Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag...

The Shakespeare Code 

At last! It’s about time that we finally got to see the Doctor meet Shakespeare after years of only the occasional reference or brief glimpse on the Time-Space Visualiser. Apart from anything else fandom and Shakespeare scholars have an awful lot in common, even if the Shakespeare crowd have been at it a lot longer, so it's about time that they got together. For every argument about the correct name of The Edge of Destruction there’s an equivalent debate about the two distinct versions of King Lear or the authorship of Henry VIII, and for each new radical work of research by Howe/Walker/Stammers or Wood/Miles there’s the scholarly bombshell like the Oxford Complete Works edited by Wells and Taylor. Critical movements rise and fall in the blinking of an eye. One minute the New Adventure crowd are riding high like the New Historicists, and then suddenly it can all fall away and you’re about as relevant as A C Bradley.   

Francis Mere (a sort of Jeremy Bentham/Andrew Pixley in tights and a ruff)

Even while he was still alive Shakespeare had people writing about him and starting to document his output, and Francis Mere (a sort of Jeremy Bentham/Andrew Pixley in tights and a ruff) made a list of Shakespeare’s plays in his commonplace book Palladis Tamis. This has had scholars scratching their heads for years as it refers to Love Labours Wonne, which is probably another name for a known play (candidates include Much Ado About Nothing or The Taming of the Shrew) but more interestingly could be a missing play. Gareth Roberts seems to have had a whale of a time using it as the basis for The Shakespeare Code, and I’m glad to say that I had a whale of a time watching it. 

There was more than a sniff of Shakespeare in Love about it but I don’t mean that as an insult. Tom Stoppard is a hard act to follow (“I had that Christopher Marlowe in my boat once”), but there were some absolutely cracking lines in this, particularly Shakespeare’s own description of the end of Love Labours Wonne “It was as funny and as thought-provoking as usual” and the Doctor’s “57 academics just punched the air”. In fact there were so many references, in-jokes and slightly laboured (excuse the pun but it’s catching) badinage about Shakespeare’s future plays, that I got the feeling that Roberts was overindulging himself a little. But just when I thought the script got a bit bogged down, it won me over again with the crazy lines the witches inserted into the play. I loved the idea that the actors and indeed the audience were used to finding chunks of Shakespeare difficult to follow, and so accepted the incomprehensible instructions as par for the course. There are whole generations of schoolchildren who could sympathise with that. 

The Doctor and Martha seem more light-hearted than the Doctor and Rose – just having fun rather than Just 17

I was more impressed by the wordplay than the story though, and the older witches reminded me of Statler and Waldorf sitting in their box seat jeering at the performance. But in the scheme of things that hardly seemed a big deal – the whole thing looked great, Lilith the young witch was heart stopping in more ways than one, and David Tennant uttered nary a shriek nor a titter but got on with the job in his new toned-down style. I’m also keen on the fact that the Doctor isn’t giving Martha the goo-goo eyes despite her best efforts to encourage him, and even Shakespeare (an acute man) told her that “the Doctor will never kiss you.” I wasn’t averse to the Doctor/Rose love interest, but it would have been a mistake to do the same thing again, and this new dynamic has given the series a lift. The Doctor and Martha seem more light-hearted than the Doctor and Rose – just having fun rather than Just 17.

for the second week running Murray didn’t give me a headache

All in all I thought this was another very enjoyable episode. OK, it was a bit thin on story, but full of fun, good performances, and for the second week running Murray didn’t give me a headache. The director Charles Palmer deserves credit for his great work on two consecutive episodes, and as a Shakespeare nut I like the fact that Gareth Roberts took his chance to “do” Shakespeare in Doctor Who and really went for it. He might even have encouraged me to resume my Shakespeare studies again, after having all my post-degree enthusiasm knocked out of me by years of shit RSC productions.

Tron. With added cats

This is all getting a bit too positive isn’t it? What’s on next week? Oh yes. Tron. With added cats. That’s more like it.

Sigh No More.

I was watching an early 80s BBC Shakespeare production of The Tempest this morning.  Michael Hordern plays Prospero (after the producers totally failed to grab John Gielgud) and in between the fake rocks and ship acting is Warren Clarke playing Caliban in a fur suit, David (tv's Ford Prefect) Dixon half naked and covered in gold paint as Ariel and Nigel Hawthorne and Andrew Sachs getting pissed together (although they may have been acting). 

I'm telling you this, not just to recommend you see this 'masterpiece' because it offers the chance to hear the word 'Sycorax' in its original context (more on which late) but the demonstrate that I'm the kind of person who wakes up on a Saturday morning and watches an early 80s BBC Shakespeare production of The Tempest.

" I've got multiple recorded productions - I've versions of Macbeth I don't think I've even worked my way around to seeing yet. "

I'm as much of a Shakespeare fan as a Doctor Who fan.  No really, my Shakespeare collection might actually be larger than the one have for the timelord - as well as numerous print copies of the plays in various editions, I've got multiple recorded productions - I've versions of Macbeth I don't think I've even worked my way around to seeing yet.  It's an academic interest, certainly but also some of the recognizable fan genes we all recognize have been transferred to the Bard. 

If there was a monthly William Shakespeare Magazine I'd be in WH Smith's on every fourth Thursday (or so) to buy a copy.  I have a Hamlet weblog where I'm essentially stripping down as many interpretations of the Dane as I can, noting references in other works along the way.  Hell, I even have an ongoing project to put the plays into chronological order (here's the most recent rumination - how do you deal with The Merry Wives of Windsor?  And I'd thought UNIT dating was a nightmare).

If there was anyone who was predisposed to loving this episode it would be me.  I mean its Doctor Who meets William Shakespeare!  I know it's happened on audio and in the novels, but here it is on television for the first time in forty years.  A chance to see the Tardis landing in Elizabethan London, The Doctor plus one standing in the Globe Theatre cheering the Bard on during one of the performances, the mud, the beer, the grime, the bit with a dog.  So why did I pop out the other end feeling just tiniest bit disappointed?

"Why did I pop out the other end feeling just tiniest bit disappointed?"

I'm willing to entertain the idea that my expectations were so high that nothing less than Shakespeare In Love meets The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy with the combined wit of Tom Stoppard and Douglas Adams would satiate me, something which impossible really, even from a great Who writer like Gareth Roberts.  I mean the idea of placing  Love's Labour's Won at the crux of the matter was really clever (even if the resulting play had a slight wrongness to it).

I've seen elsewhere complaints that the story was too linear and perhaps that's exactly it.  Instead of the traveling companions getting mixed up in a faux-Shakespearan plotline we had instead what amounted to a Fear Her-style procedural which just happened to be taking place in 1599 London, with a fairly generic story progression and ending in the expected confrontation with the alien at the end.

"Did there really have to be another race against time to stop a giant special effect from taking over the planet again?"

Perhaps too it's the choice of witches as the villains of the peace.  Is that to the celebrity quasi-historical format every year?  Dickens meets ghosts and poltergeists, Victoria meets a werewolf, Reinette and the body snatchers, now Bill and witches, and like Charles he's presumably inspired to include them in Macbeth later.  I like that in the rational Whoniverse they are aliens and magic is simply advanced technology, but it just seems a bit predictable to have witches. 

Russell suggested afterwards on Doctor Who Confidential that he knew it had to be fairies or witches and they went with the latter (presumably because the former had already turned up in Small Worlds) but my question is why?  Nothing wrong with their performances which were pitched to just the right side of pantomime, and Hex's Christina Cole sizzled, but did there really have to be another race against time to stop a giant special effect from taking over the planet again?

