Day 756: The End of Time Part 2

Part 2 of The End of Time is, after watching it again, actually quite good. I think I always picked up an air of negativity about this episode from various fan podcasts and reviews that I engaged with after this episode, which led me to have a reasonably poor image of this story in my head. Combined with the fact that my knee once dislocated whilst talking with friends about this episode (Other great knee dislocation stories include trying to get in a car and falling over, and sitting down on a lounge), and it stands to reason that my memories of this episode may not necessarily be fond. And yet, I still somewhat admire quite a fair bit of this episode for what it is.

To me, there are three parts of The End of Time Part 2 that make it what it is. The first is the sense of fun that permeates through the whole episode. A fair chunk of the first 45 minutes of the episode is content with being light and fun, albeit with slightly greater stakes than usual. A scene where the Doctor is captured by the Master, whilst it could have been written as the Doctor's weakest moment, instead turns into a scene with a little bit of bondage related subtext that just feels right for the tone of the series - a tone that allows for drama to be told but with an underlying knowledge that the audience wants to have fun as they watch it. This carries through much of the episode, such as the "worst rescue ever", or the gleeful scene of seeing the TIE Fighter scene from A New Hope rewritten to feature Bernard Cribbins and one of the cast from Horrible Histories as Luke Skywalker and Han Solo. This simple allowance for the story to have fun makes it all the more enjoyable and helps alleviate some of the problems that the first half of The End of Time had.

Of course, one of the other great parts of The End of Time is Bernard Cribbins as Wilf. All of his scenes are perfect, because he brings the viewpoint of a simple normal person. When he's sent into space, whilst everyone else runs through the ship, trying to prevent a further calamity, he just stares wistfully at the Earth, allowing the beauty of the situation to sink in. His scene with the Doctor where he tries to give him the gun is so beautiful because of Cribbin's performance. As he cries over the fact that he's trying to save the Doctor, it's not overplayed, instead feeling absolutely real. Cribbins represents one of the great actors that Doctor Who has had, and his appearance in this story makes every scene he's in all the better.

Except, unfortunately, for one of the last scenes. The Doctor's decision to have a little tantrum over the fact that he's morally bound to rescue Wilf, and in the process of doing so kill himself, just doesn't work in my opinion. It reveals the Tenth Doctor to be quite a selfish person, and damages the overall character of the Doctor in my opinion. The scene is slightly rescued when the Doctor makes the offhand remark that he's lived too long, that helps give the impression that he himself has realised that he's not acting as he should be, and that maybe it's time for the new guy to take over. But even that is slightly ruined by the Tenth Doctor's final words. Approaching his oncoming death with the words "I don't want to go", whilst interesting and quite beautiful for some people, doesn't quite work for the Doctor.

The writer Terrance Dicks once famously described the Doctor as "never cruel nor cowardly" In his final Doctor Who story, Davies has written a Doctor that can be both of those things, cruel to Wilf, a man who would do anything for the Doctor, and cowardly in the face of his oncoming demise. Whilst I'm still able to enjoy this story, I think that it's time for a change, and I openly welcome the era of Matt Smith and Steven Moffat.

Day 755: The End of Time Part 1

There are many problems with The End of Time, in my opinion. Leaving behind the issues with Tennant's death, which we'll deal with in the second half tomorrow (where we'll hopefully get to some of the better parts of this story), the first half has its own myriad of issues.

I think that the largest issue is in the story's treatment of the Master. It decides that, instead of allowing the Master to be as he was before, where he was slightly unhinged but still in control of his situation, the production team decide to make the Master go completely insane. He literally jumps across the screen, turning into a mixture of Skeletor and Iron Man as he flies through wastelands, firing off electric beams as he dances. It looks impressive, but it doesn't quite allow for us to see the character as something that is engages on any sort of intellectual front. There's no equivalent scene of the phone call in The Sound of Drums, instead we're left with the Master eating turkey in less than seven seconds flat.

There's also the issue of the fact that the story is stuck with having to build up to a big finale. Normally, being part one of a two part story has not really been an issue for the Russell T Davies era, with Davies ensuring that enough happens in the first half so as to keep the audience's interest, while at the same time holding enough back for the finale to ensure that it's worth sticking around for. But the problem here is that Davies has held too much back for the finale, so we're stuck with an hour of waiting for the dual revelations that the Master has turned the human race into the Master race (which is too good a pun for me to say is a bad idea) and that the Time Lords are returning. Both of these ideas are strong, and both will be dealt with reasonably well in the second half of the story, the only problem is that the rest of the episode lacks anything meaty, instead leaving us with just the bare bones of a story.

Still, I'm fairly sure that things will improve when the second half of this story come along tomorrow. Then again, I'm also fairly sure that things will end up getting worse...

Day 754: The Waters of Mars

The Waters of Mars is, in my opinion, the best of the specials. It takes the character of Tennant's Doctor and pushes it to new levels, doing new and exciting things with the character that haven't really been seen in Doctor Who before. To put it simply, it takes the Tenth Doctor and turns him into a villain.

What the story does is it pushes the Doctor to the point of madness. It puts him in a scenario, much like that of The Fires of Pompeii, where everyone but him must die by the end of the adventure. And as he walks away, leaving them to their fate, he contemplates why he has to do this, particularly concerning the Laws of Time that must be obeyed at all costs. And as he hears the screaming of the crew members, he turns around and decides that he is going to save people, because the Laws of Time are his playthings to do with what he will. I think that this is perhaps because, once again, he's travelling alone, so he's got nobody looking over his shoulder. Faced with nobody to question whether what he is doing is the right thing or not, he promptly goes with what his twisted mind has decided should happen.

