The sonic's 762nd function is the JJ Abrams Effector.
Rarely used.
Doctor Who has been far too big a part of my life since its 2005 resurrection for me to ignore it on this blog, and a scathing (but completely accurate) review of a now-forgotten Wii game several years back seems insufficient. So begins Time Capsule, which is/will be a series of mini-reviews (or capsule reviews) covering a large selection of Who stories (over the course of many years, hence time - see how clever I am with my title choices and weep) since trying to go full-depth with a show that's run this long will keep me busy 'til Doomsday. Hell, by then I'd barely be up to the actual episode called 'Doomsday'. Although it might be a gentle relief if the world ended before I had to watch that one again.
Since his time in the TARDIS ended last Christmas - and since I've basically got his whole run on shiny blu-ray for reference - I'm starting out with a look at Doc 11, Matt Smith, him with the bow tie and inexplicable wavy fringe. Smith's run - especially the latter half of it - got to be very wearying for me, and I know I'm not alone in that, but it's been a while since I've ventured back to the start of his tenure, and I'm very excited to switch off the part of my brain that knows who River Song is and has so many conflicting ideas about the Silence I can't make heads or tails of them anymore. Off we go then!
(one last note in advance: the series and story numbering I'm using here is cribbed from the Counter-X listing and extended to cover more recent fare, which means it might not fit with some other listings. I'm also counting any new-Who 2-parters as single stories because, well, they bloody are)
The Eleventh Hour (Series 31, Story 208)
"You know how adults say 'everything's gonna be fine' and you think they're probably lying just to make you feel better?...everything's gonna be fine."
First episodes, even ones not hamstrung by the demands of the American TV system's weird 'pilot' mindset, are always a tricky proposition, forced as they are with establishing the core cast well enough that anyone tuning in will feel some sort of bond to them, plus telling a self-contained yarn that slots into 40 minutes without feeling slight, plus more often than not teasing long-running plot threads to give those with a short attention span due reason to keep tuning in. Getting the balance right borders on alchemy, and I've learned over time not to let a few early missteps put me off a show (of recent fare, Agents of SHIELD immediately springs to mind).
The Eleventh Hour, on the other hand, is one of those magical times where everything just works out perfectly. Okay, so it's not really a 'first' episode, even if we're only talking new-Who here, but it was Steven Moffat's debut as showrunner, with a brand new Doctor and brand new companion(s) to introduce, and it's done with such an assured hand it's unbelievable. Right from his first line, Smith commands your attention like an opera dame and doesn't let go until the credits hit; his Doctor isn't quite fully formed here, stripped of most of his signature tics and spouting dialogue that would sound natural coming from his predecessor, but his loopy, flailing energy shines through. Karen Gillan's Amy Pond benefits from having a unique arc to her relationship with the Doctor that goes full circle over the course of this single episode, from her child self's starry-eyed adulation through her sense of betrayal over his long absence to eventually forgive and embrace something of what made her a child in the first place.
Moffat's script is amazingly tight, especially since it left enough space for at least two rather indulgent sequences (the wordless all-action pre-titles flight and the extended mucking around in Amelia's kitchen) and somehow doesn't feel rushed. Neither Prisoner Zero nor the Atraxi are villains for the ages but they're defined in neat terms, and their respective powers/limitations dovetail together to make the Doctor's solution feel like off-the-cuff genius without being too convenient. Throw in the completely believable Leadworth with its varied small-town folks, some utterly gorgeous photography and the beginnings of the season-long 'cracks' plot handled discreetly and it's difficult to imagine how this could be any better. 10 out of 10.
~+~
The Beast Below (Series 31, Story 209)
"And once every five years, everyone chooses to forget what they've learned? Democracy in action."
