Doctor Who series 6 (part two)

Tom Steward blogs at Watching TV with Americans.

The Impossible Astronaut

Anticipation ran high for this opening two-parter following publicity images of Matt Smith in a Stetson on the American frontier and an internet prequel featuring a 1969 Richard Nixon recording strange phone calls from a frightened child. The stage was set for a fun western-themed story along the lines of the William Hartnell serial The Gunfighters, and a return to the historical (which the previous season had veered towards with Vincent and the Doctor) populated by some fascinating figures (Nixon, Armstrong) and culturally cataclysmic events (the Moon landing, Watergate).

To paraphrase an expression popular in America in 1969: ‘they blew it!’
Writer Steven Moffat was completely uninterested in the period he had perfunctorily plonked his story in, giving viewers scant historical context save for a few garbled soundbytes about Nixon’s legacy, and paying only saliva service to the western setting and iconography, with the shot of The Doctor as a cowboy reclining on a Cadillac (somehow) shorter in the final edit than in the 60-second trailer.

So many precious minutes were wasted on a comically lukewarm opening montage of The Doctor getting into various bawdy and slapstick scrapes throughout history. I hope these vignettes will be followed up on in the latter half of the series but suspect they’re frivolous window-dressing for Moffat’s inability to give us a coherent introduction to his stories.

The other major problem was the laboured and smugly self-conscious reference away from the episode’s self-contained storyline towards ongoing story arcs. This demonstrated a detrimental lack of faith in the effectiveness of the plot and seriously delayed its development, meaning that the action had barely got going before this first episode had ended. The murder of The Doctor by a mysterious being in a NASA spacesuit capped off a plethora of false starts, reducing the introduction of villains The Silence to a mere footnote, lacking the suspense or anticipation to help them reach their terrifying potential.

Fighting against the narrative first gear, Smith did a wonderful job conveying the melancholy wisdom of his future self (that boy can do old!) and his and Arthur Darvill’s (unfortunately clipped) character-crystallising exchanges were superbly witty and subtly executed.

Day of the Moon

Part two of this double-header clarified how Moffat’s oblique storytelling had become simply incompetent. Some narrative ellipsis was necessary in a story involving aliens that people forget once out of sight and to delay the resolution of a narrative mystery. However, the time ellipses in this episode spiralled way out of control. A three month gap between this and the previous instalment undermined the impact and purpose of the preceding cliffhanger. Further jumps in narrative continuity acted as smokescreens for the potholes in narrative cause-and-effect and plot development.

The episode’s opening montage was successfully exhilarating, largely down to the commitment of the performers and macabre twists in the telling rather than the tired content, a recycling of the ‘pretend death’ ploy which Moffat favours with incredulous regularity. This was epitomised by Karen Gillan’s near-asthmatic vocal performance following a chase across the desert, a tour-de-force typical of an actress who, like all great Doctor Who protagonists, can make you believe the unbelievable. The marks recording sightings of The Silence that cover the bodies of the protagonists like tattoos of hideous scars made for chilling viewing.

Though massively overdue, after the credits the show finally played its horror card, and very nearly took the haunted house. The visit to the creaky and creepy children’s home complete with abusive graffiti and deranged custodian was graceful in its slow and understated building of disquiet and fear. Again, most plaudits should go to actor Kerry Shale as the syrup-voiced Southern gentleman in mental distress Dr. Renfrew, whose trembling and traumatised appearance propagated the lingering feeling of unease. The episode (not for the last time this series) channelled The X-Files to gain legitimacy as TV science-fiction (particularly for American audiences who are simultaneously addressed here) but recognised only the superficialities (dark-and-smart outfits, magenta blue lighting), and barely qualified as pastiche.

Elsewhere, the history became pure pageantry, full of embarrassingly on-the-nose musical cues and dramatic ironies (‘say Hi to David Frost’) that compounded the thinly realised portrayal of the era. Smith continued to rally pluckily against the characterisation of The Doctor as a lothario, making clear to viewers through precise physical comedy his thoughtful interpretation of the character as sexually naive and alien to romance.

For a discussion of how this series-opener was shown on BBC America and spoke to American audiences, see the post from my blog here.

