Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

Toxic Shock. And Awe.

Oh the veiny throbbing console. The fun and the excitement and the delight in the Doctor's eyes as he goes further and further in to the future. Pumping away at the TARDIS console like some manic pervert trying to keep a plastic doll inflated even with a gaping, flapping, tear in the material. The year is 5.5/Apple/26 and this is the day the sun expands, and the Mirror collapses under the sheer weight of Doctor Who copy. Welcome to The End of the World...

Gotta keep reminding myself that I'm watching Doctor Who as shuttle craft dance around Platform One. Oh My Bod! Even if they've blown all the cash for the entire on series on this one sequence, a la episode one of The Trial of a Timelord, then I'll die happy. I just love that the National Trust have kept the planet preserved and have spent the last 5 billion years selling Edinburgh rock in tartan tins, cream teas and battling against the inexorable movement of continental shift. Instead of using gravity satellites to keep back the expanding sun why didn't they just use velvet ropes? They work every where else.

Now for a small confession, when the automated platform announcement said "Half an hour before earth death." who else was timing it? I was, and what's more the subsequent announcements and the best bang since the big one were almost spot on. Me and my OCD would like to give thanks to some anal production runner somewhere I guess.

Parts of this episode looked like a cross between a Blue Man Group show in Vegas and New Order's video for Blue Monday, especially the plumber. Wonder if she was corgi registered? Fantastic.

The scene containing Rose's first alien encounter, with the Steward, (and the slightly psychic paper - very, very, Harry Potter) wasn't as earth shattering as it could have been. But then she makes up for it when alien after alien come spewing through the doors. She just stares at them with in slack jawed incredulity - the musical choice, coming out of the "iPod" was spot on.  Coming back to comparisons with the old, fatter, camper, series again, one of these aliens alone would have been the centre point of an old series story. Just too expensive to dispose of in a single shot they would have had the whole story wrapped around them, but not in new Who. Oh no! The Moxx of Balhoon wasn't quite what I was expecting. For one thing his voice didn't seem to fit the exterior. Perhaps that was the idea.

Spidery things, very Star Trek/Stargate. And when they bounce into the camera in the duct that was a lovely touch. But back in the Steward's office and it's the first death (of many, thankfully!). Why would you have a key on the keyboard, one press of which would render the office a cupboard of death? The number of times I've hit the wrong key on a keyboard in my time would mean that I would probably have killed myself about 5 times every hour.

The scene where Jabe talks to the Doctor about him and scanning him and knowing where he's from, and the Doctor's reaction, is probably the highlight of the entire episode. Hell, of the entire damn 41 years. I can forgive the positioning of the oh-so vital controls at the end of an insanely dangerous walkway. It's looking more like a Playstation game with every scene.

And Birtney Spears in an episode of Doctor Who, wow! I'm certainly looking forward to the soundtrack album, and it's not going to be a album of Murray Gold's finest but a drum'n'base/r'n'b monster mix of classic and new artists. Now That's What I Call Who Music Volume I.

Rose then gets herself trapped in a room for the remainder of the episode which is not as boring or plain as you might expect it to be as seen as she's got very little to do for around a third of the episode. Suppose it works cos she's doing her Penelope Pitstop bit whilst the Doctor deals with the insanely dangerous walkway.

And more death... Moxx's death was a little bit of a waste. We don't really see what happens to him aside from being enveloped in light and then a steaming pile of something. Jabe's death is similarly wasteful but Casandra's death is a little more like it, but I'd quite like to have seen the frame with bloody entrails hanging from it, dripping. Where's Hinchcliffe when you need him?

Overall, still suffering from fairly pedestrian direction (bring on Aherne), but much better incidental music (now that I've had by ears syringed I can actually hear the damn thing). Rose I still see as a solid start and this just built upon that firm foundation and took Who to new heights. I can only hope they've got rights clearance, from the featured musical artists, to release this story on DVD...

It's 'The End of the World' as we know it (and I feel fine)

Oh, thank you God - this is so much better.

For me, Doctor Who never returned on the 26^th March. Sure, all the elements were there - the Doctor, the TARDIS, all that iconography and history of the past 40-plus years. But he wasn’t there, and nor was the show. It was like going back to your childhood home and finding a bunch of strangers instead.

But here there are just hints - and sometimes more than that - that the Doctor and that show I fell in love with all those years ago was back. And boy, was it about time…

There’s a different feel to ‘The End of the World’ right from that marvellous pre-credit sequence (yes, pre-credits…how terribly cool and modern our show has suddenly become). And the difference is primarily the man himself. Gone is the forced humour, the exaggerated eccentricities; and in their place is a warm, enigmatic and compelling portrayal. God, I’ve waited to say these words: Christopher Eccleston is the Doctor.

