Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol
We’re so lucky to have The Moff.
The first Steven Moffat written Doctor Who Christmas Special is showrunner Steven Moffat’s take on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and what a breathtaking morality play it is, wrapped up in sly humour, unbelievably strong performances and a script which made all of the RTD specials instantly redundant. Rory and Amy begin on a honeymoon cruiser that’s about to crash on a planet covered in a mysterious fog. Local baron Michael Gambon has the power to control the fog, and save the Doctor’s assistants’ lives, as well as the other 4000 passengers, but he doesn’t want to; there’s nothing in it for him. To save the ship the Doctor has to teach an alien Scrooge morality and discover why he has Katherine Jenkins flash frozen in his basement. Can he do it in just one hour?
Of course he can, and Moffat indulges his propensity to play crazy backward and forward games with time, managing to take a wholly new perspective on a very old story. Ghost of Christmas Past Eleven fits a lifetime into one hour, trying to get into the heart of a bitter old man through making friends with his younger self. It’s a wonderful, rich drama with towering performances – ‘Dumbledore’ Gambon always careful though not to overshadow the leads, as the comfortably quirky yet demonstrably noble Doctor played by Matt Smith holds the show together. It’s not like anything we were given during the Tennant era – this isn’t superheroics by any means. It’s a nuanced look at love and loss under the cover of sci fi, whilst giving us a wonderful, leisurely look at what makes Eleven tick too. Marilyn Monroe? OMG!
Gone is the regular Christmas campery of Russell T Davies, in is seasonal fantasy and steampunk chic – the production crew pulls off a Dickensian yet futuristic cityscape brilliantly. The shark too was a suitably weird touch, and wonderfully deployed – lost your sense of wonder at Christmas stories? Get it back right now (I should add Moffat adeptly bleeds any hint of religious undertones out in the very first act). And rather than taking a Kylie-esque role, Katherine Jenkins doesn’t just act brilliantly (who knew?), but is an essential element the Doctor needs to understand – singing and all – in order to make Gambon’s character care about other people. There was more than one occasion where the acting and writing came together to make me more than a little bit tearful, which couldn’t have made me happier. But as I said earlier, Moffat’s story is nuanced – for every dramatic turning point there are chillier scenes, like the holograms of the condemned 4000 passengers, and Gambon’s determination to ignore them.
It’s all blissfully continuity-free, which may have helped Karen Gillan seem to feel comfortable as Amy Pond for a change and act with authority. I should add it was pretty cute to have hers & Rory’s sexual roleplay clearly signposted, despite the seasonal tone of the story. Continuity though, as the trailer for series 6 shows, is about to take centre stage; this special is the calm before the storm. The Doctor was manipulated into rebooting the universe, we don’t know who was responsible for the cracks in space, and are no nearer to finding out whose voice it was who said ‘silence will fall’. With River Song’s imminent reappearance in what looks to be a deeply dark first half of the series, we may be about to get answers. I for one can’t wait.
Doctor Who V: 4 & 5: The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone (Spoilers)
This series is good. Scratch that this series is damned good. Oh fine episode 3 with Mark Gatiss’ multicoloured Daleks didn’t quite hit the mark (and may have been written for David Tennant’s Doctor anyway), but new series runner and lead writer Steven Moffat is creating the stir with series 5 which has only previously been matched by RTD’s ‘Bad Wolf’ conspiracy in series 1. And Matt Smith isn’t just good as the Eleventh Doctor he’s quite outstanding – youthful passion mixed with an older professorial nature; together they’re making the post-RTD/Tennant era electric. Episodes 4 and 5 should have been good – the two-part sequel to Moffat’s award-winning ‘Blink’, but as I’m going to show you, they’re absolute gems.
