"Who" can't please everyone...

I have read so much dissatisfaction over RTD's treatment of "Doctor Who", some of which I feel myself, that it starts to become depressing! The series that began with "Rose" is a new beast and we're all wasting our time hoping the show will genuinely, as we see it, revisit its glory days. That's why this is the second season and not the 28th. Whatever your opinions on the late-Eighties' episodes, "Who" was still identifiably the same series as began in '63. As it is now, "Doctor Who" has lost its single-most major asset - the original format of a series of serials in 25-minute instalments. I believe that is more fundamental to the artistic success of the show than the inclusion of Daleks, Cybermen, Autons, K9, Sarah Jane and even the beloved blue Police Box!!

I understand why the old format went. A four-parter where no one likes the first episode means having to wait a month for a new story. You lose your audience, very quickly, in a world where the quick fix is all. New "Doctor Who" might have worked better if RTD had adopted the season 22 structure of five two-parters and a three. I would've lengthened the episodes to fifty minutes (another dying breed these days in favour of sixty - only "Casualty" remains), run it for ten weeks, like "Spooks" (and "Bugs" before it), and show the three-parter at Christmas (on consecutive nights) as with "Only Fools and Horses".

New "Doctor Who" has as much in common with the original series as did Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer's "Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)" with the Mike Pratt and Kenneth Cope original. The title and the basic premise! We can either accept new "Who" for what it is, and, like most things in life, it's a mix of good and not-quite-so good, or give up and wait for its next incarnation! It could be a long wait and might be even worse. I wouldn't watch, for example, if Robbie Williams was cast as the Doctor but I'm sure that would appeal to many "casual" viewers. RTD knew die-hard fans wouldn't like his approach when he said it isn't intended for us. The constructively critical "Doctor Who" fan, and there's nothing wrong with belonging to that subsect, was never the targeted audience even though I'm sure we are nonetheless welcome.

The Faceless Ones!

Everybody watching David Tennant and Billie Piper, every Saturday evening, knows what the Doctor and Rose look like, knows their mannerisms and inflections of speech, but an actor, on the television, has no idea of the appearance or attitudes of his or her audience. Probably just as well, I hear you cry! But the point is, to the Thespian breed, we are the faceless ones. This, I believe, was the purpose of the villain, enigmatically known as the Wire, removing the facial characteristics of all those watching their newly acquired television sets in the latest episode of the second series of revamped "Doctor Who", aptly entitled "The Idiot's Lantern" - after an expression coined in the Fifties to express disapproval of this new means of keeping oneself entertained!

Mark Gatiss turned in a script of great clarity. The writer left his spectators in no doubt as to the nature of the subtext, and moral message, behind his story, encouraging us to apply some thought right from the off as Maureen Lipman infers we should be inclusive of both sexes. Equality and tolerance were the themes behind this sojourn back to the day before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. On the day itself, as everyone gathered round, Tommy's Mum plucked up enough courage to rid herself of the monster within, her bullying husband Eddie, but I couldn't help feeling she should've asked the aunt to leave as well for suggesting the use of violence against the boy to change his ways. But life is never straightforward and Rose encouraging Tommy not to abandon his father altogether was a seemingly simple but sublime touch that got straight to the heart of the domestic approach to "Doctor Who" that RTD has been striving for and which Ruth Rendell's "Inspector Wexford" carries off with effortless ease.

It was difficult to follow the explosive nature of the previous two-part Cybermen story but it was intelligently done and without a slowing of the pace. The editing was extremely fast. Just look at the scene where Rose follows the Doctor down the stairs. Being set in the Fifties, I had expected a fun story along the lines of "Delta and the Bannermen". I will probably incur the wrath of many "Doctor Who" fans for admitting a liking for that story! However, "The Idiot's Lantern" was entirely different. And, while Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard were referenced, so, too, was Kylie Minogue, thus helping to make the present story pertinent to a modern day audience, in case they felt excluded through not knowing the era. A good morality tale though is timeless, always relevant. As my English teacher, from my school days, said, "Literature's news that stays news"!

Just the Doctor and Rose?

