Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

Sting and the Police

My ability to let this drag out until the final act amazes even me.

Whodunit?  Gareth Roberts.  In the BBC Wales main office.  With, I can only imagine, an 1895 Wellington Model 1 Thrust-action vintage typewriter.

Doctor Who: The Unicorn and the Wasp

Message In A Bottle

The similarities between The Unicorn and the Wasp and Gareth Roberts' earlier script The Shakespeare Code are glaring.  Each is an historical featuring an famous literary personage, witty dialogue, myriad clever literary and historical references, gratuitous homosexuality, and a dreadful magical conclusion.

...like the ropey remains of one of Damon's curries

Obviously, the biggest fault with the episode lies in the ending (or endings, if you prefer), so I'm going to start this review by turning to the last page and figuring out whodunit.  For much of the last act it seems like Roberts was just pulling stuff out of his arse like the ropey remains of one of Damon's curries.  The Reverend's anger "broke the genetic lock"??  He "realized [his] inheritance...after all these years."?  While this may not have quite matched the stomach-cramping abomination of Freema Agyeman spouting "Expeliarmus!" in last year's Roberts episode, it's still the sort of rubbishy bullshit-science that makes us science-fiction fans froth at the mouth.  Roberts' most grievous crime is the contrivance that the "Vespiform telepathic recorder" absorbed "the works of Agatha Christie directly from Lady Eddison", forcing the clergyman to engage in a complex ritual of serial homicide.  Perhaps they should have skipped to the end of the book she was reading and saved some time in solving the mystery.  Turns out that when she was in India a giant wasp dragged her back to its lair and laid its eggs inside her; after returning to England the larvae ate their way out of her and joined the C of E.

As the ending continues, the vicar turns into a wasp in a cloud of smoke. A cloud of fucking smoke?  You've got to be kidding me. Manimal had better transformation scenes.  After what turned out to be a pretty nice collection of giant-wasp footage (I was particularly impressed with the little details like the reverend's stinger nicking the paint off the ceiling), the least the Mill could have done is upset the Mary Whitehouses in the audience with a suitably gruesome homage to Cronenberg's version of The Fly.

Then, just when we think the painful ordeal is finally over, Fenella Woolgar doubles over, struck in the abdomen by Murray Gold's pummeling score.

In a miserable attempt to maintain some level of drama during an amiable car chase that would have been more thrillingly played out with hurtling rickshaws, we get the news that, once again, "Time is in flux, Donna!"  This fails to disuade us of the sickening realization that  the tail end of the episode will continue to stagger sousedly into the inevitable, predictable conclusion.  Then, just when we think the painful ordeal is finally over, Fenella Woolgar doubles over, struck in the abdomen by Murray Gold's pummeling score.  This has the convenient side effect of wiping her mind of the untenable explanation for the plot, and the Doctor and Donna leave her wandering confusedly in Harrogate like a returned abductee on The X-Files or a Liverpudlian football fan after the big match.

The final indignity in the episode is the maudlin bit at the end in the TARDIS.  Roberts borrows from RTD's Book of Very Large Numbers and David Tennant digs out his only not-dog-eared copy of an Agatha Christie book which not only has a giant wasp on the cover, but was published in the year five million.  Exactly five million.  We're not talking about some "5,012,315 A.D." shit here.  Round numbers only.  It's all about the zeros.

You may be surprised to learn that despite the final ten minutes of unmitigated bollocks, I actually enjoyed The Unicorn and the Wasp. Thoroughly. I had a gay old time. The final act of The Doctor's Daughter similarly ended in a staggering array of implausible crap, and I slagged it mercilessly in my review.  So why should this episode be different?  Why do I hold it to a different standard? Simple: The Unicorn and the Wasp was taking the piss.  The whole thing plays out like a send up of a genre so well-crafted that even I, who have never read an Agatha Christie book, can appreciate its machinations.

Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic

As usual, I spent most of the episode in glassy-eyed adoration of Catherine Tate.  While there is some merit to the observations others have made that she was still settling into the character when this episode was filmed, I'm still pretty certain she's the finest thing about the last three or so decades of Doctor Who.  Some people have been all abuzz (like an angry Christopher Benjamin) about whether or not Tennant is going to hang around for series five in 2010...I'm much more worried that Tate won't be around for several more years of the program.  I'd hate to lose her after just a season.  "Please, mom...can we keep her?"  What happened to the good old days when you couldn't get rid of these people?

It's just that sort of resourcefulness and spunk that allows the best of the program's companions to transcend the wide-eyed damsel-in-distress quagmire that so often afflicted Adric and Mel.

Speaking of the good old days, I remember when the role of the Doctor's companion was to get into some sort of poorly-calculated dangerous situation and scream, allowing the Doctor to show up in the nick of time and save them.  How much cooler is it now that Donna is able to take things like bloody humongous wasps in stride, and deal with them herself?  No standing petrified like a deer in headlamps and shrieking for help...she defeats the rutting massive insect with a magnifying glass!  Twice!  It's just that sort of resourcefulness and spunk that allows the best of the program's companions to transcend the wide-eyed damsel-in-distress quagmire that so often afflicted Adric and Mel.

