So the roster of writers for the 2010 series has been confirmed. I can't help but feel that Steven Moffat is playing things a little safe.
For each of Russell T Davies' first three seasons as Executive Producer, he found four new writers to work on the show. Moffat gives us two, Richard Curtis and Simon Nye, both of whom could be considered as whatever the equivalent of stunt-casting is for commissioning scripts: they're both big names in comedy writing, that will attract considerable tabloid interest, with no track record or special interest in sci-fi that I know of.
Of the returning names, Gareth Roberts has been a fixture for the past few years, Chris Chibnall wrote 42 for Season 3 and also oversaw the first two seasons of Torchwood, and Toby Whithouse and Mark Gatiss haven't been on writing duty since 2006.
My worry is that, as far as I can tell, Gatiss and Roberts have both to date specialized in the same sort of fairly cozy pseudo-historical story, possibly featuring major personage from history. When we know that Curtis is writing something that will doubtless be at least partly comedic featuring "Van Gogh stabbing a yellow monster", it's possible that we may not be in for much variety. (It doesn't help that I haven't unreservedly enjoyed any of Gatiss or Roberts' old effort.)
Still, School Reunion by Whithouse seemed a good effort, even if the actual qualities of the script were largely obscured by the nostalgia-fest of the return of K9 and Sarah Jane, and unlike many I don't have much against Chris Chibnall. The first series of Torchwood was a hot mess, but the second was really enjoyable, and 42 was fine, suffering from looking and feeling a lot like the superior The Impossible Planet from a season before, and also being followed by possibly the strongest six-week run of episodes the show has ever known.
In the end, what Moffat's 2010 squad seems to announce is that the man famous for bringing the scares to RTD's show is determined to keep things light and fluffy for the foreseeable future. We don't even know how much his own scripts will continue to bring the darkness, now that he's no longer the one they wheel in once a year to write "the scary one", but the Chief Writer. We really don't know whether he will continue to push the idea of the Doctor as a sexual being that was so prominent in his RTD-era scripts. Matt Smith doesn't look like an obvious successor to Pretty Boy Tennant and his monarch-deflowering hijinks, but you never can tell.
One thing's for sure, it's going to be fun finding out. Is it spring yet?
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Undisappointment
The tough thing about reviewing the End of Time is that there's so much of it. We're talking feature-film length here, two and a quarter hours. Not liking some of it does not necessarily mean not liking all of it.
And you can even not like some aspects personally, while fully accepting that they're there for different types of people than yourself. I may have rolled my eyes a little at the Master shooting lightning from his hands, or the Hesperus chase sequence, or Gallifrey-as-Coruscant, or the Mos Eisley Cantina homage, but hopefully the kids loved them. Also, it's great the Doctor Who can finally be Star Wars if it wants to be, after all these years, even though I wish it wouldn't be, as Star Wars is a bit rubbish and Who is great ;)
As already stated, I found EoT's plotting to be a real letdown. But that's not to say there wasn't much to enjoy as well. The acting was first-rate: Tennant, Simm and Cribbins pulled out all the stops, perhaps in the hope of impressing Actual Hollywood Movie Star Timothy Dalton. And much as I felt the need for the Doctor to regenerate was, in typical RTD style, tacked on as an afterthought rather than arising naturally from the plot, once that train of events was set into motion I was pretty happy with how the Tenth Doctor faced his "death".
Some have found Ten's final "tantrum" and "cowardly" last words rather distasteful. I thought they were great. When he realizes that he's going to have to sacrifice himself to save Wilf, his diatribe proves that he understands the temptation to be the Time Lord Victorious... understands and rejects it. He's spent the year since he last saw Donna feeling lonely and miserable. How could such a life more valuable than that of a cheerful, honest family man like Wilf?
