Series 4 return was bizzarely unecessary, because her newfound sense of strength and knowledge took away one of her character basics. Wielding a gun and explaining the plot to Donna made her seem less of the no-hope Earthgirl we'd got to love. And no companion should be forced to share the screen with Donna Noble, really. Its just not fair. In the wake of Rose getting, erm, her own Doctor, I have completely ignored the internet response. 
3. I will never compare the old and new series.
I've got a better perspective on this than most here, starting in 2005 and working backwards. Chrisopher Eccleston is my nostalga Doctor, and he's only two years gone. There's really nothing to choose between them. It's all one show. It's all one character. Books count too. And audios. And comics. Though not the bad ones. That's the comfort of the canonicity debate: if a piece of non-TV fiction rubs you the wrong way, then you have an excuse to forget it entirely.
Never have, never will. I mean, yes I compare - Black Orchid and Wasp and the Unicorn? Sontaran Stratagem as an update of Resurrection of the Daleks. But I'm still very against anyone who uncatagorically loves one and hates the other, because I still believe both can be appreciated more in light of what has come before/ is coming. What a waste to still be stuck in 1973, and miss seeing Doctor Who in shiny CGI with exciting direction and a modern approach to storytelling. And what a waste to be so addicted to the look of the new series to ignore the story potential in the old. Really, I still can't say strongly enough, that people who entirely disregard either new or old series are truly missing out on half the show. Isn't Genesis of the Daleks all the more fun for knowing about the Time War? And wasn't Sarah Jane and Davros wonderful in Journey's End?
4. I will never admit to having a favourite Doctor.
I don't have a favourite Hamlet. I don't even have a favourite James Bond. I love them all in different ways, because they all show up different aspects of the same character. This is slightly hypocritical; my random approach to the series means I still haven't seen 1, 2, 6 and 7 (properly), but it's highly unlikely given the before examples that I will find any serious problems.
I have now delved into every doctor save no.1 (if appearing on a screen for Three Doctors doesn't count), and having a solid favourite seems as unlikely as ever. I feel that in the future I will be able to do some serious clumping - in the wake of Curse of Fenric, I feel I might love the 7th Doctor more, even though I don't love any others any less. Anyway, it's hard to pick on performance alone - otherwise Colin Baker would be at the top of a few more lists. Yes, I'm halfway through Trial of a Timelord. Yes he's bloody brilliant, even if the casing isn't. You're not just choosing a Doctor, you're choosing an era. Companions, episodes, writing, production values, interesting storylines, childhood memories. A problem I'm beginning to have with the 3rd Doctor is I'm just not loving his adventures. He's awesome, and so's UNIT. But Inferno is still the only episiode I've loved, which is why I'm unfailingly more excited about watching Peter Davison instead. Its not the Doctor. Its the whole era thang.
5. I will never stop loving Resurrection of the Daleks
After Logopolis, I continued as chronologically as the BBC DVD releases would let me, and the first one which really hit me on an emotional level was this. Peter Davison instantly became one of my top ten favourite Doctors (irony intentional), Tegan really did become one of my favourite companions. Turlough excited my curiosity enough to order the entire Black Guardian trilogy off Amazon. I loved the punishing level of unecessary violence (it's still got the highest death toll of any story I've counted: 57), thought the "minor characters we want you to sympathise with" were actually sympathetic, and was, for the first time ever, properly scared by the Daleks. New series ones don't quite cut it in the same way. And all this in a story where the Doc spends two episodes tied to a table.
Since then, it has paled. I never understood the plot, it just gets more unnecessarily tangled. Cloning is done better in Android Invasion. Everything is done better in Genesis of the Daleks. Mind control is just overdone.
Maybe I've been watching better episodes - Mawdryn Undead, or maybe Enlightenment, is now my favourite oldie - or maybe the hate it gets online has got to me. My affection for it remains the same, even if my respect has dipped. There's nothing as horrible as falling out of love and, even though I feel colder from afar, even though if I rewatched it would be as exciting as it did the first time.
But pity my friend. Her first favourite of the old series was Time Flight. Imagine her disappointment when she discovered it was against the club rules!
In the week between Stolen Earth and Journey's End, I watched this again. I can now confirm it is a totally worthy episode, quite brilliant actually. As predicted, I did enjoy it as much on a rewatch as originally, and won't forget it again, even for a moment.
6. I will watch Caves of Androzani
First it was after I've finished the other DVDs. Then the other videos. Then once I order Planet of Fire. Then after all the other episodes. Then after Series Four. I'm not putting it off, honest.
This is my first proper regeneration from a Doctor I really care about and have followed for a long time. I claimed above that I love them all equally, and that's true, but the Fifth Doctor has, so far and from sheer chance, been the only one I've done properly. I've seen over half the episodes, and most of them in the right order. I've got to like all his companions. It's going to be the End, and no matter how many novels and audios I stockpile, that'll be it. It's like Mr Tennant announcing he's going to leave, only worse because it's already happened.
The irony is, excepting Mr Tennant when it comes, he's one of the few Doctors I'm ever going to go through this for. Somebody who knows their stuff better than me should really make a guide for confused new-fans making the leap backwards, because in retrospect I got it wrong. I watched as large a spread of Doctor Who as I could get my hands on, and fate presented me with an insanely high number of regeneration stories. Planet of the Spiders was my first Pertwee. Logopolis was my second Baker. I got to know the Seventh Doctor minutes, nay, seconds before he walks out of the TARDIS and into the TV-movie. At the time, I wasn't particularly upset because I didn't have the background - and once I do, I'll have already gone through it, so I shouldn't be too distressed second time around. I only caught the first series from Dalek, so even Parting of the Ways wasn't that big a deal. I'm anticipating War Games and Survival to be kickers when I get there however...
It's a small consolation that Caves is Everybody's Second Favourite Episode After Genesis of the Daleks. It's another consolation that even the Davison-haters admit its brilliant. It'd help if everyone was less negative about Colin Baker though...

