Friday, May 30, 2014

Doomsday

Dear Gary—
Doomsday is Doctor Who sending up all its biggest sky rockets at one time, prefaced with a brief “this is the story of how I died” recap of Army of Ghosts.
Cybermen are marching; cars are burning; guns are blazing; citizens are panicking. Meanwhile four Daleks are chilling us to the bone, holding Rose and Mickey and Dr. Rajesh Singh hostage. Daleks and Cybermen in one serial; we know it is only a matter of time before they meet in one mighty explosion of action packed adventure.
I can’t say that I ever longed for a Dalek/Cyberman showdown because I always imagined it would go down pretty much the way it does in Doomsday. Lots of “Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!” and “Delete! Delete! Delete!” and plenty of laser fire back and forth. Not much room for subtlety or strategy or substance. As a backdrop to the grand finale, however, the sound of Cybermen marching in unison and the sight of hundreds of Daleks flying through the air provides the necessary big bang to the production.
Any big bang grand finale worth its salt, though, doesn’t just let loose everything all in one go. To achieve maximum effect the show must be carefully choreographed; it must build to its climax; it depends on the smaller sparks to stoke the fires.
Doctor Who has been stoking those fires all along. No matter how much I dislike Rose, she as well as Jackie, Pete, and Mickey have clearly been established as the heart of the show. The Daleks and the Cybermen might be the big noise in Doomsday, but the emotional content provides all of the sparkle.
It is appropriate, therefore, that Rose stops the Daleks dead with, “Daleks! You’re called Daleks. I know your name.” Her time with the Doctor has fed into her arrogance and vanity and cruelty, but it has also enriched her. She stands before the Daleks with her new found experience, confidence, and ingenuity. Mickey with his massive weapon and Singh with his Torchwood credentials can only hide behind Rose as she stares down the Daleks using nothing but her wits.
This is quickly followed by the first meeting between our two iconic aliens. It is a hilarious standoff at first, and then the Cybermen pragmatically propose an alliance which the xenophobic Daleks reject, and the war begins. (“This is not war; this is pest control.”)
Doomsday treats us to an onslaught of fast paced action sequences interspersed with pockets of emotional depth and flashes of humor, all brilliantly scored with musical cues to help navigate our way through this explosive story. It is unabashedly manipulative.
The Daleks spot the Doctor, Rose identifies him. “Five million Cybermen, easy,” she taunts. “One Doctor? Now you’re scared.” That’s our verbal cue. The Doctor as super star; the Doctor as invincible; the Doctor as an idol. All hail the Doctor. I don’t even keep count of the stand up and cheer moments in this episode. Not to be outdone, however, by the tug at the heartstrings moments ala the Pete and Jackie encounter. All engineered to maximum effect.
Yvonne encapsulates it all. She is like that one firework that starts out with a series of small bangs and slowly grows into one great outburst of color spraying down in the night sky.  The action and emotion combine as she is hauled away by the Cybermen; her voice breaks as she explains to Jackie the fate in store for them; she walks to her doom, terrified but defiant: “I did my duty, for Queen and country. I did my duty. I did my duty. Oh God, I did my duty.” Pop, pop, pop. Her screams punctuate as she is cyberized. But the big burst is yet to come. “I did my duty, for Queen and country,” she repeats as she stands in her full cyber form barring the Cybermen and mowing them down. A single tear rolls down her metal cheek. Kaboom! Right there Doctor Who is making a statement. This is all done for effect people, the show is saying. Let the tears flow, let your hearts pound, and let the lumps rise in your throat as the music swells. This is all an elaborate performance designed for thrills and not meant to be taken seriously as a narrative.
Like those 3D glasses the Doctor is wearing. There is no rational reason for the Doctor to whip these on and off as he does. He doesn’t need any more proof that the Daleks and the Cybermen and Mickey and he and Rose and Pete have all been through the void. He knows this already. I can see perhaps one use of these spectacles to confirm, but after that they are merely done for comic relief and to give some cool special effects for the audience to admire while he explains his whole “via the void” theory.
Now let’s really get down to cases. This whole display is being put on as a lavish tribute to Rose. The purpose and the buildup is all to give Rose a worthy send off. Numerous companions have left the show in the past. Some partings have been abysmal (Leela), some tragic (Adric), and some heartbreaking (Barbara, Ian, Susan). However this is the first such departure for New Who, and for some reason the character of Rose has been elevated far beyond her worth, so her finale demands spectacle.
