Tagged: Doctor Who

A Doctor A Day – “The Idiot’s Lantern”

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode,The Snowmen.

The Queen’s coronation increased sales of televisions in Britain faster than Howdy Doody did in the US.  But when one store sells sets for less than could possibly be profitable, The Doctor fears they may have an ulterior motive to expose everyone to…

THE IDIOT’S LANTERN
by Mark Gatiss
Directed by Euros Lyn

“Are you sitting comfortably?  Good! They we’ll begin…”

The proprietor of Magpie Electricals is near bankruptcy until a strange new partner offers a way to turn his business around.  With the queen’s Coronation coming up, he suddenly finds a way to make TVs available for the outrageous price of five pounds a pop.  Needless to say, they’re selling like mad.

magpie_electricals__1920_x_1200__by_jarrrp-d4rdljm-300x187-2196629The Doctor and Rose arrive (accidentally, of course – they were aiming for Elvis’ appearance on Ed Sullivan) as sales are skyrocketing.  But at the same time, people are being taken from their homes, under blankets, by people claiming to be police.  Clearly seeing the proverbial Something is Going On, the pair investigate by visiting a family with one of Magpie’s tellys.  The husband is a right boor, controlling the family with an iron hand, but the wife and son are distraught.  Their grandmother has been transformed to a mindless, faceless shell.  Apparently, it’s been happening all over town, and it’s they who the police have been collecting up.

The Doctor finds where the victims have been collected and convinces the Detective Inspector to help solve the mystery as opposed to just cover it up. And Rose confronts Mr. Magpie, only to learn that he’s under the electronic thumb of an energy being called The Wire, who has been draining people of faces and brains via the new TVs.  Alas, she’s shortly in no position to impart this knowledge, as she’s promptly wiped.  When the police find her and bring her in, The Doctor goes cold and scary, vowing that there’ll be no stopping him.

They break into Magpie’s shop and find a number of odd things – a portable television set some three decades ahead of its time, and trapped in the televisions in the shop, the faces, and presumably the minds, of the victims of The Wire, including Rose.  The Wire plans to transfer itself to the portable set and connect up to the transmission station at Alexandra Palace, where it will be able to feed on everyone watching the Coronation.   Can The Doctor stop the plan in time?

Mark Gatiss’ episodes so far have had a very personal feel – large stakes, but ultimately featuring a small cast.  This one has London in the balance, but ultimately it’s about one family, and how the members of the family respond to the horrific changes around them.

The Doctor has had bad experiences on tall broadcast towers; he fell off one to his death, or at least regeneration, in Logopolis.  He’s faced more than a few energy-based foes as well—the Nestene Consciousness, the formless Gelth in The Unquiet Dead, and there was this foe from the Troughton days…oo, showed up twice…can’t seem to summon up its name now, can’t imagine why…

Magpie Electricals makes many more appearances in the series— since Mr. Magpie himself came to an unfortunate end, it’s presumed someone bought the brand name and used its notoriety to turn it into a powerhouse brand for literally centuries to come.  The Magpie brand shows up in all sorts of Earth-based technology up to and including the launch of Starship UK.  There’s been no suggestion there’s anything untoward going with them (tho one can never be sure), it seems more like it’s become a brand like the various products of KrebStar Industries on The Adventures of Pete and Pete, or the various food and cigarette trademarks in Quentin Tarantino’s films.

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A Doctor A Day – “Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel”

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode,The Snowmen.

Surpassed only by the Daleks, the Cybermen are the Doctor’s greatest foes.  So like the former, it was only a matter of time before we would see…

RISE OF THE CYBERMEN / THE AGE OF STEEL
by Tom MacRae
Directed by Graeme Harper

“If you want to know what’s going on…work in the kitchen.”

The TARDIS falls out of the time vortex and crashes…in London.  Well, no, not quite, it’s a parallel Earth, one where Zeppelins are an established mode of transportation, and Rose’s dad Pete is not only alive, but one of the most successful businessmen in England.  The Doctor cautions her that this Pete is not her father – there may be another Jackie or even a parallel Rose in this world.  He’s partly right – Pete and Jackie are married, and fighting, but there’s no Rose Tyler.  With the TARDIS recharging, the trio does a bit of investigating.  Pete Tyler has sold his company to John Lumic, owner of Cybus Industries, who make the earbuds that literally everyone wears, a replacement for the smartphone.  Intrigued at anyone with that much influence, The Doctor gives in to Rose’s wishes, and they plan to visit Pete.  Mickey, on the other hand, visits the home of his grandmother, who on their world, raised him but died five years ago, only to learn that here, she’s still alive.  The Mickey, or rather the Rickey of this universe, however, is a freedom fighter against Lumic’s Cybus corporation, which has become so a part of society it makes Apple look like Onkyo.  Lumic has a new process for preserving the human brain and “upgrading” human beings. when the UK President refuses to allow the procedure to be tested, Lumic takes the law into his own hands.  He lures a number of forgotten men into a truck and uses them to create his new humans – Cybermen.

