The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood

"I'm making perfect sense. You're just not keeping up!"

That's a wonderful, and very Doctorish, line that allows Smith once again to demonstrate his irresistible authority in the role, and it's one of the highlights of this story.

Mid-season two-parters can, if they are not aggressively marketed as 'event' episodes, sometimes feel like a digression, a longueur in which progress towards the conclusion of the series' arc becomes stalled. But while there is a slowness to The Hungry Earth, it is thoughtful rather than ponderous. The situation is established with much care and attention to character, and the tension builds as we wait for the Silurian's to rise from the ground and attack. Things slide a little in the remainder of part one. I can only roll my eyes when the Doctor takes Nasreen away - she's the only competent human available and her removal from the surface makes it painfully obvious and inevitable what will happen. Still, things pick up nicely in Cold Blood, just in time to be dashed all over the floor by the return of The Crack and the loss of Rory.

Poor Rory hasn't really got the hang of this yet. He has more or less blundered his way through these three (four including The Eleventh Hour) adventures, albeit with flashes of bravery. It doesn't help that the Doctor hasn't really got the hang of Rory either - he basically abandons him for most of this two-parter, either oblivious to or uninterested in his new companion's learning curve. Never mind, things will change for both of them soon enough.

Overall, this is not so much New Who as Neo-Pertwee. The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood seems to have been deliberately constructed as an homage to the Third Doctor's tenure. The return of the Silurians is an obvious link back to the early Seventies, but then there's the Welsh setting which evokes The Green Death, the drilling project (Inferno), the dome over the village (The Daemons), and the Doctor brokering a peace deal (many stories, including Frontier in Space). We even get a weird unexplained time travel effect where Amy and Rory see their future selves, like that in Day of the Daleks. In short, it's extremely surprising that neither the Master or UNIT put in an appearance.

It's nice to honour the history of the show (I can't wait for the McCoy tribute episode: all straight-blowing jazz, liquorice allsorts and dark scheming) but this two-parter does rather end up feeling like a mere cover version. The 1970 original (called, wait for it, Doctor Who and the Silurians), in which the Doctor discovers a cell of Homo Reptilia has been discovered, tries to broker a deal which then founders due to aggression and suspicion on both sides. This adaptation doesn't progress things much further. The resolution this time is a little more optimistic, offering the hope of an eventual Human/Silurian compact, a thousand years down the line, but this hardly constitutes a twist.

There is one change. At the end of Doctor Who and the Silurians, the Brigadier, the original human belligerent, was unrepentant about having bombed the lizard men, trapping them underground. His thinking was, at least as he was concerned, pragmatic and militarily sound. His equivalent, Ambrose, similarly represents human aggression, but she is motivated by fear and maternal anxiety. They both get stern admonishments from the Doctor - but in Ambrose's case it is also an exhortation to do better, to be an example to her son Eliot. She does not argue. 

If nothing else, this story makes clear that the serving up past glories is done for the benefit of today's children, not those of the Seventies. There's clearly a lot of nostalgia built in to this two-parter, but really it is designed to be enjoyed best by those who don't remember the Pertwee era. The kids (rightly enough) don't care two figs that the Silurians have been redesigned or that this has all happened before. And I don't really mind either.



NEXT TIME...

Amy's Choice

What if Amy had to choose between the Doctor and Rory? That is the focus of this episode, and it will remain part of the ongoing triangular tension between the three leads for a long time to come.

Amy unambiguously makes her decision here - she chooses Rory, unable to live in a world without him. It is the same decision she will make in The Angels Take Manhattan. Her feelings don't change between these two episodes (apart from when Rory disappears from the Universe), but the audience will forever be teased into thinking that she can't possibly mean it.

When she finds the vanished Rory's engagement ring in The Lodger, we are (albeit briefly) asked to guess that she expects the Doctor to propose. When she halts her wedding reception (The Big Bang) to yank the Doctor back into the Universe, we are almost in The Graduate territory. In The Day of the Moon, Rory is dejected when he hears Amy apparently tell the Doctor that she loves him, while A Good Man Goes to War begins with an outrageous tease that the Doctor might actually be the father of Amy's baby. The implication is that, even if Amy doesn't doubt her decision, the audience is supposedly unable to seriously believe she really wants to be with Rory when the clearly superior Doctor is right there.

It almost doesn't matter what Amy, the Doctor, or the audience think, because of course Rory is the one person who can't shift these doubts. I have heard complaints that Moffat comes across as cock-sure, even arrogant, but one only has to glance at the male characters he has created in shows like Joking Apart and Coupling to see that he has a keen understanding of male insecurity. Rory is very much in the mould of Steve Taylor (Jack Davenport) in Coupling, a man who finds himself in a relationship with an incredible, beautiful woman and can't really understand what she sees in him.

A lot of this is painfully clear in Rory's side of the dreamscape in Amy's Choice. The ponytail is an affectation, something he hopes will make him seem more exciting (c.f. "Bow ties are cool."), while he appears to have been promoted from (let's face it) the emasculated nurse he was before (remember the Psychic Paper called him a eunuch in The Vampires of Venice?) to a full on 'proper' doctor. It's all rather pathetic of course, but it's also rather adorable (and who better than Men Behaving Badly writer Simon Nye to describe the feeble yet lovable modern man?): despite all this insecurity Rory doesn't stop fighting for Amy and he never stops loving her.

What he never realises is that Amy's Choice is a false one. There is no need for her to decide between the Doctor and her boyfriend because, until New York, she can have both, and the Doctor makes a good deal of obvious fuss about keeping out of Rory's way. The really significant thing is where all these dodgy dreams come from: Toby Jones' wonderful turn as the scene-stealing Dream Lord, very much the trickster. Never has the Doctor's dark side seemed so murky (at least, presumably, until The Day of the Doctor). As it was the Doctor's mind that spawned this unhelpful dilemma, we must conclude that there is some part of him that desires Amy and wishes Rory to be gone. Well, we are all capable of dark thoughts and we don't expect to be judged because of them. And surely it's no surprise to find that the corners of the Doctor's mind are darker than most.


NEXT TIME...

The Vampires of Venice

I was caught off-guard here because the boys were convinced, once we had finished, that this was the best Doctor Who story of all time. It turns out that they say this quite often, but I think it is always sincerely spoken. It leads me to the conclusion that there are two kinds of Doctor Who story, as far as they are concerned: good ones, which might not actually elicit much response, and really good ones, which blow their tiny minds. So I was a little surprised to find this episode included in the second category but, having had a think about it, I've decided they are right.

For a start, it's Venice. Okay, it isn't, it's somewhere in Croatia - but it looks a hell of a lot more like Venice than Cardiff looked like New York in Daleks in Manhattan. The episode can't quite reproduce the astonishing and joyous complexity of Venice, the idea that time and space might even be folded in upon themselves as smokeblue canals and dark alleyways thread this way and that. But what it does evoke is the liminal sense of Venice existing between land and water. The lagoon is a pervasive presence.

The water infiltrates the city in the same way that the Saturnyns have crept into Venetian society, and the episode is full of reflections, shots from beneath the surface and the slow glide of boats. Add in some very nice effect shots like this one (right) and the reproduction of Venice must be considered a terrific success.

With such a wonderful setting it almost doesn't matter what the story is - but the one we get is certainly decent enough. The real strength of this episode is Helen McCrory's fantastic Rosanna, so noble and upright in her splendid Venetian gown, a nurturing mother to her many sons, an embittered refugee and a marvellous flirt. That scene, in which she and the Doctor get the measure of each other, is the highlight of the episode for me. McCrory is a joy, but Smith, with great economy, is extraordinary once more. It's scenes like this, again paired with a charismatic older woman, that should make this new Doctor look like a boy, but they only serve to demonstrate Smith's incredible ability to persuade us of the Doctor's age and natural authority. He doesn't rant or shout, he just eases through the exchanges, perfectly at ease, even mellifluous.

If Smith's Doctor is already the finished article, Rory still has some way to go. His presence here appears to mess up the tried and tested 'single-female-companion' template and I'm sure some members of the audience wondered why the TARDIS needed a wet third wheel. This is, of course, the point of Rory, and Moffat will play with ideas around his redundancy and inadequacy throughout the next two years, often using the Doctor's obvious superiority as a blunt instrument with which to smash in Rory's self-esteem. Here for example, Rory pulls out a pocket torch only for the Doctor to whip out an impossibly large UV lamp. "Yours is bigger than mine," Rory notes. "Let's not go there," mutters the Doctor. The relationship between these two men is absolutely crucial, I think (and more important than that between the Doctor and Amy), and the manner in which Rory slowly escapes from the Time Lord's shadow is one of the joys of this run of stories.


NEXT TIME...

