Who Do's and Don'ts

Since its return in 2005, Doctor Who has provided viewers with an ever-growing list of commands. Quite are few are prohibitions - mostly things that we must not do in order to be safe from monsters, though a bit of personal prejudice might be creeping in at number 5.

1.       Don’t blink - from 2007’s Blink.  If you do, the Weeping Angels will get you.

2.       Don’t step in the shadows from 2008’s - Silence in the Library.  The Vashta Nerada are lurking in the shadows - any shadow.

3.       Don’t breathe - from the Twelfth Doctor’s debut story, Deep Breath.  If you breathe the Half-Faced man will get you.

4.       Don’t look - from the 2014 story Listen.  Perhaps the scariest command of all, don’t turn round to look at the monster you think is behind you.

5.       ‘You must not watch this’ advice concerning the 2015 episode Sleep No More that I wish I had heeded.

6.       Never eat pears - the Twelfth Doctor’s parting advice to Clara in 2015’s Hell Bent.

7.  [Late addition] Don't pop bubblewrap - as we learned when the Thirteenth Doctor visited Kerblam!

It’s not all don’ts though.  There are some things which are positively encouraged:

1.       Smile - your life may depend on it if there are any Emojibots around.

2.       Always take a banana to a party.   Not only are they a good source of potassium, you might invent the banana daiquiri a few centuries early, as the Tenth Doctor did in The Girl in the Fireplace.

Warning: If you are thinking about New Year Resolutions, this is not the list you need.  But don’t forget your banana on New Year’s Eve.

Talking of Frogs....

Watching It Takes You Away made us want to revisit a 'classic' episode which also featured a talking frog: Four to Doomsday.

This was the first Peter Davison story to be filmed, and it shows. It's an odd episode, which would have fitted pretty well into the Hartnell era. There are some similarities with The Ark, although in this case it is the Urbankans who have left their dying planet. Earth has been chosen as their new home.

The TARDIS crew have not really settled down.  Tegan just wants to go home, and is extremely annoying - though she does demonstrate excellent artistic skills.  Nyssa is being a scientific clever clogs, and is annoying.  Adric is just annoying.

Overall the story is pretty poor, but it does provide a use for the Fifth Doctor's cricketing outfit, or at least the cricket ball in his pocket, as long as you can suspend disbelief in the laws of physics.

Stone Me - a talking frog!

24 December 2018

I have been very negligent in blogging about the most recent episodes.  So here, in true i-Player tradition is a catch-up:

Kerblam!

A nice little satire on online shopping and huge corporations.  Sadly not enough Lee Mack, but a good twist at the end.  Make a mental note to add ‘popping bubblewrap’ to the things which Doctor Who forbids.

The Witchfinders

A celebrity historical that is completely stolen by Alan Cumming’s portrayal of James VI and I.  So over the top he is onto the next hill but one.  Also makes good use of the Doctor’s new gender - of course she would be regarded as the Witchfinder’s ‘assistant’ and then ducked as a witch.

It Takes You Away

Unquestionably the best episode of the series.  It starts with an apparently abandoned cottage in Norway, lulling the viewer into thinking it will not be that different in tone from the previous episode, but before long we are in the anti-zone with a Gollum-like creature, before ending up with a sentient universe appearing as a talking frog.  This is the sort of story that Doctor Who can pull off - sheer madness!

The Battle of Ranskoor av Kolos

After the previous episode, this seemed a bit underpowered.  Tim Shaw was not really a strong enough villain to merit a comeback in the season finale, and the eponymous battle was not realised on screen.

I can’t wait to see what is in store on New Year’s Day!

Quick Guide to Who Christmas Specials

It's the first year for 14 years that there has not been a Doctor Who Christmas special on 25 December.  To someone who lived through the long Who drought of the 1990s* it still seems slightly incredible that for the new generation Doctor Who is as much a Christmas TV tradition as the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special and the James Bond film were in my childhood.

[*In the 1990s and early 2000s we had only Virgin books and Big Finish audios for new Who. But Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without listening to The Chimes of Midnight at least once.]