A solid pair of episodes, bringing a classic foe back in a new way. These are not the Cybermen from our universe – they appeared on the planet Mondas, Earth’s twin that shot out of orbit eons ago.  This gives them a chance to re-introduce an old enemy without having to educate the new fans about their history.  Daleks are so endemic to British culture, there was no need to re-introduce them, they could just hit the ground running… or rolling.

As more and more Cybermen appearances have stacked up, there’s been some confusion as to whether we’re still seeing the Cybermen from “Pete’s World”, or the ones from ours. The “C” logo has disappeared from the chest, suggesting we may now be looking at native Cybermen. It’s hoped that Neil Gaiman’s upcoming episode, tentatively titles “Last of the Cybermen” will address this issue.

The episode was inspired by a Big Finish audio adventure, “Spare Parts” by Marc Platt.  While the final script was quite different from the original story, Davies made sure Platt was paid a fee and got a “Thanks to” credit in the episode.

Mickey’s departure is the first voluntary one for a Companion in the new series.  In the old days, willing departure for The Doctor’s friends was the rule – in the new series it’s the exception.  So far only Mickey and Martha Jones were the only ones to leave the TARDIS by their own choice, and in both cases they came back to help again.  Noel Clarke brought Mickey to new places in the episode, finally becoming his own man, both in how he handles himself, and being able to come to terms with his relationship with Rose.  Getting to play a dual role also showed off his breadth as an actor.  We got to see alternate Roses and Petes as well, but not both at the same time.

This story(and an upcoming one that addresses this world again) are a classic example of the TV Tropes about parallel universes, specifically that the alternate version of a main character doesn’t really count.  Rickey dies, but that’s okay, Mickey’s ready to take his place.  Even the Jackie of Pete’s World dies, which sucks for Pete, but since The Doctor has spent the whole episode reminding Rose (and the audience) that “She’s not your mother”, it’s no big deal, just good for a moment of pathos.  And they drive that home by making sure we see “our” Jackie at the end of the episode.  Pete’s the only one we really care about, because “Our” Pete’s already dead.  Besides, the other Jackie was a bitch.

They also do a good job of skewering a trope or two as well – note that when looking for the transmitter controls in the zeppelin bridge, Mickey says he doesn’t know what he’s looking for, and Jake annoyingly comments that maybe it’ll be in a big box with “transmitter control” in big red letters.  Later on, they find it… in a big box with “transmitter control” written on in big red letters.

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A Doctor A Day – “The Girl In The Fireplace”

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode,The Snowmen.

For a person as long-lived as The Doctor, all his relationships seem to go by quickly.  This one goes by REALLY quickly…for him, that is.  But quite a long time for…

THE GIRL IN THE FIREPLACE
by Steven Moffat
Directed by Euros Lyn

“What do monsters have nightmares about?”  “Me.”

A young  woman in 18th-Century France is calling into her fireplace for The Doctor.  And after the opening credits, the narrative shoots 3000 years later, where the TARDIS lands on a spaceship light years from Earth.  Mickey is fascinated at the view, Rose is enjoying showing him the ropes, and The Doctor is wondering why there’s an antique fireplace in a derelict spaceship.  Looking into the hearth, he is rather surprised to see a young girl named Reinette looking through the other side.  She is even more surprised, because her side of the fireplace in in 18th century Versailles. After a brief talk, he examines the fireplace, and finds a latch, causing the whole thing to rotate around to the other side, into the 18th century.  The young girl is there, but she explains confusedly that their chat was months ago.  The Doctor examines the room briefly, noticing the clock on mantle is broken…but he still hears ticking.  He finds the sound under Reinette’s bed, and discovers a mysterious figure, clearly from the ship, but clad in period dress.  The creature has been scanning Reinette’s brain, and The Doctor can’t imagine why they’d expend the energy to cross time and space to scan a seemingly normal young girl.  Rather than spend time placing her in danger, The Doctor lures the thing back over the fireplace portal and onto the ship, quickly incapacitating it.  It’s an intricate clockwork android whose design The Doctor can’t help but admire, but it teleports away before he can inspect it.

