Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

Light Years

It is rather fitting that Voyage of the Damned was the succulent meat in the centre of a wholemeal old-school EastEnders sandwich on Christmas Day. Not simply because this helped create the perfect storm of a ratings juggernaut that the evening became for BBC One, but because the EastEnders storyline in question revolved partly around the character of Tanya Branning, played by Jo Joyner whose performance as Lynda-with-a-Y forever won the hearts of many a Doctor Who fan back in the good old days of 2005, when the world was young and all things seemed possible.

Astrid is perhaps forever to be preceded by the expression ‘poor old’ from hereon in.

Anyhow, this was a fitting piece of scheduling because it’s Lynda-with-a-Y who most comes to mind as a comparison when you come to think of another character perhaps forever to be preceded by the expression ‘poor old’ from hereon in. Astrid Peth, played, as if you didn’t know, by ‘Pop Princess’ (yes, it’s a legal requirement to use that prefix, too) Kylie Minogue.

She gets her name in the titles and everything!

Kylie – come on, everyone calls her that – is one of those pieces of casting that transcends character. We care more about her, or are at least more interested in or more aware of her, because of by whom she is played by than because of any character traits, no matter how sympathetic and endearing they might be. She is a genuine pop culture icon in the UK, and to try and shy away from that would be counter-productive. It’s as if they had actually managed to persuade Laurence Olivier to play the mutant in Revelation of the Daleks – you’d focus on that small part all the more simply because of who was playing it.

You know, you just know as soon as he uses the word ‘promise’ that he’s not going to be able to do it.

The casting is one of the reasons Astrid evokes Lynda, because you know pretty much from the start that both of them are doomed. In both cases, the Doctor promises these eager young one-off companions that he will save them, and take him with them on further adventures. And you know, you just know as soon as he uses the word ‘promise’ that he’s not going to be able to do it. With Lynda, it was simply because that was always the way the story was going. With Kylie, because of who she is, you knew the moment she asked to travel with the Doctor, and he said that she could, that she would die. She couldn’t go with him. They could never have kept her.

Which is a bit of a shame in one respect, as it would be nice to go into these things blind with a bit of genuine surprise, but even without the casting aspect, there are so few surprises we fans allow ourselves to enjoy these days that anybody could have played the part and we would still have known she was doomed. That’s no reason not to cast her, and I enjoyed Minogue’s performance – without wishing to sound too patronising, I thought that she made Astrid a rather sweet character. A woman just beginning to pass from youth into middle age, who has realised that she is in danger of allowing life to pass her by, and has taken one last chance to see those alien skies before it is all too late.

At least she did actually get to see that sky and touch the surface of an alien world, and her little off-world trip was all the better for allowing us to enjoy Bernard Cribbins’s cameo as the newspaper vendor. This is where the knowledge of fandom can be a positive thing, because we can look forward with great anticipation to his return, knowing that he will be reappearing in series four. Hurrah!

As Barry Norman wouldn’t say, ‘and why not?’

He only briefly got to interact with the Doctor, unlike most of the rest of the supporting cast who formed a core group of survivors with the Doctor as their leader, along the tried and tested pattern of any standard Hollywood disaster movie of the 1970s, definitely one of the templates Russell T Davies used for Voyage of the Damned. And as Barry Norman wouldn’t say, ‘and why not?’

One of the central points, the founding philosophy perhaps, of Davies’s vision for Doctor Who is that the Doctor is a character who makes people better – not simply in a medical sense, but a moral one. He brings out the best in those around him, or encourages them to bring out the best in themselves.

He cannot save everyone, though, and the Doctor’s pain and frustration at being unable to save Astrid – “I can do anything!” – was a nice counterpoint to the Godlike-powers this incarnation has been imbued with at times. It’s nice to see that he can’t win everything, and he is sometimes vulnerable.

Midshipman Frayme getting shot in the stomach appears to have bothered people in some of the online verdicts I have read on the episode, because by the time the story comes its end he’s pretty much walking around as if he received nothing more serious than a light scratch. While this is true, I didn’t really see it as a problem – and it certainly didn’t bother me on first viewing, but perhaps I am simply too forgiving a viewer. In any case, it is pretty clearly established that none of the passengers and crew are human, so Framye’s alien – presumably Stowish – physiology could well help him to recover more quickly from injuries, and he is shown to be treating himself at points during the story, probably from the bridge’s medical kit.

Apparently the BBC high-ups liked it so much that they allowed it an extra ten minutes, but I think they could probably have done with being a touch more ruthless.

Voyage of the Damned was by no means a perfect episode though, let’s be clear about that. Part of this was, I think, down to the running time – apparently the BBC high-ups liked it so much that they allowed it an extra ten minutes, but I think they could probably have done with being a touch more ruthless. If had been tightened up a little and brought down to the same sixty-minute length that the previous specials came in at, I think it would have been a better – and certainly more streamlined – story overall.

A chunk of this could have come from the excising of the filmed slow-motion scenes at the end, which I found to be rather mawkish and almost comedic, seeming more like a parody of melodrama than something from a melodrama itself. I am sure I have read or heard an interview or possibly a commentary with Russell T Davies in the past where he has expressed a dislike for such scenes, so it was something of a surprise to find that this sequence was included.

I also didn’t much like the scene where the Doctor calls the Hosts to him and then orders they flightwards with a click of his fingers. It seemed oddly like the beginning of a pop video, and jarred rather with everything else that was going on during the special… Just a slight misstep with the direction, really, which is a pity as overall I thought that James Strong did his usual… erm… strong job.

It was so unashamedly silly that I think they just about got away with it.

As for the bit with the Queen thanking the Doctor for his help and wishing him a Happy Christmas… It was very silly, but on the other hand it was so unashamedly silly that I think they just about got away with it. It certainly made all of the general audience types I was watching the programme with laugh, in any case, if that’s any justification for it, and oddly I can actually imagine it being the sort of thing the Hartnell era production team might have shoved into a Christmas special if they had thought that they could get away with it.

All in all, this was a fun, entertaining and yes, even at times moving little episode, which I think is exactly the sort of thing you’re after for this sort of show in this sort of slot. And what’s more, it had that fantastic-looking series four trailer at the end – I cannot wait for Donna’s return, now. Every time I see or read about more of her, she feels increasingly like exactly the sort of character the show needs to give it a bit of a push in a new direction.

Roll on 2008!

Electrode dreamscapes

Last year, back when the Outpost Gallifrey website still boasted a features section, I began writing an article in praise of the career of Verity Lambert. For one reason or another I never finished the piece, but when I heard today’s sad news, I remembered it and decided to take a look.

It’s grossly inadequate as any kind of fitting tribute to the woman, even on a weblog, but I thought for what it was worth I’d drag it out and run it up the flagpole. Because even if your words of praise are nowhere near eloquent enough, there are never too many words that can be said in praise of this woman.

So, back to the summer of 2006…

A hard-hitting political drama leavened with a rich vein of dark humour, and a 1960s adventure series.

Thanks to the modern miracle that is the DVD boxed set, I was recently able to enjoy for the first time two fine television programmes I had read a lot about but never seen – the 1991 Channel 4 serial G.B.H., and 1960s BBC One adventure hokum Adam Adamant Lives!. I watched both of these in successive weeks, and apart from the fact that they both now sit happily on my DVD shelf, you’d have to say that I could not have chosen a more contrasting fortnight’s viewing.

