Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

And now for the moment you've all been waiting for...

Impeccable.  There's no other word for it.  Remember how we all felt after Daleks In Manhattan, so cautious not to stamp classic status onto something in case it all went wrong.  Despite the inclusion of more alien possession and armies (which I'm willing to relax about since they seem to be de-facto genre elements now), nothing and no one in this forty-five minutes that is Human Nature put a foot wrong and its sequel, The Family of Blood is going to have to be a real stinker for this not to be listed as one of the greatest television stories of all time.  When the only thing you can find wrong with an episode is a slightly dodgy bit CG scaffolding it's difficult not to simply list everyone who made it happen and drift off into sycophancy so I'll try not to.

Instead I'll attempt to look below the surface and try to find the key to its success.  I think it's that the episode managed to be both traditional and ground-breaking in the same breath, melding traditional expectations and storytelling with contemporary narrative techniques.  An array of characters greeting the threat from various angles before the Doctor becomes involved has been the series narrative stock in trade for decades and works much better here than in the Dalek story because that threat is as much of mystery to us as to Martha ranking up the tension.

"It's the expression of mental imagery from the Tardis console room to the trenches, elegantly showing rather than telling the audience what they need to know."

But within that there were flashes backwards and forwards initially to elegantly explain how The Doctor became John Smith then to articulate the extra perception of the boy with a gift.  Highlander-lite perhaps but its an innovation for this series and welcomed because it gives the show a much higher quality.  It's the expression of mental imagery from the Tardis console room to the trenches, elegantly showing rather than telling the audience what they need to know.  I've been guilty of slapping a cinematic label on some episodes but that was absolutely true here - there's nothing else that looks quite like this on British television right now.

It's a story that's also very aware of the history of the show, both in its new and old form.  Certainly with Paul Cornell writing and Russell T Davies tinkering there can't fail to be something that doesn't resonate with the old guard.  But unlike plonking the Macra in as a joke, the material here looked to the very DNA of the series, with the mention of its creators as literally the mother and father of John Smith and the following image, literally taking a page out of the show's history:

This could have been a picture of the Ninth Doctor only and in middle of everything else in John Smith's dream journal, which given that its filled with references to the new series that's exactly what you'd expect.  Except there's Bill, Sylv, the tops of what look like Pete and Pat's heads and right in the middle Paul.  It's the first time internally within an episode of the new series that the faces of those that came before have been acknowledged and strengthens the continuity and is an expression of the fact that despite the gaps it really is all one story.  This animation shows were the portraits came from (created by someone at Outpost Gallifrey.  Fans, eh?  Cuh).

A glimpse, then it's gone but at least it's there.  And like the re-emergence of Gallifrey at an opportune moment once again you wonder whether it's planting something for the future for the forty-fifth anniversary next year.  The appearance of McGann here once again suggests that if the apparent adversary for the end of the series is he who must be obeyed that his fate in San Francisco might even be referred to.  I know all of this is an over analysis of a single page in a prop artist's fantasy but it just demonstrates the integrity of the episode that such details can send this fan imagination into a spin.

"know all of this is an over analysis of a single page in a prop artist's fantasy but it just demonstrates the integrity of the episode that such details can send this fan imagination into a spin."

This is also the first story that really expresses Clive's warning to Rose about the implications of the Doctor and who he is.  Something that has bubbled under the surface throughout the history of the series is the extent to which the Doctor's appearance in breaking a status quo creates more harm than good, that he does in fact bring death.  Essentially what happens in this episode is that the Tardis deposits him in a place and time to hide him from some monsters who when they arrive vaporize or possess humans in order to get to him - in other words isn't he responsible for their deaths by bringing those monsters here?  Is his protection, his life worth more than theirs?

Questions for next time perhaps.  My feeling is that The Family of Blood will be revealed to be attack dogs for Mr Saxon, like the Headhunter from the BBC7 audios sent into space and time to track him down, a scent created by the phone calls that Martha made home in the previous episodes.  If that's the case it'll be a far more satisfying linking arc than either Bad Wolf or Torchwood ever were.  Actually, I've just had a horrifying thought.  What if Captain Jack is secretly working for Mr Saxon and the fighting hand was another way of homing in on the Doctor when he's in the right century - that he's not simply looking for a reunion with an old friend but following orders?  It'd put a whole new complexion on the past series of Torchwood if that was the case ...

A Most Uncommon Man

Three years ago, I sat in a café at the University of East Anglia with Paul Cornell, as he drank a cup of tea and we chatted about Doctor Who. I was at the time involved with the running of the university’s student television station, Nexus UTV, and that year we were hosting the annual National Student Television Association Awards. Not just an excuse for a single booze-up but a whole three day shebang, we were tasked with putting on various events over the course of the conference. At my suggestion, we’d invited Cornell – who’d already kindly agreed to judge the drama category that year – down to the campus for an afternoon to give a talk about writing for television, which he was generous enough to also agree to. A very nice chap, I have to say.

Three years ago, I sat in a café at the University of East Anglia with Paul Cornell, as he drank a cup of tea and we chatted about Doctor Who.

Anyway, we sat there chatting as we waited for all the various attendees to gather across at the venue where he was to talk, and we discussed the impending new series, about which he was of course allowed to say very little at the time. This was just about slap-bang in between the casting of the leads, when we knew Eccleston was to be the Doctor, but hadn’t heard about Piper yet. So, early days.

We talked about what Doctor Who we liked, and what we didn’t like, and needless to say the subject of the New Adventures came up. He enthused about the work of Kate Orman, and I had to rather sheepishly confess that, a few books aside, I hadn’t really been a great fan of the range, seeing myself as rather too ‘traditional’ a fan to be part of the audience they were aiming at. He was perfectly nice about this and we swiftly moved on to other things, but it felt a rather difficult thing to confess to, because this was the man whose work had been so emblematic of that range of books. With Human Nature in particular, he had provided them with the gold standard by which other Doctor Who novels are so often judged.

All these years after I basically and incredibly rudely told the man I wasn’t that much of a fan… I have to admit that I was wrong.

I was never entirely swayed by those who spoke of the book as one of the greatest Doctor Who stories that had ever been written, but this time, in this new version, all these years after I basically and incredibly rudely told the man I wasn’t that much of a fan… I have to admit that I was wrong. Because this was wonderful. Perhaps it’s because the story has had time to mature and develop in Cornell’s mind; perhaps because of Davies’s magic touch; perhaps simply because of the different demands of a different medium, but Human Nature in its television form took the very best of the story and substance and heart of the novel, combined it with the freshness and vigour of the new television series, and created something very special indeed.

Let us start with the visual. Director Charles Palmer was praised by many for his work on the first two episodes of series three, so it was no surprise to see that once again he created a dynamic, involving look to the episode. It also stood out, though, because it had such a rural setting. Somehow, alien spaceships and laser beams in the heart of the English countryside have a very nostalgic quality to them. It’s strange, in that I cannot off the top of my head think of a specific series whose style this evokes, but the tone seemed to evoke memories of British science-fiction and fantasy series of old. That immediately gave it a different feel to the often urban and gritty episodes of the new series, ever since the beginning of series one, and helped to identify the first instalment of this two-parter as something unique.

It’s becoming almost needless to say that the BBC always create period settings very well, and we are in danger sometimes of taking it for granted. But the truth is that they do. It’s no longer true, at least not quite so true, what Andrew Cartmel is always saying about BBC designers being far happier in the past than in the future, but all the same the history of Britain does bring out the best in them. Sets, costumes, and all other departments combined to make it look like a proper period drama, and not just the token effort that fantasy shows usually give on shoddy backdrops when they slide back into the past. This was sumptuous.

I can’t imagine that anybody who has read the book will have any problems identifying Jessica Hynes’s portrayal of Joan.

The performances matched the direction and the design. I can’t imagine that anybody who has read the book will have any problems identifying Jessica Hynes’s portrayal of Joan with the character as presented originally on the printed page. She has the same passions and angers, the same drives and emotions, and it was pleasing to see that while making the perfect match for John Smith, the perhaps less positive aspects of the character were also retained. In the book, Joan makes an off-the-cuff joke about the Irish at one point, and some of this survived in her apparent relief that John was not an Irishman. Similarly, her dismissal of Martha – which could, I suppose, have come dangerously close to the schoolboy’s racism nearer the start of the episode, but didn’t – is very like her general antipathy towards Bernice in the novel, although as the story went on that was more fuelled by the dreadful fear of what Bernice was going to take away from her.

