That's not just amazng ...

 

Audio That is indeed, FANTASTIC! We live in strange times, but none stranger (ish) than the fact there now exists in the world a Big Finish audio adventure featuring the one living actor who at no point, in any way shape or form, seemed like he would ever play the Doctor again. Having wondered why in the meantime, I've just noticed this 2018 interview which said that his relationship had broken down with Russell T Davies, Julie Gardner and Phil Collinson during the first recording block but he kept to his word that he agreed not to effect the show's reputation and indeed praised RTD in subsequent interviews. 

It also didn't show in his performance, which was impeccable throughout, just as it is in these few snippets which highlight what are sure to be the more manic elements of the recordings. When previous Doctors have returned for the audios, there has always been the brief moment before pressing play on a trailer or full adventure when you wonder if they'll sound "right" or "like themselves", if they'll be able to pick up where they left off and by golly he does.  This is thrilling stuff, helped immeasurably by the visuals and the return of that Deviant Strain font, typos and all.  It’s Saturday night tea time in 2005 all over again!  Sixteen years.

When will these be set?  Rose was famously written (the episode not the person) in such a way as to suggest that he'd only recently regenerated, but this has since been retconned at Big Finish and Davies himself in The Day of the Doctor novelisation to indicate that he did indeed travel for a bit before turning up at the Powell Estate but literally tried to avoid looking at himself because of all the children he thought he'd killed when destroying Gallifrey (having forgotten he did nothing of the sort).  But The Beast of Bablyon suggests he also had whole adventures during the dematerialisation moment at the end of Rose, so it's 50/50.

WHO 50: 2005: Rose.

TV Without fail, one of the questions Doctor Who writers are asked is, “Where do you get your ideas from?”

Some have clearer answers than others. It's a bit like that film/book/other Doctor Who story I'm a fan of. There's also a bit of recycling. Apparently, Terry Nation was entirely unaware until producers Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts pointed it out to him, that his script for Planet of the Daleks had a few familiar elements to it.

Rose is a mix of everything. Having apparently thought about it for most of his life, Russell T Davies managed to turn out a first episode which, even if it’s not perfect as a piece of television, was perfect as a way of introducing the revival.

Most of it is a reaction to the TV movie. Just as that had loads of continuity references, this has barely any. Whereas that has a complex figure like the Master as the foe, this has the Auton, who’re an interesting if fairly generic monster familiar to plenty of non-fans due to their iconic entrance in the 1970s, smashing through shop windows, updatable for 2005 because now you can actually show them smashing through those shop windows rather than subliminally cutting away. Plus there’s a relatable companion and the story is told entirely through her eyes.

Fantastic.

But we still ask. Why the Autons? Why choose the Autons?

A couple of weeks ago I was glancing through some back issues of Doctor Who Magazine, when I began reading one of those contextual pieces which used to fill up the periodical in the wilderness years.

It’s called Swap Shop (and yes it uses the logo!) and it ponders what gives each of the eras its ineffable quality and how stories might have changed if they’d been produced in a different era. There’s a rather lovely illustration of the First Doctor and Steven and robot dog.

In the middle, there a box-out page, Exchange and Mart, which looks at some stories in detail. It’s prognosis for The Underwater Menace in Season 17 is that it would have still been rubbish but would at least have seen Romana turned into a fish. At the very end, there’s this:



My goodness. Apart from not shifting the whole thing over to San Francisco (or the Canadian equivalent) and lack of military, that’s Rose isn’t it?  A bit?

Well, ok, sort of. Perhaps like the writer of this article, Russell was also inspired by Spearhead from Space, but having seen this, I wonder if he also had this lodged at the back of his mind too. There’s also this mock-up poster:



Which has a wonderfully contemporary feel, and could just as well be London (or the Cardiff equivalent).

Much as I’m a fan of the Eighth Doctor, I’m glad Philip Segal didn’t follow this model himself in hindsight. If there had been an Eighth Doctor series in the US, such things as The Scarlet Empress, Father Time, Charley Pollard, Lucie Miller and the whole damn run of the Doctor Who Magazine comic would never have happened.

Plus there’d be no Rose or the rest of nuWho, and that would have been a disaster.

WHO 50: 1992: Doctor Who Yearbook 1993.

TV Even though I watched Doctor Who right through to Survival, I didn’t really notice it being cancelled (if we can still call it that now). Search Out Space was never on my radar and I didn't see it until the dvd release.

Doctor Who was always just something else to watch, part of diet of programming which included Thundercats and latterly Transformers, though it was really the British run of the comic which sparked my interest, the Simon Furman material (which meant the closest I probably got to reading a Doctor Who story in that period was one of the reprints of the Death's Head story, The Crossroads of Time).

I didn’t mourn. It was on. Then it wasn’t. The long history of the show, even though it had always been there, didn’t much occur to me, as I awaited the television broadcast of Star Trek: The Next Generation having already hired the rental compilations from Video City in Garston and watched a friend's tapes of the original series / classic series / Trek Prime / whatever Paramount are calling it this month.

I did borrow some Doctor Who videos from another friend including aforementioned The Tom Baker Years, City of Death, Castrovalva that sort of thing. He was a big fan of Tom and Peter. But again this was more as part of diet of other television of a certain type. He leant me his Blackadder collection too.

Which is why last week’s entry about Timewyrm: Genesys was a guest post. In 1991, the Virgin New Adventures simply weren’t on my radar.  Filling my hands, eyes and mind were the Pocket Books Star Trek novels (reprinted in the UK by Titan) and collecting every issue of Marvel UK's weird reprint comic (which married DC originated material with articles from Starlog).

