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.

Truth or Consequences

7 November 2015

The Zygon Inversion

Well, in the words of the great game show host Bruce Forsyth, that was 'so much better than last week.' 

Game shows were something of a theme for tonight's episode. I should have realised that the repeated references to 'truth or consequences' last week were more significant than a simple reference to the town that renamed itself after a game show.

After last week's sub X-Files dashing about the planet, this week we were back in more familiar territory, even down to the police officers who were not quite what they seemed.

As the episode drew to a conclusion the real meaning of 'truth or consequences' became clear, referring back to the circumstances under which the original peace treaty was negotiated in The Day of the Doctor.  It all made sense, and gave Peter Capaldi the opportunity both to do a wicked Hughie Green impersonation and prove his worth as the Doctor with a truly impassioned speech.

So what if the final twist could be seen a mile off. It was a most enjoyable episode. (And I mean that most sincerely, folks!)

Zygon Times

Sunday 1 November 2015

My German colleague (notable as the only German I have ever met who watches Doctor Who) has raised a question about The Woman Who Lived? Why didn't she use the repair chip to save one of her children?  Were none of them 'good enough'?

Oh well, moving on to this week's episode, The Zygon Invasion.  I like Zygons.  Their debut story, Terror of the Zygons is one of my favourites.  But I found The Zygon Invasion a bit tedious to be honest. 

In 2005, when we were all just so surprised and happy to have Doctor Who back on our screens, there was a two-part story Aliens of London/World War Three in which aliens disguised as politicians took over 10 Downing Street, and attempted to start a war, claiming that there were aliens with 'massive weapons of destruction' that could be deployed within 45 seconds. I was so amazed at the sheer cheek of this topical reference in the run up to a general election that I almost fell off the sofa.

Ten years later, and the (real) world is not a safer place.  The Zygon Invasion starts by reminding us of the small piece of unfinished business from  Day of the Doctor.  You know, the peace treaty between humans and Zygons that was to be negotiated with neither party knowing which side they were on. What with saving Gallifrey, and the Great Curator and everything, no one bothered to ask how it turned out.  Cue another flashback to the Tenth Doctor (and the Eleventh and the other one). Sadly, it all went downhill after that.

It turns out that the Zygons have been living among us, but now a faction among the young are being radicalised.  They are taking hostages, making videos and killing people. One of their bases is in a country ending in -stan.  It doesn't take a degree in Media Studies or Politics to see where this is going.

So we have heavy-handed political satire, locations that range from the amusingly-named Truth or Consequences in New Mexico to somewhere in (presumably) Central Asia, via a London estate; a regular who has been replaced by a Zygon, UNIT (run entirely by women now, it seems) and it somehow fails to gel.  It felt more like an episode of Torchwood  or The X-Files to me.

At least Osgood is back (for now). And it's always nice to see David Tennant.

Update: My aforementioned German colleague wants to know why the Doctor needed a Presidential Plane to get to the Zygon-istan.  He has a point.  I'm not sure where exactly this Zygon village is supposed to be, but it must be at least 6 hours flying time. Husband's response (as per Girl in the Fireplace) 'they can't use the TARDIS, they are part of events now.' 

Happy Birthday, Doctor!

Today is the 51st anniversary of Doctor Who.

A year ago, I was at the ExCel Centre for the Fiftieth celebrations.

Not surprisingly, for an event with several thousand attendees, a certain amount of queuing was involved. Initially, we joined the other ‘Weeping Angels’ in a holding area. After a while we were allowed to proceed to the registration hall. En route we passed a number of cafés, but decided not to stop for breakfast until after we had registered. This proved to be something of a mistake, as although registration was swift – our tickets were scanned and we were handed our badges and lanyards, we were then held in a huge queue in the hall for half an hour.

 Once we got moving again we grabbed a drink and a pastry and made our way to the ‘Classic Lounge’ for a panel with Frazer Hines and Debbie Watling. The Classic Lounge area was at some distance from the main hall and exhibition area and felt like an old-style convention. Frazer and Debbie were good value, as ever. The recent recovery of tapes of Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear provided a talking point. Debbie Watling revealed her nervousness about the helicopter scene in Enemy of the World. She got Frazer to promise he would let her sit in the middle, but on the take he outran her, leaving her with the precarious outside seat. It was so cold on the location for the supposed Australian beach that Frazer’s knees turned blue. His then girlfriend, Susan George, who was visiting, had to massage them back to life (or at least that was his excuse).

