Doctor Who: Let's kill Hitler [first impressions]

What? Eh? What???

More reasoned thoughts to follow.

Doctor Who opinions... [with spoilers]

So, another series of Doctor Who has come and gone. We have now got to know our new Doctor, and his new companion(s), we've seen vampires, weeping angels, Vincent van Gogh, a future Queen of Britain, some long buried aliens and a wedding. But was it any good?

Well, here's my take on it: It was OK. But not great. Quite a long way from great.

So what about the 11th Doctor?

Well, he's OK as well. Not as good as David Tennant (who was a great Doctor from his very first episode), possibly not as good as Christopher Eccleston either. I quite like the 'eccentric old duffer' persona, although the occasional flashes of arrogance don't really fit well with the character.

What about Amy Pond?

Hmmm. In general I like the character of Amy, she has all the traits of a good companion. And yet her behaviour is quite often inappropriate for a kids tv show on at dinner time. I think they should turn her libido down a bit for the next series. Glad they've kept her for more than one series though.

Rory?

I was quite irritated by the character of Rory at first, and then I was annoyed when they wrote him out, and also a bit annoyed by the way they brought him back at the end. Still don't know why Amy is with him, they really don't seem to go together. He waits 2000 years for Amy, protecting her, they get married, and yet as soon as she gets the chance she's still after a snog off the Doctor, not a good sign for the relationship. I think Rory'll be fairly pointless and useless from here on in and they'll have to write him out again somehow.

River Song?

She still annoys me. All that "spoilers" stuff is just irritating. And it looks like we might have more of her in the next series. Sigh.

So, here's a quick episode by episode comment:

1. The Eleventh Hour: was an ok introduction to a new Doctor and new companion. 6/10
   
2. The Beast Below: so many references to so many preceding Doctor Who stories I hardly know where to start. This felt like a re-hash when it should have had something fresh. 4/10
   
3. Victory of the Daleks: I liked this one. Silly, but quite fun. 7/10
   
4. The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone: the first part had the single scariest moment in any Doctor Who story thus far (when Amy is alone in the ship with nothing but a video looping), which was excellent. After that they kind of lost it and the story went downhill. 6/10
   
5. The Vampires of Venice: silly and fun. Not really tea-time family entertainment though, and the worst FX in the series so far. 7/10
   
6. Amy's Choice: felt like a filler episode. Pointless. 5/10
   
7. The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood: this one should have been really good, but once again the end result was somehow less than the sum of its parts. 6/10
   
8. Vincent and the Doctor: an invisible giant budgie. Sigh. 4/10
   
9. The Lodger: interesting but didn't really seem like a complete story. 6/10
   
10. The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang: could see the 'twist' coming a mile off. As usual with season finales they tried to fit far too much into the story. Nice resolution, but would have benefited with some decent story writing. What happened to the guy who wrote 'The Girl in the Fireplace' and 'Blink'? They should get him back. 7/10

In the grand scheme of things I don't think this series was as good as Series 3 (with Martha; which is certainly my favourite series so far) or 4 (with Donna; next best) or even Series 1 (9th Doctor and Rose), but was much like Series 2 (10th Doctor and Rose) which had some good bits, but the overall effect was less than the sum of its parts.

Hopefully the 'new' Doctor will have got into his stride by the next series.

Reggie Perrin

I laughed only once in the first episode of Reggie Perrin last night. Probably won't bother with episode 2. Then again, I probably wouldn't find the original that entertaining if I was to revisit it today.

But what is it with BBC1 sitcoms? They're all unfunny!

Doctor Who: The Next Doctor

Was it just me, or wasn't it very good?

I mean, it had its moments, but it just failed to live up to expectations.

Nothing was genuinely scary, the Cybercats were just silly and the ending was just, well, a bit of a let down.

But lets face it, none of the Christmas specials have been better than an average episode. Given that they seem to put more effort into the specials, you'd expect more.