Doctor Who Series 6 (part one)

Last year, Squeezegut Alley was proud to feature Tom Steward’s reviews of Doctor Who. Since then, Tom has set up his own excellent television blog, Watching TV with Americans. I’m so pleased that he’s decided to share his thoughts on Series 6 – but be warned, he doesn’t mince his words…

Last year, producer Steven Moffat, actor Matt Smith and supporting cast, and a team of writers rescued Doctor Who from the oblivion of self-aggrandizing emo-babble it had sunk into under the influence of Russell T Davies and David Tennant, the latter episodes of their tenures having merely been offerings at the altar of its criminally overrated star. Though there were obvious shortcomings in the 2010 series, notably Moffat’s own haphazard and at times nonsensical storytelling, the overwhelming power of Smith’s innovative, committed and faithful performance, some engrossing one-off stories (not least Toby Whithouse’s pitch-perfect Vampires of Venice) and the restoration of a compelling three-way dynamic in the TARDIS did enough to suggest that the show could reverse the polarity of its demise.

 

A year later and it seems the show is in crisis again, with Moffat now an enormous liability to its future credibility. An out-of-control story arc threatens to overshadow the alchemy of the finest cast of regulars the programme has had in decades. Moreover, the decision taken by the BBC (publicised as Moffat’s choice but possibly catalysed by budget cuts) to broadcast the 2011 series in two parts starting respectively in April and November, has ended up an albatross around Moffat’s neck.

 

This re-structuring of the season narrative was welcomed in many quarters, especially by those hungry to see Doctor Who episodes dispersed across the year as it was in its heyday in the 1960s and 70s. It tantalised viewers about the possibility of a mouth-watering cliffhanger between the first and second halves to rival Second Doctor Patrick Troughton tumbling through the time vortex with his future hanging in the balance at the end of The War Games.

 

But Moffat’s failure to deliver this cliffhanger and offer only a fairly underwhelming resolution to an increasingly tedious narrative mystery (the identity of overused shady sidekick River Song) has left even the most diehard fans of Moffat’s delay tactics cold. The majority of this initial seven episode run have been write-offs, none more so than Steve Thompson’s unmitigated dud The Curse of the Black Spot. It could just be that viewers are feeling frustration and boredom rather than the intended anticipation, with the four-month mid-season break looking more and more like the perfect excuse to abandon the show permanently.

 

It must be a real kick in the teeth for Smith and co-stars Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, who have nailed the relationship between their characters so acutely, to be fobbed off with a litany of laughably portentous speeches and self-consciously wacky vignettes. I feel particularly sorry for Darvill who, having brought back a homosocial dimension to the interaction between the Doctor and his companions not seen this successfully seen the Second Doctor’s gentle sparring with highlander Jamie McCrimmon, is made to die onscreen every week, in a bizarre script editing oversight. Smith’s extraordinarily accomplished, restrained and mature realisation of the TV Timelord is continually sabotaged by writers’ insistence on making the Doctor either zany or shouty and forcing uncomfortable vaudeville and melodrama out of one of the most subtle and multi-faceted performances on television in recent years.

 

However, this indomitable cast regularly shined through the treacherously weak material. Smith continued his notable evolution into the most mysterious and manipulative Doctor since the horribly underrated Sylvester McCoy, adding refinement to his physical comedy (in a manner becoming of Troughton himself) and remarkable sagacity to his portrayal of a 900 year-old man (even more so when playing his 200 year-old senior). Gillan now seems utterly assured in the role of Amy Pond and adds real grit to the show’s various peril and pursuit sequences, salvaging some episodes with her breathless authenticity as a woman in unthinkable danger. Darvill’s lovable cowardly custard Rory, the Scoobyless ‘Shaggy’ in the Doctor’s Mystery Machine, has developed effortlessly into the moral and emotional centre of the programme, still a vulnerable man but one who tirelessly fights injustice with compassion.

 

But clearly the lessons of the last series have not been heeded. The one-off stories, unfairly regarded as ‘fillers’, were the undoubted strengths of the 2010 batch of episodes, challenging both writers and actors, whereas the ongoing storyline (or ‘arc’) episodes were far more inconsistent. Now the arc episodes fill in the gaps between the only proper stories left in the programme.

Sherlock Series 2 titles

Den of Geek is reporting that the new series titles for Sherlock are A Scandal in Belgravia (written by Steven Moffat), The Hounds of Baskerville (Mark Gatiss) and The Reichenbach Fall (oh dear, Stephen Thompson). We can expect to see them sometime in the autumn.