As can be seen in both of the clips above, we see the Doctor in a situation where we'd normally accept him as the hero. He's there, charismatically protecting people from danger and saving the day. But we don't see him as the hero, instead we see him as something that's altogether more dangerous and frightening. Whilst Murray Gold's music soars heroically to signify that the Doctor is ready to rescue people and Graeme Harper's direction continually places the Doctor against shining bright backdrops, signifying his god-like powers and acting as a call-back to The Fires of Pompeii, which featured a similar scene, we have a nice juxtaposition to represent the Doctor's darker side. Tennant's performance is altogether edgier and angrier, as he shouts his way through the dialogue, angrily breaking the very laws of nature itself because he wants to. Similarly Lindsay Duncan, who plays the base captain: Adelaide Brooke, is far more subdued, seeing what the Doctor is doing as wrong, and quietly attempting to defy him as her fellow crew members blindly obey his orders to desperately try to stay alive. Finally, whilst the script for this scene from Russell T Davies and Phil Ford has all of the usual flairs associated with a heroic action from the Doctor such as his charming way of fast talking, or a moment entirely intended to look cool (in this case, Gadget going to the TARDIS), in context it's seen as the slightly worrying thing that it is, giving a slightly worrying scene overall.

It all ends, of course, with tragedy. Adelaide commits suicide rather than allow the Doctor to bend the Laws of Time to his will, in a moment that forcefully shows that the Doctor's arrogance has gone too far this time. Facing what he has become, the Doctor opts to run away from what he knows must happen next. Because the next story is not a story for a Doctor to heroically save others. Instead, it's a story for a Doctor that deserves to die.

Day 753: Planet of the Dead

Planet of the Dead, like The Next Doctor, is another one of the specials that doesn't really feel that huge. Yes, there's been some foreign location filming in Dubai, which does look impressive, and there's also a sense that more money has been spent on this episode than on normal episodes, which makes the episode feel a little bit more special, but other than that it's an average science fiction romp of an episode. Which is what makes the episode rather interesting, in my opinion.

You see, this is a story in the mould of something like Partners in Crime or Smith and Jones. It features the Doctor having fun in a story that simply provides a fun adventure for the Doctor to have with his new companion. But, after the events of Journey's End, the Doctor has been travelling alone and he fully intends to stay that way, which eventuates in him rejecting Lady Christina's request to travel on the TARDIS with him. So what this episode becomes is an example of how the events of Journey's End have affected him. He's made the decision not to travel with anyone, even when he can see their clear potential as a companion. And the story quite obviously looks towards setting this moment of rejection up as quite an important moment.

Lady Christina is set up to be a basic concept for a companion. Not only does she have the physical and mental prowess required to become a companion, she's also a character that has just enough of an edge to make her stand out against the rest of the supporting cast. She's the only one with any sizeable back story, as well as the one that takes charge when events get out of hand. She's also able to build up a good relationship with the Doctor, gleefully disregarding his orders in much the same way that he gleefully disregards hers. She could have clearly been a companion, were it not for the fact that the Doctor was always going to reject her because he doesn't want someone else on the TARDIS. This simple rejection should be seen as important because the story itself is pointing out that she's perfect for the Doctor and yet he still decides to walk the lonely path.

All of this goes as an example to show how the events of Donna's departure affected this Doctor, and marks a nice example of character development for the Doctor, which will be explored tomorrow, with fairly larger consequences...

Day 752: The Next Doctor

At the end of the Russell T Davies era, a decision was made to have a year of specials, with David Tennant as the Doctor and a rotating cast of guest actors. The first of these specials is The Next Doctor and, to be honest, I am completely apathetic to this entire episode.

I don't think it's a problem with the script, from Davies himself, which is perfectly serviceable and has a lot of fun behaving as a simultaneous romp through Victorian London with the Cybermen and a character study for the man who thought he was the Doctor, Jackson Lake. It also has a wonderful villain, in the form of Miss Hartigan, a woman who clearly has some sort of horrible history behind her that has formed her into the woman that can control the Cybermen. It's a character that just works, in much the same way as Tobias Vaughn worked all the way back in The Invasion. But my problem with this is that it just doesn't quite work in terms of getting me involved with the story.

And I don't know why I just can't connect with this episode. Maybe it's the direction from Andy Goddard, which doesn't quite engage my attention in the same way that Graeme Harper or, to pick a future example, Rachel Talalay would. It feels flat, and doesn't really convey the dual beauty and horror of Victorian London. That this world could feel so warm at the beginning and be filled with the hidden horrors of workhouses where children are taken away, or women who are very poorly treated in a variety of horrible ways. Or maybe it's just the fact that I can't quite latch onto the potential of this episode, because once the tension of it being a story with a future Doctor is lost, it ends up just being a normal episode. And when we're dealing with specials, that's something that really needs to be thought about.

Day 751: Journey's End

Provided that you ignore 5 minutes of Journey's End, you're left with what is actually one of Russell T Davies' best finales. It fixes the majority of my problems with The Stolen Earth, and whilst it still has some mild problems, it's fairly easy to overlook them in the grand scheme of things.