By 1992, I was well into my Star Trek t-shirt wearing phase, my favourite being the white one with The Next Generation logo across it and a rubber comm badge printed at breast height for role-play fun. The key topic of discussion at school was starship security and the practicalities of the warp drive and who was fitter, Councillor Troi or Doctor Crusher.  My secret obsession was with Salia, the future ruler and dauphin of Daled IV. Oh yes.

I didn’t know of the existence of the Doctor Who Yearbook 1993. I didn’t read the New Adventures from this year including the format flexing Transit or Bernice Summerfield’s debut in Love & War or any of the reference books published in 1992 or watch the BBV spin-off Summoned by Shadows.

I still haven’t. With so much other stuff to catch-up on and with prices sky-rocketing for this twenty-year old gear, it’s not been a priority, which is why I'm in no position to offer a critique of the annual’s many Brief Encounter entries, written by some of the franchise’s great stalwarts and some others. I don't think I even own a copy.  Whatever happened to Karen Dunn, anyway?

My lack of Whodom was such that by the following year, I’d even sold off, on a pre-college flea market stall, whatever bits of Who merchandise I’d been given as a child, including a 1968 Troughton era annual, wondering at the moment of transaction why these two blokes seemed so happy at having purchased it for one pound (I know! I KNOW!).

I’m here now, somehow, wondering what possessed me to let go of such treasures and over half way through this project (and wondering what possessed me). Glancing forward I can’t see any other gaps thanks to some retrospective catch-up, but I thought it important to notice that at a certain point I was very much a not-we and now I’m not a not-we but a we again.

disastrous in the context of World War Three

TV God, I hate the Slitheen. I hated them on first appearance and I’ve hated them in every single revisionist attempt to turn them into a decent foe for the Doctor and his friends, on The Sarah Jane Adventures, in novels, comic strips. Even revisionist efforts like bringing in different but similar families like the Blathereen hasn’t helped much either.  Each and every time, they’ve been about as menacing as the actor hired to play their skin suit is capable of, but at soon at the giant floppy puppet lumbers into view they become symbolic of the short hand that comedians of a nineties vintage used to disparage the franchise, that it’s just about cheap looking rubber green aliens. Especially since the Slitheen are basically killable through a variation of precisely the kind of method later parodied by Ricky Gervais.

They’re especially disastrous in the context of World War Three which is supposed to be the first big global alien invasion story, the nu-Who equivalent of Dalek Invasion of Earth. While there is an intellectual argument to be had about whether their ridiculousness and matter of fact approach to the destruction of the planet’s inhabitants adds to their evil, outside of the context of a human form they’re just not scary, icky perhaps, but not scary, mostly funny too whenever they explode.  The massive zip affair doesn’t help much, something Julie Gardener picked up on as a mistake as early as the dvd commentary (though trying be ever so diplomatic about it bless her) or the inter-cutting with the rather more agile CGI versions.

Otherwise the episode is a rather clever twist on the base under siege genre of story in that special forces don’t know that the base is under siege and the Doctor has to save the day from within a locked room. The situation is somewhat similar to the later Tooth & Claw, but whereas with a wolf slathering on the other side of the door their main weapon was books, a library, everything here is from the Doctor’s intellect and the deductive reasoning of his companions. If you were being unfair, you could unfavourably compare Euros Lyn’s kinetic shooting of Tenth’s thought processes with the side on shots and bits of steady-cam Keith Boak affords Ninth as he narrows things down, yet Boak does manage to drags things back a bit at the close with the iconic shot of Eccleston gleefully realising the planet of origin.

It’s in these scenes as Eccleston jumps from goofy comedy to poignancy to the horror of knowing that in smacking a missile at the room he’s standing in he could be allowing Rose’s mother to listen to the death of her daughter, that us Eighth Doctor fans should probably consider ourselves a bit spoilt in comparison to Ninethers. True, our hero only received an hour of screen time, but we’ve dozens of novels and comics to read and ongoing audio adventures. Once Ninth left the screen, the merchandising teat stopped giving. Beyond the thirteen television episodes, the Tardis Index Files lists just six novels, four short stories and five comic strips and few cameos here and there. Post-The Christmas Invasion, a different face was appearing on book covers.

Why aren’t we able to buy new adventures featuring the Ninth Doctor? The “classic” Doctors are more visible now than they’ve ever been, and there’s enough good Tenth merch around to still be catching up even though he too has been rested in The Eleventh Hour. Even Hartnell is being serviced by Big Finish when the Eccleston version is lost. Essentially, since Big Finish are only licensed to cover the classic series and AudioGo and BBC Books are always focused on the present incumbent anyone desperate for some Ninth/Rose action are stuck rereading The Clockwise Man for the umpteenth time, which is a shame considering he was the most innovative version of the character and there must surely be enough publicity shots knocking around.

Or rewatching World War Three. The closing scene, opening as the Doctor hands Mickey the virus and offers to take him away from the Powell Estate only to be rebuffed is one of my favourite in Ninth’s whole era. Noel Clarke has clearly realised the understated approach which works best for Mickey and the mutual understanding between the characters is beautifully played. It’s the kind of non-plot character based scenes which found itself cut out in the last season – reminds me of the infamous marriage chat that didn’t appear in The Hungry Earth. As this next series seems to be tilting towards the “big revelations” model of storytelling, I do hope they continue to remember that often the quietest moments are the most affecting.

The Parting of the Ways.

"The fans are going to hate this ..."

