Belatedly, thoughts about the Christmas Who. It had much to recommend it, although it did also contain a generous helping of cheese. Funny Thing #1 - they gave this one an extra ten minutes' run time, pretty much all of which can be accounted for by gratuitous slo-mo and Kylie Minogue's Cheesy Stardust. Funny Thing #2 - the Doctor can't take Mr Copper with him at the end because "I travel alone" - yeah, unless you've got breasts.
But there was some lovely comedy material with the Mighty Cribbins, the choice of which characters lived and died was indeed surprising (and reinforced by overt dialogue, just in case we thickies missed it) and overall it was a sturdy and entertaining episode's worth of adventure stretched lovingly over an hour and ten.
In Old Who terms, the references to The Robots of Death were pretty clear, but it felt more to me like Paradise Towers - the unscrupulous entrepreneur trapped in machine form, hiding in the bowels of his last great creation and sending out the robot serving staff to do his evil bidding. No bad thing, really. They really should have got Tony Hawks to play the villain, though, rather than hire an impersonator.
Overall, easily worth twice the points of last year's Christmas special (of which it was justly said by many reviewers that it was ideal viewing after a few large drinks and a fat Christmas dinner - translation: ideal viewing if you've rendered all your brain cells inoperative, incidentally the only condition in which I'd gladly rewatch it). Perhaps a 7 or an 8 out of 10 this year.
Showing posts with label 2007 Who. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2007 Who. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Sunday, July 01, 2007
"Will the drumming stop?"
Ohhhh, so nearly. I know The Lovely Jo and a number of our friends just didn't like Last of the Time Lords at all, but I thought it was doing pretty well.
I liked that it started one year on from last week - showed that the Doctor wasn't just going to pull it out of a hat then and there, gave some scale to the proceedings, allowed for lovely throwaway lines about burning Japan and so on that gave some weight to the Master's evil-doings. I liked that, far from zapping straight back with an instant solution, Martha had to trek around the world for a year laying the groundwork for the Doctor's plan. I liked the little musical number at the start, despite not entirely liking last week's pop moment. I liked David Tennant's hundred-year-old acting.
All things considered, I thought it was going well - but then, alas, the resolution. My viewing of this episode went something like this: brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, oh cheese, CHEESE!!
Just threw it all away, that resolution. That Russell T Davies and those series finales, he can set 'em up, he can follow 'em through, but it seems he just can't wrap 'em up without resorting to deus ex machina (sorry, plural, di ex machina). And what a monstrous one this was, with the Doctor shedding magic fairy dust and flying across the room. And as if that weren't bad enough, pressing the reset button as well and reversing the preceding episode's worth of story. I mean, even though Magic Rose wiped out those Daleks and brought Captain Jack back to life, she didn't actually undo anything. To have a deus ex machina or to press the reset button may be deemed a misfortune; to do both looks like carelessness. (Cf the Paul McGann TV Movie.)
And then, having attempted to salvage something from the wreckage by killing the Master and having that touching (if very strange) moment between him and the Doctor, to stick that Flash Gordon scene onto the end - impardonable.
In fact, it was strangely like watching the last episode of Torchwood. Uncannily like it. Starts out looking grittier, more believable, more earnest, like they're actually going somewhere with this. Then suddenly out come the big CGI guns, a messianic figure (for an atheist, RTD doesn't half have this thing for them) defeats the bad guy with his amazing superpowers, forgives his adversary, then vanishes off at the end leaving all kinds of questions unanswered. (For one thing, where's Martha's brother? He went into hiding last week, and he did such a good job they haven't been able to find him since. For another, what political climate is the Doctor leaving Martha in now that two world leaders have been assassinated live on international television?) And this felt cheesier than the end of Torchwood. It can't be a good thing that I'm even making that comparison.
So overall I think this deserves 5 out of 10. From the best finale set-up last week to the worst finale wrap-up this week. Just marginally better than "The Exciting Further Adventures of Manlek". It shouldn't be possible for a bad last few minutes to drag down a perfectly fine first forty minutes, but I think in this case it just about does.
And yet, let's not forget that for a while there, this was looking like a much better episode than it turned out to be. Some bold bleakness in there too - it emerges that not only does humanity not find a way out of the end of the universe, they end up sticking their heads into murderous flying metal balls and going completely crazy (although it isn't exactly clear why they would do that, unless they went crazy first, and even then it's not exactly the first thing you'd expect them to think of doing). Plus, even though They Woke Up And It Was All A Dream, Martha's family still remember it all and are apparently quite traumatised by it. Also, nice feints with the Doctor's attempted rebellion and that business with the quest for the special gun. The CGI Doctor was regrettable, although it was amusing that just after calling the Doctor "Gandalf", the Master should turn him into Gollum. (Online fans suggest "Dobby the House-Elf" instead, which is visually more accurate - painfully so, in fact.) But who's going to forgive RTD for that ending?
So for my money the final run-down of DW Series 3 looks like this, in descending order of greatness:
The Family of Blood
Human Nature
Blink
The Sound of Drums
Smith and Jones
42
Daleks in Manhattan
Gridlock
Utopia
The Lazarus Experiment
Last of the Time Lords
Evolution of the Daleks
The Shakespeare Code
The Family of Blood remains the only second part of a two-part story that I've enjoyed more than the first part. The overall season quality doesn't seem much different from last year's, although last year we had more of a steady run, while this year seems to have reverted to Series 1's pattern of highs and lows. Roll on the Christmas special.
I liked that it started one year on from last week - showed that the Doctor wasn't just going to pull it out of a hat then and there, gave some scale to the proceedings, allowed for lovely throwaway lines about burning Japan and so on that gave some weight to the Master's evil-doings. I liked that, far from zapping straight back with an instant solution, Martha had to trek around the world for a year laying the groundwork for the Doctor's plan. I liked the little musical number at the start, despite not entirely liking last week's pop moment. I liked David Tennant's hundred-year-old acting.
All things considered, I thought it was going well - but then, alas, the resolution. My viewing of this episode went something like this: brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, oh cheese, CHEESE!!
Just threw it all away, that resolution. That Russell T Davies and those series finales, he can set 'em up, he can follow 'em through, but it seems he just can't wrap 'em up without resorting to deus ex machina (sorry, plural, di ex machina). And what a monstrous one this was, with the Doctor shedding magic fairy dust and flying across the room. And as if that weren't bad enough, pressing the reset button as well and reversing the preceding episode's worth of story. I mean, even though Magic Rose wiped out those Daleks and brought Captain Jack back to life, she didn't actually undo anything. To have a deus ex machina or to press the reset button may be deemed a misfortune; to do both looks like carelessness. (Cf the Paul McGann TV Movie.)
And then, having attempted to salvage something from the wreckage by killing the Master and having that touching (if very strange) moment between him and the Doctor, to stick that Flash Gordon scene onto the end - impardonable.
In fact, it was strangely like watching the last episode of Torchwood. Uncannily like it. Starts out looking grittier, more believable, more earnest, like they're actually going somewhere with this. Then suddenly out come the big CGI guns, a messianic figure (for an atheist, RTD doesn't half have this thing for them) defeats the bad guy with his amazing superpowers, forgives his adversary, then vanishes off at the end leaving all kinds of questions unanswered. (For one thing, where's Martha's brother? He went into hiding last week, and he did such a good job they haven't been able to find him since. For another, what political climate is the Doctor leaving Martha in now that two world leaders have been assassinated live on international television?) And this felt cheesier than the end of Torchwood. It can't be a good thing that I'm even making that comparison.
So overall I think this deserves 5 out of 10. From the best finale set-up last week to the worst finale wrap-up this week. Just marginally better than "The Exciting Further Adventures of Manlek". It shouldn't be possible for a bad last few minutes to drag down a perfectly fine first forty minutes, but I think in this case it just about does.
And yet, let's not forget that for a while there, this was looking like a much better episode than it turned out to be. Some bold bleakness in there too - it emerges that not only does humanity not find a way out of the end of the universe, they end up sticking their heads into murderous flying metal balls and going completely crazy (although it isn't exactly clear why they would do that, unless they went crazy first, and even then it's not exactly the first thing you'd expect them to think of doing). Plus, even though They Woke Up And It Was All A Dream, Martha's family still remember it all and are apparently quite traumatised by it. Also, nice feints with the Doctor's attempted rebellion and that business with the quest for the special gun. The CGI Doctor was regrettable, although it was amusing that just after calling the Doctor "Gandalf", the Master should turn him into Gollum. (Online fans suggest "Dobby the House-Elf" instead, which is visually more accurate - painfully so, in fact.) But who's going to forgive RTD for that ending?
So for my money the final run-down of DW Series 3 looks like this, in descending order of greatness:
The Family of Blood
Human Nature
Blink
The Sound of Drums
Smith and Jones
42
Daleks in Manhattan
Gridlock
Utopia
The Lazarus Experiment
Last of the Time Lords
Evolution of the Daleks
The Shakespeare Code
The Family of Blood remains the only second part of a two-part story that I've enjoyed more than the first part. The overall season quality doesn't seem much different from last year's, although last year we had more of a steady run, while this year seems to have reverted to Series 1's pattern of highs and lows. Roll on the Christmas special.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
"Let the work of government begin."
