The Above-Water Menace

Doctor Who
The Vampires Of Venice
Series Five, Episode Six


What with current events being, well, typical of 2016, I thought it'd be nice to dip back into Doctor Who.  Series Five was a jolly time, with Matt Smith and Karen and Arthur (oh my!), and Vampires Of Venice – though unpopular among much of Who fandom – is one I've got plenty of time for.

Well, 47 minutes, anyway.  It's definitely one of those that's enjoyable, but too frivolous to really hold up.  I'll gladly put it on during a wet afternoon.

After the regrettable incident of the inappropriate kissing, the Doctor recruits Rory to the TARDIS team, figuring (not unwisely) that if he and Amy both see the wonders of the universe then they won't drift apart.  It's a lovely idea and it gives us one of the fun-est opening teasers in Doctor Who.  Matt Smith bursting awkwardly out of a cake may be rather schtick-y, but leading us into the credits from an awkward pause, as opposed to anything remotely scary, is a downright brilliant change.

Moustache Guy likes what he sees.

For good measure we get a "scary" bit beforehand, as a young girl is recruited to a special school in ye olde Venice.  The sinister Rosanna Calvierri and her son Francesco (Helen McRory and Alex Price) set their stalls out immediately: between the predatory body language and (slightly comical) fangs, we've got our monsters of the week.  They've also got bags of otherworldliness and mother-son chemistry.  One of the things I really like about Vampires Of Venice is, well, the vampires.  These two, at least.  There's a creepy ease to their performances.

On arrival in Venice (after some more solid banter, the Doctor pouting at Rory's nonchalant response to the TARDIS), things get a bit more conventional.  It's a bit disappointing to see the TARDIS (which looks even bluer and more like a toy these days) land in a busy street in broad daylight and no one bat an eyelid.  Similarly the three of them are wearing completely anachronistic clothes.  There's a certain psychic-paperish familiarity to these sort of scenes, and goodness knows it'd get boring to have people constantly questioning Amy's skirt.  And okay, one bloke does jump out and demand to see their (psychic) papers, but that's it.

Despite the lovely location filming (not in Venice, mind), there aren't many "real" people about, or hardly any with speaking parts.  Our heroes wander around in a giggling daze, spouting regulation glib dialogue ("I'm from Ofsted!") and quite happily taking photos on a mobile phone, all of which makes it feel like one of those "historical" episodes that might as well take place on the holodeck.  It's a feeling not helped by Venice's plotty isolation from the rest of the world.  Okay, only a fool would watch Doctor Who for a history lesson – sorry, Sydney Newman – but apart from Venice being wet and Venetians being able to swim, this story hasn't got much to do with the place.  They don't even bother to drum up one of those historical curios now-with-spurious-Doctor-Who-explanation, like Love's Labours Won or the Koh-I-Noor.  It's just aliens invading, and predictably failing, circa Venice 1580.

Still, I said I enjoyed it, so back on track: that creepy vampire school is in full swing, and a man has lost his daughter to them, so the Doctor and co. must stick their oar in.  Cue more excellent guest acting: Lucian Msamati enlivens Guido the gondolier, making him a fun and, thank heavens, human presence among the usual three.  As for investigating the vampires, this elicits predictable excitement from the Doctor and Amy, and terror from Rory.  It's good to have a spectrum like that, although (as with viewing Rose and Captain Jack through the eyes of Mickey) all the bouncing up and down does make them seem even less like they're in a real place having a real adventure.  Still, you expect this kind of detachment from the Doctor, and the exact reason Rory is here is so that he and Amy won't see things differently after a while.  Plus Rory makes a big thing of how people desensitise themselves to danger when they're around the Doctor, so while it is all a bit frivolous, it's character development, so hush.  I still miss the (long dead) days of historical adventures just about people leading interesting, dangerous lives throughout history, and the TARDIS turning up, but... hey ho!

I love the direction in this,
but I'm not sure about Doctor Who: Electric Boogaloo.

Needing an "inside man" in the school, Amy volunteers herself.  Cue more sparkling dialogue, with the Doctor hilariously offering to pose as her dad (despite looking "nine years old" – it's wonderful to be reminded that he doesn't see himself that way).  Rory takes his place, fumbling adorably through a monologue so painful, it ends up being a sort of show-stopper.  "Both our parents are dead from getting the plague.  I'm a gondola... driver."  My favourite bit is when you can actually hear him thinking: "We've got the same face... which is because she's my sister!"

And I'll pause here to say one of the main reasons I like Vampires Of Venice, and Toby Whithouse scripts in general, is that it's really funny.  There are great gags like the awkward cake scene, Rory's gondola driver and the Doctor's "Stop talking, brain thinking, hush" routine.  Plus even the villains get funny lines, but in a way that actually works and doesn't just make everybody in the episode a forced comedian.  A lot of novels do that, but Francesco's sarcastic "We'd never interrupt mummy when she's hydrating" fits completely with his character.  Bravo!  It's easy to give everybody funny lines whether or not they're funny people; Joss Whedon sometimes does it, then moans when the actors supposedly cock it up.  Francesco has a certain wicked glibness from the get-go.  See also, "Or they die.  That can happen."

Operation: Rescue Isabella doesn't go as planned (although they do rescue Amy, who gets bitten but-she'll-be-fine-because-sonic-screwdriver-moving-on), so there's nothing else for it: Doctor Vs. Villain Showdown!  Well, it's a Toby Whithouse script, it'd be rude not to.  And just like School Reunion, it's one of the best bits.  Matt Smith gets to show off his Doctorly authoritah, and unlike the more straightforward "Stop it!" of Tennant Vs. Anthony Head, Helen McRory adds extra flirting.  Together with her deliberately fish-like movement, swishing left and right towards him, it's rather like a dance between the two.  I often think of it when I'm remembering really good Doctor scenes: they even sell a couple of not-great lines, such as "I'm a Time Lord and you're a big fish.  Think of the children."  (Hey, I never said the script was perfect.  See also: "Fish from space have never been so... buxom."  Yeesh.  Not your best.)

