Night Terrors (short)

The Parent Agenda returns once more in this episode, although strangely not for Amy and Rory who are remarkably chipper.  There is frustratingly little else to say about this episode.  It’s not seriously flawed like the Curse of the Black Spot.  It is a good and very competent slice of Who.  The problem is that it shows no ambition at all and is utterly predictable. Not once do you get the feeling of Gatiss going outside of his comfort zone or trying to innovate.  A certain amount was made of the fact that this was his first story set in the present.  But it may as well have been set at the dawn of time for all the difference it would really have made to the plot.  The frustrating thing is that Gatiss has shown he is an innovative writer elsewhere (not least of which is Sherlock, his other collaboration with the Moff).

This is basically the first example of New Who applying the ethos of the Missing Adventures/PDAs.  Gatiss re-writes (and to be fair improves) Fear Her and recycles a bunch of classic New Who moments.  So what we are left with is something that is a derivative and moody attempt to “scare the kids” with better production values that Fear Her (but a less cool monster).  There’s nothing wrong with that and I really enjoyed the Peg Doll stuff, which was an instant classic moment for the ages, but there’s nothing else here that stands out in the memory. 

This whole approach of this episode also reminds me of the ultra-“Trad” who books put out to counterbalance the “Rad” books put out during Stephen Cole’s editorship.  It’s practically screaming “look this is a nice simple standalone for you all”. 

For all its supposed flaws, I still think the Idiots Lantern is the high watermark of Gatiss’ New Who writing.

Let’s Kill Hitler

And now for something completely different.  The Space Opera stylings of A Good Man Goes to War are immediately replaced by a story that feels part 30s knock about romantic comedy and part Graham Williams with a little bit of The Beezer thrown in for good measure.

This seems to be treated as being the conclusion of a two part story but it’s anything but that.  A Good Man Goes to War was clearly a season finale and Let’s Kill Hitler is clearly a season premier, but there is a disconnect.  The resolution to the events of Let’s Kill Hitler are so roundabout that it feels as though  Let’s Kill Hitler is largely concerned with ignoring A Good Man Goes to War’s long term implication in favour of resolving the River Song story arc and the cliffhanger to Day of the Moon. 

The Wedding of River Song would prove to be the real conclusion (or at least continuation) of A Good Man Goes to War.  This is effectively a timey-wimey prequel to A Good Man Goes to War.As much as I loved the Epic Space Opera of A Good Man Goes to War, I was just as happy with the frankly bizarre comedy on show here.  Pretty much everything is pitched towards comedy, but as with the best comedies there is some real heart and drama underneath the jokes and great lines (“The Third Reich is a bit rubbish” bit was priceless).

The backstory of Amy, Rory and Mels is terrific fun.  Amy’s assumption that Rory was gay was pretty funny.  Rory really is LONG suffering.  Mel’s attitude to life frankly makes River Song and the Doctor look well adjusted.  I got a real kick out of the fact that Mel’s intervention effectively guarantees her own conception.  I also loved the fact that she actively sought out her mother and father.  You do get the sense that she wanted to be brought up by her own parents after a fashion.  

Against the fun of that is the real problem of Amy and Rory’s attitude to all of this.   I can buy into River feeling like she had a childhood and that she had her parents, but I don’t buy Amy and Rory feeling like they had a daughter.  I know the Moff took and tried to present the view that they were effectively River’s parents.  But they did not know that at the time.  There is a whole hell of a difference between keeping your friends on the straight and narrow and bringing up a daughter.  

As funny as the ret-conned backstory is, the whole situation doesn’t bear any close examination anyway.  Amy might not have thought to ask about Mel’s parents (or even her home) because of the crack in her bedroom wall, but Rory?  Fundamentally, what we have here is a very clever, funny and entertaining idea with no sense of any real emotional truth to it.  Just as the Amy and Rory relationship fell flat last season, so the pregnancy storyline falls flat in this one.  There is never any real feeling that Amy and Rory are truly parents.  My feeling is that the Moff was a little too ambitious and clever for his own good here and we should at least have had the chance to see Amy and Rory realise and come to terms with their impending parenthood and the loss of that parenthood.  The result is an inversion of the flaws of the RTD era, with emotion being sacrificed for Plot.  In general I prefer the RTD approach, but I will let the Moff off here as this season has delivered in spades in terms of presenting and paying off several complex story arcs.  This ambition is to be applauded and I have yet to see an arc heavy show that hasn’t had to make a compromise or dropped the ball somewhere along the line.  

I found the final reveal of River Song’s identity and origins to be particularly satisfying.  There are levels here to be explored with the Doctor’s role in all of this being questionable.  We have seen the Doctor manipulate his companions before, sometimes deliberately and sometimes accidentally.  What we now have is a Doctor that has essentially played God with a whole family history. 

This seems to be mostly accidental and mostly to the benefit of Amy and Rory (Amy gets her parent’s back, Amy and Rory marry each other, Amy and Rory have a child), but it’s clear that River is a very messed up person who only exist because of the Doctor.  It seems that her only purpose in life is to be obsessed with the Doctor, firstly as an assassin, then as a companion for the Doctor.  Then there’s the fact that she essentially commits suicide to save the Doctor on two separate occasions.  Again, there is nothing to suggest that the Doctor wants any of this.  But he benefits from it.  What is uncertain is just how much of the Doctor’s behaviour and actions in relation to River are his taking advantage of the situation and how much are his taking responsibility for the situation.  We see in this episode the guilt he feels about Rose, Martha and Donna; how much does he now feel about Amy, Rory and River in particular? 

