Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

Smith & Jones (Deceased)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Did he really just say ginormous..?

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

What's the Bleeding Time?

Smith and Jones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reversing the Polarity

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

I want a voice-controlled Judoon for Christmas

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

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

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

Round 3.

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

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

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

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

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

Not a bad start: 3 out of 5.

Rhinos In Space!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Terra & Judoon

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

Smith And Jones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Russell T Davies' Darkplace

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

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

Smith and Jones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Assimilated is our Word of the Day!"

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

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

However, it wasn't too bad.

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

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

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

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

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

Alias or Alas?

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

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

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

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

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

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

that “blonde” bird he used to hang around with

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is Mr Saxon going to be the new Torchwood?

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

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

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

Urrgghh.

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

At least somebody misses what’s her name.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s good to back.

Now I've Met Miss Jones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Barb Jungr

Straight from Outpost Gallifrey central:

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

Overall:  8.2 (39.5%)

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

Alas, Smith and Jones

‘Rose’ by any other name..?

Smith and Jones

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rhino Nasty

I wasn't looking forward to this episode. In fact, I had the original title of this post ready to roll weeks ago ('Alas...') because (and this is still hard for me to get to grips with) it's written by Russell 'New Earth' Davies. Now, how sad it that?

I fell spectacularly out of love with Doctor Who last year; a fact that is well documented on this blog that I used to run (sob). A couple of years ago I was losing sleep about the return of this series but this year I was becoming seriously agitated by the blanket promotional coverage, and where I would have taped each and every snippet of Who-related fluff for a DVD compilation in 2005, this time I was switching off with an increasingly furious sense of indignation (the nadir being the embarrassing beyond belief Weakest Link special last night). But then I saw that Freeview trailer with John Simm grinning like a bastard and I felt a shiver of anticipation flutter down my cynical spine. Was there hope for me yet?

Tennant channelled Sylvester McCoy through his foot...

I am happy to report that I enjoyed Smith and Jones a great deal. Sorry, Dave. I caught myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion ("cheap tricks" and "it's bigger on the inside" tickled me to bits) and I didn't throw anything at the screen even once!

Tennant actually impressed me. Yes, you read that right. He actually seems to be reigning it in a bit (except for a horrible moment where he actually channelled Sylvester McCoy through his foot) and even his more comedic moments felt a lot more Doctory and a lot less Chuckle Brothery. He even shouted a bit, which always goes down well with me, and for the first time in what seems like ages the 10th Doctor didn't make me want to kick his teeth in.

The Judoon were a very impressive creation, even if their initial similarity to the Sontarans was hard to shake off. I enjoyed the ridiculous way they carried a felt tip pen around with them, and their stupid yet logical single-mindedness was rather endearing in the end. The fact that they weren't really the villains of the piece was a refreshing surprise (although slightly undermined by the fact that they dished out death like Judge Dredd on a bad day) and the prosthetics were extremely believable and strangely fascinating. The decision to cast the real villain as a dotty old lady in a dressing gown was an interesting choice and I can't wait for Character Options to make a doll that comes with its very own colostomy bag. However, the less said about the motorcycle couriers the better (was anyone else over the age of 35 reminded of that dodgy straight-to-video revenge thriller, The Executioner? No?)

Sure, there are plenty of minor niggles I could pour over for old times sake: the fact that the Judoon sent the hospital back to earth at the end was a little too fortuitous for my liking; Martha's family were as annoying as I'd feared they'd be (mainly because I know they will return throughout the series - I mean, WHY????); and the "it's a snog, but not as you know it" moment felt forced beyond belief (yet again). But worst of all they didn't really destroy the sonic screwdriver. When the Doctor initially appeared to lose it via a lovely - and quite literal - "throwaway" gag  I was thrilled to bits. At last! I thought, they finally realise that the sonic is a deux ex machina too far and they've actually done something about it! Result! But no, it's just a temporary - and fairly pointless - respite. Oh well.

I can't wait for Character Options to make a doll with its very own colostomy bag...

Not that the plot really matters, of course. The big question is how  Martha Jones measures up to Rose. I think the word that sums it up best is "effortless". It's still early days but I'm more than happy with what I've seen so far; Freema handled herself admirably and I really enjoyed the Martha/Doctor dynamic even if the flirty conclusion set off a few alarm bells. However, I think she's going to settle in just fine.

Smith and Jones is a huge improvement on New Earth. Fun, without being frivolous, sexy without being smug, this is a good, old fashioned base-under-siege slice of Saturday night Doctor Who madness. And given that things can only get better I'm officially excited (and smitten) all over again.

Bring it on.