Did Gordon Brown watch Saturday's Who? If not, his choice of soundbite this morning - "Let the work of change begin" - seems a little... uncanny. Still, in he goes, and out goes Anthony "Tony" "Yo" Blair, and not before time. Don't you think he looks old? I tell you, it's the third term that does it. It's always the third term that pushes them over the edge - even Thatcher somehow managed to become more mad after her third election. It's just not healthy for Prime Ministers to cling onto power that long. But anyway.
The Sound of Drums - oooooh, 9 out of 10. But in a tennish kind of way. I think it's the most promising of the three series finales to date - it has the present-day setting that gave Army of Ghosts an urgency and a solidity Bad Wolf didn't have, but without the pile-it-on sensationalism of Cybermen vs Daleks. Plus you've got the political material of Aliens of London without the farting aliens - bonus! The one thing it needs to push it up to a 10 is a really first-rate second half, and I'm quite hopeful.
Top marks to John Simm, the playful Master. He's every bit as much fun to watch as Delgado and Ainley, but I think his is also a more convincing portrayal of sheer universe-destroying insanity than the urbane evil of his predecessors. And hallelujah, no cod "evil" dialogue. (When I think of the prime Captain Bird's-Eye Anthony Ainley used to have to deliver... or even Sir Derek J last week...) The Cabinet gassing scene was good, but second best to Simm opening and closing the door on that screaming journalist. It's funny and evil.
A few random thoughts:
I'm not sure about the Master's taste in music, partly because I didn't recognise it, but mostly because it just seemed odd for him to play a pop song at that moment. (Then again, he did listen to King Crimson in The Mind of Evil.) I'm not familiar with the work of Malcolm "Mac" Fly, but I assume this was something Mr Fly knocked out while he was filming his cameo appearance.
So there are about six billion Toclafane, "every man, woman and child" is involved in their plan for world conquest, it would break the Doctor's hearts to know what they actually are and there's a paradox engine involved. I think I see roughly where this is going. (Actually, the current global population is around 6.6-and-a-bit billion, but if you decimate that figure...)
Shame that, after doing such a splendid job of aging David Tennant in The Family of Blood, the Who crew should give him the puffy, jowly Lazarus look this time. Did they not keep the prosthetics at all?
Yes, I think we all spotted the Captain Scarlet Cloudbase. Destiny Angel, Harmony Angel, Archangel. Well, it fits. And we've talked about Indestructible Captain Harkness before.
So now we know why the Master is the way he is - as a boy he gazed into the Who title sequence, and the theme tune drove him mad. He's just pissed off that he doesn't have his own TV show, that's what it is. (He's certainly doing his best to steal this show, bless him.)
The Sound of Drums - oooooh, 9 out of 10. But in a tennish kind of way. I think it's the most promising of the three series finales to date - it has the present-day setting that gave Army of Ghosts an urgency and a solidity Bad Wolf didn't have, but without the pile-it-on sensationalism of Cybermen vs Daleks. Plus you've got the political material of Aliens of London without the farting aliens - bonus! The one thing it needs to push it up to a 10 is a really first-rate second half, and I'm quite hopeful.
Top marks to John Simm, the playful Master. He's every bit as much fun to watch as Delgado and Ainley, but I think his is also a more convincing portrayal of sheer universe-destroying insanity than the urbane evil of his predecessors. And hallelujah, no cod "evil" dialogue. (When I think of the prime Captain Bird's-Eye Anthony Ainley used to have to deliver... or even Sir Derek J last week...) The Cabinet gassing scene was good, but second best to Simm opening and closing the door on that screaming journalist. It's funny and evil.
A few random thoughts:
I'm not sure about the Master's taste in music, partly because I didn't recognise it, but mostly because it just seemed odd for him to play a pop song at that moment. (Then again, he did listen to King Crimson in The Mind of Evil.) I'm not familiar with the work of Malcolm "Mac" Fly, but I assume this was something Mr Fly knocked out while he was filming his cameo appearance.
So there are about six billion Toclafane, "every man, woman and child" is involved in their plan for world conquest, it would break the Doctor's hearts to know what they actually are and there's a paradox engine involved. I think I see roughly where this is going. (Actually, the current global population is around 6.6-and-a-bit billion, but if you decimate that figure...)
Shame that, after doing such a splendid job of aging David Tennant in The Family of Blood, the Who crew should give him the puffy, jowly Lazarus look this time. Did they not keep the prosthetics at all?
Yes, I think we all spotted the Captain Scarlet Cloudbase. Destiny Angel, Harmony Angel, Archangel. Well, it fits. And we've talked about Indestructible Captain Harkness before.
So now we know why the Master is the way he is - as a boy he gazed into the Who title sequence, and the theme tune drove him mad. He's just pissed off that he doesn't have his own TV show, that's what it is. (He's certainly doing his best to steal this show, bless him.)
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
"This new regeneration of yours - kind of cheeky."
Well, everybody's up and pointed out that the monsters in this week's Who were lifted straight out of Mad Max, even the director, so why not just say it again? But so what if the story was thin and rudimentary, so what if the minor characters were disposable? Utopia wasn't about telling a story, it was about setting up the next two episodes and the big finale. And it did this to the tune of... probably 6 or 7 out of 10. Gridlockish in its preference of grand myth-building set pieces and quirky character/dialogue moments over sustained narrative content.
Some of that myth-building didn't work so well, and I'm thinking specifically here of the "You are not alone"/Yana thing. Two faults: it made no sense within the context of the story (could've just left it as a wink and a nod to the fans at home and gotten away with it), and it was hammered home with gross unsubtlety. Then I pick up today's Radio Times and find them proving that "Mister Saxon" actually is "Master no. six", although you have to fudge it a bit (and typically, poor old Gordon Tipple who appeared in shadow in the TV Movie pre-credits doesn't get a look in). What galls isn't that online fan theories are being proven right - it's that it's the really cheesy theories that are being proven right.
Let's move right along to the Master himself. I have a beef with the Master, and it's basically the same as my beef with the Daleks. "We need a villain for this story." "Oh, let's wheel out the Master again, he hasn't had his yearly dusting-off yet. And besides, 'everybody knows he's the Doctor's greatest enemy', chiz chiz." (Edit #1: And let me just make clear, I'm talking Old Who here. Old Who worked that whole nemesis schtick into the ground. New Who is allowed to try it once, and we'll see how it goes. I can only applaud RTD's restraint in waiting three years to do it.)
The Master was a corny rent-a-villain even in the first year he showed up, when they shoe-horned him into every single Who story of 1971, and yet there was actually a point to him back then. As anyone who's read a Who reference work will know, the Buddhism-loving producer brought in this destructive personification of the Doctor's id in order to set up a finger-cymbal-tinging revelatory showdown in Jon Pertwee's final story, a plan that fell through when Roger Delgado sadly died between seasons. And so the Master just disappeared for a while, a loose end for later producers to bring back whenever they were short of a cliched cackling megalomaniac with no credible motive to drive that week's story.
Not that I don't enjoy Delgado's suavity or Ainley's hammy purring now and then, you understand. Sometimes I even enjoy Dalek stories. But it's just too easy, with any recurring villain, to hang a story solely off their reappearance rather than tell a good story that happens to have them in it, and that way mediocrity lies. It's a little worrying, therefore, to watch an episode of New Who that's pretty much hung off the reintroduction of the Master. Now I'm prepared to keep an open mind for the next two weeks because there's every reason to suppose that Russell T Davies will find something interesting and new to do with the Master the first time he uses him (it's the second and subsequent times I'd worry about), because it's the season finale and I have faith in RTD to pull it out of the bag, and because John Simm shows promise in the role.
Positive things now. Derek Jacobi was wonderful as lovely old Professor Yana. Thing is, I do largely associate him with roles of the "lovely old" variety (Claudius, Brother Cadfael), so I was a bit unsure of him as the Master. He handled the transition between the two very well, though. His humanoid weevil assistant was good too - I'm prepared to let the "Chan, tho" stuff go on the basis that it's a cultural etiquette thing. John Simm certainly looks like he'll have fun with the part over the next couple of episodes. Quick fannish moment - it's been said that the Doctor's regenerations can be affected by whatever's around him beforehand. (Edit #2: I was pretty sure this was said explicitly in the new series, possibly in the Children in Need skit or else in New Earth. But I don't have a copy of New Earth owing to it being not very good, and I haven't yet had time to check the skit on Youtube (Bonus Edit: Now I have, and it isn't there, dammit.), so I don't absolutely definitely know. If it wasn't said outright in the series, it should've been, 'cos it's a great fan theory that's been doing the rounds for some considerable time.) So Doctor Tennant is more like his Cockernee companion than Doctor Eccles. Does it also explain the Fourth Doctor's alien, skittish mind that the Third Doctor spent his final hour in a room with a giant megalomaniac spider? So here we see the Master regenerate inside the Doctor's TARDIS, and blow me if he isn't acting a lot more Doctorish.
All things considered, I wouldn't call this one of the great episodes in its own right, but it makes the two-part finale look highly appetising. Excellent ending.