Thomas Sangster as Tim had less to deal with than the book version of the character, as the bullying he received seemed positively tame by comparison, but nonetheless he seems to be headed the same way as his literary counterpart. Oddly, I thought he seemed a touch too young for the part, but that might just be compared to the older boys we saw elsewhere in the school. One of whom was Baines – a wonderfully creepy performance by Harry Lloyd once he’d been taken over by ‘the Family’.

Speaking of which, I was worried that the vile nature of the aliens might be toned down somewhat for this version, but a lot of their attitudes were still intact. All the business in the ship with their disembodied voices before they took Baines over was suitably sinister, and a new invention for television of their scarecrow servants was terrific. There was more than a passing nod to The Singing Detective, I think, when the scarecrow first appeared to move, but in an episode full of nods and allusions – as the series as a whole so often is – that can only add to the fun. The Family has been streamlined a little from the novel, though, and there was sadly not much of the creepiest element of all from the book, the girl with the balloon. At least she’s there, though, and I hope she gets up to more of her gruesome tricks next week.

There was sadly not much of the creepiest element of all from the book, the girl with the balloon.

David Tennant discussed on the Doctor Who Confidential episode accompanying Human Nature how he approached Smith as a completely new character, and he certainly seems very different and yet in some ways very similar to the Tenth Doctor. I was worried that the character taking on a human aspect would not be noticeable given how very human he already is, but Cornell confounded my expectations by using the less desirable aspects of humanity to highlight Smith’s human nature. His attitude during the Officer Training Corps sequence, for example, extolling the virtues of the gun practice and allowing Tim to be punished, was shocking for those used to the Doctor’s heroism and sense of right and justice, and showed us effectively just how different a man he is. True, this is also in the book, but somehow the contrast with the Tenth Doctor is greater than it was with the darker, more manipulative Seventh. Tennant was terrific all the way through, from this ruthlessness right through to his touching romance with Joan.

Also impressive was Freema Agyeman as Martha, and her character’s presence in early 20^th century England was also well-handled. The racial issue was dealt with but never overplayed, and her concern for the Doctor and dismay at being in this situation was all very good.

Until the moment when Martha goes back to the TARDIS for the first time, there’s absolutely no indication that the Doctor isn’t actually a creation of Smith’s imagination.

Martha had at least had a little time to get used to the situation – the audience were pretty much flung into it. Indeed, for the vast majority of casual viewers unfamiliar with the book it must have been even more surprising and mysterious an episode than it was for those of us who do know the story, and I envy them in a way. Consider, after all, that until the moment when Martha goes back to the TARDIS for the first time, there’s absolutely no indication that the Doctor isn’t actually a creation of Smith’s imagination. It certainly must have had some people guessing.

Smith’s journal, another element taken from the book but expanded on somewhat here, provided the first of several little touches that must have gladdened the hearts of fans everywhere when it once and for all stuck the final nail in the coffin of any of those still clinging to a ‘Paul McGann doesn’t count’ mantra. He’s right there in black and white, sketched by the Doctor alongside his other incarnations. Another heartening touch, added by Davies, was the names of the Doctor’s parents – as soon as we heard the first, I think we all knew at once what the second was going to be, didn’t we? Some might see it as over-indulgent, perhaps, but then again Lambert herself did a similar thing back in The Rescue (‘Sydney Wilson’), so there’s an excuse if any were needed. Which it wasn’t!

And as if this episode needed anything else to confirm that it’s one of the finest of the run, we get an honest-too-goodness old-fashioned cliffhanger, with the music sting crashing in perfectly and making me wish it was next Saturday right now. Some might fear that after such a great first half whatever comes next can only be a disappointment, but I have great confidence in any team that can produce something this wonderful. And if next week’s is only half as good as this, it’ll still have been a powerful and gripping story.

One thing’s for sure – if I ever happen to meet that Paul Cornell again, I’ll make sure I buy him something stronger than tea as a thank you for gracing the series with this.

Your super soar-away Sun

Eyes down for a full house. The Leisure Hive... 65. A Colin Baker's Dozen... 31. Possibly not quite alone... number 10. All the C's... Chris Chibnall.

42

Doctor Who has a long and colourful history of borrowing/blatantly ripping off from other aspects of the genre as well as playing fast and loose with, well, just about anything. But 42 takes that concept, ratchets it up to 11, and then proceeds to guffaw chinlessly at all before it. After more than a good handful of references (that's an Aquatanian handful, their hands are approximately 17 light decons from side to side, causing major planetary discomfort when two courting Aquatanians decide to express the mutual affections for each other by holding hands on, say, a trip to the ice cream parlour) you begin to lose count of just how much sci-fi rape has occurred in the construction of this story and wonder when the long awaited homage to Morons from Outer Space will appear in Doctor Who.

"Doctor Who must continually connect to those three annoying cornerstones: humanity, sexual orientation and guest appearances from Eastenders alumni."

Yes, the King of mechanically reclaimed sci-fi is at it again. Aim a pressurised water hose at the collected carcasses of 2001, Alien, Star Trek, Star Wars and more, coat in breadcrumbs and deep the resulting mulch into a concentrated finger of consumable matter and you've science fiction's equivalent to generic fast foot chicken nuggets. Even Tennant's reaction to the news that Torchwood's finest would be contributing a script was met with a less then favourable response. The screams of anguish are still echoing around the cavernous Upper Boat facility.

And to think, I was actually quite partial to 42. But even in this far flung corner of the Universe, why is it that Doctor Who must continually connect to those three annoying cornerstones: humanity, sexual orientation and guest appearances from Eastenders alumni. Cindy Beale would find it difficult to act her way out of a branch of Primark, even if she were being propelled out of the doors on a careering trolley heading for the McDonalds dumpsters.

"Windscreen wipers? you've got to climb out onto the hull and Riverdance for 16 minutes to get the panel containing the wiper controls to open."

And someone has left her in charge of a ship that's so obviously been designed by playwrights, rather than use the more traditional engineers approach, to incorporate maximum jeopardy settings in all aspects of design. Auxiliaries? Why, they're right through there, through 29 dead lock seal, password protected doors. Windscreen wipers? you've got to climb out onto the hull and Riverdance for 16 minutes to get the panel containing the wiper controls to open. Toilet flush? Before you can open the waste ejectors you've got to get up to 67 million miles an hour by sling-shooting round a class 5 coronal sphere. Ditch all those egg heads at Lockheed Martin and Boeing and instead draft in an army of very good bearded playwrights, that's where the current space programme's going badly wrong.

"Kirk was always seeking out new life and new civilisations, locating their quivering mimmsy and introducing them to the Captain's pork rod."

Stick a gas mask on a child and have him plead for his mummy, creepy. Stick a welders mask on a man and the most you've got is the butchest gay spot welder in town. Make him rasp like an inconsolable Darth Vader on hearing that his favourite Federation daytime tele chat show's been cancelled and you've got the episode's main bodily threat, who only appears to be there to distance this from a below standard episode of Star Trek.

If you're going to go all Star Trek then make it interesting. At least Kirk was always seeking out new life and new civilisations, locating their quivering mimmsy and introducing them to the Captain's pork rod. An intelligent and self aware sun. Please. What Kirk would be after would be a couple of Sun birds.

Speaking of which, at least all that was left at the end were a couple of tits and people who look like they work for the BNP.  So, perhaps it was your super soar away Sun after all. And after all that heat I'm still sweating on number 76 in the bingo. First prize is the opportunity to script an episode of the next season of Doctor Who. Second prize is two episodes.

The Bumper Book of Made Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about 42: the alien catch-phrase uttered in this episode was actually "Burn Gorman, With Me."

Vote Result: 42

Results are in for the fourth blog poll for 42:

• 73%: Superb - Disco Inferno!
• 27%: Not Good - It burns, burns, burns. The ring of fire.

Come back after Human Nature for the next poll.

Should have gone at night...

When I first heard that this episode was going to be called “42” I automatically assumed that there was going to be some Hitch Hikers Guide, Ultimate Answer, Mulder’s apartment, Mouse related hi-jinks running through the story.  See, I’ve managed to avoid nearly all the spoilers that have been bandied around about this series and I have to say that I enjoy seeing them without knowing exactly what’s going to happen.