But that leads straight into the positives, which I have to emphasise outweighed the negatives by some margin.  Said special effect was destroyed by Mr Shakespeare through the power of words.  I think the secret of the episode is that it took that fairly generic storyline and hung on it quite a thematically deep meditation on the importance and power of words and the role of the Bard the foundation of our language.

"The secret of the episode is that it took that fairly generic storyline and hung on it quite a thematically deep meditation on the importance and power of words and the role of the Bard the foundation of our language."

In probably the new series most Reithian moment yet, the episode was laced with soundbites from throughout the canon and even couple from elsewhere in literature (Dylan Thomas!), with the potential that kids watching might go off and find out which plays they're from and the context. 

These references weren't entirely gratuitous and their sense of thematic intent mirrored the story or character beat in which they were being used.  Even Sycorax, worked in situ here because in that play, she's the witch that Pospero apparently battled to gain governance of Caliban.  I shivered when I noticed the connection - if I was a kid I think I'd find it really extraordinary. 

The episode had the potential to make at least some kids passionate about Shakespeare and literature and it has to be applauded for that.  Some might begrudge the intrusion of pop culture references - primarily the inclusion of Harry Potter, Shakespeare using Rowling's words at the end to finally vanquish the demon instead of his own - but it all helps to draw in viewers who even until that point might still care less about Shakespeare.

"The episode had the potential to make at least some kids passionate about Shakespeare and literature and it has to be applauded for that." 

I was watching Cash In The Attic, the bizarrely addictive daytime antique auction programme in the week and there was a woman selling a very nice boxed Complete Works because her son wouldn't like that, he's more into Harry Potter, y'know.  I thought about that kid during that sequence, this whole episode in fact and wondered if he'd be turning to his mum and asking if she still had those Shakespeare plays in the attic.  Or cupboard.  Or wherever she kept them.

Plus it's a different idiom, a different time.  You have to balance out the English lessons with something else.  Such as Back To The Future being used to explain why history can still change if The Doctor and Martha don't keep their wits about themselves and whilst that doesn't quite have the mystery of Blinovich it grounds the series in the now (well the mid-Eighties) and makes it comprehensible.  Similarly the approach to characterization of the inhabitants of Elizabethan London was exceedingly contemporary, the TARDIS translator apparently contemporising their English, the only verilys in evidence coming from Martha's lips.

No complaints here about Shakespeare as rock star, perfectly logical especially at that point in his career.  One of the problems which always crops up when characterizing this man is that he has to seem capable of doing all of that whilst still retaining his essentially humanity.  Partly its in the writing, but mostly its in the acting as Dean Lennox Kelly certainly had just the right amount of charisma to make you believe.

"No complaints here about Shakespeare as rock star, perfectly logical especially at that point in his career." 

He proved an excellent foil for an on-point Tennant and if the episode didn't refer directly to past or future encounters, their chemistry hinted as to why the Doctor would keep returning to his company.  The opening meeting dealt with all that because The Doctor lacked that first time meeting excitement we've seen elsewhere - he knew were Shakespeare was and how to get hold of him.

Another criticism might be the Rose callbacks but again I think that's just a shock of the new, something unexpected in a franchise were a companion dies and they're barely mentioned two episodes later.  Plus, the Doctor's obviously playing a few mind games, trying to tease out of Martha the companion elements he's looking for, testing her, making sure she can fulfill his needs.  Freema continues to surprise and perfectly played up the 'everything's brilliant' attitude we all have when we visit a new place.

"On reflection, then, it looks like I enjoyed The Shakespeare Code far more than I thought."

On reflection, then, it looks like I enjoyed The Shakespeare Code far more than I thought - and like the Cybermen episodes last year will enjoy it much more on subsequent viewings without my exponentially high expectations, relishing the various nuances.  The sense of history was perfect, the painterly backdrop capturing the time with the same spirit as the opening few scenes of Olivier's film rendition of Henry V.  And The Globe looked absolutely gorgeous.  I have to go there.  Now.

And that coda - for once, no big emotional crescendo, an actual joke, and the potential for a sequel.  Quite what he's done to get the Queen riled up in that way wasn't clear but it's going to be fun finding out.  Anyone remember if he's already met her in a previous incarnation (an UnBound not withstanding)?

Next Week:  New Earth.  Cat people.  What could possibly go wrong?

Da Vinci Be Darned

So often when watching television, I'll be keeping one eye on the screen and one eye on my phone, so that I know how much of the programme is remaining; I'm possibly a little bit obsessive-compulsive, as it doesn't tend to matter whether I'm liking what I'm watching or not.

Tonight, I spent a whole forty-five minutes not looking at my phone. Well, I might have peeked at it around halfway through, but other than that I was absolutely transfixed. New Who has its faults, but this episode was almost completely devoid of them: The sonic screwdriver stayed in the Doctor's pocket, the Doctor was entertaining without being silly or smug, and Martha Jones continues to make us wonder if perhaps Rose shouldn't have been kicked into the Void that little bit earlier.

Martha Jones continues to make us wonder if perhaps Rose shouldn't have been kicked into the Void that little bit earlier.

Mentions of Rose were, infact, the one weak point in Gareth Roberts' superb script (Well, except perhaps the running gag where the Doctor used Shakespeare quotes, which grew a bit tiring towards the end). Russell T Davies said long ago that Rose gets a mention in each of the first three scripts, and I can only hope that this is the extent of her influence, because it seems strange that a show which is otherwise so obviously keen to move forward keeps anchoring itself to the past in this rather awkward way.

It seems strange that a show which is otherwise so keen to move forward keeps anchoring itself to the past

Ultimately, though, this is rather a small niggle in an episode which managed to match the standard set by last week's opener, and then some. This is what Doctor Who should be like- Clever dialogue, a simple but coherent and fascinating plot, incredible sets, and believable, warm performances from the cast (Including the gorgeous Christina Cole as Lilith). I don't know if it's the best episode to date, but it doesn't have many rivals for the spot.

I'd love to say that these first two episodes bode well for the next eleven weeks, but next week it's back to New Earth with cat people and RTD, so I think that the less I tempt fate, the better...

Smith & Jones (Deceased)

I think I'm going to get an entire paragraph out of the way by just using one sentence.  "Intergalactic mercenary police rhinos in leather skirts with magic markers are totally badass."  There. That said, I do have one complaint about them.  And it goes a little something like "No Go To Cho Flo Mo Ho Tho Yo Po Lo Fo Ro Co(.uk?)."  Why's every word in their language end in a long "O" sound?  That's got to be confusing.  I mean, even Yorkshire only ends every OTHER word in an O, and people in in the south can't make out a word they're saying.  I'm betting a few Rhino civil wars have broken out from a misunderstanding between "Can I have a pint?" and "Piss off I slagged your sister's horn." The other monster of the story, the Plasmavore, surprised me.  I'd read about "plasmavores" and I was thinking something akin to a bipedal version of 2005's Reapers.  Plasmavore just sounds scary, but in reality isn't, much like the people from the Southern united states..

"No Go To Cho Flo Mo Ho Tho Yo Po Lo Fo Ro Co(.uk?)."

Freema's family.  Whew.  Dad's obviously that guy who's got an impotent air of authority, and hates it.  As evidenced by his "This is me putting my foot down!" bit.  And wow.  Annalise.  She's GOT to be my favorite member of the family, if only because she looks like Jackie Tyler's slapper little sister. If those two aren't related, my world has just fallen apart. The rest of the family is pretty much blank to me.  Brother's 21, sister's got a job, mum's angry.  And her poor cousin Adeola.  What an unfortunate name.  I feel for anyone who's ever been named after a naughty bit. High school must have been hell for her.