The mild problems generally revolve around the Tenth Doctor clone (henceforth referred to as Handy Doctor) that was created with Donna's input. Coming completely out of nowhere, it doesn't entirely work as a resolution to the cliffhanger, making the audience feel just a little bit cheated as a result. Also, I'm not entirely happy with the fact that the tragic ending of Doomsday is entirely undone thanks to this clone of David Tennant that pops up out of nowhere to go off and have the sexy times with Rose (this also relies on the fact that people have forgotten that it's not an exact clone of David Tennant, it's also got some genetic input from Catherine Tate. Which could be useful, I suppose). But whilst I can nitpick this, it does work in the overall insane atmosphere that permeates through Journey's End. And also, it does give a magnificent Three Doctors joke courtesy of Captain Jack Harkness, which is a personal highlight of mine for this story.

Another highlight is the scenes featuring Davros, as played by Julian Bleach. The character dances as a villain for the Doctor, pointing out all of his failings as a character, such as his arrogance and his double standards of hating the army yet managing to turn all of his companions into his soldiers. The scenes also provide the much needed stillness that I was yearning for in The Stolen Earth. The extended running time of this episode allows for the Doctor and Davros to simply sit down and have a conversation of their various positions, which helps make the story just a little bit more palatable in my opinion.

So, at the end of the day, we're left with a story that, despite its flaws, is still ridiculously fun and one of my favourite finales from the Russell T Davies era. Except, of course, for one small thing.

I mentioned before about how I said to ignore 5 minutes of Journey's End. Those five minutes represent one of the most uncomfortable and frankly sadistic moments in the history of Doctor Who. Donna has partially merged with the Doctor, absorbing his mind. However, the mind of the Doctor is too big for a human and so it is threatening to kill Donna. So the Doctor does what the Doctor does. He wipes away her entire mind and all of her memories of their time together, effectively killing the woman that Donna had become. It doesn't feel like the right thing for the Doctor to do in that situation. Instead of letting her die as the wonderful woman that she became, he instead sentences her to the fate worse than death of making her forget everything that they did together.

And this isn't the only time that this has been brought up in the series, but in each of those times it was dealt with far more intelligently than it was here. In The War Games, for instance, the decision is taken out of the Doctor's hands for Jamie and Zoe's minds to be wiped. It works within the context of the story because it's being given to them as a sort of punishment from the Time Lords for travelling with the Doctor. The Doctor's hands are nowhere near this decision, and he feels just as heartbroken as we do that this injustice has occurred. So that's an argument previously present in the series to say that this sort of thing should be seen as heartbreaking on behalf of the Doctor. But one could argue that the Doctor does feel heartbroken over this action that has been forced upon him. So we need further evidence within the context of the series.

Enter Forest of the Dead. River's death scene is made all the more interesting because she does it willingly on behalf of the time that she spent with the Doctor. Despite the Doctor's protests of how time can be rewritten, she only responds by saying that her time with the Doctor can't be rewritten, and that she wants to die with those happy memories that she shared with him, rather than live and not remember. It presents the argument that the Doctor shouldn't have interfered with the memories of the companion, and that the companion should have really died rather than have someone else meddle with their lives. It also introduces the aspect of choice, that River, and by extension Donna, should be the one to choose their fate, and not the Doctor. It all looks towards putting the ending of Journey's End as something really quite uncomfortable.

Now, there is one last episode that is worth mentioning here, which is of course Hell Bent, the series finale to Capaldi's second series. However, I don't necessarily want to get ahead of myself with respect to the blog, so instead I'll just leave this here, and link forwards to that episode when the time comes. So, I suppose we'll just have to end on a cliffhanger for the moment, and pick up again later...

Behold, a cliffhanger has been resolved!

Day 750: The Stolen Earth

The Stolen Earth is an episode that I've personally got mixed feelings about. On paper, the episode feels remarkably fantastic, but as broadcast the episode doesn't quite work in some areas, while wholeheartedly succeeding in others.

I think that where the episode's key success is is in its scale. The invasion of Earth by the Daleks feels as epic as it ought to, with the Earth being subjugated in a ball of fire and mayhem, all kept to within the time limit of around 10 minutes. It all makes the Daleks feel impressive and as if they're a powerful force that could feasibly destroy the Earth. Also important is the presence of the large supporting cast, with companions from throughout the Russell T Davies era taking part, making the event feel just a little bit larger than normal episodes would.

However, both of these points also work to the story's disadvantage in my opinion. The Daleks, whilst they feel epic, don't have any real menace behind them that would make them truly frightening. Think, for instance of the silent "Exterminate" scene in The Parting of the Ways, where the tension of Lynda's oncoming death continues to rise, and is then subverted, giving the Daleks the sense that they enjoy the sensation of playing with their victims before they kill them. There's no real scene of that nature in The Stolen Earth, instead the Daleks feel like soldiers going out and killing instead of the truly malevolent creatures of hate that they truly are.

Also, whilst having a large supporting cast is fun, it also makes the episode feel just a little bit crowded. For all that I love the conference call scene in this episode, especially the flirting between Captain Jack and Sarah Jane, I can't help but feel that there's just a little bit too much going on in too short a space of time for my liking. The episode needs a point of stillness within it, where the characters can just breathe and talk about what's happened. There are moments that are like that within the episode, such as Martha meeting with her mother but they all are part of some greater scene where action is being taken, which doesn't totally work in my opinion. Although I will say in the story's defence that the scene where the Doctor and Rose meet again is actually fantastic, and was everything that I was looking for within this episode.

There's also the cliffhanger, which is probably one of the best in the series' history. The regeneration works because it not only represents the oncoming death of one of the series' main characters, the Tenth Doctor, but it also shows takes all previous 'certain death' scenarios featured in cliffhangers by providing an easy way to show that this really is the Doctor dying and there is no way out for him. That is, unless something completely ridiculous happens to lend a hand and get him out of that situation...

