Doctor Who:
[family sci-fi comedy-drama revival, B1]
Best TV Drama Series 2005, Best TV Drama Series 2007
April 2005
I was suggesting for years that Doctor Who might make an effective return with a 45' Buffy-like format. None of those tedious, plodding serials that defined the Pertwee era. But I have to say that I've been missing the cliffhangers this series, and I've come to the conclusion that another five or ten minutes, at least, might not go a miss. This week though, was the start of a short serial (two weeks says the RT), and the presence of a cliffhanger was most welcome (albeit spoiled by the "next week" teaser). Perhaps one compromise might be to take an Angel-style approach to serialisation, but that way lies "Trial of a Timelord"...
Two Episodes Later:
The highly anticipated arrival of the Dalek. Nothing scares me more than a Dalek. Well maybe spiders. When Eccleston was interviewed on R5, he suggested that his personality would change his encounter with the Daleks. Wouldn't it be a fantastic thing if he regenerated in this episode? Not that he will, of course. But there you go. The trailer last week had me trembling with the Dalek-fear I learnt in my youth, but, being a pessimist, I worry that the episode cannot possibly live up to all the hype. The thing that worries me most is the article in the RT that makes it sound really very good. Still. I'm very excited.
May 2005
The week started with the over-hyped Dalek in Doctor Who. In the end, it wasn't a bad episode, and the Dalek was fantastic for the first half. But the Darth Vader crap at the end was a bit cringe-worthy, and let the whole thing down. I was hoping for a lot more psychological warfare. Oh well.
I was going to recommend Buffy this week, but for some reason, C5've started scheduling it against the Who. So sod that (they were scheduling so well before, finishing at 7pm; such a shame). I1 are, of course, about to start putting Star Wars up against the Doctor, so he's clearly doing something right. Tonight he's fighting paradox-eating gargoyles, by the way.
June 2005
Thanks to the over-spoiling trailer at the end of last week's episode, you will likely be aware of one of the punchlines in this, the first of a two-part climax. I'll not spoil it for the rest of you, but I will say again that I think it'd be a fantastic trick if the Doctor were to regenerate before the Christmas Special. Not that he's likely to, but anyway. In this episode, he winds up on Big Brother; fantastic stuff. Rose, on the other hand, finds herself on the Weakest Link, being asked questions by a robot Anne Robinson. All strangely reminiscent of A New Soap I's 15-1 game, but there you go.
The Next Week:
It'd've been nice to have watched the penultimate episode without knowing how it would end, but there you go. Big Brother was a nice touch, Weakest Link gave us some tension, and Trinny & Suzannah was a bit of an afterthought really. Not sure how obvious the Dalek presence might've been without us already having been told in the trailer (there were certainly enough clues about the place).
About 3½ months ago I postulated that Eccleston would regenerate within this series; a theory that I became more convinced of with the "confusion" over the announcement of Eccleston's retirement. Last week's dalek-rich trailer had me convinced, and as for the cast-list in the RT... it screwed in the last bulb in my ego.
On the Conclusion of the Series:
The final episode was disappointing (though all the kissing amused me). There are two pro-active ways of getting out of an Armageddon situation: 1) travel through time (out of the question in Who, because it potentially destroys the whole concept) or 2) invoke God. Buffy did a variation of the latter pretty much every series to the point where it started to get silly. When Billy came out of the Tardis all glowy-eyed and super-hands, it was a bit too reminiscent of Buffy. It fell a little flat to see the menacing foe zapped into atoms in the way it was. Perhaps had we never seen Buffy, it'd've been more exciting, though I suspect if we'd never seen Buffy we'd've never seen this series of Doctor Who. As for the new Doctor... I was surprised to hear he'd gone for the English accent, given he's a Scottish fella. Anyway... The last story might've fallen a little flat given the build-up, but what about the series as a whole?
The first episode was rubbish. I can say that now, now it's bedded in. It was an over-short token rehash of a Pertwee story that showed in one episode the potential problems of the Buffy format (a series of self-contained 45' episodes with a mild story arc running through). The best eps were undoubtedly the two-parters, with their cliff-hangers. Before the series started, I was convinced that the Buffy format was the way forward (having been bored senseless by the ponderous umpteen-parter Pertwee repeats), but now I think that two-parters are best. One cliff-hanger, and not too long to get boring. Alternatively, an Angel format might be worth considering. That's where the arc takes more dominance; the self-contained eps are still self contained but the arc is dominant enough for a cliff-hanger to occur. It would give the series more flow, but it might be too early for that sort of thing.
The series was a bit woolly at times, but on the whole it was rather good. Eccleston was the best Doctor since Davison if not Baker, T. This has a lot to do with the scripts, it should be said. Mr RT Davis was nice enough to avoid any question-marks, and we never saw Davros. Both these things are good things, and I thank him.
The Tardis worked a little too well and wasn't nearly uppity enough. Maybe now its innards have had an airing, it might be a bit more twitchy. We can but hope.
As you will have noted, I'm placing DW in the same box as Buffy and Angel. I will now compare them. There. I've compared them. Angel won. As for DW and Buffy, it's tighter, but I think the Who just about edged it. So my conclusion... Doctor Who is better than Buffy.
[Christmas saw Tennant's first outing as the Doctor (save the brief expositional scene for Children in Need). The Christmas Invasion was pretty rubbish, not least with the Doctor laid up in bed for most of it. The references to Douglas Adams were acceptable. References to Star Wars are no longer so and should be avoided at all cost. The very end, with the arrival of Torchwood, was the best bit. The rest was flabby. But as Quality Street fodder, it was perfectly adequate, and the BBCi game that followed was good fun for granny.]
May 2006
The good Doctor has been adequate so far. And half way through, it's time for the sort of musing that saw me predict a regeneration in the offing this time last year. We can assume another visit for the Cyberpersons by the end of the run, which implies another trip to a parallel world, which makes possible a chat with an alternative Doctor. But surely it's too early in Davis-era Who for anything so gimmicky? And who could be such a Who when everyone before Colin Baker is too old or too dead and everyone after Peter Davison is too tainted or too new? An un-regenerated Tom Baker or a return for Christopher Eccleston are the only workable options, I think. And I should say I'm not nearly so convinced of this possibility as I was about the regeneration last year. But how can they pass up the opportunity given a parallel universe?
The latest episode [the one with the TV sets] started well, but became too rushed at the end. One-parters should be a minority. Three-parters should be used for the epics. In the end, Lipman's baddy was a bit rubbish, and the fight on the mast was just pathetic; because it was badly paced if nothing else. Other quibbles: the handling of the family breakup was preachy and painful, and the camera made too much of the black couple at the street-party, as if to say: look, we've cast some black people. But the comic exchanges in the first half were good, as was the general style and feel of things. The steam just ran out.
June 2006
Pretty much everyone who cares has been saying make more two-parters cos it's too rushed otherwise. And here we have a two-parter. It's like they're listening... We've got some genuine space-ship sci-fi this time, complete with black holes and squiggly aliens. A tight setting and a chunky cast suggests some systematic bumpings off, so this might be Who at its Tom Baker best. Or it could just be a bit wobbly. We shall see.
