Extremis

Dear Gary—

Here we go again; another Black Mirror plot and yet another adventure that never happened. “I need to know what’s real and what isn’t real;” well, Bill, what isn’t real is this story. (Matrix tampering anyone?) Extremis is simply a set-up for the episodes to follow; it introduces the idea that there is (surprise) an alien threat to Earth that is looming, and it reinforces (to death) the fact that the Doctor is blind. As a side bonus, we finally get the reveal of who is being detained in the vault. Drum roll . . . it’s . . . Missy! (As if we hadn’t guessed that already.)

The execution sections of the story are well done but also annoying. This storyline deserves a dedicated episode; instead it is used as filler. As a result, Missy is shortchanged.

We never get to know what led to Missy’s arrest and trial (assuming there was one); we only get the end result of execution. The Master/Missy has such a rich history of evil; how did he/she finally come to face a reckoning? Then there is this: “On this planet we are proud to serve as executioners to every living thing.” What planet? Who are these executioners? How did they come to be involved in Missy’s life/death? The show doesn’t think this is important for us to know; therefore, I really don’t care. Ho hum. Missy has been sentenced to death and the Doctor (not these professional executioners) is to carry out the penalty. This mysterious and never before mentioned and probably never again referred to planet of killers is merely acting as a go-between. And since we know the Doctor, we know the Doctor will never actually murder Missy. (There was only one time, to my knowledge, that the Doctor had the will to go through with the deed, and that effort failed in traditional Doctor Who obfuscation. And, I might add, it was done in the heat of the moment after the Master—as he was calling himself at the time—had been particularly dastardly. In our present story there is no context to ascertain why the Doctor would go through with it in the cold light of day. So I repeat—ho hum.) 

The introduction of Nardole into the mix as a pseudo River conscience is welcome but unnecessary; we know the Doctor doesn’t need any prodding to do the ‘right thing.’ Even so, Nardole’s quotation from River’s diary—“Goodness is not goodness that seeks advantage. Good is good in the final hour, in the deepest pit without hope, without witness, without reward.”—is hauntingly beautiful; and those words—“without hope, without witness, without reward”—are rightfully echoed throughout the episode, lending some poetic depth.

However, the entire execution sequence is by way of giving a sketchy back story to the Vault that has been hanging over the season so far.  And it is only offered at this point because the show has decided that it is time to reveal Missy and get her involved in the ensuing scripts. Missy involvement is always appreciated, but her usage is so often mishandled.

Now let’s tackle this main adventure that never happened.

At this point, Gary, I want to point out that I am not necessarily a fan of sci fi. I am more of a ‘fi’ fan; that is, a fan of fiction that is well done (or if not well done, at least entertaining), ‘sci’ or not. As a Black Mirror plot, Extremis would have been some fine fiction. As a Doctor Who plot, however, it is not. It is not because it is forced; it is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It just doesn’t work.

Where to start? First there is the Pope. As an extremely secular—and one might argue anti-religious—show, the use of the Roman Catholic Church as the instigator of events is bizarre to say the least. I suppose Bill’s date-that-wasn’t being interrupted by the entrance of the Pope is meant to be amusing; instead it is merely head scratching. There is no reason for the Pope to consult the Doctor (much less his companion—the Doctor can easily be found in his office these days) or for the Doctor to accommodate the Pope. The story would have been much better served with the utilization of UNIT. I have to wonder if Doctor Who isn’t trying to conjure up images of The Da Vinci Code, and if so I have to say that using that particular piece of mediocre preposterousness is acutely misguided.

Then there is the Veritas. As a rule I am indifferent to these types of tropes—the ominous ‘thing’  that no one can ever know about because if one does discern the ‘thing’s’ secret one is immediately dead by some means or another. I do have to admit that the resolution of this conundrum in Extremis is about the only one that I find convincing, and once more I state it would make a fantastic Black Mirror installment. If used correctly, it could also make for some very fine Doctor Who. However Extremis shoe horns the Veritas in as a means to an end.

The ominous Veritas is a book that when read results in the suicide of the peruser. The author of the book, why and how the book came into the hands of the Pope, why the Pope is so concerned about it, why the Pope hasn’t read it himself, why those who have read it don’t warn others—none of this is expanded upon. The Pope calls in the unbeknownst-to-him-or-anyone-else-other-than-Nardole blind Doctor to read the book. And so the Veritas reinforces the blind Doctor angle. How can he read the book when he can’t see? (I’m not sure why he doesn’t use some of his regeneration energy, which he uses indiscriminately to heal, for example, River’s wrist; but that wouldn’t serve the present purpose.) The Doctor relies heavily upon his sonic sunglasses to feed him the information he needs to get around and deceive others into believing he has sight. (As a side note, why, if he is so desperate to keep his blindness a secret, why oh why would he confide in Missy of all people? He can’t tell Bill but he can tell Missy. Missy, the one being in all the universe who is so dangerous that she has to be kept hidden away in a vault that the Doctor has pledged to guard for a thousand years.) Then the Doctor pulls out some heretofore unknown Time Lord technology the show has never revealed before and probably never will use again in order to provide the Doctor with some temporary vision so that he can read the Veritas. But wait—the Monks appear to menace him before he can read the Veritas and he again loses his sight.

