The Doctor's Companion Blog

We all sat around, very excited to watch the new Doctor Who last Saturday.  Even my Mother (not a normal Who fan) had come along saying she wanted to see the new Doctor.

The first surprise was the music.  It was a bit  …  different!  And the graphics too.  Although I quite liked the clouds, particularly the gold clouds.  Not so sure about the theme, but I expect it will grow on me.

The episode however had quite a different feel to the old RTD programs.  I loved Amabel, the garden, and the kitchen scene with fish custard was wonderful.  One for the kids obviously but I bet all the grown ups loved it too.

Grown up Amy was good too.  There was a nice community feel to the whole place, with most of the characters having known each other for years.  For example the bloke whose car trapped the Doctors tie obviously knew her well and was more than a bit intimidated, going off meekly to have his coffee. The old lady too, what a lovely performance she gave!  The casting in the Doctor is always superb!

The episode also was about many children’s dream – the dream of having the TARDIS land in your back garden, and the Doctor climb out.  Quite mad of course, but very understanding and kind.  He latched on to Amabel immediately – she wasn’t bothered by box falling out of sky sky and man falling out of box, so that crack in her wall must be really serious.

The episode had a lot to do.  Introduce the new Doctor as a person, introduce Amy and her friends and family (although where *were* her family?), explain the new TARDIS and sonic screwdriver, introduce the series arc theme (crack in the universe), AND have an adventure.  Blimey!  But it did it.  Brilliantly!

The family liked it too.  My son thought it and Matt were great (and may be defecting to Amy from Mylene).  My partner thought it was excellent.  My Mother said she thought that Matt was better than David Tenant (shock, horror!) and had a greater range.

But what did I think of it?  Well I wasn’t too sure at first.  But since then I have watched it three times and I am coming to the view that it is brilliant.  I have enjoyed previous series openers more (my personal favourite is Partners in Crime) but they (apart from Rose) had less to do.  And Matt is marvelous.

In fact things are looking very good.  David Tenant? What David Tenant?  Matt Smith *is* the Doctor!

My partner commented yesterday that if having a time lord brain in her head was really, really dangerous for Donna (the DoctorDonna) and would probably kill her, how come it was all right for half human Doctor to have it?  He only had one heart after all.

Its a very valid point and one I had never thought of before, as my partner pointed out smugly.

I suppose it just goes to show that I had been carried away by the power of the writing and acting so it passed me by.  Thats my excuse anyway.

The Shakespeare Code is utterly, utterly perfect, an exquisite jewell set in the heart of Doctordom. The music, the costumes, the Globe (yes its filmed in THE GLOBE THEATRE), the acting are all superb. But it is the writing that is the heart of it. The words are the thing.

In fact it is an elegantly written, play on words.

The Carrionites (‘foul Carrionites’) use words for power. In the past, the Eternals had found the right word to banish them into deep darkness. But Shakespeare, the one true genius, grieving for the death of his son, had had sufficient madness to let them in, with words, new and glittering. Three Carrionites, who settled in All Hallows Street, to hatch their plans.

The plans were to bring the world back to the old ways of blood and magic, so the human race could could then be purged as pestilence. They found the architect, Peter Strete and got him to build the new Globe Theatre, with 14 sides, to their design, not his. When the work was done they snapped his wits.

The Carrionites are immensely powerful beings. They can take the form of humans, generally knarled witches, but also young and beautiful humans such as the form taken sometimes by Lileth, their leader. They can suck words and knowledge from you and kill with a touch. Men to them are as puppets, and using the doll as a DNA replication unit, they can take you over, make you speak words that are not your own or write words you have never seen before.

They were already ensconced and well advanced in their plans, when the Doctor brought Martha on her ‘one short jaunt’ in the Tardis, to watch a play at the Globe. Intrigued by the prospect of seeing the lost play, ‘Loves Labours Won’, he visited Shakespeare at the Elephant Inn, where he witnessed the strange death of Lynley, drowned on land and killed with a blow to the heart. The night had even stranger events, with ‘sweet Dolly Bailey’, killed by fright, and a cackling witch witch seen by Martha from the window, sailing off into the sky.

A visit to Bedlam the following day revealed not only the story of Peter Strete, but also the Carrionite Mother Doomfinger. But the Doctor knows the power of a name, and Doomfinger was banished to the House in All Hallows Street. Meanwhile the Doctor worked out the story, sent Shakespeare to stop the play, and went himself with Martha to visit the Carrionites in their lair.

A superb piece of acting then ensured from both Christina Cole (Lileth) and the Doctor, culminating in Lileth bursting backwards through the windows, and hovering in the air while she used her doll to deadly effect.

