Behind the Sofa - The Collaborative Doctor Who Blog

"And I don't wanna see you laying in the flames, being burned and bruised on something they said..."

From the alternate reality where I’m writing this review, where the planet isn’t fucked and neither are the stock markets and I’m married to Emily Maitlis, BBC Radio 7 has decided to do the logical thing and broadcast the finale to this season of adventures.  Quite why the radio station in your world decided to knock off this story and broadcast The Chimes of Midnight for the umpteenth time only they know.  True it's nearly Christmas and that’s a very nearly Christmassy story, but I’m sure kids who might be following this series for the first time are more likely to be a bit confused as to why the bolshy northern lass has been replaced by a haughty southerner in the space of a week or a week in space. 

Before taking this random quest, I did check what you know of as the internet and found out something to do with a cliffhanger and adult content which wouldn’t have fitted the timeslot, though there’s nothing in the first half of this story, Sisters of the Flame which measures as much more grotesque than anything else in the series, certainly in comparison to The Skull of Sobeck which was just yucky.  With its chase through the stars and giant talking millipede this play is relatively kid friendly, and no more shocking than the charred remains of Luke’s relatives in Star Wars, the gold standard of what can be sneaked through for Universal consumption.

the planet isn’t fucked and neither are the stock markets and I’m married to Emily Maitlis

Perhaps it's also because unlike the rest of the series with has been closer in style to the television series, Sisters of the Flame is quintessential Big Finish Doctor Who, with the Tardis blown of course by a tussle with the timelords, the Doctor and Lucie being separated by the end of the title music with much of that incident recounted in flashback and memory.  Continuity fiends like me will note that the appearance of Gallifrey, even with the relatively new invention Straxus, puts the story firmly in the time frame of that spin-off series before the fall of the citadel suggested the oncoming war.  It’s also a direct sequel to The Brain of Morbius so to an extent the BBC’s decision seems somewhat reasonable, though surely none of it breaks that charter directive about not broadcasting something where the norms have to buy spin-off material themselves to understand it.

Most of the adventure focuses on Lucie as she’s locked up on-board a strange ship having stowed-way and finds herself hopelessly wondering if her timelord buddy is lost forever, having seen him snatched away as they tumbled out of the Tardis.  This does allow for a lovely moment where the Blackpool girl she makes much the same realisation as all of his companions, that though she might complain about the danger, she’s having the time of her life.  It’s beautifully played by Sheridan and not for the first time offers the impression that this pairing have been having far more adventures than those which the BBC have decided to broadcast (or not).  If we didn’t know that she’d be matching up with the Doctor again in time for season three, this could have been a good starting point for some radio inspired by the lost Sam-arc from the novels. 

From here, the ever dependable writer Nick Briggs offers a surprisingly linear story as Lucie is ‘rescued’ by a benefactor who might not be all she seems and then rescued by Detective Rosto, the aforementioned millipede investigating the Doctor’s disappearance, sardonically essayed by one Alexander Siddig, who along with Colm Meaney is one of the few actors who still seems to be working in places other than theatre after Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (when was the last time you saw Avery Brooks in anything?).  The scenes between Siddig and Sheriden are very clever as Lucie has to come to terms with the fact that this giant arthropod is one of the good guys and even admits to be somewhat racist in her like totally freaked out first meeting with him.  It’s a shorthand Galaxy Four which also reminded me of Mark Michalowski’s recent Tenth Doctor novel Shining Darkness where Donna tarred all robots with the same brush, so to speak.

when was the last time you saw Avery Brooks in anything?

All of this stuff’s so engaging, you hardly notice the Doctor’s only in about three scenes, but McGann certainly enjoys his scraps as gets to pretend to run around the console pressing buttons and sparring with the  Sisterhood of Karn, headed my Katarina ‘varied’ Olsson, who I discovered recently after using a search engine can sing mezzo-Soprano, play the clarinet and piano and speaks Swedish, French and German as well as act, which makes her more talented than most people alive so it’s no wonder she gets so much work.  Let’s be honest, this is really a sisterhood in the Alicia’s Attic sense of the word – we only hear from two of them, with Olsson joined by Nicola Weeks as Lucie’s initial abductor Haspira (who’s just one vowel away from sounding like a Paul Magrs creation).  I particularly appreciated the back reference to Tom and Paul's underscoring of the subtle differences between the two of them.

But there’s enough menace in their dysfunctional unit to suggest that our heroes are in a bit of a pickle as the first proper cliffhanger of the season descends.  It’s a smart piece of writing from Briggsy; he knows that the title of the next play will already have been published on Big Finish's website and every other Doctor Who news site online soon afterwards, so there’s no point in making the re-emergence of Morbius the shock horror moment.  Instead, he falls on a tried and tested formula used at least once during the original story, not requiring too much build up and epic enough in its implications for an Androzani-style ‘get out of that’, though perhaps to reach those heights they’d truly have to be at the mercy of this ya-ya sisterhood of the traveling particle accelerator.

Next week:  Brainz!  Brianz!

"I think I'm goin' back... to the things I learned so well in my youth"

Sarah Jane Adventures: The Temptation Of Sarah Jane Smith Part 1

Well, you would. Wouldn't you? You'd be tempted just like Sarah. To step back into the past to grab back a piece of your childhood or, as in Sarah's case, to find out if you had good or bad parents. The theme of parenthood and childhood has been particularly strong throughout this year's stories. From Maria and her dad leaving for Washington to Clyde dealing with his errant father, the bonds between adult and child have been explored in some depth. Now it's Sarah's turn, in perhaps one of the strongest, if not the strongest, scripts of the series to date. Gareth Roberts is obviously deeply attached to Sarah and it shows in his script in the way he carefully handles the still sensitive trauma of Sarah's dead parents and slowly unravels the mystery surrounding their fate. He does it without cheapening the idea and provides terrific emotional development for the character that the parent series rarely bothered about.

