Category Archives: Doctor Who

Doctor Who, Movies & TV

Burn In Me

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So after a break for last week for Eurovision, Doctor Who was back this week with their take on a real-time episode, 42, where the Doctor has a mere 42 minutes to save a spaceship from crashing into a star.

Behind the Sofa, the Doctor Who review blog site posted an item last week entitled 42 seconds, pointing out that thanks to the TARDIS the plot should really be very simple, so as always, they need a plot device early on to take the TARDIS out of play. Indeed when the time travellers first meet the spaceship crew the Doctor heads for the TARDIS before discovering that he cannot re-enter the area where the ship has landed due to the heat – heat which will only increase as the spaceship heads closer to the star. Whatever happens, they have to get the ship away from the star.

To add to the crisis, the main engines have been sabotaged, and the ship has been put into lockdown, closing and sealing all the thirty odd doors along the length of the ship to the controls that might save them. The doors all have deadlock seals rendering the sonic screwdriver unable to help, and alongside this the ship has a security system that asks security questions worthy of a pub quiz in order to open each door.

Just to cap it all off, some strange creature is infecting the crew and killing other crew members.

Although the ship in crisis plot has been done before, the episode was generally entertaining, and maintained the tension well. This was definitely from the grungy industrial school of spaceship design too. You knew the crew were dodgy right from the first moment you meet them when they ask whether the Doctor and Martha are police. It transpires later on that they have been illegally scooping fuel from the star, without realising that the star is actually alive – which is now protecting itself, trying to regain the part of itself that has been scooped in to the ship to use as fuel.

The episode marks a return to the directors chair for longtime Doctor Who director Graeme Harper, who keeps the episode ticking along at quite a pace. Perhaps the only point where it seems forced is the moment where the Doctor, who is fighting being taken over by the sun creature, asks Martha to use a stasis machine to save him by freezing him to -200 for ten seconds. Once he’s explained this there is a moment where rather than getting on and saving him, Martha has a speech, which gives the bad guys just enough time to turn off the power, and leave the Doctor with seemingly no hope.

Alongside all of this, we also saw some more development of the Mr Saxon story. In the Lazarus Experiment we saw Martha’s Mum being warned about the Doctor by a strange man, who we find out at the end of the episode is working for Mr Saxon. During the course of 42, Martha uses her newly enhanced mobile phone to phone home three times, and we see more strange people in the background apparently trying to trace the call. At the end of the episode it is again revealed that they work for Mr Saxon, and in a follow on from the Vote Saxon posters that have been around, it is election day too. Whether we’ll see more of this plot-line building over the next few weeks I don’t know, but somehow from what I know of the plot of the much anticipated Human Nature next week, I’m not sure it will quite fit in.

Although there have been episodes I haven’t liked, so far this season there haven’t been any I’ve really loathed. I had question marks over 42 in my mind, party because of the absolutely dreadful Chris Chibnall Torchwood episode Countrycide. However, I’m glad to say I was pleasantly surprised. Hopefully the enjoyment and appreciation will continue with the later episodes as we have some pretty eagerly anticipated episodes coming up, particularly Human Nature next week. Quite how the story will work putting the tenth Doctor into a story originally built around the scheming seventh Doctor of the New Adventures – hopefully Paul Cornell will have managed to retain the elements of the story that make it so popular with long time fans, whilst making it accessible and believable as a tenth Doctor TV story. Interestingly, the eBook version of Human Nature on the BBC website is currently disabled, hopefully it will be back following the showing of the episode, as it will certainly be an interesting exercise to compare the two stories and see where things have changed.

Doctor Who, Movies & TV

The Lazarus Experiment

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After being a bit disappointed with the return of the Daleks last week, I’m glad to say that the Lazarus Experiment was a definite return to form. Of course it was ripping off other sci-fi stories all over the place – The Fly and the Quatermass Experiment for a start, and of course the ambitious scientist whose experiment goes wrong has been done before in various forms during the history of Doctor Who, but it was thoroughly enjoyable none the less.

Amongst the cast, it also marked the first appearance of Mark Gatiss on screen in the series, him having penned The Unquiet Dead and The Idiot’s Lantern shown in the previous two seasons. Gatiss was given the pivotal role of Professor Richard Lazarus, the scientist whose great experiment on himself, alongside apparently making him younger, reawakens long dormant genes that transform him into a monster that rampages through the building. Considering that Gatiss is both primarily known as a comedy actor and is also a fan, his appearance could very well have been a hammy overacted disaster, but I am glad to say that it was great, with Lazarus being believable and well rounded, a notable scene being towards the end in Southwark Cathedral (although as the scissor arch in later scenes gives away was actually filmed in Wells) where Lazarus and the Doctor talk before their final battle.