Poor Adeola.  What an unfortunate name.  I've always pitied people named after naughty bits...

As for Freema herself.  She's really got a light-up smile huh?  And, to risk being rude, the best bum I've seen in Who since possibly Leela.  And quite capable of pulling off Disney-face (see: balcony scene).  But, and this will apply to anyone who's ever worked in IT, but Martha Jones knows how to RTFM.  When faced with a piece of machinery she's never personally used before, she doesn't start randomly hitting buttons like other companions we've seen (HOW DO YOU FLY?!?!), but (to the applause of geeks everywhere), she grabs the nearest owner's manual, which tells her to hit the big yellow menacing button which must not be pressed under any circumstances(ok, so it was obvious to me, let's give the girl a hand nonetheless).

Oh, David Tennant...David, david.. You had your moments here, you really did.  I'll hit the one moment that I didn't like, and that's only because I've seen it too much by now.  When you looked at that ship flying overhead, got that scowl on your face, and snarled "Judoon!" I nearly gave up.  Although, be fair, it's not David's fault.  I'm tired of the Doctor identifying the alien-of-the-week automatically and snarling it's species name out through a curled lip.  Makes me wish for Love & Monsters, where he just made a name up on the fly, and it really worked.  Top marks for the initial Martha/Doctor interaction.  The choice between Martha and Indian doctor really shows you what being the Doctor is all about: Being a good, quick judge of character. And did he REALLY say ginormous? That was great.  And one last point - the Doctor being concious far longer than anyone else in that hospital: could this be the respiratory bypass system Time Lords are famed for having (and then not having), that allows them to survive (albeit uncomfortably) in low-oxygen to aneorobic environments?  How the First and Seventh could go into asthmatic fits any time they passed a lit cigarette, but the Eighth was capable of pulling friend Fitz through open space unprotected, or the Fifth was able to withstand the vacuum of space to return to the TARDIS by way of cricket ball? Also, one of the best speeches of the year is sure to be the Rhinos! In space!!

Did he really just say ginormous..?

In closing, Martha's A-OK, David's getting better by the year apparently, Russel's shocked us all, and Smith & Jones seems to be a winner. Only one question: How's the hospital still have electricity, on the moon? On the mooon...ON THE MOON.  Hm, maybe that'll be this year's "..FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE" moment. 

Blog News...

A few items of note:

I have finally killed off the waiting_for_christopher address. Well, they'll still work but you can now use www.behindthesofa.org.uk to access the bloggy goodness. We're still hosted on Typepad so everything else remains exactly the same as before.

Also available is a mobile version of the blog for use on mobile phones and PDAs. It will contain the same content as the central column of the front page of the blog, minus the images, with an additional menu at the top of the page to aid navigation.

Finally, I've made available links to different feed types (see bottom of left hand column - which contains link to the mobile version too) and I can generate custom category specific feeds too if anyone who posts here wants to have a list of their BTS posts displayed automatically in their own blogs.

Damon.

What's the Bleeding Time?

Smith and Jones

This episode was excellent in so many ways that I thought I might as well start with Roy Marsden.

Here we have a stalwart actor who hasn't been in a sci-fi series since a brief role in the ill-fated LWT show The Adventures of Don Quick (I'm discounting his appearance in Space 1999 because you have to draw the line somewhere) and he's given about five minutes in Doctor Who to show what he can do.  And as Mr Stoker, a sort of milder-mannered Sir Lancelot Spratt, he was great - a slightly pompous consultant who goes from being more concerned than he's letting on about the static electricity to wistfully contemplating his lost retirement and seeing his daughter again before succumbing to a grisly fate at the hands of Ken Barlow's ex-wife. 

Now in old Doctor Who, Marsden would have had a couple of episodes worth of nuances while the plot went nowhere or in circles for a bit before he met a similarly unpleasant end.  No such luxury in current Who, and on balance I think this is a change for the better, except it's hard to find writers who are skilled as RTD at building characters quickly while also banging in the crash bang wallop of the action sequences.  Most of the writers last year had their scripts rewritten for (probably) this very reason, and let's face it RTD himself has slipped up massively on a number of scripts with episodes ending up looking rushed or padded, or sometimes both.  Everyone in production is constantly thinking "What's the bleeding time?".

Like most people, I was knocked out by Freema Agyeman, and not just because for the first time since Peri copped off with the Emperor Augustus I can at last fancy a companion again

But unlike last year's opener, Smith and Jones was a simple story told well while also doing the difficult job of introducing a new companion.  Like most people, I was knocked out by Freema Agyeman, and not just because for the first time since Peri copped off with the Emperor Augustus I can at last fancy a companion again.  She gave a lovely performance that was complemented by David Tennant reining himself in and giving us a more sustained portrayal of a broodingly psychotic Doctor that we only saw in flashes last season.  The scene where Martha listened to the Doctor's hearts had more chemistry between the two leads in three minutes than we've seen in the series since Nicola Bryant tried to resuscitate Peter Davison with her magical breast power.  Even Murray had stopped listening to Bod and discovered the volume control.

you had such delights as Anne Reid's plasmavore being electrocuted in what I hope was a homage to Val Barlow's death by hairdryer in Coronation Street

Not everything was perfect.  When the people in the hospital realised that they were on the moon they lapsed into the kind of mass hysteria that might have been fun to do but looked more like an audition for Runaround.  But it's churlish to pick at the odd false note when you had such delights as Anne Reid's plasmavore being electrocuted in what I hope was a homage to Val Barlow's death by hairdryer in Coronation Street, and David Tennant's uncannily accurate impersonation of Bruce Forsyth's pet parakeet.  And the Judoon were a great monster because

• they looked superb with really mobile mouths that were as drooly as mine just after I've woken up from a nap,
• they weren't just nasty baddies and were even happy to pay compensation for their roughhouse tactics
• they used magic markers.  I'm a sucker for that high-technology/low technology gag everytime

Part of the enjoyment of this episode was also a quiet sense of relief at being free of Rose's extended family and her "journey".  I liked quite a bit of that journey over the last two years, and I understand why RTD needed to use Rose as some kind of touchstone for a new audience.  But the show has its audience now, and it felt genuinely liberating to have a new companion (not saddled with a boyfriend?) with a family that already show signs of being less dominating than the last lot.  The other liberating thing was being in space - it took me a while to realise it but I had a big smile on my face for a lot of the episode because big spaceships were landing on something other than the Earth and aliens were marching across a lunar landscape.  Perhaps I'm not that sophisticated a viewer after all.

So this opening episode has even put a smile on the face of the mighty Lancelot Spratt aka James Robertson Justice.  What a Doctor he would have made! But he's still saying "What's the bleeding time?'

Reversing the Polarity

During Smith and Jones I gradually moved my chair further than its original 18 inches from the screen, leant back, breathed without the need of a respiratory bypass system or gratuitous snogging, prised my patented Oldbie-Fan sneer from my face with the assistance of a sharpened Judoon horn, and found myself watching something remarkably like proper Doctor Who with, amazingly, quite a lot of enjoyment. As a new reviewer, I ought perhaps to explain that I'm one of the tiny minority of fans who didn't hope Series Two would end with Rose and her bewuvved Doctor settling down to live together in a mortgaged semi in Totter's Lane, taking turns to walk K-9 and Mickey in the park and zapping M&S frozen lamb chops with the sonic screwdriver in order to avoid having to buy a microwave; on the contrary, I came to hate many aspects of Series Two so much that I wanted most of the principal characters to die. But this new stuff wasn't bad at all.

