Padding
down the hallway, spilling coffee, I heard the announcer announce, as
announcers do, that Doctor Who would be on in a moment and it was time to hide
behind the sofa. Do kids actually do that anymore? This is something
I’ve been wondering lately. My cynical self’s been wondering of late if the
brand and all those tacky plastic free-gift Daleks on the front of Doctor Who
mags are detracting from one of the show’s most important jobs; to scare the
crap out of kids. It’s part of the thrill.It's part of the legacy. As the the
announcer proved, it's a shared cultural memory.
Watching
the trailer for this week’s episode, Hide, I’d thought, OK, it’ll be The
Haunting of Hill House minus the scares. The ghost’ll turn out to be nice
and it’ll collapse under the weight of its own banality, crumbling into a
schmaltz-fest that’ll result in me turning into the kind of bitter individual
who ends up writing jaded things like this.
But
no. Well, yes in a way too because there was a distinct nod to The Haunting
of Hill House with the ghostly crashes and bangs, and yes the ghost was
nice, so I can – and will – look a little smug but the episode was an excellent
surprise. It was actually scary and didn’t rely on tired cinematic devices to
achieve this. Instead, with its small cast, claustrophobic interiors and dark
look it successfully created an atmosphere of foreboding, much more so than
last week’s Cold War episode which, despite taking place on a submarine,
really didn’t capture that sense of isolation.
Earlier
in the day I’d popped in to see friends. On hearing that I was to be writing
this their nine-year-old daughter vanished upstairs and returned with her arms
full of Doctor Who collectables and toys. I asked whether the Cold War episode had
scared her and she simply shrugged, wrinkled her nose and thoughtfully shook
her head. I wonder what she made of this week’s episode?
It’s
the first episode I’ve seen in some time that had support characters which were
genuinely engaging. Emma Grayling, as played by Jessica Raine, and Dougray
Scott as Professor Alec Palmer, were
shrouded in such a palpable aura of sadness. Isolation, doubt, guilt and fear
were the real 'monsters' in this episode. The themes of love, seperation and
aloneness were executed with an assured subtleness that proved such a welcome
change from spending an hour being repeatedly beaten around the head with a
‘message,’ quite often to the point where I sit, concussed, watching the final
credits roll and wondering if I should go along to A&E and get checked for
head trauma.
Something’s
changed about Matt Smith’s Doctor too. I’m going to step forward and say that I
believe he’s a great Doctor, which has only fueled my frustration with the show
because it’s all felt like a massive missed opportunity. Last night, and the
first two thirds of The Rings of Akhaten (or up until the cosmic
sing-along bit) – both by writer, Neil Cross, have provided a glimpse of how
good the show really could be. Jenna-Louise Coleman as Clara is really shaping
up to be a memorable companion and not just a fresh-off-the-production-line
two-dimensional ‘feisty woman.’ As Emma Grayling points out, Clara is more
scared than she lets on. So it seems is the Doctor, and perhaps this is what
feels different about him; at times he appears full of doubt and painfully
vulnerable. In Hide his quirkiness came across as a mask, a performance
for those around him. When alone in the pocket universe that mask momentarily
slips revealing a completely different Doctor. Perhaps the most chilling moment
for me came when Emma Grayling tells Clara not to trust the Doctor; that he has
a sliver of ice in his heart. That alone has got me tuning in next week.
Good
to see a few 'whovian pleasers' in there as well. There were references to The
Eye of Harmony and the blue crystal of Metebelis, stolen by the Doctor in The
Green Death and later returned in The Planet of the Spiders – which,
incidentally, were two of the first Doctor Who episodes I can clearly remember
seeing as a kid, both of which scared me, as they should! The
orange spacesuit from The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit got
an outing too, albeit a brief one. Actually it looked in need of a good boil
wash.
After
Hide I went online for a little research and came across an interview
with Neil Cross conducted recently by SFX magazine, and what do I find?
Refering to Hide he speaks about his desire to make a really scary episode, one
that produces in the audience, and especially in children within the nine to
twelve years old bracket, the same response to the show that he experienced as
a child of around the same age; terror. He adds that one of his influences for Hide
was the cult British show Quatermass, which, he goes on to say, Doctor
Who owes a lot to Quatermass was another show that terrified me as a
kid, although, being so young I remember the 1970s Thames Television outing
starring John Mills rather than the original. No comments please. The show, like
Hide, had a very grainy, almost colourless look and used atmosphere to
build tension, rather than in-your-face shocks.
Towards
the end of last night's episode I could feel myself begin to tense up as I
waited for the feel-good, schmaltz ridden ending, and yes it did lean towards
that a little but in a very understated way that felt unforced and consistent
with the rest of the episode. All in all the best, and most suprising, episode
I've seen in a while. Let Neil Cross do more, I say. He's putting the much
needed 'Boo!' back in Doctor Who.
Richard Kelly
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