That chap with no eyes, bad teeth and a big hood and a reputation for laughing maniacally.

When a time fissure opens and disgorges a child from 1951 and from the village of Foxgrove, Sarah's tempted to go back and see just what Barbara and Eddie Smith were really like. And I suppose, like any of us presented with such an enticement, she goes through denial, excitement and then the suspicion that it's all a trap. And like all good scripts. the audience is already ahead of her and knows that this is a return match with the Trickster. That chap with no eyes, bad teeth and a big hood and a reputation for laughing maniacally.  And much as the lady doth protest, 'I'm strong enough to say no', immediately we see the camera pan across a vivid pink 1950s style outfit, those dissolves of her zhushing her hair and putting on her slap, we know she's been reeled in. She's going back. Yeah, it's just like the classic Carole King song, 'Goin' Back' - full of warmth, anticipation, fear and a sense that she's attempting to reconcile thinking young and growing older and realising perhaps it isn't such a sin to do so. It's a lovely sequence, blessed with a fantastic score from Sam Watts and a Lis Sladen performance that might leave you with a lump in your throat as she sneaks out of the house in childlike eagerness for a date with destiny. What's the point in being grown up, if you can't be childish sometimes? 

Tommy Knight's performance, especially his chemistry with Lis, is great too and I love their mutual mockery over the pink outfit she wears to go back in time. Their discussion on the ramifications of meddling with your own past gives a little nod to the Blinovitch Limitation Effect as well as Luke recognising his own normalcy in the excitement of the opportunity. Ever mindful, Sarah also understands that if it is a trap she'll have a chance to find out whilst giving herself an excuse to be self-indulgent. Again, more lovely character moments powering the script along. Fortunately, Roberts knows which side his bread is buttered with the Sarah and Luke relationship and doesn't leave Luke separated from Sarah, depositing him back in 1951 with her when the fissure collapses.

Roberts' script is chock full of these abandonment issues and he recognises that without our even being aware, they can wreak havoc with social and family life.

Whilst Sarah and Luke explore Foxgrove in warm sepia tints and as a land of milk and honey, Clyde and Rani give us a quick flashback to last year's Whatever Happened To Sarah Jane Smith to re-acquaint us with the alien puzzle box and the Graske. These aren't gratuitous references and genuinely feed in as proper elements of the plot. The period detail for Foxglove is used well with costumes and vehicles adding just the right touches to embellish Sarah's lines about the emergence of Britain from post war austerity. Then there's that great double take as Sarah hears a voice calling her and Graeme Harper crash zooms the camera onto her face as she stares directly at her mother cradling her younger self. It's at this point that we can see how cunning the Trickster's plan is as the sin of temptation really gets hold and Sarah thinks of a way to find out why her parents abandoned her in 1951. Roberts' script is chock full of these abandonment issues and he recognises that without our even being aware, they can wreak havoc with social and family life. These feelings, and especially fears of being left behind, are incredibly strong motivators both within and outside of relationships.

There's a typically humourous Luke response to guessing how many gobstoppers are in a jar and the fun continues when Sarah introduces herself as Victoria Beckham and Luke becomes David in a proper laugh out loud moment. The flipside of this is a growing tension as Luke spots the strange schoolboy, Oscar, who came through the fissure earlier and Sarah, worryingly, starts to get obsessed about Barbara and Eddie. Lis and Rosanna Lavelle as Barbara are very natural in their scenes together and Rosanna is especially good when she recounts how Eddie courted Barbara with little notes. Notes that will later be significant; much like the newspaper that Luke shows Sarah. It's then that both she and us, the audience, realise that things are going to go very wrong as she contemplates changing a fixed point in time. Blimey, she even name drops the miners of Peladon as she works herself up into a selfish, emotional outburst. It's quite powerful stuff to see Sarah throwing a wobbly like this and then gambling with the nature of time and trying to play the game of life to win her 'reward'. She's positively unhinged! Didn't seeing Sutekh's alternate 1980 teach her anything?

The best episode this year.

Meanwhle, back in the present Clyde and Rani are confronted by the creepy Oscar and the trap is finally sprung with Robert Madge as Oscar doing a nice line in Harry Potter malevolence. He changes into the pixie like Graske and gives chase, with Graeme Harper then pulling off a magnificent double whammy of a cliffhanger where Clyde and Rani are plunged into an alternate, desolate Greenford and Sarah and Luke end up beneath the ruins of Big Ben. What is it with Big Ben? It's a much abused monument these days. We're left with the Trickster ranting away in triumph as Sarah gets her reward for buggering up the timelines. There's really very little to fault this and it's played well by the ensemble cast, with Lis outstanding here, aided by a script full of emotional power and big ideas and Harper's penchant for giving us powerful visuals.The best episode this year.