I want a voice-controlled Judoon for Christmas

Plot: rubbish. The Jones family: rubbish. Big butch bike messengers: rubbish. And yet... Martha's quite likable, isn't she? The Doctor isn't a shouting, sneering bully, is he? The Space Rhinos are the kewlest new monsters since the Zygons, aren't they? (I want a voice-controlled Judoon for Christmas.) Even the obligatory kiddie-friendly shoe scene and the kiss that teenage fans will copy behind the bike-sheds almost worked.

10/10 for not being totally up its own arse, for a change

0/10 for convincing plotting, but 10/10 for not being totally up its own arse, for a change. I might even watch it again. I might even look forward hopefully to The Shakespeare Code. I might even like Smith and Jones enough to post to a blog about it. My anti-New-Who polarity has been reversed. Oh, and Annalise is a strong late contender against Yvonne Hartman for the Sad Old Gits Cleavage Award. The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about Smith And Jones: In 1971 Anne Reid was invited to play the part of Azal, but declined on learning that Daemons lacked moustaches to twirl.

Round 3.

It's nice to see that Martha Jones has a slightly dysfunctional family just like mine, now I can relate to her on a personal level. Wait a second, didn't we already see this episode? Nope, it's just ol' Russell penning out his tried and trusty character devices. Hold hands in 3..2..1.. BEST FRIENDS!

I would normally find this completely nauseating, but lucky for me over here (stateside) Doctor Who still hovers below the pop culture radar, which has kept me so far from pulling a Neil. A saturated market is not a good thing and it will surely lead to our demise. I haven't seen that episode of the Weakest Link yet. Any good?

Freema seems alright. Her physicality is much more suited to Tennant's wiry frame than Billie's big boned man jowls. That's something that bothered me from last season, and I'm glad it's been corrected.

Back on The Moon, Tennant takes off his shoes and clicks his teeth. I decide that I like him again.

I was a little worried at the start of this episode with the amount of sensational fluff thrown our way, but once it was all explained and I realized there weren't going to be any fart jokes, (just a creepy old hag with a straw) I expelled my own sigh of relief.

Not a bad start: 3 out of 5.

Rhinos In Space!

I quite enjoyed Smith and Jones; it was a million times better than New Earth and started the new series off with a bang. Tennant wasn’t as slappable and smug as he had been in the latter half of the second series either, but I was still only half and half about his performance.

What I was impressed with, though, in this episode was the Judoon and Martha. The Judoon, despite being very similar to the Sontarans in appearance (complete with helmets the exact shapes of their heads, three fingered hands, as well as what looked like a probic vents on the front of their armour, which turned out was just used to translate alien tongues), turned out to be a very impressive alien race and it was actually refreshing that the monsters were not the villains of the piece, but were in fact, there looking for the alien menace that featured in the story.

She may also have been the first person to utter the immortal words “it’s bigger on the inside!”

The Plasmavores were not as well realised as the Judoon and to be honest it did feel like they were wasted in this story, when they could have been used a lot more than they were in the story, because pretty much for half the episode you didn’t even know that they were involved at all!

Without a shadow of a doubt the best thing about this story was Martha. Within moments of her first appearance she had made you virtually forget about Rose, and I, for one, wish they didn’t keep mentioning her name all the time. Hopefully with this episode this will be the last time he mentions her name. I know it probably won’t be, but it would be nice if it was, after all Captain Jack got a cursory mention in the Children In Need skit then nothing after that. She had some of the best lines in the episode, the most notable being the reference to the cold sore medicine in conjunction with the slabs looking like motorcycle couriers which you will get if you have ever seen a certain advert on British television. She may also have been the first person to utter the immortal words “it’s bigger on the inside!” in the new series (someone please correct me if I am wrong here.)

I didn’t even mind her family, and thought it was quite funny that the episode started with a load of people chatting on the telephone, not the sort of thing that you would expect to appear in a Doctor Who story, but you could have said the same thing about the wedding scene in The Runaway Bride. They didn’t really feature that much, so it is difficult to form an opinion on them yet, but I do hope that they will return soon, as I think that the families of the companions are an important element of the new series.

There was plenty of excellent CGI work in this episode and I particularly enjoyed the sequence when the Judoon spaceships landed on the moon and they all marched from their spacecrafts across the surface of the moon and into the hospital.

Perhaps that is because the tenth Doctor realises that no one would believe that he was actually old enough to be a Doctor or a consultant.

In fact the whole episode was well directed by the newcomer (well to Doctor Who anyway) Charles Palmer. When I heard that he is the son of Geoffrey Palmer I half expected his father to appear in a cameo appearance like he did the in the classic series. He didn’t, but wouldn’t it have been nice if he had?

It appears that he is directing a number of episodes this series and, after watching Smith and Jones, I am glad that it is he who is handling the largest block of episodes this series.

The plot of the story was reasonable enough, but it did seem odd that the Doctor would have checked into the hospital as a patient when it would have been a whole lot easier for him to have used his psychic paper to fool them into thinking he was a visiting Doctor, or a visiting consultant or something like that.

Surely, that would have been a much better disguise than a patient? Perhaps that is because the tenth Doctor realises that no one would believe that he was actually old enough to be a Doctor or a consultant.

The only bit that made me cringe in this episode was the scene where the Doctor was expelling the radiation from his body, after killing the slab. It was amusing enough I guess but it was a little bit silly in my opinion. I am sure the kids watching it loved it though!

So, I would say that Smith and Jones gets a general thumbs up from me. It didn’t disappoint me; it filled 45 minutes well; it was way better than New Earth and Tennant didn’t annoy me that much so there are plenty of plus points to be taken from this episode.

Terra & Judoon

Martha on the Moon.
Family back down on Earth.
Not enough distance.

Smith And Jones

You know the way when you go on holiday, as the plane takes off you keep thinking to yourself, "Hmm, did I remember to turn the gas off?", Well, as the third 'trip of a lifetime' got underway (it must be true, since this is what the same BBC Northern Ireland continuity announcer tells us every bloody year) all I thought of as the show started off on a domestic foot with RTD's favourite 'Bad Dad' and 'blonde bimbo' standbys - the man needs some counselling - was "Oh dear, Neil's not going be terribly happy is he?"

And then David Tennant pulled off his tie. Wha'?

"Ah, but wait", RTD will say on the podcast commentary. "I'm challenging the linearity of the phosphor-dot medium here. The Doctor doesn't decide to be a four-dimensional cock until a minute before the end, so like it happens and yet it doesn't happen, thus bringing into focus the unreality of broadcast television. Shroedinger's Twat. I am a genius." Thanks for that Russ, we'll let you know.

"'Shroedinger's Twat. I am a genius.' Thanks for that Russ, we'll let you know"

I hope everyone tried to avoid the apalling Weakest Link special the previous night, because after that shit it was impossible not to go looking for tatty bits in the season three opener if you were also ticking the boxes off against Rose and New Earth. The obligatory reference to previous RTD episodes. The mad rush at the beginning to make room for the season setup and second ending. Larkabout laffs like the radiation dance which looked like Harry Hill's band The Caterers should have added a backing beat. The sonic screwdriver cop-out. The telgraphed resolution you could see all the way back from Earth, and the made-up planet name that ends in X. And maybe the Slabs would have worked better and not looked so cheap if they had actually demonstrated they were like leather autons - take off the helmet and reveal nothing underneath. But mainly there's a hundred possible hairs to split with RTD's 'why not' approach, where 'cool' things happen for no obviously logical reason. Why does the Haemovore - Plasmavore, sorry - decide on a whim to eradicate half the Earth? What's supposed to power the massively supercharged MRI scanner? Why does transporting the hospital to the moon and back involve cartoon storm clouds and rain that falls upwards? Well, why not? Hmmmmm, could it be because there happens to be NO WATER on the moon to make rain with?

