An Hour of Who a Day

February 23: Revenge of the Slitheen Parts One & Two (SJA)

It's been three months since "Last of the Time Lords", and nearly ten months since "Invasion of the Bane", but it's finally time to return to Bannerman Road and The Sarah Jane Adventures. And you might get a blast of nostalgia as you note that we're now getting multi-part (well, 2, but still) adventures with 25-minute installments, just like 20th-century Doctor Who. (And if that's not enough nostalgia for you, you can spend time looking at all the things in the background in Sarah Jane's attic: there's a book on UNIT and lots of drawings of Doctor Who things, like the old sonic screwdriver, the TARDIS, and, intriguingly, the Jagaroth spaceship from City of Death. Oh, and writer Gareth Roberts has one of the Slitheen namedrop the Wallarians, as mentioned in Carnival of Monsters.)

The Slitheen decide what to do about Sarah Jane. (Revenge of
the Slitheen Part Two) ©BBC

We get some more recent nostalgia as well, as the Slitheen are brought back. They seem rather more at home in a school than in Downing Street, which is both a positive and a drawback, as they're not quite as grotesquely incongruous and threatening here. But the farts seem to gain more notice from the students, which is somewhat entertaining. These Slitheen seem just as villainous as the bunch we saw in Doctor Who, but now they have the added motivation of revenge against the planet for the deaths of their family members. Their plan is a little odd, though; they want to drain all the energy from the Earth and the sun, put into giant batteries, and then sell it off. It looks like it takes an incredible amount of effort to make this happen -- the Slitheen must really want revenge.

The other major event in these two episodes is the introduction of Clyde Langer, a fellow boy from school who, like Maria and Luke, has also just started school in a new place. Clyde is cocky and self-confident and perhaps trying a bit too hard to be cool, but he quickly fits in with Maria and Luke, and he's certainly significantly less frustrating a character than Kelsey was in "Invasion of the Bane". He certainly copes with all the new alien stuff a lot better, and he does help in figuring out the Slitheen's weakness. Daniel Anthony does a good job of making Clyde likeable while he's skeptically learning about aliens and then running away from them. (And his face when the one Slitheen explodes on him and Maria is great.)

It's not an incredible standout episode, but it's fun while it lasts and serves to reintroduce everyone and the basic format of The Sarah Jane Adventures. It's certainly never dull, and while it may not be memorable, it's still entertaining while it lasts to see everyone in action, running around schools and fighting aliens. The Sarah Jane Adventures are off to a good start.

February 22: "Last of the Time Lords"

Hmm. This is a bit of a schizophrenic episode. On the one hand it does some things really well, but on the other hand it has some flagrantly silly moments.

What works? The "one year later" conceit works surprisingly well -- it actually lets the Master win for a bit, and we see that he's about as awful a ruler as you might expect. He's crazy and selfish and generally terrible, but he's clearly having a ball being in charge. John Simm is presenting us with an unhinged Master, one who has come a long way but hasn't quite completed his goal yet. The way he humiliates the Jones family is handled well, and the abuse that Lucy Saxon endures is subtle -- a line here, a bruise there -- but effective; it makes sense that she would be the one to shoot the Master.

The stuff with Martha traveling the Earth also works well; we get to hear about some of the atrocities the Master has committed (such as the destruction of Japan) without the Mill having to knock up an unconvincing visual effect to try and sell it. Martha is shown to be still in control, even despite what she's seen, and that's a good move. Meanwhile, her discovery of the true nature of the Toclafane -- that they're the humans we saw in "Utopia" -- is a great moment, tying in with the first part nicely (if bleakly) and providing us both the reason why the Master turned the Doctor's TARDIS into a paradox machine and some insight into his mad plan to make the Toclafane into the new Time Lords and Earth the new Gallifrey. (What's not clearly explained is why the Master thinks this will be an acceptable substitute, but we can probably excuse that away as a consequence of the drums in his head.)

Jack says goodbye to the Doctor and Martha. ("Last of the Time
Lords") ©BBC

Sadly, Jack doesn't get much to do this episode, as he spends most of it chained up, but the Face of Boe gag is cute. (Although if Jack really is the Face of Boe, clearly something happened to his biology over the millennia to let him be pregnant.) And it's nice that the Doctor has gotten over his prejudice against Jack and offers to let him travel with him -- but there's another series of Torchwood coming up, so Jack has to decline.

Where "Last of the Time Lords" goes off the rails is with the Doctor. The old man stuff isn't too bad (although it took them a year to come up with a plan to get the Doctor the Master's screwdriver?), and while the little Doctor troll is daft, there's something charming about such a bold move as Davies makes here. What's ludicrous, however, is the deus ex machina ending (yes, another one), which really is a move too far. Nothing, not the earlier descriptions of the Archangel network, not the Doctor making a statement about how he had a year to "tune myself into the psychic network and integrate with its matrices", can paper over the sheer silliness of the Doctor being de-aged and flying around thanks to the power of worldwide love. It's far and away Davies' most blatant deus ex machina resolution yet, and it weakens the whole episode. The Master's refusal to regenerate, and the Doctor's desperate desire to not be the only Time Lord, is nicely played though.

So as I said, there are some good moments in "Last of the Time Lords" and some risible ones. But when you take the first two episodes into account, you get a solid take and a great reintroduction for the Master. It's only when tasked with a resolution to this story that Russell T Davies comes up short; everything else is firing on all cylinders.

But then that's been par for the course for most of series 3. After the unevenness of series 2, Doctor Who seems to have regained its footing. The stories are of a higher quality than last year's, and they've really lucked out with Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones, who consistently turns in an excellent performance and makes us care about Martha from almost her first moment onscreen. It's a genuine shame that they made her primary characteristic appear to be pining after the Doctor, because both the character and the actress deserved better. There's also the related problem that this series spends a bit too much time in Rose's shadow; it doesn't happen as much as it sometimes feels, but there is a danger of the show looking back too often instead of forward, and that's also grossly unfair to Martha/Freema.

But these concerns aside, series 3 provides us with a show that's shaken off its sophomore slump and reemerged victorious. David Tennant is in fine form, and the show under Davies seems as vibrant as ever. It's certainly the most consistent in tone and characterization that Doctor Who has been since 2005. Now, will they be able to keep it going in series 4?

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.

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.

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"

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.