Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

Angled Web

When I first saw the "pirated" clip of the chase sequence, I choked on the score, as is usual for me with this production team’s Doctor Who efforts: MURRAY AT FULL THROTTLE™ (and a bit). The physics of the thing also raised an eyebrow, until I was reminded by fellow loafers that this Doctor Who, and as far as Physics is concerned at the moment, Einstein’s Theories of Relativity forbid faster-than-lightspeed travel, one of the cruces of the whole show. Which makes guffawing at the TARDIS’s looping about suspect. Except that, of course, that it was funny.

Fitted into the context of the episode, however, it worked seamlessly - except for MURRAY, of course. To be fair, even MURRAY was seamless at that point, but only because he was, as usual, like that all the way through. I’ve said if before, and unhappily I’ll no doubt say it again: bashing people’s eardrums relentlessly for an hour does not make for good drama. Except, of course from the tension developed because it is so bloody relentless. Like being beaten on the head repeatedly with a hammer, but not nearly as much fun. Less is more, OK? (Speaking of which, I had hoped to present a shorter review tha last time, but I had a couple of things to get off my chest.)

But I’m preaching to the converted here, so I’ll shut up about MURRAY for a bit. Probably. Bah! Bollocks to that, where’s the baseball bat! It really detracts from the drama. He also had a field day ripping off - sorry, paying homage to - Johann Strauss Jr, George Gershwin (fragments from Summertime and Rhapsody in Blue) and 60s cop dramas/James Bond movies. Don’t worry MURRAY - when you stop hammering nails through my ears, I’ll probably start applauding you (for turning down the volume, if nothing else).

Still, he and the Who production team are not alone. I recently had the misfortune to (attempt to) see the movie Happy Feet. It looked spectacular and appeared to be a story about some Antarctic penguins, but I can’t tell what it was really like because we spent most of the time with our fingers jammed in our ears, and didn’t walk out only because our daughter would have kicked up too much of a fuss, fingers-in-ears notwithstanding. You could hear the speakers breaking up, even with fingers firmly implanted. I dare say that the theatre’s rationale was along the lines of "It’s a disco sound track, let’s give 'em a disco volume level". We weren’t the only people who complained to the management - although apparently one complained (I suspect sarcastically) that it wasn’t loud enough. The cinema wrote back to say that they had wound the volume down later, but I think they’re going to have to get some new speakers before too long. Fortunately, with MURRAY, we can turn him down. Unfortunately, however, you then miss the dialogue. Well, you miss it even when the volume’s up so what’s the difference?

OK. Having sated my MURRAY-bashing for the time being, I must confess that I enjoyed The Runaway Bride against my expectations. It wasn’t Doctor Who so much as a Christmas pantomime starring the Doctor. This is looking to be Mr Davies’ approach to the Who Christmas specials, which is fair enough. Laughs, hi-jinks and a at least one villain are usually the order of the day there. Last year’s offering was more of the same, so to speak. Sort of like a shorter version of an nth Anniversary Doctor Who Special. So, given that we’re apparently watching a pantomime, the usual level of criticism as applied to mainstream Doctor Who should probably be replaced with something more appropriate. Like a complete, no-holds-barred Torchwood-style demolition. Er, just kidding.

With the bad press that Catherine Tate has had from her TV comedy show (I still haven’t seen her in anything else yet, for one reason and another), I was anticipating a dire performance. In the event it seemed to me that she gave a pretty good run for the BBC's (and the viewers') money.

The story’s pantomime nature was fully revealed with the appearance of the Empress of the Racnoss. She was something of a cross between the hissing cloaked Panto-villain and the creaky old Panto-horse, with an overdose of Sid Vicious added for just a bit more fun. I squirmed with embarrassment at the first sight of this creature, but when I realised its function, I relaxed and continued to enjoy the show as much as was possible, what with MURRAY blasting me up against a wall at every opportunity. I would never in a pink fit have guessed that it was Sarah Parish of Blackpool fame though, had I not known beforehand.

Tennant’s and Tate’s parts gave a much-needed edge to the show's flummery: both are playing this one for real, and in Tennant's case this was an exceedingly welcome sea-change. Gone was the flippancy and smugness that torpedoed the 2006 season of Doctor Who for me, and his performance developed logically from the events of Doomsday. There is more darkness, and it was closer in timbre to some of Eccleston's best Who performances, e.g., in Dalek and The  Empty Child. Interestingly, his performance had undercurrents of Detective Inspector Carlisle from Blackpool, which he did with Parish and David Morrissey (the "clip" with him, Parish, Morrissey and some "coppers" over the top of The Clash's song Should I Stay or Should I Go was electric). I found him far more satisfying in this than in the entire 2006 season, which really came, dramatically and character-wise, as a complete non sequitur to the 2005 season. The real payoff was the word Gallifrey, which didn’t come out of the blue, as some have suggested - it was prefigured throughout the entire episode. And best of all was the dignity with which it was spoken. In my opinion it is this episode more than any other that shows that Tennant has got what it takes to be the Doctor.

Tate neatly played off Tennant, at times counterpointing his performance, at others reflecting it, and all the time giving a nicely-timed dramatic progression to her character. The slap across the Doctor's face was a turning point in the episode, and hopefully a real one for the series as a whole. I for one would be happy to see Tate return to the series at some point - some time soon, in fact.

The shots of the proto-Sun’s "nursery nebula" were good, which means that someone on the production team does actually know where to retrieve Hubble telescope or similar snaps from, and that stars are born from vast clouds of interstellar gas and dust.

Oh no! I think I’ve just exhausted my positive comments - I feel a sudden and irrepressible urge to get out the baseball bat, so help me!

I just wish that Davies and Co. would get themselves some decent scientific advisers, or do some minimal background research. The Wikipedia alone is full of stuff, for heavens' sake!  How about a chat with some of the staff in the BBC's Natural History Unit? Doesn’t Cardiff have a university with a Physics (or related) department? I was waiting for a jet of super-heated Thames steam (complete with charboiled dolphins) to come shooting back out of the hole to the centre of the Earth, but maybe the Doctor closed it off with the Sonic Plotbender when we weren’t looking. Just as well, too - it would probably have taken London with it, and then some. At least Inferno was on the right track here, and was one of the strongest parts of that story.