TV I've said this a few times during the series and and I said it again tonight. It's an odd thing to say since it suggests I'm not a fan, but I really am. I have two shelving units filled with videos, dvds, cds and books graphically demonstrating this. But what I think it means is the hardcores. The ones who consider themselves the self appointed rulers of what's right and wrong in the series. Those who decried the brilliantly romantic moment at the end of the TV movie, the loss of the half hour episodic format, the casting of Billie Piper. What Russell T Davies has done throughout this series is largely and cleverly ignored what they think. To play to them would be to return to the series we were stuck with during the mid-Eighties when continuity was slowly throttling good story telling. Tonight's episode exemplified the Davies approach. Produced something which plays to the fans but also creates new fans. Tosses out the continuity without disregarding it.

But he also did something else. He gave it heart. I was always afraid that if you threw money at the premise it wouldn't work, that it wouldn't be the same. Thank god I was so wrong, and so right. The Parting of the Ways looked like a feature film, told an big epic global, galactic story but at its heart was a story of people, loyalty, morality and lord help us, religion. It didn't dump the essential elements while it was throwing thousands of Daleks at the screen. Davies did everything you'd want in the final episode (and in fact followed a clear model set down by new genre pioneer Joss Whedon). Produce it like it's your last, throw everything at it, but importantly underpin and underline the architypes of the series and underline everything you've been trying to accomplish. Rose saves the world in the end, because that's what she's been doing all series, and yet The Doctor is still the saviour of the universe because he inspires it of her, just as he inspired everyone from Gwyneth to Cathica. Through selflessness in words and actions. The Doctor of old had the arrogance that no one but he could win the day - this Doctor believed that everyone had that capacity. It was just a case of given them enough room to breath and showing them the way.

"Oh my god, they've killed off Jack ..."

Like the rest of the series this just kept hitting me at a gut level. Scene after scene mattered, contributing to the arc of the series, the plot of the episode, the story of the character. We found out what the Bad Wolf was (a time paradox and red herring rolled into one) and we saw The Doctor finally put his personal demons to rest. We got to see one of the best man on Dalek battles in the show's history in which we saw why they were the deadliest of foes. Taking the ideas of the Dalek episode -- the giving of an ounce of humanity to the pepperpot -- and then twisting it and darkening it. Not just loathing the universe but also loathing themselves. The design of Emperor Dalek was a great choice too, as this God created its race in its own image. We saw also that in fact it's not just The Doctor who had regenerated, Rose had too -- complete with that mess of amnesia afterwards -- she's seen too much to go back to her old life now.

But for all the writing (and this may have been Davies' best script of the series) I don't think the acting has ever been this good. In the Confidential documentary afterwards, Eccleston said that he couldn't internalise the character, that we were effectively seeing on screen was his reaction to the words and how they should be played -- it showed and it was exactly what the part called for, which sort of demonstrates what a great actor he is. Despite his epic lifespan, The Doctor has always been about how others see him and that's exactly how he appeared tonight. Is Rose Tyler the best companion we've had? It depends on your definition. But I tell you -- I don't know who else was up for the role but I can't imagine anyone else playing her. Billie Piper has simply been a dream throughout the series, funny and sad and tragic. And knowing. It's also to John Barrowman's credit that he's not felt like an interloper, although Captain Jack's been a good character -- it'll be interesting to see in Season Two if he feels discruntled about being left behinds and drifts off into his old ways.

I've written before about how it's difficult with some television to see the gaps between the director, the cameraman and the editor. It's a collaborative medium. Would this episode look and feel much different if James Hawes instead of Joe Ahearne had been the director? I don't think I'm clever enough to tell. What I will say is this. Of all the episodes this was the one which felt most consistently paced, visceral looking and deeply emotional. Characters felt less like a bunch of words than say Aliens of London and more like people. And again we saw the same values here as we'd seen throughout the series -- straight down the like drama and comedy without decended into camp. It believed in what it was doing and so we believed in it too.

"But ... he's regenerating. No. Noooo .... What! What! Hang on -- who's he going to be? Are we going to get to see it or is that the cliffhanger? We are going to see who it is ... fuck me, it's David Tennant ... Casanova's in the Tardis ..."

One of these days I'm going to build a time machine. Granted I took the arts stream at school so I did Fine Art GCSE when I could have been doing Physics, but hopefully I've got a good sixty years left on the planet so that should be just enough time to go back to school, do Physics and Chemistry and Biology as well, head off through A-Levels, get myself a degree in Quantum Physics, a PHd, a place in a great research institute, a team of mechanics and a billionare I can convince to finance a development project to build the first time machine. At the age of fifty (because I'm this for the long game) I'm going to strap myself into that extraordinary machine, flip the switch and head back in time back to this year. I'm going to get a job in the press office of the BBC and make sure I'm on duty one night in early April, so that when I see that a tabloid is going to print a story saying that Christoper Eccleston is going to quit Doctor Who, the last thing we do is confirm the bloody story. That way, this younger version of me can be shouting the words above at the screen as the latest series comes to a close instead of wondering what the experience would have been like.

"I'm still buzzing..."

The fact that it's hours since the episode aired and I'm still buzzing shows the achievement of the piece. I'm a cynical sausage really, but this is something else. This is about piling all your hopes and dreams into something and for once it actually works. You don't have to be making allowances and rationalisations because something just isn't as good as you were expecting. Refreshingly I can actually say that this is a show I'm proud to be a fan of and have all this history with. That I haven't been wasting my time as I saw it grow to fulfil its ultimate potential. And it's not over yet -- we'll still be watching this into 2007. I've said once before and I think I'll say it again.