It's around the Villain Showdown that the minutes start ticking down and a bit more chop-chop is needed, so the plot kicks up a notch.  And it all gets a bit wobbly.  If you've seen School Reunion, you may already suspect that while this is hilarious and the characters develop a bit and there's a couple of really good scenes, the plot won't work.  And, well, surprise!  Vampires Of Venice looks gorgeous and the dialogue's mostly spiffing, but there ain't much going on upstairs.

First off, those darn vampires.  Fish people.  Whatever.  That's another thing actually: the Doctor says "Makes you wonder what could be so bad it doesn't mind us thinking it's a vampire", which is a Doctor Who trope.  You can have a supernatural thingummie so long as you come up with a cod science fiction explanation for it.  But all that does is give you exactly the same thing, minus the horror and plus techno-babble.  It's generally less interesting when you explain a mystery, and these fish people, with their wishy-washy aversion to daylight, and insatiable need for water but-we'll-drink-blood-too-sure-why-not, and random one-scene-only ability to fly, make irritatingly tenuous "vampires".  Also, give over, Doc: aliens aren't "worse" than vampires.  They're just aliens, a.k.a. those things you meet every week.

Blooper or deleted scene?
When the fish-vamps attack at the window, this one comes in the door.
Then everybody looks at the window ones before running away.
Through the door.
Damn it, Fish Girl!  You had one job!

But gods, that daylight thing.  So they can wander around in it fine, but then if you shine a pocket mirror at them, suddenly it's kaboom?  (Although hey, look at the Krillitanes, with their natural oil that also conveniently makes them explode so obviously they carry it everywhere with them.)  Plus they wear "perception filters" so they can look human, and Francesco has no problem recognising his mummy, but then his 10,000 brothers hiding underwater can't, so they eat her?  How thick are they?  If her "clothes" are part of her perception filter, how does Rosanna take them off?  Why doesn't the Doctor do anything about the 10,000 fish people that are still there at the end?  And if Rosanna's whole brood, including babies, would fit inside one measly city, why not go and live in the sea instead?  There's a lot of sea!  They could still be there now and remain undetected!  I mean, Venice is very nice and everything, but this is all just playing silly buggers.

As for the specifics of their plan (come on, you knew this bit would be trouble!), using a giant rain machine to sink Venice (the sea, you fools, it's right there!) isn't terrible in theory, but how they go about foiling it falls squarely under that heading.  Rosanna's throne is conveniently her control hub – we've seen the Doctor sitting on it so he could easily figure that out.  So, commanding that Amy and Rory pull out all the wires (sure, that'll do it I guess), he dashes over to the secondary control hub in the bell tower... which he hasn't seen or thought about at all up to now, so how the hell did he figure that out?  His dash to the top of the tower might look impressive – and while I think most of the CGI in this episode looks exemplary, contrary to popular criticism, this bit of green-screen does look a bit shit – but it's just a load of random jiggery-pokery until the rain stops.  In action terms, it has the considered finesse of a screenwriter mashing the keyboard with his feet.  Make... problem... stop!

Then, after another really beautifully acted bit with Helen McRory (the clothes aren't real, how does that work goddamnit) and the Doctor pleading with a second person not to get killed (don't you start that nonsense, Mr Eleven!), the plot politely obeys and shuts up so our can heroes go home or whatever, pausing to make a clodhopping reference to The Silence which, in hindsight, rather suggests nobody told Toby Whithouse what it was.  (All Rory can hear is silence?  In a crowded marketplace, next to the sea?)

Vampires Of Venice is pretty much par for the Whithouse-y course: nice character moments, shame about the brains.  But the character moments aren't all that fantastic either, with Rory and the Doctor's unintentional competition over Amy at one point crystallised in a mine's-bigger gag, and some of Rory's pratfalls are, well, pratfalls.  He's not Mr Bean.  And yet, it's a really good time.  The production's lovely and the direction is eye-catching.  (Like that bit where Francesco jumps into the water and we cut away just before he hits.  But less so the sudden jump from night to day during the rescue scene.  But shh, this is the good list!)  Even Murray Gold's music seems appropriately extravagant.  Also there's another really great guest cast to add to the pile.

And lest we forget the main trio being on good form, most noticeably Matt Smith, who (if you're a Matt Smith Doctor fan like me) ticks all the Doctor's boxes.  And incidentally, how nice to make it a trio.  It avoids the I Wuv You pitfalls of a twosome, and makes a point of doing it because characterisation is always a good thing, but just generally it's good to shake things up.  Can they get a pet?

It's still style in another winning-over-substance shocker, but Doctor Who has had far less entertaining holidays.  I'd go again.

This Time It's War

Doctor Who
The Time Of Angels and Flesh And Stone
Series Five, Episodes Four and Five


How much do you like the Weeping Angels?  Most Doctor Who fans like them a whole heck of a lot – even the rumoured "normal" folk seem to have heard of them – and Steven Moffat knows this, so he does the logical thing.  Give them what they want.  Which is Weeping Angels by the busload.  Probably.

There are 6 billion colonists on this planet.
Why are the Weeping Angels starving in a cave?

The result is the Who equivalent of Aliens, minus the gore.  Seriously: take a small, terrifying story (Alien, or Blink), then make it a great big action movie.  There's atmosphere (and Angels) by the busload, and it doesn't try to be the same as Blink.  This is a whomping great two-parter with guns and armies, not a creepy timey-wimey tale set in a house.  It's very exciting.  However, with all due respect to not repeating yourself, some of what worked about Blink is rather missed.

We open in showy-offy, Steven Moffaty style, ping-ponging back and forth across 12,000 years.  River Song (pre her Library death) is investigating a spaceship's cargo.  She summons the Doctor to rescue her from certain death, and follows the Byzantium until it crashes on an alien world.

