Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

Drive Safely!

Gridlock

Well, this one has caused some controversy. Clearly the story is absolute pants, but does it have the heart to be one of the greats of Who History?

Well, the catnun doesn't inspire any confidence, and when she pulls out a gun it doesn't inspire confidence at all. The Face of Boe doesn't improve things, as bad memories of New Earth abound. Then the Doctor speaking far too loud over the rain and some people selling emotions (the patches which include bliss, sleep and forget... now emotions... hmmm...) Plus one of them describes people as carjackers because they kidnapped someone into a car... RTD really needs a dictionary.

The Doctor shows a lot of anger, including anger at the people on the street. Now, while he may not agree with them, why is he so angry that he threatens to close them down? Why does the girl randomly wear an honesty patch? (Another emotion...) Also, the numbers are completely off whack. The old lesbians seem to have taken 23 years to travel 12 miles, Thermoman has taken 12 years to travel 5 miles, but the carjackers expect to take 6 years to travel , whereas the two "carjackers" plan to travel 10 miles in 6 years... Father Dougal travels 20 yards in one day, which would mean that they move approximately once every nine days. If that is true, how do new cars get in, like the carjackers? There surely isn't any room, because they would have to wait a week for anyone to make room, and then they still wouldn't fit in. In theory, if the traffic had built up over 5 billion years, I could understand that people would be prepared for years to wait in transport, but the old lesbians were among the first on the new motorway, and were quite ready to wait 23 years without concern. Also, humans were extinct 20 odd years ago, yet there are humans who are probably between 20 and 30 years old, and so therefore were up to 10 years old in the events of New Earth. But there weren't any new humans who were that age. And how can a virus become airborne across an entire planet in 7 minutes? No winds could travel at that speed without taking those skyscrapers with them.

Well, that's my numbers rant out of the way. Now my second rant. THE OLD RUGGED CROSS?!?!? Where did that come from? It seemed to have no bearing on anything, and just appeared. Why was Martha crying? What did she have to be sad about? Okay, there was the prospect of never getting home, but she hasn't said anything about that so far, so why just start crying?

Why is New^15 York simplified to New New York? Surely it would be simplified to New York, or here's a wacky thought, York?

You all have commented on a humanoid cat and a human having baby kittens, so I won't touch on it.

Why on Earth did Martha think that the skeleton was The Doctor? She'd spoken to him 5 minutes ago.

Finally, why didn't the poisonous air flood through all of the cars the Doctor jumped through? He was quite prepared to let the poisonous air kill everyone in them, and they didn't seem too bothered to shut the doors.

Okay, good stuff. Well, there's a large variety of people/creatures in the cars, which is rather pleasing. I wish Branigan and Novice Hame had cat eyes, though. You can still see too much Ardal O Hanlan in there, some contact lenses wouldn't be too hard, would they? And doesn't Novice Hame ham it all up? Completely over the top acting. Ah, well. The carjackers do well, for a former regular in Doctors and a former regular in The Bill. Ardal does his job well, not being instantly Dougal or George Sunday, while still having the charm of Ardal.

Now, RTD goes over the top on continuity heaven. However, I love every minute of every classic reference. The Macra I didn't get immediately, having not seen the original (obviously), and missed his announcement of their name. The burnt orange skies. The citadel. I loved it all, the slight connections while being not neccessary for understanding of the story.

The last two scenes are definitely the highlights. The Face of Boe's final scene is the most poignant, because it combines two emotions for the Doctor: sadness and confusion. Martha demanding to know more about the Doctor develops both of their characters: it shows that Martha is much more inquisitive than Rose, and it shows just how much the Doctor misses his home. He is almost in tears when reminiscing of Gallifrey, and that is more touching than anything else.

Richard Clark's directing is pretty good. Like Palmer's last week, it keeps quite mellow, but it lacks the same attention to detail: every camera angle is very obvious, very run of the mill. However, it can be forgiven for the limited amount of space in each car to position cameras. Here's hoping for more imagination for The Lazarus Experiment.

So, was it worth it? Well, I've watched it twice now, and survived.

8/10.

The Bumper Book of Made Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about Gridlock: Gridlock is now viable currency at the BBC, worth approximately 45,400 New Earths.

Pincer Movement

Gridlock

The exchange rates between new and classic Doctor Who have never been more favourable. Forget 2 dollars for every quid, we're now getting very good exchange rates between Sylvester McCoy and David Tennent. And that's just plain scary. If this had been trotted out as a season 24 story then there would have been massed wailing and gashing of teeth amongst fandom. As it was, this is 2007, and fandom were too busy with the aftershocks caused by one line of dialogue.

"Macra!"