As you might recall, after a flurry of enthusiasm, I was left rather jaded by Sherlock. Teaching it this year to undergrads did nothing to endear the show further to me, but new episodes might. I am intrigued to know where the show goes next – how about you?

Studies in Sherlock #3

Here’s a blog that I wrote immediately after seeing A Study in Pink, way back in July. Since then, I’ve had some new thoughts on the show and have incorporated them below. Many thanks to Sherlocking for publishing it in the first place!

A Study in Pink introduces us to its new Sherlock through technology. Undermining Inspector Lestrade’s press conference by text bomb, Sherlock demonstrates his intellectual mastery by proxy. He’s aloof, omnipresent and utterly frustrating. “If you can tell me how he does it, I’ll stop him!” snaps the bemused policeman.

This onscreen appearance of text is A Study in Pink greatest innovation. That repeated ‘Wrong!’ popping up above the bemused journalists emphasizes Sherlock’s difference from the herd, his patrician bearing. Visually startling, it’s as though Sherlock controls the onscreen space in previously unsuspected ways.

And if that sounds like a cunning visual metaphor for Sherlock’s remarkable gifts, well then, so be it. Onscreen text is this series’ way of showing “how he does it.”

Having accustomed us to this layering of the frame, Moffat and McGuigan up the ante during the examination of the body at Lauriston Gardens. Here, onscreen text represents the sleuth’s thought processes as they occur. We are boldly moved from being admiring onlookers (as in the preceding scene, when Sherlock explained his deductions about John’s phone) to something like willing collaborators.

So we see Sherlock comparing the corpse’s coat to her umbrella, the words ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ appearing as he notes their condition. A dictionary definition of ‘Rache’ appears before him, dispersing as he dismisses it. As he searches for another meaning, there’s a fruit-machine effect, letters rolling upwards until ‘Rachel’ is formed.

Cardiff!

Tom Sutcliffe has described this as “tag[ging] the crime scene like an internet word cloud.” Perhaps more usefully, Sean C. Duncan suggests it’s ” very reminiscent of this year’s dark crime game Heavy Rain, released for the PS3″.

It’s an important moment in the drama, humanizing Sherlock through showing us his interaction with evidence. His achievement is not diminished – by giving us clues as he finds them, we admire his meticulous process. We know Sherlock’s methods, and yet we are still unable to construct the chain of inference with which he wows his audience. In this way, deduction becomes novel once more.

Both Moffat and Gatiss have cited the Universal films starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as their primary inspiration. This is especially evident in their Sherlock’s relationship with technology; Cumberbatch understands mobile phones and GPS, just as Rathbone’s Holmes used contemporary 1940s technology in his films. However, despite his aptitude with oscilloscopes and fluoroscopes, Rathbone remained a Victorian in his bearing and manners. Indeed, it was these very values which his films presented as worth defending against the Nazis.

In the second half of the 20th century, adaptations frequently characterized Holmes as the representative of a fetishized Victorian past. Some of these films were about people merely believing themselves to be Holmes (like George C. Scott in They Might Be Giants, 1971); others resurrected refrigerated Holmes’ into the present day (Michael Pennington in 1987′s The Return of Sherlock Holmes and Anthony Higgins in 1994 Baker Street: Sherlock Holmes Returns). In its most extreme form this led to the cartoon Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, which featured a cyborg Watson and cloned Moriarty! Linking all of these modernized adventures was Holmes’ role as commentator on a degraded modern world.

The wonderfully inventive 22nd century Sherlock!

It’s refreshing, then, that Moffat and Gatiss’ Sherlock presents its heroes as unashamedly modern, not feeling the need to shy away from technology. No longer fixed points in a changing age, Holmes and Watson have caught up with 2010.

Studies in Sherlock #2

I was surprised to learn that the BBC planned to release Sherlock‘s unaired pilot on the DVD release. The abortive 55 minute production had been the subject of much speculation amongst fans, fueled by the glimpses leaked in July. When I initially reviewed A Study in Pink, I criticized some sequences for seeming stretched and wondered if the story mightn’t have been better suited to the hour long format.

Well, I was wrong.