Over the previous several episodes Tate has been so busy impressing us with her formidable dramatic range that I almost forgot that she was a comedian.  Well, The Unicorn and The Wasp's wit-laden script was a fine showcase for her comedic talents.  From the brilliant "Oh, what noise! Alright, busy bee...I'll let you out. Hold on. I shall find you with my amazing powers of detection!" to Donna's totally affected laugh at Agatha's quip about Belgians to her indignant "I'll pluck you in a minute. Why don't we find the real police?", Tate's timing and delivery was pitch-perfect.  Only that "What ho!  Spiffing!" stab at the RP took me aback.

Synchronicity

Much of the episode, at least before the mawkish denouement, was littered with witty dialogue and rounded out by generally fine performances and sparkling chemistry between David Tennant and the rest of the cast.  Fenella Woolgar stands out for her spot-on portrayal of Christie, but props should probably go out to the entire ensemble cast orbiting the magnificent Felicity Kendal (a couple of times).

The true comedic masterpiece in the episode was the poisoning scene.  Everything about this made me happy.  Graeme Harper's reeling camerawork was ideal for setting the mood, and even Murray Gold's pounding music worked with the scene rather than against it. Tennant and Tate's performances were inspired, and all the elements fit together like  well-oiled machinery...Tennant pouring the ginger beer on his head and stuffing his face with walnuts, the game of charades ("Harvey Wallbanger?? How is Harvey Wallbanger one word?"), "I need something salty!" "How about this?" "What is it?" "Salt!" "That's too salty!", and Donna's "Alright then...big shock...coming up."  If I were the sqeeing type, I'd have squeed.

Another highlight of this was the uproariously funny bit where under cross-examination everyone has flashbacks to things they're too embarrassed to mention or can't use to establish an alibi, followed by the Doctor's own flashback about Charlemagne being stolen by am insane computer in Belgium (The Doctor in the flashback is played by David Tennant, so this would seem to imply that this is one of the Tenth Doctor's untelevised adventures).

Roger's avowed affection for thrashing young boys.

There was really no shortage of other brilliant little things in The Unicorn and the Wasp that deserve mention.  Graeme Harper's inspired first reveal of the giant wasp through Donna's magnifying glass.  Cornering the wasp in the hallway with all of the other suspects. Allusions to Edward Lear.  The subversion of the Agatha Christie formula when it turns out the Colonel can walk.  The crack about planet Zog.  Roger's avowed affection for thrashing young boys.

Don't Stand So Close To Me

If there's one more area where I wish Roberts had been able to restrain himself, it was with the whole need to explain away the murder mystery in the first place.  There was a nice parallel set up between Christie and the Doctor when they first figure out the murder's an alien ("Yeah, but think about it.  There's a murder, a mystery and Agatha Christie....no, but, isn't that a bit weird?  Agatha Christie didn't walk around surrounded by murders...not really.  I mean, that's like meeting Charles Dickens and he's surrounded by ghosts...at Christmas.")  I rather liked the image of murders following Agatha Christie around everywhere she goes just as everywhere the Doctor goes the murderers are aliens.  It would have been nice if they'd just stopped there.  Instead, everyone makes the same "it's just like an Agatha Christie book" observation throughout the rest of the episode, culminating in the ridiculously contrived explanation for the Vespiform's behaviour.

I can't help but think we should be grateful that Clemency was reading a Christie novel last Thursday.  Imagine how different the episode would have turned out if she were watching Torchwood.

Vote Result: Doctor Who's Greatest Musical Maestro

The batons have been rested, the orchestra dismissed and the matchbox full of split peas emptied. The results are in for poll to find Doctor Who's Greatest Musical Maestro:

• 54%: Murray Gold
• 46%: Dudley Simpson

So it's hip hip hurray for Murray, and hip replacement for Dudley. Join us again after Silence in the Library for the next poll.

Ladies and Gentleman, Miss Elaine Page...

Doctor Who: Musical Interlude #6

Their are vast swathes of fandom who disagree with one another on the precise point at which the death knell sounded for Doctor Who. For some it was the first time Colin Baker was cast. For others, the decision to put it up against Coronation Street was the start of the downturn. Some point at the second time Colin Baker was cast. And there are those who thought that leaving the whole junk yard scene was a really bad idea in the first place. But for me, for today at least, it was this...

Blind Jackson Stiff and his Quadriplegic Flügelhorners.

The moment, in the messy mash-up that is Silver Nemesis, the camera pulled away from a gaping void of blackness to reveal... a jazz trumpeter. Not just any jazz trumpeter, no. Courtney Pine. Now in no way is this a reflection on Mr Pine's jazz stylings. But just what on Telos possessed the production team to think that, "Hey! Courtney Pine. He'll appeal to our target demographic." Even if the Doctor does start to exhibit a hitherto unknown love of jazz, why chose that particular act to see? He could have gone for Blind Jackson Stiff and his Quadriplegic Flügelhorners. Or The Fats Bacharach Continuum, with Cletus Windpipe Snr III on Venezuelan Jerk Stick. Or even the apocalyptic '57 performance of the Johnson Sage All-Stars with Limpet on skins. Nice.