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about Smith and Jones: the Judoon were originally going to write 'Vote Saxon' on everyone's hands until an emergency tone meeting decided that this was "too obvious".

Rhino, It's Only Rock & Roll, But I Like It

Got to say I really enjoyed this ep. Knocks spots off New Earth for starters (that episode I WOULD skip in favour of Planet of Fire, but not this one).

The editing at the start was a bit too much with the phone calls, a bit too epileptic. But then it settled down, and I always like these kind of stories where we join things just a little behind The Doctor. The 10^th  was manic, the scene with the computer in particular he seemed at the point of going totally Colin on it.. The radiation in his foot scene was too silly but that was about the only mis-step. I already like the different chemistry with Martha.

I like Rose, but I always had the nagging sense that she fit better with the 9 ^th Doctor than the 10 ^th. Not to mention the even stronger feeling that they’d focused on her so well in her first series that there wasn’t much else left to explore by the second. I'm hoping Martha can be a good thing for the character of Tennant's Doctor...I like how practical and clued-in she is. I hope they continue with that as the season goes on and don't water her down. Her initially refusing to call him 'The Doctor' was a nice touch.

Classic Who is how a little old lady with a straw (of all things!) can be make to look terrifying.

You've got to love such blatant corridor running as well. Classic Who. And also Classic Who is how a little old lady with a straw (of all things!) can be make to look terrifying. It's all about making the mundane scary (and applause to the little moment with the rain going UPWARDS in that respect too.) More kudos too for the reaction of the hospital people when they discover they’re on the Moon, as they quite rightly freak the hell out and charge about the place screaming. I was hoping the screwdriver would have a ‘retirement’ now as well, but can’t win ‘em all I guess…

It also feels to me like there’s a confidence about the show now. They’ve handled the big comeback, the ‘difficult second album’, and now they seem to have a grip on what that can handle. Obviously the standout are in this one are the Judoon. The design and character of them is very nifty with the Sontaran-esque bodysuits and animatronic rhino head, and very Judge Dredd / Quintesson with their attitudes. I definitely think they’re strong enough for a return at some point…and I enjoyed how they were there to do a job, did it, then left. Not evil aliens set on conquering the world yet again, just rather brutally efficient policemen.

So…good start. Best opener in 19 years! A bit misleading perhaps, heh, but still this was an encouraging way to kick off the season. Though funnily enough, the trailer for next week didn’t hype me up all that much. We’ll see how that one goes.

"We're on the bloody moon!"

Look, I had been searching for a clever way to start this, but I've just visited Outpost Gallifrey, which is always the worst thing to do after watching any new episode and actually read the phrase "Planet of Fire is better".  Considering what some of us have watched and written about in the past week, really you look at comment like that and begin to wonder if Russell T Davies is right when he says we onliner are 'moaning minis'.  Sure, everyone's entitled to their opinion, but frankly I'd rather watch Smith & Jones a hundred more times than have to sit through something whose only draw was a bikini shot and conversation that boiled down to who'll end up paying a gas bill.

After spending a Saturday last year counting down the hours then being presented with the mess that was New Earth, I approached this with a hell of a lot of trepidation.  Sure, the clips looked fabulous and the preview reviews had been warm (with Charlie Brooker's comments in particular going off the chart) but after sitting through Torchwood and one half of The Runaway Bride, I'd seriously wondered if the creative yen had gone out of the team, if they'd been over stretched and their sensibilities had escaped them - that The Sarah Jane Adventures had as Sickboy says in Trainspotting been 'a mere blip on an otherwise downward spiral'.  Would I once again be sitting here spewing out paragraphs about what went wrong?

In a word.

No.

At one point I was giggling and clapping like a two year old.

At another I simply said:  "She's so good!"

Hooray!

Smith & Jones was a fabulous start to the series, a wonderfully paced, funny, exciting ride that managed to rekindle my faith in the tv end of the franchise. 

Well, yes, alright it was another base under siege and well, ok, the story, alien police looking for a suspect, wasn't the most original but Russell has the sensibility to understand that in situations like this you don't need and shouldn't have anything too complex in order to hang the important stuff like the introduction of the new companion and the re-introduction of the Doctor.  What you need is a concept that has enough room for some humour and tragedy and some heroism in the end and that's exactly what you got here.  Besides, for a change the base was brought to the alien, not the other way around and the suspect was the least likely and for once the Doctor wasn't pinned with whatever the bizarre crime might be.

