The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky

Well, this blew me away, much to my surprise. We watched both episodes together and for the first time, I had the feeling of watching a Doctor Who movie. It's great: alien invasion on a grand scale, with sneaky infiltration, all-out battle, a gung-ho UNIT, and a suitably epic ending.

I've decided I like having two companions, and there might not be a better combination than Donna and Martha. They don't get a lot of time to interact here, but the few moments they do get are just lovely. With Rose out of the picture there's no jealousy, and it's nice to have two women know the Doctor without feeling they have to fight over him.

It is just nice to see Martha again. In the old days companions never ever came back (apart from Tegan, and that doesn't really count) but these days everybody returns. I have a pet theory that the first goodbye is always the best, but we'll look at that in The Doctor's Daughter. And Journey's End, The End of Time, and The God Complex or The Angels Take Manhattan. Anyway, it is nice to see Martha. Her return doesn't pose any awkward questions, or unbalance the show's equilibrium, or throw the story off in an odd direction. We just get to see that she is fine and happy, engaged to her lovely Doctor Tom, and working for UNIT. As breakups go, this has turned out to pretty well. It's just a slight shame that she is so quickly sidelined. Although it's fun (both for us and, presumably, for Freema Agyeman) to have Evil Martha running rings around UNIT command, I would have liked her and Donna to get more time together.

But there are niceties to be observed: Donna is the incumbent companion and rightly gets more attention. She gets multiple opportunities to impress - "I'll take a salute"; showing off her temp powers in the ATMOS office; impassively waiting for the Doctor to realise he is barking up the wrong tree with his eloquent "You're leaving" speech; catching up with her grandfather and happily enduring her mother; pragmatically puncturing the Doctor's next big speech, snatching the TARDIS key from him as she tries to escape the poisonous fog. Her greatest moment is aboard the Sontaran ship. Alone and desperately out of her depth, the Doctor pushes her to step out from the safety of the TARDIS. She manages to get the job done despite her own fears and rises even further in our estimation as a result.

There are so many things to like. Early on there's a simply brilliant shot through the TARDIS doors with Donna still impossibly deep inside the Console Room. David Tennant is on excellent form; now in his third series, his performance feels effortless and the Doctor is so much fun to be around, whether he's taking out Field Marshall Staal with a squash ball, bickering with Colonel Mace, out-pedanting Rattigan, bonding with Ross, or coldly keeping an eye on turncoat clone Martha. The Doctor isn't without his contradictions though: he rails against UNIT's penchant for violent military solutions and makes a point of not carrying any guns - but he still charges onto the Sontaran ship with a home weapon and the intent to kill everyone aboard. Of course here, as with a lot of other nasty decisions, he hesitates just long enough for someone else to decide to sacrifice themselves instead. For all that, it says something about the momentum of this story that it struck me that the Doctor really could die doing this - I know he won't (and not just because I've seen this one before), but even making such an outcome a credible theoretical possibility is an achievement.

The Sontarans are very good here, and show why they deserved to come back. If nothing else, they are clearly delineated from other villainous races. Visually, they retain their unique facial appearance, regain their distinctive fingers and stature, and are improved further by a strong redesign of their uniforms. The proper martial characteristics are all present and correct, and there's no fuzzy emotional overlap with the Daleks or Cybermen: we know, from everything they say and do, that the Sontarans are all about war. Staal is genuinely aggrieved that his race was kept out of the Time War and, rather touchingly, seems to think that defeating the Doctor will mean the Sontarans somehow won that conflict, rather like Scotland beating England in 1967 and claiming to be world champions.

Of course, these two aren't the only belligerents in this conflict and it is rather pleasing that the Sontarans get to go up against the new souped-up UNIT, especially seeing as the humans defy all alien expectations and kick some extraterrestrial bottom. The counter-attack that begins with the descent of the Valiant (thank you Mr Saxon) is one of the most gung-ho moments in the entirety of Doctor Who and, unlike many of Eric Saward's bust-ups, it still manages to delight, not only us, but the Doctor himself, as Colonel Mace notes. If this new relationship doesn't quite have the chemistry of Pertwee and Courtney, at least it captures the old sense that these two respect each other despite their disagreements.

This two-parter is really very good, but it seems to be a little forgotten - overshadowed maybe by the epic climax of Series Four, or by the way Strax has become such a dominant version of the Sontarans during the last year or two. It's a shame because this story shows that they really do deserve to be considered among the top rank of returning baddies, and that they are definitely worthy of a season finale all of their own.

Still there is an odd moment or two - the clone race seems to have retained some vestigial sexism, and neither Israel or Russia appear on Captain Price's list of co-operating nuclear nations, although North Korea does! Almost as confusing as one of the boys cheering "Harriet Jones!" when Kirsty Wark turned up. Chris eventually gave both parts ten out of ten, but I had to talk him up from a nine on The Sontaran Stratagem: initially he had wanted to take off a point because he didn't believe Rattigan could have invented all those gadgets. Not unreasonable, really.


NEXT TIME...

Planet of the Ood

There is one problem with Planet of the Ood, which is that the Doctor’s presence has no impact on events whatsoever. The Ood rebellion was planned long in advance, and succeeds because of the FOTO agents Ood Sigma and Dr Ryder. All the Doctor does is witness the culmination of their scheming. As plot problems go, this is a large and significant one, and it makes this episode is a great disappointment after The Fires of Pompeii, where the Doctor believed he had no ability to influence events, only to discover that it was his job to trigger the eruption of Vesuvius. On the Oodsphere, he is merely an observer, albeit a partial one that somehow manages to get all the credit.

Now, that’s not to say that there isn’t a good Doctor Who story to be had where the TARDIS crew must simply survive or escape inevitable events shaped by the forces of history. There’s The Massacre of St Bartholomew’s Eve, for example, or (less passively) The Waters of Mars. But, great big CGI crane chase notwithstanding, the Doctor is barely involved here at all.

Thank goodness for Donna. She may not have much of an impact on events, but they definitely have an effect on her. For the second episode in a row, she shoulders the emotional burden of the story. She’s an empathy machine (in a good way) and the scene where she hears the Ood song is crucial to our developing understanding of her character. Rose was brave, but (as RTD himself admitted) selfish. Martha was emotional, but also analytical. Donna feels, she connects with people. Stacy in Partners in Crime, Evelina last week, and now an entire alien race - overcoming her initial shock at the Ood's appearance to empathise with their suffering. With every episode we are watching her develop as she explores the Universe, but at the same time, she refuses to compromise her principles. She continues to prove that she is more than a match for the Doctor, but this leads to an ugly misstep. Although disgusted with the Ood's enslavement, she swats away the Doctor's comparison with 21st century wage slaves and sweatshops as a "cheap shot". It's anything but that and her hypocrisy goes unchallenged - as a result a serious issue is downplayed, and Donna appears to give the audience license to forget about their own complicity.

Tim McInnerny is excellent as Halpen, the latest in a long line of villainous businessmen in Doctor Who. His callous sneering is of a very high quality and it's very satisfying to watch him gradually unravel as his exasperation grows. His denouement, transforming into an Ood, may be bizarre and slightly unbelievable, but it is undoubtedly deserved and utterly memorable. Memories of this middling story's finer details will fade, but a generation of kids will never forget 'the one where the man turned into an Ood and coughed up his brain.'

Although memorable, it caused Chris to knock off a mark. "Nine. Minus one for the whole brain-in-the-hand thing. I just feel that's really gross. But this one was very scary, like when Donna was in the container by herself and the Ood's eyes went red..."

The Ood do very well out of this story, not only emancipated but turned from a one-hit wonder into an important and recurring species with a distinctive culture and biology. It's not just the economics of reusing the costumes either - I think there's some guilt floating around from their first appearance. The Doctor actually comments again that he feels bad about not being able to save the remaining Ood in The Satan Pit, and there's a sense that the show itself had overlooked these underlings and wanted to make amends. If nothing else Planet of the Ood gives everyone's favourite squiggly-faced alien counter-tenors the happy ending they deserve.


NEXT TIME...

The Fires of Pompeii

People talk about Blink being the perfect episode to show someone who has never seen Doctor Who before but, while it might draw people in, it's not properly representative of the programme as a whole. You might argue that Fires of Pompeii isn't either - no other story has looked as good as this before - but it is, I think, an excellent place for the uninitiated to start, because it is just so bloody good.

