aRTy without the Drivel!

The beauty of a “Doctor Who” Radio Times cover is that you can admire the visual without having to listen to what passes for a script in this day and age, not unlike watching Girls Aloud or the Sugababes on television with the sound switched off!

The opening couple of minutes of “The Next Doctor”, seen twice on “Children in Need”, showed exactly where Russell’s mind is at, regarding a possible future incarnation of the lead character… and I’m talking about the Doctor, not his companion! The next Doctor’s few lines of dialogue were enough to present its audience with an identikit version of the current incumbent of the TARDIS.

I believed David Morrissey would make an interestingly swarthy Doctor, well before I knew he’d been cast in this year’s Christmas Special. When I saw him as Colonel Brandon in “Sense and Sensibility”, at the very beginning of the year, I thought there’s your man!

But, folks, like Mr. Morrissey’s immediate predecessor and his predecessor before him (that’s Chris Eccleston, if you’ve lost me!) Morrissey’s Doctor is incorrigibly rude and very up his own bottom!! RTD’s Doctors will always be characterised thus so it doesn’t really matter who the eleventh Doctor will be…

More pertinent a question is whether or not the style of writing will change radically under a new leadership, if indeed there really is a new man at the helm of “Doctor Who”. Russell, it seems, is holding onto the reigns of “The Sarah Jane Adventures” which also refuses to move forward following the introduction of… yawn… a new family. Pretty as Rani is, she has yet to make her mark!

I’m ever hopeful “The Next Doctor” will surprise me. I know David Morrissey is simply playing what’s written, and following orders like John Simm before him, but I’m praying the new arrival will still shine, despite!

Three reasons to look forward to the “Doctor Who” Christmas Special include David Morrissey, the return of the Cybermen (even despite their bastardisation, it’s about time a familiar foe was featured in a festive instalment), and the fact that part of the story was filmed in College Green in my hometown.

High Five!

If you missed the mini-episode of “Doctor Who” during “Children in Need” on Friday, or would just like to see it again, here’s an easy way to view the programme. It holds up well under repeated viewing. As well as “Time Crash” itself, I’ve also included the accompanying “Confidential” documentary for the complete experience!

“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”.