"He's back. He's bloody back. Bless him ..."

The Love Invasion.

Comics For the first time in nearly a decade, Doctor Who Magazine's comic strip has changed shape. Writer Scott Gray's epic run of Eighth Doctor adventures came to a necessary end a few months ago with an excellent story featuring an invasion of London by the Cybermen and a regeneration-skirting finale in the flames of the time vortex. It was vintage stuff, Gray being one of the unsung heroes of the wilderness years bringing exciting, touching, gut wrenching stories month after month.

After an extended period when the strip could find its own way and develop into something entirely distinctive from the other forms in production (in sound and text) it would have to fulfill the expectations of new readers and return to pastiching whatever's happening on screen. This would have to be a recognisable Ninth Doctor and Rose, and more importantly, the rich continuity which had built up over the years would be out of the window. It had been rumoured that Russell himself would be writing the first story, but in the event, Scott Gray takes a breather and lets general franchise stallwart Gareth Roberts take the strain.

This new story began in March with the three part The Love Invasion. It's London in the swinging 60s and a group of shapely girls in pink t-shirts from something called 'Lend-A-Hand' are passing through the crowd doing random acts of kindness. The Doctor's immediately suspicious ("She didn't smell human") and is even more intrigued when they find that a luxury complex of flats is being built on the site of what should be the estate that in the future Rose calls home. So far, so Adam Adamant Lives!. But as the story progresses it becomes clear that 'Lend-A-Hand' is a front for Igrix, a Kustollon, a time travelling alien who wants to blow up the moon as part of a plan which would mean humanity doesn't reach the stars and start a war with his people.

Much like the novels, it's initially strange seeing and 'hearing' The Doctor and Rose in this new media. After the initial 'teaser' featuring a 'Lend-A-Hand' girl being apparently murdered there's the TARDIS and already The Doctor's quipping that the 60s are the only decade when his timeship is a good disguise. The first thing the reader notices is how close the ensuing banter between him and Rose is to that heard on screen. Already there is a great rationalisation as to why this TARDIS crew seem to spend most of their time on Earth around the 20th century. (Doctor: "Humans just aren't very curious people. Like you, choosing to come here. We could have gone and seen the warriors of Sun Tzu, or the Ottoman Empire, or the Oligocene era -- you'd love the first porcupines ... but nah, it was 'Let's Go Somewhere Different ...' " Rose: "I just don't wanna go too far back. Nowhere before electricity, OK? I'm always reaching for light switches that ain't there...") Importantly it passes the test of sounding like the actors something which isn't very easy to do.

Like the tv series, and cleverly for a medium in which space is a premium, there are very few featured characters. Charlotte Cobb is a scientist who designed a serum to fight against the insidious alien 'Lend-A- Hand' girls after they did away with her husband. Shirley Gilbert is effectively Rose's companion during the adventure, asking for the plot to be explained to her while she tries to grasp all the futuristic phrases which are thrown into the mix. Mr Love is Igrix's human relation on Earth. Charlotte makes the biggest impression, coming across the strongest, even if as the story progresses she becomes more of a bystander as The Doctor and Rose complete their self-engineered mission.

The artwork is very -- busy. Action fills every page and the artists have gone as far away from the rows of frames approach as you can go. On page two of part two, the top frame is almost pushed off the page by the title. There is, however, the usual issue of making the characters look like their real counterparts. One approach is to create artwork so stylised that this doesn't matter (see some issues of the Buffy comic). The other way is photo-realism, effectively copy frames from the film or tv series (see the recent 24:One Shot). Perhaps understandably this goes for something in between and ends up looking like Roy of the Rovers. Oh well. Eccleston becomes something of a caricature -- big ears, big nose, big forehead. In some frames during the opening part he looks more like Kenneth Williams. Piper's rendering is more successful, especially in the final part. The characters created specially for the strip come across better, especially Charlotte. I've often wondered were artists who have to draw humans get the image from -- is there a Littlewoods catalogue somewhere with a photo which was the inspiration for her likeness?

What's particularly surprising is how close the strip comes being the tv series. There is a Bad Wolf reference and The Doctor doesn't quite save the day all by himself. It also lets the plot resonate with the characters. There is a moment in part three similar to the scene in The Unquiet Dead were The Doctor and Rose debate the morality of allowing the Gelph to live on in the corpses of humans. Here, the alien's Igix's plan could mean that humanity would go on leaving a lovely peaceful life on Earth without war. When they have one of their 'special chats' The Doctor points out 'All the horrors I've seen in the future -- swept away. So tell me, Rose Tyler -- should I be fighting that?' Rose says that she doesn't want anyone running her life, she wants to make her own mistakes. But The Doctor has frequently been guilty of much the same meddling as Igrix, usually on other worlds.

Overall this was more enjoyable that might be expected. It's interesting to see a Ninth Doctor adventure in a format which is closer to the old series than the new with shorter parts and cliffhangers. Time and again I found myself grinning at some bit of business or dialogue, some of which is just as quotable as the tv series ("They're humans now -- with basic human instructions. Eat, sleep, fancy the wrong person, worry, cry a lot, pick fights, that sort of thing...") Most importantly for me, it doesn't feel dumbed down, and would have made a great tv episode given the money and time. Can't be better than that.

Dalek.

TV This could well be the best of the series so far. At no point during the episode did you feel like you had to make allowances for moments designed y'know for kids. No farting or burping here. This was a story sleekly designed to frighten the bejesus out of everyone and was all the better for it. Arguably, for the first time, the series held its back story on its sleeve throwing references for long term viewers and fans all over the place, to Davros and Cybermen, without needing to name any names. But new mythology was created for new fans, with the adversaries in the Time War spelt out for the first time and The Doctor's part in it.