The Fats Bacharach Continuum, with Cletus Windpipe Snr III on Venezuelan Jerk Stick.

I suppose, to be charitable, there could be a deleted scene in which the Doctor attempted to get them to see Bix Beiderbecke or Louis Armstrong live on stage but I doubt it. So, just who did they think they were aiming this at? Who did they think was in the audience...

Little posh boys who's parents had Mantovani piped into the womb using some nanoscale Bang and Olufsen in vitro surround sound system. That's who. As a teenager in the 80's I no more had a desire to listen to jazz than a turkey has of approaching the festive season with gay abandon. This was the sort of thing my dad would listen too. Does that mean that the Doctor now isn't this mischievous mystical being who, deep down, is really just a big kid but is now a 40-year-old with a mortgage who hangs around diy stores and trims rampant nose hair? Will that mean that future adventures with the Doctor will have all the fun and appeal of going to Jewson's for some rawlplugs? If so you can count me out.

Johnson Sage All-Stars with Limpet on skins.

The only rational explanation for this inexplicable inclusion was the production team had caught wind of what The Young Ones did in the early '80s to increase their meagre budget. By including a musical guest the comedy show was considered a variety programme by the BBC and so was awarded a larger production budget. Unfortunately, in Doctor Who's case, there were those at the BBC who had already considered it an entirely different type of programme...

Music from and inspired by the hit BBC television series

Doctor Who: Musical Interlude #5

As someone who despairs every time he sees The Bends or Revolver topping yet another of those pointless All Time Best Album lists, I’m disappointed to say my choice of favourite Who music is so crushingly populist you can probably get it at Asda. I mean, you only have to look at the title – The Doctor’s Theme – to see I could hardly have been more obvious if I'd chosen what I believe professional musicologists refer to as "the Woo Woo section” of the title music.

But anyway, The Doctor’s Theme it is. Performed by mezzo soprano Melanie Pappenheim, this beautifully ethereal siren song is like a soft sigh disturbing the dust of ages; a slowly unfurling curl of musical smoke caught and then scattered on the unforgiving winds of the time vortex…

Sorry, seem to have strayed into “sonic cathedral” territory for a moment there. It’s just it’s such a relief finally to have something to rhapsodise about after all those years of discordant clatter from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, whose scores tended to sound like a cross between a dial-up modem and Stephen Hawking falling down some concrete steps.

People can bellyache all they want about the music “telling us what to feel”, but you might as well complain about a scene being edited to make it look exciting – it’s the composer’s job to punch our emotional buttons just as much as the scriptwriter’s.

As our hero’s personal musical leitmotif, The Doctor’s Theme has inevitably been employed to underscore some of the series’ most emotionally resonant moments – particularly to emphasise the Doctor’s “lonely angel” status as a solitary traveller weighed down by the burden of those he’s left behind. Of these, my favourite is probably the sequence in The Satan Pit in which the Doctor contemplates what might be his parting words to Rose. It’s a fine scene whichever way you slice it, but it’s the music that really helps lift it from a standard ‘Doctor in peril’ scenario to a moment of transcendental beauty that wouldn’t disgrace the final moments before a regeneration. (And people can bellyache all they want about the music “telling us what to feel”, but you might as well complain about a scene being edited to make it look exciting – it’s the composer’s job to punch our emotional buttons just as much as the scriptwriter’s. So let’s have no more of that silly talk.)

Several weeks later, this haunting refrain was treated to the Who equivalent of the 12” remix to become the pulsing, throbbing heartbeat of raw emotion that soundtracked the Doctor and Rose’s story reaching it’s shattering conclusion. At which point, I’ll admit, I may have started to lose perspective.

Cos here’s the thing: A few years ago, a friend and I had knocked out a demo of some songs we’d been working on - unremarkable bedsit angst stuff, for the most part, plus a token political protest number that was so timidly afraid of sloganeering it was actually impossible to tell what it was supposed to be protesting about (and, as far as I’m aware, has thus far failed to lead to the downfall of any governments.)

Anyhow, the point is I’d written most of these songs as a poor, pathetic wretch reeling from a particularly bruising failed relationship. But by the time we got round to talking about doing some more songs, I was happily – some may even say smugly - married and looking forward to growing fat and old with my beautiful wife. Which is great for the soul, but not particularly conducive to heartfelt emotional outpourings.

In fact, preposterous as it sounds, the closest my lip had come to wobbling recently was while watching those final, throbbing moments of Doomsday, which had been simultaneously so heartbreaking and triumphant (I believe the Spanish word, which has no English equivalent, is duende - “exquisite sadness”) I couldn’t get it out of my head for days. And then there was that phrase the Doctor had used: “I’m burning up a sun, just to say goodbye” – a typically OTT piece of Russell T Davies nonsense, but a punch to the guts nonetheless – which sounded not unlike the title of a lost Muse album.