The Beast Below is a pretty ambitious tale, though it doesn't quite hit all of the targets it's going for. The relationship between the Doctor and Amy is cemented here, as Amy makes her first (perceived) mistakes and we see how the Doctor handles that. Smith is moulding the role more to his liking here, displaying the old-man hand-wringing, whirling on the spot and excitable babbling that would come to define his Time Lord. And Gillan stays on the right side of plucky, never losing Amy's sense of awe in the face of this flying backwards space-state while still remaining brassy in the face of questioning. Add to that Sophie Okonedo's enjoyably broad turn as gun-toting cockney royal Liz Ten and the performances alone could carry the episode.
They don't quite have to, though, and that's largely down to the set/production design. Starship UK is an odd place, but it seems real, with all its retro technology and recognisable iconography - the red phone booths, the Vators using the London Underground logo, etc. - which fools the mind enough that you don't question why the streets always seem to be rain-slicked despite the impossibility of rainfall on a spaceship, and other such wibbles. Well...okay, I question the Smilers. Robot sentinels watching over the populace with creepy fixed faces, empowered to 'deal with' anyone who pokes their nose in the wrong corners, fine. But why are they clockwork, other than it sounded cool to someone? This feels like one of those times where the visual design for the monster came first, and the script had to either tie itself in knots explaining it, or just blithely ignore it and hope no-one notices.
There's also an attempt at social commentary regarding the function of government, and whether they owe the truth to their people even when it's a truth nobody wants to hear, which is quite forced, but I'm used to that from Who. It's just a bit of a shame that the attempts to humanise the government and show how they're paying a terrible cost for continued existence is somewhat broken by dint of casting the bloke who used to be the Demon sodding Headmaster as their leader. That plus some deeply unnecessary spoooooooky nursery rhymes (a recurring Moffat schtick that makes little to no sense in this case) knock this one down a few pegs, but it's an enjoyable romp all the same. 7 out of 10.
~+~
Victory of the Daleks (Series 31, Story 210)
"Behold the restoration of the Daleks! The resurrection of the master race!"
Mark Gatiss is not a writer I've ever had cause to credit for much, at least as far as Who goes. His first script for the show, The Unquiet Dead back in Chris Eccleston's day, is probably still his best effort, and even that's a fairly by-the-numbers ghost story with a shoehorned-in historical celebrity. Since then, each subsequent Gatiss story has amounted to an excuse for raiding the BBC's period drama costume store, some very hammy guest stars, and a sense of profound disappointment as reasonably interesting set-ups are wasted without their true worth even remotely shining. Assigning this man the task of crafting the still fresh-faced Eleventh Doctor's first encounter with his most iconic enemies sounded like a recipe for disaster...and it pretty much is.
There's very little real development for the Doctor or Amy here, so it's just as well Smith and Gillan are already comfortable enough to basically coast by on their personalities and chemistry. Beyond them, Ian McNiece's Churchill suffers by not particularly looking or sounding like the real man (whose appearance and voice have been preserved so well since the 40s that the discrepancy can't be ignored) though he's got the right sort of spirit, and he's playing up to the typical broadness common in all Gatiss stories. He also gets to smoke openly without anyone launching a polemic about lung cancer at him, which in this day and age is kind of amazing. Bill Paterson is effective as Professor Bracewell, though the script short-changes him by putting his major development in scenes where he's not quite the centre of attention. And of course, Nicholas Briggs handles the Dalek voices with aplomb, and it's great to hear the more bassy rumble that previously belonged to the Emperor getting rolled out again for the new Supreme.
The story itself is painfully slight, dedicating about half of its runtime to the Doctor basically finding 500 different ways to say "don't trust the Daleks" to Churchill, and though the salt-shakers playing subservient ("WOULD YOU CARE FOR SOME TEEEAAA?!") is amusing and a nice callback to The Power of the Daleks there just isn't enough done with the idea to make it feel like more than a gimmick, just so Character Options have a few more canned phrases to use in the next bunch of remote-control toy Daleks. And their overall plan is exactly the wrong kind of stupid, protracted nonsense which gets resolved with what feels like 20 minutes left, much of which is taken up by a CGI'd dogfight which would've been kinda neat if it involved established characters. Instead, all the main players are reduced to spectators, with the Doctor's role limited to punching some buttons in the TARDIS that do something, I think. And then there's a last-minute 'gotcha!' reversal which comes completely out of left-field and feels almost insulting in its banality.