But don’t get me wrong, it’s not all perfect. At times the over-egging of the whole wacky traveller thing still grates (Eccleston ‘getting on down’ to ‘Tainted Love’ will elicit the odd painful groan), while the somewhat forced, Northern aspects of this incarnation do seem at best unnecessary, and worst political (would James Bond fans accept such a wholesale re-branding of their hero?). And the plot isn’t an awful lot of cop, somewhat wasting the show’s excellent track record in doing ‘murder mystery’ stories.

But for once I have come to praise Caesar, not bury him. And that even extends to Murray Gold’s score, one of the undeniable travesties of that opening episode. There’s a subtlety here that simply wasn’t there in the more ‘action adventure’ format of ‘Rose’. And the biggest compliment to pay Gold is that this score at times is hauntingly resonant of the emotional music of RTD fave ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’.

And the fact it’s all wrapped up in some truly arresting visuals certainly doesn’t hinder the cause. Despite the much touted propaganda of this being the best Douglas Adams script he never wrote, ‘The End of the World’ is more indebted to another legend of the sci-fi/fantasy genre: Terry Gilliam. Its mix of bizarre aliens with the humdrum mechanics of the station’s systems illustrate that Gilliam’s ‘Brazil’ is evidently a huge influence (there’s even a plumber and a lengthy scene set in a ventilation shaft). And one of the episode’s star-turns - Simon Day’s Steward - is a note-perfect homage to Gilliam’s bete-noire of officious bureaucrats.

Considering the alleged budget-busting nature of the episode’s CGI heavy element, it’s a relief to report that such excess has not gone without reward. The visuals impress without swamping the - admittedly flimsy - plot, while the collection of weird’n’wonderfuls is an eclectic hodgepodge of ‘Babylon 5’-inspired weirdoes. While most are there for little reason than background decoration, the rest are well served by some imaginative make-up and effective performances. Though the now almost legendary Moxx of Balhoon - and the similarly hyped Face of Boe - are sadly wasted, Jabe of the Forest of Cheem strikes up a realistic, and ultimately touching, relationship with Eccleston’s Doctor. It’s refreshing - and not in the least scandalous - to see the Doctor actually find another person sexually attractive, and vice versa; harking back to that Cocoa incident that the first Doctor experienced some forty years ago. Rose’s evident jealousy is also nicely handled, while the fact that she isn’t rushing into completely trusting the Doctor is both believable and, again, not par for the course. Allowing Jabe and the Doctor’s pairing to achieve payoff in two of the episode’s standout scenes; firstly where Jabe confronts the Doctor with the knowledge her body scan of him has revealed (Gallifrey’s gone, folks, and only the Doctor survived) and latterly when she sacrifices herself so that the Doctor can save the station from annihilation.

Oh, and did I mention: this Doctor cries. The emotional resonance of this new series starts here.

All this empowerment of Eccleston’s Doctor fortunately doesn’t mean that his feisty sidekick is left to her own devices. Rather, Billie Piper has some great material to work with, and as in ‘Rose’ she more than rises to the occasion (have I mentioned how she’s the best thing to happen to Doctor Who in, oh, nine years?). Her reactions to the aliens are just what they should be: bewilderment, excitement and, ultimately, acceptance. While her presence, and everyday chat with the episode’s plumber, continue to support RTD’s mandate to ground this new show - and even its most fantastical elements - in reality. And there’s one scene where she’ll literally make you want to phone your Mum; when the Doctor’s ‘jiggery pokery’ allows her to have a five billion year-old conversation with Jackie back home.

And we’ve even got subtext by the bucket-load. Cassandra may be the last, pure human. But the fact she’s totally devoid of humanity allows RTD to have more than a few pokes at consumer culture and the obsession with self-improvement to the point of insanity. Wonderfully voiced by Zoe Wanamaker, Cassandra is a Sil for her generation: vain, capitalist and constantly in need of moisturising. Her murder plot may descend into something of a damp squib, but its underlying ethos - after five billion years, it still comes down to money - has never been more apt.

Add to that a Doctor acting more Doctorly than you could hope for (with Eccleston’s pumping of the TARDIS’ bellows-like controls in particular evoking the character’s spirit of adventure perfectly) and some judicious use of contemporary music (I’ll never hear Britney Spear’s ‘Toxic’ the same way again) and you’ve got a thoroughly entertaining forty-five minutes of television. And more than that, the suggestion of some great Doctor Who to come.

"If you think that's amazing you wanna see the bill"

The End of the World is the first episode of Doctor Who that I've watched for the first time at transmission since 1989.

I was positively cacking myself.

Note to self: never attempt to serve DIY Peking style duck wraps at 7:05pm on a Saturday again.

I like the implementation of teaser sequences leading into the main titles. It creates these wonderful little mini-cliffhangers complete with that wonderful screaming sting. What a lovely rush.