Was the bogus science to keep us in mind that we were watching a pantomime after all? Probably not - the whole 2006 season was full of examples of this lack of discipline. That’s not to say (for the umpteenth time) that the original Doctor Who was defect-free in this area, but that’s no excuse either.

Unfortunately, the mosaic of inconsistency that seems to bedevil current Doctor Who, et alia, rears its ugly head yet again. Marks gained in clearly delineating the scientific and most probable theory of the creation of the earth are immediately lost by the cloth-headed idea of drowning - or flushing away - the spiders using the River Thames. To have flushed them, the spiderlings would have had to have been sufficiently close to the Earth’s surface. If they weren’t sent down the straight U-bend, then they would have been sorted by the jet of super-heated steam (but see above for the most obvious drawback here). Which would have occurred whether the spiders were washed down the spout (thanks, Flick :) or not. At least it resulted in Flick's "incy-wincy spider" review, so it’s an ill wind :).

And while I’m being critical, I wonder how many people were killed/maimed/severely injured by bits of shattered spider web falling out of the sky on them? Not to mentioned the demolition of quite a few buildings, &c. Although I suppose that to "float" in the almost-boundary layer without "visible means of support", it would have had to have been made from an "almost lighter than air substance" And if not, then people definitely would have been killed, etc. Oh, sorry, it’s a pantomime, je regrette.

I wonder whether the collective amnesia caused by "psychotropic drugs in the water supply" (yeah, thanks, "Rhys", good one) will attack the worthy burghers o' London yet again. Probably. That little leitmotif is being done to death, however. Time for a new tune I think thanks, Mr Davies (and don’t let MURRAY anywhere near it either, thank you so very much as well, too).

To sum up, even with all my criticisms I found The Runaway Bride nowhere near as lamentable as the debacle that was Torchwood, the latter being literally off with the Faeries at the Bottom of the Garden After Imbibing Some Nice Psychotropic Substances. 'Gad, that show is casting a pall over the Whoniverse: The Runaway Bride, and Invasion of the Bane, have fortunately provided a much needed antidote to it. At least for me and my long-suffering family - we all really enjoyed it.

Here’s hoping for a better season of Doctor Who this year.

The Bumper Book of Made Up Doctor Who Facts has absolutely nothing at all to say about Runaway Bride.

Incy wincy spider

I will freely admit to coming to this special with every intention of enjoying it and succeeding in my aim. In many ways I think it proves the argument for showing Doctor Who in the winter – it’s much easier to create a spooky atmosphere in the dark and cold and people are more forgiving too.

The Runaway Bride has its problems – not least its title. As usual there are some plot points which fail to come together (such as the force-feeding of Lance with Huon-particle mineral water) which could have been explained  with a few lines of dialogue. So much of the plot hangs on shaky pseudo-science anyway, it wouldn’t have jarred at all to say, for instance, that the Huon particles in Lance were simply used to draw Donna back to the nest. In fact, it probably was said, it was just lost under Murray Gold’s score and Sarah Parish’s mannerisms.

And thus, handily, we come to the biggest turkey on the plate – the Racnoss. Such an opportunity! What could be scarier than a massive spider? Unfortunately not nearly enough is made of that fantastic prosthetic. So many shots are of the head in close-up, losing the scale and highlighting the human features. Why not make her scuttle about a bit, chewing the scenery on all sides? Admittedly Sarah Parish does some great stuff with all the head-tilts and jerky movements and I don’t think an ancient, omnivorous scourge of life on all planets should be subtle and underplayed. She comes across as little more sophisticated than a talking spider and it fits. Despite what Julie Gardner  may say on the commentary, we finally have a proper, evil villain who gets killed and that’s fine. No sympathy, no “I’m so sorry,” just incy-wincy killer spiders from the Dark Ages of the universe getting washed down the drain. Fantastic.

At last we’re seeing the Doctor we were promised – ruthless and scary and not constantly hopping about saying “avoid the void!” It’s a double-whammy of continuity glee as we get transcendental pockets and, at last, GALLIFREY. It actually brings in a lots of elements from the past: there was some City of Death, the secret at the centre of the Earth made me wonder about Inferno and the intelligent spiders, regrettably, recalled Planet of the Spiders. Finally, too, the whole “pilot fish” problem is sorted out. It makes much more sense for the robotic santas to be remote-controlled mercenaries – whose master I imagine we may meet next year (if a third special is commissioned). The big gong though has to go to the flying TARDIS sequence. Forget the physics, (the simplest way is just to think, “the Doctor’s smarter than me” as Salem suggested on the Canada Redux thread) it looks brilliant. The CGI is some of the best we’ve seen yet and when it spins up into the sky it’s a real punch-the-air moment. Don’t get me started on the final de-materialization though, what the hell was that supposed to be? In fact, my only quibble with the sequence is that I really didn’t like the children cheering them along, which other people loved. It just seemed too cheesy.

My biggest worry was always Catherine Tate – her programme is the sort of sub-Little Britain schlock which pollutes British comedy at the moment. It’s all endlessly repeated catch-phrases and gross-out “humour”. What happened to the Pythons, hmm? Intelligent, witty and 100 times funnier than a man dressed as a WI member being sick on a vicar. Of course, I needn’t have worried because the comedienne wasn’t writing and, as a character, Donna really grew on me over the course of the episode. She’s a brash selfish type but whose heart didn’t bleed when Lance said he’d prefer being the Empress’ escort than spending a night with Donna? Ouch! That’s just mean. She also fulfilled the wishes of many a blogger and kept the Doctor in check – delivering a quick slap when he started getting smug and flippant.

Being an RTD script, (oh here I go again, RTD-bashing) there’s a lot of excellent dialogue, my particular favourite being “walking in the dust”. I actually think he constructed a very good story – well-paced, exciting, entertaining and I watched with a cheesy grin – what more can you ask for? And before you reply, yes, I know: tighter script editing, a more dynamic villain and a remote controlled K9.

Down the Plughole

I know I'm going to sound like an ungrateful old git complaining about the socks his kind-hearted granny has just given him for Christmas but I just can't let this one slide. And besides, it's probably safe to put the boot in because everyone else on the blog seems to have been dazzled into submission by the shiny tinsel and that increasingly bizarre mantra: 'it's Christmas - it doesn't have to make sense'.