Telling Rose and Mickey to stay put (because that ALWAYS works), he spins the fireplace back around, only to discover that Reinette has grown in QUITE the attractive young lady…specifically, the one we saw calling for hope in the pre-credit sequence.  She chats with him, catching up with her childhood friend, and plants a quite passionate kiss on him.  It’s only after she leaves, and he’s confronted by a guard that she realizes that young Reinette is the Madam du Pompadour, possibly one of the most famous (certainly the most successful) courtesans in human history.

Back on the spaceship, Mickey and Rose are off exploring, and The Doctor finds a horse, clearly having wandered onto the ship through another transfer point between the ship and Versailles. Walking through that one, The Doctor sees his now slightly older and even MORE hot friend in the garden of the palace. Meanwhile, Mickey and Rose have discovered that human body parts have been used to repair and maintain the ship – a human eye in a camera and a heart running as a pump.  The part they need the most is Reinette’s brain, which they will take on her thirty-seventh birthday.

Why does a spaceship from 3,000 years later think the brain of a French courtesan will be compatible with its computer system?  Well, that is a rather good bit of the story.

This is one of Moffat’s best episodes, mixing the complex time-travel plot that he will soon become (in)famous for, and a simple love story. Others clearly thought so as well, it’s the first of his Hugo wins for the show as well. What’s interesting is that he really only spends a couple hours with Reinette, but it’s across most of her life.  We’ll see this theme pop up a couple times – it’s basically the same way the Eleventh Doctor met Amy Pond.  And the idea of the out of sync timelines will re-appear with Amy again, in The Girl Who Waited.

The sets were built in a very unique way for this episode.  The spaceship and bedroom sets were actually next to each other, so the fireplace could actually rotate between them.  The rest of the rooms of the palace connected as well, for the various moments of moving between rooms.  One of the most complicated effects shots in the episode was The Doctor crashing through the mirror.  A number of elements, including CGI glass, the jump being done at a different location, and all the people in the room.  Sometimes the stuff that looks the best and takes the longest doesn’t look like an SFX shot at all.

Doctor Who’s new TARDIS revealed!

tardis-550x366-5242320

After a couple of teaser photos, the BBC has released a shot of the new TARDIS interior, to premiere in the upcoming Christmas episode, The Snowmen.  Featuring a much more sleek design, it’s much  more like the old school sets, that, to quote Arthur Dent, “really looks like a spaceship”.  The TARDIS from the TV movie on has looked more like a bachelor’s apartment, with everything thrown in, and patched up with random bits of junk.  However, in a cut scene from The Doctor’s Wife, It’s explained that the TARDIS console is itself under the aegis of the chameleon circuit.  It’s not made of junk, it’s made out of very high-tech components that look like junk.

The basic design of the control has not changed much.  There’s still a railing around the perimeter, and what looks like a multi-level setup again.  The additional console to the rear is new, but not entirely so.  The Hartnell and Troughton control rooms had panels and console along the back and side walls, which eventually vanished as the control room grew more simple, and action was centered around the main console.

So why does it look all high-tech again?  I have what might be considered a Clever Theory.

If I may take a comment from Time Crash literally, this may be the TARDIS’ “default” desktop setting.  This is what an off-the-rack TARDIS looks like inside.

This is the TARDIS of a guy who doesn’t care anymore.

There’s the remotest of possibilities this may not be “the new set”, but just a temporary one, until The Doctor becomes more his old self again.  It looks a bit…simpler, certainly more sparse that the current one.  It may not be intended to be kept long-term.

New companion Jenna-Louise Coleman mentioned liking the new console in an interview with CNN, discussing “these new kind-of rolly balls” which is an out of context statement if you ever heard one, and even lets slip that she gets to fly the TARDIS at one point, tho it’s not made clear if this takes place in the Christmas episode, or further down the line.

Other surprises for the Christmas episode includes news that Ian McKellen will be voicing the titular baddie, although rumors and whispered spoilers suggest he may be voicing another character, one who may carry through as an antagonist through the second half of the season.  The…force behind the snowmen, if you will.

 

A Doctor A Day – “School Reunion”

tumblr_ly10imkqeg1rncvjwo1_500-300x171-3236060Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode,The Snowmen.

Dear Sweet Sarah Jane.  She was the queen of the companions, and when she showed up on screen again, decades vanished.  The Doctor and Sarah are up for a…

SCHOOL REUNION
by Toby Whithouse
Directed by James Hawes

“Oh my God…I’m the tin dog.”