One programme is a hard-hitting political drama leavened with a rich vein of dark humour, exploring the world of socialism, the extreme left, the Labour movement and the values and morals of Britain at the dawn of the 1990s. The other is a 1960s adventure series, a sequence of stand-alone episodes telling the tale of the eponymous Adam Adamant, a gentleman adventurer frozen in a block of ice by his nemesis The Face in 1902, awaking sixty-four years later to confront the new evils and new morality of London at the height of the swinging sixties.

A quarter of a century in time, a chasm of ethos and vastly different television landscapes separate these two series.

A quarter of a century in time, a chasm of ethos and vastly different television landscapes separate these two series. And yet for all of this, there is one thread that runs through, one constant that for more than forty years now has almost always meant a guarantee of quality wherever you see it on the credits of a British television programme. Back in the 1960s on Adam Adamant, it’s the penultimate name you see on the end credits – by the time of G.B.H. in 1991, it’s right up there written large across the screen immediately after the names of the two stars at the start of each episode.

That name, of course, is Verity Lambert.

If you’re reading this, then you are almost certainly a Doctor Who fan, and probably well aware of the name of Verity Lambert and just how much the programme owes to her. Often, however, being associated with Doctor Who can be both a blessing and a curse. It is a wonderful and special thing because it means those who might perhaps be forgotten, despite long and varied careers, are never done so – directors, writers, producers, script editors, fight arrangers and even floor managers who might be lost from the pages of television history are chronicled in the articles of Doctor Who Magazine or the chapters of any one of a dozen reference books. To have worked on the production of Doctor Who is to be remembered – perhaps only in a small way, but still a rather special one, I think.

People are often remembered by us solely for their work on Doctor Who, with their other achievements and programmes not celebrated as much as they ought to be.

The flipside of this is that these people are often remembered by us solely for their work on Doctor Who, with their other achievements and programmes not so much being deliberately ignored, but perhaps not gone into and celebrated as much as they ought to. Lambert suffers less from this than others – she’s had such a stellar career it’d be hard for even the most insular of Doctor Who fans not to have noticed it – but we still tend to look at her through the microscope of Doctor Who history.

Which should not be ignored – oh no. Let’s get that straight right away, what she achieved in 1963 was something very magical and special. Russell T Davies wrote in Doctor Who Magazine around the time of the 2005 show’s launch that he was disappointed when Lambert could not attend the premier in Cardiff, because she ought to have been carried shoulder high through the crowd. And so she should. For Lambert worked to produce Doctor Who when it did not have the backing of decades of poplar consciousness behind it, an expectant audience and a nation raised on its icons.

Lambert had nothing. No fond audience memories, no race memory of police boxes and Daleks. She did it all from scratch, and against the background of a fraught development process and a sometimes openly hostile environment inside the BBC that very nearly saw Doctor Who killed at birth. She is the one constant – there are many men who had a hand in creating all sorts of bits and pieces of the fiction of the show; Sydney Newman, C.E. Webber, Donald Wilson, David Whitaker, Anthony Coburn… all great and good men, none would doubt that. They all helped create the magic.

Lambert had nothing. No fond audience memories, no race memory of police boxes and Daleks. She did it all from scratch.

But Lambert was the one woman, the one producer, the one constant – it was she who had to take all of these incredible, some might say foolhardy, elements and forge a real series out of them, take it from the page and see that it was actually made and broadcast. On a budget a similar ITV or American series might have laughed at, she created a series that could really go anywhere and do anything – lost in time and space, every Saturday night it took risks and tried things no BBC production on that level ought to have been able to do. Series one of Doctor Who is some of the bravest, daftest, most brilliant television you will ever see. That’s why this series could come back with such success in 2005. That’s why it lasted so long originally. That’s why it’s an icon. Because it was great from the beginning.

Too often, however, when we look at the careers of Doctor Who alumni we only find ourselves finding out much about their careers outside of the series when they die. Then Doctor Who Magazine prints an obituary or a tribute and we discover all of the other programmes they worked on, and it always seems something of a shame that nobody really celebrated these achievements when they were alive.

Too often, when we look at the careers of Doctor Who alumni we only find ourselves finding out much about their careers outside of the series when they die.

With Lambert, Doctor Who really happened at the beginning of her career, so she has had forty-plus years afterwards to cram television production into, a span that few – if any – of the behind-the-scenes personnel who worked on the original series could match. And even before Doctor Who it was quite a career – she had worked as David Susskind’s personal assistant in New York, and been a production assistant on Armchair Theatre at ABC. She was, indeed, present for one of that series’ legendary moments, when actor Gareth Jones died off-stage in between scenes during a live broadcast.

But what came next, after Doctor Who, for the BBC’s youngest and only female drama producer? It’s a television career that deserves to be shouted from the rooftops. Not one to rest on her laurels nor one to shirk a difficult assignment, having gotten such a troublesome series off the ground and launched it into an entirely unexpected level of popularity, she next briefly took on the launching of a new BBC soap opera, The Newcomers. This was to be only a brief stop, however, as after overseeing the initial eight weeks of that programme she was picked by Sydney Newman to once again produce a show he had come up with the initial concept of, and once again it was one that would earn a degree of cult fandom, albeit nowhere near Doctor Who’s level. This show was Adam Adamant Lives!

It’s a television career that deserves to be shouted from the rooftops.

Lambert herself has confessed to never really being entirely satisfied with Adam Adamant, feeling that it never quite gelled as the ingredients had promised that it might.

…and that’s where it stops. I never got around to finishing the piece. I probably assumed I’d get back to it one day, but it feels as if the moment has rather passed now. All too sadly, in a very permanent way.

Had I gone on, it would have been in danger of desensitising its readers to Lambert’s genius, because the list of iconic and critically acclaimed shows she worked upon is longer than that of probably any other producer – Budgie, Rock Follies, The Naked Civil Servant, Minder, Quatermass, Widows, Sleepers, Jonathan Creek, Love Soup… You could fill a book with platitudes to her career.

Somebody certainly should.

Down with the Kids

I wrote this last week after having watched both of the episodes together, but I thought I’d leave it until now to post it so as not to risk getting moaned at for spoilers and so forth.

I have not been a viewer of Children’s BBC for quite some years now – more than a decade. I just about finished with it at the end of the Broom Cupboard era back in the mid-1990s, so it was obviously quite a while since I had sat down to watch a CBBC drama. Some things never change, though – there are still flashy graphics, loud music, and chatty presenters accompanied by strange puppets. This is still, for now, the stuff that these kids’ years of nostalgia will be made of.

This is still, for now, the stuff that these kids’ years of nostalgia will be made of.

I am sure that many of you will have been struck, as I have, by just what a bizarre thing it is that this show exists at all. Five years ago, who could ever have expected that Sarah Jane Smith, still played by Elisabeth Sladen, would be starring in her own BBC One show? It’s utterly barmy, but at the same time utterly fantastic, and it just goes to show what a strange old world we live in now. What was once not even the stuff of wild fan imaginings is here and being broadcast on the BBC.