Day 749: Turn Left

The Doctor-lite episode was a concept developed by Russell T Davies in order to work around the main cast's shooting schedules. A typical Doctor-lite episode will only have the Doctor in it for a fraction of screen time, with most of the focus instead being placed on the supporting characters. What makes these episodes particularly interesting is the way in which they tell a Doctor Who story without the presence of the Doctor. Love and Monsters decided to take the angle of looking at people who were obsessed with the Doctor, taking the hole left by the Doctor's absence and filling it in with the new characters and their impression of the Doctor. Blink, on the other hand, opted for a different approach by instead showing a Doctor Who story that the Doctor doesn't happen to feature in very much, with the lack of the Doctor in the story not as noticeable thanks to Steven Moffat's strong storytelling. Turn Left feels as if it looked at both of those stories and instead chose to tackle the initial problem head on. Whilst the previous adventures tried to dance around the fact that the Doctor wasn't present, Turn Left openly asks the question of what would happen if you tried to tell a Doctor Who story without the Doctor.

The result is, of course, chaos. Every single event that the Doctor should have saved Earth from instead goes horribly wrong, with massive amounts of destruction and death taking place without his valued input into the Earth. It's an episode that's filled with horrific event after horrific event, and it feels absolutely terrible to watch. It's worth noting as well that Davies makes the clever decision to create all of the tragedy out of the lighter episodes of the series such as The Runaway Bride or Partners in Crime. It's a retroactive impact for all of those previous adventures because it suddenly reminds you that all of those stories had the chance to end horribly, for all of their rompy nature. It reinforces the importance of the Doctor to the Universe, creating not only a stronger episode but a stronger series overall.

And there's so much more besides this to create a frightfully good story. The scenes with Mr Colasanto go from being heart-warming to tragic, and Jacqueline King delivers an understated but perfect performance as Donna's mother. It's one of the best episodes that Davies has produced under his tenure and is, in many ways, absolutely perfect.

Day 748: Midnight

Midnight is, quite simply, one of the best episodes of Doctor Who ever produced. It works perfectly on every level, in particular through Russell T Davies' writing and the frightening performances through the members of the cast (Tennant's face once his voice has been stolen is one of the most haunting performances he has ever given and fully sells the notion that the situation has now gotten completely out of control). And amongst the many things that I think about when watching this story, one that often comes to mind is how the story was originally written: as a riff on Voyage of the Damned.

Both Midnight and Voyage of the Damned are stories with similar premises. The Doctor goes on a journey on some vessel when a disaster happens. His role is then to band together a group of people to find safety and get all of them out of that situation alive. Voyage of the Damned looks at the situation when those people can bring out the best of themselves in horrific situations, while Midnight concerns people who bring out the worst of themselves. The people in Midnight are not brave, nor do they care for others. Instead they are ruthlessly paranoid and frequently nasty. There are a few good eggs in the bus where Midnight takes place, but their voices are drowned out by the louder and more judgemental.

I think that the differences between the two episodes are summed up best by their endings, just after the crisis is over. In Voyage, Rickston Slade, the least likeable of the survivors, thanks the Doctor personally for saving his life, before quietly gloating about how he's been made rich because of the event. He's not a particularly nice character, but he goes to the trouble of thanking his saviour. In Midnight, Val, the character who has been voicing all of the paranoia and was one of the main people who took away the Doctor's control and attempted to take away his life, instead attempts to cover her tracks by saying that she said that the monster was Sky. A simple moment of a horrible woman failing to admit her own faults and instead jumping to what she sees as her own moral high ground. But it, of course, is pointless because we all know that she was just as at fault as the rest of them. The differences between the two scenes are stark. One shows a man who isn't a nice man, but still has goodness within him. The other is about a woman who tries to show that she's a nice woman, when really she has truly awful qualities within her.

Of course, what makes this all the more frightening is that, whilst we can watch Voyage of the Damned and think that this is how everyone would behave in a crisis, we can watch Midnight and know that it is how everyone behaves in crises. People jump to conclusions and blame anyone for the events that have taken place, resulting in a heightened state of unrest within the area of the situation. You only have to think of the recent terror attacks that took place last year and the reaction of certain elements of society, be they politicians, the media, or just ordinary people on the street, and you can realise that this simple little story is one of the most accurate representations of the problems with the world today.

Day 747: Forest of the Dead

I have to say, my relationship with Forest of the Dead is one that has evolved over time. On first viewing, I didn't actually care a great deal about it. Yes, I speculated about who River Song was in the lead-up to this episode, but when it first aired on Australian television, I actually found that I wasn't that engaged by it, possibly due to the fact that I was doing my Maths homework at the same time as watching it. But every viewing after that first bad impression has made me re-evaluate it, making it better and better. And the joy is that this is something that's still happening, because even yesterday I stated that I thought that this two-parter was Moffat's weakest for Davies. Now, I'd be inclined to say that it's his best.

There are so many reasons as to why I've come to think this. There's the horror of being in a virtual dream-state of a world, where you believe that everything is real despite the fact that it doesn't make complete logical sense. It's something that taps into my inner hypnophobia, or fear of sleep, where I occasionally have panic attacks about my state of mind when dreaming. The entire idea of a loss of control over such basic mental processes frightens me, and yet it is something that we deal with on a regular basis. It's one of the more overlooked things in Moffat's script - most people focus on the fact that he tried to make shadows scary. I'd argue that he succeeded in making dreaming scary.

