series 1

July 11, 2011

Rot & Brilliance

Jack Graham age of steel, army of ghosts, bad wolf, christmas invasion, doomsday, girl in the fireplace, love and monsters, new earth, rise of the cybermen, rob shearman, satan pit, school reunion, series 1, tooth and claw 0

Series 2. The Great Disappointment. Mostly Timelash II material… but some new stuff, especially on ‘Girl in the Fireplace’ and the Cybermen 2-parter.

The Christmas Invasion

Easily the best Christmas special. Fun without being stupid. Epic without being maniacally over-the-top.

I’ve never been sure about the putative Belgrano parallel, though its undoubtedly in there. Harriet’s actions seem far more rooted in the whole cultural atmosphere of the “war on terror”, with the ongoing public debate amongst liberals and lefties about ruthless pragmatism to protect “our civillisation” vs. principled non-aggression and/or anti-imperialism, etc…

It’s interesting to compare Harriet’s liberal ruthlessness with the Doctor’s much-vaunted “no second chances” thing. The Doctor, for all his hard-faced and unforgiving dispatching of the Sycorax leader, only kills when he has to – his foe has been warned, is breaking a promise, is directly attacking him, etc. Moreover, his act is man to man. Harriet’s actions are an act of state terrorism against a retreating enemy, done in the name of showing strength against possible future attacks.

New Earth

Apart from ‘The Empty Child’ (which is a whole can of worms by itself), this is the nearest the new series has come to doing a story about the body.

It has mutants, medicines, cat people and a grotesquely fat man who is turning to stone… the physical concerns continue into the main subplot, which is a ‘body-swap’ comedy of the type that Hollywood produced by the hundredweight in the late 80s (all of them, as far as I can recall, starring either Tom Hanks or people who built their entire careers on looking and sounding vaguely like Tom Hanks). It’s quite funny, but it goes on too long and gets tiresome.

Mind you, it should be noted just how much ‘New Earth’ owes to ‘Revelation of the Daleks’. In the secret, gothic depths below a swanky professional institution seemingly devoted to healing, ghastly experiments are afoot which treat humans as raw material, etc.

Sadly, little attention has been paid to making the plot make much sense on any level. The Face of Boe has something to tell the Doctor… and suddenly decides not to because he’s suddenly not dying anymore. The richest man on the planet is waiting in an open ward of a charity hospital. The more interesting visual and thematic ideas are neglected in favour of shambling zombies (who are, like, a metaphor about vivisection… or something) who get cured by a mixture of colours that can cure all known disease. One wonders why the cat nuns bother to do all those experiments, since they’re already in possession of a panacea based on colourful liquids.

The wet, Moffatesque, everybody lives, aren’t-humans-wonderful ending is pretty sickening, to be honest. RTD’s original idea was much better.

And how can we possibly be expected to sympathise with Cassandra? She’s a mass-murdering psychopath whose subdued final attitude stems entirely from self pity.

Loads of potentially great ideas, put in a blender and thrown against a wall. This is barely bearable precisely because its so nearly good.…

July 10, 2011

Childhood’s End

Jack Graham bad wolf, boom town, delta and the bannermen, doctor dances, empty child, father's day, greatest show in the galaxy, long game, mark gatiss, parting of the ways, paul cornell, rob shearman, rose, rtd, series 1, steven moffat, the master, unquiet dead 1

Shabgraff does Series 1 of the revival. It’s my blather from Timelash II, plus a little new stuff. (I may do something separate about ‘The End of the World’ at some point.) This is about a series which works because its about a young woman growing up. I feel like I’ve grown up too, in a sense, since 2005… which is why my opinions about Series 1 have drastically changed since first viewing.

Rose

I have never been able to entirely make up my mind about this.

The characterisation is glib, sneering at ditzy blonde ‘chavvy’ people who say silly things about making legal claims and flirt with anything in sight, etc (admittedly, this improves later in the series)… not to mention having a LAD character who is OBSESSED WITH FOOTBALL (as are all men, obviously), probably looks at porn on the internet and is stupid (this doesn’t improve ever… though, in fairness to RTD’s writing, it might’ve helped if they’d cast somebody who could act, even just a little bit).

There are things about it that are puzzlingly wrong… just off somehow… like the way Rose calls for a lone store caretaker (!) and calls him “Wilson”, as though he’s an underfootman or something. Huh?

Plus, the music is absolutely awful. And about half the comedy bombs. I know we’re all supposed to look down our more-sophisticated-and-ironic-than-thou noses at people who hate the wheelie bin… but it’s still stupid.

There are some great things in it, however. They whole idea of the Autons being the first monster in the new series is inspired… and they’re quite well done… though, obviously, the priority was to use monsters that were on Earth in the present day, i.e. to make the initial setting as inoffensive to sneery meedja types as possible.

This really is the underlying logic of the whole episode: appease the meedja. Look meedja, it’s a “serious” actor… and he’s not wearing anything naff, he’s wearing a leather jacket, etc. Look meedja, a pop star/lad’s mag companion! Look meedja, London (the only place people like you think fucking exists).

Luckily there’s enough magic in the TARDIS and the Autons and Chris (who’s miscast but good anyway) and the excellent Billie Piper (who will be the unexpected jewel of the first series) to make the whole thing watchable and, often, fun.

Oh, and the ferocious, unrelenting, slavering meedja hype helped too, I imagine.

There’s a germ of something interesting in the Doctor’s appearance as a lone bomber (soon junked)… and the geeky internet bloke who’s somewhere between an obsessed fan, a conspiracy theorist and a cultural dissident. It suggests a support for the uncool, the obsessional, the underground that strangely belies the meedja-pleasing and brand-resurrecting surface priorities on display.

The Autons retain their original charge as emblems of commodity fetishism… products become autonomous and threatening because they represent alienated labour. Rose’s status as a wage slave only emphasises these undertones, as does the Doctor’s reference to a “price war” and the Auton’s imperialistic lust for our plastic (oil).…