Now's the Time
Friday June 13, 2008 in television | doctor who
When interviewed, Doctor Who supremos Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat always say that they judge a good Doctor Who story by the reaction of children. In 1963, playgrounds were full of kids screaming “Ex-terminate!”. Ten years later, when I was a small child, the playgrounds were full of the less remembered but still absolutely terrifying Green Death, where my little gang played at escaping from giant, deadly Welsh maggots. Three years ago, when the series was revived, the sound of “Ex-terminate” echoing from a school playground as I strolled past brought a small tear to my eye. Since then, the playground has cowered to the cries of the Moffat-penned terrors “are you my mummy?”, “don’t blink” and now “hey, who turned out the lights?”.
Moffat, who is about to replace Davies as head writer on Doctor Who, is writing some of the best television of recent years. I began to realise that the new Doctor Who was something quite special with the Moffat two-parter of series one The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances which introduced the “are you my mummy?” line. It also introduced Captain Jack Harkness, and the dark WWII-themed story suggested that Doctor Who could be much more than screaming metal monsters. Moffat followed this in the second series with The Girl in the Fireplace, an imaginitive story that nicely played on the woes of time travel, but the writer made his mark in series three with the BAFTA award winning Blink. The Doctor as a DVD extra, more time woes and capers and some very scary stone statues, Blink deserved all of its praise that has already made it classic tv.
Blink has given Steven Moffat a level of writerly fame, and his two-part story for series four was long-awaited. I was anxious about Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead as he’d raised the stakes so high. Luckily, I got the setting just right in order to calm my nerves. Strangely, for reasons beyond the boundaries of this post, I came to watch Silence in the Library with three children in a small … library. A perfect, eerie and uncannily – quiet – setting. Well written, brilliantly acted, odd, confusing, clever but most importantly scary, the episode had me transfixed along with my three small companions. I was even treated to a pre-playground frenzy on the Sunday morning, with cries of “hey, who turned out the lights?” and “now you be the monster!”
Forest of the Dead confirmed Moffat’s greatness for me. This was a beautiful, multi-layered episode, that has me thinking about the themes it had introduced on the next Sunday morning, where kids were still running around scaring eachother. David Tennant’s portrayal of The Doctor is really something special, and Catherine Tate, who I admit to having doubts over, is also impressive as Donna. What’s best about it is that Moffat et al are really trying hard to make this good; rather that producing a visually impressive yet simple programme, Doctor Who dares to challenge its own mythology and its own audience. And The Doctor certainly carries some mythology, the mysterious 900 year old who we’ve known since 1963 yet we don’t even know his name. Although that’s reserved for people really special…
Doctor Who. Certainly my favourite television since 2005, and possibly since The Green Death in 1973 too.