"What you need is a concept that has enough room for some humour and tragedy and some heroism in the end and that's exactly what you got here. " 

Within that, the Judoon did their job admirably.  Another example of the marching army so beloved of the new series, and if their single-mindedness was somewhat like the version of the Vogons from the appalling Hitchhiker's film, at least their central purpose wasn't the destruction of humanity.  It's amazing to see what Neill Gorton's crew are achieving on a tv budget although they never looked like anything more than rubber mask - but Doctor Who wouldn't be the same without those, would it.  I'll leave the 'aren't they just Sontarans in the shape of a Rhino' conversation for another time. 

But this did look like a feature film and had a scale not seen in the average episode; once again there is an issue about how The Mill's work translates on DV but the moon vistas and the crater next to the Thames were spectacular; I just hope the costs have been spread a bit more carefully through the series this time and we won't have to endure another Fear Her.  I suppose my only question would be what a hospital like that was doing being built so close to the House of Commons.

Of course the big question was always going to be what the new companion would be like - how would she measure up to the last companion introduced to the Doctor's story?  Well, Martha is less cause than Lucie and although she's perhaps as questioning it's in a far more curious way - Lucie was all about trying to inform her own predicament in order to get home whereas Martha's simply trying to increase her knowledge of the universe.  Martha has that innate sense of wonder which you'd find in the likes of Charley Pollard - see the moment when she's standing on the moon and absolutely understands the magnitude of that and how amazingly privileged she is despite her potential impending mortality.  Unlike Rose she seems more likely to try and think a situation through rather than just go straight in and hope that it'll work itself out in the end.

"Martha has that innate sense of wonder which you'd find in the likes of Charley Pollard - see the moment when she's standing on the moon and absolutely understands the magnitude of that and how amazingly privileged she is despite her potential impending mortality."

None of which would work if Freema wasn't such a promising actress.  Many voiced reservations after her appearance in Army of Ghosts, but I always said that supporting roles such as that are not meant to be scene stealers - she was there to do a job and it could never be a showcase for what she can really do.  I'm so pleased to I can say I was proved right.  It's too early to say 'Billie who?' but there's an infectious charisma about the actress which plays off against Tennant well; and the camera loves her - she's got the kind of face that can do the big close ups and you can see the subtleties of what she's doing, layers of thought, beneath the mask.  Joss Whedon says that its very rare to find actors who can change their attitude and performance 'on a dime' to envelope a range of different emotions in a scene and she has that.  It's going to be too much fun watching her grow into the part over the coming weeks.

But what of the Doctor?  Much has been written about how Tennant has pulled back his performance and he sort of has but I think it's just that there's a different chemistry in the room and he's working within that.  To an extent you can see that he's being quite generous and giving Freema some space to impress - David's the kind of actor who can easily steal any scene he's in and directors usually take advantage of that but if you look at something like the aforementioned moon balcony scene it's Martha who spends most of her time in close up with the Doctor pacing interjecting from the background.  But he still goofs off - when he's pushing radiation through his shoe, noticing the shop or - and I'm so glad this is back - name checking historical figures.  Anyone else think that the Sonic Screwdriver had bought it finally?  Oh no - he's got another one lying around.

I don't think we've seen enough of Martha's family to warm to them yet which is as it should be, they're not the focus.  It's certainly a shock to see so many relatives running around but they were introduced brilliantly with the cross cutting phone calls; perhaps it is a shame that there's another unstable relationship at play in this universe, and that final scene with all the foot stamping was a bit broad, but in context this band had to be just mad enough for us to understand why Martha might want to run away with the Doctor despite all of her responsibilities.  Perhaps the really interesting decision is that they're aspiring middle class, contrasting with Rose's working class background and is there a hint that the Doctor won't do domestic this time after becoming so attached to his previous companion's family?

"What's probably specialty porn in some parts of the galaxy appears in a family show on Earth."

What's probably specialty porn in some parts of the galaxy appears in a family show on Earth.  You have to love that Anne Reid was playing the big bad and that she spent some of the episode sucking Roy Marsden's blood out with a straw.  Not that we got to see her sucking him off, which was odd because we were allowed to see her sucking off the Doctor at the climax. 

For a moment I thought we'd be returning to the style of the first series, with the timelord letting someone else save the day, but a nice bit of tag-team heroism was employed allowing the new traveling companions to save each other's lives and everyone else's.  Some might question whether this was yet another deus ex machina of an ending, but it was all done with a certain wink in its eye -- the monologuing villain, the Doctor automatically going for his screwdriver and it not being there, the final solution being in the hands of the grumpy alien.  I'm sure things will become much more complex later in the series. 

The inevitable Martha enters the Tardis scene was just what it needed to be and you can see that Russell's realised that it's the perfect opportunity to define a character.  You can see what I mean about all the questions - Rose made statements about what she saw.  But I think the big difference was probably that it was largely played from the Doctor's point of view - there have been umpteen versions of this scene in NuWho already and when the timelord mouths the words he and we have heard a hundred times before it acknowledges that repetition.  But she is asking question we haven't heard before - about were the crew is and how he's going to fly the thing.  Quite what Blinovich would make of the way he proves that he is a time traveler I'm not sure, but drawing the opening and conclusion together in that way was a beautifully executed idea.