Some of that myth-building didn't work so well, and I'm thinking specifically here of the "You are not alone"/Yana thing. Two faults: it made no sense within the context of the story (could've just left it as a wink and a nod to the fans at home and gotten away with it), and it was hammered home with gross unsubtlety. Then I pick up today's Radio Times and find them proving that "Mister Saxon" actually is "Master no. six", although you have to fudge it a bit (and typically, poor old Gordon Tipple who appeared in shadow in the TV Movie pre-credits doesn't get a look in). What galls isn't that online fan theories are being proven right - it's that it's the really cheesy theories that are being proven right.
Let's move right along to the Master himself. I have a beef with the Master, and it's basically the same as my beef with the Daleks. "We need a villain for this story." "Oh, let's wheel out the Master again, he hasn't had his yearly dusting-off yet. And besides, 'everybody knows he's the Doctor's greatest enemy', chiz chiz." (Edit #1: And let me just make clear, I'm talking Old Who here. Old Who worked that whole nemesis schtick into the ground. New Who is allowed to try it once, and we'll see how it goes. I can only applaud RTD's restraint in waiting three years to do it.)
The Master was a corny rent-a-villain even in the first year he showed up, when they shoe-horned him into every single Who story of 1971, and yet there was actually a point to him back then. As anyone who's read a Who reference work will know, the Buddhism-loving producer brought in this destructive personification of the Doctor's id in order to set up a finger-cymbal-tinging revelatory showdown in Jon Pertwee's final story, a plan that fell through when Roger Delgado sadly died between seasons. And so the Master just disappeared for a while, a loose end for later producers to bring back whenever they were short of a cliched cackling megalomaniac with no credible motive to drive that week's story.
Not that I don't enjoy Delgado's suavity or Ainley's hammy purring now and then, you understand. Sometimes I even enjoy Dalek stories. But it's just too easy, with any recurring villain, to hang a story solely off their reappearance rather than tell a good story that happens to have them in it, and that way mediocrity lies. It's a little worrying, therefore, to watch an episode of New Who that's pretty much hung off the reintroduction of the Master. Now I'm prepared to keep an open mind for the next two weeks because there's every reason to suppose that Russell T Davies will find something interesting and new to do with the Master the first time he uses him (it's the second and subsequent times I'd worry about), because it's the season finale and I have faith in RTD to pull it out of the bag, and because John Simm shows promise in the role.
Positive things now. Derek Jacobi was wonderful as lovely old Professor Yana. Thing is, I do largely associate him with roles of the "lovely old" variety (Claudius, Brother Cadfael), so I was a bit unsure of him as the Master. He handled the transition between the two very well, though. His humanoid weevil assistant was good too - I'm prepared to let the "Chan, tho" stuff go on the basis that it's a cultural etiquette thing. John Simm certainly looks like he'll have fun with the part over the next couple of episodes. Quick fannish moment - it's been said that the Doctor's regenerations can be affected by whatever's around him beforehand. (Edit #2: I was pretty sure this was said explicitly in the new series, possibly in the Children in Need skit or else in New Earth. But I don't have a copy of New Earth owing to it being not very good, and I haven't yet had time to check the skit on Youtube (Bonus Edit: Now I have, and it isn't there, dammit.), so I don't absolutely definitely know. If it wasn't said outright in the series, it should've been, 'cos it's a great fan theory that's been doing the rounds for some considerable time.) So Doctor Tennant is more like his Cockernee companion than Doctor Eccles. Does it also explain the Fourth Doctor's alien, skittish mind that the Third Doctor spent his final hour in a room with a giant megalomaniac spider? So here we see the Master regenerate inside the Doctor's TARDIS, and blow me if he isn't acting a lot more Doctorish.
All things considered, I wouldn't call this one of the great episodes in its own right, but it makes the two-part finale look highly appetising. Excellent ending.
Monday, June 11, 2007
"This is my timey-wimey detector. Goes 'ding' when there's stuff."
"Night of the Street Mimes"! I see what you're doing here, Mr Moffat - not making children scared of statues after all, but making them scared of those people who paint themselves silver and stand around on boxes not moving. An entirely noble and laudable cause.
For this episode, another tennish 9 or ninish 10 I think. Fantastic concepts and fantastic execution - I particularly like the fact that the Angels being "quantum locked" by anyone observing them includes us, the viewers (and themselves, of course - they must have a hell of a time with reflective surfaces). Lovely characters as well, and some nice quiet woodwind music here and there. Still, I give Human Nature the edge, and that's due in no small part to the closing montage at the end of Blink.
I mean, is there really any point in effectively leaning out of the TV and saying, "Hey kids! There were scary statues in tonight's story, and there might be some statues near where you live! Wooooo!" The programme and the kids themselves do that anyway! That's what the playground is for! Did Spearhead From Space end with sinister music over a montage of high-street clothes stores? Did The Armageddon Factor end with Tom Baker punching Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev in the chops? Did The Two Doctors end with Colin Baker holding a steak in front of the camera and saying, "Meat - bad! Meat - bad!" One suspects the episode underran by a couple of minutes... But that aside, an excellent episode and so far an excellent second half-season. Doctor Who really should aspire to be this good every week.
Further bloggings on the weekend's activities to follow.
For this episode, another tennish 9 or ninish 10 I think. Fantastic concepts and fantastic execution - I particularly like the fact that the Angels being "quantum locked" by anyone observing them includes us, the viewers (and themselves, of course - they must have a hell of a time with reflective surfaces). Lovely characters as well, and some nice quiet woodwind music here and there. Still, I give Human Nature the edge, and that's due in no small part to the closing montage at the end of Blink.
I mean, is there really any point in effectively leaning out of the TV and saying, "Hey kids! There were scary statues in tonight's story, and there might be some statues near where you live! Wooooo!" The programme and the kids themselves do that anyway! That's what the playground is for! Did Spearhead From Space end with sinister music over a montage of high-street clothes stores? Did The Armageddon Factor end with Tom Baker punching Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev in the chops? Did The Two Doctors end with Colin Baker holding a steak in front of the camera and saying, "Meat - bad! Meat - bad!" One suspects the episode underran by a couple of minutes... But that aside, an excellent episode and so far an excellent second half-season. Doctor Who really should aspire to be this good every week.
Further bloggings on the weekend's activities to follow.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
"I suspect alcohol has played its part in this."
Oh, where do you begin? Let's begin at the end. The Doctor can't give John Smith back to Joan. He can't make amends by taking her away as his companion; he can't even understand, until he's told, why it's wrong of him to offer. What he can do is take horrific, mythic and highly apt revenge against the Family on her behalf and his. Looks like the Doctor's taken it all a bit more to heart than he might let on.
That's just got to be 10 out of 10. And the great thing about Human Nature/Family of Blood is that it tells us everything we need to know about the Doctor by showing us everything he's not (and everything he can't have, of course). As with last week, the adaptation from book to TV show is predominantly in the TV show's favour, especially with the fantastic flash-forwards scene. Interesting to see aspects of the novel's ending stuck onto the end of the episode - I kind of felt that it had already ended when the TARDIS vanished, and that perhaps there was one ending too many in there, but still nice to see it. It's still more beautiful in the novel, but then the rest of the story is that bit more beautiful in the episode.
The only way that could have been better is if Old John Smith on his deathbed had croaked out "Rosebud". I jest, of course.
That's just got to be 10 out of 10. And the great thing about Human Nature/Family of Blood is that it tells us everything we need to know about the Doctor by showing us everything he's not (and everything he can't have, of course). As with last week, the adaptation from book to TV show is predominantly in the TV show's favour, especially with the fantastic flash-forwards scene. Interesting to see aspects of the novel's ending stuck onto the end of the episode - I kind of felt that it had already ended when the TARDIS vanished, and that perhaps there was one ending too many in there, but still nice to see it. It's still more beautiful in the novel, but then the rest of the story is that bit more beautiful in the episode.
The only way that could have been better is if Old John Smith on his deathbed had croaked out "Rosebud". I jest, of course.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
"A girl in every fireplace!"
How d'you get a cold in May? Bah. That's bank holidays for you. And therefore, belated bloggings. Before coming down with the dreaded lurgi, I managed to see the following:
1. Cyrano de Bergerac at the Bristol Old Vic. I'm an ex-Ragueneau myself (Student Theatre, c. 2002) and had joked to my workmates on Friday afternoon that I'd be judging the show by Exeter University's high standards. Ah, wouldn't you know it?
The script was a new translation by Ranjit Bolt. This, I didn't object to; all credit to Ranjit Bolt. Some of his colloquialisms sounded a bit odd in context, but many others worked extremely well, and (whisper it!) I think overall I like his text slightly more than the Anthony Burgess translation. (Mmm, tastes like heresy.)
Some of the staging... there were one or two odd decisions, although we could generally see what some of the more abstract stuff was about. However, I'd been watching the 17th century story of Cyrano de B and was deeply surprised when Roxane and Ragueneau turned up at the front line in Act 4 on a motorbike and sidecar. The Lovely Jo, meanwhile, had twigged from the costumes in the first half that the director had set this production around the time of World War One and was deeply surprised when the Comte de Guiche, leader of a French regiment still fighting Spaniards, turned up in Act 4 in his 17th century shiny breastplate and lace collar. (Which time period? There's only one way to settle this - fight!)
