31 December 2015

2015: A Year in Review


Site Editor Matt takes a look back over the last twelve months...

2015’s been a busy year for Kroagnon. With the help of Chief Caretaker Dave, Ice Hot Kang Tom (plus me, the old Rezzie, recruited back in June), we've published nearly 250 reviews, interviews and overviews, amassing nearly 14,000 hits - a 50% increase on 2014. Basically, if there’s a –view in the word, we’ve done it.

It all started, like most years, in January. And it started well, with Russell T Davies' critically acclaimed return to television with the Cucumber/Banana/Tofu threesome. We were so impressed that the Golden Commendation - an 11/10 - was invented, setting the high watermark all other writers now strive to achieve.

During the first few months of the year, we also followed the developing story arc of Dark Shadows: Bloodlust – Big Finish’s brilliant emulation of the supernatural soap opera format. We had hoped for a repeat of the formula, and so were delighted this Christmas when a second series, Bloodline, was announced in time for Dark Shadows’ 50th anniversary celebrations in 2016.

The twin highlights of the middle of the year were Inside No. 9, which idiosyncratically aired its devastatingly brilliant Christmas episode in April. Although falling short of the coveted Golden Commendation both this, and the final episode of Toby Whithouse’s Cold War drama The Game scored 10/10.

As the nights started to draw in, Doctor Who returned to television with a hit and miss ninth series. Dave and I discussed the season at length recently, and concluded while there was perhaps more to admire this year than last, on the whole, despite finessing his performance, Capaldi has yet to have his quintessential episode. This was before the livelier Christmas story The Husbands of River Song aired, and we entered the post-Clara era. I hope we’re done now with the death of the Doctor (which has been done in four out of five Moffat seasons), and can look forward to less moribund adventures.

And so that was 2015. Another year over, a new one just begun. 2016 is going to be an exciting one for Kroagnon. As well as our mix of Doctor Who and TV reviews – with an expanded team – look out for the Site Awards, and more interviews with leading TV and radio writers. Happy New Year, and build high for happiness!

21 December 2015

Roundup: Doctor Who Series 9

Catch up on each of our reviews of 2015's Doctor Who episodes by clicking the icons below, and don't forget to check out Matt and Dave's overview of the whole series here.


+ You can also get all this year's rating figures here.
+ And read our readers' thoughts on the series here.

Thank you very much for reading along this year, and we'll be back next weekend with a review of The Husbands of River Song!

19 December 2015

Kro Talks: Doctor Who Series 9


A few days ago in places probably not too far away, your two site editors sat down to talk about the latest series of Doctor Who...

Dave: Right, morning Matt!
Matt: Good morning!
D: I thought we could start by chatting briefly about each story before looking at the series as a whole. So what were your thoughts on The Magician's Apprentice and The Witch's Familiar?
M: The opening story was really strange. I think it fits with Moffat's concept that two-parters should have a major twist midway through: in this case clearly that was discovering that he, Missy and Clara had been taken to Skaro. However, in practice it came off like one of those Colin Baker / Season 22 cliffhangers, where the whole first 45 minutes is basically vamping to delay the big reveal and to actually start the story. I mean - the teaser is great: the Doctor on Skaro meeting Davros as a child, What a hook! But you've already established that we're on Skaro, and what the moral dilemma's going to be. I felt like the rest of the episode was just getting in the way of telling that story.
D: Yeah, there was definitely a lot of redundant build-up. That’s the problem with writing a good inciting incident (and this had a very good one) – it needs to make sense in the context of the rest of the story, and vice versa.
M: All the stuff with Missy freezing the planes, the Sisterhood of Karn, the Doctor in a tank in a castle didn't work for me. The Confession Dial stuff felt a bit too clunky, and this whole 'getting the team back together' is tired out after it's been done in The Impossible Astronaut; A Good Man Goes to War; Dinosaurs on a Spaceship... So, thumbs down for episode one.
The Witch's Familiar was much better because it got to the heart of what the story was all about. The Doctor/Davros confrontations were excellent - it really shows what Capaldi needed last year were more opportunities to go head-to-head with a decent opponent. I think they understood that, and it's a big feature of many of this year's stories, that kind of Doctor/villain verbal sparring.
So a qualified thumbs up for episode two. There were parts I didn't think worked - mainly the bits that distracted from the Doctor and Davros. And I'm perplexed by Moffat's apparent disinterest in giving the Daleks themselves anything interesting to do.
D: Yeah I agree for the most part. I think going to Skaro and seeing Davros (both young and old) in those situations was a good move but that wasn't quite enough to hang two episodes on for me. Clara and Missy, once they were back with the Doctor, had very little impact on anything at all.
M: When do you think the Daleks were last used well in the show?
D: Maybe the end of Series 4 but again that was more of a Davros story. Prior to that maybe The Parting of the Ways. You?
M: I'd probably say Victory - they were central to it, and got some interesting moments (especially the scenes in the bunker). Since then, pretty much they've been cannon fodder or kind of incidental. Even in Asylum they sort of milled about aimlessly.
D: Yeah, I think that was working towards a good use of the Daleks, but the way it turned into a reboot, not a rejuvenation (even from the characters’ point of view) turned me off.
M: I'd love to see Capaldi get a proper, balls-to-the-wall Dalek epic before he goes. I'd love to see what he made of something like Dalek: eyeball to eyestalk. I think they were striving for that in Into the Dalek, but it wasn't quite there
D: Yeah, I definitely agree about Capaldi getting a proper Dalek story. Into the Dalek was good but didn't make the most of the opportunity it had I thought

M: Episode 3 and 4 were Under the Lake and Before the Flood. What did you make of it?
D: It was actually one of my favourite stories of the year, but I definitely thought the first half was stronger. I don't know what it is, but water-based stories are always a bit more exciting for me. Perhaps it's the complete isolation. I loved how much was made of it being underwater, and the timey-wimey bits actually made sense, with the team causing the events of episode three in episode four. It was a very solid pair of episodes in my opinion, and possibly the strongest showrunner audition of the year. Sophie Stone's Cass was excellent and I'd far rather see her pop up again than any of the various 'powerful women' from the last few seasons. The only thing that let it down for me was the realisation of the Fisher King.
M: Yes, it was a bit Vervoidy
D: [laughs] Now you’ve said it, I can definitely see it!
M: Are you enjoying the amount of time travel stories there are now?
D: I think it's a good thing that there is more diversity, but I also think it has to be used well. Under the Lake and Before the Flood did in my opinion, but there have been others that have used time travel at the expense of a real story or characters.
M: It struck me that despite its superficial similarities to a Davison/Saward 'base under siege' (yes, I'm thinking of Warriors of the Deep), with lots of military, surname types it was still a very 'Moffaty' story.
D: Yes, same, but I think it had more heart and integrity than either of those two may have managed.
M: The idea of pre-Moffat Doctors nipping back in time to find out how to fix a problem in the present isn't unthinkable, but it's definitely exceptional. I mean, when did time travel in a story really happen? Pyramids of Mars maybe? Image of the Fendahl had a trip to Mars.
D: Yes, I even find it hard to imagine Eccleston or Tennant doing it, partly because it's so difficult to do without undermining the story.
M: Silver Nemesis is the only example that immediately jumps to mind - the Doctor and Ace go back to Peinforte's study
D: Yes, twentieth century examples are a bit thin on the ground.
M: I think it needs to be used carefully, and sparingly. I wonder if the audience watch Doctor Who now expecting there to be a timey-wimey twist, and whether that's to the show's good.
D: The impression I get of the show from the general audience now is that it's trying to do too many things brilliantly, and so not actually doing much particularly well. I get the impression there’s a bit of apathy from casual viewers.
M: The stories that aren't 'timey wimey' - like Sleep No More - are almost criticised for being old fashioned. But limiting Doctor Who to timey wimey is as problematic as limiting it to 'base under siege' or 'exiled to Earth'.
D: I think now the audience would probably more readily question why he doesn't go back in the TARDIS and fix something to escape mortal danger in a 'standard' story, but I don't think that's entirely due to Moffat's influence.
M: Yeah. They used to cover it with 'time paradox' But that excuse went out of the window with The Big Bang.
D: It's a tricky balance. I think you can still have a great story that doesn't use time travel nowadays - like The Zygon Invasion or Kill the Moon - but they're becoming rarer, occasionally favouring gimmicks. It's hard to blame them when the ratings are beginning to drop off this heavily though - not helped by the publicity, or lack of, of course.
M: Oh, the dreaded R-word.
D: Sorry.
M: It's pulling in about 6 million on finals now, which is well down from before, but not yet, I think, in cancellation crisis territory.
D: Yeah, and the Live+7 figures which have just come out show it to hover around the 7 million mark, which is pretty consistent with previous years. Even a recent episode of The X Factor only got around 4.5 million.
M: I imagine the BBC will put a lot of effort into the 2017 series - more publicity, fresh companion, probably Moffat's farewell lap...
D: You believe the rumours that we'll have another gap year in 2016 then?
M: I think a 2016 gap year is inevitable. Do they even have time to make it if not? If nothing's written ready to go in the next month or so, I struggle to see what they'll be able to do in 2016 barring maybe a couple of end-of-year specials, perhaps.
D: I think the rest of the production team would manage - Capaldi has even said recently that he'd do 20 episodes a year - but it's whether Moffat can juggle Doctor Who and Sherlock. In fact, it’s been confirmed that production of 13 new episodes will start next year, so we may be looking at another 2012-style run, rather than 2009.
M: As for Under the Lake / Before the Flood - thumbs up from me. A story where death matters, stunning cliffhanger, nicely balances story between the two episodes.
D: Yeah, I agree. But I think the fact that it was still felt necessary to include an explanation of the bootstrap paradox shows that it's still quite a new device to use as being central to the story itself.
M: In retrospect, it felt like the last proper 12/Clara adventure. From the next story on it's all Ashildr, and Clara is increasingly sidelined
D: Exactly. Episodes 5 and 6 are about Ashildr, episodes seven and eight barely feature Clara (though Jenna is great as Bonnie), likewise for episode nine and she dies in episode ten.