There's also, of course, River Song's story. While yesterday I bemoaned the fact that knowing River's backstory with the Doctor takes a whole lot of the fun out of the adventure, in Forest of the Dead it makes it all the better. Given the events of The Husbands of River Song, where we see the Doctor's penultimate encounter with River, and where the groundwork is laid for the ending here, it makes the ending all the more heartbreaking. We see this character that we know so well die such that her future time with the Doctor can be preserved, and her speaking of the Doctor with the suit and new haircut immediately brings to mind Capaldi's beautiful performance in The Husbands of River Song. And of course, it makes it the ending triumphant as well, because when the Doctor realises that how to save River, it doesn't feel like Tennant coming to this realisation, it feels like we're seeing the final leg of a relay race, where Tennant, Capaldi and Smith have been constantly running through time and space to try and rescue River. It's a beautiful moment, and helped me to re-evaluate this story immensely, making it one in a long line of Doctor Who episodes that I'm glad I watched again as part of this blog's voyage through time and space.

Day 746: Silence in the Library

It's become incredibly difficult to experience Silence in the Library, and its follow-up story Forest of the Dead, as they were originally intended. It's not any fault of the story itself, which is otherwise rather fine, if perhaps the weakest of the four stories that Steven Moffat wrote under Russell T Davies. Instead, it's a problem with the way in which the series developed after these episodes aired.

You see, this story features the first appearance of River Song, not just for the Doctor, but for the audience as well. Our reaction to her, as originally written, should be confusion and a sense of unwariness, because we're encountering this person who supposedly knows the Doctor from the future, and yet we've never seen her before in our lives. Moments like her revealing her own sonic screwdriver, or the fact that she's overly familiar with the Doctor are clearly written and directed as if they should be quietly shocking, and yet they aren't.

The reason is, of course, that we've met River Song countless times over the course of the series, it's just that we've met her in episodes after Silence in the Library. And because she's such a prevalent character, all of the mystery that originally surrounded her is now lost. Even the most recently broadcast episode, The Husbands of River Song, explained the presence of her sonic screwdriver in this episode. And whilst this is a necessary thing in terms of the overall structure of the series, I can't help but feel a bit sad that I won't get to experience that original mystery about this character again.

I can't help but miss the joy of fan speculation as to who River Song is, as well as other things like what happened to Donna in the cliffhanger, or the meaning of CAL. I remember going online and delving just a little bit deeper than I normally would into the world of the online Doctor Who fandom, which led to me discovering set reports, and like-minded fans who had their own crazy theories as to what happened. But that time is over now, and we've moved on with a new Doctor, and new stories to speculate about. Funnily enough, whilst writing this blog, I looked up some of those blogs earlier. One has devolved into a shadow of its former self. Another hasn't been updated since 2012. A further one just announced that they're going to be under new management. It's sad to see that they've gone away, it feels like some of that magic of a time gone by has passed on.

But still, time marches on, and other sites popped up to replace the old ones that I moved away from. And I can still speculate on other stuff forthcoming in the next series of Doctor Who. It's just a constant reminder, I suppose, that We've Got Work To Do!

Day 745: The Unicorn and the Wasp

As I approach the end of the blog, I'm looking forward to the luxury of being able to watch episodes of Doctor Who without any sort of structure attached to how I watch them. Indeed, I think that I'll mark my freedom by watching some relaxing and fun episodes, like The Unicorn and the Wasp, one of my favourite episodes in the history of Doctor Who.

The Unicorn and the Wasp doesn't set out to be a particularly deep and meaningful story, instead it just wants to be a lot of fun in 1920's England with Agatha Christie. And it succeeds at that point, with some excellent writing from Gareth Roberts and some very interesting directorial choices from Graeme Harper. Roberts' writing is perfectly light, with any real moments of danger being underpinned with comedy, leading to a lighter story overall. The scene where the Doctor is poisoned, for instance, whilst the music and camera suggests that this is a stressful and dangerous moment, Roberts' script calls for it to descend into a farcical game of charades that is excellently played by the actors. It creates a memorable scene as it brings fun and joy back into the dangerous adventures that normally plague a Doctor Who story.

And it's moments like the scene above that remind me how much I love Doctor Who, because it can be perfectly fun and light whilst still being a remarkably exciting programme.

Day 744: The Doctor's Daughter

The Doctor's Daughter, as an episode, was brought about because Stephen Greenhorn, the writer, said that the Doctor was essentially an unchanging character, so Russell T Davies, the showrunner, wanted to challenge him on that point. Thus, the idea of having an episode where the Doctor has to deal with a genetic offspring was conceived. And whilst this idea may actually be rather interesting, the episode that builds on it just doesn't work, in my opinion.

The reason why it doesn't work is that it fails to allow the central concept to breathe. There are some really good scenes where the Doctor and Jenny spend time together, and they are what makes the episode worth watching but they aren't well drawn enough to give the impression that a relationship has been built up between the two characters. Take, for instance, the scene with the laser grid. Within the space of three minutes, we go from the Doctor being angry at Jenny for shooting at people, to Jenny shooting at a ventilation duct to buy them more time and to find the non-violent solution, which causes the Doctor to suddenly turn his position completely around to loving Jenny for what she does. It's too quick to feel like a natural development of their relationship, and so the story suffers for it.