I don't get it: is The Runaway Bride a non-canonical comedy sketch? A Yuletide Special where the normal "rules" no longer apply? Or is it - and please try to bear with me here -  just another episode of Doctor Who that should be able to stand up to the same level of scrutiny as all the rest? Just because half the audience are pissed-up and the other half are asleep in a cloud of sprout gas, does that mean the production team can just throw any old bollocks at us and expect us to swallow it, no questions asked? I always thought Christmas Specials were an excuse to pull out all the stops, not all the cliches!

Is The Runaway Bride a non-canonical comedy sketch? A Yuletide Special where the normal "rules" no longer apply?

Ah, but people don't want to see anything dark or gritty at Christmas time, do they? Well, that never seems to stop EastEnders; a programme that never compromises its rating-smashing, heart wrenching misery with some comedy parp-parp music. I'm not saying that Doctor Who should necessarily be grim and dark at any time of the year, it just doesn't need to turn into a pantomime once a year either (sadly, it seems to be doing that all year round these days). We're living through season 17 again, people. Just because it currently occupies the old Only Fools.. slot, does it really have to feel like a bloody sitcom?

Don't get me wrong, The Runaway Bride boasts some great moments: surprisingly, Catherine Tate was far, far better than I'd ever dared hoped, especially given the broad strokes that laughingly made up her "character" (there's more flesh and bones on many of her comedy caricatures); David Tennant seems to have called a moratorium on the smug silliness that plagued him throughout season 2 (the closest we'll get to mourning for whatshername, I suppose); there are some great jokes ("I was scuba diving"); some wonderful set pieces (the formation of planet Earth), and Gallifrey finally gets a long overdue mention (which will be handy when they it back next season). So why can't we have a decent plot? Is that really too much to ask for?

Just laugh at the hilarious pratfalls and Sarah Parish hamming it up like Graham Crowden never happened, while Murray Gold drowns everything out with a melange of brass farts and comedy strings...

Inexplicable killer Santas, surreptitiously malevolent Christmas trees placed in handy locations just on the off-chance they'll be needed, spaceships hovering over Oxford Street, scenery-chewing aliens... didn't Russell give us these socks last year? The whole thing had a whiff of deja vu about it, but without the distracting novelty of a new Doctor to paper over the whacking great cracks. Like, where are all the Torchwood staff? On their Christmas holidays? Why did it take six months of dosing Donna with those particles when Lance just got drowned in them? And why not just kidnap someone instead of pretending to date them like that? I thought they were trying to take over the bloody planet? Was Lance the only insider they had working for them/her/what??? What a bunch of amateurs. Not wonder there's never any sense of danger.

...when the Doctor murdered them by tipping the entire contents of the Thames into a plug-hole with the aid of an X-Box 360 controller and a couple of baubles it was impossible to feel anything at all...

And then there's the Empress of Racnoss. I bet she looked great on paper. Actually, I bet she looked exactly the same on paper, i.e.: she didn't move a muscle. Ray Harryhausen must have been choking on his turkey. I mean, would it really have killed the Mill to have her scuttle about just a teensy, weeny little bit? Or did they blow the budget on the embarrassing-beyond-words car chase? Two words: tractor beam. And no, I'm not going to get into that debate again.

We didn't even get to see her children so when the Doctor murdered them all by tipping the entire contents of the Thames into a plug-hole with the aid of an X-Box 360 controller and a couple of explosive baubles (WTF????) it was impossible to feel anything at all. But screw all that - just laugh at the hilarious pratfalls and Sarah Parish hamming it up like Graham Crowden never happened, while Murray Gold drowns everything out with a melange of brass farts and comedy strings. Sweet chocolate Jesus.

Oh, why am I even bothering? It's a kid's show and I'm nearly 40, for pity's sake! I sound like Scrooge! I half expect the ghost of DW Past (I dunno, maybe Pertwee) to visit me with the stark reminder that Doctor Who has never made any sense. That it's always been as daft as this and when I was 11 years old I lapped it up and if I was 11 years old now I still would. Reading through this "review" I sound more and more like the **** I swore I'd never turn into and I'm inches away from just deleting it and keeping my disappointment to myself.

Still, Torchwood looks good this week...

iWho Podcast: The Runaway Bride

"How Very Dare They!"

Tachyon TV present an alternative commentary track to The Runaway Bride

Extra features up for discussion in our very last podcast include: Murray Gold's 'Peter and the Wolf' obsession, Catherine Tate plays Pol Pot, the sonic screwdriver drinking game, the subtle complexities of '55 Degrees North', static spiders and Sarah Parish steals Graham Crowden's crown. With sincere apologies to Jeff Wayne and David Essex.

The podcast is available from the usual place

Christmas Wrapping

The Runaway Bride

When I first watched The Runaway Bride about 1am on Boxing Day morning, half in a drunken stupor, half sniffling and coughing my guts up, I must admit that it pretty much passed me by and I found myself looking forward to The Sarah Jane Adventures more than I am series 3 of Doctor Who. I probably wasn’t in the best of moods to watch the story at the time and I was very tired.

I watched it again the other day and, you know what, I quite enjoyed it. The plot won’t stand up to much scrutiny and it was almost a retread of last years The Christmas Invasion but it was simple, old fashioned Christmas entertainment and I think that it just about worked, some of the best Christmas television specials over the years have been markedly different to what you would get in the normal run of the show, but as it is made for the Christmas market then it doesn’t matter if it is different, and I don’t think that either The Runaway Bride or The Christmas Invasion are that different from what we get on a weekly basis, apart from the obvious links to Christmas such as killer Christmas trees and evil robotic Santa’s.

Basically what happened in this story was just bigger and better than what we got last year, hell, it even started the same way: last year we got the TARDIS crash landing on the Powell estate, which was pretty good at the time, and then this year we got a full on chase scene down a motorway; then we have the killer Christmas trees where this time we have an extra large Christmas tree complete with explosive baubles. You see the same only bigger and better.

The script was chock full of great lines, most of them coming from Catherine Tate’s Donna at the Doctor’s expense such as “How many wedding dresses do you see with pockets?” and “Before she left, did your friend punch you in the face?” There were also some really cheesy lines such as “This time it’s personnel.” God, that line made me cringe.

