February 28: "Time Crash" / "Voyage of the Damned"

The fifth and tenth Doctors. ("Time Crash") ©BBC

It's 16 November 2007, which means it's time once again for Children in Need -- and Doctor Who is there to help the cause again, with another specially-filmed mini-episode.  But this one is particularly special, because we get Peter Davison back; Doctor Who is explicitly referencing its 20th-century past with this 8-minute vignette, set in the middle of the last scene of "Last of the Time Lords".  And yes, of course Davison looks older¹⁹¹, and his voice has changed a bit (although this is less surprising to anyone who's listened to his Big Finish plays), but it's still genuinely thrilling to see him here, in his costume and dashing around the TARDIS console.  Of course, in fine multi-Doctor tradition, the tenth Doctor gets some snarky remarks in (such as when Davison turns down the sonic screwdriver: "you liked to go hands free, didn't you, like hey, I'm the Doctor, I can save the universe using a kettle and some string.  And look at me, I'm wearing a vegetable."), while the fifth Doctor also gets some nice moments ("What have you done to my TARDIS?  You've changed the desktop theme, haven't you?  What's this one, coral?", and the way he mistakes the tenth Doctor for a fan).  It's a joy to see these two Doctors together, and while the resolution of the problem is a bit silly (a supernova and a black hole cancel each other out?), David Tennant is exhibiting such clear joy at being on screen with Davison that it's easy to forgive any flaws.  It's short and sweet, and you sort of wish Davison could have stuck around a little longer, but "Time Crash" does what it set out to do with great style.

That said, Murray Gold's brief use of an old synthesizer to give us that early '80s Doctor Who feel might be the best thing here.

And then it's Christmas 2007 and time to get a proper start to Doctor Who's fourth series, with "Voyage of the Damned".  It opens with a new arrangement of the theme tune (mainly distinguished by electric guitars and more prominent drums), and then it's into Doctor Who's take on disaster movies.

I have to admit; when it first came out I couldn't really see the appeal of this story.  "Voyage of the Damned" wants less to subvert the disaster movie and more to respect it, to follow in its footsteps -- and it's never quite clear why this is a good thing.  But after rewatching it a number of times, its virtues become more apparent.  There's quite a bit that this story does well.

The cast is one of those areas.  Kylie Minogue is really quite wonderful as Astrid Peth, portraying her as optimistic and hopeful and generally sweet.  (Minogue, incidentally, becomes one of the rare people who's been mentioned in Doctor Who (in "The Idiot's Lantern") and then subsequently appeared in it.)  Bernard Cribbins (last seen on the show (sort of) as PC Tom Campbell in the film Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D., and last heard in the 2007 McGann audio story Horror of Glam Rock) has a great little cameo as the man in the newspaper booth, and the ever-unflappable Geoffrey Palmer, true to form, shows up on Doctor Who just so he can be killed (see also Doctor Who and the Silurians and The Mutants).

The Doctor's party discover their next obstacle. ("Voyage of
the Damned") ©BBC

But really everyone here is lovely -- you really grow to like all the survivors in the Doctor's party (well, except for Rickston Slade, but he's designed to be awful -- and Gray O'Brien does a great job with the character, making him totally unrepentant), and it's a genuine tragedy when they start dying off, as Davies has taken the time to make these characters seem like real people, rather than just ciphers.  Even if the direction makes at least two of the deaths look unnecessary.  (All right, maybe Astrid couldn't jump out in time -- but why does Foon lasso the Host and pull it with her when she could have just pushed it?  All right, she's decided to commit suicide -- but then why do we get a shot of the rope falling off the Host as Foon falls, and why didn't the Host just fly back up at that point?)  And other characters, like Midshipman Frame (as played by Russell Tovey, who was reportedly Russell T Davies' favorite for the eleventh Doctor), also do their part with considerable style.

It's not a total success, though; I'm not sure if the Host's resemblance to the robots in The Robots of Death is intentional or not, but it does lead to comparisons between the stories that "Voyage of the Damned" doesn't win.  Meanwhile, George Costigan as Max Capricorn has decided to overplay much of it, and while this generally works, the part where he discusses how the women of Penhaxico Two are fond of metal tips it into Austin Powers' Dr. Evil territory.

But there's enough here to enjoy to make "Voyage of the Damned" worth your time.  It looks fabulous, it moves at a nice clip, and there are enough gems in the dialogue to keep you entertained.  It's even a bit self-aware at the appropriate moments ("One of these days it might snow for real," the Doctor comments, after Mr. Copper mentions how he thinks the snow is actually the Titanic's ballast).  Not bad for the BBC Wales' version's highest viewing figure to date, at 13.13 million viewers.

(And it's rather sweet how this is dedicated to the memory of Verity Lambert, Doctor Who's first producer.  One wonders what she would have made of this episode.)







¹⁹¹ We get a nice explanation for why the fifth Doctor looks older that can be retroactively applied to things like The Two Doctors.  However, this means that the tenth Doctor isn't sure where in the fifth Doctor's lifespan they're meeting -- although given that he's wearing the shirt and pullover from his first two seasons combined with the season 21 trousers, this has to take place, from the fifth Doctor's point of view, between Warriors of the Deep and The Awakening.