Liberated from any preconceptions however, Smith & Jones is so much infectious, if inconsequental, fun. Everyone's having a great time, and you just know that backstage it's all "Oh my God, I'm really in Doctor Who!"; egged on by the two stars and recurring guests - Anne Reid acts like Fenric decided to play Operation instead of chess (what is that straw made of?). There's not much story in Smith And Jones, but that's never the point of the first episode when Russell has so many new things to introduce. Am I alone in thinking the season might be better served with a two-parter to start with and the added draw of a cliffhanger, in order to do it all justice? Probably, since 8.2 million also says the first-night draw is alive and well and claiming squatters' rights. I love being proved wrong, don't you?

The verdict on the new companion (since that's what an estimated 8,199,994 1/2 of those viewers have tuned in for): Freema Agyeman is woefully miscast. No really, I mean it. She shouldn't be a doctor at all, she should be a proper scientist from the magnetism and chemistry between Martha and the Doctor. Or a magician, given how she can make a million or so extra people appear in the space of half an hour. Martha's sense of wonder is supposed to mirror our own eyes, and it does an astonishing job. Finally, an intellectual equal to the Doctor (or as equal as the typical Who girl is normally allowed to be) who takes it all in her stride and proves that 'sassy' doesn't have to mean stupid (Jo Grant), and 'smart' doesn't have to mean wooden (Liz Shaw) or useless (everyone else). She's like a black Reinette, says Dalek Sex (and not because the Doctor cops that snog within five minutes); Rose looks so shabby and jealous when put next to a woman who's more level-headed, intelligent and beautiful. Mind you, Rose wasn't exactly blessed with much ambition or sense of wonder at the start of her run, and family was pretty much all she had; I don't fancy Martha's chances of ever graduating as a medical student however with that horrid bunch constantly holding her back. No wonder she decides to sod off at the first opportunity.

"Anne Reid acts like Fenric decided to play Operation instead of chess"

I hope they use the Judoon again, because their potential as a species has barely been scratched and their impact and hype is mainly down to them looking suitably formidable and expensive on screen. RTD normally compiles a complete history and background for his creations where he can, and it's going to feel a bit of a waste if Smith & Jones is all the Judoon get and we're left with budget-scrimping tat later on as a result. Besides, the epsiode was never really about them, was it? I want to see one that is. Please also let me be wrong about the season catchphrase; It's not that "burn with me" is a bad turn of phrase for a villain, but 'Bad Wolf' by itself didn't mean anything while Torchwood is just a name. The more specific interpretation of 'burn with me', unless the way they put it in each story gets really contrived, would suggest an extra level of predictability to every episode's denoumant; and if the baddie-of-the-week is always going to go "You'll never take me alive copper", it's going to be memorable but not for the right reasons.

One down, twelve to go then. So far, so 'weekend in Corfu', but weekend breaks are nice and it's a mark of bigger, more dynamic and wondrous things to come. It's a rollicking base-under-siege tale to get things moving (except when RTD says 'base under siege', he means the online fanbase), and it makes New Earth look like the Spanish tummy that it was. Leave the Deathly Serious stuff to Paul Cornell and Stephen Moffat later on.

Next week: Jim Shakespeare of 3 Globe Gardens, East Penge; loud, boorish and er, hirsuite. Vote Anglo-Saxon.

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about Smith And Jones: despite the elaborate effects, The Mill's budget ran out before they could CGI in the sentient anthopomorphic tick birds to pick fleas off the Judoon.

Russell T Davies' Darkplace

Greetings Traveller. You will no doubt be familiar with the extensive canon of domestic fantasy drama that once made Russell T Davies a household name, like Vim or Shag Pile.

Back in the 1980's he came up with a television concept so bold, so developmental, so goddam ahead of its time that those lilly livered, and gastric spleaned, television executives shat their collective Hoxton fins out of their bum cleavage. But that was then. Now they're crying out for this sort of cutting edge nightvision, so much so that they've ordered him to dig down past the piles of Abba LPs in his basement, dust off the original tape, and present it to an unsuspecting audience. Welcome, to Russell T Davies' Darkplace.

Smith and Jones

Leading visionaut RTD's imagination has been likened, on occasions, to a monster. Albeit one that looked almost exactly a previous monster, but with a horn slapped on top. Future imaginator researchers rooting through his papers will undoubtedly uncover early drafts of the scripts containing a line about the Judoon having cousins called the Sontarans, who one day went to work at a Rutan internment camp, on the Isle of Dogs, never to come back.

"More imposing than the appearance of a slice of Battenberg on a theodolite."

At the time the show was described variously as the most significant televisiual event since Quantum Leap and more imposing than the appearance of a slice of Battenberg on a theodolite. Such a visual and visceral epic, the scripts called for so much blood that sluice chutes from an abattoir three miles away had to be built to transport as much claret as it was possible for a herd of knackered dairy cows to produce.

"Barry and Paul Chuckle's pneumatic pummelling sketch."

There were those who said that the production was cursed. This wasn't helped by the series of accidents which befell every single member of cast and crew. Many actually died on set, their deaths being worked into the script on a minute-by-minute basis. Whilst others have since had their lives and careers shattered, following the performance of several ill advised goofing off scenes, and are now lucky to find the occasional role acting as comedic relief in the brutal Barry and Paul Chuckle's pneumatic pummelling sketch. Those who gave your lives in the pursuit of the Dreamweaver's visual, and visceral, crusade, we salute you. With a severed limb. Damp end still dripping.

Or, to put it another way, a fantastic start to the new series and treble "Rose who?"s all round.

The Bumper Book of Made Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about Smith and Jones: The Doctor's blue suit had to be destroyed following this adventure because it had contracted the MRSA super bug.

BTS in the Guardian...

The Guardian has picked up two comments from our little blog. The first was on Friday, picking up the 24 Questions thread, from Sean Alexander's questions for the third series. The second was from this morning's Organ Grinder Blog, quoting Jon Clifford's Smith and Jones review.

Industry insiders suggest the lack of any quotes from OG's forums should start to ring alarm bells right across fandom...

"Assimilated is our Word of the Day!"

I wonder how many of the reviews so far today have been cruel April Fools jokes.

Going into this, I was less than excited. I fact, all my friends and family who berate me as a Doctor Who geek were far more concerned than I to watch Smith and Jones as soon as possible, soon being 2:30 in the morning when we got in after being in a show and going for a chinese. I would have much rather gone to sleep.

However, it wasn't too bad.

It all started out quite worryingly. This is, in effect, a different show to two years ago, with a different Doctor and a different companion, and yet it all started out so similar, with the lack of a pre-credits sequence, start out with seeing companion and family, starts out as a normal day for her, turns nasty. And that accent, "it felt like an earfquake", all very worrying.

However, with RTD using one of his usual "its only a plot" plots, so that he can emphasise the character interplay, and luckily it all pans out quite nicely. The script feels slightly wonky. All the long bits of dialogue feel slightly ill-timed, and the crowbarring in of "Rose" near the end was a bit illplaced. As I commented in New Earth, the dialogue for the Doctor is spot on. This is RTD's forte, he can write a bloody good Doctor. What's more, David Tennant does each line perfectly. The only irritating bits come with shaking the radiation out of his shoe. However, it could have been worse. When he said he would expel the radiation I was definitely expecting another fart joke.

