Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Dalek

Dear Gary—
Dalek. There could not be a Doctor Who revival without a reboot of the Daleks. Classic Who Daleks ran the gamut from terrifying to laughable; kids hid from them behind sofas and taunted them as pepper pots. How do Daleks fit in with this New Who for a new age?
The new Doctor for a new age first meets this new Dalek and he is terrified. This might be the one and only time that the Doctor is at a complete loss, totally petrified, you could almost say cowardly. He does not throw a hat over the eyepiece or stand defiantly before him with hands on lapels. He bangs on the door begging to be let out.
“You are the enemy of the Daleks; you must be destroyed,” the Dalek says, speaking for the first time upon recognizing his age old foe. But this Dalek is helpless; chained and helpless; weaponry useless.
“Fantastic,” the Doctor exults, “the great space dustbin.”
Terrifying and laughable in the space of a minute.
And then we get the news: “You’re race is dead! You all burned, all of you. Ten million ships on fire. The entire Dalek race wiped out in one second.”
The devastation of the Time War that haunts this new Doctor also haunts the sole Dalek who has survived. Something new: terrifying, laughable, and now pitiable.
“We are the same,” the Dalek declares.
“We’re not the same! I’m not  . . .” The Doctor pauses. He stops to think. “No, wait; maybe we are,” the Doctor considers. The same? The Doctor the same as a Dalek? “Yeah, okay. You’ve got a point,” the Doctor continues in this line of thought, “’cause I know what to do. I know what should happen. I know what you deserve.” The Doctor stands triumphant. “Exterminate.”
The Doctor and the Dalek relationship of Classic Who turned on its head.
It’s rather an ugly moment for the Doctor. What it does, this moment, is shine a spotlight on those missing years between the Eighth Doctor and the Ninth. “I watched it happen,” the Doctor tells the Dalek. “I made it happen.” The great Time War that saw everyone die, Dalek and Time Lord alike. When he is confronted with the lone survivor of his most ancient and despised enemy, the massive survivor’s guilt he has been carrying with him manifests in hatred and vengeance and all of the emotions usually alien to him. “Why don’t you just die,” he demands of this reminder of all that is lost.
“You would make a good Dalek.”
The trauma of the Time War has left its mark on this new Doctor. Rose is slowly reviving his faith in life but his brush with the past starts to drag him back.
The Dalek undergoes a similar arc. His encounter with the Doctor awakens old rivalries; his absorption of Rose’s DNA transforms him; news of the Time War’s destruction overwhelms him.
Mixtures of Classic, Missing, and New in both the Doctor and the Dalek, with Rose as the reagent.
“I am waiting for orders,” the Dalek says. He is one lone soldier Dalek in need of orders, in the absence of which he reverts to his primary order to exterminate. He is chilling, this lone Dalek; single minded, calculating, manipulative. The Doctor’s assertion that this solitary Dalek can kill the entire population of Salt Lake City is entirely credible. Daleks of old were able to maneuver stairs and navigate through water; Daleks of old were ruthless and merciless; Daleks of old were brilliant engineers and tacticians; Daleks of old conquered entire civilizations and turned on their creator; yet Daleks of old were always vaguely absurd. This Dalek, this one lone single solitary Dalek makes us believe he could take on the Earth and win.
(Except, Gary, if the Dalek downloaded the entire internet it doesn’t necessarily know everything as the Doctor claims; amongst all of the meaningful data it has learned, it has also soaked up a wealth of useless, false, and conflicting information, and good luck, Dalek, sorting that lot out.)
But when it comes time to kill Rose this new Dalek cannot act. He begins to question himself. Rose’s genetic code has not only revived him, it has regenerated him and he starts to feel new feelings and think new thoughts. This is madness for a Dalek, or in the Dalek’s own words, “This is not life; this is sickness.” Even the Doctor has pity for his mortal enemy; the Doctor who had been willing to sacrifice Rose to stop the Dalek; the Doctor who went against all he stands for and armed himself with the biggest gun he could find; the Doctor who uttered that one word that exemplifies a Dalek, “Exterminate;” the Doctor who lost everything and everyone and who has nothing left except bitter hatred. “I’m sorry,” he says.
Pity, mercy, empathy. A new Dalek and a new Doctor. The classic, the missing, and the new jumbled up with Rose as the reagent.
It is too much for this new Dalek; he sees suicide as his only option, the final extermination. The Doctor, on the other hand, drops his weapon, sheds his anger, and returns to his TARDIS: “A little piece of home; better than nothing.” The end of the Time War; the last of the Time Lords. With Rose by his side.
It is a fascinating new perspective on this most classic of Doctor Who rivalries.
I wish I could say that I liked the story of Dalek as much. It’s not that I dislike it; it is just that I cannot warm up to it. Perhaps it is the fault of the dark, claustrophobic, and sterile world of Henry van Statten’s underground bunker; or perhaps it is Henry van Statten himself, along with the other human players in this story, Diana Goddard and Adam Mitchell.
I’ll start with van Statten. Now this is a thoroughly unlikeable guy. I spend most of my time despising him and wondering if a person like this could really exist. There is nothing redeemable about his character, and while that is the point of the character, I find it overpowering; I don’t want to know this guy much less watch him for 45 minutes of TV. As a result, I tend to overlook some of the finer points of development, like the delicate alien instrument that the Doctor has such joy in and that van Statten tosses aside, tired of his new toy already. It is all nicely done, however by now van Statten’s insufferable insensitivity has been rammed down my throat; the finesse doesn’t blend well with the ham-fisted.
Next there is Diana Goddard. She isn’t much better. Sidekicks like this work best if they have some level of sympathy or entertainment value (off of the top of my head from Classic Who—Packer, Marn, Scorby). Diana Goddard has neither. Diana Goddard is a bland mercenary opportunist who well deserves a boss like van Statten (and he an employee like her). The only thing separating her from van Statten is her objection to the loss of life amongst the ranks of her fellow workers. However even this is negated when she orders van Statten’s memory wiped and him abandoned in some random city. She is as callous at that moment as van Statten ever was. I can’t feel any sense of justice at van Statten’s fate and I can’t feel any vindication for Diana Goddard.
Finally there is Adam. Adam, a know-it-all punk, is only bearable by comparison to van Statten and Goddard.  And I find the instant attraction between him and Rose a bit off-putting. The Doctor’s encounter with the Dalek has changed him so much that he allows this braggart aboard the TARDIS, and I have to mention that Rose fights more for Adam than she ever did for her actual boyfriend Mickey.
Despite my best efforts I am finding that I dislike Rose more and more during this current round of viewings. This is actually a strong episode for her, what with her connection with the Dalek and all; yet I continue to find fault with her. For instance, when informed that she is in the year 2012 her first reaction is, “So I should be 26.” Thanks for putting things in perspective for us, Rose. In contrast, the Doctor’s heartfelt reflection on a Cyberman head mounted in a display case: “An old friend of mine. Well, enemy. The stuff of nightmares reduced to an exhibit. I’m getting old.”
This is indicative of a dichotomy in Dalek that I can’t seem to get past. The finesse vs. the ham-fisted; the sincere vs. the disingenuous; the credible vs. the unbelievable. The Doctor and the Dalek are mainly on the side of finesse, sincere, credible. All of the rest tend to fall on the other, except for Rose who falls someplace in the middle.
Let me cite an example, for my own edification if nothing else. The Doctor informs the Commander of the Dalek’s defenses and advises him to have his men concentrate their fire, aiming for the eyepiece which is the Dalek’s weak spot. The Commander replies, “Thank you, Doctor, but I think I know how to fight one single tin robot.” How did this guy rise to his level? This is perfectly sound advice and even if the Doctor had never said a word anybody would come to the same common sense conclusion that a concentration of firepower would be the best defense; furthermore the knowledge of an enemy’s weak point would be welcomed by any commander and exploited, not ignored. This is just an incredibly clumsy way of hitting the audience over the head with the idea that the Doctor is right and van Statten and his men are not only wrong but stupid. In contrast we have the simple but powerful scene of the Dalek withstanding the rain of bullets (that is not being concentrated on his eyepiece or anywhere else for that matter), slowly taking stock of his situation, calmly calculating his best move, and then elevating and brutally electrocuting the entire room; this after restoring the visual and deliberately allowing the Doctor to witness the massacre.
Rather ironic when I think about it. Dalek being beset by this dichotomy given that Classic Who Daleks long have been beset by the terrifying vs. laughable dichotomy. Perhaps it was deliberate. Or perhaps it is just inherent in anything Dalek.
I’ll leave you with that thought, Gary . . .