The acting was a bit variable. Cyrano gabbled his lines during the first half, but settled down a bit and came across well in the second half. Roxane was good but (in Jo's words) "a bit horsey", as opposed to the thoroughly natural Roxane who'd starred in the old student production. The rest of the main cast was solid, but prone to impenetrable accents, all of them different. But all of these were watchable, and by and large good. Even some cheeky musical work in Ragueneau's shop in Act 2 that I can only envy. The only real stand-out problem was the Comte de Guiche, the lord of chronoclasm. We could both tell in the first half that he was putting on some kind of voice. It sounded like it might have been continental - surely not someone actually trying a French accent? Yet at times it sounded more Spanish. It wasn't until he really turned up the dial in the now legendary Act 4 that I finally twigged what was going on - he was trying to channel Keith Allen's Sheriff of Nottingham. Trying, and failing. It came out more like the Italian officer from 'Allo 'Allo with the body language of Rik in The Young Ones.
Still, a pleasant evening in the tiny, tiny Old Vic with its doll's-house seats. Even at the back of the stalls we had a good view of all the action on the stage, some fifteen metres away.
2. Human Nature. At last, an episode of new Who that we can stand up and salute! Series 3 has finally hit its stride. A very tennish 9, or a ninish 10, but as ever I may reconsider this in the light of the second part. So far the signs are good - I wouldn't say it's on a par with The Girl in the Fireplace yet, although next week could change that, but it's certainly up there with Father's Day and The Empty Child. It is, however, the most complete episode after Fireplace - the muted woody colours, the gentle music, the cinematography, the sets, costumes and performances all working together in that rare and special way.
So far it compares well to the novel, too. I'm one of the large mass of Who fans that feels Human Nature (book) was the best of the Virgin novels, but there is much in the book that wouldn't work so well on TV (not to mention the change of leads), and by and large I feel the alterations have improved the story. It's much tighter now. The Doctor has a clearer and more pressing reason for becoming human (in the book, it seemed to be a mix of trying to understand his companion and wanting to find out more about himself - almost a whim, really). Serious Tennant makes a much more credible pre-war public school teacher than goofy McCoy (even the text version). The romance with Joan Redfern is a bit more whirlwind than in the book, where we're asked to accept that they've been socialising for two months between chapters, but her unsubtle hints and that excellent cricket ball scene make John Smith's sudden burst of self-confidence work so well on screen.
The fob watch is such a perfect cipher for the Doctor's true identity (that completeness again...) that it's hard to believe in retrospect that the book didn't do it the same way. However, that leads to one of my two (only two!) slight concerns with the episode. (And the good news is that they really are slight - for once this series, they're "What?" rather than "What the hell?!") Since when did the Doctor have a biology-shuffling helmet dangling from the TARDIS ceiling, and if it's been there all this time, why hasn't he used it on any of the many potentially useful occasions in the past? (Although with a name like "chameleon arch" (cf "chameleon circuit") we can perhaps retrofit it into the show as some kind of emergency Time Lord regenerative aid. But I'm flailing a bit there. This is one point where the book beats the episode, by simply having the Doctor disappear for an hour at a market and turn up sweating and holding the McGuffin with his real self in it.) My other slight concern is the scarecrows. They're not in the book and they're not properly set up in the episode. They're "the soldiers" - but what does that really tell us? Are they real scarecrows that've been taken over in some way, and if so, how? Or are they something the Family brought with them, in which case, why are they stationed in the fields and disguised as scarecrows rather than stored in the spaceship? But it's a minor point when the Family can comfortably carry the monster duties on their own.
On which note, a word of praise for Harry "Baines" Lloyd and his remarkably flexible face. I couldn't believe it when it was pointed out to me that he'd been the bland, unremarkable Will Scarlett in the recent Robin Hood series. I'm now inclined to believe that he'd been acting bland and unremarkable, since his performance here is quite the opposite.
So overall it's shaping up to be a good two-parter.
3. Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End. Mmm, pirate surrealism. For all that this was yet more pulpy action on the high seas, it was worth a third outing to see Johnny Depp take his role past odd and into downright weird. Poor old Cthulhoid cap'n Davy Jones didn't quite get the send-off I was hoping he'd get after all that build-up, but at least hissable capitalist Lord Beckett did, standing and gibbering quietly as his ship was turned into matchwood. Still, I'd watch it again just for the surreal bits.
1. Cyrano de Bergerac at the Bristol Old Vic. I'm an ex-Ragueneau myself (Student Theatre, c. 2002) and had joked to my workmates on Friday afternoon that I'd be judging the show by Exeter University's high standards. Ah, wouldn't you know it?
The script was a new translation by Ranjit Bolt. This, I didn't object to; all credit to Ranjit Bolt. Some of his colloquialisms sounded a bit odd in context, but many others worked extremely well, and (whisper it!) I think overall I like his text slightly more than the Anthony Burgess translation. (Mmm, tastes like heresy.)
Some of the staging... there were one or two odd decisions, although we could generally see what some of the more abstract stuff was about. However, I'd been watching the 17th century story of Cyrano de B and was deeply surprised when Roxane and Ragueneau turned up at the front line in Act 4 on a motorbike and sidecar. The Lovely Jo, meanwhile, had twigged from the costumes in the first half that the director had set this production around the time of World War One and was deeply surprised when the Comte de Guiche, leader of a French regiment still fighting Spaniards, turned up in Act 4 in his 17th century shiny breastplate and lace collar. (Which time period? There's only one way to settle this - fight!)
The acting was a bit variable. Cyrano gabbled his lines during the first half, but settled down a bit and came across well in the second half. Roxane was good but (in Jo's words) "a bit horsey", as opposed to the thoroughly natural Roxane who'd starred in the old student production. The rest of the main cast was solid, but prone to impenetrable accents, all of them different. But all of these were watchable, and by and large good. Even some cheeky musical work in Ragueneau's shop in Act 2 that I can only envy. The only real stand-out problem was the Comte de Guiche, the lord of chronoclasm. We could both tell in the first half that he was putting on some kind of voice. It sounded like it might have been continental - surely not someone actually trying a French accent? Yet at times it sounded more Spanish. It wasn't until he really turned up the dial in the now legendary Act 4 that I finally twigged what was going on - he was trying to channel Keith Allen's Sheriff of Nottingham. Trying, and failing. It came out more like the Italian officer from 'Allo 'Allo with the body language of Rik in The Young Ones.
Still, a pleasant evening in the tiny, tiny Old Vic with its doll's-house seats. Even at the back of the stalls we had a good view of all the action on the stage, some fifteen metres away.
2. Human Nature. At last, an episode of new Who that we can stand up and salute! Series 3 has finally hit its stride. A very tennish 9, or a ninish 10, but as ever I may reconsider this in the light of the second part. So far the signs are good - I wouldn't say it's on a par with The Girl in the Fireplace yet, although next week could change that, but it's certainly up there with Father's Day and The Empty Child. It is, however, the most complete episode after Fireplace - the muted woody colours, the gentle music, the cinematography, the sets, costumes and performances all working together in that rare and special way.
So far it compares well to the novel, too. I'm one of the large mass of Who fans that feels Human Nature (book) was the best of the Virgin novels, but there is much in the book that wouldn't work so well on TV (not to mention the change of leads), and by and large I feel the alterations have improved the story. It's much tighter now. The Doctor has a clearer and more pressing reason for becoming human (in the book, it seemed to be a mix of trying to understand his companion and wanting to find out more about himself - almost a whim, really). Serious Tennant makes a much more credible pre-war public school teacher than goofy McCoy (even the text version). The romance with Joan Redfern is a bit more whirlwind than in the book, where we're asked to accept that they've been socialising for two months between chapters, but her unsubtle hints and that excellent cricket ball scene make John Smith's sudden burst of self-confidence work so well on screen.
The fob watch is such a perfect cipher for the Doctor's true identity (that completeness again...) that it's hard to believe in retrospect that the book didn't do it the same way. However, that leads to one of my two (only two!) slight concerns with the episode. (And the good news is that they really are slight - for once this series, they're "What?" rather than "What the hell?!") Since when did the Doctor have a biology-shuffling helmet dangling from the TARDIS ceiling, and if it's been there all this time, why hasn't he used it on any of the many potentially useful occasions in the past? (Although with a name like "chameleon arch" (cf "chameleon circuit") we can perhaps retrofit it into the show as some kind of emergency Time Lord regenerative aid. But I'm flailing a bit there. This is one point where the book beats the episode, by simply having the Doctor disappear for an hour at a market and turn up sweating and holding the McGuffin with his real self in it.) My other slight concern is the scarecrows. They're not in the book and they're not properly set up in the episode. They're "the soldiers" - but what does that really tell us? Are they real scarecrows that've been taken over in some way, and if so, how? Or are they something the Family brought with them, in which case, why are they stationed in the fields and disguised as scarecrows rather than stored in the spaceship? But it's a minor point when the Family can comfortably carry the monster duties on their own.
On which note, a word of praise for Harry "Baines" Lloyd and his remarkably flexible face. I couldn't believe it when it was pointed out to me that he'd been the bland, unremarkable Will Scarlett in the recent Robin Hood series. I'm now inclined to believe that he'd been acting bland and unremarkable, since his performance here is quite the opposite.
So overall it's shaping up to be a good two-parter.
