The Time of Angels

Dear Gary—

After the last two episodes Doctor Who has a long way to go in order to rehabilitate itself in my eyes. The Time of Angels is a good start.

The Weeping Angels were a great one story villain. They make a reappearance here, but in keeping with New Who tradition of revamping old foes this brand spanking new alien is already in line for a makeover. For this one episode it works; it works almost as well as the previous incarnation of Angels in Blink. What makes them work is the same thing that worked in Blink, and that is their reasonably explained lethargy. Absent that, this story would be over in the blink of an eye.

As it stands this first half of a two part story is sufficiently suspenseful and creepy. The Angels provide a real and horrifying threat even if there is no motivation provided. The Angels of Blink had a reason for their actions—they were feeding off the potential energy of their victims’ stolen lives. These relatively ‘nice’ killers of Blink, however, have turned into psychotic murderers snapping necks for the sheer pleasure of it. They have also gained some super villain powers along the way, prompting the Doctor to describe them as “the deadliest, most powerful, most malevolent life form evolution has ever produced” (move over Daleks and Cybermen—but I suppose they are not technically a product of evolution). I suppose the energy draining goes hand in hand with their previous manifestation, but now they can telekinetically slam doors shut and deadlock them even when there is no deadlock, and they can use the cerebral cortex of a corpse to communicate as well as reanimate the consciousness of a dead human. Seems there’s nothing these Angels can’t do as long as the script calls for it.

The script calls for the Angels to be just eerie and menacing enough to chill the spine but not enough to kill the action. That’s a bit of a cheat and a problem, but it works for half a story and makes for an entertaining thriller.

The Time of Angels gets us back on track of the New Who trend of hitting all the highlights of pop culture genres in order to keep the audience’s attention without getting overly annoying.

Like that Mission Impossible opening in which River Song takes a serious leap of faith. It is very fortuitous that the Doctor read the script and arrives in the nick of time (and that the TARDIS is on its most precise and best behavior).

The return of River Song is a good call too, even if a tad irritating. It is refreshing to see a strong, confident female character on an equal footing with the Doctor. The give and take between the two is amusing and there is a comfortable chemistry that speaks to their long history together even if the Doctor (and the audience) is not yet privy to it. The running joke that River knows more about the TARDIS and various equipment gets a bit old though, and despite the gag of the TARDIS sound being extremely funny I can only assume River is putting the Doctor on. After all, I just re-watched Underworld where that same sound is clearly identified as the relative dimensional stabilizer of a TARDIS in materialization phase. The various hints about River’s true identity are tantalizing as they arise organically within the confines of the story, both through Amy’s natural curiosity (“She’s Mrs. Doctor from the future, isn’t she?”) and through the evident arrangement and shared knowledge between River and Father Octavian. This too would get old, however, if continued much longer without any kind of payoff; but ‘spoilers,’ Gary; I won’t delve deeper into the topic.

The tension slowly builds throughout this episode. The Doctor and River discussing the book on Angels interspersed with Amy trapped with an Angel are well done as the snippets of knowledge the Doctor and River glean come to life before Amy’s eyes. The notion of the Angel coming out of the projection (another Angel super power) is terrific and terrifying, and Amy’s ultimate solution brilliant. When the scene shifts into the cavern the suspense steadily increases.

I have to stop for a moment here, Gary, to say a word about Matt Smith as the Doctor. The last two stories had my blood boiling, but the one saving grace (even though I was too mad to mention it) was Matt Smith’s performance. He continues this stellar portrayal in The Time of Angels. He has that laser sharp focus allowing him to switch from flippant to serious on a dime and amidst chaos and danger to take a seemingly innocuous moment to express concern and foster reassurance (similar to the Fourth Doctor).

In particular I would like to point out the Doctor’s interaction with Bob. Almost out of the corner of his eye the Doctor discerns the dysfunctional exchange between Octavian and his Cleric and with a simple question (“What’s your name?”) he diffuses the tension and with a few more well placed words gains the confidence of all. With a final “Anyone in this room who isn’t scared is a moron,” he turns his attention back to the danger at hand with, “Carry on.” It is fast; it is momentary; it is unnecessary; but it speaks volumes about who this Eleventh Doctor is.

Back to the action. The revelations about the all-powerful Angels keep coming. “That which holds the image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel.” Not only that, but when an Angel creeps into a person’s eye they also control their mind. It is eerie watching Amy learn this for herself. The sand filtering through her hand as she rubs her eye is an ominous warning of things to come. When she becomes literally petrified with fear it takes the Doctor’s lateral thinking (shades of Three and Four here) to get her moving again.

Now we find out the true psychosis of these Angels as they taunt the Doctor using Bob’s voice. They are as malicious as they are powerful. I have to wonder how the universe has survived them.

Finally we have the reveal that the multitude of statues surrounding our heroes in these caverns of the dead are not the monuments to the two-headed inhabitants of the planet as they thought but are in fact reviving Angels. Surrounded by Angels, malevolent and mighty Angels, they are trapped.

Except: “If you’re smart, if you value your continued existence, if you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there is one thing you never, ever put in a trap.”

The Doctor is being bombastic again, but I’ll forgive him because these Angels are unforgivably sadistic.

The flaring light, the gunshot, the jumping . . . I don’t know what any of that is about, but along with Amy and River and Octavian and the Clerics I will trust the Doctor and I will take that leap of faith . . .

Until next time Gary.

Victory of the Daleks

Dear Gary—

Doctor Who isn’t Doctor Who anymore. It’s some generic action adventure series with a guy called the Doctor and some Daleks thrown in to make it seem authentic. That’s not precisely how I feel, but the thought does flit through my mind from time to time during Victory of the Daleks; most notably during the Star Wars fighter pilot segment.