The Daleks and the Cybermen are easily handled, these two metal races that strike fear at the mere mention of their name. They served their purpose to distract; now it’s time to banish them. Just suck them back into the void. Voila. Wipe hands; that’s done. It is an impressive exhibit, that’s sure, but nonetheless simple. The problem of Rose remains, however. How to be rid of her. Aha! She is steeped in the void stuff (we know that from the handy 3D glasses). She is sure to be sucked in along with the Cybermen and Daleks. But then, so too would the Doctor and Mickey and Pete and the rest of the parallel gang. And so the Doctor works out to send her back to parallel Earth with the rest leaving him alone to hold on tight.
The music is swelling; tears are flowing; our heroes are acting determined. There is no other way.
Oh, well, let’s see. The TARDIS. Pack the entire gang into the TARDIS. Somehow the TARDIS, which one would assume is also soaked in void stuff, doesn’t get sucked in, probably because, you know, it’s the TARDIS. But even if the Doctor isn’t sure about that—take a quick hop to another planet or another time and drop them off in safety while he goes back to deal with the void. That’s a good option, but the Doctor overlooks it. Next, well, Rose is determined to stay. Jackie won’t leave without Rose. The Doctor doesn’t want Rose to be separated from her mother forever. Rose, however, clearly wants to be rid of Jackie. “You’ve got to,” (go) Rose tells her. Why exactly? Jackie is the only one who is safe on this side of the void. She has never been through. The only reason for her to leave is so that she can be with alternate Pete, but she protests that she would prefer staying with her daughter. She has made her choice.  Those three could therefore stay and deal with the void. Jackie would be on hand to deal with the lever when it malfunctions and Rose could continue hanging on for dear life. Or, how about Jackie remaining and the Doctor and Rose universe hopping? Jackie can pull the levers with no danger to herself, although of course she wouldn’t let Rose leave without her. OK then, how about rounding up some stray Torchwood denizens to do the dirty while they all skedaddle? One final option—with all of his know-how, surely the Doctor can rig up some type of remote control to operate the levers while he and whoever decides to remain rides it out in the TARDIS.
But no. The music is swelling; tears are flowing; our heroes are acting determined. This is the whiz bang finish and by golly there is no other way.
This leads us to Rose’s courage in returning, Jackie’s tearful plea to Pete, the Doctor’s wail as Rose loses her dramatic grip of life, and Pete’s miraculous last minute arrival to save her but leaving her stranded without the Doctor.
More music, more tears as Rose and the Doctor stand on either side of that impenetrable wall.
“Take me back!”
This is the emotional payoff for two seasons of the Doctor and Rose show. Regardless of how you feel about Rose, the groundwork has been laid for the devastating impact of this moment.
A few stray sparks remain cascading to Earth in the smoke filled sky, however.
“Last night I had a dream.”
If there were any doubts left that this wasn’t all a well staged melodrama for the emotional wallop it packs, this last little coda dispels them completely. How can there be any doubt when they end up in Bad Wolf Bay?
This one is a slam dunk. No doubt about it. It accomplishes exactly what it set out to do. It threw everything at us and hit all the right notes. Rose is gone and there isn’t a dry eye in the house. It doesn’t really matter that the story itself doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, because it never made any pretense at being substantive drama.
This is where New Who skirts the line, however. I can accept all of the pomp and circumstance for this special occasion, but the show displays tendencies of a dangerous flirtation with the pageantry. There is a difference between taking the material seriously, treating the script and the sets and the aliens with respect no matter how cheap or shoddy or ill conceived they may be, and taking its own self seriously in the wider world of entertainment and as a pop culture icon. There is a difference between quietly making history and deliberately setting out to be epic. It is the difference between dignity and egotism.
That is what I love about the final minute of Doomsday. By all rights the serial should end on the tearful Doctor mourning his lost companion, and that is how I felt the first time viewing it. I therefore resented the presence of Donna and never really warmed up to the following episode. That was then, however, and this is now.
I won’t get into my present thoughts on The Runaway Bride—that’s for my next entry—but I will say that I love the fact that Doomsday does not rest on the exhausting emotional upheaval of Bad Wolf Bay. That was one wild ride we were just on, building to its final crescendo, but life for the Doctor goes on. This is not Romeo and Juliet; this is Doctor Who.
This is Doctor Who, Gary, and life goes on . . . let us hope . . . somewhere out there in the skies of molten silver sprays.