I hope the other 'specials' we're getting in 2009 will be a bit more, erm, special than that.

C- Must try harder.

X-Factor: Diana's hand

What is with Diana's left hand? She always has it up beside her cheek, sometimes palm forward, sometimes with the back to the camera. Even when they gave her a swing to hold on to, the hand kept popping back to its beside-cheek place... Somebody tell her not to!

I know what's inside a television...

A few days ago my four year old daughter and my wife had this conversation:
"Mummy, what is inside a television?"
"You should ask Daddy that"
"Does Daddy know what is inside a television?"
"Yes"
"Good"

And that was that. She has since then never asked me what is inside a television, she simply seems content in the knowledge that I know.

Armed with that knowledge, she has since been overheard asking other kids at her nursery "Does your Daddy know what is inside a television?" - but other four year olds don't seem to care about this issue.

Terry Pratchett's 'The Colour of Magic' (TV adaptation)

I managed to catch up with some of those movies and TV programmes that I'd recorded-but-not-yet-watched when I was on holiday recently. So I've now completed Smallville series 7 (generally fine, but got silly towards the end), Lost series 4 (interesting but a bit annoying) and I finally got around to watching the TV adaptation of Terry Pratchett's 'The Colour of Magic' which was on Sky at Easter time.

Having seen last year's 'Hogfather' adaptation (it was OK, but not nearly as magical as the book) I was vaguely intrigued to see what they would do next, and was a bit disappointed to discover that they'd picked one of TP's weaker books to adapt. 'Why didn't they at least go for 'The Light Fantastic', its a better story?' I wondered to myself.

But now that I've watched it I know that the TV adaptation is a blend of the first two Discworld books, 'The Colour of Magic' and 'The Light Fantastic', which (a) means that the source material is better than simply doing TCoM alone, and (b) means that more has to be chopped out to fit to a 4 hour running time (including adverts).
So, it was OK. It was faithful to the story, with all the wackiness still intact, but once again the witty narrative that drives all of TP's books along (particularly the early ones) is missing. I'm not sure how this could be translated from the page to the screen, but I'm sure it could have been done somehow.

I'm not sure what I would have thought of the story if I hadn't read the books. The plot jumped about a bit and there were many parts of the story - which were emphasised and developed in the books - which just had to be briefly mentioned in passing. So the sub-plot with Cohen and his troll teeth 'din-chewers' happened, but it was stripped of all its humour. The bit where Twoflower explains the concept of insurance to the publican happened, but was stripped of any real meaning. The bit where Treymon reads all the 8 spells and his mind collapses happened, but was stripped of all the horror of the 'nameless things' that take him over, and so on. So yes, it ticked all the boxes it needed to tick, but without knowing the story first, I'm not sure it would play very well. Sadly the sub-plot with the magical shop and the cursed shop keeper was dropped.

Or maybe it was fine if you saw it without having read the books, maybe its only because I know the gems that have been cut out that I'm a little bit disappointed.

But. The biggest problem I have with this adaptation was the casting. As I'm sure is clear to everyone, David Jason is not Rincewind, clearly Nigel Planer should have been cast in that part. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply wrong. Likewise, Sean Astin is not Twoflower. Tim Curry, on the other hand, was perfectly cast. And the Librarian was great.

So it was fine, looked good, ticked all the right boxes but was a bit muddled and soulless. But I will watch the next one when they do it. But why, oh why are they not doing 'Mort', 'Wyrd Sisters' or 'Guards! Guards!' next?

Doctor Who: 'The Stolen Earth' & 'Journey's End' (S4E12 & 13)

And so it ends (for this year at least). I've got to say that this has been the best of the four NuHu series so far, and by quite a margin. That's not to say that the previous three series weren't good, but is to say that this series was great throughout, with only a few dips towards 'alrightness' along the way.

If you haven't seen these episodes yet, don't read on, I'm sure to spoil something for you.