M: Might as well ask now - should Clara have been in Series 9? Did it add much to her character?
And would Last Christmas have been a better exit?
D: I think Death in Heaven would have been the best time to exit, but in answer to your question, no I don't think it added anything to her character. She wasn't a teacher at all this time, had very few 'character' moments, and was still a halfway house in terms of commitment to the TARDIS.
M: I kind of felt that Clara was treated like Amy in Series 6 - she's there to give the Doctor something to defend, but the season is more interested in the mysterious immortal time travelling femme fatale.
D: You're exactly right. Except Ashildr isn't Clara's daughter - OR IS SHE?
M: I think one of the many things RTD got right was limiting companions (after Rose) to a year. Makes sense to do 2 years if they're seeing the Doctor through a regeneration, but no more.
D: I think Clara could've worked this year if we'd had another companion along - as long as she wasn't sidelined due to them of course.
M: Amy's story was done with The Big Bang. After that she exists to pop out River Song and give the Doctor a reason to get angry and dark in A Good Man Goes to War. She loses any agency once Amelia's story is done.
D: I think that's true to an extent, but I also thought hers and Rory's exit in The God Complex was great. Series 7 didn't need to feature them, but it would've been too much to introduce Clara and another new companion in the same episode.
M: Yep, and I think The Girl Who Waited is stunningly good. But one good story and a decent exit is still a waste of Amy. I'd like a Sarah and Harry-type team. Amy and Rory were... not Sarah and Harry, in any respect.
D: [laughs] No they were not.
M: And then the whole 'I'm sterile now, let's get divorced'? Yuck!
D: I didn't even like the Amelia story that much if I'm honest. I quite enjoyed Series 5 as a whole, but the arc didn't do much for me,
M: Even so, you can see how Amy's arc is kind of her story, she's the main character in it. After it's done she's just incidental
D: Oh, yeah, I get that - I just didn't like it that much. I didn't dislike it either though. I got really excited last year when it looked like we were getting a 1963-style set up, when rumours were that it was gonna be Clara, Danny and Courtney in the TARDIS for the second half of the series. I was really disappointed that turned out to be wrong.
If we veer back on track for a moment, what were your thoughts on Ashildr and her first two episodes?
M: [laughs] Yes. I haven't rewatched either of those. Which sums up how I felt about them: I enjoyed them well enough at the time, no urgency to watch them again.
D: On the subject of rewatching, I don't think I've seen any episode of the Capaldi era twice except for The Caretaker and Kill the Moon.
M: I thought both the Ashildr episodes looked gorgeous, decent monsters in both. Not convinced in either by Maisie Williams.
D: I thought The Girl Who Died was a bit rubbish in the same way as Robot of Sherwood. The Mire looked amazing though, and The Woman Who Lived was another very middling episode for me. It didn't quite commit to either of its moods (the loneliness of eternity and the jollity of the highwaymen backdrop) and as such left me a bit dry. Thankfully Ariyon Bakare was in a heavy costume so can return in a part worthy of him.
M: I liked the concept of a two parter linked by character rather than plot. They were perfectly acceptable, but no more. In an odd way, they reminded me of one of those X-Files or Buffy episodes from a later season: the kind of thing a show does when it's mature and running on fumes; everyone can make it on autopilot. That's probably a super harsh judgment - I'm sure massive effort goes into making each story. They're just episodes that kind of exist because they need to do 12 episodes. I don't feel I learned anything about the Doctor or Clara from it.
D: I agree that a tremendous amount of work goes into every episode, it's just a shame that the show sometimes feels like it's coasting.
M: Whereas a new companion - seeing their reactions, that could have given it something extra.
D: Yeah. It's a bit disconnecting how everything is taken in Clara's stride in the first part.
M: Looking back at The Doctor's Daughter - another mid-season episode when everyone can make it in their sleep, but Donna's reactions; the idea of the Doctor having even a cloned daughter; even Martha proving she can make it on her own on an alien world - these all told us things about the characters and advanced the series.
D: That's a really good example, and I think that's something that RTD brought to the table that perhaps Moffat and his script editors don't.
M: I think it's why you need a new character every year. The show needs to renew itself all the time. It's amazing, even in the 1960s every year had basically a new cast. That keeps it constantly moving.
D: Yeah, it's only in the 1970s and 80s that companion begin to outstay their welcome, and then it becomes really obvious
M: Even then, they reformatted the show around a stable cast. So Seasons 8-10 reinvented Doctor Who quite radically, but using the solidity of Pertwee and Manning to disguise the fact that Seasons 8 and 10 are wildly different in tone and approach
D: I agree, each of those three series builds on the last on the knowledge that they have a firm grounding Pertwee and Manning, because Season 11 is basically Season 10 part two.

M: Talking of the Pertwee years, what did you think of this year's UNIT epic?
D: Ooh nice link. This was actually the one I reviewed for the site, and I think I chose well. I really liked both parts, though the first much more so than the second. It was a solid story from pretty much every angle, I thought.
M: Unlike TGWD/TWWL, I thought it had a real weight to it.
D: It was nice that in the year of Genesis of the Daleks Redux, we also got Terror of the Zygons Redux - both fortieth anniversary nods too.
M: That's something I've noticed with Capaldi - he's much more rooted in the real world than Tennant or Smith. You get the same kind of grittiness as with Eccleston.
D: Yes, as Capaldi put it - London, what a dump. I've said it before, but to me, Capaldi's Doctor is very much Moffat's take on Eccleston's.
M: Less the big dramatic locations or fairytale villages in Gloucester, more waste grounds in Bristol or side streets in Wandsworth. I thought it was really effective, even if I was screaming at the soldiers at the church for being so dumb.
D: Yeah, that was the one point I wasn't so sure on. I think it would've been stronger for me if he had shot her and it had turned out to have been his real mother rather than the other way round. Also, that bit was scored really weirdly.
M: The only part that didn't work for me was the bit everyone else praises: the showdown between the Doctor and Bonnie. I thought Capaldi and Coleman were great, but the script itself wasn't up to the job. If you're positioning the Zygons as alien ISIS, having the Doctor reason them to a peaceful solution is fatuous, at best, and grotesquely offensive at worst.
D: The showdown wasn't particularly well executed. In theory, it's a great resolution, but like you say the script didn't do it justice.
M: And after ISIS murdered a jet load of Russians and attacked Paris, implying that we can go and negotiate with their leader and within a day they'll be best friends with us... Yuck! I got what it was trying to say, and I think it was a good, moral speech. But to have it work, and be the resolution to basically ISIS – facile.
D: And the Doctor's solution was completely impractical given the rest of the story anyway. You can tell that bit came mostly from Moffat. And Bonnie becoming Osgood at the end was just stupid in my opinion. How can you go from wanting to destroy the human race to actively becoming one of the most human Humans? It jars massively with Peter Harness' setup. He proved he could handle a 'talky' resolution well last year but I think he should've put his foot down here and said it wasn’t enough.
M: It should have been a speech made earlier in the episode. The actual resolution needed something more. Ideally, the Zygons themselves dealing with their radicals. It would have made a much more compelling resolution. I wonder if I'm reading too much into it, but when the episodes actually direct you to identify the Zygons with ISIS, not to follow through with it I think exposes the climax to this kind of criticism.
D: Other things that could have been improved: why only make one Zygon 'invert'? Why him? Too much box-ticking in the second ep, I think. Plus the Doctor had it all planned from the start - like in The Witch's Familiar, like in Hell Bent. In episode two, it was almost Curse of Fatal Death silly. "Well I anticipated you anticipating me anticipating you making me give up all my regeneration energy."
M: Yeah. So two thumbs up for episode 7, and a side thumb for episode 8.
D: I think we're in agreement there. Episode 7 was easily my highlight of this year, as in 2014.