Forget "You are not alone". On the merest mention of the shitcrabs, grown men were wiping the cum off themselves, using their Macra branded napkins to sluice their man juice off their pants, weeping openly and repeated punching the air as if the Pope himself had just dropped to his knees, at their feet, and felated them. The Macra, for fucksake. Standing near to end of the line of Doctor Who monsters when they were handing out comeback possibilities. During the podcast for Doomsday I had the temerity to suggest that in ten years time we'd get the Myrka bitch-slapping some Sensorites as a series climax. Of course, pre-Macra, that seemed like a ludicrous, fanciful, idea. Now, I'm not too sure.

"Mental crabs beating up nonces."

And this obsession with the year 5 billion. Just what on new earth is all that about then? You get the sense that when RTD came up with the NNYPD he was audibly chuckling to himself (each passing chuckle making Futurama a more distant memory in his mind), so why not use that as the basis for the story (mental crabs beating up nonces and everyone else on New Earth - could work [another hard day at the precinct for Lieutenant Spokowitz and his sideways scuttling laconic deputy Jonas Macra]) rather than this inconsistent mess?

"Be more internally consistent for fucksake."

Problems start early on when those two from Grant Wood's American Gothic painting state, quite categorically, that they'd tricked the system into letting them down to the fast lane when there were only two of them. And yet the rest of the main plot hinges on the fact that this is just plain impossible as the wheel of the car would lock if they tried with less than 3 people on board. I don't demand too much from my Doctor Who (pause for ironic laughter) but... be more internally consistent for fucksake. More internally consistent and less fucking gay. I mean, that was just plain shoddy. Where's the script editor when you need one...

Oh, I know. She's writing the next story...

And another thing. That naked couple, that the Doctor interrupts, the woman is reading the bloody Radio Times. She is! She's reading Alison Graham's piece at the start of the TV listings section. And they thought we wouldn't notice. It just makes me mad.

I'm off to the M1's Trowel Services for a seafood buffet. See you by the crab dip.

The Bumper Book of Made Up Doctor Who Facts has his to say about Gridlock: negotiators on behalf of the estate of Ian Stuart Black threatened to withhold the rights to the use of the Macra unless the money on offer was substantially increased. That was until they realised that no one would give a damn so settled for a gammon platter at the Little Chef of Phil Collinson's choice.

2007: Fit the Third - In the future, we will have cured Road Rage

When the first few Tennant episodes aired, my judgement of him was been that he's brought some joy back into the Doctor's character, where Eccleston was obviously the scarred one, riddled with survivor's guilt. Here lately, specifically in Gridlock, I'm seeing that I've been wrong. Laughing against the darkness from the Plasmavore to Shakespeare calling him out, has built up to the end of Gridlock, where he finally lets down his facade, even just a little. I'd completely overlooked that despite the change from loose-cannon Eccleston to goofball Tennant, this is still the Doctor, and he's still got blood on his hands from the Time War.  Even the "No no no no no!" bit echoed Eccleston's anguish at the moment of fear that he MIGHT not be able to save someone. I think this is going to be the theme of Martha, what her real purpose is going to be.  Rose let him have a little fun without having to face the guilt and horror inside of himself, but Martha's going to force him to own up to what he's been keeping binned up.  I think (I hope) he'll be the better for it, otherwise we'll have him off playing chess in the desert with evils-from-before-time again.

After rewatching Gridlock, I can touch on a few points people have raised:

> New Earth, and it's insane population: Civilization seems to point towards cycles.  Rises and falls.  By the year 200,000 there'd been four Roman empires. By the year 5 Billion, how many wars will humanity have gone through?  How many apocolypses have we had to start over from, retaining just a little bit more each time?  The current state of New Earth hardly surprises me, especially since a great number of the younger generation of New New York are the former test subjects of the cat-nurses.  It's little wonder these people got sucked into mood-enhancing..er, moods.

> The Kittens: If I'm prepared to accept a cat-like race is capable of successfully breeding with a human-like race, I'm prepared to believe she'd give birth to kittens, and that as the kittens grow, they become more humanoid.  After all, that one said "ma-ma" at six months.  That's not bad for human babies.

I don't expect intelligence from a sixty foot crab

> The Old Rugged Cross: It's never identified in this as a purely Christian song at any point. Just as several centuries ago "Ring Around the Rosie" was a warning about the plague, there's nothing to state that it's just turned into a generic catch-all uplifting song.  After all, Christianity is quite possibly the most aggressively upwardly-mobile religion for the past thousand years or so(to put it kindly).  It would come as no surprise that SOMETHING of it has survived that long.

