Visit the official Doctor Who website

Visit the official Doctor Who website
Look to the future

Asylum seekers...

Asylum seekers...
Refuge of the Daleks

Doctor Who picture resource

Doctor Who picture resource
Roam the space lanes!

Explore the Doctor Who classic series website

Explore the Doctor Who classic series website
Step back in time

Infiltrate The Hub of Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood

Infiltrate The Hub of Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood
Armed and extremely dangerous

Investigate The Sarah Jane Adventures

Investigate The Sarah Jane Adventures
Fearless in the face of adversity

Call on Dani’s House

Call on Dani’s House
Harmer’s a charmer

Intercept the UFO fabsite

Intercept the UFO fabsite
Defending the Earth against alien invaders!

Uncover the secrets of the Dollhouse

Uncover the secrets of the Dollhouse
Programmable agent Echo exposed!

Hell’s belles

Hell’s belles
Naughty but nice

Love Exposure

Love Exposure
Flash photography!

Primeval portal

Primeval portal
Dressed to kill or damsels in distress?

Charmed, to be sure!

Charmed, to be sure!
The witches of San Francisco

Take on t.A.T.u.

Take on t.A.T.u.
All the way from Moscow

Proceed to the Luther website

Proceed to the Luther website
John and Jenny discuss their next move

DCI Banks is on the case

DCI Banks is on the case
You can bet on it!

On The Grid with Spooks

On The Grid with Spooks
Secret agents of Section D

Bridge to Hustle

Bridge to Hustle
Shady characters

Life on Ashes To Ashes

Life on Ashes To Ashes
Coppers with a chequered past

Claire’s no Exile

Claire’s no Exile
Goose steps

Vexed is back on the beat!

Vexed is back on the beat!
Mismatched DI Armstrong and bright fast-tracker Georgina Dixon

Medium, both super and natural

Medium, both super and natural
Open the door to your dreams

Who’s that girl? (350-picture Slideshow)

Saturday 17 November 2007

“All My Love To Long Ago”


“Doctor Who” was back for all of eight minutes, as part of “Children in Need” night, in a mini-episode, written by Steven Moffat and directed by Graeme Harper, entitled “Time Crash”. I’ve already seen it described, subsequently, as “Time Crap” but I thought it was good fun with a rather poignant final minute. My favourite line was actually one given to tenth Doctor David Tennant, and thus the obvious choice for the title of this post, but, overall, I thought fifth Doctor Peter Davison out-acted his successor. He was “let’s be honest, pretty sort-of-marvellous”! Readers may think I’m prejudiced in his favour because I prefer the classic series to Russell T. Davies’ reinvention but that isn’t the reason. Peter wasn’t “My Doctor”, just the better actor on this occasion. They really only got it spot on, during his era, in his final story so it was intriguing to see the actor reunited with the director of that story, “The Caves of Androzani”, for this little, well-balanced, excursion.

While David may have had the best line, the one tinged with A. E. Housman-style regret of a past long since lost, the fifth Doctor had the leading question, and the one I’ve been asking myself for the last two years, when he asks the tenth, “Is there something wrong with you?”! Perhaps David is “the decorative vegetable” rather than Peter’s stick of celery!! Steven Moffat summed up the current Doctor’s predilection for “ranting in my face about every single thing that happens to be in front of him” perfectly!!! My only regret about “Time Crash” is that it wasn’t a full-length episode. Having gone to the trouble of rehiring a popular former-leading man from the series, together with the programme’s best director of that period combined (for the first time) with the writing skills of the current series’ best author, it would’ve been nice to see the central relationship developed further… as in “The Two Doctors”, one of my “Blue Remembered Hills”. I echo the sentiment, “All My Love To Long Ago”.

6 comments:

Steve said...

I must agree - I was pleasantly surprised by the poignancy; even without having seen the earlier Doctor Who stories this little snippet had some interesting resonances and it was good to see Moffat's intelligence as a writer coming to the fore. He's thankfully very aware of the foibles of the show and the characters. My heart still sank (!) when the Titanic burst onto the scene though... still not sure about the Christmas story at all.

doppelganger said...

ah the Christmas story will be what it will be.... a bit of fun to slump in front of after tea on Christmas Day....

I liked Time Crash - it was surprisingly and unapologetically for the fanboys - I didn't even bother youtubing it for my seven year old - what would he get out of it? But it was poignant and funny and for seven minutes telly, I thought it did OK...

Andrew Glazebrook said...

For what it was I thought it was good fun, I would love to see a proper episode with Davison back though.
Oh yeah, I've book marked you from My Blog of War

TimeWarden said...

The Christmas episode will be ridiculous but, at least, I don't mind Kylie, despite not caring for her in the 80s. As for next year, let's just say I'm not too keen on Catherine Tate!

Agreed with you all that "Time Crash" did the job well and I'm hoping that Moffat's episodes, next year, will be directed by Harper then we just might be in business for a couple of weeks!

Thank you for book marking me, Andrew.

Old Cheeser said...

David Tennant was back to his flippant, hyper-active, jumpy self again. It's no wonder the Fifth Dr got so annoyed with him!

I too agree (as I said on my comment on your other post) that it was a shame the episode wasn't a full-length one - you're right - if they were bringing back an old Doc and using a decent writer we could have done with something more developed than this. A nice little one-off, but nothing massively substantial, methinks.

TimeWarden said...

Agreed, Simon, David Tennant was particularly bug-eyed at the start of the story! I think that's his Tom Baker!!

I suppose the shortness of "Time Crash" supports the old adage "always leave the audience wanting more"!