February 21: "The Infinite Quest"

But before we get to the climactic series 3 finale, there's a piece of Doctor Who to deal with first...

Throughout series 3, the spin-off show Totally Doctor Who (which was a show designed primarily for children, giving them behind-the-scenes looks and testing their knowledge and resourcefulness) has been running an animated story -- with the voices of David Tennant and Freema Agyeman -- in roughly three-minute installments (so, strictly speaking, I haven't followed this story chronologically with the rest of series 3).  The final installment aired at the end of the edited-together "Omnibus" edition, which was broadcast immediately before "Last of the Time Lords" (if I'm reading the BBC's Genome website correctly, that is).  Hence why I've decided to watch it at this point in series 3.¹⁸⁸

Technically it's rather well done.  The animation is really quite gorgeous, with lots of clean lines and some very smooth movement -- we've come a long way since Scream of the Shalka four years ago.  It also helps that everyone in the cast seems fully committed to making this as good as possible, with no one phoning it in.  (It probably doesn't hurt that a number of the cast -- David Tennant included -- are veterans of the Big Finish audio dramas.)  Anthony Head does a fine job as the main villain Baltazar, and Freema Agyeman seems to be having a good time with this too.

The Doctor and Martha confront Baltazar. ("The Infinite Quest") ©BBC

Where it falls down is the storyline.  Writer Alan Barnes (one of the more talented and prolific spin-off writers -- particularly in the audio format) has given us a relatively simple and straightforward quest storyline, as the Doctor and Martha try to track down an ancient spaceship called the Infinite before Baltazar can get his evil hands on it.  This is pretty clearly because the story is broken up into segments -- most of the locations are only on-screen for seven minutes or so -- but, watched all together, this is oddly like viewing a version of The Keys of Marinus that's been compressed into 45 minutes -- right down to the nature of the quest (data chips instead of keys, but the principle's the same).  Barnes tries to make a virtue of this, with lots of exotic locations and strange creatures (with the dung city and the giant insect queen being a highlight), but ultimately there's not much he can do.

Still, it's not too dumb or anything, and it generally remains entertaining throughout.  It's about as deep as a kiddie pool, but again, this is because of the nature of the beast.  No, in the end this is another pleasantly average and inoffensive story: fun enough while it lasts, but nothing particularly memorable about it.







¹⁸⁸ In terms of internal chronology, it's worth noting that Martha's still wearing the outfit she wore in the first few episodes, when she was on her "one trip."  I'm going to tentatively suggest this takes place between "Gridlock" and "Daleks in Manhattan", but your mileage may vary.

February 20: "The Sound of Drums"

The second part¹⁸⁶ of series 3's three-part finale (just like an old 6-parter!) brings us back to contemporary London, with our heroes able to escape after the Doctor fixes Jack's Vortex Manipulator.  The Master is in fact this Harold Saxon person we've been hearing about since "Love & Monsters", and he's just become Prime Minister.  That, of course, puts the Doctor and company in danger, what with the Master declaring them to be "Public enemies number one, two, and three" and all.

The Master introduces his allies, the Toclafane. ("The Sound of
Drums") ©BBC

It's occasionally hard to tell what John Simm is doing as the Master -- sometimes it looks like he's not taking this remotely seriously.  But that's clearly meant to be the point: this is a Master full of energy and life, in a very similar way to David Tennant's Doctor.  The difference is that the Master is completely unhinged.  But that doesn't mean he can't have a good time while he's being insane and evil.  (I really like the scene with the Cabinet and the gas mask, which combines this sense of fun with being evil.)  And we can in fact tell that this silliness is a part of the character (as opposed to Simm taking the piss) because of how serious his phone conversation with the Doctor is.  The conversation about the fate of Gallifrey, and how the Master was resurrected (and note the choice of word there -- presumably that's to deal with what was seen at the end of the TV Movie, but it's written vaguely enough that you can have all sorts of interpretations and theories about the Master's fate) to fight in the Time War, only to run away and hide, is proof that Simm can be serious as the Master.  What this means is that the combination of the two (serious and wacky) make for a dangerous individual, and clearly shows how the Master is meant to be the Doctor's counterpart.  And it definitely is the Master -- Davies slips in some references to the old Master just to make it explicit (his watching of Teletubbies harkens back to watching Clangers in The Sea Devils, and his line "Peoples of the Earth, please attend carefully" is deliberately meant to resemble the beginning of the Master's proclamation to the universe in Logopolis).