It’s fairly well known that CBBC initially approached the Cardiff production team about doing a ‘Young Doctor’ series, an approach that was mercifully cut dead by Russell T Davies lest it take away from the mystery of the character. However, whether by accident or design, I think you can see some vestiges of the idea of a ‘Young Doctor’ approach in Luke’s character. It’s partly because the young actor playing him has such a pleasingly other-worldly aspect to him at times, partly because of his huge intelligence coupled with a somewhat naïve view of interpersonal relations, but mostly I think because of his status as an outsider.

Perhaps Kelsey went to a better school.

The Doctor isn’t like us, and wants to rebel against the system, to not fit in at all if he can possibly avoid it. Luke is also different, but is desperate to conform, so here the comparison is also a contrast. And yet, I think you can well imagine the young Doctor as a bit of a social outcast back on Gallifrey, and being as keen to try and fit in as Luke is here, simply because that’s what young people are like – rebellion in general as a principle doesn’t tend to come along until later. In any case, the comparisons are perhaps only slight, but they hold well enough to add some interest and enigma to Luke.

Unlike Luke, Maria’s other sidekick from Invasion of the Bane, Kelsey, has been completely disappeared without so much as a goodbye phone call. Allegedly – and I stress allegedly because you know what Who fandom is like for groundless rumours – this was because the young actress concerned was a bit of a pest on-set for the first episode, but whatever the case it seems that she has been erased from history, Nineteen Eighty-Four style. Perhaps she went to a better school.

I can’t say I’m all that sorry about her absence, as she was one of the more irritating aspects of that New Year special, and her absence has allowed the character of Clyde to be brought in to replace her. In some ways he is simply a male version, streetwise and self-confident, although not nearly so self-involved and with an enjoyable stroke of humour to him. Even from these first two episodes you can tell that the team of youngsters fits together much more comfortably than it did before, and they do actually seem like a group of people who might want to hang around with each other, whereas I could never picture Maria wanting to be in Kelsey’s company for all that much longer.

The problem with having such a strong central trio of teenagers means that Sarah could risk becoming a supporting character in her own programme.

Of course the problem with having such a strong central trio of teenagers means that Sarah could risk becoming a supporting character in her own programme, as some criticised the Ninth Doctor of being in the first series of the revived Doctor Who. I never fully agreed with that criticism, although I could see where those who levelled it were coming from, and I don’t think Sarah will be sidelined here, although there were some points at which you could be left to wonder ‘Whose name is it in the titles again?’ But this is a children’s show, after all – it can’t all be based around an older woman. This isn’t 1981 any more, and it’s not K9 and Company. (‘Thank God!’, come the cries from certain quarters!).

Indeed, you have to say that it’s pretty surprising – and admirable – that in a day and age when we seem to live in an ageist society so much of the time, CBBC were perfectly happy to allow a 59 year-old to carry a children’s show without panicking that it might not be in their demographic. Sladen has seen her chance and grabbed it with both hands and who can blame her – it’s so weird and wonderful that such a series exists, and nobody would have expected such a turn of good fortune would come her way. Back to the bizarreness of it all again. Sarah Jane seems older and colder in some ways, but warmer in others as she gets the hang of this whole motherhood lark, when she would have expected that such things would have passed her by. Sladen does well on the whole, although it’s probably best to gloss over her ‘acting’ alongside the children’s puppet on CBBC when guesting in the studio to answer a few questions between the two episodes. That was the first bit of her I saw that afternoon when I switched on after getting home just to make sure my recordings were up and running okay, so I was a touch worried for her, but there was no such hamming in the programme proper.

The older cast members as a whole acquitted themselves very well. Maria’s dad, Alan, is a very likeable character, although just as Kelsey never seemed like a likely friend of Maria’s, it’s hard to see what he ever saw in Maria’s mother, who seems a right pest. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons Kelsey was dropped – it would be a bit grating to have two such self-involved characters in a programme. Nonetheless, even if they seem hard to imagine as a couple, their insult-trading does make for some good scenes between Maria’s parents, and she does come across as genuinely fond of her daughter even if totally incapable of really looking after her or mothering her properly, hence her being with Alan.

It’s hard to see what he ever saw in Maria’s mother.

One element of the two-parter that really surprised me was the amount of death involved. I have not, as I said above, been a regular viewer of children’s television for quite some years now, and I would have expected that the executive producers and heads of department and so forth would have been a bit more reticent to show actual human beings having been killed, but we got this with the victims of the Slitheen seen at the beginning of the story – and of course the implication that they have killed a child, or a teenager anyway, as well.

But more than this, surely in most other children’s series, the Slitheen child at the end would at least have been spared, as he and his father begged for mercy. But no, not a bit of it – our cold-hearted new Sarah Jane and her crew left them to die. Probably the right thing, on balance, but definitely not what I was expecting, and it gives the show a nice edge.

Another nice edge comes from the mystery and enigma of ‘Mr Smith’, the supercomputer. He is a nice idea, but risks at times seeming like a bit too much of a K9 substitute. However, his scene with Clyde suggests that there is more to come from him and the secrets that he holds, which will doubtless prove an interesting backdrop to the stories.

I am in no way in the target audience for this show, but I enjoyed it immensely, and I think that the opening two-parter has given it an excellent springboard from which to go on to bigger and better things. Certainly if they maintain this quality at least, it could perhaps prove to be one of the best children’s shows of its generation.

Parting is such sweet sorrow

Doctor Who and I are parting company now. Only temporarily, you understand, but Saturday was the last that time I will see a first-run episode of the series as it is broadcast until Christmas. For the next couple of Saturdays I will be otherwise engaged, firstly with my dad’s 60^th birthday bash and then with the wedding reception of some friends of mine. Damned inconsiderate of everyone to have their celebrations on the two weekends following one of the dangliest cliffhangers in the history of the series, I have to say.

Damned inconsiderate of everyone to have their celebrations on the two weekends following one of the dangliest cliffhangers in the history of the series, I have to say.

Some of you will doubtless be wondering what the hell I am moaning about, when I will safely be able to watch the episodes on video only a few hours after they have shown, probably no later than many foreign fans have to put up with every week. But come on! After a finale to an episode that left you hanging like that, with so much going on and so much still to come, wouldn’t you be annoyed that you won’t be able to see what happens as it goes out on air?

Such is life, though, and I have to give credit to Davies, Harper and everyone else involved with Utopia for giving us such a dramatic conclusion. I doubt I would have been half so anxious about the extra wait to see each of the next two episodes had there not been such a terrific set-up here. Yes, there had been whispers and rumours flying around that made this not quite the ultimate surprise it would have been nice for it to be, and yes this was not the perfect episode, but I find it hard to believe any Doctor Who fan wouldn’t have found themselves sucked into the drama of the last ten minutes or so of Utopia, even if they had already thoroughly spoilered themselves beforehand.

I find it hard to believe any Doctor Who fan wouldn’t have found themselves sucked into the drama of the last ten minutes or so of Utopia.

What made it all the more surprising to me that I found this so exciting was the fact that I have never been much of a fan of the character of the Master. I quite like Roger Delgado’s original ‘gentleman villain’ version of the character, but a lot of that is to do with how well he combines and contrasts with Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor. No other Doctor and Master combination of the classic series ever really replicated the success of that sparring relationship. Although Anthony Ainley struggled manfully with what he was asked to do with some poor scripts and misguided direction in the 1980s, he only very rarely seemed like a nemesis of the Doctor worthy of the name.