3. Pirates of the Caribbean 3: At World's End. Mmm, pirate surrealism. For all that this was yet more pulpy action on the high seas, it was worth a third outing to see Johnny Depp take his role past odd and into downright weird. Poor old Cthulhoid cap'n Davy Jones didn't quite get the send-off I was hoping he'd get after all that build-up, but at least hissable capitalist Lord Beckett did, standing and gibbering quietly as his ship was turned into matchwood. Still, I'd watch it again just for the surreal bits.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
"Don't they teach recreational mathematics any more?"
Well, that was better again. Like The Lazarus Experiment, 42 was slam-bang action fare with much running up and down corridors, but it scores more highly by dropping us right into the action from the off, by having a final ten minutes that didn't just feel tacked on, and by having some very nice visual effects. Yes, Doctor Who is a show that shouldn't rely on CGI, but the silent shot of Martha drifting away in an escape pod was very fine. And y'know, the more I look back on it the more I realise just how much of this episode was just running up and down corridors (my word, really quite a lot of it...), but the point is that this is the first episode in about a month that I've wanted to look back on after first viewing.
Even the science wasn't screamingly, disturbingly wrong. I mean, you have to accept that, unlike yer regular suns, living suns can actually reverse the effects of their enormous gravitational field and push away ships that are about to smash right into them, but I'm prepared to do that. The episode actually looked coherent. So really, my only question is: Who are you, and what have you done with the real Chris Chibnall?
(Actually, you could see just a hint of Torchwood Chibnall in the scene where, instead of suddenly exclaiming "You humans, you're amazingly brilliant!" as he normally does, the Doctor suddenly exclaims "You humans, you're rapacious bastards!" But I digress.)
7 out of 10. Points for the possessed crewman turning people into Hiroshima shadows with his mad glowing eyes.
Minus points for the tiresome "Burn with me" refrain ("Are you my Mummy?" it ain't).
For the first few minutes (and off the back of the trailer), I thought this had all the signs of being a sequel to last year's Impossible Planet/Satan Pit, and 42 almost got relief points just for not featuring the return of the most absurdly pretentious monster ever to appear in Who. (But then I sobered up a bit and thought better of it. If I rated stories on that basis, I'd be giving bonus points to every Who episode that doesn't feature yet more Daleks. Hey, wait a minute, I already do that...)
Points for the Doctor admitting he's scared. The Lovely Jo made a very perceptive remark about this: he's not scared that he'll die (he'll risk his life at the drop of a hat, after all), he's scared that if he dies he'll come back as a sun-zombie and kill Martha. Points also for the idea of the living sun and the sun-zombies (although if it mattered that much to me I'd list here previous films and TV shows that have featured sentient celestial bodies - including old episodes of Who).
Points for Martha's mum selling her out to Mr Saxon's phone-tappers. Overall it's another step upwards.
Even the science wasn't screamingly, disturbingly wrong. I mean, you have to accept that, unlike yer regular suns, living suns can actually reverse the effects of their enormous gravitational field and push away ships that are about to smash right into them, but I'm prepared to do that. The episode actually looked coherent. So really, my only question is: Who are you, and what have you done with the real Chris Chibnall?
(Actually, you could see just a hint of Torchwood Chibnall in the scene where, instead of suddenly exclaiming "You humans, you're amazingly brilliant!" as he normally does, the Doctor suddenly exclaims "You humans, you're rapacious bastards!" But I digress.)
7 out of 10. Points for the possessed crewman turning people into Hiroshima shadows with his mad glowing eyes.
Minus points for the tiresome "Burn with me" refrain ("Are you my Mummy?" it ain't).
For the first few minutes (and off the back of the trailer), I thought this had all the signs of being a sequel to last year's Impossible Planet/Satan Pit, and 42 almost got relief points just for not featuring the return of the most absurdly pretentious monster ever to appear in Who. (But then I sobered up a bit and thought better of it. If I rated stories on that basis, I'd be giving bonus points to every Who episode that doesn't feature yet more Daleks. Hey, wait a minute, I already do that...)
Points for the Doctor admitting he's scared. The Lovely Jo made a very perceptive remark about this: he's not scared that he'll die (he'll risk his life at the drop of a hat, after all), he's scared that if he dies he'll come back as a sun-zombie and kill Martha. Points also for the idea of the living sun and the sun-zombies (although if it mattered that much to me I'd list here previous films and TV shows that have featured sentient celestial bodies - including old episodes of Who).
Points for Martha's mum selling her out to Mr Saxon's phone-tappers. Overall it's another step upwards.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
"James Bond?! ...really?"
How many films contributed their electrically transmitted DNA to this week's Who?
Viewers who think too much might ponder an episode of DW that shows the dehumanising horrors of science brought to heel in a church, but perhaps there really is nothing more to it than a Quatermass reference. Would've been nice if the Lazarus monster had looked like it had been drawn from the dormant bits of human DNA, and not from bits of just any old terrestrial DNA (to think, Confidential suggests the original design would have been even more of a spurious mix of animal bits). Apparently we're this far from being giant scorpions - the stinging tail, the mandibles, the external skeleton, the extra legs... the ability to suck the life right out of people? In its favour, the genetic science in this episode may have been cock-eyed again, but it was still better than last week. At least there was some effort to explain it all that sounded half convincing.
Still, two things save The Lazarus Experiment from being a mediocre knockabout action story with a big old CGI monster. One is the acting, with no obvious weak links and some pretty good bastard acting from Mark Gatiss. The other is the script, which was excellent (apart from some of the soliloquising in the cathedral, which got a bit ripe in places).
Thing is, a solid middling story like this would have looked like gold in the first half of Series 1, or rejigged as an episode of Torchwood. In the third year of New Who, it looks like 6 out of 10. But we're halfway into Series 3 now - when is it going to turn it up to 11? It was excusable for Series 1 to take a while to find its feet, but by this time last year we'd had The Girl in the Fireplace, a werewolf and ninja monks vs the heat-packin' Queen Victoria and two episodes of meaty, shiny, good-looking Cyberman action. The last month and a half pales by comparison. And we've got two weeks to mull that over while Who steps aside for Eurovision. Still, the rest of the series looks like seven weeks of continuous winners, if the trailer is to be believed.
- The James Bond films, obviously
- The Fly (for the capsule)
- The Quatermass Experiment (for the title, and ending up in a cathedral)
- This Is Spinal Tap (for going up to 11)
- Predator/Blade 2 (for the monster's split jaw)
- Lost In Space (for the rest of the monster's body)
- Relic (I'm told - for the monster being some sort of human throwback/sidestep)
- And of course, for a CG face unconvincingly slapped onto the front of an inhuman body, The Lawnmower Man and its close cousins, the pop videos of Peter Gabriel.
Viewers who think too much might ponder an episode of DW that shows the dehumanising horrors of science brought to heel in a church, but perhaps there really is nothing more to it than a Quatermass reference. Would've been nice if the Lazarus monster had looked like it had been drawn from the dormant bits of human DNA, and not from bits of just any old terrestrial DNA (to think, Confidential suggests the original design would have been even more of a spurious mix of animal bits). Apparently we're this far from being giant scorpions - the stinging tail, the mandibles, the external skeleton, the extra legs... the ability to suck the life right out of people? In its favour, the genetic science in this episode may have been cock-eyed again, but it was still better than last week. At least there was some effort to explain it all that sounded half convincing.
Still, two things save The Lazarus Experiment from being a mediocre knockabout action story with a big old CGI monster. One is the acting, with no obvious weak links and some pretty good bastard acting from Mark Gatiss. The other is the script, which was excellent (apart from some of the soliloquising in the cathedral, which got a bit ripe in places).
Thing is, a solid middling story like this would have looked like gold in the first half of Series 1, or rejigged as an episode of Torchwood. In the third year of New Who, it looks like 6 out of 10. But we're halfway into Series 3 now - when is it going to turn it up to 11? It was excusable for Series 1 to take a while to find its feet, but by this time last year we'd had The Girl in the Fireplace, a werewolf and ninja monks vs the heat-packin' Queen Victoria and two episodes of meaty, shiny, good-looking Cyberman action. The last month and a half pales by comparison. And we've got two weeks to mull that over while Who steps aside for Eurovision. Still, the rest of the series looks like seven weeks of continuous winners, if the trailer is to be believed.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
"But... you have doubts?" "Affirmative."
Science fiction (ooh ooh ooh) double feature (bau bau bau). So Manlek did his... William Shatner... im...personation for a bit, started to turn nice, got the Doctor on side, and then his underlings decided his mission was a failure, his life had got too extreme, and they death-rayed him. In a theatre. With audience partici...pation.
And I assume a sonic transducer was involved as well, because I don't see how else they could have got from the basement of the Empire State Building to the theatre that quickly, with Manlek in chains staggering along with them. A plot device that is capable of breaking down solid matter and projecting it wherever happens to be most dramatic. I mean, why bother to chain him up, bring him to the theatre and then exterminate him? If you don't like him, why not just exterminate him back at the lab? This was but one of a mountain of things that bothered me about this week's Who, but let's start on the positive side.