Well I decided I was being ridiculous about this in the run up to Stolen Earth, so I started laying tracks and making time. And then came that cliffhanger - the fake 10 regeneration - which completely spoilt my good intentions, and proved that there really is something to be worried about. Folks, I may never see this episode. After Stolen Earth I was miserable for days. I got ill. I felt sick, couldn't sleep and had a cold, and one of my friends lost her voice. And then after Journey's End, I didn't exactly feel like it; then I was on holiday; now I'm watching Trial of a Timelord. I was honestly gonna do it, but Stolen Earth gave me such a shock it proves I'll be inconsolably glum. And its not like DT's even leaving for good (which I kinda worked out as soon as the suprise wore off). Anyway, I don't want to be stuck with Warriors of the Deep as my last ever episode, right? At least this way I'm saving up something decent...?
7. I will never again read a novel about a Doctor I haven't seen first.Human Nature was the first pdf I plucked off the BBC website. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant, just like its episode. I fell in love with Benny, like everyone else in the known universe (even if it took me a few chapters to establish she was female).
It's gorgeously written, an excellent novel in its own right. Afterwards, seeing the Seventh Doctor on screen (yes, in Dimensions in Time, but it's really the same thing) was a horrible shock. His voice was plain wrong; in my mind, it was something mossy, like Ian Holm's. I'll get over this in time, I suppose, but it's a rule I'm sticking to. I recently gave up on The Eight Doctors halfway through, because I had really enjoyed appearances by the Fifth and Third Doctors, and missed the point of the rest.
Consequently, along with Day of the Daleks, Terror of the Autons, Four to Doomsday and (still) Planet of Fire, ANYTHING with Mr McCoy and Ace is on my list of must-buys. Chiefly so I can read Love and War; it's set in my home town, during the only interesting historical event which has ever affected us... I've been dying to read it, but can't in the name of goodness. Half the joy of both Dying Days and Sands of Time was enjoying how well its respective Doctors had been captured on the page.
What a mess. Well, I've stuck to this and I'm glad. Cold Fusion - 7 meets 5, hilarity ensues - is now my favourite book, by virtue of having waited. Amusingly, I am still sans Day of the Daleks, Terror of the Autons and Four to Doomsday. And it turns out the book I was after was Just War not Love and War, which pissed me off no end. The novel I was actually after is going for £34 second hand on Amazon, which makes me even more angry because I refuse to pay it. Stalemate.
8. I love 6's coat and I'm proud.
Still ain't seen an episode of his, but I think its fantastic. Wait, tell a lie - he's in Dimensions in Time. Telling Ace her new jacket clashes.
I still love the coat. But it does him few favours having seen it on screen. Plus, I'm currently painting the Black Tree Doctor Who minatures (about 2cm high models) of each of the doctors, and my regard for the costume is swiftly divebombing. I did the red piping on 5's jacket. I did the little red questionmarks on 7's sweater. That was fine. But this is impossible.

