Sunday 19 May 2013

THE NAME OF THE DOCTOR REVIEW - SPOILERS AHEAD!

Image Copyright BBC 2013

Well... That was rather brilliant, wasn't it? As the title of this entry suggests, there will be spoilers in this review. As a series finale, and such an important story, it'd be almost impossible to review it without mentioning things that will spoil the episode for those who've yet to see it. If you're one of those, I suggest you turn away now - go to iPlayer and WATCH the episode. Trust me, you will not be disappointed.

Okay, so let's start at the beginning. What a pre-title sequence that was! A fans' dream come true. Although, I think, it was a bit overkill to show it all again near the end of the episode, but I'm not complaining too much. Seeing Clara almost meeting the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors was rather special, and was done in a rather clever way. Either by putting Jenna-Louise Coleman into footage of previous stories, or watching body doubles walk by her slightly out of focus. Of course, from a purely fan point of view, I must wonder what adventures she was interacting with. The corridor from which she views the Seventh Doctor never appeared in Dragonfire (the story from which the McCoy footage was lifted), and she appears to be looking through a window at the Fifth Doctor, even though he's in the Matrix ala Arc of Infinity. Minor quibble, but odd nonetheless. The most interesting part of this pre-title sequence, however, is Clara meeting the First Doctor on Gallifrey 'a very long time ago', as he ushers Susan into a TARDIS - the moment upon which every single episode of Doctor Who is based. It's amazingly well done, and confirms, for the first time on television, that the Doctor and Susan did leave Gallifrey together! (But there's a better twist to this scene coming up near the end of the episode - so we'll get there later.)

Despite these appearances of past Doctors, it takes a good ten minutes for the Doctor to actually get involved in the story-proper, since we have more screen time devoted to Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax. This, in itself, is no bad thing. I for one would love to see a spin-off series with these characters - a nice Victorian Gothic-comedy-detective series. Vastra learns that someone has discovered the Doctor's secret on Trenzalore, and so initiates a psychic conference call with both Clara and River Song. It's brilliant to see River back, and this time the River we last saw in 2008's Silence in the Library - yes, the one who died to save the Doctor! It works perfectly well, she is an echo of River's mind that was uploaded to the moon-sized hard drive orbiting the Library. It's another amazing performance by Alex Kingston, possibly her best yet, and it is nice to see her playing the more mature, and sad, River who we first met. There's some wonderful interaction between River and Clara, who is surprised to learn that River knows the Doctor's name, although River refuses to explain how she made him tell her.

Enter the Doctor. Another assured and reserved performance by Matt Smith - easily his best yet. He taps into the Doctor's soul-destroying sadness, but still carries the iron resolve one expects from the Doctor, when he determines to go to Trenzalore and face his own future. For it is on Trenzalore that the Doctor is buried. Or is he? It's a little complicated when he gets there, and we're shown the impressive monument in which the Doctor's future resides. The TARDIS! 

What a sight it is! The dimensional dams have broken down, and as a result the Police Box shell is now bigger on the outside, towering over the graveyard of Trenzalore. We follow the Doctor and Clara through this future TARDIS interior, with scenes that are by far more interesting than those shown a few weeks back in Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, and Clara begins to remember what she forgot in that episode, including the conversation she had with the Doctor in which she discovered that he keeps on meeting her. The reason for this is finally revealed when they reach the console room of this future TARDIS - which is the current console room, only overgrown with foliage. This is a bit of a puzzle. If this is far in the Doctor's personal future, why is the console room still his current one? The Doctor goes through console rooms like most people go through socks, you'd expect this future console room to be something entirely new and previously unseen.

In this console room we see that, instead of his body ('bodies are boring...I've had loads of them'), the TARDIS tomb holds the Doctor's time stream, the 'scar tissue of my journey through space and time'. There the Great Intelligence (played with sinister panache by Richard E Grant) casts himself into the Doctor's timeline, to corrupt and destroy it - turning every victory of the Doctor into defeat. And it is here that we learn the truth about Clara. She comes to realise the reason for the echoes of her is because of this moment - that she has to cast herself into the Doctor's timeline and save him. It is at this point that we come to understand why she exists throughout time, always encountering the Doctor, and why she tells the Doctor to 'run, you clever boy. And remember me'. I do, however, have a little quibble here. Up until this point none of the Claras have known the Doctor when they met him - although they have all been compelled to help him. But when she's scattered and interacts with the past Doctors, she appears to know who he is, even to the point of telling the First Doctor that he should steal the TARDIS she's standing by, and not the one he just pushed Susan into. It may have a faulty directional unit, but it will be much more fun! Basically, it's Clara who sets the Doctor on his journey through time in his 'rackety old TARDIS'. This point does contradict what we learned in 2011's The Doctor's Wife, when the TARDIS tells the Doctor that she stole him, and not the other way around. A minor point, but still... It doesn't take away from the greatness of the moment, though, seeing the First Doctor on Gallifrey prior to the very first episode of Doctor Who fifty years ago.