After absorbing the lethal radiation, the Doctor gets to take his reward. I don't know that his whirlwind trip to visit all of his old friends and companions makes literal sense, but on a metaphorical level is perfect. I don't think it was necessary for him to save them all one last time, but it reminds us that he's saved them all before, that without him none of them would be as happy and successful as they are now. Verity Newman's cameo tells us that life goes on forever; even after one generation is dead, we live on in the memories and the faces of our grandchildren. Captain Jack tells us that life goes on right now; he's been drowning his sorrows over the death of Ianto Jones, but here comes dishy Midshipman Frame to help him heal. And Rose back in 2005... she tells us that even when a story is over, somewhere else it's only just begun.
As Doctor Who fans with significant DVD collections, we of all people know that last bit to be true. The Tenth Doctor hasn't been lost to us. His story is still here, to revisit as much as we like, to build on if we choose. Only now we have an Eleventh Doctor to enjoy as well. How is that not a win/win scenario?
And you can even not like some aspects personally, while fully accepting that they're there for different types of people than yourself. I may have rolled my eyes a little at the Master shooting lightning from his hands, or the Hesperus chase sequence, or Gallifrey-as-Coruscant, or the Mos Eisley Cantina homage, but hopefully the kids loved them. Also, it's great the Doctor Who can finally be Star Wars if it wants to be, after all these years, even though I wish it wouldn't be, as Star Wars is a bit rubbish and Who is great ;)
As already stated, I found EoT's plotting to be a real letdown. But that's not to say there wasn't much to enjoy as well. The acting was first-rate: Tennant, Simm and Cribbins pulled out all the stops, perhaps in the hope of impressing Actual Hollywood Movie Star Timothy Dalton. And much as I felt the need for the Doctor to regenerate was, in typical RTD style, tacked on as an afterthought rather than arising naturally from the plot, once that train of events was set into motion I was pretty happy with how the Tenth Doctor faced his "death".
Some have found Ten's final "tantrum" and "cowardly" last words rather distasteful. I thought they were great. When he realizes that he's going to have to sacrifice himself to save Wilf, his diatribe proves that he understands the temptation to be the Time Lord Victorious... understands and rejects it. He's spent the year since he last saw Donna feeling lonely and miserable. How could such a life more valuable than that of a cheerful, honest family man like Wilf?
After absorbing the lethal radiation, the Doctor gets to take his reward. I don't know that his whirlwind trip to visit all of his old friends and companions makes literal sense, but on a metaphorical level is perfect. I don't think it was necessary for him to save them all one last time, but it reminds us that he's saved them all before, that without him none of them would be as happy and successful as they are now. Verity Newman's cameo tells us that life goes on forever; even after one generation is dead, we live on in the memories and the faces of our grandchildren. Captain Jack tells us that life goes on right now; he's been drowning his sorrows over the death of Ianto Jones, but here comes dishy Midshipman Frame to help him heal. And Rose back in 2005... she tells us that even when a story is over, somewhere else it's only just begun.
As Doctor Who fans with significant DVD collections, we of all people know that last bit to be true. The Tenth Doctor hasn't been lost to us. His story is still here, to revisit as much as we like, to build on if we choose. Only now we have an Eleventh Doctor to enjoy as well. How is that not a win/win scenario?
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
On Disappointment
Every year, for at least the past three years, Russell T Davies has done this to me. Built up my hopes with a bold and ambitious lead-in episode... and then dashed them again with a crazy mess of a finale. The Sound of Drums effectively redefined the Master for the 21st century; this fact is drowned out by the memories of Dobby!Doctor and Jesus!Doctor in Last of the Time Lords. The Stolen Earth was a strong episode with perhaps the best cliffhanger in all of New Who; I find it physically painful to revisit Journey's End. Same deal with The End of Time Parts 1 and 2.
Let's go back to that cliffhanger at the end of The Stolen Earth. I think RTD's modus operandi is pretty clearly this: he thinks up a great scene that will make a fantastic centerpiece for a Doctor Who episode. A fake-out regeneration is an amazing idea, so much so that it's hard to believe no-one had ever done one before. Unfortunately, Davies is invariably then happy to resolve his incredible dramatic setpiece in a matter of seconds, with some preposterous handwave. The regeneration energy... was siphoned off into the Doctor's spare hand. Wha'?