Mirage

Forty-five years.  Let those syllable roll around your mouth as you say them out loud.  Four-tee-five-yeeaarrrs.  A certain sketch from Doctor Who Night not withstanding, it’s doubtful Sydney, Verity and Waris had any idea that the tale they began with an imagined ‘One upon a time…’ and a junkyard all those years ago would still be in the process of being told four and a half decades later, with full stop or ‘The End’ nowhere in sight.  The Doctor might walk into the sunset now and then, be interrupted by a freeze frame or make some bad choices, but he continues, still fighting. 

And what better way to celebrate than with a story which typically captures exactly why he endures, that features an incarnation of the Doctor who only appeared in the show’s natural home of television once, in a version made in an unnatural home after a gap of seven years or so and who five years later began recording audio versions for cd.  The play is authored by a writer who arguably found favour producing novels based on this incarnation and includes a monster who appeared on television only once, thirty years ago.  Phew.

Happy birthday to you, Doctor Who.  You don’t look a day over forty-two.

Even with it's rather fantastic title (which almost canonizes the play as a classic in and of itself) The Zygon Who Fell To Earth is another example of the kind trick Paul Magrs which has always stood Paul Magrs in good stead, in which his more way out ideas are threaded through a fairly traditional story type.  So his Tenth Doctor novel, Sick Building, features a base under siege story inhabited by sentient sunbeds and vending machines, or his story for the last series of Eighth and Lucie stories, The Horror of Glam Rock, in which a roadside café was attacked by what I still maintain were killer Wombles.  This latest episode is a small scale alien invasion story, which the crashed remnants of a race attempt to take over the world, but with the twist that one of the aliens had gone native, assumed the identity of folk singer, married a woman we know as Lucie’s Auntie and opened up a small lakeside hotel, surprising omnisexual implications included.  Unlike City of Death, the twist is that Pat is fully aware that her significant other is a space invader and doesn’t see why it should be a barrier to a successful marriage. 

surprising omnisexual implications

In the hands of another writer this could have been mawkish or silly or weighed down by its own philosophical pomposity.  But by opening on a light mood before nihilistically sticking the knife in, or in this case, the Skaresen, he gives the listener some time to become attached to the characters.  If only all of writers of these plays had been so patient.  Lynsey Hardwick’s Patricia makes a welcome return but the reunion is not overplayed for a change having occurred off-speaker before the adventure begins.  Trevor is as normal as can be (considering), Steven Pacey’s regional gasp underscoring his ordinary life, despite his extraordinary origins.  Even as the Doctor and Lucie natter about Wordsworth, this is a domestic scene, with even the visiting Zygons forced to partake in its crushing, restful triviality.

At this point, the story might not have been about aliens at all, but two cold war spies turning up to remind a sleeper of his duties.  Except the neat performances Malcolm Stoddard and Tim Brook-Taylor (Goodie, goodie, yum, yum) offer the impression of something being very wrong with Urtak and Mims, oh, and the title, which unlike Brave New Town of couple of weeks ago gives a fairly big hint of the returning alien.  Which is where, hidden in the middle of this paragraph, I make a rather startling revelation.  I’ve never seen Terror of the Zygons, which I know in some circles is tantamount to saying that you haven’t visited a galaxy, far, far, away.  But bar some publicity stills, a few clips of Tom in a tamashanta and the usual osmosis which means I know what Sarah Jane was talking about in School Reunion with the Loch Ness Monster, I’ve no idea what happens in that story.

Goodie, goodie, yum, yum

Though clearly I do now, since the bottom end of The Zygon Who Fell To Earth explains everything you need to know, unexpectedly pulling in a references to The Bodysnatchers, an old Eighth Doctor novel I’d tried to forget.  The exposition's not exactly seemless, but for once it doesn't get in the way of the drama.   I'm surprised the new series hasn’t resurrected the Zygons yet, with their budget saving ability to assume human form, though admittedly the Slitheen and The Family of Blood have done much the same thing.  They were achieved very well on audio with the huskiness of their voices demarking the change in shape, and their personalities, a kind of teenage hectoring mixed with utter sadism with a dash of strategic genius, perfect for the 80s setting in which just that kind of personality made a killing on the stock market (the fallout from which we’re finally having to deal with).  But they’re hard to dislike even as they’re plotting to use a mix of the plot of the film which almost bares this play's name and a lo-fi version of the Sontaran stratagem to take over the world.

Like that adventure too, we’ve an evil companion doppelganger, Lucie this time instead of Martha, and like Freema, Sheridan understood that the best way to play those scene is simply to key the performance down slightly, remove the lively spikes from the tone of voice.  Also as in that adventure, we’ve a livelier Doctor seemingly offering enough bumptiousness for the two of them, asking the questions which his companion is strangely forgetting about, commenting instead of curious.  I’ve been loving McGann’s attack on the role in these stories and he’s in good spirits here, with in the darker moments, a return of the man we remember from the earlier audios, the commanding rather than bluff presence, deciding exactly which status quo he thinks should be perpetuated.

This was grade A, top side Doctor Who of the kind which pops up now and then and reminds you of why you love the franchise.  Having made the pun in the title, Magrs feels the need to inject some further musical references, making the main supporting character a musician.  But typically rather than simply turning Trevor into a former Bowie impersonator or something, instead he's an ex-folk singer and we get to hear his hit anyway, sung with great determination by the man who was once Tarrant in Blake's 7.  I love these sojurn's into fake music history and this is certainly preferable to Children of Tomorrow from last year, even in deliciously accurate rubbish 80s 12" remix. 

sung with great determination by the man who was once Tarrant in Blake's 7

But it’s at the close of what's been an uneven radio series that we finally see what the show is capable of and if you haven’t heard the play yet, I’d look away now.  That final moment in which Lucie reflects on the death of her Auntie Pat and how she can’t be dead because she remembers her, with the Doctor explaining that the web of time is a resilient construct, is amazing, and probably the best scene this series.  It takes a giant sci-fi concept which has developed across the decades, and makes it personal, explaining why the Whoniverse can be contradictory and demonstrating that even a simple human can deal with the consequences of that and then, like Father’s Day, someone makes a sacrifice so that it can happen.  Was Trevor’s meant to survive all along or are we seeing/hearing an example of how time rights itself?  We might never know.