D: So, Doze No More, AKA Please No More.
M: [laughs] I didn't hate it. I liked Gatiss trying something new
Me neither, but it was a definitely a thumbs down for me.
M: I didn't think it entirely worked.
D: Yes. Again, the ideas are sound but the execution didn't work. Well, I say the ideas are sound, exploring sleep deprivation is a nice topic, but the monsters being made of sleep dust was a bit rubbish.
M: But on balance I'd prefer a Sleep No More to a weary Magician's Apprentice or the banal competence of TGWD/TWWL.
D: Yeah I much prefer the show trying new things and failing than resting on its laurels but that doesn't mean I thought that much of this as a finished product. It was also a waste of Reece Shearsmith.
M: Yeah, I think it was unsuccessful, and the execution was off (the found footage idea really didn't work). I think Gatiss was probably inspired by the MR James adaptation he did a couple of years ago - The Tractate Middoth - which had a similarly dusty monster.
D: You’re probably right, actually.
M: It was kind of like Revelation of the Daleks for me: you have to admire a writer consciously trying to do something outside their comfort zone, even if the result is mixed to say the least.
D: Yes I thought the direction hampered it a lot too. Same with the next episode, in fact.

M: Face the Raven was problematic for me
D: Same. Clara was doing a perfect impression of the Tenth Doctor.
M: Explain! Explain! EXPLAIN!
D: Every one of her lines could easily have come out of Tennant's mouth and the way she was acting - not reckless, but carefree - was just like him circa Planet of the Dead. I thought of it about halfway through, and watching with that in mind, they did seem very similar. For example, I can imagine Tennant leaning out the TARDIS over London and me loving it, but here it just made me cringe a bit.
M: I feel like Moffat hadn't decided what Clara's Achilles Heel was. Was it she was trying to be too much like the Doctor? Or was it that she had a death wish? Or in his mind, is that the same thing? Because I think the episode (and the season) flits between the two: one moment she's trying to be the Doctor, the next she doesn't seem to care that much whether she lives or dies
D: I get that these are supposed to be 'the glory years' and so you've effectively got two Doctors in the TARDIS, which is why Capaldi has to reign her in a couple of times this year, but she's very inconsistent whether she's working for the greater good or simply having a good time – she never seems to be doing both at once.
M: That kind of undermined her sacrifice. If she does it because she has a death wish, it's just the fulfilment of that. If she does it because she's becoming like the Doctor and assumes it's what he would do it becomes heroic. But the problem is, she doesn't seem to do much to be Doctorish and solve the mystery, she just expects the Doctor to pull the rabbit out of the hat and save her because he always saves her. And I think in trying to have its cake and eat it (she's reckless / she's Doctorish) it fails to clarify which is true, and we're left wondering who Clara is. Which is not what you want in her climactic moment.
D: That's it. The majority of the time, the Doctor is about saving people no matter the cost, but she seems to want to be heroic with him to fall back on if she messes up. But that mentality kind of sets her up both doomed to failure and as a bit carefree.
M: So it didn't quite feel like the cathartic moment it set itself up as.
D: No, and as such Heaven Sent loses a lot of its emotional worth. For me it only works if he’s fighting to retain what knowledge he has of the Hybrid (though why it’s such a secret I don’t know) rather than to avenge the memory of a cipher.
M: She dies as she lived - essentially unknowable. Is she a childminder or a schoolteacher? Is she Orson's ancestor or isn't she? Was she splintered through time or not? Impossible Girl right to the end. A mass of contradictions.
D: She wasn't mysterious, just anonymous.
M: Oh that's good. Add to this I felt the episode was too blatantly setting up the death, and manipulating us into caring, and I wasn't totally sold. So only a qualified thumbs up.
D: Yeah, plus the seven-minute flight of the Raven devalued things quickly for me.
M: God, Tennant managed to visit all his companions in the time it took the bird to fly down the street!
D: [laughs – a lot] Maybe it got lost?
M: Well, there are a LOT of Claras. It probably pecked at the ones in Arc of Infinity and Dragonfire on the way. Or did that not happen anymore once the Time Lords saved the Doctor on Trenzalore?
D: Shame it didn't get the rest of Arc of Infinity and put us all out of our misery. One question I have - if the curse and the Raven were only given to Ashildr to get the Doctor to reveal what he knew of the Hybrid (yuck) why did she kill the other bloke?
M: TIMEY WIMEY That's why
http://38.media.tumblr.com/57fd808e9534c65a1f1e050510478f3a/tumblr_inline_nlwv82aDvj1rxr4x6.gif