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Army of Ghosts

Dear Gary—
Army of Ghosts and its companion piece Doomsday are a resounding victory for the New Who direction of style over substance. “Pull up a chair,” the show invites us along with the Doctor. “Come and watch the fireworks.” Army of Ghosts is one spectacular fireworks show.
It starts right off the bat with Rose’s “This is the story of how I died” voice over. This brief narration manages to highlight all that I hate about Rose and about New Who. In that short span she insults her mother and Mickey and nineteen years of friendships and experiences, trivializing them all with a dismissive, “Nothing happened; nothing at all.” Then she glorifies the Doctor and his “magical machine.” She brags about all of time and space that he has shown her, and we are treated to a scene of the two on a gloriously realized alien planet.  But this only emphasizes the fact that we never got to see this planet, or any real alien planet of note with this duo.  And the tender looks and “forever” promises are straight from Rose’s schoolgirl dreams of romance.
Everything I hate in less than two minutes, all teed up and ready; and yet they are so expertly packaged. I know Rose is not dead as she recounts these things. All dressed in black and standing on a rocky shore in the wind. It never crosses my mind that there is a possibility that New Who would kill her off. I know this is a gimmick; I know that Rose is being her dramatic self; I know this is a set up for a slam bang finish to the season and to Rose’s companionship. And yet I am hooked and want to see this slam bang fireworks show.
It brilliantly starts with a heartwarming domestic scene as Rose reunites with Jackie. From the musical cues we know that this episode (and the next) is going to be pulling at our heart strings throughout. Add in the bits of humor and we are fully invested in this makeshift family unit that we know only too well is going to be pulled apart before it is all over.
Enter the ghosts. I know that these are not really ghosts, and I want to scream at the screen for the stupidity on display before me. No one in their right mind would accept these as ghosts, much less benevolent beings, long lost loved ones come to—what?—to stand around for a few minutes on schedule and then disappear until the next ‘shift?’ They don’t talk; they don’t interact. And yet they are embraced worldwide and in the space of two months have been integrated into daily life and pop culture. There’s no fear, anxiety, concern, not even any curiosity expressed over these ghostly beings. No scientific inquiry, no military buildup, no government panels convened.
But as channel after channel reveals yet another ridiculous ghost reference, as newscasters gush and commercials sell and soaps emote, it begins to dawn on me. Then the Doctor emerges with all of his Ghostbusters regalia and I am convinced. This was never supposed to be taken seriously. There is no belief to be suspended because there is no plot to follow. The entire thing is merely Doctor Who completely giving in to the spectacle.
“Oh! Oh, how marvelous. Oh, very good. Superb. Happy day.” Yvonne and her heavily armed soldiers of Torchwood applaud as the Doctor emerges from his TARDIS, clinching my theory. All hail the Doctor; all hail Doctor Who.
And so, Gary, I simply accept Doctor Who’s invitation; I pull up a chair and sit back to enjoy this theatrical piece of performance art.
My biggest applause I reserve for Jackie. She provides most of the heart and humor, and without these the spectacle is hollow. The Doctor passes Jackie off as Rose to Torchwood, and the short time they have together as “the Doctor and his companion” showcases what could have been. For me the Doctor always works best when his companion is not some fawning groupie. Jackie is anything but. (“If we end up on Mars I’m going to kill you.”)
Yvonne and Torchwood provide a semblance of structure to the proceedings, even though they are inane in the extreme. What exactly are they trying to accomplish with their ghost shifts? Something vaguely to do with harnessing energy, although how exactly—well, I suppose that’s not important. It’s as good an excuse as any and is your basic go-to answer whenever Doctor Who needs a reason. They are supposed to be a super top secret organization, yet they have built this skyscraper and are blatantly controlling these worldwide ghost shifts and no government or agency or covert operation has been put on alert. They seem to be a combination of a military and a scientific concern, yet they appear to be incompetent at both.
Torchwood regards the Doctor as an enemy and has been on the lookout for him since Queen Victoria first established the institution (Tooth and Claw). I wonder where they were when the Doctor was working for UNIT. However, Torchwood does assemble all the cast together and takes a stab at establishing meaning and motivation.
The Doctor serves to remind us that this is still Doctor Who despite the spectacle. David Tennant does turn it up a notch to match the flamboyancy of the serial, but he remains the Doctor. And his glass shattering demonstration offers the one shining moment of clarity.
The real fireworks, however, are reserved for our one two punch—Cybermen and Daleks. The Cybermen are the first to arrive upon the scene. They are the ghosts in Army of Ghosts. As the Doctor continually says, “A footprint doesn’t look like a boot,” and the ghosts are only vaguely reminiscent of the Cybermen. However it is no surprise that when they come crashing through into the world they are Cybermen; not a surprise to the Doctor, not a surprise to the audience; only a surprise to the gullible people of Earth, the perennial patsies of the Doctor Who universe.
The plastic is the big tip off. Adeola and Gareth go wandering off into the corridors of plastic and we know they are bound to meet with a Cyberman or two. What I can’t quite comprehend is why Adeola and Gareth, and later Matt, are needed in the grand Cyber scheme of things. It is wonderful to see Freema Agyeman (soon to be reincarnated as Martha Jones) in action, but as far as I can tell this whole sequence is merely to set up the Cybermen as baddies (as though we needed to be reminded). It’s not like the Cybermen need inside men and women on the job, unless they have some serious pre-cognition to know that the Doctor would interfere with the ghost shift which I know they do not, and regardless, they clearly demonstrate that they can force the ghost shift on their own without the mole intervention. But this is all part of the exhibition presented for our entertainment.
The stakes are heightened and the tension builds. The ghost shift is hijacked; the Doctor takes charge; the Cybermen are exposed; the void sphere starts to open; Mickey is revealed (Mickey!); the ghosts begin to materialize. It is all so skillfully done with the fast cuts, the swelling music, the panic, and the mixture of command, confidence, and confusion.
“It’s not an invasion,” the Doctor declares. “It’s too late for that. It’s a victory.” And the Cybermen are depicted across the globe, establishing control. “This is going to blast them to Hell,” Mickey asserts as he points a massive gun at the activating sphere. “The sphere is not ours,” the Cybermen claim to the Doctor’s utter surprise.
Everything escalates exponentially to the final, “Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!” Daleks!
To be continued.
Summer is upon us, and I am sure you know, Gary, that in Milwaukee that means every weekend, every lakefront festival, every church bizarre, every community fair will conclude with a fireworks show. From now until September the Milwaukee skyline will be spectacularly lit each evening Friday through Sunday. How appropriate to start this summer long season with this Doctor Who pyrotechnic display.
And still to come—the grand finale. Pull up a chair Gary . . .