Kings Demons: a defence

Edited:4th May 2009

What makes Doctor Who better than any other program when our heroes go around saving the world? The Doctor. Wasn't that painless? All I ask of an episode is buckets of character moments, and this had them in abundance. Perhaps it was the shorter running time, chopping out padding in favour of what is absolutely necessary? It certainly defines his attitude towards the Master better than anywhere else, and vice versa.
The Doctor is on his merciful finest form here, trying to save everyone, in various ways and with mixed results. The Doctor's open offer of help to the family defines his motives just as the Master's "universe domination" speech spells out his ultimate goal. While the Doc comments the Master's plan is only "small time" villainy, to me it seemed thoroughly consistent with his character. It works through disguise and subtlety; he manipulates the robot-king, the Doctor and his hosts in turn, and is one of his few plans cunning enough to actually succeed. I love all the double dealing that goes on, each of them adapting to the changing situation with that poor family stuck in the middle.
Their final scene also made me understand their relationship better than ever before. Despite the lives at stake, I felt a genuine sense of chess honour in their dealings, like a sophisticated game for the two higher beings. The Doctor and the Master could have permanently stopped the other, hundreds of times; here, there is a sense that to do that would be very unsporting and not at all cricket - especially with the Master's claim that the challenge "inspires him". The Master does eventually get to cry "kill the Doctor!", but in my reading of the episodes I've seen (excepting, um, Logopolis), I don't believe he would actually let it happen - not permanently. The Doctor's language here reinforces the image - his reminder that humans are "a primitive people", his question "can anyone play?" As much a game to both of them? Once the Doctor liberates Kamelion, he doesn't press his advantage (does he ever?). He dashes off, with an unspoken agreement that the Master will leave too. He could have easily continued without the robot - instead, he leaves immediately. The Doctor even leaves the Tissue Compression Eliminator - a blatantly terrible idea from a moral standpoint, but not in terms of a game. Screwing up his TARDIS is part of the fun and well within the rules; confiscating it would put it on an all too serious level. Particularly coming straight after Enlightenment, another story about rival higher beings who are entertaining themselves at the expense of everyone else. There, the Doctor is naturally horrified; but there is something similar in his dealings with the Master.
The Master gets a lot of fun in this story. Once he has lost the swordfight (which is terribly fun in its own right), his control over the robot-king could have easily followed up on the Doctor's unwillingness to kill him, and let him depart in a simple way. Instead, he demonstrates how he knows his old friend and gives him a good moral twist - letting the robot-king condemn him to death, making the Doctor choose between them, and knowing that he will be forced to "kill" him by a different route. These adversaries go way back - the Master's accusation of "moral scruples", or suggestion he regenerate is as much the banter of friends.

That's pretty much all the fun that is to be had here. The medieval background is atmospheric and nicely done - especially the musical interlude, which sets the scene and makes for a creepy reveal. The supporting characters are about as good as ever they are, although the faux-Shakesperian talk got old quickly. King John is also excellent - sinister, powerful, and pantomime in the best of ways.
As for the companions, Tegan again gets to demonstrate why she polarises people - on the one hand, all she does is moan; on the other, she is a fully rounded human being, who takes objection to being cold and threatened with death when they could be on a warm space-beach instead (it's interesting to see her attempt murder too, just a few episodes after a great conversation between her and Turlough on the topic in Terminus. It's easy to forget Auntie Vanessa, but boy doesn't she get vital.). We also get to see the Doctor finally react to her nagging, in a scene which says a lot about both of them. Certain quarters could also have a field day with Kamelion turning into Tegan, and the suggestion that that image is the strongest in the Doctor's mind. I leave that romantic minefield to you...
Turlough doesn't have as much to do, although a friend has noted he whines just as much without the Black Guardian over his shoulder as with. His final line to the Master is pretty good too - it's nice to allow the boy a flash of heroism once in a while, even if provoked by irritation. Companions are always fatally under-written, especially in the older bits of the old series. Turlough has always been for me a triumph of performance over script - he really can wring an interesting role even out of the most mundane dialogue, as here.
It also contains one of the few "goofy moments" the Fifth Doctor would ever pull. The Doctor is, at his core, a curious and arrogant genius who tries to help people, while mucking about to disguise how dark and scary he can get. You could give points, if you like - 3 was more arrogant and less dark, 4 was predominantly daft arrogance, 7 is famously darker and scarier. When you cut it down to points, the 5th Doctor does seem to be lacking in several quarters. He can be all of those things at times, but just isn't. This backs up my theory that he is the "mid life crisis Doctor", which I'll someday explain (the gist is, he does all the things he's always done, but somehow it doesn't work as well - Midnight in slow motion, spread over 3 years if you like).

Sir Extra -"But he is the best swordsman in France!" The Doctor - "Luckily, we are in England..."

All in all, an enjoyable episode which is unfairly maligned. It certainly comes highly recommended for AinleyMaster fans, because I think its one of his best (I prefer Planet of Fire, but I love that for other reasons and he's much better here).