Raise the Titanic

First things first. I would like to begin my review by tackling the spurious argument that you can't expect anything as good (or as challenging) as Blink or Human Nature to go out at Christmas, a statement that gets trotted out whenever somebody has the temerity to criticise this lazy piece of grandstanding garbage. I just don't get it. Is it because you honestly believe that the audience prefer camp and frothy spectacle over plot and characterisation, or is it that they simply can't bear the thought of genuine and complicated emotions invading their post-turkey stupor? Is that how EastEnders ended up with even more viewers than Doctor Who's remarkable 12 million? I'm not suggesting that Doctor Who has to be grim, dark and miserable - at any time of the year - but surely audiences want mystery, suspense, a few laughs and some proper drama. I'm really sorry but Voyage of the Damned falls disastrously short at almost every turn.

Andre Previn wasn't draped in tinsel...

But credit where credit is due: the premise to Voyage of the Damned is great. In fact, the first 35 minutes really touched a nerve with me and I was genuinely enjoying every daft moment of it, especially the sight of aliens reacting to a Specsavers shop front like we would the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. And I can't get enough of disaster movies; as John has already pointed out, it's a genre that has become inexplicably linked with Christmas after appearing perennially on the box during the holidays when I was a kid, and in the case of Die Hard and The Poseidon Adventure, by actively taking place during the festivities themselves. I just hope that they skip the obligatory Christmas theme altogether next year. Having recently re-watched all of Morecombe and Wise's Christmas Specials I was immediately struck by the distinct lack of Christmas trappings up there on the screen. Andre Previn wasn't draped in tinsel. Angela Rippon wasn't a dancing Santa Claus. Somersaulting newsmen were on a bloody beach, for christsake! And the added bonus is that you can watch these shows all year around. Admit it, you can't really do that with a Christmas-flavoured special. Point of fact: try watching The Runaway Bride in early January. Within ten minutes you'll finding yourself feeling ill disposed towards it because you are in the midst of the back-to-work post-Christmas blues. It's a real downer.

Russell plunders from two classic Who stories, and one really shit one...

And of all the Christmas themes you could plunder, like the classic ghost story, the historical period piece (Capra or Dickens?) or even a Christmas future, why does Russell insist on plunging contemporary earth in mortal danger every bloody year? He even has to shoe-horn in a stupid (but ultimately necessary) reference to how everyone in London has done a runner. And if the rumours are true then Bernard Cribbens was playing Donna Noble's granddad, which just makes that scene ten times worse, if you ask me.

Anyway, the initial set-up was pretty engaging. Sure, it was derivative but who cares? The very best Doctor Who's of old were always derivative, it's what they did with the source material that really mattered. And if you are going to steal then you may as well steal from the best, and I don't care what anyone says, The Poseidon Adventure is one of the very best, and I defy anyone - even James Coleman - to dismiss Gene Hackman's final tirade to God as anything but a classic moment in cinema history.

Russell also unashamedly plunders from two 'classic' Who stories (Enlightenment and The Robots of Death) and one really, really shit one (Delta and the Bannerman). And I loved it. For large swathes of the audience this would be their first exposure to the concept of flying ocean liners, homicidal servo-bots with art deco heads and goofy, ill-informed alien tourists, and I didn't have a problem with that at all.

Strangely, the one thing that Voyage of the Damned doesn't really riff on is the most obvious contender of all - James Cameron's Titanic. Where was the moment where the Doctor and Astrid are standing on the prow of the ship in some sort of sonic screwdriver-ed oxygen bubble, as they stare wistfully out towards the galaxy, just as the asteroids make a bee-line for the ship? It can't have been that expensive - even Barry Letts could pulled that off. It couldn't have been because they didn't have the time either - the episode had more padding than Shelly Winters stunt double - and it certainly can't have been because it would have been too cheesy. Maybe it wasn't cheesy enough, given what's coming...