Next Week:  The Chimes at Midnight !?! Or I might have another idea …

Maybe nothing. Possibly something.

I've just had the following conversation on Twitter which I thought was worth posting here for reasons that will become apparent:

kariebookish Has the new Doctor been revealed by actor's slip-up on BBC24's entertainment show? Actor said "P. Joseph .. y'know the new .. *potential ...

feelinglistless Which actor?  Although they could just have been working from speculation.  C. Tate did that once.

kariebookish He's in Survivors with Mr Joseph - Phillip Rhys was talking about his fellow cast members in the new series and looked mortified afterwards

feelinglistless Oh fuck.  You're right.  PJ probably found out during the Survivors production and told people.  Happened to DT during Quatermass.

kariebookish Can't believe nobody else caught the interview. Where are the fanboys I want to know.

feelinglistless I'm off to Outpost Gallifrey to see if its a thing there yet.

kariebookish Tragically I'm heading to LJ and a knitting forum. Need to broaden my fangirl horizons. Have also blogged just to say told-you-so ..nor not.

feelinglistless Current OG discussion:  "What if the Doctor regenerates into a Dalek? "  Typical.  Would you mind me posting this conversation on Behind The Sofa?

kariebookish Nope. Go ahead.

I didn't see it myself (obviously) but this sounds exactly like the way we'd get a confirmation in this day and age, a slip of the tongue by Reza from the second season of 24, doing fluff ironically for the remake of a series created by Terry Nation.  So then.  Paterson Joseph off of Neverwhere (and a few things since).  I was hoping for Callum Blue myself.

Update:

Yep, pretty much.

"The Berserker is just so obscene, likes evil people you know what I mean, he takes your soul and then just rips you apart, he'll steal your heart."

I tend to be the kind of person who fixates on unusual details.  I saw Kevin Smith’s new film Zack and Miri Make A Porno Monday lunchtime and I was disappointed, despite being a big fan of the director's other films.  And comics.  And one man shows.  For professional reasons I spent hours afterwards agonising as to what went wrong not really coming up with an answer but late in evening I began to wonder if it had to one of his casting choices in about the third scene, when we’re introduced to the coffee shop were Zack works and his boss, an angry so-and-so, with rude tongue.  He’s played by Gerry Bednob who offers some of the most bizarre line readings this side of Matthew Waterhouse, and his verbal gesticulation stayed with me through some of the next few minutes of the film and kept returning now and for the other hour and a half.  I was distracted.

Much the same thing happened in The Mark of the Berserker, but for different reasons.  We can argue the character logic of Clyde taking his errant father up to the attic all we want but after Paul compared this alien tech to the Daleks, I stopped listening as suddenly this direct link to Journey’s End crashed in and more than that a proper, specific acknowledgement that mankind does indeed know of the existence of aliens on-mass.  I know we’ve seen conversations about the Christmas goings on and whatnot in the main series, but this is the first time I think it’s been done so casually, as though it's accepted that yeah, there are aliens, fact of life, but y’know the government and army deal with it in general so I’ll just get on with my life as it stands, until the Earth drops out of its orbit again.  Or whatever.  I was distracted for the next hour, thinking about the fictional implications of that, but thankfully on this occasion not enough to ruin what might be the best story of this season so far.

Having been generally annoyed with the two-part format this season, I decided as an experiment to watch Joseph Lister’s story all in one go.  Of course, I would pick the Sarah Jane lite story which contrary to rumour I think probably has more to do with a bit of double banking rather than simply giving Liz a week off.  As a single fifty minutes it certainly held up and writer Joseph Lister paced the story well across both episodes, with its early spooky school based scenes, holding some of his story over to the second episode, compared to most first episodes this season where most of the revelations are already plotted out leaving everything to unspool in the second.  Here the simplistic structure seemed deliberately chosen to allow room for a more character based tale, unlike most stories where it tends to be an excuse for more running around.  It's a credit to director Joss Agnew that this shift into emotions over exploits didn't jar.

Even with Sarah Jane on sabbatical, Berserker was a PTA meeting full of parental guidance.

Even with Sarah Jane on sabbatical, Berserker was a PTA meeting full of parental guidance.  Firstly, we’ve Clyde’s parents, yet another dysfunctional couple in the Whoniverse, and as ever it’s difficult to see how these two got together, let alone long enough to get married and have a child, specially since Carla seems like such an intelligent woman.  Cleverly written as though she’s always naturally been in the mix, the key to Carla’s success as a character was Jocelyn Jee Esien whose subtlely strong portrayal of a wronged wife might well be another candidate for this series’s Bernard Cribbins, the comedy actor breaking our heart.  I can’t believe this is the same woman who’s irritated me so in her comedy series and if Cardiff have any sense they’ll make her a regular next series. 