Friday, January 24, 2014

World War Three

Dear Gary—
“Deadly to humans, maybe,” the Doctor says as he removes the fatal ID card that the Slitheen are using to electrocute the gathered intelligentsia at Downing Street (vaguely reminiscent of the assorted experts in The Day the Earth Stood Still but not really). He then turns the tables, attaching the device to one of the Slitheen, thus effectively disabling the assorted Slitheen who were also menacing Jackie and Rose and Harriet Jones. The Aliens of London cliffhanger resolved; so starts World War Three.
It is a slam bang, action filled first few minutes of the episode, and like so many action adventures it is dependent on the absolute incompetence of both bad guy and good guy alike. Everybody should be dead five times over, but hesitations, dithering, and indulgences in gloating abound and everybody escapes.
Meantime the murdered specialists go unmourned. (“Excuse me, people are dead. This is not the time for making jokes.”  Thank you, Harriet Jones.)
However, like all good action adventure, World War Three sells the improbable.
“What, you? Trapped in your box?” Margaret the Slitheen knows the Doctor is facing the impossible. “Yes, me.” The Doctor knows he can face up to the impossible.
The Doctor’s confidence sells it despite the implausible. The implausible; the ease with which Mickey hacks into the Royal Navy’s database to launch a missile; the use of ‘buffalo’ as the only password used by both UNIT and the Royal Navy; the UN releasing the security code to the Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on the Monitoring of Sugar Standards in Exported Confectionery; a TV anchor getting the news that the UN is going to release the code even before the code has been released. The implausible.
Doctor Who was always keen on the action glossing over the questions. In New Who there is little time to even ask the questions; the action is non-stop.
“Right then, question time.” Except, of course, when the Doctor wants to pause to ask a few questions. And the Doctor uses the most improbable means to pause the action, using a bottle of port to threaten the aliens. The sheer audacity of it stops the Slitheen temporarily; luckily for the Doctor, when they get wise to the trick the Doctor simply activates the steel walls protecting the Cabinet Room he, Rose, and Harriet Jones are standing in.
The walls close, effectively keeping the aliens out but also trapping the Doctor in. It is a nice change of pace from the running around in circles inside Downing Street up to this point. There is a brief respite as the Doctor and company make their own inquiries before the action picks up in the confines of Mickey’s flat. It is a highly suspenseful sequence with the scene switching between the attack in the flat and the Doctor desperately seeking information in his wood paneled cage in order to save Mickey and Jackie; which of course he does in the nick of time with the most unlikely of weapons—vinegar. Questions, action, the unbelievable; all mixed together in classic Doctor Who style.
Then there is that other question hanging in the air, the question Jackie asks of the Doctor: “Is my daughter safe?” Pause. Silence. No answer. “Is she safe? Will she always be safe? Can you promise me that?” Pause. Silence. No answer. The Doctor cannot answer and he does not cover the question with action. It is a pointed moment of non-action. Until, of course, the action catches up with them and the Doctor can thankfully brush aside the question, leaving it hanging in the air unanswered but not forgotten.
Mickey puts his finger on it: “This is what he does, Jacks, that Doctor bloke; everywhere he goes, death and destruction; and he’s got Rose in the middle of it.” The Doctor realizes it as well, and it almost paralyzes him. “I can’t guarantee your daughter will be safe,” he tells Jackie when he discloses that there is a way out of the predicament they face; and to Rose he says, “I could save the world but lose you.” (I do find this a false dilemma, though, since if he doesn’t save the world Rose will be lost regardless.) “This is my life, Jackie,” he tells Rose’s mother, “it’s not fun, it’s not smart, it’s just standing up and making a decision because nobody else will.” Except the Doctor can’t decide, and so the ever dependable Harriet Jones steps in and makes the decision for them all.
This makes me think, Gary. In reviewing these first few stories of Rose and the Ninth Doctor I have noted how each is a flawed or damaged person looking to the other for guidance or redemption. However this episode also is highlighting the deleterious effect each sometimes has on the other.
For the Doctor’s part it is an interesting parallel back to the Fifth Doctor in Earthshock. However in that earlier serial the Doctor’s faith in friendship in his stand against the Cybermen comes across as a newfound strength. In contrast, the Ninth Doctor wallows in his feelings and is immobilized.
As for Rose, Harriet Jones tells the story. “You’re a very violent young woman,” she remarks to Rose. And when Rose explains her insensitivity as being due to her association with the Doctor, Harriet diagnoses, “Well that’s a strange friendship.”
A strange friendship that is still being worked out; expanding horizons and opening outlooks; at the same time feeding egos and inflating defects. And I’m sorry, Gary, but I have to dump on Rose some more; because when the Doctor says, “I could save the world but lose you,” Rose gets off on that; she smiles to herself; that is one ego that doesn’t need feeding.
However, they are beginning to trust one another and to work as a team. The Doctor learns he can count on Rose to sacrifice herself in order to save others (even if there is a supreme sense of self in that self sacrifice). And when in a tight spot she is quick on her feet and the first to start offering suggestions. Her mother and Mickey are right, it is a dangerous world the Doctor is offering Rose, but Rose has acclimated to the alien nature of it and is thriving on the danger. “The first time I stepped in there it was spur of the moment,” she tells the Doctor. “Now I’m signing up. You’re stuck with me.” She has packed her bags and everything. She is fully on board with the Doctor.
It is a natural progression in the life of a young woman to move away from home. Still, though, Rose’s departure feels heartless, and again the Doctor is complicit. Jackie is all set to give in and allows that he is “good in a crisis.” She is even planning on making dinner for him. But the Doctor won’t meet her half way; he gives Rose no choice but to leave with him at once. Rose makes a half hearted protest before rushing to pack.
“Don’t go sweetheart,” Jackie pleads to deaf ears.
Mickey fares a little better. After helping to save the world, the Doctor treats him with a modicum of respect and even offers to take Mickey aboard the TARDIS. It is too soon for Mickey, however. He requests that the Doctor help him to save face with Rose, and when Rose repeats the offer to join their ventures the Doctor states that Mickey is not welcome. Rose never misses a beat, shrugs, says ‘so sorry,’ and runs off, leaving Jackie and Mickey once again.
She is a thoughtless and selfish young woman who thinks she means well, and it is heartbreaking to watch as Jackie counts out the ten seconds for Rose’s promised return and then leaves when the time expires; and even more heartbreaking that Mickey stays behind, forever waiting.
The Jackie and Mickey story in World War Three is more than heartbreaking, though. It is heartwarming as well. The arc of their relationship, from the previous episode to this, is much more meaningful and enriching than that of the Doctor and Rose. “You saved my life,” Jackie says to Mickey; “God, that’s embarrassing.” From antagonists, the two slowly progress towards friendship as they experience not only the life and death nature of the Doctor’s world, but as they experience the range of very human emotions associated with Rose’s return and departure.
“Do it then,” Mickey tells Jackie, daring her to stop him from launching the missile that might very well end her daughter’s life but save the world. He stops, turns to Jackie, stares her in the eyes, and demands, “Do it then.” Stop me; I can save the world but lose Rose; stop me; it is a silent, desperate plea. They stare into one another’s souls. Mickey returns to the Doctor on the phone and his work on the computer. “Do it then.” A subtler and deeper moment than Rose’s more melodramatic “Do it” to the Doctor when he outlines his plans to save the day that could get her killed.
Mickey and Jackie, the unsung heroes of World War Three.
And then there is Harriet Jones. “Harriet Jones, who does she think she is?” Jackie Tyler might not think much of her, and Rose and the Doctor might be the splashier heroes, but Harriet Jones, “architect of Britain’s Golden Age,” is a true hero and deserves the recognition.
Mickey and Jackie and Harriet Jones.  This trio alone makes World War Three worth watching. The action holds my attention, the Doctor and Rose keep my interest, and the Slitheen entertain me. Mickey and Jackie and Harriet Jones, however, stand out above them all.
And so I send this out, Gary; like Mickey, forever waiting . . .