Anyway, up until the moment when our merry band of heroes set out along that strut I was having a whale of a time. Geoffrey Palmer was utterly fantastic as the affable uncle about to commit genocide for the sake of his kids (why couldn't he have been the villain of the piece?) and the initial disaster was portrayed wonderfully, climaxing in that great moment when the petty officer got sucked out into space. As the Doctor delivered his chilling  'Kasterborous' speech I settled into a mildly euphoric belief that everything was going to be OK.

And then everything went tits up as Russell hit his own personal iceberg: his lack of self-restraint.

Meet Max Capricorn.  The fact that he was the bad guy wasn't surprising to me in the least. No, the real surprise was the fact that he arrived in the guise of a comedy Davros! He looked like he'd been cooked up by a couple of hard-up fans in a garage! Gliding into view as a bizarre cross between the travel machine in Kinda, an ASDA shopping trolley and one of those grab-a-prize cabinets you find in amusement arcades, you just can't take him seriously. A boo-hiss pantomime villain would have been bad enough, but a boo-hiss pantomime villain stuck in a box? Oh dear.

But Max's laughable entrance isn't the worst part of it. No, his arrival also heralds the moment when the plot holes suddenly converge and engulf the entire script. A disaster within a disaster, if you like. I'm not talking about problems with the metallic consistency of asteroids, or whether the Queen's flag should ripple a bit more, or even the miraculous healing powers of the officer who has been shot in the gut. No, I'm talking about the really serious problems, like: why is Max Capricorn on the Titanic in the first place? And why are the Hosts killing witnesses who are all going to die in a nuclear explosion in the next few minutes anyway? It just doesn't make any sense!

Any why bother with a villain at all? You didn't see Gene Hackman investigating the source of the Tsunami that overturned the Poseidon, did you? No, he was content with just getting off the bloody ship! Why not concentrate on that aspect instead? Surely it would have been more exciting and dramatic than facing off against a villain that no one seems even remotely interested in taking seriously.

A disaster within a disaster...

And then, just when you think things can't get any worse there's that moment with the fucking Queen. What was Russell thinking? Has he never seen Silver Nemesis? Is he after a quick knighthood? What? Was there anyone in the audience who didn't groan when that scene unfurled, like a tape-worm, on screen?  Do you think Primeval would stoop so low as to have a velociraptor attacking a Gordon Brown look-a-like? I think I would have preferred it if Tennant had turned to the audience back home and wished us all a Merry fucking Christmas.

And RTD should never be allowed near numbers. Each and every time he hits a numerical key on his keyboard an alarm should go off and someone with a rudimentary grasp of mathematics should rush into Russell's flat so they can check that what he's just written isn't "oh, that'll do" bollocks. Or employ a script editor. Whichever is easiest. Just look at the evidence: he can't get the Doctor's age right, he locates adventures in the year 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,004, and he creates societies where people travel 10cm in 10 years. Why won't somebody stop him?

The most shameful example of Russell's numerical dyslexia can be found in Voyage of the Damned. I am, of course, talking about the revelation that Shelly Winters' phone bill, the one that will take her 20 years to pay off (yes, 20 years!), is approximately 100 quid. I've seen ming-mongs on the forums desperately trying to wave this away by insisting that Shelly Winters must be on a really low wage, conveniently forgetting the fact that Mr Copper, a glorified tour guide, believes that a million quid's worth of credits is enough to spend on a few trinkets, which therefore implies that 5,000 credits must be worth (factoring in exchange rates and inflation) a couple of quid, tops. Shameful.

But it's not just RTD's grasp of numbers that winds me up, it's his preoccupation with messianic imagery. Just like that other raging atheist, JM Straczynski, he too feels compelled to litter his sci-fi opus with god-like beings of light and resurrected heroes with mystical, magical powers. And it makes me cringe every single time. However, I guess this is counterpointed by the fact that the Doctor isn't really harder than Jesus in the final analysis. He can't stop Astrid from dying for a start; he can only postpone her agony so he can give her a quick tongue sandwich. You know, it says a lot when the Doctor snogging the face of a woman is only mildly irritating when placed next to the image of him being lifted up on the wings of angels. It managed to make his Obi-Wan levitation in Last of the Time Lords look like something out of fucking Akira!