I give Evolution of the Daleks 5 out of 10 - decidedly average, but just better than The Shakespeare Code. Points were awarded for lookin' good, particularly the nice backdrops of New York (yes, DW Confidential, the very nice backdrops, and by the way thank you for spending two episodes dwelling on how nice they were and telling us naff all about the story). Not the first Who story to reduce a city to just three basic locations (Empire State, Central Park, theatre - well, four if you include the sewers) and to give us no sign of anyone living anywhere else in the city, but it did look very good. Manlek, son of Dalek, still looked nice, and I even quite liked his Shatner impersonation. Some nice film referencing - leaving aside the Rocky Horror overtones of the theatre scene and the twinges of Frankenstein in the lab, I did kind of like the 1930s cross-fading as the human Daleks marched through the sewers. Nice Dalek tommy-guns. Nice scenes of the under-Daleks conspiring - looking over their shoulder and so on. Some nice comedy touches, particularly the pigmen making "Come on, come on" faces in the lift. And David Tennant put in one of his finest performances yet, I thought, apart from the bits I shall shortly whinge about. All things considered, this episode looked great, and better even than last week's.
AND YET!
1. The science was shot to buggery. And if I, a science dunce, can spot the problems on first viewing, it's got to be really screwed. Now see, when Cthulhu Dalek swallows a man whole and somehow merges itself with him to form Manlek, I can accept that. It's not presented as a hard scientific thing, and besides we already know from the 2005 series that Daleks can somehow absorb organic material from other life forms, even through their casings. But solar flares and DNA are real, scientific things that behave in real, scientific ways. And I think that's where Daleks in Manhattan scored over Evolution of the Daleks - it didn't contain any of the "science". The non-science, if you will, although I like to think of it as ab-science. To list out each terrible point:
2. Related to point 1, even the ab-science has a yawning chasm at its heart. Why was the Dalekanium strapped to the mast? The Doctor clings to the mast to magically stick his DNA into the human hybrids, and tries for some reason to tear the Dalekanium off, so the obvious inference is that the Dalekanium was there for the same purpose, to introduce Dalek DNA into the process. (It's not too unreasonable (for a given value of "unreasonable", accepting for a moment that we're talking about electrical transfer of DNA) - if Dalek metal could absorb organic material in 2005, maybe it does actually contain genetic material itself. Or then again maybe that, it now turns out, was another example of metal "conducting" DNA?) But Manlek says he's supposed to be the genetic template for the hybrids, so the DNA must have come from him and been introduced in the lab. But then why was the Dalekanium strapped to the mast?
And while we're here, how does Manlek, son of Dalek - formed from the direct merging of two bodies, gestated in and born from a Dalek casing - form the template for hybrid creatures created by a completely different process? (And why don't they share his boyish good looks - but see point 1.)
3. It was a joke, even in the old series, when the Daleks had a golden opportunity to exterminate the Doctor, and by some contrivance they wouldn't do it. Here it happened at least three times, twice with the Doctor actually standing there inviting them to do it. The Doctor's developed some kind of pointless death wish, apparently (and these, incidentally, are the scenes where I felt David Tennant's performance lapsed from excellent to merely good). Not only this, but the last Dalek - honest guv, the very last one this time, really, until we bring them all back again, chiz chiz - had a clear shot at him at the end and scarpered instead. D minus, detention.
4. And that deserves a sub-header of its own: the Emergency Temporal Cop-Out. Oh, how I long for the day when they actually finally really do kill the Daleks off, because to me they don't just represent lack of imagination, they are lack of imagination. ("What will we do this week?" "Oh, we'd better have another Dalek story. People like the Daleks.") How my heart swelled when two of the bastards bit the dust in the theatre - just one left! Just one left! Go on, do it!! And yet, even if they had killed off the Very Last Dalek Honest Guv, my cynical brain wouldn't believe it. It's been soured by six happy weeks in 2005 after Rob Shearman's fine episode, at the end of which the Daleks all came back again.
The real tragedy here is that Manlek was the most interesting thing to happen to the Daleks in decades, and they killed him off. They had to, I suppose, for a variety of narrative and dramatic reasons, but it's still a shame.
5. A few remaining points of plot illogic. The human hybrids have the same problem as the pigmen - if all you're after is zombie-like footsoldiers, why not just take regular humans and brainwash them? Worked in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Why all this pissing about with genetics, just to end up with manual labour?
If your army of hybrids is so expendable (and if you already know they've been compromised), why not self-destruct them before they blow up the only two other remaining Daleks, instead of after? (I'm not complaining, you understand, but... why?)
Why (just to repeat it) drag Manlek all the way to the theatre in chains, just to parade him for a bit and then kill him? Why leave him alive at all, if you're a ruthless genocidal Dalek and you think he's let the side down?
Why does the Doctor apparently go along with Manlek's plan when a) Manlek is 50% unwilling human, and b) his future race of hybrids is composed entirely of murdered humans? Is it worth that much moral compromise just to egg on the one Dalek who might turn out to be nice?
One missed opportunity: why wasn't something like this included:
"But... why?"
"Da-leks do not ques-tion or-ders!"
"But you did - you deposed your leader and shot him in front of us."
I know, I'm trying to "improve" the script, and am therefore the lowest of the low even by my own standards. But still, might have been a nice point to make.
All of this might give the impression that I hated this episode. I repeat: 5 out of 10, and it was nice to look at. Still, roll on next week's.
One cheeky final thought, and I haven't seen anyone else online mentioning it, which suggests they're all far too lovely, or I'm a complete disgrace. Daleks in Manhattan made it clear that Tallulah Threeellsandanaitch is Jewish. Muttering "Dumb goy" at the Doctor, several "Oy"s, that kind of thing. (Plus you're not going to tell me Threeellsandanaitch isn't a Jewish surname.) Her boyfriend is now half pork. I'm guessing there won't be any more blow jobs, then. At the very least, it should be an interesting relationship.
And I assume a sonic transducer was involved as well, because I don't see how else they could have got from the basement of the Empire State Building to the theatre that quickly, with Manlek in chains staggering along with them. A plot device that is capable of breaking down solid matter and projecting it wherever happens to be most dramatic. I mean, why bother to chain him up, bring him to the theatre and then exterminate him? If you don't like him, why not just exterminate him back at the lab? This was but one of a mountain of things that bothered me about this week's Who, but let's start on the positive side.
I give Evolution of the Daleks 5 out of 10 - decidedly average, but just better than The Shakespeare Code. Points were awarded for lookin' good, particularly the nice backdrops of New York (yes, DW Confidential, the very nice backdrops, and by the way thank you for spending two episodes dwelling on how nice they were and telling us naff all about the story). Not the first Who story to reduce a city to just three basic locations (Empire State, Central Park, theatre - well, four if you include the sewers) and to give us no sign of anyone living anywhere else in the city, but it did look very good. Manlek, son of Dalek, still looked nice, and I even quite liked his Shatner impersonation. Some nice film referencing - leaving aside the Rocky Horror overtones of the theatre scene and the twinges of Frankenstein in the lab, I did kind of like the 1930s cross-fading as the human Daleks marched through the sewers. Nice Dalek tommy-guns. Nice scenes of the under-Daleks conspiring - looking over their shoulder and so on. Some nice comedy touches, particularly the pigmen making "Come on, come on" faces in the lift. And David Tennant put in one of his finest performances yet, I thought, apart from the bits I shall shortly whinge about. All things considered, this episode looked great, and better even than last week's.
AND YET!
1. The science was shot to buggery. And if I, a science dunce, can spot the problems on first viewing, it's got to be really screwed. Now see, when Cthulhu Dalek swallows a man whole and somehow merges itself with him to form Manlek, I can accept that. It's not presented as a hard scientific thing, and besides we already know from the 2005 series that Daleks can somehow absorb organic material from other life forms, even through their casings. But solar flares and DNA are real, scientific things that behave in real, scientific ways. And I think that's where Daleks in Manhattan scored over Evolution of the Daleks - it didn't contain any of the "science". The non-science, if you will, although I like to think of it as ab-science. To list out each terrible point:
- A vast burst of gamma radiation, caused by a solar flare, translates into a big bolt of regular electric lightning hitting the top of the Empire State Building.
- The Daleks need this energy to turn humans into Daleks by some process of barging the DNA out with their own. (I'm pretty sure genetics doesn't work on an instant basis either, but it's the "zap it with electricity and jolt the new genes in" that got me.)
- Although the hybrids are now "100% Dalek", they are completely unchanged physically.
- They are, however, changed mentally, even though DNA doesn't contain any experiential information that might condition their minds.
- The Daleks plan to use them to convert the rest of New York's population, and then the rest of humanity, although how they plan to do this with one small genetic lab and no more really big solar flares, and a very limited source of Dalek DNA, remains unclear. (Plus, since when did the Daleks become the Cybermen?)
- Meanwhile the Doctor has somehow disrupted the process by clinging to the mast and getting himself electrocuted. (This I am sure of: DNA is a chemical and is not transmitted electrically.)
2. Related to point 1, even the ab-science has a yawning chasm at its heart. Why was the Dalekanium strapped to the mast? The Doctor clings to the mast to magically stick his DNA into the human hybrids, and tries for some reason to tear the Dalekanium off, so the obvious inference is that the Dalekanium was there for the same purpose, to introduce Dalek DNA into the process. (It's not too unreasonable (for a given value of "unreasonable", accepting for a moment that we're talking about electrical transfer of DNA) - if Dalek metal could absorb organic material in 2005, maybe it does actually contain genetic material itself. Or then again maybe that, it now turns out, was another example of metal "conducting" DNA?) But Manlek says he's supposed to be the genetic template for the hybrids, so the DNA must have come from him and been introduced in the lab. But then why was the Dalekanium strapped to the mast?