Auf Wiedersehen Pet extra Paul is precisely the kind of washed up figure who usually turns up in fantasy shows when the writer needs someone to blunder into a situation, the kind of deadbeat who can’t do right for wrong, can’t understand why he can’t just waltz in and out of their child’s life, and hopes that they can change things just by being there.  Gary Beadle painted him broad strokes initially, but was much better towards the end as he lost control finding himself unable to stop changing Clyde to the point of making him lose all of those things which made him different on really coming into his own when the Berserker finally took hold, offering some old school menace.

Maria’s Dad Tom made a welcome return and reminded us what an empty suit in writing terms (the) Rani’s father Haresh is.  Perhaps I’m mentally retconning my memory of what Maria’s parents were like in the first series, but I do remember them being more compelling than this man whose whole contribution to the story was deciding on what to have for tea before barking like a dog and doing push-ups for half an hour, which you really can’t compare with someone clever enough to hack into UNIT files undetected.  Obviously the production team wanted to contrast the two so as to make this new family distinctly different, and it’s no slight against actor Ace Bhatti who is doing his best, and I know that kids probably loved seeing Rani have that kind of control over her Dad, but it just seemed a bit – undignified (see what listening to Radio’s 3 & 4 all the time can do to you?).

As ever the kids were reliably good, especially Daniel Anthony who excelled when given more than wise cracks to work with, the first time this series where Clyde is a proper character rather than a walking punchline.  It must not be easy when shooting a piece like to keep track of what you’re supposed to know when and how to react when a slice of your memory has been nullified, Daniel pitched it brilliantly, especially the moment when everything but his father had drifted away and when he had to look his friends and mother in the eye without a glimmer of recognition.  Then, in the middle of it all we there’s the inevitable meeting between Rani and Maria and like the moment in Journey’s End were Rose and Martha finally looked each other in the eye, albeit over a video link, there was no bitchiness, flying in the face of perceived wisdom in kids dramas these days that all teenage girls want to do is scrape each other’s eyes out.

This was ultimately a very small story about parents and children in which, like the best early episodes of Buffy, the fantasy intrusion highlighted the thematic element of the story – that from a certain point parents can no longer control their kids and that similarly your mum and dad will end up disappointing you.  Oh, and that an alien pendent isn’t really going to help the situation.  It’s precisely the kind of tale I’d expected SJA to tell from the off, before like the parent series, every threat became global, and though there’s a suggestion of that in the Beserker’s commotion at the climax, this was ultimately the story of parental kidnapping, which is pleasingly dark stuff considering the timeslot.

Next Week (or the week after I’m not sure yet):  The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most, huh?

A Wise Son Maketh A Glad Father.

Sarah Jane Adventures: The Mark Of The Berserker Part 2

After what I thought, last week, was an episode bogged down in 'soap' longuers, I have to say that this second part improves on the first instalment. Clyde and Paul, under the influence of the alien pendant, go off on a day of wish fulfillment around town, persuading car dealers to part with expensive cars, shops to give them clothes (and possibly whores to give them sex if we were in Torchwood). Meanwhile, Rani's dad threatens to die from exhaustion (as if we care) but at least he'll be in the Guinness Book Of Records for his push-ups.

Rani and Luke only have one resort - to call Sarah Jane. Which is of course the way this episode opens up the theme of relying on your surrogate family. It reminds me of Armistead Maupin's notion of choosing a 'logical' family over a 'biological' family and often in that the choice can be cruelest to your parents and siblings. Mind you, Sarah's a bit busy chasing a rather ineffectual CGI bug (the comedy eyes are like something out of Looney Tunes) in a hospital in a sly bit of commentary about MRSA no doubt. So it's down to a surprise cameo from Maria and her dad, Alan, to show, in one short sub-plot, how much they've been missed from the series and how Rani's family do need developing, particularly Rani's dad, Haresh who, so far, does seem to be coming across as a right plonker.

Maria and Alan's appearance also helps build up the story proper and they give us the information about the pendant that we need, the script now cutting back and forth in an effective structure which was something that in Part 1 was lacking. The scene in which Paul brainwashes the car dealer into giving them the sports car underlines a couple of rather uncomfortable associations to the character which, although we read as partly due to the influence of the pendant, may suggest that his criminal actions are somehow also coded as part of his black identity. It's somewhat insensitive of the programme that it makes these associations, even if unconsciously. Yes, you could argue that the pendant leaves Paul with no choice but the story has already established him as an absentee father who walked out on his family so he's already codified as a negative stereotype.

It's an interesting comment on the 21st Century obsession with the celebration of consumerism...

With the the help of Alan and the UNIT database the pendant is identified as belonging to the Berserkers, who were bad tempered Norse warriors, but not quite for the purposes of this story. Here they're just super bad alien soldiers who recruit warriors through the pendants. Maria does come over as Mrs. Exposition here but it's still good to see her and Alan in a substantial sub-plot. And fortunately we've got the UNIT tracking system to find Clyde. Meanwhile, Clyde and Paul are engulfed in a 'shopping spree' during a well edited sequence that's intercut with Luke and Rani dashing off for help. This seems to suggest the Berserkers wanted nothing more than to go mad with consumer frenzy and fill their materialist boots to overflowing. It's an interesting comment on the 21st Century obsession with the celebration of consumerism that, among other things, drive families into tremendous debt. What the episode is perhaps saying is this frenetic pursuit of things and power is not simply about the incitement of a passion for power and possessions, its sheer emptiness and waste, but also the fragmentation and dispersion of the mind in its focus on these numerous, ultimately unimportant acquisitions. In such a state, there can be no spiritual health and no proper sanity, much less a real flourishing of an individual or a family.