The new series could change all that, although it’s still early days. If the new Master isn’t a success, though, you can’t say it’s not because he wasn’t given a good enough build-up. People might – and have already – complain that Utopia’s plot is rather slight, but I don’t think this episode was really any more about the refugees heading for the last outpost of humanity than Rose was about the Nestene Consciousness’s third attempt to conquer the Earth. It was very clearly an ‘episode one’, too, just one of the many ways in which it was a decidedly ‘old school’ example of Doctor Who. Despite it having a different director and not being advertised as one of a three-part finale, I suspect that we should no more judge it alone and isolated than we would the first episode of any other story. We just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope it’s the introduction to further delights to come along the lines of a Genesis of the Daleks part one, rather than a false dawn such as the opening episode of The Space Museum.

Jack is now the only surviving character from the first series of the Doctor Who revival, just two short years ago.

That said, there was a lot crammed in – I’m not sure whether it’s too much or not, but it occurs to me that I’m already a fair way into this review and I’m only just now mentioning the return of John Barrowman as Captain Jack Harkness. Counting the two Doctors separately, Jack is now the only surviving character from the first series of the Doctor Who revival, just two short years ago. Viewers of Torchwood will already have known how he has spent the intervening time since we last saw him in the main series, and although I enjoyed that programme more than some reviewers did, I did have problems with some of the ways in which his character was handled. Here, however, we got the rather happier Jack we saw originally in Doctor Who, back once again in Davies’s hands, and it was nice to see him. True, he had the confrontational scene with the Doctor in the radiation chamber, but even that was played rather more lightly and less earnestly than it might have been, and overall Jack’s presence only increased the enjoyment of the episode for me.

I don’t think we’re entirely done with Jack and his backstory, though – I know he was invented in the first place because Davies needed a soldier for the series one finale, but that can’t be the only reason for his presence this time around, surely? Especially given as he was specifically prevented from firing a gun by the Doctor here. In any case, it’s a shame that circumstances seem to have dictated that he will never be a full-time member of the TARDIS crew, as I think that the series might be all the better for it.

Doctor Who has its first knight as Sir Derek Jacobi brings all the Claudian weight of his not inconsiderable thespian reputation to our humble little programme.

There is admittedly the issue of finding enough for two companions to do in an episode, and it has to be said that both Jack and Martha suffered at times from being sidelined during this episode. That wasn’t because of each other or the Doctor, though – it was because of the main guest star, and someone who has wanted to appear in the series for a very long time and has nibbled around the edges with Big Finish and the BBC website. Yes, Doctor Who has its first knight as Sir Derek Jacobi brings all the Claudian weight of his not inconsiderable thespian reputation to our humble little programme.

Jacobi was excellent. In fact, I would go so far as to say he was one of the best guest actors there has been in Doctor Who, either in the revival or in the classic series. I really liked poor old Professor Yana, battling away to try and get humanity off the ground and out onto its final journey to the stars. He reminded me a little of a sort of a cross between the First and Second Doctors, and perhaps if Jacobi were twenty years younger he would be an excellent candidate for the lead role in the series.

The build up to his transformation into the Master was very tense and exciting, and even for someone like me who doesn’t really have all that investment in the character, just the mythological status the transformation was given made it seem like something really quite special. There was an interesting mix of references both to the recent and long-distant past of the programme – Delgado’s voice and Ainley’s laughter, coupled with the flashbacks to the likes of Human Nature and The Parting of the Ways…

Vast networks of hidden and half-seen storytelling, and the sense that there was a deep and mysterious history to the programme and its characters out there.

When I was a child and first getting to know and love Doctor Who, I was especially drawn to it because of these epic, vast networks of hidden and half-seen storytelling, and the sense that there was a deep and mysterious history to the programme and its characters out there. I would have loved an episode like this with its touches of history; I’ve no idea what the children of 2007 thought when watching it, but I hope it fired their imaginations as much as the likes of Remembrance of the Daleks fired mine all those years ago.

And then that ending! The Doctor, Martha and Jack, trapped, without even a presence in the trailer for next week to reassure anybody about their fate. The TARDIS, stolen! And the Master… dead and reborn!

It’s too early to judge Simm’s performance, I think, as he was very clearly in a post-regenerative state and a bit hyper and manic, although I do feel a twinge of regret that we couldn’t simply have kept Jacobi. But I suppose to get back to that old Delgado – Pertwee feeling, you do need to actors of the same generation, and seeing Tennant and the talented Simm sparking off one another in the next couple of weeks ought to be worth waiting for.

Even if, like me, you’ll have to wait a few extra hours for it.

Weeping and Windows

Three years ago, Doctor Who fandom was quite a different place. The new series had just entered production, and the minutest scrap of detail about it was fought over by hungry fans like a pack of hyenas tearing into a fresh corpse. We’d been waiting years for this, and every little piece of new information that leaked out or was posted online in the form of a blurry photo from a Cardiff street at night was welcomed with enthusiasm and debate.

The only female Doctor Who fans anybody had ever heard of tended to be American women the size of two houses with deeply strange Paul McGann fixations.

Ah yes, those debates. We were the old guard back then – men almost to a man, with the only female Doctor Who fans anybody had ever heard of tending to be American women the size of two houses with deeply strange Paul McGann fixations. And boy, could we get into a tizz about some odd stuff.

The first photograph of the new series TARDIS prop that came to our eyes was taken by Roger Anderson, the splendid chap who ran the late, lamented Doctor Who cuttings archive. You can see it here. And what did this image provoke? Joy at seeing such a fine reconstruction of the legendary old prop? Pleasure at the knowledge that the show was really happening, and it was all real and going to be seen on screen?

Well… yes. But there was also a degree – a worryingly large degree – of nonsense on the Outpost Gallifrey forums. For example, this bit from a chap calling himself Nuallain, but I could have picked any one from dozens of similar complaints. Mr Nuallain’s verdict on the new TARDIS prop? “It *does* look squatter, which disappointed my hugely on first sight. I agree with Etiem's assessment that while it may be *slightly* wider the main thing that looks off is the size of the windows. Far too big.”

Now, Steven Moffat is a member of the OG forums, and has posted there a couple of hundred times over the past three years or so. I’ve no idea whether he read that particular thread directly or whether someone told him about it but, whatever the case, last night the OG forum and all its various mad and strange folk became fixed in the history of the series like a bug in amber, as Billy the policeman told us that the TARDIS couldn’t be a real police box because the phone was just a dummy and “the windows are the wrong size.”

Hurrah for online fandom and all its bizarreness!

“The angels have the phone box” will be gracing t-shirts at conventions across the land before too long.

Pleasingly, this little nod to the olden days – which 2004 already seems like by now – seems to have gone down in the spirit with which it was intended over on OG, which is a nice surprise. It was just one of many such quotable and amusing lines Moffat sprinkled throughout the episode like icing sugar on a doughnut – “The angels have the phone box” will be gracing t-shirts at conventions across the land before too long, and indeed somebody was already flogging them on CafePress within minutes of last night’s episode coming to an end.

That Moffat writes sharp and amusing dialogue tends to be one of the given factors in any of his episodes. The other is that he will come up with an interesting plot with a clever twist to it, which he once again did last night with Blink. Moffat is one of the most popular writers generally in fandom, with many believing that he should be installed as the next Lord Lieutenant of Whoshire as and when Russell T Davies moves on. From reading interviews with Moffat I have my doubts as to whether he’d particularly want the top job, but there’s no doubting that of all the other writers working on the show, he is the one whose appointment to it would be most eagerly welcomed by the majority of the fans.