> The Macra: Maybe it's specist of me, but I don't expect intelligence from a sixty foot crab.  As far as the Macra go, I consider the previous appearance as the abberation, a mutated batch that grew some smarts and decided to take over the world, etc.  This lot is probably your normal, garden variety Macra.  And don't give me that "scourge-of-the-galaxy" line.  It's not like the Doctor's never exaggerated before.

> Failure to communicate: It's just quick enough to be a throwaway line, but when contacting the fast lane is mentioned, I believe it's Brannigan that says you can't call the fast lane, as it's a "different class." Suspicious, I know, but coupled with the "We're so sorry - Drive safe" prior to the hymn, I'd be suspicious myself.

This episode was amazingly fast-paced for being about NOT going anywhere.

A few of my own favorite quickies:

> Max Normal - with his pinstriped suit, ginchy hat, aversion to guns, and middle-class bearings, he could very well be another incarnation of the Doctor.  Had this been in the 90s, tell me they wouldn't have gotten McCoy to play the part, just to mess with us.

> Love the montage of drivers. Just the sheer variety made me happy. At least a few of those drivers were decidedly NOT human.

> This episode was amazingly fast-paced for being about NOT going anywhere.

> I don't know how contacting the police or gardai is in that part of the world, but it sounds about normal for here.

> Tennant's nose is a bit crooked, isn't it?  Hadn't ever realized this before.

> Two quick points regarding the message: first, that look on his face. That's realization mixed with anger.  He knows something he's still not telling, despite opening up to Martha. Also, Bo speaks his final words to a traveller - But Tennant's Scottish, not Irish! Ba-zing..

A traveller? But Tennant's Scottish, not Irish! Ba-zing..

> I can't help but grin when the sky opens.  I'll forgive a certain level of shite if Russ can tug on my heartstrings like this periodically.  That's all he can tug, though, gay agenda be damned.

> Face of Bo: Wonderful character, in my view.  Prime fodder for character development, and the most important bit: HE'S NOT HUMANOID.  Need more of that.  Are you listening Big Finish?  BBC Books?

And so, 2007: Fit the Third draws to a close, we look forward to Art Deco Daleks, Who in Classic Americana, the return of the most anticipated aliens of the new series(the Pigmen), and the first new series episode written by a woman!

Future Shock

Gridlock

Russell T Davies has admitted freely that the influence of Judge Dredd's Mega City One is all over his script for this episode, and it shows - with a varied array of freaks, crazies and weirdos trapped on the Motorway, not to mention the lovely deliberate homage to informer Max Normal (though it would have been great to have The Businessman talk in Max's "hey daddio" patter rather than the predictable upper class). Though I think that Judge Dredd would have banished the cat people to the Cursed Earth as being mutants. There were links too in the concept of a never ending traffic jam, with people living in "mo-pad" mobile homes for all their lives, and the idea of "City bottom" being somewhere where bad things happen.

However, where as Dredd's world has a consistent internal logic, RTD's script  had more holes in it than a swiss cheese factory. To be honest it would be easy to find fault with loads of things (such as, if they had inter-car communication, why, in 24 years had no-one radioed back to say that the motorway didn't go anywhere?), but at the end of the day you know what? I actually really enjoyed the episode - and that's primarily because it had bags of heart, and dealt with the idea of faith through adversity in an interesting and entertaining way.

I am not a religious person at all. I have only been to church for the obvious christenings, marriages and funerals. And I have strangely never heard "The Old Rugged Cross" before - despite it apparently being one of the top ten hymns. Maybe that's why the whole scene with the travellers singing  together genuinely moved me. I have watched it several times since Saturday, and each time the same thing happens. Maybe it's sloppy writing to have a Christian hymn survive so long, and maybe the whole New Earth thing would fit better if it was a few hundred years in the future rather than five billion, but it worked for me. Apparently the more people change, the more they stay the same...

Maybe that's why the whole scene with the travellers singing  together genuinely moved me.

That's seemingly true of the Irish as well, at least on New Earth. Americans seem to have disappeared from New New York, but Brannigan is evident proof that the Irish still have their pioneering spirit in the far future. I found it easy to ignore thoughts of Thermoman and just enjoy Ardal's performance - the makeup being so excellent didn't hurt either. I can only assume that one of the reasons their journey took so long was because they pulled into the equivalent of a service station occasionally, bought a hit of "happy happy joy joy" from those dodgy street vendors and had a bit of inter-racial shagging in the lay-by. "Dogging" takes on a whole new meaning. Still, the kittens were dead cute.

...bought a hit of "happy happy joy joy" from those dodgy street vendors and had a bit of inter-racial shagging in the lay-by.

Both The Doctor and Martha were excellent once again, particularly Martha bonding with her kidnappers, and the Doctor rocking the status quo by asking those questions all the little Mo-Padders had forgotten to think about.