Quite possibly the scariest episode of Who I’ve ever seen, balanced out beautifully with darkly funny moments (and intrigue) with the returned River Song (Alex Kingston). The Angels return, at the crash scene of The Byzantium, foreseen by River Song in series 4, and the Doctor is drawn in by a younger version of the woman his earlier incarnation believed was his future wife. But what is her agenda? As the team investigates the danger increases as the Angels demonstrate abilities above and beyond what we already know, and Amy is left mysteriously subverted. The stakes get higher when it’s revealed that River Song isn’t remotely what she appears to be, just at the moment when the Angels spring their trap. How will the Doctor rescue them this time?
It’s a spellbinding episode, energetically directed by Adam Smith, effortlessly balancing wittily scripted banter by Moffat with scenes of sheer terror which outrival ‘Alien’. The scene where the Angel projects itself out of the CCTV tape is quite remarkable for its restrained horror, and is brilliantly acted by Karen Gillan, proving her chops for the first time this series. And the episode really does stand out for the quality of its acting – Alex Kingston chews up every scene she’s in, and has perhaps even more chemistry with Matt Smith than she did with Tennant. He in turn proves ever more each week just how outstanding a choice he was as the Eleventh Doctor, commanding the screen with passion and power in equal measure; in many ways his Doctor is even more interesting and likable than Eccleston or Tennant’s.
Funny, terrifying and sophisticated in equal measure, this is as good as Doctor Who has ever been.
The intrigue deepens. What is the crack in space from Amy’s bedroom, and why is it following her? As the Weeping Angels close in on the Doctor, Amy, River Song and the Clerics, why does the crack reopen, why does it begin on her wedding day, the day she chose to leave with the Doctor? For that matter how can the Doctor hope to defeat the Angels, keep a now crippled Amy alive, and find out more about River Song’s transgressions? It’s an episode with far more going on than it seems, as the Clerics fall one by one, and Amy, blinded, must navigate through a forest in the Byzantium in an attempt to stay one step ahead of the beings now eager to feed on the time energy of the crack in space. But why does Amy have to remember her first meeting with the Doctor? And can River Song be trusted when the Clerics’ Bishop reveals the man she apparently is in their custody for killing was a future incarnation of the Doctor himself?
The brilliance continues as the mystery hots up. If the the crack in space is formed by something to do with Amy, is it somehow because she becomes River Song? Does the future incarnation of the Doctor appeal to Amy to remember because of what happens in the final episode – presumably on her wedding day? What is it about these two that he’s drawn to? As in part one the direction by Adam Smith is top notch, marrying high emotion with real terror as it seems there’s no way out from the trap set by the army of Weeping Angels. Matt Smith acquits himself even better than the previous episode too, as his compassion for all the humans in his care erupts violently. It’s been said his performance might outdo Tennant’s at his best – I’m inclined to agree. I’ve never seen Doctor Who better than this. We even have a conspiracy as profound as Bad Wolf in series one, but with much greater care taken over the running of the series. Each week another level is revealed, as more questions get set. I can’t wait to find out the answers.
Doctor Who 5:1 (Spoilers)
It can’t be this good. It can’t be. They couldn’t have got the tone that right, they couldn’t have reimagined the Tardis, the costume, the feel of the show that perfectly, could they? Our expectations of Steven Moffat couldn’t possibly be met or even exceeded, could they? The answer is yes to everything.
A newly regenerated Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) crash lands his burning Tardis in rural England and gets the attention of young Amelia Pond. Neither he nor the Tardis have finished rebuilding themselves and after a garbled first meeting, he rushes back to his ship to send it five minutes into the future to stop the engines from exploding. But misses by 12 years. When he returns he collides with a now adult Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) as the new menace he’d seen emanating from her room when she was a child begins its assault. Will the Earth survive when Prisoner Zero’s alien jailers threaten to destroy the earth to kill it?