This episode has the feel of a group of guys sitting around coming up with ideas. One says he knows an actor who does a great Churchill impression and the rest latch onto that notion and run with it. And oh wouldn’t it be cool, one says, if we had Daleks in it? Daleks in WWII, how cool is that? We could have Daleks in victory posters and camouflage and . . .

And oh, Gary I fear that Victory of the Daleks was born.

I can’t think why New Who has this all-consuming need to upgrade its classic villains; and this falling back through time routine is getting a bit old. Furthermore, the Earth apparently is the default setting whenever any alien race decides to hit their reset button.

Most annoying, though, is the shows increasing flippancy with the historical record. The Original got it right, with The Aztecs being the epitome of this history-as-sacrosanct philosophy. Understandably this hard and fast rule needed to be relaxed as the Doctor continued his travels through known history, and New Who’s fixed point theory, while highly improbable and preposterous, works on the superficial level that the show tends towards. However the show has started to go off the deep end in making a mockery out of the past.

Mind you, Classic Who would occasionally dip its toe in these waters but it was usually discordant. I think of the Fourth Doctor’s claim regarding his Shakespearean ghostwriting in City of Death; but this is nothing compared to the influence the Tenth Doctor and his companion have over the immortal words of the Bard.

Victory of the Daleks takes the London Blitz and turns it into the Doctor and Dalek show.

If I were a British subject I would be livid.

Yes, Victory Daleks are cool. Yes, the sight of Daleks serving tea is cool. Yes, hearing Daleks say, “I am your soldier,” is cool. And yes, even the Star Wars fighter pilots are cool. But Doctor Who has to be more than a sum total of a collection of its cool parts. Victory of the Daleks could use some grounding; Victory of the Daleks could use a Nancy to depict the true devastation of the London Blitz on ordinary life. The closest bone we are thrown is the peripheral character of Miss Breen. Hitler, the Nazis, and the Blitz are all trivial to the plot. Victory of the Daleks could be set in any time, in any place. But then we wouldn’t have a cigar chomping Churchill or the Victory Daleks. WWII is convenient and cool set dressing nothing more.

And that’s about the best this serial has to offer. The Doctor/Dalek confrontation and threat to Earth plot is rushed and blasé.

Why is it that everyone in the known Who universe just sits around waiting for the Doctor to show up? If it’s not Liz Ten amongst her water glasses it’s the Daleks in Blitzkrieg London. I guess they are just biding time anticipating the Doctor Who ‘Action’ call from Mr. Doctor Who Director; they know it’s inevitable that the Doctor will enter the picture once that happens. The Doctor never arrives anywhere by chance anymore; he is summoned or manipulated or fated to land at a particular time and place.

That’s a problem with New Who. It is so deliberately crafted; all its seams are showing.

So the Daleks are serving tea while they wait around for Churchill to phone a friend, his old chum the Doctor; because Churchill is incapable of running a war or making major decisions on his own. He needs an alien’s stamp of approval on the new war machines created by his scientific adviser Professor Edwin Bracewell. But never mind, a month has gone by since Winston made that urgent phone call and these machines make such good waiters, what’s the harm? Now that the Doctor has arrived and sounds off all kinds of alarms the Prime Minister ignores the very man he called in to consult.

The best the Doctor can think of in this situation is to pick up a giant spanner and start hitting a Dalek’s metal casing. He doesn’t go for the eye stalk or weapons systems. He isn’t trying to neutralize it; he is just trying to antagonize this “worst thing in all creation.” He is trying to prove the danger they are in by putting the entire room in danger, not to mention the Earth. By doing this he falls right into the Daleks’ (and author’s) master plan.

This is their master plan: to wait around serving tea until the Doctor inevitably shows up (nothing left to chance here) to identify them to the Progenitor, which will only take the word of the sworn enemy of the Daleks as proper evidence that this battered wait staff contains the right stuff to carry on the name of Dalek. Genius.

Now we get the Doctor holding off the Daleks with a Jammie Dodger (how cool is that?) and our cool Spitfires in space action sequences. Oh, and cool new Technicolor Daleks. After all these drab millennia the Daleks have become fashion conscious. Too cool for words. Cool; cool, cool, cool (borrowing a page from Abed Nadir).

Lighting up London during the Blitz is the initial threat posed by the Daleks. Not exactly a worldwide catastrophe; the action-packed attack on the Dalek spaceship isn’t quite as heroic when you consider it merely saves London from a massive electric bill; but I guess the Daleks are just warming up. Nothing is mentioned about any defense mounted by the British against the advancing German planes; nobody thinks to smash some light bulbs, draw their curtains, or cover their lamps with towels. So I guess it is all up to these miraculous fighter pilots in space to win this particular campaign in the Dalek version of WWII. But this is only a cool diversion before the real Dalek threat.

Turns out Professor Bracewell isn’t human. He is a bomb in robotic form. The Daleks do bombs on a grand scale. Maybe Bracewell isn’t exactly a Reality Bomb, but Oblivion Continuum sounds pretty impressive. A snap to defuse, though. All you have to do is convince Bracewell that he is human and not a robot bomb. This is where Amy and her wonder powers of observation and insight come in.

Victory of the Daleks is entertaining and funny and thrilling and even poignant at times. But I’m sorry, Gary; coming so close on the heels of The Beast Below I have no patience for it. Especially when they remind me with the Doctor’s ‘Sophie’s Choice’ moment; again with the alien vs. humanity dilemma. And of course that darn crack making its mandatory appearance in a random place.

“What does hate look like?”

Right now the show does not want to ask me that question Gary.

The Beast Below

Dear Gary—

How do I even begin to tell you how much I hate The Beast Below? This episode is so far beneath the bottom of my list; I wish it didn’t exist. It is preposterous, calculated, and insulting. It is a manufactured drama that is patently absurd and a slap in the face to the audience.  It doesn’t fill me with anger like it used to because frankly I find I just don’t care enough anymore, but I can still get worked up just thinking about it. Hang onto your hat, Gary.