In many ways this story is a bit of a treat for long-time fans: in the Doctor's descriptions of the Master, we get some lovely views of Gallifrey as it was, complete with Time Lords wearing those Deadly Assassin high collars and the reappearance of the Seal of Rassilon (that figure-eight design).  But we also get an explanation for the Master's villainy after the fact: he's doing it because of the constant drumming in his head, because looking into the time vortex (via the Untempered Schism on Gallifrey) drove him mad.  (And as an aside, note how the young Master's costume is meant to look like the ones we saw in The War Games.)  We also get some fun dialogue between Martha and the Doctor about the relationship between the Doctor and the Master:

MARTHA: And what is he to you?  Like a colleague, or...
DOCTOR: A friend, at first.
MARTHA: I thought you were going to say he was your secret brother or something.
DOCTOR: You've been watching too much TV.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - The Sound of Drums)

(There's also a lovely line, after the Doctor describes how a perception filter works: "It's like when you fancy someone and they don't even know you exist.  That's what it's like."  It's slightly annoying because that's Martha's "thing", the unrequited love bit, and the Doctor's just oblivious to it, but then Jack turns it on its head into a genuinely funny moment: "You too, huh?" he says, looking at Martha.)

This episode spends a lot of time setting things up for the final few minutes, as Harold Saxon has announced to the world that first contact with an alien race is going to happen the next morning.  This seems to happen on a UNIT helicarrier called the Valiant (so, not at all like Captain Scarlet's Cloudbase/Marvel Comics's SHIELD helicarrier, then (delete according to preference)), with the proceedings being run (briefly) by the US President Winters.¹⁸⁷  It's an action-packed climax, to be sure -- President Winters assassinated (on live television, it seems), the Doctor reduced to an old man (thanks to the Master's laser screwdriver -- "Who'd have sonic?" he asks derisively), Jack killed ("And the good thing is, he's not dead for long!" the Master exclaims.  "I get to kill him again!"), and Martha on the run with Jack's teleport, as the skies fill with billions of Toclafane, raining death from the skies while Rogue Traders' "Voodoo Child" plays on the Valiant.  How are they going to wrap this all up in "Last of the Time Lords"?  It's hard to say, but if that's anything like these first two installments, we'll be in for a real treat.







¹⁸⁶ There's actually a bit of debate as to whether "Utopia" counts as its own story or as part 1 of 3.  Russell T Davies has said that he thinks of it as a standalone episode that sets up the finale, and "Utopia" has some characteristics that set it apart from "The Sound of Drums" and "Last of the Time Lords": it has a different director (Graeme Harper) than the other two (Colin Teague) -- which isn't unprecedented (see, for instance, The Daleks) -- and it was filmed in a different production block, which is unprecedented.  However, Davies made his comment in a column explaining why you need to make the end of series 3 one 3-part story in order to get "Planet of the Dead" to be story #200, which is how they were promoting that episode (you also have to make The Trial of a Time Lord one story in order for that numbering to work -- in other words, there's no way you can have Dragonfire be story 150 and have "Planet of the Dead" be story 200 at the same time).  Doctor Who Magazine thinks it's one story, mind, and most people have followed suit.  But not all.
¹⁸⁷ Much has been made by people (myself included, at one point) by the fact that Winters introduces himself to the Toclafane as "President-elect of the United States", which would seem to suggest that he's not actually the President yet, and so has been elected but not yet sworn in.  This would have been between November 2008 and January 2009 and thus looks like an effort by Davies to stick with the "current year+1" dating.  Except that causes all sorts of havoc with the rest of the dates we've seen in the series (regarding Saxon's election campaign in particular), which are hard enough to sort out without this extra bit of information.  In order to accommodate the other dates, some people have suggested that perhaps the timing of the election in the United States has moved -- but to an American, this would be like moving the dates of Decimal Day in the UK and thus isn't a great solution.  But what's also interesting is that this is the only time Winters is referred to as "President-elect" -- in every other case (in dialogue and on-screen graphics) it's simply "President Winters".  So it's probably easier to assume that Winters is in fact the full President of the United States, and he simply chose an odd way of stating he was the elected President.