How incredibly flashy is that for a pre-titles teaser?  River is, admittedly, rather annoying: showing up the Doctor's TARDIS-flying skills is about as Mary Sue as it gets, but Matt Smith sells the awkwardness and curiosity of the situation, and does a wonderful impression of the TARDIS noise into the bargain.  With the arrival of Father Octavian and his army of clerics (less lame than they sound), River is kept from going into full Smug Mode by the constant threat of having her sordid past revealed.  It's one of her better episodes as it keeps her reluctantly in check; slightly fearful characters are more interesting than Me So Perfect ones.

So, the ship was carrying a Weeping Angel.  It caused the crash, now it's escaped and they must recapture it.  There's a real atmosphere here, as we build up the threat of the Angels by reputation.  A bit like Aliens (you don't say!), or the TNG episode The Best Of Both Worlds, it's a while before you actually see them, so we spend that time imagining the worst.  Soon we're in some caves, so that's dark places and stuff moving in the corner of your eye.  All very snazzy and well-directed.  Little do they realise there's an entire army of Angels here – they were, um, too busy recharging to attack... seems legit – and before you know it, the hunt for an Angel becomes a race to the flight deck of the Byzantium.  It's curiously not as big on plot as you might expect from Moffat, but it's an exciting ride.

Besides, there's some cool plotty stuff.  I've already mentioned the opening – any excuse to show off the cleverness of time travel is worth a punt – and even better, this year's arc plays an unexpectedly significant part.  Remember the crack in Amy's wall, which also appeared on the Starship UK and in Churchill's bunker?  Now it's on the Byzantium, attracting the Angels and causing all sorts of havoc.  It's a seriously canny move to take something you're expecting to see in the finale and plonk it in Episode Five, and it keeps the story from just being an exciting dash from A to B.  The crack adds a whole other layer of threat: people getting "unwritten" – although that detracts massively from the Angels, who are as frightened of it as everyone else.  Anyway, it serves as a handy way to get rid of the Angels (turn off the gravity, the crack gobbles them up) as well as a snazzy recall of the opening scene, with River getting sucked into space.  That's very nice work.

There are some brilliant blobs of Matt Smith here – definitely lots for him to work with.  He's irritable, awkward and occasionally angry around River; heroic, then heartbroken around the clerics; cocky and furious against the Angels; and genuinely affectionate towards Amy.  There's a wonderful bit where he refuses to leave her behind (despite her puzzlingly selfless insistence to the contrary – seriously, Amy?), and bites her hand to snap her out of a trance.  Even better, there's a clearly arc-hinty scene where he returns to give her some mysterious words of comfort.  (Spot the reappearing jacket!)  All in all you'd need a spotters's guide to know it was Matt Smith's first episode; he's instantly brilliant.  It's also a good one for Amy, once she gets past generic wide-eyed excitement and Girl Power camaraderie with River.  (Nope, not buying it.)  She has a lovely chemistry with Matt.

Oh no, he's got him by the throat!  He's... touching his throat.
And his hand.  Why not send him back in time?  Is he on a diet?

Of course, what you're really here for (apart from The Doctor And River: Round #2) is the army of Weeping Angels.  And that's arguably where these episodes fall down, or at the very least, ominously wobble.

Like any good horror movie monster, there are rules.  They can't move when you're looking at them; when they do, it's incredibly fast.  When they touch you, you go back in time and they feed on the time energy.  It's all a bit abstract, and the "send you back in time" bit has a soft edge (because their victims tend to get married and live happily ever after – aww!), but it's still incredibly effective, because it's simple.  Don't blink!  They.  Will.  Get.  You.

Perhaps in an effort to keep things fresh and interesting – because things were getting stale and boring, I guess? – The Time Of Angels fiddles about with all that.  Now, instead of sending you back in time, they snap your neck.  Instead of feeding on time energy, they feed on radiation at a crash site.  They still want to kill you, but it's less about survival – which is terrifying because it's only natural and you can't reason with it – and more about good old fashioned, rather boring, evil.  They even "reconstruct the cerebral cortex" of a victim so they can call the Doctor and mock, upset and generally rile him.  That's a bit desperate and attention-seeky, isn't it?  Kind of like a Dalek trolling the Doctor's Facebook page?  (It's also suspiciously reminiscent of the "data ghosts" from Silence In The Library.)  Why on earth would they bother?  They were much more mysterious and scary when they didn't say anything.

They're adding all sorts of stuff to their repertoire here, which dilutes those precious rules even further.  "That which holds the image of an Angel becomes itself an Angel," apparently.  So take a photo or a video clip and it's going to climb out of the frame and get you.  That's a nifty idea for kids, who are going to get even further away from their televisions as a result, but it strikes cynical old me as trying to fix something that ain't broke.  Weren't the Angels scary enough without adding photo Angels?  And didn't Sally Sparrow take a few pictures of them with no apparent consequences?  (I checked.  She did.)  They also have a new thing about looking into your eyes, which allows them to get inside your head.  Okay, but don't they generally want to avoid eye contact?  Why do they need all this climb-inside-your-head gubbins if all they want to do is feed on your time energy?  Why don't they seem bothered about that any more?

If all the Angels are unwritten, what happens to all the Applans they killed?
Do they come back?  What happens to the 6 billion humans who moved in afterwards?

They seem to do a lot of things here just because.  After "infecting" Amy, the Angels make her count down slowly from 10.  When she reaches zero, an Angel will come out, presumably killing her.  Okay, this is effectively sinister and body horror-y, but when the Doctor presses them on it (during one of Angel Bob's regular "Nyer nyer!" phone calls), it turns out they're only doing the countdown for kicks.  So... it's pointless.  Just how petty and bored are these guys?  The Doctor's solution is to "save up" the remaining countdown by closing Amy's eyes.  If the countdown's a joke, though, why would that do anything do stop them?  Later, he has the even more frown-inducing idea of making Amy walk past them with her eyes closed.  She's in no immediate danger because "they'll assume you can see them."  Bloody hell, so they're stupid now?  Didn't we just establish they have a whole thing about eye contact?  Presumably they know when you're not looking at them, or they'd never be able to move!  And the Doctor explains that Amy is faking nice and loud over the radio.  Christ.  So they can't hear you now?