I wasn't expecting much from this week's Who, which is perhaps why it turned out rather well. It's a double episode, which helped the pacing no end. And it's a nuts and bolts enclosed sci-fi horror thing. So that helps too. Nice to see some dingy sci-fi from the Tardis view-port, rather than the slick white walls and shiny stuff that dominated '80s Who. And yet the irony is that the dingy ironwork is better made than the floppy glitzy card. But enough on the design. More important is the text: some Bible-babble monster-math. Nice. You can't go too wrong with red eyes and tattooed cabalistic texts, can you. And some well judged comedy too. Not least from the Ood. Whether the pace will be kept at the appropriate level next week, we shall have to wait and see.
...as it was, it kind of fizzled out, which was a shame. I see in this week's RT, Tom Baker says he's not been invited to act in the new Who, so that's that idea scuppered. Not to worry.
I am naturally concerned about this week's Who [the Marc Warren / Peter Kay episode]. I'm getting flashbacks of Ken Dodd in silver lame, and Sylvester McCoy fighting off Bertie Bassett. And I'm seeing Peter Kay. But I'm also seeing Marc Warren. The episode looks to be something of an oddity: geeks in search of a Doctor, a baddie drawn by a Blue Peter viewer, and the Tardis crew only passing through. We shall see, shan't we.
It took me a while to work out what I thought of the Marc Warren episode... In the end I thought it was alright. Kind of nice, even. Yeah... Such gimmicky episodes are a good thing every now and again. I approve of a bit of daft. Another hint was dropped that Rose might soon be uprooted. Got to prepare the kiddies for that sort of thing, I suppose. Rose's much-trailed death will probably not come until the start of the final story, next week. And the trail for the intervening episode makes it look very much like filler. But sometimes filler works out ok. Let's see.
As I predicted, the antepenultimate episode [the child drawing / olymipcs episode... brr] was a bit floppy. Maybe the novelty is wearing off. But it seemed too gimmicky and too wet. Still, now we have the end of series party, with a wilting Rose to look forward to. And probably no multiple doctorage, alas. I am concerned though about the EastEnders involvement in this next episode. It's like that Children in Need thing all over again...
ADDENDUM:
I've now watched the first of the Doctor Who closing two-parter. Cracking stuff. I assumed that the extermination in the trailer last week was down to Torchwood's alien technology. But there you go. Everything set up for a great final episode. I still can't help wondering what happened to the parallel universe's doctor. But not to worry. More pressing concerns are ahead. Heh.
[As part of their Sci-Fi Britannia season, B4 showed some Pertwee and Tom Baker episodes:]
December 2006
Some people tell me Jon Pertwee was the best Doctor. They are, of course, quite ill. Tom Baker will probably never be bettered as his antics on a space ark this week aptly demonstrated.
[Christmas 2006, and another special; this one more successful than the last. But it was still flawed. The recycling of stuff from the last Christmas special was not so good. Sarah Parish's big spider was a bit crap too, really. But Catherine Tate was surprisingly tolerable if not even slightly entertaining. And the Doctor finally said Gallifrey, which is practically a special move.]
March 2007
The 29th series of Doctor Who kicks off this Saturday, with a new companion. Personally I'd rather he'd been on his own for a bit, but we can't have it all our own way, can we. We're told she's the first black companion, which should startle Mickey if nobody else. I think it'd be fun to kill her off quite quickly, but that's very very unlikely. What can we expect this series? Oh spoil us with your deductions, Mr Ivan, please. Well in Ep1, it seems that the old Stig is back from his swim. Dunno what the new Stig will say to that... some Top Gear warfare inevitable by the time of the season finalé? No. We've had Daleks, we've had Cybermen, so naturally, this series we have the Master to look forward to. The BBC initially said no, hah, Ice Warriors. Ivan said are they a hockey team? And it seems that Ice Warriors was infact just a big hoax to shut us up about Mr Master. He's due to make his first inroads in or around Ep6 and seems to be played by John Simm. Poor old Tom Baker: missed out on a parallel universe last year and now even the Master seems out of the question. Unless a regeneration were on the cards... I still hope but not with much conviction.
This series looks set to be quite funny, which is a good thing. Judging by the final scene of Ep1, John Simm's character will be assuming the name "Saxon" as part of some election campaign later in the series. He may or may not be the same character as Derek Jacobi. But I'm not here to speculate. I'm here to review. And I am pleased with the choice of assistant, for she has a brain, and brains are good. The Doctor wasn't excessively dizzy either, and the aliens were amusing if nothing else. But it was a first episode, and first episodes always fall a bit flat. At least our introductions weren't too painful. As I said before, I'd've liked them to have waited a bit before settling on a new companion. But she's here now so let's make the most of her. Like many stories, this was ultimately flossy, and it'll be interesting to see how the meatier numbers come off.
April 2007
Doctor Who is three episodes in. I hate it when it gets preachy, and this episode was decidedly preachy at times. But it did have some comedy kittens and Father Dougal covered in fluff. The whole jumping through cars stuff was good fun too. But, of course, the end was rushed and a bit pathetic. Still, confirmation (were it needed) that we're in Masterton.
A good title: Daleks in Manhattan, but I worry that it will not live up to it...
Who is much improved this week. The pig experiments essentially occupy the same territory as Cybermen, but Cybermen and Daleks have always had some philosophical overlap. Not sure why the Daleks don't just make some more Daleks, though I guess they must be short of the right bits. Also, the end was a bit limp. But the story was well written and the song and dance routine in the middle helped raise things into 3pt territory. It's about time we had a proper Dalek story, and this is both proper and plush... The Doctor got to bitch with the Daleks once more in the conclusion of what proved a pretty decent story.
May 2007
Some Alien Cubed photography is the order of the day. As the series goes on, I'm more and more convinced that Martha is going to die before the run is over. But common sense prevents me from giving this notion a varnishing of credibility. The makers of Doctor Who lost this week's script down the back of the settee, and had to make do with an episode from last series instead. The visual and narrative similarity between this story and that other race against time on a hot spaceship with a woman captain, a posessed crew-member and a red space-suit was glaringly and painfully profound. That said, I liked that epsiode so it wasn't all bad news. And after they had the chance to bump her off, I'm now less convinced that Martha will peg it.
June 2007
Doctor Who is so much better when on a serial, and though this story milked its end a little too raw, it was good to see the GP's nasty streak coming out again for pretty much the first time since Tennant arrived. The Doctor is better when he is darker, the Who is better when it is longer. It is telling that the only two decent stories this series were the two-parters, and both were flawed (the Daleks story felt more like a Cyberman yarn but made up for it with a song and dance routine).