February 19: "Utopia"

Well, it took six months (in contemporary real world terms), but we finally find out what happened to Captain Jack when he ran out of the Torchwood Hub at the end of "End of Days" -- he clung to the outside of the TARDIS as it dematerialized (having stopped off briefly to refuel at the rift -- "Should only take twenty seconds," the Doctor remarks in one of the few acknowledgements of the events of Torchwood in Doctor Who; "the rift's been active"), and the TARDIS was so freaked out by Jack's presence that it went to the end of the universe -- the year one hundred trillion -- to try and get rid of him.

It's really great to see Captain Jack back with the Doctor again -- the chemistry between the two is well done, even with Tennant playing the Doctor as stand-offish (since, as we learn later, the Doctor finds Jack to be "wrong" now that he's a fixed point in time -- and this is the first time this now oft-recurring phrase gets used).  Fascinatingly, Jack snaps back into focus as a character; he's perfectly happy to accept orders from the Doctor, he's flirting with people again, and his energy and liveliness are back to where they should be.  The brooding Jack of Torchwood is nowhere to be seen.  (Although, oddly, it's in this episode and not Torchwood where we learn something about Jack's history between "The Parting of the Ways" and "Everything Changes", and how he used his Vortex Manipulator (the thing on his wrist) to travel back in time: "I thought 21st century, the best place to find the Doctor, except that I got it a little wrong.  Arrived in 1869, this thing burnt out, so it was useless. ... I had to live through the entire twentieth century waiting for a version of you that would coincide with me.")  One of the best moments of "Utopia" is the quiet conversation between the Doctor and Jack as Jack sets the couplings that will let Professor Yana's rocket fly.  Part of it is just bringing people up to speed/reminding them of past events, and part of it is to trigger things in Yana's head, but the way Tennant and Barrowman interact is genuinely lovely.

Professor Yana meets Martha, the Doctor, and Jack. ("Utopia")
©BBC

But what's also great about "Utopia" is the story: Russell T Davies does a great job depicting the end of the universe (so the Doctor Who universe has an end then -- but then that's consistent with Logopolis, so it's not the first time the universe has been chronologically finite), showing that people still survive in some form, clinging to hope.  There may be no better exemplar of this than the character of Professor Yana, who keeps on plugging away at his rocket, giving the humans living on Malcassairo hope that they'll one day reach Utopia.  Sir Derek Jacobi is incredible as Yana, full of energy and enthusiasm and brilliance, all wrapped in a kind-hearted package -- albeit one bothered by a constant drumming sound in his head.  All that makes Yana's true nature all the more surprising and compelling, as he reveals that he has a fob watch just like the Doctor had in "Human Nature" / "The Family of Blood".  Once Martha brings the watch to his attention, he starts to hear voices -- including a chuckle from Anthony Ainley and one of Roger Delgado's lines from The Dæmons: Professor Yana is in fact the Master.¹⁸⁵

What's really impressive is how incredibly evil Jacobi is in his few short minutes as the Master.  It's all too easy to see that this is the same Master as before, selfish and vindictive and wanting to make the Doctor suffer -- in particular, the hatred in Jacobi's eyes as he confronts his assistant Chantho is frightening indeed.  You sort of get the impression that Jacobi is living out a dream here, to be on proper televised Doctor Who (remember, he'd already played the Master in Scream of the Shalka, but that's not really the same thing) -- and apparently he was.  It's somewhat sad that he's shot by Chantho at the end of the episode -- "Killed by an insect.  A girl.  How inappropriate" -- and regenerates into John Simm.  Not that that's meant as a slight against Simm, mind, but it would have been cool to have seen even more of Jacobi.