And so it was that, in the struggle for inspiration, I took the Doctor and Miss Tyler for my own muse and wrote a song about them. That’s right, a song – a bloody ballad - about Doctor Who.

This, I realised even at the time, was not cool. In fact, it couldn’t have been less cool if I’d been cooking chips on the sun in a 100% polyester gorilla suit. What’s more, I couldn’t help thinking of that old Smith and Jones sketch about the composer who keeps writing inappropriate music hall songs for Hollywood epics (“Where’s your Apocalypse Now, boys, where’s your Apocalypse Now?” etc) – not to mention the wailing ghosts of previous Who-inspired musical travesties from the likes of Frazer Hines, Roberta Tovey, Blood Donor and, lest we forget, Jon Pertwee.

So it was probably a lucky escape for everyone that that second demo never got made. But if a mawkish musical tribute to Doctor Who with just five chords and a defiantly unadventurous AAAA rhyming structure is what you feel your life has thus far been lacking, do feel free to play along - or at least wave your lighter - at home…

I’m burning up a sun, just to say goodbye

C                      Am     C          D         
I’ve been living out among the stars

C                   Am                   Em         
Seen death on Venus, life on Mars

C                   Am        C           D         
Fought with monsters, fought in bars

C      Am                G
I got bruises, battlescars
                           
Thought that I was so alone
’Til you showed me a place called home
Spirits healed and hearts re-grown
Now I’m back here on my own

D                                   C   
Took you out beyond the sky

      Am                          G
To distant stars and satellites

D                                                   C 
And though I can’t stand to see you cry

                         Am                          G
I’m burning up a sun, just to say goodbye

I touched the face of God and Jesus
Found that they were worked by levers
Pulled by liars and deceivers
Broke the hearts of true believers

But I have faith in all your people
Planet like a blue cathedral
When I thought I was destroyed by evil
You wrote my story such a sequel

Took you out beyond the sky
We watched the Earth break up and die
And though I can’t stand to see you cry
I’m burning up a sun, just to say goodbye

"Oh thank god, I mean we all knew months ago, but the stress of not telling anyone..."

James Henry, one time Green Wing writer, has an encounter at the BBC.  May be fictional.

The Wasp That Turned

Wasps. What practical use are they? What role in Nature's great Ghant chart do they play? If all the bees disappear (probably in some Adams-style pact with the dolphins) then it's widely accepted that we're royally screwed. Royally screwed with lashings of royal jelly heaped on top just to rub our noses in it. Serious bearded scientific megastars assure us that should all the bees vanish then man would probably only last a handful of years more. Even less if the vanishment occurred during Britain's Got Talent Live.

But seriously, if all the wasps went, what would happen?

Doctor Who: The Unicorn and the Wasp

They're useless at bridge, unable to locate Düsseldorf without the aid of a satnav and no good on a barbecue. If all the chickens eloped you'd not be able to pop down to Morrisons for a couple of wasp breasts (I'd love to see Alan Hanson extolling the virtues of cut price wasp meat on my telebox, that alone would make ITV 37% more bearable if I knew I was never more than 12 minutes away from someone from Clackmannanshire extolling the virtues of this week's wasp BOGOF offer). The generic meat kiev business would fold quicker than you could spout colony collapse disorder through a spluttering gob full of scrag end of wasp. And I hate them.

Massive bugs that would have makers of fly paper salivating all over their mandibles.

Of course the plaintive cry issued to any grown man afraid of anything vastly different in stature to himself is "you're much bigger than it, pull yourself together" (reminds me of the last time I came across Ronnie Corbett). Yes, I'm much bigger, but the last time I looked I wasn't equipped with a stinging device (and indeed the nearest I come to being that tooled up is the morning after a curry of volcanic proportions). And it's probably my repeated use of Doctor Who that made me susceptible to fear all insectoid life in the first place. Because if it's one thing they do well it's over-sized creepy crawlies. The back catalogue is littered with the sort of massive bugs that would have makers of fly paper salivating all over their mandibles.

Wincing whenever asked to hold a glass and a piece of card.

Opposible mandibles at that. How else would one be able to hold a piece of lead piping? Unless you're secreting a fairly ferocious substance that actively promotes stickiness (we're getting back to that curry again) as an agent for wasp-committed murder, the piping is not going to be that practical. But because you're somehow imbued with a sense of Agatha Christie mysteries, and not with a sense of Bill Strutton novelizations, you've kinda gotta work with what you're given. The Vicar must have gotten some subconscious indications of his true nature over the last 40 years. Unable to handle sticky paper at the Sunday School craft event, wincing whenever asked to hold a glass and a piece of card, forever smashing his nose on a pane of glass when attempting to leave a room, an uneasy feeling whenever passing a paperboy with a rolled up news paper. You know, it's the little things that say, "Hey... I just might be a wasp". Which is about as convincing as anything that was served up in the last 10 minutes.

One box of man-sized tissues and 14 wanking sessions away from it's own collapse.

