April 23: "Sirens of Ceres" / "Fear Itself" (K-9)

Sadly, I think we just have to resign ourselves to the fact that K-9 is overtly intended to be a children's show and is pitching itself accordingly.  If you're willing to do that, though, then there's some fun to be had here.

The first episode today, "Sirens of Ceres" (which, like "The Korven" and "The Eleventh Hour", technically aired before "The Beast Below"), is probably the better of the two just because it feels like it fits in with everything we've seen so far.  Starkey and the rest are living in an oppressive system, and here we just get more evidence of this oppression, as Inspector Drake is his usual slimy self with his latest plan, to turn people into obedient servants with the help of an alien mineral.  Connor Van Vuuren is often somewhat painfully overacting as Drake, as if he knows he's in a kid's show and is adjusting his performance accordingly; as a result, there are lots of clenched fists and intense emoting as his plan goes right or wrong (depending on the scene) that's sort of mesmerizing to watch.

Melaina is flanked by two girls in her study group. ("Sirens of Ceres")
©Screen Australia, Pacific Film and Television Commission Pty
Limited, Park Entertainment Limited, Cutting Edge Post Pty
Limited, and Metal Mutt Productions Pty Limited

One of the nice things about K-9 so far has been the fact that, despite the oppressive regime controlling things, we see signs that life goes on -- this isn't one of those dystopias where everyone's living in caves as slaves, but instead people still live their lives, just in a police state.  "Sirens of Ceres" continues this trend; while attacking the robot police officers (called CCPCs) is obviously an offense, the punishment doesn't appear to be execution or anything like that, but simply reeducation.  This is Jorjie's fate, and it's what leads to the main plot, as Drake tries his mind control bracelets on the pupils at the reeducation academy.  They do a good job with their Midwich Cuckoos-esque students, as the affected become perfect little angels.  It's not super-creepy, but it is sufficiently effective -- and it gives K-9 a chance to be the hero, as he swoops in and destroys all the bracelets, thus foiling Drake's plot.  It's a nice little story, and the only weird thing is how they make Starkey fall head-over-heels in love with a girl who he must know is being mind-controlled but nevertheless assumes that she's sincere in her affections.  It doesn't really fit with anything we've seen thus far regarding Starkey, so it sticks out like a sore thumb.

But other than that, and allowing for the children's television factors, this is a decent episode.  If they did more like this it wouldn't be a bad thing.

On the other hand, the second episode I watched today, "Fear Itself", borders on incoherency.  There are moments where it seems to be about some sort of shadowy alien that exists to help breed fear in the populace, and others where it's just about conquering one's irrational fears, but it never feels like these two plot lines connect up in a meaningful way.  It certainly doesn't help that we get people behaving out of character -- in particular, Drake seems oddly unfazed by the presence of Starkey, Jorjie, and Darius at the weird cupboard and far more concerned about the possibility of an alien inside the cupboard.  But then it turns into a discussion about emotions and what they mean, as K-9 seeks to learn about fear and then somehow succumbs to it, and the resolution appears to be that there was nothing to be afraid of after all -- except for the impossible wardrobe with a huge pit inside in it (that's strangely reminiscent of parts of Mark Z. Danielewski's book House of Leaves, where an impossible dark space is found inside a house that seems to drive the people exploring it mad, despite the fact that there's nothing actually in that space.  This is almost certainly coincidental, though).  Oddly, this doesn't seem to remotely interest June Turner when she examines the wardrobe at Drake's request.

The resolution leaves things unclear: was there anything alien regarding the wardrobe?  Was it causing the riots and things?  Or was it really all in the mind?  We never find out, and while it might be pleasing in a different context to have this ambiguity, here it just feels unfinished.  A few more explanations (or even gestures towards explanation) would have helped, but as it is we have two storylines that are closely related but seem to be working at cross-purposes to each other and no clear way to resolve the conflict.  The final result is thus something of a mess.