The Pilot (directed by Coky Giedroyc) is an enjoyable watch but in many ways lacks the verve and invention of the broadcast version. While its plot is essentially the same (only really diverging in the last act), the Pilot feels more pedestrian. In the documentary Unlocking Sherlock, producer Sue Vertue explains that the investment of more money from the BBC and PBS allowed them to use more expensive cameras second time around. Visually, then, the broadcast version is richer and more dynamic.

While all of the principal actors and much of the memorable dialogue is carried over from the Pilot, its pace and editing are notably different. One of my criticisms of the broadcast A Study in Pink concerned director Paul McGuigan’s hyperactive action sequences. There is nothing like this in Goydriec’s version, but this means the Pilot has none of the interesting visual flourishes that made Sherlock so distinctive (no onscreen texting, for example).

It does have a rather silly moment in which Sherlock stands on a rooftop looking like Batman, however. I’m glad they lost that.

I'm glad Sherlock lost the forensics gear as well.

What I missed most of all were the elegant visual layers and dissolves which made London so mysterious in McGuigan’s broadcast version. The Pilot fails to depict John’s discovery of this exciting new world, most notably in the drive to Lauriston Gardens. Similarly, the denouement (which takes place at Baker Street in the Pilot) makes John’s heroic act slightly more obscure.

And of course there’s no Mycroft or Moriarty. Both elements stand out in the broadcast A Study in Pink as precursors to the series finale and, as written, promise considerable drama (I am less confident about the execution of this, but that’s another discussion). They’re not missed in the Pilot, but A Study in Pink is richer for their addition.

In a typically fatuous comment piece, Mark Lawson described the Pilot as a ‘disaster’. It’s certainly not that. Moffat’s writing is excellent, and the performances of Cumberbatch, Freeman, Rupert Graves and Phil Davis are confident and compelling. Watching it through, however, one can see why the decision was made to reshoot and how A Study in Pink benefited from its extended running time. It’s a fascinating exercise in comparison!

Doctor Who series 5 episodes 12-13

In his final review, Tom Steward dons a fez and faces his greatest enemies…

The Pandorica Opens

I’d grown weary of the ongoing storyline about a crack in time and space and was hardly looking forward to this arc-heavy two-part finale. As far as I was concerned, the serial storyline was an unwelcome afterthought to the best and tightest one-off episodes (Vampires of Venice, The Lodger).

Inevitably, I found the plot developments fairly uninteresting in this opener. The viewer was bombarded with story information designed to assert a coherent narrative behind the season. In fact, it was increasingly obvious that Moffat was clutching at straws narratively, dazzling the viewer with plot points to disguise gaping holes in plausibility and logic. In particular, the intergalactic rogue’s gallery of villains and re-imagining of the living plastic Autons as intelligent androids raised more questions than answers.

What alleviated this unbalanced storytelling in The Pandorica Opens was the sheer sense of adventure. Bare-back horse riding, archaeological excavations of Stonehenge, torch-lit underground labyrinths – it was like a much improved Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In particular, Amy’s tussle with the various body parts of a Cyberman was breathlessly exciting and frightening. Light costume drama moments concerning the Romans and River Song’s alliance helped a lot.

It was pleasing to see that Moffat had avoided many of the pitfalls of the Davies-era season finales. There were no Doctor-companion reunions or looming threats to the Earth. The danger was far more conceptual and universal and the episode only went as far as stockpiling former Dr. Who adversaries. Moffat also managed to rectify the off-key writing of River Song in the Weeping Angels two-parter, turning her into a more straightforwardly compelling action heroine, a shift in persona that Alex Kingston clearly relished.

Karen Gillan showed herself to be the equal of Smith’s melodrama with her extraordinary facial performance during the Cyberman fight, the programme clearly now trusting in the actors much more to carry action sequences, rather than special effects. Smith’s performance, despite another unnecessary speech utterly unsuited to his vocal style, was magnificent – statuesque and operatically tragic in his futile struggles against his inevitable fate and the concomitant end of time and space.

The Big Bang

The real pleasures of this final episode lay in its time-hopping first half-hour. The breathless opening section of The Big Bang in which the Doctor and his companions jumped around time and space creating a number of mini-paradoxes was warm, witty, brainteasing and done with a refreshing lightness of touch.