And while we're here, how does Manlek, son of Dalek - formed from the direct merging of two bodies, gestated in and born from a Dalek casing - form the template for hybrid creatures created by a completely different process? (And why don't they share his boyish good looks - but see point 1.)
3. It was a joke, even in the old series, when the Daleks had a golden opportunity to exterminate the Doctor, and by some contrivance they wouldn't do it. Here it happened at least three times, twice with the Doctor actually standing there inviting them to do it. The Doctor's developed some kind of pointless death wish, apparently (and these, incidentally, are the scenes where I felt David Tennant's performance lapsed from excellent to merely good). Not only this, but the last Dalek - honest guv, the very last one this time, really, until we bring them all back again, chiz chiz - had a clear shot at him at the end and scarpered instead. D minus, detention.
4. And that deserves a sub-header of its own: the Emergency Temporal Cop-Out. Oh, how I long for the day when they actually finally really do kill the Daleks off, because to me they don't just represent lack of imagination, they are lack of imagination. ("What will we do this week?" "Oh, we'd better have another Dalek story. People like the Daleks.") How my heart swelled when two of the bastards bit the dust in the theatre - just one left! Just one left! Go on, do it!! And yet, even if they had killed off the Very Last Dalek Honest Guv, my cynical brain wouldn't believe it. It's been soured by six happy weeks in 2005 after Rob Shearman's fine episode, at the end of which the Daleks all came back again.
The real tragedy here is that Manlek was the most interesting thing to happen to the Daleks in decades, and they killed him off. They had to, I suppose, for a variety of narrative and dramatic reasons, but it's still a shame.
5. A few remaining points of plot illogic. The human hybrids have the same problem as the pigmen - if all you're after is zombie-like footsoldiers, why not just take regular humans and brainwash them? Worked in The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Why all this pissing about with genetics, just to end up with manual labour?
If your army of hybrids is so expendable (and if you already know they've been compromised), why not self-destruct them before they blow up the only two other remaining Daleks, instead of after? (I'm not complaining, you understand, but... why?)
Why (just to repeat it) drag Manlek all the way to the theatre in chains, just to parade him for a bit and then kill him? Why leave him alive at all, if you're a ruthless genocidal Dalek and you think he's let the side down?
Why does the Doctor apparently go along with Manlek's plan when a) Manlek is 50% unwilling human, and b) his future race of hybrids is composed entirely of murdered humans? Is it worth that much moral compromise just to egg on the one Dalek who might turn out to be nice?
One missed opportunity: why wasn't something like this included:
"But... why?"
"Da-leks do not ques-tion or-ders!"
"But you did - you deposed your leader and shot him in front of us."
I know, I'm trying to "improve" the script, and am therefore the lowest of the low even by my own standards. But still, might have been a nice point to make.
All of this might give the impression that I hated this episode. I repeat: 5 out of 10, and it was nice to look at. Still, roll on next week's.
One cheeky final thought, and I haven't seen anyone else online mentioning it, which suggests they're all far too lovely, or I'm a complete disgrace. Daleks in Manhattan made it clear that Tallulah Threeellsandanaitch is Jewish. Muttering "Dumb goy" at the Doctor, several "Oy"s, that kind of thing. (Plus you're not going to tell me Threeellsandanaitch isn't a Jewish surname.) Her boyfriend is now half pork. I'm guessing there won't be any more blow jobs, then. At the very least, it should be an interesting relationship.
Monday, April 23, 2007
"New Amsterdam, New Amsterdam?"
Hmm, Daleks in Manhattan. There were Daleks, they were in Manhattan, and thus was the Trade Descriptions Act of 1968 not broken. I tentatively give it... 7 out of 10. (Next to which, Smith & Jones is definitely an 8, while Gridlock can be fixed down to a 6. My opinion of The Shakespeare Code is endorsed by the fact that The Lovely Jo had forgotten about it just a fortnight later.) I may come back to this rating after next week's episode, but overall... hmm. Alas, the Daleks didn't sing, but Dalek Sec did dance a bit (well, it looked like dancing). And then he turned into a Monoid with dreadlocks.
There was much to recommend it, certainly - just some things I didn't like. The episode dragged quite a bit in the middle. It took about thirty seconds for all the female cast and their voices to get thoroughly on my Dalek balls. Almost including Martha, sadly - whenever she's acting "excited", her voice does this odd Bonnie Tyler thing, and her believability suddenly drops. In all other respects, she's bearing up very well - once again, we see that she's smart, resourceful, and open-minded enough to chase a pig hybrid with the words "You're not like the others!" More good news: David Tennant's finally nailed "angry", with that lovely line "They always survive, while I lose everything." On the other hand, there were quite a few dialogue wobbles. Most notably (and unfortunately) that final line. Lovely prosthetics, dodgy line.
Ways in which the final line could have been worse (just about):
"I am Manlek, son of Dalek!"
"Heeeeeeeeere's Dalek!"
"Hi, and welcome to the show - I'm Jay Leno."
Of course, the real sin is that the shock ending was given away on Tuesday by the Radio Times - fules! Whose decision? Russell T's, according to the interview. Was this just a stupid mistake, or an act of sabotage? Still, to play devil's advocate for a minute, if I hadn't known what was coming I'd've fallen right off my chair, so maybe, just maybe this was an attempt to avoid traumatising the kiddies (too much) by preparing them for the ending. Generosity leans towards stupidity, however.
News amusement this week: Sheryl Crow suggests that, to conserve paper, people should only use one sheet of toilet paper a time. Clearly Sheryl Crow has never shat. Either that or she just doesn't care, and the inside of her undercrackers looks like the Somme. Still though... perhaps if someone could devise an alternative to toilet paper? Yes, it's time for the three seashells. It's the last thing standing between us and the world of Demolition Man.
There was much to recommend it, certainly - just some things I didn't like. The episode dragged quite a bit in the middle. It took about thirty seconds for all the female cast and their voices to get thoroughly on my Dalek balls. Almost including Martha, sadly - whenever she's acting "excited", her voice does this odd Bonnie Tyler thing, and her believability suddenly drops. In all other respects, she's bearing up very well - once again, we see that she's smart, resourceful, and open-minded enough to chase a pig hybrid with the words "You're not like the others!" More good news: David Tennant's finally nailed "angry", with that lovely line "They always survive, while I lose everything." On the other hand, there were quite a few dialogue wobbles. Most notably (and unfortunately) that final line. Lovely prosthetics, dodgy line.
Ways in which the final line could have been worse (just about):
"I am Manlek, son of Dalek!"
"Heeeeeeeeere's Dalek!"
"Hi, and welcome to the show - I'm Jay Leno."
Of course, the real sin is that the shock ending was given away on Tuesday by the Radio Times - fules! Whose decision? Russell T's, according to the interview. Was this just a stupid mistake, or an act of sabotage? Still, to play devil's advocate for a minute, if I hadn't known what was coming I'd've fallen right off my chair, so maybe, just maybe this was an attempt to avoid traumatising the kiddies (too much) by preparing them for the ending. Generosity leans towards stupidity, however.
News amusement this week: Sheryl Crow suggests that, to conserve paper, people should only use one sheet of toilet paper a time. Clearly Sheryl Crow has never shat. Either that or she just doesn't care, and the inside of her undercrackers looks like the Somme. Still though... perhaps if someone could devise an alternative to toilet paper? Yes, it's time for the three seashells. It's the last thing standing between us and the world of Demolition Man.
Monday, April 16, 2007
"Just what every city needs - cats in charge!"
Hmm. Hmm hmm hmm. What a paradox we have here. I want to give Gridlock high marks for being wonderful popcorn TV, and yet I must acknowledge that there's hardly any plot holding it up at all. A contrast with Smith & Jones, which almost seemed to have too much plot, yet it seemed to be having a lot more fun. I want to give it 8 out of 10, but feel I ought to hold it back to a 6 or 7 on technical grounds.
There are many reasons for me to like Gridlock. It's a return from the chewy rice-cake "annual" texture of last week to the colourful, chemical "comics" feel of most of the new series that I like so well. (All that really tells me, though, is that clearly I prefer having bugger all plot and some pretty pictures to having too dusty a plot. "A triumph of style over substance", as they used to say - obviously that's my bag. "A triumph of fluff over stodge" might be more to the point.) It looks like what some part of my hindbrain seems to think the future should look like. The expensive CGI's all well and good, but - mother of invention - it's forced the cost-cutting measure of using the same car set re-dressed repeatedly, which I like in a televisual way. (Every now and then the makers of DW find themselves in a corner for reasons of time and/or budget, and end up producing brilliant DW as a result. The first episode of The Mind Robber springs instantly to mind.)
Most importantly, I got the sense that the characters had lives beyond the confines of the story. Those lives might not have made much sense in plot terms, but at least they weren't just there for the Doctor's benefit. Effectively, the characters, the imagery, the metaphor (and I can excuse a lot of the plot failings on the basis that the big eternal motorway is a metaphor, or at least a joke) are conveying the story instead of the conventional things like narrative. Any old monkey can read out a page of infodump, whereas the people here were acting their backstory.