Doctor Who, is a ludicrous 13 eps in length, and many of this series have been a bit rubbish. The last two-parter reminded us of what was possible, and then this one... which I expected to be rubbish... was even better. And it contained the Physician and his friend only barely. The girl at the centre of the story should clearly have been his assistant (she could act and was pretty into the bargain), and the story was funny and inventively put together. Just like Coupling (by the same author) used to be (last series excluded).
Let's review this third series as a whole, then: It's not been great, if truth be told. The opening ep with the rhinos was adequate but nothing special. Shakespeare was similarly merh, though some of my colleagues were more inclined to it than I. Gridlock, I rather enjoyed, but it was ultimately a damp squib. The two-part Daleks story was the first peak, though you had to overlook the fact that at heart it was a Cyberman story with the word Cyberman crossed out and Dalek written over in the script. Still, the dance routine was a rather special touch, and we learnt that while a fall from a radio mast is deadly for a Timelord, a lightening strike is not. The episode with Mark Gatiss felt a bit like filler really, but was by no means bad. Wheras the spaceship one was identical to a story last year, and marked the nadir of this run. Fortunately, things picked up after that... The two-parter with the Doctor as a human teacher was a pretty solid and decent story. It wasn't brilliant, but at this point it was the best of the series. Its legend would've been secure had it not been eclipsed by Steven Moffat's brilliant "Blink": not just the best ep of this series, but one of the best Whos ever. More later. Then it was the home run: "Utopia" was poor, but for its end, and felt all too McCoy. And the two-part finalé was weak: the final episode in particular was a let-down with its Star Wars and Flash Gordon quotes and its Jesus-play.
Ok, so it was a weak series, but it wasn't dreadful. It wasn't the late '80s. In the late '80s we shrieked at the horror of Colin Baker's wardrobe and then cried at the announcement of Bonnie Langford as his assistant. Some were let down by the new companion, but by '80s standards... And then they go and spoil it all by hiring Catherine Tate as the next assistant. Maybe it's a hoax, like that Ice Warriors talk last year. But it doesn't look like it is. It looks like they've given us Catherine Tate as an assistant. Dick heads. Last year, they gave us Freema after having been impressed by her performance as an emailing secretary who walked into a corridor and screamed. And yet this year they were not impressed by the woman in "Blink", who clearly should've been the next no.2? [Shakes head and tuts.] Russell T. gave us Doctor Who and we kissed his feet, but his stories have, with the exception of the first series, been pretty duff. And since Billie left, his decisions have been increasingly worrying. I'm not saying he should walk, but perhaps he should give someone else a go at the story arc and finalé at least. I would love to see Steven Moffat have more and more stories. He delivered one of the most memorable adventures of the first series, and the best of the third. Ok, his "Girl in the Fireplace" story was a bit limp, but at least it played with time in an inventive way, which any Coupling fan will know to be a talent of Moffat's. Mind you, Jekyll, which is also his work, is not nearly as impressive (it is profoundly "ok"), so... well... End of the day, Davies must steer the machine rather than let it drift into an ocean liner.
December 2007
The last two Christmas specials have been a bit poor really. The problem is that they're written by Russell T Davies, and much as we might thank him for bringing back the Doctor, it must be said that he himself is not the greatest writer in the world. Anyway, as we all know, this year's ep has got some washed-up Aussie soap-star from the '80s as stand-in companion. It's also got the biggest Who-budget the BBC has ever had to panic over. And, at 70 minutes, it's quite long. The baddies look a lot like the ones in Blink, though, don't they...
[The Christmas ep was better than previous efforts but still quite flimsy, really. The novelty is beginning to wear off, like the metallic plastic finish on a Dalek toy.]
April 2008
Ok. Let's break open the Tardis: This week we were treated to the second ever Who serial: The Daleks. The thing about Doctor Who serials is that they were long, and often rather dull. This one just about kept things going, though the temptation to brain the Doctor when he realises three episodes from the end that they've got to go back for the dongle was quite difficult to quell (but that's the first Doctor for you). The Daleks, it should be said, were a bit tame compared to the extermination-happy psychopaths we've come to know and fear. But this was early days: got to leave some room for manœuvre. Chesterton was terribly bossy and it's a shame the Dalek guns were set to stun when he got his zapping. Still, he fell into his own when it came to potholing. We could sit here and quibble about Thals all day and still not get anything satisfactory from the discussion, so lets move on to the present day, where Sarah Lancashire is running a business that takes advantage of humans for alien ends. Russ (T. Davies) is hoping we have forgotten the astonishingly similar storyline to the Sarah Jane Adventures pilot in which Raquel from Coronation Street was played by Samantha Bond and the diet pills were Sunny Delight. This time Sarah Jane is played by David Tennant and the girl is played by Catherine "surprisingly competent" Tate. That it is a rehash of a story we've already seen isn't too much of a worry -- it was ripped off from the Autons anyway. And a million and one other Doctor Who yarns (why is it that these aliens always need a human or human-like controller in a big office?). What is more, it was peppered with a zillion tiny little globules of the cutest fat you've ever seen. The script was quite funny, Bernard Cribbins was Bernard Cribbins, and for once Davies delivered a decent first episode. Fingers crossed they keep it up.
[A week later:]
I really didn't expect it to be any good. And there it was, being good and all. I type, of course, of Doctor Who, which took a trip to Pompeii and came out surprisingly entertaining. Ok, Tate was quite annoying when she was tied to the slab, but other than that it was really good stuff: Some decent jokes at the expense of the Tardis, some God-ponder regards the dear old Physician, and even the aliens had a Harryhausenesque quality. On top of all that, it was well performed, which always helps, and the modernist representation of the Romans was essential to the episode's success.
[And another:]
This week's Doctor Who was not as good as the last two, but by no means bad. The transformation sequence was a bit hackneyed. And again we had an evil businessman. I hear that David Morrissey (hello!) is being bandied about as the next Doctor Who. Could work. I also hear that they're going to do a reboot of Blake's 7. That could work too.
Back to present-day Earth we go (again; there's only so many apocalypses a generation can go through before civilization collapses). Oh, and what a surprise! An evil businessman (/me yawns). Martha is no Brigadier, but UNIT was always boring anyway; she was made for the job. There's a subtle eco-message in this episode, I'm told, ^but I don't quite see it myself^. Still, despite all this, the ep was hardly the worst we've ever had, and the Sontarans had some decent lines.
May 2008
What an utter waste of a double ep that was. I speak, of course, of Doctor Who, which didn't make any sort of effort at all these last couple of weeks with its by numbers Earth-invasion drivel. There's been far too much of Earth, and far too many apocalypses (complete with BBC News team cameos). This will not do. This is not entertaining. Getting the wooden Martha to do an evil twin storyline is suicidal too. The cliff hanger was "old man locked in car" (How on Earth will he escape? Perhaps some sort of heavy glass-breaking object is in order? But which? Tune in next week! Betting shops up and down the country made huge payouts having put "an axe" at 20-1), and because it's present day Earth (or near enough) we all know how it's going to end (Doctor cobbles together some high-tech device to solve it all; world is saved, hurrah). What an absolute waste of everyone's time.
