When I first heard that this episode was going to be called “42” I automatically assumed that there was going to be some Hitch Hikers Guide, Ultimate Answer, Mulder’s apartment, Mouse related hi-jinks running through the story. See, I’ve managed to avoid nearly all the spoilers that have been bandied around about this series and I have to say that I enjoy seeing them without knowing exactly what’s going to happen.
So the whole real time thing was something of a surprise for me when I’d worked it out. It’s good to
see that they’re still experimenting with the show and the format. It worked well enough to a point last year in Love and Monsters (that point being, of course, Peter Kay in a latex suit designed by a nine year old) but I’m less sure this year. I don’t want to go on about it, but there really wasn’t any need for it. The fact that Eddie the shipboard computer kept keeping track made no difference to the pace of the story and did nothing to increase my excitement or anxiety and didn’t make me root for our heroes any more than if there wasn’t this tight, heavily laboured, timetable. I’m a big fan of 24 and I have to admit that six days on, I’m still a big sucker for the countdown clock. That makes a difference and really keeps the tension going.
This? Not so much.
Which isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy it and didn’t find it exciting and a little tense. Because I did. It’s just that the real time aspect was a little lost and, in my opinion, unnecessary.
But full marks for giving it a go. I’d like to see more attempts to think outside the box or whatever the management phrase is these days.
Anyway, where was I?
Anyway, enough of gimmicks and experimentation. What about the show, proper?
I enjoyed it. Really, I did. There was action, excitement and tension. Some good acting and some setting up of stories for coming episodes.
I like the fact that they’re developing the story arc angle in Doctor Who. There was too much episodic amnesia in days gone past, when no matter what happened it would all be forgotten by the next story. Whilst I admit that it can go too far, a little continuity is a good thing. I tried to watch a random episode of Highlander the other day (one of the later series – He’d cut his hair). Whilst I picked up on the fact there was this evil entity/Q type character harassing poor Duncan who was no longer carrying a sword, I had no clue who he was or what was really going on. So, whilst I applaud the theory of the story arc, you have to fill in enough of the back story each time to educate the occasional watcher (there’s another Highlander reference for you).
Anyway, where was I?
The programme starts with a slight nod to the past, with the Doctor activating Martha’s Universal Roaming feature on her mobile. Now I’ve checked the settings on my ‘phone and I can’t find that option. Perhaps I need to hit it with a screwdriver. On a side note, are we going to see Martha’s family calling her up all the time now? As her mum has issues with the Doctor and has left her messages on her home ‘phone shouldn’t she be chasing Martha up all the time? I don’t remember this happening on screen at all last time, but, at least, there was reference to Mickey calling up to get help with the whole school-being-taken-over-by-aliens thing.
As I said. Anyway.
We get straight into the action with a brief introduction to the crew, highlighting the problem and getting rid of the obvious means of escape. Most of the crew just seemed like roughly sketched outlines – We never really learnt anything about them. Cindy was married to a chap that kept her honest (suggesting that it wasn’t her natural state), Orin had argued with his mum and Erinna felt put upon and wished she was dead. That’s it. Everybody else was just cannon fodder. No emotional investment there at all. It’s not like the Impossible Planet/Satan Pit, where every one of them had some kind of backstory to play with.
Although, they did do well with what they had. I don’t think that there was a bad performance amongst them. Well, except when they were wandering round the ship pretending to be Darth Vader, but I’m fairly sure that was meant to menacing. Of course, the problem with casting people who are well known from other programmes is that one goes into the show with certain expectations. Okay, I didn’t expect Michelle Collins to wander in with a broad cockney accent, sleep with everybody and then try to get the Doctor killed before eloping with any children around (I think that’s what Cindy did anyway). But I do like the fact that she didn’t fall back into what must be a comfort zone of one note acting (which happens more often than I’d like to think about). Mind you, I think that the Ripley/GI Jane vest helped get her into character.
Which is why this is such a short paragraph.
Talking of people being impressive in the acting stakes. Young Freema continues to impress, don’t you think? The character of Martha is definitely making her own mark and isn’t just a Rose replacement. The dynamic is totally different and Martha seems to be more of a match for the Doctor. Freema does a great job bringing the part to life and I’m impressed with her range and abilities. No complaints about that from me – Which is why this is such a short paragraph.
My Martha highlights from this episode include another example of her being a clever, studenty-type and attempting to read the manual before popping the Doctor into the stasis chamber. It’s nice to see that not everybody can automatically recognise and use any old piece of alien tech that they come across. The other moment for me was when she was trapped in the escape pod and asked Orin if he had a girlfriend and with barely a pause she added or a boyfriend. It shows that she’s adapting to the more relaxed attitude toward sexuality that our future holds than Rose ever did.
One final moment of praise for this episode before I voice a few more critical opinions. When the escape pod was launched out into space, I thought that the silence was far more effective and moving than any amount of dramatic music would have been. That was a very impressive, understated moment.
So, what bothered me about it and is it fair to spend so long praising the programme to then turn around and start poking holes in it? Who cares? It’s fun.
at least I wouldn’t die with a squint.