The final element of this episode worthy of consideration (since Hitler was in this context rightfully relegated to a cupboard) is the Tesalecta and its crew.  The Moff was clearly channelling RTD for this one as we see the Numbskulls recycled into a space-time traveling, vigilante, war crimes tribunal.  The sets looked a little cheap, but the idea was great fun and generally well executed.  

One final niggle. “I always dress for the occasion”  was cute in the TVM.  The Doctor doing the same here was irritating in view of the minutes to live stuff (and yes I know it was all part of his plan, but even so).

Overall, this episode was terrific fun which delivered emphatically on the story arc front. 

A Good Man Goes to War (long)

One style of storytelling the “New Who” has generally avoided is that of the Epic Space Opera that was a feature of B5, DS9 and to a lesser extent StarGate.  It’s generally and probably fairly considered, that this is a style which alienates mainstream audiences.  It is a mark of the success of New Who and the complex timey-wimey plotting of the Moff, that we finally get just such a story here.  Of course, being Who there is still plenty of humour too, but then to be fair it not as if B5, DS9 and StarGate were lacking in humour either.  

There are perhaps some key differences between Who’s version of Space Opera and the approach of the US shows.  Doctor Who is home-grown and never as serious as those shows could sometimes be, Doctor Who is much more individualistic (man in a box v armies and diplomats), Doctor Who has built up to this level of complexity and has earned both good will and interest from the audience by keeping its “Arcs” small and simple.  There are some notable commonalities too.  Much like the Trek shows, there is something of the Western about this story (Doctor gathers together a posse to deliver his own brand of vengeance/justice on the bad guys). But all of that being said, this is an episode which requires much from the casual audience and which would never have been attempted in the more straightforward RTD era, RTD at least felt the need to make his arc heavy episodes discrete season finales.

What we have here is almost certainly the most arc-centric episode that the show has ever done and it is clearly not a resolution point in any real sense, rather it is a crescendo.  Everything the Moff has been in charge of since Silence in the Library builds to this point and one gets the sense that everything to come will follow directly from this point.   The big one is of course the birth of Melody Pond/River Song and the resolution of the mystery (or most of the mystery) as to “who is River Song”.  

Predictably, everyone and his uncle was on GallyBase claiming that they had guessed who River simply ages ago and that the Moff had built the thing up too much.  I am calling bullshit on that.  Nobody after Silence in the Library was saying “oh yeah, River’s the daughter of the next two companions”.  The predictions were “Doctor’s (Time Traveller’s) Wife” (kinda correct, but much more to it than that), “Romana (or other favoured time lady)”, “Donna Noble”, “Bernice Summerfield”, “future female Doctor”.  At no point in season 5 were people saying “Amy and Rory’s daughter”.  Amy’s and Rory’s daughter only became a possibility after Day of the Moon which is exactly when we were supposed to start suspecting it (hence regenerating child scene).  So essentially this only becomes “predictable” some 5 episodes before the reveal and some 3 years after the mystery first began.  More on this once I get to “Let’s Kill Hitler”.

The resolution of the River-arc (such as it is) also serves as the resolution of the Amy’s pregnancy arc too.  This is somewhat less elegantly for the fact that the Moff has not entirely earned this one.  We never really get to see Amy or Rory come to understand that Amy is pregnant and what that will mean for them.  We don’t get a sense of Amy bonding with the child or even being aware that she has a child.  Rory certainly isn’t aware at all.  Amy’s awareness is up for question, but the implication is that her consciousness was with the Doctor and Rory whilst her body was with Kovorian.  The result is that the pregnancy falls somewhat flat and seems to serve purely as a function of the overall story arcs.  The upshot of this is that for the rest of the season Amy and Rory seem to be oddly sanguine about the whole affair.  Amy and Rory’s parenthood this season is as unaffecting as their relationship with each other last season.  This is a real shame as both characters work much better this season as individuals and a couple.  Moffat’s time-wimey, clever plotting in Let’s Kill Hitler just barely works as a way of seeping the matter under the carpet but there really needed to be another episode in between to deal with what the Ponds have been through.

Moffatt’s attempt to bring what we might call the Legend of the Doctor to the forefront works much better precisely because he has earned it.  This is something that the Moff has been building up to and threading through the TV stories ever since Silence in the Library and prior to that in the brilliant short story Continuity Errors.  This season in particular has seen the subtle revelation of the eleventh Doctor as a scheming manipulator in the mould of his seventh persona.  To be fair this has been shown in the nicest possible light, but the difference is purely presentational.  All the traits of the Cartmel/New Adventures era are present here; the Doctor manipulating his enemies and companions, the Doctor knowing more than he is letting on; the Doctor actively seeking confrontation with his enemies; the Doctor relying on an extending group of friends to execute the more violent aspects of his plan; the Doctor humiliating his opponents with words; the Doctor’s plan mostly succeeding but backfiring to an extent too; the Doctor being indirectly responsible for putting his friends through hell!  