Could it be that there's an entire generation of 30-something Who fans out there who have telepathically imprinted their entire run of Target novelizations onto their unborn children? Is this a little like playing classical music to them whilst they're still in the womb? Are they going to be propelled out their mothers with an innate ability to identify a pleasant-open, young-old face whilst making a wheezing groaning sound? Have we created a generation of Terrence Dickses? Of course not, there's not Doctor Who fan who's managed to procreate yet. Talk about colony collapse disorder - before the resurrection of the show the entire fan community was one box of man-sized tissues and 14 wanking sessions away from it's own collapse. Do me a cumquat. We've all got more chance of copping off with a giant wasp.

Ah well, I'm looking forward to BombayCon'09 already...

Murder Most Funny

And while everyone else is using the hiatus to talk about music, I'm using it to lazily delay my review of last week's episode.

Doctor Who: The Unicorn and the Wasp

Probably the most exciting thing about Doctor Who is its capacity to be absolutely anything each week. We can go from a morality play on an ice planet, to an invasion by alien thugs being stopped by military thugs, to an impromptu war between two different ragtag armies on an alien planet, to a murder mystery in the 1920s. It's a little bit sad that we've reached the point where nearly every story seems composed of recycled material dressed up to make it look pretty.  This episode, on the surface, might seem to fall victim to those problems. We get all that we expect from a celebrity historical. The companion tries to put on an accent, and the Doctor tells them not to. The Doctor and the companion try to make reference to things that haven't happened yet. The historical figure of note is called upon to solve all of the episode's problems with his or her incomparable genius.

But for all of its superficial similarities to The Unquiet Dead, Tooth and Claw, The Girl in the Fireplace and The Shakespeare Code, this episode nonetheless delivers something fresh and exciting, funny and sad, touching and terrifying. But mostly funny.

Of course, the episode is helped around by a group of interesting guest characters played for the most part by highly capable actors. Felicity Kendal deserves major credit for bringing to life that old stereotype of the upper-crust lady who copulated with a large insect and gave birth to his offspring by feigning illness and then watches as the insect offspring returns to murder those around her including her younger, legitimate son, who is a gay stereotype. Marvelous. Classic Christie, there. Or, so I suppose, because I've never read an Agatha Christie novel. She's on my list  of authors to eventually read, somewhere between Orson Scott Card and Terry Pratchett. Oh, look, I've gone and alienated most of the readers of this blog without saying incendiary about the episode.

Anyhow, Fenella Woolgar as Agatha Christie was a wonderful bit of casting, and props to David Tennant for suggesting her in the role. It would have been easy to portray Agatha Christie like Shakespeare and Dickens, simply a charismatic figure who thinks she knows her way around a mystery but is completely out of her league when the Doctor shows up. And to some extent this is true, but there are some notable differences here. When we first see Shakespeare and Dickens in their respective episodes, they are playing to a packed audience who is there to see there work, while Agatha is instead somewhat detached not only from the characters with which he interacts but also from her audience of readers in general. Woolgar plays the insecure but charismatic Agatha nearly perfectly. This is the most complex "celebrity" character we've seen in some time, and that is owed in equal parts to Woolgar and to Gareth Roberts' script, and this character perfectly complements (and perhaps surpasses) the Doctor as the hero of the episode.

It's not just the heroine and other characters of the episode that make this episode a thrilling and funny murder mystery, however. The episode is full of small touches that are bizarre, unusual, and occasionally even daring. Our first indication that this episode doesn't fit the traditional mold of Doctor Who episodes is the early scene with the newspaper clippings and the flashes forward to set up Agatha's disappearance. It's not a device that's used much on Doctor Who, or, in fact, anywhere anymore except as a joke. It creates a somewhat lighter tone that's maintained throughout the episode with a plethora of funny-but-throwaway Christie references. Despite never having read Christie, many of these were conspicuously placed, and so once I realized that it was going on (fairly early), it became easy to hear a line of dialogue and guess that it was a reference. The lighter tone of the episode keeps a series of brutal murders and one bizarre romance from becoming too disturbing, and allows a place for such wonderful moments as the Colonel's unnecessary confession and the Doctor's struggle to get the antidote he needs (a funnier variation on the Doctor's struggle to get a remedy from Jackie Tyler in The Christmas Invasion).

And David Tennant is marvelous in this episode, isn't he? This Doctor has always had the brooding, emotional side that we saw especially highlighted in last week's The Doctor's Daughter. That portrayal of the Doctor is always interesting to watch, and Tennant's portrayal has an emotional depth to it that keeps the character from feeling like the bored yet reckless wanderer of The Sontaran Strategem and The Poison Sky that seemed somewhat bland. But the Tenth Doctor has always had a zany and manic energy about him that has lent itself to some great comedic moments, and this episode emphasizes that part of the Doctor's character. He even has to be taken down a peg by Agatha for his enthusiasm about the situation. But the best scene in the episode was the aforementioned poisoning scene in the kitchen. In this scene, Tate tries and fails to keep pace with Tennant. This is the first time I've really had anything negative to say about Donna, but it's been mentioned by my fellow reviewers that this was the first episode filmed and so as Catherine Tate struggles to find the softer, gentler Donna, she is outshone by Fenella Woolgar in the role of Agatha. Which is nothing to be ashamed of.