Oh yes, the Monks. Yet another alien race intent upon invading the Earth in the most convoluted way possible. Don’t use your apparently superior intelligence and technology to conquer the planet. No, spend endless time and energy and resources on creating countless simulated realities to study and algorithm your way into a plan of action. If the cyber Doctor hadn’t brilliantly outwitted them by recording all of the fake events and by emailing a copy of the cyber Veritas to himself, thus forcing their hand, the Monks probably would have wasted all of eternity harmlessly pouring over the data from their video games without ever actually doing anything.

Despite the ridiculous outer trimmings of the story, the events, fake or not, are compelling. The simulated reality, in and of itself, is not a bad idea; Bill and Nardole stumbling upon the inner workings of the machine and accessing the various facsimiles is interesting to witness; the use of non-random generation of strings of numbers as a means of identifying unreality is clever; the imagery of “Super Mario figuring out what's going on, deleting himself from the game because he's sick of dying” is about the only explanation for the Veritas suicides that I find acceptable. If only all of this was not simply serving as a bridge to the episodes to come. If only the reason for the simulation was not as lame as it turns out to be. If only the threat of the Monks was not blunted by their obtuseness.

If only, Gary. As Dad would say, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, my what a merry Christmas we would have. 

Oxygen

Dear Gary—

Oxygen is yet another base under siege episode. This type of story can work if it is at least interesting, compelling, and/or amusing. What it cannot afford to be is mundane and/or irritating. Unfortunately Oxygen is alternating parts both. And both parts are a result of laziness.

It starts from the opening sentence delivered by a voiceover from the Doctor: “Space, the final frontier.” Immediately I think, great—instead of Black Mirror this time we’re getting Star Trek. Then we are treated to a domestic little scene between two astronauts we have never met before and care little about. In shorthand version we learn that the two are sweethearts and that the woman (Ellie) wants to have a baby with the man (Ivan). Except Ivan can’t hear Ellie as she pours her heart out and she knows that perfectly well; this is simply the author’s attempt to inject some pathos into the story. And while the Doctor’s voiceover speaks of the void and how it is out to get us despite our tiny efforts of protection, it is some zombie space walkers who end up killing the two lovers. Ho hum. Mildly annoying, mildly forgettable, and a mildly paint-by-numbers sequence to set up the episode. Not a promising beginning.

“What’s this got to do with crop rotation?” Wrong question (as the Doctor/Clara dynamic duo would state). The real question is, why would the Doctor be scheduled to lecture on crop rotation in the first place? That he got off topic and started blathering on about space and the void and not holding your breath is perfectly natural; but this whole Doctor-as-professor-at-university schtick is wearing thin. At least the show treats us to a rare TARDIS adventure in space for a change.

“I’m a bit cross with you, sir.” Nardole finally gets to tag along with the Doctor and Bill, and as the three of them wander around the standard-issue space ship they find themselves on after answering a distress call, Nardole injects the one bright note into the proceedings. (“Space doors are supposed to go shk-shk, not urrrrr. “) “Are you going to be like this all day,” the Doctor asks of Nardole. I for one certainly hope so; Nardole’s running commentary, and especially his observations about Velma who is voicing Bill’s space suit, are welcome additions to this otherwise grim and plodding tale.

The plot in a nutshell: the human crew of a space mining expedition are expendable components who are forced to pay for the oxygen they breathe and when they become less and less efficient they are murdered by their space suits and a fresh crew is sent to take their place. The Doctor et al arrive to save the day.

Now, the laziest part of this preposterous scenario is the villain of the piece: The Company. The story would have been far better served if it followed the Classic Who example of The Sun Makers and given The Company a face. But no, we are given only the vague outline of a supposedly all-powerful Company with no conscience and no accountability; and we are provided no explanation as to how or why or where or when this Company came about and maintains power. We never see any decision making by this Company; we never see anyone giving commands; we are never given any physical presence to hate. Instead we get the Doctor theorizing and the manifestations of Company Policy in the form of deadly suits and computer codes.

Next come the gullible employees of this mysterious Company. There are some off-hand remarks about a mythical Union, but this obviously has no clout. Union or not, I can’t imagine any workers willing to hand over their breathing rights with no questions asked. But we are not supposed to ask any questions; that would make the script writer have to think about answers. And so we are to swallow this premise hook, line and sinker. Perhaps if we were given some context, like galaxy wide economic depression forcing people to take any jobs available; or indentured servants or slaves compelled to work for the Company after an interplanetary war. But no, the crew seem to be willing participants, blindly stepping into the path of their own destruction.

All of the unimaginative, bullet-point plot elements lead us to an equally sloppy conclusion. The Doctor rigs it so that if the walking suits of death kill the crew the space station will self-destruct. Fine, but how does he communicate this to The Company? He says it to the animated space suits. How in the world does this message make its way back to The Company? As soon as the Doctor says the words, “Above all, suits, our deaths will be . . . expensive,” the suits stop dead in their tracks as if the suits themselves were making the decisions. They are not. The suits are acting based on programming from The Company. How did The Company get the news that the space station would self destruct upon the death of the crew, process this information, make the determination to spare the crew, and translate this back to the suits in a split second? Not only spare the crew but supply them with additional oxygen? If oxygen is as priceless as we are led to believe, I can imagine that there would be considerable debate over this command back wherever The Company calls home.