So the whole real time thing was something of a surprise for me when I’d worked it out.  It’s good to see that they’re still experimenting with the show and the format.  It worked well enough to a point last year in Love and Monsters (that point being, of course, Peter Kay in a latex suit designed by a nine year old) but I’m less sure this year.  I don’t want to go on about it, but there really wasn’t any need for it.  The fact that Eddie the shipboard computer kept keeping track made no difference to the pace of the story and did nothing to increase my excitement or anxiety and didn’t make me root for our heroes any more than if there wasn’t this tight, heavily laboured, timetable.  I’m a big fan of 24 and I have to admit that six days on, I’m still a big sucker for the countdown clock.  That makes a difference and really keeps the tension going.

This?  Not so much.

Which isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy it and didn’t find it exciting and a little tense.  Because I did.  It’s just that the real time aspect was a little lost and, in my opinion, unnecessary.

But full marks for giving it a go.  I’d like to see more attempts to think outside the box or whatever the management phrase is these days.

Anyway, where was I?

Anyway, enough of gimmicks and experimentation.  What about the show, proper?

I enjoyed it.  Really, I did.  There was action, excitement and tension.  Some good acting and some setting up of stories for coming episodes.

I like the fact that they’re developing the story arc angle in Doctor Who.  There was too much episodic amnesia in days gone past, when no matter what happened it would all be forgotten by the next story.  Whilst I admit that it can go too far, a little continuity is a good thing.  I tried to watch a random episode of Highlander the other day (one of the later series – He’d cut his hair).  Whilst I picked up on the fact there was this evil entity/Q type character harassing poor Duncan who was no longer carrying a sword, I had no clue who he was or what was really going on.  So, whilst I applaud the theory of the story arc, you have to fill in enough of the back story each time to educate the occasional watcher (there’s another Highlander reference for you).

Anyway, where was I?

The programme starts with a slight nod to the past, with the Doctor activating Martha’s Universal Roaming feature on her mobile.  Now I’ve checked the settings on my ‘phone and I can’t find that option.  Perhaps I need to hit it with a screwdriver.  On a side note, are we going to see Martha’s family calling her up all the time now?  As her mum has issues with the Doctor and has left her messages on her home ‘phone shouldn’t she be chasing Martha up all the time?  I don’t remember this happening on screen at all last time, but, at least, there was reference to Mickey calling up to get help with the whole school-being-taken-over-by-aliens thing.

As I said.  Anyway.

We get straight into the action with a brief introduction to the crew, highlighting the problem and getting rid of the obvious means of escape.  Most of the crew just seemed like roughly sketched outlines – We never really learnt anything about them.  Cindy was married to a chap that kept her honest (suggesting that it wasn’t her natural state), Orin had argued with his mum and Erinna felt put upon and wished she was dead.  That’s it.  Everybody else was just cannon fodder.  No emotional investment there at all.  It’s not like the Impossible Planet/Satan Pit, where every one of them had some kind of backstory to play with.

Although, they did do well with what they had.  I don’t think that there was a bad performance amongst them.  Well, except when they were wandering round the ship pretending to be Darth Vader, but I’m fairly sure that was meant to menacing.  Of course, the problem with casting people who are well known from other programmes is that one goes into the show with certain expectations.  Okay, I didn’t expect Michelle Collins to wander in with a broad cockney accent, sleep with everybody and then try to get the Doctor killed before eloping with any children around (I think that’s what Cindy did anyway).  But I do like the fact that she didn’t fall back into what must be a comfort zone of one note acting (which happens more often than I’d like to think about).  Mind you, I think that the Ripley/GI Jane vest helped get her into character.

Which is why this is such a short paragraph.

Talking of people being impressive in the acting stakes.  Young Freema continues to impress, don’t you think?  The character of Martha is definitely making her own mark and isn’t just a Rose replacement.  The dynamic is totally different and Martha seems to be more of a match for the Doctor.  Freema does a great job bringing the part to life and I’m impressed with her range and abilities.  No complaints about that from me – Which is why this is such a short paragraph.

My Martha highlights from this episode include another example of her being a clever, studenty-type and attempting to read the manual before popping the Doctor into the stasis chamber.  It’s nice to see that not everybody can automatically recognise and use any old piece of alien tech that they come across.  The other moment for me was when she was trapped in the escape pod and asked Orin if he had a girlfriend and with barely a pause she added or a boyfriend.  It shows that she’s adapting to the more relaxed attitude toward sexuality that our future holds than Rose ever did.

One final moment of praise for this episode before I voice a few more critical opinions.  When the escape pod was launched out into space, I thought that the silence was far more effective and moving than any amount of dramatic music would have been.  That was a very impressive, understated moment.

So, what bothered me about it and is it fair to spend so long praising the programme to then turn around and start poking holes in it?  Who cares?  It’s fun.

at least I wouldn’t die with a squint.

Firstly, when those poor cannon fodder type people who were killed and were burnt into a mural (which  was a bit Terry Pratchett).  Why did they all die with their arms akimbo in that manner?  I mean, if I were to ever find myself staring into the light of  a thousand suns (or whatever) then I’m pretty sure that I’d put my arm across my eyes in order to shade them from the bright light.  I admit that in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn’t help in the slightest but at least I wouldn’t die with a squint.

Now, I’ve praised Martha and Freema a lot this week, but what of the Doctor and David?  To be fair, Mr T. didn’t bother me with his portrayal this week– There wasn’t much in the way of shouting and I don’t think that he was that annoying this week.

However, the Doctor just didn’t do it for me.  I’ve come to the decision that he doesn’t cope well under pressure.  Normally when we see him in action, he has plenty of time “off camera” for his little panic attacks and moments of self-doubt, but as this was all in ‘real-time’ he just couldn’t hide it.  In the space of 42 minutes he whined  “I don’t know how much longer I can last!” told Martha how very scared he was and did lots of screaming like a big girls blouse.

He soon changed his tune once someone called his bluff

When Martha popped him into the stasis chamber, the temperature hadn’t even hit zero before he started squalling like a baby.  Now, I’m not a Time Lord, but even I can stand a freezing temperature for longer than that before I even think about blubbing.  All this “I can take –200 degrees C” was just so much bluster.  He soon changed his tune once someone called his bluff, though, didn’t he?

(I’ve never been entirely sure about the phrase “Big girls blouse”.  Is it meant to refer to the blouse of a larger lady or a large blouse belonging to a lady of undetermined size?  I suppose it all depends on the apostrophe.)

Don’t even get me started on “Go on my son!” when he managed to open that panel.  As far as I know, he hadn’t just come from the seventies, so why that particular idiom appeared I have no idea.  I just hope that it doesn’t come back again any time soon.

And how many times did he need to repeat “It’s alive!” when staring into the sun?  He was starting to sound like Doctor Frankenstein at the end there.

They’re setting it up to next year’s main villain!

I’m sure that there’s a very good reason for this, but why did the spacesuit that he put on look so very similar to the one that he was wearing last year during Impossible Planet/Satan Pit?  It even had the same lights in the helmet that did nothing to help him see, but did look a bit flash.  I remember the Babylon 5 helmets had the same design.  I have a theory about this suit, actually.  I think it’s following him.  They’re setting it up to next year’s main villain!  Everywhere he goes he’s going to start noticing this suit just hanging around like some half played game of chess.  It’ll be like the alien symbiote costume that kept trying to bond with Peter Parker.  Slowly and with little warning it’ll become forever part of him.  Perhaps the suit will have a backbone in it.

So leaving the Doctor whimpering in the corner, what else bothered me?

I’m not to sure how the Darth Vader wannabe could have been quite so precise hammering away at the such little buttons when trying to launch Martha into deep space (or deep sun).  Have you ever tried dialling a ‘phone or operating a remote control whilst wearing gardening gloves?  It’s not that easy, you know.  Even a pair of Marigolds would make it difficult, so those heavy welders’ gloves would be useless for such quick and precise button pushing.  They should have been bigger, proper pushbuttons to accommodate big hands in cumbersome gloves.

Then we had the living sun thing.  Okay, I may not be entirely positive that there aren’t aliens that look like large balls of flaming gas, but you can’t really blame Cindy for not scanning for life on a sun.  You just wouldn’t expect that kind of weirdness, would you?  And anyway, how did they get so close to the sun in order to mine it’s heart (or whatever it was that they did to get fuel) when everybody started to panic when they were almost an hour away from it?  Did they mine by remote control?  If so why didn’t whatever they use melt when it got that close?  This made no sense to me.