M: Anyway, what did you think of Heaven Sent?
D: A qualified success. The cyclical nature of the trap was very good but I didn't buy into the reason he was put in it, which devalued it somewhat.
M: Yes, it's a problem with the whole season though.
D: Also, the logic of the trap didn't quite make sense, like what rooms reset (why was there another set of clothes?) but then that's fair enough for a land that is strongly implied to be of the Doctor's imagining.
M: The Confession Dial was a trap for the Doctor. Presumably the Time Lords gave it to Missy.
But the whole trap setup in Face the Raven was stupidly convoluted.
D: Yes. Classic Time Lord convolution we haven’t seen the likes of since the 1980s.
M: I think ignoring that, Heaven Sent was impressive.
D: Same. It's the kind of episode you absolutely wouldn't have got 10 years ago, which is both good and bad. We finally found out what was in the Confession Dial though - him.
M: The fairytale nature of the prison was very neat, and I think some of your points about the clothes just make it seem all the more nightmarish. It was the first wholly successful Moffat episode since Day of the Doctor? Probably even before that.
D: Yep, I think maybe since The Snowmen? It's Moffat at his most Moffaty. It's the Doctor slowly going insane. I did think it was a bit careless of him not to write 'carry the shovel' in the sand though. Would've saved him a lot of time.
M: He does do better set up than resolution. I think that's a criticism you could make of his whole era. The set-up of the Crack, Silence and Trenzalore arcs was better than the resolution. The question is always more interesting than the answer. And even the two-parters, Time of Angels, The Impossible Astronaut and Dark Water are much better than the second parts. I think only The Magician's Apprentice bucks the trend.
D: Even going back to Silence in the Library I'd say that's true, though I know a lot of people like Forest of the Dead.
M: Heaven Sent is clearly a better piece of work than Hell Bent. Two thumbs up for Heaven Sent. A thumb down I think for Hell Bent.
D: A thumbs down? Wow. Mine was just kind of sideways. Please go on.
M: The first half was awful. Why bring Rassilon back to expel him? What was the point of the extra 20 minutes of running time when there was probably only about 35 minutes of plot?  I hated all the Gallifrey stuff. Apart from the fan-pleasing thing of having Gallifrey in it at all, what did it tell us that was new?
D: Yeah me too. It was pointless. The Hybrid was apparently the unstoppable force that is the Doctor and Clara? Yuck.
M: It was like the opening two-parter in miniature: a nice idea lost under extraneous, and bad material.
D: I'm glad you've said that because I actually thought Hell Bent was very similar to The Witch's Familiar.
M: I can see your point: all that Matrix cloisters stuff was like the buried sewer Daleks: the grim underbellies of Gallifrey and Skaro; the desert wastes outside the city. Interesting parallels
Big elaborate plans to get the Doctor onto the planet... But once there, nothing interesting is done with either the Daleks or the Time Lords. They just mill around while the Doctor does what he does.
D: I actually meant thematically, but now you put it like that there were quite a lot of more overt similarities too. More than that, it was blown up to be something huge, but ends up being very quiet indeed, and even less satisfying than I expected. And Donald Sumpter was terrible.
M: The male to female, white to black regeneration, which was apparently done to prove it could happen, was my least favourite bit. And NOT because I'm a sexist racist. It just painted the Doctor in a bad light - willing to kill the 10th General to buy a bit of time - to reiterate what we've already seen in Master/Missy and Mels/River.
D: There's no point filling the show with women - the 10th General and Rassilon aside, pretty much the only speaking characters are female - if they're all going to be exactly the same 'holier-than-thou', wise-cracking archetype.
M: And we've got River at Christmas...!
D: Exactly!
M: I didn't really enjoy anything before they escaped from Gallifrey. Then, I thought the scenes with the Doctor, Clara and Ashildr were marvellous. They saved the episode for me. Maisie Williams seemed to have found her mojo finally. Clara gets a cool send off - an immortal with a TARDIS. I liked these bits.
D: I thought the send-off was OK. I liked that we thought it was going to be the Doctor talking to an echo/Clara that doesn't remember but it turned out to be him that didn't remember, but I'm not sure about her gallivanting around the universe. If her death is so important and she keeps on being so cavalier, how's Ashildr supposed to save her from dying all the time?
M: Was the Hybrid really answered? Or is it going to be like 'Silence Will Fall' - a thing that keeps cropping up in later series? I guess Rassilon is on the loose as well now. I thought it was kind of disappointing that there was no story of freeing the Time Lords from the Time Lock. You could have done something with that - Doctor is so desperate to save Clara he'll unleash them back on the universe, risk Time War II, for her. Surely once the Daleks know they're back, the war will start again. Or does that major plot point from The Time of the Doctor no longer apply? Also - the Doctor's memories are like Rory and presumably Clara's: he remembers being trapped for billions of years even though he was reset every day.
D: I agree. I heard Gallifrey was back around the time of the first two episodes, so I was looking for clues. When the regeneration thing came up, I assumed it was tied to both Time and the impending return.
M: Does Rory remember being an Auton even if it never happened? Was Clara splintered in time even though the Doctor's death on Trenzalore was averted? Does anyone care?
D: I don't, I know that much.

M: What did you think of the season as a whole?
D: Difficult to call. Overall probably weaker than last year. I felt it was too jumbled and inconsistent despite some good episodes, scenes and ideas
M: I think it was stronger than last year, though this discussion has probably cooled me on it a bit.
D: Oh, sorry then!
M: Last year, I thought Capaldi's Doctor was too austere. I like what he's done with the role this year.
D: There's lots to enjoy but I just preferred last year, even if it did have Robot of Sherwood, Death in Heaven, Last Christmas and In the Forest of the Night. I prefer the 2015 Doctor on balance, but I'd prefer somewhere between the two. Weren't we promised an explanation as a big plot point for the Doctor getting a red jacket too?
M: [shrugs] Clara told him to wear it? I think there were 4 strong episodes, probably 5 middling ones and 3 weak. On balance that's about the same hit rate as last year, but I felt like this year's high points were stronger than lasts.
D: I'd agree on 4 strong episodes, but all the rest were pretty much as unengaging as each other for me. I think last year's more middling episodes, like Time Heist or Into the Dalek, were of a better standard than this year's middling ones.
M: Maybe - the novelty of a new Doctor?
D: One thing that did disappoint me was that my main theory was wrong. It was pretty common knowledge that Clara was going to die, so I thought that a lot of the episodes might be after she's died from the Doctor's perspective. But with him having forgotten her, that's been completely disproved. We even chatted about it as weeks went by, spotting the red herrings here and there
M: Yes, the structure of the series wasn't as consciously different as in the Matt Smith seasons. I suspect with Capaldi some of that has been reigned back a bit. One thing I did find this year - I actively looked forward to each new episode. Last year (and, sadly, the year before) I was much more ambivalent. Overall, I don't think it's as strong as Matt Smith's first year, but it's probably my favourite since.

D: Out of all the various supporting characters we've met this year, which (if any) would you like to see back?
M: Hmmm. I don't think I'd want to see any of them back. I prefer when the Doctor moves on. It's a big universe, and I don't expect him to keep bumping into the same people. I certainly wouldn’t want any of the new ones to come back.
D: What about Faye Marsay? Would you like her to be the next companion?
M: No.
D: Good.

D: In terms of Moffat's five series, I think both of Capaldi's and Matt's first are definitely the strongest three by a country mile.
M: I'd like the next season to be quite externally focused - not introspective stuff about the Doctor's nature or how he's a fetish object ('Am I a good man', 'I am the Doctor so basically run' type stuff).
D: Yes, that's what I want to see too. The types of stories are almost instrumental to that.
No I agree. I thought RTD had the balance right with family as supporting characters because it made sense for them to recur.
I read an article yesterday which I didn't entirely agree with but made some thought-provoking points. It said that television isn't about the story any more, it's about how the story is told. I think in Doctor Who at the moment, it's far more about the plot than the characters it's happening to, and I'd like to see that change.
M: It depends what they mean by story. For me, the story is about the characters...
D: Yep, me too and I think that’s what they were getting at. It’s why shows like Cucumber and Chewing Gum appeal to me so much.
M: The Doctor goes back to medieval times, meets a snake man and Missy, goes to Skaro - that's just a bunch of stuff that happened.
D: The fact that he anticipates it all just makes it worse.
M: I think you should have a strong story and tell it in a compelling way. Turn Left, for example, is about a woman realising that she's better than her mother has always told her, and can do more with her life than she believed, but it's also told in a very different way.
D: I think that’s a great example of a character telling their own story, not just being the driving force in it. I hope series ten – whenever it eventually rolls around – will be more oriented around characters the audience can invest in. I know it’s very easy for me to sit here and say that, but more effort in that department would be appreciated.

D: How would you sum up this series in a sentence then Matt? For me, it's been interesting, engaging, but not fascinating or particularly stimulating.
M: A hybrid of successful and unsuccessful elements, often in the same episode.
D: Thanks, hope to chat again soon!
M: Thanks!

Check out all our reviews of Doctor Who Series 9 here.

06 December 2015

Doctor Who Series 9 Ratings Recap


Your handy quick-reference guide to Doctor Who's 2015 audience figures!

Overnights Final Appreciation Index
The Magician's Apprentice 4.58m 6.54m 84
The Witch's Familiar 3.70m 5.71m 83
Under the Lake 3.74m 5.63m 84
Before the Flood 4.38m 6.05m 83
The Girl Who Died 4.85m 6.56m 82
The Woman Who Lived 4.34m 6.11m 81
Invasion of the Zygons 3.87m 5.76m 82
Inversion of the Zygons 4.13m 6.03m 84
Sleep No More 4.00m 4.61m 78
Face the Raven 4.42m 6.05m 84
Heaven Sent 4.51m 6.19m 80
Hell Bent 4.80m 6.17m 82
The Husbands of River Song 5.77m 7.69m 82

click for larger

Doctor Who: Hell Bent


Review by Matt Michael

Has there been a truly successful series finale in the last five years? After the brilliantly twisty Dark Water, Death in Heaven paid respect to the late Nicholas Courtney by turning the Brigadier’s corpse into a Cyberman. The Name of the Doctor was fun, but felt like an extended prologue to the fiftieth anniversary special. Though it’s aged rather well, The Wedding of River Song was profoundly underwhelming at the time, largely because the Doctor’s absolutely-going-to-happen death turned out to be a whopping great lie.

Hell Bent also reminds us that ‘the Doctor lies’. All those dark hints about the Hybrid were a ruse to get access to the awesome technology of the Time Lords to rescue Clara from a fate – well, from a fate precisely the same as death, actually.