These vignettes nicely undercut the portentousness that was a hangover from the tragic ending of the opener, drawing a line under the solemnity and self-pity introduced into the finales of Davies’ seasons. Moving from elegiac tour-de-force to adorable slapstick, Smith’s performance catalysed this tonal shift, recalling the way that Patrick Troughton’s tomfoolery would temper some of his darkest serials (e.g. The Invasion).

This was followed by an equally wonderful mid-section in which the Doctor and his companions were chased around the National Museum by a Dalek. Thrilling yet understated, the sequence introduced peril into stark yet familiar locations, just as the programme used to draw maximum excitement out of its mundane settings. My first memory of Dr. Who was of Daleks pursuing Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred through a secondary school (Remembrance of the Daleks), and it is burned into my brain to this day. Were I a young viewer now, I think the museum sequences would have the same effect on me.

For my money, the episode started to fall apart in the denouement, as major plot developments and resolutions started to take place in characters’ imaginations. This made for an insubstantial end to the season, Moffat using memory and subjectivity to give him carte blanche to do what he wanted with characters and solutions to narrative dilemmas. Despite these reservations about Moffat’s storytelling abilities, what makes him superior to Davies as a writer is his comprehension of how to do long-form narrative arcs. Rather than building and building to an explosive season climax and then resetting the clock the following year as before, Moffat kept back a number of key story points (the origins of the crack, the identity of River Song) for future episodes, suggesting that his tenure may have a single story arc running through it.

Thanks to Tom for his brilliant blog posts! For those coming late to the party, here is his series rundown, and parts one, two, three and four of his episode reviews!

Doctor Who series 5 episodes 10-11

Continuing his series rundown, Tom Steward throws out the sunflowers and climbs the stairs…

Vincent and the Doctor

Some viewers have seen this episode as a genuine attempt to revive the Dr. Who historical. These were stories set in syllabus-friendly periods of human history (The Romans, The Aztecs) without any science fiction elements, except the TARDIS. Historicals were prevalent in the early years of the show when its remit was to educate as well as entertain. Episodes of this kind went into decline after Scottish clan serial The Highlanders in 1967 and haven’t been seen since the twenties-set English country house mystery Black Orchid in 1981.

This episode about final year in the life of Vincent Van Gogh wasn’t exactly free of science-fiction but it was clearly much more interested in art history and biography than the vague ‘invisible monster’ sub-plot. I would like to see the historical make a return. However, I think the claim that the weak monster storyline was a deliberate strategy to enhance the historical credentials of this episode are making excuses for Curtis approaching the script with a dearth of story ideas. I can’t tell whether my antipathy towards this episode is due to my contempt for Richard Curtis’s ineptitude as a screenwriter or because it was so alien to what I think of as good Dr. Who.

The story, such as it was, stopped dead after about thirty minutes, abandoning content in favour of incessant hugging and people saying goodbye. This was disappointing given what a half-decent horror writer could’ve done with the concept of an invisible monster. To give Curtis his due, the first half-hour was decent enough. Though squandering numerous opportunities for scares and intrigue, there were a few good gags of the kind I genuinely didn’t think the writer was capable of any more. Thanks to Smith, Karen Gillan and Tony Curran (as Van Gogh), the schmaltz had a touching resonance to it for the most part.

My major beef was with the final ten minutes. In these latter scenes, I felt both that I could’ve been watching any programme and that it had been completely overtaken by Curtis. The insipid music and Curtis’ emotional manipulation of the audience in the closing moments suggested that the writer cared far more about reaffirming his persona that the programme he was authoring.

The Lodger

Despite having low expectations, I was quite taken with this episode. Notwithstanding a facility for entertaining dialogue and writing highly regarded Dr. Who novels in the hiatus period, Gareth Roberts’ episodes in the Davies era (The Shakespeare Code, The Unicorn and the Wasp) only worked gag-to-gag, and were always dramatically disappointing. We got the best of him in this episode. Roberts based the episode around a solid comic premise, the classic sitcom trope of an odd couple flat share, rather than a set of individual gags. This development in his writing since his collaborations with Davies also demonstrates how much more successful comedy has been in this last season under Moffat.

The script dealt thoughtfully with some important (if resolutely first world) social questions about life in contemporary Britain – should you stay at home and find love or explore the world and follow your dreams? Like the Silurians two parter, this episode recycled imagery from previous eras of the programme, namely the early Pertwee period where the Doctor was trapped on Earth, as he is here. The references, however, were beautifully integrated into a coherent concept rather than randomly juxtaposed.