The reality is that the Doctor should be (and is) a powerful individual.  He should be able to manipulate his enemies and he should be pre-planning his confrontations.  Anything less than that makes the character appear to be, at worst, weak and foolish.  If that makes him an uncomfortable figure to identify with that is all to the good.  The Doctor should not always behave in way that is human or comfortable.   I am firmly in agreement with the view that the Doctor is first and foremost an alien who wants to travel through time and space, rather than a “hero” who sets out to right the wrongs of the universe. 

The bottom line is that the Doctor has always oscillated between being the scheming, mysterious, powerful and all-knowing alien force and the irresponsible mad man-child in a box sight-seeing his way through the universe who desperately improvises his way out of scrapes.  Even the care free tenth Doctor had his Racnos, Family of Blood and Time Lord Victorious moments.  A change of companions, big bads or a regeneration is all it would take to restore the character to the happily shambolic days of the 8^th Doctor and Fitz or Charlie. 

A more justifiable criticism is that there is little here to suggest the great fall prophesised/remembered by River Song.  That may yet prove to be something that plays out over the rest of the arc but at things stand it is hard to imagine that the events of this story will eat away at the Doctor in the same was as say the events of Earthshock did.

Aside from the momentous developments in the on-going narrative, we also have an actual the (proper) introduction of a cast of quiet brilliant supporting characters.  Off the top of my head I am struggling to think of a better ensemble of characters since the show retuned to our screens.  

Madam Kovorian is a quite brilliant creation, equal parts Servalan and Travis, completely malicious and immediately hateable.   I just hope she survives her death at Amy’s hands in the alternate reality of The Wedding of River Song.  Quiet why she hates the Doctor so, who she is working for and how the silence are involved all remain something of a mystery, but I really think that Moffatt has come up with something here.  She could be for Matt what the Deglado Master or Davros were for Jon and Tom.  Her Headless Monk henchmen were utterly glorious and I hope that we have not seen the last of them either, a pure Science Fantasy monster but one which effortlessly and stylishly re-invents the role the Cybermen have had in the show ever since The Invasion.

Against them, in the Doctor’s posse we have the reinvention of the Robert Holmes double act as a kinky Victorian Ape/Reptile lesbian couple with Sherlock Holmes/Dexter overtones.  Lorna Bucket works beautifully as the tragic reflection of Amy and to a lesser extent the smug-timey-wimey flirtations of the River/Doctor relationship.  Dorium also felt like a throwback to the wheeler-dealers so beloved by Robert Holmes.  Strax sees the series finally point and laugh at the Sontarans.  I’m sorry but this was long overdue, the Sontarans are not a particularly interesting big bad to me and playing them for laughs is at least entertaining to me.   

Finally, Amy does not like Jelly Babies and the Moff has clearly decided to prove that there IS in fact a grey area between foetuses and Jelly Babies (one for the Coupling fans).

Being Rebooted

The excellent and treasurable Being Human returned to our screens last night with what was almost certainly the most important episode in the history of the show.

Let’s rewind for a moment. Series three ended with the deaths of Mitchell and the (Final?) death of Herrick (and McNair the episode before that) and a hero shot of George, Nina and Annie about to start the fight against the coming Vampire take-over of Wyndham and the Old Ones. A mere hour later and we learn that Nina and Wyndham are dead and we see the death of George.

The death's of Nina and Wyndham were unsatisfactory for having taken place off screen (not the first time the show has resorted to this stunt). It is understandable that with George dying in the episode, there was not really room to dwell on these other deaths. But ideally we needed an episode devoted to those events before moving onto George's passing and the reboot. As it is what we get is a show making lemonade out of lemons. 

There's plenty of lemonade being made elsewhere. George “tricking” his body into transforming occurs solely to allow for his death to take place. The skins of prophecy, as interpreted by him off The Fast Show (This week, I shall be mostly eating babies!) and Harry Potter, are crowbarred into the series mythos inelegantly to say the least. The end hints at Splodge killing herself, which in turn suggests that we have yet to see the last of George and, together with our new ghost, that Annie's days are numbered (Ghost going nuclear to end the Old Ones?).

The fact that there is now only Annie left from the series one cast brings home the reality that the flat share fantasy comedy of series one is now long gone. Being Human has always chopped and changed styles and pushed forward into ever darkening territory. With each series the pressure on the core trio intensified. But the core and the show held firm against everything.

The bloodbath of the last three episodes has removed the core and the question must be whether the show can survive and thrive where our trio of misfits were unable to do so. In some ways it may prove to be to the shows benefit. A series with Annie, George and Nina would always have had a Mitchell shaped hole in it. A series with Annie, Tom and Hal may prove to be simply be a regeneration.

The early indications of last night’s episode (and the on-line prequels) are reasonably positive. Although what we got was something of a bloodbath, with hints of a bleak future to come, there is also promise of a lighter tone than that of series three. Tom and Hal both look to be less angst ridden than George and Mitchell. It is also worth remembering that the “supernaturals behaving badly” vibe of series one really did exist only for that season. Ever since then we have been heading into darker and darker territory with Mitchell’s “Box Tunnel 20” underground massacre being a point of no return for the show.