April 22: "Meanwhile in the TARDIS" [Additional Scene #1] / "The Beast Below"

We start out with a scene designed to link "The Eleventh Hour" with "The Beast Below" (which technically wasn't released until the DVD/Blu-Ray box set was released, but as it's meant to go here we'll watch it here).  It's sort of cute, I guess, but it also seems completely unnecessary; we get more babbling from Amy as she tries to process what she's seeing, as well as a slight continuity hiccup (as the Doctor tells her here that he's an alien, yet she seems surprised by this in "The Beast Below"), and while it's nice to see her reaction to being in space, there's not much beyond this.  But I suppose there's only so much they can do, inserting a scene where one didn't need to go, and as long as you weren't buying the box set solely for this scene, it's probably all right.

The Doctor and Amy explore Starship UK. ("The Beast Below")
©BBC

"The Beast Below", on the other hand, is much more interesting.  The UK (minus Scotland) evacuated the planet after solar storms threatened the place in the 29th century (in what's almost certainly a reference to The Ark in Space²¹⁴), and we get a chance to see this new Doctor in his element, flexing his muscles and learning the dark secret behind Starship UK.

Except this is the Matt Smith story that it's probably easiest to imagine David Tennant in. All the things writer Steven Moffat's given the eleventh Doctor are the sorts of things you would expect the tenth Doctor to do (with the possible exception of comforting a crying child, and even then it's more a matter of emphasis than new personality).  It's easy to picture David Tennant gently pointing out to Liz 10 how old her mask is, or him raging against humanity for what they've done to the star whale.  This doesn't make it a bad story or anything like that, but it does make it slightly harder for Matt Smith to really set himself apart from his immediate predecessor.  He turns in a great performance, and if you were worried about the new boy you can rest easy, but they're not exactly going out of their way to give us a uniquely eleventh Doctor story (the way, say, Paradise Towers seems like a story designed for Sylvester McCoy).

Fortunately the central storyline is a good one, so it's not like they're selling Matt Smith short, as we're presented with an odd conspiracy that everyone is complicit in, although they can't remember that they are.  But we get the spirit of democracy, as everyone gets to either protest the treatment of the star whale or forget about the whole thing.  It's a nice little conceit, particularly as even the people who are investigating the truth behind Starship UK -- namely Liz 10 (and look, it's Sophie Okonedo, who you might remember was Alison Cheney in Scream of the Shalka) -- are going through the same motions as before, choosing to forget when they finally discover the truth.  There are also nice little touches that add to the feeling of a coherent world, from the bunting everywhere to the offhand reference to Scotland having set off on their own to the Starship UK logo that's designed to resemble one of the old BBC logos.  Thought and care has gone into this, to the point where it's very hard to actually poke holes in any of it, either in story terms or in visual terms.

Of course, another reason why it doesn't really matter that we don't get a showcase for the new Doctor is that this is a showcase for the new companion instead.  We see Amy not as the perfect companion but instead as a human one, one who's both made a mistake -- who's seen the history of Starship UK and has chosen not only to forget but also to try and keep the Doctor from discovering the truth, so that he doesn't have to make a decision about what to do -- and who's done what the Doctor said earlier, to observe.  It's this that brings her to (it turns out) the right conclusion, to stop forcing the star whale to fly Starship UK because the star whale wanted to help in the first place.  Amy makes the right decision, just by observing not just Starship UK but also the Doctor:

DOCTOR: Amy, you could have killed everyone on this ship.
AMY: You could have killed a star whale.
DOCTOR: And you saved it.  I know, I know.
AMY: Amazing though, don't you think?  The star whale.  All that pain and misery and loneliness, and it just made it kind.
DOCTOR: But you couldn't have known how it would react.
AMY: You couldn't.  But I've seen it before.  Very old and very kind, and the very, very last.  Sound a bit familiar?

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - The Beast Below)

"The Beast Below" isn't a flashy story, and we don't get much of an insight into what makes the eleventh Doctor different from the tenth, but what we do get is a solid, well-thought-out tale designed to appeal to our sense of wonder as it shows that Amy Pond has the right stuff to be the Doctor's companion.  It's a story that can make us both ashamed and proud to be human.  Not bad for only their second outing.

(Oh, and look... another crack, shaped just like the one in Amelia's bedroom...)