There's some absolutely needless buggering about with the rules here, and when they're being transparently evil, petty or stupid, "scary" just gets further and further away.  Still, logic doesn't always get in the way of simple effectiveness.  When the Angels finally cotton on to Amy's bluff, they begin to move.  I know this is stupid – River helpfully reminds us that every Angel is "a statue when you see it", which means they're something completely different when you can't see them, I can't stress this enough, they are not moving statues.  I know, I know, but this bit still reduces me to quivering hysterics.  It's seriously well-directed.  Maybe that's it: direct something well enough and it won't matter how stupid it is.

When the dust has settled and River has dropped a few more portentous hints about her future with the Doctor, he takes Amy home so she can reveal her big, weddingy secret.  This is a nice moment, at least until Amy reveals her intention of a one-nighter with the Doctor.  This scene is, um, a bit of a mix?  Matt Smith is wonderful, giving about as Doctorly a response as you could hope for: baffled, grossed out, finally worried.  What it does to Amy, and poor old Karen Gillan, is less good.  We are supposed to like Amy, yes?  She's the companion, our stand-in.  Throwing in a largely unprovoked attempt to bonk the Doctor A) on the night of her wedding and B) with no intention of a relationship afterwards is just... ick.  She already seemed scatty and impulsive before, but this pushes her into downright horrible.  Yes, they've obviously Doing A Thing here that will pay off in the subsequent episode, but we're meant to follow this character's emotional state – the point of a companion is largely that their emotions are easier to read than the Doctor's – and going from a near-death experience to wanting to shag your imaginary friend during your extended pre-wedding night is just an ugly mess.  Take it away.

All done shuddering?  Right.  Action movie, thrill ride, roller coaster – choose your analogy or cliché.  These episodes are (apart from that dodgy last scene and the generous plot holes) very flashy and a bit clever, though ultimately they're far more exciting than thought-provoking.  And... that's okay once in a while.  Really, this is a solid and entertaining two-parter.  But the attempts to reinvent the wheel are wholly unnecessary.  The Angels worked fine.  If you're bored of them, Steve, just don't use them.

Unnecessary Redesign Of The Daleks

Doctor Who
Victory Of The Daleks
Series Five, Episode Three


The new Doctor vs. the Daleks.  What could go wrong?  As it turns out, quite a lot.

For starters, they forget to dress all the sets.

Okay, think positive.  I like that it's about a small group of Daleks, and not another Finale Army.  I like that it's set during the Second World War, because Daleks are stand-ins for Nazis and the two things just go together.  (Seriously, how right do they look zooming around the Blitz?)  I like the khaki-Daleks.  I like that when the Doctor arrives, answering a distress call from Winston Churchill, the Daleks pretend to be helpful.  There's a definite Power Of The Daleks vibe there, and even a direct reference with the "I am your soldier" line.  Nice.  (In case you're wondering, Power Of The Daleks is one of the best Dalek stories, but it's missing from the archives.  I guess if you're going to pinch an idea, it might as well be one you can't go back and watch.)

I also like some of the things it tries to do.  Pitting the Doctor against Daleks who've changed their ways is interesting.  How will he react?  Can he cope with Daleks that don't want to take over the universe?  Is he happier when they're shooting at him?  And later, when they show their true colours (all too literally), I like the attempt to make the Daleks bigger and badder.  In theory.  As Steven Moffat loves to reiterate, the Daleks are the most reliably defeatable baddies in the cosmos.  How can we change that?  I think that's a fair question, and a fair basis for a story.

Of course, that's all it is: a basis for a story.  You do need to add a few things, like a plot and some compelling characters.  All of that's missing.  Victory Of The Daleks is like someone scribbled a brief for an episode – WW2, Winston Churchill, Daleks, redesign them at the end – and put that straight into production.

Take the setting.  I read an interview with Mark Gatiss before this aired, and he seemed really interested in this time period.  He recounted grisly tales of death in the Blitz, and of people suffering all sorts of hardships.  Obviously Doctor Who won't go too into detail about it, but we've had a compelling World War Two episode before, so we know they can do it.  Victory Of The Daleks, on the other hand, is the laziest, join-the-dotsiest recreation of Blitz-era Britain you could imagine.  Here is a version of Winston Churchill who is never without a cigar, and rarely opens his mouth except to a) chew cigar or b) spout a catchphrase.  "Action this day!"  "We'll give 'em what for!"  "Keep buggering on!"  Does he come with a pull-string?  The supporting cast are just as bad; there's an ARP warden on the roof who yells "Put that light out!" and (urgh) "Do yer worst, Adolf!"  Later they put up a Union Jack and all nod patriotically at it.  This is a cartoon.  For historical flavour, you'd be genuinely better off watching Dad's Army.

Come to think of it, Dad's Army had better plots.  Take this "pretend to be helpful" business.  It's creepy and reference-y and a bit funny as well.  ("WOULD YOU LIKE SOME TEEEEA?" is not something you'd ever expect a Dalek to say.)  But after a grand total of 12 minutes, they chuck it in the bin.  Now, I doubt anyone watching this honestly believed that a) the Daleks have turned over a new leaf, or b) they really are just some unrelated robots that happen to look like Daleks.  But the tension isn't about whether their story is true – it's about What Are They Really Up To.  All the stuff with the bloke who thinks he invented them is intriguing enough.  Why are we in such a hurry to find out the truth?  In the paltry time allotted, all that "pretending" stuff amounts to is the Doctor saying "Oh yes you are" until they agree with him.  Well, that was easy.  And pointless, once we find out what their "plan" was.