I’ll start with the Smilers. These are fantastically creepy creations that fill one with dread, but there is no logical explanation for them. They are designed to smile or frown, depending on if you have been naughty or nice; or, as in the case of Timmy and Mandy, if you have been stupid or smart. After rendering their verdict I presume they program into the lifts (Vators) whether to take you to your destination or send you below. It must be some sophisticated programming to know when certain individuals who have been designated naughty and/or stupid step into one of those Vators. I wonder, if Timmy had gone in with the other kids, would they all be sent below? Or would Timmy have been spared? And what if he had taken the stairs as Mandy advised? Would he have been spared, at least until the next zero he gets on a test? And would he be doomed to taking the stairs for the rest of his life? We’ll never know because he stupidly (guess that zero was accurate) gets into the next Vator to come along and he is sent below. Apparently Timmy has no parents; or his parents don’t care about him. Apparently none of the parents in this world take any notice of their kids and if they have gone missing.

And what of all of these kids wandering about below because the Star Whale has rejected them? Who takes care of them? Feeds them? Clothes them? Why aren’t they sent back up to their parents? Oh yeah, because their parents don’t give a darn. And do they then live out their entire lives down there, or are they in a holding pattern until they reach a certain age when they become digestible?

There is no reason for these Smilers to be. Other than programming lifts they don’t seem to have any practical threat. Just stay clear of Smilers and lifts and you can get away with murder. Only the idiots like Timmy walk right into the trap.

Now what about this international glass of water test? Except it seems that it’s not universally known; you have to belong to a secret glass of water test club I guess. It’s lucky that it is a glass of water the Doctor takes. Otherwise I imagine Hawthorne saying, ‘Sorry, Ma’am, false alarm. It was a cup of tea he used not a glass of water.’ And why would the Doctor use his newly minted, million and one uses sonic screwdriver to check for engine vibrations when he has a handy glass of water to swipe?  Maybe it isn’t luck. With the prescience of the Queen, perhaps the London Market is under orders to serve nothing but water, and in real glasses; none of this plastic or Styrofoam cup nonsense.

The Queen. Ah yes, the Queen. Gun toting Liz Ten sitting all day in her room full of water glasses for ten year stretches before she decides to do anything. Children yanked from their families; malcontents sent to the cleaners—no wait—sent below, frowned upon, whatever; tentacles crashing up through the streets. “Basically, I rule” indeed. Basically she sits and stares at a couple dozen glasses of water. They are different sizes and depths, so maybe she periodically gives water glass concerts while she waits out her eternity for the Doctor to perform her club’s secret handshake; I mean water glass test.

The Smilers and the water glass test; these are mere symptoms. Let’s get down to the real disease of this plot. This forget-me-not Star Whale plot.

Let’s start with the giant whale in the room. Earth is burning, people are dying, children are screaming. The UK traps a Star Whale and has the time and money and resources and expertise to build a spaceship around it to house the country’s entire population and comes complete with Smilers and feeding tubes and torture chambers and voting booths and mind wipers and marketplaces—BUT THEY CAN’T BUILD AN ENGINE?

It is unforgivably contrived.

OK, so the entire population is as dumb as a post. Or at least as dumb as their queen who not only concocted this whale of an idea but also the voting scheme. Or I should say scam. Because it is a lie. There is no vote. There is no democracy at work. It’s either agree and forget or be eaten. So she built these voting chambers to give the people the illusion of democracy but it is really a means for her to get rid of rebels. But then why did she install a giant ‘Record’ button? What possible purpose does that serve? Oh, I know. The one and only purpose of this giant ‘Record’ button is so that Amy can tape her warning. (Which, by the way, she doesn’t heed as she spends the rest of the episode running around after the Doctor in her nightie and never once tries to make him leave.)

Are we supposed to believe that this Queen is benevolent and compassionate? Not only did she trap the whale for torture but she’s feeding her people to it. But it’s OK because she forgot she did that. And it is all in order to save her people. Her dumb as a post people who don’t even know how to build an engine. And she must be having pangs of guilt because every ten years or so she investigates what’s up with—not her disappearing people or the Smilers or the tentacles that are ripping holes in her roads—but with glasses of water that don’t show evidence of engine vibrations. And like clockwork, every ten years she once again chooses to forget; only to start the cycle all over again. Here’s an idea, Queenie: why don’t you write yourself a note, or make a recording like Amy, telling you to R-E-L-A-X?  (My apologies to Aaron Rodgers.) Let yourself know that it’s you behind the water thing and to just chill out and enjoy your water glass concerts in peace.

What of the whale? The Last of the Star Whales? How does the Queen even know that the Star Whale will eat people? What gave her the bright idea to feed the whale her subjects? What did the whale live on before? Flying through the universe, did it visit planets to devour populations? Can’t it feed itself as it flies around with a country on its back?

This rubbish heap of a narrative has all been carefully crafted to drive home its message. A message of the Doctor and of Amy.

The first clue is obvious. “We are observers only. That’s the one rule I’ve always stuck to in all my travels. I never get involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets.” That is a bald-faced lie. That is a statement only William Hartnell’s Doctor could make and mean. Perhaps early in this new regeneration the Doctor has reverted to his original personality. Except this statement is immediately followed by the Doctor rushing out to interfere. And now we get the point hammered in by Amy: “You never interfere in the affairs of other peoples or planets, unless there’s children crying?”

From there everything leads to the Sophie’s Choice dilemma: “Humanity or the alien.” It is why Amy chose to forget. She can’t remember why she forgot, but the Doctor tells her: “You took it upon yourself to save me from that.” The Doctor chastises her for this decision, which she can’t even remember and for all he knows isn’t accurate, and washes his hands of her. It’s his choice to make, by golly, and no one is going to stop him from doing the worst thing he will ever do. Because he only has three choices and each is equally reprehensible: “One, I let the Star Whale continue in unendurable agony for hundreds more years. Two, I kill everyone on this ship. Three, I murder a beautiful, innocent creature as painlessly as I can.”