And then we have the return of the Macra, or the Tulips of Doom as they looked at first glance. No reason why they were there, no genuine reason for them to attack people and no resolution to their presence at the end of the episode - typical stuff from our Mr D then really! Still if you are going to have a pointless monster to create some menace, it might as well be one from 40 years ago.

Finally, the Face of Boe uses his life to let everyone out of the Undercity and  gives his last, predictable message to the Doctor. I was hoping for him to ask the Doc "Why are you always shouting?". Still, we knew what was coming, it was just the way David Tennant played it perfectly that made all the difference. Shock and denial all at once, but still keeping it all internalised. It's also good to see that Martha won't take no for an answer  or any of the old "I'll explain later" crap from the Doctor. More and more I prefer her to Rose.

Next Week: Daleks Take Manhattan. Who's for Dalek Sec in a huge Busby Berkeley number?

The Emblem of Suffering and Shame

What the hell was that?  I’d been lured into a false sense of security with the first two episodes and then BAM!  Russell T is back on form.

In honour of this episode I've decided to write my review in a the same manner that this episode took - It makes no sense and goes nowhere.

Initially I wondered what the American Gothic couple were doing in Doctor Who.  I tried looking for a pitchfork, but even on an almost frame by frame scan I couldn’t see one.  They bore no relation to the rest of the programme.  Were any of the characters called Grant Wood and I missed it?

Now, I’m not up in my art, but there is a painting of a bowler hatted man in a pin-striped suit with an apple for a face (It was featured in the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair).  The last car that the Doctor visited had a chap dressed like that (without the apple).  Was each car occupant meant to be an homage to famous works of art?  If so, who painted the Wookie/werewolf cross that was in the fast lane?  The whole art thing was just odd.  Things didn’t get any more normal after that.

BAM!  Russell T is back on form.

My first reaction once the show had finished was something of a paraphrase from The New Adventures of Superman and went something like “How Galacticly stupid were they?”  What would cause these thousands (if not millions)  of people to spend decades driving round in circles in the hope of a better life?  It makes the M25 seem like a safe bet.

Let me see if I’ve got the timeline straight here.

In the year 50,000,000,029 the entire Senate dies and a cat with a big head takes over.
In the year 50,000,000,030 people start leaving New New York and heading out to the suburbs.
In the year 50,000,000,053 out heroes arrive on New Earth and start interfering.

For example, the married ladies (whose name I don’t recall) had been travelling for 23 years – They were among the first to leave you see.  Are you telling me that they hopped in the car following Boe’s promise of a better life and it still took them all that time to travel 10 miles?  There weren’t all those cars on the motorway way back then, so  they wouldn’t have been gridlocked.  They could have made the journey, found all the exits closed, then turned round again and been back the same day.

So, why did it take them 23 years to get not further than it did Bannigan?  Martha’s kidnappers made it to their destination within minutes once they were in the “fast lane” and found the way blocked.  By that theory, the sisters and the rest of the “first ones” could have been there and back within the day.

a vapour trail of carbon gases all along the galaxy

And what’s with all the hymn singing?  Assuming Christianity is still an active faith 50 billion years in the future why would all the aliens and cat people have adopted it enough to sing a hymn that was really old and referencing crucifixion, which was quite an unpleasant way to behave.  I just didn’t understand the whole religious angle.  They had faith in the system, but nobody ever said that God was in charge of that system, so why sing to Him about it.

And why did these highly advanced flying cars with little blue lights on the bottom kick out so much exhaust anyway?  Unless of course the lights were there in some kind of homage to the Torchwood mobile.  Are we meant to believe that mankind has travelled 50,000 light years across interstellar distances and they left a vapour trail of carbon gases all along the galaxy?

How exactly did the Doctor recognise the Macra so readily?  They weren’t exactly wearing nametags were they?  Does he have an Eye-Spy book of Alien life forms?  If so, he shouldn’t already have ticked them off.  They didn’t really look like the Macra of the old days, did they?  Okay, so they were giant crabs, but they can’t be the only race of mutant crustaceans out there can they?  There are enough practically human looking aliens that we’ve encountered over the years, that I don’t think we can really put our faith in the old adage that “If it walks (sideways) like a Macra and has claws like a Macra then it’s a Macra” because there's just not enough evidence either way.  I think he was just trying to sound clever.

And what happened to the Macra at the end anyway?  As they were gas feeders, are we to assume that they just died out when there was no exhaust left to eat?  How many of them were there?  Assuming that the motorway was only 10 miles long and that it was all as full as the bit that Martha and Co. encountered, there would be thousands and thousands of them down there.   That's a lot of Crabby Patties!