²¹⁴ Thus complicating Earth's history enormously for anyone trying to work these things out, as, while the Doctor thinks the Ark was built in the late 29th/early 30th century, fandom had generally assumed that either a) the Doctor is just way off-base with his guess, or b) the Ark was in service as Nerva Beacon (Revenge of the Cybermen) for a long time before it was converted into an ark to avoid the solar flares and that the beacon was built in the 29th century, as placing the solar flare event in the late 29th century tends to cause massive problems for anyone trying to square this with all the other things we know about this time period (such as The Mutants, which is set in the late 30th century and explicitly describes the Earth as "Land and sea alike, all grey.  Grey cities linked by grey highways across grey deserts").  But now that they've reinforced the date, I suppose we're stuck with it, and we just have to explain why they're still on Starship UK in the 34th century, despite things like The Mutants and Terror of the Vervoids seeming to contradict this.

April 21: "The Korven" / "The Bounty Hunter" (K-9)

After a brief airing of the first episode six months earlier, K-9 finally makes its series debut in the UK with the third episode, "The Korven".  And strictly speaking, this aired two hours earlier than "The Eleventh Hour" did (were they capitalizing on Doctor Who's publicity?  Perish the thought!), but as they're airing two episodes a week at this point, it's easier to lump them together than try to do it strictly chronologically.  I'm sure you care deeply about this.

The Korven arrives to take Professor Gryffen. ("The Korven")
©Screen Australia, Pacific Film and Television Commission Pty
Limited, Park Entertainment Limited, Cutting Edge Post Pty
Limited, and Metal Mutt Productions Pty Limited

There's little here to distinguish these two episodes from the last two that aired, though.  Both "The Korven" and "The Bounty Hunter" seem to follow the same basic pattern: an alien comes through Professor Gryffen's space-time manipulator in order to try and capture one of our heroes: Professor Gryffen in the first case, K-9 in the second.  And while the stakes are allegedly high, as it's our heroes who are in trouble, it's somewhat difficult to get particularly worked up about it, as these episodes don't raise the stakes high enough for us to really think these characters are in real danger.

All right, that's not fair; both episodes do actually do a decent job of making Gryffen and K-9 seem like they should definitely be worried about their chances.  The problem is more that it's still hard at this point to really care about the other characters: the teenagers have already been reduced to basic characteristics (Darius likes Jorjie and dislikes Starkey, Starkey's the rebel with a heart of gold, etc.), acting more as ciphers than real people.  Far and away the best character is Professor Gryffen; this might be because Robert Moloney is a more experienced actor than the others, but it's also because they've actually given him characteristics to distinguish himself as an actual person (his agoraphobia, but also his calm behavior in the presence of Ahab the bounty hunter, offering him tea and casually chatting with him).  There's also an effort to introduce a recurring villain in the form of the Department Head of Security, Inspector Drake, but he's portrayed as such a slimy git that while it's easy to loathe him, it doesn't do much for their efforts to flesh this show out.  (Although placing a fake bomb as a publicity stunt?  That is pretty slimy...)

Ultimately the problem with both of these episodes is that they're too straightforward; we don't get much in the way of nooks and crannies in the plot to explore, and subtlety isn't K-9's strong point.  Even something like making K-9 initially appear to have been a killer pre-amnesia in "The Bounty Hunter" falls flat, because we know that something will happen to vindicate K-9, and we're right.  These two episodes aren't actually bad, but they are rather unsophisticated.  This is a format that seems like they could actually do something with, but thus far they've been content to play it safe -- but playing it safe isn't really going to cut it for the whole series.

April 20: "The Eleventh Hour"

DVD and Blu-ray releases

So.  A new producer and a new cast, but the same show as ever, as "The Eleventh Hour" makes clear in its opening moments, as the TARDIS is crashing towards Earth after the events at the end of The End of Time.  Even in this scene you get the sense that things will be OK with this new Doctor, as he struggles back inside the TARDIS and then relaxes for a moment, until the TARDIS goes out of control again.