So, Carla to the rescue and a final showdown at the marina. Crucially, Clyde is still questioning Paul as they hurtle to this last scene and hasn't had any nagging doubts satisfied by their consumerist frenzy or dampened by the power of the pendant. The scene where Clyde confronts Paul with his disappointment in his father is superbly written and played. And Paul again shirks his responsibilities to Clyde and would rather that complex emotions and feelings be forgotten, urging Clyde to reject the very self-doubt, anger and rejection that makes him what he is. Ultimately, it leads to Paul demanding that Clyde forget about Carla, his mum. This works very powerfully here because the escapist plot, with its car chase, sat navs, Maria and Alan is all pulling together with the emotional core of the story. It's ceased being Neighbours and is firmly back in Sarah Jane territory. The marina location also helps open up the scale of the story in Part 2, whereas in Part 1 we were more or less confined to Clyde and Sarah's houses.

Sarah is the one female figure that Clyde hasn't been forced to reject so naturally she's the Earth mother who resolves the situation...

Paul demands, 'We just need a boat' and it looks like his rampant consumerism is killing him as he turns into a Berserker when in fact it's really that he's just running away from his responsibilities as a father again. Cue Sarah Jane in her little mack, finally coming to the rescue. Interesting that this has also been about gender domination too with Paul making Clyde reject the major female figures in the story and yet all of them, Carla, Maria, Rani and Sarah logically reassert this principle in the story. And Sarah is the one female figure that Clyde hasn't been forced to reject yet so naturally she's the Earth mother who resolves the situation with a bit of one-to-one therapy. The whole sequence at the marina is a satisfactory ending to the story with Clyde reconstructing his view of fatherhood, somewhat idealised for sure, back into Paul. But even Paul knows his own nature and that's revealed when he confesses to Clyde about running away from his pregnant girlfriend. It seems he can't change his nature but Clyde, in rejecting his father, does suggest to Paul that there is a second chance at being a father that's now open to him.

Part 1 only just about works when you've seen it in combination with Part 2. It suggests a bit of structural shifting about might have made that first episode narratively more exciting and less confined to the 'soap' locations of bedrooms, kitchens, driveways and schools. Part 2 is significantly the better episode, much more exciting, very powerful emotionally and the story as a whole has a stunning performance at its centre from Daniel Anthony and it's worth watching for that alone.

Obsession

Michael Maloney has always been a favourite actor of mine.  A board walker from the same tradition as Ken Branagh, you probably remember him as the bloke who isn’t Alan Rickman in Truly Madly Deeply.  Maloney’s never out of work, on stage, screen, radio and television, but like the best character actors he’s never become a household name or even been ‘that guy’ despite turning up in everything.  Look at his CV.  Everything.  Even Robin Hood.  And Rosemary & Thyme.  I think he even audition for the TV movie and he would have been equally as good as Paul.  Watch In The Bleak Midwinter as he works the one liners and pathos, with his long hair and jacket and you’ll see what a tragedy it is that we’ll never see him stepping out of the TARDIS.

It’s worth speculating whether, if he’d been ten years younger, he’d be on the ever growing list of successor to the television part.    Surprisingly, having been in everything, he hadn’t been in Doctor Who until Grand Theft Cosmos and as ever he’s reliably good in pretty thankless role of Simonsson, a one man Jago and Litefoot, full of pride and bluster.  Lately he’s been stuck playing creeps but here we got to hear the lighter side of his abilities and he was clearly enjoying himself, bouncing off McGann, his accent dripping with the period.  At least if he isn’t offered a supporting role in the television series at some time in the future, we can knock him off the list of timelord potentials who’s at least turned up in the franchise somewhere.

a one man Jago and Litefoot

My enthusiasm at this bit of casting transfers to the whole of the episode.  It was a riot and probably the best of this series so far.  Both of Eddie Robson’s plays last year were a bit lopsided, entertaining without being completely satisfying.  None of that here.  Splicing Doctor Who with the heist and hustle genres with the Doctor expending his powers to grand larceny is a great idea and then injecting the Headhunter into the mix completes the package, contrasting the timelord’s utilitarianism with good old fashioned profit.  I’ve thrown the word ‘romp’ around a bit lately but again there’s no other way to describe this but unlike Dead London which I grouched about being an essentially empty experience thematically, this has something to say about the responsibility of creation and what you do having consequences.

With its quasi-historical eurosoup setting a lazy comparison would be City of Death with its reliance on the affairs of artists, potential fun with temporal anomalies, breaking in and out of chateaus and people hitting each other over the head.  It’s not quite as good or timeless as that (obviously) but Robson does have fun with etiquette and people’s inability to focus on anything that doesn’t specifically affect them.  Never mind the great living statue knocking holes in the roof of the dining car, what about the bits of masonry falling in my soup?   That’s actually a very clever piece of audio writing because it gives the necessary exposition to the ‘background’ characters leaving the stars to deal with the problem at hand.

a very clever piece of audio writing

It’s basically the first episode I wouldn’t mind listening to again.  Like the Gilmore Girls or The West Wing during the Sorkin era, this burns through dialogue and most of it very amusing and at times laugh out loud funny.  There’s a wink in Robson’s writing as he underscores the ludicrousness of the re-appearance of Karen, understand that our reaction to her reappearance would be general bewilderment and putting our words into the Doctor’s mouth so that Lucie can offer a none too stealthy explanation.  It’s pacey without ever feeling rushed, rarely committing the crime of many of these audios of belabouring incidents which are essentially visual – the sword fight between the Doctor and a guardsman quickly dispensed with as Lucie heads off after the black item that isn’t a proper diamond (which brought to mind the jewel from Men in Black -- I do like my pocket universes).