Ironically the scariest moment for me were the scenes in which this story was told as The Doctor confronted the Dalek. He just ranted at it, face red with anger, veins popping out all over. We've seen Eccleston do comedy in the series, but this was the first time we saw his out and out anger and I just sat clutching the armrests of my chair. I jumped as we saw The Doctor's face bending around the Dalek's line of sight. Hartnell smirked, McCoy underplayed, Eccleston boiled over. Billie Piper was at it again too bringing even more dimensions to her work. The moment when we were led to believe the Dalek had killed Rose, even though having seen spoilery clips of later episodes we know she'll still be around, was heart breaking because the histrionics and screams which could have greeted her end are replaced with a quiet seeya to The Doctor.

But it wouldn't have worked if Nick Briggs, in his voice work as the Dalek, hadn't been there giving as good as he got. I've been following Briggs' Daleks for years in the Big Finish audio dramas but I haven't witnessed anything like the performance he gave tonight. In the diary in this month's Doctor Who magazine, he talked about how he was asked to loosen his intonation slightly and he comments that he'd been wanting to do that for years (perhaps constrained before by expectation). It really showed. This Dalek had an emotional range which made it even creepier -- as it tricked Rose into caring for it to the extent that she would touch and reinvigorate -- with that quiet whisper. Terrifying.

Much like The Unquiet Dead the episode benefited from having a small number of humans. It's tricky for the main guest cast to make an impression in circumstances such as this, but Corey Johnson's Henry van Statten had just the right level of smarm, Anna-Louise Plowman (who was previously in the Stargate tv series) oozed charisma and Bruno Langley had to just the right amount of charm without you wanting to throttle him. I like that he'll be travelling to another adventure -- he's a good counterpoint to the now slightly darker Doctor. Also want to mention Jana Carpenter who I think was the guard on the stairs who stood her ground against the Dalek -- along with Beccy Armory who played Raffalo the plumber in the second episode its an example of someone really making you care in only a few moments of screen time.

But again, to demonstrate what an intricate jigsaw this episode was, none of their work might have been as good had Rob Shearman not produced another gem. I'd thought it would be a more traditional work than Big Finish's Chimes At Midnight and particularly Scherzo. So it was with all the action and chase sequences. But there was still something else going on. You have an episode with a Dalek. What to do with it. I mean you could just drop it in a city and letting it go on a killing spree, and that might be exciting and scary (and expensive) but what would be the point we'd need to do something new. And as has been the case with this new series and Shearman's past work it was bound to subvert expectations.

They've invaded Earth, the universe and time on countless occasions. We've seen their beginning and now and then their ultimate end. What next? Make us care for them. Actually make them the wounded and The Doctor the aggressor, wanting their ultimate destruction. No crouching on the floor with two wires debating whether they should be destroyed. They just needed to die at all costs, the hero standing almost over one with a giant gun hoping to finish the job of wiping out their race for the final time. And we didn't want him to. Actually the Daleks have been given feelings before, way back in the Troughton era in The Evil of the Daleks when they were infected with the human factor leading to them inploding in on themselves in a civil war. Then it was a cool way of ending the adventure in some excitement. We never heard of that faction again (give or take a comic strip).

The programme makers knew that if you gave them feelings it took away the one thing which made them different. That they just wanted to kill everything else. Watching tonight I was reminded of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode I, Borg in which that series' version of the unstoppable killing machine was drawn away from its kind, spent time with humans and started to question its purpose. In that series it had the ultimate effect of weakening the foe for years afterward, because we knew that under their organo-metal exterior they still had the capacity to care. And even when it returned to its own kind there was that little wink at the end that it had taken the experience with it. They became too human.

Doctor Who didn't make that mistake. The Dalek might have absorbed some of Rose's DNA and was beginning to have new ideas, thoughts and feelings but it didn't know what to do with them. It could have gone either way and made it even better at its job. Instead it just wanted to die. And there it went, imploding in on itself. But we know its just that Dalek and no matter what The Doctor says it was the last of them, in our heart of hearts we know they'll back, and judging by all the flying, plungering and electricuting, deadlier and scarier than they've ever been.

Some will question whether its right that our hero would go on the offensive in that way -- all of the jellybabies and telling Leela to put away her knife out the window. But we've seen this kind of thing already this series from this incarnation with anti-plastic, withholding moisturizer, gas explosions and hunking great missiles. What people probably won't like is how direct it is, in a moment when the enemy is already effectively defeated. Which is an idea entirely inkeeping with Shearman's canon -- the deconstruction of what we know -- in previous cases through the restructuring of story, this time the audiences reaction to a Doctor who becomes an anti-hero bent on revenge.

The jigsaw continues with Joe Aherne's direction. His vampire series Ultraviolet was one of the best looking and written genre series of the past twenty years so I was delighted to hear he was directing some Who. In television series like this, it's less easy to see the individual contributions of the director, editor, photographer and producer. But for me this show seemed to flow much better than the rest. It had a fairly linear story, certainly, but the pacing seemed perfect, and it didn't throw in a camera angle to be flashy. Everything seemed in service of the story. I'd include in this Murray Gold's score which demonstrated what he is capable of, pulling back when he needed to in a very Howard Shore way.