Oh, how many things can I find wrong with this? Let me just list a few more options. One, he stops the torture but leaves the whale hooked up to fly Starship UK where it chooses. Two, he tries to communicate with the whale to find out what it is thinking and what its plans are and what further options are available. Three, he builds an engine for Starship UK. Four, he transports the entire population via the TARDIS to an acceptable location and frees the Star Whale. I don’t think it’s necessary to list any more, Gary. Pick an option, any option. Mix and match if you like.

But the Doctor doesn’t even stop to think that there could be alternate solutions to the problem. More humane solutions. Instead he is going to render the whale brain dead. Will the whale still require sustenance? Will the Doctor allow the continued feeding of the undesirables to the whale? Will the whale be able to navigate once it has no cognitive thought left? (Which begs the question—were the peoples of the Starship UK even directing the whale or were they just prodding it to continual motion, never mind where it was headed? What was their plan in that case? Just eternal movement through the heavens with no destination in mind? If that’s the case, why bother with torture? They’re strapped on; just go along for the ride. Why would they need to go any faster?) The Doctor does not think through any of these questions. He just doesn’t think.

The script never allows the Doctor to think. It never allows the Doctor to come up with a Doctor-like solution. The script very decidedly steers the Doctor to this impossible choice with no other options considered. It does this so that it can steer Amy to her action. “Notice everything.” “The last of its kind.” “It won’t eat the children.” Blah, blah, blah. Voila. Amy sees the message that the episode has been spelling out for all to see. The big shiny message. Here is her long-winded and reiterative explanation: “The Star Whale didn’t come like a miracle all those years ago. It volunteered. You didn’t have to trap it or torture it. That was all just you. It came because it couldn’t stand to watch your children cry. What if you were really old, and really kind and alone? Your whole race dead. No future. What couldn’t you do then? If you were that old, and that kind, and the very last of your kind, you couldn’t just stand there and watch children cry.” She says this as she looks pointedly at the Doctor.

OK. We get the message.

But here is where the show adds the insult to the injury. Because the show thinks we are stupid. And so the show has Amy yet again spell out the message in big block letters for the dumb as a post audience: “I’ve seen it before. Very old and very kind and the very, very last. Sound a bit familiar?”

Yes, it sounds familiar because it has been explicitly stated again and again. We get the message already.

And then, the last straw: the show breaks out the big scary crack. What this big scary crack is doing on a starship on the back of a giant space whale is beyond me. It has no reason for being other than to act as a signpost for the viewer. An ominous signpost of big scary crack stories to come.

At this point I will paraphrase the Doctor and say, ‘Nobody connected to New Who has anything to say to me today!’

I’m done, Gary. I’m through.

The Eleventh Hour

Dear Gary—

I have to say that while David Tennant is probably the most entertaining of the Doctors Matt Smith is promising to be one of the most likeable based on this premier episode. Additionally I would like to put on record that I find this one of the best introductions of a new companion in the history of the series. The minute Matt Smith peeks out from the crashed TARDIS he inhabits the role of the Doctor, and his subsequent meeting with the fabulous Amelia Pond is charming. There is something very real about this fairy tale encounter. There is a tricky balance between reality and once-upon-a-time and The Eleventh Hour gets it right. It crawls inside a child’s mind and gets it right. It gets it “fish fingers and custard” right.

The make believe world Amelia creates out of this brief interlude with her “Raggedy Doctor” is sweet. The stories and pictures and play-acting are endearing and apparently well known to the residents of the story book village in which she dwells. We see none of this, but the few lines of exposition and the reactions by others tells us all we need to know.

Children grow up however and Amelia becomes Amy. Twelve years of lonely life berated by adults and assailed by psychiatrists and Amy’s illusions have been shattered. Now, twelve years later, Amy Pond is confronted by her imaginary friend come to life. Is it any wonder she whacks him with a cricket bat?

Amy Pond is hardened and cynical. She doesn’t doubt the Doctor because he is a fact before her, but she is not going to cut him any slack. She is not going to trust him with that childlike innocence that Amelia possessed. Even in the face of aliens and danger she is going to handcuff him to a radiator and slam his tie into a car door to pin him down and get answers. She is not going to let him duck into the TARDIS with a promise to return in five minutes only to have another twelve years go by. And she is not going to listen to him when he tells her not to go into that mysterious room. She is about proof; something tangible; no more fairy tales.

Amelia was not alone in her childhood whimsy, however. We never meet little Rory, only twelve-years-later Rory, but we know that Rory shared in Amelia’s fantasy world. Amelia knew the Doctor as a certainty; he was flesh and blood before her. It therefore is not as difficult for Amy to accept his authenticity once the evidence of the apple is presented. Rory, however, is befuddled by the Doctor; the Raggedy Doctor. “How can he be real?” It is the question continually on Rory’s mind because the Doctor dwells still in Rory’s imagination. He never had the flexibility of thought that characterizes childhood drilled out of him. It is this same open-mindedness that allows him to see the impossible; to see the coma patients wandering the streets; to take pictures of a man walking his dog when a giant spaceship is looming in the sky. He doesn’t understand; he is confused; but he doesn’t try to rationalize it away. He sees the Doctor; he talks to the Doctor; he knows that the Doctor is standing before him. The Doctor is a dream come to life; an impossible fact. Impossible facts ultimately are simply a matter of faith. All Rory can do is wonder and believe.