Mickey has called The Doctor and Rose back to earth after learning about strange goings on at Deffry Vale High School. The Doctor is posing as a teacher, and Rose is posing as a lunch lady.  The Doctor has met students who possess knowledge that outstrips Earth Technology, let alone an eighth grade textbook, and Rose watches a fellow lunch lady taken into a back room after getting what looks like toxic waste poured on her.  So there certainly seems to be something going on.  But things take a nostalgic twist when journalist Sarah Jane Smith comes to the school to investigate the school as well. The Doctor doesn’t tell her who he is right away, but when she finds the TARDIS while snooping around the school at night, it’s not hard for her to connect the dots.  After a very emotional meeting, and a scream, they’re off and running.  Rose and Sarah start off quite catty, each making fun of the other’s age, what Mickey calls “Every man’s worst nightmare — The Missus and the Ex”.

The school has been taken over by batlike aliens called the Krillitanes.  The team makes their way out of the school, but The Doctor think he needs to head back in to analyze the mysterious oil the aliens have been sneaking into the food.  Sarah Jane has another alternative – in her car is K-9, albeit in need of repair.  While The Doctor repairs K-9, he and Sarah Jane have a heart to heart talk about what it’s like to travel the universe one day, and be back on Earth the next.  The Doctor looks guilty, but says nothing.

The Krillitanes’ plan is to use the mentally advanced schoolchildren like a massive shared-processing biocomputer, all of them running code on their PCs, attempting to crack the Skaksas Paradigm, AKA the unified field theory.  If they can do so, they will have the cheat codes to the universe.  And their leader comes to The Doctor, and offers him a chance to join them, letting his wisdom guide their new power.  He refuses of course, which starts the running up again  Chased to the kitchens, The Doctor realizes the oil they’ve been using on the kids is a perfect weapon against the aliens – their form has changed so many time, the product of their own planet is now poisonous to them.  K-9 volunteers to remain behind and set off the vats, an act that will likely result in his destruction.

There’s a lot of emotion in this episode. When Rose and Sarah Jane are introduced, the emotions are priceless.  They start off snipping at each other, and as soon as they get a chance to bond, they turn their commentary about The Doctor.  They’re perfectly written as if they’re the new and old girlfriend, each jealous of the other.  The explosive laughter when The Doctor bursts into the room after they start dishing was legitimate – David Tennant had a moustache painted on, which was hidden since his back was to the camera.

Mickey also goes through some changes as well — as he says himself, he’s not the tin dog, and he does do a good job of helping out.  But look at the look on Rose as Mickey asks to come along.  She’s not happy about it.  She’s just gotten used to the idea that she wasn’t the only person The Doctor traveled with, and she doesn’t care for the idea of Mickey sharing it with her.  It’s another sign of the rather new and unique vibe that she and The Doctor have.  But the part to realize is that no matter what he says about how he’d never leave her and all that, he does, and he’ll do it again, and come Christmas, we’ll see him find a new friend, and it’ll be off for another ride.

Elisabeth Sladen was glorious.  Coming back to Doctor Who connected the new series to the old better than any villain or baddie or witty reference ever could  Her spinoff series, The Sarah Jane Adventures, was glorious.  It’s amazing to realize that for a couple years there, we were no more than a couple months between new Doctor Who material.  she was taken from us too, too early.  But we had her for a time, and then a second time, and that’s more than we can say about a lot of people we like.

A Doctor A Day – “Tooth and Claw”

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode, The Snowmen.

Kung-Fu Monks, a werewolf, and Queen Victoria.  Rest assured that when someone threatens his friends, The Doctor will fight them…

TOOTH AND CLAW
by Russell T Davies
Directed by Euros Lyn

“Am I being rude again?”

Aiming for 1979 and an Ian Dury concert, The Doctor lands in 1879, and in Scotland.  The TARDIS lands in the course of Queen Victoria, who is on the way to have the Koh-I-Noor, the prize diamond of the crown jewels, recut.  Quickly presenting his psychic paper, he and Rose join the party as it stops off at Torchwood House, home of Sir Robert MacLeish and his family.  What the royal coterie don’t know is that the house has been taken over by a band of monks who are in possession of a honest to Harry werewolf.  They plan to have the beast bite the Queen, infect her, and through her, take over the nation, and the Empire.  Sir Robert is forced to cooperate as the monks have taken his wife and most of the female house staff hostage, and if he disobeys they will be slaughtered,

It’s revealed that Prince Albert and Sir Robert’s father were friends for years, and shared an affinity for both science and folktales.  Sir Robert’s father had designed what appears to be a massive telescope, but The Doctor quickly notices it’s oddly designed – too many mirrors and prisms.  As the evening proceeds, Sir Robert desperately tries to clue the party to the danger, and over dinner, as he tells the tale of the werewolf that’s been haunting the moors for almost 300 years does the Doctor make the connection.  As the full moon rises overhead, the werewolf begins his transformation, and the monks, posing as the staff, overpower the soldiers.