Knowing that an episode written by the Scotsman is about to be shown is like knowing England are about to play in the World Cup final, but with the crucial difference of knowing for certain that they go on to win it.

He is by far and away my own personal favourite of the new series writers – I like the work of nearly all of them a great deal, but a Steven Moffat episode just seems to have an extra sheen of something special to it. Knowing that an episode written by the Scotsman is about to be shown is like knowing England are about to play in the World Cup final, but with the crucial difference of knowing for certain (perhaps having been told by a time traveller!) that they go on to win it. You have all of the excitement and anticipation of the great event, with none of the worry and stress.

It’s perhaps surprising that this episode was such a success, given that the Doctor and Martha were almost entirely absent, but the Doctor had just about enough of a presence through the DVDs to ensure that he still felt like an integral part of proceedings. Also, seeing him slowly revealed as a powerful and mysterious character to Sally also helped with the sense of mystery and intrigue about him, something that also came into play last week. The DVD conversation itself was one of the cleverest ideas I can remember seeing in Doctor Who, particularly the small section of it that worked perfectly in two different conversations.

For the second story in a row we have an adaptation of a piece of Doctor Who prose, brought to television by its own original writer. What I did on my Christmas holidays, by Sally Sparrow originally appeared in the 2006 Doctor Who Annual, the one published by Panini before they had to rename them Storybooks so that BBC Books could come up with their own, by all accounts sub-par, branded “Annual” efforts. You can read the story online on the BBC website now, here, and although the story has been expanded and chopped and changed a fair bit, the basic idea of the Doctor being trapped in the past and needing Sally Sparrow to help him is still there. Perhaps we should have this more often, Doctor Who stories being adapted and improved from their “first draft” form in other media – it seems to be working well so far!

And no, not just because she took her clothes off in it, before you all start!

Sally has been aged up a good decade or so for television, however, so that she can be played by the excellent Carey Mulligan, who impressed me last year in The Amazing Mrs Pritchard on BBC One. (And no, not just because she took her clothes off in it, before you all start!). I know it’s become something of a tradition that as soon as a young female guest star gives a half-decent performance everyone starts clamouring for her to be made the next companion (or even, sometimes, to immediately replace the current companion), but I would like to see more of Ms Sparrow one of these days. Surely if ever a character in the new series cried out for a return appearance – and more screen time with the Doctor – then it’s her?

Finlay Robertson as Larry had a slighter character to play, but I thought he gave Larry some warmth and humour that stopped him just short of being the stereotypical geek he could have been. He actually put me in mind a little of a more sane and sensible version of Jeff from Moffat’s Coupling, although that might just be me projecting my own expectations and knowledge of the author’s previous work onto the text.

I don’t recall having been frightened by an episode of Doctor Who since the 1993 Genesis of the Daleks repeat on BBC2, when I was eight years old, so I’m probably a bit too old to be unsettled by the series now. In fact I rarely find that it gets me all that emotionally affected in any direction – I’ve never cried at it or anything melodramatic like that – but then again little television does, so it’s not unique to the series. It’s hard for me to say then how scary the Weeping Angels were, but they were a certainly a terrific concept that I can imagine might well have unsettled some children across the country.

Why, as casting director Andy Pryor points out on the MP3 commentary, don’t they just close one eye at a time instead of blinking?

You could go on about Blink’s brilliance, I think, but to simply sit here and list everything that was great about it – the way the Angels killed, the Doctor’s brief appearances, Billy the policeman, the creepy old house, the final meeting at the end – would just end up boring everyone. There are little complaints you can make, or at least small issues to raise – why did the Angel bung a rock at Sally at the start? And why, as casting director Andy Pryor points out on the MP3 commentary and thus making me feel less clever than I had done five minutes previously, don’t they just close one eye at a time instead of blinking? Minor quibbles, though – and easily excused in such a fine episode.

Before I go, a few words on last night’s edition of Doctor Who Confidential, which was by far and away the finest episode of that series that has ever been produced. It really gave something of the feeling of what a magical and special series Doctor Who is, and what a special institution the BBC itself is, or at least used to be. BBC Television Centre in London is now no longer some marvellous, enigmatic palace where all the stars of television live, but an increasingly empty cavern were a few sitcoms and shiny floor shows play out their days. However, once all was different – once there was real magic made there, and legend stalks its corridors. The show, directed and presented by David Tennant, was a reminder of just what the BBC once was, and what Doctor Who is and continues to be.

A great night for Doctor Who fans.

Blood and Thunder

I’m going to talk about the book a bit in this review, and rather specifically. So if you haven’t read it yet but think you might well do so – especially given that it’s available for free once more on the BBC website – or if you are already in the middle of reading it for the first time, then I suggest you give my thoughts here a miss. If you don’t already do that anyway.

I suggest you give my thoughts here a miss. If you don’t already do that anyway.

Also, perhaps less palatably to some of you and even rather regretfully on my own part, I’m going to start off with a complaint. It’s one of only two I have with the episode, and the other is a relatively minor quibble, but this one point really irritated me as soon as it happened. The Doctor’s stumbling about in the family’s spaceship and ‘accidentally’ bumping against the various conveniently-placed control panels, like some sort of galactic Frank Spencer. I was very disappointed with this scene; I know it was supposed to be obvious the Doctor was back – to the viewers, anyway, if not the suddenly-rather-dim family – but did he have to defect the Family in such a ridiculous fashion? After everything we have had before, all the superb and wonderful elements and scenes and characters and dialogue across the two episodes, I felt that this denouement diminished the two-parter a little.

It was not a disaster by any stretch of the imagination, and there was still more than enough in this episode to lift it and the story to amongst the top rank of stories since the series’ return two years ago. But in changing the ending from the book, it also lost John Smith’s chance at heroism. He had a little of that, in a sense, choosing to open the watch and destroy himself, becoming the Doctor again and turning his back on the life he could have had with Joan, the life that had been presented to him as an almost Biblical temptation.

In the book he’s more directly a hero, and a more directly independent person as well.

But in the book he’s more directly a hero, and a more directly independent person as well, with a separate soul or spirit or existence or whatever you want to call it, which the restored Doctor is able to channel into the body of a captured member of the Family. He and Smith are then able to play a trick on the remaining Family members, and by the time they have realised Smith is able to turn against them, with poor old Joan thinking all the time that one of the Family had had a last minute change of heart and saved them all, never knowing the heroic fate her beloved John finally succumbed to.

Doesn’t that sound a little more tragic and poignant than not even seeing Smith’s death, only knowing it when the Doctor goes blundering into the ship? There was still power here, admittedly, and Tennant’s performance as the distraught Smith begging to know whether John Smith is still a good man was some of the best acting we have yet seen from him during his time on the series. Perhaps it’s all swings and roundabouts – we lose the ending from the book, which I personally preferred, but gain these affecting scenes of Smith’s fear and doubt, which the book didn’t really have, at least not in anything like the same way.

Tim spends most of this episode almost seeming like a very young version of the Doctor.