The TARDIS "family" seems to be very dysfunctional, in "Doctor Who", under the guidance of Russell T Davies! The departure of Mickey, at the end of "The Age of Steel", means that Rose has seen off no less then three male companions in the space of just twenty episodes, less if you take into consideration that the first of this triumvirate, Adam, only joined the crew at the end of "Dalek", last year's sixth episode. He was dumped a week later, in, for him, the inappropriately titled "The Long Game", and after Rose redeemed her Dad in "Father's Day", Captain Jack hopped on board in the tenth episode, "The Doctor Dances"!

Jack Harkness lasted all of another three weeks before being killed off, brought back to life, then left behind in the appropriately titled final episode of the first season, "The Parting of the Ways"! And now, last year's finale has essentially been remade, not just with the Cyber Controller replacing the Emperor Dalek in grandiosity, but by following the death of Ricky with his "rebirth" in Mickey and, this time, having the companion opting to stay behind after another similarly short stay aboard the Doctor's transcendental ship.

With a similar dynamic, I can think of only one other companion who has remained in the series through the successive terms of three other companions of the opposite sex and his name was Jamie. But at least Polly, Victoria and Zoe lasted, approximately, a whole season each, and in the Sixties a season meant a season! The programme was, virtually, on screen all year round. These days, you get the feeling we are being treated to bite-size companions, to go with our beloved chips! I have wondered if Russell wants to work through as many combinations as possible, as quickly as possible, in case it should all end tomorrow! The original, so-called "classic", series ran for twenty-six seasons. I know it's all relative but that really was playing "The Long Game"!

One of the interesting things about the recent two-part Cybermen story was an acknowledgement that the creatures had only been defeated in London. In previous "classic" adventures, it was always understood by the viewer that once victory over an enemy is attained, the triumph is worldwide. Presuming Cybus Industries are global, as we are told, surely the irony of the conclusion of "The Age of Steel" is that the signal from Rose's mobile phone would have disenabled the entire Cyber force. For once, there is the means to accomplish what was always assumed but it isn't acted upon, in favour of sending Mickey off, in his new role as freedom fighter, to Paris, for some unexplained reason, to have a go at the French Cybermen! Perhaps he was taken by his all-too-brief meeting with mistress Madame Reinette a couple of weeks ago!!

Staying Steely-eyed!

I have read a fair amount of criticism concerning the most recent episode of "Doctor Who", "Rise of the Cybermen". The finger of failure seems pointed at Graeme Harper but I don't believe any shortcomings, in the latest adventure, should be attributed to him. He has been given a script to work with, from which he cannot radically depart! He has said he wasn't sure about revealing even the silhouette of the creature in the teaser sequence but that Russell T Davies insisted. If Graeme is interested in further work on the show, he's not exactly in a position to argue! In the commentary on this episode, he refers back to his previous work on the show, during the Eighties, as "in his day", thus revealing he sees this outing as a second lease of life.

It has been a tradition in Cybermen stories, with some notable exceptions, to keep their initial appearance back until the mid-point of the story and this he did, save the aforementioned pre-titles suggestion. With the word Cybermen in the title, everyone was watching and waiting for them to appear, me included! Had they appeared halfway through the 46-minute episode, the same criticism that was made against "Attack of the Cybermen", in 1985, would have applied; namely, that two twenty-five minute episodes had simply been joined together. Here was an attempt, successful or not, within the current style of "Doctor Who", to structure the episode according to its length and build to the smashing revelation!

This Saturday, there will be no waiting! The Cybermen will be in it throughout. I hope nobody attributes the supposed slower pace of the first episode, of what is a two-part story, to the fact that Graeme is approximately 20 years older than other directors on the series. He has learnt from experience and gave us the strongest mid-point of any of his "Doctor Who" stories. Using traditional low angles and wide lens shots of real actors in full Cyber-regalia is preferable to CGI any day. You feel their physical presence! Breaking through the panes of glass reminded me of the Sixties' Cybermen breaking out of their tomb on Telos. Harper's imagery will stay in the minds of today's children as much as previous, now iconic, representations have stayed with us. The Doctor crashing through a mirror on horseback, reinforced with a knowing wink seemingly to Reinette but really for the benefit of the audience, from the previous story, is another such image.