Our next event was a Panel in the main auditorium. After queuing for a while, we finally took our seats for what proved to be a Panel with the surviving Doctors from the ‘classic’ series: Messrs Baker, Tom; Davison; Baker, Colin; McCoy and McGann. This Panel was hosted by Nicholas (‘Get lost Nick, you Bald Git’ – you see, I can’t stop myself) Briggs. There was also a sign language interpreter on stage, and the Doctors, having discovered the previous day that the sign for ‘Nicola Bryant’s cleavage’ (Peter Davison’s last sight before regeneration) was rather entertaining, took mischievous delight in mentioning it as often as possible. Unfortunately, this Panel, which had started late, ended at the scheduled time, leaving us feeling slightly short changed.

We remained in our seats for another Panel, this time with the current team: producer Marcus Wilson, Steven Moffat, Jenna Coleman and Matt Smith. Steven Moffat once again exhibited his talent for giving nothing whatsoever away, though he did joke about Matt leaving ‘to pursue a career in musical theatre.’ (Matt appeared in ‘American Psycho’ the musical.)

After a quick lunch (the organisers had made sure there were plenty of catering outlets, with one hall devoted to food stalls supplementing the ExCeL’s in-house facilities), we ventured into the main exhibition area. (We had avoided the area earlier, as Graham Norton was doing a live broadcast of his Saturday morning Radio Two Show. That man’s ability to gatecrash Doctor Who is remarkable.) Once inside the exhibition hall we found a costume and prop exhibition, which included both classic and new series, as well as The Sarah Jane Adventures and An Adventure in Time and Space. There was also an opportunity to play with a ring modulator in order to talk like a Dalek. My companion took the opportunity to recite a risqué limerick. There were also demonstrations of make-up and workshops on how to walk like a monster, as well as some smaller panels. I caught the end of one panel with Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton. The merchandising area offered anything you could possibly want, from books, audios and DVDs, to expensive limited edition sonic screwdriver sets and replica Doctor coats. 

Our next event was another Classic Lounge panel, this time with William Russell and Carole Ann Ford. This was interesting, but slightly marred by a problem with William Russell’s microphone. After that, there was a special effects demonstration with Danny Hargreaves in the main auditorium. However, as we had already seen a similar demonstration in Cardiff, I was persuaded instead to go to a screening of the final episode of The Three Doctors, with live commentary by Terrance Dicks. This was very entertaining, although the reminiscences in the commentary bore little relation to what was actually on the screen. After a final look round the exhibition, we left the event. It had been fascinating, though not quite as enjoyable as the previous year’s Cardiff event, which had had the added attraction of taking place in a Doctor Who location – the Millennium Centre - and had also provided the once in a lifetime opportunity to visit the TARDIS set at the Upper Boat studio and play with the console.

In the evening we returned to the ExCeL Centre for a live screening of Day of the Doctor. This naturally enough involved another long queue. In front of us in the queue was someone dressed as a Time Lord, and I was a bit worried that we would end up sitting behind him, but in the event we had a good view. The screening was introduced by a short panel, which included Dalek operators Barnaby Edwards and Nicholas Pegg. Most of the other ‘celebrity’ guests had decamped to the BFI -we had earlier passed Colin Baker on an escalator as he was leaving the event to go to the screening there. Nevertheless, The Day of the Doctor was the highlight of the day – a truly wonderful episode.

Queuing for the 'Day of the Doctor' screening

See you at the Sixtieth Anniversary!

I set foot in the TARDIS

2012
 

When we heard that the BBC were arranging an official convention – in Cardiff- we knew we had to go. Remembering that Panopticon 2003 had been  bit of a let-down,  I deliberately set my expectations low and booked into the posh hotel. My idea was that we would have a pleasant weekend away even if the convention was a disappointment.  I need not have worried.

Breakfast on the morning of Saturday 24 March was enlivened by the sight of Nick ‘Voice of the Daleks’ Briggs in a claret velvet jacket, selecting a banana from the buffet.  Bananas are good, as Steven Moffat’s scripts are wont to say. I first encountered Mr Briggs at Panopticon 1993, when as host, he encouraged the audience to shout ‘Get lost Nick, you bald git!’ at him. The residual Pavlovian training was very strong, but I just about managed not to shout it out at him in the hotel dining room.

