Last Saturday marked the passing of Doctor Who Series Four. This was possibly my favourite series so far, with the excellent Catherine Tate proving all of my original doubts about her wrong. Doctor Who fans speak these days of story arcs, and the Doctor-Donna story of 2008, including in no particular order the return of Rose, the emergence of the Doctor’s daughter, the inevitable resurrection of the Daleks and a supporting turn from the brilliant Bernard Cribbins, had me hooked.
Our house was packed with Who fans young and old last weekend and the final episode left us exhausted. Adults and children sat around the table confused and dumbstruck, raising their heads to start talking only to sink back into inner thoughts. It was just too much to absorb. Two Doctors (or was it three?), practically everyone the Doctor has ever befriended in the last four years (Captain Jack, Donna, Rose, Martha and even Sarah Jane who he’s known since the early 70s), Davros at his most insane (and at last played by a decent actor – Julian Bleach) and a final wrapping up of the Bad Wolf ending from two years ago. Just too much for my simple mind – for a moment I needed a nearby Time Lord to come along and wipe my memory clean to stop my head exploding…
But what – I think – we learn from it is several things.
That head writer Russel T. Davies will pull all the stops out on an ordinary day, but pull a muscle when it comes to end of season.
That we’ll face a familiar foe in episodes 12 and 13. Last year the Master, this year the creator of the Daleks.
That the Doctor will always, always end up on his own. So what better way to highlight this than to surround him with all his friends and then pluck them all away, one by one. I’ve noticed that, when he’s on his own, the Tardis looks huge with just him standing there in the control room. And the camera likes to dwell on that.
That we’ll want to buy the DVD of the series when it comes out, to check and recheck all of the clues. The references to “The Medusa Cascade” and “the Doctor-Donna” (not to mention “your Song will end soon” – I got that one). The Rose sightings. The whispering in ears. The name (or lack of) theme. The hand. The timey wimey stuff.
So tonight I sat down with my daughter and we watched the BBC Three repeat. The episode was still confusing, but it was the last fifteen minutes or so that got me. Brilliantly written and acted and just painfully sad. The Bad Wolf business was superbly done, but what was just sensational was the conclusion to the Donna Noble story. I just found it very moving that once the Doctor had introduced Rose to the earlier angry, immature, dangerous version of himself ready for taming he suddenly faces the earlier, less travelled, less enlightened Donna. And there’s nothing he can do about it. So while Rose gets a rougher version of her man, the Doctor nods goodbye to the original incarnation of his best pal. And the sight of the scared Donna pleading “don’t let me go back there!” as he approaches her to wipe that dangerous memory was, for just a tv show, heartbreaking. And the final Cribbins/Tennant scene was an absolute joy.
Of course, if you’ve not seen it yet this post is meaningless to you. Don’t take what I’ve said as spoilers, just enhancements to the story arc. All I really wanted to say was well done Russell T. Davies for having a nine year old and a man fast approaching middle age in tears at the same time. I never thought I’d see the day.
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.
A big chunk of our home life disappeared last Saturday. Zap and it was gone. Or, more appropriately, it dematerialised whilst accompanied by a familiar high pitched whirring.
For 13 weeks my family have been glued to Doctor Who, witnessing encounters with William Shakespeare, Daleks and pig men, terrifying stone statues, menacing scarecrows and the return of The Master. All in all it’s been an excellent ride, and although the two part finale has received some criticism for being too ridiculous I’m refusing to knock the series. The period between 1989 and 2005 was a fallow one for TV sci-fi, wasn’t it?
Most enjoyable for me has been the opportunity to enjoy this with my daughter. With perfect timing, the BBC decide to bring back Doctor Who just when she is at the right age to enjoy it, understand it and be scared by it. Our favourite episode of this last series by far was called Blink. It was inventive, unusual and – oh yes – quite scary. I’ve watched it three times now and it improves with viewing; the plot is quite complex and it includes an excellent one-off character called Sally Sparrow (who many Who fans have been demanding to be picked as the Time Lord’s next companion – although this is not (yet) to be).
Blink was this year’s Doctor Who lite episode, where The Doctor doesn’t actually feature much in the action. He’s on the periphery, appearing only briefly (mostly as a mysterious extra feature on a DVD) whilst others (namely Miss Sparrow) have to sort everything out instead. The Weeping Angels, the terrifying stone statues, do terrible things to people who happen to avert their gaze from them. Hence the DVD Doctor’s warning don’t blink. Despite this, my daughter was unable to look at all on first viewing.
Other highlights for me have included the excellent Human Nature episode, where we meet a man called John Smith, a teacher in 1913 who looks just like … well, you know who. Cue a very clever story about a Time Lord’s ability to disguise himself as a human, all with the aid of a pocket watch. This paved the way to another series highlight, where a bumbling professor played by Derek Jacobi is plagued by voices and dizzy spells … something to do with a pocket watch and a twist I didn’t see coming…
This series has been controversial partly because of the new assistant Martha Jones (to some an unpolular choice), and partly because of the two part finale already mentioned, which has led to accusations that head writer Russell T. Davies might not be able to hack it as a sci-fi scribe. Many tabloids were claiming that the actress who plays Martha had been sacked; the final scenes left it open whether she would return for Series Four. In the last week announcements regarding the future of Doctor Who have come with a regularity that’s as exciting as the series itself. Martha will be coming back at some point but only after a spell in Torchwood, Kylie Minogue will be guesting in this year’s Christmas special, Catherine Tate will become the Doctor’s new companion. A surprising choice but I still can’t wait, and I’m not going to use her famous catchphrase as part of this post.
A friend of mine was enthusing about the new Who the other day, saying he thought it had captured everyone’s imagination. He’s right. The ratings are high, and the Minogue story is deemed worthy of a BBC News item. The best thing about Doctor Who is being able to talk about it without it seeming childish. I feel (within reason) that I can go up to people and ask “did you realise that Captain Jack was the face of Bo?” or “is The Master really dead now?” But I hope I can still take it all with a pinch of salt.
“If Jack went back in time to 1869, how come he didn’t meet any other incarnations of The Doctor..?”
“At the end, the Prime Minister had still murdered his entire cabinet, so what happens about that..?”
““Who picked up the ring at the end, was it The Master’s wife..?”
“Was it Catherine Tate..?”
Okay, I’ll stop now…
When I was my daughter’s age, Tom Baker as Doctor Who witnessed the The Genesis of The Daleks. Thirty or so years on, I’m sitting down with my family to watch further revelations about them with David Tennant as the Time Lord. Time really does fly.
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