An Hour of Who a Day: April 17: "Dreamland"

April 17: "Dreamland"

And here we are, with Doctor Who's second (and to date final) foray into the world of animation: "Dreamland". This began airing on the BBC's Red Button on 21 November (so the day after The Gift finished) in smaller chunks, similarly to how "The Infinite Quest" was broken up in 2007, before it aired in its entirety on 5 December on BBC Two. Unlike "The Infinite Quest", we get a look at a completely CG version of Doctor Who. The result isn't exactly pleasant.

It actually looks decent in stills, as you can see from the DVD cover and the screenshot further down (even if it's kind of ugly), but once it has to start moving it's initially incredibly jarring -- they don't move smoothly, and there aren't many unnecessary pieces of animation. This means that we get oddly stilted-feeling performances from the characters -- in particular the Doctor, who when robbed of David Tennant's body language feels really strange; you don't realize just how much Tennant puts into his physical performance until it's removed. Of course, the minute anyone has to start running it looks like animation from a Nintendo 64 game, with slow-moving legs and a sort of sliding motion. And while you do start to adjust to the style after a few minutes, there are lots of awkward chase sequences to pull you right back out again.

Where the animation excels, though, is when it's called upon to realize things that would be difficult to do in live-action. The opening moments with the spaceship being chased down to Earth (hey, look, it's the same ship that we saw in Prisoner of the Judoon, just like they said!) are impressive, and all the aliens look great -- the Viperox in particular are a great creation, even if the image of the Viperox queen laying eggs makes it hard not to think about the Slurm Queen from Futurama. I also like how Doctor Who finally tackles the subject of the "Grey" aliens of popular culture and has them just be misunderstood. And all the scenes of the barren New Mexican desert are really well done as well.

But the main advantage that "Dreamland" has is a good script from Phil Ford. Although it's somewhat hampered by having to have a cliffhanger every 6 minutes or so, there's a scope to this story that's quite lovely. We move through several different locations (all well realized) at quite a fast clip, but it never feels rushed or unnecessary -- and the appearance of more and more interested parties doesn't seem cluttered but rather natural. It makes sense that the Men in Black (OK, the Alliance of Shades) don't want alien involvement to be discovered, and it's a clever move to make them androids. Jimmy Stalkingwolf's grandfather and his fellow American Indians make a brief appearance, but it makes sense. There are a lot of Army personnel about, but they fit into the story. It's all handled really well, and Jimmy Stalkingwolf is a really great character -- I found myself cheering for him quite a bit, even while I could barely remember Cassie's name. Colonel Stark also gets a chance to not be a close-minded warmonger, as he decides to listen to the Doctor even though Stark thinks he sounds like a Communist. (Great line about this by the way: "I thought the fifties were supposed to be a time for optimism," the Doctor complains. "I mean, you think you're going to have flying cars in another ten years." "Yeah, sure, if the Reds don't nuke us first," Cassie replies pessimistically. "The Reds? Manchester United?" the Doctor responds, confused. "Oh, the Russians," he then realizes.)

If it weren't for the fact that so much of this is unappealing to actually look at, "Dreamland" would stand proudly with its fellow specials. But because it looks rather primitive and ugly at times (and that it wasn't really promoted as one of David Tennant's specials, but more as a curiosity), it's a story that's been largely forgotten (if you were even aware of it at all). That's a shame; the story itself is really good. Maybe you can just close your eyes and experience it as an audio story instead.