I don’t want to sound totally negative, so I’ll just mention a couple more moments that I did enjoy (which I’ve just remembered).

trying to play a Mozart symphony on your telephone keypad

I did like the idea of them setting the security lock-down questions whilst drunk.  I can imagine them sitting round a pile of empties talking about what to do if they get invaded by Space Pirates (or Ice Pirates) and then coming up with the idea of trivia questions.  It’s just an extension of the “Security Questions” that you get asked whenever you ‘phone one of these faceless, off-shore corporations and dare to actually want to talk to a real person rather than trying to play a Mozart symphony on your telephone keypad.

There was a certain drunken logic to it.  It’s just as well it wasn’t too good a night otherwise they’d never have been able to remember even doing, let alone what the answers were.  On which note – How many men would choose either orange or purple as their favourite colour.  And then forget what their favourite colour was?

Finally (you’ll be glad to know – If you made it this far) I have a couple of questions.

Mrs Jones is now in cahoots with Mr Saxon and his goons and it’s election day.  My question isn’t “What are cahoots?” but is “Is this an election for Prime Minister?” and if so “Where does he hang out now?”  Did they rebuild Downing Street after all that exploding business at the end of Word War 3?  Has it ever been mentioned?  I don’t recall anybody talking about it, but I suppose it could have been reconstructed.  It’ll probably look exactly the same as it did before, too.  Odd that.

Last one.  Why was the Doctor looking so pensive and glum at the end there?  Was it because he’d shown himself up as such a girlie wimp or is there more sinister brooding afoot?

Oh well, we’ll find out eventually.

Still, when it’s all said and done.  I enjoyed that one.  Flaws and all.

Good show.

Here Comes the Sun...

Here comes the sun, and I say
it's all right

42 is probably one of the most traditional of Doctor Who stories from this third series so far. It was, if nothing else, a tense forty-five minutes of television directed with panache by Graeme Harper with, I believe, a fine script from the pen of Chris Chibnall.

" According to some people, at least, very few of the people who do actually work on the show are actually good enough to be writing for it. "

Now I have never had a problem whatsoever with Chris Chibnall. So what if he went on telly in the eighties saying Doctor Who at that the time was crap!. It was crap at the time he said that, and only managed to get better towards the end of that decade. I also thoroughly enjoyed his Torchwood episodes (particularly Cyberwoman) and his episodes of Life on Mars and did not in any way think that he was not good enough to write for Doctor Who.

The way people go on some Doctor Who forums; you must wonder who on earth is good enough to write for the show. According to some people, at least, very few of the people who do actually work on the show are actually good enough to be writing for it.

I heard one review of this episode on Outpost Gallifrey say something along the lines that David Tennant doesn’t deserve scripts like this one. What the hell were they one. I had no problem with the script to this episode, I thought it was well paced and had some great lines and I actually thought the whole pub quiz thing was quite good and bought some humour to the episode!

" just continued in his usual shouty bollocks persona as the Doctor "

The acting in general was ok and I even thought that Michelle Collins was quite good as the ship’s captain McDonnell. She certainly wasn’t bad by any standards and nowhere near as bad as I first envisaged after recalling her performances in EastEnders over the years!. The rest of the cast were quite good as well.

Freema Aygeman was again impressive as Martha and it was nice to see her take centre stage in an episode. Her scenes with the lad in the escape pod (sorry can’t remember his name. You know the one, the one with the Manc accent) were particularly good (most notably in the use of silence as the pod drifted away from the ship with both the Doctor and Martha banging on the windows.).

I wasn’t particularly impressed with David Tennant in this episode. He wasn’t bad by any means but I just didn’t get him, which is a problem I have always had with the tenth Doctor. I thought he was quite poor in this episode, most notably in the scenes when he was possessed by the sun and then just continued in his usual shouty bollocks persona as the Doctor, which I just don’t like.

I am not sure why the Doctor should be scared, as he seems to be virtually indestructible. Again the Doctor almost regenerated and probably would of have done so in the old series, but this incarnation just seems to get away with almost anything. I am not sure that there is anything that could kill the tenth Doctor, or at least it certainly seems that way from this season anyway.

I actually thought that the little asides featuring Martha's mother were nice additions to the episode and obviously going to make more sense in the finale episodes of this series. I certainly wasn’t expecting this to happen, rather than a single scene featuring the companions mother like Jackie’s appearance in The End of the World in series one. I doubt that this is the last time this will happen before the finale either.

42 wasn’t perfect but it was the best episode of the series so far, in my opinion!

Everybody Hates Chris

Poor Chris Chibnall, eh? Not only has he suffered to produce scripts for two of the UK's most loved series, and, er, Torchwood, but his efforts have also come under intense critical scrutiny (well, as intense as your average Charlie Brooker column can be). He churned out several inane and clichéd, often insipid, frequently logic-defying scripts for Torchwood. But he didn't stop there- Life on Mars was Chibnallified, too, but as one of the three people who've never seen that show, I'll obviously not comment on the episode. The man clearly loves to write, and is undoubtedly in great demand, having worked on three incredibly high-rating programs, but his episodes never seem to get the critical plaudits that he must be aching for by now. Small Worlds, They Keep Killing Suzie, and both of Cath Tregenna's efforts (Out of Time, Captain Jack Harkness) were doubtlessly the strongest entries (*insert random penetration/Torchwood joke here*) in an otherwise execrable season.

"*insert random penetration/Torchwood joke here*."

Where then, has Chibnall gone wrong with his latest throw-up, and more importantly why have his scripts been so poor in the past? Is it his innate ability to wring every ounce of imagination from a brilliant concept and replace it with a stable of hoary old clichés? No. Is it his niggling tendency to include every risible aspect of New Who in a single script, from boringly familiar zombie-like entities tramping about to actually writing the script in a way that actually allows David Tennant to succumb to those unfortunate full body spasms he seems prone to? No. Is it his clumsy expository dialog? Nay, I say. Then what could it possible be?

It's karma. Meet the Bakers. Pip and Jane. A happy couple.

They crafted some excellent scripts during their time on Doctor Who, focusing on developing the sixth Doctor into a more affable, brave Doctor. They also wrote an unholy script for Sylvester McCoy, but their hit-rate was still better than Chibnall's. Chibnall made his first television appearance ranting about what he assessed as the poor quality of their scripts. They were working on the show during one of the most difficult periods of its history, with little to no support from the BBC, a producer whose intentions were good, but results less so and the imminent cancellation of show. What's Chibnall's excuse? He has a budget of millions to work with, the power-house that is RTD behind him and the full, unmitigated support of a rejuvenated BBC. Yet he still falters.

But enough of the Chibnall bashing, lest I suffer from the same universal justice that has blighted him. 42 has some redeeming features. He writes a fairly enjoyable Doctor when he isn't in the throes of full on gurning, his Martha is alright and the three phonecalls home to Francine are tender enough moments and a delightful inversion of Rose's calls home.
5/10 seems fair for this episode.

Finally, as I'm new to the blog (hello!) be kinder to me than I was to Chibnall, and if this post is a mess of unformatted HTML and broken links, blame Chris Chibnall.

The Bumper Book Of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about 42: Though Chris Chibnall's early efforts in the world of Doctor Who were met with some criticism, his epic period at the helm of the show was heavily lauded as triumphant. The Re-trial of a Time Lord remains a fan favourite to this day.

The original, you might say

I first read Human Nature many years ago. Not when it first came out, though. I was never much of a fan of Paul Cornell’s work when the New Adventures were at their peak, I have to admit. I was a Doctor Who fan in my early teens at the time and I preferred the less experimental and more ‘Doctor Who-like’ (as I saw it, anyway) books of the likes of Lance Parkin. I’m not sure whether I made a conscious decision not to buy this particular book – I didn’t buy all the New Adventures anyway – but whatever the case it was a novel that passed me by.

I’m not sure whether I made a conscious decision not to buy this particular book – I didn’t buy all the New Adventures anyway – but whatever the case it was a novel that passed me by.