Mickey, mumbling ominously about being nothing more than a "spare part", near the beginning of "Rise of the Cybermen", not only references the Big Finish audio detailing the creation of the Cybermen, obviously an influence on the current story, but is also how the Cybermen describe themselves in their original story, "The Tenth Planet". An interesting turn of events might be if Mickey is "upgraded", in an act of self-sacrifice, while Ricky, his less-likeable doppelgänger, gets to join the crew of the TARDIS! Something similar was done with Chief O'Brien in an episode of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine", though immediately forgotten the following week! This would go some way to explaining the ninth Doctor's inability to call Mickey by his correct name, other than sarcasm or indifference.

Of course, other aspects of the story may try one's patience. I'm sure you know which character I'm thinking about, or trying not to! As predicted, this being an alternate Earth, Jackie wasn't indeed her usual self... She was even worse!! I'm sure, with that sharp tongue of hers, she could talk to death, the Cyberman which followed her down into the cellar, as part of the double cliffhanger!!! She'll probably rise from the grave singing "I will Survive", which would be no less camp than Tight Fit's "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"! As an aside, there's a more unusual version of that song, which could've been used instead, by current U2 producer Brian Eno, recorded after leaving Roxy Music in the mid-Seventies. But I digress... I'll leave you with the thought that isn't the above image of the Cyber Controller, from this Saturday's forthcoming episode, starting at the earlier time of 6.35pm, entitled "The Age of Steel", reminiscent of H R Giger's designs for Ridley Scott's 1979 film "Alien"?

Mondas, Telos, Hippie Daze!

I'm really looking forward to the next couple of episodes of "Doctor Who". The Cybermen are back, after an 18-year absence, and they're back in force! Coincidence or otherwise, it's also actually 40 years since they first appeared, opposite original Doctor William Hartnell in "The Tenth Planet", leading up to his, the initial, regeneration back in 1966. My anticipation over the return of the Daleks, last year, became a little curbed when I learnt there was only going to be one in their first story. The whole point of them had always suggested a Nazi army of tinpot dictators milling around their control room waiting for the command to "Exterminate".

"Dalek" turned out to be a good episode but it was still a distinctly odd way of reintroducing Skaro's finest to those of us already in the know and an even odder way of introducing them to a new audience. Then, when the Daleks did turn up en masse, it wasn't until Rose and the Doctor had spent almost an entire episode getting past friend-of-the-Welsh Anne Robinson and failed chat show hostess Da Vinci McCold! Autons in wedding dresses, the now ex-presenters of "What Not to Wear", and, most recently, clockwork droids masquerading at a lavish French ball! What is it with Russell and robots in fancy dress?!! There are maybe better ways of keeping us in suspenders!

I have to admit, after Sarah Jane and K9, I really wanted to skip the next episode, as much as I love Lady Penelope, and continue with "Rise of the Cybermen". It's not just the Cybermen attracting me to this pair of episodes either. It's the Cybermen directed by Graeme Harper. Yes, you knew I'd mention him sooner or later! It's 21 years since his last directorial contribution to our favourite programme and where would Eighties "Doctor Who" be without "The Caves of Androzani" and "Revelation of the Daleks"? Yes, you knew I'd mention them as well!! Anyway, the point is it's a double return, like "School Reunion". It's his work you'll see on screen, after all.

There's even more! Roger Lloyd Pack guest stars in "Rise of the Cybermen" and "The Age of Steel" as wheelchair-bound cyber-creator John Lumic. Best known for snogging Dawn French in "The Vicar of Dibley" and, of course, as Trigger in "Only Fools and Horses", he also showed he is quite capable of serious roles in a recent episode of "Doc Martin". When he comes face-to-face with the Doctor though, how on earth will he be able to stop himself from saying "Hello, Dave"?!! The other big name is Don Warrington, playing the President, possibly most famous as the butt of Rigsby's jokes, as tenant Philip, in Seventies' sitcom "Rising Damp". If you're familiar with "Revelation of the Daleks", you might also recognise Colin Spaull who played Lilt in that story and here appears as Mr Crane.