To top it all off, the Doctor drops the surviving crew members off at Company headquarters to lodge a complaint. Given the little we know of this Company, those workers are dead the moment they walk through the doors. What makes the Doctor think The Company will listen to or care anything about those disgruntled employees? Obviously no-one has ever cared about them; obviously there is no such thing as workers-comp, insurance companies, or family members to regulate, investigate, or protest when space miners routinely die at the end of their shifts.

“What if there never was a hack? What if this is just business? Business as usual.” Unfortunately, Oxygen is business as usual for New Who—a hack job. A bare bones outline of what could be a half-way decent script if fleshed out. This is where Classic Who serialization has the advantage over New Who. Instead we are given short cuts in service to season arcs.

And so the lesson of Oxygen: The Doctor is blinded during the course of saving some idiotic space crew and thus endangers his all-important mission of guarding The Vault.

A stray note, Gary, before I sign off. In Oxygen the Doctor states: “Fear keeps you fast. Fast is good.” This is similar to the Doctor’s observations about fear throughout his many years. However, I have to go back just one episode to Knock Knock when the Doctor tells Harry that being scared does not help. That line stood out to me at the time, but I didn’t mention it then. Now I am glad to see that the Doctor has returned to form with regards to fright; but I can’t help but wonder at the lack of consistency in the series recently; yet another sign of the slovenliness the show has tended towards.

Breathe deep, Gary . . . .

Knock Knock

Dear Gary—

Knock knock.

Who’s there?

“Nothing weird. Nothing Alien. Just an old house and a dodgy landlord.” 

If only. An old house and a dodgy landlord with a mishmash of weird and alien added to the mix—that is what Knock Knock boils down to.

How disappointing. Thin Ice ended with the promise of some TARDIS adventure. Instead the very next story is set on present day Earth, only a stone’s throw from the University. To compound this letdown, the episode itself is pretty awful. I recall that the first time I viewed Knock Knock was also the first time the thought struck me that Doctor Who was turning into a poor man’s Black Mirror. I’m not sure if that is accurate, Gary, since I have only seen a handful of Black Mirror episodes; all I know is that Doctor Who during this period is very distinctly non Doctor Whoish and Black Mirror is the closest comparison that comes to me. (Not to dismiss Black Mirror, but Doctor Who is not Black Mirror—there already is one of those—so could Doctor Who get back to being Doctor Who again please?)

But back to our present story of Knock Knock.

Bill is moving out of her foster mother’s house with a group of five students, only one of whom she knows. We have never met Shireen before, but apparently she is a friend of Bill’s. These six youngsters are having a hard time finding a suitable and affordable place to rent, until they meet the “dodgy landlord” who is offering a too-good-to-be-true deal of a lifetime. This is when I begin to wonder—six young people looking for a place to live, and not one of them has at least one hovering parent or adult relative or friend displaying even mild concern? None that is, except Bill. The Doctor shows up as the only interested party—exhibiting all of the human characteristics apparently lacking in the absent family members of the other five. But this is only the beginning to the many questions that pile up as the episode progresses.

My next question is, why is Bill so ashamed of the Doctor? Why does she insist on introducing him as her grandfather? And if these five students are from the University, why doesn’t at least one of them recognize him? The TARDIS is relegated to the role of moving van and the Doctor is passed off by Bill as an interfering old man; an embarrassment who needs to be shooed out. Thankfully, the Doctor sticks around—he is the only bright spot in this confusion of mediocrity. 

“Nobody just does anything.” The Doctor is the only one to question the mysterious disappearing act of Pavel. Not one of Pavel’s roommates wonders why he has shut himself away in his room for the entirety of their first day together in their new home. I can accept this except for one thing—the fact that his record is stuck in a groove playing the same few strands of music over and over and over and over and over, and not one of these scholars has thought to pound on his door to at least make this repetitive annoyance stop. Not to mention that not one of them has the wherewithal to worry about poor Pavel who is locked away with this never-ending loop of insanity.

Without the Doctor these six youngsters would be dead and forgotten with no-one to mourn or question their sudden demise, just as the multitude of those who went before them in this house of doom and gloom. Then again, without the Doctor there probably never would have been any alien beings to bring doom and gloom into the house to begin with. Because that is the nature of a Doctor Who script at this time—the mere presence of the Doctor, no matter the time or place on Earth (always Earth), means there is an alien menace lurking. Subtract the Doctor and you subtract the menace. But I am digressing again. It must be the Pavel repetitive effect.

Another aspect of a present day Doctor Who script is that there is no need to explain the alien presence. Doctor Who historically whisks any questions away with the action, but lately Doctor Who doesn’t even make a pretense of asking any questions. The closest we get in Knock Knock is the Doctor trying to come up with a name to call these aliens—“wood nymphs, tree spirits, dryads; anything’s possible.” Because quite literally, anything is possible in a New Who script. Don’t even bother asking who, what, when, where, or why, not to mention how.