The End of Time is full of patented RTD big ideas. A Master that can fly and shoot lightning bolts out of his fingers! The Master turning every human being on earth into clones of himself! The return of the Time Lords! Gallifrey appearing in the heavens to obliterate the Earth itself! A scene in which the "man who never would" MUST CHOOSE between shooting the Master or Rassilon! You could have sustained a two-parter on half of this stuff, and that's even before we factor in the Doctor having to regenerate and say all his goodbyes.
And of course none of it holds up to examination. It's all big stabbing crescendos that go nowhere. I still haven't heard an explanation for why the Master's skeleton keeps becoming visible, and where the superpowers came from. I liked the idea of the Master Race, but Rassilon just waves his omnipotent glove in its direction and the entire plotline is cheaply, lazily unwritten. The Time Lords and Gallifrey could have been something big... but no, it turns out they were just invoked because of the need for THE BIGGEST THREAT TO THE UNIVERSE EVER and the Daleks have already been used, reused and then overused.
The gun scene was the worst of all. To set it up in the first place RTD needs Wilf to press his antique service revolver on the Doctor. But he wouldn't, really, would he? Aha, enter a mysterious woman in white who puts Wilf up to it. But who the hell is she, how did she know the gun would be an effective solution, and if she's a Time Lady how did she escape the Time Lock to repeatedly contact Wilf (and perhaps advance the civilization of the Ood on the way)? Apparently it's anybody's guess. Why can't Rassilon's glove atomize the Doctor's elderly weapon the same instantaneous way as it took out nearly seven billion Masters? Why is anyone worried about the Doctor shooting them when there was a non-sentient component of the link sitting there being the obvious target all along? Why is it only a gun that can destroy the link anyway (apart from it making the scene look more dramatic)? And so on, and so on.
Of course a smart viewer can construct their own moderately plausible explanations for most of the things that happen in The End of Time. But, you know, I like to think that Russell T Davies was being paid big bucks to be the chief writer on Doctor Who so we didn't have to. Just because he saw himself as a visionary, conjuring up titanic predicaments for the Doctor to find himself in, doesn't mean he should have been allowed to count himself above the chores of logic and linking narrative.
I've loved the RTD era, and I guess the man knows what he's doing in a way: when all that's left of Who are our memories, we're going to remember the big scenes and the powerful images, not the lines of explanatory dialogue. But not being given any kind of rhyme or reason leaves a nasty taste in my mouth, and I'm worried that in the end that nasty taste is all I'm going to remember now.
Goodbye RTD, you did fantastic things for the show and I'll miss you for sure. But I can't say I'm sorry that your replacement is a man who seems to see the point in consequential plotting. Roll on the Moffat era!
Let's go back to that cliffhanger at the end of The Stolen Earth. I think RTD's modus operandi is pretty clearly this: he thinks up a great scene that will make a fantastic centerpiece for a Doctor Who episode. A fake-out regeneration is an amazing idea, so much so that it's hard to believe no-one had ever done one before. Unfortunately, Davies is invariably then happy to resolve his incredible dramatic setpiece in a matter of seconds, with some preposterous handwave. The regeneration energy... was siphoned off into the Doctor's spare hand. Wha'?
The End of Time is full of patented RTD big ideas. A Master that can fly and shoot lightning bolts out of his fingers! The Master turning every human being on earth into clones of himself! The return of the Time Lords! Gallifrey appearing in the heavens to obliterate the Earth itself! A scene in which the "man who never would" MUST CHOOSE between shooting the Master or Rassilon! You could have sustained a two-parter on half of this stuff, and that's even before we factor in the Doctor having to regenerate and say all his goodbyes.
