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.
The Saturday night TV series Primeval has been billed as ITV’s answer to Doctor Who. It’s taken them long enough to think of something – or has it? Charlie Brooker, in his entertaining Screenwipes on BBC4, sees Sapphire and Steel as ITV’s original rival to Doctor Who. There’s also The Tomorrow People, which ran for a few years in the 70s, and let’s not forget Space 1999, Gerry Anderson’s short lived effort also from the same period. But let’s face it, ITV’s competition to Doctor Who has always been a bit thin on the ground.
So how does Primeval fare? Pretty good, at least in my house. It’s better than Torchwood, and after watching the final episode on Saturday I’m going to suggest that it might be better than Doctor Who. Primeval is about Professor Nick Cutter, played by Douglas Henshall, and his small team of young and attractive people who are investigating an outbreak of anomalies. This is a word that crops up quite frequently in the series, and an anomaly in this context is a hole in time (or something like that) which gives the excuse for Primeval‘s main premise – all sorts of dangerous prehistoric monsters sneaking through the anomalies and rampaging around in modern settings.
Scenarios so far have included:
- A dinosaur rampaging through some woods and deliberately terrorising a small boy
- Huge scorpions loose on the London Underground
- A prehistoric crocodile at large
- Dodos. Okay – not very frightening – but these ones carry a rather nasty parasite
- A homage to Hitchcock’s The Birds with the skies full of prehistoric winged creatures
- Just as we’re becoming over familiar with prehistoric monsters, a dangerous predator from the future
Primeval also has a subplot involving Cutter’s wife Helen, missing and presumed dead until she is discovered living in and out of the anomalies. She knows a lot about what’s going on, much more than she’s prepared to let on. She’s also one of the most headstrong female characters I’ve ever seen in a British TV series, somebody for who the term doesn’t suffer fools glady is most apt. She won’t take any shit, and when it’s Helen materialising from an anomaly instead of a 20 foot dinosaur I’m more afraid.
Character-wise, there’s a lot for the viewer to get their teeth into, with several interlocking love triangles being revealed as the series progressed. Apparently Hannah Spearitt has caused quite a stir by skipping around in her panties, and if you search for Primeval on YouTube these are the scenes that you are most likely to find. All of the actors make a good job of making the preposterous premise believable, and Ben Miller provides a comic turn as a disbelieving top civil servant.
The series manages to pull off all of the ridiculous situations it throws at us, there’s some outstanding special effects (are we supposed to say “CGI” these days?), and – unlike Torchwood – all of the supporting team are quite likeable. Primeval also had one of the best cliffhanger endings for its final episode that I’ve ever seen, throwing the gauntlet down at Doctor Who‘s feet and shouting “touché!”
Opening Titles
Saturday February 17, 2007
in television |
Before the web, some of the most memorable opening sequences of TV shows only existed in my memory. Others cropped up now and again in late night slots on strange channels, or on DVD releases. Now, courtesy of YouTube, I can at last indulge myself.
Here’s a few of my favourites. What surprised me the most about rediscovering the following was just how short they are. Lasting at around a minute or two in length – many only a few seconds – they succeed in setting the perfect atmosphere for the series they are introducing.
Friday Sci-Fi: Quatermass
Stone circles, strange cults, mankind in danger and an alien menace. For a twelve year old boy, need they be tempted any more? At that age I absolutely relished the Euston Films adaptation of Quatermass starring John Mills. Broadcast in four weekly instalments, I fought – and won – battles with my parents to be allowed to stay up and watch it in the post-watershed slot…
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