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.

A girl can dream...

30 January 2016

So Steven Moffat is leaving Doctor Who. He must really need a holiday by now.  Interestingly, when I just went to google this story, Google suggested 'Steven Moffat has ruined Doctor Who' as a search term.  Everyone's a critic! 

Seriously, I cannot agree with that sentiment, though I do think that Moffat produced better Doctor Who episodes as a writer than as a showrunner.  The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace and Blink are among my all-time favourites. I'm less keen on the convoluted story arcs that take a couple of years to pay off ('silence will fall') or personal relationships that 'need a flowchart', as I think they tend to alienate the casual viewer.  I had the same problem with The X-Files.

It will be interesting to see the direction that Chris Chibnall will go in when he finally takes over.  Until then, I'm secretly hoping for a 'Tenth Doctor wakes up in the shower/TARDIS and it was all a dream' plot. After all, Chibnall is working with David Tennant on Broadchurch and there does seem to be a tendency for producers to work with the same people over and again. 

A girl can dream, can't she?

Doctor Who Festival 3

After lunch, we were back in the main theatre for the Writers’ Panel with Steven Moffat, Toby Whithouse and Jamie Mathieson, introduced by Matthew Sweet.  Someone beat me to it and asked about the sonic screwdriver. Steven Moffat replied that it would definitely be coming back at some point. (Though Moffat, like the Doctor, often lies, I think this is a pretty safe bet. The question is how soon.)

The shades were specifically for the Magician’s Apprentice, where the Doctor needed to have a device in Davros’ sick room, which couldn’t be the screwdriver, because Davros would recognise it. He kept them for a while to annoy Clara. Apparently.

A writing tip from Jamie Mathieson is to just keep writing things down.  Eight out of nine times it will be rubbish, but the ninth time makes up for it.  (Readers of this blog may feel that he has underestimated the amount of rubbish that can be generated.)  As with the 50^th , there was a signer on stage, though fortunately no one had cause to mention Nicola Bryant’s cleavage this time.

A deaf member of the audience made a point of thanking Toby Whithouse for including a deaf character in Under the Lake/Before the Flood.  I think the great thing about this was that it wasn't just tokenism - the scene where Cass was being followed up the corridor by a ghost dragging an axe was the creepiest part of an otherwise creepy story.

The final panel was the highlight of the event: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Michelle Gomez in a brilliant Doctor Who Fair Isle sweater, Ingrid Oliver and Steven Moffat (presumably to keep an eye on them), introduced by Toby Hadoke.  

Peter Capaldi was asked about the question mark underpants (as I believe he had been asked at previous sessions). He claimed that the costume department provided question mark boxer shorts for him that day, but wouldn’t say whether he wore them.  I didn’t believe a word of it.  Michelle Gomez was just as mad in real life as the roles she plays in Green Wing and Doctor Who.

Some of the questioners from the audience took the opportunity to deliver a speech rather than ask a question. I have noticed this 'ego trip' type of question at academic conferences as well.  I find it annoying.

At the end, Peter Capaldi presented Jenna with a huge bouquet.

 

I've Redecorated! (No I don't like it either)

14 November 2015

Another issue of the excellent Doctor Who Magazine came out this week.  At my age I really shouldn't be reading it, but it's so much more interesting and with more to read than women's magazines.  I mean, who really cares about this season's new shade of lipstick (unless, of course you are River Song, and the lipstick in question is psychotropic).  

Anyway, the reason I mentioned it was that Jacqueline Rayner had the same problem I did with the repair chip in The Girl Who Died. I think it is a weakness of making programmes that can bear repeated watching that crucial points can be missed first time round so you actually need to watch more than once in order to understand what is going on.

In a packed schedule today, I have to:

a) take my elderly mother shopping; and
b) resolve whatever domestic crisis she has for me this week (they vary from 'I can't work the CD player' to 'the roof has blown off the conservatory');
c) pick up husband and travel in to London and out again to Dulwich in order to see the Escher exhibition (Castrovalva, anyone?)
d) travel back in to London and to Excel Centre to check in to hotel and have dinner before Doctor Who is on.

Yes, tomorrow we are going to the Doctor Who  Festival. I'm not sure how a festival differs from a convention, but I suppose it sounds more suitable for respectable middle-aged ladies.  [I'll be the one in the pink 'Hello Sweetie' T Shirt].

My German colleague has asked me to tell Steven Moffat that the sonic shades are 'an abomination'.  I'll let you know how I get on.

Crossing Over...

So this weekend I'm going to a convention.  Danny Hargreaves will be there, blowing things up.  Maybe I'll get to see Steven Moffat or Mark Gatiss...

Sadly, it's a Sherlock convention.  My other half, who got me into Doctor Who is also a Holmes fan.

I like late 19th and early 20th century crime fiction, but the works of Arthur Conan Doyle are not among my favourites.  Moffat and Gatiss' revamped version for the 21st century is very clever, and certainly watchable, but it's just a (good) TV programme. Maybe the problem is that Benedict Cumberbatch just isn't David Tennant...

Update

Just back from Sherlocked. In comparison with the Doctor Who 50th, which was the last convention I attended at ExCel, it was disappointing.  Not really surprising, when Doctor Who has 50 years of episodes, fiction and related stuff (albeit with a long gap in the middle), whereas Sherlock has only 9 ninety-minute episodes.  We had basic tickets, rather than one of the event 'packages' which meant that we were second-class citizens.  We didn't even get passes, just ink stamps on our hands. With this level of access we were entitled to admission to the main event space and could attend talks on the second stage (most of which seemed to be about cosplay, which doesn't interest me) and the special effects demonstration by Danny Hargreaves in the main stage.  We could also see a taxi and a bus (big deal!)  some room sets and a costume and prop display.  We were however able to buy tickets for another of the main stage talks, 'Ladies of Sherlock', which also gave us free entry to a session with Messrs Moffat and Gatiss.  Without that, it wouldn't really have been worth our while to attend the event.