This is that rare thing, a Doctor Who story about time travel, or rather about the consequences of foreknowledge. Once the TARDIS lands in Pompeii, even total newbies will know what's at stake and will understand the tension between the Doctor, who wants to escape from the inevitable destruction and protect the timeline, no matter how horrible it may be, and Donna, whose compassion compels her to try and limit the human misery the eruption will cause. The climax of the episode neatly resolves this conflict between them by replacing this dilemma with another: the time travellers realise that they have been folded into events all along and that they must decide, either to cause the eruption and kill thousands, or to save the city and allow the aliens to conquer the world. This is a great story, and a great time travel story, not least because it centres on a real - and for us, inevitable - historical event; the threat of Vesuvius is reinforced with every ominous rumble, every tremor.

But the drama continues even beyond the cataclysm. Donna's tearful rage against the Doctor is a desperately important moment in their relationship, just two episodes in. She is defined here by her most human qualities: her empathy and compassion, her determination to stand up to the Doctor. She demands, begs, that they use the TARDIS to save someone, anyone, from the disaster. Unable to relive his own trauma, his reaction is to run, reminding us not only of his alien nature (a vital aspect, much diluted during Tennant's tenure), but also of his Time War backstory and survivor's guilt. That she persuades him to go back shows us how important Donna is, both to the Doctor and to the show. There hasn't ever been a Doctor/Companion pairing like this before.

The rescue of Caecillius and his family is yet another tremendously powerful moment in the post-2005 run, and one of my favourites: the poor Romans, cowering in the ash and shadows, the TARDIS doors blazing light and the Doctor stepping like a god from the machine. It's glorious. Later on in this series we will begin to get further intimations of the Doctor's mythical status, but here this is clearly just how he appears to these superstitious ancients. I don't mean to belittle them with that description either: this family is marvellous: beautifully written, cleverly cast and sensationally acted, they put a recognisably modern face on historical Pompeii, rendering their culture of gods and omens so that we understand. Every one of them is great, but Peter Capaldi, a sensational actor, must now receive special attention - his casting as the Twelfth Doctor (and Karen Gillan popping up in a pre-Amy role) make The Fires of Pompeii a curio for future fans.

There's so much to love. The water pistol (properly Doctorish, that); the running TARDIS translation joke that peppers the script with Latin and Welsh phrases; the spine-tingling prophesy-off between Lucius Petrus Dextrus and Evelina, each magical pronouncement punctuated by the ominous rumblings of Vesuvius. There are some beautiful lines (the High Priestess says of the Doctor that "he carries starlight in his wake") and some strong ideas, like the disturbing notion for a soothsayer of feeling the future change ("And yet this was meant to be!"). And I know appearances shouldn't matter as much as they do, but the use of the ancient Rome set at Cinecittà Studios in Italy makes this episode dazzle. One of the very best.

The boys weren't going to admit to being moved by the powerful ending, but Chris did pick out Donna making the Doctor return to the villa as one of his favourite bits. He did feel that the story was weakened by the fact that Vesuvius was always going to have to erupt. "[The Doctor and Donna] were acting like it was a difficult choice! It wasn't, it was an OBVIOUS DECISION." So obvious that he had to knock off two whole points: eight out of ten from him.

NEXT TIME...

Partners in Crime

This may not be quite as neatly told as Smith and Jones was, but this Partners in Crime is undeniably more fun. But then maybe we're talking about the difference between Martha and Donna? Martha, as wonderful a companion as she was, just isn't as much fun as Donna.

That this is a reintroduction gives this story, and her relationship with the Doctor, a crucial balance. They meet here as equals, in need of each other. We see the Doctor's loneliness in a gorgeous wide shot of the empty TARDIS, while Donna, able to reference the events of The Runaway Bride, gets to tell us that she knows exactly what is missing from her life. With this so easily established, the joy of the first half of the episode is that they don't meet up, constantly just missing each other in a long series of near farcical sight gags, whilst unwittingly mirroring each other's investigations.

We're kept waiting, but when the reunion finally comes it is wonderful. Not only is that first mouthed conversation priceless and easily one of the funniest scenes in Doctor Who, but the mere fact that they are together again is simply joyous. Almost everything they say to each other, every interaction, is delightful: "Don't you ever change?", "Hold on!" - "I AM!", "I was right. It is always like this with you isn't it?" - "Oh yes!", all the way through to "PLANET OF THE HATS!" And by the end the there can't be many people who aren't excited by the prospect of a full series of these two in the TARDIS.

In that sense alone, this must be the strongest first episode we've had, although it's not quite perfect. The Adipose are a brilliant design and a great idea, and it makes a lovely change to have aliens that aren't evil, even if they do, through no fault of their own, pose a very real threat to human life. Although undeniably adorable, they embody an utterly horrible concept - a very satisfying combination. Miss Foster is the real antagonist, lusciously played by Sarah Lancashire who really seems to be enjoying herself. She's a great baddy, ice-cool, in control and magnificently unflappable, but she does seem isolated and spends a lot of her time (rather like the Editor in The Long Game) just talking out loud to nobody in particular. Her battle of wits with the Doctor is very enjoyable when they are face to face, but the technological duel through which he gains the upper hand is little more than unconvincing (and very bland) technobabble and some flashing lights.

Penny Carter is an unusually unsympathetic character: a snarky figure of fun who seemingly gets her just desserts. These desserts are not very severe, but it is very odd for Doctor Who to hold up anyone to ridicule, let alone someone so unimportant. If it wasn't for Donna, she would clearly be the candidate for new companion in this episode (and indeed Donna's involvement grew out of plans for a new companion called Penny). She has Sarah Jane's 'investigative reporter' thing going on and, just like Donna, she sneaks into the building and hides in the toilets. So why is she given such a hard time? It's not as if we need to see a useless might-be companion (like Adam) in order to realise Donna's suitability. Is it just a dig at reporters then? (The Doctor, when she asks  him to explain what's going on, shrugs and tells her to "just make something up".) Either way, she does cause a small tear in the plot: Penny is discovered in the loos instead of Donna, but she must just have heard Donna's hurried and hushed phone conversation in the next cubicle. She doesn't give Donna away, so she can't be all bad, can she?

Having Rose turn up out of the blue - and keeping it a secret until transmission - was a real coup for the production team, and it certainly added some sting to this episode's closing moments. I enjoyed the reveal at the time, but I wasn't excited about the idea of Rose returning. Now, knowing where this will end up in Journey's End, I'm actively irritated by the prospect.

For me, the genuinely marvellous bit is the proper ending, with Donna waving at Wilf. I've mentioned before about how lovely it is to have Bernard Cribbins in the show but his little dance here and the vicarious joy of a grandfather is really very moving. It's taken a long time but the Doctor and Donna are finally off in the TARDIS together - hooray for Series Four!

William still refuses to comment, but I can tell that he's just as glad as me to have her aboard. Chris gave this an eight out of ten: he very much enjoyed the moments when the Doctor and Donna kept missing each other. He also gave a six out of ten for scariness, which I think is a little high - it can't be the Adipose, but I wouldn't be surprised if Miss Foster's dark maternalism disturbed children whilst zooming right under the grown ups' heads.


NEXT TIME...



 

Voyage of the Damned

Much confusion has developed around the Christmas Specials in the age of 'catch-up' TV. Do they count or don't they?  The Christmas Invasion obviously has to, post-regeneration and all, and The Runaway Bride should (or else Partners in Crime might be confusing) - although we didn't know that when it was first broadcast. Either way, they were packaged neatly into the boxsets, and it seemed that this was to be the natural order of things. However with The Next Doctor and The End of Time things went squiffy because they both counted as one (or two) of the special Specials, which had their own boxset and - bafflingly - ended up on Netflix listed as a separate series distinct from the main run of Doctor Who.

Things went downhill after that. I just wrote a long and fascinating explanation of what actually happened to The Christmas Carol, The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe , and The Snowmen. But then I cut it, realising that anyone who cared enough to read it would know it all already. Suffice to say that their availability has been difficult to predict: Netflix ignores one entirely, and another was apparently going to be left off the DVD release. All very puzzling, but there's almost certainly no editorial reasoning behind any of this. It'll be to do with how series are sold and shipped in lumps, and the simple fact will be that sometimes odd standalone episodes get lost. It's a shame, especially if you're trying to work out how to buy the complete run without doubling up on an episode or (worse) missing one, but there you go.

But it leaves the viewer (or purchaser) with the idea that some of these episodes don't matter, that they don't advance the overarching story and are therefore optional. This is a shame because there is a danger that a casual audience might miss a treat.