This two-parter followed the pattern laid down by previous Doctor Who two-parters in that it tried to achieve far too much in the first part. Too many characters converging and too many things going on. You put Donna and Martha together in one episode and we care. You put Donna and Rose together in one episode and we care. You put Donna and Martha and Jack and Rose and Sarah-Jane and the Doctor together and try to fit a plot into 45 minutes and we're struggling. By necessity the Torchwood team, Sarah-Jane's son and Mickey and Jackie got sidelined and we didn't have the time to actually care about any of them, which is a shame.

Also, the production team seems to think it is necessary to put the entire world in jeopardy at the end of every Doctor Who series. I'm not sure it really is. You can still pack a two parter with action and an emotional punch even if the entire world has not been ripped out of time and space.
But still. The Daleks are back. Yay! Davros is back. Double Yay! All the recent companions that we know and love are back. Yay! And then the best cliffhanger of any NuHu yet. What will happen next?

But still, I do agree with SFX (.co.uk) who said it was like an extended movie trailer - lots of snippets of what should be a much longer story. But the first half was clearly just there to be a set up for the second...

... and that was just fab. Davros showing the Doctor how he used his companions was a touch of genius, the Daleks talking in German was brilliant and the DoctorDonna was great. Everything that could have been wrong about Catherine Tate being cast as a companion thrown into one scene and somehow tranformed into pure class. 10 out of 10, Russell T.

Then thrown in a few silly bits and a pretty ropey plot whereby Donna has to have her memory wiped and is therefore written out - we knew it had to happen, but I'm sure there could have been a better way. With the prophesy of "One of them will die", I don't know why they couldn't just follow through on that. They killed off Kylie last Christmas, why not kill Donna off properly? In no real way did one of them die. It was a trick.

And of course the Rose storyline is now resolved and ended and she'll not be back again. I liked what they did there with the other Doctor, but it also felt like a little bit of a cheat. But I'm nit picking here at what was a fab ending to a great series. Well done the BBC.

So here's a quick summary of the whole series:

1. Partners in crime: Silly but entertaining. 7/10
2. Fires of Pompeii: Who as Who should be. 8/10
3. Planet of the Ood: A bit weak, but passes the time. 6/10
4. The Sontaran strategy: Entertaining. 7/10
   
5. The poison sky: Fun with dull bits. 7/10
6. The Doctor's daughter: Too simple a plot. 6/10
7. The unicorn and the wasp: Silly but entertaining. 7/10 (initially 5/10 but it grew on me)
   
8. Silence in the library: Brilliant and creepy. 9/10
   
9. Forest of the dead: Continuing brilliance and creepiness. 9/10
10. Midnight: Simple story, well told, some great moments. 8/10
    
11. Turn left: Genius. 10/10
12. The stolen earth: Too much happening, but a great roller coaster ride. 8/10
13. Journey's end: Emotion, heartbreak and some punch-the-air moments. 9/10

Wow, so an episode average of 7.7/10! That's pretty good. By my own scoring rules I should go and buy the DVDs, except that I wouldn't have time to watch them these days... Oh well.

So now its ages and ages until the next Doctor Who (OK, there's a Christmas special, but then ages before the next series). But at least they are making a new series of Torchwood after the summer, so that will hopefully hit our screens early in 2009. And for those of you who don't know, it will be a five-parter, continuous story, showing Monday to Friday one week. And will feature Noel Clarke as Mickey as the new boy on the Torchwood team.

Doctor Who: 'Turn Left' (S4E11)

I
loved
it
!

That is all I need to say.

The opening credits to next week's episode are going to go on about half the episode: David Tennant; Catherine Tate; Billie Piper; Freema Ageyman; Elizabeth Sladen; John Barrowman... I wonder if Eve Myles will get opening credits billing? And it looks fantastic. I wonder why so many conincidences happen around Donna?