But the biggest surprise arrived in Beyond The Vortex which revealed that Paul and Sheridan recorded their parts on different days (a frequent situation at Big Finish apparently).  I’d all planned to write about how good their chemistry was in this bouncing off one another, but turns out they were bouncing off Katerina Olsson and Nick Briggs respectively, which actually makes their performances even more impressive, especially on hearing that Smith did hers within forty-five minutes, the hilariously hoity-toity guise of Palmer-Tompkinson included.  It’s a pity we’ll never hear Olsson’s version of the character though – did she attempt the accent or play it straight?  Either way, she’s just perfect in her signature role of the Headhunter, not particularly evil, just the kind of person who, like the nerks in the train car, can’t understand why the universe doesn’t realise that she’s the most important thing in it. 

Though aren’t we all like that sometimes?

Next week:  Goodie, goodie, yum, yum.

Next on a Plate

I've opened this thread just in case you feel the need to pre-judge a 60 minute show on its opening 60 seconds. Have fun.

Personally, I thought it was great. However, I do admit that the afghan hound wearing a Cyberman voice changer helmet failed to impress...

Only 40 days to wait...

The Child Is Father To The Man

Sarah Jane Adventures: The Mark Of The Berserker Part 1

As soon as Sarah Jane fesses up she's off to investigate some dirty dealings in the NHS and leaves the kids to twiddle their thumbs you know this is going to be a break for Lis Sladen (I bet it's an urgent appointment to check on that portrait she has hidden in her own attic) and there is the dawning realisation that the younger actors are going to have to carry this on their own. Whilst I don't think the result makes for compelling viewing, I do think that both Daniel Anthony and Anjii Mohindra gave it all they've got to keep it working. It does suffer from the reductionist principle of having no Sarah Jane and, whilst she's away, no Mr.Smith too. Laudable as it is to let the series be carried by the younger members of the cast, it doesn't totally succeed as a story within the series own format. Where we get a Doctor-lite episode of the parent series, we do usually get a very strong script to support it and to date I would argue that Love And Monsters, Blink and Turn Left are very strong stories that operate purely because of the Doctor's absence within them and not in spite of it.

...as much as this tries to be honest about the consequences of absentee fathers it gets mired by over sincerity

Joseph Lidster quite rightly focuses in on Clyde Langer. We haven't seen his family or explored his home background yet and it's perfectly logical to do so. I love that we get to meet his mum and are given a goodly amount of background detail. Maria, Luke and Rani have had their moments in the sun, now it's time for Clyde. I just wish the story that teases out these details wasn't so crushingly, annoyingly 'worthy children's television'. The beauty of The Sarah Jane Adventures is that it is capable of telling engaging, escapist narratives for both children and adults and as much as this tries to be honest about the consequences of absentee fathers it gets mired by over sincerity and suffers with the consequence of a strained budget. No threat to the universe this week, can't afford one. We just get Clyde understanding why his father is such an obnoxious git. Match this with a subtext about drug addiction, the overweening use of power and a strong opening about peer pressure in school and you'd think this was onto a winner.

Lidster introduces us to Clyde's family via Luke having to sleep over whilst SJ goes on a bug-hunt in Tarminster. It's done very naturally and I did like Jocelyn Jee Esien as Clyde's mum. The interplay between her and Daniel is well done and she's a bit of a revelation. The sweet friendship between Luke and Clyde is also brought to the fore here and pointedly in the scene where Clyde offers to teach Luke how to draw, demonstrating a father-son relationship which is all about mentoring that's in contrast to what becomes Paul Langer's destructive effect on Clyde. The first episode basically uses a number of characters to establish what the alien pendant does, first with Jacob, then Rani, and how its power affects the user. This then narrows down to the reappearance of Clyde's absent father, Paul. The pendant then becomes the MacGuffin - the way the story will expose Paul as a weak father and reveal to Clyde why he shirked his responsibilities to his new born son. Good on paper but the actual episode is more or less a soap opera rather than a fantasy adventure story. It's little more than a CBBC version of Eastenders and the alien pendant is the only fantastical element in the story so far.

Even good soaps won't allow huge character arcs to dominate over outlandish plotting these days.

Don't get me wrong, I think Daniel Anthony steals the show with his performance and Gary Beadle is rather good as the shifty Paul. Clyde's hostility is well placed as Paul comes across as selfish and uncaring and we don't exactly get a hint as to why he's suddenly popped up in Clyde's life after five years. But this also shows up the problem with Series 2 where we've had large scale adventure stories that have mainly ignored any character development for Sarah and her young friends and now we have the series going in the opposite direction - lots of character development but to the detriment of telling a very exciting story. Much as I love Clyde I don't want the entire narrative weighed down by the anger he feels towards his father. Even good soaps won't allow huge character arcs to dominate over outlandish plotting these days.