There’s also rather more of Tim here, who comes across as a more sympathetic and likeable character on screen, being more distant and withdrawn in the book, where I also felt he was a little older. Tim spends most of this episode almost seeming like a very young version of the Doctor, absorbing the thoughts and feelings of the watch and perhaps giving us a glimpse of what the young Time Lord might have been like back on Gallifrey all of those many many years ago, although that’s an outrageous piece of baseless speculation on my part. Nonethtless, Tim was an excellent character excellently played, especially his Ninth Doctor-evoking “Oh yes sir, every time!” when accused of cowardice by Hutchinson.

Tim, though, brings me to the other point of contention I have with this episode, although as I said it’s a much smaller issue than the Doctor’s pratfalls against the switches in the ship. It’s the change in Tim’s characterisation from the book, or perhaps more accurately his fate. In the novel, he does take part in the First World War, but only as a stretcher bearer. Well, I say ‘only’, but it’s made very clear that he is in a great deal of danger as he rescues wounded men from the field of battle. However, here in the television version when Martha suggests to him that he doesn’t have to fight, he replies with great conviction that ‘I think we do’, as if there were no other choice. It is right and noble and just to fight for a cause in which you believe to be moral and true, but if history has told us anything it’s that the First World War was one of the most monumentally pointless conflicts that has ever been fought. There were no Nazis to destroy, no oppressed peoples to liberate, simply the self-destruction of a lot of utterly ludicrous and obsolete European monarchies.

There were no Nazis to destroy, no oppressed peoples to liberate, simply the self-destruction of a lot of utterly ludicrous and obsolete European monarchies.

So although The Family of Blood had a lot of excellent moments where it rallied against the futile nature of death and destruction of war, it seemed to me that this change of Tim’s own personal story was a shame, as it lessened some of the impact and took away some of the message that no – you don’t actually have to right, but you can still do the right thing.

This is doubly a shame because Cornell had provided such good moments earlier on, with director Charles Palmer, linking the boy soldiers at the school with that we know history had in store for their generation. The scene where they battle the scarecrows will rightly be acclaimed I think as one of the most striking images to be provided by this new incarnation of Doctor Who, and this was an example of something that lost nothing, even though it was watered down from the novel version – quite rightly – for a Saturday night audience. You could not, after all, have a group of teenagers with machine guns blowing a little girl with a balloon to pieces on prime time BBC One.

You could not, after all, have a group of teenagers with machine guns blowing a little girl with a balloon to pieces on prime time BBC One.

There was an admirable sense of tension and menace during the scarecrows’ siege of the school, that stood up very well to the calmer and more emotionally charged elements later on in the Cartwrights’ house. I talked in my review of the previous episode about the good performances on show, and there is little further to add here – I have mentioned Tennant already, and Harry Lloyd continued to impress as Baines, one of the finest villains to have been created for Doctor Who in many a long year. I was rather glad that he wasn’t completely destroyed at the end, as it leaves the way open – however unlikely, I admit – for him to return. Perhaps in twenty or thirty years time, whoever is the equivalent of the 1990s version of Paul Cornell will bring him back for whichever line of Doctor Who novels happens to be around at the time.

Speaking of which, one element I was glad that was retained from the book was Joan’s institutionally racist attitudes, as it showed that she was not the perfect character and could be just as fallible as any other human being, and was not some perfect and glorious specimen for the Doctor’s hearts – quite right, I suppose, because it was not the Doctor as such who fell in love with her. In the novel of Human Nature Bernice out-and-out refers to Joan – albeit somewhat spitefully – as a racist, and here her remarks to Martha were well dealt with. Martha got the chance to show more of her intellect and all-round dignity in the face of danger or oppression, and we got more of a sense of a realistic historical setting. I know that some people feared racial issues would come to dominate stories set in the past by either their over-doing or glaring absence with a black companion, but thus far this season I think they’ve dealt with the issue pretty much perfectly. Or as well as a family action/adventure series can or needs to, anyway.

They say that screen adaptations of books are never as good as the original. It would be very hard to say such a thing of Human Nature and The Family of Blood, because the two are so very different in so many ways, but I think we can call it a draw overall. They were written for very different audiences and in very different worlds, Doctor Who-wise, and comparisons only show how much our dear old show has changed over the past twelve years; or perhaps simply how our attitudes to it have changed. I’m not sure too many adaptations of stories from other media would work, but this was a fine effort producing a fine two-parter, that stands up well to anything else from the new series and, indeed, from all of the show’s long and glorious history.

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.

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.

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.

You Say You Want an Evolution

I rather liked Dalek Sec and the Cult of Skaro back when they were first properly introduced in Doomsday. I liked the fact that they were able to engage in a bit of banter, and generally went back to the more chatty Daleks of the 1960s, who could have a bit of a conversation with you before they exterminated you and nicked your planet. It was nice to see this sort of Dalek back on the television, and I was looking forward to perhaps several return appearances for rematches with the Doctor over forthcoming years.

Poor old Dalek Sec was reduced here to some sort of weird mutant Dalek BDSM slave

Sadly it wasn’t to be, and after all his greatness in Doomsday, poor old Dalek Sec was reduced here to some sort of weird mutant Dalek BDSM slave. Such a shame – and a bit of a waste, really, he would have made a good recurring villain. Mind you, I have little sympathy for anybody who wants to piss about with the nature of the Daleks, so I was glad when the other members of the Cult turned against him – proper Daleks!

Sec’s transformation into some sort of being with feelings and a conscience was interesting, and there were some good moments when he was echoing very strongly some of Davros’s old dialogue from back in the day, but I was glad when they killed him off after what he’d become. Like Thay, Jast and Caan, I am a bit of a Dalek purist. Although having said that, maybe Sec was right about being pure Daleks and thinking along such straight lines hasn’t always been good for them – why didn’t Thay and Jast get out of the way instead of sitting there to be blown apart at the end? Stupid sods. I was hoping Thay would take over as leader too, I liked him.

Now we have to put up with all these “Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!” gags across the various Doctor Who internet forums and blogs

Instead it’s Caan who lives to fight another day – a touch predictable, perhaps, but they were never going to kill off the whole Dalek race. A shame too because now we have to put up with all these “Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!” gags across the various Doctor Who internet forums and blogs – mildly amusing when they started last week, incredibly irritating after the millionth ‘wit’ decides to come up with it now. As far as the series goes, the production team have painted themselves into a bit of a corner as regards “Last of the Daleks” type stories – surely they’ve exhausted that particular seam now? I hope that when Caan does return next year, he’s had the time to build himself a whole new space-faring army, and that the next few Dalek stories will have them as an all-powerful galactic force once again. After all, as the Fourth Doctor pointed out, they are never utterly defeated – “the Dalek menace always remains”. A ticket to Spiridon and some industrial-strength de-icer, please!

The sad demise of Dalek Sec from greatness wasn’t the only problem I had with the episode. I thought that the business on top of the Empire State Building could have been a little tighter – I liked the Doctor’s reverse Back to the Future business with the lightning strike and trying not to harness its power, although I’m not entirely sure I understand how a solar flare suddenly becomes lightning, nor how the Doctor clinging onto the mast as the lightning struck carried traces of his Time Lord DNA down into the new hybrids.

I also think it was probably a bit cruel of him to help Laszlo out, actually – I mean, what kind of a life is the poor sod ever going to be able to have?