It turns out that the house has been prepared for this assault.  The library has been warded with the oil of the mistletoe plant, which the werewolf cannot bear to touch.  And the telescope is just the opposite – it’s a light cannon, powered by moonlight, and the Koh-I-Noor is the focusing device.  So with the help of the planning of Prince Albert and Sir Robert’s father, the monster is defeated.  Queen Victoria is happy to have been saved, but is horrified at The Doctor and the life he leads. She banishes The Doctor from England, and founds the Torchwood Institute to study the stars and defend the Empire from its threats… including The Doctor.

As opposed to last season where the arc plot was barely mentioned, just nearly subliminal mentions of the “Bad Wolf” phrase, this season the concept is in plain sight. Torchwood was mentioned as a plot point in The Christmas Invasion, and now we see its inception.  Not a bad start for a word that was nothing more than an anagram to disguise the tapes going back to the BBC.

Of COURSE when The Doctor has to pick a Scottish name, he’s going to pick Jamie McCrimmon. Jamie was a Companion during the Troughton years, and came back for both the twentieth anniversary adventure, and the Colin Baker adventure The Two Doctors.  The other half of the joke is not as obvious to American viewers – “Balamory” is a BBC children’s show set in the titular town, on an island off the coast of Scotland.  And of course, David Tennant is Scots, so we actually hear his proper accent in this episode when The Doctor is “affecting” one.

This is the second time that a diamond was used as the focus of a light weapon, as opposed to a more scientifically accurate ruby.  The Horror of Fang Rock featured a cruse laser cannon made from a lighthouse and a diamond by the fourth Doctor.

That mad crazy Crouching Tiger stunt near the beginning of the episode took a full day to film.  Quite an extravagance for a TV show, but well worth it for the moment.

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A Doctor A Day – “New Earth”

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode, The Snowmen.

A trip to the future, a return of a foe presumed dead (get used to THAT one) and a moral conundrum.  And it all happens on…

NEW EARTH
by Russell T Davies
Directed by James Hawes

“It’s like living inside a bouncy castle!”

The Doctor and Rose travel back to the five billions, to the time after The End of The World, to New Earth, the city of New15 York. The Doctor got a message from someone via his psychic paper, asking him to come to his aid at a nearby hospital.  But someone is watching, and as soon as the pair try to enter the elevators, they are separated.  Rose is sent to the basement, and is confronted by Lady Cassandra O’Brien, the last pureblood human, and the baddie behind the events on Platform One.  Saved from her apparently grisly death by cloning a new “body” from leftover parts (parts from the …back), she barely survives in the basement of the hospital, and has made plans to move on.  And for Rose to come along, another pureblood human, specifically one responsible for nearly killing her…well, when the fates hand you an opportunity like that…  Cassandra uses a device to transplant her mind into Rose’s body, and begins to take stock of new assets.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was summoned by The Face of Boe, who he met on Platform One as well.  The Face is dying, and his nurse, Novice Hame, explains that legend says that as he dies, he will impart great knowledge to someone like him, “A traveler, a lonely god”.

Amazingly, Cassandra’s not the real threat.  The Sisters of Plenitude, a feline race who run the hospital, have been breeding clones expressly to infect with every disease known to man, for the purpose of finding cures for them.  They maintain the clones are not sentient, but as soon as they’re awakened, that’s immediately proven untrue.  The Doctor starts to investigate, and also starts to notice that Rose knows a bit more about technology of the year five billion than she should.

So The Doctor has to find out the secrets of the hospital, get Rose back in charge of her own body, shut down a sect of cat-nuns, and stop a horde of disease-ridden clones from overrunning the place.  Not a bad first day out…

The Christmas episode was a bit different from later ones would be – it was the first appearance of the new Doctor, and was more “in continuity” with the rest of the season, as opposed to being a stand-alone adventure. It also features other recurring characters, as opposed to later specials that would only feature The Doctor and all-new characters. Functionally, it’s the first episode of this season.  So this episodes starts shortly after the special, with The Doctor and Rose off on new adventures, already with a much lighter tone.

Both Billie Piper and David Tennant get to camp it up a bit as Rose and The Doctor get inhabited by Cassandra, with the requisite fun and silly accents.  Davies excels at keeping a balance between drama and humor in his stories, and this one’s a good example.

One could argue that this plot is an argument against various forms of experimentation.  I prefer to stand by Dr. Mordin Solus’ philosophy from mass Effect – “Use of sentient beings in scientific tests disgusting. Have personal standard – Never experiment on species with members capable of calculus. Simple rule, never broke it.”