Allons-y!

Friday, May 23, 2014

Fear Her

Dear Gary—
Fear Her: been there, done that. The TARDIS lands in a London neighborhood during a moment of national significance that is being broadcast throughout the world and people are mysteriously disappearing off of the street. The Doctor and Rose are led in their investigations to a family unit with a domineering father. If this sounds familiar it is because it was just done a few short stories ago in The Idiot’s Lantern. Fear Her is a modernization and reworking to slightly more appealing effect.
Swap out the 1953 Coronation for the 2012 Olympics; swap out the Wire for the Isolus; swap out faces flickering on TV screens for people captured in drawings; swap out Eddie for the monster in the wardrobe; swap out Rose falling victim for the Doctor. Add a dash of compassion and sift through a filter of optimism. Voila—The Idiot’s Lantern becomes Fear Her.
Neither one is much good.
At least the Doctor and Rose are not quite as obnoxious in Fear Her. In fact they work rather well together and there are some genuinely warm and humorous bits, which puts Fear Her a leg up on The Idiot’s Lantern. I also like that the two are not totally in lock step in this episode. The Doctor treats the Isolus as a scared child. Rose, on the other hand, sees it as a brat throwing a temper tantrum. Both legitimate views. Approaching the problem with different perspectives, the Doctor and Rose click as a team, each bringing their unique strengths into play rather than feeding into each other’s weaknesses as they so often do.
 In fact this is a very strong story for Rose. I almost like her, and that also tips the scales in favor of Fear Her.
Rose is immediately drawn to the missing children posters and forgets all about the Olympics; this is no longer a fun outing; although the Doctor’s “fingers on lips” moment manages to keep the fun in the proceedings. The two begin their investigation (and I have to say that it is maddening how indifferent and/or incompetent local authorities are in the Doctor Who world). Rose looks to the human element, wondering how anyone can do such a thing, while the Doctor looks to the alien (“What makes you think it’s a person?”). Now Rose’s take on this is the most logical (and the scarier), but it is the Doctor’s that proves correct (and how maddening that it always is in the Doctor Who world; not since the William Hartnell years has the non-alien option been seriously and consistently considered).
Rose’s human outlook leads her to the child Chloe; the Doctor’s alien outlook leads him to the Isolus within.
The Isolus is an intriguing concept but it is all talk. The scene where the Doctor taps into the possessed Chloe is well done, and the brief glimpse we have of the alien form is beautiful in its realization, but we never fully see the Isolus in action. What we do see is a possessed child drawing pictures. It could be anything controlling her actions. And while the thought of a lonely Isolus separated from her billions of brothers and sisters for an eternity is poignant, Rose’s assessment, “I know what kids can be like—right little terrors,” seems more accurate in light of the pain and suffering caused by this secluded alien snatching people and trapping them on scraps of paper hung on Chloe’s bedroom wall.
The idea, however, leads to some revealing moments between the Doctor and Rose. “I was a dad once,” the Doctor says, shocking Rose to the core, although hardly news to long time fans. And then there is this reflection on the part of the Doctor: “Fear, loneliness; they’re the big ones, Rose. Some of the most terrible acts ever committed have been inspired by them. We’re not dealing with something that wants to conquer or destroy. There’s a lot of things you need to get across this universe. Warp drive, wormhole refractors. You know the thing you need most of all? You need a hand to hold.”
There is that filter of compassion that differentiates Fear Her from The Idiot’s Lantern. The Doctor has empathy for the isolated Isolus and works towards a compassionate resolution. Unfortunately for him the Isolus reacts like a spoiled brat and snatches him into her crayon world. This leaves Rose to work out the solution.
Rose rises to the occasion. Realizing that sending the little monster to her room, giving her a time out, or scolding her are never going to work, and not even reason will do the trick, Rose instead turns to her own brain power. Putting all the puzzle pieces together—the missing stadium full of people, the Olympic torch, the energy drains on the newly patched street, the hot fresh tar in the pothole—Rose finds the lost Isolus pod and sends it on its way thus restoring the captured citizens for a happily ever after ending.
Along the way there are some really excellent elements to this story, and I am finding, Gary, that I actually like it much more than I originally credited. And I think it is the puzzle that does it. It is well crafted, setting out all the pieces slowly and subtly and then bringing them all together. But what makes it really mesh is the character of Kel. He adds the commentary of the ordinary man brilliantly, giving the episode a much needed dose of humanity.
The other characters don’t do it. The neighbors are all cutouts, afraid and irate as the script dictates but doing nothing in the way of locating their abducted children. They scurry back into their homes when no longer needed for exposition. Abisola Agbaje and Nina Sosanya as Chloe and Trish are good in their parts, but the mother/daughter dynamic is not convincing. Trish is especially useless. She is running scared throughout but doesn’t know why. She never takes responsibility for her daughter; never attempts to comfort, discipline, or even talk to her. Rose offers the deepest insight on this: “But maybe that’s why Chloe feels so alone. Because she has all these terrible dreams about her dad, but she can’t talk to you about them.”
The back-story of the dad provides the only warmth to the relationship but also the most disturbing aspects of it. Trish admits that Chloe bore the brunt of his abuse when he was alive; given Trish’s hands off approach to raising her daughter, I can only assume that she stood back and allowed the abuse. Singing the Kookaburra song together to defeat the drawing monster is a touching moment, but that only highlights Trish’s close-your-eyes-and-wish-it-away style of parenting.
Kel, on the other hand, takes genuine pride in his work, lovingly admiring his patched pothole like a proud papa, then acting with outrage as Rose raises an axe to his handiwork. But while Trish always stays in the background with a mixture of fear, confusion, and futility, Kel follows after Rose with curiosity. As a stranger on the street, he has observed the odd occurrences and taken note of the two new outsiders. He doesn’t quite understand what Rose is saying or doing, but he has the intelligence to know it is of significance. “You did it,” he exclaims when Rose successfully launches the pod; and then, “What was it you did?”
Because Kel takes an interest, I take an interest. Because Kel gets excited, I get excited. Because Kel rejoices, I rejoice. Kel gives voice to the common person observing from the sideline and getting caught up in the emotion.
Without Kel the sheer hokiness of that ending would be unbearable. The Olympic torch bearer collapses and the TV announcer wonders, “Does this mean that the Olympic dream is dead?” Then the Doctor swoops in to pick up the torch while the announcer gushes that it is more than a flame, “it’s hope and it’s courage and it’s love.” This is the most manufactured bit of sentimental nonsense and is a bit of an insult to the thousands of athletes (one of whom may very well be the torch bearer at some future date), hundreds of countries, and millions of viewers, all of whom are swelling with that Olympic spirit that apparently is so fragile as to be extinguished by an accidental fall. And I might add that not one expression of concern is given to that poor fellow on the ground.
It all comes to an end with a celebration in the street, much like the ending of The Idiot’s Lantern. In both, too, the father has been sent packing, although in this one Rose does not send the child running after him. And then we have the Doctor’s ominous prediction: “A storm’s coming.”
A storm is coming, Gary, and I’m looking forward . . .