But while Agatha acts as the star companion of this episode, a little more attention could have been paid to the story of her disappearance. From watching Confidential, it seemed like the goal of this story was to build Agatha Christie into one of her own murder mysteries while simultaneously doing the obvious Doctor Who thing and explaining her mysterious disappearance. And while the first was done admirably, it seems the second was sacrificed a bit to this end. The explanation for Christie's disappearance has little to do with this mystery story and when it comes it's not even a very good explanation. She wasn't abducted by aliens or anything, but she was apparently just brought to Harrogate by the Doctor in the TARDIS. It would have been nicer if they had just focused on the murder mystery.

And because this episode is a murder mystery, not only is the explanation for Christie's disappearance made superfluous, but the sense of scale in the story is narrowed, much to the episode's credit. In very nearly every episode, the entire Earth is at stake. Go down a list of episodes in the new series, leaving out those few that aren't set on or around Earth, and in nearly all of those that remain, the fate of the Earth is jeopardized. This was nicely highlighted in The Fires of Pompeii when the Doctor verbalizes his attitude that he is only comfortable acting against the Pyroviles once he learns that Earth itself is threatened. "Then the planet is at stake. Thank you, that's all I needed to know." Instead, here, all we have is an alien that happens to be bent on playing out a murder mystery in the tradition of Agatha Christie's novels. Psychotic and evil, yes, but planet-threatening, no. That would be against the point of this story because there's no lace for such a thing in the murder mystery. Which was one of the several failings of Voyage of the Damned, another exercise in genre-driven storytelling. That story was based around the conventions of a disaster movie, but unlike this story (and so like RTD's Doctor Who), it was for some reason necessary to throw in a groan-inducing mention that the nuclear storm drive would wipe out all life on Earth if it made impact. Thirteen million viewers rolled their eyes in disgusted unison. I don't know how likely this trend is to change with the upcoming regime change of Doctor Who, but I'm sure we can expect the world (if not the universe) to be at stake in the 2009 specials.

All in all, this attempt at genre parody works out quite well, and it's nice to have this sort of comedic episode lighten the mood between the emotionally heavy story that preceded it and the forthcoming two parter by the Grand Moff which promises to be as dark and terrifying as we'd hope.

Boe Selector

Doctor Who: Musical Interlude #4

I love soundtrack albums. The very first album I ever bought was John Williams' OST to Empire, the second was his soundtrack for Jaws. While my friends were pestering their parents for the new single by Madness, Ian Dury or Abba I was lusting after a gatefold sleeve featuring Darth Vader. It's a bug that has never gone away and today some of my all-time favourite albums are soundtracks: Thunderball, OHMSS, Magnolia, A Beautiful Mind (a terrible movie but you can't have everything), Blade Runner, The Hulk, Firestarter, to name just a few.

But when it comes to Doctor Who, apart from paradoxically sporting the best title music in any TV show, ever, its original soundtracks are, on the whole, pants.

Sure, there are some great, isolated moments of genius - Delia's 'Blue Veils and Golden Sands' that features prominently in Inferno is sublime - but aside from Dudley in Paris, Malcolm Clarke's clanging kazoos and Keff McCulloch's incessant hand-clapping, most of Doctor Who's music is totally forgettable. Some of it is completely atonal. Sometimes it's both. The really good stuff has been lifted wholesale from the music library (cf. Inferno) and the reign of Dudley is a rich, brown sludge of farting organs. Say what you will about the 1996 TV movie but at least you can tap your feet to it.

Which brings me to my choice for the best use of music in Doctor Who:

Murray Gold: Original Music from Season 3: Track 6: Boe

Hit play now...

Now I can't even remember where in the episode this music is played, and I can't be bothered to find out (I assume it's somewhere in Gridlock but I'm sure it features in the finale too). But who cares? All I know is that I simply adore this piece of music. Maybe I'm completely missing the point, and I should be waxing lyrical about how the music enhances the story or the visuals of a particular episode, but for me this track manages to transcend anything it was initially designed to support. Plus, I'm a sucker for aching strings and 3 minutes and 19 seconds in, Murray actually makes my heart sing.

I'm sorry, I'm no music critic (some would say I'm no TV critic either) and this is difficult for me to put into words, but what it really boils down to is this: when I'm walking the dog with my trusty iPod shuffle in my pocket and this track comes along, I've suddenly got a spring in my step and a smile on my face.

Sometimes Murray gets lost in the mix; sometimes he's too loud; sometimes he's fighting against the nonsensical plot and pseudo-religious imagery, but when he's freed from the pictures and listened to in isolation, he shines. And how can you not admire the way in which he manages to compose 13 original scores in the same amount of time it takes John Williams to rehash his back catalogue for the new Indiana Jones movie. Now show me a kid pining for that album...