And it's not as if the story didn't have anything to lose. For some reason Martha Jones is in this story, where she contributes virtually nothing of interest to the plot. All she does is end up on the side of the opposing army, trek across a wasteland, have someone die whilst saving her, and then have a chat with the Doctor at the end. It's a lot of screen time for something that doesn't really add anything to the plot, and you can't help but be struck by how this time could have been better spent elsewhere. And that sums up the problem with the story. Even though Greenhorn has been tasked with writing a story that changes the Doctor, it seems that he can't get away from the idea that the series should be purely about people having a science-fiction adventure. And whilst this is not necessarily a bad thing, it does mean that there's a lack of focus in this story that prompts it to not entirely work as an episode of Doctor Who overall.

Which isn't the best way to end the year, but there we are. Still, at least tomorrow we'll be able to start the year on a high note.

Day 743: The Poison Sky

"I've got to give them a choice"

Full disclosure: when preparing this blog, I will occasionally draw up vague plans in my head for what certain entries will be about. These plans, however, will often jump gleefully out of the window once I watch the episode and realise something far better to talk about. One such example is this entry, where I was planning to talk about the duality of the Sontarans and UNIT. But then I watched the above scene, and realised that it had to be about it.

It's a scene that crept up on me, because I wasn't expecting it to happen. The events leading up to it are about the Doctor planning to kill all the Sontarans, with a device that will destroy their atmosphere. The only problem is that he has to activate it manually. And when Martha asks the Doctor why he can't set it on a delay, I thought he was going to say that they'd find and defuse it. I didn't expect him to say the quote at the top of this entry. But, of course, it makes perfect sense that he would. He's the Doctor, a man who always seeks for the best way out of any given situation. Even consider The Fires of Pompeii, where he only erupts Vesuvius on the proviso that it will end up saving the entire world, although at the cost of Pompeii. It's a strong character beat, and sums up a lot of what the Doctor is about.

And then it gets even more interesting when he offers the choice to the Sontarans. He hadn't considered the fact that the Sontarans would be so one dimensional, and so he isn't able to have the debate that he was hoping to have, where he could perhaps convince General Staal to rescind the order to destroy the Earth. So the focus is turned entirely on the Doctor, where it's about whether he has the ability to press that button and kill the Sontarans. Unfortunately, the story prevents us from further dwelling on that question of whether he would have pressed that button, but it's an interesting moral quandary nonetheless, and provides a nice ending to a thoroughly decent story.

Day 742: The Sontaran Stratagem

The Sontaran Stratagem is, rather surprisingly, quite watchable. Helen Raynor's last story for Doctor Who (the Daleks in Manhattan two parter) was, in my opinion, less than satisfactory. But for the Sontaran story, on the other hand, she's able to produce something that's far better in terms of quality, if a little simpler in terms of plot. However, it does still manage to do some interesting things, in particular with the re-invention of the Sontarans.

The Sontarans, in the Classic Series, weren't that great as monsters. Unlike the Cybermen or the Daleks, they lacked anything that made them stand out amongst the swathes of monsters that the Doctor faced throughout his incarnations. This is partially due to the fact that they only appeared in four stories, leaving them with less screen time to truly make an impact, and that one of those stories just used them as generic invading monsters (The Invasion of Time), meaning that their entire modus operandi doesn't really have enough time to sink. The main focus of the Sontarans is that they are military beings, obsessed with war and conquest. In The Time Warrior, we see this as the Sontaran advising medieval people how to best fight their enemies, while in The Sontaran Experiment, they adopt the far more sinister approach of researching the best ways to kill their foes in battle. It's a nice conceit, but the problem is that it's not brought out significantly enough in their stories to be sufficiently memorable.

The Sontaran Stratagem changes this slightly by bringing their military nature to the foreground. They are always seen standing up straight like little soldiers, with a general barking out orders to his men and the Doctor even pointing out that their weakness of a probic vent on the back of the neck is also a fun psychological battle advantage, forcing them to face their enemies in battle. And this all works as something to show what the Sontarans are, but it doesn't really show why the audience should be that interested in them.

To answer this, the Sontarans are given the beautiful advantage of being funny. We're allowed to laugh at the Sontarans, and recognise that their obsession with war is really a bit over the top and kind of laughable. It's best seen in the line "(The Doctor) led the battle in the last great Time War. The finest war in history and we weren't allowed to be a part of it". It contrasts the constant grieving from the Doctor over the fighting in the Time War and how he lost his entire race with a group of people who were quite disappointed that they couldn't take part. It's a rather funny notion and it allows the audience to laugh at the monsters. And whilst being able to laugh at the Sontarans ended up being one of the programmes greatest strengths in later episodes, taking them seriously can reveal some other interesting things, as seen in The Poison Sky.

Day 741: Planet of the Ood

The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit was an episode rich with characters and concepts, and unfortunately some of these had to make way for the main meat of the episode - the Doctor/Devil confrontation. Fortunately Russell T Davies saw sense, and went forth to commission a story based around the story's most interesting idea, which is how the Ood actually work.

The Ood were introduced as a slave race, and aside from a brief moment of questioning from Rose, they are generally left that way. Planet of the Ood dares to ask how they became slaves, and more importantly, it delves into the question of why they are slaves. The way in which it deals with this is quite interesting, when considering the structure of the episode. When it begins, we see the Ood as much the same as in The Impossible Planet, i.e. generally docile with some element of danger within them. It presents their slavery as perfectly normal, a by-product of the world of 4126. To compare with the Ood, humans working on the Ood-Sphere are also introduced, presenting a look at the normal people in this time period. We see four main characters, being a slightly menacing boss (Halpen), his quiet scientist assistant (Ryder), a generic security team leader (Kess) and Solana, an assistant working on the Ood-Sphere. Naturally, the audience can assume that, whilst the majority of the humans will turn out to be slightly malevolent, there will be good eggs within the basket, perhaps Solana, the friendly assistant will be a keen ally to the Doctor and Donna.