And of course none of it holds up to examination. It's all big stabbing crescendos that go nowhere. I still haven't heard an explanation for why the Master's skeleton keeps becoming visible, and where the superpowers came from. I liked the idea of the Master Race, but Rassilon just waves his omnipotent glove in its direction and the entire plotline is cheaply, lazily unwritten. The Time Lords and Gallifrey could have been something big... but no, it turns out they were just invoked because of the need for THE BIGGEST THREAT TO THE UNIVERSE EVER and the Daleks have already been used, reused and then overused.
The gun scene was the worst of all. To set it up in the first place RTD needs Wilf to press his antique service revolver on the Doctor. But he wouldn't, really, would he? Aha, enter a mysterious woman in white who puts Wilf up to it. But who the hell is she, how did she know the gun would be an effective solution, and if she's a Time Lady how did she escape the Time Lock to repeatedly contact Wilf (and perhaps advance the civilization of the Ood on the way)? Apparently it's anybody's guess. Why can't Rassilon's glove atomize the Doctor's elderly weapon the same instantaneous way as it took out nearly seven billion Masters? Why is anyone worried about the Doctor shooting them when there was a non-sentient component of the link sitting there being the obvious target all along? Why is it only a gun that can destroy the link anyway (apart from it making the scene look more dramatic)? And so on, and so on.
Of course a smart viewer can construct their own moderately plausible explanations for most of the things that happen in The End of Time. But, you know, I like to think that Russell T Davies was being paid big bucks to be the chief writer on Doctor Who so we didn't have to. Just because he saw himself as a visionary, conjuring up titanic predicaments for the Doctor to find himself in, doesn't mean he should have been allowed to count himself above the chores of logic and linking narrative.
I've loved the RTD era, and I guess the man knows what he's doing in a way: when all that's left of Who are our memories, we're going to remember the big scenes and the powerful images, not the lines of explanatory dialogue. But not being given any kind of rhyme or reason leaves a nasty taste in my mouth, and I'm worried that in the end that nasty taste is all I'm going to remember now.
Goodbye RTD, you did fantastic things for the show and I'll miss you for sure. But I can't say I'm sorry that your replacement is a man who seems to see the point in consequential plotting. Roll on the Moffat era!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Obamaphobia
If there's one thing that did set my alarm bells ringing in EoT1, it was the inclusion of the esteemed President of the United States of America, Barack Obama. While RTD's penchant for celebrity cameos means we've already seen real-world politicians in the Whoniverse (hello Ann Widdecombe), having Obama as POTUS felt wrong somehow.
Does it make any sense? Until very recently, the politicians of the RTD era were fictionalized. In Aliens of London the Slitheen bump off the incumbent Prime Minister and replace him with "Joseph Green". This doesn't last long, obviously, and Harriet Jones takes charge. Thanks possibly to the Doctor's whisper campaign against her, she's out in May 2008 to "Harold Saxon", who quickly goes insane and kills himself, his entire cabinet and the US President. He may or may not be succeeded by one Aubrey Fairchild, depending on whether you count original Who novels published by the BBC to be canon; if so, Fairchild dies sometime circa the 2009 Dalek invasion. In 2009 Brian Green is definitely, canonically PM, but probably not for long given how Torchwood: Children of Earth finishes up.
Obviously we have less information about American politicians in the Whoniverse, but we do know that in 2008 Arthur Coleman Winters was President, or at least President-Elect, however that's possible, of the USA. It seems strange that a world that may not have had George W Bush or even 9/11 should still be electing Obama in late '08. Given that the Earth is constantly under highly visible attack from aliens these days, wouldn't a candidate with a better track record on military and national security issues have made more sense? Or is Barack one of those "fixed points" in history we've been hearing a lot about lately. (I like him, but that might be overestimating his importance just a little.)
I think I see what RTD was trying to do. After introducing one rubbish, fictional Prez to be killed off by the Master just a couple of years back, it would have had little impact to do it again. They could have not named the President, but let's face it, if the back of his head belongs to a black man he's obviously Barack, and if it doesn't, that's not the implicit political statement that RTD wants to be distracting attention from his swansong.