I struggled to engage with the first 20 minutes or so of the episode – the scenes where Rassilon and the High Council went traipsing out to the War Doctor’s barn went on forever with no obvious relevance to the story. Donald Sumpter was wasted, as was Clare Higgins. Whole scenes seemed to unfold just because: the General regenerated into a woman to make the point (as if Missy hadn’t already done so) that Time Lords can change sex - just so long as they aren’t the show’s lead. The Daleks, Cybermen and Weeping Angels were in the Matrix crypt because Moffat’s season finales invariably feature them all anyway. Rachel Talalay keeps these scenes moving, but neat direction’s not enough to disguise a script running on the spot. By 8.25pm I was ready to write this off as a let down, and a waste of the Big Return to Gallifrey.

Then, something weird happened, right about the time the Doctor fled the dullest planet in the universe in a stolen TARDIS. Hell Bent switched gears from lackadaisically rehashing clichés to becoming something approaching magnificent. That gloriously retro 1960s control room is just the icing on the cake.

Back in Before the Flood, the Doctor raged at the Fisher King for stealing the deaths of his victims. Of course, this makes the Doctor an enormous hypocrite, and Clara, as she so often has before, calls him out on it. A woman so stubborn she’s willing to die to prove a point to a man who – as we saw in Heaven Sent – is willing to do exactly the same. What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? Perhaps the last half hour of Hell Bent.

The Doctor and Clara have been dancing round each other for a long time now. But, eyeball-to-eyeball, both of them knew this was their last dance. Seeing the Doctor slowly lose control – and cool – as Clara’s heart resolutely refused to start beating, hearing them have the same conversation they’ve always had with the urgent edge that comes from the knowledge that they’ll never get the chance again, I was reminded of Moffat’s greatest work: Press Gang. This was Lynda Day having it out with Spike. With Capaldi and Coleman at their peak, it was electric.

Reintroducing Me allows Moffat do pull off the necessary exposition without having to resort to a tedious montage. More, it made explicit a point of view that’s been obvious in Moffat’s work for some time: the answers are never as interesting as the question. Does it matter whether the Hybrid is Ashildr, or the half-human Doctor (yes he is, get over it), or the Doctor’s partnership with Clara? Does it matter what’s inside Amy’s crack, or what the deal is with the Fall of the Eleventh? For many of us, yes. But I think the dialogue between Me and the Doctor sets forth the opposite view cogently.

The scene’s also impressive because Maisie Williams, who up until now hasn’t entirely convinced me, was completely compelling, as if she’s finally relaxed into the part. Ask me before today and I would have quite happily waved goodbye to Me with Face the Raven. Now – not so sure.

So much of Moffat’s era seems to be a response to Russell T Davies’ Doctor Who: not surprising, since the show’s mythology was comprehensively reimagined by Davies in a way that genuinely captured the imagination of the audience. Clara’s final end is clearly influenced by Catherine Tate’s departure, and manages to better it because while Donna’s end was tragic and dark, Clara’s manages to be tragic and light. She’s left with her memories of all those amazing adventures, changed by her experiences, and with access to a working TARDIS and the whole of time and space. Since she’s been becoming more and more like the Doctor, this felt like the proper end.

The Doctor, meanwhile, has a Clara-shaped hole in his mind, but remains fundamentally the Doctor in a way that Donna, stripped of her expanded awareness, was not. I’d say this was the best companion departure since Rose’s; certainly stronger than the Eleventh Doctor’s baffling decision to abandon Amy and Rory in the past. Crucially, Clara is not robbed of her death. It’s still waiting for her, but, as in Face the Raven, she will face it on her own terms. For me, this closed down any suspicion that this was another consequence-free resurrection.

As the conclusion to Series Nine, Hell Bent works well at wrapping up the themes of taking responsibility for your decisions, and living (or dying) with the consequences. The repeated emphasis on these ideas; Ashildr’s regular reappearances, and the number of two part stories have helped to give it a distinctive shape and consistency that’s the hallmark of most of Doctor Who’s best seasons. Like the mystery of Clara’s shop lady, it also leaves a couple of plot points open (have we really heard the last of the Hybrid? Who is the Minister of War? Where’s Rassilon going?). I’m betting Moffat will come back to them in the future – whenever that might be.

I’m of the view this is the best series since 2010, and certainly an improvement over Capaldi’s patchy first year. In a way, this episode mirrors this season: a disastrous beginning that settles down into something richer and more thoughtful than expected.

05 December 2015

Rank Doctor Who Series 9!

29 November 2015

Doctor Who Series 9: YOUR Thoughts


Here's a round-up of your thoughts on the 2015 run of Doctor Who so far. If you've any comments on this year's episodes, please feel free to leave them below this post. Don't forget to vote in our flash polls on Twitter every Saturday and Sunday!

The Magician's Apprentice

In our poll for Steven Moffat's nostalgia-laden opener, you rated it 7.7/10. Tom Newsom was more generous in his review, awarding the episode 9/10.

The Witch's Familiar

Our readers weren't so generous when it came to rating the concluding part of 2015's first story, giving it an a slightly lower average of 7.5/10. In his review, Tom actually went the other way and rated this an almost perfect story, with a staggering 9.5/10.

Under the Lake

The return of Toby Whithouse was met with much enthusiasm by readers, earning his first episode since 2012 8.3/10. Matt Michael took a look at this one, and scored it a respectable 8/10.

Before the Flood

You obviously enjoyed this bootstrap-bending instalment as well, giving it 8/10. Matt, like Tom, actually enjoyed the second part more than the first and awarded it 9/10 in his review.

The Girl Who Died

Jamie Mathieson's difficult third episode wasn't as much of a hit with our readers, receiving an average score of just 6.7/10. Tom enjoyed it regardless though, giving it 9/10 in his review.

The Woman Who Lived

We changed things up a bit for this episode and instead of having a poll on the site, we ran a two-choice flash poll on Twitter, where readers could just indicate whether they liked the episode or not. It proved to be pretty popular with almost 90% saying they did. Tom was similarly keen, awarding it 9.5/10 in his write-up.

Invasion of the Zygons

Tweeters were divided on this episode, with half giving it a thumbs up and half thumbs down. Dave reviewed it for us and was much more certain of this opinion on proceedings, awarding it 9.5/10.

Inversion of the Zygons

This Peter Harness-Steven Moffat collaboration proved more popular with our Twitter followers, with nine saying they approved and three disagreeing in our flash poll. Dave also enjoyed this episode, rating it 8/10 in his review.

Sleep No More

Reaction - as you may able to imagine for the most inherently divisive episode of the series - was polarised for Mark Gatiss' Sleep No More. On Twitter, just 3 of 19 voters told us they liked the episode, with the rest saying they were sent to sleep by the 'found footage' episode. Tom reviewed it for us and ultimately felt that the positives outweighed the negatives.

Face the Raven

All of the voters in this week's flash poll thought Face the Raven was a very moving episode as Clara bowed out of the series. Matt Michael reviewed the story for the site and wasn't completely sold but enjoyed it overall, awarding it 7/10.

Heaven Sent

This episode earned immediate praise from the vast majority of viewers, and that was reflected in our flash poll on Twitter where 88% of voters said they loved the story. Matt Michael was similarly enamoured with this single(-ish)-hander, scoring it 9/10 in his review.

Hell Bent

Whilst this episode was warmly received overall, it was to a lesser degree than Heaven Sent. This meant that 83% of readers thought it was brilliant, and the remainder awful. In his final review of the series, Matt gave it a positive rating of 7/10.

* * *

If you have any thoughts you'd like to share, you can either comment below or use the contact form at the bottom to apply to review a future episode.

Doctor Who: Heaven Sent


There was a moment about halfway through Heaven Sent, when the Doctor is digging out the grave in the cloisters, when I turned to my partner and explained how I thought the story was going to play out. It turned out I was half right (at that stage, we didn’t know about the diamond wall). But this, I think, is a good thing. Moffat plays scrupulously fair with the clues, taking a structure inspired by the recurring nightmare of Dead of Night, and countless horror films since, and combining it with Grimms’ Shepherd Boy. The result, more so than Face the Raven, is Doctor Who’s best example of a dark fairy tale.