Doctor Who: 'Midnight' (S4E10)

I quite enjoyed this episode too, even if it did oscillate between carefully observed characterisation and pure stereotype. It was well cast, suitably quirky, had the right amount of tension & release and was generally quite entertaining. Every time it was about to get annoying it managed to get out of it in time.

But I have two gripes.

The first is a complaint against the Radio Times who listed 'Billie Piper as Rose Tyler' in the credits. So I was all excited in an 'oooh, I wonder how they're going to bring Rose back' kind of a way, only to be disappointed that she only appeared onscreen for less than a second and isn't really back yet. (but next week...)

The second is against The Doctor himself. He quite spectacularly failed to save the day and it was only through the self sacrifice of one of the other characters that he (and everyone else) were saved from peril. Our hero failed. This show is all about how The Doctor is, essentially, a superhero and always cleverly saves the day. But this time he didn't, he failed, he lost. Was this because he was without an assistant in this episode? Will there be repercussions in future episodes? I guess we'll find out. But The Doctor himself only gets 4/10 for this episode. Not clever enough by half. Or possibly too arrogant.

Doctor Who: 'Silence in the library' & 'Forest of the dead' (S4E8&9)

Was it just me, or was that the best Doctor Who story of all four series so far?

Erm, probably spoilers in what follows... ;o)

Where should I start? Well, first off, the library setting was great. Looked not unlike something that should have been in Star Wars. And then the 'stay out of the shadows' thing was nicely creepy. Although the 'I have two shadows' thing was a bit silly.

But I can forgive them for that, there were some real gems in there. The whole idea of meeting up with a future assistant was great, although if the series runs for long enough it could give some real continuity problems - it is clear that Prof River Song knew this regeneration form of the Doctor, but significantly aged, so to keep the continuity line right we need to have David Tennant as Doctor for several years yet and then have a slightly younger River Song as an assistant. Possibly more than just an assistant if the hints were accurate... That could be tricky.

The whole library and vashta nerada (or however we're spelling that) thing would have been creepy enough, but the faces on the terminals and the data ghosts made the thing a whole heap more creepy. And then to put the whole thing inside the head of a small girl. Genius.

But what I didn't totally understand was what exactly it was that River Song did at the end that the Doctor was going to do? I had thought that the Doctor was going to upload all the 'saved' people into himself somehow, but the people all rematerialised in the library, so what did River actually sacrifice herself for?

But anyway, I thought it was great and it was the first two parter in a long time that didn't have an 'oh, get on with it' section in the middle somewhere. Fab.

Nancy (epilogue)

What did I tell you? The public, in their infinite wisdom, chose the worst of the three in the final of 'I'd do anything' on Saturday night. Sigh.

Personally, I think that Jodie won in the same way as Michelle McManus did on Pop Idol a few years ago (2003, actually) - she got the 'fat vote'.

Then again, none of my favourites have ever won any of these Saturday evening talent shows. The British public has no taste.

Nancy!

Regular readers of this blog who are interested in such things (hello Marcus!) will have observed that I watch some of the Saturday evening talent shows in the UK, but rarely comment on them until they are nearly at an end. Basically, I don't really care about the things until it gets down to the final few.

And so "I'd do anything" nears the end and, as usual, I have a last minute switch of loyalties and a last minute disappointment.

You see, I've been thinking that Jessie was clearly the best for most of the series, but she seems to have lost it a bit in the last couple of weeks and Samantha has just got better and better as time has gone on. And so the last minute switch of loyalties - I approached Saturday evening's show wanting Samantha to win, and to be joined by Jessie and Rachel in the final. I've been thinking that Jodie should be voted off for several weeks now, but the public seems to like her.

So what I was expecting last night was for Samantha and Jodie to be voted into the final and for Jessie and Rachel to face each other in the singoff (and I would then have expected Andrew Lloyd Webber to have saved Jessie). That's what I was expecting. On the basis of the actual performances on Saturday I thought the singoff should have been between Jodie and Jessie as Rachel and Samantha were both excellent on Saturday.

