Smith and Jones - In Pictures

Walking on the Moon

With “Smith and Jones”, “Doctor Who” was back with a bang! A better season opener than either of its two predecessors, I only wish an episode as strong as this had heralded the programme’s return a couple of years back. It got the balance right between domestic and universal. Martha’s family problems were only allowed to top and tail the episode not dominate the entire proceedings. What happened in-between highlighted the triviality of those everyday concerns.

The problem, of course, is that Martha’s family follows Rose’s, which on paper makes it sound like a new family has moved into the square, umm… street, sorry TARDIS! If Rose’s family hadn’t preceded Martha’s I wouldn’t be focusing on it now because, despite Martha’s Dad’s airhead bimbo of a girlfriend, her family weren’t overwhelming for the viewer even if they were for each other!

Russell wrote Roy Marsden out too quickly for my liking, also, which is another trait of new “Who”. Every year this happens with only a short amount of airtime given to quality guests such as Richard Wilson and Don Warrington. Good actors obviously don’t come cheap so I suspect they’re hired for a short space of time in order to lay claim to having had them on the show! Anyway, Roy had the best line, at least the one that made me laugh-out-loud, albeit lifted from “Fawlty Towers”, as he walked away from patient “John Smith” recommending a full psychiatric review!!

Anne Reid was the main guest of the episode and she clearly relished her role. She was more memorable in this than “The Curse of Fenric” although I’m not for one minute saying that “Smith and Jones” is better than my favourite McCoy serial. And Freema was terrific. For my money, miles better than Rose because she is playing an intellectually, not emotionally, more intelligent character and hopefully won’t be prone to bouts of tears every few minutes.

I hope the audience picked up on all the clues. The Doctor’s passing reference to once having had a brother. Now, I wonder who that could be?!! That could be the red herring that RTD has slipped in to put the fan forums into meltdown, never to be mentioned again, or might conceivably be connected to the posters in the alleyways urging us to vote Saxon! As I’m sure everyone knows by now, a certain actor from “Life on Mars” has been cast to play the villainous black-suited Mr Saxon in the final two episodes. Now, again, I wonder who Saxon could really be?!!

I really hope the rest of the season is as strong as the first episode and doesn’t let up like it did after the black hole story last year. Even so, I couldn’t help thinking “Smith and Jones” would’ve made an even better four-parter with the cliff-hangers coming where Florence is revealed to be more than just a little old lady, where the marvellous Judoon march inexorably towards Martha, the audience in the knowledge she contains Time Lord DNA, and finally, and very traditionally, where the Doctor is believed dead. However, “Doctor Who” seems very much back on his/its feet, with or without trainers!!!

Fly me to the Moon!

The strange thing about “Doctor Who”, this time around, is that it does actually feel like a new beginning. Whereas tenth Doctor David Tennant seemed to slip into his jimjams through a side door the Christmas before last, in “The Christmas Invasion”, it seems now as though the show is starting over. This probably is because our way into each story will be from the perspective of a new character, Martha Jones. When the Doctor regenerates, he is still essentially the same man, the same character, just played by a different actor. When the companion changes, with the exception of Time Lady Romana, it is into a new character, even though she (or he) fulfils the same function. With the latest change, the potential for new beginnings is even greater because not only has Rose gone but she has, one presumes, taken the baggage of her entire family with her. No more Pete, no more Jackie, no more Mickey and no more Rose!

Donna was a stop gap. Maybe Executive Producer Russell T Davies thought better of the way such a major character as the show’s lead was introduced last time. When you think about it, to be born in a little “Children in Need” sketch is a little strange for a show of such longevity. Then, it was well into his first full story before the Doctor eventually came to the rescue! I notice that David is once again in his pyjamas for this fresh start almost as though he’s awoken to the dawn of a new day, although his attire is appropriate for the setting of a hospital! But let’s hope the breakfast is completely fresh. Martha is coming with her own baggage. Another family! And this suggests a lack of creativity. “Doctor Who” has done that for two years and it’s time for change. It remains to be seen how big a role Martha’s family will play. I found Rose’s Mum a major irritant, and it wasn’t entirely because of Camille Coduri who I’ve liked in other things, and was always grateful for the stories from which she was absent! I didn’t even want to be reminded of her, as I was briefly, in “The Impossible Planet”!!

Looking on the bright side, it’s a promising start to set the bulk of the first episode on the Moon. No Powell Estate in any of the craters, I hope! Just an hospital uprooted and transported through space. Daft it sounds but it’s no use diehard fans complaining as “Doctor Who” has done this kind of thing before with UNIT HQ in “The Three Doctors”. I wondered then as I wonder now, what about the building’s foundations?!! Even better is the look of the helmeted Judoon. Yes, they look like Sontaran rip-offs but at least they have been designed with a passing acknowledgement of the show’s history. I really hope we get to see them on the Moon’s surface as we did the Cybermen in Troughton serial “The Moonbase”. And, last but not least, two terrific guest actors to die for, in the first episode alone. Mrs Rouncewell from “Bleak House”, actress Anne Reid as Florence Finnegan, and soft-spoken Roy Marsden as consultant Mr Stoker, of the Royal Hope Hospital. With such Royalty of the acting profession involved, I am, as ever, hopeful. “Smith and Jones”, the first in a new series of “Doctor Who” can be seen this Saturday, 31st March, at 7pm. Be there, if you dare!

Anne Reid & Roy Marsden in "Smith and Jones"

The New Who

The new series of “Doctor Who” has the potential to be terrific. Both of the forty-second trailers look good. It’s obvious that, once again, plenty of money has been lavished on the show, which could of course be its undoing, but the biggest problem, in my opinion, is the writers’ allowing the curbing of their imaginations. “Doctor Who” made by committee doesn’t make good “Doctor Who”. I’m optimistic though. I want it to be good. I want it to be as terrific as the trailers suggest it’s going to be.

As well as featuring clips from early episodes of the new series up to and including the two-part Dalek story, this first trailer is heavily geared towards promoting the first episode with plenty of those intergalactic alien storm troopers, known as the Judoon Platoon, on the rampage in search of Plasmavore Florence played by Anne Reid. Recently seen opposite Catherine Tate in “The Bad Mother’s Handbook”, this well-respected actress has already guest-starred in “Doctor Who”. She played Nurse Crane in “The Curse of Fenric” almost two decades ago. Back in 1989, she was up against the Haemovores and now she is one… well, almost!

Also starring in the opening story, “Smith and Jones”, is Roy Marsden as Mr. Stoker, best known as the ITV version of P D James’s cultured detective Commander Adam Dalgliesh. Roy has also had a previous brush with “Doctor Who”, although a little more recently than Anne. He’s just been heard in the latest audio series on BBC7, opposite Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith, in the closing two-part Cybermen story “Human Resources”. He’s had a long and illustrious career that includes appearances in “Space: 1999”, the feature-length Sherlock Holmes story “The Last Vampyre”, and “Only Fools and Horses”. Eight days and counting!