Largely because of its empathy with the Doctor’s situation: the fear and grief and anger that drive him, this is easily Moffat’s best script since the fiftieth anniversary; perhaps even since 2010. And this is despite it including yet more hit-and-run assaults on continuity. This time, the target is the truth behind the Doctor absconding from Gallifrey – surely the most over-exposed “mystery” in the series’ history. Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks, Eric Saward, Andrew Cartmel, Ben Aaronovitch, Marc Platt and Russell T Davies have all pecked away at that particular diamond mountain in the last 46 years.

The cliffhanger in particular is a masterpiece of Moffat’s simultaneous fan-baiting, crowd-playing instincts, certain to have some people up in arms and muttering darkly about the 1996 movie, and others excitedly chattering about what it all means. Similarly, bringing back Gallifrey will worry some fans who suspect that if it returns the whole Horde of Travesties will come through as well: the Habitat soft furnishings; the weary Planet Zog politics; Colin Baker in a ridiculous hat. I take hope from the fact that Gallifrey returning does not, at least going by the Next Time trailer, look like a Good Thing, and because Moffat, though willing to play with continuity, has never wrecked it.

In fact, in a curious way, the climax of Heaven Sent reminded me of The War Games: both of them see the Doctor peeling back layers of misdirection to reveal the Time Lords, and the answer to the great mystery, at the heart. In The War Games, Gallifrey is the one place the Doctor’s been running from all his life. Since The Day of the Doctor, it’s been the place he’s heading towards. Both times, it’s positioned as a kind of final destination of his travels, the moment when the series can reach a natural end point. The death of Doctor Who, if you like.

How entirely appropriate for an episode, and a season, that’s steeped in death. It began with Missy brandishing the Doctor’s last will and testament, continued through episodes that have explored mortality and the consequences of immortality; infected all of its viewers with a dusty death, and forced Clara to face the raven. As a literal manifestation of the ‘second shadow’ that haunts everyone from the moment they are born, the Veil is a supremely effective image. It takes the tired old convention joke about trying to make running through corridors away from a shuffling monster look dramatic, and turns it into something truly nightmarish.

What really sells the monster, as it always has, is the Doctor’s reaction to it. Capaldi has already been universally praised for his blistering performance in the otherwise fatuous climax of The Zygon Inversion. I think he betters it in Heaven Sent, and while he’s not uniquely capable of carrying an episode pretty much single handedly (how many classic Doctors had to do that regularly, in one take?), he is absolutely compelling. In years to come, this will be rightly held up as one of the all-time great Doctor Who performances.

Whether Heaven Sent is held up as one of the all-time greats remains to be seen. Since The Sensorites, posterity, and fandom, hasn’t always been kind to outstanding first episodes with lesser second parts, and a huge amount rides on Hell Bent. But right at this moment, I’m willing to bet this season is going to go up and up in people’s estimation.

28 November 2015

Book Review: A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale


Review by Tom Newsom

I’d first heard about this book on Radio 2’s Book Club - they were full of warm praise for it - in early 2015. And although by the time I came across it in my local library, it meant that I knew the shape of the plot and what to expect, it did not disappoint. It’s the sort of book where that doesn’t weaken it, where the journey is more important than the twists, although there are some big ones.

It’s all about a man, Harry Cane. The book’s early chapters trace his cosy life in Edwardian England, from his early age to marriage and family responsibilities, before everything changes. We’re under his skin for most of this book, for he’s a character who never quite fits in anywhere, even though he tries - not in formal society, nor in the vast prairies of Canada, where he is forced to escape to. Even though the landscape changes vastly, the book doesn’t lose its footing - now he’s got even more to learn to become a farmer and landowner, to fit in with the tiny rural communities he finds there, and importantly to discover himself.

One of the quotes on the back of my copy says it “manages to be both tender and epic”, which is a perfect description. It covers a lot of ground but we never lose sight of the main character and what it all means for him.

Whilst reading it I was wondering if I’d recommend it to anyone unreservedly. And whilst it’s a cracking, solid book, there are a few scenes of violence that means it’s not a comfortable read at times. But then it’s not a comfortable adventure - and whilst there are terrible events, the tone always allows an everyday humanity and a feeling of hope afterwards. If anything it’s a book about survivors.

You can sort of tell it’s based on a true story, very loosely: the main character’s background came from one of the author’s mysterious relatives, which he then breathed new life into their actions by creating a character. He’ll never know what they were really like, or why they relocated to Canada, but the motives here feel real. The whole book has the ring of truth; I think that’s down to the research, plus the level of detail that’s then put in the writing. It doesn’t proclaim its historical accuracy on every page, but due to the compressed, fast paced plot (some big time jumps), there’s a lot of scene setting, well told. It also makes it a great read, one of those books you can really lose yourself in.

The historical detail doesn’t stop at the world the author has created either - it’s present in the character’s heads and how they see themselves. As the writer has said - “The challenge was to inhabit a homosexual life in a time when there are no words to describe any of the things the character feels or does.” It’s no spoiler to say that you honestly don’t notice this linguistic, mental gap when you’re reading it, although it is very much there. This book feels like a story very much of its time, even if any story like it wouldn’t be told for over half a century later. And I think the secret strength to this book is the characters: if the world around them felt real, then they feel doubly so, rounded and authentic - they make the most realistic of mistakes.

It’s an exquisite book, full of foreboding, adventure and human truths. Well worth reading, and it will stay with you for some time after.


20 November 2015

TV Review: Unforgotten - Series 1


On paper, ITV's new crime drama should be a total disappointment, writes Tom Newsom, yet it's surprisingly engrossing and gets better as it goes along.

A new ITV crime drama - no wait, come back!

On the face of it, Unforgotten doesn’t have a lot to offer viewers. Yet another drama where police detectives investigate old crimes (there’s literally a new one every week), only this time there’s no twist with the main characters, nor is it set in a particular, photogenic location. To make things worse, ITV were hailing it as the next Broadchurch, and then Nicola Walker, the main star, pops up in BBC One’s much more experimental drama River in the same week.

Every sign pointed to this being a disappointment - that is, except the cast list, packed full of fine actors, almost laughably so given their individual screen time in the first episode. The list goes on and on, but the ensemble cast includes Trevor Eve, Bernard Hill, Sir Tom Courtenay, Ruth Sheen, Gemma Jones, Cherie Lunghi, David Troughton, Hannah Gordon, Peter Egan... it’s an impressive roll call to fit into 45 minutes and lends the show some serious star quality. All this is fine, but often it’s no indicator as to whether the show is any good; even the best actors suffer with bad material.

So it’s a great relief that Unforgotten - forgettable title - is one of the best dramas ITV have put out this year. Sure, it isn’t original, not on the face of it, not as a genre. But its strength is in its writing: it manages to pull off having a ‘realistic’ tone but also with big themes, solid drama and twists, with relying on a flashy style or narrative tricks.
If the large cast list doesn’t give it away, the production is big. There’s a real drive to make this a diverse series that captures life in the country today - it’s great to watch a show that has a disabled character, black and Asian characters, gay characters, and all kinds of older people - from lotharios to liars to people with dementia. There’s even, by the end of it, a birth, a wedding and a funeral. It doesn’t feel like box-ticking, nor as if ITV is trying to appeal to all. It’s more like a state-of-the-nation drama.

Not necessarily just a state of the nation today, either. In the series, the police uncover a body from 1976 - so each of the main suspects is now in their 60s. Cleverly the series doesn’t dwell on the specifics, nor overly rely on flashbacks, leaving the events shrouded in mystery until the final episode (after all, the characters can’t remember everything from 40 years ago!). At first it can feel annoying, later you realise it’s the way to make you keep watching. That, and how it doesn’t need to - the drama here is watching to see how these suspects cope when their pasts are looked into, and secrets uncovered.

What secrets! What storylines! One of the strongest, I thought, is what Ruth Sheen’s character goes through. Once the police come sniffing round, it all comes out: she used to be a racist, she tells her - black - husband of twenty-odd years. She was egged on by her former boyfriend, she wasn’t really like that. We rarely see a story like that on TV, I think. Not just attacks by faceless youths but the insidious hints and rumours - with the focus solely on the characters in the modern day, the shoe is on the other foot once her community finds out. In the end, she’s merely looking for trust and love, rather than full forgiveness.