So let me summarize Knock Knock: because Bill is moving into a new house, and because Bill is the protégée of the Doctor, some cockroach insects creep out of the walls and eat people in order to keep a wooden woman alive so that her son can remain a momma’s boy all his life.

“No, wait. Doctor, that doesn’t make sense.” Finally Bill is beginning to question; finally Bill realizes the nonsense. But wait. What is it that Bill can’t make sense of? Is it that a woman is made of wood? Is it that cockroaches are eating her friends? Is it that cockroaches eating her friends is somehow keeping the wooden woman alive? No, what Bill wonders is why a man would bring an insect into the house to amuse his ill daughter. Of everything happening in this cockeyed tale, that is one thing that does make sense. So what that Bill doesn’t like bugs; it is very possible that a sick little girl stuck in bed would get a kick out of seeing an unusual looking insect that her father brings in from the garden. Of the many things to question in this story, that is the very least of them.

And the information that this one question provides is the very least of the facts that are sorely lacking in this plot. What we learn from this is that the landlord is not in reality the wooden woman’s father but rather he is her son. So what? How does this explain the alien cockroaches? How does this explain her turning to wood? How does this explain how the mother and son are controlling the alien insects or how or why the alien insects are keeping the woman alive? How does this explain why the cockroaches need to eat people to accomplish all of this? Or why no one has ever noticed that people are walking into this house never to be seen again? 

And the information that this one question provides—that the father is in fact the son—raises a slew of new questions that are never even considered by anyone connected with the story. Like how has the son survived all of these years? How has he paid the bills? How did he avoid social services or interfering adult relatives all those years ago? What did he tell the mother’s doctors to keep them from treating her? (Unless he fed those doctors to the alien cockroaches in which case—how did he keep anyone from questioning the disappearance of those doctors?) When did the mother forget that this man was her son and decide that he was her father—when he was 15? 18? 21? 50? . . . .

And the biggest question of all—why does knowing that this man is her son and not her father enlighten the mother? Because he is her son and not her father, she suddenly wants to open the shutters? Because he is her son and not her father, she suddenly mourns the deaths at their hands? Because he is her son and not her father, she suddenly feels the unending boredom of her life?

And then, in a flash of a New Who second, the alien insects devour the mother and son and what—are gone for good? Never seek to devour anyone else? Have gotten at long last what they sought? What did they seek? What did they want? Why were they there? Where have they gone? Nobody cares anymore, least of all the Doctor.

“Oh, the questions, the questions, the questions. Just remember Time Lords. That’s enough for now.” That is the Doctor talking to Bill. It is an amusing little scene—one of a few in the episode. Unfortunately it applies all too broadly these days. Oh, the questions, the questions, the questions. Just remember _______ (insert alien of the day here—AKA, “woodlice from space”). That’s enough for now.

That’s enough, Gary. That is enough.

Thin Ice

Dear Gary—

Thin Ice is a retread of the two worst episodes in all of Doctor Who—The Beast Below and Kill the Moon. Thin Ice, however, has a huge advantage over those other two; it does not induce the same outrage and therefore shines in comparison. It is also the best entry so far in this tenth season of New Who. Very faint praise indeed, but it is reason enough to celebrate. 

There are actually a number of Doctor Who stories that come to mind while watching Thin Ice, but I’ll stick for the moment with the two most obvious and worst of the worst. The common formula for all three is that the Doctor and his companion stumble upon a huge creature that is ensnared in some way and that in its entrapment is providing a benefit for humanity and whose release has the potential for huge devastation. The ultimate salvation of the creature is left to the companion, and of course it ends in typical happily ever after fashion.

The creature in our present story is the least defined of the three and the weakest element of the episode. It is some nameless giant sea creature, possibly alien, that somehow found itself in the Thames generations ago and has been chained there ever since by the Sutcliffe family unbeknownst to all of London. We never even get to see it properly. It has some tiny fish companions that also might be alien, but again this is never explained. I guess it has the ability to freeze the Thames, or at least intensify the process, but this only occurs seasonally. When the Doctor asks Sutcliffe where the creature came from he answers, “No where! It’s always been there. The secret’s been passed down in the family since, I don’t know when. As far back as records go.” That’s a lot of non-information given about this massive secret that has been kept hidden under the Thames for an indefinably long time.

The enslavement of the creature is also a weakness, but still far superior to what the other two stories offer up. It is not the ridiculously contrived convolution of nonsense found in The Beast and Moon. Instead it is simple, straight up human greed. The Sutcliffe family at some undisclosed time in some unexplained way discovered the creature (or Tiny as the Doctor dubs it) and discerned that its waste produces a fuel far better than coal. The Sutcliffes have kept Tiny chained under the Thames and let it feed on unsuspecting revelers at the Frost Fair and then harvest the resulting fuel for their own use in their steel mill. The present Lord Sutcliffe is a caricature in the extreme but serviceable for the plot. 

And the plot, for its part, is serviceable for its true purpose, which is to explore the Doctor/Bill dynamic. This is the strength of the episode. Keeping Tiny and Sutcliffe as lightweights and not endowing the circumstances with deep significance allows the budding relationship to breath and gives the audience a chance to just sit back and enjoy what transpires.

