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.

Bit of Politics there...

Saturday 13 May 2017

Eagle-eyed viewers of tonight's episode Oxygen think they may have detected a few political points and are asking on social media when Doctor Who got political.

Well, it has certainly had episodes with political references since the Pertwee era, if not before. These are just a few examples I can think of off the top of my head.  I'm sure there are many more.

• Environmentalists versus capitalism in The Green Death.
• Joining the Galactic Federation (Common Market) in The Curse of Peladon.
• Decolonisation in The Mutants.
• Margaret Thatcher in The Happiness Patrol.
• Tony Blair's 'dodgy dossier' in World War Three ('massive weapons of destruction', indeed!)

Politics aside, I thought it was a  very good episode.  I hadn't been looking forward to it, space zombies not really being my thing, but there was a very real sense of jeopardy.  This was not the sanitised space of Star Trek,  but a hostile environment, which is trying to kill you.

There were some nice touches,  such as the moment when Bill came face to face with her first blue-skinned alien.  And we didn't have an ending where everybody lived and the TARDIS crew escaped unscathed.

Looking forward to next week.

Vote Dalek!

19 April 2017

Those of you who pay some attention for what passes as the real world these days may have noticed that there is going to be a General Election in the UK on 8 June.

Back in 2005, when the show had only just returned, Russell T Davies was able to get away with a plot involving aliens taking over 10 Downing Street and trying to provoke a war on the basis that (faked) aliens had 'massive weapons of destruction' that could be deployed within 45 seconds* the Radio Times ran with a cover, during a General Election campaign, which said 'Vote Dalek.'

Well, I was tempted. Very tempted.  So when it came to the County Council ballot paper, and I really didn't care much for any of the candidates, I may, just possibly,  have omitted to put an X against any of the candidates, and written 'vote Dalek' at the bottom of the ballot paper.**

I don't recommend this as a course of action (imagine if everyone did it and we ended up with Davros in charge) but if you really don't know who to vote for, it is better to make the effort to turn out spoil your paper and register a protest than to stay at home and be counted as apathetic. Remember that the candidates (or at least their agents) get to see the spoilt papers.)

Women fought long and hard to get the vote.  It is important to use it.

*This was highly topical at the time.
** Of course, I could have imagined the whole thing. 

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.' 

Series 1 reflections

The New Series
 

 It’s all over now until Christmas.  So time to sum up the long-awaited new series.

The short episodes mean that the plot is compressed. A direct result of this is the loss of the  ‘Doctor is suspected of causing the trouble/locked up’ bit that usually occupies the second half of episode one and the repeated going to and fro/running up and down corridors that takes up the rest of episode two and episode three. This is not much of a problem. We have also lost any real attempt to explain the resolution of the plot, which may be more of a problem.

On the other hand, the characters are well developed.  Even the minor characters, such as the plumber in The End of the World, are people rather than ciphers. But this becomes a bit excessive in the case of Rose. Giving her a family background is one thing, but returning home repeatedly in order to hear Jackie whinging is going too far. Or rather not far enough.   I for one would rather see an alien planet occasionally than see Rose’s mother again.  Ever.

Rose herself is an excellent companion.  Once she becomes used to the idea of aliens, she takes the adventures in her stride, without twisting her ankle once.  On several occasions she, rather than the Doctor, brings about the resolution of the problem.

Which brings me to the weakness of the series.  This Doctor is certainly alien and manic enough, but is he heroic enough? He seems to need rescuing rather a lot of the time.  In both the first and last episodes it is Rose’s action that saves the day.  Even Charles Dickens and Rose’s father seem to have more of a clue. I can only assume that the Time War must have been very traumatic.  So it is all the more amazing that a 19-year old from South London can apparently defeat a massive Dalek army using nothing more than a tow truck and a TARDIS.  As I said above, there is often little attempt to explain the resolution of the plot.

On the whole, though, I think that Russell T Davies has taken the right decision to leave out the technobabble. We are left with believable characters, entertaining dialogue and amazing effects.  What does it matter that The End of the World doesn’t really have a plot at all? It looks great. The TARDIS is, er, fantastic, and the aliens are so…..alien.  Some corners have been cut during the series of course, this is the BBC. The Satellite 5 set is reused, and the Dalek invasion of earth takes place off-screen. But it doesn’t really matter as the way in which the individual episodes fit together to form a whole makes this work dramatically.  The second visit to Satellite 5 allows the Doctor to confront the consequences of his actions in The Long Game, just as in the previous episode, Boom Town, he had to face the consequences of his actions in World War Three. The focus of The Parting of the Ways is on the Doctor’s reaction to the Dalek threat, made all the more poignant by the side of him that was revealed in Dalek, not on the invasion of our planet thousands of years in the future.

So as a whole, the series worked well.  Though it was just a little bit on the camp side.  Well, quite a lot on the camp side actually, especially after Captain Jack joined the crew. Even Jonathan Ross commented on this on his Radio 2 Saturday morning show, so I am not imagining it.  On the other hand, for most of the run it was going out sandwiched between Graham Norton and Julian Clary (oo-er) so it fits right in to Saturday nights. And the fact that the series was mentioned at all in an interview between Ross and actress Kathy Burk is a sign of its success.

Perhaps the best thing about the new series is that as a result of both Russell T Davies’ inspired production and the BBC’s decision to promote it properly, Doctor Who is once again popular Saturday night entertainment.  I’m constantly being surprised by the number of my colleagues who are watching it avidly. 

I’m definitely looking forward to Christmas, for the first time since Santa stopped calling.