So we're stuck with President Obama and his speech about a recession that doesn't really make sense in the Whoniverse (I think if we'd been invaded by Daleks and our entire planet towed across the universe one year ago, the economy would be a bit of a secondary issue). Unless, and here's a theory I do quite like, the inclusion of the "real" President is symptomatic of The End of Time also being The End of the RTD Timeline. The Whoniverse Earth has had a pretty crazy ride over the past five years, but maybe this is where it ends. No more Presidents and Prime Ministers being assassinated or discredited by aliens on an annual basis. A return to the even keel of stable, "normal" history, at least until Steven Moffat decides if and how he wants to much that up beyond recognition again.
I wouldn't put it past Russell T Davies to employ a big reset switch in EoT2 tomorrow: it's a device he doesn't seem to see much point in sparing any need to use sparingly. Bring back the Time Lords, wipe out the whole post-Time War Earth continuity, which frankly went completely bananas without their stewardship. (Even inside of the RTD era, episodes like 2005's 2012-set Dalek make no sense at all in the light of the events of the subsequent few seasons.)
In many ways it'd be a great relief to get back to normal, have a Doctor on the run from his own people in a rackety old TARDIS, and an Earth where alien invasions are unthinkable again, instead of an annual occurrence. In other respects it'd be a massive, lazy cheat on Russell's part - encouraging future writers not to care about tight plotting or logical consequences because, hey, we can always reinstall a clean timeline at the end of our tenure. I suppose there's no point in speculating about it until we see what EoT2 has to say, in about 24 hours from now. Until then!
Does it make any sense? Until very recently, the politicians of the RTD era were fictionalized. In Aliens of London the Slitheen bump off the incumbent Prime Minister and replace him with "Joseph Green". This doesn't last long, obviously, and Harriet Jones takes charge. Thanks possibly to the Doctor's whisper campaign against her, she's out in May 2008 to "Harold Saxon", who quickly goes insane and kills himself, his entire cabinet and the US President. He may or may not be succeeded by one Aubrey Fairchild, depending on whether you count original Who novels published by the BBC to be canon; if so, Fairchild dies sometime circa the 2009 Dalek invasion. In 2009 Brian Green is definitely, canonically PM, but probably not for long given how Torchwood: Children of Earth finishes up.
Obviously we have less information about American politicians in the Whoniverse, but we do know that in 2008 Arthur Coleman Winters was President, or at least President-Elect, however that's possible, of the USA. It seems strange that a world that may not have had George W Bush or even 9/11 should still be electing Obama in late '08. Given that the Earth is constantly under highly visible attack from aliens these days, wouldn't a candidate with a better track record on military and national security issues have made more sense? Or is Barack one of those "fixed points" in history we've been hearing a lot about lately. (I like him, but that might be overestimating his importance just a little.)
I think I see what RTD was trying to do. After introducing one rubbish, fictional Prez to be killed off by the Master just a couple of years back, it would have had little impact to do it again. They could have not named the President, but let's face it, if the back of his head belongs to a black man he's obviously Barack, and if it doesn't, that's not the implicit political statement that RTD wants to be distracting attention from his swansong.
So we're stuck with President Obama and his speech about a recession that doesn't really make sense in the Whoniverse (I think if we'd been invaded by Daleks and our entire planet towed across the universe one year ago, the economy would be a bit of a secondary issue). Unless, and here's a theory I do quite like, the inclusion of the "real" President is symptomatic of The End of Time also being The End of the RTD Timeline. The Whoniverse Earth has had a pretty crazy ride over the past five years, but maybe this is where it ends. No more Presidents and Prime Ministers being assassinated or discredited by aliens on an annual basis. A return to the even keel of stable, "normal" history, at least until Steven Moffat decides if and how he wants to much that up beyond recognition again.