And then you do ask yourself why Clyde would tell his long absent father about his exploits with Sarah Jane? Of course, he's trying to show off to his father, as any boy would, but I found it a little incredible that he would expose the gang in such a short space of time and so easily. It's a stretch and it's clear that Lidster had to get Clyde and his dad into Sarah's house and in contact with the pendant. Clunky and not very convincing. Mind you, I did chuckle at Paul's line , 'OK, is this some kind of trading card thing?' when Clyde reveals that he's saved the Earth on numerous occasions. Of course the big clue about Paul is his reaction to all the artefacts in Sarah's attic. He just wants to acquire it or flog it and it signposts how he exploits the alien pendant too. The build up to the cliffhanger, centring around Rani's father doing push-ups, Rani's suspicion that Paul has the pendant and Luke getting cross because Clyde has given him access to the attic is hardly the stuff of scary, fantasy adventure is it? However, it is saved by the horrible realisation that Paul has used the pendant to make Clyde forget who Rani and Luke are. A very uncomfortable moment in the plot - tense because we witness a father remodelling his son in his own image and bewildering that Clyde would actually go so far as to defend and then side with a parent who has had little positive influence on his life. It does make Clyde out as rather gullible and, to be blunt, stupid.

I tried very hard to like this first episode and there is much to admire about it. The performances are uniformly good, particularly Daniel Anthony, but, for me, it doesn't sit comfortably as good storytelling within the format of The Sarah Jane Adventures. Many might argue that this is the sort of drama that kids should be watching in the context of a science fiction series. For me, it's too domestic, low budget, worthy CBBC stuff mired within soap conventions. The second episode might very well change that but it looks like it already has one particular course already mapped out - knocking Paul Langer off his pedestal.

Captive Wild Woman

Without the need of special apparatus, I can gauge the moment when I parted company with The Skull of Sobek. The first few bars of the title music.  The teaser with all its blood oaths and fire and sub-Conan dialogue suggested parody, that before long it would be revealed as a cut scene from a video game or a scene from a Filmation cartoon being watched by a child sitting with a Prince Sobek action figure in one hand and a carton of Vimto in the other.  When it became apparent that writer was deadly serious about this being the back story to the adventure, I knew that despite some of the usual chemistry between McGann and Smith and some neat sound design that by about minute twenty-eight I’d have categorised it as rubbish and wished it wasn’t quite so.  That actually happened in minute thirty-two, though for the life of me I can’t remember what in particular put me off.  It was probably the Doctor being hurled out of the window only to have his fall broken by a market stall.

Without the need of special apparatus, I can gauge the moment when I parted company with The Skull of Sobek. The first few bars of the title music.

Which is part of the problem.  Platt can’t decide what tone he wants or who he’s supposed to be pastiching.  The Skull of Sobek, with its monastic setting, family feud and possessed cranium claws desperately towards the Hinchcliffe era; Nick Briggs in Beyond The Vortex even compares Platt’s writing to Robert Holmes and like Holmes, there’s certainly a vein of humour running through it, as the monks and sisters treat their calling rather ironically and their giant crocodile guests with a health cynicism even as they’re having their limbs bitten off.  But Platt also seems to want to remind us of Paul Magys in The Scarlett Empress mode, Russell T Davies when he’s knocking together one of those shopping list dramas he apparently doesn’t do and the Monty Python films.  Art Malik’s Abbot Absolute sounds like Graham Chapman’s King Arthur during the armaments scene from The Holy Grail.

Art Malik’s Abbot Absolute sounds like Graham Chapman’s King Arthur during the armaments scene from The Holy Grail.

Since he spends most of the time suggesting the crocs are a bit of a joke, when they’re really supposed to be menacing, we’re probably visualising the rubber Argonds from The Adventure Game rather than the sleek serpents painted by Clyde Caldwell.  The possession of Lucie which should be a tragic Amok Time style moment in which the Doctor forced to fight his friend, is rushed and despite an amazing bit of work from Sheriden in which she proves once and for all that as  Miss Miller she's not just playing herself, has the ring of Rick Moranis’s Keymaster in Ghostbusters, old fashioned phrases spilling from a contemporary mouth.  Plus there’s the aforementioned window falling scene which is the kind of visual slapstick that Harold Lloyd might have been pleased with but really doesn’t really work in audio.  When Briggsy says that he knows in the schedule that Platt will be writing something weird, it might have been an idea to also request ‘something coherent’.  Perhaps if the monks had enjoyed a good brawl, things might have been different.

we’re probably visualising the rubber Argonds from The Adventure Game rather than the sleek serpents painted by Clyde Caldwell

It’s all the more frustrating because there are some promising ideas in here.  The Blue Desert of Indigo 3 with its identical dunes and raining season which comes every eighties years is a lovely idea and the way its revealed to Lucie by the Doctor happens in much the same way as I expect Ninth introduced Women Wept to Rose.  The idea that this sanctuary exists to create imperfection in a symmetrical world is also impressive, like Chris Bidmead, but in a good way.  There’s also a rather nice moment were Lucie becomes realistically vulnerable and goes through the same process as many recent companions in realising that they’re becoming desensitised to death.  But that's all cocooned in a rather bizarre collection of scenes which sound like someone’s ripped a cd of Gregorian Chants, The Lord of the Rings radio series and one of the Divergent Universe stories like Kreed of the Kromon into their iPod and selected random. 

The idea that this sanctuary exists to create imperfection in a symmetrical world is also impressive, like Chris Bidmead, but in a good way.

Regular readers will know that I tend to glory in the truly bonkers, the kind of Doctor Who in which you’re forced to admit “I can’t quite believe I saw/heard/read that” or my version of it, loud swearing.  If even I wasn’t provoked to do something like that, by something like this, something must be wrong.