The story is set on an alternate Earth so, hopefully, Jackie won't be her usual self! Something like the Brigade Leader, from the soon-to-be-released (on DVD) 1970 Jon Pertwee story "Inferno", would be good, but without the eye patch! Rumour has it, Jackie falls for John. I wonder how Rose's late father, Pete, will feel about that?!! Let's hope the domestic side of the plot doesn't dominate but that the Cybermen do! I would like to see the Cyber army seemingly invincible as they were in what I think is their best story, "The Invasion". There are also rumours that, in this dimension, and like the aforementioned "Inferno", Earth falls. We don't have long to wait now and yet it seems like an eternity...

From time to time...

Steven Moffat became the first writer, other than head honcho RTD of course, to return to the fold of new "Doctor Who" scribes with the fourth episode in the new series, "The Girl in the Fireplace". Expectations were high because Steven penned the most successful story of the first season but I was concerned this brief encounter between the Doctor and Madame de Pompadour might become lost, sandwiched between the return of great programme icons Sarah Jane Smith and K9, last weekend, and the Cybermen, returning to our screens from next Saturday. This is probably why Steven was allocated this episode in the run, to make sure of a strong script, one impossible to forget.

From the outset, one knows, stylistically, this is by the same author as "The Empty Child", as the opening mystery is set up. Within just a few brief moments, the audience is asking how does Mme de Pompadour know of the Doctor in order to call on him for help when the court of Versailles, back in 18th-century France, falls under attack from futuristic killer clockwork droids?

Steven seems particularly adept at writing for children, evidenced, on this occasion, when the Doctor first meets the woman, during her childhood, who was destined to become the mistress of Louis XV. Without the aid of his TARDIS, made all but redundant with the time-portal plot device, the Doctor drops in on her on a number of occasions, between the ages of 7, when she is marvellously played by Jessica Atkins before, in adulthood, being portrayed by Sophia Myles, and 37 but, rather poignantly, misses a final meeting due to her natural but untimely death at the age of 43. Ben Turner, as King Louis, handles the dialogue with great sensitivity during the closing stages of the drama.

School Report

History is important! The past informs the present and this proved to be the case in the third episode in the new series of "Doctor Who", "School Reunion". It wasn't really about the evil Krillitanes, the not-so evil K9 ("Bad dog!", "Affirmative!!"), or even the lovely Elisabeth Sladen returning as the even lovelier Sarah Jane Smith, which was all icing on the cake to set up the scene outside the cafe between the two present incumbents of the TARDIS. Russell T Davies had already said this story wasn't intended as a nostalgia-fest for older fans but to enlighten the present relationship, between the tenth Doctor and Rose, and this is exactly what Toby Whithouse's script delivered.

But beyond shedding more light on the Doctor and Rose's relationship, "School Reunion" was meant to make us think about the transient nature of our own lives when measured against the infinity of time. Existence is fleeting, unless you're the Doctor, so make the best of your time alive, was this week's life lesson! This is big philosophical stuff, equal to that oft-quoted finale of "Genesis of the Daleks", and serves to reinforce ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston's parting shot telling Rose to "Have a good life".

Rose can spend her entire life with the Doctor but the Doctor, as an immortal or even someone with a finite number of regenerations, can only spend a fraction of his life with Rose. In a nutshell, the audience is being taught to live life to the max! It might seem like an obvious thing to remind us of, but time has shown that mankind has yet to learn to do just that, preferring to squander the years on countless political vendettas, wars. You're a longtime dead so make the most of life... while you can!!

Artistically, whereas his intermediary episodes, "The Christmas Invasion" and "New Earth", don't quite meet the high standard he'd set himself, I also thought James Hawes direction equalled that of his debut last year, on the two-parter that began with "The Empty Child". All the interesting angles, complementing and contrasting, seemed to be back in place, this time in the school corridors and in the beautifully-lit scene where Sarah Jane chances upon the TARDIS and her realisation that new teacher John Smith, standing in the shadows behind her, is indeed HIM!

Sharp Practices!