The episode starts with a wonderful exchange between the Doctor and Bill about where they are and why, culminating in the Doctor explaining, “You don’t steer the TARDIS, you reason with it,” and continuing when asked how, “Unsuccessfully, most of the time.” This leads into some breezy yet substantive remarks about race and the nature of time travel, harkening back to the Ninth Doctor and Martha in The Shakespeare Code. It is conversational and casual and completely natural, establishing rapport in a few minutes and setting up some running threads that are followed throughout.

I’ll start with race. Bill, like Martha before her, is a companion of color; and like Martha before her, Bill briefly wonders how this will affect her historical experience, in Bill’s case the world of 1814. The Doctor makes light of her concerns, and there are some off-hand remarks about the diversity of historical London and how “history’s a whitewash,” but in a powerfully hilarious scene he confronts the issue head on, punching the insufferable Lord Sutcliffe in the face upon first meeting. (“Always remember, Bill; passion fights, but reason wins.”) 

This is indicative of the way the Doctor comports himself during this story. He is seemingly flippant, but there are hidden depths to him always. Nowhere is this more evident than when dealing with the life and death questions Bill puts to him. Bill is understandably upset upon witnessing the disappearance of a little boy under the ice while the Doctor stands calmly by, more interested in saving his sonic screwdriver than the waif. This prompts Bill to enquire how many deaths the Doctor has witnessed and later, how many lives he has taken. Now this segment is forced and a bit jarring juxtaposed with the ease with which most of the conversations have been handled in the script, but they help to broaden the understanding between the two and reinforces an aspect of the Doctor’s alien character that was most brilliantly conveyed in one of the best serials of the best Doctor (my opinion), Pyramids of Mars. The Doctor’s “I’ve moved on” speech to Bill is so very reminiscent of those long ago Fourth Doctor “I walk in eternity” exchanges with Sarah Jane.

The time travel aspects of the story are more deftly handled. Time travel, after all, is what the Doctor and Doctor Who are all about. (“It’s just time travel. Don’t overthink it.”)

“So what are the rules?” Bill’s “ripples through time” butterfly concerns ripple back not only to Martha and the Ninth Doctor (“What have butterflies ever done to you?”), they also echo back even further, and turn the Third Doctor’s explanation of the Blinovitch limitation effect to Jo (“Every choice we make changes the history of the world”) on its head. No longer is it the Doctor being cautious with the rules. Through the centuries and regenerations the Doctor has become inured; it is now the companion who ponders the complexity and heavy responsibility of time travel while the Doctor blithely jokes about Pete. (“Who’s Pete?”) 

This carries through to the end as Bill furiously looks through news archives looking for any indication that they have made an imprint on history. “Monster; sea creature; serpent; really, really big fish—nothing.” Again the Doctor nonchalantly brushes this aside with, “Never underestimate the collective human ability to overlook the inexplicable. Also, the Frost Fair involved a lot of day drinking.” And so the mammoth adventure goes unnoticed, and it is only the young street urchin Perry who gains. No mention is made of what Perry did with his newfound fortune, or if the other homeless orphans profited; the Doctor and Bill never consider this. They merely pat themselves on the back for their sleight of hand in gaining Perry the Sutcliffe estate and, in the Doctor’s words, they move on.

And they move on without a second thought about Tiny. Tiny, the mammoth creature whose hulking presence made so very little impact. The Doctor makes a big deal out of the to-free-or-not-to-free question of Tiny; and as he did in Moon, he unconscionably leaves the answer to his companion. (This, by the way, is the one area where Beast has the advantage over Moon and Ice—In Beast the Doctor does not force Amy into making the life and death decision, she makes it on her own—but perhaps, Gary, I should leave a more in-depth comparison of these three to another time; after all this particular posting is concentrated on Ice.)

Bill understandably enquires, “Why is it up to me?” To which the Doctor replies “Because it can’t be up to me. Your people; your planet.” That of course is complete hogwash. The Doctor continually makes decisions on behalf of the human race, often recklessly. This is obviously a testing moment for Bill, just as it had been for Clara in Moon. And of course he stacks the deck for Bill by dropping this heavy bit of wisdom on her: “If your future is built on the suffering of that creature, what’s your future worth?” That line alone warrants a full essay—the entirety of Human history is based on infinite suffering; but I will “move on.”

Bill naturally gives the “save her” order to the Doctor and Tiny swims away never to be heard of again. London is safe, Tiny is free, Sutcliffe is dead, and Perry inherits a fortune. All is right with the world.

It is an entertaining tale told amidst the delightful sights and sounds of the Frost Fair with lovable urchins (and I have to give special mention to Kitty, the mother hen of the imps and reminiscent of Nancy in The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances) and cartoon villains. Thankfully the more infuriating aspects of Beast and Moon have been toned down in favor of the fun.

I do have to make one last observation. Unfortunately Nardole has been limited to his tsk-tsking role so far this season, and the vault is still looming. At least the Doctor has decided to leave the confines of the university from time to time. 