And then it's straight into the brand-new title sequence, with a new arrangement of the theme tune (although, other than being in a higher key, it's not actually that much different from the last one) and a new logo.  The sequence looks oddly retro, with the cloud time vortex and the lightning bolts -- it's not hard to imagine this being the sort of titles Doctor Who might have had in the '90s.  The DW TARDIS logo is kind of cheesy, though.

But as I said, other than such overt changes, this largely looks like business as usual for the show. Visually this isn't much different from the previous stories -- we're not talking about a sea change as large as the one between The Horns of Nimon/Shada and The Leisure Hive, and with Murray Gold still providing the music, the sense of continuity between the two eras is reinforced.  No, where the differences happen is in the details, the emphasis.  Russell T Davies, in some respects, pitched Doctor Who toward teenage girls; Steven Moffat, by contrast, is explicitly targeting children, with the expectation that everyone else will happily go along for the ride.

The most obvious occurrence of this is Amelia Pond, the little girl who encounters the newly-regenerated Doctor after he crash-lands in her garden.  We learn almost immediately that this Doctor is incredibly comfortable with children and that children are comfortable with him, and that there's a sense of magic at hand.  It's this sense of magic and wonder that sustains "The Eleventh Hour" -- it's only the first episode for the new team (well, all right, first broadcast -- it's actually the fourth episode they made), and already that sense of supreme confidence that pervaded David Tennant's final hours is here in full force.  Steven Moffat's given us a great script to latch on to, one that plays with time travel a bit but makes it firmly about the effect of the Doctor on a little girl's life, as this crazy man whirls into her life and then disappears for twelve years.  "The Eleventh Hour" is never worried that the audience will have a tough time with any of this, and it's right not to: this makes perfect sense.

One other contrast that's clear fairly early is that Matt Smith is a huge presence in this episode.  "The Christmas Invasion" had David Tennant removed from much of the action, but here they know that we're getting a brand new cast, so they wisely make the Doctor front and center and have everything revolving around him -- and while he's "still cooking", he seems more or less settled early on.  ("Well, that's much better," the Doctor says at one point, after Amy's hit him with a cricket bat.  "Brand new me.  Whack on the head, just what I needed.")  In this regard it's a lot like Tom Baker's debut, which established the fourth Doctor pretty quickly and then let him get on with it.  We get a similar thing here.

"Hello.  I'm the Doctor.  Basically... run."  The new Doctor warns
the Atraxi away. ("The Eleventh Hour") ©BBC

And let's be clear: Matt Smith is amazing in this -- he's absolutely the Doctor almost from the word go, and his ability to play both drama and comedy (sometimes at the same time) is perfectly attuned to the show.  It's not hard to see why they cast him, but he's incredibly watchable in every scene.  It helps that he's been given some good material -- discussing the crack in Amelia's wall, convincing Jeff that he has to be great to help save the world, being incredibly dismissive of Prisoner Zero's attempt to disguise itself as him ("Well, that's rubbish.  Who's that supposed to be?" he says.  "It's you," Rory replies bemusedly.  "Me?  Is that what I look like?" the Doctor asks surprisedly), and calling the Atraxi back just so he can tell them to clear off... Matt Smith does it all and makes it look easy.

None of this is to denigrate the other cast members -- Karen Gillan more than holds her own as Amy Pond, and Arthur Darvill is wonderfully grounded as Rory ("Did he just bring them back?" he asks no one in particular.  "Did he just save the world from aliens and then bring all the aliens back again?") -- but "The Eleventh Hour" is wholeheartedly about this new Doctor, about the effect he had on a little girl and how he's definitely still the same man he was.  The sequence at the end, with all the Doctors in sequence followed by the eleventh, merely confirms what we already know.  It's hard to think of a better debut than this one, in terms of doing everything they need to do and doing it with such style.  This episode is an absolute knockout -- and it's only the first one!

April 19: The End of Time Part Two

The High Council of the Time Lords deliberate on the last day of
the Time War on how to save themselves. (The End of Time
Part Two) ©BBC

In some ways this is a story that threatens to tear itself apart.  Russell T Davies is consciously crafting an epic story to send the tenth Doctor out on, but he's throwing in so many elements that it's hard to see the line connecting everything.  We get a planet full of Masters, a technobabble-y plan to bring the Time Lords back from the end of the Time War, a bizarre nuclear monitoring station set-up, a spaceship dodging missiles, and lots of death-defying stunts in between.  Any one of these would have probably been enough, but we get them all instead, and so the story threatens to collapse under the weight of it all.