Sean Bean returned to the role of Richard Sharpe, after a nine year absence from the small screen, this weekend on ITV1 in the two-part story "Sharpe's Challenge". Based on three of Bernard Cornwell's novels, this adventure is set in Jaipur one year on from Napoleon's demise at the Battle of Waterloo. It sees Sean reunited with director Tom Clegg and sparring partner Daragh O'Malley, as Sergeant Patrick Harper, whom he sets out to find on a mission to India, but on the pretext of looking for General Burroughs' daughter Celia who has been kidnapped and is held hostage against attack at Khande Rao's fort.

Sharpe's opposition on this occasion is a rogue East India Company officer, Colonel William Dodd, played by Toby Stephens, able to put his fencing skills to good use again after his appearance as the villain Gustav Graves in the James Bond movie "Die Another Day"! The real power behind young maharajah Khande Rao, Dodd is aided and abetted against the English by the late maharajah's favourite consort, Madhuvanthi, played by Salman Rushdie's wife Padma Lakshmi. She tries to seduce Sharpe but, naturally, he's having none of it! And, not surprisingly, Sharpe has unfinished business with the Colonel! Dodd lays a trap for the troops of the East India Company who are coerced by General Sir Henry Simmerson into attacking the fort, regardless of the consequences to the indisposed General's daughter, and thus the stage is set for the final battle...

Watching the "Behind the Scenes" documentary after the concluding episode, on ITV3, it's a wonder the programme ever got made! The number of extras, and costumes required for them, hand-built rifles and cannons, learning how to become a soldier in ten days flat, not to mention Sean and Toby going down with Delhi belly both on the same day! But the finished product was a treat with a terrific cliffhanger at the end of episode one which wasn't immediately spoiled in the next time trailer! Having infiltrated the enemy, and unrecognised by Dodd, Sharpe has to prove his new found loyalty to the young maharajah when he is ordered by the Colonel to shoot his best friend...

If you missed it, and want to find out whether or not Harper survives, after all Sharpe is a good shot, the best, then the DVD is out at the beginning of May! It's worth seeing just for Peter-Hugo Daly's performance as Sergeant Shadrach Bickerstaff, a constant thorn in Sharpe's side, who steals every scene he is in with consummate ease!

Wolf to the Slaughter

Last year it was Dickens. Now, in the second episode in the new series of "Doctor Who", it's the turn of Queen Victoria to team up with our time-travelling hero. Pauline Collins acquits herself well as the monarch having previously appeared in the series back in the mid-Sixties, as Samantha Briggs, opposite Patrick Troughton in a story called "The Faceless Ones". In fact, she was offered the role of companion but turned it down and Deborah Watling, as Victoria Waterfield, joined the Tardis crew instead, in the second episode of "The Evil of the Daleks". In a recent press release, Pauline is quoted as saying she was in one of the few episodes without Daleks! A little far from the truth in that the second Doctor was only pitted against them twice, both in his first of three years in the programme. As an aside, I dislike the substitution of the word episode for story, when a story comprises of more than one episode. It's a careless use of language which only leads to confusion!

"Tooth and Claw" is possibly Russell's finest script for the programme to date. I thought so on first viewing, despite a few reservations, and, on the whole, it is a much grittier affair than last week's opening tale. In the "Doctor Who Confidential" documentary, "Fear Factor", shown immediately afterwards on BBC3, the chief writer and executive producer commented that you won't see a better teaser than that created for his interpretation of the lycanthropy myth and, apart from the weedy scream immediately preceding the opening titles, he might well be right. The humour written for Rose, however, only served to undermine the strengths of the story and I would've preferred to see more time spent developing the relationship between her and servant girl Flora as Mark Gatiss did last year with Gwyneth in "The Unquiet Dead". Ruth Milne's facial responses to the action expressed many emotions in place of having little dialogue. Maybe her part might have been fleshed out better over two episodes?