Good thing he hasn't got post-regenerative amnesia.

Okay, so they've got a Progenitor, aka a thing that makes Daleks.  It won't work because their DNA isn't Daleky enough any more.  Don't panic!  It will work if they get the Doctor to confirm that they are, in fact, Daleks.  They decide the best way to achieve this is to build a robot scientist and make him believe he invented them, and go around saying they are not Daleks, but Ironsides.  (This is after the ending of The Beast Below, when Winston Churchill summons the Doctor before he starts believing they're Ironsides.  Uhh... script editor?)  They then cross their tentacles and hope the Doctor will turn up, at which point he will probably say the magic words.  Simple!  Oh, wrong word.  I meant "bollocks".

A machine that won't recognise Daleks, with the sink plungers and everything, but will accept the testimony (and recognise the voice of) the Doctor is bollocks – they haven't even met this version of the Doctor yet, so it's not like they've got his voice print.  Making a robot scientist who thinks he invented them is bollocks – what's it actually for, and why not just act like Daleks and wait for the inevitable wheezing, groaning sound that came every other time?  Filling the robo-scientist with memories is bollocks, not to mention dangerous – why not just remote control him, since he's a bleedin' robot?  Pretending to be helpful, and pretending they're not really Daleks at all is bollocks – if they're at all convincing, no one will summon the Doctor in the first place.  Really, if you're the sort of idiot who builds a machine that will accept the word of a stranger over a set of Dalek bumps and a sink plunger, perhaps extinction isn't such a bad idea.  Worst Dalek Plan Ever?

With the magic words uttered, the episode loses its selling point, and it's a prompt toboggan-ride downhill from there.  The Daleks rush off to hit CTRL+P on their Progenitor, the Doctor follows and holds them to ransom with a pretend TARDIS self-destruct.  Then... they tell him all their plans.  And he tells them he's not going to let them get away with it.  And it's dead boring.  Much of this episode rests on Matt Smith, who's obviously very watchable, but he's working with hopelessly dry stuff like "They are my oldest and deadliest enemies", "I've defeated you time and time again!" and "I won't let you get away this time!"  His inimitable stamp is missing, crushed by a script that reads like a bad Target novelisation.  It's Exposition Of The Daleks.

And then we get to the real reason for this episode: new Daleks!  New toys!  A new lease of life!  What a pity they look bloody ridiculous.  Now you mention it, the Daleks looked fine.  It was, and is a perfect design – ain't broke, doesn't need fixing.  Tweak them if you must (bronze works, khaki look great), but making them bigger, and colour-coding them like Power Rangers?  Not so necessary.  They're the most reliably defeatable baddies in the universe, and that's not going to change because all of sudden they're colour-coded.  Why not put more effort into their stories, since that's where they were lacking?  No change there, sadly, but now they look like comically oversized toys.  And then they run away.  That's seriously all we've been building up to here: the Daleks want a new batch, they get one, the end.  Oi, Mark!  You forgot to write a plot!

Our various heroes attempt to stop them, of course, which leads to some fighty-shooty-special-effectsy stuff that isn't a substitute for a plot.  The Daleks have turned on all the lights in London, which makes it a target for the Luftwaffe.  Oh no!  Luckily the robotic Bracewell has lots of useful ideas and isn't under Dalek control because um, so he outfits some Spitfires to go into space (good thing the Daleks made him able to do that!), they shoot at the Dalek ship, the Doctor... helps a bit?  And the Daleks decide that's enough, and reveal that Bracewell is also a bomb!  (Okay, so he is under their control now?)  If the Doctor doesn't tell the Spitfires to go away, they'll explode the Earth!  And the Doctor agrees, even though they're obviously going to do it anyway because they're Daleks, which lets all the air out of that Impossible Choice.  (Seriously, Doctor Who is terrible at those.)  It's a succession of silly stuff pulled out of thin air.  And it ain't over yet.

"This will pick up Dalek transmissions!"
Er, why are they transmitting anything?  Who to?  There's only one ship!

How do you disarm a bomb that's also a robot that thinks it's a man?  (No, you can't pop him in the TARDIS and throw him into a black hole, you nasty person!)  Why, by talking to it, of course!  The Doctor appeals to Bracewell's (fake) memories in an effort to convince him he's human.  Amy, using her super-companion powers and the fact that they're both Scottish (or rather, one of them is), reminds him of a girl he loved, which works a bit better.  Presto, the bomb deactivates.

I say "presto", because I don't know why the bomb deactivates.  He's a bomb.  He can cry all he likes, and think he's remembering stuff (though he isn't) – what's that got to do with going tick, tick, boom?  I wonder where the Daleks got all those memories from, why Bracewell was built with a Power Of Love failsafe, and why bombs always need a countdown and never just blow up.  Anyway, magically disarmed, he sits up and casually announces the Daleks have buggered off.  The Doctor gives an impotent little shout and then gets over it.  The whole thing is almost too limp and wiffly for words.

Then there's an extra Happy Ending where the Doctor and Amy let Bracewell roam free to meet up with his girlfriend.  All very cutesy-pooh, or it would be if a) he wasn't still carrying a massive world-destroying bomb in his chest and b) those were actually his memories, you pair of complete morons.  How did that get past a first draft?  And why are we doing cutesy-pooh stuff in a Dalek episode?  Doesn't it sort of shmoo-ify the tone, and make the Daleks look even naffer by proxy?  Isn't that exactly the sort of thing re-inventing the Daleks is supposed to put a stop to, for smeg's sake?!

And that's Victory Of The Daleks.  They came, they progenated, they still can't shoot straight, they left again.  One popular piece of criticism is that they should have made it two episodes instead of one, which always makes me laugh.  There isn't enough plot for one episode.  At times it feels like an unimpressive first act, setting up the bit where we find out what they were really after, which then makes sense of this first, noticeably crap bit.  Spoiler alert: no, this really is it.  For future reference, if you've come up with a new design and you want to show it off, hold a press conference.  Save the episodes for when there are stories to put in them.

