The Big Whatsit

Reading some of the Doctor Who threads on the DVD Times forums, you’d get the impression that the David Tennant aegis has been as good and welcome as something you might have stepped in. Apparently, it’s been shocking. The number of ‘Worst.Series.Ever’ remarks suggest that the last series might have been fun for casual Saturday evening viewers, but little short of a sell out where the long haul fans were concerned. Well, I’ve followed the Doctor’s adventures since the mid-1970s, kept faith throughout the horrendous Sylvester McCoy era, when nobody looked to be trying anymore (though I actually thought McCoy had the makings of quite a good Doc), got a bit excited during ceaseless talks of revivals, and ended up enjoying Russell T Davies’s reimagining of the franchise. There, I’ve said it. I liked Eccleston as Who; in fairness, I’d watch him talking about having a poo for two hours, but there you go. And I reckon Tennant’s all right too. Not only that, but for me Billie Piper has made for an engaging companion you can empathise with. True, the second series contained some clunkers, some dire misfires, yet for every ‘Love and Monsters’ and ‘Fear Her’ there has been a string of truly excellent episodes, which walked the tightrope neatly between entertaining the Saturday teatime crowd and not patronising those who’ve been there from the start, bought the t-shirt, etc.

In truth, the negative criticisms I’ve read made me believe that asking for series two at Christmas was a horrible mistake. And then I watched it, loved it (mainly) all over again and saw exactly why Doctor Who has become the biggest fixture on British telly after just two seasons. Whether David Tennant really is the best Who of them all (as a recent BBC poll had it) is another matter, something for the real fans to debate endlessly - personally, my vote goes to Jon Pertwee, narrowly edging out Tom Baker, but I’m not elaborating any further. Whatever else he is, Tennant makes for a charismatic lead, able to slip between the dramatic shifts of the long-term plotlines and looking like he’s having a laugh the whole time, which I think you would be if you spent your days floating around space and time in an old police box. The gurning can get trying, the forced hamminess that he occasionally falls into displaying, but on the whole I reckon he gets the part just about right, and the camera loves him.

As it does Billie Piper, who I last recall singing about honey on a bee, or something. Maybe the loss of Rose from the show has been slightly overcooked. I never cared about her that much, and figured the long, drawn-out series climax following her split from the Doctor to be, er, long and drawn out. All the same, she made the best of a genuine attempt to see the events from the companion’s perspective. She played the ‘lost in space’ role to perfection, especially in ‘The Impossible Planet/Satan Pit’ when it looked as though she might really be stuck in a different galaxy. I imagine the producers will quite fluidly replace her with Freema Agyeman, but that’s no bad thing. The worst thing that could happen in series three would be lots more about how much the Doctor misses Rose. We’ve had all that. Time to move on.

Anyway, nobody wants to see this run to many thousands of words, least of all me, so here’s a brief summary on each episode from the series, on what turned out to be a handsomely mounted DVD set (though not as sturdy as Rome, which has to be the best construction of a boxset I’m yet to handle)…

The Doctor only really features in The Christmas Invasion during its climactic acts (this appears on the DVD set, along with the seven-minute segment recorded for Children in Need). When he does, he breathes fresh air into what has been a fairly pedestrian affair. It’s 24 December, and Earth is threatened by the Sycorax, who use a sample of human A+ blood to push a percentage of people to the brink of suicide. As Rose tries to revive a Doctor suffering from regeneration sickness, Prime Minister Harriet Jones finds herself in a desperate race to avert global disaster. Despite being shown on Christmas Day 2005, the episode contains only fleeting references to the season - murderous buskers dressed as Santa, a Christmas tree that, er, spins menacingly, etc. In all other ways, it’s a typical slice of family hokum. However, when Who revives and saves the day, he really does light up the screen, cracking jokes, coming out with pop culture references (’No, that’s the Lion King’) and adding some winning energy to the proceedings. In fact, his has to rank amongst the best entrances by any new Doctor. The Sycorax, on the other hand, turn out to be little more than intergalactic chancers, con merchants, and in a final twist we learn that there’s something far scarier, and much closer to home. 6/10