Monday, January 20, 2014

Aliens of London

Dear Gary—
“This is what I travel for, Rose, to see history happening right in front of us.” I’m dubious about that statement. The Doctor just came from ‘History’ but didn’t get any more than a tourist’s eye view. Before that he had taken Rose to the end of the world but missed the big moment because he was busy saving lives. I don’t doubt the absolute joy he experiences as the alien spacecraft crashes into Big Ben; it’s just that for a time traveler who has been at this for 900 years, the actual moments of standing back to watch as history unfolds seem to be few and far between.
And this ‘history’ that he is witnessing in Aliens of London is dubious in itself, as uncertain as the Doctor’s age.  “Aliens are faking aliens,” as Dr. Sato says. Or, “They’ve taken this animal and turned it into a joke,” as the Doctor says. Like mermaids of old; faked history; history as a joke. That’s a bit of a problem with Aliens of London. I’m as delighted as the Doctor in watching events unfold, but I’m also hesitant in embracing it, much like the Doctor who realizes all is not as it appears.
Even the TV reporter knows: “With respect, hardly the most important person right now.”I find it highly unlikely that during a moment of national crisis the Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on the Monitoring of Sugar Standards in Exported Confectionary is going to be trusted to take command even if the Prime Minister is missing in action. Although the rest of the Cabinet can’t make it into the city, in this day and age of computers, teleconferencing, and cell phones, there are bound to be a host of candidates better qualified and with more clout on hand to take charge from wherever they are stranded. Yet no one, other than the commentator, thinks twice about Joseph Green and his collection of equally low to mid level drones seizing authority.
I just don’t buy it. This is manufactured drama just as much as the spaceship crash is manufactured history.
This is Doctor Who and I suppose we can make allowances for sci-fi television; however this is Doctor Who for a new age and Doctor Who trying to establish itself as grown-up and real. In this context Aliens of London does not work. This is where some shoddy effects and rubber-suited monsters would come in handy. Perhaps this is what accounts for the gaseous Slitheen (and I don’t mean gaseous ala the Gelth). The over-the-top, giggling, larger-than-life, irreverent aliens. This accounts for the “Excuse me, do you mind not farting while I’m saving the world,” comment. This is Doctor Who, the new Doctor Who, poking holes in its own pretense.
I’m not sure, though.
I’ll take a cue from Harriet Jones (one of my all-time favorite Doctor Who characters): “I know we’ve had a brave new world land right on our doorstep, and that’s wonderful. I think that’s probably wonderful. Nevertheless, ordinary life keeps ticking away.” This New Who is a brave new Who, and that is probably wonderful. Nevertheless, ordinary Doctor Who keeps ticking away. Ordinary Who, the day in and day out, the week after week, year after year, age after age, Doctor after Doctor; regardless of budget, regardless of effects, regardless of posturing. I’ll trust in the long term and let the present spectacle play out and enjoy, but with a grain of salt.
I do enjoy Aliens of London (in large part thanks to Penelope Wilton’s Harriet Jones), but I have some nagging concerns with both the Doctor and Rose. Mostly Rose, but I’ll start with the Doctor.
“I’m not interfering,” the Doctor tells Rose when he tires of watching news on the telly and heads out for a seeming stroll, “because you’ve got to handle this on your own. That’s when the human race finally grows up. Just this morning you were all tiny and small and made of clay. Now you can expand.” I take issue with this because firstly, he is of course going to interfere; he has just told Rose this to keep her quiet and send her off and out of the way while he goes to poke his nose into the ‘history’ in the making. But secondly, and more importantly, I take issue with this because—how condescending is that? “Finally grows up” indeed; “tiny and small” indeed. Just because the human race hasn’t encountered aliens? Tiny and small?
 But then the show has always been rather condescending towards mankind and imagining all types of alien beings (usually malevolent) who have to aid our ancestors in their intellectual development. And the Doctor is a Time Lord, far superior in intellect and experience, and to him I suppose we are tiny and small.
Arrogance has always been in the Doctor’s makeup and is understandable in him. It is a different matter with Rose, however. I have already noted Rose’s self-absorption from the inception of the new series. In Aliens of London it is never more evident or more unappealing.
“I’ve seen all that stuff up there, the size of it, and I can’t say a word,” Rose states, seemingly lamenting the fact that she has no one to confide in. But then she continues, “Aliens and spaceships and things, and I’m the only person on planet Earth who knows they exist.” This is fine as far as it goes, but then the spaceship crashes and her reaction: “Oh, that’s just not fair.” She no longer is The Most Important Person On Earth Because She Is The Only One In The Know. Poor Rose.
Of course, she never was the only person who knows about aliens. There are your requisite number of ‘nutters’ like Clive from Rose, and there are the various actual experts such as congregate at Downing Street in this episode; but aside from those, there is Mickey. Mickey who was with her as first hand witness during Rose’s first adventure with the Doctor. But then Rose has no more thought for this boy she calls friend than she has for your average stranger on the street.
Twelve months she has been gone without a word. Granted, when the Doctor first returns her home she believes she has only been gone twelve hours, but once she greets her grief-stricken mother and discovers the error, she still thinks only of herself.
“Every day I looked,” Mickey says of that long year she was missing. “On every street corner, wherever I went, looking for a blue box for a whole year.” Rose never sympathizes, she simply makes excuses: “It’s only been a few days for me.” And then she has the nerve to ask this young man she calls a friend, “So, er, in twelve months, have you been seeing anyone else?” And then to cap everything she lays this devastating bit on him in describing the Doctor: “He’s not my boyfriend, Mickey. He’s better than that. He’s much more important than . . .” Better than a boyfriend; better than Mickey; better than the unimportant, not-even-worthy-of-a-phone-call-after-a-year-away Mickey.
Rose’s treatment of her mother is only slightly better; Rose dismisses her, too, as being beneath her. Why exactly can’t she tell her mother where she has been? I suppose Jackie is not worthy of honesty. Rose would rather maintain her supreme sense of self-importance. Then, when Jackie does learn the truth, Rose lets her run off scared and confused so that she can return to the Doctor, again ignoring Mickey, in order to discuss aliens, because apparently the Doctor is still the only one she can talk to about these things even when those closest to her are also now in the know. Rose has no one to blame but herself for Jackie turning the Doctor in to the authorities.
I blame the Doctor as being complicit in this as well. He blatantly belittles Jackie and Mickey; however Rose does little to defend them.
Finally, let’s examine Rose with a stranger off the street. Harriet Jones offers to take Rose under her wing when Rose is refused entrance with the Doctor into the inner circle (the effrontery). When alone, Harriet begins to break down as she tells Rose about the horrors she has witnessed. Rose has absolutely no clue how to react to a distraught person and can only tentatively reach out her arms in comfort.
Don’t get me wrong, Gary. I don’t dislike Rose. I just view her as deeply flawed and not as the heroic angel she deems herself. I never really delved this deeply into Rose’s character before, either. I always vaguely considered her self-centered, but I never saw her insensitivity to this degree before now. I will definitely keep my eyes open over the course of her stay with the Doctor to see if she improves.
I just want to make a few brief observations more about this story. It’s nice to see UNIT again, although alas without the Brigadier. The Bad Wolf theme is repeated in the form of graffiti on the TARDIS; I don’t mind this unobtrusive arc loosely tying together the season; it is harmless enough and only mildly annoying. For the second episode in a row I am reminded of The Talons of Weng-Chiang, the mermaid like pig creature reminiscent of the Peking Homunculus. Finally, we have a return to the cliffhanger ending, with The Aliens of London being the first part of a two part story.
And so I send this out, Gary, hanging on the cliff . . .