I wouldn't put it past Russell T Davies to employ a big reset switch in EoT2 tomorrow: it's a device he doesn't seem to see much point in sparing any need to use sparingly. Bring back the Time Lords, wipe out the whole post-Time War Earth continuity, which frankly went completely bananas without their stewardship. (Even inside of the RTD era, episodes like 2005's 2012-set Dalek make no sense at all in the light of the events of the subsequent few seasons.)
In many ways it'd be a great relief to get back to normal, have a Doctor on the run from his own people in a rackety old TARDIS, and an Earth where alien invasions are unthinkable again, instead of an annual occurrence. In other respects it'd be a massive, lazy cheat on Russell's part - encouraging future writers not to care about tight plotting or logical consequences because, hey, we can always reinstall a clean timeline at the end of our tenure. I suppose there's no point in speculating about it until we see what EoT2 has to say, in about 24 hours from now. Until then!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Anagramania
Oh dear, I can't believe I hadn't noticed this before.
Wilfred Mott's name is an anagram of Time Lord with a few letters left over.
Only on Friday will be know if his true identity is TIME LORD WTF?! or TIME LORD FTW!!!
Wilfred Mott's name is an anagram of Time Lord with a few letters left over.
Only on Friday will be know if his true identity is TIME LORD WTF?! or TIME LORD FTW!!!
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
The End of Time Part One, Part One
Well, I'm sure I will be able to get blog-writing material out of The End of Time for a good couple of weeks... but let's just say that my reaction to Part One was very positive. I watched it before Christmas dinner with Tessa, her Who-positive brother, and her Who-clueless sister, and a good time seemed to be had by all.
And then of course I logged onto the internet, and was inundated with the usual bile. Worst episode since Timelash! A plotless, pointless mess! Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Russell T Davies!
It seems to me that, at this stage, RTD Who is not unlike US politics. Russell T Davies has always, unrepentantly, made the sort of Doctor Who he likes. (Crucially, the general public seems to like it too - EoT1's AI figures of 87, while not record-breaking for modern Doctor Who, are comfortably awesome.) There is however a significant faction in Who fandom for whom the sort of thing that Russell T Davies likes are exactly what they hate. And these people no longer even bother to weigh up the merits of RTD's style of show. If he's not making their definition of "real Who", no point in weighing up the many good points of the show he is making: let's just shout unconstructively over the top of any other opinion till he's gone.
Meanwhile those of us who found EoT1 hugely entertaining - so much more interesting, ambitious and witty than almost anything else that's on modern television, so God bless you Sir Russell! - just have to shut out the noise and wait for what will without a doubt be an even more memorable Part Two. And yes, this is a story in two parts! So for the many people who are asserting that the new superpowered Master, or whatever other plot point, makes no sense whatsoever, can we just wait one week to find out if that's actually true?
The End of Time Part One is an episode that - gasp! - raises more questions than it answers. For me that's a huge positive. Where on earth have the Time Lords been hiding all this time? What the hell is going on with the Master? Are the Silver Cloak way more than they appear? Who's that white-haired woman then? Can Donna possibly survive this one? Can the human race possibly survive this one?
I for one can't wait to find out. This could be the best cliffhanger of the whole RTD era, given the disappointingly cheaty resolution of the one at the end of The Stolen Earth...
And then of course I logged onto the internet, and was inundated with the usual bile. Worst episode since Timelash! A plotless, pointless mess! Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Russell T Davies!
It seems to me that, at this stage, RTD Who is not unlike US politics. Russell T Davies has always, unrepentantly, made the sort of Doctor Who he likes. (Crucially, the general public seems to like it too - EoT1's AI figures of 87, while not record-breaking for modern Doctor Who, are comfortably awesome.) There is however a significant faction in Who fandom for whom the sort of thing that Russell T Davies likes are exactly what they hate. And these people no longer even bother to weigh up the merits of RTD's style of show. If he's not making their definition of "real Who", no point in weighing up the many good points of the show he is making: let's just shout unconstructively over the top of any other opinion till he's gone.