Cautionary Whale

Doctor Who
The Beast Below
Series Five, Episode Two


Urgh.

You know how great The Eleventh Hour was?  How it managed to introduce characters and ideas, explain them, show them off, and all in a way that was thoroughly entertaining?  Well, you may want to wait before watching the next episode.  It's a teensy bit of a comedown.

The Beast Below does certain things that need doing for the series to work.  Fair enough.  We need to see Amy accept the "job" of companion, and understand that it's not just about hopping into the TARDIS.  We need to see why the Doctor needs a companion in the first place.  None of this is news to Doctor Who fans.

The Beast Below is preceded by a great 3-minute short.
Why not watch that 13 or so times instead?

And stuff like that can be done in an entertaining and subtle manner.  Just look at The Eleventh Hour.  This week, we're jumping through the same sort of hoops, but with nowhere near that level of subtlety.

The Beast Below is (god 'elp us) a satire, and you know what that means: Clang! Goes The Frying Pan Of Obvious.  Amy's journey from passenger to full-blown companion is obvious.  The Doctor's need for a companion is obvious.  The satire itself is obvious, but then, it's satire.  The whole point is that you're already familiar with it.

So the TARDIS arrives on the Starship UK, a floating haven for This Sceptred Isle, driven away by the super nova that roasted the Earth.  And something is rotten here.  Secrets are in the air and a child is crying, so naturally, the Doctor cannot resist helping.  Amy says so: "Is this how it is, Doctor?  You never interfere in the affairs of people or planets, unless there's children crying?"  "Yes."  Strictly speaking, that is a new spin on the Doctor's desire to help people.  Does he normally reserve his helpfulness only for adorable kiddywinks?  I thought he helped everyone.  B.A. Baracus did a lot of pro bono work for children, much to the chagrin of The A-Team.  Perhaps Steven Moffat is thinking of him.

Anyway, this child is crying because her friend is missing.  He got a bad grade at school, got frowned at by one of the robotic Smilers that oversee everything, and was dumped down a trap door, presumably to his doom.  People seem to know this sort of thing goes on, but they won't do anything about it.  The Doctor arrives and spots something odd about a glass of water: it's not vibrating, despite the gigantic ship's engines beneath.  It's up to Amy – decides the Doctor – to find out what's going on.  (Well, it's up to both of them, but he sends her on a mission of her own.  Which is odd, as one of the first things he said to Amelia last week was "Don't wander off".)

After finding herself imperilled almost immediately (cheers Doc), Amy finds herself in a voting booth.  People are told the truth about Starship UK and are given the option to Protest or Forget.  (Apparently if more than 1% hit Protest they will stop what they're doing no matter the consequences.  They say this, but Protesters are immediately flushed to their deaths, so I'm guessing that's just a fib.)  The Protest/Forget thing is about as blunt as satirical concepts get.  Insert any moral injustice here, and presto!  What Terrible People We Are.

The truth being suitably horrible, Amy hits the Forget button.  The Doctor is disappointed, and so (later on) is Amy.  Which is a bit strange.  She doesn't want to forget about it at the end of the episode, but she's exactly the same person she was at the start.  What gives?  Hey ho: the Doctor hits the Protest button, Which Tells Us What Kind Of Person He Is, and down they go to find the truth.

Dramatic chord!  The Starship UK is strapped to the back of a star whale, the last of its kind, and they are torturing it to keep it under control.  If they stop torturing it, the starship will (probably) disintegrate.  Everyone, including the Queen, knows about this and chooses to forget, because there is no alternative.  (Hold that thought.)  The Doctor decides the only humane thing to do is kill off the whale's higher brain functions so it won't feel pain but will continue to function.  (Keep holding.)  It's this, or he lets the torture carry on, or he kills the whale and dooms everybody.  It's an Impossible Choice.  We know this because he says so.  CLANG!

Aww!  The cutesy wutesy whale won't eat kids!  How nice.
So: how old is "old enough to eat"?  Does it eat teenagers?
It's aware that children are adults-in-training, right?

The trouble is, it's not as simple as that if you bother to think about it.  They need the star whale because the ship "can't fly".  Okay.  Why is that?  I found no answers in the episode.  What happened to all the other starships?  Did their engines work?  Why did all the other starships get a head start?  Can't they be contacted for parts or assistance?  Isn't anyone on Starship UK able to think of an alternative means of transport, or even research it?  Seriously, even the Doctor can't think of anything?

What about the journey, which the whale must complete at all costs?  Where are they going?  Are they going to the same place as all the other starships, or is everybody settling on their own planet?  (Given that they scythed off into separate country-ships, which is a depressingly jingoistic little side-note, that seems likely.)  And for the bonus point: why can't the Doctor bundle everyone into the TARDIS and ferry them to where they need to go?  Yeah, yeah, that's the snarky answer to everything, but it's embarrassingly applicable here.

In order for all of this to work, a great many things need to happen because they just do, okay?  Also a great many people need to have severely unenquiring minds, including the Doctor, and you.  Which is probably another casualty of the dreaded satire, but regardless, none of these things are hallmarks of a brilliant story.  When Amy finally comes to the rescue, realising (via the subtle power of flashback – always a good sign!) that the whale volunteered in the first place, it's a serious leap that no one else (including the Doctor) thought of that already.  It's just another obvious option discounted by everyone else, so that Amy and her amazing companion-ness can save the day.  Okay, you've set up your super-duper companion in the process, but it comes at the expense of everyone else's IQ.  Including Mr Alien Genius over there.  Whoops.