Friday, January 17, 2014

The Unquiet Dead

Dear Gary—
“Here we go. History.” We’ve had the present and the future, The Unquiet Dead brings us the past. This is not the historical of William Hartnell, however. Those days are long gone.
“You can go back and see days that are dead and gone, a hundred thousand sunsets ago,” Rose says before stepping out of the TARDIS and into what she believes is 1860 Naples but turns out to be 1869 Cardiff (I love how the TARDIS still doesn’t quite get it right). But the time period is just a backdrop; the tidal wave of history never does engulf them as it would that earlier Doctor.
What The Unquiet Dead does, however, is engulf history, in the persons of Charles Dickens and the servant girl Gwyneth, in the Doctor’s time swirl. A new twist on the historical, but with some good old fashioned Doctor Who fun.
“What phantasmagoria is this?”
Christmas—Dickens—ghosts—what could be more fun?
We meet Dickens near the end of his life; Christmas Eve 1869; brooding in his dressing room about the sad and lonely rut he is living; the creative spark is dying. Then he meets the Doctor and inspiration returns.
“What the Shakespeare is going on?” The game’s afoot and Dickens throws himself into the adventure, fighting against his natural skepticism along the way. He is initially drawn in by the gushing Doctor’s enthusiasm (“Number one fan, that’s me”).  Then he is affronted by the Doctor who dismisses his doubts and he therefore begins an investigation on his own. He is slowly converted by an apologetic Doctor who begins to explain things on a logical, scientific level. “Can it be that I have the world entirely wrong?” Dickens enquires. “Not wrong,” the Doctor replies. “There’s just more to learn.” With the evidence of his own eyes before him, Dickens believes; however: “This new world of yours is too much for me.” The Doctor’s time swirl engulfs him and he fights against it as it carries him along, fearful of drowning. But then the light bulb goes on (or more accurately the gas flame), and armed with the knowledge the Doctor has imparted along with his own intellect, he dives back in and saves the day. (“I hope that this theory will be validated soon.”)
The real hero, though, is Gwyneth; Gwyneth the lowly servant girl with second sight, calmly going about her daily work that is far from routine.
“Mister Sneed, for shame,” she quietly chastises her mortician employer when told that yet another corpse has become animated. “How many more times? It’s ungodly.” Loyally she follows Sneed through the streets, tapping in to her secret gift to track their errant cadaver. When the Doctor arrives with his answers about the rift and the trapped gas creatures, Gwyneth lets the information wash over her; at last she has an explanation for the voices in her head, for the angels that sing to her. She takes it all in on the same even keel as she lives her life. And with the same composure she sacrifices herself to save others. 
“She saved the world,” Rose says. “A servant girl. No one will ever know.” The unsung hero. Dickens is assured that his books will go on forever; Gwyneth is not only forgotten, she was never known. That is the story of history—great men and small, the famous and the anonymous, all making their equally important contributions, some to loud acclaim and some to nameless silence.
But The Unquiet Dead is not about history. The Doctor and Rose come swirling in to the lives of Dickens and Gwyneth; it matters little if they landed in 1860 Naples or 1869 Cardiff or 2014 Milwaukee, for that matter. They swirl into peoples’ lives, uncover an alien plot much like any other they happen upon, and swirl back off, on to the next adventure. The time and place have not much more than a tourist impact on them.
They take a moment to soak in the snow covered streets, the carolers, the horse drawn carriages; but then they hear a scream and the Doctor exclaims, “That’s more like it,” and he tosses away the newspaper he had casually picked up. The Doctor delights in meeting Charles Dickens; but then he tells him to shut up when Dickens writes off the possessed body as an illusion. Rose gets decked out in the best period costume the TARDIS wardrobe has to offer, but it is the outer trappings only that she dons; she never tries to understand or relate to Gwyneth on Gwyneth’s own terms.
What we do get in The Unquiet Dead is a deeper insight into the Doctor’s and Rose’s characters.
I’ll start with Rose. In her dealings with Gwyneth, Rose displays more of that patronizing Lady Bountiful attitude that she adopted with Mickey at the end of the first episode. She starts to draw Gwyneth out, but Rose is more interested in reforming and shaping Gwyneth than in truly getting to know her. Rose feels that she knows what is best for Gwyneth regardless of Gwyneth.
Gwyneth: “Don’t I get a say, Miss?”
Rose: “Look, you don’t understand what’s going on.”
Gwyneth: “You would say that, Miss, because that’s very clear inside your head, that you think I’m stupid.”
Gwyneth perceives more about Rose from their brief acquaintance than Rose gets about Gwyneth, even when Rose makes a great show and effort at familiarity.
“Things might be very different where you’re from,” Gwyneth continues, putting her finger on Rose’s parochial viewpoint, “but here and now I know my own mind.”
Rose is young, only nineteen; the Doctor is starting to expand her world, but she is still full of herself and her preconceived principles. The Doctor points this out to her when they discuss the Gelth desire to inhabit human corpses. “It’s a different morality. Get used to it or go home,” he tells her.
The Doctor has his own issues to work through. We have been given hints about the Time War that destroyed the Doctor’s home and people. With his interaction with the Gelth we begin to comprehend the extent of his survivor’s guilt. It is this which causes him to misread the Gelth; he is so anxious to atone that he therefore takes the Gelth at their word and pities them, thus placing Gwyneth and the world in grave danger. He has his doubts, suddenly displayed at the last moment, but it is too late. Confidently Gwyneth stands in the archway, the heart of the rift, and the Gelth reveal their true intentions. It is not the Doctor’s best moment, but it is understandable and forgivable. In hindsight, Sneed and Gwyneth should have mentioned the fact that the first Gelth they encountered in the old woman killed her grandson. This might have given them pause before trusting the Gelth so completely. But the Doctor is clearly still shell shocked, so perhaps not.
“I’m so glad I met you,” the Doctor tells Rose when they are facing death together. “Me too,” she replies. They need each other; they each have much to teach the other. Rose is the Doctor’s lifeline in his lonely and guilt-ridden journey; the Doctor is Rose’s sage guide on her path to maturity.
In a way, The Unquiet Dead reminds me of The Talons of Weng-Chiang with its blend of period piece, fun, and serious; although Dead is not quite up to the standard set by Weng-Chiang. I am impressed, however, with the new series so far. With shorter, more action based stories, the show still manages to develop character and indulge wit and humor.
And so I send this out, Gary, into that swirl of the Doctor’s that sweeps into people’s lives, changing them forever . . .