The First Doctor steals the TARDIS from Gallifrey
(image copyright BBC 2013)
This sets the scene for the final moments of what, we discover, is actually the first of a two-part anniversary story. Set within the Doctor's time stream, Clara sees echoes of various Doctors, and every single Doctor is seen in some way or another, except the Eighth Doctor. Why this omission? The Doctor follows Clara into his own time stream, his 'every good day, every bad day'. Here Clara explains that she's seen ALL the Doctors, all eleven of him, so who is that man standing with his back to them? 

The surprise reveal is John Hurt - playing 'not the Doctor', despite the on screen credit. The Doctor makes a point of saying that this man is not the Doctor, but rather his secret, the one who broke the promise. Did everything that isn't the Doctor. It's a little vague, but enough to suggest that John Hurt's character is the truth behind the Doctor, the man he really is, the man he was, the identity hidden beneath the façade of 'the Doctor'...

So, my verdict? I have to confess I rather loved it. For the first time since Steven Moffat took over as executive producer, I've seen an episode I actually loved. I'm not saying it's perfect (name one episode of Who that is), but it's certainly something I can watch a few times without getting bored. The interaction with past Doctors was wonderfully handled, even to the point of adding grain to the screen to give it an old video-tape look, and we got to see River say her final goodbye to the Doctor. Plus the ever-entertaining Strax! But, here's my one big gripe: what secret was revealed? Other than John Hurt, we never got the Doctor's greatest secret revealed to us. No name was uttered (except by River out of earshot), no further clues as to Who the Doctor is. Just that we know he dies in battle on Trenzalore, and deep within his timeline exists the man behind the myth - the dark secret. We did, however, get a mention of the Valeyard ('every evil impulse of the Doctor' who appeared in 1986's The Trial of a Time Lord), which may be an important connection to this John Hurt not-Doctor.

Perhaps the second part of this story, in November, will be more enlightening?

Also, one last time, why no Eighth Doctor? I wonder...

Image Copyright BBC 2013


Andy Frankham-Allen

Sunday 12 May 2013

NIGHTMARE IN SILVER REVIEW - TREK WHO?

Copyright BBC 2013



The Cybermen have always been, to me at least, better as a concept than reality. And their best and most chilling iteration so far has been, sad to say, not in Doctor Who - but, rather the Borg (don't scream). Their back story, continuity and modus operandi is a complete mess (are they the result of transplant tech gone mad, mere "upgrades" to the human form, with a totally robotic body? Both, it seems). So here's Neil Gaiman with yet another twist in the Cybertale - but does it work?

Yes and no, but mostly no. Most of the tweaks are laughable - and that is a shame as the last thing you want is to make the Cybermen funny. Chortle as you watch them run faster than Billy Whizz on crack! (But they only do this once, and spend the rest of the time stomping about as per, so what's the point? Raston Warrior Robots also spring to mind.) Titter as a Cyberman unhands itself and goes all Hand of Fear! Gasp with utter disbelief as a Cyberman TAKES ITS HEAD OFF, props it on a wall and uses it as bait as it creeps up on someone! This, if you think about it for half a second, is utterly pointless. Wouldn't the victim hear the Cyberman's clompy boots? And Cybermen are (meant to be) so powerful that they would not need to engage in such playground tactics. They'd just stomp up to you and rip your head off. Now that would have been cool. I'm not saying Doctor Who should indulge in gratuitous violence, but if the remit was to make the Cybermen scary again, they should have been shown doing something REALLY nasty, not fart-arsing around with bits of their bodies. The bleeding hands of Lytton spring immediately to mind.

It's not all bad, though - their new look is great, as are their deep voices. Sinister. And their ability to upgrade in the face of any new threat is cool, though it does make one immediately think of the Borg. As does the Cyber hive mind, or whatever its called, make one think of the Borg Collective. Also, the shots of millions of Cybermen on the march are very impressive. Best of all are the Cybermites, a genuinely great idea which makes logical sense and seems to fit well with Cyber mythology.

As for the story - er, what story? "ONOZ! It's the Cybermen! They've upgraded! Now there's three million of them! BOOM! Phew!" What was the point of bringing them back if only to get rid of them again?

Of course, there's more to it than that, and that is where the central flaw of the story lies. The Doctor and Mr Clever. This could have been his Locutus of Borg moment, but instead we just get a hyper-camp performance from Matt Smith which never, not once, feels like the Doctor is in any danger. Matt Smith is a great actor, and a great Doctor, but I think he missed a trick here, taking his performance the wrong way. Imagine what Tom Baker would have done with this. Or Christopher Eccleston. They'd have us terrified that the Doctor was going to lose. Idle speculation, certainly, but I think Smith's performance ruined what could have been a tense and frightening story.

Clara is weird here, taking command of a rag-tag bunch of troops and not even batting an eyelid. She gets a lovely scene with Warwick Davis' character at the end. In fact, Davis gives the best performance and is the most interesting, layered character in the story. The others? Jason Watkins is totally wasted, Tamzin Outwhaite and her crew of misfits are totally forgettable, and the kids - whilst not completely nauseating - represent a missed opportunity. One of them should have been converted or killed - imagine the powerful scenes between the Doctor and Clara after - but no, once again this story decides to play it safe.