More worryingly, things that look like they might actually have some bit of logic turn out not to.  You might think, for instance, that the Master has turned the entire planet into himself so that he could use everyone to help figure out more about the drumming sound.  He does do this, but it occurs to him after the fact, while talking to the Doctor -- it's not the actual reason for his plan.  That, in fact, seems to be something of a mystery; maybe he did it just because he could?  (There's a hint that he was trying to stabilize his body -- "The Gate wasn't enough.  Your body is still dying," the Doctor says -- but that's all it remains, a hint.)  And while there's a certain sense of perverse justice in learning that it was the future Time Lords who drove the Master mad all those years ago, just so that Rassilon and the High Council could try and escape from the Time War and destroy everything, it's another thing that you just have to accept (that the High Council could put the drumming in the Master's head in the first place, or that they could get a fancy diamond out of the Time War, despite the fact that it's apparently "time locked" and nothing can get in or out).  Then there are lesser problems, like how we're repeatedly told that if Donna remembers her time with the Doctor her mind will burn, but when she finally does it just knocks her (and everyone around her) out, with seemingly no other ill effects.  (Let's quietly draw a veil over the question of how the Doctor could survive the jump from the Vinvocci spaceship when a similar fall killed his fourth incarnation.)

Where this story succeeds, however, is in the character moments.  Part one had a number of them, and this episode has just as many.  You can rest assured that any scene Bernard Cribbins is in will be amazing to watch -- he's so good an actor that you don't realize how much he's working during a scene; it just feels like he's providing the most natural reactions in the world.  And so when matched with someone like David Tennant, it becomes mesmerizing to watch them both -- the scene aboard the Vinvocci ship, where Wilf tries to give the Doctor the gun and he repeatedly refuses, is fantastic, as both of them display the full range of emotions buried just beneath the surface.  It's not just them, though; when Tennant and John Simm get the chance to play a quieter scene together, they're just as good, as the Doctor asks the Master to come with him, while the Master just wants the drumming to stop.  And even the final confrontation at the end, with a desperate wounded Doctor squaring off against both the Master and the Time Lords, is worth watching because of the actors involved: Timothy Dalton is every inch the proud Time Lord, seemingly driven mad by the Time War but unable or unwilling to realize it, while the Doctor is determined to stop the Time Lords.  "You weren't there in the final days of the War," the Doctor tells the Master.  "You never saw what was born.  But if the time lock's broken, then everything's coming through.  Not just the Daleks, but the Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, the Could-Have-Been King with his army of Meanwhiles and Never-weres.  The War turned into hell."  The Doctor seems torn about who to attack, until he sees one of the women with Rassilon -- the one that keeps appearing to Wilf²¹² -- and that helps him decide to send them all "back to hell", with the aid of the Master at the last moment.  It's a big moment, with the Master redeeming himself as he sends himself back with the other Time Lords.

David Tennant regenerates into Matt Smith. (The End of
Time Part Two) ©BBC

So there are lots of action sequences, thrown in seemingly without too much thought, to give the tenth Doctor his send-off.  But it's ultimately the small moments that make this work, with perhaps none so small as the tenth Doctor's final fate.  All the stuff he experienced, and it's ultimately just the act of Wilf saving someone in the nuclear station thing that dooms the Doctor.  These moments are heartbreaking, not just because the tenth Doctor rages against the universe when he realizes what that "Planet of the Dead" prophecy was really about, but because Wilf understands what it will mean for the Doctor to save him and he begs him not to: "Look, just leave me. ... No really, just leave me.  I'm an old man, Doctor.  I've had my time."  It's the anguish on Bernard Cribbins' face, as he sees he's dooming the Doctor, that really cuts to the quick -- and while the Doctor is initially mad, his true personality reasserts itself: "Wilfred, it's my honour [to save you].  Better be quick," he adds.

