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 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 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 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!