A couple of plus points about the show, as I’ve been a little negative so far.  There was some more continuity between previous stories and new ones.  The obvious one was the Face of Boe appearing on New Earth again and the slightly more obscure was the Macra coming back, albeit briefly and in a less impressive role.  It’s been almost exactly 40 years since we saw them last and it wasn’t exactly a stand out episode then, but it was nice to see another link to the old days.

I didn’t think of Father Dougal or George Sunday once

There was a little bad continuity in there, too.  I thought that the Doctor a little too shouty again this week.  I don’t know why the drug/mood pushers cleared off – He wasn’t that forceful, domineering or scary.  Just loud.

Still, I thought that the cat make up was excellent again and I thought that Ardal O’Hanlon did an excellent job in the role - I didn’t think of Father Dougal or George Sunday once.  Which was quite a feat.

So, what exactly did the face of Boe mean when he said that the Doctor was “the last of [his] kind”  but also that he was “not alone”?  If he’s the last, he’s the last.  If he’s not alone then there’s somebody else.  Which was it?

I daresay we’ll find out eventually.

The more I think about this episode, the worse it gets.  It made no sense to me at all.  I just hope the next week brings better stories and more sense.  I’m particularly interested to find out how you know who survived yet again after being wiped out twice already.

Final thought - Cats and humans are sexually compatible are they?  That should come as a relief to Danny John Jules at least.

The Road to Hell

Gridlock

The story started off rather bizarrely with two people who looked suspiciously like two people from a famous painting in a futuristic car, who then appear to be attacked by an unseen assailant. Later on it started to get even more bizarre with people stuck in cars on a motorway, which seems to go on forever and ever. I mean 5 miles in 12 years! That is one hell of a traffic jam. Then a cat person, like the nuns from New Earth, turns up, who looks a hell of a lot like Father Dougal out of Father Ted. There is also Novice Hane from New Earth, and the Face of Boe. And finally there is the Macra.

Why on earth the Macra? They weren’t a particularly good monster 40 years ago!

I mean why in the hell would you want to bring back a monster from a forgotten story that hasn’t been seen in 40 years? What are they going to bring back next? The Fish People of Atlantis? The Quarks? The Dominators? The Chumblies? If it was up to Russell T Davies, and it obviously is, then you can never rule out any of those, unfortunately. Why on earth the Macra? They weren’t a particularly good monster 40 years ago; I don’t think that they are going to make much of a splash this time round either. It might get us fan’s excited that a minor adversary from the Doctor’s past has returned but it will mean bugger all to the majority of people watching.

It got me thinking after the episode, about how the Macra were on New Earth, and friend and me have come up with a theory that might explain the Macra’s presence. What we think is that they were always there and that The Macra Terror was in fact set on New Earth. After all, that story was set in the far future on an unnamed Earth colony. Perhaps Russell T Davies is rewriting the shows history retroactively! You never know!

The whole episode came across to me like a strange mixture of Blade Runner, 2000AD, Terry Gilliam movies and the McCoy era.

The same can be said for all of the Gallifrey stuff which seems to be quoting from Marco Polo, the TV movie and the John Leekley bible for the original television move as seen in the book Regenerations. It’s lovely for us fans, as we know exactly what he is talking about and where all of the stuff has come from, but it will just be a load of info dump for the rest of the viewers. Was that not one of the things that the TV movie was criticised for back in 1996? Or am I barking up the wrong tree once again!

The whole episode came across to me like a strange mixture of Blade Runner, 2000AD, Terry Gilliam movies and the McCoy era. In fact I will go as far to say that Gridlock is a like a Sylvester McCoy story done well, it had that whole kind of British comic vibe that a lot of the McCoy stories had but was made with a lot more care and with a lot more energy than any of those stories were. I certainly could imagine reading a story like this in one those comics from the late seventies and early eighties.

I did find that David Tennant returned to his rather shouty characterisation of the Doctor, to try and make him sound commanding. I’m afraid that it didn’t work last year and it’s not working again this time. Is it something to do with stories set on New Earth that cause him to shout all of the time for no apparent reason? I am beginning to wonder if it is.

Apart from every one singing “The Old Rugged Cross” the other really bizarre sequence was the one when the Doctor jumped from car to car to reach the fast lane, peopled with all sorts of strange characters including a nudist couple, a bright red man in a bright red car, a bloke who looked a bit like Mr Freeze from the Batman comics, two oriental teenagers and a business man in a bowler hat and pin striped suit! Only in Doctor Who would you get such a scene. It was certainly exciting and very funny, particularly when he landed in the car with the nudists, but completely and utterly barmy!