But, finally what of the realisation of the Dalek? Considering the horror stories in the past of Spider-Daleks and humanoids I was amazed and overjoyed at actually how respectful this design is. There is something of the Battle-Dalek from their last tv appearance about it, all gleaming metal. The rationalising of the sink plunger as part of its killing armoury worked very well, as did it's new approach to the electronic keypad. The CG effects really demonstrated how far tv has come, especially as the exterminated not only went negative but also transparant, shocks flying through skeleton.

After the disappointment of the film version of The HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy, I feel blessed that my actual favourite franchise is being rendered so perfecting in the next century. It took that familiar jigsaw, all of the icons of the series, and cut its own pieces out to fit. Our perception of The Doctor and those Daleks will never be the same again, and that's an extraordinary thing.

World War III.

TV  Those fans who are grumbling that there isn't enough continuity in the new tv series should pick up a copy of Big Finish's latest Gallifrey play Lies which takes things to the other extreme. It requires the listener to not have heard the past four plays in the series, but also have a decent knowledge of most of the other audios which have mentioned Gallifrey including the Paul McGann audios, the Eighth Doctor novels, the Tom Baker era on tv and a daresay other stories I've missed completely. I don't think I've heard anything which relies so heavily on knowing who travelled the galaxy with whom and in what order. If I mention that one of the central trunks of the plotline is an attempt to explain why Mary Tamm's Romana decided to regenerate into Lalla Ward of her own free will at the start of Destiny of the Daleks, you'll have some understanding that if you're looking for an entry point into the rest of the universe of the series this is not the best place to start. I was farely bewildered and I've been a fan for years.

What's clever about the new series is that it's understood the mistakes of the tv movie and only throwing in continuity if it furthers the plot or the emotional core of characters. The utilisation of UNIT for example in World War III in no way diminishes what's gone before and actually more coherently sets up a future engagement when the new viewer will get the chance to meet this covert organisation in a more fleshed out manner with a story which is worthy (with an appearance by The Brigadier the icing on the cake for fans). But the difference is you don't actually need to have the Pertwee era locked in your brain for all that to work. Similarly we know The Doctor is an alien, he's a timelord and that his home planet has been destroyed. Other than having a time machine, that's really all new viewers need to know about him because we're still discovering him through Rose. Yet, with all the history, we're still discovering this Doctor and what's been happening to him. It's a freshing change not to know exactly who our hero is, to look into his eyes and not know what he's thinking -- and without the artificial histrionics of the late McCoy era.

Next week's episode, which if it was an old New York sitcom would be The One With The Dalek, is going to be the most fun because it's bound to the new approach's greatest extrapolation. As The Doctor and Rose step through this new space museum, we'll all be sitting there shouting and pointing: 'Cyberman!' 'Mechanoid!' 'Krynoid!' (maybe) 'Kandyman!' (maybe not) while the newb will see the hand from a Slitheen but also marvelling at all these different alien races, each step of our heros adding life to this universe they're just stumbling into. According to the trailer the Dalek's dropped through time. Personally I'm hoping it's one of those which went astray in the Big Finish audio Time of the Daleks, but the point is they probably won't tell us -- it'll be up to the viewer, no matter how much they know about the series, to make up their own minds if they want to. But is probably doesn't matter.

Aliens of London.

TV As well as the episode being set in a year's time, there are a couple of other things I noticed (and I don't think anyone else has mentioned) on watching it again:

The housing project in which Rose lives is called The Powell Estate. Could this be a reference to the controller of the BBC who actually cancelled the show in the late eighties?

Although neither of the telephone numbers for the Alien Helpline on the Rose posters work, there is another one on the doors of the army vehicle which are block The Doctor's sight of the craft and what's happening. If you call 0800 169 2268, there is an answering machine which thanks people for calling what sounds like the Freephone Army Driving line (whatever that might be). If anyone else noticed it I've a feeling they'll be inundated with calls tomorrow if anyone else was paying attention. Anyone dare to leave a message?

The Unquiet Dead.

I'm playing away this week, so my review of The Unquiet Dead can be found posted at Off The Telly.

the prospect of Simon Callow as Charles Dickens

TV There are moments during each episode of the new series of Doctor Who when you know the programme makers are having the time of their lives. In The Unquiet Dead, its just after the Doctor and Rose have managed to land the TARDIS together and they’re simple lying on the floor in a heap laughing their heads off. At no point during the 27 odd years of the classic series would you expect to see that kind of familiarity and it exemplifies the brilliance of what this new show is doing – although there is danger and death, there is also tremendous fun.

It was the episode I was particularly looking forward to. I’ve been a great fan of Mark Gatiss’ previous work writing Doctor Who during the wilderness years on audio, in novels and on fan produced spin-off series. It was almost like an amazing double life, by day a quarter of The League of Gentlemen, at night beavering away getting Orson Wells to help the eighth Doctor save the world in the audio “Invaders from Mars” or creating the best third Doctor story we never saw in the novel The Last of the Gaderine. Working on the new series, like many of his colleagues, was a chance of a lifetime and put a stamp on why he’d helped keep the idea of the programme alive.

But there was also the prospect of Simon Callow as Charles Dickens. Having played Dickens in the theatre, for the thespian to decide that Doctor Who would be the perfect time to put his impression of the man on screen, was, during the gestation period for the show, one of the casting milestones which increased the feeling that this was going to be something special, that finally there was going to be something good to watch on Saturday nights.

It was also the tricky third episode. By the third episode of any series the formula is explained, the scenario demonstrated and the characters introduced. Depending on the type of show, it’s here we find out if the formula is flexible enough not to become repetitive, the scenario is intriguing enough to for us to want to carry on watching, and if the characters are solid enough to hold our interest.

“The Unquiet Dead” managed to succeed in all three.