More padding that Shelly Winters' stunt double...

I suppose I'd better talk about Kylie. I'm not a fan of the songstress and the whole thing stank of stunt casting from the very beginning to me. Despite the fact that I may have tapped my toes to a couple of her more recent gramophone records I wasn't exactly sold on her acting credentials. Neighbours and, er, um, Street Fighter?! Still, I decided, it could have been a lot worse - it could have been Catherine Tate again. Or, failing that, another sitcom star with an equity card. This is why Andy Millman being asked to appear in the show during last night's Extras felt so right to me - he's a shit comedian in a low-brow sitcom, of course he's going to be invited to appear in Doctor Who!

Having said all that, Kylie was pretty good as Astrid. The problem is she wasn't given that much to do. OK, so she kills the villain, snogs the Doctor (twice), gets herself killed (twice) and then turns into Tinkerbell (don't get me started on that), which looks like quite a lot on paper, but in reality it's hard for me to really give a damn about anything she does because her character is so two-dimensional. Even Bannanakafka made more of an impression on me and he was a walking deus ex machina! And why make Kylie look so dowdy? She's a glamourpuss in a maid's outfit and yet she still managed to come across as bit, well, meh. That takes some doing. And who wasn't laughing their ass off when Astrid picked up Capricorn on that pallet truck? What should have been a gut-wrenching scene that conjured up images of Ripley taking on the Alien Queen, it had as much dramatic gravitas as a bad French and Saunders sketch.

The fact that the Doctor falls for Astrid within moments of meeting her (despite a distinct lack of on-screen chemistry) is either more evidence of his incessant longing for Rose (Astrid's blonde and a bit feisty, you see) or it's just really bad writing. And then there's the bit at the end where the Doctor dumps Mr. Copper in Wales because he wants to travel alone. You might interpret this a battle-damaged Doctor trying to protect Mr. Copper from further harm, or maybe, if you're like me, you'll believe he can't be bothered with Mr. Copper because he a) isn't blonde b) hasn't got a pair of magnificent tits and c) he hasn't flirted with him for the last hour. Sad, isn't it?

And there you have it. Yet another expensive looking Christmas cracker stuffed with bad jokes, shiny bits of disposable tat and paper-thin, er, hats. Quite a nice bang, though.

If the Doctor Who Christmas Special really is the franchise's shop window then isn't it about time we got the Fenwicks treatment instead of another gaudy sale at 'What Everybody Wants?'

Allons-y!

Comments

[The Master]

"And then there's the bit at the end where the Doctor dumps Mr. Copper in Wales because he wants to travel alone. You might interpret this a battle-damaged Doctor trying to protect Mr. Copper from further harm, or maybe, if you're like me, you'll believe he can't be bothered with Mr. Copper because he a) isn't blonde b) hasn't got a pair of magnificent tits and c) he hasn't flirted with him for the last hour. Sad, isn't it"

It would've been good to take him along. Instead, the Doctor just leaves him on a totally alien world with 1 million quid. That, to me, makes it look like he just might return sometime in the future...

And on the Davros!MaxBox, well, I personally think Davros would've been better than what we got!

[Paul Greaves]

Yes, I thought that was pretty shallow of the Doctor/RTD too. One minute Astrid says she'll cheerfully look as his bleary-eyed mug first thing in the morning (nudge nudge wink wink, say no MORE!), then once the only attractive humanoid for miles gets turned into fairy dust, he gets all maudlin and starts waffling on about how he 'travels alone'.

Of course he does, if you're a balding, elderly alien in a tweed jacket.

[Rob H]

I think we're all attaching too high a value to the Doctor's principles. Come on, chaps. You've got a TARDIS. You're looking for some company for the forseeable future. Who do you take with you? The balding geriatric or the Aussie songstress? I know where my vote's going! The Doctor is, after all, a heterosexual (as far as we're aware) male.

I was going to enter into debate with Neil about Voyage of the Damned, and then I read the bit where he says he doesn't like 'Delta and the Bannerman' and realised our viewpoints can never be reconciled!

[The Master]

"Who do you take with you?"