Was I the only person who wasn’t that bothered when Gallifrey was mentioned, I mean what the hell are the general audience going to make of that, they aren’t going to be all that bothered, they will just now know where the Doctor came from. No big deal really. It was nice for the fans but it is hardly going to have the same effect on anyone else is it?

Catherine Tate was excellent in the titular role of the Runaway Bride and was a perfect example of what a woman would be like on her wedding day, after all it is supposed to be the best day of her life and how would you feel if you were walking up the aisle and then suddenly vanished and found yourself in a strange space ship with a strange bloke you have never seen before? Pretty pissed off, if you want my opinion, no wonder she was yelling at him and giving him what for.

By the end of the story she had warmed to him a little but she still didn’t want to travel with him. Now, that is not going to endear the character to Doctor Who fans is it? I mean she doesn’t want to travel with the Doctor. How very dare she, to quote one of Catherine Tate’s own characters!

The story was ok and was enjoyable enough Christmas fare and totally and utterly bonkers. I mean what in the hell was that all about. It did seem a bit odd after the typically sci-fi opening shot of zooming straight down to Earth from space to suddenly find you witnessing the beginning of a wedding ceremony!

I am sure that is not what quite a few Doctor Who fans were expecting, but it was called The Runaway Bride, so maybe that did give you a sort of clue that there might been wedding scenes in there somewhere.

What you say, weddings and Doctor Who? Surely they don’t mix, its like Doctor Who and sex, that doesn’t go together either, does it? Well, it sure does now, whether you like it or not.

Perhaps after Christmas Dinner they didn’t want to blind us with science and give us a plot that we in any way have to think about, at least not for more than a couple of seconds anyway, and just bombard up with long chase scenes such as the one with TARDIS chasing the taxi on the motorway.

It was certainly an exhilarating scene thanks to the direction of Euros Lynn though despite being as daft as a brush, my girlfriend loved the way the adults driving the cars were pretty much oblivious to what was going on around them, but the kids in the back were cheering and jumping for you when she finally jumped from the moving taxi into the TARDIS.

Now since when has the TARDIS doors been allowed to open while the ship is in flight? I am sure that I have never seen that before, but I am sure someone will correct me on this at some point.

What the hell was Sarah Parish thinking of when she was playing the part, had Richard Briers taken her to one side (oo-er!) and told her to overact like she had never overacted before. I don’t know about you but that has to be the hammiest performance in the entire 43-year history of Doctor Who. Step aside Joseph Furst, Graham Crowden, Paul Darrow, Brian Blessed and Richard Briers; there is a new girl in town.

I also liked the way the song Love Don’t Roam, fitted seamlessly into the story. I did wonder after listening to it on the concert, how in the hell they were going to fit that into the story without it sticking out like a sore thumb, but they managed it, it is the sort of cheesy sounding song that you would expect to hear at a wedding ceremony. I wonder if I can persuade the missus to let me play that at our wedding next year?

If I’m being honest I would say that the best thing about The Runaway Bride was Catherine Tate. Now I am not a big fan of her comedy but she was really rather good in this episode, and I was cheering when her name appeared on the credits and I am sure that about a hundred disgusted posts were up on Outpost Gallifrey at that very moment. In a way I am quite sad that she didn’t go back into the TARDIS at the end of the episode, because it would certainly have made for an interesting dynamic for series three.

I still have a problem with David Tennant’s take on the Doctor, its not because he is bad, because he isn’t, its just that I am not 8 years old anymore. I do believe that if David Tennant had been the Doctor in the early 80’s then he would probably be up there amongst my favourite Doctor’s, but I just don’t buy his take on the Doctor at the moment. He is perfectly watchable enough and he is definitely the most active Doctor of all, I mean you get dizzy watching him running around the TARDIS at times, but he is a Doctor for the current crop of kids who are loving the series and not for a jaded grumpy old git like myself.

I think I need to watch this new series through the eyes of an 8 year old, and then I will probably love it. I am still looking forward to series 3 though. Of course I am, I look forward to all Doctor Who related stuff, I am a fan when all is said and done, or why on earth would I be posting on this blog?

Spider Nonsense... Tingling!

Context, mateys. It's all a matter of context.

All the preview signs, from Catherine Tate at the end of Doomsday, to the four-minute taxi chase preview, to the robot Santas and Racnoss Empress in the Radio Times, were pointing to The Runaway Bride being absolutely dreadful. Little individual scraps that make no sense whatsoever when taken on their own.

And I think that's really what's wrong with New Who. It's too media-savvy, too up-itself and eager to please the vastly overstated ADD-generation that Russel must believe - the evidence being many of his own scripts - has had its brains bollocksed with XBox games, text messages, 24-hour channel-hopping and whatever assorted chav culture springs to his mind. It's Russel himself backed by Auntie Beeb who keeps feeding us these blipvert instant-images and memes - I still bear the mental scars from the extemporal post-it note that was Bad Wolf - and thus his own fault if he ends up screwing with the expectations of the rest of us in advance. 9 million is a great viewing figure but it still leaves the other 51 million, god knows how many of which must be suffering from stress fatigue from the constant blink-and-it's-gone synaptic barrage from today's media.

"New Who feels too media-savvy, too up-itself and eager to please the vastly overstated ADD-generation that Russel believes has had its brains bollocksed with whatever assorted chav culture springs to his mind"

It's just as well then that Russel at his scripting peak is also so good at confounding those same expectations. Put it all together and The Runaway Bride is a marvellous piece of festive entertainment. Yes, it's mainly earthbound for the 2,074th time since 2005. Yes, it's completely daft as a brush. Yes, it cocks about with the Whoniverse in ways J-NT and Andrew Cartmel could only have dreamed about in in their wildest budgetary nightmares. Yes, you'll probably wince when you watch it again on DVD during the summer months. But you know what? Stuff it. No offense to anyone, but really; if you're going to analyse The Runaway Bride in nauseating geek-detail then you pretty well deserve to. Doctor Who, with one foot that's always been firmly grounded in present-day Earth, is one of the few 'real' (so to speak) sci-fi shows you can do this kind of thing with. Can you imagine a B7 Christmas special with Blake and Travis round the table, eating reconstited turkey protein, wearing officially-sanctioned funny hats and chuckling at Federation propaganda thinly-disguised as Christmas cracker jokes? IT DOESN'T WORK. "Thiiiis iiiiis the voooooice oooof the Myyyyyysteroooons. Meeeeerry Chriiiiistmas Eaaaaaaaarthmen." NO.