The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone

The next great Moff-tacular and possibly the best of them all. From the cool-as-space opening in which River faces off with Simon Dutton ("Oooh, he was James Bond right?") to the coda in Amy's bedroom, this two-parter is gorgeous, full of brain-melting moments and glorious stings. Here are just a few of the many reasons why this story is so good.

1. "You might want to find something to hang on to." What an entrance, and an exit, from the brilliant River Song. Not only fabulously stylish, but (like Ginger Rogers) backwards and in heels.

2. The Smith/Kingston chemistry - perfectly triangulated by Karen Gillan. "Ooh, Doctor, you sonic-ed her!" she purrs, bullseyeing the Doctor's discomfort: he's both intrigued and beguiled by Song, but also incredibly anxious about her foreknowledge. Smith's younger Doctor excels time and again in scenes with older women and the rapport with Alex Kingston is very good indeed.

3. The Angel in the television. Moffat is brilliant at extending the threat to the audience and here he makes the very medium of Doctor Who the danger. Even on a re-watch, the boys were alarmed. "That's impossible, it can't get out!" The resolution, Amy pausing the tape on a split-second of static, is clever too.

4. They're all Angels! Ha ha, another unexpected reversal from Moffat: the problem isn't an Angel hiding in a cave full of statues, it's a cave full of Angels. Suddenly the stakes go through the roof. Which is okay, because that's where the Doctor's off to next.

5. The cliffhanger. The Doctor get's these epic speeches these days. They get repeated a little too often for my liking (the Pandorica one pops up time and again), but in context they are breath-taking. "There's one thing you should never put in a trap..." warns the Doctor, sending chills down the spine of everyone watching, as well as neatly foreshadowing the season finale. The resolution is even better. Without ever being told, we just instinctively know that's how the gravity on spaceships must work. The transition from the cave to the Byzantium's corridor is super cool, funny and so, so, clever.

6. Amy's countdown. 'Ach,' I've heard it said, 'Moffat scripts are all just tricks and gimmicks.' Hell yeah they are: brilliant tricks and incredible gimmicks that effortlessly propel the most impossible stories from one extraordinary moment to the next. This is one of them: Amy begins to randomly insert numbers into conversation - and then we realise she is counting down to something, but what? The tension is raised even further and the audience is clinging on by their knuckles.

7. The Crack - the mysterious crack from Amy's bedroom has been popping up all over time and space. But now it is suddenly big and involved and the Angels aren't the only issue. Everyone was expecting a slow thirteen episode arc for the Crack; when it turns up here, everything has to go up a gear.

8. A forest in a bottle on a spaceship in a maze. Sometimes great writing is just shifting the tone - moving from cave to ship to forest creates the sense of a journey, and allows some spooky outside scenes in an easy-to-find setting. "Have I impressed you yet?" asks the Doctor. Er, yes, yes you have.

9. The puzzle of the Angel in Amy's eye. Another wonderful bit of thinking from the Doctor as he rationalises the problem and deduces a solution. We see his cleverness when we see him think. Also, the forest is full of Angels - but Amy has to keep her eyes shut? That's suddenly blisteringly scary.

10. The Secret Throw-Forward. We didn't know at the time, and we could barely guess, that this was a future version of the Doctor talking to Amy in the Forest, begging her to remember the thing he is about to say when he next sees her seven year old self. It's not really foreshadowing, because there's no way to appreciate until we have watched The Big Bang, but it is a desperately clever bit of writing that rewards the repeat viewing and demonstrates the wonderful complexity of the Doctor's life and his incomparable intelligence: even if we aren't quite following, he instinctively knows what is going on.

11. Iain Glen's Father Octavian. A great performance from Glen is capped by a highly-memorable death scene. Doctor Who is a show that will always (hopefully) side with science over belief, but that doesn't mean that it can't show the better qualities of  people of faith. "I rather think you've seen me at my best," says Octavian and the Doctor, heavy of heart, agrees.

12. Amy's blind walk. She sets off through the forest of Angels, her eyes screwed shut. If the Doctor's explanation doesn't quite convince (the Angels don't attack because they think she's walking like someone who hasn't got their eyes shut?), then never mind because what happens next will drive it from your mind: the Angels move. It's a haunting, almost surreal moment and it looks stunning and magical, like the most perfectly executed effect shot - but the utter brilliance of it is that we have just been dazzled by a dancer in a monster suit slowly moving her arm.

13. The gravity of the situation. It's a great final reversal of fortunes for the Weeping Angels as the ship's gravity gives up and the floor becomes a wall. The cleverness of it lies in having orientated the audience at the top of the episode so that this switcheroo feels instinctively right - but it would be slightly improved if it was the Doctor turning off the gravity rather than it just happening to fail at the right time.

Then it's just spoilers and goodbyes on the beach (with that lovely transmat effect that swirls River away in a little tornado, like a witch) and then - ooh, Amy launches herself at the Doctor. This caused some fan consternation I can tell you, with many voices engaging in some dour moralising and castigating Amy for her behaviour, or Moffat for his sexism in having written a female character that was in charge of her own sexual agency. (The wonderfully erudite Philip Sandifer has written a very good piece on Moffat and sexism here and I urge you to read it.) Well, it didn't ruffle my feathers - if nothing else it's superbly funny although Amy's behaviour does, now, seem a little aberrant. But the reason it seems so odd now is because of what the Doctor does next: he goes and gets Rory. And as we shall see, Rory is lovely and rather wonderful, so hooray.

Most extraordinary of all, this is Matt Smith's first day on the job as the Doctor (apart from the regeneration): these episodes were filmed before any others. From the very first moment it is an astonishing performance and he is absolutely perfect as the Doctor. It's a staggering achievement.


NEXT TIME...

Victory of the Daleks

This one got a bit of a panning at the time, partly because expectations were high, and partly because nobody seemed to like the redesigned Daleks. The criticism went that they were too bright, too fat, and had more than a whiff of a revenue-generating merchandise opportunity about them. Since this first appearance they have shown up only very fleetingly and seem to have been gently pushed to one side.

I think this is a terrible shame. I really rather liked them and never understood why they provoked such an outcry. The size of them is simply terrifying and the colours make me think not so much of iPhones as of the Technicolour retro-futurism of the Sixties Dalek movies, or TV21 comic strips.  Also, the new colours give a sense of hierarchy and roles, and this allows the possibility of characterisation, something the Daleks often lack and desperately need in order to talk amongst themselves in an intelligible way.  

My problem with this episode is that these smashing new Daleks aren't in it enough. The Ironsides' cover version of Power of the Daleks is pleasing enough ("WOULD YOU CARE FOR SOME TEEEEEEA?") and when the New Paradigm trundle from the smoke it feels like something amazing is going to happen - but it turns out that instead we spend a long time watching the Doctor and Amy find a way to talk a robot out of exploding. It's unsatisfying and, worse, doesn't ring true (the Daleks invented Bracewell, didn't they? In which case, his lovely memories of the Paisley girl are a fiction too?). After Dickens and Christie, Churchill is not much more than a caricature, but perhaps this is the only version of the man that's appropriate for a Saturday tea time.

"Weird how the Daleks magically escaped last time," says the ever-cynical William. "But at least they properly get away here. I like the new Daleks too, but isn't it funny how the most evil beings in the Universe come in yellow, orange and other collectible colours? They do scheme though, using the Doctor's weakness against him."

"I feel sad for the red one," says Chris. "He must think he's invisible because Dalek's can't see red, but he's not."

Never mind that, how did Jast ever spell his own name?


NEXT TIME...

The Beast Below

Oh dear oh dear, I've fallen so far behind. I'm going to have to be more brief. Perhaps sometimes very brief, which is a shame because Series Five is, I've just realised, far and away the best so far. But before the next stone cold classic pops up, here's something different: a Moffat script which isn't a showpiece, twelve out of ten episode. But we shouldn't underestimate The Beast Below. It may not be one of the tent poles of Series Five, but it is an extraordinary, perhaps even revolutionary, piece of Doctor Who.

Airing four days into the 2010 General Election, The Beast Below is an unprecedented intervention into British politics. At first it appears to be a satire on the electoral process: every five years voters are given certain information about their society, information that they hurriedly choose to forget in order to maintain their own personal comfort and the status quo. It's far from being a useful democratic process: the voters are only offered the illusion of choice and nothing ever changes.

But this isn't merely satire - the last lines reveal that this episode is actually a manifesto: "we all depend on the beast below". The society of Starship UK is literally built on the back of the Star Whale, it is the source of all progress on this journey; yet it has no voice, no representation. What's more, the politicians regretfully inflict pain on the beast, trying to stimulate the creature into greater productivity, never realising there might be a better way.

I don't know Moffat's politics, but you don't have to be Malcolm Tucker to see that this episode is actually a forthright rejection of austerity and of 'cruel to be kind' policies, like 'stimulating' the unemployed to find jobs by removing their benefits.