And we're not done being stupid.  Amy doesn't just realise that the star whale's going to keep on truckin' if they leave it alone.  She realises it because the star whale is like the Doctor.  We know this because she has a flashback about the whale and the Doctor, and then looks at the Doctor when she's talking about the whale.  "It came because it couldn't stand to watch your children cry!"  Dear god, that's clumsy, and it doesn't even work since "He only helps when children cry" is something they made up this week.  But then there's a whole other scene where Amy goes through it again for those of us with hearing difficulties.  "Very kind and very old and the very, very last.  Sound a bit familiar?"  YES AMY, FOR GOD'S SAKE YOU CAN LET IT GO NOW.

So the Amy Is A Companion stuff, which the episode is mostly about, is painful.  And so is the Doctor Needs A Companion stuff, because it means robbing him of the power to spot the bleedin' obvious (despite being capably Holmesian about those glasses of water), and the power to think about a problem for more than two minutes before picking a solution.  As for the Doctor's character, we learn that he's old and lonely and helpful, but there must have been subtler ways to tease this out of him than flashbacks and comparisons with a star whale.  All that stunning character-building finesse we saw in the "Doctor and Amelia" scenes last week has utterly disappeared.  It's a clang!-fest.

"Dave... do you think what we're doing is wrong?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Well, it's just that you've designed them with an optional Evil Face."
"That's not evil.  That's... decisive."
"And another thing: there's three of them.  How does that–"
*hits FORGET*

Matt and Karen are fine, although they're working within pretty stiff constraints.  The Doctor does a lot of high-and-mighty Impossible Choice stuff, which every Doctor must do at some point, hey ho, but there are some natty Matt Smith-y acting moments as well.  I particularly like his enthusiasm in the face of danger, and that insane "Wheee!" when he and Amy fall down the chute.

As for Amy, there's more of her wedding jitters, which pretty much define her at this point, and there's a bit where she's revealed to be, um, a talented lock-pick?  Amy spends most of it looking wide-eyed and learning Important Companion Lessons; it's more about Being A Companion than being herself.  The moment where the Doctor is 100% ready to boot her back home because she "failed" is an eyebrow-raising affront to the bond they established last week.  We just have to forget how much they mean to each other, because um.

If you take away the satire, the Important Character Points and (giggle) the Impossible Choice, there's not a lot else.  Liz 10 is fun, albeit embarrassingly one-note; "I'm the bloody Queen, mate" is a funny line.  Terence Hardiman does a good "suffering for his sins" expression, which is pretty much all his role requires.  And we have the Smilers, which are faintly creepy, albeit totally unexplained and shoehorned in there for toy sales.  (Since all the Protesters get flushed, what are they for?  Why do they need "half-human" Smilers as well?)  I would ask why getting a bad grade in school warrants flushing-to-your-doom just the same as Protesting, but that's probably part of the satire – use the whale as an excuse to weed out whomever you like.  Which suggests there's a lot more wrong here than just the whale torture, but clearly everyone's too obstinate to sort it out themselves.  Oh well, we don't go into it.  Good luck with that, guys.  *wheezing, groaning sound*

After an episode burning with new ideas, or at least a few new spins, The Beast Below comes as a ghastly shock.  You've seen it all before.  Fortunately, it shouldn't be too hard to hit the Forget button.

Practically Perfect In Every Way

Doctor Who
The Eleventh Hour
Series Five, Episode One


Woo!  All change!

The Eleventh Hour is an explosion of newness.  New Doctor, new companion, new TARDIS, new showrunner, new look, new sound.  Frankly, in 2010, Doctor Who needed the shot in the arm.  No doubt it works really well as a jumping-on point for brand new fans.  But we can get to all that in a minute.  Let's deal with the most important thing in the episode, the most important thing in Doctor Who.  The New Guy.

Matt.  Smith.  Is.  Perfect.

"I know he's an alien, but the mask is a bit much."
*awkward silence*

We each have our own take on what the Doctor should be like, and some actors will hover closer to it than others.  This time, I lucked out: Matt Smith just feels like the Doctor to me.  Stuff like otherworldly genius, impossible old age and "alien-ness" is tough to convey, especially for an actor as fresh-faced as Smith, but he manages all of the above in a way that, for me, David Tennant rarely did.  His was a charming, funny, sometimes imposing Doctor, but often he just seemed like the loudest guy in the room.  People generally ignored him.

Smith gives the impression that his mind is working on several things at once; he buzzes with ideas in a way that singles him out from everyone else.  And it's not just how he delivers the dialogue.  It's a tremendously physical performance, bouncing and tumbling around like a force of nature, but always with a certain precision in the way he moves, and the way he speaks, that suggests he's got it under control – just.  Smith's accent oscillates between a prim British cleverness and his usual (affected) Londoner's cadence, which I find quite thrilling: he sounds like he's just burst into existence and is going in several directions at once, but always lands on just the right spot.

Despite all that, and gallons of whimsy and eccentricity in the script, he still seems like a genuine person – he even makes "Wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey" sound like something you might say.  There's an unselfconsciousness to his actions, especially when he seems to be in his own little world, or when he's spitting.  (There's a whole scene of this and it's brilliant, but I'm also thinking of the bit in The End Of Time when he spits on the TARDIS for no reason.)  There are moments when the very consciously witty script backs him into a more mannered corner – like the opening when he's hanging off the TARDIS, or yelling "And stay out!" to a plate of bread and butter – but mostly he gives the already excellent material that extra push into sheer, fizzing genius.  I'd never seen Matt Smith in anything before this, so on some level I was even more ready to believe that David Tennant had regenerated into a brand new person, and that he was quite probably the Doctor.  A star is born.

I could praise his performance all day, but there is an actual episode attached to it, and it's only fair to go into that as well.  So: hooray!  The episode is brilliant as well!