At the very least, be thankful it's not The Feast Of Stephen, which is so ridiculously stilted and out of place it may as well have the Steptoe & Son theme running through it.

Is there honestly much point in stating the blindingly obvious, that it's an absolutely atrocious piece of science-fiction? It's not like we haven't been here before. The Girl In The Fireplace was hardly Isaac Bloody Asimov, was it? As a story, The Runaway Bride at heart is the damn space bus from Delta And The Bannermen, except this time done right, with a genuinely witty script and slick production values that make it lovably goofy instead of merely embarrassing. Exploding Christmas tree baubles directed with an XBox controller? Season Seventeen Douglas Adams. Lasering a hole to the centre of the Earth with no apparant side-effects like, say, massive volcanic activity in the middle of London - then dumping the whole of the Thames down it? Why would you even try to make sense of this when The Underwater Menace did almost the exact same thing without an intentional sense of humour?

Silly plot aside then, there are three things that characterise Runaway Bride as a festive RTD episode. There's the obligatory grand cosmic spectacle (though Lord only knows what kind of cheap crappy fillers we can expect to gum up the tailend of Season Three as a consequence); the self-parodying juxposition of same with the minutae of everyday life, much to the delight of Nathan Barleys everywhere with column-inches to fill; but above all, running jokes. The irritating do-it-all magic wand that is the sonic screwdriver becomes genuinely funny when it's used fifteen times in the space of an hour. Pockets - big stupid grin as memories of Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker come flooding back. The fact that nobody ever pays attention to the invasion of the Earth no matter how many times it happens. The throwaway 'Martian' lines that lead up to that single SPUNK EVERYWHERE "Gallifrey." Clearest indication yet - if any were needed - that the Time Lords will be coming back. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your actually that sounds a bit wank.

"Self-parodying juxposition of grand cosmic spectacle with the minutae of everyday life, much to the delight of Nathan Barleys everywhere with column-inches to fill"

That spectacle. Tanks! Missiles! Blammo! I'd like to think that was UNIT in action since Torchwood (PLEASE let this be the end of that from the Who side) would have used a poncey beam weapon instead, the tossers. How much better was the final edit of the taxi chase than the preview version? There's still a million and one things wrong with it from a Whovian perspective and it's shit to watch as a teaser, but cracking good fun once the episode has kicked your suspension of disbelief into high gear. I love the how the kids in the cars cheer and encourage our hero while the adults take little or no notice of the police box bouncing down the motorway; it's the perfect metaphor for Christmas telly itself, without ever dwelling on Christmas any more than the episode needed to. The creation of the Earth? Permit me to add my voice to the four-hundred-million-year chorus in proclaiming how City Of Death that sequence felt, though in actuality it was far more like Underworld. RTD earns a dozen respeck points (payable in gift card form at all branches of WHSmiths) for making us think of the good Tom Baker story and not the rubbish one. I could even forgive the other gratuitously self-indulgant TARDIS effects.

Can't say the same about the Racnoss Empress though. Was that the most pantomime villain ever, or what? Sarah Parish managed to make Richard Briers as the Chief Caretaker seem low-key; from From the first "I'll get you my pretty and your little Doc too" to the last "I'm melting! I'm melting! My children are meeeeeltiiiing!!", it was one part Power Rangers to three parts Wizard Of Oz. It was disappointing that we never got to see what her children actually looked like; she also looked pathetic in the numerous profile zooms that really should have been kept to a minimum. All that expensive CGI and prosthetics, and up close it's some red facepaint, fake Dracula fangs and stuck-on eyes. They could at least have airbrushed her nose out. Craaaaaaaaaaaap.

"On the one hand the Doctor is a benign wizard who can make it snow; on the other, who died and made him arbitrary judge and jury?"

Other than that, Runaway Bride was well-directed, properly paced - though I rather think that's as much to do with the extra ten minutes to fill - and with a definite sense that important things really did develop over the course of the hour, not least of which was Catherine Tate's transformation from shouty, obnoxious and - well, Catherine Tate - to more sympathetic and eager and open to the wonders of the world. How gratifying was it as well to see a potential companion do what almost no other ever dared to prior to the New Adventures books; turn down the Doctor's lifestyle for entirely realistic moral reasons? On the one hand he's a benign wizard who can make it snow; on the other, who died and made him arbitrary judge and jury? Surely no sensible human being wouldn't have a problem rationalising the two sides. The Doctor himself has migrated through every personality imaginable over the years to justify his actions - the cynic, the lunatic, the gentleman, the arrogant twat - and he's finally given up because without the shadow of the High Council over his shoulder, there is no point to it anymore, compared to the simple grounding in the oridinary and everyday that's the one thing the Doctor craves but knows he can never keep. He's still in mourning over Rose, but at least by the end we know too he'll get over it now.

Frankly, I NEEDED that Christmas special. I've been a right jaded shite from so many weeks of Torchwood's nonsensical delusions of grandeur - when even when it's not about saving the world, it pretends to be deeper than it actually is - but in one hour, Russel T Davis succeeded in putting it all back in perspective for me... which the Beeb then promptly cancelled out with the annual wrist-slitting misery that is Yuletide in Walford.

And thus was the true meaning of Christmas explained.

The Bumper Book Of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about The Runaway Bride: BBC Enterprises hope to cash in next year with the Sonic Segway toy with 'realistic gravity-defying action'.

They said Gallifrey!

OK, the mention of Gallifrey may have elicited a cheer from some of us (even me *hangs head in shame*) but it's a very poorly scripted moment. It was a "We want to mention Gallifrey now, we don't care how.". Ditto for "Rose" at the end. Just as last year ended with "Fantastic", this was RTD's way of making us remember the character gone by, but it was just done a little too tackily to be of any point.

Oh, by the way, I thought the episode was alright. And for RTD, that's quite something. He's certainly done better than last year in that respect.