There are quite a few species introduced into this episode. There's the Judoon, who clearly trained at Justiceworld, the Plasmavore, and The Stigs. Here's hoping we see more of this. I did think that RTD's equivalent of Doctor Kelso would be evil, but alas. And the non-writing out of Sonic was disappointing.

Then there's Miss Jones. I already feel better about her than I ever did about Billie, and the interplay seems to work a lot better than Billie did with David Tennant. Whenever people say that Tenth loved Rose, I have to say no. I don't think that he ever did, and felt guilty because of it. I'd say that when he was Ninth he had a lot more chemistry with her, and Chris Eccleston sparred much better with her than Tennant did. After all, they were cast to go together. However, when he changed he could only love her as a friend. However, Freema has been cast to match DT, and does so beautifully. Only a few blips on her radar: talking on the moon to him, she seems a bit struggling to come out with the words about her cousin convincingly, and the sense of wonder at the end seems quite a bit forced, when she realises they can go anywhere. So, a few blips, but quite promising. We shall see.

Coming in the next two weeks: The Doctor and his companion go back to a previous century to visit one of England's most famous writers, and go forward 5 Billion years. Whoa, it's 2005 again.

Alias or Alas?

Well, I’m back.  I must apologise for my long absence (If it was noticed) but there was all this employment stuff going on that rather needed my attention and by the time that was all sorted out it was too late to post anything.

I did watch The Runaway Bride, in January I think, and then did the last three episodes of Torchwood almost back to back and after which I needed a long lie down in a darkened room just to stop my brain melting.  But I did enjoy the Sarah Jane Adventures.

I was quite expecting the shine to have gone from the show

So, months passed and now here we are.  It’s Sunday afternoon and I’ve just finished watching the first episode of new series of Doctor Who.  My initial reaction would really have to be one of happiness and satisfaction.  After months of the endless dirge that Torchwood became and a sub-standard Christmas “special” I was quite expecting the shine to have gone from the show and didn’t really think that it would be up to much.

I was quite happy to be wrong.  I really enjoyed Smith and Jones.  I feel that it hardly put a foot wrong. If I were to gripe a little bit I’d have to ask why somebody felt that the Judoon would be particularly menacing.  I mean, space rhinos?  I think that they just looked incredibly silly.  Rather like the Sontarans (Who I’m sure inspired the look of the armour) they looked tough and scary in full battle dress, but take off the helmet and your looking at either Mr Potato Head or a warty rhinoceros with bad teeth (If there’s any other kind).  They just lacked any sense of real menace.  Well on TV, they did at least.  I’m sure if a seven foot bipedal rhino started harassing me and threatening to shoot me, I’d probably be a little more intimidated.

In fact, a normal, run of the mill type rhino did look at us in an unfriendly manner the last time we were at Longleat and that was unnerving enough.  So perhaps I’m being a little unkind.  But they did look a bit silly from where I was sitting.

that “blonde” bird he used to hang around with

It seems that somebody has taken notice of the very constructive criticism that was directed at the show over the last two years and have taken pains to address some of the more annoying concerns.  Taking the good Doctor first, I did notice a few changes to his character.

I don’t remember him shouting at all during that episode.  I liked that.  He was amusing, charming and suffering from some kind of stream of consciousness dialogue a lot of the time, but I think it worked.  I liked the new Doctor.  A little kooky, but who doesn’t need a good kook once in a while?  Then there was his claim, almost defensive in fact, that he was just passing the hospital when he detected whatever energy build up it was and honestly wasn’t looking for trouble when he stopped in to investigate.  This makes a change from the almost intentional interfering that he and that “blonde” bird he used to hang around with used to get up to.  Perhaps the loss of thingy has humbled him somewhat and taken the wind out of his smug sails.  Whatever the reason I approve.

He also lost the sonic screwdriver in this story (although he did get it back rather too quickly) so he couldn’t rely on it to win through in the end.  Which I was really quite glad about.  Too many times last year did that damn thing get used for all sorts until it became a joke.  I especially liked the locking of the door by simply turning the lock rather than zapping it.  Same effect only much quicker and far less annoying.

Whilst I’m on the subject of things that got really annoying over the last couple of years, I was really worried when the Doctor said that he had to expel the radiation from one point of his body.  I inwardly cringed thinking “Here goes all potential and taste” but he instead channelled  the radiation into his left shoe (which wasn’t actually part of his body, but I’ll let them off).  It would appear that RTD has learnt his lesson and now resists the urge to throw in fart and belch gags at every opportunity.

There’s also the good continuity from series past.  I did like his approval of the hospital gift shop, as this goes back to the opener of last series (the New Earth nonsense with the silly cat nurses) where he observed that they really should have a gift shop.  I thought that was very subtle and clever.  Then there was the continued obsession with bananas.  This time we learn that the Doctor is partial to banana flavoured milkshakes.  I’m more of a strawberry man myself, but I do like the fact that there’s all these continuity references running through the show.

There is, however, one recurring theme that does give me pause.  The references to the Doctor’s family.  I know all modern characters need some kind of backstory to give them depth, but other than Susan (who I still maintain called him “Grandfather” as some kind of honorific)  he has always been alone in the universe – Picking up temporary companions to alleviate the boredom of a eternity of loneliness.  Now there are all these hints that he was a proper family man.  Last year he claimed that he was a father once and now he doesn’t have a brother anymore, the implication being that he used to.  Before he wiped his entire race, that is.

I’ve managed to avoid pretty much all spoilers for this series, so I don’t know if this is leading anywhere or whether it’s just more interesting depth for the new fans to relish and for the older generation to wail and gnash against.

Is Mr Saxon going to be the new Torchwood?

But talking about continuity and things happening from one series to the next, I think I’m right in stating that when the Doctor dies, or his body becomes unstable or whatever that he regenerates.  This hasn’t changed whilst I was away has it?  Is this does happen and the Judoon declared him deceased  after the Humphrey lady drained his blood, why didn’t he start to regenerate?  I admit that I’m glad he didn’t as I really don’t think that Matt Lucas is at all suited to take over the role but still, he was dead and even thanked Martha for saving his life, so why did he not change again?

Anyway, one more question about running themes.  Who is Mr Saxon?  The young intern who was building himself up on the news after being such a wimp on the moon said that there really are aliens and extra terrestrials out there just like Mr Saxon said.  Now perhaps I’ve missed something along the way here, but why was this man named checked in such an obvious manner?  Is Mr Saxon going to be the new Torchwood?  Are we going to be playing “spot the Saxon reference” in each episode like we did last year with everybody’s favourite super secret and slightly naff organisation?  Only time (or spoilers) will tell.

Anyway, I suppose the biggest change for everybody would have to be the new assistant.  I am so glad that Catherine Tate only popped by for one episode.  I just didn’t take to her character at all.  Can you imagine what it would be like with Matt Lucas as the Doctor and Catherine Tate as his assistant?  There would be so many catch phrases to get through that there wouldn’t be time for an actual story.  Mind you, it would cut down on production costs – If only because they’d stop making the programme after about five minutes.

Urrgghh.