Personally I have no problem accepting this Raggedy Doctor. Matt Smith is the Doctor. He is young and fast talking, a perfect fit for the action packed and shorter episodes of New Who. Yet there is a call-back to Classic Who as well. I particularly like his three conditions for Amelia: “Do everything I tell you, don’t ask stupid questions, and don’t wander off.” It is very reminiscent of the ground rules the Fourth Doctor lays out for Romana in The Ribos Operation. The Eleventh Doctor might be out of little Amelia’s fantasy but he is not the dreamboat that Rose conjured up. Grown up Amy does not have stars in her eyes when she looks at the Doctor. Grown up Amy promises to be an old fashioned Doctor Who companion.

 The plot itself is appropriate for this new Doctor in the New Who. “Prisoner Zero has escaped” is a basic alien on Earth scenario. The crack in the wall, the room that no one dares notice, and things lurking out of the corner of one’s eye are elements taken straight from a child’s nightmare. It all comes together in a rapid fire adventure that is funny and scary and relatively simple. It is curious that Prisoner Zero takes up residence in Amy’s house and is content to hang out for twelve years until the Doctor’s return. However I suppose the Doctor’s explanation (“multiforms can live for millennia; twelve years is a pit-stop”) is as good an explanation as any. I also have to wonder how an advanced race of outer space police hunting down a multiform has no means of identification other than visual. However it fits nicely into the narrative and Rory’s picture taking.

The twenty minutes to save the world with no TARDIS and no sonic screwdriver is also a nice contrivance. This race against time is exciting and the Doctor’s usage of the people and resources on hand is clever. Hacking into the international power call and leaving the explanations to Jeff is amusing if unbelievable, and I have to ask where UNIT is and why the Doctor didn’t just use his UNIT credentials or even his psychic paper to convince the powers that be, but oh well. Taking the time during all this chaos to throw together his new outfit is another fantastic touch that dovetails beautifully with this Eleventh Doctor. His reaction to his new image (“Well that’s rubbish. Who’s that supposed to be?”) is classic and his explanation for not knowing what he looks like (“Busy day.”) is delightfully apt.

A new Doctor for this not so new anymore New Who. This episode is an adrenaline rush that restores my lagging faith in the show.

Until . . .

“I didn’t say you could go.”

Along with Rory I question: “Did he just save the world from aliens and then bring all the aliens back again?”

Now the effect of all those beloved faces of the Doctor ending with the Eleventh Doctor fully put together walking through the projection and stating, “Hello; I’m the Doctor,” is cool. As cool as his bow tie. I don’t deny that. It is a wonderful moment. One of those stand up and cheer moments. But it is marred. It is marred by the lecture. He saves the world from aliens (“actual aliens; deadly aliens; aliens of death”) and then calls them back to give them a stern talking to. This is his Principal Skinner moment.  Followed by his Reese Witherspoon ‘do you know who I am’ moment.

And then there is the crack that won’t go away and Prisoner Zero knowing far too much about it. “The Pandorica will open. Silence will fall.” I don’t want to jump ahead, but how can I not? We just went through this whole dark and ominous fortune telling nonsense and here it crops up again. The Pandorica. The Silence. The cracked universe. The show invites us to look into its crystal ball.

For now I’ll just say that this crack is inconsistent. Here it allows people to jump back and forth between worlds and memories of lost loved ones (namely Amy’s mother) are intact. That’s all I want to say on the subject at this time. The show will force me to speak more as the season progresses.

I’ll end on a positive note because the episode does. “I’m in my nightie.” Amy in the TARDIS. It’s a wonderful scene as Amy signs up for a TARDIS run and the parting shot of her wedding dress hanging expectantly in the closet adds an unexpected element. But the best is a new yet old definition for the Doctor: “I am definitely a madman with a box.”

A new Doctor for this not so new anymore New Who.

And so I say, Gary, “Hello everything . . .”

David Tennant

Dear Gary—

David Tennant is born into the role of the Tenth Doctor almost in a coma that he is reluctant to wake from; he goes out kicking and screaming. In between his Tenth Doctor is heroic, romantic, and charismatic; he is also self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing, and self-righteous. Through it all and above all he is entertaining. In short he is the epitome of New Who.

This is Doctor Who all grown up; and yet he has never been so juvenile.

It starts with Rose. The Ninth Doctor was smitten but managed to rise above. The Tenth wakes into this young girl’s fantasy and he lowers himself to her mentality. At times I think Bill and Ted are more mature in their adventures. The Doctor and Rose hit their low point in The Idiot’s Lantern when their hijinks tend to the mean-spirited. For the most part, though, the two are well intentioned even if a little too class clown and cliquish.

After Rose’s dramatic departure Martha continues the adulation of the Doctor. However, the Doctor keeps Martha at arm’s length. As cloying as the Doctor’s relationship with Rose was, I’m not sure that this aloof approach is an improvement. There are some genuine moments between the Doctor and Martha but they are brief and far between. I think the closest the two get is at the end of Gridlock.

 Both Rose and Martha feed the Doctor’s ego. He manages to have a deeper relationship with some one-shot guest stars, most notably in The Girl in the Fireplace and HumanNature/The Family of Blood, only to return to the doting girls at his feet. Thankfully Donna puts an end to the fawn fest.

 Donna is Doctor Who getting the companion right. The two have fun together but not at the expense or exclusion of others. There is a compassion and warmth and understanding with these two. There is also a respect and admiration without the worship. Donna is always eager to help the Doctor but never hesitant to challenge him as well. The Fires of Pompeii is one of many fine examples of this. When the Doctor wipes Donna’s mind Wilf bemoans the fact that she was better when she was with him. However I think it is the Doctor who is the bigger loser. Donna makes the Doctor a better person.

Companionless in the specials, the Doctor begins to revert to the exclusionary demeanor he had with Rose. If he can’t have one companion forever and always by his side, he reasons, then he’ll have none. The Doctor has had countless people traveling with him through his many generations; countless TARDIS crew have come and gone. School Reunion with the wonderful Sarah Jane Smith explores this heartbreaking reality of his life. Now at the end of his tenth generation and after 900 plus years he finally has enough. This tenth generation stamps his foot and will have no more of it.