Watching with hindsight, Voyage of the Damned is the first Christmas Special that really does stand alone. It is also the first to try and tell a Christmas story rather than a Doctor Who-story-at-Christmas. Okay, this particular Christmas story happens to be the one about the expensive celebrity-laden disaster movie extravaganza, but the point is that whilst this feels different from normal Doctor Who, it is definitely the sort of thing one would expect to sit down and watch after dinner on Christmas Day.

I didn't see it that way at the time. I thought the episode was alright, but because I was expecting something more Doctor Who-y than Christmas-y, it felt disposable: throwaway festive fluff. Stupidly, it's only now, binge-watching the entire show and viewing Voyage of the Damned in context, that I can see that it is precisely this idiosyncrasy that makes it such fun.

This episode is littered with pleasing little moments but the opening ten minutes is like pulling your all your favourites from a tin of Quality Street. First off, David Tennant's Doctor is a star in his own right by now. We get to drift along with him, an invisible companion as we take in the sights and explore the Starship Titanic. Then, up pops Kylie! Her appearance here isn't a surprise given the publicity the BBC made of it, but the initial reports of her involvement were staggering. Kylie Minogue in Doctor Who? What? It still feels odd to see her here, as if the Universe should have snapped back into its original state by now, one where Australian pop megastars didn't do this sort of thing. Then we get a couple of lovely old hands, Geoffrey Palmer and Bernard Cribbins, both of whom have been household names in Britain for as long as I can remember. In fact, they were both doing Doctor Who before I was even born. Palmer, adorably lugubrious, has a short but beautiful stint as Captain - and seems to sketch out a whole life in just a couple of scenes. Cribbins turns out for a one scene joke, the gist of which is how ridiculous having Christmas specials year after year is. But it works, largely because it is Bernard Cribbins sat there, twinkling away.

These star turns are treats, but there's a main course too. The core of the episode is the disaster movie. Tension builds, disaster strikes, and the Doctor excitingly takes charge, leading the survivors through the innards of the stricken ship. Considering there's only half an hour and a BBC budget with which to do this, this section of the show is excellent: plastered with danger, heartbreak and noble sacrifices. Russell Tovey is outstanding as Midshipman Frame. It's another small part (one I've taken for granted in the past) but, my goodness, he's good. Naive, wounded, scared, brave, dutiful, Frame is absolutely convincing and grounds the whole outlandish disaster format in a very human way. The Doctor gets more than his share of moments: one minute he's beating back the Heavenly Host with a steel bar, the next he's trying to prise information from them, grappling to come up with the one question that will allow him to survive. We get the beautiful but distinctly odd sight of him being hoisted by the robot angels, literally raised up, and then, finally, he gets to buzz Buckingham Palace in a Titanic-replica spaceship.

But no matter how much fun the rest of this all is, the question of whether Voyage of the Damned sinks or floats is largely down to Kylie. Her casting is a big deal, especially with the people who tuned in to watch her (13.3 million,giving the show its highest ratings since 1979), and in that sense it's a gamble that pays off handsomely. Astrid Peth is a little too sweet for my taste, and could have been a more interesting, rougher-edged character - but then many of the wider audience were here just to see Kylie, not Astrid, and I think they went away more than happy. Overall, I think it was a great decision and a piece of very good fortune for the programme that she was able to participate - but I would have had to have drunk an awful amount of Christmas spirit for that that 'stardust' ending to be anything other than overcooked schmaltz.

Christopher is still happily giving out scores. He's got into the habit of taking marks away from ten, effectively punishing episodes for what he sees as their failures. Voyage of the Damned got a 9 - one off  because he "didn't like how everybody died."

I explained that it was copying the disaster movie genre and that that was just what happened in such a story.

"Yes, but this wasn't the Doctor in a disaster movie, this was a disaster movie in Doctor Who, so the Doctor should have saved everybody anyway. It his rules."

"Ah," says William, who's been paying attention. "But if the Doctor can choose who lives, that would make him a monster."

Well quite. Who said this was a standalone adventure, cut off from the ongoing narrative?


NEXT TIME...

Last of the Time Lords

You know I really really like Doctor Who very much, don't you? And, thanks to Confidential, and DWM, and books like The Writer's Tale, we all know how hard everybody works on the show. To write, design, light, direct, act out, film, edit or score forty-three minutes of this programme, or to do any of the other countless jobs, is to perform a labour of love. I'm so grateful for all of it, for everything that everyone puts in to make Doctor Who the best television show there is.

So much effort has clearly gone into Last of the Time Lords. The scale of it the story, its ambition, is amazing, and the execution is great. But, sorry, it just leaves me cold.

I think it's too much. Everything is hyperextended, the situation stretched so much further than normal: the Doctor turned into a pickled gnome, the Master ruling the Earth for a whole year and preparing for war with the Universe, Martha's mission. It's an extreme story, which is fine, but having pushed on so far, it is difficult to return to normal - either it should have kept going or it should have been gradually inched back into place, perhaps over many episodes. Knowing, as we do, that these events have to be reset makes this timeline false, a dead end. The fix needs to be solid, to be understood instinctively and to feel hard-won. But when it comes it is achieved in just minutes and it feels forced, neither convincing or satisfying. The Doctor's renewal, somehow powered by the happy thoughts of the people of Earth, is awkward magic at best. But I can't cope with the Doctor swaddled in Christ-like imagery, transfigured and floating serenely towards the Master, determined to forgive him. I don't know what sort of reversal would have satisfied me, but I do know that this wasn't it.

Bah. Enough of that.

For me the great thing about Last of the Time Lords is its emotional heart: Martha's story, how she survived, how she wandered the Earth. It's excellent. She's such a wonderful character, a brilliant companion, and her progress through this series has delighted me. I certainly never disliked Martha, but I wouldn't have said she was one of my favourites before I rewatched this episodes.  Hers is such a subtle storyline compared with the brazen blubbing of Rose's arc, and I think that's what I love about her: she's not brash or showy, she quietly gets the job done. Would she like more attention, especially from the Doctor? Yes, of course. Is he going to say anything about that? Hell no. How beautifully sophisticated. This is part of the reason that she is doomed to remain overshadowed by Rose. Another is that Rose has been more or less haunting the show ever since Doomsday: she's name-checked in half (seven out of fourteen) the episodes of Series Three. Considering she's going to bloody turn up again in Partners in Crime, it's like she has never left!

Bah! Enough of that too.

The boys absolutely loved this of course, and it garnered another ten from Chris. They were really struck by the relationship between the Doctor and the Master, especially the Doctor's emotional reaction to the latter's death. It is intense, and there's no doubt that Tennant is excellent at this sort of stuff, but - bah! Let's just move on shall we?


NEXT TIME...

The Sound of Drums

The boys absolutely loved this: unequivocal tens out of tens from both of them. I can see why they like it so much. The stakes seem higher than ever, the Master poses a terrible threat to the Doctor and to the Earth, and the mystery of what he's up to eats away throughout this episode. But very little of it convinces me, I'm afraid.

The big problem is the Master. He's never been the most satisfying character in the series - we've never properly understood his motivation, or his true relationship with the Doctor - but in the past this didn't seem to matter so much. Roger Delgado played the original Master with an imposing dignity, almost a grandeur, that masked the character's insubstantial inner-workings. Anthony Ainley's version was more two dimensional but hardly less satisfying: we didn't need to know why he was bad - his Master was evil itself, the cackling personification of motiveless malignity. A bit panto perhaps, but none the worse for that.

The Sound of Drums displays some of his traditional modus operandi. The sharp dress sense of the Delgado years returns, as does the hypnotic powers. The original Master also had a penchant for false names and dubious alliances with alien races, just as we see here. But this new Master is neither evil, nor dignified - he's just nasty and rather self-indulgent, an infantile delinquent. And he's so obviously broken, so damaged. Perhaps in an attempt to flesh out his character, to explain or understand the Master, he is shown as being mentally ill, driven to psychopathy by the childhood trauma of observing the Untempered Schism. As a result his great villainy is enfeebled: he's merely trying to get the Doctor's attention, a brutalised child who craves the teacher's time and can only get it by being naughty. 

When Delgado's Master watched The Clangers, it was with the wry air of an anthropologist; in The Sound of Drums he watches Tellytubbies and cries "Cor, innit brilliant!" (I paraphrase). He pretends to be Zippy from Rainbow for the President of the United States. He literally thumbs his nose at the Jones family. Like a child, he thinks being Prime Minister will mean he will get to do whatever he wants. When he discovers Gallifrey has been destroyed, he's like the little boy who wished away his parents only to find that the wish came true.