Obviously there’s a theme of history repeating itself, that the truth will out. It’s also incredibly easy to see this as a reaction to the modern day’s judging of the 1970s - with some people picking it as a decade where what passed for everyday life are now serious crimes  (as opposed to every other decade before then, and since). It doesn’t feel like a coincidence, but it’s not entirely unsubtle. Nonetheless the crimes that the suspects are guilty of are well chosen - the full gamut of hate crime to underage affairs. But there’s always an element of doubt, as in the real world. Every criminal has a defence.

It’s this realistic tone, combined with a steady, balanced plot, which makes this drama so engrossing and deep. It gets richer as it goes along, right up to the ending, which did not disappoint. The dramatic storyline and twists only go some of the way - it’s what sticks in the mind later. This is the sort of drama where the characters - especially the police detectives - stop for a few minutes and discuss the nature of guilt, innocence and historical crimes. And this is in ITV. My kind of show.

Thankfully they’ve announced a second series - and unlike Broadchurch, it might actually deliver. The only things that need to carry over is the format and the detectives. I’ve barely said a word about Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar - always likeable actors, both of them - and that’s probably because they’re not at the centre of this. I could barely tell you anything about their characters, nor do they go through much development by the end of it. Almost as if it’s real life. These are people you’d happily watch another series with, solving further long-buried crimes, which makes it good casting. That, and the top names, make this sound more like Midsomer Murders. But this has real teeth.

Oh and the theme's tune also pretty good.

18 November 2015

Love in the TARDIS


1980s Doctor Who producer John Nathan Turner once famously said that there would be “No hanky panky in the TARDIS.” Back then it was a reaction to cynical newshounds that couldn’t see an heroic mysterious man whisk an adventurous, beautiful woman into time and space without instantly thinking sex.

Skip forward to the show’s twenty-first century revival and while actual sex is still taboo (it is still a pre-watershed family series after all) the notion of Time And Relationship Dimensions In Space is more accepted. Starting with Rose Tyler, love and affection are front and centre. And what’s more, the Doctor feels it too.

There were plenty of old school fans that have hated this “soap” aspect. But then there are plenty of fans for whom a disengaged ‘higher being’ hero is a welcome aspirational character. These are probably the same kinds of people who saw Sheldon Cooper as a kindred spirit until he took up with Amy Farah Fowler. At least our Doctor never meddled in anything as mundane and petty as human emotions.

Did he?

To fellow children of the '80s that balked when the McGann kissed Grace (without tongues note) or reached for a bucket with one hand and tapped a stiff tweet to Points of View with the other whenever Eccleston or Tennant found an excuse to snog his leading lady, (just sucking out the time vortex? Oh ok…) I’d say get take an objective look at the classic series. Affection in the TARDIS has been there for decades. But like many deep, happy and long lasting relationships, it doesn’t always have to end up in the sack.

When JNT made his statement, the Doctor was about to be the youngest he’d ever been. A virile, youthful Peter Davison would be surrounded by the equally young and gorgeous Janet Fielding and Sarah Sutton, with Matthew Waterhouse’s Adric skulking about at the back.

But like the '80s themselves, the show was quite arguably superficial. Back then our focus was much more on the stories themselves, the monsters rather than the intimate feelings of the TARDIS team which was often reduced to folks just being argumentative.

I sometimes wonder if the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa would have developed a closer relationship if they hadn’t been dogged by moany third wheel Tegan. Their ‘old married couple’ act at the start of season twenty, with Nyssa finding little jobs round the house could have been nicked from TV perennials at the time Terry & June. And it’s clear that the Doctor’s not happy about the return of the Australian gooseberry by his grudging welcome at the end of Arc of Infinity. “Damn. There go our romantic fireside nights talking about sonic boosters.”

The Sixth Doctor of course didn’t really have room in his hearts for anyone but himself and the Seventh Doctor and Ace with their teacher/pupil relationship completely redefined the TARDIS team. And it was in this emotional wilderness that fandom seems to have retro-actively decreed that the Doctor was above petty things like human emotion. How very wrong we were.

Granted, the sixties Doctors were short on romance. Troughton was more of a fun uncle and if there was any hint of flirtation it fell to Jamie. But while Hartnell’s role was as a grandfather figure – so no ‘hanky panky’ as such - he wasn’t beyond emotion. Witness in The Aztecs right there in season one, he connects emotionally with kindred spirit Cameca. See his regret at betraying her and his reluctance to part with a keepsake.

However it’s in the '70s that the direct relationship between the Doctor and his companions deepens.

When School Reunion blasted onto our screens in 2006 it was trailed as ‘the Mrs meets the ex’.

What?

Suddenly we’re supposed to treat the relationship between the Doctor and Sarah Jane as a love affair? The modern eye looking back at this innocent '70s friendship sees sex? No, not sex. But a kind of love, definitely. A deep affection between the two of them. And it’s more than just modern sensibilities colouring what went before, it’s a spotlight illuminating what was always there, just under the surface of running down corridors and fighting rubber aliens.

The Doctor and Sarah Jane do everything with a passion. Lis Sladen in an interview for ‘Thirty Years In The TARDIS’ cited her ‘motivation’ as having the best friend and being compelled to do anything to save that best friend. Sarah and the Doctor throw themselves into situations without a second thought. I’m often reminded of the scene in The Seeds of Doom where the Doctor jumps through a skylight and decks a thug to save Sarah whereas with Romana or Leela, while no less heroic, he’d be more likely to hold of the enemy with a quip or a clever rouse, acting from the head rather than from the hearts.

There is an argument to say that it all comes from Sarah Jane, that she’s the one that seems to do all the running. We see how miserable and betrayed she is in ‘K-9 & Company’. We hear her explanation in Invasion of the Bane and School Reunion about how she met someone so incredible she could never fall for anyone else.

But the Doctor for all his alien reactions to things is just as much affected. The way he talks to Sarah is different to any other of his companions. For all his otherworldliness, there is a warmth of delivery that he just doesn’t give to Leela or Romana. It’s significant that like with Rose later on, this is a pairing that has to be forced apart. And I’m sure it’s no coincidence that following the irreplaceable Sarah Jane, the fourth Doctor never takes another contemporary human companion. (Not counting Tegan who stowed away and was more a companion-in-waiting for Davison).

But this affection isn’t limited to dear old Sarah Jane. Remember her predecessor, the charmingly clumsy but gutsy wannabe spy Jo Grant?

Everyone remembers that final scene of The Green Death. The Doctor leaves Jo to her engagement party without a goodbye and drives off alone into the night. It’s a great and heart wrenching finale for their relationship. What’s that? Yes, I said relationship. Oh you didn’t know that the Doctor and Jo were in love? You didn’t see the clues? Let me point some out.

With Pertwee’s Doctor and suddenly in glorious colour, the show finds a more adult tone, usually attributed to the level of 007-like action and slightly more cerebral stories, but I think the human interactions among the team are just as much responsible and could explain why the Pertwee era is so well loved. Here, the Doctor isn’t the grandfather or the uncle. He’s the hero, slap bang in the middle. And like James Bond, to whom he’s often compared, that means getting the girl. He’s charismatic, clever and protective. Even the ready-made love interest of Captain Yates can’t turn Jo’s head for very long.

As it’s her swansong, The Green Death is inevitably the most obvious and up front about their relationship. “All of time and space. I’m offering them to you.” The Doctor literally proposes. They’ve been on day trips to Inter Minor and Spiridon but this is it. Come with me for real. And clock the Doctor's regret and sense of loss when Jo gives up on that long promised trip to Metebelis III in favour of Wales. Worse than that, she ditches him for “a younger” version. An attainable human version of the Doctor himself. Seem familiar?

But there are earlier clues.

As a threat to the Doctor, the Axons age Jo. This isn’t an exercise in vanity, taking away her youthful looks. The Doctor as a Time Lord has a demonstrable fear of seeing those he loves growing old, withering away while he goes on alone. It’s spelled out eloquently in School Reunion and The Girl In The Fireplace but here it is in action.

With this Doctor exiled to Earth it’s inevitable that he’d start behaving like a human and form bonds with those around him. But it’s in Colony In Space, his freedom seemingly temporarily restored, that he’s able to show Jo what he’s really about. It’s a beautiful, tender scene in the TARDIS where the Doctor takes a hesitant, tentative young woman and shows her a larger universe, albeit in the form of a quarry.