I also think it was probably a bit cruel of him to help Laszlo out, actually – I mean, what kind of a life is the poor sod ever going to be able to have? He’s not exactly going to be able to fit right in to society, and I very much doubt that Tallulah will be hanging around for too long. Still, maybe if he’s lucky the Doctor’s cure was only a quick fix and will give him only another year or two at the most. I’m not sure I’d fancy sticking around for much longer than that with the face of a pig.

It seemed a shame, on the other hand, that Solomon was killed off – or rather, that he was killed off so early in the episode. Was anybody else reminded of The War of the Worlds when he attempted to reason with the Daleks? You know, the bit just after the cylinder has opened, when Ogilvy and the others go forward under a flag of truce to try and make contact with them, and then get wiped out by the heatray. No? Oh well, perhaps it was just me then.

Now, I don’t want anybody to get the impression that I didn’t like this episode – overall I felt that the good points outweighed the bad, and the design, acting and particularly the pace of the storyline helped to carry it along, and I felt it did roll along much more effectively than last week’s opening instalment did. Martha had some good moments too, displaying her intelligence and bravery again and continuing to show what an excellent companion she is.

And yet somehow… I don’t know. Perhaps it’s just that I like the Daleks too much, and didn’t like seeing them reduced to one left in the whole universe yet again. But this was still a very enjoyable piece of television with a lot to recommend it, and if the trailer is anything to go by, next week’s might well be worth catching too.

Bullets Over Broadway

I don’t usually like to post reviews on the first episode of a two-parter, as it feels a bit unfair to comment too much on a story that you’ve only seen half of. I mean, you wouldn’t review a book when you’ve only gotten to page 125 out of 250, would you? However, as everyone else seems to be doing so, I thought I’d put up just a few thoughts on last night’s episode.

I enjoyed it much more than I had expected to, I have to admit. Thus far, Doctor Who seems to have established a tradition since its return of the first two-parter of the season being a complete clunker – witness Aliens of London / World War Three and last year’s Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel. Plus from last week’s trailer I had expected Miranda Raison’s accent to be one of the most irritating things new Who has ever thrown at us – fortunately, however, although she had some fingernails-on-a-blackboard moments (“waddya you mean creatures?”) she was actually okay for most British ears, and her character was surprisingly likeable.

I get the impression that come next week all will not be harmonious within the Cult, and they might end up turning against their Space Precinct-admiring leader.

I thought that Helen Raynor handled the Daleks pretty well – I was worried that all this Dalek-Human hybrid business went against the whole nature of the Daleks being very into racial purity, so I was pleased to see two of the Cult of Skaro debating this point with Sec. I get the impression that come next week all will not be harmonious within the Cult, and they might end up turning against their Space Precinct-admiring leader.

That said, I did enjoy the scene where Diagoras was taken inside Sec for his Dalek-ification. A suitably nasty scene that I hope gave lots of children horrible nightmares. The Daleks are always at their best when just generally hanging around being complete bastards to everyone, although I do miss their days of Galaxy-spanning conquest; as good as the “last Daleks in existence” type stories have been so far in the new series, I do think that they’ve pretty much exhausted that line now, and are going to have to come up with something different for them in the future.

I liked the New York setting – as I touched on above, being a Briton I’m not the best person to judge the accents, but for the majority of the UK audience I’m sure they would have been perfectly acceptable. The expense of flying out to New York to take some plate shots for The Mill to work their magic on was well justified by some of the spectacular views, and I enjoyed all the material in the theatre and Hooverville. The theatre scenes had a very obviously Phantom of the Opera quality to them, what with Ryan Carnes’s Laszlo skulking around in the depths keeping an eye on the woman he loves. There were other less-than-subtle bits of intertextuality and metaphor going on too, such as the “judgement of Solomon” stuff with the loaf of bread at the beginning, but Doctor Who has always thrived on doing this kind of thing.

These chaps are mean to be the elite of the Dalek race! Even if one of them is now partially made out of tin and another has taken on human form with Krang from Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles balanced atop his head.

The one niggle that did bother me about the episode was at the end, where one of the Cult of Skaro looks right at the Doctor, Dalek Invasion of Earth style, and somehow fails to recognise him despite having met him back in Doomsday. The Doctor even has a line about not wanting to be recognised about twenty seconds after this, which simply highlights how silly that was. I mean, perhaps the Dalek just wasn’t paying attention, but really… These chaps are mean to be the elite of the Dalek race! Even if one of them is now partially made out of tin and another has taken on human form with Krang from Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles balanced atop his head.

But overall an enjoyable bit of Doctor Who, and I look forward to seeing how it all ties up next Saturday.

The Cat Came Back

Well that was terrific. By far and away the best episode of series three thus far for me, although as we’re only three episodes in it admittedly doesn’t have huge amounts of competition yet. But it’s also one of my favourite episodes in the whole of the new series to date – full of spirit and adventure and clever ideas, funny bits, dramatic bits and mysterious bits. Just, basically, a damn good slice of Doctor Who, one of those episodes that makes you thrilled to pieces that the show is back and putting out stuff as good as this.

Rather shockingly, I had been secretly hoping that the infamous football match beforehand would end up as a draw at ninety minutes and thus Gridlock would be put back a week

Rather shockingly, I had been secretly hoping that the infamous football match beforehand would end up as a draw at ninety minutes and thus Gridlock would be put back a week, as that would mean the grand finale of this series would no longer clash with my father’s sixtieth birthday party, which is going to present something of a problem in ten weeks’ time. Watford’s porous defence put paid to that idea, sadly, but no matter – a minute or two into Gridlock and such thoughts were far away from my mind.

A return to the year five billion era makes sense, as it’s a chance to revisit some of the mythology the new series has laid down for itself, rather than having to mine the classic series for it. Having said that, there was a slight concern in my mind given the problems with last year’s New Earth, which had seemed disjointed and lacking. Fortunately, this episode was more in tune with the original five billion story, The End of the World, which is also one of my favourite episodes from the new series – so ambitious and at the same time assured. Gridlock had that same sense of everyone being involved being at the top of their game.

In some sense, though, this was quite an atypical episode for modern Doctor Who, as despite all the impressive special effects work and CGI for the cityscapes and the Macra, much of it was contained within those tiny car sets. A bit retro, really, and harking back to what the classic series always managed to pull off so well – making three people talking to each other on one small set seem so engaging. I am not entirely sure how gripping it may have been for the younger members of the audience, but they still had the thrill of the Doctor jumping from car to car, the talking cats and of course big giant crabs!

They didn’t really do a great deal, but it was nice for them to pop up and wave a claw about

Speaking of which, wasn’t the presence of the Macra a nice little nod for all the Troughton era fans watching? How marvellous to quite randomly revive one of the programme’s more obscure and, let’s face it, originally quite rubbish foes. They didn’t really do a great deal, but it was nice for them to pop up and wave a claw about. I’m only sorry that I accidentally found out about their presence in the episode a couple of days before it aired, and thus wasn’t as surprised as many others were by the revelation of them. Fortunately for most, though, they seem to have generally been one of the better-kept secrets of the new series.

The same alas can’t be said for the Face of Boe’s final words, which everyone and their brother has known or guessed for the past eighteen months or so. Davies made sure of this himself, admittedly, by having the cryptic message at the end of the Doctor’s profile in the 2006 annual and then telling DWM that the message would be four words long, so he probably wanted the hard-core fans to guess it, knowing at the same time the general audience and the kids wouldn’t know or wouldn’t care. In the scheme of things it’s not a major issue, as it’s just a teaser, setting up as-yet-unguessed at events for the series finale. It’s not so much what he said that’s as important as what he meant, and we can’t yet be sure of that.