Monday, January 13, 2014

The End of the World

Dear Gary—
“He’s blue.”
The first story Rose introduces characters; the second, The End of the World, introduces aliens. Lots of them. Including the blue steward Rose refers to. It is still about the characters though; the Doctor and Rose; their separate identities and their budding relationship.
“They’re just so alien,” Rose tells the Doctor, overwhelmed by all of the strange “ladies and gentlemen and trees and multiforms.” Like Ian and Barbara before her, Rose is processing the enormity of the Doctor’s world. Unlike Ian and Barbara, however, Rose is a willing traveler. “I just sort of hitched a lift with this man,” she tells Raffalo, realizing for the first time the rashness of her decision. And amongst all of these extraterrestrials she begins to wonder about the Doctor. “What sort of alien are you?” she asks him.
It is the question, isn’t it? As Ian posed so long ago: “Who is he? Doctor who?”
With eight preceding generations the Doctor has plenty of history for the audience to draw upon. Yet this ninth persona is an enigma. Who is he? Doctor who?
“This is who I am, right here, right now, all right? All that counts is here and now, and this is me.” The question makes the Ninth Doctor defensive. This Doctor has deep secrets to hide, dark tragedies he would rather forget. Buried beneath a confident, cocky, carefree demeanor.
On her first journey with him, the Doctor is out to impress Rose. One hundred, even ten thousand years in the future is not enough. The Doctor spins wheels and pushes levers on the TARDIS control panel and presents Rose with “the year five point five slash apple slash twenty six.” The day the Sun expands—the end of the world. It is wonderful, exciting, awe inspiring; it is also sad, catastrophic, tragic. In the same way as is the Doctor.
The Doctor is clearly delighting in the festive atmosphere, and it makes the subtle, underlying pathos all that more effective.
This complement of moods is embodied by a couple of bookending speeches by the Doctor. To begin the adventure the Doctor offers this hopeful sentiment:
“You lot, you spend all your time thinking about dying, like you’re going to get killed by eggs or beef or global warming or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible, that maybe you survive.”
He ends with this bit of mourning:
“You think it’ll last forever, people and cars, and concrete; but it won’t. One day it’s all gone; even the sky. My planet’s gone. It’s dead. It burned like the Earth. It’s just rocks and dust before its time.”
Now you well know, Gary, that I am not a big fan of the Time Lords. However, this revelation that Gallifrey is gone is monumental and heartbreaking and goes a long way in clarifying this new Doctor’s angst.
In between the bookends is a story of aliens and of Earth.
The rich and powerful of the universe have gathered on Platform One to witness the latest artistic event—Earth’s destruction. Hence the collection of aliens. In addition to the blue steward, we meet The Face of Boe, Jabe of the Forest of Cheem, the Adherents of the Repeated Meme, the Moxx of Balhoon, and the last human Lady Cassandra O’Brien. In the midst of this impressive collection are a saboteur and a whodunit right up the Doctor’s alley.
The Adherents of the Repeated Meme are the obvious villain; too obvious. They are actually the front men for the real culprit, the equally obvious Lady Cassandra.
Cassandra is superb. A special effects creature of nothing more than stretched skin with mouth, nose, and eyes; all the acting is in the voice; Zoe Wanamaker conveys the vanity and smugness of this nipped and tucked monstrosity to perfection.
Jabe is also excellently portrayed. The sympathy that develops between her and the Doctor is touching, and she affords us some of the first glimpses into the Doctor’s secrets. “Perhaps a man only enjoys trouble when there’s nothing else left,” she tells him and discloses that she knows where he is from. “Forgive me for intruding,” she says, “but it’s remarkable that you even exist. I just wanted to say how sorry I am.” The Doctor’s heartfelt and understated reactions to her reveal volumes about him.
 There is just the right dose of action as well. The race against the descending filter with Rose facing the deadly rays of the exploding sun is sufficiently tense. The positioning of the system restore switch is too conveniently located and the resultant need for the Doctor to maneuver his way past the increasingly rapid fan blades a bit of a head scratcher and makes Jabe’s heroic and poignant death much too contrived, but nonetheless the scene bristles with suspense. All the while the “Earth death in . . .” announcements contribute to the sense of doom.
Then there are the familiar touches, the new elements, and the humor. All the things that make up Doctor Who. Like the sonic screwdriver; or the psychic paper; or talking to twigs. Like the TARDIS; or Bad Wolf; or “jiggery pokery.”
The Doctor has brought Rose to a world both alien and familiar. Surrounded by blue men with the strains of Tainted Love ringing in her ears. Seated on the observation deck of a space satellite with the view of ‘Classic Earth’ before her eyes.
The Doctor, Rose discovers, is the most alien of all.
“Everything has its time and everything dies.” The Doctor can watch as Cassandra explodes. “Help her,” Rose pleads. Rose can feel compassion for the “bitchy trampoline” but the Doctor has no pity, not for her.  There is an understandable well of anger mixed in with the confidence and the pathos. “Everything has its time and everything dies.” The Earth had its time. Gallifrey wasn’t allowed to live out its natural time. Cassandra has lived well past her allotted time.
“The end of the Earth,” Rose realizes when the dust finally settles. “It’s gone. We were too busy saving ourselves. No one saw it go. All those years, all that history, and no one was even looking.”
All those years; all that history; the end of the Earth. The end of the Doctor’s adopted home. The end of his own planet has already come and gone, before its time. He can’t go back. But he can return Rose to a bustling London street full of life.
“I’m the only survivor,” he tells Rose at last. “I’m the last of the Time Lords.” Standing in a crowd of people the Doctor is alone. “I’m left traveling on my own ‘cause there’s no one else.”
Except: “There’s me.”
Rose’s first decision to run after the Doctor and into the TARDIS was a hasty one. She has now had time to consider. She is back on her home planet. He once again sets the choice before her. The Doctor is alien to her; and yet he is rapidly becoming most familiar. Can there be any doubt?
Everything has its time, Gary . . .