Annie remains in place as the compassionate heart of the show. She remains a person who is prone to fucking up when the heat is on, but I am optimistic that she will be taking the lead from now on and getting her shit together. We have seen in the past that she can be a powerful force and it really is time for that to become a more prominent feature of her character. Basically, she now needs to be the leader of the gang.

Next week promises to be the “real” season premier and it will be interesting to see whether the new crew can manage to equal the interplay of the old. Epic Vampire Wars are all very well and good, but are frankly ten a penny these days. Being Human's real draw was the friendship between supernatural outcasts. Doctor Who, Torchwood and Hustle have all managed to make major cast changes work with aplomb, let's hope Being Human can joint their ranks.

The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People

You've got to feel a little sorry for Matthew Graham. He got lumbered with the “can you do us a replacement script in 5 minutes and no budget” story in season 2, which to this day is unfairly underrated (seriously check the DWM poll of polls), especially since it had the awesome scribble monster.

He finally gets another crack at it, a two parter no less, only he has to follow the Gaiman episode and, if that wasn't hard enough, the masterpiece that was Season 3 of Ashes to Ashes. He was never going to come out of this one with anything other than faint praise unless he delivered an out and all-time classic.

There is to compound the problem the fact that the story was immediately overshadowed by the Cliffhanger to A Good Man Goes to War. There is though much to enjoy in the run-up to that Cliffhanger. This is reminiscent of the two part “The Impossible Planet”/”The Satan Pit” in that it is a rare example of New Who plundering the tropes of Old Who. Specifically this is a structured very mush as a “base under siege” and “rebels v colonist” type of story that permeated the show from the Troughton to Baker years. There's also more than a hint of the Cartmel era in the “right-on politics” and manipulative Doctor. This is a double edged sword because as enjoyable as these kisses to the past are, they also make the story feel highly derivative particularly in comparison to the stories that precede and follow it.

It is to Graham's credit that he doesn't play to any great degree on “who is the good one” and to the extent that he does its in respect of the Doctor, with the answer being “both”. My favourite aspect of the episode is the relationship between Jennifer and Rory. Jennifer story is ultimately sacrificed for a cheap “monster” finish, but I liked the steady build in her resentment to the humans. Rory is shown once again to be highly compassionate and thoughtful and doesn't Amy resent it! The writing for Amy and Rory has been much better this seasons. They feel much more fully formed and consistent and more of a couple. Amy's characterisation is almost a throwback to last season in this story, but now it feels like we are seeing an aspect of her personality rather than the ONLY aspect of her personality.

I could have done without the “hey isn't your dad great” subplot. Unfortunately it became running trope of this season to the point where its now clear that the Moff really wants his kids to know how much he loves them. There's nothing wrong with that of course except it became far too repetitive. We now have “the parent agenda!”.

All of which brings us to Amy's pregnancy and the finale/Cliffhanger. Now before I go any further there is the issue of the Doctor killing Amy's ganger. Not surprisingly this caused some consternation with plenty of people saying that it wasn't necessary. It actually was. The Ganger was ultimately an unwitting spy and would have died as soon as the Doctor rescued Amy anyway. On top of that there was no guarantee that Kovorian and the silence would have kept the original Amy (and therefore the Ganger) alive once Amy gave birth.

What is clear is the Doctor obviously had all of this in mind prior to the beginning of the episode. So we basically have the Doctor reverting to the “master of chess on a thousand boards” persona of his seventh incarnation. Events are manipulated from the very beginning by the Doctor. The whole story is an excuse for the Doctor to work out what is going on with Amy and how the Ganger's work. He must know that this was a turning point for the use of Gangers (this is the exact turning point for where they are recognised as having “human rights” in Earth's history). So he is also taking the opportunity to right a wrong and teach and manipulate his companions at the same time. Somewhere Ace and Benny are saying “join the club”!

Good stuff, but better was to come.

Your hopelessly late Doctor Who Season 6 round-up – The Doctor's Wife.

Never let it be said that I am not topical!

Firstly, a housekeeping point. I've turned on the log-in for leaving messages and feedback. I know its a ball-ache having to log in. But against that is the simple fact that it is impossible for me to tell one “anonymous” reply from another and I'd like to know who I am replying too! I can't be arsed with moderation though, so say what you like. If I don't like it I'll simply respect your opinion or tell you to eff-off or ignore you.

Let me continue by saying The Doctor's Wife left me with a problem. My normal “what I like” v “What I don't like” v “general comment” review was never going to be any good. I loved the episode and had little that was unique to say. Most of what could be said about the episode had been said by someone within 24 hours of broadcast. The “what I liked” would basically have consisted of me quoting about 80% of the script verbatim. The “what I didn't like” came down to the slight disappointment caused by the nondescript TARDIS corridors and the use of the RTD era control room rather than the Five Doctors to Survival era one. That was it, and even that was offset by the cool TARDIS grave yard, makeshift control room and the bliss of seeing proper old fashioned roundalls again.

It was only when I finished reading Michael Moorcock's “Coming of the Terraphiles” that I recognised a different way to consider the episode.

One thing that the episode absolutely isn't is a “Game Changer”. I think perhaps that everyone has realised that by now, but this was a common opinion at the time. The list of Game Changing stories is not a long one. By my reckoning the only true game changers are: “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”, “The Tenth Planet”, “The War Games”, “The Deadly Assassin” and “Rose” all of which reverberate throughout the following era's of the show.