Meanwhile those of us who found EoT1 hugely entertaining - so much more interesting, ambitious and witty than almost anything else that's on modern television, so God bless you Sir Russell! - just have to shut out the noise and wait for what will without a doubt be an even more memorable Part Two. And yes, this is a story in two parts! So for the many people who are asserting that the new superpowered Master, or whatever other plot point, makes no sense whatsoever, can we just wait one week to find out if that's actually true?
The End of Time Part One is an episode that - gasp! - raises more questions than it answers. For me that's a huge positive. Where on earth have the Time Lords been hiding all this time? What the hell is going on with the Master? Are the Silver Cloak way more than they appear? Who's that white-haired woman then? Can Donna possibly survive this one? Can the human race possibly survive this one?
I for one can't wait to find out. This could be the best cliffhanger of the whole RTD era, given the disappointingly cheaty resolution of the one at the end of The Stolen Earth...
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Captain Quirk
We are halfway through Planet of Evil in our occasional Tom Baker chronological rewatch and... well, we're certainly enjoying it, but is this the most Star Trek-like episode ever? An isolated planet quite literally on the final frontier, a scientist there who's behaving a little oddly, a Federation, sorry Morestran, starship turning up to investigate, a jungle created in the studio and an alien menace made of pure energy to save money.
The Hinchcliffe era is often lauded as a high point - if not THE high point - of Doctor Who, but approximately halfway in I'm not sure if it really deserves that sort of immunity from criticism. What it has, in spades, is a sort of grim and gritty hyper-seriousness. The situations are deadly, the bodies keep piling up, and while the Fourth Doctor has a clownish streak there's never the slightest hint of him not being in desperate earnest about the predicaments he finds himself in. (How that would all change under Hinchcliffe's successor...)
The charming, bumbling Harry Sullivan has now been removed from the TARDIS lineup, and it's interesting how much harder-edged that immediately makes the show. That this era's Doctor is a big fan of humanity as a species is a matter of record - see the famous eulogy from Ark in Space - but in Season 13 it's starting to become obvious he no longer cares much about humans as individuals. I criticized the most recent episode of Sarah Jane Adventures, The Gift, for Sarah's xenophobia and throwaway callousness towards the Blathereen, but watching Planet of Evil it's easy to see where she got it from. The Doctor professes to be actively tempted to hop into the TARDIS and leave the entire Morestran crew to die, if it wasn't for the small matter of the entire universe being endangered.
We'll see more evidence that this most alien of Doctors feels little empathy for individual humans as the season goes on. He does seem to be fiercely protective of Sarah, of course, where he mostly just verbally abused Harry for being an idiot. I wonder how much of the early dynamic of the new series arose from RTD's love for this era (apparently the man's favorite ever story is Ark in Space). The Ninth Doctor's unswerving devotion to Rose ("I could save the world but lose you!") while constantly belittling "Mickey the idiot" is very Season 12. Of course, Sarah's exit at the end of The Hand of Fear is the proof of the pudding when it comes to the Fourth Doctor's alienness. Of course she matters to him, but he's not of her world, don't try to understand or second-guess his feelings, one day out of the blue he's just going to show her the door.
Anyway, back to grimness and grit: a lot of old school fans want and need that out of their Who. That and plenty of spaceships, aliens and scientific pseudobabble. "Real sci-fi" has a checklist of such approved elements, and takes them all VERY SERIOUSLY INDEED. (I imagine that devotees of the Hinchcliffe era were big fans of the recent Battlestar Galactica reboot too.) The enemies of "real sci-fi" are magical realism, metaphor, satire and silliness - hello the Sylvester McCoy era!
I've always felt that I disliked Eric Saward's mid-80s vision of Who above all others, but I suddenly find it easier to sympathize with him now that I realize that, in many ways, he was just trying to recreate Hinchcliffe Who. Lots of violence and death, heavy reliance on popular old foes to kick the era off, a clownish Doctor (in a literal clownsuit this time), and a certain humorlessness to the approach. You can imagine him being absolutely baffled about how, ten years later, this tack would lead the show not to critical adulation this time, but cancellation.