Then, around three or four years later, when the book had gathered quite the reputation for being one of the best Doctor Who novels ever written, I gave it a go, ordering a copy from my local library. (And by sod’s law subsequently got hold of my own copy for 50p in a charity shop, too). I don’t remember all the specifics of what I thought at the time. I do remember thinking the plot was quite clever and interesting, but that I wasn’t too keen on the idea of the Doctor experimenting with being human.

I had to make a quick visit back home to Sussex a couple of weekends ago, to clear out the remaining stuff that used to be in ‘my room’ and shove it up in the attic to turn the place into another spare room. Whilst down there I took the chance to grab my copy of Human Nature, and spent most of the long and diverted train journey back to Norwich on the Sunday re-reading the book.

Out of all that gloom, Cornell as so often pulls some hope and optimism with the suggestion that people can change and improve, with the right influences and environment.

However, there was and remains much to like about the novel. Cornell evokes the slightly clichéd pre-First World War period excellently throughout the book, and the air of a genteel, almost picturebook English country village being slightly subverted by the oncoming clouds of war is a good one. He’s at his best though with the school scenes – I hated them the first time around because they made me so angry, but reading them again now they have a feeling to them that seems depressingly realistic. And yet out of all that gloom, Cornell as so often pulls some hope and optimism with the suggestion that people can change and improve, with the right influences and environment.

The villains of the piece are a fantastic creation, and they’re going to have to be toned down somewhat for television I suspect. The Aubertides are a creepy and sadistic race who also have some real character to them, not simply as a group but also as individuals, which is all to rare a commodity amongst the monsters and villains of Doctor Who in any medium. They’re also downright weird – there’s no real reason given for why one of them resembles a little girl, but Cornell knows that this works simply because it’s bloody creepy, and that’s enough.

This works simply because it’s bloody creepy, and that’s enough.

Bernice Summerfield is the companion here, a strong and forthright character who again I never liked so much back in the 1990s, but who these days I found more appealing and likeable. She’s very different from Martha Jones, a little more stubborn and older of course, and also during this book she’s recovering from traumatic events that befell her in the preceding novel, so I suspect that the companion’s characterisation, of not her role, will change a great deal in the television version.

But the crux of the matter is the schoolteacher, John Smith, once known to us as The Doctor. The Doctor, as far as I was concerned, should always be aloof and alien and unknowable, and even though this was very clearly just a one-off, let’s face it, I wasn’t too happy about the idea of him messing around with girls. I do have to hold my hands up here and admit that at the point I’d read the book I had never see The Aztecs which, for all the occasionally revisionist posturing of some of the New Adventures, Human Nature’s romance between Smith and Joan is not a million miles away from.

I had never see The Aztecs which, for all the occasionally revisionist posturing of some of the New Adventures, Human Nature’s romance between Smith and Joan is not a million miles away from.

Reading the novel again all these years later it seems almost a little odd to have such objections, given all that we have seen and heard since and the new directions Doctor Who has gone in. Which actually makes it all the odder that Russell T Davies decided to call Paul Cornell up to adapt his novel for the screen now. I can’t quite see how it’s going to have the same impact; much of the effect of Human Nature comes from the shock of seeing the Doctor transformed into a human being, something almost unimaginable beforehand.

Now, though, we have the Tenth Doctor, who is possibly the most human and humane we have ever seen. He’s even already had his own story about falling in love with a human woman, The Girl in the Fireplace, written by the very man who makes a cameo appearance as the school bursar in this book. How is Human Nature 2007-style going to stand out against the chorus of stories which already tell us how passionate and full of love the Tenth Doctor is? He’s certainly no completely alien Fourth, for whom the story would perhaps have had the most impact of all.

In the book, the Seventh Doctor at one point muses how he could only love the big, sweeping things, and never the small details. A race but not a person, a cause but not one fight. There is a tragic and rather moving love story at the heart of Human Nature that will make for an interesting television adaptation I have no doubt, but now that the Doctor, in this incarnation at least, is such a lover of the ‘small, beautiful things,’ it remains to be seen whether some of its essence will be lost.

Why Does The Sun Shine?

Graeme Harper proves
Sentient sun is no mere
Woolf in Chib's clothing.

42

Oil and water. Nitro and glycerine. Ian Beale and Phil Mitchell.

Chris Chibnall and science fiction.

A name to provoke an allergic reaction in BBC3 viewers like 'bling' to a Cyber chest unit. But this week, with no small thanks to Graeme Harper's stunning direction, Chibnall's on fire; and I don't mean the kind you refuse to piss on to put out.

Well OK, let's not go that far. This is the same Chris Chibnall who doesn't know the meaning of the word 'whisper' and raided the dregs of the film vault for core ideas for his terrible Torchwood episodes, and we expected no less of him here - in this case, Ridley Scott's Alien mashed up with a Satan Repeat courtesy of last season. Enclosed environment hurtling towards destruction. Seven crew members (seven always seems to be the unlucky number). Possessive alien entity. Doctor in a spacesuit. Forced seperation of Doctor and companion leading to escape pod/rocket drama. Wrap it up in a combo-meal with a side order of REALLY crap physics (sod the 'heat shields', even the viewers should be instantly struck blind that close to a sun). There's even a hint of The Empty Child, though while the gasmask is intrinsically fear-inducing via its connotations with death, it's a lot more effort trying to provoke anxiety instead of sniggers with a futuristic Viewmaster on your face. This much is true, and might go some way to explain the most acute love/hate schism since the deliberate Love & Monsters. It's also probably fairer then to say that the script is well-constructed rather than well-written, but there are many fine moments and where it's essential, Chibnall for a change doesn't put a foot out of place (so no atomic loopholes in logic that bring the plot crashing down in flames).

"You have to be a pretty duff galactic supervillain to be scuppered by a complete stranger with nothing to hand in the space of forty two minutes. You practically have to be Abaddon from Torchwood"

I wasn't expecting the 'real time' gimmick to work in the episode's favour either, as it implied that the actual threat involved was going to come across as either insignificant or castrated; because let's face it, you have to be a pretty duff galactic supervillain to be scuppered by a complete stranger with nothing to hand in the space of forty two minutes. You practically have to be Abaddon from Torchwood. Wrong, and WRONG. The actual payoff, when it comes, is such a mouth-opening gosh-wow revalation that appropriate scientific explanation isn't merely defied, but sent right off to bed without supper with the invisible pink unicorns in tow. Sci-fi has given us sentient islands, sentient space stations, sentient planets even. But a sentient sun! No matter how many time you watch Andromeda, just how ultra-cool is that? It's exactly the sort of idea that the great Mills and Wagner duo would have come up with for the format-busting Tom Baker comics in Doctor Who Weekly, along with all their other script ideas rejected as utterly unfilmable back in 1979.

This, I felt, was the of kind episode we hoped for since the show came back; a 1977 story (no Neil, not that one) with 2007 production values. Didn't Hinchliffe and Holmes have a tradition of nicking films and tailoring them for their own episodes? Hell, it even feels like Terrence Dick's Shakedown. 42 isn't really about heroes and villains (from its own point of view, the 'monster' is swatting at annoying insects and just wants to be left alone), but people, just being human and doing the careless, idiotic things that people do, and fighting to extricate themselves from one dumb mistake that anyone could have made. It's easily the most 'human' thing Chibnall has ever written. And you don't need a great big tubthumping Ark In Space speech to convey what down-to-earth humanity is all about; it's the little things like the silent "I'll save you." Or Martha not quite bringing herself to say goodbye to her mother. Or even the much-maligned pub-quiz door security; the equivalent of using your pet's name to secure your credit card. It's just such a whimsically 'people' thing to actually do.

Maybe Chris Chibnall just got luckier this time? Granted, he's not actually doing much here that he didn't in Torchwood, besides not chucking in ideas simply for the hell of it. Primarily, the portentous self-important arrogance of the Torchwood gang is missing from here; with this crew, what you see is what you get, and they don't aspire to be anything greater in an utterly unlikeable way just from having their fingers on the Doomsday trigger, which makes it that much more believable. I think it's also the case that Chibnall's style happens to be better with mavericks, but dreadful with anti-heroes - no matter how apalling Chibnall's Torchwood output gets, it's always Jack who comes off the least worst, and the Doctor is essentially a maverick hero archetype; it's pretty hard to screw his character up. I'll put the 'luck' instead down to getting Harper to carry it all off instead of Euros Lyn.