It is with heavy heart I send this out to you dear Gary, and with apologies for again taking so long to do so. The last half of 2018 has been particularly rough, and you have now been joined by four more cherished souls. Uncle Claude, Aunt Dorothy, Aunt Eileen, and my own beloved father. It is so easy for the Doctor to say he “moves on.” It is not always so easy to do.

Smile

Dear Gary— 

Smile is The Happiness Patrol all over again, except without any soul. Helen A gives The Happiness Patrol a human face that is sorely missing in this modern retelling of the tale. Smile is a stripped down, nuts and bolts, bare bones story for the Snapchat age.

Bill chooses a trip to the future because (“why do you think?”) she wants to see if it is a happy future. (OK.) Now the word happy could have a multitude of interpretations, and it is never good when some one person (or in the present case a machine brain) determines what constitutes happy (just ask Helen A’s subjects). Yet the Doctor blithely states of the future he has chosen to show Bill, “They say the settlers have cracked the secret of human happiness.” The Doctor should know better, if nothing else based upon his Happiness Patrol experience.

Based upon my Happiness Patrol experience, and now my Smile experience, I wish I was back in that earlier (dare I say happier?) time.

Smile starts out promising enough with Bill in the TARDIS delivering rapid fire questions that make even the Doctor scratch his head. Then Nardole enters to put a brief damper on things before the Doctor and Bill sneak off for a quick adventure into the future on what has become a rarity in New Who—another planet. It is, of course, an Earth colony, but still it is off world.

I do love the Doctor’s explanation of travel in the TARDIS: “You don’t steer the TARDIS, you negotiate with it. The still point between where you want to go and where you need to be, that’s where she takes you.”

The still point that the TARDIS brings the Doctor and Bill to is in the middle of a gorgeous wheat field and the two proceed to the sterile white city they see in the distance. The city is more or less one giant structure of blank walls and endless corridors with hardly a living quarter, much less a room, visible. It renders laughable Bill’s observation when she first enters the spaceship: “Whoever did the interior decoration in here needs to take lessons from whoever did it out there.” The only furniture seen in this ‘out there’ city is one small set of cafeteria type table and chairs with some unappetizing blue cubes on two plates set out for them to eat. At this point Bill remarks, “Two portions. One portion. Is there going to be food sexism even in the future?” Here I have to point out the obvious that Bill should have figured out (Bill who is usually the one asking all of the hidden in plain sight questions).  Bill is the one who chose to sit down by the plate with only one portion. If anyone is being food sexist (I guess that is a thing?) it is she.

Besides lacking décor, this barren city is also bereft of people. The Doctor is puzzled by this fact; however the audience is let in on the secret early on.  It is a delightful little scene; not stupid at all. A terrified citizen within the city (Goodthing) calls a contented citizen (Kezzia) joyfully walking in the idyllic wheat fields. Goodthing warns Kezzia to stay out of the city without explaining why. Kezzia ignores this advice and returns to the city where Goodthing informs her that everyone she knows is dead, but for goodness’ sake smile. No explanation, just ‘people are dead so smile.’ Naturally enough, Kezzia does not smile; she weeps, or at least her emoji mood badge weeps for her and that is enough to make the robots kill her. (And yes, Doctor, they are robots. Interface or not, they are robots. Those other tiny flying things might also be robots—I’ll have to take the Doctor’s word on that—but so are the killer Emojibots robots.) The Doctor works out this deadly reality and confirms his suspicions when he opens a hopper to discover a stash of human skulls that for some convenient reason have been rejected by the machine that is turning all the corpses into fertilizer.

It is entertaining enough to watch these events unfold. The Doctor and Bill are turning into a companionable team, somewhat on a par with the Seventh Doctor and Ace. Their first encounter with the Vardy is amusing, and watching the Doctor work out what is going on is interesting.

I have to say, though, that these Vardy Emojibots are rubbish. It’s not that they go about killing people; it is that as an interface their primary function is to communicate, yet they can only communicate in an extremely limited emoji vocabulary. Really? Who thought up that light bulb? Ah, yes . . . the show runners and/or author of the piece. Someone said, let’s make a story about the ubiquitous emoji. We’ll use some cute little robots (yes robots) and see how wrong things can go from there. At this point begins my own germ of an idea—the creators of Doctor Who aren’t trying to make Doctor Who at all anymore. They are going for Black Mirror. To which I say, if you want to make an episode of Black Mirror, go work for Black Mirror.

Talking about rubbish—let’s think about these tiny flying robots making up the construct of the city. Whose bright idea was that? At any time the structure around you, your house, your home, the floor you are standing on, the roof over your head, the walls that surround you can suddenly decide to fly away. You can only hope it is not raining; you’re not on the 30^th floor; you aren’t taking a shower; the mosquitoes aren’t swarming outside. And you can only hope that these tiny flying robots that were moments ago providing you shelter aren’t now bent on destroying you. Oh, and now I suddenly realize why there is no artwork hanging on the walls.

And don’t get me started on these mood badges and magic ears that everyone is fitted with. Apparently there is no privacy or peace and quiet in the future. Anyone can listen in on any conversation; and how distracting would all of that extraneous noise be? And anyone can see exactly what you are thinking—except for you. You wouldn’t want to influence your own mood after all.