It’s not unexpected that the TARDIS would land in the past this time out, having already been to the present and far future. But rather than picking something fairly generic instead its very specific. They might have landed the ship, but as usual it’s gone off course. Instead of Naples in 1860 as the Time Lord had promised his companion, its 1869 in Cardiff, when Dickens is in town during a theatre tour. What would be the point of following up a major historical event like the end of the world with The Battle of Hastings? It’s this contrast which perfectly demonstrates the flexibility of the show, the ability to tell stories large and small. Instead of inadvertently starting The Great Fire of London, The Doctor’s at an undertaker’s trying to work out how the dead are walking again.

This is also a chance to again evoke the past of the series. A love letter to those older “gothic” episodes produced by Philip Hinchcliffe during the 1970s and predominantly written by Robert Holmes; much like “The Talons of Weng-Chiang”, the supernatural appearing in amongst frock cloaks turning out to be alien invaders, the concepts of horror masking a science fiction core. Like those serials, the period detail is great, especially in the theatre where the ghosts first show themselves. The atmosphere is all there. And again, the special effects don’t disgrace themselves, with the villains being a computer generated character for the third week running. Gone are the days of a man in a giant rat costume trying to look menacing in a sewer.

It’s the revealingly contemporary core which runs through the episode that lifts it from being a mere copy of the past. These ghosts are aliens, the Gelth, using the dead human bodies to live in normal time again, refugees from a “time war”, something, by the look on the Doctor’s face, he knows everything about. Might this be what caused the destruction of his home world as mentioned in last week’s episode? Here’s where we come across the big difference to the classic series – a story arc is developing here the like of which only occurred on special occasions such as “The Key to Time” season in the past, but viewers of shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer will be entirely comfortable with. Importantly, it’s not about going off and finding a MacGuffin, its about the Doctor’s character and what he’s not telling us regarding what happened to him since last he was on our screens.

Plot is taking a back seat to characterization. Which is fine and stops much of the pointless running around which used to go on. But it does have the effect of creating the feeling of some parts of the story, in particular the Doctor’s discovery of the problem he needs to overcome, have been edited out. Here it happened at the séance, with very little evidence, the Doctor had decided there was a rift in time through which these aliens were coming through. Frankly on first viewing I missed where this came from. I suppose if you’ve been on any job long enough you can see the signs really quickly.

In the previous couple of episodes, writer Russell T Davies and actor Christopher Eccleston’s interpretation of the Doctor has been different to say the least. In “Rose” he was manic, in “The End of the World” commanding yet soulful. Here he mixed the two with something else. Vulnerability. In Gatiss’ script, the Doctor became prone to a certain naïveté and makes some fundamental mistakes dealing with the situation at hand. Although the job is done in the end, he very much relies on the help of humanity. He also misunderstands the morality they cling to, in particular our attitude to the dead. “Don’t you carry a donor card?”

Much has been said about what a surprise Billie Piper has been, but the comic timing she displayed here was just perfect; for example when she finds out where the TARDIS has ended up. “I don’t care.” “I don’t care.” “Oh.”. But the creepy moment when we and Rose find out that there is more to Gwyneth, the maid, than meets the eye is entirely played on her face and its to the credit of director Euros Lyn that he lets her carry it. Rose is very far from the every-companion of the past, although she’s still asking questions and running off and getting captured, she’s also discovering much more, and at times the Doctor is asking her what to do.

What’s particularly gratifying is that all of the guest cast is taking the work very seriously. There was a tendency in the past to play everything massively “nothing in the world can stop me now!” and so forth. But here we find real people in extraordinary circumstances. Eve Myles’ work as Gwyneth was no different to what might be expected from any BBC costume drama. It’s very rare that family entertainment has this quality.

In addition, you can absolutely see why Callow wanted to play this Dickens. Unlike the generic historical figures who have appeared in this and other series and are presented as a pastiche of what the public know, Dickens was from a particular time in his life when he felt his age grip and his performance lecture tours were taking a toll on his health. As he sat in the dressing room of the theatre at the beginning contemplating what he had become and how he wondered if his imagination had deserted him, it could have been a scene from a bio-pic of the author (except this visit to Cardiff is a fiction – he never went there). He has his own story during the episode, as the magic the Doctor reveals to him allows him to understand that actually he does still have the capacity for new ideas and ends up saving the day. Powerful stuff.

A show going from strength to strength. Although the ratings were down last week, it seemed to be because of the nicer weather (every show was lower across the board). With this story I’m sure that a core audience will start developing and its going to be rather large. By episode four you’ll be talking about consolidation, and next week is the big invasion story. It’s called “Aliens of London” for goodness sake. If it can continue to be exciting but also increase the mystery of what happened and is happening with the Doctor I’m going to be very, very happy.

[This review was originally posted on another parked website Off The Telly. I have nothing new to add.]

The End of the World.

TV Goodness, who saw that coming? Although cleverly not mentioned by name, poof goes Gallifrey, The Doctor's home planet. And the rest of The Timelords. Fans everywhere wonder if the series is going to suddenly become a continuation of the books (where it also apparently happened) in what's probably the most comitted and gripping plot point in telefantasy since Buffy died. As the for the rest of tonight's Doctor Who, wasn't it just excellent? Exciting, scary, emotional. Eccles demonstrated what a loss he'll be and Billie continued her one girl battle to prove that you shouldn't assume anything about anyone. Yes it was very Hitchhikers but in a good way. And one of the issues I had with the first episode has already been fixed -- the music here was fine. Including the pop. Who the hell expected Soft Cell and Britney Spears? Very zeitguesty. It also, unlike last week, featured scenes which went on for longer than a few seconds and allowed the characters to breath. It's just a shame The Moxx of Balhoon bought it. I liked that little blue alien. I can smell chips...