Unusually, the Doctor is frozen, unable to manufacture a solution better than lobotomising the working class into carrying on as painlessly as possible. It's Amy's compassion, her ability to humanise the Star Whale, that redefines the situation - but, in a very British twist, the power to cut through this mess comes from above.

Sophie Okonedo's Liz 10, or Elizabeth X, could be seen as an attempt to create modern monarchical perfection. She is down to Earth, even a bit street, and she is approachable and deeply concerned for the well-being of both her realm and her subjects. She even disguises herself to mingle with the people, a trope of good kings and queens since Saxon times. But for all that, she is still part of the system and therefore part of the problem: her royal powers are only as good as the ministers who get to exercise them. Once Amy seizes those powers, change can begin - but this is a top-down revolution.

William volunteered an eight for this one. "Amy solved it. She really proves she's a good companion here because she's the one that sees how the Doctor and the Star Whale are the same, and saves everyone."


NEXT TIME...

The Eleventh Hour

I'm really glad I have done this. Watching all these episodes through has been a lot of fun and I've enjoyed seeing older stories afresh. Now, as we move through more recent adventures towards The Day of the Doctor, connections are starting to build in a most satisfying way. More than anything though, it has given me the chance to clarify my thoughts: I realise now, in a way that I hadn't properly appreciated before, what a Moffat Fan Boy I am.

I like all of Doctor Who, of course. Even the Pertwee era. And I think the Eccleston/Tennant episodes are wonderful, even if I roll my eyes at the occasional bit of nonsense. But the standout stories are, without a shadow of a doubt, The Empty Child, Blink, and Silence in the Library. (Closely followed by The Girl in the Fireplace and, to be fair, Dalek, The Impossible Planet, Human Nature, Utopia, and The Fires of Pompeii.)

In The Eleventh Hour Moffat shows again that he writes the sort of Doctor Who I really like; but as his own era begins, he also proves that he can choose the right sort of Doctor. From the very first moment he opens his mouth Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor is a marvel. That's his base level, his starting point. That he improves from there - continuously, throughout his first series and, arguably, beyond - is just bewilderingly brilliant.

And if I worried about those last few seconds of The End of Time, I was an idiot because The Eleventh Hour is the best introduction a new Doctor could have. As with all of Moffat's writing, it is fiendishly clever. To outflank audience anxiety about Smith's tender years, we are instantly pitched into a child's eye view of this new Doctor. The Fish Fingers and Custard scene is traditional storybook stuff, part Roald Dahl, part The Tiger Who Came to Tea, and it's utterly charming, engaging and hilarious (we all still laugh out loud, even after many viewings). It's impossible not to be won over by this opening, and the newness, the strangeness of the new man is inextricably woven into its charm.

This episode is really a cleverly handled transitional state, almost between Doctors. By keeping Tennant's suit, but losing the jacket, we end up with a distinct new look that nonetheless seems familiar. It's not until the very end that the new Doctor finally appears, brought into being by the adoption of his new outfit. The accent develops too - compare "Can I have an apple?" with "Turn our back if it offends you!" and it becomes clear that the previous persona is gradually being replaced by the new.

And the Doctor that emerges is such an improvement. No longer wearing his broken hearts on his sleeves, he has become quirky, quick-witted and inspirational. Best of all, the Doctor finally seems to be as clever as he has always claimed. Throughout this episode he is continually thinking, rationalising and working things out: examining the crack in the wall; persuading Prisoner Zero that he and Amy are safe because they do (or do not) have back up; finding Rory on the green; debunking Zero's assertion that Amy is dreaming of him, "No, it's because she can hear me...". And his plan, when it is revealed, is properly clever and (be still my beating heart) actually makes sense! This wonderful show, which has always had courage and (since 2005) heart, has at last been given some brains as well.


NEXT TIME...

The End of Time

I forgot something. I live in America. It slips my mind more often than you might think. In 2008, just a few weeks after Journey's End aired, we left Cardiff and moved to Texas, swapping the centre of Who on Earth for a strange new city where it was always summer and I couldn't ever find the BBC on the dial. It took some adjustment (I'm still adjusting, five years later), but I was quite relieved that there wasn't going to be a regular series in 2009: I simply had no idea how I would be able to watch it. Although in Britain Doctor Who had been transformed from rubbish old show into all-conquering primetime smash, America was so far uninterested. When I started investigating, I found only a few hazy memories of Tom Baker on PBS, the occasional Eccleston DVD in Best Buy, and some confused souls who had accidentally seen a strange kids' show on the SyFy channel.

Luckily we went home that first Christmas so I did see The Next Doctor, and we stayed long enough that I was able to watch Matt Smith's unveiling too. And then I flew back to Texas, excited, but feeling a little bereft. But something happened over the course of 2009 and some of it must be down to me (obviously) because, feeling a bit lost without my native culture and suddenly completely unencumbered by decades of British fan-embarrassment, I started to proselytise. When talking to Americans about my homesickness, or explaining to them what was wrong with their country, I would mention Doctor Who. And slowly I started to notice a response as America began to catch up. Soon BBC America acquired the rights to the show (SyFy having not got any traction) and broadcast the Christmas special (in July, but hey), followed by Planet of the Dead. Earlier episodes appeared on Netflix and I soon found myself talking to children who loved the Doctor and, let's face it, moms who loved David Tennant. I started to see t-shirts around town emblazoned with Weeping Angels and TARDISes as America's teenagers discovered a show which, being British, weird and obscure, offered them a mother lode of purest cool. By the following Christmas the transmission delay between BBC One and BBC America had been reduced to around thirty hours; there was a sense that Doctor Who was becoming an underground phenomenon, and those in the know were buzzing with pre-regeneration excitement.

And in the first few days of January 2010, I found Radio Free Skaro. The fan podcast is one of those modern inventions, like Twitter, that will irritate many and delight others. I think it depends on the content -  I have tried other podcasts and I have found them either to be too irreverent (or not irreverent enough), or too preachy or politicised, or (worst of all) not very interesting. But RFS (Steve Schapansky, Warren Frey and Chris Burgess, three Canadians who have been serving up weekly episodes of news, interviews and comment since 2006) get it spot on. It helps that they are men about my own age, and that between them they offer a range of opinions on Doctor Who. What hooked me though, was the total shoeing they gave The End of Time when they reviewed it in January 2010.

At that point, it was what I needed to hear. I had been left slightly disgruntled by the two festive specials and anxious about whether Smith had been given the best possible start. Listening to RFS excoriate those episodes was cathartic and funny and afterwards I was still impatiently looking forward to Series Five, just as they were.

Having just watched The End of Time again, I have to admit it is better than I remembered, and probably a lot more enjoyable than we were prepared to admit at the time. I can't help but wonder if that impatience affected my viewing experience. As I've mentioned previously, thanks to a combination of factors both on and off-screen, it had come to feel like Tennant had been regenerating since The Stolen Earth. And now, watching the final story, it felt as if the Tenth Doctor's last moments were being stretched out as much as possible. Firstly, the combined running time of both episodes was over two hours, making it the longest story since 1979's The Armageddon Factor (or 1986's The Trial of a Time Lord, if you must). Secondly, even once he had been killed, the Tenth Doctor somehow managed to stagger on for another twenty minutes before he finally gave way to the new guy. I could just about cope with him hunting down Rose, Martha and Donna, but Jessica Hynes? Was it really necessary? "I don't want to go!" he says. Yes, I did get that impression, actually. If he put this off any longer he'd be tracking down Dodo Chaplet. At the time this all felt indulgent and treacle-slow but, after a year and a half, I was desperate for the new era to start.

All very uncharitable of me. Now, after nearly four years of Matt Smith, I much more relaxed about RTD taking his time over the end of Tennant (it is still indulgent though), and The End of Time has got some stunning moments, worthy of the end of an era. Sadly, some elements were terrible then, and still are today. There's a lot to get through so it's back to the time-saving bullet points.