Anyway, Martha Jones.  I have vague memories of the Doctor travelling with some other young ‘lady’ but have almost completely forgotten anything about her.  Wasn’t she called Tulip or Daffodil or something like that?  I think Martha is going to be a great asset to the show.  She’s smart, questioning and doesn’t take any nonsense from the Doctor.  I especially liked her “So, not at all pompous” response to his claim to be a “Time Lord” because, let’s face it, they were a bit up themselves.  Did you notice that she wasn’t as easily swayed by the “Did I mention it also travels in time” chat up line that had the other one running into the TARDIS straight away.  No, this young lady needed a bit of proof first (“Like so”) so I do wonder if she is going to be more of a Scully character, maintaining her scepticism of things rather than just taking the Doctor’s word for everything.  That might be interesting.

At least somebody misses what’s her name.

I also liked that fact that there wasn’t the usual assistant amnesia that always seemed to strike in the past, even with poor old Sarah Jane.  The Doctor is obviously still cut up about losing Chrysanthemum and isn’t ready to accept anybody new, yet.  At least somebody misses what’s her name.

I have to say that young Freema did a grand job in the role, too.  Bright, sassy and convincing – I have high hopes for her and the character.

I also can’t help but wonder if the claim for compensation that the head rhino gave her will crop up again at some point.  Nobody else was given any kind of compensation and it was never explained why she needed any.  They didn’t do anything different to her than anybody else.  Is this more story arc?

My only complain is that I really wanted to work in a bit of dialogue between the Doctor and Martha where they could say –

“Martha, there’s one thing that we’ve got to get”
“What’s that?”
“Out of this business!”

- But as it was such a good, strong episode that it just wouldn’t be fair to do that just for the sake of a quick retro reference.

From the “Next Week…” spoiler at the end of the episode (which they are still doing) we finally get to meet William Shakespeare next week.  Do we think that there is going to be a reference to the Doctor writing Hamlet for the sonnet strained Bard or is that just too obscure for the new fans?

So there you go. It’s back and so much better for the break.  If this is the shape of things to come then I’m going to be very excited over the next few weeks.

It’s good to back.

Ho and indeed hum.

Mainstream reviews of last night's debut are trickling through and perhaps the most bizarre is this item from Jon Wise, the self appointed 'wise man of tv' who writes for The People.  Everyone's entitled to their opinion, etc, but never have four hundred odd words been so misjudged.  Example:

"The constant changing of actors leaves a continuity problem larger than Simon Cowell's ego. A problem that could have been overcome if this series offered something new to distract. But if the opener is anything to go by, then we're in for the same tricks over again.

Rather than a big, bold, Dalek-filled start, we were palmed off with naff aliens and a schmaltzy storyline."

Seriously, what's he expecting?  You simply can't introduce a new companion in some massive complicated story without them becoming lost, especially not with such a short running time.  The man might like his Daleks, but you can't have them every week.  They tried that during the Hartnell era and they became boring.  As the beer commercial says, you need to take your time.

Anyone else noticed anything unusual going on in the land of the professional tv reviewer?

Now I've Met Miss Jones

There was one moment where Smith and Jones had me worried. It came when the Doctor was discharging the radiation from his body after having killed the Slab with the x-ray machine. I had a horrible, horrible feeling from the way he was standing and talking that he was going to discharge the radiation by way of passing wind. I was cringing ready for it, but mercifully my fears proved groundless, and we ended up with the rather jolly bit about looking silly in one shoe.

That was the only worry. The rest of the episode was excellent – probably the best series opener the show has had since its return. Probably since Remembrance of the Daleks, in fact. Rose was excellent and vital in making the comeback a success, but Smith and Jones takes on board all of the lessons the production team had learned over the previous two series and uses them to hit us with a sharp, exciting, witty and energetic curtain-raiser that really gets series three going on a high.

It is interesting to note, though, that the episode had much in common with Rose, also being a kind of relaunch now that Billie Piper has left. This was underlined by it being the only episode since that March 2005 opener not to have a pre-titles sequence, plunging us straight into the theme music and then into the world of Miss Martha Jones. Davies quickly sketched out her character’s family background for us via the phone conversations, and then dropped a nice dollop of mystery into things with the Doctor’s brief time-bending appearance – surely the first time in Doctor Who’s history where the companion and the Doctor have first met each other at different times.

I wasn’t too sure what to expect from Freema Agyeman. Her brief role in Army of Ghosts was the only thing I’d seen her acting in before, and while she played that part perfectly well, there wasn’t really enough for her to do to show how she might fare as a companion. Certainly all of her press interviews and appearances have displayed an infectious charm and enthusiasm for the show and her role, but as the opening titles faded away it was still a bit of a mystery just how well she might do in what’s now one of the highest-profile roles on British television.

Well, she was fantastic, to coin a phrase. I took to the character of Martha Jones pretty much instantly; I liked Rose Tyler, but even after only one episode I have the suspicion I will like Martha Jones a lot more. That’s not to denigrate Piper at all – she did a wonderful job and was a major part of the success of the show’s resurrection – but Agyeman’s Martha seems to be very much a Sarah Jane Smith to the Jo Grant of Piper’s Rose. More independent, a little more grown-up and generally a bit sassier and more dynamic, she was great throughout and promises to be an excellent foil for the Tenth Doctor. I’m sure her “We’re on the bloody moon!” exclamation will become one of the most oft-quoted lines from this series.

Speaking of which, the whole business of going to the moon and so forth was equally terrific. The lifting of the hospital, the CGI images of the building sitting there alone on the lunar landscape, the Judoon ships… Great, big, exciting, iconic sci-fi images that really gave this series-opener a sense of the different and the slightly epic. Space Rhinos! On the Moon! As the Doctor himself excitedly points out when trying to pass off as human to the Plasmavore, this is weird, crazy stuff. Exactly the sort of thing Doctor Who does best.

Another feather in the cap of Doctor Who – particularly modern Doctor Who – has been prosthetic creature creation, and the Judoon leader was a magnificent achievement, so well done that I don’t think you ever really noticed too much that the others (all five of them!) never took their helmets off so as to avoid the cost of building another mask. I liked the general concept of the Judoon too – mercenary galactic policemen with a quick and harsh system of justice, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them crop up again in the future. Indeed, I very much hope that they do.

There’d been a bit of sleight of hand in the trailers and publicity which gave the impression that the Judoon were perhaps the main adversaries in this episode, so it was a nice twist that the evil-of-the-week was actually Anne Reid’s batty old Plasmavore in human form. Reid is always good value in any of her roles – indeed, the whole guest cast this week was very strong, I would say – and I liked the comic touch of her bendy straw. It has to be admitted, however, that the weak part of the episode’s plot was the super-strength MRI machine. However, real science has never been a strong point of Doctor Who, and I’m prepared to let that one pass, especially given the fact that – like Rose – this episode’s plot didn’t matter anywhere near as much as its introduction of the new companion to the Doctor did, and in that task it succeeded admirably.

There are a few other niggles here and there, mind you. What was the point in destroying the sonic screwdriver only for the Doctor to have got himself a brand new one by the end of the episode? I don’t dislike the screwdriver as much as some do, but it would have been interesting to see how he managed to cope without it as his get-out-of-jail-free card for a few episodes. I also didn’t like the Doctor’s stumbling remembrance of Rose at the end, as he’s talking to Martha in the TARDIS – it felt a bit artificial somehow, the same was as it did back in The Runaway Bride when he had similar moments with Donna. I suppose it’s really because I was never a fan of the way the character of Rose was shown to have made such an apparently big impact on him, but that’s a very personal sort of reaction and not something Davies and the production team can really be criticised for.

There were extra little positives lying around as well as the niggles, however. I was intrigued by the Doctor’s throwaway mention of having previously had a brother. I have no idea whether this is going to prove to be in some way relevant in the long run or not – I suspect not – but I always enjoy these little off-handedly mentioned bits of continuity, scraps of dialogue that offer glimpses of the history of the Doctor without really giving any answers. Anything that increases the mystery and enigma of the character and his origins is all right by me.