I wonder, will that line about him not having a brother any more come back to haunt him later on in the series?

The more I see Martha, the more I like her. She certainly stands up to the Doctor and won’t let him fob her off. I like that in her character. Most notably in the last scene where she sat down and wouldn’t let the Doctor leave until he had at least told her what was going on. She is not a woman to be trifled with and more power to her.

I thought that the CGI work in this story was breathtaking, particularly in the scenes where the Doctor was leaping from car to car, and the whole world seemed very real which is always a good mark of good CGI . It makes you wonder what they could do if they had this sort of technology back in the seventies. Just imagine Underworld remade nowadays, it would look so much better.

So the Face of Boe returned with his message to the Doctor and it was exactly what everyone on the Internet forums had guessed. I wasn’t surprised at that at all, and you probably shouldn’t be after the mention of Gallifrey in the Christmas special, and the title of the final episode. That was a bit anticlimactic to be honest, although I am not sure what else I was expecting the Face of Boe to say.

There wasn’t much of a plot in this story, and the story finished five minutes before the end of the episode leaving time for the Doctor to explain to Martha who the Daleks were, before they meet in the next story, and that he is the last of the time lords even though the Face of Boe had just said something to the contrary only a couple of minutes beforehand. He certainly looked worried when the Face of Boe said his final words, so he certainly seems to think that there is something in the Face of Boe’s words. I wonder, will that line about him not having a brother any more come back to haunt him later on in the series?

It was quite sad when the Face of Boe died, I know he really didn’t do much, and was basically just a giant face,  but it was quite emotional when he breathed his last. Well I was moved anyway.

Gridlock was certainly an interesting episode. Totally, completely, and utterly barmy. Great stuff!

"I found that episode strange and confusing."

Lawrence Miles reviews Gridlock:  "I like anything I can’t see coming a mile off, and this was so bizarre that even I found it surprising. God help the little children-stroke-fanboys, since it may have been a bit non-monstery for their tastes, as with “Love & Monsters” last year. But speaking as a grown-up, the sheer, relentless unpredictability of “Gridlock” made it even more exciting than the preceding football match which determined whether it was actually broadcast."

Macra Economics

Trickier to sort out the rating splits this week with the show starting half way through the fifteen minutes. But here goes.

Time......BBC One.............ITV1..........BBC Two......Four...............Five
19:30 .. 6.6 (35.5%) .. 4.6 (24.7%) .. 1.1 ( 6.1%) .. 1.4 ( 7.6%) .. 0.8 ( 4.1%)
19:45 .. 7.8 (39.7%) .. 4.1 (20.9%) .. 1.1 ( 5.3%) .. 1.4 ( 7.3%) .. 1.0 ( 4.9%)
20:00 .. 8.2 (39.8%) .. 4.6 (22.4%) .. 1.1 ( 5.1%) .. 1.3 ( 6.2%) .. 0.8 ( 3.9%)
20:15 .. 7.7 (36.3%) .. 4.9 (23.1%) .. 1.1 ( 5.0%) .. 1.6 ( 7.3%) .. 0.7 ( 3.4%)

Average: 8.0 (39.5%)

Worth noting too that the show gained 1.9 million viewers on the football.  Who was it who said  'to be fair the football will probably be watched by more people'?  Come one own up... Nyer, told you so.  That said, oddly, the share was the same which means that more people were watching tv after that time overall.  But ITV are having an awful time of it with their Grease show in particular onto a loser -- I think there's even less people watching that than Celebrity Wrestling ...

Road to Nowhere

Something tells me Russell T Davies stays at home for the Bank Holidays…

Gridlock

Another week, another RTD script that promises much but fails to deliver. Yup, we’ve got social commentary (the everyday madness of traffic congestion ramped up to eleven); yup we’ve got emotion (though if I’m alone in not being moved by a community of grid-locked drivers singing their spirit-raising hymn then I can only apologise); and yup we’ve got closure of sorts to the ‘Year Five Billion’ trilogy which has been strung across these first three seasons. But more importantly we haven’t got any real, human drama to make us care about these people; just some cod moralising and Murray Gold hitting the emotional button to tell us when we should start crying. In the hands of a better writer this could have been an unexpected jewel; in RTD’s self-satisfied hands it’s ‘New Earth’ without the zombies.