We see a new emotional side to The Doctor here.  Not only is this the first time he’s “Sorry…so sorry” at the site of the clones, it’s also the first time he gives a foe who truly deserves it a merciful end.  One of the things we see him do many times is offer threatening aliens a chance to leave in peace.  Sometimes they refuse, and his judgment is swift and hard, sometimes others pull the trigger (like Harriet Jones did last episode) and he’s just as merciless on them, but sometimes, if they deserve it, he helps them.  Cassandra really did try to help at the end, and once she came to peace with her fate, The Doctor gave her a chance to at least die happy.

The payoff to the promise from the Face of Boe wouldn’t come till next season, tying into the Big Bad for that season.  So even though Moffat is doing it with more deliberation, Davies was also setting up multi-year plotlines, teasing events quite a ways off.  Looking back like this, it’s amazing how many things we ascribe to Moffat were already being done from the beginning.  More fodder for the “who’s a better showrunner” argument, certainly.

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A Doctor A Day – “The Christmas Invasion”

  • News
  • December 15, 2012

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode, The Snowmen.

A new tradition, a new series, a new Doctor, a new threat, a new Prime Minister, and all happening just in time for…

THE CHRISTMAS INVASION
by Russell T Davies
Directed by James Hawes

“What about Torchwood?”

After being forced to regenerate, The Doctor returns Rose home to Britain.  Jackie and Mickey both here the TARDIS’ wheezing engines, and race outside to meet it as it comes crashing down in the center of the plaza.  The Doctor comes barreling out, raving and dazed, collapsing in a heap at Jackie and Mickey’s feet.  Rose has to explain what little she knows about the regeneration process, and they bring The Doctor back to their flat, changing him into pajamas (lucky girls…) and making him as comfortable as possible.

While Rose has been away, people have moved on. Harriet Jones, former MP of Flydale North was voted Prime Minister after her stirring speeches after the events of the Slitheen “hoax”.  She spearheaded Britain’s first solo space probe, Guinevere One, which will soon be broadcasting pictures of Mars.  Or it would do, if it wasn’t for the Sycorax spaceship that grabs it, analyzes its contents, and uses it as a Michelin Guide to the Earth.  They hie hither to our blue marble, and by using a biological sample included on the ship, take control of everyone on Earth with Type A-positive blood and effectively hold them hostage.

While that’s happening, the aliens are also trying to make sure The Doctor can’t stop them, and attack him and his friends with yuletide-themed weapons – robot Father Christmases with 44 caliber trombones, rotating killer Christmas trees…you know, as aliens do.

More than a few changes going on here. First off, this is the first of the series’ Christmas specials.  Save for a moment where William Hartnell broke the fourth wall and wished the readers Merry Christmas, the show’s never done a Christmas special, something quite common on British television.  But the new show proved so popular, the BBC asked they write one.  Russell T Davies was in the process of writing this script while they were recording the commentary tracks for the First Season DVD, so he talked quite a bit about what he had planned for everyone.  Also part of a new tradition was the prequel scene they recorded for the annual Children In Need appeal.  It was the first opportunity viewers had to see the chemistry between Tennant and Piper, and didn’t it just sparkle.  The scene, readily available on YouTube, is of course included with the DVD set.

It’s always a risk when you change actors in a role. The folks who do the Bond films can tell you all sorts of stories.  Just recently, a TV station in India elected to cancel an outrageously popular soap opera when the male lead elected to leave – they decided any new actor would generate outrage from the fans.  So to have to bring in a new Doctor after only one season back on the air was a risk indeed.  Luckily, David Tennant took the part and ran with it.  The whole tone of the series got lighter with him at the helm. Eccleston’s Doctor was dark and brooding, often angry, while David is much more positive and happy. Judging from the way the popularity of the show skyrocketed, it was clearly successful.  And the fun part is, he’s barely in the episode.  It’s much more an opportunity for the backup cast to step forward and shine.  Tennant gets a delightful scene in the early part of the episode, and shows up at the end, in rather a nice parallel to Rose’s last-minute save in The Parting of the Ways.  In a dressing gown, yet.

We get to see U.N.I.T. back in full strength this episode, a position they’ll keep more than a few times in the next few seasons.  Originally the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, it was quietly updated to “Unified Intelligence Taskforce” after a request not to connect it to the proper U.N.  One must assume requests to update the name of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. went unanswered.

Penelope Wilton is a treasure.  The flibbertigibbet back-bencher she played in Aliens of London / World War Three is now a sure of herself Prime Minister, and the performance she gives changes just a shade, while still keeping that seam of daftness that made Harriet Jones such a glorious creation the first time around.  And at the end of the episode, when she takes the step The Doctor forbade, she actually takes a heel turn in his eyes.  Don’t worry, she gets a chance to redeem herself in a season or two, and quite right, too.