Wedding outfits from John and Mary's wedding

The problem with the prop and costume displays is that most of the Sherlock  costumes are just fairly ordinary clothes. It's not quite the same as coming face to face with a Silurian or a Cyberman, or meeting K9.  I mean, taking a photo of a London bus is not actually that difficult, if you live or work in London.

I noticed quite a few TARDIS bags (and even dresses) among the attendees, and one of the merchandise stalls had Doctor Who action figures.  It would have been perverse to go to a Sherlock event and buy a 10th Doctor figure, though, wouldn't it?

Och Aye the Doctor!

14 November 2014

Tonight I went to a lecture for alumni of my former university history department. With the aim of giving the event some topical relevance, it was on ‘Making the Union Work, 1707-2014’.  Although wine and canapes were provided, we could tell that it was a serious academic event.  There was even a handout, giving an ‘illustrative chronology’, starting with the union of the crowns in 1603 and proceeding via various political and cultural landmarks such as the abolition of the Scottish privy council in 1708 and the publication of the first of Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley novels in 1814.  The distinguished professor explained that this was intended to give us something to look at if our attention wandered during his lecture.

Somewhere around Adam Smith, I found my attention wandering and  turned over the sheet to read ‘2013 – Peter Capaldi as Dr Who; the third Scot to play the role, out of 12 – is that right Helen and Neil? Towards the end of the talk, the DP, making a point about Scotland’s place in ‘British’ culture duly referred to Peter Capaldi as the third Scottish Doctor out of 12, at least according to Wikipedia, and turned to us for corroboration. My other half agreed that this was correct (it wasn’t the time or place to get into Steven Moffat’s messing with the incarnations) and mentioned the ‘I’m Scottish, I can complain about things’ line from Peter Capaldi’s  first episode. I was far too shocked at the Astor Professor of British History using  Wikipedia  to be able to comment.*

But it got me thinking about Scottishness in Doctor Who. 

I am too young to have seen The Highlanders (though we do have the Target novelisation), but it seems to be based on the romanticised view of Scottish history purveyed by Sir Walter Scott.  (Distinguished Professor is not a fan of the Waverley novels.) It also introduced Jamie McCrimmon, the kilt-wearing companion.

The romanticised view of Scotland was still somewhat in evidence with gratuitous tartan-wearing in Terror of the Zygons in which the Brigadier suddenly seems to remember that his name is Lethbridge-Stewart, and even Nessie makes an appearance (though it turns out she’s an alien creature).

Tooth and Claw is rather less self-consciously Scottish.  Although it gives David Tennant a brief opportunity to use his own accent instead of the Tenth Doctor’s terrible estuary accent, there is rather less of the tartan, bagpipes and Bonnie Prince Charlie in evidence.  They have Kung-fu monks instead for reasons which still escape me.

Steven Moffat’s Scottish stereotyping has been of a rather more modern kind.  As a Scot himself, he can get away with writing  lines such as ‘you’re Scottish – fry something!’

*I should point out that Professor in question does not watch Doctor Who, but was the Head of Department whose meeting was once crashed by Derek the Departmental Dalek. It was clearly a traumatic experience.

Dark Water -first thoughts

So now we know who Missy is. It was obvious, in retrospect. 

That was definitely one the best episodes of this (fairly mediocre) season. I loved the visual references to Tomb of the Cybermen and The Invasion. I was less sure about the dream sequence, firstly because they are always a cop-out, but also because it just felt wrong that Clara would feel she had to threaten the Doctor to get her way.

What does Steven Moffat have against the boyfriends of the Doctor's companions? He does like killing them off.  Repeatedly, in the case of poor old Rory. They are fast becoming the equivalent of Star Trek's ensign in the red shirt. Time will tell whether Danny's demise is permanent.

I can't help feeling the BBC will get complaints from a) Apple and b) Crematorium owners.

Roll on next week!

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…

June 2007: losing the plot....

2 June 2007

The Family of Blood was potentially a great story, which was spoiled only by the unnecessary sequence of the Doctor punishing the family. It would have worked perfectly well either to have them die in the explosion of their ship or alternatively to live out their remaining existence as humans without access to their alien technology which was destroyed with their ship. However, the sequence of the children shooting the scarecrows, with the hymn playing in the background, was truly moving, as were the final scenes of Latimer and Hutchinson in the trenches, and then the old Latimer at the Cenotaph.

 9 June 2007

Blink had a lot to live up to, being written by Steven Moffat. As an exercise in writing an episode without much use of the lead actors, or CGI effects, it was exemplary, though it was disappointing that he failed to get in a line about bananas.  At times it seemed a bit like an episode of Coupling, but there is nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t stand out as the best of the season, as Moffat’s earlier episodes have done, but it is so much better than Love and Monsters.

16 June 2007

I found Utopia rather like old-fashioned Doctor Who (quarry, savages, well-meaning scientist etc.) but in a good way, and it was good to see Captain Jack again.

20 June 2007

To Leeds for business meetings. In the hotel bar afterwards, one of my colleagues started enthusing about Saturday’s episode and how good it was to see Captain Jack again, much to bemusement of the others, who started reminiscing about The Archers in revenge.

23 June 2007

The power-crazed loon in charge has now completely flipped. I don’t mean the Master, who was always thus, but Russell T Davies. Has he completely lost the plot? Any plot?