Day 719: The Satan Pit

The Satan Pit differs from The Impossible Planet in terms of action. The first 25 minutes or so of this episode are some of the most intense in any episode of Doctor Who. And whilst it may not seem from the outset to be intense as described, through strength of direction and writing, it becomes something truly marvellous.

It begins slowly, with a brief action sequence to resolve the cliffhanger, but immediately, the tension begins to rise with the ever-present threat of the Ood banging on the door. And just as things begin to sort themselves out, problems start to arise. The Doctor is cut off from everyone else, so Rose is left to help guide the crew-members into a basic plan to escape the Ood. They do this by choosing to go into the maintenance shafts, which is left to the absolute last second. James Strong, the director, takes full advantage of this by having a disorienting series of quick cuts, varying from the cover of the maintenance shaft, the face of Mr Jefferson (the security chief) and one of the Ood slowly advancing. This leads to the impression for the audience that the Ood are closer than they appear to be, and that makes them even more of a threat.

Inside the maintenance shafts, claustrophobia begins to set in. Everything is kept tight, and the Ood are never allowed to be too far away, in a chase to take down the people in the Sanctuary Base. Murray Gold's music keeps rising in tension, only pausing for a brief moment to allow for the sacrifice of Mr Jefferson. This brief pause is well needed, and credit should clearly go to Matt Jones and Russell T Davies, who both did writing work on this story. His death both reminds viewers that the characters are more than capable of dying in this episode, as well as providing a brief moment of quiet in the otherwise intense scene. This allows for the audience to breathe, so that the episode feels real, and not just an extended action scene.

What the moment of quiet also allows for is a jolt to bring the action back to the story. The surprise appearance of an Ood kicks the story into overdrive, ensuring that attention is kept to the story. And then, as quickly as the Ood appears, the sequence is allowed to finish with the crew-members hitting the Ood with a psychic knock-out, leaving them safe, for the time being. And after that sequence, I personally had to pause the episode and go for a quick break to breathe and recover. It's a thoroughly worrying and exciting sequence, and one of my personal favourites in the story.

But that only describes half of this fantastic adventure. I've made no real mention of the Beast, and the work that has gone into that, with all of those fantastic ideas. Nor have I mentioned the Ood in any great detail, where arguably the story's greatest idea is thrown away, only to be picked up again in a couple of series' time. But that's just because there's so much to talk about in this two parter, and so little time to do it in. It's a truly fantastic story, and one that I've been quietly looking forward to over the past couple of days.

Day 718: The Impossible Planet

To be perfectly honest, this story is not only, in my opinion, the best story of Tennant's first series, it is also one of the best stories that I've covered on this blog. It's like a black hole of a story, grabbing your attention and never letting go until the credits start to roll. And it's easy to see why.

Take, for instance, the scene that I've put above, where we see Scooti die in a rather horrific way. The scene begins with her encountering the frightening appearance of Toby, the chief archaeologist, who has been possessed by the Beast. It's handled with a degree of quietness and serenity, acknowledging the perverse beauty of what we're seeing. Like Scooti, we are drawn to Toby and his appearance, but we ultimately reject it. Unfortunately, this is where the story shifts gears slightly, and we go into a more dangerous region. Scooti tries to escape, but she is stopped, as the glass breaks and she is left to go out into the vacuum of space. The music and direction changes abruptly, reflecting the intensity of what is happening, as Scooti's screams become more and more desperate. And whilst this is a ruthlessly tense scene, what makes it powerful, in my opinion, is what comes directly after it.

We eventually end up in one of the habitation zones on the sanctuary base, with the crew-members looking for Scooti. The Doctor finds her, floating beautifully in space, in what is a truly haunting image. We then pay respects to this character, before closing the window and leaving her to drift off into the black hole. And this is what makes the story so powerful. It's based around ordinary humans who have done something stupid, who have gone out to explore a region of space that should never have existed. And it's dangerous, and they're probably going to die, but these are ordinary, likeable people, who clearly have lives outside of the adventure. And the tension of the story is exacerbated because all of these people feel real, feel as if they could be part of your life. And when they die, they are mourned, just like any other person is.

But that's just the first half of how I think this story is so fantastic. Much of The Impossible Planet is based around tension, letting the horror build until it reaches a breaking point. And we'll see that breaking point in the next entry, when we look at The Satan Pit.

Day 717: The Idiot's Lantern

The Idiot's Lantern is, quite simply, a romp. It's a fun run-around in 1950's London with no major consequences for the series ahead. And whilst it generally succeeds in being watchable, it's mostly forgettable, aside from a few brief images and concepts. So what else is there to talk about with respect to this episode?

Well, there's Euros Lyn's direction, for a start. He has made the curious decision to shoot almost all of the episode on a Dutch angle, tilting the camera to one side so that everything looks slanted and slightly unnerving. And whilst this does create a certain amount of atmosphere in the episode, it is unfortunately over-used. This ended up taking me out of the story completely, because I became fixated on the angle that the camera was on, trying to figure out when it would go back to being normal again. So whilst Euros Lyn clearly had the best of intentions with this decision, I can't help but fault him for what he did.

