Day 788: The Power of Three

Chris Chibnall, show-runner designate, has written four stories for Doctor Who. The first, 42, doesn't reach that highly but is still reasonably enjoyable. The second, The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood, is a bit better but suffers from some slight pacing issues. His third, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, is one of the most beautiful Doctor Who stories ever created and I completely and utterly love it. But despite that, and looking at the other two stories that he'd written up until that point, he doesn't really come across as a person who could feasibly take the reigns from Steven Moffat and start running Doctor Who in one of its most critically acclaimed periods. That is, however, until you consider The Power of Three. I think that this is perhaps where you get the best idea of what a Chris Chibnall era of Doctor Who would look like.

I think that The Power of Three is all about taking another look at the Doctor/companion relationship, and examining when it needs to stop. Or perhaps 'stop' wouldn't be the right word and 'wind down' would be more appropriate. We see that Rory and Amy are beginning to enjoy relaxing away from the Doctor, but they still can't quite resist that urge to travel with him again. You can see this both in the ending, where they abandon their happy life eating dinner with Rory's father to go off with the Doctor for more adventuring, as well as the scenes at Amy and Rory's anniversary where they go from being happy with their lives and both of them slightly complaining that the Doctor brought them along to yet more adventures, to them having spent seven weeks with the Doctor, presumably having a good time. It all gives the impression of that struggle with normality, that idea that people should perhaps learn to let go and be happy. It's why the ending feels forced, because Chibnall's written such a strong case as to why the Doctor and companions should let go of each other that you can't help but think that they should. Let them have a happy ending without too much sorrow.

And that's what I think a Chris Chibnall era of Doctor Who would be about. Instead of having big moments and letting us see the Doctor as something dark and evil, I think that it's generally going to be happy, allowing us to see the fun of travelling with the Doctor once more. And, when that time needs to come to an end, it should, and both parties leave happily. Consider that, in all of the new series, only two companions have left the series on their own terms: Martha and Mickey. All the rest have been abandoned, or killed, or something worse. There's no room for the happy ending any more. Perhaps that's what Chibnall will bring: a desire for Doctor Who to be fun and happy - something different from what's been seen before, but still worth watching in my opinion.

Of course, I could be completely wrong, but I don't care; the Chibnall era is years away and I'm not going to cover it one bit on this blog. Because everything must end sometimes. This Blog for one, but also something else as we'll see tomorrow.

Day 786: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

I wasn't a particularly happy person in 2012. It was my final year of high school and I wasn't doing too well in most of my courses, and with my school failing to provide any form of meaningful help to me at this time, I was left desperately seeking for those few and far between moments of pure joy in my life. And that's the probably the reason why I look so fondly on Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, because it's an episode that's completely and utterly joyful.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, from the moment when Matt Smith's Doctor gleefully drops the title of the episode, promises to be an episode that just wants to be fun. I can't stop smiling at the climax of the story, where the Doctor easily enacts a plan to save the day, that also focuses on giving his fellow travellers an experience that they want as well. We get Rory and Brian, flying a spaceship - not in any sort of way that would imply danger or stress, but in such a way that we get to see the joy on Brian's face as the adventure begins to sink in for him. Similarly, there's joy for Riddell and Amy who take down raptors left, right and centre in a splendidly choreographed sequence that gives the impression that they are perfectly in control of the situation and thus are allowed to have fun (and, perhaps most importantly, they're taking down raptors, which is such a joyful thing to this young person who screams regularly at the Jurassic Park films). Even Nefertiti, who in theory should play the role of damsel in distress in this plan, uses the Doctor as a distraction to take control of the ruthlessly evil Solomon and save the day. It's an all-round happy ending, without any real need to go into depth about darker elements of the story and to be at all serious.

That's not to say that there aren't darker elements there. The Doctor quite obviously murders Solomon at the end, as part of revenge for Solomon killing the Silurians because they got in his way. It sits oddly with the rest of the story, a moment that could have been focussed on but is ignored in favour of glee. And I'm not sure how I feel about that, because on the one hand I'd prefer a story that dealt with the ramifications of the Doctor's actions and how he copes with the blood on his hands, but on the other I know that sometimes I just need a story that's purely joyful without any need for darkness. 

But whenever I consider this question, I also consider my mindset when I watched this for the first time. Desperate for something to cheer me up, I looked to this episode for inspiration, and it provided it in spades, becoming at one point my favourite Doctor Who episode of all time. And maybe, in one small section of my heart, it still is, because I couldn't stop smiling whilst watching this fantastic episode.

Day 765: Cold Blood

Unfortunately, due to a variety of factors, this will end up having to be a short entry for the blog. It's a shame, because Cold Blood is actually an interesting conglomeration of ideas that, whilst not ending up absolutely brilliant on screen, is still very interesting to think about. We've got the idea of peaceful negotiations, a sinister scientist who ends up becoming an ally, Marvin the Paranoid Android, a semi-sequel to Midnight and the general overhaul of the Silurians to talk about. Oh, and Rory's death, how could I forget that? (Well, Amy did...). With all of these things to talk about, what should I focus on in this entry?