The Terrible

• Magic. I like Harry Potter, and so does RTD. It's a subtle but definite influence on his time on Doctor Who and it peeps through in odd moments and episode titles (The Parting of the Ways anyone?). It's never more obvious than here where the Master's resurrection is - well, hang on, I'll let William explain. "This is just like when Voldemort came back," he says perspicaciously, "except Mrs Saxon is Harry." Yes, it is, isn't it? Of course Doctor Who should be full of implausible and ridiculous events that are beyond modern human comprehension, but I'd like them to at least be garnished with the fig leaf of science. The Master is brought back to life by witches with magic potions who have read magic books, and the process is almost derailed by Lucy Saxon's magic 'anti-potion'. That she happened to have handy. The only thing missing is for the Governess to say "Izzy Wizzy Let's Get Bizzy" before she starts. 
• Remember all that incredible Doctor-changing drama at the end of The Waters of Mars? I bet that will need to be addressed, eh? No, instead let's have some feeble jokes about the Doctor locking the TARDIS remotely like a car, and shagging Elizabeth I. Is this supposed to be Christmas knockabout humour? Because I've had funnier jokes inside crackers. 
• The Silver Cloak. Don't get me wrong, it's a joy to have June Whitfield in Doctor Who - she's a legend. And crikey, that's Barry from Hi-De-Hi!, hello! It's like This is Your Life. In fact I like the oldies working together as a sort of elderly Red Hand Gang, using their ancient networking skills to locate that nice young man with the spiky hair. What annoys me is that they call themselves 'The Silver Cloak', because that is a stupid thing to do. Old people, who are - despite their bum-pinching antics - really grown-up, do not give their social circles grand and mysterious names. Unless they are the Knights of Columbus or something. Okay so some old people are self-aggrandising, but Bernard Cribbins and June Whitfield are not. It is cool, poetic and rather lovely for RTD to think of them as The Silver Cloak - but it ruins it if we hear them take this title for themselves. 
• The Time Lords' escape. That whole business with the diamond and the signal... it feels like the paint is still wet on these ideas, and that the paint is covering up something rather Heath-Robinson. If it's possible to send a jewel through the Time Lock, then why not anything else? It's not as if the barrier is a physical one, like cell bars, with gaps through which it is possible to poke a tiny thing when a whole planet won't fit.
• The Master. Before I launch into this, bear in mind that there are some good things about the Master coming up in a minute. But. The problem last time was that he was presented as some sort of demented clown, like The Joker, only he fell into the Untempered Schism rather than a vat of chemicals. This is rightly toned down in this story - until he starts flying like Iron Man,  takes over all the humans, and then starts to squee and grin and bounce around like a bunch of idiots. The Master Race - it's a grand visual idea that brilliantly masks the approach of the true cliffhanger. But unfortunately it is also the biggest load of unthought-through bobbins. Everyone is the Master. Everyone on Earth has been transformed into a physical and mental copy of the most self-serving, devious, ego-maniacal villain in the Universe. So how in the name of Rassilon do they co-operate? It should be instant chaos, like being stuck in a lift full of cats. They surely should be fighting, racing off-world, each trying to trick the others, to seize control? And yet there is an obvious and boggling hierarchy to this new society. The Master accepts subservient positions, he's a lowly guard, a scientist; he mans radar consoles; thousands of him patiently stand on duty in Chinese parade grounds. If we are in a situation where The Master is happily taking orders from anyone, even himself, someone has not thought this through. As a result, it doesn't feel like a planetful of Masters at all. What we get, complete with CGI-facilitated antics, is a load of Despicable Me Minions, all with John Simm's face. 

The Alright

• Suddenly the mild anti-Americanism of World War Three and The Sound of Drums is replaced by sunny optimism. It's no secret that the election of Barack Obama was cheered to the rafters in Britain, but I'm still surprised to see that afterglow percolate through into Doctor Who. The painfully high expectations we all had in 2008 are on display here as RTD has Obama prepare to deliver a speech (on Christmas Day FFS) that will magically fix the world economy. No pressure, Mr President. 
• I can't get my head around this one. For what earthly reason are the Nobles opening their Christmas presents while standing around in the kitchen? Each to their own, of course, but is this really something people do? Tell me you sit on the sofa by the tree or I won't be able to sleep at night. 
• Having Donna in this episode could have been awful. But it's nicely done and her level of involvement feels entirely appropriate. It's masterful restraint on RTD's part and it preserves the horrible beauty of her exit in Journey's End. 
• The Mysterious Woman. Claire Bloom is very good, dignified and sad, a bit regal, and I quite like that she is a mystery... But, hang on. If she's a Time Lord, how come she's not locked inside the Time War? If she can project her way out or something to appear to Wilf, how come Rassilon can't do the same? And, if she is the Doctor's mother (and the hints are there that she might be), then this is a pretty subdued reaction from her son. Considering how much he blubbed over Rose (twice) and Jenny, he might as well be flicking v-signs at this nice old lady as he consigns her back to Time Lord hell. Hey, maybe she's Dodo? It would explain why he's not too bothered to see her go.

The Brilliant

• Cribbins. Matchless. Superlatives can't do him justice. From beginning to end he is perfect and every mood and utterance is undershot with a beautiful poignancy: funny, sad, bemused, shocked, reflective, just everything. Highlights include him reminiscing about his National Service, entering the TARDIS ("I thought it would be cleaner."), every scene with Tennant where the two old men get to talk things over, and digging out his service revolver from under the bed... Wilf is one of the best things in Doctor Who. 
• Dalton. Timothy flipping Dalton in Doctor Who. Unbelievable. And he's Rassilon? Okay then! The Time Lords in general here are a delight: entitled, privileged, sick to the core and determined to exert their will over the rest of the universe. But Dalton sets the tone - his Rassilon is completely believable, a force of nature, a man who has tamed gravity and time and refuses to face his own demise. I know I complain about excess sometimes, but there is nothing over-the-top about bringing back the Time Lords for this story. It is exactly the right thing to do and Dalton underpins it all. His narration is spellbinding, his reveal to camera, half-way through part one is electrifying, but the cliffhanger in which the Time Lords announce their return, is total heart-stopping genius. 
• The Master is greatly improved from Last of the Timelords. Simms still doesn't get the opportunity to demonstrate the devilish sophistication of his predecessors, but this is a darker and more subdued performance that does much to suggest the Master's intelligence. My favourite parts are those scenes where he gleefully lacerates the spirit of Christmas and transforms our own full bellies into an act of complicity. "That's human Christmas out there. They eat so much. All that roasting meat, cakes and red wine. Hot fat blood food. Pots, plates of meat and flesh, and grease, and juice, and baking, burnt, sticky hot skin."  
• Matt Smith. At last, it's the Eleventh Doctor! Oh, but I was so nervous after that last scene. I felt it had been handled quite badly. I think I based this idea on Tennant's first appearance at the end of The Parting of the Ways, which was utterly perfect: that final "Barcelona!" convinced the entire country that the TARDIS was in good hands. I needed these opening lines to deliver the same sting of anticipation and I didn't think it quite worked. Of course, I had no need to worry at all. 

The boys are a bit dumbstruck by all this ("it can't be put into words!" one protests), but what do they think of the Tenth Doctor now he's finally shuffled off?

"He was a very good Doctor," says William. "I liked how he was so upset and emotional, especially at the end here. And he could be deadly serious or silly and funny."

"He was funny, and he could have always been funny," adds Chris, "but it was clever how sad he was sometimes. It made him better." 

Their favourite stories are Voyage of the Damned ("or Planet of the Dead") for William and Tooth and Claw ("no, wait, The End of Time! No, I can't decide!") for Chris. But what about the Tenth Doctor's companions? Who's their favourite and who do they think worked best with him?

"Christina was my favourite," says William, "because she could take control and tell him what to do, I liked that. But Rose was best for him I think."

Rose is Christopher's favourite. "She was as clever as the Doctor, and she stayed around the longest: there was an obvious attachment. The best for him though was Donna. They were a great team."

Tennant is a great actor and he has undoubtedly taken the chance to show this during his time as the Doctor. But the tenth incarnation is too human, too accessible for my taste, although I realise this is an important reason why he was so successful with the wider audience. Both he, and RTD - who brought this show back with steely discipline, shining wit and much love - have my unending gratitude.


NEXT TIME...

The Waters of Mars

Why isn't this the regeneration story? Much as I like it, I am always mildly disappointed at the end of this one because it feels as if something is missing. It's a really strong episode and a great story: thrilling and powerful, it deals with all sorts of issues of Time and time travel, and aspects of the Doctor's character. In those final moments they come together and it seems as if we really are about to surge over the edge into new territory - but the story suddenly stalls, teetering on the brink.

It's frustrating because we nearly get a proper Shakespearean tragedy, with the Doctor himself fashioned into a tragic hero. A.C. Bradley defined such a character as being a man of high estate or good nature who, through his own nature and actions, causes a catastrophe that destroys him. Until the very end, this is exactly what seems to be happening to the Doctor in this adventure, but instead he swans off, the pay-off deferred.

It is his irresponsible wandering that leads him to Mars in the first place. When Adelaide Brooks asks him what he is doing there, he replies, without much flippancy, "fun." Once he realises where and when he is, he knows that should leave but he does not - partly through coercion from Brooks, but primarily because of his curiosity, his original and signature flaw ever since he sabotaged the fluid links on Skaro. Time and again it has been his undoing, most significantly in The Caves of Androzani. Here on Mars it prevents him from extricating himself in good time.