The series proper kicks off with New Earth, one of those laboured scenarios where Rose is wowed over the places to which the TARDIS can take her (come on, we get this by now!). Cat doctors run a hospital with an almost miraculous rate of curing the incurable, and naturally a dark secret is the cause. In the meantime, paper-thin flap of skin Cassandra is back on the scene, armed with a plan to get herself a new body. A largely forgettable episode, though it contains some good hamming by Tennant and Piper as they both get to pretend to be other people. 5/10

Tooth and Claw is more like it. The year is 1879, the place Scotland, and the Doctor and Rose find themselves accompanying Queen Victoria to Torchwood Estate, en route to Balmoral. Of course, things soon turn grim. The estate has been commandeered by a group of mysterious priests with yet stranger ninja fighting abilities. Their plan is to confront the Queen with one of their kin, a werewolf, and the plot soon turns into a pursuit as the Doctor tries to protect her Majesty. What works here is the carefully orchestrated upping of suspense. You know the werewolf is on its way, but for once the show ekes out its arrival for as long as possible, letting us sweat along with the house’s captured family as the full moon rises. The beast itself is an impressive and savage monster, featuring CGI confident enough to allow it to appear in full view on well-lit locations. Pauline Collins makes for an authentic Victoria, whilst the incessant flirting between Who and Rose sounds more like good natured banter than the clogging dialogue we get elsewhere, and makes you wish they’d please just sort it out. 8/10

School Reunion tips its hat to the fans by starring Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith, and featuring K-9. We meet the Doctor as he’s teaching a class, when really he’s investigating some strange goings on - pupils disappearing, impossibly clever kids, etc. Behind all is the Headmaster, Mr Finch, a monster in disguise as portrayed with typical class by Anthony Head. The teachers have all been replaced with Krillitanes, winged aliens that can change their shape to that of humans. They’re using the kids to help them control the universe, and only the Doctor stands in their way. It isn’t a bad premise, and Head makes the most of his sinister role, but the episode is a sop to schoolkids more than anything. The baddies never seem that hard to beat, Who never coming close to losing his cool as he methodically deals with their threat. On the plus side, seeing Sarah Jane again is never a chore, K-9 even less so. 6/10

The Girl in the Fireplace is the best episode of the series, a romp through time and space as our heroes dwell on both a dead spaceship long in the future, and eighteenth century France. How the two connect is a matter of some suspense, the writers peeling back its revelations slowly, introducing new twists up until the final frame. In the meantime, there’s a new love interest for the Doctor, Reinette Poisson, better known to posterity as Madame de Pompadour. The Timelord meets her at various stages as she grows up, transforming into a kind of occasional angel who never ages. Reinette is played by Sophia Myles, who has never looked more ravishing, and brings a degree of intelligence to the part. Little wonder the Doctor’s besotted, spending most of his time mooning over her, when not saving her, whilst Rose’s episode is largely spent with Mickey, who gets a welcome chance to go on an adventure with the pair. 9/10

Things don’t let up with Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel, which chronicles the genesis of the Cybermen and is clearly meant to be a thrilling mid-point to the series. I have no idea how these near arch-enemies came into being, and how this story fits in with the overall mythology, but I quite like the theory placed before me (they’re the product of a mad, megalomaniac inventor who exists on an Earth in a different reality). The cast have some good fun exploring their alternative lives, whilst the reuniting of Pete and Jackie Tyler sparks with genuine chemistry. As for the Cybermen themselves, they make a rather minging entrance and never really let up, a cross between Romero zombies and Nazi infantry as they stomp unstoppably towards their foes. There’s a fine hammy turn from Roger Lloyd Pack as the baddie, as far from Trigger as he could hope to be, and a thrilling conclusion is in store… 7/10

