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!