Be careful. Remember the days when he had Adr*c.

[Dave Sanders]

The more I think about that special, the less comfortable I am with it as Chrimbo entertainment. Like, what the fuck was Russell thinking with that title? He must known it's a doom-laden Faye Dunaway film about Jews escaping the Nazis, surely? You could put it down to simple coincidence if it wasn't for his Hitler remarks mere days before. Now obviously the man doesn't have any dodgy politics like that, (don't be COMPLETELY fucking stupid), but combine that with the obligatory 'cyborgs have rights too' gay subtext and one starts to wonder just how much this apparent persecution complex contributed to the gratuitous death, the helplessness of the main hero who should be anything but, and overwhelming post-viewing downer of the whole thing. :/

"I don't care what anyone says, The Poseidon Adventure is one of the very best..."

Irwin Allen couldn't keep it up after the first two or three though, could he? Thank God Russell wasn't fixated on The Swarm as a child - it would have been seventy minutes of David Tennant on Vortis going "Moffs, moffs, naffin' but moffs". And only marginally less padded than the 1965 one.

[Dave Sanders]

Oh, and Rob? The Hosts KILLED all those INNocent PEOple. Enough said.

[Jonathan]

Where was the moment where the Doctor and Astrid are standing on the prow of the ship in some sort of sonic screwdriver-ed oxygen bubble, as they stare wistfully out towards the galaxy, just as the asteroids make a bee-line for the ship?"

Oddly they did it for the cover of the Radio Times...
I think someone else said it here but I was thinking about it again earlier and it has to be said, the sets for the Titanic were piss poor. No sense of scale or luxury, it looked like a the room above the pub where my sister had her wedding reception.

Good review Neil, I think you caight everything that irked me about this pile of shit.

The other thing that irritates me is the idea that 12 million people watched it so it must be good. Well given that the BBC could show me opening my fridge on Christmas day and still get the lion's share of the audience, I'm not sure what the point of that argument is.

You're so right about the idiots who say we shouldn't expect Blink or something similarly good on Christmas Day. Of course we should. BBC 2 saves all its arts programmes up, most channels save their best movie acquisitions, BBC 4 resurrected the ghost story... and Doctor Who descends to depths like this.
Christmas is about bests - you wear your best clothes, you lay on the best dinner, you save up your best storylines and, if you're RTD, you think Christmas is about Pantomime and you put one of those on.
Human Nature/Family of Blood would have been great Christmas telly!

Actually, if next year's special were a literal pantomime, but written by Moffat, it would still have more drama and character and humour than VotD did.

[DamonD]

Hey, I still liked it. Better than the previous two Xmas specials.

As for The Doctor falling for Astrid so quickly, well...anyone else find it odd that for all this love-of-my-existance soul mate poetic Rose obsession that RTD wants him to have, it's amusing that both Mdme Pompador and Astrid have managed to capture his heart in just one episode wheras ol' Rose needed at least a season? Bit of an unintended slap in the face for Miss Tyler there.

[James Coleman]

Neil, I haven't seen it, but I assure you that as soon as I've watched The Poseidon Adventure I'll immediately detail specifically and chronologically the things about it that I would improve. Happy?

[James Coleman]

Oh, and excellent review. I hadn't considered the numerical issues regarding the phone in competition, RTD really should pay more attention to his scripts. Every other bit of numerical measuring RTD puts in is, as you say, bollocks, and not thought through.

The characters were all 2 dimensional. Like the Dead Ringers sketch about Torchwood, where they each have their one or two distinguishing character traits on labels so they don't forget. All bland characters, such a waste for such talented and respected actors involved.

[kurgal]

Normally, I would criticise Neil for writing an "overly negative" review. But that's so well-written and hilarious (especially his observation re RTD's disastrous mathematical handicap)...that..well... I won't. And can't. cos I haven't seen VOTD yet anyway. And it probably is quite bad.

I still can't get myself to care much about the quality of the xmas specials tho. From an NZ perspective, TV xmas specials are a bit of a foreign concept - the whole idea seems a tad contrived and silly - but I understand they are something of a tradition in the UK?