The Doctor's Wife is actually an anniversary story in disguise. We come away feeling that we have learnt so much more than we actually have. The notion of the TARDIS as the Doctor's wife has been spoken of as being surprising. In reality it is completely obvious and has been explored and hinted at in the books, comics and audio's long before now. Similarly, the notion of the TARDIS being alive and in some sense sentient has been hinted at practically from An Unearthly Child onwards. That the TARDIS “stole” the Doctor is a new bit of history, but one which can be easily and logically inferred from the previous episodes. Was it really all that surprising to know that the TARDIS wants to see the universe too or that the Doctor was the only Time Lord made enough to go with her? Along the same lines, The Corsair's sex changing regenerations simply confirms what has long been speculated and again is a logical extension of a process known to allow for changing species (see Destiny of the Daleks, The TV Movie and iirc The Runaway Bride).

What the Doctor's Wife actually does is to consolidate and re-iterate the existing mythology of the show across all media and to flesh out long held fan theories. It is not so much an episode of the show as an episode about the show. It is does for “New Who” what the Five Doctors did for “classic who” albeit in the guise of a darker fairy tale. The hook here is that instead of seeing the Doctor interacting with himself, we finally see him interacting with the TARDIS in a way that is utterly appropriate and completely beautiful. Neither story does adds as much to the mythos as you first think, but both use the mythos to celebrate the show and ultimately confirm that the show is and always will be about a mad alien who stole a space time machine in order to travel the universe.

Neil Gaiman has always been one of the writers on the average Who fan's wishlist. He achieved much with this episode. It works as an accessible story in its own right far better than one could reasonable expect, it is a wonderful affirmation of the series and it somehow managed to meet or satisfy expectations even though we really weren't sure what to expect. Finally, it manages to feel like a typical Neil Gaiman story whilst also feeling like a Era Who story. The switch from series 5 to 6 actually helps out in that respect. Series 5 was an awkward hybrid of the Moff's Burton/Spielberg/Fairy Tale vibe and the RTD ear. Series 6 has definitely lost the RTD era tropes.

Michael Moorcock's Terraphiles is by contrast a case of a writer failing to meet expectations and putting a story out at just the wrong time. I'm not one for synopsis so the linkage for that is here: http://www.drwhoguide.com/whobb943.htm Note the cover its stunning.

Moorcock is another writer who has always had a significant following amongst Who fans and who also seemed to be a natural fit for a novel. The announcement that he was to write the first major Who hardback was greeted with almost universal praise and eager expectation. However, many of those voicing an opinion were simply conservative Who snobs who wanted “an established SF author” as opposed to a “fan writer”. Moorcock is obviously an SF powerhouse, but that very fact should have tipped people off that he was unlikely to be satisfied emulating some nebulous concept of “serious” or “proper” Who (Which almost always boils down to Dicks/Letts and Hichcliffe/Holmes). Those who are familiar with Moorcock's work also knew and realised that he writes in different flavours and voices, a literary David Bowie.

Terraphiles is very far from being “serious” who. It's so whimsical that it makes The Unicorn and the Wasp look like Cracker. It's basically a PG Woodhouse pastiche and has proven to be Marmite to the Who fanbase. It doesn't fit with the general feel of the Moffat era. The Doctor is generally well captured and feels like Matt Smith more and more as the book goes on. The characterisation of Amy is more hit an miss, but that's not surprising given the inconsistent writing for the character throughout season 5. A character needs to live and breath consistently on the show before a novelist can have any hope of capturing them.

Terraphiles is a story that would never go out on prime time BBC1. It could only ever be a novel and that's part of the appeal for me, especially some passages of quite beautiful prose which would only amount to some bog standard CGI on the telly. The books, audios and comics should do things that can't get on the TV, that's their greatest advantage. What is jarring is that this is the clash of Epic Cosmic Scale with twee Bertie Wooster – boys own story telling. This is not an entirely new approach to Who, Dave Stone has done much the same thing, albeit on a much less publicised scale. That the Beeb chose to Launch the “Guest Author hardback line” with what is essentially a Mash-Up is either a terrible false start or a confident and bold mission statement.

Ultimately, I am not sure anyone's expectations were really met. The book is too many things at once to be a classic Who story or a classic Moorcock story. But I don't accept that it is a failure in its own right either. I read it is four sittings and enjoyed all four sittings. On the other hand those four sittings were spread over several months so I can't claim the book is easy to pick up, only that once you have you will quickly get lost in it.

I started out by saying that Terraphiles was badly timed. It may have faired better if it had not been saddled with the expectation of being the first Guest Author hardback. It would have faired best if released in 1979. The Fourth Doctor and Roman flitting around space with a bunch of literary pastiches in search of an artifact which holds the universe in balance between chaos and order is just So Graham Williams.

Ignore All My Previous Theories AKA. Oh My God They Killed Rory (You Bastards) AKA They Keep Killing Rory

Well that was an enjoyable if thoroughly unambitious episode.

What I liked:

The Classic Series style of title.
Amy wielding a cutlass.
The Doctor starring across the dimensions.
A return to Horror of Fang Rock, Pyramids of Mars bloodbath style of plotting.
That the Siren was actually trying to help. This reminded me of optimistic tone of the first series.
Hugh Bonnerville was great raising the level of some rather dodgy writing in terms of his characters motivations.