There's also the basic design of the episode, which feels as if it has been based on the Quatermass serials in the 1950's. Now, these are actually some rather fantastic pieces of television, filled with paranoia. But while the design of the story feels as if it wants to be part of that, having men in suits, and dark rooms with mysterious goings-on, it never quite works because the story just doesn't have the tension of the original serials, leaving this to feel like a pale pastiche of a better story.

But, despite the fact that I've been reasonably harsh on this story, I did enjoy it, and it has gone to further cement Tennant in the role of the Doctor, giving him a story where he can be the complete hero. He runs about, drops witty remarks, and saves the day whilst praising ordinary people. It's a fun performance to watch, and clearly part of why Tennant was so loved in the role, even if some of his stories weren't particularly good.

Day 716: The Age of Steel

The Age of Steel is, in my opinion, one of the few good Cybermen stories. To clarify what I mean by this, I'll just give a quick run-down of what I think of the previous Cybermen stories, in reverse order.

Silver Nemesis is very fun to watch, but the story lacks a certain depth to it. The same can be said of Attack of the Cybermen, although it is somewhat lacking in fun, but it has just a bit more depth. Earthshock is very well produced, and whilst I may not necessarily like it, I'm more than willing to give it a second chance sometime in the future. Revenge of the Cybermen is forgettable, but not bad. The Invasion is excellent, and what I would say is, up until The Age of Steel, the most recent good Cyberman story. The Wheel in Space isn't very engaging, which I can claim by virtue of the fact that I can barely remember what happens in it, a year and a half after first watching it. The Tomb of the Cybermen is a bit overrated in my opinion, but it means well, and The Moonbase is enjoyable, but not much else.

And the one story missing from that list is The Tenth Planet, the first Cyberman story. This is where we get introduced to the inner horror that is the Cybermen, that they are essentially human beings who have been converted into machines, and that their modus operandi is to go around the Universe and convert other people into Cybermen. "You will become like us" is their mantra, a frightening phrase on a certain level, provoking fear that one might lose their humanity, but still live. Naturally, this entire line of thought is barely touched upon in later stories featuring the Cybermen, and it take The Age of Steel to realise that there is potential in the original concept.

So The Age of Steel is good because it does something interesting with the Cybermen. It doesn't just make them into faceless monsters, instead it makes them into faceless monsters that used to have faces. There's heartbreaking scenes as we see ordinary people get converted into Cybermen, including the incredibly haunting scene of the bride who has become a Cyberman, and gets her emotions turned back on again, reminding us of the human trapped within that skin of metal. Indeed, the entire climax to the story is based around giving the Cybermen back their emotions, such that they realise what they have become and breakdown out of fear. In fact, to quote The Tomb of the Cybermen, you might say that they've had a complete metal breakdown.

And this all is a hallmark of what Russell T Davies is doing with the programme. He's reminding people that Doctor Who can be at its best when it is about people. It's not looking at Cybermen as scary because they're going to kill you, it's making Cybermen scary because they can be you. By taking this approach, he makes the Cybermen into a far more dangerous force, and not just second tier villains compared to the Daleks. What this all means is that through Davies and Tom MacRae's writing, and Graeme Harper's excellent direction, we have what is a Cyberman story that is actually and legitimately good.

Day 715: Rise of the Cybermen

It might be easiest to start talking about this episode by talking about something else entirely. One day I was particularly bored, with the new series of Doctor Who not airing in Australia for a couple of months, so I went on the internet and had a wander. Across my travels, I encountered a website that had a section that had a couple of links to what I thought were episode synopses of Tennant's first series. I clicked on one, and my mouth dropped open. These weren't synopses, these were the actual episodes themselves.

To put this into context, waiting for Doctor Who in Australia was a test of patience. Unlike today where simulcasts of Doctor Who episodes occur every Sunday morning, back in 2006 we had to wait around three months for the episodes to arrive here. In that three months, I'd spoil myself mightily by reading synopses, watching clips, and playing online games based on the episode. So to come across new episodes of Doctor Who, available online for my viewing pleasure, was perhaps the most shocking discovery I ever made. In the spur of the moment, I watched New Earth first, which I enjoyed. I also watched School Reunion, and Rise of the Cybermen, before guilt got the better of me and I stopped watching online, preferring to wait for the broadcast (incidentally, guilt did not prevent me from looking up spoilers, and it would take around four more years for me to watch an episode without being spoiled beforehand. But that's a story for another day.)