The Convention timetable had two tracks: Ood and Silurian, with the same events running at different times for each group. As Silurians, we had a slightly later start than the Ood.  We walked to the Millennium Centre and joined the massive queue outside the ‘Silurian’ entrance.  Convention crew in yellow t-shirts patrolled the queue and scanned our tickets.  We couldn’t help feeling that they should have had Judoon to do this, but there was no sign (yet) of the Rhino police, although there was a Silurian wandering around.  It was a glorious day, and Murray Gold’s soundtrack was playing, so the time passed quite pleasantly. Before long we were inside, collecting our goody bags. As well as our passes, the bags contained the programme, a DVD of Series 5 volume 1, and souvenir postcards. We were also given a wrist band for the 9.30 a.m. Special Effects Studio session, so we joined another queue for entry to this. But just as we reached the front of the queue, they decided the room was at capacity, so we were turned away and given tickets for the 2.00 p.m. show instead.  In fairness, this was the only organisational hiccup we experienced. 

Foiled, we returned to the foyer to watch the prosthetics demonstration by Millennium FX instead. I then made the serendipitous discovery that it was possible to buy a coffee at the foyer café and drink it at a table with excellent view of the demonstration.  This is a luxury I had not experienced at any previous Doctor Who convention, catering not normally being a strong point of such events. This particular  demonstration focused on the Scarecrows from Human Nature/Family of Blood. Monster regular Ruari Mears demonstrated the Scarecrow walk both in and out of costume. It looked incredibly camp without Scarecrow mask on. A member of the audience was also given the opportunity of trying on a Scarecrow mask and walking with the very restricted vision that entailed. Ruari also told some anecdotes about what happens when a Cyberman sneezes inside his helmet (yuk – almost put me off my coffee!), and how as an Ood in The Satan Pit he missed the turning in the ducting and fell right out of the rig.

After the demo it was time to joint another almighty queue to get to Donald Gordon Theatre for our first panel of the day: Meet the Stars.  Signs on the way in forbade the use of cameras, but the stewards said that it was OK to take pictures without flash. I dutifully turned off my flash, though I noticed quite a view flashes going off in the auditorium without anyone being exterminated or asked to leave.  The interviewer was Jason Mohammed (a news and sport presenter for BBC Wales, who played TV News Anchor in the 2007 Christmas Special.) The panel guests were Arthur Darvill, Karen Gillan, Matt Smith, Steven Moffat and Caroline Skinner (the new-ish executive producer). I don’t know whether the current TARDIS crew end Executive Producers have ever all appeared on stage at a UK convention before – certainly not for a very long time. The Panel  highlights were probably the questions from the audience. One little girl’s question to Matt Smith was ‘Would you like to come to the cinema with me tonight?’ He gracefully declined, explaining that his family were visiting that weekend. Another fan, seated near the front, somehow managed to get Matt to offer him a jammy dodger from the plate on stage, and then went up on stage for a hug. At one point Matt suffered a slip of the tongue and started talking about ‘Doctor Ho’ – which would be a different show entirely. ( I expect to see a video of this on YouTube sometime soon!) Someone asked Arthur Darvill what it was like being Rory in the street, and he replied, reasonably enough, that he was Arthur when he was out in the street.  One member of the audience asked Matt how the Doctor made a new sonic screwdriver and Matt came out with a brilliant explanation in fluent technobabble, which shows that he probably doesn’t need the scriptwriters at all. Steven Moffat was visibly impressed. A Silurian and a Judoon joined the party on stage at one point, causing Karen to jump.

We stayed in our seats for the next panel, which was ‘Creators and Directors’ hosted by Gary Russell.  This was based on one particular episode, The Girl Who Waited.  The guests included the writer Tom MacRae, producer Marcus Wilson and the designer of the Handbots. They were later joined on stage by a Handbot. This Panel revealed some of the trickery behind the filming. You may recall a scene in which Rory walked through a door which closed behind him, then he pressed another button and opened it again to reveal a different room.  This was achieved by the low-tech method of lots of people just out of shot who ran over as soon as the doors closed and moved things around, rather like the old lift joke from Candid Camera and Beadle’s About.