What I didn't like:

Amy shouldn't have been anywhere near as effective a sword-fighter as she was even allowing that the Pirate's didn't want to be cut.

Everyone lived in the end. Would it have been so much to ask that some died as a result of botched attempts to save them

Rory. Dead. Again. What is the point. At this stage Rory has a better life to death ratio than Jesus and Buffy and is only slightly behind The Undertaker.


Other thoughts.

Interesting to see the online reaction. This seems to be the first episode since The Eleventh Hour where people have realised that the show under Moffatt has plot holes. My feeling on this is very much: Get Over It. The missing deaths of a couple of extra's is not a big deal.

Classic Who often had the problem of padding, not enough story to fit the allotted episodes. This means (arguably) fewer plot holes, but less entertainment. New Who has the opposite problem too little running time for the plots, which tends to result in "holes". As a rule I'll take fast past entertainment any day of the week. Of course, classic Who had stakes of plot holes anyway its just that the fans like to pretend otherwise.

I have had a problem with the Amy/Rory relationship since day one and its finally hit my what it is. I like the Doctor and Amy and I like the Doctor and Rory, but I don't quiet buy Amy and Rory as a married couple. This climax of this episode finally brought home why. There is very little in the way of casual affection between them. Only grand romantic gestures, Amy playing it cool and Rory being protective and insecure. The only exceptions I can think of are parts of Amy's choice and the Pond's at home sequence of The Impossible Astronaut.

Anyway Gaiman's episode is up next so all is cool.

Schrödinger's pregnancy

Well that certainly raised a hellavalot of questions.

It is now beyond any doubt that the upper boat team are taking a new approach to the series. This was very much reminiscent of the X-Files or The West Wing. A two part season opener which tells a mostly self contained story, but which also leaves intriguing threads to be developed as the season progresses.

What I Liked:

The whole opening "on the run" sequence and respective "escapes". The fact that the Doctor seems to have manipulated his captors into building a prison that he needs for his own purposes. Everyone writing on themselves to know that they have seen a silent. The Doctor manipulating the fuck out of the silence re-using the Remembrance of the Daleks gambit (trick the bad guys into killing themselves). River Song killing the fuck out of the silence. Spooky evil TARDIS. Amy in a haunted house (which was blatantly shot like the X-Files). Regenerating little girl (Holy Shit. OMFG etc etc). The Doctor's conversation with Rory.

What I did not like:

"3 months later", 3 days would've done the trick really. The "fell out of the sky line"; yes its a figure of speech, its also the very worst figure of speech you could use if your seeking to re-assure your insecure husband about an alien who fell out of the sky and into your life. Nixon; the River/Doctor conversation about him in the last episode (Some good stuff, Not enough) was about the best way of approaching him. Again, as with Churchill last year we get the Cartoon Historical version. Comparing these political figures with the portrayal of Vincent Van Gogh last year or Anthony Hopkins take on Nixon is like comparing a school boy five-a-side with the Champions League final. The difference really is that startling. To be fair the show was caught in something of a cleft stick here; Nixon was president at the time of the moon landings and a family sf fantasy show can't easily go into a debate on the merits of his presidency. But there was the option to exclude him from proceedings entirely or at least give him some more depth. The approach reaches its nadir when the "punchline" of Canton's homosexual relationship is revealed and played for laughs. The Doctor might have wanted to mention J. Edgar Hoovers proclivities here!


Other thoughts:

I think that Moffatt needs to re-consider the use of celebrity historicals. Twice now major figures have been shoe-horned into SF stories that Classic Who (or indeed the books or audios) would simply have told without.

The Doctor's "genocide" of the silence seems to have caused some ructions. On the one hand Mad Larry archly made the point that it was rather stupid for the silent to order the execution of his own species. This is frankly a case of stating the obvious and missing the point. Who Baddies boasting "you should kill us" is a trope of the series (see most recently the Silurian two parter for a very similar speech). Yes its stupid, but its clear from the episode the silent has been imprisoned for some time and that Canton has been trying to provoke just such a statement for some time. Moreover, if we are going to criticise this kind of plotting, then we may as well give everything in the show post An Unearthly Child a kicking because numerous enemies would have succeeded if they had (1) shut up and (2) killed the doctor rather than banging on about killing him. Moffatt is fully aware of this (Curse of the Fatal Death, I'll Explain Later).

There is also the "ethical" argument against this. I don't propose to spend too much time on this. Firstly, its clear that the Silence exist way beyond the human sphere of influence. I suspect if every human in every time on every world killed every silent they saw, there would still be plenty of them knocking about the universe. Secondly, humanity (and by extension the Doctor) are entitled to act in their own self defence and there is no other way for humanity to defend against the silence given that they can't remember them. Thirdly, contrary to what some would say, the Doctor has previous on this score (just off the top of my head: Macra, Daleks, Jaggaroth, Daleks again, Cybermen, Heamavores, Daleks again, Time Lords).

What was up with the Kid and the eye patch lady?