Rose.

TV The downloadable screensaver from the official website which until seven o'clock tonight has been counting down until the start of the new series of Doctor Who now simply says 'The Invasion Begins...' Somehow I don't think it means the brief sound bleed of Graham Norton creeping in from BBC3 just as new companion Rose was being menaced for the first time by the Autons (who oddly weren't named this time out). It was an own goal from the BBC on what is one of the most important broadcasting nights of the year. But you know what I'm willing to forgive them.

Because he's back. He's bloody back. Bless him.

To be honest considering how much has been written about the new series off and online, all the tv and radio documentaries, the actual first episode, Rose, felt beside the point. As the busy new title sequence swished by part of my brain wondered if I was actually watching another trailer. But as Billie Piper strolled into view, and camera overcranked in Trafalgar Square during her lunch date with her boyfriend, my attention snapped back into view as I realised that it had started, I was there and nine years of wait were over.

Actually I think the plotting would have come as something of a shock for anyone who hasn't been catching the Doctor's adventures off screen in the gap. Atypically, The timelord already knew what the problem was and how to solve it even before the episode began (it was a bit like turning up for the last episode of a six parter in the old series). The Nestene Consciousness was using a transmitter (the London Eye) to control all the plastic in London in preparation for invading the Earth, with the help of shop dummies. The Doctor had a vile of anti-plastic, which he could use to destroy the Consciousness if needed to. It's exactly the sort of thing you'd find in one of the many short story anthologies (Short Trips etc) which been published in the interim.

This was clever move number one. Because just like best of the classic series, we were seeing him through the eyes of the companion, Rose Tyler -- she became our eyes and ears during the mad adventure. We needn't understand what it all meant, because she didn't really -- for her it was about going with the flow, enjoying the spectacle and the adventure -- much as it was for us. Like a prologue or opening act, it's about introducing the concepts and ideas to a new audience and reintroducing them to the old, and show what's changed to those who've never gone away. The was absolutely nothing in here which could alienate fans, well not this fan anyway.

HaloThe next clever idea was casting Christopher Eccleston. I think it was Tom Baker who said that the series is actor proof, that anyone could play it. That may be true, but its playing it well, and in a way which carries on the tradition. Eccleston's playing was just spooky; look into his eyes and you can see the other eight incarnations looking out at you. The moment on the bridge when he explains to Rose about the TARDIS moving around and says that she 'wouldn't understand' was just like grumpy old Hartnell. At the other end of the scale, as he fought the ships control panel as it melted the fake Mickey's head, McGann was back with us briefly. He's energetic, funny, sober, philosophical yet authorative when he needs to be. Standing over the the Nestene Consciousness trying to negotiate a truce using galactic law was just amazing.

Also amazing was Billie Piper. I don't think I was quite prepared for how much charisma she has, having not seen her in any of her previous acting roles. There is a real spark to her, an instant likeability. There is an edge of vulnerability in there, that kind of Alyson Hannigan (Willow in Buffy) huggability -- you really care if she gets hurt and I imagine they'll be playing that card somewhat as the series progresses. As a character, Rose Tyler is absolutely the right choice. Everything will be new to her, and there is that sense of wonder which was missing too much from in previous companions.

The tone was also just right. Some will no doubt knock on about the humour, especially in the scene when the Auton arms comes to life and attacks the Doctor without Rose noticing, or the wheelie bin burp, but I that's not much better or worse than John Pertwee's cleaning lady, or any number of Jelly Baby scenes. It's an important part of the series and in the Whedon age, vital other it would all look a bit ernest and silly. The episode's director Keith Boak hasn't 'done' sci-fi before (depending on your opinion of NY-LON) and was no doubt chosen because this is a story very much grounded on Earth, and these elements, quite right felt like they were intruding on the setting. Photographer Ernest Vincze, comes from a film background and that showed. At no point did the visuals feel flat; the moment when the London Eye created a halo around The Doctor, as well as feeling like a sneaky Second Coming reference (in that Russell T Davies series Eccleston played the new Christ) offered a perspective you don't often see on tv.

And yet. It wasn't perfect. Murray Gold's music was annoying. Considering how good his work has been in Casanova, here it just feels misjudged. Some sections felt desperately late Eighties. Every now and them there would an excellent spot effect, then a drum beat would clatter in and ruin it for everyone. We can't all be Alistair Locke or Dudley Simpson (both great incidental musicians from different eras of the show), but it just felt out of place somehow. That said, his mix of the theme is very good, but Delia Derbyshire's version was perfectly fine no matter what he and Russell might say about it seeming 'a bit sad'. Also, and I hate to single out any actor like this, but what did Noel Clarke think he was doing with that performance as Mickey. Yes, the character's a sap, he needs to be, otherwise Rose would shack up with The Doctor in the TARDIS, but why did he feel the need to play every scene as though he was auditioning to replace Craig Charles aboard Red Dwarf? Perhaps he settle down as the series progresses -- we'll be seeing more of him in later weeks as there as re-occurring characters this time around ... oh yes ...

But if that's all I can think of then something must be very right. This isn't another Phantom Menace. I keeping asking myself why I'm so excited about a new television series when there is still lots of other really good Doctor Who going around. It's about hope. It's about the fact that if enough of the right people care about something, and enough of those people are in the right position to doing something about it, wonderful things can happen. If that doesn't make you choke up, you must be an Auton.