Firstly, when those poor cannon fodder type people who were killed and were burnt into a mural (which was a bit Terry Pratchett). Why did they all die with their arms akimbo in that manner? I mean, if I were to ever find myself staring into the light of a thousand suns (or whatever) then I’m pretty sure that I’d put my arm across my eyes in order to shade them from the bright light. I admit that in the grand scheme of things, it wouldn’t help in the slightest but at least I wouldn’t die with a squint.
Now, I’ve praised Martha and Freema a lot this week, but what of the Doctor and David? To be fair, Mr T. didn’t bother me with his portrayal this week– There wasn’t much in the way of shouting and I don’t think that he was that annoying this week.
However, the Doctor just didn’t do it for me. I’ve come to the decision that he doesn’t cope well under pressure. Normally when we see him in action, he has plenty of time “off camera” for his little panic attacks and moments of self-doubt, but as this was all in ‘real-time’ he just couldn’t hide it. In the space of 42 minutes he whined “I don’t know how much longer I can last!” told Martha how very scared he was and did lots of screaming like a big girls blouse.
He soon changed his tune once someone called his bluff
When Martha popped him into the stasis chamber, the temperature hadn’t even hit zero before he started squalling like a baby. Now, I’m not a Time Lord, but even I can stand a freezing temperature for longer than that before I even think about blubbing. All this “I can take –200 degrees C” was just so much bluster. He soon changed his tune once someone called his bluff, though, didn’t he?
(I’ve never been entirely sure about the phrase “Big girls blouse”. Is it meant to refer to the blouse of a larger lady or a large blouse belonging to a lady of undetermined size? I suppose it all depends on the apostrophe.)
Don’t even get me started on “Go on my son!” when he managed to open that panel. As far as I know, he hadn’t just come from the seventies, so why that particular idiom appeared I have no idea. I just hope that it doesn’t come back again any time soon.
And how many times did he need to repeat “It’s alive!” when staring into the sun? He was starting to sound like Doctor Frankenstein at the end there.
They’re setting it up to next year’s main villain!
I’m sure that there’s a very good reason for this, but why did the spacesuit that he put on look so very similar to the one that he was wearing last year during Impossible Planet/Satan Pit? It even had the same lights in the helmet that did nothing to help him see, but did look a bit flash. I remember the Babylon 5 helmets had the same design. I have a theory about this suit, actually. I think it’s following him. They’re setting it up to next year’s main villain! Everywhere he goes he’s going to start noticing this suit just hanging around like some half played game of chess. It’ll be like the alien symbiote costume that kept trying to bond with Peter Parker. Slowly and with little warning it’ll become forever part of him. Perhaps the suit will have a backbone in it.
So leaving the Doctor whimpering in the corner, what else bothered me?
I’m not to sure how the Darth Vader wannabe could have been quite so precise hammering away at the such little buttons when trying to launch Martha into deep space (or deep sun). Have you ever tried dialling a ‘phone or operating a remote control whilst wearing gardening gloves? It’s not that easy, you know. Even a pair of Marigolds would make it difficult, so those heavy welders’ gloves would be useless for such quick and precise button pushing. They should have been bigger, proper pushbuttons to accommodate big hands in cumbersome gloves.
Then we had the living sun thing. Okay, I may not be entirely positive that there aren’t aliens that look like large balls of flaming gas, but you can’t really blame Cindy for not scanning for life on a sun. You just wouldn’t expect that kind of weirdness, would you? And anyway, how did they get so close to the sun in order to mine it’s heart (or whatever it was that they did to get fuel) when everybody started to panic when they were almost an hour away from it? Did they mine by remote control? If so why didn’t whatever they use melt when it got that close? This made no sense to me.
I don’t want to sound totally negative, so I’ll just mention a couple more moments that I did enjoy (which I’ve just remembered).
trying to play a Mozart symphony on your telephone keypad
I did like the idea of them setting the security lock-down questions whilst drunk. I can imagine them sitting round a pile of empties talking about what to do if they get invaded by Space Pirates (or Ice Pirates) and then coming up with the idea of trivia questions. It’s just an extension of the “Security Questions” that you get asked whenever you ‘phone one of these faceless, off-shore corporations and dare to actually want to talk to a real person rather than trying to play a Mozart symphony on your telephone keypad.
There was a certain drunken logic to it. It’s just as well it wasn’t too good a night otherwise they’d never have been able to remember even doing, let alone what the answers were. On which note – How many men would choose either orange or purple as their favourite colour. And then forget what their favourite colour was?
Finally (you’ll be glad to know – If you made it this far) I have a couple of questions.
Mrs Jones is now in cahoots with Mr Saxon and his goons and it’s election day. My question isn’t “What are cahoots?” but is “Is this an election for Prime Minister?” and if so “Where does he hang out now?” Did they rebuild Downing Street after all that exploding business at the end of Word War 3? Has it ever been mentioned? I don’t recall anybody talking about it, but I suppose it could have been reconstructed. It’ll probably look exactly the same as it did before, too. Odd that.
Last one. Why was the Doctor looking so pensive and glum at the end there? Was it because he’d shown himself up as such a girlie wimp or is there more sinister brooding afoot?
Oh well, we’ll find out eventually.
Still, when it’s all said and done. I enjoyed that one. Flaws and all.
Good show.