It still had all the major flaws of last year's, the flaws that scream "It's a Christmas Day kid's programme, so why not?" (IACDKPSWN for short, pending TM), but the managed to be toned down. The completely gratuitous "spaceship over London... AGAIN" scene wasn't as long, but somehow was all the more pointless. Oh, dear, a little girl almost got killed. But she didn't. Huh.

I cringed at the start when we had the zoom down onto Earth a la "Rose" and TCI. It seems like RTD doing a tribute to his own work.

The TARDIS doing its gratuitous IACDKPSWN movements: hovering in space, materialising particle at a time, open doors in space, THAT chase scene, and the final zoom into space. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!?!?!? Absolutely ridiculous, but I'm sure the kids loved it. And, *sigh*, that's the main feel of the episode.

AND NOW FOR THE MAIN FEATURE

Donna reeeeeeeeeeeeeally irritated me. Okay, that was pretty much a given that she would be irritating, but I found myself wanting to turn off. A good portion of the episode relied on insults, mostly Donna-Doctor and Doctor-Donna, but even the Lance-Donna insults seemed a bit overegged. However, I'll stick myself out on a limb here and say she was okay. Got that? OKAY. That's all she's getting from me. Her final scenes just about redeemed her for the rest of the episode, but I was still very grateful that she wouldn't be a regular.

Don Gilet did alright. His acting style is very much of the Hugh Grant nature, and he either comes off as being talented but not trying, or trying really hard for no good. Still, I have a soft spot for him, from 55 Degrees North, and he makes for very enjoyable watching.

And Sarah Parish, the other guest. Ich. She was hamming it up a bit in the voice, wasn't she? Still, her performance was sound, and her costume was great. What a good character.

I presume a good portion of you have scene the Mark Gatiss/David Walliams sketch where they kidnap Peter Davison? Well, I might just kidnap David Tennant. I'll bring him out at parties, and impress my friends. He's just fabulous. There is so much depth in his face, in his eyes, that he just becomes unmissable. That scene where the fire is swirling around him, magnificent!

Speaking of, what a scene! Euros Lyn does what he does best. I probably didn't mention it, but earlier in the year, after The Girl in the Fireplace, I felt compelled to write to him congratulating him, with my focus being on Tooth And Claw, as I felt it to be excellent (my review's in the archives). A few weeks later, I got a postcard back! Fair enough, it was mostly generic stuff, but it was handwritten and signed, so I felt quite chuffed. The point of this anecdote? No reason really, just to say that he seems a lovely guy off duty, and so to be an excellent director as well must just be the icing on the cake.

The whole plot of having a web at the centre of the earth had, as others have commented, a City pf Death feel. So, checklist?
Beginning of the Universe
Beginning of the Earth
Beginning of life on Earth
Great Fire of Rome
Great Fire of London
Mary Celeste
The End of the World
I'm waiting for a 9/11 episode. Stuff Torchwood, THAT would be bold television.

I'm not entirely sure what else to comment on. The writing was gratuitous, the acting was marginally above par, the direction was excellent. That's about it, I think.

Ah, the teaser. Series 3 looks very good, doesn't it? Well, I think so. Slightly disappointed to see only a Dalek, and I already knew about that. I was hoping for some other big reveal in the teaser, like the Sontarans, or the Autons. Hell, even the Gelth.

I am writing this while I should be tucked up in bed. I've been at work and I'm up again working at 8, but I felt I had to do this. Oh, and I watched the entire episode wearing my scarf. My 12 foot Madame Nostradamus Scarf. Lovely.

RTD, you get 8.5/10 for this. Merry Christmas.

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about The Runaway Bride: Russell T Davies is now so proud of his own work he's designed his car to look like the TARDIS so he can cause havoc on the motorway, has bought 800 pet spiders, and dresses up as Santa and shoots people, so that he can relive his favourite moments. So far 5 lawsuits have been filed, all by Freema Agyeman. David Tennant has spoken out in his defence, saying "She's just not used to him yet. I almost sued him last year when he came after me with a sword trying to cut off my hand, but then I realised that he was just playing make believe. What a scamp!"

The Bumper Book of Made-Up Doctor Who Facts has this to say about The 2007 Trailer: Fans across the country were shocked by the surprise appearance in the trailer of the hitherto almost unexpected returning villains, the Spirodons and the Refusians. What do you know, David, it turns out they're in every episode next year!

Bride (In the Name of Love)

Given the context, given the time of year and given that the majority of people tuning into this episode would be zonked out on the sofa (having engorged themselves Racnoss-like on a diet of sugars and carbohydrates), this was about as perfect as Christmas entertainment gets. With one caveat.

This is no longer the show I was brought up on.

Now, we’ve all pretty much said that at one time or another these past two years of RTD-guided resurrection and renaissance that now sees the show warrant an annual prime-time Christmas Day event episode; not to mention an hour-long behind-the-scenes look at a tie-in concert, along with the full thing on loop via the BBC interactive guide. And that’s just today; we’ve still got the Torchwood finale, the pilot of the Sarah-Jane spin-off and various other bits-and-bobs before the tinsel comes down. When I was a kid I probably dreamed of having Doctor Who 24 hours a day; seems like thirty years on that dream isn’t too far from reality.

But anyway, that whole ‘this is no longer the show I was brought up with yadda, yadda, yadda…’ thing. Well, it isn’t, is it? But before you jump on the ‘the show has to move on / you can’t live in the past’ argument, then I’ll just say one thing. That’s fine. That’s okay. In fact it’s great. Because Doctor Who is - finally, irrevocably - far, far bigger now than it ever has been before. Too huge in fact to pander to the needs, desires and (yes, I’ve gotta say it) selfish obsessions of near-middle-aged blokes like me. And if you don’t believe me, then just take a look at the overnight ratings in tomorrow’s newspapers. Because anything upwards of 8 millions people will have tuned into The Runaway Bride and loved every single second of it. And to be honest I did too. Sure, it wasn’t perfect. The plot was half-baked, the humour so forced as to give subtlety a bad name and the moral about as transparent as Captain Jack’s spaceship tethered to Big Ben. But then I noticed two things: a) it had Russell T Davies’ name on the writing credits and b) it had more heart, passion, pace and downright zeal than a dozen Hollywood block-busters shoe-horned into the schedules to keep us from nodding off after the Turkey overdose.

The post-Queen’s-speech movie premiere is dead. Long live the Christmas Doctor Who special.