So when I think of Rise of the Cybermen, my thoughts don't necessarily drift towards thinking about parallel worlds, or the fact that the cliffhanger reveal of the Cybermen is rendered weak by the fact that Cybermen had been a fairly large part of the marketing for that year. Instead, I think about sitting down in a chair in front of a computer and gleefully watching a new episode of Doctor Who. Nothing can take that thrill away from me, and I'm glad that I can still have it every time I sit down for something new.

Day 714: The Girl in the Fireplace

My Mum hates The Girl in the Fireplace with a deep and unbridled passion. Last night we had a wide ranging discussion of her hatred of this story, which seemed to revolve around the fact that she felt that the clockwork droids were underused, she felt that the plot was too complicated and that she has a strong dislike of Arthur, the horse. Now, I'm quite fond of this episode. It's not the best of the series (we'll get to that in about a week or so), nor is it Steven Moffat's best written work or Euros Lyn's best directed work (I have to be honest and say that his best directed work, Children of Earth, is outside the scope of this blog, but it is truly marvellous), but I do rate it highly. So I am forced to start this on the defensive, to defend this story from those that would attack it.

So I should perhaps begin with the plot. It's fairly basic, to be honest. Over the course of 45 minutes, the Doctor, Rose and Mickey land on a spaceship and discover that clockwork droids are attempting to steal the brain of an 18th century French aristocrat, Madame de Pompadour, when she turns a certain age, the age of the spaceship, and steal her brain so that they can repair their spaceship. So the Doctor and co. embark on a wild race to try and find her at that age, to stop the droids from killing her. But that's not the point of the story. The point is instead looking at the Doctor and Madame de Pompadour as they fall in love, but whilst it's over a long period of 30 years for Madame de Pompadour, it is only a couple of hours for the Doctor. It's an interesting commentary on the role that time travel has for the Doctor, where he can meet people and flash forward through their lives, while they are destined to take the slow path and settle down. It means that relationships can flash by in an instant for him, whereas they're eternally long for others. It's quite heartbreaking to realise at the end that the Doctor has missed her death, of natural causes, because of a foolish mistake he made in the heat of the moment. But that's the curse of the Doctor, as he never settles down to take the slow path.

Now, all of that said, I will admit that there are some issues with the plotting of the story. It's clearly structured as a love story, and yet it's completely done and dusted within 45 minutes. It literally feels like one second she's kissing the Doctor, the next, she's in a hearse being led away from Versailles. It means that the full flow of the story doesn't quite work, but that's a small problem in an otherwise excellent story.

Moving on to the clockwork droids, their design is excellent. It's a visually arresting thing to see their masks ripped off to reveal some clockwork beneath them, like examining an antique cuckoo clock. They're creepy as well, their masks looking not quite human, and yet the time period that they're in means that they don't look out of place. And, aside from that, there's a fantastic jump scare in this episode that caused me to give off a very manly scream. So I'm inclined to reject the notion that they're not effective as monsters, and instead I should say that I think they work rather well.

And as for the horse, it's completely worth it for the exchange

"What's a horse doing on a spaceship?"

"Mickey, what's pre-revolutionary France doing on a spaceship? Try to get some perspective!".

So, in my opinion, I think that The Girl in the Fireplace is an amazing episode of Doctor Who, and I look forward to watching it again. Unfortunately though, I know that it will never be that way for my mother, who instead has a bizzare love of The Lazarus Experiment...

Day 713: School Reunion

This episode, within the first 5 minutes, has Physics and chips. And if that isn't a summary of my 3 years at The University of Newcastle, then I don't know what is. But that's just one brief element of how School Reunion speaks to people, reaching into their past and finding things to talk about. And, perhaps more pertinent to most people, it revolves around the return of Sarah Jane Smith and K9.

Their return is clearly an attempt to play on nostalgia, for these two characters are two of the more beloved companions in the series' history, with Sarah Jane's era coinciding with one of the more popular times in the show's history while K9 proved to be a cultural icon, much like the Daleks or Cybermen, entering into the culture of the world around him through a mixture of a good performance, a good design and good writing. And their return is fun to watch, as we see that Sarah Jane never stopped investigating strange goings-on, while K9 is still able to defend people against alien threats. And the story focuses on that return to a certain extent, reminding the audience of the old times with the Doctor and letting them go on one last adventure with him.

But where the story fails, in my opinion, is that it decides to throw in a stupid sub-plot for Rose. Rose is now jealous of the fact that the Doctor has travelled with other companions, because she was under the impression that she was special. So she decides to make things difficult for both the Doctor and Sarah Jane because she's so blind as to not see that one day she will leave the Doctor and they will both move on with their lives. It's an annoying character trait and does not endear me to the character of Rose at all, nor does it endear me to this Doctor as he, in a way, encourages her, creating a 'special and perfect bond' with her that continues to make her feel as if she's the only companion that's ever going to travel with him. It's a sour note on an otherwise fun story, and one that unfortunately will continue across the series to come.

Still, on the plus side, "Forget the shooty dog thing" is one of the greatest lines of dialogue in the history of Doctor Who.