The follow-up sequence, with the Doctor seeing all his previous companions as his "reward" before he regenerates, feels an awful lot like the end of "Journey's End", and thus in some ways is like the Russell T Davies' equivalent of the Doctor seeing all his companions' faces swirl around him as he regenerates in the 1980s stories.  But even here we get some lovely surprises, such as seeing the great-granddaughter of Nurse Redfern from "Human Nature" / "The Family of Blood", Verity Newman.²¹³  "Was she happy, in the end?" the Doctor asks. "Yes.  Yes, she was," Verity replies.  "Were you?" she asks, but the Doctor doesn't answer.  And the scene with Rose at the very end is clever and understated, which is exactly what they needed.  (It's still the scenes with Bernard Cribbins that make me tear up a bit, though.  God bless that man.)  Nevertheless, this closing sequence does exactly what it's meant to, hitting the right notes as the Doctor dies.

The End of Time is therefore an incredibly uneven production; there's so much going on that just seems to be happening without good reason that you can see why some people hate this story (and make no mistake: some people hate this story).  But because the character interactions are so good, and because that air of supreme confidence fills every corner of the screen, it's easy to give in and go along with this, and to enjoy it for what it is: the final epic storyline for a Doctor (and showrunner) who has often delighted in epic storylines.  It may, in fact, be almost the prototypical Russell T Davies Who story, with all the virtues and faults on display in equal amounts.  You might be one of the people who hates this: fair enough.  I personally rather love it.

And so we say goodbye to the tenth Doctor, the most human incarnation of them all, with humanity's greatest traits and its worst ones existing side-by-side in David Tennant's portrayal.  It's slightly ironic that we're reminded here of "Human Nature" / "The Family of Blood", which went out of its way to show us that the Doctor is emphatically not human, because there's nothing quite so human as what we see here, as even at the very end he tries to hold on to his life (as opposed to other Doctors -- like, say, Jon Pertwee -- who approached their death with more dignity).  "I don't want to go," he cries, before the regenerative energy that he's been holding back finally overwhelms him as it explodes outward, damaging the TARDIS in the process.  (At least, that seems to be what's happening.)  David Tennant has not only consistently shown us how good he is as the Doctor, but he's also managed to get better and better with each series -- such that he's rarely in better form on the show than in this final story.  I have to admit, when watching these stories the first time I was often unconvinced by Tennant.  "This doesn't really feel like the Doctor," I thought to myself.  I can now wholeheartedly admit that I was wrong; Tennant is emphatically the Doctor, the Doctor that's most like us.  He certainly leaves huge shoes to fill, both in terms of performance and in the public consciousness -- it's an awful lot like Tom Baker finally leaving the show in the latter regard.

He's not the only one leaving with big shoes to fill.  Russell T Davies did what many at the time said was impossible; he not only brought the series back, but he made it a mainstay of British television again and captured a whole new audience.  He did so by doing what the best producers of the show have always done: making it for a family audience, rather than a niche demographic.  He wasn't a perfect producer by any means, but his knack for knowing what works for that larger audience was on target more often than it wasn't.  Even if all he had done was bring it back, that would be probably be enough -- the fact that he made it a tremendous success worldwide is proof of how good he was at updating the format while keeping the core of the show the same.

But now it's time for Steven Moffat to take over with a new lead actor, and if the final moments of The End of Time are any indication, we should be in for a good time with Matt Smith...








²¹² No, you're not supposed to know who this mystery woman is.  Theories range from the Doctor's mother to his wife to his daughter (aka Susan's mother) to Susan herself to Romana to someone unknown, but we intentionally never find out for certain who she is.  Unless Steven Moffat wants to tell us in a future story, we'll likely never know -- and it's probably better that way.
²¹³ I see what they did there.

April 18: The End of Time Part One

And so here we are at last, at the end of David Tennant's time as the Doctor -- as well as Russell T Davies' time as Doctor Who's showrunner.  This is, strictly speaking, the 2009 Christmas special, but while Christmas is a part of this, The End of Time Part One has a lot more to do than worry about Christmas.