Ugh...what can I say that's nice about this one? Well, I liked the New Paradigm Daleks in all their pride-parade colour glory. The boosted height gives them a much more imposing silhouette, and I like both the exaggerated proportions and the stripped-back detailing. If only they actually lived up to their melodramatic debut, but, that's a concern for later. The set design is good. It's a period piece, of course, and the Beeb probably have standing sets for every pre-70s decade, so it's not exactly a surprise but I'll take what I can get. Of course, the downside to setting a story in WW2 is it turns the nationalism dial up to 'MURRICA levels, and we get much talk about Brit grit and sockin' it to Adolf and shots of Union jacks (oh shut up, I don't care what they're supposed to be called) fluttering in the breeze. It's not cool when the yanks pull this crap, and we should by rights have enough sense to avoid their potholes. 3 out of 10.
~+~
The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone (Series 31, Story 211)
"If you're smart, if you value your continued existence, if you have any plans about seeing tomorrow then there's one thing you never, ever put in a trap. Me."
The Weeping Angels are rightly considered to be one of the select few truly iconic Who monsters, which is all the more impressive given new-Who's track record with rubbish like the Slitheen and their tendency to use classic beasties as a crutch. Nevertheless, there's something inherently creepy about innocuous statues, and though Blink probably isn't the masterpiece it was first touted as, it was a very smart thriller that fully exploited the possibilities of time travel in a way this show usually can't be bothered with. Their big comeback story, the first 2-parter of Smith's run, doesn't quite live up to Blink in terms of intelligence but it's got its own strengths.
The Time of Angels feels something of a functional story now, as its main value was in moving along the season-long plot r.e. the cracks in time, and ignoring the massive coincidence of a crack appearing amidst the Aplan ruins just when the Doctor and Amy visit, the continuing teases are worked into the story very smoothly here. (if there was some explanation made as to the cracks' opportune placement it's not in this story) (and yes, I know the crack was actually on the Byzantium, but if my reading is right these things are ruptures in the fabric of the universe, so if the ship wasn't there it would still be in the maze of the dead...right?) This story also marks the first of many appearances for River Song (Alex Kingston) during Smith's run. I'll openly admit to growing very tired of Kingston's brassy flirting schtick rather quickly, but her easy banter with Smith is welcome, and here she's not quite the attention-hog she'd grow to be.
Beyond them, the cast is quite thin, limited to a squad of vaguely religious soldiers, most of whom die in short order without really growing any sort of personality, though Iain Glen makes the bishop engaging through performance alone. The Angels themselves remain spooky, though their implied personality seems to have changed drastically. In Blink they were 'the lonely assassins' who killed you as kindly as possible; here, they go around snapping necks like Steven Seagal and strip out some poor schlub's brainstem just so they can borrow his voice and taunt the Doctor with it, which is pretty much the height of unnecessary evil.
As with many of newWho's 2-parters, Time of Angels has about 1 episode's worth of solid story in it that gets stretched out through an extended chase, but at least in this case the downtime features some unpredictable moments thanks to the Angels' expanding repertoire of tricks, Amy's sickness and some solid character beats. Of course, the flipside of that is that the Angels are saddled with even more increasingly restrictive rules about how they work, which continues to limit their worth as a recurring threat. The reason the Daleks have appeared so often is that they're very simple: the only key components are shouting and shooting people. Get that right and anything else goes.
After the accurate but bland looks of Victory, Time reasserts the show's new artistic side. Yes, we've seen plenty of beaches and caves masquerading as alien worlds before, but with just the right amount of greenscreen and some clever lighting the maze of the dead feels wholly convincing, and the oxygen factory has an odd stillness to it that belies its artificial nature. There's also some lovely surreal touches sprinkled throughout, like the opening scene with the drugged guard and gravel pouring from Amy's eye. This one's not quite as good as the sum of its parts, but those parts are very good indeed. 8 out of 10.
~+~
To be continued.
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