Finally comes the crucial moment: he does try to leave, but cannot bring himself to abandon the astronauts to their deaths. It is a fantastic, thrilling scene that culminates in his return to the base, his full powers revealed to the terrified humans, and it is this decision that changes everything. Why does he do it? Partly through compassion - he is the hero, the doctor who tries to alleviate suffering, and we want him to save Brooks and the others. But he is also a Time Lord. As he agonises over whether or not he should intervene, we must remember that this is a conflict he must also have experienced long ago, before he left Gallifrey for the first time.

At his first trial, in The War Games, he is accused of by the Time Lords of repeatedly breaking "the most important law of non-interference in the affairs of other planets" but he has never accepted their judgement or repented. Here he restages his original act of rebellion: he cannot merely observe, he must become involved. The difference now is that the Time Lords are no more - destroyed perhaps by their failure to remain above the fray - and so the trauma the Doctor has suffered affects his decision and he rages against not just the laws of Gallifrey but the forces of causality itself. As a result he does change history and save three of the crew, but in the process another of his major flaws comes to the fore: his arrogance.

ADELAIDE: You should have left us there.
THE DOCTOR: Adelaide, I've done this sort of thing before. In small ways, saved some little people, but never someone as important as you. Oh, I'm good!
ADELAIDE: Little people? What, like Mia and Yuri? Who decides they're so unimportant? You?
THE DOCTOR: For a long time now I thought I was just a survivor, but I'm not. I'm the winner. That's who I am. The Time Lord Victorious.
ADELAIDE: And there's no one to stop you.
THE DOCTOR: No.
ADELAIDE: This is wrong, Doctor. I don't care who you are. The Time Lord Victorious is wrong.
THE DOCTOR: That's for me to decide. […]
ADELAIDE: Is there nothing you can't do?
THE DOCTOR: Not any more.

It's chilling and fascinating: this wonderful and caring incarnation of the Doctor is going bad before our eyes. Brooks does the only thing she can and reasserts control (and the 'proper' timeline) by killing herself, robbing the Doctor of his achievement. Stunned by what he has done, he flees. At the time it was a deeply unsettling ending but it felt as if it was building to an incredible resolution. Surely the Doctor's final story would concern the consequences of this failure and end in his ultimate redemption? Well, to be fair, that is sort of what happens in The End of Time except that none of the events in that story occur because of what happens on Mars - there is no consequence other than that the Doctor be mildly shaken. Other than that he seems entirely unaffected by this monumental failure and The End of Time is categorically not about the Time Lord Victorious suffering the consequences of his transgression. Instead the Doctor goes on the run from all of this and when he does get his comeuppance, it happens in such a way that he becomes the victim rather than the perpetrator and there is little sense that he has brought this upon himself.

But what a regeneration it would have been if it had come at the end of  The Waters of Mars? The Doctor, arrogant and unbound, suddenly sees what he has become and that his death is the only thing that can fix the mess he has created. We would have a proper tragedy with a truly tragic hero, brought to catastrophe by his own mistakes and flaws, brought low by his own greatness. Except that with this hero, death is also a new beginning. It would have been an astounding end for a Doctor.

Well, yes, that would have been good, but then we wouldn't get Wilf in the TARDIS or Timothy Dalton, and there are so many regenerations yet to come! One of them will turn out like this eventually.

There were lots of other things I wanted to mention - the excellent Lindsay Duncan, the rather lovely views across the Martian landscape where "the only straight line is the sunlight", the effective callbacks to Pompeii and The Stolen Earth, and the omens of the future - but I have run out of time. The boys were both gobsmacked (10/10) and a little tremulous by the end and fair enough - regardless of the non-regeneration, it's a fabulous ending that creates much anticipation for The End of Time. Chris summed it up best: "He knows his time is almost up."


NEXT TIME...

Planet of the Dead

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Planet of the Dead, except that in the spring of 2009 it was the only new episode of Doctor Who available, bridging the long gap between Christmas and November. It can't quite support the weight of our expectations.

After the familiar scheduling of The Next Doctor, this is the first of the extra Specials and it has much the hardest job: offered in lieu of an entire series. If this was part of a small season of two or even three episodes I think it would be really very good. As a traditional series opener, it would be spectacular. But, devoid of reinforcements, it feels like a lone sentry asked to guard home territory while the entire army is fighting somewhere else. Perhaps it's no surprise that thoughts turn to Beau Geste - in more ways than one Planet of the Dead is a lone outpost in the desert.

Maybe if there was some actual fight in this episode it would feel stronger. Without a proper antagonist, there's very little conflict and nobody for the Doctor to confront. Instead we get the brief face-off between Captain Magambo and Malcolm, a few seconds of quickly-dispelled tension when the Tritovores turn up and the occasional barbed comment from Lady Christina de Souza. The Swarm, although powerful and rather nicely realised, are not a credible threat. Without a voice or an argument to make, their menace is reduced to that of some heavy weather; we know Earth will be saved and that everyone will survive their approach.

So what's special about this Special? If nothing else, the desert vistas are enough, all by themselves, to justify the label. The location shooting is wonderful, and well worth all the extraordinary effort that was required to bring it to the screen. And the guest cast is lovely - once again modern Doctor Who celebrates ordinary real people, determined to show us that they have worth, abilities and personality that might be undervalued by society and even by themselves. Daniel Kaluuya is especially good as Barclay, but everyone on the bus gives us a reason to like them and to want them to get home.

Yes, even Lady Christina. Some of the original reviewers didn't like her (one was filled with 'revulsion' by her, another described her as a 'shameless Lara Croft rip-off''), but I think she's rather good fun. The boys were rather sad to see her go and suggested she would have made a good proper companion. I'd agree. She feels like a bit of a throwback, and there's something inherently ridiculous about being an upper-class adventuress who dabbles in high-class burglary for thrills, but her class and privilege remind us of the Doctor's aristocratic origins whilst simultaneously making him feel more grounded. After Rose and Donna (there was always something a little classier about Martha), Lady Christina's poshness feels fresh and the dynamic between her and the Doctor is a new one for the revitalised series: competitive, charged and exciting. Certainly, over the course of a full series, she would have had the chance to develop, change and win over those critics.

Chris, completely transfixed as usual, gave this a nine ("one off for the Fly Men") but liked Malcolm and his silliness, particularly the bit with the fire extinguisher. William, perhaps rather spoiled by Series Four, could only go as high as six. He liked Christina, but thought there was too much techno-babble ("computer gibberish"), hinting darkly that if they hadn't had to say it all, maybe they could have got on and closed the rift more quickly. So young and yet so cynical.

Much more exciting than all of this was the eventual revelation, after days of rumours, that the lost Troughton stories The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear had been recovered. William and I (Chris's not keen on black and white TV) watched part one of Enemy and were enthralled.

It just goes to show that you don't have to go to Dubai, or even Australia, to make brilliant Doctor Who, although it may be necessary to go to Nigeria in order to watch it.


NEXT TIME...

The Next Doctor

So it turned out that Series Four wasn't quite the end for David Tennant's Doctor - but the moment was being prepared for. Or was it that we were being prepared for the moment?

Is it coincidence that the forthcoming Christmas Special - with its provocative title announced on the sly in the pages of RTD's book The Writer's Tale, published September 2008 - also raised questions about the demise of the Tenth Doctor and prompted speculation about who might take over? Was there a plan to get the audience used to the idea that this highly popular incarnation would not last forever?

No, I don't think so. I think if anyone needed to adjust to the end of the RTD era and the passing of the Tenth Doctor, it was Davies and Tennant themselves. Both long term fans of the show, they had found themselves in positions they had dreamt of since childhood, and worked like slaves to make Doctor Who the best thing on television. Surely neither of them wanted this to end, but both knew it must. The planning for the final specials, and for the handover to a new production team, were already underway during the writing and production of Series Four. It should come as no surprise that eschatological ideas should filter into Journey's End and The Next Doctor.

In October 2008, in between the biological metacrisis and the Cyberking, Tennant received Best Actor at the National Television Awards and used his speech to announce he would be leaving Doctor Who.  At the time we was unable to say exactly how long he would remain in the role - the schedule for the Specials had yet to be finalised - but the long goodbye had begun.

I'd never say that Tennant outstayed his welcome, but this exit strategy had an unfortunate and unforeseen consequence. Press and public speculation generated by the almost-regeneration in Journey's End had been fever pitch and this announcement, along with the title of the The Next Doctor, allowed this to bubble along for the rest of the year. Every newspaper, and almost everybody, had theorised about who should take over, and the search for the Eleventh Doctor was actively under way. On the 3rd of January, just days after The Next Doctor aired, Matt Smith was unveiled in a surprise one-off episode of Confidential and the new era began to take shape in the minds of the public. But a whole year would have to pass before the Tenth Doctor would eventually succumb to the inevitable - and it would be another three months after that until the Eleventh would get to eyeball the Atraxi.

When The End of Time came, the moment had perhaps been a little over-prepared.