Hell of a cliffhanger, though, as the newly-regenerated Master takes the Doctor's TARDIS away while the Futurekind are trying to get at our heroes so they can kill (eat?) them.  "Utopia" is a gripping, enthralling success, with a glorious return for one of the Doctor's oldest enemies, and I can't wait to see what happens next.







¹⁸⁵ Allegedly they wanted to use a clip of Eric Roberts from the TV Movie as well, but the complicated rights issues surrounding that production -- note that the US didn't receive a home video release of that story until 2011 for that same reason -- prevented it.  It probably would have been a line like, "Life is wasted on the living," but I like to think it would have been "I always drezz for the occasion."

February 18: "Blink"

It is, of course, one of the best episodes Doctor Who has ever done -- it's been in fandom's collective top ten since its debut and subsequent years have done nothing to tarnish its luster.  It reinforced Steven Moffat's reputation as an A-list Who writer (a reputation that only began to falter once he was required to write more than one story a year), and it won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form -- Moffat's third win in as many years.  No mean feat for an episode that barely features either main character.

Sally with a bunch of creepy statues. ("Blink") ©BBC

But like last series's "Doctor-lite" episode, "Blink" exists in the Doctor's shadow -- not as much as "Love & Monsters" did, but with a strong influence from the Doctor, as he's the one who brings this episode's main character, Sally Sparrow, into events.  (Well, sort of; by the end we know it's not that simple.)  But the focus is on Sally (played by another person just before she made it big, Carey Mulligan), as she slowly works out what's going on, thanks to clues that have been planted decades earlier for her to discover right now.  It's one of those plots that seems like it would have come up before, but for a show about time travel, Doctor Who seems rather reluctant to play with time much (except for Steven Moffat, who seems far more interested in it than anyone else writing for the TV version) -- but we get some ontological paradoxes, as the Doctor tells Sally what to do based on things she's told him as a result of his telling her what to do.  Or as the Doctor says, in probably the best-known line from this episode (and possibly the entire show): "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey... stuff."  ("Started well, that sentence," Sally remarks.  "It got away from me, yeah," the Doctor replies.)

But while the time hijinks are fun (and there's something incredibly wonderful and tragic about the old Billy Shipton meeting Sally again: "It was raining when we met," Billy remembers.  "It's the same rain," Sally replies), the thing that really elevates "Blink" above its peers is the sense of tension and terror it induces.  Moffat has hit upon a winning formula with his Weeping Angels creation -- a monster that only moves when you're not looking at it.  It plays upon the fear of being watched when you don't know it, and of things moving that you only see out of the corner of your eye.  (There's also a more mundane origin: Moffat was inspired by the children's game "Statues".)  It's a very effective and creepy adversary, and even the way it "kills" you -- by sending you back in time and feeding on the life you would have had -- is inspired.

So, an incredibly effective monster, a great cast (Carey Mulligan justly gets a lot of praise, but Finlay Robertson, as Larry Nightingale, does a lot with a somewhat thankless role -- and look, it's Louis Mahoney, from various David Maloney-directed Who stories, as old Billy), wonderful direction, and some clever fun with time travel mechanics and paradoxes make "Blink" a special episode indeed.  It's clever and smart and just about everything we want the show to be, and the Weeping Angels are probably the greatest creation of the BBC Wales run.  It's not hard to see why this captured the imagination of so many people.

February 17: "The Family of Blood"

Son of Mine and Mother of Mine gather their army. ("The Family of
Blood") ©BBC

Here's where the action is, as the Family of Blood start killing people and sending their scarecrow army against the public school John Smith is teaching at, all so that they can get their hands on a Time Lord and thus live forever.  To this end we get some good action moments, such as the boys shooting down the scarecrows and the Family bombarding the village to draw the Doctor out.