Surely the central question of his character is the idea of 'mastery': what that means, and what he will do to achieve it. Here, for the first time, we do see him manage to take control of something large - in this case the government of the United Kingdom - but he seems actively disinterested in exercising his control. I wonder whether his mania for being in charge, for being obeyed, could be some form of control freakery, a desire to have things done his way or not at all - but that certainly isn't what happens here. Once he has the keys to Downing Street he throws his paperwork into the air and murders his cabinet (in a childish fit of pique - what does it achieve?). By the end of the episode we discover that taking control of the country is only a means to an end: mastery of the entire planet. But then, having achieved that, we'll see next time that the Earth is only a stepping stone to gaining control of the Universe. This Master has no real interest in running the country, or the world, and I can't help but think that if he did conquer the Universe he wouldn't be much interested in running that either, his childishness recalling Roger McGough's 'The Leader'.

What's to like then? Well, this episode was much touted as an urban thriller and, for Doctor Who, it does that pretty well, even if London has never looked quite so much like Cardiff as it does here (nor has Brighton ever looked more like Penarth for that matter). The scenes of the Doctor, Martha and Jack on the run, scavenging for resources are good: there's a sense of them being on the back foot, forced into a strategic retreat, that makes this story feel different from any other. The camera trick with the Perception Filter works curiously well, even after repeated viewings, and the sight of Gallifrey is marvellous, tying this scrap back to the epic mythology of the Time War.

Despite my problems with the Master, this is a decent enough episode that really does pack a punch through its final moments. I'm not fussed with the Doctor's superannuation - it's thrown into the mix to raise the stakes, but is undermined by its obvious impermanence. The real shock is seeing the sky ripped open and the Toclafane descend - an excellent sequence built on good-looking effects and hammered home by the (still shocking) use of music (Voodoo Child by Rogue Traders, which, I am required by law to state, is played diegetically). The final shot refocuses the story around Martha as she stands watching London begin to burn - a good cliffhanger and a powerful moment in the programme's history.

NEXT TIME...

Utopia

It's easy and lazy to assume that RTD's stories are all heart and Moffat's are all brains. Utopia is proof that RTD can scheme, that his plots can dazzle, and that he can serve up some of the most wonderful, shocking moments in all of Doctor Who.

The disguised return of the Master is a terribly clever trick. Firstly, the misdirection, which, like the previous year, worked because we, the audience, assumed we knew how things were going to play out. We knew that this year's arc was Saxon and that all the clues, all the way back to Love & Monsters, had been firmly anchored to modern day Britain. And, most convincingly of all, we knew the rhythm of the series, that all would be revealed in the climactic two-parter; whatever Utopia had in store, it was languishing in the same slot as Boom Town and Fear Her.

Secondly, the seeds of this story had been sown with much subtlety: Human Nature had patiently explained how a Time Lord might hide from the universe by becoming a human, their Gallifreyan consciousness secured away inside a fob watch. This should have been blatant, especially since we expected the Master to turn up eventually, but no one batted an eyelid, it aroused no suspicions, because it was an adaptation of an existing Doctor Who book. In other words, as soon as the fob watch was spotted in Utopia, a collective gasp could be heard rising across the country (including people who, like my wife, assumed Yana must be a future Doctor) as the nation's gobs were truly smacked. The last fifteen minutes of the episode became a helter-skelter, thrilling us all the way, down to the grim finish.

Nothing else about Utopia really matters. There's a nicely evoked sense of desperation and decay about the end of the universe, a chill entropic inevitability, but really who cares? Creet, the Futurekind, the abandoned collectives of Malcassairo, they're all insubstantial, forgettable - a candyfloss environment spun together by RTD to hide the Master, just as Yana is a construct of the Chameleon Arch. That's not to say that these elements aren't enjoyable and, in the case of the Futurekind, this is probably as good a depiction of post-apocalyptic panto cannibals as Doctor Who will ever manage.

The Doctor/Jack scenes are lots of fun. This Doctor has an overlooked capacity for dead-eyed sang froid, and the way in which he holds Jack at arms length here is very interesting, nicely juxtaposed with his more frenzied reaction to the Master later on. Martha is excellent again. The early scenes getting to know Jack, her camaraderie with Chantho, that wonderful reaction when she spots Yana's watch, even those odd few lines with Creet - it's another spot-on performance from Freema Agyeman and another demonstration of Martha's strengths as a companion.

I have one tiny complaint. Although the Face of Boe's warning was appropriately mysterious and doom-laden in Gridlock, it's use here - the final nail of the Master's return hammered home - is anti-climactic: acrostics are rarely asked to support such dramatic weight. It raises odd questions too; did the Master's TARDIS choose the name Yana in order to taunt the Doctor? Or was the Face of Boe just amusing himself by constructing the acronym instead of simply saying "The Master is alive."? Perhaps it is just total coincidence that the warning spelt out the Master's nom de guerre temporel? Whatever the answers, it irritates. An insignificantly small flaw, but it is such an important moment in the episode. Luckily, so much else is happening at that point, that it is possible just to be swept along.

The most shiningly brilliant thing about Utopia is Derek Jacobi. No surprise there perhaps, but it must be said nonetheless. Professor Yana is so adorable, such a lovely old man, doing what he can at the end of the universe, resisting the sourness and regrets of a lifetime spent adrift. As he stares blankly at his broken watch we feel his terrible sadness. But then, the transformation, the moment when he turns around and we see that Yana no longer exists - he has been replaced by the Master. It's spine-chilling. Jacobi does it with a single look, straight at the camera, suddenly utterly malevolent. It is, so far, the greatest single moment in this run of Doctor Who: there is so much promise, so much potential in that glare! In the few scenes that follow the Master is perfectly distilled: arrogant, murderous, slightly flamboyant and with a patrician air. And then, just like the Master of old, he suddenly comes a cropper, betrayed by his erstwhile alien ally - and regenerates! The novelty of that hasn't worn off yet, not for us anyway. Any regeneration is a big event; exhilarating for the audience, balanced on the edge of possibility, eagerly waiting for the new face to resolve itself...

Unfortunately, this is where Utopia's brilliance begins to dwindle. The cliffhanger is still excellent, almost torturous for my boys to endure, but as soon as John Simm replaces Jacobi things begin to go downhill. First time through I told myself that the new Master's hyperactivity probably wouldn't be a problem - it would be a post-regenerative aberration, and his chilled, urbane demeanour would return in the next episode. But now I know that it doesn't and that the Master will be an unhinged loon from now on.

Nevermind. The boys were transfixed by all this - Utopia is a nerd nirvana, awash with callbacks and constantly throwing things forward. They loved all that: the old Master's voices, the talk of Rose, of Torchwood; looking forwards, they are eagerly anticipating not only the resolution of the Saxon arc, but the hand-in-a-jar pay-off and everything after that. And most of all they loved the way in which the Master returned. "Nine out of ten! They made it really impressive," said Chris, "so that you realise the Master is a really big deal."

Spot on again. But, unfortunately, this is exactly why the next two episodes feel like such a let down.


NEXT TIME...

Blink

The simple question here is this: is Blink as good as everyone says it is? And the answer is yes, of course it is. Blink is instantly brilliant, evoking a tangible connection with the past as soon as Sally Sparrow walks into Wester Drumlins: reverence amongst decay. The past becomes the vanished present, a place full of the things we had in our grasp just a moment ago, now unreachable, pushed there by the passage of Time, or the touch of an Angel. Again and again, Sally is forced to accommodate a sense of loss for something she doesn't yet know has been taken from her: she has to accept Kathy's old age and death when she has just left her in the next room; Billy tells her the story of his life from his deathbed just minutes after they first meet. The Angels didn't harm either of them, but they hurt Sally terribly. They are bereavement itself, robbing those left behind of the chance to appreciate their loved ones before they disappear.

Much as I love returning villains, nothing has excited me during this entire run of Doctor Who as much as the success of the Weeping Angels. They are proof that the series will continue to invent and evolve and renew itself. Their true genius, especially here in Blink, is that Moffat has created a race which is capable of terrifying both adults and children. So much of it is brilliant simplicity, the parlour game antics of blindfolds and peeking, the childlike power of being able to nullify a threat by simply seeing it. With every blink, the statues move, they creep closer to you. But this isn't a game and they will get you. Children know all this instinctively. For the adults, the horror is different. It is the question of how much time is left, how long have we got? Unlike the children, we hear the ticking of the clock, getting faster and faster as the years begin to race past. Whatever time we have left, it is not enough, and the Angels could steal even that.