[The Doctor's Daughter:]
The Doctor meets his "daughter". Note how I use inverted commas there. Handy things. Today's planet is called Messaline; whether that means little Jenny Who is a nymphomaniac empress conspiring against her stuttering husband or not, I daren't predict. But I doubt she's Susan Foreman's mummy, whatever the case. It'd've been more interesting, too, had she been older than Tennant, no? This week's Who was slightly more entertaining than the last dreary outing, but woefully flawed at several points along the way. Screaming at the heart of it was the piece of kit that created our latest addition to the Time Peers. The Doctor shrugs off an 'oh, it's a so-and-so', and yet here's a man who's been mourning the death of his race for the last two series. And one would assume the Daleks would be even more keen to pop onto the pan-universal eBay and place a bid for such a gadget. Makes you wonder what they've been buggering about at these last couple of years when all they needed do was wodge a tentacle into a piece of steam-punk piping and 'ta-da', fully formed Daleks popping up all over the place. There were other begged questions along the way ("Was Susan Foreman involved in the Time War?" cropped up in the back of my mind, but I'm not really talking that sort of thing... more, "Why would you install a Britney Spears laser array?", "Why can't we hear the Hath?", "Why are these people standing by watching the Doctor smash their most prized idol?" and "Why should those numbers have any more significance than simply indicating a door or room?"). Ultimately, this was a question of poor writing. The end was pretty shit too: The Doctor fled the scene pretty early given his own track record of dramatically sluggish rebirth. The deliberately begged question was, of course, was it her innate TimeBaroness abilities that brought her round, the frightfully "Search For Spock" terraforming energy, or something else? She certainly leapt into that rocket ship with the sort of maniacal vim shown by John Simm last series, which slightly suggests that she's gone a teensy bit evil. Or maybe it's the Colin Baker in her.
[The Agatha Christie one:]
And so Doctor Who goes back to a cartoonish 1920s and tells us all how wonderful Agatha Christie was. Cos she was brilliant you know. Admittedly, the Whoster tempered this ever-so-slightly by saying that he'd only been kept guessing by one of her books, but this was all spoilt later on by the frightening revelation that she will be held to be one of the greatest authors the world has ever known. And like so many historical Whos of late, this ep was guilty of simply following around a historical figure and bleating about how wonderful they are/were. Even when it does dare to question genius, this is largely done for comic effect, tongue firmly ensconced by cheeky flesh. But despite this hero-worship, this episode was actually a great improvement on recent form. We might choose to worry ourselves about how effective the Murder Mystery pastiche format really was -- as were-creature Christie adaptations go, the 1974 Amicus film The Beast Must Die is clearly a superior rendering of a fundamentally similar concept -- but the result was, nonetheless, quite a fun little romp; by no means a classic, but a step in the right direction from where we were the other week. We reach a half-way point in the series now, and so it's time for my wild speculations (tainted ever so slightly by spoilers). I'm not looking forward to the return of Davros but it seems inevitable. I still yearn for a parallel Doctor, and think we may yet get one. But, much as I want it to be an unregenerated Tom Baker (perhaps to tie in with the confirmed return of Sarah Jane), I'm a realist. And my biggest fear, really, is that a trip back to the parallel world will simply mean more fairly dull Cybermen (rumoured to be knocking around at Christmas at the very least). Oh well. The next eps are Moffat's, and hopefully they are more Blink than Girl in the Fireplace. Thus concluded May, with the good news that Moffat has the succession to the Who-writing throne: a wise move that bodes well for 2010. One wonders if he has a say in any 2009 regenerational casting.
June 2008
We're expecting too much of this, the first part of Moffat's 2008 entry. It'll be another Girl in the Fireplace. Though the RT description of Tennant coaxing a shadow out from beneath a table using a chicken leg suggests otherwise.
[one episode later...]
Doctor Who was, as might've been expected, the highlight of the week's new telly. From the "pre-title" alone, it was clear we were in for a good ride, and then in true Moffat style we got the whole thing again from a different angle. I can see 2010 being the first series of Who to properly exploit the complexities of time-travel, with the Doctor tying himself into all sorts of knots as he operates in the same time frames each episode. Given the temporal complexities demonstrated in Moffat's attempt at a romantic sit-com, Coupling, surely we can expect even more in a time-travel drama-series. Or maybe he'll just turn it into a romantic comedy. I could go on talking about Who all night. I still expect to see a parallel Doctor at the end of the series (if not, why not?!). Alas, Davros seems inevitable. Just muscle through... that, then Cybermen at Christmas (yawn), then the specials next year, and so long as we don't get run over by any passing police boxes, we're set for something good at the turn of the decade.
[Part 2:]
Will River Song die? Will this episode mysteriously prove a total flop? Will Moffat come up with some less annoying character names (Sally Sparrow indeed)?
Is Doctor Who scary? I've heard much talk on this latter topic this week. Occasionally it is; the Daleks still get me all a quiver. Personally, this episode did not scare me. But then I'm an old man, normally scared only of ringtones and Heat Magazine. The disfigured face business made little if any sense, and looked no more frightening than Dick & Dom in their chalet. The disappearing kids was, like most of the episode, badly paced. The whole Donna sequence would've faired much better without music, I think. It was not nearly disorientating enough; more clumsy than anything else. Still, the shadows will make a great playground game. The episode was not bad; indeed it was one of the best of the series. But that was more down to the ideas inherited from the first part. This conclusion to the story was more about tying up the ends, and most of the routes we took to get there were put together with not quite enough conviction for my like. But what do I know. Everyone else seems to have wet themself this Saturday, one way or another.
What does all this bode for 2010? For me the two most exciting aspects of this storyline were: 1) the Moffatian structure, with its three perspectives, and its repeated opening; 2) the fan-baiting giant question-mark that was River Song. It is features such as these that I am expecting from the Moffat reign; not continuous terror. And that's just how I want it.
[And then:]
Shock horror! The foundations of my universe are shaken from beneath me! Do my eyes deceive? Nope. This was, of all things, a good Russell T. Davies Doctor Who story! It couldn't really fail in that respect given that it was a one-setter. And it just goes to show that the Doctor can work without a companion (blah-blah-blah- Deadly Assassin -blah-blah). It was good to have a story that didn't rely on any special effects or romantic entanglement for its drama: just three quarters of an hour of talking: proper TV drama. That's not to say it wasn't without its flaws. For instance, why would a creature that passed through the wall of the vessel in the first place be inconvenienced by having its host blasted back out through the air-lock? Maybe the intention was simply to hinder the creature. Had it been sufficiently motivated, it could've kept coming in and they could've kept blasting it out until the rescue crew arrived or everyone was dead (whichever came first). As it was, it evidently lost interest pretty quickly. Slacker. But that's a minor point. There were some other annoyances but they were small and all the problems could easily be overlooked. It was a tight little self-contained drama like a Twilight Zone or an Outer Limits. And it was good for it. Let's hope he can keep it up for his swansong.