As the story progresses, however, the way in which we see the humans changes somewhat through the lens of looking at the Ood. We see that they are incredibly cruel to the Ood, packing them away in storage containers, keeping them in cages, and most shockingly of all, removing their hind brain from their bodies to make way for a translation globe, effectively lobotomising them. Suddenly, the focus of the story switches from the Ood as monsters to the humans being the real monsters. We see this expressed in two ways. One is the scene where Kess chases down the Doctor using the claw of a crane, which he does with a frightening amount of glee, going straight for the kill of the Doctor. At this moment, he goes from generic security leader to a reasonably malevolent man, actively taking glee from the pain that he gives others. It means that when the Ood kill him later in the story, we actually empathise with the Ood, and see them as the heroes of the story, with the humans as the villains.

Similarly, Solana goes from being a hopeful ally to a traitor, revealing the Doctor and Donna's position to the guards and actively telling the security men to kill the Ood as they begin their revolution. Her uncomfortable views reveals another side to the story, that the evil doesn't have to be with characters like Halpen, men who happily dash about the story joking as they prepare to commit genocide. Instead evil people can be perfectly normal, with a smile on their face as they go about and do their work. Solan's death at the hands of an Ood doesn't feel like a moment that presents the Ood as heartless in their quest to get their freedom back, it comes as a relief to see her character get what she deserves.

And, honestly, that's just scratching the surface of Planet of the Ood, which is a story that always improves for me on repeated viewing. It's about the need for revolution, it's about how humans can and often are the bad guys, and it's about taking an offhand moment from some past adventure and realising that there's a story to be told.

Day 740: The Fires of Pompeii

Given that The Fires of Pompeii is a story that concerns itself with prophecy, is it any wonder that the episode itself ended up being so prophetic? Not only does it feature David Tennant and Catherine Tate as the present Doctor and companion, respectively, but it also dares to feature a future Doctor and a future companion, with Peter Capaldi (later the Twelfth Doctor) appearing as Caecilius and Karen Gillan (later Amy Pond) as a soothsayer. And once you get over the joy of seeing two Doctors on screen at the same time, what you're left with is a really good story.

The entire point of the episode is to look at the concept of fixed moments in time and point out how heartbreaking they are. As we watch it, we're constantly reminded of how the Doctor sees the world, with moments in time that can't be broken, no matter how tragic they might be. Importantly, the story calls for the Doctor to be implicitly against this, as seen in some of the final moments as he angrily states that he had no choice but to leave Pompeii to die. There's even a throwaway line, stated in a joking sort of manner as the Doctor discovers the Pyrovile's plan, where he states "Then the whole planet is at stake. Thank you. That's all I needed to know". On first viewing, one can see this as just an extension of the joke of having a villain explain their plan in detail to the Doctor, but repeated viewing clearly shows that this moment is clearly the Doctor weighing up between tragedies, and deciding in that moment that it is better for the timeline as a whole if Pompeii dies.

But, perhaps most importantly, the story is not through the Doctor's eyes. Instead, we see things as Donna sees them, a world full of ordinary people, all of whom are going to die. If memory serves me correctly, Russell T Davies, whilst re-working James Moran's script into its final form, worked particularly with the characters to make them feel more real, thus making the tragedy more real. This can be seen, for instance, in the scene between Donna and Caecilius' daughter Evelina where they are just allowed to talk like normal people, with Donna curious as to what young women do for fun in Ancient Pompeii, letting the character, and by extension the audience, grow to have a connection with the family of Caecilius, making their apparent death at the end feel all the more sad.

Of course, Caecilius doesn't die, instead going on to be a beacon for the Doctor in a future adventure. But that's another story for another day...

Day 739: Partners in Crime

Partners in Crime is an interesting story to introduce a new companion in. As you will recall, Donna Noble, who returns in Partners in Crime, was already introduced in The Runaway Bride, where she made a clear and positive impact due to Catherine Tate's clear comedic timing and sensibilities, as well as her chemistry with David Tennant. Her return, then, in Partners in Crime has to serve not only as a reintroduction to the character for those that never saw her first appearance, it also has to remind the rest of the audience of why she was so good in the first place.

The way in which Russell T Davies achieves this is by first establishing that Donna has evolved as a character beyond her first appearance. She's kept much of what made her good in her first episode, and moments like "You're not mating with me sunshine!" and the mime scene bring forth memories of the lighter scenes in The Runaway Bride. But she's also grown from that experience, seeking new experiences, and notably starting the adventure completely independently of the Doctor, with the two of them being separated from each other for the first 25 minutes of the episode. By doing this, the audience can begin to see that she's clearly a strong companion, and it helps acclimatise them to her forthcoming time on the TARDIS (remember also that there were some doubts about her re-appearance on the series, with some people disliking The Runaway Bride intensely. These people, by the way, are all fools.).

The other main way through which Davies is able to help to introduce Donna is through keeping her with Tennant in the latter half of the episode. In the two prior introduction stories, there were scenes where the Doctor and companion were separated towards the end, to help show their respective strengths in various scenarios. For Partners in Crime, however, Davies recognises that the main reason why Tennant's Doctor worked so well with Donna was their chemistry, and so he keeps them together, working as a team as they stop Miss Foster from turning people into Adipose. It helps to show that the partnership is strong, and goes as further evidence to show that Donna not only could be on the TARDIS as a companion, it would be to the benefit of the series if she were to become a companion. And of course she did, and the rest, as they say, is history...