During the lunch break we went out to get some fresh air, leaving the Millennium Centre for the delights of a sandwich at RTD’s favourite coffee bar, Coffee Mania.

On our return we finally got to see the Special Effects demo, hosted by Danny Hargreaves, the undoubted star of Doctor Who Confidential . He demonstrated the ‘air woofer’ which can fire all sorts of fake debris.  A volunteer from the audience was entrusted with the job of firing a big gun at a Cyberman, whilst another young volunteer pressed the red button that set off charges on the Cybersuit just at the same time as the shot was fired, to make it look as if the Cyberman had been hit. We also had a demonstration of fake snow falling and X-Factor style smoke. Danny demonstrated his scary- looking paintball gun that generated sparks on a wall. He explained that this had been designed to look like a submachine gun because it was ‘cool’. He mentioned that one of his favourite jobs had been blowing up the military base on Torchwood: Miracle Day. This had been shot on a real military base, and men with guns had given him strict instructions not to blow anything up. As he explained, he didn’t actually blow it up, he just set it on fire slightly and burnt it a little bit. After the demo finished, the Cyberman posed for photos with fans, while Danny was happy to provide individual career advice on how to get to blow things up for a living.

We then had some time to visit the costume exhibition. This was familiar from the Doctor Who Experience at Earl’s Court, although with some more recent additions, including the King and Queen from the 2011 Christmas Special. One of the peg dolls from Night Terrors was actually an actor in costume, who moved from time to time to freak visitors out. 

We returned to the main auditorium for the final panel: Doctor Who Uncut – hosted by Dalek  operator Barnaby Edwards. The guests included Steven Moffat, Caroline Skinner, Production Designer Michael Pickwoad, Director of Photography Stephan Pehrsson, Director Julian Simpson and Casting Director Andy Pryor. The highlight of this session was the preview screening of the Series 7 (Fnarg+2?) trailer. Steven Moffat spent most of the Q & A trying not to give away any secrets in response to some carefully-loaded questions from the fans.  One question he was able to answer was ‘will there be a Sherlock / Doctor Who crossover?’ The answer was no, because a)they would end up punching each other; and b) Sherlock would no longer work if the rational certainties of Sherlock’s world were undermined by the Whoniverse.

That ended the formal business of the convention, and we went off to dinner in Bellini’s (Margaret Slitheen’s favourite restaurant), escaping before the hen parties got too rowdy.

The following morning we saw Ian McNeice (Winston Churchill) and Mark Sheppard (Canton Delaware III) at breakfast. Ian McNeice appeared to have come dressed as his character from Doc Martin.  As our set tour wasn’t until late afternoon, we walked into the city centre to avoid getting caught up with the Sport Relief Mile, which was taking place just outside the Millennium Centre. On returning in the afternoon, we were in time to see a Black Dalek that had completed the event proudly wearing his Sport Relief medal and shooting at children in the crowd (with a water pistol in his sink plunger).

The final event of our Who weekend was the coach trip to see the TARDIS set at the studios at Upper Boat. We were given either red or green wristbands, as the tour would be in two groups. We arrived slightly early, before the previous coachload were quite ready to leave, but we were allowed to get off the coach, with the strict injunction not to ‘go wandering off’. Now, where have I heard that before? As we had red wristbands, we were directed first to the ‘Blue Box Café’.  This could be a reference to the TARDIS, but it is genuinely a blue box, well, a Portacabin. Inside, they sold Starbucks coffee and had a screen showing A Good Man Goes to War.  After about half an hour, it was our turn on the set.  What can I say? We were on the real TARDIS set, and they let us touch it, and everything!

I had been expecting the convention to be very strict and formal, rather like the last Panopticon I attended (2003), with jobsworth stewards and injunctions not to touch the replica TARDIS console. In fact, the stewards were very friendly and helpful, and there was a very relaxed atmosphere.  We were allowed to play with the real TARDIS set, and no one minded when bits fell off (a common occurrence during filming). The queues were long, but moved swiftly, and even the sun shone for the whole weekend.  The only quibble I would have is that the guest actors were only available for photo/autograph opportunities, which I did not bother with, and did not participate in the Panel sessions.

I hope that similar events are organised for the 50^th anniversary next year. Perhaps with some previous Doctors in attendance as well…