So here is my reflection on the specials of the past 14 years in order of brilliance:

1	The Christmas Invasion The debut of the best Doctor ever, in pyjamas, with killer Christmas trees, epic Star Wars style space duel, and ending in time for the Doctor to enjoy a family Christmas dinner.  Perfection!	2005
2	The Unquiet Dead Not strictly a Christmas special, but set at Christmas, with Charles Dickens and ghosts, so it counts.  And it’s brilliant.	2005
3	A Christmas Carol Doctor Who’s take on the classic Dickensian Christmas tale.  With giant space fish and a haunting carol.	2010
4	The Doctor the Widow and the Wardrobe This Narnia-like story gets a high place for sheer Christmas schmaltz.  Ideal for family viewing after overdosing on the mince pies.	2011
5	The Runaway Bride The introduction of the fabulous Donna Noble, with Sarah Parish eating the scenery as the Empress of the Racnoss, and the most wonderful chase scene.  Would have scored higher, but the Christmas flavour seems a bit tacked on (probably due to filming in July…)	2006
6	Voyage of the Damned A glossy disaster movie for Christmas, with lovely cameo from Bernard Cribbins.  But why employ Kylie Minogue and get someone else to sing the song?	2007
7	Last Christmas Disconcerting mix between Christmassy and very bleak, marked higher because of the Rudolph’s nose gag.	2014
8	Twice Upon a Time Two (well, three, just) Doctors for the price of one.  Scores highly for David Bradley’s First Doctor and Mark Gatiss’ displaced soldier, but the whole Testimony thing was rather annoying.	2017
9	The Return of Doctor Mysterio A superhero movie - good family entertainment, but not very Who-like.	2016
10	The Next Doctor Good Dickensian Christmas vibe, but scored down for Russell T Davies’ evil tease and the cybershades.  Also the plot was weak.	2008
11	The Husbands of River Song Some very funny moments, but Nardole was annoying and the monsters were too revolting for post-Christmas lunch viewing.	2015
12	The End of Time Lovely performance from Bernard Cribbins (and I want to be June Whitfield) but I am too sad about this being Ten’s swansong to mark any higher. Also, the farewell tour at the end was unnecessary.	2009
13	The Snowmen The Doctor sulking on a cloud, before joining forces with Mary Poppins-lite - really?	2012
14	The Time of the Doctor Sounds of the bottom of the barrel being scraped with a town called Christmas.  The festive bird being cooked in the TARDIS was not the only turkey in this episode.	2013

Settling down now

18 November 2018

 Demons of the Punjab was a return to form.  It was a lovely piece of Sunday evening family entertainment. It's a pity that the eponymous demons turned out to be not so different from Testimony - perhaps they need to get in touch and discuss joint working arrangements?
Phew!

In other news this week, we have learned that the Christmas Special this year is going to be a New Year special.  Frankly I don't mind the loss of a Christmas Special, as it gives me an excuse to watch The Christmas Invasion again. No subsequent special has surpassed this one. The problem is that broadcasting on New Year's day limits my options for a birthday treat for the husband, who will obviously want to watch it live.

Still, maybe there's hope.  We have arranged to meet a friend this evening and will therefore need to watch tonight's episode on catch-up.

Call the Space Midwife

10 November 2018

It's nearly a week since The Tsuranga Conundrum was broadcast. I watched it again today to see whether it was as bad as I originally thought.  It was.


Last Friday I had lunch with my former colleague, who told me he really wasn't enjoying the new series. I tried to convince him that it was better than he thought.  On Sunday evening, I texted him to concede that this particular episode was bad. He hadn't even bothered to watch it.  On the basis that our opinions of the new series were diametrically opposed, he then decided to see it after all.  He can't say I didn't warn him.

For me, nothing about the episode really worked.  It was never made clear what Team TARDIS were looking for on the planet of the dumps in the first place.  Then the whole concept of the Tsurunga seemed weird.  Why would a society that is civilised and caring enough to create automated emergency medical transport vessels include a protocol to self-destruct when remote sensors suggest something is wrong. Wouldn't quarantine be a more usual response?

The plot felt like one of the lesser Star Trek episodes and the tone was all over the place. The P'Ting  seemed like a sort of cross between the cuteness of an Adipose and the menace of thing from Midnight. It also reminded me a bit of Yoda, as Luke Skywalker first encountered him in the Dagobah system. The pacing was also off.  One minute there was an urgent threat as the ship is being devoured by an unstoppable creature, and the next everything stopped for clunky exposition, a lesson on antimatter or an episode of Call the Space Midwife. 

Ronan was not the only one experiencing a comprehension deficiency by the end.

I hope for more from Demons of the Punjab.

Arachnids in the UK

*Spoilers*

Armed with my retro sausage sandwich, I snuggled down on the sofa for a 1970s-style Doctor Who experience, and it didn't disappoint.

Evil businessman, toxic waste down a coal mine, giant creepy-crawlies: this was The Green Death for the 21st century. I'm not a huge spider fan, so this episode was definitely scary.  It may be a while before I can face having a bath again.