And speaking of the events of the earlier episode, there’s a very nice bit of continuity in this adventure – as they cut to a shot of London, Big Ben it surrounded by scaffolding, still under repair from the crashing spaceship from that past event.

While most people think this is the first mention of Torchwood, it’s the second.  The Torchwood Institute was the answer to one of the questions from Anne Droid in last episode’s Weakest Link game.  Nobody was listening for it, so it went right over everyone’s heads.

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A Doctor A Day – “Bad Wolf / The Parting Of The Ways”

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode, The Snowmen.
The Doctor’s on Big Brother, Rose is on The Weakest Link, and Captain Jack is on What Not To Wear.  IN SPAAAAaaaaace.  And behind it all, following them, is the…

BAD WOLF / THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
by Russell T Davies
Directed by Joe Ahearne

100 years after the last visit to Satellite Five in The Long Game, the GameStation, a subsidiary of the Bad Wolf Corporation has gone from broadcasting the news to broadcasting entertainment TV, specifically reality shows.  So clearly, the hope that mankind will go back to rising to its height has gone wrong somewhere.  The TARDIS-traveling trio all wake up in different locations, having been abducted via a transmat beam.  The Doctor is now the latest Housemate on Big Brother, Rose is up against the host “Anne Droid” on The Weakest Link, and Captain Jack is getting along quite well with a cybernetic Trinny and Susannah.  That is, until each show takes a grisly turn.  Contestants don’t walk off with parting gifts, they’re disintegrated, and the hosts on WNTW offer Captain Jack quite an extreme makeover.

The Doctor gets himself evicted from the Big Brother house, and when they don’t scatter him to atoms, he knows he’s been brought there on puspose.  He escapes from the house and into the body of the GaneStation, formerly Satellite Five.  Hundreds of reality and game shows are broadcasting constantly all with the same very final endings.  As before, the advancement of the human race is being held back by the broadcasts from this station; formerly with carefully controlled news, now with the more base stratagem of bread and circuses.  Earth has become a pollution-choked mess, far from the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire it’s supposed to be.  The Doctor realizes that by shutting down the news feeds from Satellite Five, he cause a global panic that ended in this sad state of affairs.

Captain Jack catches up with The Doctor, and they find Rose…seconds too late.  The Anne Droid fires, and Rose vanishes.  Fighting their way to Floor 500, they find the TARDIS in an out of bounds archive closet, and a very important piece of information – People aren’t being disintegrated, they’re being transported.  To the new Dalek fleet.  The Doctor has to fly straight into the fire range of 200 Dalek saucers, rescue Rose, defeat the Daleks, and set mankind back on its proper route.  No wonder this was a two-parter.

The Dalek emperor’s ship survived the Time War, sent back in time.  It’s he who’s been behind the activities of Satellite Five, grabbing humans from earth as raw material for new Dalek mutants.  Through the centuries, the Emperor and his creations have gone mad – the Emperor has declared himself a god.  And with their disguise gone, they make their move on the Earth

This was the first season finale of the new series, and as such presented the culmination of the new narrative format of the series.  The entire season is part of a larger story arc, with plot threads laid in earlier episodes that tie up here.  More then simply the Bad Wolf meme, the events of both Dalek and Long Game were important factors that set up events that ended here.  Even Boom Town presented the idea of the heart of the TARDIS, which allowed the deus ex machina that brought the story to an end.

Well, an end for Christopher Eccleston,  anyway.  Citing differences of opinion with higher-ups in the series (which rather suggests Davies and producers Gardner and Collinson), Christopher decided to leave the series after only one season, and the plans for his departure were set in place well before the final episode.  Which basically means that as he gave all those interviews about how exciting the new series was, he’d already left it.

This only presented new possibilities – only one season in, and the new audience would be able to experience a regeneration.  The effects were a far site better than the simple dissolves of the old days – indeed, they went to great lengths to link the effects design of the regeneration and the energy from the heart of the TARDIS.  The energy is connected to all facets of Time Lord technology – it powers the TARDIS, and allows a Time Lord to live impossibly long.  and as we learn in this episode, it’s more than a human being can withstand.  In fact, even though she doesn’t get a name till Neil Gaiman’s episode, Rose communes with the sentient soul of the TARDIS that inhabited Idris here.  “I want you safe…My Doctor” – those are her exact words.  And just as with Idris, the power is killing Rose, and The Doctor saves her, at the expense of this regereration.