"Gurn with me"

Because it's mainly down to Harper and not the gimmicky omnipresent ticking clock that the episode is so tense. The companion, being the link with the audience, is always going to get herself in danger; but putting the viewers' secruity put through a blender via the Doctor himself, making him so completely helpless and out of control of events, hasn't been so apparent since the Peter Davison days. It's about time Tennant was taken down a notch from the all-powerful Tom Baker figure that would saunter through events with nary a quip, a sonic screwdriver and a rabbit pulled out of the hat at the last minute. In fact, I don't recall the Doctor being in such extreme personal danger since The Caves Of Androzani (who was it who worked on that one? Hmmmmmm...), and it's one occasion where I thought Tennant's over-the-top screaming actually works. Gurn with me.

Speaking of humans, what's with all the flak Francine Jones seems to be getting? Take her away from the rest of the dysfunctional Addams Family chorus line and what you have is a naturally protective mother-figure who of course is going to be worried shitless from whatever crap is being fed into her ear. What's the problem? Is everyone feeling domesticed-out, or is it 'cos she is middle class? Come on, you seriously want an oik caricature like Jackie back? I don't.

Episode of the season so far? Without a doubt. Is my face red? Yes, yes it is. But it's sunburn. Honest.

Next week: Just one Cornello, give it to me.

The Bumper Book Of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about 42: the sun is a mass of incandescant gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace, where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees. Come on everyone, you know the words.

Disaster Area

It hasn't been a good week for the Beale family. First of all, little Peter (version 0.2) nearly died a horrible death in a episode of EastEnders directed by Wolfgang Peterson. In the very same episode, his sister, Lucy, was outed as bona fide psychic Tomorrow Person - with obligatory track-and-zoom fish-eye lens treatment and everything! - while, 50 miles away, her father, Ian, performed a bizarre homage to Dawn of the Dead while Phil Mitchell doubled for Ben Gardener's head in Jaws. And then, to top it all, Cindy copped it on Doctor Who (banging into Ripley on her way down). What a palaver!

Bring Back Open Air!  Just so we can sit in the audience and throw science textbooks at Chris Chibnall. Actually, scrap that, I don't even care about the science, let's throw some William Goldman or Robert McKee at him instead. Wouldn't that be a great Twilight Zone-style ending, with Rod Serling banging on about hubris, or throwing stones, or something equally patronising. You get the general idea. Oh to be a fly on the wall in Pip and Jane's...

This was classic Chibnall dirge: people running up and down corridors shouting meaningfully at each other about absolutely nothing, fretting like headless chickens and chucking one-liners around like hand grenades primed by an illiterate Eric Saward. All wrapped up in an improbable plot that hinges on a premise so irritating it just reminds you how much more of this tripe you have to sit through (oh great, 12 more minutes!), and proof, if any be needed, that any author who attempts to hang a Doctor Who story on a flimsy real-time it's-a-little-bit-like-24 gimmick is always doomed to failure.

...fretting like headless chickens and chucking one-liners around like hand grenades primed by an illiterate Eric Saward...

The pub quiz/Who Wants to be a Millionaire password protection nonsense. I ask you! Imagine Sarah Jane Smith launching into an impromptu homage to Sale of the Century, or Harry taking part in a futuristic version of The Golden Shot in the middle of The Ark in Space. Go on, try! Call me a stick-in-the-mud purist but I like my children's TV to draw on great literature and art instead of Challenge TV repeats. God, I feel so old.

Bizarrely, the sets in 42 are complete and utter rubbish when you compare them to that rather splendid otherworldly corridor we got in The Ark in Space; here the cast looked like they were running around a Quick Fit garage screaming "Move! Move! MOVE!" ad nauseum. Call me old fashioned but I miss the futuristic white and gleaming spaceships that we used to get in the good old days - the new series is full of dingy and grimy garages, sorry ships that look so knackered even George Lucas' wouldn't have touched them! Can we have something a bit more minimal next time? Preferably something that doesn't look like Minty and Gary work there.

David Tennant was, sadly, unleashed in this episode, and like a puppy let loose in a field of toilet paper he couldn't bloody help himself. There he goes, yelling, running, running while yelling, yelling while running, yelling "Alonsi!" (not exactly Bad Wolf, is it?) and gurning like Pertwee with his head stuck in a vice, which is at least a bit Doctorish. 'Go on my son!' made me throw things at the telly and I found myself clutching my faded Tom Baker scarf to my sobbing bosom as the end credits rolled.  It annoys me that Tennant persists in wallowing in this aspect of the 10th Doctor's persona - when he reigns it in he can be marvellous (see The Lazarus Experiment for a rare episode where doesn't go mental, not even once!) and I always feel like he's slumming it when he goes off on one. But the kids seem to like it.

In Chibnall's favour, there is a very nice attempt to create a "classic" Doctor Who monster, complete with gravelly pitched catchphrase, viewmaster death head (easily replicable in any 70s home), and two (count them!) ways for kids to imitate its death dealing ways in the school playground; a hard stare and You've Been Tangoed meets Sutekh's gift of death hand slapping - piece of piss. I can see the doll now...

A run of the mill monster that couldn't win a fight against the giant prawn from The Invisible Enemy.

But what really wound me up was Chibnall's shameless attempt to big his own episode up by making the Doctor really scared (squeeee!!!) of what is ostensibly a run of the mill monster that couldn't win a fight against the giant prawn from The Invisible Enemy. It annoys me that Chibnall would honestly believe that his so-called villain was so kick-arse the Doctor needed a good lie down with his comfort zero-blanket before he could take on some Daleks with his arms tied behind his back. Don't make me laugh.

But it's not all bad news: Graeme Harper's direction is occasionally inspired; the airlock sequence was surprisingly emotional (savour that blissful silence) and the CGI was impeccable as always. The Saxon moments were pretty interesting, too. I love the idea of the Doctor is being tracked through time and space by C19 (or whoever the hell they are) and Martha's mother's turn as anti-Jackie makes me pine for the good old(ish) days.

And there was one incredibly exciting moment during the last few minutes of 42. One of our kittens found herself trapped in a narrow gap behind an angled bookcase that is hardwired into our caravan's wall (detailed blueprints are available on request), and as she scrambled insanely to get out, and my wife was frantically pulling books out whilst simultaneously searching for that axe that we both knew wasn't there, all I could hear was Murray's stirring ommp-pah oomp-pah music, unnerving 5.1 surround sound sirens, Freema hollering and my wife crying. That was a pretty damn exciting 42 seconds, I can tell you.

What a waste.

Okay, I have been overloaded with work for the last 3 weeks, and so consequently have not had enough time to review the last two episodes or Bang Bang a Boom (but then again, only one person did). I still don't really have enough time, but seeing the response here I have to get across my two cents.

First, a quick comment on the last two episodes.

Evolution of the Daleks: Not as bad as everyone else seemed to think. Not a great script, but quite enjoyable, and I'm glad they didn't go for the obvious option of killing off Laszlo. James Strong pulls off a great bit of direction, and the Doctor was thoroughly enjoyable (although DNA transmitted by electricity? What the hell was that about?)
8/10

The Lazarus Experiment: Cracking. The best episode so far. So very pleased by the whole production. This is also the first one that I have actively enjoyed, and been really excited to watch again. Martha unfortunately still hasn't impressed me, and her mother is just terrible. Hopefully she'll get killed off before too long.
10/10. MORE OF THIS PLEASE!

Now, for the main feature.

42

No. There, that's as simple as the title. The reason my title is "What a waste" is because Chris Chibnal has all the best obvious ingredients, and he's wasted them in a lousy script. Come on, the Doctor possessed going to kill his companion? It's Twin Dilemma. He's included an obvious thing to try and get the audience excited, by using the Doctor as evil, demented, screaming in agony, and of course David Tennant is so good at it that it works, but it's ruined by a terrible script, that sees Martha waiting for 5 minutes of their precious 42 talking to the Doctor rather than putting him in the freezing thing, saying that he's going to be fine instead of putting him in.

There's the quiz which is a complete waste of time. Clearly Chibnal has obviously always thought Elvis was better than the Beatles and is using a fact to try and prove it to the nation. The whole quiz thing is drawn out drivel which doesn't belong in a show like this, in the same way as the facts about the Union Flag were inserted into The Idiot's Lantern last year. Very interesting by themselves, but there's a time and a place.