The fairy tale sensibilities of Moffat's work have been evident in his previous stories and they're here in Blink too. The moment where the Doctor's DVD easter egg starts talking back is completely magical and it might as well be an enchanted painting or mirror springing to life. Then there are the gorgeous shots of the angels, posed like supplicant victims of Medusa. There's one tableau in particular where they have arranged themselves about the TARDIS in the garage which is gobsmackingly beautiful, like a Renaissance painting.

Best of all though, Blink is just clever. It must be a terrible headache writing for the Doctor. Nobody is as clever as him and the pressure to think up cunning reversals and witty retorts on his behalf must be crucifying. Far too often, RTD has him throw a switch and say "Oh, I'm brilliant, didn't I mention that?" (Gridlock and Utopia to name two examples off of the top of my head.). This has the advantages of being quick and of avoiding stupid technobabble but it does leave us without any sense that something clever has actually happened. There's no, 'of course!' moment. Moffat has a different tactic which I find much more satisfying. He has the Doctor do simple, straightforward things, but doesn't give me any time to anticipate what they are going to be. What's more, these reversals tend to hinge upon things we understand instinctively. Flesh & Stone is a brilliant example of this, where Moffat/the Doctor shows we are in a ship that has artificial gravity and then switches it off so that all the Angels fall down what is now a shaft rather than a corridor. The climax here works the same way: the dematerialisation of the TARDIS leaves all the Angels looking at each other, transfixed. As soon as we see it, it makes perfect sense, even blindingly obvious! Except we didn't think of it in time and the Doctor did.

Chris gave it a 9 and particularly liked all the statues at the end. "Everyone should know what cool statues Cardiff has." William complained that the Doctor was largely missing again but (full disclosure) the Weeping Angels bit of the Doctor Who Experience was the bit he found most frightening, so make of that what you will...


NEXT TIME...

Human Nature / The Family of Blood

My only problem with Human Nature is that everybody liked it so much. That's not to say I didn't like it, I did. I thought it was really very good. I just didn't see why everybody else had to be quite so gushy about it. Nothing is going to put my back up as much as universal acclaim; it's a character failing I have and it possibly accounts for my inability to support a football club or pick a religion. So, no matter how much I liked this story, as soon as the forums lit up with adulation, fan polls started rating it the best ever and TV critics raved, I instinctively began to grumble to myself that it couldn't have been as good as all that. I don't have those qualms any longer; watching it again, in context, it's clearly exceptionally good. Is there any justification for my original opinion? Well, a sliver perhaps, because this is the first Doctor Who story with the inbuilt capacity to disappoint.

Doctor Who stories always have source material or, at least, influences: from the fascism of the Daleks, through the Thatcherism of Helen A, to the Blairite tendencies of Aliens of London. In the Seventies the series would rework Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes and the Prisoner of Zenda into SF adventures. Some stories even rework the show's own history: Planet of the Daleks is more or less a recycling of the original Dalek serial; Attack of the Cybermen tries to be a sequel to all of Cyber history; Dalek is loosely based on writer Robert Shearman's own audio adventure Jubilee. But Human Nature is something we haven't had before: a direct adaptation of an earlier Doctor Who story, in this case the 1995 novel of the same name, written by Paul Cornell and starring the Seventh Doctor.

It's a great book and a great Doctor Who story, thrillingly radical at the time but also prescient. When it was announced that the programme had tapped Cornell to adapt it for television, the decision made perfect sense: the book's premise, that the Doctor should become human in order to hide from Time Lord-hunting aliens, was exactly the sort of story that the new series was equipped to tell. Of course, being an adaptation, changes had to be made. And of course, having read the book, some of those changes were always going to jar a little. Let's get them out of the way because, let me say this again, I really like Human Nature. It's just in some ways the book is better.

I think the story works better with the Seventh Doctor rather than the Tenth. Tennant does well differentiating between John Smith and the Doctor, and his performance really sells the idea that Smith is a person in his own right rather than a facsimile. But, of all the Doctors to make human, the Tenth? Surely to goodness he is the most human incarnation we've seen? He fits in so easily, emoting all over the place, loving, hating, prideful, humble, lonely. The only suggestion of his alien nature comes when he dips his fingers into a jam jar in Fear Her, and his occasional comments on humanity sound more like observational stand-up ("Edible ball-bearings? What's that about?") than the bewilderment of an extraterrestrial. As a result there's much less of a contrast between Smith and Tennant's Doctor than there was with McCoy's.

There are other minor differences (the Doctor's fob watch-residing animus has much more of an impact on schoolboy Tim Latimer in the book, and John Smith manages to influence events even after the Doctor has returned), but the other major one is the concept of pacifism. The book is much more uncompromising. Smith's latent Doctorishness leads to a reaction against the school's militarism that requires him to teach both the history and practice of war. Latimer ends up, not in the army, but as a Red Cross volunteer during World War One and, at the end, the Doctor unapologetically wears a white poppy to the remembrance service. I completely understand why the book and the episode differ in this way. It is right and appropriate that the nationally broadcast television programme should respect those who served, but I still admire the passionate outrage of the book - after all, there's nothing as fun as climbing up onto a very high horse. How lovely that we get to have two wonderful versions of this story.

But let's put the book to one side. Why is this story (I'm cheating again by the way, doing two at once) so good? Time for a list.

1. Martha! Martha is great isn't she? And she fits into this story so beautifully. Her role as the the Doctor's protector and maid here suits her perfectly - desperate to help but almost entirely ignored by the man she dotes on. She protects him nonetheless, flouting protocol by rushing in when she's heard he's injured. She more or less runs rings around the Family of Blood, cannily spotting that Jenny has been possessed and holding back the lot of them in the Village Hall long enough for everyone to escape. Without the Doctor she properly becomes our identification figure for the first time, representing our 21st century values in an utterly alien environment. The way she deals with the ugliness of the period is brilliant: scandalising Jenny or enduring the racist taunts of Baines and Hutchinson. When Smith starts on about "cultural differences" Martha is rightly furious ("Oh you complete-"), and then she has to battle Joan's prejudices too: "Women might train to be doctors, but hardly a skivvy and hardly one of your colour." At least her sexism is less pronounced than her racist snobbery.

2. The Guest Cast. Harry Lloyd is incredible as the possessed Baines, constructing a terrifying, larger-than-life and very memorable villain. If it isn't the performance of the series then it can only be because of Derek Jacobi. Rebekah Staton also shines as one of the Family, revelling in a gleeful, bright-eyed malevolence. Jessica Hynes (then Stevenson) is a perfect Joan, full of dignity, tenderness and a steely contemptuousness which she directs at both Martha and the Doctor. She's very modern too - for her time - using all the opportunity society allows her to prompt Smith into asking her out.

3. The Doctor. Unlike either Love & Monsters or Blink, this Doctor-lite story is all about the Doctor. Despite his absence, his presence is felt, first as the eccentric fantasy of Smith's imagination in The Journal of Impossible Things and the business with the cricket ball, and then as a shadow that looms over everything. This is our first glimpse of his dark greatness, of the almost mythological Doctor that we will see so much more of over the next few years. It's thrilling because at this point it feels like something new is being revealed. Yes, there have been odd mentions of it (Clive's speech in Rose, the bathos of "Here he is, the Oncoming Storm..." in The Girl in the Fireplace), but this time we get to witness the terrible power of the wrathful Time Lord.

This is the point of course, the Doctor looms over Smith in the same way that the Great War looms over the boys. Neither Latimer or Smith have a choice: the war is inevitable, and so is the Doctor (the 'possible' future that Smith and Joan see is not an option at all: either the Doctor must return or the Family will destroy the world). The only option is to accept the future and its consequences, even if it means losing everything.

Thank goodness the boys could only give this an eight (William, his last score I think) and a nine (Chris, for a sixth episode in a row) because it means I can relax and, without fear of joining a brainwashed mob, declare Human Nature a stone cold ten-out-of-ten classic.


NEXT TIME...

42

This has much in common with The Lazarus Experiment in that I sort of expected it to be rather middling and was surprised how good it actually was. In some ways they actually feel like a two-parter: although the setting and plot changes, there's a very strong continuing framework built around the development of Martha's relationship with the Doctor, and Francine's growing Saxon-fuelled anxiety. Far from being bogged down with doing too much, 42 works very well, helped by the strong structure and frenetic pace of the real time format. It feels natural and normal that Martha must juggle her family life with the here and now of falling into an alien sun and that's a tremendous achievement: it is exactly this sort of balancing act that made those early episodes of Series One so effective.