"try watching the Runaway Bride in early January"

That's a laugh. I can't bring myself to watch it at any time of the year :>

[The Master]

"I still can't get myself to care much about the quality of the xmas specials tho. From an NZ perspective, TV xmas specials are a bit of a foreign concept - the whole idea seems a tad contrived and silly - but I understand they are something of a tradition in the UK?"

They're simply done to get people to watch TV on Christmas Day. Obviously our normal programs are too shit, so they ask the highest-rated shows to produce some stuff.

"That's a laugh. I can't bring myself to watch it at any time of the year :>"

Haha, just, yeah, just brilliant. Well said.

[John Williams]

The bizarre obsession that atheists have with messianic imagery is exactly what I was going to base my review around. You fucker. My Christmas treat so far has been the Kinda travel machine comparison which made my everyday Sol spurting out of my nose taste like Christmas Skol.

[John Williams]

And yes Hackman's tirade to God while dangling from a metal wheel is one of cinema's greatest and most inappropriately Christmas-y moment.

[James Coleman]

Kurgel: Christmas in the UK is the big ratings hit, families are gathered together, and after opening presents and eating turkey, they sit back and relax. Nowhere is open on Christmas Day, so there's no point in going out, so there are very few options left, and Christmas Telly is a very popular choice. I believe 25 million tuned into Christmas TV of some kind on Tuesday, compared to the usual summer saturday night of 15-20 (someone correct me on these, they don't sound quite right). Each channel brings out their best TV shows and gives a festive, usually longer rendition of it. The soaps usually go all out and have deaths and weddings and explosions to try and get the audience. Soaps aside, it's usually comedies that get Christmas specials, because they are perhaps more the mood of Christmas than drama. In the 70s Morecambe and Wise was the BBC Christmas Flagship. The 80s The Two Ronnies. Early 90s and early 00s, Only Fools and Horses. Now, latter 00s, Doctor Who seems to be the BBC flagship.

Strangely, we are one of the few places that do Christmas Specials. In America, television goes on hold for a month or two over christmas, and films are shown instead. But then, british shows are more flexible, with series and episodes being commisioned as and when. On the whole in America, a show will run one season after another, and when it stops, it stops. But look at Who, a show which went on hiatus in the 80s, disappeared in the 90s, returned and is taking another hiatus in 2009! Only Fools, seven regular series then christmas specials commisioned as and when they were wanted.

[James Coleman]

And it is a bit contrived and silly, perhaps the reason it doesn't gel so well with Dramas. Are there Pantomimes in New Zealand, or is that UK only?

[Dave Sanders]

"And RTD should never be allowed near numbers...."

Never mind numbers, try made-up magic technology. How's this for a logical whopper? Max intends to ride out the disaster in a survival chamber that can withstand a supernova. Not a nuclear holocaust, an *exploding sun*. The Doctor knows all about it and how it works, suggesting that the things are in common usage, especially if a bankrupt cruise company in a fucked-up economy has got one.

So, er.... WHY IS GALLIFREY DESTROYED?? Why couldn't the oldest, most technically supreme civilization in the universe with an Eye Of Harmony at their disposal knock up a larger-scale model to protect their own planet, or at the very least use for a backup to ensure the survival of the race once the Time War started?

Come to that, why didn't the Daleks explore the military potential of this technology in the scope of galactic conquest? If you can make a survival chamber out of this principle, couldn't you also make an utterly indestructable battle cruiser or two? Build an armed survival, blow up a few stars, and ride out the ensuing holocaust while every around you burns.

Madness.

[kurgal]

James: thanks for the detailed reply. I can now see the logic behind this peculiar UK phenomenon!

and added to that...it's somewhat more likely to be snowing outside over there, than here :)

makes sense to be inside round the telly.

NZ TV is pretty much crap here over the xmas period ...combine summertime with the xmas holiday period and you can see why the networks don't even bother to try to grab viewers at this time of year.

as for pantomimes, they pop up from time to time over here, but I dare say they are more popular and prevalent in the UK.