Still, there were several problems with the episode. The direction (variable in quality throughout the season) by Catherine Morshead was dodgy, underestimating the scare potential of the mysterious upstairs room premise. She also screwed up the football match sequence, which should have used former professional Smith’s ball skills to demonstrate the Doctor’s superhuman tendencies (as with the cricket match in Black Orchid) but was cluttered with cutting and montage. The denouement was disappointing in terms of story – why does every story’s resolution seem to hinge on ‘the love of a good man for a good woman’?

But this all pales into insignificance given the sublime performance by Smith. He managed to despatch an ostensibly comic performance without altering the Doctor’s characterisation, persona or his acting style one iota. This is something I genuinely think Tennant (and Eccleston, actually) would be incapable of doing. This is also the episode where Smith consolidated his interpretation of the role. His impeccably choreographed awkward social fumblings and misunderstandings brought out the idea of the Doctor as a misfit outsider stronger than ever before.

Read Tom’s previous reviews here, here and here!

Doctor Who series 5 episodes 4-6

The second installment of Tom Steward‘s review series. Read the first part here and his series overview here!

The Time of Angels

This two-parter was instantly hailed as a classic Dr. Who story by fans and TV critics. I didn’t care for it much. It was clearly technically brilliant. Powerful location shooting bucked the trend for increasingly alienating CGI in the past few years, and the cinematography was remarkable, especially in the cave sequences which were lit perfectly for maximum eerieness.

Moffat’s breathless pacing provided a thrilling pre-credits teaser but continued unabated into the episode stunting the growth of the characters, especially the Doctor and Amy. It forced the actors into maintaining the pace of the action rather than refining their performances. The re-introduction of mystery scientist River Song (Alex Kingston) seemed lamely underwritten, as the actress struggled to maintain a coherent tone. Even Matt looked nervous.

The main problem was the mishandling of the Weeping Angels, first seen in Moffat’s acclaimed Blink in 2008. The mythology of these monsters had been re-jigged so that they no longer sent people back through time and were now capable of coming to life through images. This jettisoned that which made them genuinely dread-inducing in the first place for the sake of a few gaspworthy set pieces.

And while I like the notion of the Doctor as a man of action (martial arts master Pertwee is my favourite) the episode tried to oversell the idea to the viewer. This resulted in an embarrassingly babbled rabble-rousing monologue in the closing moments, completely undermining the silent mystique of the action hero.

Flesh and Stone

Contrary to popular opinion, as I usually am with Dr. Who, I much preferred the second part of this story. Unlike the opener, which leapt around aimlessly for much of its running time, this concluding episode was intense and exciting throughout. Like The Beast Below, the episode was saved by an extraordinary horror moment: a scene where viewers finally witness the Angels move. It played brilliantly on deep-seated anxieties – like inanimate objects coming to life – and made fine use of the inherently sinister art of mime. This really pushed the boundaries of horror in a way promised but never achieved by The Time of Angels.

I was also pleased that the show used this episode to put to bed (quite literally) the annoying sexual tension between the Doctor and his female companions, introduced by the flawed 1996 movie and institutionalised since Davies took over as producer. While still acknowledging the viewers who, since 2005, tuned into the show as a soap opera, the show finally distanced itself from the romantic undertones of the central double act.

Reducing romance to base comedy and innuendo (‘Amy Pond, I need to sort you out’), Flesh and Stone demonstrated clearly to the viewer that consummation was no longer a possibility in the show’s fictional world. Elsewhere, Moffat’s overly busy plotting reared its head again, unsuccessfully trying to merge a one-off story with an increasingly self-important season arc. The real victims of this were the Angels, surely fascinating enough monsters on their own.

Vampires of Venice

I have nothing but good things to say about this episode. This was simply the best Dr. Who story since the melancholy Survival in 1989, the last serial starring Sylvester McCoy before the 15-year hiatus.

Being Human creator Toby Whithouse’s handling of some fairly clichéd series conventions (gothic horror monsters that turn out to be aliens) was pitch-perfect; wittily crafted, dramatically sturdy, and the perfect mixture of flamboyance and restraint. Whithouse has an amazing talent for intermingling the macabre and the comic. Nowhere better can this be seen than the pre-credits teaser which passed seamlessly from sixteenth century Venice to a stag night in modern day rural England.