Alongside the entertaining main plot, we also go quite a bit of significant seed sowing for later on in the season. During the course of the episode, Martha’s mother is warned by a mysterious guest at the party that the Doctor is dangerous. Initially you take it to be someone who works for Lazarus. However later on he reappears and tells her something else – something we as the audience do not hear, and later she slaps the Doctor. Then in the final moments of the episode she leaves a message on Martha’s answering machine saying that she knows who the Doctor really is, and the information comes from Harold Saxon himself. By this point it is too late for Martha to hear the warning – by this point she’s already talked herself into a permanent spot in the TARDIS, and is heading to new adventures…

Which leads nicely on to what is usually the ‘next time’ trailer. The episode next week has been postponed thanks to the Eurovision Song Contest. Since we’re also about halfway through this season, the production team gave us a special treat, a trailer for the whole of the rest of the season. In amongst clips of 42, you get to see quite a few moments from the much anticipated reworking of Paul Cornell’s 1995 novel Human Nature, plus Jack Harkness who is due to reappear in Utopia, and some more tantalising glimpses of John Simm as Harold Saxon – definitely looking good.

Doctor Who, Movies & TV

Evolution of the Daleks

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So there we have it, the hybrid Dalek is no more, ousted by the original Daleks who now regard it as impure. Those who were grumbling about why the Daleks created pig men when in previous stories they have created Robomen got their wish, with the ‘final experiment’ mentioned in the previous episode which I, like I guess most viewers assumed was the hybrid Dalek proving to be somewhat more extensive, with thousands of humans kept in stasis until a solar flare causes enough gamma radiation to merge human and Dalek DNA. Unfortunately the Doctor gets in the way, and what are produced are human/Dalek/Time Lord hybrids who won’t obey orders. Then of course at the end we have the customary escape scene with the last Dalek shifting away to give the opportunity for another Dalek encounter.

Although it was fairly predictable, it was none the less an entertaining episode – lots of chases including some funky Dalek shots as they chase the escaping Doctor through the sewers. We also get some aerial destruction as Daleks attack Hooverville. It also includes Solomon, one of the main characters from the first episode getting ruthlessly despatched. He tries to reason with the Daleks, saying that they are outcasts, just like the people in Hooverville, giving a grand stirring speech. There is a pause, just long enough for you to think that maybe they will agree, before the reply comes, and Solomon is dead. The rapidly changing hybrid Dalek, still in charge at this point steps in and saves the Doctor, but that action leads to the other Daleks questioning his position even further, before ultimately they push him aside.

So, whilst it was good to see a scheming Dalek plot-line, perhaps it is time to give the Daleks. Although the title of the episode was Evolution of the Daleks, perhaps there needs to be some evolution of the plot-lines to do something original with the creatures from Skaro before they next appear…

Incidentally, I mentioned in my posting last week that none of the actors got a trip across the pond – whilst the producer Phil Collinson joined the special effects team when they were putting together background shots. Doctor Who Confidential featured the filming of the actors for the Statue of Liberty scenes – in the car park of Penarth Leisure Centre. During a piece interviewing Phil Collinson, where the sequence is doing some self-congratulation about having found a suitable bit of wall that matches, David Tennant comes over to grumble about the fact that the producer, and even the Doctor Who Confidential crew got a trip across the pond, but he didn’t. Probably fair as even in the cash strapped days of the old series Tom Baker got a trip to Paris, and Peter Davison was taken to Lanzarote. I guess he thought that if they could afford to send the producer, they could have done a few shots of their star in front of New York sights!

Doctor Who, Movies & TV

Daleks do Manhattan

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So blow the whole cliff-hanger why don’t you… There is a comment from Russell T that he couldn’t very well turn down a Radio Times cover, which I guess is true, but you can do it without blowing the entire climax of the episode by doing so!

Anyway, aside from having the shocking revelation of the Hybrid Dalek ruined by the Radio Times, the rest of the episode was really good. The new Doctor Who stories are quite often either fairly frenetic, or fairly straightforward with their plots in order to fit into the 45 minute stories, however thanks to this being a two-part story, we at least got some better pacing, and a broader range of characters, this is apparent right from the start.