And The Next Doctor? Well, watched shortly after Journey's End it does feel a little odd that both Donna and Jackson Lake should end up with the Doctor inside their human heads, but Jackson's story is really rather touching. David Morrissey serves up his ersatz-Doctor with real gusto (William: "Ugh, he's so fake.") and there's pleasant camaraderie between him and Tennant, both before and after Lake's human nature is revealed. The scene with the fob watch is a beautiful moment and a clever bit of writing: Time Lord grandiosity suggests that Lake's Doctor alter-ego might reside inside, but instead there's a comic deflation as the ordinary innards fall out. The truth is that these tumbling cogs show us Lake's real identity: his life has fallen apart and is in bits.

The Next Doctor is enjoyable Christmas fare, full of warmth and heart - but it is undeniably another disappointing Cybermen story. Talk of Cybershades and images of Cybermen in a twilight, snow-covered Victorian graveyard, made me excited that we might see a return to the spookier, silent silver giants of the Troughton years. Sadly, although the scene in the churchyard is great, the snow does not soften the leaden thump of the Cybus boots and the Cybershades turn out to be some sort of shambling bear in a mask. Worst of all the Cybermen themselves are reduced to mere flunkies, lining up behind the villainous Miss Hartigan. Dervla Kirwan is very good and Hartigan is a fun villain, suitably vicious and vibrant but with a chilling back story that seeps through the Christmas cheer. But such a character can't help but take centre stage and as a result the Cybermen lose their voice, just as Davros pulls focus from the Daleks. The CyberKing is nothing more than some outlandish fun, but really the Cybermen could have been removed from this story entirely and it could have stayed much the same, perhaps with Hartigan as an evil Ada Lovelace-type building steam-punk robots. Either way, the real story belongs to Jackson Lake.

Chris liked him a lot and appreciated how he coped with becoming the Doctor. "When he realised he wasn't the Doctor, he lost his courage because he knew the Doctor could do all those cool things and he was worried that he couldn't. But then he found his own courage and became happy. I liked his balloon TARDIS too and it was nice of the Doctor to appreciate Jackson's efforts - he could have been very rude. Ten out of ten."

William was once again incredulous that the Cybermen didn't use their arm-mounted guns, but he too enjoyed the interaction between Jackson and the Doctor. "The Doctor seemed happy to meet himself, just like in Timecrash. I expect he'll get on well with the Eleventh Doctor too. I can't imagine the ninth Doctor being happy in that situation. Jackson's story was sad though."

It is interesting to think about how the Tenth and Eleventh will cope with each other. The Doctor's comments here to Lake suggest that The Day of the Doctor should take place after this episode as far as the Tenth Doctor is concerned, which raises questions about exactly how Rose will be involved. But then who knows what wibbly-wobbly explanation we'll get this time?


NEXT TIME...

The Stolen Earth / Journey's End

The boys call this one 'Red Dalek', which I think is a rather super title, although perhaps not for this story. I'm often surprised by the extent to which they engage with and are affected by the emotional content of these episodes, but they are still eight and ten year old boys and really, it's all about the hardware.

I don't know how many times I've watched these two episodes, but I still don't really know what to make of them. Even after several years, there's still so much to take in: we've seen some grand and incredible Doctor Who stories, but this is the only one, so far, that truly deserves to be called an epic. RTD throws in Daleks, Davros, Torchwood, Sarah Jane, Donna's apotheosis and Rose's second send off. Oh, and we also get Martha, Mickey and Jackie, and a fake regeneration. And a second Doctor. And the attempted destruction of the entire multiverse. That's quite a lot and you'd be forgiven for thinking this monster mash-up should never have even been attempted; that it holds together at all is a remarkable achievement. That it is even any good is just incredible, but it is often brilliant.

It's by far the most satisfying of any of RTD's finales, although, I don't like all of it, of course. More than once the joyous exuberance bubbles over into preposterousness and there are several moments that I would be happy to excise entirely.

Let's start with the Good:

• Lis Sladen. Nothing sells the threat of the Daleks like Sarah Jane crying into Luke's hair. Barrowman is trying to do the same thing for Ianto and Gwen inside the Hub, but he doesn't even get close. Sladen's greatness was her ability to absolutely convince us that any nonsense on screen was not only real but terrifying, and her performance here is a masterclass. What's more, Sarah Jane is a wonderful link back to the show's past, as demonstrated here when Davros recognises her from Genesis of the Daleks. Suddenly this isn't a one-off adventure but an installment of a fifty-year serial. Goosepimples.
• The Dalek Invasion of Earth. It doesn't take up much screen time, but this is one of the best invasions we've yet seen - considerably more impressive than the one in The Parting of the Ways, which was represented by a computer outline of Australia changing shape. Here instead we have CGI Daleks streaming across Manhattan and pouring over the Valiant, like ants over an elephant. And all this is before they even reach the ground. Later on we will be treated to the sight of them floating through the forest, screeching in Germany. "Exterminieren! Exterminieren!" The Daleks are proper scary throughout, and for once Davros isn't in charge. The Reality Bomb becomes the ultimate expression of the Daleks' fascist intolerance.
• The Harriet Jones Joke. It should be awful. It should make me cringe. But it isn't and it doesn't. It's always funny and never more so than here when we hear it for the last time, delivered by the Daleks themselves. It's funny because they are not joking, and through their ring modulators the stupid gag suddenly sounds like sinister and ruthless preparation. 
• Donna. What a character, what a companion. What an ending. Her Doctor-Donna persona is wonderful, and her sudden appearance, right at the end, provides one of the best and most enjoyable reversals of fortune in the modern era. Daleks spinning, Sarah Jane and Martha grinning as they push them around, Donna in the middle just revelling in her new capabilities. Losing her, and her losing herself, is extremely sad, easily the most depressing departure of a companion since (well, I was going to say Jamie and Zoe, because of the memory thing, and I never got over Romana leaving, but, realistically) Peri's shock exit - either of them. But even before the biological metacrisis takes effect, Donna has been exhibiting Doctorish qualities, just watch her at the Shadow Proclamation, rationalising and explaining: she has become a bit Doctorish all by herself.
• Cribbins. Just wonderful. Every time. 
• The Regeneration. What an ending to The Stolen Earth. Surely the greatest cliffhanger in the show's history (which is not necessarily the same as the best). Once again the nation was beside itself for a whole week as newspapers filled page after page with speculation and pubs, workplaces and playgrounds were awash with theories about what would happen. This is a trick you only get to pull once, and it was done pretty well. But the wellspring of all this feverish excitement was the underlying thought that the Doctor might actually properly regenerate. Deep down, I realised that was what I wanted. It would be worth bringing Rose back if her Doctor would then immediately die to be replaced by a different indifferent man. I am a mean person. Of course, when considered in the cold light of day, that was never going to happen. Whilst a surprise regeneration or a mid-story regeneration might be a huge coup, there's no way that the new Doctor wouldn't be shown at the end of part one. So really, we all knew that Tennant was staying on, for now. The question remained, how clever was the resolution going to be? 

Now the Not-So Good.