At the heart of 42 is a rock-solid SF parable: humans, through greed and selfishness, damage the natural world with dreadful consequences. It might as well be the Exxon Valdez as the SS Pentallian, except that in SF the repercussions tend to be of the guilty-humans-get-incinerated-by-angry-star-being variety rather than innocent-wildlife-suffers-and-guilty-corporation-spends-20-years-in-legal-battles-to-reduce-their-fine (yes, I wikied that, but see for yourself, it's gobsmacking). This is why we need SF parables - reality is neither satisfying, nor fits easily into a drama/adventure format.

The real time structure isn't a gimmick either. When people suggest using the TARDIS to escape from an episode we often hear the Doctor say "No, we can't, we're part of events now!". Without further unwieldy explanation it never really feels like anything other than a deadlock seal, a convenient get-out clause. It's not uttered at all in 42, but for once it might be convincing. As soon as they step onto the Pentallian, it really does feel as if they are enmeshed in the situation, as if they had fallen into a fast-flowing river or landed on a runaway train. To make matters worse (or better) there are two distinctly uncomfortable lurches, firstly when Martha's escape pod is fired from the stricken ship, and secondly when the Doctor succumbs to the star's blazing personality. Of course we know everything is going to be okay. Everything is always going to be okay. But such a sudden turn of events pulls the story further away from its expected trajectory and makes us gasp, wondering how things will be brought back together. They are great moments in this episode that raise the tension even further.

And whilst these short-term considerations are being dealt with, the story glances sideways at Francine and Saxon's minions, making us think further ahead. It's clever because the audience has to absorb both the immediate danger and the lurking future threat of the Saxon arc. Now we have reached series three and are into more familiar territory, the boys are beginning to have memories of these episodes. Their emphasis is changing because they know roughly what is going to happen: they remember the Master and the Medusa Cascade. Whilst they are enjoying the individual stories, they really want to see how it all fits together, how the different series arcs work and how they combine to tell one enormously long story. Increasingly, it is moments like these that they are waiting for.

As a result, no score from William. Chris is still eager to hold forth though and he gave it a nine. He talked about the scariness of the Doctor being taken over and, very perspicaciously, pointed out how effective Martha is ("really useful" he said, which is not something you can say about all companions). She really is great - earnest, insightful, determined and full of wonder for the new things she encounters, all the while sat mournfully in the Doctor's blind spot.


NEXT TIME...

The Lazarus Experiment

This one's no mid-season clunker either. What was I worried about at the time? I don't know. I suppose this was about the point that I started taking the programme for granted again. Approaching the halfway mark in this third series, Doctor Who had stopped being the The Show That Miraculously Returned From The Dead. It had become, once again, a fixture and not only was it now inseparably embedded in that Easter to June slot in the schedules, it was also busily shooting off televisual spores in all directions: Torchwood, Doctor Who Confidential, The Sarah Jane Adventures and Totally Doctor Who. The show was safely established and the most complicated thing about it was that I might have to record it if I had to go to a wedding.

I don't think that happened with The Lazarus Experiment, but then I don't remember giving it much thought either. By now we knew what the 'important' episodes were, the tentpoles: there were openers, the two-parters and then the finale. Sometimes it felt like the episodes in between were just there to keep things ticking over until the next big one. Well, thank goodness I have the chance to look at this again because it's really very good.

The best thing about this episode is the developing relationship between the Doctor and Martha. They are stuck in an awkward friend-zone, a hinterland that lies between convenient labels. She doesn't want him to go, wants to be more than friends, but has to contend not only with his ambivalence, but also her mother's disapproval. Meanwhile the Doctor, hellbent on being breezy and oblivious to her concerns, quickly finds himself in the hottest of water, stumbling over his words with Francine, like a Richard Curtis reject. Daleks, he can handle; families, not so much.

Martha, compelled to ignore her mother's increasingly desperate pleas, determinedly throws in her lot with the Doctor in this episode, only for their partnership to apparently founder in the last scene. The Doctor invites her back aboard the TARDIS in the most casual of terms, offering her "one more trip", and she refuses. She demands to be accepted as a proper companion: she needs the Doctor to commit.

I love that moment. I love how she stands up for herself, demonstrating her own self-respect and resilience. Of course the Doctor wants to be flippant and carefree but he doesn't hesitate to agree with her request. All pumped up, expecting a fight, expecting to be let down, she doesn't immediately notice that he's said yes. Once she's realised, Martha is delighted - but should she be? That the Doctor has acquiesced so readily shows that this matters much less to him than it does to her. He didn't have to think about it because he is sure that he likes her, but it didn't occur to him to think about how she feels towards him. This asymmetry is the essence of their relationship and leads directly to their final conversation in Last of the Time Lords where once again Martha will demonstrate her wonderful self-respect.

And then there's the actual monster-run-around story. It's good stuff and we haven't had a 'mad scientist' plot in so long (depends on your definition but at the latest Time and the Rani?) that it all feels rather novel. I love the blend: the experiment being conducted at a black tie bash, complete with canapés; the impromptu family gathering as Martha's mother, brother and sister bicker away; the Doctor frowning, worried about Lazarus' intentions; the Saxonites loitering, dripping poison in Francine's ear. Mark Gatiss is suitably slimy and spiteful as both old and young Lazarus, and though we never quite get the sense that there's much steel in the man, perhaps that's right: Lazarus acts out of fear and, increasingly, desperation; he's no Tobias Vaughn. 

His rejuvenation confused the boys totally. Had they swapped actors? No? Then they must be using 'twenty year old' footage of the same actor? No... Well how had they done it then?! I gave nothing away. Fascinatingly, they latched on to the idea that Old Lazarus was being played by Peter Davison and then, when Young Lazarus stepped out, cried "Aha! No, that's Peter Davison!" which I think must be something to do with the wig?

Speaking of resemblances, the monster is good too - with the exception of its face, which looks absolutely nothing like Gatiss'. It's a shame because the rest of it is great, and the scenes where it wreaks havoc on the champagne reception or chases the Doctor through the laboratories are excellent, as is the the exciting climactic battle in the cathedral - a great setting that feels very fresh for Doctor Who. It's not just that the Doctor battles a monster with an organ, there's a great philosophical confrontation here too as Lazarus, desperate to avoid death, argues with the Doctor who dies all the time. Tish is a good addition in these final scenes and it would be interesting to think of her as a potential companion. We've never had siblings in the TARDIS (on television anyway) but it would be an interesting dynamic. It'll happen eventually, I'm sure.

William gave it a seven, but reluctantly. He found the Doctor's conversation with Francine hilariously awkward, but his main concern is the Saxon arc. Chris enthusiastically gave it a nine, calling it "cool, exciting, scary and unsettling" and noting that often the Doctor was forced to battle people who "don't understand death", which might just be the most satisfying observation I've ever heard.


NEXT TIME...

Daleks in Manhattan / Evolution of the Daleks

Goodness me, I've fallen behind with this. Writing up series three has turned into a right old slog for some reason that has absolutely nothing to do with me accidentally powering up Mass Effect again. Oh no.

And I can't say it's because I am not enthused with series three either, because I am! It's really very good, much better than I would have suggested on the basis of six year old memories. We watched Utopia last night (that's how far behind I am) and, amazingly, there hasn't been one so-so episode, not a weak link in the chain. It may even be (that pinging noise is my ExcuseFinder3000 going off) that it's the high quality of these stories that has slowed me down: with no half-baked New Earth to frown over, with no Rose or disempowered Doctor to rant about, I've been bereft. The upshot of my sluggardliness is that I'm going to cheat, just this once, and write up this two-parter as one post. It only cuts the tiniest corner off of this 102 episode lump of Doctor Who, but it'll make me feel better.

Even if I wasn't playing catch-up, I'd be tempted to treat these two episodes as one story, if only so that I could just call the whole thing Evolution of the Daleks. That's a great title. It goes beautifully with the those rather grandiose stories from the classic series (Genesis, Destiny, Resurrection, Remembrance), and, even better, it actually describes what we see on screen (unlike, say, Revelation of the Daleks). It's also a much better title than Daleks in Manhattan which can't help but suggest a mid-Eighties fish-out-of-water comedy, perhaps with a montage showing Skaro's finest visiting landmarks, buying I♥NY souvenirs, high-fiving break-dancers and inexorably falling in love with the local girl who can see past the dalekanium shell to the bubbling lump of hate inside. Actually that sounds like a brilliant film.