Friday, January 10, 2014

Rose

Dear Gary—
Now this is a Doctor Who reboot done right. It has enough familiarity for long time fans eagerly anticipating its debut, yet it embraces a fresh audience. For this it takes a couple cues from the original serial, An Unearthly Child. It introduces the Doctor as a man of mystery, and it provides a companion the audience can identify with and who can get to know the Doctor along with us. However, with its new 45 minute, single episode format and its emphasis on special effects and action, it also breaks free of old molds and updates the formula for the modern generation. This is a newly regenerated Doctor Who.
The historical importance of Rose within the context of the Doctor Who universe cannot be overstated. Instead of a rebirth this just as easily could have been a burial. The story itself almost doesn’t even matter, although it is decent enough. The show had to hit the ground running with a Doctor and a companion, and the first word out of the Doctor’s mouth is literally “Run.” Fantastic.
The Doctor and his companion(s) are the heart of the show. It is vital that they get it right. Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper get it right. The Doctor and Rose holding hands is a recurring theme throughout Rose; it is a simple way to effectively and efficiently convey the bond they share; but it would be meaningless if the actors did not inhabit the roles to the extent they do.
I’ll begin with Rose because the show does, and after all, she is the Rose of the title. Rose Tyler is an average young woman bored with her lot but nonetheless content to live out her daily routine. Keeping her grounded are her mother Jackie and boyfriend Mickey. It is important for the audience to connect with Rose, and what better way than to establish her home, family, friends; to let us in on her habits, customs, schedule. We see her as an ordinary person, our self or someone we know. She is an underachiever lacking ambition. Until the Doctor advises her to run for her life. The moment she grabs hold of his hand she is changed forever, and we are whisked along with her.
She and we are whisked along on an adventure of a lifetime because of the Doctor. He reaches out his hand; he says, “Run;” and we trust him. Rose holds on and she runs; she places her faith in him; he is the Doctor. Christopher Eccleston is the Doctor. That one moment, his first moment, is his most defining for me and one of the reasons I place him so highly in my rankings (third). Bridging the huge void in time since the last Doctor, Christopher Eccleston reaches out his hand, says “Run,” and we trust him. He is the Doctor.
And he is an obviously newly regenerated Doctor. His first chance to glance in a mirror and he checks himself out: “Ah, could have been worse. Look at the ears.” A brief and almost lost in the moment nod to lifers. (But then I have to wonder, if he is newly regenerated, how is his image as prolific throughout history as Clive later reveals; I suppose it has to be put down to that ever convenient excuse of the wibbly wobbly nature of time.)
Because there is such a wide gulf between Doctors, I love how this re-launch lends an air of ambiguity to the beloved character that is otherwise so very familiar to his loyal fans. There is an untold story of those missing years, and the show promises the slow unraveling of the obscure new layers of complexity that are currently shrouding the established mythos.
The reveal, for old fan and new, will come through Rose’s eyes.
 “Who are you?” Rose is asking the question on everybody’s mind. “Told you,” the Doctor replies; “the Doctor.” That is all. The Doctor. “Yeah, but Doctor what,” Rose persists. “Just the Doctor,” is the reply. “The Doctor,” Rose reiterates. “Is that supposed to sound impressive,” she continues. “Sort of,” the Doctor responds.
The Doctor. A world of history and of mystery wrapped up in those words.
There is a feeling of vulnerability and pain beneath the confident veneer of the Doctor. A loneliness that Rose steps into. The Doctor tries to rebuff her but she remains. Just as much as she needs him to break her free of her rut, he needs her to fill the empty abyss of his future.
The Doctor ushers Rose out of the soon to explode department store and seemingly out of his life; he trails the plastic and finds her again; he leaves the flat and she follows. She asks the questions we all are wondering; he answers and she doesn’t believe; but she sticks with him.
“Do you believe me,” the Doctor asks. “No,” she replies. “But you’re still listening,” he comments.
That is the essence of their relationship to start. He is alien; her human mind cannot accept; she persists. Rose’s quick and inquisitive mind is what draws her to the Doctor and what draws the Doctor to her.
He is immediately impressed when they first meet and Rose assumes the attacking store mannequins are students playing a prank. “To get that many people dressed up and being silly, they got to be students,” she reasons. “That makes sense; well done,” the Doctor compliments despite it being wide of the mark. Her human mind is still trying to make logical sense of the alien nature of the happenings around her, and the Doctor respects that.
“Really, though, Doctor. Tell me, who are you?”
Rose’s doggedness rewards her with this poetical response from the Doctor:
 “Do you know like we were saying about the Earth revolving? It’s like when you were a kid. The first time they tell you the Earth’s turning and you just can’t quite believe it because everything looks like its standing still. I can feel it. The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and the entire planet is hurtling round the sun at sixty seven thousand miles an hour, and I can feel it. We’re falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go . . . .”
It is a beautiful non answer that defines the Doctor like no other.
“That’s who I am,” he concludes. “Now forget me, Rose Tyler. Go home.”
But this answer haunts her, and eventually Rose’s quest leads her to Clive. The whole Clive aspect of the story is a bit shaky in my opinion. “He’s a nutter,” Rose ultimately concludes, and that about sums him up. His website of intrigue and tissue of nebulous proof is unlikely. The picture of the Doctor witnessing the Kennedy assassination screams of photoshopping, and the ancient hand drawings are suspect. I cannot believe that this Clive person actually has stumbled upon evidence of the true Doctor, especially such a short-lived persona of the Doctor. This entire section of the episode rings false; as false as Clive’s claims. Nevertheless, Clive is a fascinating character brought to life for a fraction of screen time only to meet an expediently ironic demise.
The Autons (unnamed in this serial) and the Nestene Consciousness are the villains of the piece and the means of Clive’s untimely death. Last seen in the Pertwee years (Spearhead From Space and Terror of the Autons) they are the perfect monsters to shepherd in this new era. Rose is all about the Doctor and Rose and their budding relationship; to have an iconic antagonist on the scale of the Daleks or the Master or the Cybermen would take away from this dynamic. The Autons and the Nestene Consciousness provide the necessary nostalgia without distracting from the focal point of the story.
They also provide the necessary fright factor. Let’s face it, mannequins coming to life and crashing through plate glass windows would cause a panic in any crowd.
However I do have to question the final outcome. The deep, dark, mysterious Doctor is ineffectual when it comes right down to it. He arrives armed with diplomacy and anti-plastic, which is commendable, but a couple of plastic dummies are able to incapacitate him with little trouble. “You were useless in there,” Rose rightly accuses. “You’d be dead if it wasn’t for me.” Rose, with her bronze in gymnastics, knocks the Autons and the Doctor’s anti-plastic into the vat with the controlling Nestene. Now I would think that with a little Venusian Aikido the Doctor could have done just the same, but instead he stands wide eyed and useless while Rose swings through the air in her feat of derring-do.
But as I said, the plot is secondary; the establishment of the Doctor/Rose connection is the main point of Rose, and in that regard, having Rose save the Doctor (as well as the world) is eloquently symbolic. The Doctor reaching out his hand to Rose is this scarred and tortured Doctor grasping for a lifeline.
“I don’t know, you could come with me,” the Doctor offers to Rose as he prepares to leave. “You could stay here, fill your life with work and food and sleep, or you could go anywhere.” He lays the choice clearly out before her.
The Doctor was rendered uncharacteristically helpless by the Autons, but here is where Rose displays a character flaw that I find more troubling. Rose is a thoroughly self-centered person. “Oh, suddenly the entire world revolves around you,” the Doctor had charged earlier in the episode, putting his finger on her egotistical bent. Later, an obviously plastic Mickey who is behaving oddly to say the least is completely overlooked by his self-absorbed girlfriend. And now, here at the end as the Doctor offers her adventures beyond imagining, she at first declines because she decides that her loved ones cannot do without her. But when the Doctor points out that the TARDIS can travel in time as well as space, she basically tells Mickey ‘Thanks for nothing’ and decides that she can do perfectly well without them. Now I don’t think this was necessarily intended, but that is the way I read it.
Some minor defects in an otherwise wonderful revamp.
I am excited to be embarking on this new epoch, Gary and I send this out as ever in hope . . .