• The Fake Regeneration. Even watching this again on DVD, William was nervous. "I know he doesn't die, but I can't remember how he does it?" I asked him what he expected. "That it'll be a cheat and that it won't really make sense." So on we ploughed with Journey's End and a few seconds later I checked with him again. "It was a cheat, but I liked it," he said. What about, I asked, if Matt Smith had turned up at this point instead? "Oh that would have been completely awesome," came the instant reply. This is pretty much how I feel about it too. It's a good trick, but the resolution, that the Doctor can fizz the 'excess' regeneration energy into a 'handy biometric receptacle' feels like a cheat. We knew the hand was for something, but we didn't know that could happen. It's all dealt with a little too quickly, a little too neatly. But, I'm not really complaining - if this hadn't happened, we wouldn't have ended up with the Doctor-Donna, and we wouldn't have had Matt Smith cast as the Eleventh Doctor and I'm not prepared to give up either of those. 
• Destiny. I know that writing a long running story in installments like this must be a mix of forward-planning and making-it-up-as-you-go. I don't have a problem with that. I don't mind when thinking ahead comes unstuck (the duck pond with no ducks in The Eleventh Hour?) and I don't mind when earlier bits of a story serendipitously happen to connect to whatever idea the writer has just had. What I don't like is the habit RTD seems to have of pointing out these happy coincidences and attributing them to some vague sense of destiny. We get it here with Donna and we will get it again with Wilf. "Oh," says the Doctor, "it's more than that, as if the universe was binding us together, as if this was always going to happen, to lead to this moment and echoing back through time." I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist and I don't like it. It's a personal thing, but you can't start messing about with ideas of destiny (and therefore also free will) in a show about time travel, surely? Why can't it just be coincidence that Donna bumped into the Doctor again? To suggest otherwise puts extra weight on events that are already, in the words of Marty McFly, pretty heavy.
• Prophecy. Once again, just like Rose's hyperbolic pronouncements at the beginning of Army of Ghosts, we get prophetic statements that don't do anything other than pretend things are going to be worse/more exciting than they will turn out to be. Throughout the story Caan ("crazy drunk Dalek dude" according to William) keeps chuntering on about "one of them [the Doctor's companions] will die!". No, they don't. Unless Rose being in a parallel universe is a 'death' (it was last time), or Donna's amnesia is the same as dying. Either way, it's much less interesting than the prophecies of Pompeii, where the concrete certainty of the seer was undermined by the mutability of events.  
• Davros and the Daleks. Oh, Davros is pretty good here actually, albeit a bit more bonkers (giddy even) and a bit less calculating than of old. But the chief problem with Davros is that, whether or not he is in charge of the Daleks or their 'pet', once he is on screen, the Doctor stops talking to the Daleks and they fade into the background. And while I appreciate that something pretty climactic has to happen when the threat level has been ramped up to include the entire multiverse, I am getting bored of the Daleks being utterly destroyed down to the last atom every time they turn up (Emergency Temporal Shifts aside) and then magically returning, a million strong, a few months later.
• Towing the Earth back. Is it cool? Or stupid? It's deeply stupid, although I'll put up with it just for the grin that Martha delivers straight down the camera. As for the TARDIS needing six pilots to be flown properly, I can just imagine River's response to that: "Or, sweetie, you could learn to multi-task?"
• I'll never get over the Shadow Proclamation being an organisation rather than a document. I can cope, just about, with it being an organisation based on a document ("At the UN Charter in New York today...") but we never even get given that fig leaf. 
• Rose. Oh, of course she should be here with everyone else. But the fact that she is here just shows how she throws the programme off-balance. The love-story with the Doctor makes her too important for ensembles and this elevated status (compared with the other companions) means so much must be pushed aside for her to be accommodated. Having said that, I did like it when Martha turned up on the Subwave screen and Rose had no idea who she was. In your face, Tyler. So we get all the slow-running and the gooey-looks and then, bleurghhh, we are back on Bad Wolf Bay. I didn't like this the first time, but I can't believe we have to do this again. Even worse, this time Rose gets given her own play-Doctor. Oh well, if it means that's the last we see of her then it's a price worth paying but, to be fair, if it wasn't for Rose's infatuation, would we have ever got River? Also, missing London and turning up in Norway is worse than hitting Aberdeen instead of Croydon.

It's silly, isn't it, the things that bug you when you're watching something you love. Ah well, as always, the brilliant things are more numerous and more important that than the bits I would change - not that I'd ever be in a position to change them anyway. 

When the credits eventually rolled (love that ending, the Doctor, alone, empty) the boys collapsed back against the sofa and, in unison, breathed one word.

"Epic."

And then they said a ton of other stuff, some of which I wrote down.

"I liked both episodes," said Chris. "In the first one, I liked how they didn't show Davros for ages and ages, even though we all knew it was him. It kept it mysterious. And I liked how it was just an ordinary Dalek that killed the Doctor, that makes them all seem more dangerous than if it was the Red One. I'd say that was one of the most memorable stories ever. The second one was amazing, I liked how everyone worked together and how Jack, Martha and Sarah Jane all had weapons to fight the Daleks."

"Both ten out of ten, obviously, but it was really sad how Donna left," said William. "She was a good Doctor and it was really unfair how she had to lose her memory when Rose got her own Doctor, like a reward. But both of them had to go, because neither of them would have left if it was just up to them. I want to know what the other Doctor said to Rose on the beach though."

"I dread to think," I said, accidentally out loud.

"I think it was 'You were brilliant'," said William, ignoring me. 

"No," said Chris, "I think it was 'I love you.'"

Then they looked at each other. 

"Ewww!"

NEXT TIME...

Turn Left

A very strong episode, and one that received high praise at the time. It's undeniably good, another excellent story in a very strong series, but I've never liked it quite as much as I thought I was supposed to. Partly that's me being contrary, but there are things about this that I was never going to like.

We'll come to those in a minute, because it can not be denied that this is a powerful emotional drama working on a scale seldom seen in Doctor Who. There can't surely have been anyone left to win over by this point, but once again Catherine Tate proves why she was such an excellent, albeit unexpected, choice for companion. We've watched Donna's gradual development over the course of Series Four, but here we get to see her do it all again in just forty-five minutes as one Doctor-less crisis after another reduces Britain to chaos. It's a reminder that the companions don't necessarily need the Doctor in order to achieve their potential. Yes, Rose arguably locums here and pushes her to make the right decisions, but the overall progress (from Runaway Bride loudmouth to Journey's End saviour-of-the-universe) is Donna's achievement.

I'm not sure that watching so much Doctor Who so close together is such a good thing. It's good to run some episodes together (I love being able to watch The Eleventh Hour straight after The End of Time), but most stories deserve a little space afterwards to let them sink in. On the other hand, binge-watching is great for Turn Left: it's the most ridiculous continuity-fest, but having all these previous adventures and calamities-that-weren't fresh in the mind makes it more intense and helps knit things together. My favourite callback is the newsflash that announces the Adipose have struck America: it's funny and dark and contrives to be a surprise - we had all forgotten about the little Adipose, and transplanting them to the country that serves cheese with everything is a masterstroke.

Best of all is the terrifying and wonderfully underplayed moment when poor Mr Colassanto and family are dragged away to the labour camps. Doctor Who rarely gets this dark, but the hints of genocide and xenophobia still fly straight over the kids' heads. I wonder if that's a bad thing? History repeats itself because the original impact of the awfulness recedes over the generations - maybe we should make a point of horrifying the children with the facts as soon as possible? But then we wouldn't get this beautiful horrible moment: a look, shared by Wilf (Cribbins, you legend) and Colassanto. The old men can do nothing else but remember.

And then there's Rose. You won't be surprised to learn that I'm not pleased by her return. The more I think about it, I realise that my problem isn't with her (although she's still way down my list of favourite companions), but with the effect that she has upon the Doctor. She can be as lovesick over him as she likes - that at least makes sense - but I'll never understand why he feels the same way about her. His absence from Turn Left postpones the inevitable weirdly drippy reunion but Rose's Doctorless reappearance still doesn't quite ring true. To be blunt, this isn't the Rose we remember and, whatever the reason (is it Piper's performance? direction/production decisions? all the ADR?), she's oddly vacant here, a shadow of her former vivacious self. It's a shame and lessens the impact of having her back.

The episode ends with an unexpected cliffhanger as everything turns Bad Wolf. It's dramatic and exciting and I can't help but love it and the impetus it provides as we move towards the series finale - but, at the same time, it just doesn't make any sense and that infuriates me. I seem to remember that in the Confidential for this episode, David Tennant, on set for these scenes, teasing RTD, repeatedly asking "Yeah, but what does Bad Wolf mean?" He didn't get an answer. It's just a flourish: wonderful and exciting, but ultimately meaningless.

Of course the boys LOVED it, William so much that he forgot not to comment. "Wow," he said and walked off. Chris sat there open-mouthed, trying to collect his thoughts.

"One simple choice," he breathed, his head spinning, "and the course of EVERYTHING changes! And Rose and Donna had to work together to save the whole universe. That is so cool."

And he's right, and RTD is right, and I am just old Mr Grumpy Face.


NEXT TIME...

Midnight

At the time, I think this was my pick of Series Four. It's not quite as amazing as I remember, and I think the reputations of The Fires of Pompeii or Silence in the Library have risen higher since, but it is still very good indeed.

As we've seen, later episodes in a series can garner low expectations and there has sometimes been a sense of a series holding back, gathering resources for a finale. With its single set and claustrophobic atmosphere, Midnight gave the impression that it might be a cheap, inconsequential story after all. But that original transmission was electrifying.

One of the key moments in my love of Doctor Who was a BBC Two run of repeated stories called 'The Five Faces of Doctor Who' that began in November 1981. I had never seen any of the previous Doctors before and I was enthralled by the murky black and white images and the spooky music of the Hartnell and Troughton episodes. These days, neither 100,000BC (or whatever we are calling it these days) or The Krotons are perhaps as suspenseful as they seemed to me at five years old. But at that early stage the idea became fixed in my mind that a crucial element of a 'proper' Doctor Who story should be an oppressive sense of mystery, and to this day I am delighted by any story that makes me gasp "What the hell is going on?" as I watch it. Moffat's scripts aside, it's not a terribly common feature in the RTD era of the show. But Midnight delivers it in spades and that's why it's brilliant.