New Doctor stories have novelty value by default – surprisingly often, this is the only thing going for them.  But The Eleventh Hour doesn't take that for granted.  The episode is designed to show off this version of the Doctor, marooning him without an established costume, a TARDIS or (for most of it) a sonic screwdriver.  He's given a fairly simple problem: the Atraxi will boil the Earth if they don't get their hands on the shape-shifter, Prisoner Zero.  He solves it with whatever's to hand, plus heaps of Doctorly cleverness, leaving the audience in no doubt that this guy is on the case.  Now, I'm well aware that I'm being frogmarched into thinking the Eleventh Doctor is brilliant, but I don't care, he genuinely is – see Why I Love Matt Smith, above – and with the plot so focussed on its goals, there isn't room for any of the usual bollocks.  Hooray!

Start to finish, this is one of the smartest and funniest scripts in Doctor Who.  Of course it's the episode's mission to win you over, so it's loaded with jokes.  (My favourite: "Do I just have a face that nobody listens to, again?", which is the Tenth Doctor gag I've been waiting years for.)  But there's more to it than wit and charm.  Steven Moffat is laying the groundwork for his version of the show, so he revisits one of his favourite themes: time travel working at different speeds.

I wish kids didn't age so fast, just so we could have kept Amelia.
And also because life's too short childhood is precious blah blah.

Crashing in her garden, the new Doctor meets a little girl called Amelia Pond.  He soon pops back into the TARDIS, then emerges to find her grown up.  An encounter that lasts minutes for him has repercussions on Amelia's (now Amy's) entire life.  I don't even know where to start with this stuff.  The episode runs fifteen minutes longer to accommodate it, but it's time well spent developing the Doctor, who explains the very complicated situation of a new body via what foods he likes.  (Hence all the spitting.)  It's time well spent showing how time travel works, and how it can get complicated, as succinctly as possible.  It's time well spent developing Amelia, who immediately strikes a rapport and trust with the Doctor – of course the same will happen, by extension, with the audience, especially the young'uns.  These scenes are chock full of groundwork and narrative all essential to the series, but it's such bliss to watch Matt Smith and Caitlin Blackwood work that you'd hardly notice.  It's very skilfully done.

Of course, Amelia cannot be our companion.  (Alas.)  Zip forward 12 years and we meet Amy, a girl with a lifetime of annoyance that the Doctor didn't come back.  Karen Gillan instantly strikes her own rapport with Smith, building on what Caitlin did.  The episode is about her to a large extent, and it's cleverly set in a small town where everybody knows what she's like.  It's an immediately interesting dynamic: she's obsessed with the Doctor, as anyone would be after what happened, but it's a cause of psychological bother and embarrassment.  Parallels are drawn with meeting your imaginary friend, and all the awkwardness that entails, which is a great way to communicate the show's appeal to younger viewers, and a valid way to reimagine it for the rest of us.  It's an instantly relateable and unique Doctor/companion relationship, which helps define them both.

There are some perhaps less impressive details on the periphery.  Grown-up Amy works as a Kissogram, which on the one hand is a creepy, lecherous, possibly euphemistic fate for a (typically sexy) Doctor Who companion, but on the other hand it fits with her obvious predilection for a fantasy life.  So, cautiously: shrug.

Gillan is as hilariously watchable as Smith.  The same goes for Arthur Darvill as Amy's long-suffering boyfriend Rory, now faced with (and horrified by) Amy's imaginary fancy-man.  The three of them became firm friends in real life, and their on-screen chemistry is immediate and infectious.  It just works.

Doctor?  Tick.  Companion?  Tick.  That's pretty much mission accomplished before we even get to the villain, who (let's face it) is not the important bit.  Still, Prisoner Zero works really well.  He's a mix of CGI (it looks awesome) and various "multi-form" disguises, including a man and his dog, with the clever tip-off that he gets the voice wrong.  (It's usually the dog that barks.)  It's pleasantly sneaky for a post-regeneration story to have a bad-guy that changes what he looks like, and it allows for some sly external character development when he takes the form of Amelia, who tells the Doctor what a disappointment he's been.  (I usually hate this sort of thing, but for once it actually works, because Zero-Amelia isn't pulling this stuff out of a hat.)  One of the disguises is Olivia Colman, easily one of the show's quickest and best cameo roles, oozing menace for a few short minutes.  This is another natty way to show off the new Doctor: he's good at villain showdowns.

Obligatory title/theme comment: it's not the best.
Space and time are made of grey candyfloss?  Meh.
Plus the "sting" sounds like someone swizzling their milkshake straw.

Okay, so the whole Prisoner Zero thing borrows from Smith And Jones: alien hides from other aliens, takes human disguise, lurks in a hospital, Doctor tricks it into revealing itself.  But it's given such a dazzling coat of Steven Moffaty paint that it's not very noticeable.  Meanwhile the Atraxi borrow from the Sycorax and the Juddoon, but also the Vashta Nerada when they "look the Doctor up" and run away.  But hey, that idea works really well in establishing a new Doctor, so why not give it another go?  The Eleventh Hour is so good, I honestly don't care that I've seen bits of it before.  (And some of it's entirely appropriate: the Doctor nicking his outfit from a hospital is straight out of Jon Pertwee's first story.)  Besides, there's a constant starburst of new stuff surrounding it.

Production-wise, this is a seriously impressive piece of telly.  It looks stylish, the direction is slick, and the music is some of Murray's most sumptuous.  The guest cast is an utter winner, peppered with comedy names like Colman, Annette Crosbie and Nina Wadia.  It's an all-out charm offensive, which isn't to say it's only interested in being funny.  (See Colman.)  It's just very, very good at it.

Of course it's Matt and Karen's episode first and foremost, and on that score it's a roaring success.  But to my surprise every time I see it (and I've seen it many times), the rest of it holds up.  It's 60 minutes long, and without a dull or misplaced second.  Confident, funny, clever, comprehensible, utterly loveable on every level, and frosted (as a bonus) with New Doctor Novelty, The Eleventh Hour is so good, all other New Doctor episodes might as well take the day off.  This is how it's done.