But of course my opinions and expectations were both wrong and (on the basis of this weekend's shows) the best two performers had to do the singoff. And of course ALW had to save Samantha.

And it was at that point I found myself absolutely gutted that Rachel was out of the show. Her final performance of 'As long as he needs me' was completely over-acted, over-emoted, over-cockneyed and over-everything-elsed, but was absolutely brilliant and the best send off of anyone in the series so far. She should have been in the final. Furthermore, in all the interview bits this weekend, she came across as the nicest of the four (ok, they're all hugely ego-tastic at this stage, but she did have a degree of humility that Jodie and Samatha particularly are lacking).

So what will happen next week? Well, I'm back to wanting Jessie to win, but won't mind if Samantha does. However, I fear that Jodie will win the public vote and go on to star in the west end show (and then burn out after 6 months and vanish from the public eye). Of course, the others will all get stage work, I have no doubts that Samantha will be a leading lady in something big before she's 20 - lets face it, she's already done the audition for Wicked if Kerry Ellis ever decides to stop doing it... but only time will tell. And I'll probably be wrong, as usual.

Doctor Who: 'The Unicorn and the Wasp' (S4E7)

Was alright, I suppose. Next...

---

Updated following Marcus's comment below:

Yes, sorry, I felt the need to comment on that one but didn't have the time. I quite liked it but also felt it was overly silly (a giant wasp?) and overly talky for its own good. The whole thing about why the wasp did everything in the style of an Agatha Christie story was one plot contrivance too far. But I think the overall idea of trying to do a Doctor Who murder mystery was great, I'm just not convinced the actual end result was as good as it should have been.

Doctor Who: 'The Doctor's Daughter' (S4E6)

I liked this one, but it was a bit of a let down too.

The idea of creating a daughter for the Doctor was good, but given that the whole story had to be wrapped up in 45 minutes, the whole thing was kind of lacking. This would have been done better in the old days where the story could have been played out over a month or six weeks.

So the underlying point - the Doctor gets a daughter - had to be wrapped in the simplest, primary coloured, paper thin plot they could come up with. Why were the Hath and the humans there? Never properly explained. Why did they have guns and replicating equipment and not much else? Never properly explained. Etc. Etc.

Still, some good points were made about nature vs nurture and making your own choices and all that. But it was all too lightly done and too quick. It is possible to convey a story with some meat on it in 45 minutes.

Nice touch that Jenny, the Doctor's daughter, was played by the daughter of a previous incarnation of the Doctor, Peter Davison. And she's a babe, so she's welcome back on my TV anytime. I get the feeling this isn't the last we'll see of her.

Doctor Who: 'The Sontaran Strategy' & 'The Poison Sky' (S4E4&5)

I do like Doctor Who two parters. Indeed, I do like Doctor Who six parters, but we haven't had any of those for a long time.

I don't really remember the Sontarans from the old days. Or rather, I remember what they looked like, but not anything about their characters. Their modern day appearance is slightly more Vogon than they were in the 70s.

So, there were a few plot holes, but on the whole this was a reasonably entertaining story. Like many of the NuHu two parters, there was a bit in the second episode where I felt like shouting 'Oh, get on with it!' at the screen, but it was still good fun.

Martha Jones was a bit underused, really. [Spoiler alert] It seems that the Sontarans went to huge bother to create a clone of Martha, just so she could press the 'no' button every few minutes. Not a great part really. But nice to see her back anyway.

Going by the preview, next week could be interesting, but I just wish they'd get on with it and do the story where Rose finally catches up with the Doctor. Preferably when Martha is still there...

Doctor Who: 'Planet of the Ood' (S4E3)

Poor Ood. They have a hard time of it.

So we're back to plots written in crayon again. Lots of guns, lots of running about, some senseless death, a few hiccups in the plot and a political message written about as large as it is possible to write it. In crayon. Yes, we get the point.

Still, it had some good moments, and I am now actively liking the character of Donna.