[A week later:]
Telly gave us another good Davies-penned Who (he's saved them all up, it seems; but what was going on with Rose's mouth? Don't they have orthodontists in the parallel universe?)
July 2008
Davros, Richard Dawkins and Ianto Jones. Which to kill first? One of many tricky decisions faced by the Doctor this week. But at least he can enjoy the swish paint-job of the red Dalek.
I should say that on all things Who, there is a higher authority than me, in the form of [[Mad Larry Miles]], a man of some significant wisdom, albeit with a rather cringe-inducing self-destructive streak thrown in for balance. He hates Alison Graham, so he's clearly got his head screwed on. I heartily recommend reading his comments on all things medical. But not until you've read my own lesser witterings. Which go something like this:
First let us consider the first episode of this concluding two-parter. If we ignore the regeneration business, was it actually any good? The answer really is no. No it wasn't. For a start it had Torchwood, and Martha "MDF" Jones, and Sarah Jane's 'son'. Ok, it made some jokes about them, which almost made up for it, but it still felt a bit "in", and a bit false for it. Then, no sooner were they brought into things than they were abandoned, really rather casually, in a manner beyond belief: Jack teleports leaving his mates in certain death; Sarah Jane just leaves her sonny boy behind in her house, unconcerned that a passing Dalek might pop in and abuse him with its plunger. And we're treated to a rather long and tedious 'phone call while the Doctor just stands about worrying about bees. Then Davros shows up looking exactly the same. He shouldn't have come back at all, but if he must, then that's quite a fun way to do it. Court Jester Dalek is a nice touch but a bit heavy-handed. And then there's Rose and her magic teeth.
But all of this is swept aside, quite suddenly, quite dramatically. We are bowled for a six. The Doctor begins to regenerate. The sheer excitement of this cliff-hanger is sufficient to elevate this story into something special. But there are caveats floating around in the streams of thought suddenly firing away in all directions. Could they seriously have pulled off a surprise regeneration? Could they really?
Why would they? The whole point of the fallow 2009 is David Tennant's stint as Hamlet. And if it really was a regeneration surely they'd've been unable to keep the news from escaping. This was completely unheralded in the kingdom of the spoiler.
But wouldn't it be good if it were a genuine regeneration? Hats off to them for keeping it under wraps. It would be wonderful stuff.
At this point, reason begins to kick in. And with reason comes deflation. And with deflation comes anger. And with anger comes contract killing.
Almost immediately we work things out... almost immediately we understand that this won't be a kosher regeneration. There's the magic hand, there's Donna's heart-beat issues. No, something else will happen. Maybe it will involve Bernard Cribbins, whose character's name is an anagram of WTF Timelord. Maybe, as the Wikipedia almost immediately decides, the next Who will be Dale Winton. Could work.
A minute after the first part I declare: "this better be for real or I want Davies's head." I don't want it to cop out. I want the regeneration to stand, or at least to create a parallel doctor. I want Tennant v Cribbins or something. I'm going to be disappointed, aren't I.
This is the second time in recent years that Daleks have attempted to do bad things on Earth, and yet, as Miles points out, the collector in "Dalek" (Eccleston story), only a few years in the future, had no knowledge of them whatsoever. That's poor time-management is that. There's bigger issues though. I've lost count of the number of imminent apocalypses facing presentish-day Earth. It's a wonder society hangs together at all. It's all a bit sloppy and a bit too incredible. Still... Back to matters regeneration.
What an utter fucking cop-out. What a crushing disappointment. He may as well have reversed the polarity of the neutron flow. At least it'd've been ever so slightly amusing. No. He has a metacrisis of some forgettable distinction. My head flops into my knees.
The ridiculousness of this magic regeneration-absorbing hand is massive. One wonders why timelords don't chop off all their fingers and toes at their first regeneration, and keep one constantly tied around the neck so as to have twenty extra lives per incarnation. Maybe Tennant was the first timelord to discover this possibility, in which case, fair enough, but it's be hopes he remembers to harvest a few limbs come his retirement. No, this is a dreadful dreadful cop-out. Not a novelty regeneration, but no regeneration at all... I feel abused by the lying cliff-hanger.
A moment of relief manifests itself immediately, probably deliberately so. I speak of the German Daleks. I fear I may be alone in my love for the German Daleks. But sod it, I'm a German Dalek lover. What can I say? If it weren't for the German Daleks, this episode would score 0pts.
And then things begin to collapse around us. We get a human Doctor and in his mitts is, oh please no, a cobbled together magic-wand of a reset-switch. Fortunately, it gets broken. Phew. Maybe Davies knows he's gone too far. Maybe this is his way of winning me back.
But now Donna has Doctor brains for no really very good reason, and she turns the power off in a rather anti-climactic way. A spot of genocide later and it's time for everyone to say goodbye. Sarah-Jane can't come along cos she's been saddled with a kiddy. Micky remains a viable companion, though will probably be too busy making films. Donna is ruled firmly out. And as for Rose... oh dear oh dear. What is wrong with her teeth? Nothing a snog with a human Doctor won't put right. Makes you feel ill. The last parting of ways worked ok... it trod a fairly safe tightrope of acceptability. This does not. It's all a bit Superman 2, again. I shake my head. The trailer promises Cybermen. I yawn. (I've not even mentioned the tugging back of the Earth. I'm trying to tape over that memory).
Davies is not gone yet. He's still got next year's specials to get out of his system. Let's hope they're more in the Midnight vein, or even Turn Left. Let's hope they're not his usual choreographed comp-gen alien-invasion, News 24, Earth-bound crap.
Doctor Who is firmly back, and it's a wonderful wonderful thing. But it's not perfect by any means. I've just revisited my 2005 reviews on the subject and much of what I said then still stands: the 45 minute single episode format needs rethinking (I think something more soapy, as it used to be: Tardis landing at the end of each story), the Tardis needs to be more erratic, apocalypses should be avoided because they're difficult to get out of sensibly, and question-marks and Davros should not be involved. I still stand by these notions. I didn't spot any question-marks, but this last two-parter had Davros, a controllable Tardis and an apocalypse: not a good recipe in my book. The two Doctors shtick would've been so much better had it been a parallel universe Doctor rather than a contrived Superman 2 magic-hand Doctor. The chaos of companions was all a bit too clumsy: most of them ended up following each other, as tends to happen with large casts. It was all, in the end, a bit pathetic. The series as a whole was less pathetic: the first ep was actually a lot better than previous attempts, the Pompeii ep was pretty decent too. The Sontarans two-parter was dreadfully dull, but things picked up properly with a great run in the second half of the series, which was the same last time round too. So Doctor Who is in pretty good health really. But it needs to watch itself: the honeymoon is now over (this was clear from the Simon Mayo reaction to the last episode: as good a barometer as anything). Keep knocking out rubbish like we've just experienced and people will lose patience. In the last two series, it's been pretty well proven that the best episodes often have the smallest budgets; that it's not about massive Dalek invasions but about small casts in small spaces. Going back to the first two series, Dalek, The Empty Child (gasmask), and hey, maybe even that one where the Doctor has dinner with the Slitheen, were the stand-out moments of Series 1; Series 2 was a bit weak in hindsight, and may've had its best time with Peter Kay (strange as it seems). Gasmasks aside, these are all fairly tightly contained episodes with more talk than running. It's still my hope that the Coupling-esque time-play of Series 3's Blink will prove the template for Series 5 when it comes. Or series 31 if you prefer.