Monday, May 19, 2014

Love & Monsters

Dear Gary—
I like Love & Monsters. It is quirky and different. It is light on the Doctor and Rose but has enough of them to remind us this is still Doctor Who. It does, however, highlight how very Earth-centric Doctor Who has become.
As much as I like Elton and his LINDA gang, I wish that this could have been set on some alien world with an intergalactic cast in pursuit of the Doctor. Perhaps it could be captained by that daft little girl from Dragonfire, now grown and haunting all the ice cream shops on Svartos hoping that the Doctor will return some day. Maybe she could be joined by Alpha Centauri (The Curse of Peladon and The Monster of Peladon) newly retired from the ambassadorial life and intrigued by an ad placed by Miss Daffy enquiring after the Doctor. But there’s no use continuing with this thought. The Doctor is mired on Earth and we are stuck there with him.
If we do have to be stuck, Elton and his gang are pleasant enough company.
“This is the story of me,” Elton tells us as he peers into his video camera, “and my encounters with alien life forms.” We are at the mercy of Elton; this is told from his perspective. As such, Love & Monsters is very childlike in its telling.
It starts with the frantic, slapstick monster chase with red and blue bucket mix ups and the Doctor using a “porky-choppy” to lure the thing; a very Saturday morning cartoonish opening. This is Doctor Who as seen through Elton’s rather skewed imagination.
It is a charming story as Elton relates it. We get to know Ursula and Mr. Skinner and Bridget and Bliss through Elton’s eye. Brought together by a mutual interest in the mysterious Doctor, they are united by their loneliness and their own sense of alienation in the world at large. Slowly they become a surrogate family to one another, finding meaning and joy within their small group.
Then Victor Kennedy shows up and it all starts to go wrong. Victor is the mean dad who curtails playtime and hands out tedious chores. The LINDA gang submits unconditionally like obedient children.
I, however, have to wonder. Why would Victor Kennedy choose this rag tag band of misfits for his investigative arm? He obviously has access to Torchwood files. But I can rationalize it like this: he has discovered the existence of Rose and needs a pliable group of ordinary folk to fan out and unobtrusively look for her, no questions asked. In LINDA he has found the perfect stooges. But then I have to wonder, why would he immediately begin to feed on his recruits?
Turns out he only needs Elton, though. Blind luck leads Elton straight to Rose’s neighborhood and face to face with Jackie. It is hilarious to watch as Jackie turns Elton’s basic steps of infiltration on their head. Jackie’s predatory approach would be creepy except for the sweet recounting by Elton of their budding relationship.
The theme of loneliness which saturates LINDA also resonates in Jackie. “I used to have this little mate called Mickey,” she says wistfully as Elton fixes her washing machine. Hints of desperation bleed through as she pursues Elton. “Can’t bear it silent,” she says as she invites him to stay for tea. Her reflections on Rose, however, reveal her deepest longings, touching on raw emotions that neither she nor Elton can bear.  Clumsily they both attempt to distract from the ever present pain.
The pain catches up with them, however.
“Let me tell you something about those who get left behind,” Jackie says to Elton when she discovers his real reason for playing up to her. “Because it’s hard. And that’s what you become; hard.”
It is a little heartbreaking when Jackie turns her back on her new found friend. Just when Elton is learning the true meaning of love and has at last found the relationships he has always craved, everything falls apart and he loses it all.
“We used that woman,” he tells the group. But he learns from this shameful realization and uses the opportunity to stand up to Victor Kennedy, rallying the dwindling LINDA behind him. Curse Ursula’s cell phone. If not for that they would have gotten away, gone to dine on Chinese and to start a life together. Alas, it is not to be for the ill-fated Elton.
As Ursula is absorbed into the transformed Victor Kennedy Elton sees all his hopes and desires sucked out of the world. Without even being present, the Doctor has brought them together and he has also torn them apart. The most brilliant and the most terrible things, giving new meaning to Stephen King's words, “Salvation and damnation are the same thing.”
 “It’s not his fault,” Elton philosophizes, “but maybe that’s what happens when you touch the Doctor, even for a second.”
It is bittersweet, with the melancholic Elton still looking through his rose colored glasses, dancing to ELO and fondly revealing the enslabbed Ursula.
I can’t look at Elton’s life in quite the same way, however. I can’t quite have the same Scooby Doo world view as I witness Bliss and Bridget and Mr. Skinner and Ursula uncomfortably protruding from the inside of the bloated alien.  I can’t be quite as forgiving of the Doctor standing nonchalantly by while Rose chastises Elton even as he kneels before the menacing Abzorbaloff. And I definitely can’t rejoice in the fact that Ursula has been saved from absorption into the earth only to meet with the indignity of being nothing more than a face in a slab.
The Doctor has saved Elton from the Abzorbaloff and has explained his presence in Elton’s house those many years ago. Elton can at last confront his repressed memories and come to terms with this mother’s death. He can now move on with his life. Except that his life is once again stagnated with the Ursula stone.
Elton might be content for the moment, possibly even for a lifetime. But what if he ever decides to move on? What if he meets a flesh and blood woman and wants to start a family? What becomes of Ursula then? Will she take up a prominent place hanging on the wall in Elton’s den? I can only shudder to think what cruelties his children might visit upon her. And I fear that one day she will be relegated to the attic to collect dust. And what is to become of her after Elton is dead and gone? No, I see nothing but horror ahead.
“We forget because we must,” Elton explains of his years of denial after his mother’s death. I can only hope that his life with Ursula is only a fantasy, yet another coping mechanism for the misfortune he has suffered, and that someday he will truly be able to move on and live a real life, accepting the love and monsters for what they are and not denying them or creating them out of his imagination.
This is where Elton could use the firm hand of Jackie to guide him, filling the role of mother that he lost so long ago. The loss of her friendship is the most devastating of the episode, because it is so very human in its tragedy.
Love & Monsters; loss and pain and denial sugar-coated so it goes down easier. I’m undecided on this one, Gary. I like it . . . and yet there is a bitter aftertaste that lingers.