It really wasn't that complicated - a return to 4 part plotting

The Impossible Astronaut has made a splash with great ratings, audience share and AI, not to mention generally favourable reviews and Matt's wholly deserved BAFTA nomination. There seems to be some confusion as to what the plot actually was that I find rather baffling to be honest. I think that Who fans and TV fans in general have become accustomed to one episode storylines. In general even Who's two parters tend to comprise of episodes with their own individual beginning, middle and end. Hence they all (bar the End of Time) have individual episode titles.

This is a relatively new innovation for Doctor Who. For 26 years the TV show merrily spent three, four, 6 or more weeks developing the storyline. Can you really tell for instance what the plot of the say the Dalek Masterplan, Evil of the Daleks or the Curse of Fenric is or will be from part 1. By the time you get to the '90s and the New and Missing Adventures you have story's in which the plot is kept deliberately obtuse or non-linear simply to prevent the boredom of fans who already know the standard tropes and storylines.

Seen this way it should be appreciate that the episode is perhaps rather less confusing than some have suggested. Indeed it is not hard to state the plot:

1) Weird aliens (The Silence) have been on the Earth for a long time. They have built a massive network of underground tunnels using the "other" TARDIS. Nobody on Earth knows about this because The Silence have the ability to make sure that people forget them instantly.

2) The Doctor knows about The Silence. His future self has spent a couple of centuries running from something related to them (probably the knowledge of his own impending death) but he has now decided to face up to this.

3) Future Doctor calls Amy, River and Rory to a meeting to give them the information to get current doctor to America in 1969 (and probably to witness his own death, thereby hoping to retcon it). Future Doctor then dies.

All of this would be "Part 1" under the old 4 episode stories. Its basically setting the scene, but not actually moving the plot along much. Compare with, for instance, Planet of the Daleks wherein 25 minutes are spent wandering aimlessly around a jungle only to find (gasp) a Dalek*. We don't necessarily know the "Why" for a lot of the Future Doctor's actions, but we don't actually need to at this stage. It's not a plot hole, its a point to be developed later in the story.

4) Current Doctor goes to America as instructed and starts to investigate the silence.

5) Amy shoots what she thinks is the Astronaut who killed Future Doctor.

That is episode 2 of the old style structure of story. Nothing complex about that at all.

One review I read made the point that the episode felt very much like the first part of a season finale and that may well prove to be the most astute observation as the indications are that season 6 will be at least as intense and intricate as season 3 was. Looking back, The Impossible Astronaut matches the approach of The Pandorica Opens far more than The Eleventh Doctor (or perhaps more fairly Smith and Jones). New Who has generally applied the KISS principal for fear of alienating the general audience and Moffatt is to be commended for attempting a shake up, particularly at the start of the season.

"Don't forget me"

We never did and we never will. RIP Elizabeth Sladen, Sarah Jane Smith. Say hello to Jon, Ian and Nick from us Who fans.

Nick Courtney - RIP

Very sad to have come home from work to see that Nick Courtney, The Brig, has died. There will be countless obituaries and tributes over the web in the coming days from fans. Most will be able to provide a better description of the man and his achievements than I ever could.

I am however saddened by his death and I want to take the opportunity to pay my respects.

I never met Nick and I was not a child of the Pertwee era. But, one thing that is apparent is that the man and the character he portrayed are both revered in fandom.

By all accounts, indeed one might say be EVERY account, Nick was a thoroughly decent and humble man with a great sense of humour. He treated the show and its fans with nothing but respect. His colleagues loved him. Tom Baker has said that he agreed to play the Doctor again mainly because he wanted to work with Nick again. Sadly, the decline in Nick's health prevented that reunion from happening.

The real loss is to his family and friends, those who truly knew and loved the man. But it is a testament to his talent that every Who fan will know that they will not see the Brig in action again and that we will all feel genuinely bereaved because of that.

Doctor Who - A Christmas Carol

Who Stalwart Terrance Dicks used to say that all you need for a good Doctor Who story is a good original idea, but that the idea didn't have to be your good original idea. The Grand Moff has taken this fine tradition of getting stories off the back of a lorry and used it for this year's Christmas Special.

This was actually the first Christmas Special worthy of the name since Voyage of the Damned. The Next Doctor and The End of Time were regeneration specials far more than they were Christmas Specials. Like Voyage of the Damned it repeats the trick of "fit blonde singer as guest star" and as with Kylie, Katherine Jenkins does okay.

There's not a whole lot I can say about the plot itself other than the fact that the ending is a bit of a con. Fast forward another day and instead of a "happy" ending you've got a crotchety old man mourning over a dead welsh singer. I suspect that Kazran would've fallen into another bout of depression and bitterness. Speaking of Kazran, Michael Gambon was absolutely brilliant throughout. For my money the first person to steal the limelight from Matt Smith since he first Geronimoed onto our screens as the Doctor.

I really was taken with the idea of fish living in the atmosphere, a great little SF idea of the sort I could imagine cropping up in a Stephen Baxter book.

For my money The Chimes of Midnight still stands as the best overall Doctor Who Christmas story. But this was the best Doctor Who Christmas special to be shown on TV to date.

One more thing

Fezzez are not cool. They are fucking awesome!

Doctor Who: The Pandorica Opens & The Big Bang

Meanwhile, in the Doctor Who production office:

Steven Moffat: "Hey guys. Do you remember when Russell did the finale where the Doctor does a big speech about not having a plan and then a secondary companion gets resurrected from the mind of the main companion?"