August 2008
If like me you watched the end of the last series and thought "oh lord why hast thou forsaken me?", and then thought "what was Eccleston like cos I really don't remember anymore?" then curiously BBC 3 has come to your help by beginning a repeat run of the Eccleston series.
I suspected that Christopher Eccleston might've been the better Doctor Who of recent years, but I couldn't be sure until this week when BBC3 decided to start repeating the first series. And I found that he was not simply "better", he was "a lot better", and "really very good". It is so easy to forget how good he was. His little quips, his morbid excitement as things begin to go wrong (no staring into space for this Doctor); when Billie is about to be frazzled to death he just laughs it off. And it is not just Eccleston who is on form; Davies's script is genuinely amusing, albeit somewhat derivative. The effort put into these early episodes has been, on the whole, lacking somewhat recently (though I notice the next one is "Dickens v The Immigrants", so perhaps I speak prematurely).
The best things about that first series of Doctor Who Mk2 were the humour and the postmodern approach to the Doctor. So, for example, when Eccleston talks about having Rose as his companion, he gets a punch from her mother. It's a nice touch. And this is a complicated Doctor: violent, by no means omniscient; when Rose proves him wrong about the Dalek, he promptly refashions his philosophy and spouts some bollocks about DNA to keep face. He's enthusiastic about danger and has few if any god-like powers at his disposal. It shows how lazy the recent series has become. But enough about Doctor Who. I do keep going on about it. I'm only doing it to annoy you. But what else can I talk about?
The following review is by Ivan's nemesis, Graham Allison:
"This week's Doctor Who repeats on my favourite BBC channel, BBC3, were truly dreadful. Christopher Eccleston is dull and dreary as Doctor Who with none of the hilarious mania of the lovely David Tennant. Doctor Who didn't even manage to rustle up a "magic wand" with which to save the world. If there's one thing I love about Doctor Who it's his little "makes" at the end of each episode, as he creates a device to set right everything that's gone wrong during the previous 40 minutes. Without it something seems missing. Still, it was good to see the slitheen back in the first of the week's offerings; and the fantastic Captain Jack. He should have his own show."
April 2009
I don't get very excited about specials, because they're all written by Russell T Davies, and Russell T Davies has shown that he is not an especially good writer. Still, last series he did give us that good Twilight Zone one where the Doctor got trapped on a bus in the middle of nowhere, with a menace approaching and passengers increasingly disturbed. This episode, by way of contrast, we got the Doctor trapped on a bus in the middle of nowhere, with a menace approaching and passengers increasingly helpful. And we got her off EastEnders failing to do a very good job at being a glamourous aristocratic cat-burglar. Her arrival was inevitable given encroaching Moffat (she deported herself adequately in Jeckyl) but far from inspiring. He'd be better off with that woman from Blink, or the dark-haired one from Coupling (I'm increasingly of the opinion that Sarah Jane would be too wooden, but nonetheless the idea still appeals). At least Bernard Cribbins is due to be the assistant again come Tennant's last "Extra". Something to look forward to there at any rate. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Where were we? Oh yes, this was the same as that other one with a bus, only more jingoistic and less interesting: the characters were far too obedient (no wonder he suggested they get signed up to the UNIT he usually so detests for its martialism (and that's another stocking-filler rapidly going stale)). Another technological magic-wand at the end gave us a flying Routemaster; I think we're supposed to whoop and holler at this point: Go GLC! Go GLC! Instead, my reaction was "mm" (not "mmm" or "mmmm", which would be something else entirely; just "mm"). Add some stock aliens for good measure and we have a very underwhelming little episode. Underwhelming but by no means shit. By no means shit but by no means good. We're free-wheeling to the bottom of the hill. The sooner shovel-face and co turn up the better, it seems.
November 2009
We keep being told that this weekend's episode of Doctor Who will be the scariest yet. I doubt it will have Floella Benjamin's disembodied voice playing through a broken piece of shellac [unlike this week's episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures]. More likely we'll be treated to another tedious rehash of Alien. Still, not long now until Mr Moffat takes control. His series summary has been leaked my way, so let's take a look at five of the more terrifying looking episodes to come:
Episode 2 - Mother-Die: The Doctor takes his new companion home only to find that her mother has been taken prisoner within an energy grid that resides in the cracks of London's pavements. If anybody steps over such a crack, the companion's mother will be rent in twain.
Episode 5 - Ground Zero: The Tardis lands up a tree in an alien land where everything is petrified except the birds. It soon becomes clear that anything that touches the ground is turned to stone. But the Tardis needs a new component if it is to leave, so the Doctor and his assistant must find their way across the planet without making contact with the surface.
Episode 8 - Murder in the Dark: An audacious episode set on a sun-less planet. The Doctor is on a rescue mission. He has a torch, but only enough batteries for 15 minutes. Every time he turns off the torch to save energy, another of his party disappear.
Episodes 11 & 12 - A Question of Time / Ready or Not: After a running thread throughout the series in which the assistant asks the Doctor for the time, he atypically responds "Dinnertime!", and takes her to an exotic restaurant in the Wolf nebula, famed for its giant sea-food. But all is not what it seems, and on reaching the carvery, the Doctor finds himself pitted once more against an old adversary, armed only with a piece of knotted elastic, a rope and an elaborately folded piece of paper. Meanwhile, his companion is forced to hide motionless in an oversized sardine tin. Can the Doctor reach the supercomputer and deactivate the deadly Lurgi bomb that is set to destroy the universe before being spotted by the enemy?
And so we reach another episode of Doctor Who. I wasn't looking forward to it, but it turned out ok, in the end: the Doctor relocated his Time Testicles at long long last. The scientist's lecture at the end did hark back somewhat to Christopher Eccleston's meal with the Slitheen woman, and took the edge off things somewhat. It also highlighted a long-standing problem with Davies-era Who: the drivable Tardis. Twas once the time that the Doctor couldn't go back and save everyone, not because it was naughty or anything but because the Tardis was so erratic and couldn't be trusted to land in the right place or time. Davies had a bit of this early on but tired of it very quickly indeed and gave us a Tardis on a piece of string. Hence the need to neuter the Doctor with time-sucking bat-creatures and the like. Now he's remembered what he's for, and he's got a Tardis that works, are the remaining two specials just going to be him messing with his own backstory? Dangerous but workable. Of more concern from this episode is the drift south of the Sheffield accent over the next 50 years (the biography we see of the black crew-member has her born and educated there).