And for an episode which ostensibly tries to reunite a discontented bride with her jilted groom, it’s rather fitting that 'The Runaway Bride' fulfils the remit of the wedding day tradition itself. Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. And something blue. In fact, at times I thought I was tuning in to last year’s Christmas special, so redolent with some of the iconography of la Tennant’s seasonal debut of twelve months ago was this year’s episode. Zoom down from space into the opening action? Check. Robot Santas causing havoc for the Doctor’s ‘companion’? Double check. Christmas trees that go homicidal at the most inopportune times? Triple check with a psychotic fairy on top. And that’s without even mentioning the fact that Doctor Ten once again gets to show his real steel when given the opportunity to show mercy for an invading menace. All we wanted was a few shots of iconic London landmarks and the picture would have been completed. Oh, what do you mean we did..?

it had more heart, passion, pace and downright zeal than a dozen Hollywood block-busters shoe-horned into the schedules to keep us from nodding off after the Turkey overdose

But if 'The Runaway Bride' had any kind of template on which it riffed like a tribute band playing open-goal classics it was with the kind of screwball comedies that the likes of Cary Grant, Doris Day and a dozen other ghosts of Christmas pasts starred in for what seemed like eternity. In fact, the first half was perhaps the most successful in emulating the kind of frantic, breathless pace of those classic movies; with the second half degenerating slightly into a typically nonsense RTD plot about universal Armageddon. Or something. The Empress of Racnoss is a rather generic villain - although visually striking, and Sarah Parrish clearly has a ball playing her - and I’d have to watch the whole thing again before deciding whether there’s any narrative cohesion to her ’master-plan’ worth writing about. But again I’m probably missing the point. After all, you hardly bitch about the scenery when you’re riding the Big Dipper, do you?

And as if to underline how spoilt we Who cognoscenti have become these past two years of saturation exposure to what was once a niche obsession, there’s arguably one of the most bollocks-out attempts to place the show firmly within the realms of the ‘Event’ broadcast. And to all those - and you know who you are - who dissed the taxi-chase scene as soon as its Cardiff-concert leak hit the super-information-highway, I’ll just say one thing: cast your minds back two short years and try to imagine ‘our’ show producing a piece of barnstorming, punch-the-air televisual breathlessness like this. Talk about The Matrix with a phone-box or what!

...it’s rather fitting that 'The Runaway Bride' fulfils the remit of the wedding day tradition itself. Something old. Something new. Something borrowed. And something blue

And Catherine Tate? Well, back in July I wasn’t exactly unforthcoming in suggesting what a totally misjudged piece of editorial decision-making her appearance was at the end of an episode in which we’d effectively said goodbye to the show’s emotional touchstone for twenty-seven episodes. And I still think that going straight from Rose’s tear-stained goodbye to the prologue for a light-hearted Christmas romp was wrong, wrong, wrong. But you can hardly blame Ms Tate for that. And if there’s any one reason why 'The Runaway Bride' works as a piece of light-hearted frippery before (hopefully) the real deal of thrills, spills and a few tears starts again next April, then it’s largely down to the Bothered Bride. Crucially, she’s everything Rose wasn’t: bolshy, brainless and about as enamoured of the whole time & space gig as a mockney chav whose wedding day has just been hi-jacked would be. But she works; both as a relief from the more tailor-made companions that the likes of Rose - and soon Martha - subscribe to (basically the human embodiment of why the Doctor travels in the first place) and because she has a very real, emotional arc to fulfil. Despite warming just a touch to the impossible vistas of the Doctor’s universe, Donna never takes her feet off the ground. And is all the more believable for that.

Throw in a few arbitrary mentions of one or two things that us old-timers have waited to hear since the show came back - yes, the Doctor’s pockets are bigger on the inside, folks; not to mention the fan-baiting reference to something called ‘Gallifrey’ (hmm, wonder if that’s the last we’ll hear of this place over the next six months..?) and that pretty much sums up 'The Runaway Bride'. Slight? Probably. Hugely enjoyable? Oh, yes. Like I said at the start, this ain’t the show I grew up with. But it’s still a show I can fall in love with every now and again. And an important part of loving is learning when to let go, no..?

Coming soon: Shakespeare, blue suits and a trip to 30s New York. Not to mention the return of Dalek Sec and…rhinoceros-sontarans?!?

C'mere you big bauble ...

Sometimes it's great to be a Doctor Who fan.  With all of the disappointment surrounding Torchwood, here was an exciting, confident, dare I say magnificent bit of comedy drama that was just the thing you need on Christmas night.  If it'll never be conferred the classic status that   already enjoys it doesn't really need to.  This was Who with the volume turned up to eleven, hilariously funny and with all the ramshackle trimmings you'd want.  This was old school Doctor Who, boiling down, despite all the Tardis chases  to the Doctor having a shouting match a grotesque alien intent on destroying the Earth - and for once this didn't mean Catherine Tate.

As far as I could tell, Donna the bride had been fed some kind of particles which when fed into a space ship at the centre of the earth would release the offspring of the surviving member of a spider race from the beginning of time.  I'd say this was purposefully complicated so that the viewer would be in the same position as Donna - one step behind the Doctor at all times which is just right because it increases the mystery surrounding.  Not malevolent in a Seventh Doctor sense, just more aware of what's happening and what he needs to do to stop it.  But as usual, this was just a big prickly Christmas tree on which to hang all of those lovely moments in what was, bravely for the timeslot, essentially a two hander, a screwball comedy of errors.

Russell T has said that so long as he's making the Christmas specials they'll have the festive season at their heart.  The robotic santas make a reappearance and were a far more effective foe this time around as did the killer Christmas tree with its exploding baubles.  There's nothing wrong with any of this.  There's always something a bit weird about watching some sitcom's feature length edition set in the midst of summer, pulling you out of the holiday season.  Shame to see that Christmas 2007 won't be a white Christmas either unless there is a handy type 40 lying around. 

With all of the looking for taxis and visit to ancient history this actually had a ring of City of Death about it.  So now we know that the Earth was created by the Arachnoss ship and Scaroth created the life on the rock.  The Whoniverse version of this planet was a crowded place in pre-history wasn't it?  This was the series suddenly being aware of its own history, with all of the references to the invasion the previous Christmas and the Battle of Canary Warf and Torchwood using the locksmiths as a front company.