Delving into these emotional depths is an interesting development in New Who; but there is a danger to it. New Who has put so much emphasis on the Doctor, his relationships, his feelings, his psychology; New Who has made the adventures secondary. The adventures are now all in service to the Doctor and to the season story arc that will reveal some deep dark secret or explore the Doctor’s nature or bring the Doctor face to face with the ultimate decision/peril/destiny. The show is called Doctor Who for a reason; the Doctor should remain a mystery. New Who is so fascinated with the enigma of the Doctor that it over indulges. It shines a glaring spotlight on him to reveal his innermost thoughts and then tries it’s hardest to throw him back into the wonder of shadows. It wants to keep things about the Doctor hidden yet it continually harps on those very things. There are only so many times you can ask the question ‘Doctor Who?’ before you are compelled to answer it; but then you have to answer it in a way that doesn’t quite answer it so that you can continue to ask the question and then you have to come up with more half answers to keep stringing along. Let the title alone ask the question and stop hitting us over the head with it.

Sorry Gary, I got off track there with a bigger Who issue, although it has its beginnings with the Tenth Doctor. One outcome of this disturbing trend of trying to illuminate and at the same time enshroud the Doctor is the emerging picture of a hallowed nature. From his congregation of young girls to his sometimes godlike powers to images of angels flying him heavenward, this Tenth Doctor flirts with divinity. That is one of the things I love about The Waters of Mars; it shows up this lonely lord as a false idol.

With David Tennant we get some lighthearted fun ala New Earth, Partners in Crime, and The Unicorn and the Wasp; we get some tender and moving fare ala School Reunion, The Girl in the Fireplace, and Human Nature/The Family of Blood; and we get some psychological fare ala Midnight. We get action adventure, spine-tinglers, and extravaganzas. We get a little bit of everything and most of it is good. However there are also some bad, including three that I would put at the bottom of my all time Doctor Who stories: The Idiot’s Lantern, Fear Her, and The Lazarus Experiment.

I have struggled in writing this entry, Gary, as I have for most of the Tennant serials. I don’t want to be as negative as I sound and yet it keeps coming out that way. I really enjoy David Tennant as the Doctor and in my original rankings had him in fourth place. However when I come to final placements I will probably move him down at least one notch. David Tennant is the most charming and entertaining of all of the Doctors and that covers many flaws; but I have uncovered the flaws and they nag at me.

I continue on my slow path, Gary, weary though it has become . . .

The End of Time, Part Two

Dear Gary—

Let’s see, where did we leave off? Oh yes, the Time Lords were returning. These are not the galactic ticket inspectors of old, though. These are fully hardened war lords driven mad with battle lust. I do find it amusing that these lords of time who have all of time and space at their disposal, who can look into the Time Vortex and Untempered Schism, who control the laws of time, these almighty Time Lords hang on the every gesture of a soothsayer. The character is quite effective, however, and I am reminded of the Seeker from The Ribos Operation.

Time Lords gone mad. Six billion Masters have nothing on them.

Oh yeah, what of the Master and his six billion grinning, clapping, and waving clones? They are still grinning and clapping and waving, mostly rooted to the same spots in which we left them last except for a few who are scurrying about at the Master’s command. That’s the problem with six billion Masters. They are redundant. The one practical use these extraneous extras serve is one that is becoming a habit for Mankind in the new Who universe—and that is to serve as a transmitter. In Last of the Time Lords they all thought the one word (Doctor) to work their magic Peter Pan spell; in The Stolen Earth it is their phones that are used to transmit the Doctor’s telephone number. Here in The End of Time Part Two hapless humanity, in the shape of the Master, tune in to the drum beat in unison in order to track down its source.

 It is all to good effect, though, and that is what New Who is all about. The End of Time (Parts One and Two) are Doctor Who at its most self indulgent.

I have long since learned that there is no use trying to follow any logical thread in these two part season ending stories. Most plot elements exist merely as a thin veil to string together a series of dramatic highpoints, spectacular special effects, and poignant character moments. 

Let’s take Wilf’s gun as one example. The Woman in White cajoles and chastises Wilf with vaguely dire prophecies into digging it out from storage. This gun obviously has been set up as a linchpin and is the center of some interesting discussion between Wilf and the Doctor. It becomes a focal point emphasizing the Doctor’s pacifism as he resists Wilf’s urgent and moving pleas; but in a flash the Doctor tosses aside his principles when he learns of the returning Time Lords and he grabs the previously rejected gun without hesitation. This is the Doctor taking arms. Shakily he stands between the Master with his Skeletor powers and Rassilon with his lightning bolt throwing gloves and he cows them both; with Wilf’s rusty revolver that has been collecting dust under his bed for who knows how long. I think the sheer audacity of it has awed the Master and Rassilon into inaction. The Doctor can’t make up his mind, though, which mighty Time Lord to use it on until he gets the brilliant idea to shoot out the controls that will send the Time Lords and Gallifrey back where they belong. That’s always the go-to Doctor Who solution—disable the controls. Why didn’t he just do that and be done with it? And for that matter, why the need for the gun at all? What’s wrong with his magic sonic which he has used countless times to damage controls and at least once in this episode alone? But then we wouldn’t have any of the drama and the pathos and that is what this entire show is about.

And spectacle. Let’s not forget the spectacle. What would Doctor Who be without explosions and chases? The Doctor and Wilf and the Cacti in a spaceship being chased by dozens of missiles. They’re dead, of course. Ten times over they are dead. Except this isn’t reality; this is virtual reality complete with game boy chairs and joysticks.

Speaking of dead of course—the Doctor hurtling at high speed from the space ship, smashing through a glass skylight, and crashing onto the hard floor putting the drop that did in the Fourth Doctor to shame. Dead of course. Except this is only virtual reality; he pops up with a few scratches and a torn coat. (And after surviving that he expects to face down Skeletor and the Lord President with a bullet.)