I’m really fed up with lazy critics - not to mention lazy TV producers - trotting out the old Blade Runner analogy every time they wanna describe a piece of futuristic SF that isn’t as squeaky clean as comfort Lenor. Besides, ‘Gridlock’ hardly deserves such a moniker seeing as - apart from the brief, rain-spattered opening on New, New York’s underbelly - it’s more Fifth Element crossed with Coruscant than it is anything from Ridley Scott’s just-as-influential-now-as-it-ever-was epic. Except here the most interesting thing is not the people inside these static tin cans, but the tin cans themselves. Ten miles travel in six years? A world where people literally spend their lives trying to get from A to B? Looks like John Prescott’s transport policy is still going strong five billion years from now…

up pop the crab aliens who last menaced the Doctor when this sort of metaphorically-transparent storytelling would still have been novel

Except it’s not, is it. Just as with last year’s misguided mess set on New, New Earth you’re less convinced that this is the far, far future and more convinced that those rain-sodden streets and traffic-congested skies are no more than a couple of hundred years from now; in a city not exactly a billion years or so from one you’d walk down any day of the week (Manchester, judging by the weather). I’m not gonna even bother mentioning how everyone talks in regional accents, how the clothes and the fashions look about as futuristic as Martha’s and how the lack of any truly alien life forms makes this New, New Earth look alarmingly Arien in make-up (except I just did. Sorry). As we know RTD seems to have an obsession with showing the far future only to highlight how little everything will have changed. But let’s hope the completion of this ‘trilogy’ sees him set his sights on dates a little closer to home in future, eh?

And something else which is less than futuristic is the plot. In time-honoured tradition it’s basically all about the Doctor arriving to find a subjugated populace so inured to their plight that they’ve forgotten there’s even a chance of a different life. And how the Doctor - with a little help from his friends - frees said populace from their existential chains to live a better life of peace and prosperity. Weren’t they doing this back in the sixties, say like 1967’s ‘The Macra Terror’? Funny that, because just when you thought you knew all the potential Big Bads that RTD had lined up for Season Three, up pop the crab aliens who last menaced the Doctor back in the days when this sort of patronising, metaphorically-transparent storytelling would still have been novel. Daleks aside, if this marks the peak of what we can expect this year from the old-school locker then perhaps those rumours about John Simm playing the (ahem) are little more than a smokescreen before discovering he’s just gonna be a nasty politician.

Looks like John Prescott’s transport policy is still going strong five billion years from now…

Still, at least we’ve got Ardal O’Hanlon doing his Father Ted shtick (again) as an Irish-brogued cat; not to mention all the implications of his human wife (quite literally) having kittens. And the pair do provide the episode’s best line, when describing the Doctor’s escape plan as both ‘completely insane’ yet ‘a bit magnificent’ at the same time. Elsewhere, none of the guest cast get a chance to be any more than perfunctory given the material on offer; with only the returning Novice Haim and the Face of Boe’s touching exit providing any of the emotional gravitas that we’re surely meant to find. On which point, what a shame that fan rumours regarding his secret message for ‘the traveller without a home’ turned out to be true; as the words ‘You Are Not Alone’ are about as subtle an indication of where Season Three is going as name-checking Gallifrey every other episode. Potentially of more interest is Phil Collinson’s suggestion on the following Confidential that Boe himself may be linked to this revelation, rather than just its messenger. The Face of Boe…Rusa, anyone..?

At least Tennant and Agyeman continue to impress - least of all given the fact that they share the least of their screen-time together so far in this episode. Tennant still seems to think that shouting through gritted teeth is some kind of substitute for quiet menace, but the final scene in which he eulogises his lost planet (with fan-pleasing references to orange skies and silver leaves) is as genuinely touching as this episode gets. Nice touch too that he doesn’t go blabbing about the Time War to Martha straight away; once again marking out the differences between their two characters and the dynamic they share with the Doctor.

Tennant still seems to think that shouting through gritted teeth is some kind of substitute for quiet menace

So, bad without being terrible. But then I think most of us probably expected that. Next Bank Holiday perhaps they could show this episode on motorway service boards; f nothing else it’d provide some ironic entertainment for the massed maniacs trying to get across the M1 instead of staying home to watch Toy Story…

Next time: Say ‘Heloooooooooo Newwwwwwwwww Yoooooooooooooork’ as the Doctor and Martha get depressed at the thought of watching Sec’s in the City.

(The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about Gridlock: in a parallel universe, Watford made a decent fist of it and we were all spared this tedium for seven days)

The Macra Error

What is it with Russell 'Television' Davies and numbers? Why does he feel the need to scale everything up until it becomes so unbelievable? If the year 5 billion doesn't stretch credibility to breaking point then try 5 miles in 12 years instead! How ridiculous is that? Just strap on a gas mask and WALK, you idiots! In a single stroke RTD manages to jolt me out of the story because I simply can not accept the fact that these people would (or could) sit in a car for decades without bothering to do something about it! I was stuck in that small claustrophobic space for less than 45 minutes and I was ready to kill someone...