There were some echoes of the Russell T Davies era as well.  The suspicion of Yasmin's Mum Najia about her daughter's new 'friend' was very similar to that of Jackie Tyler, Francine Jones and Sylvia Noble. 'Why is it always the mothers?' the Tenth Doctor wondered, after having his face slapped by Francine in The Lazarus Experiment. There was also an Aliens of London/World War Three moment with Chris Noth's evil businessman who seemed extremely like a certain American president. It didn't come quite as close to the bone as the 'massive weapons of destruction line' as it was made clear that he intended to challenge Trump (perhaps the lawyers made them put that bit in) but the reference was hardly subtle.

I have a few niggles though.

I spent quite a lot of time worrying about Yas's dad and his terrible pakoras. He'd gone to all that trouble and the guests had vanished.  How rude! I hope the food wasn't wasted.  

The resolution seemed rushed. The final scene in which 'Team TARDIS' signed up was good, but we never learned who is going to clear up the spider web and carcass, to say nothing of the toxic dump in the mine. What happened to the spider in the flat?

Still, 10/10 for the title.

Doctor Who Day

Sunday 28 October 2018

The clocks have gone back, I have had a lie-in to celebrate my extra hour, it's cold outside and the evenings are getting dark.  It feels like a proper 'Doctor Who' day like we used to have in the 1970s.

So much so, that I watched an episode of Inferno earlier - the news stories about small earthquakes caused by fracking somehow brought it to mind, as did an interview with John Levene in Doctor Who Magazine.

To round off my 1970s Doctor Who experience, I'm making sausage sandwiches for tea, to be consumed whilst watching the Doctor battling with spiders.  I just hope we don't experience that other feature of early 70s TV watching - the power cut!

Settling In

Sunday 21 October 2018

Three episodes in, it's time to reflect on the new series and team.

Firstly, broadcasting on a Sunday is inspired.  I went to see Troilus and Cressida (with Martha's Mum  Adjoa Andoh playing Ulysses brilliantly) last night without having to catch up on Doctor Who on iPlayer.

The series has followed the Russell T Davies template of a trip to the future in episode 2 and a celebrity historical for episode 3 and is eschewing the more complicated timey-wimey plotting of the Moffat era.

The Ghost Monument had a refreshingly straightforward plot: essentially Doctor Who meets a Top Gear Special as the crew gatecrash the final stage of a rally.  No prizes for guessing what the 'Ghost Monument' at the finishing line turns out to be. All they have to do to find the TARDIS is cross an inhospitable planet that is trying to kill them, whilst allowing time for some character development along the way.

Rosa had something of the feel of one of the Hartnell episodes, but was none the worse for that.  The subject was handled sensitively. As last week, the plot was straightforward - all the team had to do was foil the attempts of the villain (a meddling monk equivalent) to change history.  Not quite as easy as you might think, and the question of whether or not there would be enough people on the bus provided a surprising amount of tension.   There was also a nice nod to more recent Who with a reference to the Storm Cage detention facility.

I like this new simplicity.

The Doctor Has Landed

14 October 2018

It's a week now since Jodie Whittaker made her proper debut as the Thirteenth-ish Doctor.  I was ready, with my edible ball bearing cakes, for a teatime treat.

Overall, I enjoyed the episode, though I was sad about Ryan's Nan.  I would have liked to see more of her.  The new style seemed to fit into Sunday evening viewing so well, that at one point I did wonder whether I was still watching The Bodyguard.

I do have a few queries though:

1. The Doctor fell out of her TARDIS in flight, through the roof of a train and was all right afterwards?  The Fourth Doctor regenerated after falling of a radar array which was nowhere near as high.  The Tenth Doctor fell through a roof in The End of Time Part Two and sort of survived for a bit, (at least until Wilf accidentally irradiated him), but at least he looked damaged.  OK - I know she was still in her regeneration cycle, when minor injuries such as losing a hand or being gunned down by the Gestapo aren't fatal, but even so.

2. If Ryan gave 'consent' for the hunting ritual when he touched the shape in the air, how come the quarry had already been lined up with enough time for 'Tim Shaw' to rig up his cheating device?  He came through almost immediately afterwards.

3. Why was Ryan trying to learn to ride a bike on uneven, muddy ground? Wouldn't an empty car park have been easier - and have they never heard of stabilisers?

4. Is it just me, or did the new Doctor's sonic screwdriver look like it might have another function?

Looking forward to finding out how the new crew cope on a different planet.

Deletion

Saturday 6 October 2018

Cyberman

Only one day to go until Jodie Whittaker is properly introduced as the new Doctor.  I have been so busy lately that I haven't really had time to get excited yet, but I'm definitely working up to it now.