Monday, January 6, 2014

The TV Movie

Dear Gary—
Doctor Who the TV Movie is just bad. There’s no getting around it. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. The trouble with Doctor Who the TV Movie is that it is insincere in its sincerity. It plays lip service homage to Doctor Who all the while operating under the misguided attempt to pander to ratings and the lowest common denominator audience. As a result it is bad. Not just bad, it is awful.
However it does not outrage me as it did back in 1996 when it aired for the first time. Back then the one thing that I took away from it and that left a sour taste was the romance. The Doctor, I raved, does not get intimate with his companions.
However, recent viewings reveal that the ‘romance’ is not as blatant as I remembered; in fact it is rather sweet, at least on the Doctor’s part. I’m not so sure about Grace, though. And that is one of the things making this bad. Rather than taking time to allow the audience to get to know her, Grace is handed to us with a cutout character. Like the single perfect tear rolling down her cheek when she lowers her opera glasses. Come on. That whole opening opera sequence with Grace decked out in her finest ball gown is contrivance at its most convenient. It is a shortcut way to present this fairy princess heroine to us on a silver platter. But I can only wonder why she would get all made up and spend money (or let her boyfriend spend money) on prime seats for Madame Butterfly, which she obviously passionately wants to see, when she is on call at the hospital. I guess there were no pre-show announcements back then about turning off all electronic devices.
What about that long-suffering boyfriend Brian? He apparently is a dull fellow and hardly worthy of our saintly Dr. Grace Holloway. It must be so because when she returns home to find him gone the only thing she is upset about is that he took the sofa. (And really, he took the sofa but left behind his shoes?) He has threatened to leave in the past, according to the derisive comments of Grace’s co-workers, so I guess this is no surprise to her; but she has been content to live with him for what must have been quite some time for them to have been so settled in their home together. What was she staying with him for? His sofa?
Then, mere hours after her live-in boyfriend has left her, and only hours after meeting a man (the Doctor) who breaks into her house and who frightens her and who she thinks is mad, she suddenly, in mid motorcycle ride, decides that this is the man of her dreams. I have serious doubts about this woman’s depth of feeling.
I do like the actress, and she does the best she can with what she is handed, but what she is handed is a shallow script that tells us she is a wonderful person but in doing so showcases some questionable personality traits.
Worse than this, though, is the sanitized violence of the production, personified by Chang Lee. Chang Lee is a member of a vicious street gang and involved in a fierce gunfight to begin our tale; yet Chang Lee comes across as a clean-cut boy next door. We are supposed to care about this young thug; we are supposed to believe that this gangbanger has a good heart and is simply duped by the Master.  Doctor Who the TV Movie wants to be hardened and sentimental at the same time. The sugar coated realism doesn’t work.
Then there is the Master. The Master in Doctor Who the TV Movie is the reverse of the aforementioned candy land approach. Classic Who Master always was a bit sugar coated, and arguably this is a fault of Classic Who. The TV Movie presents us with a truly evil villain and calls him the Master, and while the Master always was evil and should have been more evil than he came across, this unredeemable and relentless heavy of the Movie is over the top bad and I can’t quite believe he is the Master. The Master by any other name . . . but then again, the name alone does not make the man.
Next we come to the plot. Classic Who has its share of clunker scripts with gaping holes, but there are usually other elements that make up for this. I can get over the speedy Doctor/Grace connection (which had been my main objection upon first viewing) because of the actors, but I can’t get past the bad narrative.  There is just nothing about it that entertains or enlightens or elevates.
The Master wants to take over the Doctor’s body. Ok, that’s sufficiently plausible. But now, how exactly has he survived his execution? And if he has this ability for his spirit to take on this shimmery snake form and possess other beings, why hasn’t he used this power before? Well, he did take over Tremas’ body in The Keeper of Traken, that’s true, albeit without the shimmery snake intermediary. But then why didn’t he just enter the Doctor’s body straight away and be done with it? And what’s with the whole Eye of Harmony, heart of the TARDIS, need for the human retina, metal head contraption, atomic clock, midnight on New Year’s Eve nonsense? Midnight—really? Midnight on the eve of the year 2,000? Really? Talk about contrivance at its most convenient. And I still don’t know how that muddle of a miraculous saving Grace works in the end, or how or why the two dead bodies of Grace and Chang Lee are resurrected.
For any of that inane jumble to work, the characters of the Master and Chang Lee have to work, and they just don’t.  The despicable Master with his glowing green eyes is not going to fool anyone as the wronged victim; except that is for the delinquent Chang, who despite being pursued by gunmen takes the time to sit in a public waiting room for news of the total stranger he accompanied to the hospital just on the off chance he could steal his meager personal effects. The Master tells Chang that the Doctor is evil; that the TARDIS and the Doctor’s body are stolen from him, the Master. And the kid believes the obviously possessed guy who has basically told him ‘obey me or die’ just because. Just because he’s stupid. Just because he’s naïve. Just because the script instructs him. Just because. But you see we have to believe that Chang believes the Master (and isn’t simply being mercenary based on the bags of gold the Master has promised him) because the street punk with criminal intent is really a kid with a heart of gold who wants to do the right thing. Yeah, right.
But you know, Gary, I could even forgive this. And I can forgive the whole TARDIS key thing—the key works for Chang; the Doctor has a spare in a cubby above the P; somehow the Master got into the TARDIS without one (or maybe he found the spare). What I find that I cannot and will not tolerate, however, is the claim that the Doctor is half human. This is the single most idiotic thing ever done in Doctor Who and deserves to be ignored.
It is a shame, really, because Paul McGann as the Doctor is good and this leads me to the few things about Doctor Who the TV Movie that are good; and they all have to do with the Doctor. To begin, Sylvester McCoy in his brief cameo is a breath of fresh air in this stinker. I can believe that his Doctor has made over the control room into the serene library feel that it now has, and his sitting down to a cup of tea and a good read is understandable and long overdue. Then we get the regeneration. Sylvester McCoy was short changed when he first regenerated into himself; he is well compensated as he regenerates out of himself. Although I find serious fault with the malpractice of the hospital and its staff, the scene of the Doctor on the operating table is well played for tension with the audience aware of the two hearts and non human patient time bombs that the hospital personnel are unconscionably oblivious to. The death and subsequent dramatic regeneration are equally effective (although I cringe a bit at the Frankenstein cuts and the resurrected Nazarene comparisons).
In my original rankings I placed Colin Baker dead last with Paul McGann slightly above him. These rankings were based on recollections of vague impressions from infrequent viewings. After considered reflection and upon a more studied screening, I retain these rankings through no fault of the actors. Both suffer from their productions. I came to appreciate Colin Baker’s Doctor, but he was given sufficient time to rise above and he couldn’t quite break free from the confines of the mostly mediocre material. Paul McGann, on the other hand, did not have any time to rise above the dreadful material he was handed. In the little air time he was afforded, however, he is charming. While I don’t necessarily feel any need for more Colin Baker, I would dearly love a chance to get more of McGann’s interpretation.
Parenthetically, Gary, I have recently discovered the McGann mini-episode The Night of the Doctor, and I am aware of various books and audio adventures involving all of the Doctors. I haven’t yet decided when I have finished on my slow path of the official Doctor Who series if I will venture on into these various mediums.
In the meantime I journey on, Gary, leaving behind this bridge between the Classic and the New. It is a brief and regrettable look at the Eighth Doctor who deserved better.