I can't believe that Murray is getting his arse kicked by Deadly Dudley on the poll right now. Dudley, while certainly iconic, was bone idle too. While his generic droning might evoke pleasantly nostalgic feelings in the pit of your stomach, he can't complete with Murray for sheer inventiveness, talent and melody. Try humming the theme to The Horror of Fang Rock. See! I rest my case. Now do yourself a favour and bung on some Gold, preferably out of context, whilst walking a pet of your choice, as the sun sets behind a small hillock.

And sing.

Take it to the Bridge

Doctor Who: Musical Interlude #3

Doctor Who and music seem to have a weird, semi-abusive relationship at times.

It’s a show with incidental music ranging from odd radiophonic dustbin clanking to someone farting through a kazoo, and from deranged woodwind ensembles to the worst excesses of 1980s Bontempi molestation.

It’s a show that during it’s classic era seemed to pick real-life musical tracks from the bottom of the Radio 2 playlist and hope nobody noticed. 

Hell, that even extended out into the other formats.  Timewyrm: Revelation shoehorns in Aztec Camera, while the less said about Tony Blackburn throwing shapes on The Rapture the better.

And the new series isn’t much better.  Britney, Rick Astley... but by far the worst offender is the appearance of Tight Fit, not only for the sheer weirdness of the situation, but for the fact it’s being played in a parallel universe.

Whatever next - a bunch of robots in deep space all hearing Bob Dylan songs in their head?

Hearing it in that context... well, it’s just ridiculous.  Why would music evolve in the same way in different timelines, after all?  I mean, whatever next - a bunch of robots in deep space all hearing Bob Dylan songs in their head?

And like many people, I make jokes about Murray Gold.  Sorry, can’t hear me?  I’ll speak up.  I SAID, I MAKE JOKES ABOUT MURRAY GO...ah, that’s better.  At times his music can be intrusive and overblown, dubbed on at levels which can knock the fillings from your teeth at 30 yards.

But he’s also responsible for doing something very special.  A song that will forever be a part of Doctor Who, of the show’s rebirth.  A song I can still hear and get a shiver running down my spine. 

And it’s not the one you’re thinking of.

On the first soundtrack album, it’s called Westminster Bridge.  But it’ll forever be THAT music as the new series opens.  You know the one.  It became the running theme through series 1 - literally, since whenever someone was running during scenes on contemporary Earth, it seemed to be playing in the background.

So why do I love Westminster Bridge?  Because it set the tone for the new series.  That sweeping orchestration at the start, into the frenetic fusion of orchestration and electronica, linking classic and contemporary together.  If anything, it became an anthem for the series, barreling along with energy and passion and just a feeling of fun.

If anything, it’s as much a theme for series one of the new Doctor Who as the real theme is, with all due respect to Delia and Ron, god rest their souls.  Yes, there’s better music on the soundtrack - Donna’s theme, for instance, which is so fun and likeably good it even cropped up in The Apprentice last week.  Or Song for Ten, a beautiful song no matter who’s singing it, which Stuart rightly lauds elsewhere on this esteemed organ.

But there’s something special about Westminster Bridge as a piece of music.  Music’s about moving you.  And there can be few who watched Rose - be it on BBC One, on SciFi, on a laptop three weeks early - that didn’t watch that swoop down to the Earth, watch Billie and Noel larking about in Trafalgar Square, watch the Doctor and Rose holding hands as they ran across the bridge itself, and not allowed themselves a little grin of satisfaction.

So, Murray, thank you for the music.

"Is there a place for Doctor Who on TV in the next decade?"

The first modern issue of Doctor Who Magazine I read was issue 279 dated 30 June 1999.  I’d recently seen the (sadly now closed) exhibition in Llangollen  and cheered by news from the sales clerk that there was to be a new series I decided to see what I’d been missing.  On the cover was a really amusing picture of Tom Baker riding a push bike and a CD about that so-called new series – actually what turned out to be the often excellent audio dramas from Big Finish.

Inside there was what’s now considered a rather prescient round table interview (on the occasion of the release of The Phantom Menace of all things) with fans who were then working as writers or story editors in the television industry, in which they were asked what should happen in the unlikely event that a new version of the series would be launched.  What’s rather exciting in hindsight are the six men that then editor Gary Gillatt chose to interview, five of whom would go on to write for the new series, four of them in its opening season.  Two of the interviewees would also go on to be show runners.

The odd one out is Lance Parkin, who despite writing some of the most respected spin-off novels and audios and the chronology Ahistory has yet to write for the television series (which is frankly bizarre since his work has clearly influenced it some degree).  Of the rest, Paul Cornell, Mark Gatiss and Gareth Roberts have all given us episodes and in the middle of them are Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat!  Predictably Davies has most to say for himself and makes a lot of sense to the point that I even quoted him from here in a college essay.  Much of his opinions of what should be done did come to pass – an Earth-centric approach with more emotion-led stories and death at every corner.

‘What is Doctor Who?’