Oh, but the reveal of what it is the Ood naturally hold in their hands instead of the translator ball was just plain silly.

Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii (S4E2)

Loved it. I thought the seers declaring things they couldn't have known about the Doctor & Donna was great. I thought the little insights into the characters of both the Doctor and Donna were good too. I think I like what they're doing with the character of Donna and the relationship between the two. The FX were nice, the plot and supporting characters interesting and the twist was fab.

More like this please.

Doctor Who: 'Partners in Crime' (S4E1)

Doctor Who returns. Yay!

Donna returns. Hmmm?

Cute alien blobs. Nice.

Technobabble & sonic screwdrivers that can do everything. Erm.

Well, I suppose it was OK. Donna could get annoying or she could be OK. I'll get back to you on that one. Reasonably entertaining. Next.

And Rose? Well, that's where it could get interesting...

Torchwood: S2E10 - S2E13

Oooh, a lack of blogging of late means that I have four episodes of Torchwood to review in one go... here goes. Probably spoilers in here, so tread carefully.

Episode 10: From out of the rain

Hmmm. A genuinely creepy episode. Or rather, the characters and concepts were really creepy, but the actual plot was a bit dull. I wish the character of 'Pearl' had been fleshed out a bit more, what actually did she do at the circus? What exactly was her affinity with water? And Jack was in there somewhere, but we never really found out why. Argh, so many questions, so few answers. A strange mix of interesting and disappointing.

Episode 11: Adrift

It seems that Ruth Jones is in every BBC Wales/BBC Three production at the moment. She's in Gavin & Stacey, was in Little Britain, Nighty Night, Saxondale and now here she is in Torchwood. Playing a character she isn't yet old enough to play (actually, I just checked, she's 42, so I guess she is actually old enough to play the parent of a 17 year old boy, must be me getting old...). She did a good job too.

Quite a moving episode, lots of what passes for emotion in sci-fi and a bit of a moral grey area dilemma, which is always good. Jean Luc Picard would probably have violated the prime directive here too. Everything was good up to the point when we saw part of Jonah's 20 hours a day torment, which was when it went silly. Nevermind, good effort.

Episode 12: Fragments

Four explosions (how did Capt John know that they'd split up and Gwen wouldn't be there?) result in four members of the team having life-flashing-before-their-eyes moments. Except only those bits of their life when they joined Torchwood. So finally we get the story of how Jack joined Torchwood. Good. And I suppose learning how the others joined was vaguely interesting too. But the Ianto story was just silly and is rewriting history, because he didn't have an interesting character in Series 1, so how come he had an interesting character before Series 1?

Episode 13: Exit wounds

And so it ends. In most end of season sci-fi episodes you need explosions, plot twists, the return of characters from earlier in the series and the unexpected writing out of a recurring character. Usually the entire world is in danger, or possibly just Cardiff if your budget doesn't stretch to the world. So nothing greatly unexpected here. I've been waiting for them to finally kill off Owen since he became undead about 5 episodes ago, so they finally did it. Good. It would have just got too annoying if they hadn't.

And now the yo-yo character of Captain John. He's good, he's bad, he kills Jack, he loves Jack, oh I don't care anymore. Please don't bring him back for Series 3, if there is a Series 3.

Now let me get this straight, Jack was buried about 6 or 10 feet down in the soil for 2000 years. During that time presumably he died quite a lot of times. But how come he couldn't manage to dig himself up even just an inch each time? Surely in 2000 years he'd have managed to get out? Didn't quite ring true... for a given sci-fi value of true, that is.

And finally the bad guy. 'Gray' is such a bad name for a character. How did they come up with that one? And I just didn't buy it. Sorry, but the explosions and mayhem were good, Gwen being a hero was good, the deaths of major characters were good, the Toshiko from beyond the grave bit was good, but the basic underlying plot was pretty rubbish. I suppose on balance that comes out as better than average, but it still disappointed.

Doctor Who next though...