The stripper

The emotional impact of the episode, whether in the relationship between Amy and fiancée Rory or the tragic backstory of the ‘fish from space’, was always poignant and sincere. But the expert use of the 45-minute format is what really impressed me. Impeccably paced and minimally written, this episode didn’t lack or condense story and content, as with so many of the others in this season, and across the last five years.

Tonally, Vampires of Venice was flawless. Storylines about genocide and racial exile were given due seriousness whilst the wackier elements, such as swordplay and magic ‘on/off’ switches, were suitably ludicrous. The imminent threat and danger in this episode were underlined by some nicely understated yet charismatic villain performances and unseen budget-saving monsters. Charmingly, the most vicious of the aquatic aliens was signified indirectly by bubbles effervescing on the Venice canals.

Doctor Who series 5 episodes 1-3

Tom Steward continues his look back at this year’s series! Read his overview here.

The Eleventh Hour

This deliberately lightweight introduction to the new series smoothed the transition from the madcap farce of the Davies era. It’s been traditional in Dr. Who for the first episode under a new producer and actor to be a tribute to the departing crew and cast. For example, the debut of fourth Doctor Tom Baker and producer Philip Hinchcliffe – Robot – was a serial set in the familiar world of UNIT, paying tribute to the Pertwee and Letts Earth-bound era of hard action.

For the majority of this episode, Smith’s Doctor was dressed in Tennant’s clothes, his performance still couched in the floaty-eyed wonder of his predecessor. Rather than doing an impression, though, Smith was thoughtful and surprising where Tennant was grating and increasingly predictable.

Successful Who premieres also make significant breaks and their intentions clear straight off. The Eleventh Hour‘s comedy was predominantly verbal not visual. The settings were mundane and classically British (a quiet rural hamlet), and the Doctor came out not entirely sympathetically. As sharp a contrast as Tom Baker failing to karate-chop a brick Pertwee-style in the final scene of Robot!

The Beast Below

Although the challenges of a second episode (maintaining pace and performances) were ably met by Moffat and his brilliant actors, this episode exposed some of the new series’ weaknesses. The shift to Davies-like sentimentality in the latter stages tried too hard to pigeonhole the relationship between the Doctor and Amy as romantic before it had time to develop. This was a shame as the early part of the episode defined the dynamic more plausibly as one of teacher and student.

Moffat’s script was plot-heavy and reduced potentially fascinating characters, in particular Terrence Hardiman (The Demon Headmaster) as a shadowy government official, to mere exposition devices. The episode’s heart-stopping momentum made some plot elements (cryptic rhymes, unknown threats) almost incomprehensible.

However, Moffat’s horror credentials were shown off by one of the most terrifying introductions to a TV programme I can remember. The sequence, involving schoolchildren, subterranean elevators and the ventriloquist dummy-like Smilers, was a buffet of scares. Playing on basic but potent fears (dummies coming to life, slow-turning heads), it was nuts-and-bolts British horror par excellence. I haven’t been this chilled by the series since 1989′s Ghost Light, the underrated Sylvester McCoy’s disquieting and intangible haunted house chamber drama.

Effortlessly dopey and likeable, like his oft-cited favourite Patrick Troughton, Smith also displayed a genuinely awful temper, recalling the more abrasive William Hartnell. It was a magnificent performance, reviving the ambiguity and uneasiness lacking in his predecessor.

Victory of the Daleks

There was great fan animosity towards this episode, as there usually is to more historically-oriented serials. Criticism focused on the re-design of the Doctor’s most popular and established adversaries, the Daleks, as distended New Minis available in all pupil-burning colours.

I was equally nonplussed by the makeover, although it certainly reflects how the Daleks have been pop art design icons since the height of ‘Dalekmania’ in the mid-1960s. It’s a shame that this episode was so easily dismissed, as it’s a ripping yarn reminiscent of post-war comic strips like Eagle’s Dan Dare, with a very British sense of the mundane (the Daleks carrying box files and serving tea).

The writing was sharp, witty and minimalistic, with a historical rigour now sadly all too infrequent in the series. Ian McNiece’s Winston Churchill and the sub-plot of a pilot and servicewoman whose love is torn apart by war have also been subject to criticism. For my money, the portrayal of Churchill as essentially an underworld boss of dubious morality was bold and revisionist, avoiding the jingoistic hagiography usually associated with the historical figure. The restrained and de-personalised treatment of the romantic couple was totally appropriate to a story set during the collective effort of wartime.

