166 Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways

Watched 17-Jun

Blurays


The start of the first episode depends heavily on knowledge or familarity with noughties reality tv game shows (Big Brother, The Weakest Link, Bear With Me (that last one is made up I think)).

The plot is fairly simple.

We're stuck on the Satellite 5 again. The reality behind the reality TV is revealed and the Daleks are behind the curtain waiting to be revealed and they're invding and destroying everything. The Doctor has to choose between the devastating super weapon destroy everything and his own fear of guilt for using it (again).

The performances and the scenes are milked for the anguish and angst.

The stand out moment is when the emergency hologram turns to the camera.

165 Boomtown

Watched 16-Jun

Bluray set

Back to Wales with a thud.

The problem with sequels is they rarely live up to the original.... and the original isn't that great.

This veers occasionally into comedy territory. It's like a soapy comic strip.

ABM Rating 3.01/4.00
LJM Rating 3.30/5.00
SPJ Rating 7.20/10   

No. 84 (out of 167)

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164 The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances

Watched 12-Jun

Off the Bluray on the big screen.

This is special.

The dialogue is sparkling and well written throughout. The new characters of Jack, Constantine, Nancy are fresh and exciting to watch.

But the triumph is the Empty Child himself. Innocuous horror. This looks like something we've seen before in a movie. It's something that is unusual (a young preschool child in a gas mask in a 20th century city being bombed from the air... sympathetic, cute and yet unnerving...) but turns out to be something that is even more scary but not necessarily malign.

Steven Moffat turns in a masterclass in DW writing... with jokes. ("It's brilliant. I'm not sure if it's Marxism in action or a West End musical")

There's a little UK exceptionalism happening which looks a bit ridiculous more than anything. (The t-shirt, the quip about 20 years to rock n roll. )

Chris is very good as the investigating Doctor and the lucky day Doctor. John Barrowman is outstanding as the sophisticated, far future fugitive con-man Jack Harkness. Richard Wilson (previously TV's Victor Meldrew) is outstanding in what is little more than a cameo role.

There is a slight problem with the term "nanogenes". A DNA base pair is about 340 pm wide (that's 10 to the power of -12 metres). Nanogenes are presumably some kind of autonomously A.I. machines that work at 10 to the power of -9 metres... they may need to be "pico-genes" or even "femto-genes" to achieve what is portrayed in this story.

But hey ho. It's a quibble that I can live with.

The scene late in the second episode where Rose tells Nancy about the future is spine chillingly great even after 15 years.

It's simple and honest and played very skilfully by Florence Hoath and Billie Piper.

(As the patients leave the hospital, Rose mends the cuts in the barbed wire. Bombs fall on London again.) 

• NANCY: Who are you? Who are any of you? 
• ROSE: You'd never believe me if I told you. 
• NANCY: You just told me that was an ambulance from another world. There are people running around with gas mask heads calling for their mummies, and the sky's full of Germans dropping bombs on me. Tell me, do you think there's anything left I couldn't believe?
  
• ROSE: We're time travellers from the future. 
• NANCY: Mad, you are. 
• ROSE: We have a time travel machine. seriously! 
• NANCY: It's not that. All right, you've got a time travel machine. I believe you. Believe anything, me. But what future? 
• ROSE: Nancy, this isn't the end. I know how it looks, but it's not the end of the world or anything 
• NANCY: How can you say that?? Look at it. 
• ROSE: Listen to me. I was born in this city. I'm from here, in like, fifty years time. 
• NANCY: From here? 
• ROSE: I'm a Londoner. From your future. 
• NANCY: But, but you're not
  
• ROSE: What? 
• NANCY: German. 
• ROSE: Nancy, the Germans don't come here. They don't win. Don't tell anyone I told you so, but you know what? You win.
  
• NANCY: We win? 
• ROSE: Come on!

This story won the first of new Doctor Who's hat trick of Best Drama Short Presentation Hugo awards in 2006.