 

Torchwood:
[Doctor Who spin-off sci-fi drama series, B3/2]
The Buffy Award 2006
October 2006
"Adult" (ie sex and swearing at every opportunity) Doctor Who spin-off (ie Angel/Buffy clone). How can it possibly fail? It's set in Cardiff. But Cardiff is the pansexual hub of the universe, and RTDavis would have it be the setting of everything. I can't begrudge him that, even though it is a bit of a dump. Being a dump can be useful, and it can't be any less a place than Sunnydale. More problematic may yet be the people in it, but so far so acceptable. In fact, as a production, it seemed more competent than the Who: less clumsy and hurried. We shall see how this third episode shapes our collective judgements.
After Ep3:
Some notes of background: I hated UNIT-era Who, wasn't especially taken by the X-Files, thoroughly enjoyed Buffy, thought Angel was great, and was more than satisfied by the new Doctor Who.
When it comes down to it, Torchwood is UNIT but with leather coats, and less of a sense of place in any kind of institutional framework. Which makes it X-Files but with leather coats and less of a sense of place in any kind of institutional framework. Which effectively makes it  "The Initiative" from the dreadful Series 4 of Buffy, but with a bit less military firepower. All the same, brr... However, in practice what we have is a series in which an unsleeping immortal male lead from some point in the past, sits and broods in art-deco surroundings, and occasionally investigates supernatural phenomena with the help of a small team of dysfunctional sidekick "experts". In other words, we have Angel.
Problem 1: It's not as funny as Angel. Angel was Boon with Monsters™. It was a proper comedy drama. This is just a drama. So far there has been little attempt to take the piss out of any characters, let alone the preposterous Captain Jack. A series set in Cardiff, in which immortal WWII pilots do battle with aliens, cannot afford to lack humour..
Problem 2: It's set in Cardiff. For some this is proving a problem. It is not a problem. It is perfectly acceptable, and no more preposterous than setting it in Sunnydale.
Problem 3: It's too big a leap from kiddy-friendly David Tenant to post-watershed bloodshed and sex. It'd've been less of a leap from Eccleston, I think. But all the same... this is hardly K9 & Company. Is it unfair to deny the sprogs this portion of the Whoniverse? To be honest I have to say that I don't really care about Problem 3.
After three episodes, it is still unclear quite what direction this series intends to take. The Weevils for instance, which look straight out of Buffy, are bound to play some role in an unfolding story arc at some point. But what will be the colour of that arc? At the moment such details are decidedly foggy, and for now it's just been a couple of standard stories that could've been used by any number of sci-fi programmes. No attempt has yet been made to dig into any of the characters, with the possible exception of that bloke that was in Bleak House. As for all that gunplay in this week's episode, I don't know what that was about but I do know that I found it a bit unsettling.
Anyway, it's early days. And I do think that the programme is well acted, well paced (that extra five minutes running time does wonders) and is polished with a glossiness usually reserved for BBC1 dramas. In fact, it makes Doctor Who look a bit cheap and rickety. But as yet it has not done anything to make it stand out as a programme in its own right.
November 2006
Torchwood, eh? What's that all about? This week's episode was the much trailed Cybergirl. But the backstory was flimsy, as was her "metal" costume (they should've retook that shot of him prodding her latex). It'd've been better if she were some Torchwood geek who'd decided to customise herself with Cyberbits, perhaps to save her life, perhaps to have superpowers. But then they'd have to rework Ianto's relationship with her. As it was, it was a bit pathetic. I'm not entirely sure why they couldn't just shoot her with conventional firearms, though I expect it was ruled out somehow. I did like the mangled Japanese bloke, and I even liked the shockingly naff pterodactyl attack. But ultimately... a bit disappointing, and surprisingly low budget.
Later:
Torchwood ploughs ever on, still failing to be all things to all people. This week we learnt that the immortal bloke has been immortal for longer than we thought. We also saw an old girlfriend of his, and yet never really sensed any genuine depth of character. Having him immortal creates lazy writing, and what's more: it's ever so slightly redolent of Angel. We've still yet to see anything of the computer woman, and the rest of the cast are barely fleshed out. The storylines could've been written for any sci-fi drama, and this one has still yet to show any sign of originality. But the biggest problem for me has been a lack of humour. I had the same problem with the X-Files. The reason Angel worked was that it wasn't dour vampire heart-throb hunts monsters, it was dour vampire heart-throb monster-hunter gets piss taken out of him by colleagues. Albeit with the odd bit of death and despair thrown in for good measure.
Later still:
This week the cast left the studio: a perfect opportunity to do something a little more interesting. Instead, the characters reached new levels of obnoxious as they ran through The Hills Have Eyes. It was a story that took predictable to new levels, and though it looked quite nice, I found it intensely annoying. The characters are still very one-dimensional. The story arc still hasn't made its presence known. In this week's Avengers, Steed and Emma joined a golf club that was selling secrets to the Eastern Bloc via a communications satellite. The broadcasts were sent from a bunker under one of the bunkers. It was moderately amusing, and somewhat imaginative. It certainly wasn't a very obvious rip-off of anything. It was very silly, and quite enjoyable. Doomwatch, a series that ran with tabloid apocalypses and took them to rather curious extremes, was also quite entertaining in a daft sort of way. And like the Avengers, it had a definite character and a whiff of originality. Torchwood... it's not gone anywhere in six episodes; it's shown no identity of its own, and its storylines could all have been better applied in sundry more distinctive series. So why am I still watching it? Well I want to see them at least attempt to flesh out Toshiko. And I'm convinced some sort of story arc is bound to show itself around this halfway point. But I am fast losing patience with the programme, and if this next episode is as bad as it looks, I can't see me making time for any more.
December 2006
Despite, or perhaps because of my immense reservations about this week's Torchwood, I actually rather enjoyed it. It was a mind-reading episode, so naturally everyone thought in perfectly formed sentences, and because Russell T. Davis has a dirty sort of mind, everyone was thinking sex. But despite this, there were, for once, moments of humour, some moderately half decent characterisation, and an entertainingly played alien. Next week, the best member of the team, so cruelly killed off in the first episode, returns for at least two minutes, which is something to perhaps look forward to. Torchwood is still no good, but at least it's demonstrated that it can be no good in a slightly entertaining way.
[The next ep was a bit rubbish, but gave us the first genuine hint of a story-arc. Albeit ripped off from Buffy. It was the ep after that, in which the team received a plane of '40s or '50s accidental time-travellers, that the series actually showed a degree of originality. Alas, it spoiled it all at the last minute when it got arc-fear and decided it had to get rid of all the new characters it had introduced. A better series (ie Buffy / Angel) would've added a new character or two to the cast; at least for a week. I understand that this is early days and so it might be harder to develop the plot like that. But they should've. The rest of the episodes toyed with the bits of arc that were left from these two eps, and we developed a moderately cohesive finalé in the last couple of episodes. But it was only in these last few eps that anything approaching an arc emerged, and it was conducted in quite a clumsy manner. The death vigil in the last episode was painful in that its conclusion was inevitable, and we never did get anywhere with the weevils. So where does that leave us? Torchwood did kick in but very late. If it gets a second season, which being B3 it might, they really need to work on a better story arc. But more importantly they need to work on the characters. Because the characters they have are so painfully non-dimensional, they're against physics. And there needs to be humour. The Sarah Jane adventures managed a bit of humility, so why not Torchwood? Or is humour not "adult" enough?]