It was also an episode that acknowledged the history of the series, with affectionate reprises of Troughton-era Dalek serials, reflections on how the Daleks used to look, how they used to be filmed and even how they found an afterlife as toys.

Who Dares Wins

I’m thrilled to introduce a new feature today, the Squeezegut Alley guest blog. We’re starting off with an absolute corker, as well. Here’s Tom Steward, with the first in a series considering the latest run of Doctor Who.

Who’s got the best show on television? Dunno. The Sopranos, probably. But only a matter of weeks after producer Steven Moffat and actor Matt Smith took over the programme, Dr Who is now eminently watchable again and could be a thing of greatness once more.

I’d become completely disenchanted with the direction the series had taken with Russell T Davies and David Tennant at the helm. It wasn’t simply enough to enjoy the Doctor’s adventures, you now had to worship the character and lead actor, whether you cared to or not. That combined with a limited range of storytelling and a stasis in characterisation brought the programme to the brink of credibility, almost as severely as producer John Nathan-Turner did with the series in the mid-1980s.

It’s a testament to the endlessly malleable format of Who that these worrying trends were reversed so quickly, and to Moffat and Smith that this was done without losing audience figures or denting the popularity of the central character. Moffat drastically improved the quality of drama, comedy and, in particular, horror of the programme over the last five years when he was an occasional writer. Though not a faultless producer (as some would have it!), since he took that role the series has regained many competencies. The pacing of episodes and series is now much more skilful, with a proper grasp of what it means to do long form storytelling, and not just cosmetically as a branding device as it was wielded under Davies.

The increase in the level of wit and successful comic writing since Moffat took over is undeniable (though writers Mark Gatiss, Gareth Roberts and Simon Nye need to take some credit here too), the show no longer relying on embarrassing slapstick to fill its funny quota. Moffat’s teleplays are, however, too densely plotted and overcomplicated on the whole, typically mistaking elaborate writing for complexity. Though this occasionally works well, with scenes involving the threat of the unknown and the horror that comes from it, it can often swamp the actors’ fine work and fog up the storytelling. Moffat has done an amazing job, however, in unwriting the mistakes of the Davies/Tennant era; letting characters be critical of the Doctor rather than standing around and admiring him, not trying to force the Doctor to be self-consciously fashionable or zeitgeist, disproving the necessity of a Doctor-companion love interest, and making the Doctor mysterious in motives and character again.

Undoubtedly the best decision Moffat made (or will ever make) as a producer was in casting Matt Smith. He’s the best thing to happen to the show in literally decades and could be the best character actor of his generation. He ranks amongst the finest portrayals of the role (and has probably already surpassed Tom Baker – most people’s default ‘favourite’ Doctor) and has re-invested the part with a genuine oddness that it has lacked at least since the re-launch in 2005.

The great Doctors have always known, seemingly instinctively, where to pitch their performance; when to overact, when to be measured etc. and Smith has that impulse. He can ham it up when being electrocuted by alien weaponry but knows when to brood or play the role (in the immortal words of Jon Pertwee) ‘straight down the middle’ – a quality sadly lacking in Tennant’s portrayal of the role, which was permanently wide-eyed and breathless. Not only is Smith’s performance a touching tribute to previous Doctors (especially Patrick Troughton – at one time the most lovable man on television!), it’s also a completely original interpretation of the role. Smith plays the Doctor as a socially awkward fish-out-of-water, something that (surprisingly) the show has only ever really hinted at before. Smith’s Doctor is a gangly twine ball of bad manners and inappropriate behaviours, rude or naive social conduct, completely unsettled when talking to the average human adult.

One of the delights of the new series is the introduction of more child actors into the main cast. Smith’s rapport with children is fantastic and we get a genuine sense of the show wanting to speak directly to children, something it did only intermittently in the previous five years despite concessions to kids’ TV (Barrowman, Piper et al.). It’s no coincidence that Smith’s Doctor talks to children like adults and adults like children. Once again, Dr Who shows that nothing about it is irrevocable and that new producers, actors and writers can thankfully turn the screws on old ones.