"This was the series suddenly being aware of its own history, with all of the references to the invasion the previous Christmas and the Battle of Canary Warf and Torchwood using the locksmiths as a front company."

And did anyone expect the sudden appearance of Gallifrey which was surely the most exciting part of the episode.  It's reappearance here as a term suggests that actually it's going to play some part in the next season - in the closing trailer, the Face of Boe had a glint in his eye.  His last words will be 'You are not alone...' or some such, you mark, and I'll say this again, you mark my words.

As the Doctor and Donna watched the creation of the planet Earth, it felt like a return to the roots of the show, to educate as well as entertain.  Granted this was busted somewhat by the appearance of she space ship, later when Lance spat the trivia of Donna's like all X-Factor and showbiz gossip this felt like sea change, championing science and thought and Reithian values ahead of reality tv and pop culture.

With the exception of Paul Cornell's short story, this was our first chance to see the Tenth Doctor really alone and unlike the previous series, his guard was up, is energies fixed on the problem at hand.  Still hurting from the loss of Rose (nice use of crosscutting with New Earth at the non-reception) he seems have pulled away again from the domestic, showing once more the slightly darker figure glimpsed in School Reunion.  All the ticks were there, his mouth running off ten to the dozen and the shouting but that smugness, so criticised in the past series was gone.  This was helped somewhat by all the face slapping from Donna when he was going too far with the babble.

"Tennant's superb performance had the customary robustness, but also a fragility - with the slightly non-committal ending I wonder if this will be carried over into the next series. "

Tennant's superb performance had the customary robustness, but also a fragility - with the slightly non-committal ending I wonder if this will be carried over into the next series.  Assuming there's a gap between adventures that means that the Doctor will be traveling alone for the first time in ages, a handy continuity gap for the Big Finish spin-off cds of the future.

I was a bit unkind about Ms. Tate in the opening paragraph, and although her performance was certainly pointedly one dimensional in the opening twenty-minutes as the episode continued she demonstrated that she's an actress as well as a comedienne and perfectly deserving of the credit in the titles (it's a shame we know that Freema will be taking - how much greater the impact if they'd misinformed that Tate was going to be the permanent companion?). 

Watching her crumpled at the realization that the last six months of her life were sham was really heartbreaking and by the end as she disappeared into the snow, although I wouldn't say I would have like to have seen the Doctor carrying her around the galaxy, shouting at everything that moved, my heart had certainly softened to her.  This was aided by Russell T Davies clever writing, which carefully layered in material adding depth as the episode went on.

Poor old Sarah Parish though.  Unrecognisable under ten inches of latex, she had the hardest job of all and if the episode did have a weak link it was this scarlet empress, half of her dialogue lost in the sound mix.  Like the Sycorax, the real development of the character came from the Doctor's exposition rather than anything that they might be saying, Neil Gorton's design's biggest moment being the reveal with all the scale.  It's a shame that Parish, such a great actress otherwise, wasn't given much room to develop the character.  It didn't help that, except in the outstanding shots of the ship, she seemed rooted to the floor.  How exciting would it have been to see her chasing the Doctor through the streets of Cardiff, sorry, London?

With Tennant and Tate and Parish taking the lions share of the action, the fourth wheel, Don Gilet as Lance acquitted himself well - I was surprised when it transpired that he was a turncoat which is a job done.  The flashbacks to the actuality of the courtship were hilarious, although I did wonder whether, if Lance actually wanted to be put in the position of marrying Donna, why he played quite so hard to get.  The rest of the Bride's family were perfectly fine, largely in the background, the mum nicely echoing Jackie Tyler without being a clone.

Euros Lynn proved once more that he's one of the series best directors, able to handle character and action sequences with equal clarity.  That Tardis chase, whatever your views on its validity within Whovian physics, was really exciting, the cutaways to the kids in the back of the car reacting to the ensuing adventure perfectly chosen.  And let's face it there nothing more exciting than a giant tank throwing missiles at a ship like that.

"That Tardis chase, whatever your views on its validity within Whovian physics, was really exciting, the cutaways to the kids in the back of the car reacting to the ensuing adventure perfectly chosen."

The Mill's work too was largely top notch providing the movie like feel we've come to expect, the highlight once again being the ship over London, added to which this time was epic shot of the draining of the Thames (those council tax bills are going to be massive again in 2008).  Murray Gold was given the use of an orchestra again to great effect, dropping in a whole range of new themes which I'm sure will become familiar in the coming months - a big score is just what you need to this kind of story and that's exactly what we got.

Time marches on and I'm about ready for another mince pie and play with my new Radio Controlled Dalek so I'll sign off for the night.  This was a shot in the arm, showing that actually Russell T Davies knows how to judge a script and the audience and that this show at least continues to be in safe hands.  I just love that they can drop in such brilliantly unexpected gifts like the first mainstream BBC One sighting of a sedgway, with The Doctor and Donna laughing giddily on the back just as they should.  But look also at the trailer for the next series, Freema looks amazing and good lord, the Daleks are back again.  Hooray!

Triple Helpings

Season Three, Sarah Jane and the Torchwood finale - all trailered at once. I feel some indigestion coming on...

Season Three really has got me all excited. Runaway Bride has got things off to a great start in its own whimsical Christmas-throwaway fashion - daft as a brush, self-referential up its own arse (not bloody Torchwood again) suitably seasonally expensive - though now I'm left wondering what they're going to use for cheap fillers in its wake to save money later on - but above all, funny. Even Catherine Tate was bearable. Seriously though, shouty, serious Tenth Doctor can't be bad; not a trace of smugness and - in the new season trailer at least - no sign of that goddamn sonic-screwdriver.

They saved that for the Sarah Jane preview, 'cos now she's got her own. And K-9. School Reunion be damned; Sarah Jane just can't let go, and aren't we all the better for it.

And now we have some idea of the Big Bad Thingy In The Dark that's chasing Jack. And doesn't it look WICK. Come on, it's just The Beast all over again, isnt it! Typically nick-an-idea-and-overblow-it Chibnall, in other words. Shame, as the rest of the season closer actually looks suitably mysterious and rather good - for once the 'Apocalypse' might live up to the show's premise....