We never see the 'thing'. There might not even be a 'thing'. If there is an outside influence and this all doesn't just rise up out of Sky Silvestry's mind, we never learn what it is, and it is never given a name. The voice games and repetition may suggest playground pursuits, but their execution here, thanks to some hard work from the cast and the sound engineers, is unearthly, almost unbearable. The unexplained, unknowable nature of the threat makes Midnight scarier and more interesting than any prosthetic or CGI alien design could have done. Christopher disagrees: when Sky becomes possessed but sits with her back to the passengers, he expected her to turn around to reveal a visual shock, a skull-face or something; but for me the joy of that moment is that Lesley Sharp's face has been transformed, albeit subtly, and the Sky that we briefly knew has gone. In fact, Chris didn't really appreciate the mysteriousness at all, and docked a point because we never got to find out what had been going on. But I think that just reinforces my point: we don't like not knowing and that makes this story scarier.

You might think that the scariest thing in Midnight is not, however, the unknown but the all too familiar humans: RTD delivers a beautifully observed display of all the ugly impulses, the pettiness and the brutality that we are capable of when we give in to fear - the Daily Mail factor, perhaps. The other passengers are terrifying: deluding themselves and being deluded, angrily turning on one another and resorting to extremes of violence and murder to try and save their skins. But even this scenario can't avoid the standard loophole of morality in Doctor Who - in order to save the Doctor, somebody has to kill, and sacrifice themselves in the process. In this instance it's the unnamed hostess and I don't think it is a coincidence that she was the first to suggest the idea of throwing somebody out the airlock, back when things started getting unpleasant. At the time the Doctor shouted her down, condemning her for her base instincts, but once again a story needs somebody to murder so that the Doctor can survive. Perhaps it is just a convention of story-telling, but it does sometimes feel like these endings undermine the Doctor's principles, and make him look naive. As a result, stories like The Empty Child and Silence in the Library feel all the more significant because they show the Doctor defeating violence itself (and death too), rather than just villainy.

I'm not trying to pick on Midnight by raising that point here - the deaths of Sky and the Hostess make the story work, especially with the Doctor incapacitated and in danger himself, and it is this state in which he finds himself that is the other great thing about this episode.

We're used to the Doctor being in command, earning the respect of those around him and issuing orders. We know he's clever, we know he's experienced - these are both reasons why we like him so much. Here all this is turned on its head and his arrogance (which we have seen previously, although it has almost always been played for laughs before) becomes a weakness, just as his intelligence and his eloquence begin to work against him. It hasn't been done before (the closest would be Power of the Daleks or Snakedance, where he is derided as a prophet of doom) and the effect is genuinely unsettling, helped by another brilliant performance by David Tennant.

There's another, more traditional, character flaw of his on display too. When he saunters into the cockpit of the stalled bus, the Doctor begs the crew to open the shutters for just an instant so he can see the landscape of the planet, as yet unobserved by human eyes. His curiosity has always been getting him into trouble, but is it actually the catalyst here too? There's nothing to suggest that the bus hasn't just developed a mechanical fault - what if it was the Doctor's insistence that the shutters be opened that caused the thing to turn its attention on Crusader 50?


NEXT TIME...

Silence in the Library / The Forest of the Dead

Is it normal for television to deliver actual shivers of delight? The Doctor stands before his TARDIS in an ancient room. He snaps his fingers, and the room fills with light as the doors fly open. Stepping inside, he turns to face us, we who are left behind. Donna at his side, he stares out dispassionately before clicking his fingers once again. And the TARDIS doors close, like the pages of a book.

This is a wonderful pair of episodes. The Vashta Nerada, although not quite as successful as the Silence or the Weeping Angels, are nonetheless an instant classic: a spooky combination of lurching, zombiefied space suits and darkness itself, rendered with piranha-like ferocity. The reveal, that it was their forest that became the books of the library, is a characteristic piece of Moffat plotting that relies on something we already know but have not had time to consider, in this case that paper comes from trees. What's more, there's a surreal, transformative quality to there being a forest inside a library, just as later we will see a forest in a bottle in a ship in a cave, or fish swimming in the fog.

The Library is a brilliant idea, executed with considerable flair: a great mixture of sweeping CGI wide shots and clever location work (including the beautiful Brangwyn Hall in Swansea) create a vast and imposing world that is still full of dark corners and intimate spaces. The result is that this strange world feels like a real place.

It helps that the people in it are so believable. We've seen our fair share of disposable supporting characters over the years, but this small team of explorers must be some of the most likeable. Dave, Other Dave, Anita, who faces death with such dignity, and Miss Evangelista, whose cruel demise provides the chief emotional moment of Silence in the Library; each of them a tiny part that becomes a real person thanks to some great writing and a wonderful guest cast. The others aren't bad either: Colin Salmon as Dr Moon, beautifully urbane and reassuring, is a particular coup and Eve Newton is remarkably good as the young girl/super computer CAL, who sits in the mysterious space we think of as our own, watching and responding to the Doctor's adventures on her television. Key points in this story depend on her performance and she doesn't disappoint.

I think Forest of the Dead is the slightly better of the two episodes. Donna's side trip into the wonderland of CAL's imagination is just one of many curveballs Moffat pitches along the way, but it is marvellous: mysterious, funny ("But I've been DIETING!") and deeply unsettling. He creates a landscape out of the visual language of television itself, using cuts and edits to mask the gaps in Donna's reality. But the distortion of Miss Evangelista's face is simply an updating of the traditional gothic heroine's disfigurement, and at the centre of this fabricated reality are real human emotions. Donna's relationship with Lee is undeniably real even if, like their children, it is a fabrication. CAL, watching the Doctor, might be so scared she has to switch over to another programme, but for any adults (let alone parents) in the audience, the gut-churning moment where Donna's children tell her they are afraid that they are not real, and then disappear from their beds in the blink of an eye, is surely the most terrifying and awful moment in the whole of Doctor Who. Catherine Tate has been incredible in this series, and this story is another very high point.

Tennant is extremely good as well. When River whispers in the Doctor's ear, Tennant shows us, for a few fascinating seconds, a broken man, suddenly unsure of everything. She turns away and we can see him rebuilding himself, reconstructing the persona of the Doctor until he is able to snap back into action. Once he's recovered, the Doctor gets to be rather wonderful, saving everybody, even River, and turning back the Vashta Nerada by showing them his entry in Who's Who? There's more to say about the legendary interpretation of the Doctor, but for now, this feels like a very cool trick, albeit one that can't be used very often. 

But it isn't enough that these episodes are brilliant; they are also important, a lynchpin, that connects the Tenth Doctor to the Eleventh, the RTD era to that of Steven Moffat.

As soon as we saw the Next Time at the end of The Unicorn and the Wasp, we were extremely excited. I hadn't given it much thought in advance, but the imminent arrival of River Song felt like a massive event. It's no surprise that hindsight (or foresight, it's difficult to tell) changes the way that we watch her episodes now, but I was unprepared for the full impact of her appearance in the library. She is a harbinger, a John the Baptist figure, heralding the future of Doctor Who itself.

There was a slight sense of this at the time, with her references to her future-Doctor, but with Moffat having been announced as RTD's replacement only days earlier it felt chutzpah on his part to be using this script to tell us how wonderful things were going to be when he took over. Not that I ever doubted that the Moffat era would be anything other than brilliant, of course, but River's appearance here seemed designed to deliberately raise everyone's expectations - a rather cocksure gambit.

Now we know: if it was arrogance, it was utterly deserved. The brilliance of this story is that Moffat delivered on those expectations, exceeded them even. To watch this story now is to swap the original thrill of anticipation for the glow of recollection. We've seen the crash of the Byzantium; we know and love the Doctor who can open the TARDIS with a click of his fingers; we've watched River be born, get married; we've met her mother.

The incomparable genius of it all is that this story serves as a fitting and perfect finale for River Song. On transmission, we didn't, couldn't, know that she would return, that we would see her whole story. In that sense Silence in the Library didn't promise anything. The rest of her story that came after, woven through subsequent series, delivers in ways we could never have anticipated and unexpectedly makes this two-parter so much more powerful, so much more important, and so much better than we ever realised.

I know there are some viewers, some fans even, that don't like her or, at least, prefer it when she's not around, but as far as I'm concerned River Song is the most startling and ingenious addition to the series since the TARDIS, and her higgledy-piggledy narrative is the best piece of extended storytelling in the whole run. If it wasn't part of Doctor Who, if River's story had been conceived as a separate show in its own right, told out of sequence over five years, it would be lauded, considered the most audaciously brilliant piece of television in years. Instead here it is, beginning and ending in these two episodes where, for the first time, the show about time travel takes a trip into its own future.

Christopher's favourite bit was when the Doctor dived down the swishy-blueness, a wonderful moment which you think would be worth a ten out of ten all by itself. He held a point back until I could explain how all the other dead people could join River in the Libraryscape, but we finally ended up with a ten, which is, in my opinion, the very least this story deserves.


NEXT TIME...