The pre-credit sequence starts back-stage at a theatre in 1930’s New York, with the star of the show Tallulah with her boyfriend Laszlo. As Tallulah goes on stage to do her act, Laszlo hears strange noises coming from a store room and goes to investigate, finding a strange pig faced man who kidnaps him and takes him into the sewers.

The Doctor and Martha arrive on Liberty Island. We discover later, two weeks after Laszlo’s disappearance. They find a newspaper which is reporting mysterious disappearances of people from Hooverville, the shanty town built in Central Park by people who have lost their homes as a result of the Great Depression. Ever one to be intrigued by a mystery, the Doctor and Martha go to investigate.

Meanwhile, in the nearly finished Empire State Building, although work is continuing quickly, it’s not quick enough for the new owners of the building. Through Mr Diagoras they are trying to get the mast on the top of the tower finished by night fall – when the foreman says that it isn’t possible, the new owners of the building are revealed to be the Daleks, and the uncooperative foreman is taken away by a Dalek and two pig faced henchmen. The Daleks are in the midst of a series of experiments, and need more humans, so Mr Diagoras is despatched to Hooverville to recruit workers for a ‘job’ clearing a blockage in the sewers.

Arriving at the Hooverville, Mr Diagoras recruits the Doctor and Martha along with two others, and they are sent off to find the apparent blockage. However there is no blockage, and as the Doctor starts to wonder what is really going on, the group is cornered by a group of pig faced men.

All in all, the production team have done a great job of producing something that looks like New York in the thirties, all without having to do much filming outside Wales. (Although I note from the behind the scenes stuff that Phil Collinson, Helen Raynor and the effects team got a jolly to New York even if the actors didn’t!) There are also a number of impressive vistas of the city, as part of the action takes place on top of the Empire State Building itself.

This is a bit of a different Dalek story for the new series too. Aside from the appearance in Dalek, there have only been vast armies of Daleks. Here we have a much smaller, scheming Dalek plot. The only Daleks present are the four members of the Cult of Skaro who have managed to escape at the end of Doomsday and realising that they are alone are trying to preserve the Dalek race by a series of genetic experiments. They have also created the pig faced henchmen from the people who aren’t considered intelligent enough, in order to help them in their work. In many ways this is reminiscent of Dalek stories back in the sixties and seventies where the Daleks are a malevolent force in the background using henchmen to do much of the work. In this case, Dalek Sec believes that the purity of the Dalek race has been a hindrance, indeed one of the other Daleks in a rare moment of conversation with Mr Diagoras states that humans always survive. As a result Dalek Sec is trying to produce a Hybrid Dalek using himself as the guinea pig.

Alongside the Daleks we get some nice characterisation from the other actors. Mr Diagoras is very tough with the human workers, but at other times is obviously frightened of the Daleks, especially when he discovers that the Daleks are effectively going to reward him by killing him to become part of the Hybrid Dalek. There are also some good characters in the Hooverville with the two episode format allowing for a bit of background explanation as to what is happening. We also have the love story between Tallulah and Laszlo, with both of them joining with the Doctor in the later part of the episode. Interestingly the Doctor also actively avoids any sort of confrontation with the Daleks throughout the episode, even getting Martha to step forward to challenge them at one point rather than draw attention to himself. We also get to see his frustration in that ‘they always survive’.

As with so many of the two part stories, this episode was essentially laying out the pieces for the conclusion next week. Although we got to see the Hybrid Dalek, this didn’t explain the reasons for the modifications to the mast on the top of the Empire State Building, and exactly what is going to occur that night that required it to be completed. It will also be interesting to see whether the three remaining non-hybrid Daleks survive, in an obvious way, such as the ’emergency temporal shift’ that was shown in Doomsday, or whether they’ll all be apparently wiped out. Whatever happens though, I’m sure we’ll be seeing the Daleks again – having won the recent online vote for the scariest monster and Russell T admitting on a number of occasions that they are his favourite, we’re sure to see them back whatever happens.

Doctor Who, Movies & TV

Doctor Who v The FA Cup

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Next time someone from the BBC argues that it is worth spending vast amounts of the licence fee on the football (the last round of FA Cup rights cost the BBC and BSkyB £300 million, ITV won them away for £425 million), rather than spending it elsewhere, or they argue that moving popular shows for the football is a good idea because ‘more people will watch the football’, show them these figures from last night. The viewing figures increase by almost a third – nearly 1.9 million extra viewers for Doctor Who over the FA Cup game, and by 8pm there were another 0.4 million again.