Monday, May 12, 2014

The Satan Pit

Dear Gary—
There are two whoppingly glaring faults in The Satan Pit that totally deflate any sense of tension, threat, and meaning.
One. The group on the run enters and exits the ventilation shafts through open air grating. Those tunnels that they are racing through and that the Acting Captain is frantically aerating are hardly airtight.
Two. The Beast in the Pit is out of the pit before it is even open. In the previous episode he was not only possessing Toby, the Ood, and the computer system, he was talking directly to people. And as the Doctor discovers, it is only a body, a great beastly body to be sure but still only a body that is tethered below. “The devil is an idea,” the Doctor reckons. “But an idea is hard to kill; an idea could escape.” Could and did escape. The beast, the real beast, hasn’t been in the pit for some time.
But you know, Gary, I just don’t care.
The Satan Pit is packed with tension, threat, and meaning despite the holes. And it all comes down to a matter of faith. (The devil is an idea after all.)
Rose, Danny, Jefferson, and Toby believe there is no air in those tunnels; Zach believes he is diverting air for his crewmates; I believe in the peril they face. The actors and the director and the editors all do their job convincingly; so what if someone fell down on the job and lined the shafts with those grills. (And by the way so what if the Ood seem to be able to survive in both aerated and non-aerated sections with no problem.) I can almost believe that there is some invisible coating over those grates that hermetically seal them shut.
Then there is the devil in the pit. Much fanfare is given to the opening of the pit at the end of The Impossible Planet. The ground shakes, the planet moves, the trap door opens, and the voice proclaims, “The pit is open and I am free!” Now the Doctor and Ida stand before the chasm as calm returns and there is nothing; no beast emerging, no hellish screams from below, no fire and brimstone; just a great gaping bottomless hole in the ground. And that is scarier than a hundred horned monsters ascending.
The fault, Gary, lies not in the fact that the pit is empty or that the beast has already escaped. The problem is that Doctor Who has chained the beast in that pit in the first place.
Satan is a slippery little devil, hard to pin down; an idea; the idea behind the myth; the idea behind all of the myths on all of the planets. Weapons are useless against such a being. Guns and bullets, fire, explosives, bombs. Nothing of a physical nature can ever prevail against such a threat. Not even chains, a pit, and a black hole.
Faith, and faith alone, will succeed. The Satan Pit explores faith; the nature of faith; the multifaceted aspects of faith. It is provocative and compelling and rich in its telling. And yet ultimately Doctor Who has no faith. Ultimately Doctor Who takes chains to the beast and tries to pin him down. In so doing it forgets that the Devil has already slipped those chains, if indeed they ever did hold him.
This is an impossible planet and the crew has lived with impossibilities as fact; the Doctor has accepted the impossibilities as fact. They believe the impossible because they see the impossible. Satan, the Doctor states, is impossible. “I accept that you exist,” the Doctor says when confronting the giant creature chained at the bottom. “I don’t have to accept what you are,” he continues, “but your physical existence, I’ll give you that.” It is not the Doctor but Doctor Who that has given him that, his physical existence. A great hulking physical existence chained to the bottom of a pit; no longer impossible because it can be seen; it can be pinned down; it can be killed.
A point of digression here, Gary. Horrors of the mind are always the most effective; Doctor Who has dabbled with this in the past; but Doctor Who always reverts to the tangible. Recent case in point, the Wire in that horrid little thing called The Idiot’s Lantern.  Now the Wire didn’t exactly exist in the mind, but it was confined to wavelengths and fed on the activity of the brain. In this ethereal existence it was most terrifying. Its sole goal, however, was to obtain its corporeal form, and the Doctor’s aim was to prevent this.  Who knows but that once more flesh and blood the Wire might have been satisfied and left Earth forever more. Or not; we’ll never know. But no matter how big or bad or ugly it would have become, it couldn’t be scarier than when it was sucking people’s minds dry.
Same can be said for this devil of an idea. Yet there he is before the Doctor. Very big. Very bad. Very ugly. And very impotent. All he can do is growl and snap and snarl at the Doctor. And all the Doctor can do is deny his existence, despite being growled and snapped and snarled at. Because what he is denying is not the growling and snapping and snarling, but the idea; the ethereal; the theory. The growling and the snapping and the snarling are real but the Doctor can do nothing because the concept is somewhere out there and he can’t grasp it.
The idea, the escaped intelligence behind the beastly body, is the real threat and it is not in the pit. It isn’t even residing in Toby or the Ood alone. The whispers are all around them and one by one their darkest fears are exploited. “The Captain, so scared of command. The soldier, so haunted by the eyes of his wife. The scientist, still running from daddy. The little boy who lied. The virgin. And the lost girl, so far away from home. The valiant child who will die in battle so very soon.” One by one the mark hits home. All cylinders are clicking in this scene. With just those brief lines and subtle acting we gain insight of and sympathy for each individual and we share their overwhelming sense of dread.
Such a powerful presence cannot be confined by chains in a pit. Not only can it take possession of a body, not to mention multiple bodies at once, but it can exist outside of a body. Rose might think she is sending the devil to hell in the black hole, but that is really only Toby. The thing inside of Toby, I have no doubt, is not defeated and certainly not destroyed.
The most effective weapon over such a creature is faith. The Doctor realizes this and tries to calm the panicked crew before he is cut off by the canny beast. Rose picks up from the Doctor and her rally the troops approach is one of her best moments. Finding the strength within, each rises to the occasion.
Communication cut off from the crew, the Doctor and Ida are left to their own musings about what evil lies below or within. “I am the temptation.” There it is again, that scary idea that cannot be confronted on the physical plane. And so the Doctor gives in to the dark whispers, or faces them with a leap of faith.
The Doctor abseils down the pit while Ida sits forlorn at the edge, and the two isolated souls share their deepest beliefs and non-beliefs.
“My old mum,” Ida reflects, the strong pull of a lifetime of memories reaching her in those dark caverns. “But no, I never believed.” The words speak her loneliness at that moment.
“I believe . . . I believe I haven’t seen everything,” the Doctor muses. “I don’t know. It’s funny, isn’t it? The things you make up?” The Doctor has made up his own rules, his own religion. The beast in the pit is challenging those rules. “Still, that’s why I keep traveling,” the Doctor concludes. “To be proved wrong.”
The two lost souls connecting through the desolate airwaves, and then they too are parted. The Doctor crashes to the bottom and is on his own. And that is only fitting; faith is a solo act; it can only be found in the deepest core of one’s being.
Except this is where Doctor Who loses faith and we have the giant creature in the pit. Confronted with the impossible made real, the Doctor looks into the deepest core of his being and comes up with Rose. The cult of Rose. The sect of Rose. Channeling this bizarre belief and faith and religion of Rose the Doctor decides that the only way to defeat the beast is to destroy his body, which means sending the planet into the black hole along with everything and everyone surrounding it. The beast, the planet, the things, the people all obliterated; the idea, the concept, the mind, the intelligence, the horror, the evil, the temptation,  the sin, the desire, the pain, the loss—none of it touched by the breaking of the urns, none of it flung into the nothingness of the black hole.
And so the beast in the pit is just that—a beast. Nothing more. Not Abaddon; not Kroptor; not Satan; not Lucifer; not the Bringer of Despair; not the Deathless Prince; not the Bringer of Night. He is a great hulking beast; all growl and snap and snarl; big and bad and ugly; nothing more. No more, no less than a Dalek, a Cyberman, an Ice Warrior, a Fendahl, a Krynoid, or a Haemovore.
As a reward for his monumental faith, the Doctor Who deus ex TARDIS comes to the rescue and all but the Ood (and Toby and Jefferson and Scooti and the red shirts) are saved.
The devil of it is, Gary, The Satan Pit works. It is one hell of a thrill ride, gripping the imagination in horror, and provoking profound thought. I suspend my disbelief and faithfully leap headlong into the story.
 The devil of it is, Gary, I like it. And that is why I keep traveling . . .