The story borrowed imagery from a number of well-known science fiction and horror films. In the pre-titles sequence it was "The Matrix". The demise of the Steward was lifted, literally, from "Alien 3", specifically the abrupt exit of Brian Glover's character, prison warder Andrews. Both deaths happen after trying, momentarily, to wrong-foot the audience by reassuring us that all is well! The modern interpretation of the transformation from man to wolf has now been done many times, originally in John Landis's "An American Werewolf in London" and, also, to great effect, in Neil Jordan's adaptation of several short stories by Angela Carter, "The Company of Wolves". I liked the distant establishing shots of Torchwood House in the glen, of which there were three throughout. They reminded me of Hammer films and RTD has stated this was his take on their Oliver Reed movie, "The Curse of the Werewolf". Good thing Russell was unambiguous as Hammer only made one werewolf feature!

New New Post!

This time last year, while waiting for "Doctor Who" to return to our screens after an absence of almost sixteen years, no-one knew exactly what to expect. One year on and it's pretty much business as usual! Now we can predict the type of story RTD will deliver with ease. My one cause for optimism this season is that Russell has penned fewer of the thirteen episodes. He wrote eight of Season One's run whereas for Season Two he has written five. Combined, he has written a whole season's worth of material over two years and, if he gives the Christmas episode to another writer this year, Russell has written exactly half of the Doctor's air time.

Maybe the other writers' scripts are stronger because they are only writing one or two episodes a year and, although he claims otherwise, Russell is perhaps spreading himself too thinly. As well as being the chief writer, he is also the Executive Producer of "Doctor Who" and presumably has been busy setting up its spin-off series "Torchwood". Where "Buffy" had her "Angel", the Doctor has his Captain Jack! My gut feeling, however much I try to deny it to myself, is that this most British of shows doesn't work in the American format. "Doctor Who" works best as a series of serials, one of the main reasons for its enduring uniqueness. I miss the time taken to tell a story properly and I miss the cliffhanger...

In the 2003 documentary "The Story of Doctor Who", recently repeated at the end of BBC3's "Doctor Who Night", Colin Baker partly attributes the failure of his Doctor to find mass appeal to the reformatted structure of 1985's Season Twenty-two. In particular, Colin blames the consequential reduction in the number of cliffhangers. This only served to lessen the impact of a story when changing from three, found in the traditional-length story of four twenty-five minute episodes, to one, as seen in the two forty-five minute episode design. Ironically, Colin has subsequently gone on to praise new "Doctor Who" which, under the guidance of RTD, has seen a further reduction in the number of cliffhangers to three per season!

This year we can look forward to mid-story cliffhangers in both Cybermen adventures and in the tale set on the alien planet. Another irony is that the weakest point of Cyber-director Graeme Harper's previous work on "Doctor Who" are his mid-story cliffhangers, specifically the lumbering and wooden Magma beast in "The Caves of Androzani" and the Garden of Fond Memories' falling statue in "Revelation of the Daleks"! His two other cliffhangers, at the end of episodes one and three of "The Caves of Androzani", featuring, firstly, the execution of the robed fifth Doctor and Peri and, latterly, the spacecraft hurtling towards the planet, are both topnotch moments.

"New Earth" was fun, moved at the usual rollicking pace, but ultimately empty. Bite-size "Doctor Who", never mind Tardisodes! It had ideas but was too short to allow them any development. Composer Benjamin Britten said ideas are two-a-penny but turning them into a structured composition in which you evolve an argument to a satisfactory conclusion is another thing altogether.

The Doctor's intention from the outset is to visit the hospital so why materialise so far away? When Colin Baker's Doctor did this in "Revelation" everyone complained. Perhaps the cost of parking at a hospital, so far in the future, has increased astronomically! That might account for so many flying cars which could be seen in longshot but were miraculously absent in closeup! Rose possessed brought to mind the Rani impersonating Mel in Sylvester McCoy's debut. Zoe Wanamaker's Cassandra, reportedly inspired by seeing a very slim Nicole Kidman on the red carpet at some awards ceremony, at the end of the episode reminded me more of Mariah Carey, full of her own self-importance. Chip viewing the opening action in his sphere, through the eyes of the spider, was traditional so why can't we see a return to a season of multi-part stories and, thus, a reinstatement of the time-honoured cliffhanger?

To Be Continued...