The setting – an abandoned amusement park in space – is typical Gaiman but never convinces as a real location, and SCREAMS – SCREAMS!!! – McCoy era Doctor Who. Within which there was another silly story about Cybermen with Silver in the title, and if I’m being honest, I have to say I prefer that to this.

Nick Walters is the author of several Doctor Who novels including The Fall of Yquatine and Dry Pilgrimage.

Sunday 5 May 2013

THE CRIMSON HORROR REVIEW: TROUBLE AT MILL?


On first seeing the trailer for this week’s episode, The Crimson Horror, Penny from The Big Bang Theory popped into my head with that line about Doctor Who always ending up in Victorian Britain despite having a time machine that can go anywhere. I had that same ‘Here we go again’ feeling, further compounded by the thought that this was going to be one of those seemingly throw-away genre episodes like The Curse of the Black Spot. When I found out it was Mark Gatiss at the motherboard I had mixed feelings; love his dark comedy writings but then there’s The Idiot’s Lantern, one of my least favourite episodes. My disappointment lay in the knowledge that here’s a man who knows how to write ‘dark’ extremely well and yet seemed to be a holding back. I know you can’t dish the kids up a helping of The League of Gentlemen in a Blue Box - not unless you can also afford their counselling sessions – but still, it felt like a swig of diluted Mark Gatiss.

Not so The Crimson Horror, which was like Mark Gatiss concentrate. Now here’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to enthuse for a bit, sometimes gushingly so, and then I’m not. Just so you know. Anyway, The Crimson Horror was pure Gatiss, combining his love for Doctor Who with that of Hammer films and Sherlock Holmes – the title itself is not only reminiscent of Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation but it also brings to mind the Victorian ‘penny dreadfuls.’ His fascination with Victorian England is one that lingers on the grotesque, very much like David Lynch’s in The Elephant Man. The scene where Ada’s scars are revealed to a gasping audience is, it appears, a direct nod to the film.

Setting the episode in the Victorian north rather than the usual London locations proved to be an inspired touch as not only did we get Matt Smith’s Doctor busting out his northern accent but the obsession with moral perfection, so prevalent in the Industrial Revolution’s northern factory communities, contrasted beautifully with the grotesque. The hypocrisy of those demanding such moral perfection was, thankfully, subtly explored through the relationship between Ada and her breathtakingly insane mother, Winifred Gillyflower, played by off-screen mother and daughter, Diana Rigg and Rachael Stirling.

On hearing that this episode had been tailored to allow mother and daughter to appear on screen together for the first time I had my misgivings (I get a lot of those. Does it show? Let’s call it Moffatitus), as that being the motivating force behind a story can result in the whole venture feeling a little too forced. It transpires, however, that they were slotted into an already existing story, and a ripping good yarn it was.

Beginning the episode with the Doctor in need of rescuing felt like a fresh approach and added to the growing sense that the Doctor is vulnerable; an invincible, undefeatable Doctor doesn’t really work for me, it’s the Superman syndrome, the character becomes a bit boring. Having the Doctor be the Hammer Horror ‘beast in the cellar’ hooked me; a masterful bit of storytelling. It wasn’t only the writing that won through here though; the flashback scene really intrigued me for the reason that it was so risky. For a moment it jolted me out of the story, the sepia look and the damaged-celluloid effects felt too affected, but then the pace and editing had me hooked again and I ended up wishing that the show would take more risks. I believe a shout out is due to Director, Saul Metzstein, and Film Editor, Matthew Cannings, for this.

Overall The Crimson Horror proved to be hugely entertaining. It was fun. It was also genuinely funny. The scene with Strax talking to the horse and the Doctor’s Pythonesque‘trouble at mill’ northern facade were very funny, as was the Doctor’s reference to Tegan as a ‘gobby Australian’ – following this up with the Doctor calling Clara ‘Brave heart Clara’, another Tegan nod, left me wondering if we now know who Mark Gatiss’ favourite companion is. Mr. Sweet was both hysterical and repulsive; calling him Mr. Sweet was genius and resulted in some wonderfully absurd dialogue. The whole Hammer Horror feel took me back to when I were a nipper – sorry, couldn’t resist – and BBC2 used to show a late-night Saturday horror movie double bill. Diana Rigg delivered a spectacularly mad and unrepentant villainess, and the inclusion of Strax, Vastra and Jenny from The Snowmen worked well, thankfully avoiding the saccharine commraderie-cliches that usually accompany such team-ups.

But then it all went horribly wrong, or least threatened to. Clara returns home to find that the children she is looking after have discovered she’s a time traveller through the eye-rollingly coincidental discovery of conveniently posed photos from all her adventures. No, really, it’s OK, I can make this square peg fit into this round hole, don’t worry. All I need is a hammer and a chainsaw. Look! It fits! The whole thing felt forced and I could feel my Moffatitus playing up again. A couple of wise-cracking kids in the TARDIS? Please, no. I sense that there may indeed be ‘trouble at mill.’

Richard Kelly