Monday, May 5, 2014

The Impossible Planet

Dear Gary—
The Impossible Planet has just about everything going for it. Just about everything, that is, except the opening few minutes.
The Doctor and Rose emerge from the TARDIS which the Doctor diagnosis as queasy; the TARDIS, the Doctor reasons, is trying to tell them something about the place they have landed and it’s not good. Rose ‘jokes’ that they can always leave; a joke which nobody finds funny; nobody except the Doctor and Rose who find it hilarious.
The good bits of the script start bleeding through as the two begin to explore the base in which they have landed; a base that at long last is not anywhere near or resembling the Earth; although it is manned by humans. “Welcome to Hell” Rose reads from the wall and the Doctor is immediately intrigued by the ancient writing beneath; writing so ancient that even the TARDIS cannot translate.
Then the Ood appear; a fantastic new entry in the Doctor Who encyclopedia of aliens. However it is a rather inauspicious introduction. They look marvelous. But why exactly are eight or so Ood required to feed just two hungry travelers? Oh yeah, it’s to provide the false sense of tension as they converge on the Doctor and Rose all simultaneously declaring “We must feed” because their communication device is jammed and they can’t complete their thought (“. . . you if you are hungry”). Rose picks up a chair and the Doctor whips out his sonic screwdriver. Now I know that the sonic is something of a magic wand with 2,001 uses, but does it really have an Ood setting? I’m not sure if this is supposed to play out as drama or comedy.
Opening credits roll; Jefferson and his red shirts appear; and the story thankfully takes over. It is a gripping story with spectacular effects, quality production values, and superb guest stars; easily one of the highlights of the season (and not simply in comparison to the episode that preceded it).
The crew sells the impossibility of it all: the planet, the black hole, even the appearance of the Doctor and Rose. “Don’t be stupid. That’s impossible,” Zach says when Jefferson gives him the improbable news of strangers in their midst. But it is all matter of fact for them. The impossible as a matter of fact. They live with the impossible. The impossible just is.
And that is what makes this story work. I don’t know what a black hole looks like or how it is supposed to behave. The black hole in The Impossible Planet is beautiful and impressive but it is only an effect. The sincerity of the crew as they explain to the incredulous Doctor and clueless Rose sells it. “You’re not going to believe this;” “You’re not joking; you really don’t know;” “The sight of it sends some people mad.” All of these are verbal clues that ominous things are afoot. The delivery, however, is what makes it real. I suspend my disbelief without even noticing.
Rose does her best to dispel the suspense, but happily her snide commentary falls with a resounding thunk as the crew carries on.
I do have one little quibble when Ida Scott claims that the planet has no name. (“Now don’t be stupid. It hasn’t got a name. How can it have a name?”) But then she goes on to relate that the scriptures of the Falltino name it Kroptor, which translates as the bitter pill. Why not just call it Kroptor then? Don’t be stupid; how can it have a name indeed.
The Doctor’s “because it was there” effusion and awkward hug of the Acting Captain is slightly condescending and embarrassing but well intentioned and passes quickly. There are several moments in this and the ensuing second part where the Doctor expresses his love affair with the human race; unfortunately they only serve to remind me of the far more effective and eloquent speech offered by the Fourth Doctor in The Ark In Space. But again they are easily overlooked. Just as easily forgiven are the rather odd reluctance on the part of the Doctor to explain the TARDIS and on the part of Rose to explain her cell phone. (“Communicator thing?” Really Rose?) I’m sure these remarkable humans on an impossible planet can handle the technological truth.
One final nit-picking. The TARDIS is lost, seemingly forever, sucked down into the heart of the planet. The Doctor and Rose find themselves stranded on this impossible planet poised on the brink of a black hole. Assigned to the duty roster and facing the prospect of ordinary, everyday life, the Doctor and Rose contemplate their future. Now the Doctor has recently done just this in The Girl in the Fireplace, only at that time the thought was more appealing and of his own doing. Now he contemplates his static existence as though it were a black hole. “That’s it; I’m dying. It is all over,” he states. Then Rose chirps in about getting a mortgage together. I guess she is trying to look on the bright side, but all I can think is that her schoolgirl romance that she has been concocting in her mind is suddenly becoming a reality, no matter the tragic circumstances. She gives little thought to her mother or to the Doctor’s agony; and never mind that the idea of going back to business as usual, getting a job etc, once so horrified her that she risked everything to reunite with the Doctor and the excitement he offered (The Parting of the Ways). Turns out it is the crush that inspires her and not the rewarding travel and expansion of the mind; certainly not the “better way of living your life.”
I do have to give Rose credit, however. She is the only one who shows any consideration for the Ood. The Ood are explained away as a slave race willingly offering their selves up for service. They don’t even have names of their own.  “We have no title,” one tells her. “We are as one.” Rose doesn’t take the information at face value, either. She questions the Ood on her own and tries to engage them in conversation. The action takes off and the narration of the Ood gets lost in the commotion. It is the tantalizing tidbits, though, that make the Ood worth revisiting in upcoming serials.
The action doesn’t just take off; it builds. The tension that has been mounting with the revelation of the black hole, the repeated quakes, and the loss of the TARDIS continues to snowball as the Ood start imparting mysterious warnings and ominous whispers begin to haunt Toby. (What inspiration to cast Gabriel Woolf who also voiced that memorable Doctor Who devil-like creature Sutekh in Pyramids of Mars.) The scene with Toby as the voice taunts him is chilling enough but then ratchets up even higher as the ancient writing transfers to his face and hands. That is only the beginning, though. The chorus of “He is awake” and the congregational reply “And you will worship him” adds further to the spine tingling mix. Still there is more.
Scooti first tries to reason with and then argues with the computer. “But you’re not making any sense,” she tells it as it continues to repeat the impossible on this impossible planet. “There is no fault,” it informs Scooti as she increases her demands for logical answers. And then it joins the sinister refrain, “He is awake,” and adds this embellishment, “He bathes in the black sun.” Scooti stares transfixed at the symbol covered and possessed Toby who is beckoning her out to her doom on the planet’s surface. “No! Stop it! You can’t be!” Scooti tries to deny the impossibility she is witnessing, and then she frantically pleads for her life with the nonresponsive computer as Toby reaches out his hand to break the glass and Scooti is sucked out to her death. It is a breathtakingly eerie scene and could have easily been the cliffhanger ending to this first part, but there is much more in store for us.
With the breach to the base there is a mad dash to safety for the remaining crew. After the bloodcurdling events, it is jarring to see Toby assemble with the rest. The writing is gone from his skin and he seems to be back to normal, but he obviously is shaken and not quite himself so vestiges of danger linger in the air as everyone collects in Habitation Three where Zach tells them Scooti’s biochip is registering. No Scooti is to be found, until that is the Doctor looks up to the lonely sight of Scooti’s body floating high above them, slowly drifting towards the black hole. We barely get to know Scooti, yet the little screen time she has makes this ghostly send off very moving indeed.
The end to Scooti also marks the end to the drilling. Point Zero has been reached and all of the warnings about the beast in the pit hang heavy about them as the Doctor and Ida prepare to descend. The focus shifts to the beauty of the underground caverns that these two begin to explore. It is short-lived, however. The beast in the pit is awake and all of the disturbing elements are starting to come together in what promises to be true terror.
“They’re staring at me,” Danny complains of the Ood. It would be funny if it didn’t tap into some basic childhood nightmare. Silently the Ood stand and stare, their telepathic field registering Basic 100, which means they should by all rights be dead. Meanwhile the Doctor and Ida discover an immense trap door in the pit covered with those same mysterious and ancient symbols that defy translation. Toby once again is possessed, red eyed and covered in writings.
 It all builds to a crescendo. The infection transfers from Toby into the Ood. Desperately Zach calls for someone to report and the Doctor demands to know what is occurring above. The Ood press forward upon the crew in the drilling area and in Ood habitation, intoning the words of the beast. “He has woven himself in the fabric of your life since the dawn of time.” The crew retreats, the planet begins to move, and still the Ood march. “I am the sin and the temptation and the desire.”
“The gravity field—it’s going! We’re losing orbit! We’re going to fall into the black hole!” Zach screams from the control room.
The Ood remain relentless. “I have been imprisoned for eternity. But no more.”
And then that wonderfully satanic voice: “The pit is open and I am free.”
This is one cliffhanger worthy of the name. I am definitely on the edge of my seat, Gary . . .