Something that seemingly is going to prove more relevant is the character of ‘Mr Saxon’, first seen mentioned on a newspaper back in Love & Monsters, referred to again in The Runaway Bride and now talked about on the radio here, as well as ‘Vote Saxon’ posters being prominently on display. I know that Saxon is to be played by John Simm towards the season’s end, but who or what exactly he might be is an interesting little mystery. We all have our ideas, of course, but once again it seems there’s to be a nice little element of mystery simmering away across the background of this series’ episodes.

Which is as it should be. Doctor Who, for me, has always been about strange mysteries, engaging characters and exciting adventure stories. Smith and Jones had all of these things, and for my money was a fine opener to what promises to be, if this standard is maintained and perhaps even built upon, a fine set of episodes.

Barb Jungr

Straight from Outpost Gallifrey central:

BBC 1                       ITV 1               BBC 2            CH4             CH5
19:00 .. 7.4 (37.5%) .. 4.4 (22.1%) .. 1.8 ( 9.3%) .. 1.0 ( 4.9%) .. 0.6 ( 2.9%)
19:15 .. 8.3 (39.6%) .. 4.4 (21.0%) .. 1.9 ( 8.9%) .. 1.3 ( 6.1%) .. 0.6 ( 2.9%)
19:30 .. 8.9 (41.3%) .. 4.3 (20.3%) .. 1.2 ( 5.7%) .. 1.5 ( 6.9%) .. 0.7 ( 3.2%)

Overall:  8.2 (39.5%)

I find it really strange that the umpteenth rerun of a Harry Potter film can still get as high a rating as that against something which is made for roughly the same target audience.  Still a great result.  It'll be interesting to see how much of a dip there is next week during Easter weekend with TV Burp showing on the other side.

Alas, Smith and Jones

‘Rose’ by any other name..?

Smith and Jones

I had a rather strong feeling of deja-vu whist watching Doctor Who tonight. Maybe it was just the fact that it’s only been one hundred and five very short weeks since the show came back to the critical acclaim and industry awards that seem to be standard now, but I could have sworn that I was watching that very first reboot episode all over again. No pre-credit teaser? Check. Events seen from the new girl’s perspective as she goes through what starts out as just another ordinary day? Double check. A mysterious man who claims to be alien and knows far too much about other aliens for him to be lying? Triple check. Ten minutes of plot stretched into a textbook piece of RTD bullshit that it’s almost pointless to analyse? You get the idea…

Okay - deep breath - I really didn’t like this episode first time out and only just managed to tolerate it a second time for the purposes of this review. But that’s fine. If the last two years has taught me nothing else then at least I’ve learned that the quality of nu-Who is about as variable as our climate-changed weather. And given the choice I’d much rather have the likes of this nonsensical run-around to start things off than anything written by Steven Moffat or Paul Cornell. Because it would be missing the point to condemn ‘Smith and Jones’ for being anything other a necessary evil; a second pilot if you like to reintroduce casual viewers to the basic things that make this show tick. Not to mention getting a chance to see the new girl make her debut. And like the new star striker, she at least doesn’t disappoint even when the opposition - not to mention one or two of her team-mates - prove to be pretty rank.

the poor girl is already lumbered with a Mum who was in ‘New Earth’, a Dad who once had a part in a Colin Baker story and a potential stepmother who seems to have wandered in from the set of Desperate Housewives

So, Martha Jones: Medical Student (you can almost hear RTD yelling ‘Hooray’ at the spin-off potential, can’t you?). Funny, sassy and immediately likeable. And - at least on the evidence presented here - mercifully light on the domestic bollocks that dogged her predecessor for most of her two year stint. I think we’re next due to descend into Martha’s crib with ‘The Lazarus Experiment’, which at least gives us a few episodes of proper time and space adventuring before the inevitable comedown of touching base with the new girl’s homies. A fact all the more crucial seeing as the poor girl is already lumbered with a Mum who was in ‘New Earth’, a Dad who once had a part in a Colin Baker story and a potential stepmother who seems to have wandered in from the set of Desperate Housewives. No wonder she doesn’t think twice about following the strange man with a Jarvis Cocker complex into that dark alley while her family bicker away like Jeremy Kyle participants.

To be fair Freema Agyeman - just like Billie Piper on her debut - doesn’t put a foot wrong. In fact there’s more of a sense of maturity to her that the chipmunk chav never really acquired during her two years of TARDIS travel. Which is at least some saving grace, as the rest of the episode is largely just a case of dotting ‘i’s and crossing ‘t’s until the Doctor makes that inevitable offer to follow him through the Police Box doors. It’s been a major fault of these modern single-part stories that they try cramming far too much stuff into the forty-five minutes; so at least Russell saves us all that bother by producing a plot as inconsequential as pretty much any other inconsequential episode by the show’s chief mover. A new race of rhino-aliens (who inevitably, given this is an RTD script, have the horn) that transport a hospital to the moon in order to perform some half-arsed illegal immigrant patrol? A blood-sucking alien that uses a straw to drain its victims? Sometimes I’m convinced that the Hooray-meister is still banging out stuff for Why Don’t You? and getting his submission e-mails mixed up.

I’m convinced RTD is still banging out stuff for Why Don’t You? and getting his submission e-mails mixed up

Okay, it’s not totally without merit. For all the eye-rolling moments of ludicrous science (the MRI scanner as SDI space-gun, anybody..?) and Tennant forgetting that he’s playing Doctor Who and not Kenneth Williams, there are one or two other bits bar Freema that make the fan in you smile. Throwaway mentions of the Doctor’s brother (wonder if he’ll turn up later this year..?); Martha meeting the Doctor before, um, meeting him (as cliched as it is not a bad way of proving the existence of time travel); a character called ‘Stoker’ having all his blood drained from him; and of course that utterly charming TARDIS coda which I’m sure some of us were waiting for long before the Judoon stuff ended.

But then I’m reminded of all the stuff that just left me looking at my watch. Why did no-one before Martha check the Doctor’s hearts (and even she makes the same mistake as Rose and does it through his pyjama jacket)? Then there’s the oh-so modern mistake of introducing a new alien foe which the Doctor just greets with a weary shrug and a cry of ‘it’s them!’ rather than listen to Charlie Brooker and try to create some menace. And don’t forget the fact that radiation now makes the Doctor hop about on one foot rather than destroying every cell in his body a la ‘Planet of the Spiders’ (and that whole ‘expelling’ bullshit providing this year’s first genuine moment of chewing-the-cushion embarassment). And, last but not least, Anne Reid following Sarah Parish’s Christmas turn by giving a villain performance of such ham that the Meat Industry Regulator lodged three complaints before the titles rolled.

Anne Reid gives a performance of such ham that the Meat Industry Regulator lodged three complaints before the titles rolled.

So thank God for that final five minutes. As Martha’s extended family bash proves once more that hell is other people, the Doctor appears on cue to whisk her away from all this drudgery with the prospect of a trip to Cardiff or two. Overlooking the slightly disturbing suggestion that our Time Lord chum now hangs around on street corners to groom any potential partners, it’s a really wonderful end to a rather ‘meh’ episode. While the Doctor has spent forty-five minutes running his own version of 'Companion Academy', it’s nice to know that the only contender has passed the test with flying colours.

Now, bring on the Bard and some decent story-telling, please!

(The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about Smith and Jones: Russell T Davies came up with the idea of the Judoon during a trip to Whipsnade zoo)