It is a breathtaking ride of a comic book narrative. When it is all over the disposable characters need to be disposed of. That’s easy. With just a line or two the Cacti skedaddle and the Naismiths are arrested for “crimes undisclosed.” The six billion Masters are handily erased with one magic wave of Rassilon’s glove.

Even the Time Lords are disposable really. They look and sound impressive; they put on a good show; but ultimately all of their ‘end of time’ threats come to naught. The Doctor warns that “hell is descending,” but all we see are a few Time Lords standing around and a giant planet appearing in the sky with no apparent adverse effects upon the Earth. There is just too much crammed into these two hours and none of it is given the time to fully develop (although the origin for the sound of drums in the Master’s head is one rich nugget gleaned from this flash in the pan).

Everything that has been crammed into the story has all been to serve one end, and that is the departure of David Tennant. It is a grand and epic spectacle put on in his honor. Through it all we are left to guess and wonder when and how it will happen; through it all we are misdirected and misled; through it all Wilf remains by his side as friend and counselor and ally.

“He will knock four times.” How fitting that the Doctor has emerged unscathed from the mayhem only to hear Wilf’s meek little raps on the glass and realize his time is up. (I’ll refrain from commenting on the idiotic nature of these chambers that can only be pulled out of the desperate air of a writer’s mind.)

It is indicative of this tenth generation that he throws a hissy fit when confronted with the inevitable. Even though he had been warned and prepared, he rants and raves to the bitter end.  “It’s not fair!” How many lives have ended in just this serial alone, not to mention since the Tenth Doctor first woke up on Christmas Day; and yet the Doctor cannot reconcile the fact that he is about to regenerate; not die but regenerate, something he has done nine times before; to walk away and live for perhaps another 906 years.

“Oh, I’ve lived too long,” he finally decides as he releases Wilf from the most ridiculous of predicaments and absorbs five hundred thousand rads of radiation.

He’s not done yet, though. He’s not quite ready to give up this pleasing form of his with the great hair adored by young girls. He is off for one last jaunt to claim his reward.

I said this was Doctor Who at its most self indulgent, and these last few moments of The End of Time Part Two are decadent with indulgence. It is a reward not only for the Doctor and for Doctor Who but for the fans as well, this end of an era extravagance. This is a chance to revisit old friends one last time. It’s all made up and contrived, of course, but that is appropriate for this Doctor. I also notice that he blatantly breaks those laws of time that he preaches as he crosses time lines and peeks in on people at the most coincidentally opportune times. I don’t mind; I’ll take this reward along with the Doctor. I don’t even mind seeing Rose again. Jack, Sarah, Mickey, Martha, Jackie; how great to meet up with them once more. With the added bonus of Alonso and the granddaughter of Joan Redfern. And of course the final parting from Donna, Wilf, and Sylvia. Lovely vignettes to shut out the Tenth Doctor’s run.

“We will sing to you, Doctor.” Ood Sigma stands by as the Doctor finally starts to lose his grasp on this generation.

“The universe will sing you to your sleep.” Quite a production for this tenth in a continuing line.

“This song is ending.” It’s taking its time, but it is ending.

“But the story never ends.” We’ve been here before. We know what is coming next.

“I don’t want to go.” No, I think we have gathered from your feet dragging that you don’t want to go.

Self indulgent. But appropriate.

At long last—Matt Smith.

Geronimo Gary . . .

The End of Time, Part One

Dear Gary—

This is what happens when you feel the need to come up with a bigger, more spectacular finale each and every time. Eventually you reach a point of diminishing returns. Eventually you run out of ideas and just throw everything you can think of at it and hope something sticks. The End of Time, Part One (along with its companion piece Part Two but more on that one later) is just such a whirlwind of a story.

It is all meant to feel grand and epic and prophetic. Some of it works and some of it doesn’t. Some of it is explained and some of it isn’t. There is so much crammed in, though, that one loses track.

Just look at the first few minutes. We have a Narrator predicting the end of the Earth (doesn’t happen by the way). Then we have visions of a laughing Master while being reminded of the events from Last of the Time Lords and told that people are dreaming about those forgotten days. Next we see Wilf (the Narrator implies that Wilf is the one person who has not forgotten that lost year, but he can’t remember any better than the rest). Wilf is joined by a mysterious woman in a church which inexplicably contains an image of the TARDIS in one of its stained glass windows. Finally we get the Doctor in sunglasses and lei being uncharacteristically insufferable, flippant, and callous, obviously not taking his lesson from The Waters of Mars to heart. He is joined by an Ood and is struck by the improbability of the advancements made by the Ood civilization. We are treated to visions in the Ood circle, again of the Master and of Wilf and of a new mystery couple (“the King is in his counting house”). And we get vague explanations of “time is bleeding” and “a shadow is falling over creation.” It is all fuzzy and unexplained. None of this clarifies why people are dreaming or how the Ood development is being accelerated. It is a shroud of mystery meant to divert and mislead, and through it all is the refrain: “Returning, returning, returning.”

This all culminates in the Master’s resurrection. Now keep in mind everyone has forgotten that lost year of John Saxon’s rule. Not Saxon himself, just his rule. People are dreaming of this man but don’t recognize him as the man they elected as Prime Minister and who went insane and was murdered by his wife in spectacular fashion. He has been dead for some time, but before his death, before even his forgotten year, he had written the mysterious (again that word) “Secret Books of Saxon” and apparently recruited a cult of female prison guards to gather up his ring and the all important “Potions of Life” (I have visions of my own of Martha Jones laughing derisively at the notion of a gun with deadly Time Lord chemicals). The prison guard cultists drag an innocent looking Lucy Saxon (sorry, but she’s still a despicable collaborator in my mind) into an appropriately looking ancient ritual room where Lucy’s magic lipstick is used as the final ingredient to rebuild the Master. But oh, wait. At the last second Lucy reveals her own potion and everything goes wrong in explosive fashion. I guess her potion didn’t quite work as planned, though, as the Master is witnessed fleeing the burning building by that mystery couple from the Ood vision.