Steven Moffat begins his run as head writer and showrunner with a tale of a child’s imaginary friend and what happens when he returns to her as an adult. With threats happening out of the corner of your eye, with menace lurking where you least expect it and a wry, often dark humour replacing RTD’s slapstick, Moffat explodes series 5 into our consciousness with a script just as sharp as expected. The real revelations are Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor and Karen Gillan, whose chemistry easily rivals Tennant’s and Piper’s, the former in only one episode bringing a truly fresh approach to The Doctor. It’s easy to see how he defeated his rivals for the role, owning every scene he’s in – bonkers and young one minute, an old man out of his time the next; very human one minute, quite alien the next. It feels entirely fresh, entirely true to what’s gone before, and Moffat even has him walking through holograms of his preceding personalities, establishing himself quite authoritatively as someone quite new by the end of the episode. The tone is spot on, the production values give it valuable extra weight, and Moffat was telling the truth when he said every episode wouldn’t turn out as dark as Blink; the crackpot whimsy he uses to launch his run is a delight. We do however have the Weeping Angels to look forward to in three weeks…
The new Tardis is insane, far bigger than ever before, with no right angles, and cobbled together with retro chic. It’s a wonderful evolution, whilst again remaining true to what’s gone before. What stories Moffat wants to tell in that space is anyone’s guess, and don’t miss the oscilloscope on the new console. Amy thinks Eleven has latched onto her by accident, but he and the Tardis already knew about the crack in space in her wall. What’s his real motive, and for that matter is Amy all she appears to be? A conspiracy is set up to run through the next three months:
“The cracks in the skin of the universe – don’t you know where they came from? You don’t, do you? The Doctor and the TARDIS doesn’t know. The universe is cracked. The Pandorica will open. Silence will fall.”
With the impending return of River (‘Alex Kingston’) Song, we can only guess. I’ll admit I hate the new title sequence, but everything apart from that has been a true delight. Welcome to the new Who era!
Tenth Doctor Says ‘Don’t Vote Tory’
David Tennant, a long-time supporter of the Labour Party has come out sharply against David Cameron:
David Tennant has urged people not to vote Tory, warning that life under David Cameron would be a “terrifying prospect” for the future of Britain.
The Doctor Who star branded the Conservative leader a phoney who jumps on every bandwagon going and insists Gordon Brown is the man best placed to look after the interests of all Brits, not just a privileged few.
In an emotionally charged interview, Tennant said: “Clearly, the Labour Party is not without some issues right now and I do get frustrated. They need to sort some stuff out, but they’re still a better bet than the Tories.
“I would rather have Gordon Brown than David Cameron. I would rather have a Prime Minister who is the cleverest person in the room than a Prime Minister who looks good in a suit.
“I think David Cameron is a terrifying prospect. I think he’s a regional newsreader who will jump on whatever bandwagon flies past.
“I get quite panicked that people are buying his rhetoric, because it seems very manipulative.”
It’s a great line, and one which skillfully bypasses Brown’s numerous deficiencies. And it’s going to be a decisive issue in May. Whilst there are terrible things being done in the name of New Labour (Digital Economy Bill, ID cards, ISA, policing), the same would be true under the Tories but far worse. Gutting the BBC as well? Chumming up with the vilest racists and homophobes in the EU Parliament? Repealing the Human Rights Act? No thanks. I’m with The Doctor on this.
Doctor Who Series 5 Trailer (Spoilers)
David Tennant and the Tenth Doctor are no more, and Russell T Davies is no longer in charge of Doctor Who. Was Davies the saviour of the franchise? Without a doubt, and all of us who love the show owe him a debt of gratitude which can’t be repaid, but in more recent years his writing quality has shown a marked decline in quality. The show’s never lost its entertainment value, particularly because Tennant is such a good actor (and is unquestionably the Doctor of this generation), but Davies’ writing has often been quite painful. No doubt there have been good reasons (Torchwood: Children of Earth showed just how good he can still be), but part 1 of The End of Time was a recent example of just how bad things had got.
I’m going to see the Tennant run out by warmly welcoming new show boss Steven Moffat and Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith to control of the franchise, and offer you the trailer for series 5 which went online this evening. I don’t believe for a moment that we have anything to worry about with these two at the helm; far from it. I am convinced the show’s glory days are ahead of it. We’re going to be lucky enough for Moffat to pen a sequel to his much lauded Blink? April can’t come quickly enough…