But ultimately, what this story wants to be is a character study of the Doctor: once you strip away all the "lonely god", "last of the Time Lords" stuff, what's left?  What is it that makes the Doctor tick?  Is the Doctor, at his core, a good man (to borrow one of series 8's promotional lines)?  The answer seems to be yes, but they try to have it both ways: to make a human Doctor still a good person, but all the while insisting that the full Doctor is one of the best things ever.  So what this means is that, while you might expect that John Smith has the basic traits and beliefs of the Doctor, that's not really what we get.  Instead we get the result of a human Doctor, and the result is...human.  Plain old homo sapiens sapiens.  He's not a bad man, but he's very much human, with all the failings and weaknesses that entails.

Here's a case in point: last episode, Tim starts daydreaming during machine gun practice, and so Hutchinson asks if he can go discipline Tim.  John Smith agrees without a second thought.  It's certainly in keeping with the time period, but it doesn't really match how we -- all right, I -- think the Doctor should be.  (A similar situation in the book gives John Smith pause, which might be why this sticks out to me.)  It is, however, a human reaction.

But so while the "Human Nature" 2-parter espouses the virtues of being human, it also details the benefits of being the Doctor -- best summed up in Tim's speech: "He's like fire and ice and rage.  He's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun. ... He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of time and he can see the turn of the universe. ... And he's wonderful."  And that seems to be the point of this story: that it's good to be human, but it's also good to be the Doctor, even if he brings death and destruction with him.  The universe needs him.  But that's nothing new; that's been an underlying theme of the show for some time now.

And so here's the thing: this story is definitely firing on almost all cylinders -- there are only a couple odd moments, like the Doctor's rather vengeful punishments for the Family -- and David Tennant is incredible here, as he rages against becoming the Doctor.  It's also fascinating how much more distant he becomes once he's the Doctor again -- the scene between him and Nurse Redfern at the end is very powerful as a result.  The rest of the cast are excellent -- Harry Lloyd in particular is incredibly creepy as Son of Mine -- and the direction and design is gorgeous.  But I find that "Human Nature" / "The Family of Blood" isn't quite the story I want it to be.  It sometimes feels like there's a missed opportunity, a lost chance to see what really makes the Doctor tick.

The Discontinuity Guide uses a phrase to describe The Caves of Androzani: "brilliant but over-rated."  That pretty much sums up my feelings on "Human Nature" / "The Family of Blood".  It's wonderful, but I feel like it could have been even more wonderful.

February 16: "Human Nature"

"Human Nature" is the first part of Paul Cornell's two-part adaptation of his own novel Human Nature -- one of the best received of Virgin's New Adventures line, which continued the Doctor's adventures after Survival.  In the original novel it was the seventh Doctor and his companion was archaeologist Professor Bernice Summerfield, who posed as his niece instead of a servant, but the general plot beats are the same between the two (which, if you think the books are "canon" -- as much as anything in Doctor Who is considered canon -- leads to some interesting conversations about whether this storyline had happened before the tenth Doctor put his Time Lord-ness in a Chameleon Arch).

John Smith and Nurse Joan Redfern. ("Human Nature") ©BBC

What's most obvious about "Human Nature" is how good David Tennant is.  He manages to make John Smith a distinct character from the Doctor, yet still one who still seems like he might have the Doctor in there somewhere.  As such, his shy, awkward nature -- around Nurse Redfern in particular -- is quite entertaining to view.  It's fascinating to get essentially a different take on how to play this character, and Tennant is clearly relishing the opportunity to do so.  And while Tennant is playing at being human, Freema Agyeman continues to excel in the rather more thankless role of looking after him without trying to be too obvious about it.  It's interesting to watch her deal with racism and looking "a little familiar" with John Smith, and Martha frankly does a good job of keeping her head about all this.  These scenes are good, but my favorite ones might be when she heads into the TARDIS and views the video instructions the Doctor left her before he transformed -- the ones that give all sorts of instructions but utterly fail to describe what to do if the Doctor falls in love.  (Even if the line about how the Doctor "had to go and fall in love with a human, and it wasn't me" rings a bit of a sour note -- yes, this is clearly the direction they want to take Martha, but it never feels right, for a multitude of reasons (least of all that it reduces Martha's role to that of pining hopelessly after the Doctor, which is a great injustice).)