What I'm going to talk about is the interesting knock-on effect that this episode ends up having on the rest of the Moffat era. The Silurians, as originally developed by Malcolm Hulke, were seen as a race of creatures that were not of singular mind. By that, I mean that they weren't all obsessed with conquering the Earth, each of them had their own distinct wants and goals for the future, and how these goals should be achieved. It made the race feel more real, as opposed to just being another set of generic aliens for the Doctor to fight off. This follows through to the Silurians in the new series, where in this episode we meet some Silurians who are more interested in fighting than making peace, while others are hopeful for a peaceful solution. And whilst we don't get to fully know these characters, we still get the impression that this is a more complex race than we've previously encountered in Doctor Who. It's what makes the Moffat era of the series relatively interesting, in my opinion, because it seeks overtly to overcome the notion that alien characters are all going to be evil. (I should note though that the Davies era also did this to an extent, such as what is seen with the Ood or the cat people)

And, of course, the Moffat era would go on to use the Silurians regularly, in the form of the Paternoster Gang, which allowed for a further development of the race and how they are perfectly normal lifeforms, just like humans are, with their own abilities to be good or evil. And that makes for a far more interesting view on storytelling, in my opinion.

Oh, and one other quick thing. I'm going away for the weekend, so I actually have no idea whether I'll be able to update this blog over the course of the next three days. Hopefully everything will be as normal, but we'll see how things develop.

Day 764: The Hungry Earth

The Hungry Earth is not a particularly notable episode. To be fair, it's not really meant to be, instead being a source of build-up for the storm that is to come ahead with Cold Blood. But that's oddly what ends up making the whole thing rather interesting.

The Hungry Earth doesn't feel like it could have been done in the Russell T Davies era. It's just a little bit too slow paced, a little bit too light on action. Instead of spending time getting into the story, we have an episode where the Doctor is allowed to explore his surroundings, both in terms of character and plot. We're allowed to meet the characters at the drilling site, as well as get to grips with the mystery at the heart of the episode and figure out why it's happening. It feels refreshing, as if Chris Chibnall decided to take advantage of the increased running time of the two part story that he had to really allow the story to breathe, and feel more real.

And, as I say, it feels unique to Series 5 as an episode. Series 5, whilst covering such things as bringing back the magic present within the original concept of Doctor Who, also feels like a soft reboot for the series, as if Moffat decided to start from scratch with respect to this era of the series, trying out new forms of storytelling in order to create something different. And what that means is that we're allowed to try having stories with slower pace, which even though it doesn't quite translate to an exciting episode, still feels new and different. And that ability to feel new and different is part of the reason why I love Series 5 so much.

Day 731: 42

42, much like The Lazarus Experiment, is pretty average. There are differences between the two, such as that 42 doesn't really try to do anything interesting thematically (although the scenes of the Doctor being scared are actually very interesting to see), but it more than makes up for it in terms of action. Fortunately, the story has been directed by one of the Russell T Davies era's greatest directors: Graeme Harper.

Harper is very much a stand-out director, first making waves with the excellent The Caves of Androzani, and then following it up with Revelation of the Daleks, a more flawed piece, but still worth watching nonetheless. On the strength of these two stories, Harper was invited back to the series when it was revived, being the only director to do work for both incarnations of Doctor Who. And viewing his methods, it's clear that it's because he was one of the few who was qualified to work on the series. He directed both of his Classic stories from the studio floor, preferring to work directly with the material instead of hiding away in the upper control rooms. This is combined with his style, where he combines interesting camera movements (such as the POV shots from Sharaz Jek in Androzani), with a keenness for energy in his actors, shouting at them and getting them to run on adrenaline, giving a performance that feels action packed. And whilst in the modern era of the series, this would be simply viewed as above-average to very good, depending on the context and the script, in the classic era, it was simply unheard of and sticks out amongst its contemporaries as something rather special.

So translating all of this to the modern era gives something, while not completely spectacular, is still surprisingly good. There's a scene, for instance, where the Doctor has to pull a switch on the outside of the ships hull. When watching it, it's very easy to see that this could have gone very wrong. The set isn't completely impressive, and for reasons of realism, Tennant doesn't move his body very much throughout the sequence, due to the forces acting upon his character. But Harper's direction helps elevate it to something more. He gives Tennant a certain energy that helps to show that the event is putting him under a lot of strain. He also chooses his shots well to reflect that fact, always ensuring that the Doctor's hand is only slightly in frame when certain buttons need to be pressed, reflecting the daunting nature of the task at hand. And finally, Murray Gold's music also gives the scene some much needed weight, filled with pace and energy, making it feel truly epic.

And that's the beauty of Harper. He's able to take a story and make it feel big, giving it pace and energy to turn it into something brilliant.