Revisiting some old faces

The UK Drama Channel (Freeview channel 20) is currently showing some classic Doctor Who stories, one for each of the pre-2005 Doctors on Sunday afternoons at 4.00 p.m.  Just the thing watch whilst doing the ironing!

They started with The Aztecs, which is watchable enough, but not one of the best surviving Hartnell stories, in my opinion. This was followed by Tomb of the Cybermen, which is one of the classic Troughton stories, and one which actually manages to make the Cybermen creepy and scary.  (In general I think Doomsday was quite right and that Daleks beat Cybermen any day.)

Last week it was the turn of Pertwee, and Spearhead from Space.  I enjoyed this so much that I followed it by watching Rose on DVD in order to compare the effects of two very different new Doctor stories/series reboots starring Autons.  In both cases the shop dummies work much better than the Nestene Consciousness, which is slightly disappointing in both its felt tentacle and orange CGI guises.

This Sunday the channel will be celebrating the Doctor's 51st birthday with one of my all-time favourite stories, and one which genuinely terrified me as a child, The Pyramids of Mars. Between that and Sexton Blake and the Demon God (broadcast in the Sunday teatime slot in1978), I was definitely traumatised by all things Eygptian.

 It won't stop me from watching on Sunday though, even if I'm hiding behind the ironing board.

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.

Liar, Liar! Death in Heaven reappraised (spoilers)

Sunday 9 November

Now I have seen Death in Heaven a second time, and I'm slightly more positive about it.

There are some weak points. The Cyber-pollen made a bit more sense second time around, but I still don't understand how Missy's magic bracelet/vortex manipulator/teleport could bring the boy Danny killed in Afghanistan back to life in Clara's flat. 'Time Lord technology' really isn't a good enough explanation.

Whilst Danny and the Doctor have never really got on, I found the way Cyber-Danny seemed to equate the Doctor with the officer class he despised a bit forced. It seemed as though Steven Moffat was trying to shoehorn in a reference to the old 'lions led by donkeys' view of the First World War.

On first viewing, I didn't register the significance of lying. We all know that rule number one is 'the Doctor lies' and that Clara has been lying to Danny for much of this season, but this really came to a head in Death in Heaven.

Clara lies to the Cybermen.

Seb lies to the people uploaded to the Nethersphere.

Missy lies to everyone, but particularly to the Doctor.

In the end, the Doctor and Clara lie to each other.

I don't know quite why Santa Claus has turned up, but with all that lying going on, I doubt that it's to fill the Doctor's Christmas stocking.

Death in Heaven: Initial thoughts (spoilers)

So what did I do?  I turned off everything connected to the internet and sat down to enjoy Partners in Crime and Fires of Pompeii, of course, and to be honest, I enjoyed them both rather more than some of the more recent series.

When the husband finally reappeared, he announced that we would watch Death in Heaven  straight away. This may have affected my appreciation of it, as I was half asleep by then.  I'll need to watch again to confirm my impression of it.

First impressions though:

As with many season finales, there was too much going on. The action was rushed in places, whilst there were also pauses for emotional scenes that didn't always work, and the plot was somewhat hard to follow in places.

Positives:

• I like the Missy incarnation of the Master. She's totally bonkers, but also recognisably the same person as the John Simm version.

• Osgood was excellent, and her death was shocking, although it was clear that the writing was on the wall when the Doctor appeared to offer her a trip in the TARDIS. 

• The Cyber-Danny also worked well, and was a logical continuation from Doomsday where the converted Yvonne still performs her 'duty to Queen and Country.'

• The pre-credit wind-up with Clara pretending to be the Doctor (which carried over into the opening credits).  It was obviously done so that they could have a clip in the trailer of her saying that Clara Oswald never existed, so full marks for an excellent fan teaser.

Negatives:

•  Earth Force One and the Doctor-President. (I never cared much for the Valiant, either). The whole idea of a planet-wide response to anything is implausible, and UNIT really ought to know by now that the Doctor doesn't do positions of responsibility.

• I didn't really get the point of the cyber-pollen turning the dead into Cybermen.  The original point of Cybermen was that they had replaced parts of their bodies with cybernetics, so why would they need real skeletons, when they could easily use artificial ones? And why harvest human minds to populate the bodies, when they have to delete the emotions that make them human?

• The magic bracelet or whatever it was that allowed one person to 'cross back over' with a living body didn't make sense.  Yes, it worked as an emotional climax to the episode, but how was it possible, given that the bodies had been cyber-converted?

• The Cyber-Brig: I suppose it was a nice idea, but I find it somehow disrespectful.  And if any of UNIT had to survive, I would have preferred Osgood to the annoying Kate.

In retrospect, I suspect that the theme was designed to fit in with the broadcast on the weekend of Remembrance Day, but at the moment, I think Family of Blood addressed this far more effectively.

So what should 'A'do?

I have a problem. The husband,  the one who is responsible for my Doctor Who obsession, has managed to arrange a night out tomorrow.

Without me. Which is fine, obviously, but as tomorrow night is the season finale, Death in Heaven, I'm left with a problem.

Should I:

a) Nobly stay away from the TV and the Internet until Sunday when we can watch it together;

b) Watch it anyway, but pretend I haven't?

c) Watch it anyway and tease him with spoilers?

I haven't decided yet, so watch this space.

***
Update:

Husband is confident that I will go for option A.

Meanwhile, I have thought of option D: watch something else but tweet random comments about Doctor Who  and Peter Capaldi to wind him up.  The Fires of Pompeii  should do nicely.

***

Further update:

He's gone. It's making my mind up time.

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!

Who is Missy?

1 November 2014

Today is the start of the season finale, and we will (I hope) find out the identity of the mysterious Missy.

There are many theories about this character:

• She is Susan.  Susan is the Doctor's granddaughter (or at least used to call him 'Grandfather') whereas Missy refers to him as 'my boyfriend'. So this can't be right as it's just too creepy and weird.

• She is a regenerated Rani.  Unlikely. The Doctor and the Master are supposedly the only Time Lords who survived the Time War. Unless the Nethersphere is in the same pocket universe that Gallifrey was saved to in Day of the Doctor.

• She is a regenerated Master.  Slightly more plausible.  We don't know exactly what happened to the Master at the end The End of Time - he disappeared into a white expanse.  This could have been some sort of alternative universe where he regenerated into Michelle Gomez. And 'Missy' could be short for 'Mistress', as in female version of 'Master'. Also the slightly bonkers aspect does seem a bit reminiscent of John Simm's Master, though perhaps too much so. 

• She is River Song. The arch way of referring to the Doctor would be more in keeping, but given that we saw her regenerate into her Alex Kingston appearance and then use up her remaining regenerations, and that this incarnation later (or earlier)  'died' in the Library, this seems unlikely.  Unless the Nethersphere is actually inside CAL, where River's pattern was saved.. Hang on, that needs thinking through...

• She is an entirely new character we have not encountered before. 

Given Steven Moffat's record, my theory is that he will make us wait another couple of seasons to find out.

Meanwhile, who exactly is Clara?