Myself, I like my Who as quirky and metaphorical as possible, and I'm glad that Russell T Davies kept those factors high in the new mix. Planet of Evil is all very well, but if I wanted a bunch of aggressive, unlikeable characters (the Doctor included) posturing for dominance, spouting clunky, po-faced dialogue and then being killed by a sentient outline, I might as well go watch 60s Trek. Hinchcliffe Who is so straight-down-the-line and serious, but is it actually that much fun? My personal jury's still out on that one, but I guess we have many of the recognized classics to come. Let's see if they can win me over...
The Hinchcliffe era is often lauded as a high point - if not THE high point - of Doctor Who, but approximately halfway in I'm not sure if it really deserves that sort of immunity from criticism. What it has, in spades, is a sort of grim and gritty hyper-seriousness. The situations are deadly, the bodies keep piling up, and while the Fourth Doctor has a clownish streak there's never the slightest hint of him not being in desperate earnest about the predicaments he finds himself in. (How that would all change under Hinchcliffe's successor...)
The charming, bumbling Harry Sullivan has now been removed from the TARDIS lineup, and it's interesting how much harder-edged that immediately makes the show. That this era's Doctor is a big fan of humanity as a species is a matter of record - see the famous eulogy from Ark in Space - but in Season 13 it's starting to become obvious he no longer cares much about humans as individuals. I criticized the most recent episode of Sarah Jane Adventures, The Gift, for Sarah's xenophobia and throwaway callousness towards the Blathereen, but watching Planet of Evil it's easy to see where she got it from. The Doctor professes to be actively tempted to hop into the TARDIS and leave the entire Morestran crew to die, if it wasn't for the small matter of the entire universe being endangered.
We'll see more evidence that this most alien of Doctors feels little empathy for individual humans as the season goes on. He does seem to be fiercely protective of Sarah, of course, where he mostly just verbally abused Harry for being an idiot. I wonder how much of the early dynamic of the new series arose from RTD's love for this era (apparently the man's favorite ever story is Ark in Space). The Ninth Doctor's unswerving devotion to Rose ("I could save the world but lose you!") while constantly belittling "Mickey the idiot" is very Season 12. Of course, Sarah's exit at the end of The Hand of Fear is the proof of the pudding when it comes to the Fourth Doctor's alienness. Of course she matters to him, but he's not of her world, don't try to understand or second-guess his feelings, one day out of the blue he's just going to show her the door.
Anyway, back to grimness and grit: a lot of old school fans want and need that out of their Who. That and plenty of spaceships, aliens and scientific pseudobabble. "Real sci-fi" has a checklist of such approved elements, and takes them all VERY SERIOUSLY INDEED. (I imagine that devotees of the Hinchcliffe era were big fans of the recent Battlestar Galactica reboot too.) The enemies of "real sci-fi" are magical realism, metaphor, satire and silliness - hello the Sylvester McCoy era!
I've always felt that I disliked Eric Saward's mid-80s vision of Who above all others, but I suddenly find it easier to sympathize with him now that I realize that, in many ways, he was just trying to recreate Hinchcliffe Who. Lots of violence and death, heavy reliance on popular old foes to kick the era off, a clownish Doctor (in a literal clownsuit this time), and a certain humorlessness to the approach. You can imagine him being absolutely baffled about how, ten years later, this tack would lead the show not to critical adulation this time, but cancellation.
Myself, I like my Who as quirky and metaphorical as possible, and I'm glad that Russell T Davies kept those factors high in the new mix. Planet of Evil is all very well, but if I wanted a bunch of aggressive, unlikeable characters (the Doctor included) posturing for dominance, spouting clunky, po-faced dialogue and then being killed by a sentient outline, I might as well go watch 60s Trek. Hinchcliffe Who is so straight-down-the-line and serious, but is it actually that much fun? My personal jury's still out on that one, but I guess we have many of the recognized classics to come. Let's see if they can win me over...
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