And armed with these moments, look at any episode between them, the joy they have just being in each other’s company, the lengths Jo goes to to rescue the Doctor from prison in The Sea Devils, the ultimate sacrifice she’s prepared to make to save him in The Daemons. And look at how the Doctor crosses time to get Jo back in Day of the Daleks or space in Frontier In Space. Compare it to his friendly but efficient relationship with Liz Shaw.

Ok, some of this is filling in the gaps and reading between the lines. I am taking our modern sensibilities and storytelling, our need for an emotional resonance and applying it to our beloved classic series. But you can’t do it to every era. No one would believe that the 6th Doctor and Peri’s arguments were really a cover for a secret unspoken passion. Or that the 1st Doctor and Barbara exchanged meaningful looks over the console when Ian’s back was turned. All the more significant then that there are certain Doctor/Companion pairings you can apply it to without contradicting what’s shown on screen.

It’s a fine line. No one really wants ‘The Doctor and Mrs Who’ (Sorry River, you were far more interesting when we just thought you were his wife) and any TARDIS love affair, whether it’s unrequited or not, should underpin the adventure rather than be the main narrative thrust. It’s still an adventure series about fighting monsters.

But if you’re willing to believe a Time Lord can love, it does add depth not just to the companions but to the Doctor himself. It shouldn’t diminish our hero to admit that he, like ourselves, is sometimes prey to stupid emotions.

Thanks to Philip Lawrence.

The Other Woman (starring Katy Manning and written by Phil) is out this month from Big Finish and you can pre-order it here
Visit Phil's website here.

15 November 2015

Doctor Who: Sleep No More



Sleep No More isn't trying to say or do anything in particular, it's just an experiment into uncharted territory for Doctor Who - but it doesn't work, writes Tom Newsom.

I’m sure some people must love it, but I never hear anyone admit that in public. The ‘found footage’ genre, normally for low-budget horror, has been ubiquitous in the last five (ten? fifteen?) years. I’m not an expert in it by any means, but it offers a very different form of drama to the one we’re used to in Doctor Who - something more distant. However given its widespread use, doesn’t it feel like a great fit for a scary episode? In theory, perhaps - but here it just left me cold.

You can’t call this episode conventional, in any sense. But I’ve surprised myself, thinking back, how many things it gets spot on: the monsters especially. Sleep, the sandman, it’s an irresistible connection, played to its full here. But the camera moving means that we barely glimpse them at first - a plus for anything trying to scare us. And then when we see more, it’s just a deformed blob with legs and a gaping mouth - eurgh. They’ve got one of the sketchiest backstories and behaviour - “sleep dust” is all there is to them - but they don’t half scare.

It’s a great production, especially when you consider it was filmed with the normal HD cameras, as opposed to smaller models attached to the actors. The camerawork can really make you feel the action even when people are standing still, and the editing is faster. Parts of this episode are INTENSE, the scary parts, which you don’t normally get with Doctor Who.

It’s definitely an episode that will be rated a ‘12’, in a series that’s had at least four of them so far - so god knows what young children thought of it. I remember being scared watching Jeopardy, a CBBC Blair Witch Project-style series, when I was younger - and that was just kids in a field with cameras, rather than full-blown Aliens.

But there’s only that intensity to parts of it. For the rest of it, normally the talky scenes such as at the start or with the supporting characters, it starts to grate. Yes, really - Doctor Who is a programme that actively tries to not be boring, always. But when it’s a group of guest characters who you barely even recognise (let alone care for), who are muttering in wide-shots with shaking cameras - well, you pray for a good closeup. Thankfully we get a few, of the Doctor especially (him and Clara are a welcome presence this week), because otherwise you’d struggle to feel a part of the action, even with the point-of-view business. At some moments it didn’t feel like television to me at all, more like a first-person shooter - really, for Doctor Who?

The helmet cameras, or lack of, was a good twist though, in an episode that had more standout moments than it deserved. The plot is involved just enough, building up and teasing out a few mysteries. Okay, I felt good about wondering to myself why we were seeing things from Clara’s point of view (or whether there was another soldier character I’d missed). The story about the Morpheus process was well told too, with its slightly creepy set-up involving “that song”. Less so about the hunt for the villain behind the piece - by then I was confused what the overall monster plan was, though so was the Doctor.

It would be cruel to sign off a review with the Doctor’s closing comment - “none of this makes any sense!” - so I won’t. Instead, I’ll highlight the cool and utterly terrifying closing shot of Reece Shearsmith. Good to have him in Doctor Who, and a perfect fit for this particular part. This episode feels like an Inside No 9 on BBC Two, if its budget was tripled overnight.

Really though, this is Doctor Who (and writer/horror fan Mark Gatiss) having fun with a particular genre. You can tell that through the ways they’ve tied it into the story - the ‘found footage’ of the “cameras”, and the message that frames the story. It’s not like a film, in that the director is using it to make a statement or a higher art-form. This is purely them trying new things, an experiment of an episode for this week’s audience.

I’m just not quite sure it works.

14 November 2015

TV Review: London Spy - Lullaby


The first episode of BBC Two's new drama portrays it as more of a romantic mystery than a traditional spy thriller and is full of clever little touches, writes Tom Newsom.

You have to suspend your disbelief, even in the opening scenes. Ben Whishaw is entering a gay club - we know this because it’s populated by 90% men and 9% Donna Summer - yet none of the crowd recognises him. C’mon guys - this is big name casting! Q, Paddington! Star of the excellent drama The Hour! An exceptionally busy actor at the moment. But we’re not interested about the crowd, just about him, Danny. He leaves, much later, still high, and walks out into the shadow of the MI6 building. If that doesn’t set up the episode perfectly, I don’t know what does.

He meets Joe on the bridge and straight away from their slightly off behaviour we know that these two characters aren’t trying to emulate real people. Danny is awkward and says too much, the mysterious Joe stares, wipes some sweat from his face and gives him his water pack for free. I’m assuming here that encounters in the middle of London at five in the morning aren’t quite so homoerotic - but I don’t know.

If that didn’t feel real enough, then happily the rest of the drama does. They fall in love in a way that is rarely seen on TV - slowly, after they’ve met each other a few times and spent time in each others’ company (long walks, mumbling, endearingly cute groyne walking). The script specifies it’s over the course of weeks and months and actually yes, we feel that too. It’s as slow as relationships in costume dramas, even in an age where romantic opportunities are no longer limited to endless formal dancing.

So, it’s slow - but gripping, always gripping. The writer, Tom Rob Smith, is new to TV at least, and he’s very lucky that he teamed up with this director, Jakob Verbruggen. I honestly don’t think that any other director working in TV could have handled it this smoothly or brilliantly. I really enjoyed his work leading on the Gillian Anderson BBC Two drama The Fall and this is in the same mould, as a first episode at least: following only a few characters before the main conspiracy and drive steps in. It’s mainstream (read: actually watchable) minimalist. Indeed, this episode revolves around just three people, who thankfully are really good actors. Phew. And it earns its length: there’s an electric scene, one of Ben Whishaw’s best ever, in which he opens up and reveals some of his past. The writing is spot on too, but played slowly, in one take, gives it intensity and the extra time makes you read beyond the more subtle words and realise the importance of it.

It’s billed as a “spy thriller”, but it’s neither the high action of SPECTRE or even Spooks, nor the twisted logic of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Instead this episode is more like a “romantic mystery”. But there are spy elements if you’re a fan, in an episode full of small, clever touches - the hidden secrets, shadowy figures bugging and tailing you, hints of a greater force at work. It means that there are rules that we can expect, even though we’re not quite in that genre yet.

Other plot points appear to have been inspired by events in the news... I won’t say which events, however, because I felt that the plot was spoilt after I read a headline in a TV mag explaining it. The less you know the better - especially when there’s so little “action” that the trailers on TV midweek probably show you everything that happens anyway.

The promotion and trailers, Ben Whishaw’s presence, plus coming so soon after his role in the new James Bond film - well, it was going to be a hit, and it is - over three million viewers. For the first episode at least - less people will watch it by the end, as with Wolf Hall and every other drama on the channel. Not because of the central romance between two men (surprisingly rare to make a series around it - I always forget this) - but because this type of TV has a very particular style and pace, which this episode achieves beautifully.