Plus it had kittens in it. I mean, what more do you want?
Of course, I'm just making excuses for an episode that made no sense, merely because it made my brain happy. But if nothing else, it was a blessed relief after last week's visit to the Television Shakespeareworld Heritage Theme Park. Next week: singing, dancing and Daleks! But will the Daleks sing and dance? We can only hope.
There are many reasons for me to like Gridlock. It's a return from the chewy rice-cake "annual" texture of last week to the colourful, chemical "comics" feel of most of the new series that I like so well. (All that really tells me, though, is that clearly I prefer having bugger all plot and some pretty pictures to having too dusty a plot. "A triumph of style over substance", as they used to say - obviously that's my bag. "A triumph of fluff over stodge" might be more to the point.) It looks like what some part of my hindbrain seems to think the future should look like. The expensive CGI's all well and good, but - mother of invention - it's forced the cost-cutting measure of using the same car set re-dressed repeatedly, which I like in a televisual way. (Every now and then the makers of DW find themselves in a corner for reasons of time and/or budget, and end up producing brilliant DW as a result. The first episode of The Mind Robber springs instantly to mind.)
Most importantly, I got the sense that the characters had lives beyond the confines of the story. Those lives might not have made much sense in plot terms, but at least they weren't just there for the Doctor's benefit. Effectively, the characters, the imagery, the metaphor (and I can excuse a lot of the plot failings on the basis that the big eternal motorway is a metaphor, or at least a joke) are conveying the story instead of the conventional things like narrative. Any old monkey can read out a page of infodump, whereas the people here were acting their backstory.
Plus it had kittens in it. I mean, what more do you want?
Of course, I'm just making excuses for an episode that made no sense, merely because it made my brain happy. But if nothing else, it was a blessed relief after last week's visit to the Television Shakespeareworld Heritage Theme Park. Next week: singing, dancing and Daleks! But will the Daleks sing and dance? We can only hope.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
"Hey nonny nonny..."
"...my lord!", to quote the second Blackadder, as this week's Doctor Who so nearly did. Alas, I cannot bring myself to award it more than half marks. Perhaps 4.5 out of 10. A few good lines in the script, but a bit of a mess overall, and...
...and here I digress for a moment. 21st century Who in general has a strong flavour of the old Who comics about it - particularly the very old Dalek comics, from which the end of series 1 took its Dalek flying saucer design. There's more than a hint in some of the more surprising TARDIS antics - flying through space at missiles, popping out of mid-air and crash-landing, hovering down the motorway, etc. Note also the general colour, brashness and "anything goes" attitude. But this story felt more like the sort of thing you get in an annual, the sort of two-page text story for which the entire brief is "Dr Who [sic] meets a famous historical figure", and the writer pads this with a few gags, a wafer-thin story and some laboured bits of dialogue of the play-ending "...Rexel 4" variety. Last year's second episode veered close to annual territory, but avoided it by the judicious use of wuxia monks, a werewolf and a better story.
At some point (probably in the next month or so) a fan who cares more than I did will reveal exactly how many sly Shakespearean references there were in this episode, and exactly how much of the script was written in iambic pentameter, and therefore exactly how clever we should all admit this episode to be. But cast your minds back to 1988: Silver Nemesis had Shakespearean references and iambic pentameter all over it, and it was, in a word, wank.
Particular lowlights: well, that bit of Shakespearean programming language at the end of Love's Labours Won for a start. The pre-credits monologue to camera, with that "Eeee-heheheheheee!" cackle at the end. Mother Doomfinger (the Bond villain that never was?) - I doubt she even scared the pre-teens. In fact, the witches in general. Presumably they felt they had to include a trio of cartoonish children's-story witches to get the "Shakespeareness" right, and yet they still got it wrong. (After all, the witches in Macbeth are mannish creatures (oddly enough, being played by men) with beards, who do their manipulating by psychology alone and who don't fly anywhere. The Carrionites weren't even right by regular myth-witch standards - instead of maiden, mother and crone they had two crones and called them both "Mother". Feh.) Oh yes, and: "Got to get used to this - whole new language - when are we?" Which is stretching the notion of "whole new language" a bit far, methinks.
If this poor spirit hath offended, think only this, and all is mended: that I rate this higher than Silver Nemesis. That's pretty faint praise, but there it is.
In other news, round at The Lovely Jo's folks' for Easter, to coo at week-old kittens and cop for some chocolate. More detailed Easter news may or may not follow at a later date.
...and here I digress for a moment. 21st century Who in general has a strong flavour of the old Who comics about it - particularly the very old Dalek comics, from which the end of series 1 took its Dalek flying saucer design. There's more than a hint in some of the more surprising TARDIS antics - flying through space at missiles, popping out of mid-air and crash-landing, hovering down the motorway, etc. Note also the general colour, brashness and "anything goes" attitude. But this story felt more like the sort of thing you get in an annual, the sort of two-page text story for which the entire brief is "Dr Who [sic] meets a famous historical figure", and the writer pads this with a few gags, a wafer-thin story and some laboured bits of dialogue of the play-ending "...Rexel 4" variety. Last year's second episode veered close to annual territory, but avoided it by the judicious use of wuxia monks, a werewolf and a better story.
At some point (probably in the next month or so) a fan who cares more than I did will reveal exactly how many sly Shakespearean references there were in this episode, and exactly how much of the script was written in iambic pentameter, and therefore exactly how clever we should all admit this episode to be. But cast your minds back to 1988: Silver Nemesis had Shakespearean references and iambic pentameter all over it, and it was, in a word, wank.
Particular lowlights: well, that bit of Shakespearean programming language at the end of Love's Labours Won for a start. The pre-credits monologue to camera, with that "Eeee-heheheheheee!" cackle at the end. Mother Doomfinger (the Bond villain that never was?) - I doubt she even scared the pre-teens. In fact, the witches in general. Presumably they felt they had to include a trio of cartoonish children's-story witches to get the "Shakespeareness" right, and yet they still got it wrong. (After all, the witches in Macbeth are mannish creatures (oddly enough, being played by men) with beards, who do their manipulating by psychology alone and who don't fly anywhere. The Carrionites weren't even right by regular myth-witch standards - instead of maiden, mother and crone they had two crones and called them both "Mother". Feh.) Oh yes, and: "Got to get used to this - whole new language - when are we?" Which is stretching the notion of "whole new language" a bit far, methinks.
If this poor spirit hath offended, think only this, and all is mended: that I rate this higher than Silver Nemesis. That's pretty faint praise, but there it is.
In other news, round at The Lovely Jo's folks' for Easter, to coo at week-old kittens and cop for some chocolate. More detailed Easter news may or may not follow at a later date.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
"Justice is swift."
What's that on the TV? Is it Brian May in a "Greek philosopher" style curly white wig and beard, pretending to be old? Yes it is - The Sky At Night are larking about, which reminds me of this week's media amusement. Sky At Night Magazine are celebrating the TV programme's 50th birthday in their own way, with two collectable covers. Wooooo! One of the covers has the words "50th Anniversary" in gold lettering on a plain black background, while the other - wait for it - has the words "50th Anniversary" in black lettering on a plain gold background. Quick, collect them before they're all snapped up by art-lovers.
But what of this week's brand new Who episode, Smith and Jones? Why, that'll do nicely. Best of the three season openers so far, I think. Much more busy than Rose; made a lot more sense than New Earth. Unusually, we saw some evidence of the Doctor "only taking the best" - he may have said it of Rose, but really she just got involved by chance and came through in the end. Most of his companions have just kind of stumbled into the TARDIS. Here there's actually some suggestion that Martha catches his eye by being smart, resourceful and not too easily fazed. We think she'll work out all right. Nice work on the Judoon as well. I tentatively give this one... 7.5 out of 10. Maybe an 8, but we'll see how the rest of the series pans out.
On a side note, two of The Lovely Jo's relatives have now appeared in crowd scenes in the new Who. Last year her cousin was in one of the many crowd scenes in the Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel two-parter (we can't figure out which one - she may well have her back to the camera). Now The Lovely Jo's cousin's husband has appeared, much more prominently, just behind the shoulder of Martha's sister in the scenes where people are staring at the big hole in the ground. We didn't even realise until it was pointed out to us.
But what of this week's brand new Who episode, Smith and Jones? Why, that'll do nicely. Best of the three season openers so far, I think. Much more busy than Rose; made a lot more sense than New Earth. Unusually, we saw some evidence of the Doctor "only taking the best" - he may have said it of Rose, but really she just got involved by chance and came through in the end. Most of his companions have just kind of stumbled into the TARDIS. Here there's actually some suggestion that Martha catches his eye by being smart, resourceful and not too easily fazed. We think she'll work out all right. Nice work on the Judoon as well. I tentatively give this one... 7.5 out of 10. Maybe an 8, but we'll see how the rest of the series pans out.
On a side note, two of The Lovely Jo's relatives have now appeared in crowd scenes in the new Who. Last year her cousin was in one of the many crowd scenes in the Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel two-parter (we can't figure out which one - she may well have her back to the camera). Now The Lovely Jo's cousin's husband has appeared, much more prominently, just behind the shoulder of Martha's sister in the scenes where people are staring at the big hole in the ground. We didn't even realise until it was pointed out to us.
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