Friday, May 2, 2014

The Idiot's Lantern

Dear Gary—
The Idiot’s Lantern is probably my least favorite of all of the David Tennant episodes. It took me a long time to figure out exactly what I dislike about it; what I have finally concluded to be my main objection is the very thing that the Doctor and Rose seem to take such pride in, and that is, “the domestic approach.”
To begin, the TARDIS has yet again landed on Earth. This is getting more wearisome than when the Third Doctor was exiled. Even when Doctor number ten breaks away to another planet it winds up being New Earth or parallel Earth. I can accept this if the story makes up for it; The Idiot’s Lantern does not.
Not only Earth, but yet again England, yet again London. The Doctor was even trying for someplace new—New York—but the TARDIS got it wrong. Again, I can accept this. 1950’s London could make a good backdrop for a story and the Doctor and Rose emerging in period dress and on a moped signals fun. However, when the Tenth Doctor and Rose have fun it usually is to the exclusion of and at the expense of others. The Idiot’s Lantern is no exception.
This leads to the heart of the domestic approach in this episode. The Connolly family. Eddie is clearly a bully. Anyone can see that. I do not deny it. However, that is no cause for the Doctor and Rose to barge into his home and immediately start humiliating him in front of his family. In doing so, they are little better than he is. But oh what fun they have doing it.
Domestic abuse is a serious issue and clearly the script has good intentions, but it fails miserably.
Eddie is not physically abusive, he is merely a blowhard. He doesn’t raise his hand; he raises his voice. But he doesn’t belittle or demean. If anything, I get the sense that he is scared; terrifying and bewildering things are happening and he is trying to keep his family safe and maintain some order in his life but things are spiraling out of control. In waltz the Doctor and Rose to challenge his authority and to belittle and demean him. I end up feeling sorry for Eddie.
About the worst that can be said of Eddie is that he expresses the opinion that a woman’s place is in the home; hardly a shocking sentiment for a man living in 1953. A gentle chiding or contradictory opinion would have sufficed; instead the Doctor and Rose put him thoroughly in his place.
Rita Connolly, in the meantime, does little to garner sympathy. She doesn’t appear to be afraid of her husband; neither is she understanding of him. She is simply there. She never tries to talk or reason with him.  All she can do is pester him with questions that no one can answer. It is horrifying, the faceless grandmother locked in the room upstairs, pounding on the floor. All Rita can do is pepper Eddie with accusations of: “Nothing’s the same anymore.” And “What happened to her?” And “I think she’s hungry.” Like Eddie could do anything about any of that.
Of course Eddie shows little understanding of his own. Finding one’s mother with her face gone, wondering how she can survive, how she can eat and breath, listening to her pounding her cane over and over on the floor above, frightened that men in black will break into the house and spirit her away—it would be little to ask of one’s husband for a shoulder to cry on. Instead he locks the mother away and pretends nothing has happened.
This seems a serious breakdown in marital communication rather than any case of domestic abuse and I don’t see that Rita is doing anything to alleviate the situation.
This is a fault in the script. Eddie is given a glimmer of depth; Rita is a cardboard cutout.
Tommy is the only saving grace of this family unit. Tommy has no good examples set before him. Not his father; not his mother; certainly not the Doctor or Rose. Yet Tommy has somehow emerged an intelligent and caring individual. Tommy finds the backbone to stand up to Eddie (perhaps it is Eddie’s taunt that Tommy should forget about college and work for a living— but in 1953 is it possible that Eddie just doesn’t have the means to send his son to college or the understanding of what college could do for his boy, and has Tommy ever bothered to discuss this with his dad?) and to expose him as the traitor who has been turning in all of the faceless ones, including his gran.
And this leads us to the monster of our story, the Wire. The Wire has been feeding off of the electrical activity of the human brain. The Wire has taken up residence in a television set at Magpie’s Electrical shop and is keeping Magpie in line by threatening him with mind meltdown. Of course Magpie could always just stay away from the TV to escape her threat, but then again TVs are his livelihood so there’s that. I’m not sure his dingy little shop is worth the destruction of millions of people, but Magpie’s motivation is the least of my complaints.
The Wire is an alien of unknown origin condemned by her own people for unknown crimes and converted into electrical form by unknown means. She is planning on feasting on the minds of millions as they watch the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and by some unknown process thereby recreating her corporeal form, whatever that may be.
All of this is beyond poor Detective Inspector Bishop and his men in black. All he can do is cart off the afflicted and lock them up out of sight, not much different than Eddie Connolly has done. It’s rather preposterous, really. All they care about are appearances? Where are your investigative journalists? Where are your outraged citizens? Where are your socially conscious crusaders? Where are your inquiring minds? Never mind your police force that should be doing their jobs and not just mopping up unsightly, faceless riffraff. Does no one think that this might be a threat to national security at such a time of historical importance? When it comes to that—where is your Torchwood?
The Doctor and Rose, apparently, are the only two who think to do any detecting. Thankfully the two go off following their separate leads. I say thankfully because when they are together they are insufferable. Apart they can shine. Rose heads for Magpie and the intelligence and common sense she displays make her tolerable. The Doctor meanwhile heads for Detective Inspector Bishop to get some answers and he regains his Doctor quality.
Except then Rose gets her brain sucked out leading to this bit of histrionics from the Doctor when he discovers her faceless body: “They took her face and just chucked her out and left her in the street. And as a result that makes things simple. Very, very simple. Do you know why?”  Bishop responds with the obligatory “No” before the Doctor puffs himself up to deliver: “Because now, Detective Inspector Bishop, there is no power on this Earth that can stop me!” Now? What—a couple dozen, a hundred, thousands, who knows how many people have had their brains sucked dry and that isn’t motivation enough? Rose and only Rose can spur the Doctor to such passionate determination? Really? Did we really need that Gary?
To me, what a faceless Rose makes simple is that all of the faceless victims are not actually in any danger because if Rose has suffered the same this can only mean that it is not irreversible.
This renders the ensuing race to the finish rather ho hum.
Tommy comes back into play, because the Doctor needs an assistant (excuse me, companion). There are some nice character moments between the two and touches of humor mixed in, but it all boils down to just a lot of running around and frantic paces.  In between we are treated to scenes of the complacent Rita who has just slammed the door in the face of her husband of many years and contentedly sits down amongst her family and friends to watch the coronation and by the way almost get her face sucked off.
The Doctor prevails, the faceless ones regain their faces, life resumes as normal, and there are parties in the street. The Wire is captured on Betamax to be taped over at some future date. All is well with the world.
It all ends with an uncharacteristically sweet moment. Uncharacteristic only because it is at odds with all that went before.
“Good riddance,” Tommy says as he watches his beaten down father walk off with one small suitcase in hand as the only representation of a lifetime.  And then this:
Doctor: “Is that it then, Tommy? New monarch, new age, new world. No room for a man like Eddie Connolly.”
Tommy: “That’s right; he deserves it.”
Rose: “Tommy, go after him.”
Tommy: “What for?”
Rose: “He’s your dad.”
Tommy: “He’s an idiot.”
Rose: “Of course he is. Like I said, he’s your dad. But you’re clever. Clever enough to save the world so don’t stop there. Go on.”
First time watching this episode I was struck by this scene; I was moved and impressed. I hadn’t cared for the story without knowing why, but I liked that the Doctor and Rose sent Tommy after his dad. Now I realize that it is this ending, which I still am moved by, that shows up how hollow the preceding domestic storyline really is.
And now I say good riddance to The Idiot’s Lantern, Gary, as I send this off into the electrical impulses of the universe . . .