These humans of whatever far out century we are in are basically idiots. It must be the effect of their narrow emoji minds. The Vardy are also mentally challenged with their mechanical emoji brains. They can’t even figure out that killing people makes the survivors sad. The Vardy are tasked with making people happy, and they logically assume, therefore, that grieving people are the enemy and kill them. That makes perfect sense. Grief is the enemy so kill the person. Don’t try to cheer up the mourners. Don’t tickle them or tell them a joke or bring them a flower or give them a hug. Kill them. Makes perfect, logical, mechanical sense.

Maybe there is something in the air of this planet limiting the thought process, because the Doctor also seems infected. When trying to explain to the awakening colonists what is going on, all he succeeds at is inciting panic, and then all he can do is run around throwing up his hands and telling them to wait a minute while he clarifies. He is about as effective as Goodthing had been with Kezzia.

The Doctor finally brings everything to a crashing halt when he—TA DA!—reboots the system with a wave of his magic sonic. Now everybody is happy (smile!). The Vardy can’t remember anything, even that they are supposed to make people happy. The colonists are no longer being killed, but now they have to bargain for their home. (By the way, of what use is money to robots?) The Doctor and Bill leave these two races (the Vardy are no longer merely robots but now “identify as a species” whatever that means) to try and negotiate some sort of living arrangement. Apparently the Vardy can understand human speech, they just can’t mimic it, so the humans will have to try and guess what the Vardy mean based on some smiley face/thumbs up/skull and cross bones symbolism. Perhaps the Doctor and Bill should return someday to find out what kinds of wacky hijinks have ensued.

I’m sorry, Gary, but I’ll take Helen A, the Kandy Man, and The Happiness Patrol over the Vardy, Emojibots and Smile any day. And with that I will leave you, Gary, hopefully in your own still point of happiness  . . .

The Pilot

Dear Gary—

The Pilot is . . . it just is. It’s bland. It’s vanilla. It’s . . . a show. That’s about all really.

Oh, it does introduce the Doctor’s new companion—Bill. I rather like Bill. She’s very to the point and asks the questions that makes us all say, ‘Oh yeah, why didn’t I ever think of that?’ For example: “If you’re from another planet, why would you name your box in English? Those initials wouldn’t work in any other language.” Except Bill obviously hasn’t watched from the beginning because in the first story Susan claims to have named the TARDIS and presumably she did so while going to Cole Hill School and therefore very well could have used the English language. Or perhaps the TARDIS is translating its name. Perhaps when the Doctor says ‘TARDIS’ he really isn’t saying ‘TARDIS’ at all. (Perhaps he is saying ‘SIDRAT.’)

But I don’t see why the Doctor singles Bill out from all the hundreds of students he sees day in and day out. Other than he’s bored and wants company and she’ll do as well as anyone. I don’t feel much chemistry between the two. Although I find it very sweet for the Doctor to pop back in time to take photos of Bill’s dead mother as a Christmas present for Bill, even if this seems out of character for the Doctor. If Bill continues to elicit this tender side of the Doctor this could develop into a nice companionship—similar to the first Doctor with Susan or Vicki.

The Doctor is bored, by the way, because he has exiled himself to Earth. Now, he has absolutely no reason to artificially constrain himself to our planet because he has tethered himself here since the start of New Who. But the show apparently saw a need to come up with some excuse for keeping him here and so it invented this ‘vault’ that the Doctor is guarding.

Of course, Gary, the vault is housing Missy. I know that for a certainty even without the benefit of hindsight. There is no one or nothing else that could possibly be in that big, bad, scary vault that the Doctor and Nardole (whom the Doctor employs as a nag) are keeping vigil over. For some reason the show decides to keep the contents a mystery as if the audience will really wonder and ponder and scratch their collective heads and debate and anticipate.

And again of course, the Doctor has chosen Earth as this prison’s location because he is irresponsible in the extreme. He doesn’t go to some abandoned planet where Missy could do no harm if she were to escape. No. He takes her to Earth, the one planet that Missy has attempted to destroy/conquer/rule/dominate countless times since Missy was Roger Delgado. And he plunks her down in the middle of a university where he has somehow wrangled a job as a professor who lectures on random topics and who has free run of the campus with no hint of any pesky deans or fellow professors or janitors or anyone with any kind of authority or purpose.

But that’s the theme, really, of The Pilot. It’s devoid of authority or purpose. It’s random.

Like the ‘villain’ of the piece. It’s a blotch of space oil left over from an unidentified spacecraft that apparently landed in the middle of the school grounds with no one noticing. Magical space oil with magical properties that seemingly has hung around for years waiting for just the right restless student, out of a pool of thousands of restless students, to come along with a star in her eye to find the puddle intriguing, and then it (the magical puddle) waits around some more before magically devouring her (the starry-eyed, restless student) and changing her into a magical being who can go anywhere and who can go to any time (she doesn’t need a blue box) and who can form into any shape. And oh yeah, who has a crush on Bill (even though they have said barely two words to each other) and who decides to stalk her.