"Yeah"

SM: "And do you remember when Russell did a finale where the Daleks and the Cybermen teamed up and the Doctor and his companion got separated when a crack in the universe closed?"

"Yeah.

SM: "And do you remember when I did a story with wibbly wobbly timey-wimey stuff?"

"Yeah".

SM: "And do you remember when Russell did a finale where everything got put right by time being re-set?"

"Yeah".

SM: "And do you remember when I did that bit where the Doctor confronted the big bad by telling it to review its records?"

SM: "And do you remember when Russell did an episode where all the stars went out?"

"Yeah"

SM: "And am I right in thinking people love all that stuff?"

"Yeah"

SM: "And do you think people will remember all that stuff?"

"Dunnoh boss, Why?

SM: "I'm going to be using all of that stuff for this years finale".

Some might say that I am being a bit uncharitable. But I think most people would admit that season's five's final was at times, a tad derivative.

Towards the back end of RTDs run (Stolen Earth onwards) there was a definite impression that the team had started to run out of creative steam. On reflection a year or so on the Waters of Mars is an honourable exception but Stolen Earth, Journeys End, The Next Doctor, The Planet of the Dead and The End of Time all tend to rely on their presentation and sense of occasion to support underdeveloped plots and/or recycled ideas. This is not to say that they were bad, more that they were like having a meal comprised entirely of deserts, enjoyable but lacking in nourishment and substance.

The Moffat era was therefore an opportunity to try something new. A way for the show to resist the pressure to go "bigger" all the time and instead try "different". Prior to the launch of season 5 there was much talk of the show having a more fairytale feel to it. But in reality this simply meant a return to old style Who sleepy villages in place of the urban settings and style of the RTD era.

Stylistically this years finale does feel smaller than any finale since Army of Ghost/Doomsday with most of the first part taking place in or under stone henge and with a relatively limited cast too. The first part is certainly very focused and I loved the use of the Cyberman as a technological mummy. The use of the head as a glorified Cybermat was totally cool too. Rory's return was handled in an amusing way, but at this rate he has already been resurrected more times than Jesus and will presumably soon have had more resurrections than the Doctor has had regenerations. The twist of the Pandorica being a trap for the Doctor was genuinely good. I could've done without the "alliance" of enemies. The reality is that any one enemy could have set this trap. I'm also stumped as to what the couple of random Silurians and the alien from the Love and Monsters chase sequence were doing there. The Judoon works in the context of the reasons given for the alliance and also ties in quiet nicely with the events of the IDW comics.

Sadly the twist is almost immediately undermined in the second part by more Wibbly-Wobbly stuff. This resolution is both clever and funny, but also too easy for my liking.

Much the same could be said about the whole of the second part of this story. The idea of the TARDIS exploding a causing the end of the Universe is a little hard to swallow in so far as there must have been TARDIS destroyed prior to this one (accidents, time wars etc). But on the basis that reality has changed now the Time Lords have gone I can accept this. What is somewhat harder to accept is that a cube of less than 100 square meters could contain an imprint of the entire universe. That is some compression ratio! I would be half tempted to refer to the use of the Pandorica as a deux et machina but for the fact that all good fans know only RTD does D.E.M.s!

The bottom line was that this was a clever and entertaining finale full of "cool moments". It was however something of a greatest hits package and I can't help but wonder if the Grand Moff was playing it safe. I also found the story basically lacking in the heart that I have come to expect from the RTD finales, each of which was a game changer. Here the resolution truly was a reset button as in terms of character development we are back to the middle of the season. I also found the whole thing to be somewhat lacking in heart, something I have come to expect from my season finales (be they Doctor Who or otherwise).

To boil it down into numbers, a solid 4 start out of 5. Very good, but not great and not a classic.

Overall though season 5 ranks highly for me, but not as high as season 3 which remains one of the greatest seasons of tv full stop. I would like to see Moffat and co take more risks with season 6. RTD's era had a few duds, but in those first four years you could never criticise it for playing it safe or staying in a comfort zone.

Doctor Who: The Lodger

I'm cheating on this one folks. What with one thing and another I got somewhat derailed from finishing up my season 5 posts, so I had to watch this one again to refresh my memory. That being said my opinion has not really changed in any great respect.

A curious thing about this episode is that you would almost expect it to have been the episode written by Simon Nye. The storyline of the Doctor moving into a flat and striking up an Odd Couple style friendship with his flat-mate is not a million miles from Men Behaving Badly territory. Instead this is a Gareth Roberts episode, dramatising his own tenth Doctor comic strip of the same basic story. The episode is placed in the now traditional "Doctor-Lite" slot, but is actually Amy-lite and Doctor heavy. This is no bad thing as once again Matt Smith rules all as the Doctor. James Corden as Craig essentially takes Amy's place in the episode. I find Corden to be irritating in real life, but he works well here as an upmarket Smithy.

The episode is a strange hybrid of old and new who. This is really classic Yeti/Tooting Beck territory but this aspect is kept mostly in the background to allow the Doctor to spend an episode being a weird and funny matchmaker. I do wonder who was trying to build themselves a TARDIS and whether that will have any relevance to "The Silence" to come.

There's little more I can find to say about this one. What it amounts to is a reasonably successful attempt at doing a sit-com. Great fun, but ultimately inconsequential.