And the series won the 2006 BAFTA for best TV drama. Russell T won the Dennis Potter Outstanding Writing Award as head writer and freely admits that he never changed a word of Steven scripts...

This is a huge hitter in great DW stories.

If  Head Writer RTD ever decides to move on..... they could give this Steven Moffat a ring too....

ABM Rating 3.75+3.74/4.00
LJM Rating 4.78+4.76/5.00
SPJ Rating 9.80+9.80/10   

No. 2 (out of 166) and 3 (out of 167)

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163 Father's Day

Watched 9-Jun

Still on the scaled up BluRays

This is a bleeding tragedy.

A sort of time travel fantasy homily about what if I could meet my dead Dad (or some other relative).

It's effective because of the way it's written and performed. The characters are presented as flawed and ordinary people (with bad taste and dumb decisions to find excuses for). This is unusual for DW which is typically populated by A+ geniuses and heroes (or evil psychoes).

The premise is a bit shaky. The Doctor allows, even encourages Rose to break the 'laws' of time and yet rips her when she goes too far. Perhaps the Doc has reached a who cares state if mind after the Dalek ep?  If all Rose wanted to do was talk to her Dad why not dial up the year before death day and try then? (Cos we need a story, kids!)

The denouement is convenient. (Kill off Pete and all better, back to normal but there's only 45 minutes to fill here, so... Fry's law of TV and all that)

Again a major step up for DW where the story is about something other than the monsters and the Timelords and the sonic screwdriver.

Easy contender for best ep of the series... so far.

If  Head Writer RTD ever decides to move on..... they should give Paul Cornell a ring....

ABM Rating 3.70/4.00
LJM Rating 4.28/5.00
SPJ Rating 9.60/10   

No. 13 (out of 167)

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162 The Long Game

Watched 8-Jun

Still on the scaled up BluRays

This one is not well regarded but this rewatch was less of a chore than I expected.

The major theme is manipulation of mass media affecting social and political conditions and thus historical progress seems a lot less naive than it did 15 years ago. (Why is kinda obvious if you watch the news in 2020 I guess.)

This fives an impression of being slower and low stakes. The identity of the baddie is obvious and telegraphed. The resolution is straightforward deux ex machina. The frozen sick joke and the snap fingers->head port thing is what remains memorable about this ep.

A step back.

ABM Rating 3.15/4.00
LJM Rating 3.88/5.00
SPJ Rating 6.80/10   

No. 69 (out of 166)

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161 Dalek

Watched 3-Jun

We watched the BluRay edition.

Chris gets a chance to flex his acting chops in this one as the tortured victim of the Dalek Time War.

Sadly the plot doesn't quite hang together but this is a very good attempt to reinvent the standard Dalek-y monster tale.

A hidden, secret remnant is awoken by foolish and avaricious unprincipled baddie and the Doctor has to convince 'em not to. Yeah it's the plot of Power of the Daleks but the style is V-E-R-Y distinctly different.

The denouement is a little unconvincing i.e. the Dalek 'gives up' because it's DNA is 'ruined' by 'humanity'. Also it woke up when Rose touched it becuase DNA transferred (or something). These ideas are a bit hand wavey....

But it's outstanding for the ethics and the dynamics of desperation and trauma of war.

This story is an extension of the DW story format which shows for the first time why it has come back.

A step up.

ABM Rating 3.40/4.00
LJM Rating 4.11/5.00
SPJ Rating 8.40/10   

No. 39 (out of 165)

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160 Aliens of London/World War Three

Watched 28-May

We watched the BluRay edition.

The plot is an attempt to invert the UFO invasion trope (at least a little) but it comes across as simplistic.

In particular the behaviour of the flat dwellers' having 'welcome aliens' parties looks kinda odd, same with the farting aliens and the 'just doing me job' bits with the guards.

Dramatically this creates an atmosphere of meta SF which undermines the serious bits in the second episode.