It starts oddly, though; we get some portentous (some might say pretentious) narration about the "final days of planet Earth", but then it's a complete change of pace with some frankly appalling jokey material regarding the Doctor.  The TARDIS remote-locking fob (complete with car locking noise) is bad enough, but we also get some nonsense about the Doctor marrying Elizabeth I and her having to change her nickname.²¹¹  And it also seems strange that the Ood are suddenly this race with the power to transcend time in order to call the Doctor to them.  (Mind, even the Doctor thinks this is strange, but the explanation is only half-formed; hopefully they'll elaborate in the second half.)

There's also a worrying amount of technobabble going on; the Master's resurrection seems strange enough, with its secret disciples of Harold Saxon and a counter organization designed to stop them, but then this somehow leads to the Master turning into a super-powered madman who can fly like Iron Man, leap like Superman, and shoot electricity from his hands like the Emperor from Return of the Jedi -- there are some passing references to how "[y]our resurrection went wrong.  That energy.  Your body's ripped open.  Now you're killing yourself," but that's about it.  Combined with the utterly mad cliffhanger of the Master turning everyone into himself, you start to worry that maybe it's Russell T Davies who's lost his mind.

The Doctor welcomes Wilf aboard the TARDIS. (The End of
Time Part One) ©BBC

But where this episode comes up trumps is in the character moments.  The Master flying around is bizarre, but the Master talking to the Doctor, making him hear the constant drumming in his head...that's a great moment.  And even after everything, the Doctor still would rather help the Master than fight him.  "Let him go!" the Doctor yells as Joshua Naismith's men capture the Master.  Plus we get the welcome return of Wilf, and just about every moment with him is special, from him rounding up the senior citizens to help him find the Doctor (which leads to the great moment where Minnie the Menace (played by the legendary June Whitfield) grabs the Doctor's butt, much to his surprise) to having conversations with the Doctor about death and Donna.  That particular scene, in the cafe, is astonishing; we've never seen the Doctor quite so vulnerable before, as he opens up to Wilf about his impending death:

DOCTOR: I'm going to die.
WILF: Well, so am I, one day.
DOCTOR: Don't you dare.
WILF: All right, I'll try not to.
DOCTOR: But I was told.  He will knock four times.  That was the prophecy.  Knock four times, and then...
WILF: Yeah, but I thought, when I saw you before, you said your people could change, like, your whole body.
DOCTOR: I can still die.  If I'm killed before regeneration, then I'm dead.  Even then, even if I change, it feels like dying.  Everything I am dies.  Some new man goes sauntering away, and I'm dead.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - The End of Time part 1)

It's an amazing piece of acting from both David Tennant and Bernard Cribbins, as the Doctor starts to lose it at the thought of dying, while Wilf just wants to desperately to help the most amazing man he's ever met.  It's a very powerful scene and one of Tennant's best-ever scenes as the Doctor.  But he also gets other great moments, such as dealing distractedly with Wilf's first look inside the TARDIS after Wilf barges in ("You can't come with me," the Doctor says.  "You're not leaving me with her," Wilf replies, indicating Sylvia.  "Fair enough," the Doctor replies, as he lets Wilf in) or offhandedly deactivating the Vinvocci's "Shimmer" camouflage without even looking.

These are the sorts of things that make this episode, by and large, worth watching.  It may be incredibly daft/poorly thought-out (delete according to preference) at times, but there's such an unwavering conviction at work, that they absolutely know what they're doing and they're not going to let anyone stop them, that's it's hard not to be swept up in everything.  The actors make this work, and the direction and script both trust that we'll be willing to come along for the ride.  And at this point we are.

(But what a cliffhanger!  The Time Lords (led by James Bond!  All right, Timothy Dalton -- but still!) are coming back!)







²¹¹ Fortunately, Steven Moffat will subsequently explain this one away in "The Day of the Doctor".

April 17: "Dreamland"

And here we are, with Doctor Who's second (and to date final) foray into the world of original animation (as opposed to episode reconstructions): "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.

The Doctor asks Rivesh Mantilax and Saruba Velak for help while
Cassie and Jimmy look on. ("Dreamland") ©BBC

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.