Friday, January 3, 2014

Marco Polo

Dear Gary—
After completing my run of classic Doctors and before forging ahead, I would like to take a moment to go back to the one serial that I missed in my first go through—Marco Polo. I did not discover the wonderful world of reconstructions on the internet in time to view this in its proper order, but I would like to take the time now to properly finish out the original series.
What a treat.
It is pure delight to revisit the First Doctor along with Barbara and Ian and yes, even Susan. I had nearly forgotten how truly wonderful these early Doctor Whos could be. This is good old fashioned story telling that takes its time to develop character and plot. This is Doctor Who that is not afraid to depict the Doctor as a grumpy old man who is vulnerable to the elements and to ordinary aches and pains. This is Doctor Who that trusts itself enough to not rely on monsters and aliens and big bangs. This is Doctor Who that allows the companions to carry the show for an episode or two. This is Doctor Who.
This is a well-rounded Doctor Who. Strong script, strong characters, strong actors, strong production values. This is a Doctor Who that everyone involved believed in. No doubts; no undermining office politics; no backstage drama. At least none that are evident in the finished product.
As the story opens the TARDIS and crew are stranded on a snowy mountaintop. Ian and Barbara speculate that perhaps they are on Earth—the Alps or Andes maybe. Ian and Barbara are not joy riders or thrill seekers or groupies. Ian and Barbara are run-of-the-mill school teachers who happened to get whisked up into the Doctor’s world and all they want is to go home. It is therefore particularly poignant when Susan suggests the Himalayas and Ian ponders this thought: “The Roof of the World. I wonder. If only.”
It turns out that is exactly where they are; unfortunately they are several hundred years off the mark; they are in the year 1289. Ah, the historical. These are the storylines that get abandoned down the road; but here in the early days of Doctor Who the strength of the show is such that a seven part historical can grab and hold the audience.
The strength of the show is also such that it can revel in vulnerabilities. The vulnerability of the companions, the vulnerability of the Doctor, and the vulnerability of the TARDIS. The unreliability of the TARDIS is a major plot point in the early stages of Doctor Who. In Marco Polo the TARDIS has completely failed. (“Everything’s gone to pot.”) A burned out circuit means the loss of light, heat, and water, and our quartet is stranded. Luckily for our heroes they are found on that lonely mountaintop by none other than Marco Polo.
The broken down TARDIS is very much front and center in Marco Polo. Polo confiscates the craft and Tegana covets it. I love Tegana’s description: “It just stands there like a warlord’s tomb on one end.” Tegana secretly plots to sabotage the caravan, steal the TARDIS, and kill Marco Polo, all with the eye to aiding the Khan Noghai against Kublai Khan. Polo desires the TARDIS in order to present the flying caravan to Kublai Khan in hopes that he will be so grateful that he will allow Marco to return home. To this end he takes the TARDIS key and prevents the Doctor from entering, thus forcing the group to follow along on Polo’s long journey.
This slow path is a trek of several months, perhaps the longest single period of time covered in a Doctor Who serial, but it is neither leisurely nor tedious, and the voiceover narration by Polo and the tracing of their route on the map helps to speed the action along.
The length of the trip and the lack of an obvious threat makes Marco Polo a multi-layered tale allowing for rich character development. The warlord Tegana is the main antagonist, however he remains undercover. As Polo observes, “Does the lamb conceal the wolf, or the wolf the lamb?” Ian and Barbara both suspect Tegana’s motives, but Polo cannot take these strangers’ words as proof. Working mostly in the dark, the intrepid companions still manage to thwart most of Tegana’s devious schemes, although they are unable to unmask him. It is a fascinating dance acted out from the snows of the Himalayas through the desert landscapes of the Gobi; all the while nature poses its own unique dangers.
Marco Polo himself could be considered an adversary since he has commandeered the TARDIS. It is a complex relationship, however, with Polo and our travelers forming a warm bond despite their rivalry for possession of the TARDIS. Each can understand the others’ need, and there is sympathy mixed with suspicion in all their dealings.
Meanwhile Susan has found a friend in Ping-Cho, the young girl being escorted by Polo to meet her aged and unknown husband-to-be. Ping-Cho proves invaluable in gaining access to the TARDIS, but it is in the quiet moments that she shines. That is something that I find lacking in the more recent fare — the quiet moments that add such depth to the show.
One of those quiet moments belongs to Susan. She and Ping-Cho are discussing their respective homes, and much like Ian’s wistful contemplation to begin our serial, Susan pauses to reflect on her own distant world. “It’s as far away as a night star,” she says. Similarly, in discussing the loss of the TARDIS with Barbara, Susan remarks, “We should be up there; another time, another galaxy.” And then: “One day we’ll know all the mysteries of the skies, and we’ll stop our wandering.” Some pensive and melancholy moods that are allowed to breathe.
The strength of the show lies in these vulnerabilities, in these subtleties, in these reflections; and it all rests on the frail shoulders of William Hartnell. Polo describes the Doctor as “both difficult and bad-tempered,” and Susan says of him, “Grandfather’s being rude and sulking by himself.” I agree, the First Doctor can be a grumpy curmudgeon, but delightfully and amusingly so; and just when you think you have him pegged, he breaks out into fits of gleeful laughter even when things seem their bleakest.
Barbara gets him. “Well, you know him better than I do,” she tells Susan, “but I’d have said he was just feeling defenseless.” Barbara has always struck me as the most perceptive of the group. “He has a wonderful machine,” she continues, putting things in perspective, “capable of all sorts of miracles, and it’s taken away from him by a man he calls a primitive.” And then she concludes, “Oh, he’s like a rubber ball. He’ll come bouncing out of there soon full of ideas.”
That is the Doctor, the First and Original Doctor. He is not perfect. He is not superhuman. He is not godlike. He has his weaknesses and is capable of feeling helpless. But he always bounces back. He also always bears up with remarkable poise. It is a long and difficult journey to the Khan’s court, and the Doctor suffers much. However it is the pampered and privileged Khan who complains bitterly of old age. “It must be borne with dignity, sir,” the Doctor advises.
As I write this, rumors abound that these lost episodes have been found and are being restored. This timeworn tale has aged with dignity, and despite adversity is bouncing back with renewed vigor.
I send this out into the Doctor’s time swirl, Gary, wondering if you now know all the mysteries of the skies . . .