Right from the start, it all feels wrong. The Doctor and Martha are completely out of sync with the other characters, which would be fine except that they get along. In states of high tension the different either compromise or get on each others tits, and these were like David Blaine and John Prescott having a picnic on a beach in front of a tidal wave. That's wrong! Blaine would have eaten all the pork pies, saying that the symbol on his hand would protect him, and Prescott would have beaten him to death with a baguette.

Let's see, then there's the Doctor fiddling with the phone. Now it was fine two years ago, he was doing it as a quick test for Rose to speak with home, but now he's doing it when he's got plenty of time at the start, and he doesn't even give an instruction on how to phone the right time or planet, just the area code. Fine if it's rigged to correlate with her own time, but she's been gone, let's say, a week, and only a day had passed for her mum, so whose time does it correlate with?

The music has its moments, but there are some blatant copies from The Satan Pit double, most noticeably the randomish up and down screech of string instruments, which was quite chilling a year ago, but now it's just a rip off. Aside from that, the music is good, and again a huge waste is the terrific use of silence when the escape pod leaves the ship. That gave me such a weird feeling of awe and anger that it wasn't a better episode. It's the same as when Mickey faced down the Cybermen after Ricky died in Age of Steel. Powerful, it's a real shame it wasn't used in a better episode.

And why would an escape pod which hasn't got directional facilities have a heat shield? How come it can afford to keep what must be close to 100,000 degree celsius if not more heat outside, but can't go left to get away? What sort of an escape pod is remote controlled? If you're escaping the ship, surely you want to be able to control it from the pod? And why did punching the circuit cause it to jetison anyway? And the speed it was leaving the ship towards the sun, it would have reached the sun within five minutes, they would have been barbequed well within two minutes.

Why when Ashton said "Burn with me" did that guy not twig that there was something up? Not what he was expecting, not Ashton's voice, you'd think he'd have gotten the idea a lot sooner than he did. And Calwin's wife (or widow) danced out the airlock with Ashton, not Calwin. She was there when Calwin died! How stupid is she?

And the last minute was so so SO anticlimactic. And adding an echo to Martha's "Now!" didn't change that. The tense music kept going after the oil dump, and just faded out, making it a rather dull ending. Although kudos for a small snippet of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy theme tune in the ending. And why did he hold the key so high? And when did he get a chain that long? And when did he get another key made, or does he have a whole collection?

The main concept of this episode is that it's set in real time, like 24, but that doesn't even matter, because you don't notice it. Even the obvious close ups of the clock don't really make any impact, and it had no effect on the pace of the story. The Satan Pit had a much better pace, it felt a lot more exciting without that ridiculous attempt to instill a dread of the inevitable, something which only works in a short space of time, like when something has 10 seconds before it'll explode. And the last 10 seconds where wasted, as I stated above, by being utterly anticlimactic.

Chris Chibnall does the same false intensity as he did on episode 7 of Life On Mars, and on Countrycide. He makes people on the same side hate each other, which would work under almost any other new series writer, but he plays around too much. He tries too hard, and the result is something which you might find exciting if you were watching half asleep, but which falls apart when fully conscious.

Now, the direction. I am not a fan of Graeme Harper's direction. Bar Androzani, which was a masterpiece in its own right, his "original", "intuitive", "imaginative" new camera angles are very, very offputting. Like the camera angle in Rise of the Cybermen, from the point of view of the handle Mickey was holding. Original, yes. But distracting. The same with the shot at the end of this episode, the close up on Martha's Mum's face, from that peculiar angle. Original, yes. BUT NOT GOOD.

So anyway, I disliked this episode because not only was it a poor script with characters that don't gel doing predictable but unbelievable things, but it wasted some good things, in the same way as The Twin Dilemma wasted having an evil Doctor, and a Doctor premiere at that.

4.2/10

The Bumper Book of Made Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about 42: Chris Chibnall wrote this episode in 42 minutes, to keep the real time feel.

Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun

Burn, baby, burn

42

Chris. Chibnall. Two words sure to send terror into the hearts of most Doctor Who fans. One minute he’s slagging off husband and wife writing teams on daytime feedback programmes, the next he’s contributing arguably the worst episodes of any show seen in the last fifteen years; with some of the most heinous dialogue outside of a post-watershed drama about a stag party set at a sci-fi convention. What this man contributed to Torchwood has been discussed in great detail elsewhere; and so it was with no little trepidation that I approached tonight’s Who debut from the Chibnall Wizard. And the result?

I bloody loved it.

‘42’ has lots of problems, but none so insurmountable that you ever take your eye off the ball of this pulsating, thrilling and at times quite emotionally profound episode. I’ve always been a bit cautious of shows trying to mimic other show’s formats and hoping that some of the gloss rubs off; but at least the real-time aspect of ‘42’ never threatens to overwhelm the rest of the episode, bar one or two 24-style flashes to a countdown clock. Besides that we’ve got text-book Doctor Who furniture: a small, isolated group of stereotypes who get invaded by this week’s Mr Malignant and rely on the Doctor’s ingenuity - not to mention heroism - to get them out of it. I won’t even bother mentioning the Alien influence (damn, just did) or the fact that this episode pilfers not only from nu-Who’s already extensive back catalogue - last year’s 'The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit' is basically a visual template - but also one or two old-Who classics (‘Dragonfire’s death-by-steaming-hands) and a few other genre shows and films (the dark ‘shadow’ left by Corwyn’s victims is very ‘Soft Light’ from The X Files, while do I really need to mention Danny Boyle’s recent Sunshine?)

a pulsating, thrilling and at times quite emotionally profound episode

And how refreshing for once to find the Doctor - and especially Tennant’s Doctor - not react in such customary smuggy-smug-smug fashion that the threat of this week’s Big Bad is diminished as soon as he opens his all-knowing gob. And credit too to wee David himself that - besides one or two lurches into Timmy Mallett-style baseball-bat deserving histrionics - that he actually makes the Doctor scared by the situation. All those kids at home no doubt frightened shitless by a bloke in a welding mask asking them to ‘Burn with me’ were probably sent over the edge the moment the Doctor himself started asking it. And for once our hero is in real trouble; such trouble that were we ever blessed by the ignorance that this couldn’t be the end of him, here would have been a fittingly heroic and dramatic conclusion to the Tenth Doctor’s travels. I wonder if that Parting of the Ways-style set-up of a possible regeneration might have any later impact this year, seeing as the Doctor (as with Rose) tries to warn Martha about what usually happens when his body’s on the way out.

But such praise usually comes with one or two caveats. The science is, at best, debateable. And at worst is pretty risible. Hanging out of airlocks to pull switches? The heat from the rapidly approaching sun would have surely singed Tennant’s sideburn’s (but then, like lightning, extreme heat seems to have little effect on this Doctor). And would a magnetic clamp really have enough pull to outstrip the gravity of a burning star? There’s plenty more, but at least the pace and energy of the episode’s other attributes - not least of which John-Paul’s old mucker Graeme Harper’s sublime direction - just makes up for these occasional dalliances with bullshit logic. It’s also an episode that finds time for the quiet, human moments amidst all the testosterone-heavy action; like the beautifully played and lit moment when Martha’s escape pod is jettisoned (Tennant’s silent ‘I’ll Save You’ says more than a hundred teeth-clenching tirades) and the nice romance that Martha develops with one of the crew.

how refreshing for once to find the Doctor not react in such customary smuggy-smug-smug fashion

But sorry, I’m not convinced by the explanation that the sun here contains some kind of living organism which is just trying to reclaim its ‘young’. Does this mean that there’s a sun-friendly organism that lives inside, or that the sun itself is ‘alive’ in some corporeal way? It comes with little surprise to find that the forty-two minutes afforded here never find time to provide an adequate explanation. Oh well. Still, let’s praise instead the way that for once the sonic screwdriver get-out clause is nullified pretty early on, not to mention that most time-honoured of traditions of cutting off the TARDIS as soon as it’s landed. Oh, and it’s a pretty good episode for the Doctor and Martha dynamic too. I’ve been really impressed with how the writers this year have not just had the new girl step straight into Rose Tyler’s shoes; and it’s with this sort of episode where such reticence gets maximum payback. So not only do the Doctor and Martha save each other’s lives here - with the Doctor in particular seeming to ‘need’ Martha now - but she even gets a key to the flat as a reward. We’ve got pretty used these last two years to the companion being more than just a friend, but I think when it’s handled with such maturity and nuance as Tennant and Agyeman display here, then the more touchy-feely aspects of modern-day TARDIS travel can still surprise. Though I expect that this particular ‘romance’ still has one or two rocky roads to travel over the next six weeks…