Patterson Joseph, who played Roderick in the Weakest Link game, played the Marquis de Carabas in the mini-series adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.  He was one of the people rumored to be up for the role of The Doctor when David Tennant left the show, which of course went to Matt Smith.  Both Davies and Moffat have made a habit of bringing back actors for larger roles later on in the series, or on one of the spinoffs.  We’ve seen a few examples of that this season, and we’ll see more in seasons to come, including several companions.

We meet the new Doctor, David Tennant for just a moment, along with a promise that he’ll be back in the first Christmas special, which we’ll look at tomorrow.  It’s amazing how much happened in just this first season, and how much more is to follow.

A Doctor a Day – “Boom Town”

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  • December 13, 2012

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode, The Snowmen.

A recent enemy returns, as does a recent friend, and Cardiff’s new Mayor is determined to turn it into a…

BOOM TOWN
by Russell T Davies
Directed by Joe Ahearne

“They were French – It’s not my fault that ‘Danger – Explosives” was only written in Welsh.”
Six months after the events of Aliens of London / World War Three, the TARDIS lands in Cardiff, last seen in the past on Christmas Eve.  The rift under the Sneed Mortuary is still there, sealed, but still leaking energy, perfect for refueling the TARDIS.  Of course, the chance of a do-nothing holiday on Cardiff Bay is out of the question. Margaret Blaine, former MI5 higher-up, liaison to the Prime Minister, and one of the few survivors of the destruction of Number 10 Downing Street, has become lord Mayor of Cardiff, and has pushed through plans for a massive nuclear power station to be built in the center of town.  Margaret is also Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen, last survivor of the alien family who had planned to destroy the earth and sell it for scrap in the aforementioned adventure.  Cardiff is Plan B.  A nuclear meltdown right over the Rift would work like hitting the flaw of a diamond with a chisel – it will, in short, end badly.  Her plan was to use the resulting energy to power a stolen teleporter, to get off the planet, and not care much about the danger in her wake.

The plan now is to take her back to Raxacoricofallapatorius, but when they learn that the family Slitheen were all sentenced in absentia to the death penalty, their resolve is shaken.  Over a long evening of re-charging the TARDIS, Margaret talks The Doctor into taking her to a local restaurant for a last meal.  She pleads her case that she’s changed…in between attempts to kill him, of course.  Just as she begins to weaken his resolve, her trap is sprung – the teleporter starts to feed off the power in the TARDIS, resulting in the same getaway and end of the world scenario.  Only one thing can stop her, the TARDIS itself.

(Witty tmblr-pics via expelliarmus.tumblr.com)

Davies does a good job of showing the softer side of a Slitheen (obvious physical attributes aside, of course) – the scene where she chose to spare the young reporter who’s learned about the danger of the project once she learns she’s with child is rather touching.  And it’s that hesitation that affords her a second chance at the end, as opposed to the fate of her brothers.

The rift in Cardiff makes a number of reappearances in the series, including being a recurring plot device in Torchwood.  Timeline-wise,  Captain Jack Harkness is likely right under the current one’s feet – Torchwood Three is hidden directly under the Millennium Center, and Jack has (will be…has been…) been the head of it since 2000.  At this point in history, the events we’ve seen in the spin-off series have yet to occur, but Jack’s down there, making trouble. and secretly saving lives. It’s fair to assume they stayed out of the way of these events, Jack already knowing it’ll get sorted by his earlier self.

It’s become somewhat common for the episode before the season finale to be more light-hearted, sort of as a sorbet before the last course.  Even with the threat of massive death, this episode is packed with laughs, from the witty dialogue to the wonderful slapstick of Noel Clarke as Mickey.  It’s also the opportunity to bring the “Bad Wolf” theme out into the open.  “Blaidd Drwg”, the name of the project, is Welsh for “Bad Wolf”, and while The Doctor waves it off, it’s clearly mentioned to bring it into the light for the audience’s sake. It’s also our first exposure (not directly, thankfully) to the heart/soul of the TARDIS, who we’ll meet in a much more personal form in a few seasons.  So even thought it’s not obvious, this episode does a good job of setting up the info needed for the finale.  It’s also the last time we won’t know what the pattern is.  With the next season, the search began for clues to the Big Bad theme before it even began.  Details are now pored over as to what they could mean, and the Internet’s desire to know everything right now becomes harder and harder to fight.  the latest season has tried to buck the tradition by not featuring a carry-through theme, but rumors are already circulating that the Christmas episode will feature an enemy that will carry through the rest of the season.  We’ll know in a couple week’s time, but till then, it’s fun to just enjoy the episodes one by one, not worrying about how the story will be carried through weeks away, just enjoying this one.

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