[A second series followed in 2008, but Ivan didn't watch it.]

The Sarah Jane Adventures:
[Doctor Who spin-off childrens' sci-fi drama; B1, repeated on CBBC]
Best Spin-Off Show 2007
January 2007
The latest Tardis spin-off is a reworking of K9 and Company, with K9 curiously cast out into the abyss and off the screen. Instead, the wonderful Sarah Jane is accompanied on her eponymous adventures by a collective of children in the way that no male companion could without recourse to a sound lynching. Things would be difficult for SJ and her trio of variously annoying teens if it weren't for a small museum of time-plunder she's accrued, including an embarrassing supercomputer and a sonic lipstick. I'm not sure what I feel about the sonic lipstick. On the one hand it's fun and useful. On the other hand, why can't a girl carry a screwdriver alongside her balaclava and rawl plugs? I think if it functions as a lipstick, it should be acceptable, but I'm not so sure it does. Anyway, does all this tat amount to anything worthwhile? Well it's more worthwhile (and indeed better) than Torchwood. Shrugs of nonchalance. No, it's a perfectly good kid's show, which is what RT Davis does best at the end of the parrot. Should I, an old man, make time in my life for it when it finally goes serial? Only to see Sarah Jane dashing about the place.
[Now given a series:]
October 2007
Far more enjoyable and fun than Torchwood, yet harder to catch [Shown in the kids TV slot on B1, with a repeat on Sunday afternoon on CBBC]. And for a kiddy show it seems no less frightening than Doctor Who, and perhaps even a bit tighter than some episodes of that. Still, early days. The kiddie-stars show every potential to annoy as things progress.
It's quite good, you know. Better than Torchwood (obviously), but also worthy of the same breath as the Who. The title character has a tetchy nature like the old Doctors did, and is pleasantly uneasy with children. She'd make an interesting companion for Tennant, I think. Anyway, this week we had evil nuns and a gorgon, so all nicely scary for a 5pm slot. Not sure about the adopted alien son though, or the supercomputer Mr Smith (why not use K9 for that?).
November 2007
It had everything: time travel, erased memories, a Hellraiser cube puzzle, pointy-toothed faceless aliens in cowls, and perhaps best of all: Jane Asher. It's like they're writing this stuff especially for me. Better than most of the Doctor Who eps last season, and certainly better than Torchwood, but then I think I say that every other week. The fact that each story is spread over two episodes helps too.
Sarah Jane builds to the series climax, with a rather exciting twist: almost as good as if Billie Piper turned out to be a Dalek. For it transpires that K9 stand-in supercomputer Mr Smith (K9 unavailable due to his creator having signed him over to an Australian company for a 26-part comedy adventure series) is actually evil. Which is really quite exciting after ten episodes of him variously saving the world. Sarah Jane has given us three pretty good stories and no real duffers. It's been well put together, and has had seemingly minimal input from Russell T Davies (which appears to be a good thing). It's a shame it's hidden away in CBBC land, because it's far more entertaining than the ubiquitous Torchwood, and even gives some Doctor Whos of late a run for their money. I know I say this pretty much every week, but that is because it is true.
October 2008
Altogether a better treatment of the Sontarans than that dreadful double-header in Doctor Who this year, but still, none-the-less, a treatment of the Sontarans. Still, they pepped things up by giving us a Sontaran who'd spent the last decade watching Predator. At less than 30mins a pop and with every story a two-parter, Sarah Jane is much more like Doctor Who than the new Doctor Who is. If they could just dump the kiddies and the annoying computer, and maybe give her a time-travelling phone-box or something...
We're two stories into the second series of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Hopefully they're saving the good stories until later. In fairness the first two have been saddled with the rarely endearing task of having to tinker with the cast. The replacement girl seems perfectly up to the task, the replacement mother seems scarcely different to her predecessor, and the replacement father appears to be adequate to the job. So now the dust has just about settled we can hunker down to some better stories (fingercrossing notwithstanding).
November 2008
Sarah Jane faces her greatest enemy yet: Russ Abbot. The programme showed some improvement with a suitably Who-ish story with Russ Abbot as a possessed astrologer. Trouble is that despite its promise it will no doubt follow all too well-trod a path, ticking all the usual narrative boxes to skillfully avoid apocalypse with a cop-out conclusion. And I don't know if she's got a bad back or what, but our central character is not doing nearly enough running about.
[A week later:]
This week saw a new storyline for Sarah Jane, and, at last, one to match the high standard of the first series: magic talismans bestowing creepy, self-destructive powers; long-lost relatives appearing out of the blue; team-members having their memories erased, etc. All good, Who-ish fun.
December 2008
Last week, Sarah Jane rather idiotically destroyed the world in an episode a little too reminiscent of that Doctor Who one with Rose's dad. What's needed now is for Sarah Jane's dad to die in a car accident (and her mum too... best to be on the safe side).
Sarah Jane's parents sacrificed themselves in what was really just a rehash of that Doctor Who episode with Rose's dad. It was a bit of a disappointment but quite well done.
October 2009
If this is the future of Children's TV, then I pity the children. It's not that it's bad, because it isn't on the whole (though the first series was better than the second, both were better than the last series of Doctor Who). But it's a mess. It's part kids' show, and part fan-fodder, and the Doctor Who universe has had a few too many apocalypses now for any suburban alien comedy-drama to function in a reasonable way. Once you've had not only first contact but second, third, fourth and fifth contacts, plus small-scale interplanetary conflict and alien eugenics programmes etc, you can no-longer play the "don't be silly, there's no such thing as aliens" wacky parents routine, and once that's lost, Sarah Jane struggles to have much purpose. We're paying the price for Russell T Davies's lack of imagination.
November 2009
Last week's Sarah Jane Adventures, complete with half a dozen direct references to The Stone Tape, was appropriately scary.
This week's Sarah Jane Adventures was poor. The mild amusement of a bolshy Lancastrian Mona Lisa was all it had going for it as the story was tortured and doesn't stand much scrutiny. This was made worse by a needless scene in which one of the kids (Clyde) ascertains that one of the manifest paintings cannot speak because there is no mouth painted behind the scarf it wears over its mouth. And yet a drawn lock and a drawn K-9 when brought to life operated as if all their inner workings and mechanisms were present. Without the scene with Clyde we could've accepted the magic of the situation, but its needless inclusion broke everything. And that's just a technical issue; never mind the convoluted a-typical behaviour of the main cast, the painful stock characters etc.
[After the final episode of the series:]
Sarah Jane wrapped things up on a fairly obvious little story quite nicely handled. The closer it gets to the K-9 show, the better, I think.