I loved the Heath Robinson TARDIS; I admit that I had a big, fat grin plastered to my face throughout this scene. The bicycle pump was an inspired touch, although I hope it was only employed because they headed so far into the future, as it will get very silly, very quickly. I also loved how every journey we've seen in the series so far has involved seat-of-the-pants flying and a general sense of ricketiness.

The Special Effects: The good news is that the effects are the best ever witnessed in a British sci-fi show. Admittedly, that's not very hard. While it might not compare with the photo-realism of Battlestar Galactica or even (shudder) Stargate Atlantis, it still holds its head up in a this post-Babylon 5 world. And it's so colourful too, like an Eagle comic come to life.

Earth's death is beautiful and glorious and the Hitchhiker's movie is going to have its work cut out to top it.

The spider robots were excellent too. Not only were they beautifully animated, they always looked like they belonged in their environments and they never really looked like CG creations. Splendid chaps at The Mill, all of them.

The bad news is that they've completely blown the budget on this episode so it's back to bits of string and sticky-back plastic from this moment on.

The music: this is probably the most contentious subject of all. The incidental music is, on the whole, better than anything we heard in Rose - apart from the moment when the Umpa-lumpas turn up and we get showered with syrupy twaddle; I wanted to hide my head in shame at this point.

Tainted Love: apart from the scene of the Doctor doing an impression of your dad dancing at a wedding, I have to admit that I enjoyed this gag. And it appears that RTD loves Apple technology too. They even get a month all to themselves in the future so maybe Bill Gates loses that "war" in the end too.

Toxic: my first thought was, "I love this song". My second thought was, "The fans are gonna go apeshit". My final thought went something like this: "What the hell - there's nothing on TV even remotely like this. Just enjoy it". And it works perfectly in context, you have to admit.

Plus I'd rather have Brittany than a burp any day of the week.

The plot is slim to invisible. Hardly surprising as this is an episode which is primarily concerned with character development, and I'm not going to complain about that. It's clear that the Doctor is suspicious of Cassandra from the off though, despite some nice misdirection that insinuates that he's actually suspicious of Jabe as well. But it's hardly a Who-dunnit, really.

The leads: Billie is even better than she was last week - and that's saying something. The scene where she calls her mum is wonderful and very touching. She can berate ("a bitchy trampoline"), she can take the piss ("where am I going to go - Ipswich?") and she can do 'confused' extremely well. In a nutshell: she's note perfect. Again.

Eccleston's Doctor is fabulous. A little more restrained this time around but still full of life, passion, humour and bravado. And check out that hint of darkness, fanboys! I can't fault the performance at all - we're all gonna miss him like crazy when he's gone.

Cassandra was a lot of fun. I loved how her brain could be seen in the tank below her rack. Her Doctors looked really cool too. But best of all - I forgot that I was looking at a special effect again.

The blades scene: this was brilliant for two reasons. Firstly, it looked fantastic. Secondly, it showed that our hero has a unique relationship to time (and timing in particular) just a few seconds after he's called a Time Lord, which is handy. He's almost a bloody X-Man at this point!

Jabe burning up is shocking but overly sanitised. The 70s version of the show would have given us a close-up and a scream at the very least. We don't even get a close-up of her ashes but I suppose Eccleston's face says it all.

The revelation that the Doctor's homeworld has been destroyed ties in nicely with the 8th Doctor novels where _______ blows it up during a war against ________. However, I honestly doubt that this is what Russell is referring too if they ever mention it again (which they may not).

Three PR hints make me believe that they will revisit this plot point this season:

1) Lack of Time Lords in the universe means no one is cracking down on time travel experiments (so we'll get another time travelling character in the series (Captain Jack).

2) Episode 12 still doesn't have a title yet. Gallifrey, perhaps? It's either that or Something of the Daleks...

3) In the Radio Times Special it mentions the following: The Doctor comes across someone he thought was long dead. Another Time Lord, perhaps? What a master stroke that would be.

Could this all tie-into the "regeneration arc" that was 'planned all along'? I bet the Paul McGann brigade are having a field-day on the OG forums. Is this a limited edition Doctor? A faction paradox creation? A 9.1 version? Who knows, but it's great fun to speculate!

Either way, it's a great scene that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. And didn't anyone else immediately think of the mooted Donald Sutherland/Dudley Moore movie, The Last Timelord?

However, there are a couple of things in this episode that I wasn't particularly enamoured of:

The aliens. Yeah, they were a pretty big component of the episode but I just didn't buy them. Not that the effects weren't great - they were - I just didn't get to know or understand any of them.

The Moxx of Balhoon was a complete waste of time. No characterisation at all! Is he good? Is he evil? Nope - he's just one-dimensional. It's pretty much the same for all the rest of them. The Face of Bo? No idea. The tree people - I know they are made of wood, and that's about it. The aliens are just window dressing at the end of the day.