Day 738: Voyage of the Damned

When I was in the process of starting up the blog, one of the first things that I did was create a massive Excel spreadsheet of every episode, which I put alongside the date that I was going to be watching it. The two purposes of this were to ensure that I hadn't missed a day by keeping a close eye on what day I was meant to be doing what, and also to have a sneak peek at what episodes I'd be watching on reasonably important days. My eyes dashed towards Christmas 2013 - The Sensorites Episode 3 - not the most festive episode, but enjoyable nonetheless. Christmas 2014 then came to mind, and I saw Revenge of the Cybermen Part 1, again not the most festive of episodes, and not the greatest either, unfortunately. Maybe Christmas 2015 would be better, I thought, at the very least there's the possibility that I could end up watching a Christmas special on Christmas Day! I looked and saw that on Christmas 2015 I was scheduled to watch Amy's Choice. I rather liked Amy's Choice last time I watched it, and I looked forward to that Christmas, but I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed that it wasn't particularly festive.

Flash forward to mid-December, 2015. I'm watching The Runaway Bride and reflecting on Christmas Specials past, present, and future. I casually wonder what episode I'll be watching on Christmas Day again; the break that I took for exams meant that my spreadsheet was now a couple of weeks out of date. A quick round of mental arithmetic later and I realise that it's going to be The Last of the Time Lords. If I'd finished my break a day earlier, I'd be watching a Christmas Special on Christmas Day. So I made a quick decision to cheat and watch two episodes on the one day; after all, it is nearly Christmas and I deserve to treat myself...

So I watched Voyage of the Damned on Christmas Day. It's not the most overtly festive of the Christmas Specials, but it very much falls into the mould that was set by The Runaway Bride - make the episode fun. And so whilst we get a reasonably dramatic story about the Doctor banding together a group of misfits (including Kylie Minogue!) to escape the Titanic in space, you can't help but feel that much of it was written with a certain sense of glee from the writer, Russell T Davies. You can't help but give a chortle at the sight of seeing Kylie Minogue in a forklift in a battle with a cyborg, which is just the right amount of ridiculousness for this episode.

But the special isn't just a romp on the Titanic. It makes the strong decision to include hints of the Doctor's character arc at the conclusion of the episode, making him lose Astrid whilst desperately trying to save her, and allowing him to lose his temper, shouting out "I can do anything!" in a fit of rage. It's not the Doctor's finest moment in terms of his character, because it shows a certain arrogance to the man, showing that it's become harder and harder for him to accept the inevitability of losing. This brief moment adds a bit more flavour to the feast that is placed before us in Voyage of the Damned, and helps to make for what is quite a fun and interesting story.

So Voyage of the Damned is a nice and fun episode to watch, a perfect way to wind down after a hectic Christmas. And, incidentally, a Happy Christmas to all of you at home!

Day 737: The Last of the Time Lords

The problem with The Last of the Time Lords is its flaw. If you ignore the flaw, then you get a reasonably good story. Sure, whilst seeing the Master in control of the Earth isn't quite as fun as you might have hoped, and the fact that Tennant is mainly reduced either to being an old man in a wheelchair or a CGI monstrosity leaves the story without its best element - the Tennant/Simm scenes, but it does have some remarkably good things in it such as the Tennant/Simm scenes that we do get, or the powerful scene where the Doctor stops Francine Jones from shooting the Master. But the problem with all of these scenes, as I said, is that the flaw overpowers them.

The flaw starts off slowly. The revelation that Martha has been travelling around the Earth to tell others about the Doctor, in order to get them to pledge their belief in him as the Master prepares to turn the Earth into an all-out warship is kind of nice, and whilst on prior viewings I may have looked down on it, now I see it as something rather nice; a way for the Doctor to win without using violence. The revelation that the collective thoughts of humanity are being amplified by the Archangel network, the very network which the Master used to take over the world, is actually rather neat and plays well into the themes that I talked about yesterday about the plot of The Sound of Drums being based around the Master taking absolute control, and that other Master plots focus the conclusion on the Doctor re-taking control. Here, he takes control using the same method as the Master, a nice duality to the pair. But, getting back on track, this all comes across as something a little bit fun, but you can't help but feel that something's going to go wrong soon.

And then the Doctor becomes a flying God and the story's flaw reveals itself in all its glory. It is not only a step too far for stretching the credulity of the story but it comes completely out of nowhere, making the whole story feel cheap by comparison. Comparing this to another finale, we have Rose in The Parting of the Ways. There, the heart of the TARDIS was signposted as a plot element a story prior in Boom Town, planting the seed that this could be possible. We also get to see Rose actively try to do something to get back to the Doctor and save him, which allows us to get some perspective of how everything worked out after watching the episode. Here, whilst the Archangel network was shown, it was only shown as a field that allowed for the Master to control people, not to allow the Doctor to fly. And whilst we did see Martha go out into the world and spread the word about the Doctor, it didn't lead to the logical conclusion that them thinking about him would make him into a Jedi.

It's a flaw that overpowers the finale, and kind of prevents it from being rather good in my opinion. The story's still not outright bad, but it doesn't quite work, and you can't help but feel that the story could have used an extra re-write to make the ending work just a bit better. But anyway, tomorrow looks set to be something rather special...