I said the plot beats are largely the same between the book and the TV version, but that's not quite true; the televised version has a much better reason for the Doctor to change (here it's because he's being pursued by aliens; in the book it was because he was worried he was too out-of-touch with humanity, and the aliens showed up later), and the urgency that this lends events is really nice.  It gives a much sharper purpose, and it gives us a lot more foreshadowing about what's to come that works well in this story's favor.  The inclusion of the scarecrows as monsters is also a nice touch, and the way the Family of Blood all tilt their heads and sniff as they try to find the Doctor is simple yet effective.  On the other hand, the MacGuffin that holds the Doctor's Time Lord nature is essentially stolen by Tim Latimer, which is a bit problematic in pure heroic terms.  (In the book, Tim finds the MacGuffin outside.)

Still, it's a really well done episode of the show, even if it is pure setup until the cliffhanger.  The question is, how will the second half hold up?  The "next time" trailer after the credits certainly provides some interesting scenes...

February 15: "42"

Seems we have a winner in the "shortest episode title" category (unless someone names an episode "X" or "?" or something)...

Here's the thing about "42": everyone involved in actually filming this episode is working almost flat out to make this work, and to their credit they just about do it.  It's hard to point at much in the episode we see on screen and be able to say, "That bit's terrible."  Graeme Harper is doing a great job of injecting action and tension in this, and David Tennant and Freema Agyeman have thrown themselves completely into this story.  The supporting cast is good, and the set design is pleasingly industrial (and in keeping with "The Impossible Planet" / "The Satan Pit", which is set in roughly the same time period).  So then why does the final product feel so underwhelming?

The thing is, a week ago we had something that looked perilously close at times to Doctor Who self-parody, with a giant monster chase serving as a substitute for an actual plot, much how the general public might think the show operates.  This week we get something that Doctor Who actually does: a "base-under-siege" tale, essentially, with an external force threatening to destroy everyone inside the base, and an intruder inside also wreaking havoc.  But "42" doesn't have a new spin on this sort of thing.

The Doctor is possessed by the sun creature. ("42") ©BBC

That's not the worst of sins, of course, but the other problem that becomes apparent once you stop to think about this episode is how much writer Chris Chibnall is throwing at this thing, hoping something will stick.  And so we get a bunch of locked doors (in what must be the stupidest security system ever -- incidentally, the answer about the most number one hits presupposes we're talking about British number ones, as the Beatles have the most number ones in the US), a sentient sun, possessed people (including the Doctor!), a situation with an escape pod, the real-time idea...  There are so many ideas that they're all jostling for attention, and thus none of them really get the attention they deserve.  And the thing is, there are some interesting ideas here -- the sentient sun should have probably have received a lot more focus, but instead it's just there to explain why the crew members are possessed.  And while the possession bit is actually rather well done (thanks, again, to the efforts of the people concerned with things that will show up on screen), with nice faceless masks that look properly intimidating, they never feel like too much of a threat -- partly because we then have to deal with the escape pod, and then the Doctor being possessed, and then the ship falling into the sun, and then...

(Oh, and if they didn't keep putting up the real-time countdown clock, you'd never notice.  Also, they cheat a few times -- such as between the first and second appearances of the clock.)

So there are lots of ideas, each potentially workable on their own but denied the development they deserve.  The result is a shallow, ultimately unsatisfying story, one that looks more like Doctor Who-by-numbers than something original.  That's a shame, because Chibnall has some interesting ideas here, as I said -- it's just that none of them get a chance to breathe.  To their credit, the cast and crew almost make something of this, but ultimately "42" is a rather disappointing tale.  (Even if it's better than Chibnall's series 1 Torchwood scripts.)