And only Doctor Who could have a group of villains called The Appearance of the Repeated Meme. Pure genius when you stop to think about it but I can imagine the parents getting a hard time from the kids. "Mum, what's a repeated meme? Oh, and what's prostitution while you're at it".

Finally, it's just not scary enough. There are a few moments that openly invite horror - the plumber's death and the steward getting fried (which I just didn't buy; he didn't know how to turn the blinds on???) but they aren't really milked the way they could have been. Lack of running time, perhaps?

All in all, an enjoyable romp with some real iconic moments to savour.

8/10

Christ knows what a floating audience thought about it...

Strap the Ball Gag on Graham Norton!

Because it's 7pm on a Saturday night, and that means only one thing. The first SF show in years that I don't have to download in order to watch. It's a refreshing change, I can tell you.

After a quick recap of last weeks adventure (presumably for the two people in the country who weren't watching) the Doctor makes good on his promise to take Rose absolutely anywhere in time and space, and soon enough we're hurtling into the future. One hundred years? Boring. Ten thousand years? Pffff, that's for pussy Starfleet officers. Determined to really impress his new assistant, the Doctor decides he's going to floor it. Before you have time to stop and wonder why the TARDIS is now powered by a bicycle pump - BANG - we've travelled five billion years hence, and not only is it the end of the world, Eccles is about to do a live rendition of an Orbital track.

This episode really functions as a continuation of the pilot, as Rose begins to take stock of this whole time travel malarkey, and the adorable nutter she's just shacked up with. Exactly what does she know about this bloke, other than the fact that he's an alien who enjoys saving the universe while head-bopping to Soft Cell? Clearly, it's time to get some answers out of this leather-clad clown, but the Doctor isn't in the mood to share. And when he does, you really rather wish he hadn't. Apparently his home world has been burned to a cinder, and he's the last remaining Time Lord. Flippin 'eck.

Now, I came to this show a tad late; I missed the first twenty six seasons. So, I'm not exactly up on the back story. Is the nasty fate of Gallifrey old news, or is RTD setting up a future plot line? I couldn't help but notice this is the second episode in a row making allusions to a mysterious war. I hope it's the latter, just so we can find out why a time traveller can't change such a disastrous outcome.

Meanwhile, it's the end of our world (accompanied, of course, by the sound of Britney Spears. I always suspected her popularity was a sign of the coming apocalypse), and a variety of wacky characters have assembled to watch the Earth being engulfed in the Suns death throes on an orbiting space station run by The Steward and his assistants (think Umpa Lumpas crossed with Smurfs). Cue insane villain in the (very thin) shape of Cassandra, the last human who has decided to knock off all the other attendees in a convoluted plot to help pay for his/her next face lift. Not that there's much face left to lift, that is.

I have no idea how much money the BBC have invested in this new series, but I get the feeling the licence fee is about to go up by a few hundred quid. British SF TV has never looked so gorgeous. Fantastic spacious sets, wonderful makeup and a CGI department who apparently watched Minority Report recently and decided to "have a go". Those mechanical spiders were great (the camera nudge was cute - you know the SFX guys are getting confident when they throw in a touch like that) and the virtual sets were class.  Doctor Who can finally stand toe-to-toe with the likes of Trek or Battlestar Galactica, and not have to use the old cop-out argument of "well, it's supposed to look shit. That's part of the charm!".

In the end the main plot is a non-starter; a chase around the station, which unfortunately gets a bit deus ex machina by the end, as a convenient switch at the end of a ridiculously deadly causeway is the magical solution to the problem. But it doesn't matter. I'm not really watching for the plot (yet), I'm tuning in for the humour, and the chemistry between Chris and Billie and enjoying it while it lasts.

I can smell chips...

Goodness, who saw that coming? Although cleverly not mentioned by name, poof goes Gallifrey, The Doctor's home planet. And the rest of The Timelords. Fans everywhere wonder if the series is going to suddenly become a continuation of the books (where it also apparently happened) in what's probably the most comitted and gripping plot point in telefantasy since Buffy died. As the for the rest of tonight's Doctor Who, wasn't it just excellent? Exciting, scary, emotional. Eccles demonstrated what a loss he'll be and Billie continued her one girl battle to prove that you shouldn't assume anything about anyone. Yes it was very Hitchhikers but in a good way. And one of the issues I had with the first episode has already been fixed -- the music here was fine. Including the pop. Who the hell expected Soft Cell and Britney Spears? Very zeitguesty. It also, unlike last week, featured scenes which went on for longer than a few seconds and allowed the characters to breath. It's just a shame The Moxx of Balhoon bought it. I liked that little blue alien. I can smell chips...