A little more seriously, there is something about the Daleks that suits the idea of Manhattan. Viewed from afar the humanity is invisible and New York becomes a vast machine that people merely infest: a shining futuristic city of clean lines, elevators, and gleaming glass and metal. (Yes, I'm thinking of this possibly). It's easy to imagine Daleks gliding down wide avenues or zooming through the air along the concrete canyons, so easy, in fact, that the image can't help but undermine an episode which can't show them doing it.

Still, the ambition of Evolution of the Daleks (I'm just going to call it that) is tremendously impressive. Shoot New York in Cardiff? Which loon thought that would work? But it does, just about. Okay, we see a lot of sewers and basements (just like New New York, we are trapped in the Undercity), the grand avenues are conspicuous by their absence, and the Empire State Building drifts about, first loitering suspiciously in southern Manhattan before deciding to loom over Central Park - but those wonderful plate shots make all the difference. There are those gorgeous skyline views, the single shot of the real Central Park that allows us to push Bute Park from our heads, and, best of all, the excellent composite image of the TARDIS, the Doctor and Martha all stood underneath the Statue of Liberty. It's so impressive and does so much work to sell the idea of Doctor Who in New York.

At the time, these episodes got a bit of a kicking from the 'fans' on the forums and a lot of the negative comments sadly focussed on the writer, Helen Raynor. It all got very unpleasant, and it is to be hoped that the fact that Raynor was the first woman to write for the new series had absolutely nothing to do with that. Certainly, I struggle to see what was supposed to have been so terrible about these episodes. It's actually one of the better Dalek stories because it asks questions about the common ground that humans and Daleks share, rather than just treating them as sons et lumières like some recent adventures. The idea that they should look to us to improve their own villainy is utterly chilling, and the slow unwinding of this premise as Sec's humanity begins to assert itself is excellent, allowing both species to restate their principles. We do get sold that old lie once again about them being emotionless ("Daleks have no concept of worry!" - er, yes you do, not to mention betrayal, audacity, hope, triumph...), and the 'human' qualities the Daleks want are apparently "ambition, hatred, aggression, war" (really?). But the Daleks are on good form throughout. I love this sense of them as conniving, duplicitous creatures - this is their true essence, what the Kaleds were busy doing in the Dome in Genesis: whispers and lies and machinations. The moment where one of them looks over its shoulder before conspiring is wonderful.

As is the period setting and I'm not just talking about the dance number, or the Universal horror movie vibes. It's daring and inspired to show us an historical backdrop that the audience doesn't already know well, and the choice of the Great Depression is particularly apposite for the story: these humans, like the Daleks, are at rock bottom and so desperate they will try anything. Furthermore they're both (and the Doctor too) recovering from a war that has made them doubt everything. How American is this episode? Not very I'd say, the killer line being that Diagoras calls the black Dalek "Lord Sec" - it's not impossible that he's assuming the Daleks are British (I suppose their accents are still British under all that ring modulation) but there's no way any self-respecting American, let alone a tough Nooyoiker, would instinctively reach for "Lord" to show his respect or deference. 'Mr Sec, sir,' that's what he'd say.

Two tiny things. Firstly, this is where I started to clench my teeth at the whole 'animals as aliens/creatures' thing that we see so much of during RTD's tenure: we've already had rhinos, cats and spiders, not to mention the Slitheen pig, and there's wasps and flies to come. It niggles here because there's no obvious reason why the Daleks would make their captured humans look like pigs other than pure sadism. That would be a good reason for them to do it, of course, but they don't really explain why they've done it at all. On the other hand, the Lazlo/Tallulah sub-plot needs that disfigurement for it to work and Robo-men just wouldn't cut the mustard.

Secondly, for once, it shouldn't be the Doctor that saves the day. By all means have him cook up a potion to save Laszlo but that business where the solar flare/lightning transfers some Time Lord DNA into the Human/Dalek mix is no good. This story is about the Daleks seeking something indomitable they have discovered in humans - it should stay indomitable. How brilliant, how perfectly Ghostbusters II, would it have been if the New Yorkers, with their brash, callous exteriors and squidgy, sentimental innards, had defied the Daleks? The great Melting Pot resisting the genetic purists? This is one time where we don't need a Time Lord intercessor: the almost mythological (and perhaps, admittedly, clichéd) reputation of the citizens of New York would have been enough.

Although the boys enjoyed this a lot (Chris: "One of the best Dalek stories ever"), they enjoyed some minor nit-picking themselves. William found the backwards and forwards between minutes and rels highly derisory, and Chris felt troubled when a Dalek opened fire without warning: "What? Don't they HAVE to say 'Exterminate!' to make their guns work?" I'd never thought of that before but I like it - voice controlled guns! Maybe that's why they say it three times too, desperately trying to find the right cadence to satisfy their inner Siris. Neither of them particularly liked the pigs either, but Chris praised the cliffhanger and the Daleks' sneakiness. he gave it a 9. William gave it an 8. He liked Sec's gradual humanisation and, having studied the Dustbowl at school, was interested to see the urban consequences of the Great Depression as well. Or at least, to see what it would have looked like had it happened in Cardiff.

The Americanisation of Doctor Who is of particular interest to me because, much to my surprise, I ended up living here in the United States. When I first saw this, I had never even been to America, let alone New York. To be honest, back then, I really didn't care that the Empire State Building was in the wrong place. But I did care that they were filming in Bute Park because, living in Cardiff, I recognised it all too easily. Now, when they have filmed in the real Central Park (for The Angels Take Manhattan) and Utah and elsewhere (The Impossible Astronaut) it begins to feel eerily like Doctor Who is following me once again. A Town Called Mercy was even set in Texas which is surely just a shot across the bows from the production team. On the other hand, missing as I do the UK, and Cardiff in particular, it's rather nice to see the TARDIS land in a street or playground that I know very well from back then. And luckily, with Evolution of the Daleks, I get to see both sides of the pond at once.


NEXT TIME...

Gridlock

I love Gridlock. It's not perfect, but lots of things about it are very good and one thing in particular is wonderful: the Doctor, in full-on saviour mode, arriving in a static society and leaving it transformed.

There's an awful poignancy about all those people stuck on the motorway: all alone, doomed to spend their lives locked away in their boxes. Many of them have little idea of their true predicament. The smiling faces on their screens tell them everything is okay, but really they are entirely trapped in a world with no upward mobility, where the desperate end up racing to the bottom to try and get ahead. In truth we never see more than snapshots of this society, but the people we meet conduct themselves with such dignity. Brannigan, Mrs and Mrs Cassini, even that chap in the bowler hat, they're all putting on a brave face and trying hard not to make a fuss. If this is a dystopian future, it's a very British one.

In the old days, if the Doctor was going to foment revolution, it took a while, usually four to six weeks. He did manage to topple Helen A's regime in a single night in The Happiness Patrol, but even then the BBC managed to string it out for half of November 1988. Since 2005, we've seen him uncovering plots and invasions, stumbling into unfolding situations or even causing problems himself, but we haven't seen him do this: combatting the system itself.

The speed of his revolution is so breathtaking that Gridlock seems to run almost in real time and for some this might make it less credible - but the speed is the point. To a world trapped in a traffic jam, the Doctor should seem like a lightning bolt, a restless blur of action. He can't sit still and he refuses to accept constraints to which the survivors have long since become inured. In fact, it is their coping mechanism - the communal singing that brings them such comfort on the long road - that triggers him to leap into action. The Doctor, falling from car to car, perceiving a new direction, turns the stationary world of the motorway through ninety degrees - not a full revolution, but literally the beginning of one. A few minutes later, speaking from the Senate itself, he saves everyone. It's completely appropriate that it seems ridiculously fast. To Brannigan, who has just watched the Doctor vanish through a trap door only to reappear a moment later at the apex of society, it should rightly feel like a magic trick; incomprehensible, insane and a bit magnificent.

How appropriate that all this should be bookended by talk of Gallifrey: the original stagnant society, founded on the very idea that the Time Lords would "neither flux, nor wither, nor change their state in any measure." I wrote last time about how the Doctor is essentially a character of the very highest privilege, but the corollary of that is that he is also a natural rebel, someone who rejects systems and rules, and delights in the mild anarchy of personal freedom. Unable to cope with the stuffiness of Time Lord society, he left, throwing himself into the messiness of the universe and becoming, irrevocably, involved.