[Rob H]

"Oh, and Rob? The Hosts KILLED all those INNocent PEOple. Enough said."

Why was that directed at me? I don't remember raising a point about the hosts!

[Dave Sanders]

No, but you raised the point about Delta & The Bannermen. :)

[Stu]

Dave: In the EDAs, Gallifrey had several back ups in a range of dimensions. Not that it seemed to do them any good ...

[Rob H]

Ah, point taken! I must admit I am fond of Delta and the Bannermen. Even Mel didn't annoy me that much. I think it's because my mum bought me the Target novelisation before I saw it, when I was very young.

[Kiki]

I don't know why The Doctor falling for all companions?? It's scary! because who's next-Donna? I prefer his "soul mate poetic Rose obsession" Really!!

[Rob H]

He's the wrong side of 1000 years old (not 903, Russell), and he's lonely. The last of his kind. Lost all his family. Doomed to travel on forever alone. I think it's supposed to expose the vulnerability in his character.

He didn't fall for Martha though to be fair!

[Jonathan]

Number dyslexia is Dyscalculia (sounds like a great name for a villain...) but RTD doesn't have it - he just doesn't think things through.

Big gestures call for big numbers. 6 billion, three trillion...

And just crap at science. A metoerite is a meteor that's landed. A meteor is a flaming piece of an asteroid. An asteroid doesn't flame until it hits the atmosphere. (I'm way oversimplifyinh I'm sure, but I bet I'm closer than VotD was)

In this, the production team is culpable as well.

Dave - you're right about the supernova thing. The sphere the Daleks came out of was similarly 'convenient', as was the Genesis machine.

About to crash in to a planet? Here's a handy pod that will withstand the damage - oh hang on, why don't we just make the whole ship out of it then? (Reminds me of the joke about black boxes on aeroplanes - almost guaranteed to survive a crash, which makes you wonder why they don't make the whole plane out of the same stuff...)

[Stu]

[derail]

Just listened to The Girl That Never Was. That's amazing, emotional and just the right ending to the whole 8th/Charley shbang. Paul & India were back in the 2nd season groove and there are some fantastic twists, not least on the subject of Miss Pollard's fate. Just wonderful. Thanks Alan etc.

[/derail]

[James Coleman]

"Reminds me of the joke about black boxes on aeroplanes - almost guaranteed to survive a crash, which makes you wonder why they don't make the whole plane out of the same stuff..."

That's not a joke, that's an idiosy. If planes were made of the same stuff, they would be too heavy to fly.

It may be droll, but it's not proper humour, because it's taking one side of a case and ignoring the very basic facts. It's yokel humour, worthy only of Russell Brand. We shall speak no more of it.

[derail comment]
Still working my way through the post season 30 stories, what do you think of the writing out of Charly and C'rizz in general?
[/derail comment]

[Stu]

Well Cr'zz never really worked as a companion -- which isn't a go at Conrad who did his best -- and should have been dealt without inside the Divergant Universe arc. To be honest, anything after Zagreus has been fairly uninviting with the odd exception anyway. Asolution is a bit of a mess actually but as I said TGWNW is a great end for Charley although very much in a 'but is it?' kind of way. I really don't want to say any more on an open channel so as not to spoil it for people who are catching up.

It is nice that it offered a theoretical joining up and continuity with the newer adventures with Lucie, giving a decent reason for 8th crabbiness there.

[kurgal]

Oh I should add - what DID we get here in NZ on christmas day, who-wise?

Prime served us up the entire Eccleston series back-to-back starting at 6:30 am, finishing at 4:30 pm. followed by The Christmas Invasion (again).

this was very welcome, because I was sick and stuck at my sister's place, far too ill to take part in the festivities. and without my DVD collection.

watching these episodes again in sequence really brought home to me the consistent quality and strength of the whole first series in terms of writing, acting, production, everything.

and I had forgotten how grim and apocolyptic Parting of the Ways was...and I was quite moved by it, all over again.

[JoAnne Thrax]

"The Doctor is, after all, a heterosexual (as far as we're aware) male."

Be careful. Remember the days when he had Adr*c.