All of this could have filled an hour or two of its own episode, but instead is thrown at us in the first 15 minutes of this two part story. Doctor Who of old always managed to bring the Master back against impossible odds with a line or two of ‘oh, by the way’ explanation. New Who has gone to the opposite extreme in bringing back this indestructible foe of the Doctor’s.

The next 45 minutes of Part One has more in store for us. Much, much more.

Let’s see. I’ll start with the mystery woman in white. She continues to appear to Wilf and to Wilf alone. For some strange reason (never explained) she warns Wilf not to tell the Doctor about her. She also inexplicably chastises Wilf for never having killed a man and tells him to “take arms.” (The thing about all these prophecies sprinkled throughout—quite a few of them are false. They exist for atmosphere and effect but in the end never come to fruition.) The woman herself, however, is wonderfully portrayed by Claire Bloom and lends a dignity and elegance to the proceedings.

Then we have the mystery ‘King in His Counting House’ couple. These are disposable distraction characters. These two evil master minds only serve to bring our cast together and provide the giant gate gizmo. Somehow they have heard about the Master and know of his resurrection by the female prison guard cult and have discerned that he is an alien (for a forgotten man, an awful lot of people seem to know an awful lot about Harold Saxon). They also intuitively know that the alien machine they have salvaged has the capability of providing immortality; they just don’t know how it works or how to fix it. (And I’m sorry Gary, but the only two people who can get away with cancelling Christmas are Alan Rickman and Michael G Scott.)

Next in our line of disposable distractions: the Vinvocci. More aliens right under the noses of the Counting House Couple and helping them to fix their Immortality Gate. The two undercover extraterrestrials are on Earth to salvage this machine, but I’m not sure why they don’t just grab it and leave; it’s beyond me why they feel the need to fix it first. I suppose they exist merely as comic relief and the whole “shimmer” bit is funny. The Doctor likens them to the Zocci Bannakaffalatta from Voyage of the Damned, but I’m more reminded of Meglos; Wilf even describes Miss Addams as a cactus.

Speaking of comic relief: the Silver Cloak. This busload of golden oldies helping Wilf to find the Doctor is a hoot. A total disposable distraction but hilarious.

Fortunately what is not lost in this chaos is the heart of the episode embodied by the trio of the Doctor, the Master, and Wilf.

I’ll start with the Master since he seems to be the eye of the storm of plot threads whizzing about. After he has been resurrected, not regenerated mind you but resurrected, the Master gains comic book villain powers; the Doctor even refers to him as Skeletor at one point. He has also gone completely insane. Without a clear-cut plan and ravenously hungry, the Master starts eating his way through the population of Earth. This is where the King in His Counting House, AKA Joshua Naismith, conveniently comes in to hand over a weapon to the Master and give him a purpose. And this is where our green alien cacti come in to provide exposition concerning the Immortality Gate.

The Immortality Gate; the improbable machine that mends whole planets. In a matter of minutes the Master fixes this miracle worker not to heal his life force burning body but to turn every human being into himself. It is unclear if these duplicates have the same Skeletor powers or the same insanity or the same maddening drum beats. It is also unclear if these billions of new Masters running about the Earth will all seek to dominate one day. It would be interesting to see if they would become power hungry and fight amongst themselves for supremacy. For the moment, though, they just seem to be content to stand around grinning, clapping, and waving.

It is a good concept and a startling good effect, aside from the distraction of trying to pick out duplicate Master templates in the crowd. It suits this everything-but-the-kitchen-sink whirlwind of a story.

Before being snatched up by Naismith, however, the Master has some nice moments reminiscing with the Doctor about his vast estates on Gallifrey. He has his chance to kill the Doctor but stops short. It is an interesting psychological dance these two antagonists have choreographed through the centuries; a love/hate relationship spanning time and space. The drum beats in the Master’s head has added a dimension to this dynamic, and the moment when the Doctor actually hears the ominous pounding is tantalizing.

Topping the Master and the Doctor in the episode, however, is the quiet little scene of the Doctor and Wilf in the café discussing life and death. The Doctor has known for some time that his “song is ending” and he has been hanging on as long as possible. This is the most self-absorbed generation he has ever had (I blame it on Rose).  It’s an elegant little speech though: “Even then, even if I change, it feels like dying. Everything I am dies. Some new man goes sauntering away, and I’m dead.”

And then we have the added bonus of Donna. Donna’s presence is heartbreaking, not for her but for the Doctor and Wilf. Donna still can’t remember, but Wilf can and her loss is devastating to him. The Doctor has his own memories to mourn, and it is evident that he both misses and needs her in his life. Donna herself seems perfectly happy with her new man and the guarded peace she has with her mother. Christmas in the Noble house seems a pleasant affair and at least Donna shows signs of having overcome her dread of the holiday. It’s nice to see Sylvia again as well; she shows genuine concern for her daughter and offers more comic relief to the mix.

In the end, though, it comes down to the Doctor and Wilf teaming up (Wilf in the TARDIS is long overdue); and it comes down to the Master (“there is only the Master race”). Except no. All of these prophecies and clues and dreams and various bits and pieces of story lines converge on the duplicitous Master only to be diverted.

“This day was the day upon which the whole of creation would change forever. This was the day the Time Lords returned.”

The Narrator (Timothy Dalton no less) is revealed in all of his glory. Lord President of the Time Lords.

“For Gallifrey!”

A truly stunning reveal.

“For victory!”

A satisfying twist in this confusion of plot.

“For the end of time itself!”

A cliffhanger, Gary, to top all cliffhangers . . .