With the change in regime, Moffat’s contributions have perhaps become more important since they could give an indication as to the future direction of the series.  Fans have already begun speculating about the extent to which he’ll make changes come 2010 and how his approach will differ from that of Davies.  I think it’ll be less major than some suspect – the format’s unlikely to differ too radically and it would be strange if Davies didn’t decide that he wanted to keep writing the odd episode.   Much of what Moffat says in this interview is in tune with Davies, in fact.  He sits out the first question (see the title to this post) but is the only one to offer an answer at to whether it can continue as a regular weekly series (something which was by no means certain in 1999): 

“Well we have to ask the fundamental question ‘What is Doctor Who?’  What demand does it supply?  What audience does it serve?  Now, a few of you might not like what I’m going to say next.  Grip the arms of your chair, grind your teeth and wrap your head around this … Doctor Who is a children’s programme.  No ifs.  No buts.  Definitely!”

"Doctor Who is a children’s programme.  No ifs.  No buts.  Definitely!"

To Moffat it’s the best kids programme ever made but that fans have become rather loopy about having to deal with its non-adult nature by pretending it was made for an older age group and then disregarding out of hand any era that didn’t conform to that view.  It’s really a children’s show which adults “happen to love”:

“But ‘Ah!’ I hear some sobbing imploring, ‘a large percentage of the Who audience were adults!’ Well therein lies Doctor Who’s special place on television.  It was the handover show.  It bridges the gap between the kids shows of the afternoon and the adult shows to come.  Its perfectly judge of ‘safe’ horror for the kids (the monsters) and great jokes for adults (the monsters) allows the schedule to run seamlessly from afternoon to evening.”

The landscape of television’s changed somewhat since this interview.  Children are watching soap operas in ever greater numbers and which are sometimes even more violent than Doctor Who ever is, even now.  But that idea of it being the crossover show still stands and despite his feelings about the target audience, that’s something that is sure to continue on Moffat’s managership.  He agrees that it should be broadcast in the BBC:  “The truth is, if someone cracks the right was to resurrect this show, I very much doubt the BBC will allow anyone else to broadcast it.” So it won’t be heading to Sky any time soon, then. 

On the question of an ongoing storyline, all agree that if there is an arc it shouldn’t overpower the weekly stories and just be there underneath, perhaps coming to a head at the close of the season.  “I don’t think we should assume too easily that change is necessary” says Moffat “The thing about Doctor Who is that it was perfectly designed to be what it was.  I wouldn’t want to make grand changes to the format, because that format was really, really good.  I’d just want to ensure that the approach was right and targeted on the right audience.”  Story arcs were a feature of the old show, albeit in a rather more diffuse manner and often were simply a reason to try new things rather than to keep the audience on the edge of their seat as happens now.  Which will Steven go for?

“I don’t think we should assume too easily that change is necessary”

The subject of what should be kept in the series, Davies and Moffat are also largely in agreement, at least in relation to chucking out as much continuity as possible, particularly the existence of Gallifrey.  “I don’t care where the Doctor came from or why he travels around the universe” Moffat explains, “I just want him out of those TARDIS doors and having adventures.  Us kids want Narnia, not the wardrobe.”  He returns to the subject of the target audience again: “Children are no respecters of reputation and are bored by tradition, so keeping faith with the past they never knew means nothing.  They want, and are entitled to, their own hero and their own show.” 

Cleverly, the new series was a continuation and a reimagining but what’s interesting is that some kids are exploring the past of the show and actually rather like me in 1999 discovering a whole wealth of mythology which has been introduced slowly over the past four years.  One of the seismic shifts has apparently been the appearance of Peter Davison in Time Crash with the character appearing in the kid-friendly Doctor Who Adventures magazine and sales of fifth Doctor related stories increasing – which is a great turn around from what was initially apparently a depression in sales for merchandise related to the classic series.  I wonder what they made of Timeflight.

Perhaps the most fascinating answer from Moffat is in regard to who the lead actor should be:

    “Although I loved Peter Davison and Paul McGann – probably the two best actors in the role – I don’t think young, dashing Doctors are right at all.  The Doctor should always be a but more Picard and less Kirk.  He should be forty-plus and weird looking – the kind of wacky grandfather that kids know on sight to be secretly one of them.  I thought Rowan (Atkinson) was perfect, if a little on the young side, because kids have always loved him…”

"I loved Peter Davison and Paul McGann – probably the two best actors in the role"

Given that both Davison and McGann have added some age and are both still relatively famous could either return to the role.  It could be easily explained, a slip in time perhaps, and would have the advantage of giving an in-story reason for the Doctor to go beyond the well established thirteen possible incarnations.  But would the BBC go for an older actor in the role these days given the impression Tennant’s made in the role?

At the end Gary asks for any final thoughts: 

“The way you’d know you’d got it right would be if the 11 year-olds all jumped up and down and said it was the best show ever and all the sadder Doctor Who fans muttered that it was no longer serious adult drama like it was when they were 11.” 

Which is exactly what’s happened.  For those of us still delirious with excitement there are probably dozens who don’t considered it to be their show anymore which is of course their loss.  As Russell T says at the very bottom of the article:  “God help anyone in charge of bringing it back – what a responsibility!” Oh irony – but now that he’s moving on, it’s good to know, judging by this interview at least, the show is in safe hands.