Billed at the time as one of several 'change of gear'/relaunch eps this looks great and feels ambitious but it seems to fall flat for mine.

ABM Rating 2.75/4.00
LJM Rating 3.10/5.00
SPJ Rating 7.60/10   

No. 87 (out of 163) and 90 (out of 164)

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159 The Unquiet Dead

Watched 25-May

On upscaled Bluray.

This is a genre based ep. Horror ghosty stuff with a historical presentation of a famous person.

It's actually pretty fluffy and there's a thematic problem with the way the Gelth are portrayed as mindless alien invaders. Why does the Doctor initially accept their sobful 'help us' story? Why do they turn so abjectly toward 'thanks sucker, now we're taking over'? No reason for this deception then savage turn is offered. None is pursued. The story is incomplete without this.

Nonetheless Callow is good as Dickens. The character could have been cynical or shallow. But the way he reacts to the revelation of the Gelth is consistent with his 19th century worldview and shows the character developing with the story. Good stuff....

That the Doctor is the one who suggests and uses the seance to contact the Gelth is just wrong. My wish is that the end of that scene did not exist. (Particularly after the word games thing of Gwyneth getting all that modern London stuff out of Rose's mind.)

Gwyneth is the story. This is a sign the show has grown from the space monsters and 'Silver Nemesis' style cartoon silliness of the (not so recent) past.

First mention of the Big Bad Wolf meme....

ABM Rating 3.70/4.00
LJM Rating 3.85/5.00
SPJ Rating 8.20/10   

No. 51 (out of 162)


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158 The End of the World

Watched 24-May

On Bluray...

This episode sets the new tone for the series to come.

First mentions of the time war and the 'last of the Time Lords'.

There are some bits of this which are epic. Other bits are factually strange. Others are mystifying and perplexing... and surprising.

The spacey future is not perfect. The lives of the servicey drone people is clearly marked out as second class (at least). The 'knobs' (e.g. Cassandra) are awful and get their comeuppance.

I remember saying out loud when this first aired... This is a new, different series. Because it is.

DW has always changed. That's how it stays fresh and interesting.

Keep going.

ABM Rating 3.70/4.00
LJM Rating 3.85/5.00
SPJ Rating 8.20/10   

No. 38 (out of 161)


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157 Rose

Watched 21-May-2020

From now on it's BluRays all the way but these 2000's eps are upscaled from SD.

Well after 9 years or 16 years (depends on how you want to count it) the lightbulb did start working again.

Things I noticed when I watched this again for the first time in a few years.

• How much the actual trad DW plot is a sideline to the introduce the characters 'action'.
• How Chris as the Doctor veers wildly from deadly serious to whimsical, sometimes within the same scene!!..
• How bogan trash Rose's Mum is...
• How Mickey is a fool
• How Rose is so meticulously characterised by the writer. The role of companion is very clearly the highest priority of the writer.  The identification is heightened. The subservience and incidentalist aspect is suppressed.

Thankyou DW Marathon blog...

ABM Rating 3.61/4.00
LJM Rating 3.497/5.00
SPJ Rating 7.80/10   

No. 48 (out of 160)


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-------------------

From Quickflix

Doctor Who - Series 1

There's an old gag about DW fans. It goes like this. How many DW fans does it take to change a broken light bulb? Answer is none. They just wait for it to come back on again. And guess what? After 16 years (!) off the air, it bloody did!!!!! This new DW has a decent budget and some great stories. The pace is restored (and improved perhaps). The writers and directors are very skilled and have some regard both for the quality of the show they make and the distant past memories of the old fans. But this is not the old Dr Who. This Doctor is the last of the Time Lords, the companion role has a character and a bit more to do than say "What's that, Doctor? and "Why, Doctor?" and the episodes are 45 minutes with most containing a whole story. Massively popular in the UK in 2005, this is the first dvd in a series that will run and run.