So at the end of all these paragraphs about what went right all I can say is that I'm pretty excited about what's to come.  Will anything be made of that little throwaway line about the Doctor's brother (and will it actually turn out to be Irving Braxiatel or the Master as hinted at in the expanded Whoniverse?).  Will the Mr Saxon thread be better thought out than Bad Wolf and Torchwood?  How are they going to fit the curates egg that is the underlying story behind Human Nature into the typical run of the series.  Is there something the Doctor hasn't mentioned about the time between The Runaway Bride and Smith & Jones and is Martha everything she appears to be?  So many questions.

Next Week:  The Doctor meets Shakespeare.  Again.  But on television.  How exciting is that?

Judoon Platoon On The Moon

The Doctor is back on our screens...and so am I - finally back on the blog. Let's see if I can make it to the end this time.

Smith And Jones

So how was the opening episode of the new series? Last year I gave Russell T Davies a right royal mauling for the mess that was "New Earth". Could he pull it back and give us a decent opener AND introduce a new companion? Well...yes and no.

From the start, everything was looking good. Realistic dialogue with Martha and her dysfunctional family. An unexpected bump into The Doctor in the street with a cryptic message. Roy Marsden's officious consultant and then, there is Mr Smith, grinning like a loon in his stripey PJ's.It was smart, sexy and bristling with promise. And Martha was really, I mean really good. Looks, brains AND attitude .This time last year I had already wanted to slap Rose twice within the opening ten minutes.

Mr Tennant was on superb form too. Okay, so we all get his little character tic's now - the repetition, the strange EMphaSis on certain words. But this time it was actually quite endearing. I liked the gag about "I like the little shop" and his sorrow at the loss of the Sonic Screwdriver - well until he flippantly chucked it away.

"I got rope burns off that kite"..."Not her, she'd hold us up". Great stuff. The only letdown was that damn "hokey cokey" moment when the Doctor was getting rid of the radiation. I actually squirmed with embarrassment.

The plot, always one of RTD's weak points, worked too. The transfer of the hospital to the moon made sense. The Judoon scanning everyone to find the Plasmavore made sense. Even THAT kiss was a logical extension of the plot. True, the "slab" creatures did look a little too much like the evil version of The Stig from Top Gear (I almost expected Clarkson to pop up with "Some say he is from the planet Zovirax is made of leather and works for blood-sucking little old ladies...)"

"Some say he is from the planet Zovirax is made of leather and works for blood-sucking little old ladies..."

But then, like our eponymous time traveller himself must feel sometimes, I suddenly was in the the grip of a strong sense of deja vu. Flashback a year and what was I carping on about? Endings. And wouldn't you know it, the Whomeister is at it again. Sigh. The resolution of the plot was downright terrible.

...RTD sits in his office surrounded by awards. "So the oxygen is running out, Martha's unconscious, the Doctor's weak and the MRI is going to explode any second. Solution? The Doctor comes up with a fantastic plan and saves the day? Nah. Sugar water and a hug? F**k, used that one last year. I know!  He simply unplugs the machine, carries Martha up a corridor and the Space Rhinos zap everything back to normal. Hooray for me!!"...

"Solution? The Doctor comes up with a fantastic plan and saves the day? Nah. Sugar water and a hug? F**k, used that one last year."

I despair sometimes.

Fortunately, things did get pick up. I could have done without the extended bickering about the blonde bimbo (please, not another "This is me putting my foot down" 'comedy' moment) but once the Doctor appeared the dialogue sparkled . The whole TARDIS sequence, with the Doctor mouthing "bigger on the inside" was played to perfection. Oh and Martha sure is forward isn't she? What a refreshing change. I'm looking forward to seeing how this relationship pans out over the coming weeks.

By the way, am I the only one who wished that the Doctor had to manage for a couple of episodes without that sodding Sonic Screwdriver before creating a new one? Guess the marketing men wrote that part of the plot then.

Mention should as always be made of Murray Gold's incidental music. As usual, it varied from the sublime (Martha's Theme, the balcony scene on the moon) to the downright bloody awful (anything with the Judoon on screen). I'm convinced that he just DOESN'T know how to write action music, and resorts to bashing a few pots together in the vain hope that it will sound "exciting". Strange thing is, his themes and melody's can be among the best on TV.

Next Week: The Shakespeare Code. Guaranteed to be better than anything written by Dan Brown.