The Idiot’s Lantern is a quirky entry that I rather liked. Written by The League of Gentlemen’s Mark Gatiss, we’re in London, 1953, on the eve of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. Social historians note this as a TV-buying boom in Britain, which is reflected in an episode where televisions, ironically, are the enemy. Maureen Lipman has a great time playing The Wire, a creature that can steal viewers’ faces and is embodied as a continuity announcer of the age. There’s also some well observed observations on the era, such as the Doctor and Rose’s clothes, and the way the ‘faceless’ are herded into a cell by authorities terrified over the scandal such people will cause during one of the country’s most important moments. 7/10

The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit is a high point in the series, and the closest it comes to putting out a good slice of science fiction. We get less of quirky David Tennant, and lashings of plot as the action takes place on a planet that implausibly orbits a black hole. People have built a space station here, charged with researching the phenomena, and you know things are wrong as oblique messages and mysterious appearances by a voice identified as that of Satan itself manifest before the crew. While the Doctor volunteers to join an expedition into the pit drilled deep inside the planet’s core, Rose stays on board, soon facing both the possessed Ood, a slave race that turns evil, and a crew member who also finds himself invaded by the ancient evil from the planet’s innards. It’s scary, pulsating, and claustrophobic, reminding me of forgotten science fiction horror flick, Event Horizon, which is no bad thing. 8/10

And then things veer in a downwards direction. Love & Monsters is told from the perspective of Elton Pope, a likeable and rather naive young man who is obsessed with meeting the Doctor after a chance encounter from his youth. We get little of Tennant/Piper, and instead concentrate on Pope’s antics with LINDA, a loose organisation he joins that is bent on Who-based research. Pretty soon, the work is replaced with fun, and a growing relationship between himself and Ursula… that is, until the malevolent Victor Kennedy gets in on the act and LINDA members begin to disappear. For the most part, the story is light and rather endearing. Marc Warren from off of Dracula makes for a pleasant lead, an easy on the eye presence as he searches for Who-related clues whilst getting closer to Ursula. Then it all goes horribly wrong, in an immensely silly final act that tries to rescue itself with cheap profundities. The blame lies with Peter Kay, who must have seemed a sure ratings winner when he signed up for the role of Kennedy, yet turns in the worst work of his fine career. 5/10

It doesn’t improve with Fear Her, the poorest episode of the series, and loosely based on old frightener, Paper House. Even thinking about it makes me feel slightly angry. As London prepares for the 2012 Olympics, a lonely little girl makes kids from her street vanish by drawing them, somehow transporting them to the paper. And that’s about it, in a hackneyed yarn that makes no use of the talents of Nina Sosanya, the formidable Jenny from Teachers, way back when it was good. 4/10

Which takes us neatly to Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, the climax that was a fairly special affair during the Eccleston series. This one’s set up to be a confrontation between the Daleks and Cybermen, with Earth as the spoils, in an epic close to the season. For the most part, it works, buoyed along by the possibilities of two of the Doctor’s most feared enemies clashing. There’s an excellent message concerning Torchwood, which suggests humans just aren’t ready to tamper with alien forces - they do so here, with disastrous consequences. However, the story also has to concern itself with Rose’s departure from the Doctor’s life, leading to a long and gooey ending, which is meant to be so emotional that a warning might as well flash on the screen telling you when to get your Kleenex ready. It’s a real shame Russell T Davies doesn’t know how to wrap up an episode. He did the same in The Runaway Bride, mostly a fast-paced romp that closes with Who and Donna chatting outside the TARDIS for five minutes, a nation bellowing as one for them to skip to the end. Still, it’s okay generally, even if its plotholes could fill the Albert Hall, and transforming Torchwood chief Yvonne into a Cyberman, only to have her turn on her kind, replete with an oily tear is just plain insulting. The makers took enormous liberties with this one. Hopefully, Series Three will see an improvement. 6/10