And being a died-in-the-wool nihilist, I’m always pleased when the metaphor for any drama is how human greed and ignorance always ends up crapping over the perpetrator. Not sure if Michelle Collins quite cuts it as a gung-ho, Ripley-esque space captain (though at least she isn’t Beryl Reid) but her McDonnell certainly brings a welcome dose of fallibility to the otherwise cipher-led crew. And that final, balletic dance she shares with the thing that used to be her husband reinforces the value of heroic sacrifice over human selfishness in a way that Chibnall’s Torchwood episodes never came close to. As someone here has already said, Season 3 seems to be all about what it means to be human…

I’m always pleased when the metaphor for any drama is how human greed and ignorance always ends up crapping over the perpetrator

Oh, those niggles again. Why do the infected bother wearing visors except to look scary? What is all this business with Alonsi? And does Martha’s mother usually invite sinister government-types round for tea in order to snoop on her daughter? On the subject of that coda - beyond the X Files conspiracy theory shtick of it all - it does make you wonder what (ahem) has got planned if he’s not only running an electoral campaign, but also undermining the Doctor’s relationship with his companion. A trap within a trap, perhaps..?

Next Time: ‘The Scarecrows and Mr Smith’ as the Doctor gets all Superman II and starts snogging the ladies. Again.

(The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about 42: more baby-oil was used on this episode than on the whole of Torchwood’s first season)

Good Day Sunshine

Last year’s two-parter The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit was not one of the most successful instalments of new Doctor Who in terms of viewing figures. But it did seem to go down very well with reviewers, particularly those within fandom, and was a story with which the production team themselves appeared very pleased. Perhaps, in that context, it’s no surprise that in 42 we were given an episode so similar to that story in so many ways.

Indeed, some of the many similarities were a little eyebrow-raising, to say the least. We have a small spaceship crew confined to one very industrial-looking setting. We have a desperate commanding officer trying to keep them all together and get them out of their plight. Instead of a mysterious life form at the heart of a black hole we have a mysterious life form at the heart of a sun, but we still lose access to the TARDIS – the use of which could have saved everyone’s trouble within five minutes – at the very start of the episode.

The ‘real time’ conceit may be a bit of a hoary old cliché by now, and indeed one Doctor Who itself has already pretty much done with less fanfare in The End of the World, but it was still an interesting hook upon which to hang the episode.

Having said all of that, I actually felt that 42 was a bit more successful than Matt Jones’s two-parter, and a very enjoyable episode in its own right. For one thing, the pace seemed better – I liked The Impossible Planet and The Satan Pit, but they did seem to flag a little in places, whereas 42 was pretty much exactly right, bar perhaps integrating the Doctor and Martha with the rest of the crew a touch too rapidly at the beginning. The ‘real time’ conceit may be a bit of a hoary old cliché by now, and indeed one Doctor Who itself has already pretty much done with less fanfare in The End of the World, but it was still an interesting hook upon which to hang the episode.

The End of the World also had the much-debated Galaxy Quest­-style fans sequence, and you do have to wonder whether the twenty-eight password-sealed doors that the crew had to get through with their pub quiz trivia questions here really served any function other than to impede the progress of the characters and heighten the drama during an emergency. I know Riley had a line about them being a precaution in the event of a hi-jack, but I don’t think Chibnall did quite enough to justify it. However, as it ended up giving us the Doctor’s lines about “recreational mathematics” and an excuse for Martha’s phone calls home, I suppose he just about gets away with it.

The rest of Chibnall’s writing seemed pretty confident and assured, and I don’t know whether it was he or Davies who decided to add the sinister Saxon bits to Mrs Jones’s segments – probably Davies – but they served as an intriguing increase to the enigma of this year’s ‘arc’. An unexpected one, too – I had assumed this episode would stand completely alone, as locked off and isolated as the crew of the spaceship upon which it was set, but evidently not.

As it ended up giving us the Doctor’s lines about “recreational mathematics” and an excuse for Martha’s phone calls home, I suppose he just about gets away with it.

One aspect of the script that did pull me up short and make me wonder was the small moment when the Doctor is on the outside in the space suit attempting to activate the process to remagnetise the escape pod dock and pull the pod back in. No, it wasn’t so much the idea that such a system would be put in such a stupidly inaccessible place – although now I think of it, that was a bit strange – it was Scannell’s sudden encouragement to him over the radio. He’d been so pessimistic and cynical about everything up to this point, why was he suddenly so encouraging? Just stuck me as a tad odd, really.

Graeme Harper’s name attached to a Doctor Who story is more often than not an indicator of good quality, so it was very nice to see him back again on the new series, and from the look of things on the associated Confidential episode he’s still as energetic and enthusiastic as ever about his work on the programme. I have to admit that I am not usually one to pick up on either good or bad direction unless it’s so far either way as to really smack you around the face, but I did really like some of Harper’s touches here. Standing out was the silence that accompanied the escape pod drifting away from the ship as the Doctor shouted soundlessly to Martha that he was going to save her – a terrific piece of direction that seemed quite different to anything else we’ve seen since Doctor Who’s return. I also liked the splashes of red across the deep blue lighting of the escape pod interior as Martha and Riley thought they were drifting to their deaths, and McDonnell and Korwin’s balletic floating to their own demise near the end of the episode.

McDonnell’s casting had slightly concerned me when it was announced that she was to be played by Michelle Collins, as it’s so difficult to disassociate her from the character she played in EastEnders for all those years, Cindy Beale. Cindy was an emotional cripple who was frankly weird at times in her limited range of responses and actions, and despite Collins having acted in a great many dramas for the BBC and ITV since Cindy was unceremoniously given an off-screen death in the soap opera, Collins played the part for so long that actress and character are forever indelibly linked.

McDonnell’s casting had slightly concerned me when it was announced that she was to be played by Michelle Collins, as it’s so difficult to disassociate her from the character she played in EastEnders for all those years, Cindy Beale.

Collins managed to overcome such audience prejudices and preconceptions quite successfully though, I thought. She gave McDonnell a toughness that you could see was inspired by the likes of Ripley in the Alien films, but also a more vulnerable, emotional side in her relationship with her husband and her reaction to his possession by the sun creatures that made her sacrifice at the end all the more effective.

Full marks must also go to the two survivors of the ship’s crew, Anthony Flanagan as Scannell and William Ash as Riley. Flanagan is a very familiar face to most television drama viewers these days from his regular role in the first three years of Paul Abbott’s Shameless, and also played the killer in last year’s one-off Cracker revival. I hadn’t actually heard about his casting before seeing the episode and was quite surprised when I recognised him – I thought that his career was on such an upward trajectory at the moment that a comparatively minor guest role in Doctor Who would have been a bit of a comedown for him. It’s nice to see that such talented and successful actors want to be involved in the series at such a level, and that the programme has the power to attract such talent.

I’m not as familiar with the previous work of William Ash, but I thought he was very good as Riley, making him seem a very realistic character. His scenes with Martha in the escape pod were some of the highlights of the episode, and it’s a sign of a good performance that even when delivering the somewhat corny and clichéd lines about having fallen out with his family he never made it seem too melodramatic and played it pitch perfect.

I assumed for some reason they were car horns blaring on the street outside her flat, but they turned out to be part of the incidental music.

Murray Gold’s score was good – not being a great one for judging the quality of music it’s hard to be any more specific than that, but only one moment really jarred. It was at the end, as we cut back to Martha’s mother on the phone when Martha has hung up, and we hear the sound of horns. I assumed for some reason they were car horns blaring on the street outside her flat, but they turned out to be part of the incidental music.

Quibbles aside, I found this to be one of the best episodes so far of this series, and the first one since Gridlock that I’ve watched again after its initial broadcast. It seems that Doctor Who is the better for its two-week break, so let’s hope the adaptation of Human Nature which begins next week keeps the quality on an upward level.

"Here Comes The Sun"

Pretty damp weather last night so ...

7.0 million (36.0% share)

Most watched programme in terms of audience, second most in relation to share because of the football (which got 53.7% share but also oddly enough 7 million odd viewers).