Ancient history by now as far as the show is concerned, but still personal history for the Doctor. Despite the subtlety of some of Eccleston's performances, the effects of the Time War have caused some heavy emotional outbursts. The Doctor's reactions here are beautiful, understated and all too human. At first he can't bring himself to have the conversation with Martha, unwilling to explain once again that Gallifrey has gone. Instead, he offers her a memory, a picture of the long vanished world of his childhood. When she confronts him at the end he gives in and admits to her what has happened. But almost immediately after spitting out the words 'Time War' and 'Daleks' he returns to those memories: the red grass, the orange sky, the sun glinting on the dome of the Capitol. Whether Martha is in the loop or not, he'd rather reminisce about the Gallifrey he left than face up to the reality of its destruction. As he talks, the city begins to fill with song once more, its people drawn together by shared experience. It just makes it clear to us that it doesn't matter with whom he shares his grief: the Doctor remains alone.

I mentioned that this episode isn't perfect, but I have only really tiny niggles. It's never properly explained how the Undercity connects to the Motorway, or to the rest of New New York, and so there's this nagging doubt as to how people can still be joining the traffic jam after all this time. And if the Undercity is sealed off along with the Motorway (as the script seems to imply) then why don't some or all of the motorists abandon the road and try and make a fist of things there? The other small gripe I have is that the Doctor doesn't arrive at the Senate through his own agency - he is trying to reach Martha, but Novice Hame kidnaps him in order to bring him to the Face of Boe. It feels a little forced and it would be better if he had to abandon the rescue attempt, and/or was persuaded that he could save Martha if he went to the Senate. But, of course, that would all take too long and this story just has to crack on.

Throughout, Gridlock is full of clever economies that make sure it can do just that. The absence of a true villain removes all sorts of obstacles from the plot. The cars themselves, a single set redressed for different motorists with a uniform exterior mass produced by the Mill's CGI, give this story a grand scale while allowing us to see a diverse array of characters with some intimacy. Martha continues to be very good. The very fact that she has only just met the Doctor gives everything an edge, whether it's her realisation that her life depends upon a man who is essentially still a stranger, or the way in which she eventually forces him to open up. Throughout these early episodes she is continually challenging the Doctor, asking questions and demanding his respect. Slowly she is earning it.

Meanwhile, the boys are growing tired of me asking for their thoughts on each episode. Which is okay, because they are certainly not getting bored with watching Doctor Who and that is much more important. They only gave Gridlock a seven in any case, but each to their own. The things they really liked - the description of Gallifrey, the Face of Boe's warning - hint that they're increasingly interested on the programme's ongoing overall storyline rather than individual episodes, which makes complete sense considering what the next couple of series are like.


NEXT TIME...

The Shakespeare Code

This episode begins with a beautiful flurry of questions from Martha. "How does it [the TARDIS] work? What happens if I tread on a butterfly? What if I kill my own grandfather? Am I going to get carted off as a slave?" They showcase her intelligence - these aren't questions that have been asked before in a show that is (at least sometimes) about time travel - but they also highlight the fragility of the Doctor Who premise.

I don't mean that it is not a good premise; it's excellent in that it provides an inexhaustible variety of stories, settings and characters. But it is also nonsense, not so much science-fiction as pure fantasy. If we ask too many questions (or worse, answer them) there is a danger that we will, as the Doctor puts it, "take the fun and the mystery out of everything." It's a timely reminder that we are all here primarily for the adventure.

On the other hand, Doctor Who can't dodge that last question Martha asks, even if the Doctor tries to brush it off: the matter of Martha's skin colour needs to be dealt with in her first historical outing. It's addressed gently, which is probably the right thing to do. The Doctor points out that 16th century London does have black inhabitants - and whilst we can't definitely say that this was the case, it is certain that the lives of any ordinary black people of the time will have been under-represented to the point that they will have become invisible to history. Quite right that Doctor Who, a show with progressive leanings, should show racial integration as a normal and long-standing state of affairs. Then Shakespeare himself shocks Martha by trying to use the appropriate Elizabethan terminology: "an Ethiope girl, a swarth, a Queen of Afric?" She can't quite believe what she's hearing and the scene raises the point that the words we use to describe ourselves and each other are of crucial importance. These epithets change over time, as do the nature of race-relations.

The Doctor's reaction is interesting. When Martha first raises her concerns he seems bewildered, but later on, with Shakespeare, he appears to anticipate that the Bard's language will provoke her 21st century principles. Just how colour-blind is he? His attempt to reassure Martha is telling: "I'm not even human. Just walk about like you own the place. Works for me." In other words, like most white men, he is largely oblivious to his own privilege.

Before the grand unveiling of Peter Capaldi, there was much discussion of a possible non-white Doctor, although nearly every article I saw on the matter mentioned only black alternatives. There's no internal reason why there shouldn't be a non-white Doctor, nor any shortage of good black actors who would be great in the role. But casting a black Doctor gives the show a moral obligation to explore historical attitudes to race, even more so than we have seen with Martha. This is not a bad thing, in fact this would be an excellent reason to have a black actor in the role. It would be fascinating and important to see the Doctor coping with prejudice and without the advantages that come with white skin.

But this would have to happen, or at least be acknowledged, every time the TARDIS went back into the past. In fact to ever ignore it in an historical setting would be to disrespect the suffering of people of colour. We might wish to live in a colour-blind society, but we can't do that if we gloss over the evils of the past. Making the Doctor black would be a valid direction in which to take the show, but might mean that Doctor Who appeared to become a programme that was only about racism. Such a shift might take time away from exploring other stories and issues. Let's face it, the Doctor has already been given the sonic screwdriver and the psychic paper in order to speed stories along and remove obstacles: if historical episodes weren't going to repeatedly explore similar racial tensions, they would have to start working around them.

I don't mean that any of this is a reason never to have a non-white Doctor. If nothing else it would make clear something that has often been taken for granted: that the Doctor, regardless of his apparent race or gender, is a character of purest privilege. He is an aristocrat, an actual Lord. And on top of that his species is superior to almost all others: the Time Lords were the crème de la crème, the self-appointed elite of the universe. For all his many acts of rebellion, the Doctor is merely gallivanting around Space and Time, his interventions caused as much by the grandest noblesse oblige as by his morality. And beyond these notions of class, the Doctor has intelligence, learning and experience in intimidating amounts: he is not, in any way, our equal. Even Eccleston's Doctor, the least patrician of the lot, made sure the "stupid apes" knew what he thought of them. As long as this superiority is not diluted, there's no reason why anyone could not play the Doctor.

These are some of the questions that would need to be mulled over. But, to go back to Martha, we need to be reminded sometimes that this is more a frivolous adventure show for kids than it is a weighty examination of the human condition. Casting a non-white Doctor would mean  walking a fine line between seriously examining prejudice and maintaining a lightness of touch and I can understand why producers and writers might feel this was territory best left to other programmes. However, the treatment of Martha in The Shakespeare Code certainly offers encouragement that this balance could be achieved. Although she isn't mistreated in this episode, her skin colour is addressed - but in between these conversations with Shakespeare (which are more likely to be considered examples of sexual harassment than racial abuse) it's all brushed under the carpet so that we can get on with the story.

The thing I love most about The Shakespeare Code is the evocation of Shakespeare's London. It's just a couple of streets and the Globe Theatre but it looks magnificent and real. There have been times recently when the modern city has not looked so convincing on screen as this does here. It's a triumph.

Tennant is good as well. There's something more satisfying about his Doctor this series, as if he's earned the authority that he wields, say, when he names the Carrionites. Looking back at the confrontation with the Headmaster in School Reunion or the fingers-on-lips scene from Fear Her, there was something a little unconvincing about the way the Doctor faced people down. He defers to Shakespeare here, but only as one genius to another: this year there's more confidence about both Tennant and the Doctor.

And look, for the third story in a row, female villains. Has that happened before? After Anne Reid's 'witch' in Smith & Jones, we get real witches here or, at least, Doctor Who's SF assimilation of them. But they aren't just a collection of fairy tale clichés. The opening scene, in which they lure a young man to his death, is savage and (according to the boys) "horrific". Throughout, their spells and ploys feel like the sort of thing stories about witches might be based upon rather than the other way around, and the only hocus-pocus on display is the Doctor's penchant for Harry Potter.

The boys both gave this an 8. William liked the interplay between the Doctor and Shakespeare and all the business of feeding titles and lines into their dialogue. Chris mentioned that he liked it when the historical figures turned up, but we're big fans of Horrible Histories. I wonder, did Doctor Who partially help prepare kids for that show by showing them Dickens, Queen Victoria and Shakespeare?

Overall this is much better than I remembered and I really enjoyed it, especially the non sequitur of Queen Elizabeth roaring in at the end. Once again Martha, and perhaps the audience, would like an explanation; once again, the Doctor is too busy having fun to think of one.


NEXT TIME...