That is the problem with New Who. It is magic. It is anything it wants to be. It does anything it wants to do. Just because it can. No rules. No form. No structure. No logic. Just because. Just because it can. It is a show. Just a show. It just . . . is.

Anything that is Doctor Who has been slowly bleeding from the show for years. What is left is a magical space blotch with no rules or form or structure or logic.

And oh, Gary, magic bores me.

The Return of Doctor Mysterio

Dear Gary—

 

The Return of Doctor Mysterio is some comic-book-lite fun. It is pleasurable and forgettable. It is kick back and relax and enjoy for the moment and then move on amusement. It is turn your brain off entertainment that does not keep on giving. (I won't bring up the fact that the TARDIS has landed in New York and wasn't there something about the TARDIS never being able to land in New York again or it would tear open the space/time continuum or some such nonsense and therefore he can never go back for Amy and Rory?)

With broad strokes it paints a Clark Kent/Superman/Lois Lane knock off for no particular reason other than it can. It can do so courtesy of the Doctor and his conveniently magical and rare gemstone that he for some inexplicable reason hands to a child. A child who is sick and who somehow manages to swallow this valuable jewel thinking it to be medicine and who is therefore imbued with all sorts of miraculous powers as the precious stone feeds off of the child’s love of super heroes. 

The child grows into Grant, our mild mannered Clark Kent working as a nanny for his Lois Lane (AKA Lucy Lombard—or Fletcher as the case may be). Grant’s Superman alter ego is The Ghost. Grant has known Lucy since childhood and even set her up with his best friend, now Lucy’s ex-husband and father to her infant daughter Jennifer to whom he (Grant) is now nanny. Grant continues to call Lucy Mrs. Lombard despite their lifelong acquaintance and her resumption of her maiden name of Fletcher. Grant’s disguise, similar to Clark Kent’s, is a pair of glasses. Lucy never catches on to Grant’s alter ego.

“There are some situations which are just too stupid to be allowed to continue.”

Except that this improbable and hackneyed scenario allows for some good old fashioned Doctor Who fun. As with most Doctor Who, the actors are agreeable and have some nice chemistry. And there are some unexpected moments that surprise, such as Mister Huffle, Lucy’s squeaky toy interrogation technique. (“This is Mister Huffle. Mister Huffle feels pain.”) The villain of the piece is not worth much—a generic corporation (Harmony Shoal—in other words, kinda sorta, Melody Pond?) of aliens with zipper heads intent on taking over the world somehow; easily defeated and easily forgotten.

The focus of the episode is the love story, and that too is mostly paint-by-numbers. Lucy’s infatuation with The Ghost slowly evaporates as it dawns on her that Super Nanny is really the man of her dreams. A nice bit of fluff to pass the time.

This is where, Gary, I tell Dad’s Superman joke.

If Lois Lane had a cat, and that cat one day walked in wearing a pair of glasses, would Lois Lane ask, “What cat is this?”

The episode successfully riffs on this comic book trope as the Doctor obtusely observes to young Grant (“Take a good long look. It takes a moment to see it.”), “Superman and Clark Kent are one and the same person.”

With moments like this, Peter Capaldi’s Doctor succeeds in lifting this trite tripe into something a little more than watchable.  The Doctor has an easy and pleasant bond with the kid, Grant. As a side note, Gary, the Doctor tends to interact well with youngsters—little Amelia and young Kazran are two good examples. It is a shame that the show has never taken advantage of this dynamic in the way of companionship beyond the Classic versions of Susan and Vicki (although neither was hardly a tot).

This rapport translates well to the adult Grant and extends to Lucy. These are affectionate acquaintances; a nice respite from the passionate ties of recent companions. Add to the mix the welcome return of Nardole.  The Doctor has rescued Nardole from out of the previous story’s Hydroflax and the reconstituted Nardole takes on the role of sidekick to the Doctor. Again, a nice respite from the intensity.

However those ardent feelings simmer throughout the episode;  the Doctor is not far removed from some harsh losses and the wounds are still raw. Lucy and Grant both pick up on the Doctor’s pain but he sidesteps their questions, as he does Nardole’s more pointed remarks. Yet the sadness seeps through and is evident throughout. Finally Mister Huffle brings out this from the Doctor: “Things end. That’s all. Everything ends, and it’s always sad. But everything begins again too, and that’s always happy.”

The Return of Doctor Mysterio is the perfect adventure for the Doctor to work through his unhappiness.  He needs to be Doctor Mysterio caught up in a fantastical comic book scenario in order to escape from reality for the moment.

And as he moves past this escapade the Doctor has Nardole to look after him. As Nardole concludes, “He’s the Doctor. He’s very brave and he’s very silly and I think, for a time, he’s going to be very sad. But I promise, in the end, he’ll be all right. I’ll make sure of it.”

Things end and things begin again, Gary. The era of Clara is over (thank goodness) and the intermittent appearances of River Song seem to be laid to rest. The Doctor now has Nardole to accompany him and a fresh face ready in the wings to provide companionship. If I didn’t have hindsight, Gary, I might be hopeful at this time.  As it is, I simply plod along, and with Reinette I say, “The path has never seemed more slow.”