Alas we can be sure that the big old Boe Face is dead and gone, and as one of the elements that are purely new series to have caught on and been a success, that’s rather sad. Like a little piece of the new mythology brought to us in 2005 dying off. There are only Jack and the Daleks left now from the comeback, just two short years ago – frightening sometimes just how quickly the pace of this series moves on!

Things have moved on for Novice Hame from New Earth too, and I liked the way her prosthetic make-up had been ‘aged up’ – not the sort of detail you suspect they would have bothered with back in the day. I’m quite glad that she gained redemption for her crimes, although it’s rather sad that the fate of the city means all of the Doctor’s actions back in New Earth were essentially pointless, and the people he saved all died off anyway, or at least most of them.

It’s rather sad that the fate of the city means all of the Doctor’s actions back in New Earth were essentially pointless

Hame’s not the only cat we encounter, although we’ll gloss over that weird black thing who becomes a victim of the Macra along with her two young ladyfriends – best not to go too far into that one, I think! What I will go into is how good the prosthetics were on all the cat creations, although that’s to be expected after the success of their appearance in New Earth, one of the few elements from that episode that could be said to have been an unqualified success.

I think Ardal O’Hanlon as Brannigan was probably the best guest star of the third series so far, an excellent character and it’s a shame Davies has indicated we won’t be going back to New Earth again as I thought he was well worth a return appearance. He didn’t get to do all that much, admittedly, but then again nobody in the traffic jam really did; that was the whole point of them, sad little character sketches trapped in their hopeless, go-nowhere lives forever.

Sadly, Martha didn’t really get to do all that much this episode either, although she did get to show flashes of her intelligence once more when she suggested the ‘turn everything off’ submarine-type trick to evade the Macra. A shame that without the Doctor they would all have thus suffocated, but hey – the woman can’t be expected to think of everything! Nice to see though how much faith she already has in the Doctor in only their third adventure together.

A shame that without the Doctor they would all have thus suffocated, but hey – the woman can’t be expected to think of everything!

The Doctor was terrific throughout – especially when David Tennant was given some of the more contemplative stuff he’s really not given enough of sometimes. As I have said in many of my Doctor Who episode reviews, I love it when we are given little snippets of information that enhance the mystery of the character and his background and history, so I of course loved the descriptions of Gallifrey he gave to Martha, especially so given that some of them were directly taken from Susan’s description of the planet to Ian and Barbara back in The Sensorites.

Admittedly, the final scene of the story was very similar to that of The End of the World, but I thought they just about got away with it, partly because Rose and Martha’s approaches to the Doctor were so different. This was underlined when Martha was asking if she was the one the Face of Boe was referring to, and he was firmly and a little rudely of the opinion that she was not! So, despite all its echoing of that End of the World scene, I liked that ending as the Doctor sadly reminisced about his home.

Plus of course it worked well for introducing Martha to the concept of the evil Daleks, something that might stand her in good stead in the not-too-distant future.

The Writer's Tale

It’s hard to pinpoint why The Shakespeare Code never really came alive for me. It had so many of the ingredients that go into making a great episode – an excellent cast, an interesting story set-up, superb special effects and ambitious location shooting. It was an episode I had been especially looking forward to as I have enjoyed much of Gareth Roberts’s previous work as well as the previous ‘celebrity historical’ episodes of the new series. But unfortunately I just found the spark to be missing this week. I kept waiting for the episode to really come to life, and it never did.

It feels as if I’m searching around for things I didn’t like, and in a way I am as it is a genuine puzzle to me as to why I felt this episode simply didn’t get going.

Which is a shame, because as I said, there was much here to like. Freema Agyeman continues to impress, although she had a great deal less to do this week, which perhaps might have something to do with the episode’s lack of dynamism. David Tennant continues to grow wonderfully into the role of the Doctor, conveying more authority than he did in series two and doing a good job of getting across some of the wonder and mystery of the character here. And Dean Lennox Kelly, an intriguing choice as Shakespeare for those of us more familiar with his laddish role as Kev in Shameless, was excellent as the Bard. There was good support as well from the two actors playing Shakespeare’s colleagues, and the performance standards as a whole cannot be faulted.

Hmmmm, it feels as if I’m searching around for things I didn’t like, and in a way I am as it is a genuine puzzle to me as to why I felt this episode simply didn’t get going. The pre-titles sequence, I will admit, I found to be a little on the over-camp side, with its cackling witches – and was it ever established just why exactly they needed to rip that chap to pieces in the first place? A poor pre-titles sequence doesn’t necessarily sink a story, though. This time last year I found the kung-fu monks in Tooth and Claw a bit of an embarrassment, but after the opening titles that episode was a cracker from end to end.

I particularly liked the death by drowning, a gruesomely unpleasant scene that will doubtless have caused a few nightmares and had a few concerned parents ringing in to complain about the irresponsibility of the BBC. Lovely stuff!

Which this wasn’t. Perhaps it was the little things that got on my nerves and stopped me from simply sitting back and enjoying the story. For example, I got a bit ticked off at the constant flow of Shakespearean lines from the Doctor, followed by Shakespeare’s replies of “I’ll have that!” Once or twice, yes, but so many instances and it seemed like over-egging the pudding a little. Perhaps it’s because Roberts is such a fan of Shakespeare and couldn’t resist it – certainly his appreciation of the famous playwright serves him well elsewhere in the episode, though. Shakespeare standing up against the Carrionites and using his lyrical talents to reverse their science works well, and it was also nice to find someone perceptive enough to be able to see through the psychic paper for a change. His realisation of just where exactly the Doctor and Martha were from was also good, and his observations did add more of an air of mystery to the Doctor, which is always welcome. Why indeed this constant performance? The Carrionites noticed it too, seeing no has no name in the same way Reinette did last year. I love those sorts of moments.

Speaking of the Carrionites, perhaps it was them that I didn’t take to? I could certainly have done without the two cackling old crones, but I imagine that they probably went down well with the children at home. Christina Cole’s turn as their leader, Lilith, was a good performance though, walking just the right line between seductive villainess and your more bog standard evil alien adversary trapped on Earth. I was relieved that the witchcraft element turned out to have an alien explanation, as Doctor Who always works well – like Quatermass and the Pit before it, the grandfather of this sort of thing – when supplying a scientific, if not necessarily earthly, explanation for seemingly supernatural events.

“Your effect is special indeed,” is, as Martha Jones herself points out, one of the weaker lines that Roberts gives Shakespeare in the episode, but it is fitting when discussing the work of the special effects teams on Doctor Who and the effort that must have gone into The Shakespeare Code. The overhead shots of the streets of London as the Globe Theatre is enveloped by demons are stunning, as are the less obvious but still impressive crowd shots in the theatre early on, built up piece-by-piece from little clumps of fifty extras. It’s amazing what moving from place to place on a green screen and swapping hats and cloaks can achieve! The practical effects seen during the episode were also of a high standard – I particularly liked the death by drowning, a gruesomely unpleasant scene that will doubtless have caused a few nightmares and had a few concerned parents ringing in to complain about the irresponsibility of the BBC. Lovely stuff!

Doubtless one of these decades