The Happiness Patrol with added Gay Agenda...

Gridlock is Paradise Towers for the 21st Century. The Happiness Patrol with added Gay Agenda. Dragonfire with cars. It's even got a couple of elderly lesbians in it, fer christsake! I mean, how much more McCoy can you get? Couple this with yet another homage to cANAL STREET during that torturous pantomimesque scene set in Pharmacy Alley (which was scored by Murray Gold in such a way that I half expected John "Any Show Will Do' Barrowman to leap out of the shadows and deliver a show tune) and you've got a weird mish-mash of 2000AD meets Doctor Who via Brazil. But sillier.

The society we are introduced to is completely implausible, even for a series as off-the-wall as this one. Small, enclosed sub-cultures that can only travel down the "fast-lane" if they indulge in a little menage-a-trois (subtext anyone?) and who will surely die if they stand outside for more than a few minutes, but who still manage to find the time to nip into town to buy the supplies with which to customize their cars and enough drugs to lighten their moods, and who drop babies onto their back seats with gay abandon whilst eating their own shit, as a large, sad face keeps them blissfully unaware that civilization as they know it has gone tits up without a paddle. Hmmmm. Where to begin?

Just a bunch of old snappers...

And then - completely out of left field - up pop the Macra. The Macra??!! I actually shouted their name at precisely the same moment the Doctor did, punching the air like a complete idiot, startling the hell out of my wife and daughter into the bargain. But then RTD de-evolves them into just your average run-of-the-mill B-movie giant crabs who don't really have anything to do with the plot (such as it is). For a moment there I thought they might be behind the whole thing, manipulating events from below. Sadly, they are just a bunch of old snappers.

However, none of this really matters because we've got all that guff about Gallifrey (silver trees and orange skies, fanboys!) and the fact that the Doctor is not alone in the universe. What a surprise! Honestly, who was remotely shocked by the Face of Boe's so-called "revelation"? I think we all guessed what his final message was over 12 months ago; I even managed to utter those four little words at exactly the same time as the Face did. Still, it did impress my wife and daughter.

Poor Boe. Leaking onto the floor like that. How poignant. How utterly heartbreaking. Or it would have been if he hadn't looked like a deflated whoopee cushion. But it was a terribly sad moment; after all, he was a great friend of the Doctors, having spent approx. 95 seconds in his presence over the last three years. Sob. I'm just surprised that Boe didn't shoe-horn in a Saxon reference at the very last moment. Saxon. Geddit? Shoes... Saxon... Oh, please yourselves. Maybe something subtle like, "You are not SAXON!!!! alone". A wasted opportunity, if you ask me.

Whether he be a priest, a superhero or a cat you can always rely on  Ardal O'Hanlon to be  Ardal O'Hanlon

And Tennant still manages to scare the hell out of me. Just as Hartnell always puts me on edge because I'm waiting for him to fluff a line, Tennant has the same effect on me because I'm waiting for him to over-enunciate his words whilst jutting his chin out via that whacky psuedo-Kenneth WIlliams thing that he does (with added jaw-clacking sound effect), and while he is certainly settling down a wee bit compared to last years smug-a-thon, he still tends to drift into irr-i-tat-TING mode now and again. Take, for example, the moment where he manages to tune the TV monitor into a scene from New Earth. "A-HA! That was the view I got last time!" he gushes. Yes, it's the exactly the same view. Even down to the way that car on the right banks to the left. Funny, that.

But wasn't Ardal O'Hanlon fantastic as Ardal O'Hanlon? Whether he be a priest, a superhero or a cat you can always rely on Ardal O'Hanlon to be Ardal O'Hanlon. Begorrah! Such range. However, I'm not going to get drawn into the whole "woman gives birth to kittens" thing, and I missed the hours spent by the Mill getting one of the little critters to say "Mama" because my family were all cooing "ahhhhhh" when they showed up; I, on the other hand, was projecting gin through my nose - a woman gave BIRTH TO F**KING KITTENS!!!!! (copyright Dave Sanders).

If all of the above gives you the impression that I can't abide Gridlock then you'd be half right. The thing is, I still have a soft spot for this kind of nonsensical - some would say brave - flavour of British sci-fi that even Stargate (even Lexx!) wouldn't touch with a bargepole. And it did look fantastic. Admit it. And come on, you have to admire a story that throws in a hymn for no readily apparent reason (they can all sing together but no one bothers to talks to each other about their predicament???), and giant fat red men still make me laugh like a drain. I can't wait for next year's trip to the year five billion where we will discover that felines are turning humans into catnip while a giant arse looks on dispassionately.

I think Russell has been at the patches as well. The dreams can be particularly vivid, you know...