I recently blogged about the feminisation of the audience for Doctor Who.  There was another good example of that at work this week.  It was at the start of a meeting of a university committee that approves new degree programmes, and someone mentioned that an obsolete programme was going to be deleted.  'That sounds like something the Cybermen would do' said the chair (another lady of a certain age like myself, who looks absolutely nothing like the traditional image of a Who fan.)  She then went on to mention that an old friend of hers had been in a Cybermen episode. From the description of the character I immediately identified  Mrs Moore from Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel played by Helen Griffin. By this time one or two of our (male) colleagues on the other side of the table were looking bemused, but that did not stop the chair from adding that another friend used to run a shop where they did occasional Who-related signings and once arranged for Tom Baker to phone her at work.

I didn't have the heart to ask whether she was sure it wasn't Jon Culshaw.

Neil, Plaything of Sutekh!

2 September 2018

My husband, the one who got me into all this, is called Neil. This means I can call him 'plaything of Sutekh' if he gets above himself.

Neil has a TARDIS materialisation sound as his ringtone, which can be disconcerting at times. Coincidentally this is also the ringtone a colleague of mine who works in IT support uses for her boss, Neal.

Meanwhile, my hairdresser's partner (the one who built a Dalek) is also called Neil.

Coincidence?

The feminisation of Doctor Who

19 August 2018

No, this isn't another post about a female Doctor. This is about the audience.

When I first accompanied my husband to conventions back in the early 1990s I was very much in the minority as one of the very few women present.   Probably the biggest change in Doctor Who since it returned in 2005 has been the rise of the fangirl.  The gender balance at conventions is now far more even.

I was reminded of this change whilst watching Kill the Moon  just now.  When I watched it originally I was so incensed by the ridiculous storyline and Clara's tantrum at the end, that I missed a throwaway line that really encapsulates this change in the audience.  Clara says that the school secretary hates her 'because she thinks I gave her a packet of Tena Lady in Secret Santa.' If ever a line was designed for my demographic (middle-aged female) that is it.  My other half still doesn't get it.  I suspect the Twelfth Doctor didn't either.

Even now, it seems odd that they managed to get away with a line about incontinence pads in a family show, but it is not the first time that the post-2005 show has had lines aimed at a female audience which would not have been considered appropriate for a family audience in the show's earlier years. There was a  joke about breast implants in Rose, and another in The Doctor's Daughter about turkey-basters.

I can't wait to see where this goes next.

Leavings....

12 July 2018

After juggling two and a bit jobs for the past six or seven months with secondments and 'acting' roles, they have worn me down and I am finally changing jobs permanently.  This is very sad, as I liked my old job, but my colleagues put on a great leaving party, complete with TARDIS piñata. 

I really hope someone got a picture of the distinguished professor of English Literature bashing it with a miniature cricket bat!

My leaving speech was short: the Tenth Doctor's final words.

Update: I returned later to the office to retrieve the TARDIS (yes, that was me carrying it home on the train).  The following morning I wasn't in and I got a panicked email from a colleague:

"You didn’t by any chance come in early this morning to take the TARDIS? It’s gone and Barbara and Ian are going into detective mode. (You just missed a moment in the office that you might have cherished when Ian could be overheard saying on the phone ‘we had a TARDIS in the office and…’.)*"

 *Names have been changed.  Obviously.

By coincidence, one of my colleagues in my new role is the person who was briefly my boss elsewhere and who bought me a Cyberman book and Dalek poster as a leaving present.

Musings

9 June 2018

Life has been very busy lately: doing two jobs, working on two books (medieval bastards and a guidebook to the Chilterns) and selling my mother's bungalow, so not much time for blogging, or for Doctor Who.

I did read the Target novelisation of The Day of the Doctor, which was excellent, in a very Steven Moffat way.  Naturally he had to tell the story from multiple viewpoints and include a running gag about Chapter Nine. On the subject of Moffat, we also re-watched Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead recently.  They are still great stories, and what struck me particularly was how well River Song's first appearance stands up even when viewed with the benefit of hindsight. The Doctor's face when someone accuses him and River of bickering like 'an old married couple' is priceless. I still want to know why Audrey Niffenegger didn't sue, though.

There are rumours that Captain Jack will return to our screens to meet Doctor 13.  These seem largely fuelled by the fact that Chris Chibnall was the showrunner for Torchwood. Whilst I would love to see the Captain back on our screens, the TARDIS is already going to be quite crowded.  I hope Jodie Whittaker has enough space to be the Doctor, and doesn't get crowed out as Peter Davison did at times.

Oh well, all will be revealed in due course.