But she did not know that the Doctor has two hearts, and Martha was able to bring him back.  Followed by the obligatory running scene, with the Doctor ‘going the wrong way’, before finding the Globe and the stage door.

The transformation scene at the Globe is superb. Heralded by the wonderful Murray Gold music, the theatre spouts pink flames, while the three witches laugh with joy, and Carrionites fly out of the smoke. Now is the time for Wil to show his genius, and reverse the spell. Which he does, along with a bit of help from JK (hopefully she won’t be suing).

One of my favourite scenes in the play however is the one that we never saw. The tragically cut scene where Shakespeare shows that he knows that the Doctor is from another world and Martha is from the future. He recognises himself in the Doctor and senses his loss, his grief and his madness. But unlike the Doctor, he is content where he is, he does not need to travel. “Give me my pen and ink, give me my minds eye and I can go wherever I want.”

It is the heart of the play, the heart of what Shakespeare is, and shows how a human can on occasion match and surpass the Time Lord. It is also actor Dean Lennox Kelly’s finest piece of acting. It should never have been cut. Shame on you!

So there you are. A fabulous piece of writing from Gareth Roberts, backed up with marvelous acting, effects, the whole caboodle. But the final comment on the piece must be the comment made by Jonathan Morris in the Doctor Who Magazine’s golden moments special edition:

“Although life was very different in the sixteenth century, people were just the same. Writers spend all their time in pubs and deliver their scripts having finished them the night before; actors don’t care if their lines make any sense so long as they get to do a big speech and take centre stage, and the only thing audiences ever notice are the special effects”.

The Shakespeare Code can be bought as part of Doctor Who – The Complete Series 3 Box Set [DVD] [2007] or you can get the cheaper ‘Vanilla’ Doctor Who – Series 3 Vol.1 [2007] [DVD] [2005] which just has the first three of the series 3 episodes.

Having spent much of today setting up this blog in its new format, it is only right that I should relax with a sausage sandwich.  In homage to Professor Emilia Rumford and the aptly named Vivien Fay from fourth doctor story, the Stones of Blood, in the Key to Time series.

Although sadly I don’t think the good professor finished her sandwich in the episode.

We have had a bit of a change here at the Doctor’s Companion blog.  I have taken it off Typepad (although an archive will stay there for a bit) and it is now a self hosted WordPress blog. 

I am using the wonderful Innanis Glass theme. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you will find a handy little box (click the circle at the bottom left) where you can select another theme. I quite like the default theme, but do have a look at the others. They all fit in quite well with a Doctor blog.

So, all set ready to write about the new Moffatt era. Although I will also be writing about old Who too. Watch this space!

It some time now since the End of Time broadcast on New Years day and I have watched it several times.  What are my views?

Well its good.  Sort of.  Yes, quite good.  David and Wilf are great, as always, Timothy Dalton is very strong as the Time Lord (I like Timothy Dalton) and the story nicely ties everything up.

And yet.  I don’t know.  Maybe I don’t really like big finales particularly.  I often prefer the smaller more ‘ordinary’ Doctor Who stories such as Blink, The Shakespeare Code, and Gridlock.  Maybe I am just being difficult.  Somehow the last finale, the one with Davros, was much more powerful.  After all when you have seen the earth dragged halfway across the Universe, with 27 planets in the sky, it is a bit ‘here we go again’ when Gallifrey pops up.  God know what all this is doing to the tides.  And whats Rassalon doing with Captain Jack’s glove?

John Sim had a good part!  I hope they gave him a good fee after all that dressing up he had to do.  Although come to think of it, it must have been quite fun.  At first anyway.  The thing about John Sim though, he *is* very good, very good indeed, but I keep thinking that he is too nice to be the Master.  Roger Delgado (Ah Roger Delgado!) and the other chap were better in that respect.  But it was nice to see him back.

I think what made the Stolen Earth/Journeys End feel better was that the Doctor has his companions helping him. I know he had Wilf in this episode, but none of the others, and those green spiky people, I wasn’t too keen on them.  Were they just there to prove that special effects can cope with green things now?

And who was the mysterious woman?  Some people say the Doctors Mother, my Son thought she was Romana, I don’t know.  I quite like the fact that we do not know though, it gives us something to speculate on.

The rest of it is all wrapped up and tied with a bow.  Mickey marries Martha.  Donna marries her bloke.  Nerys wears peach.  Even Nurse Redfern, we learn, had a happy life, although I am not sure how her granddaughter recognised the Doctor. So thats all kind of satisfying.

Final verdict?  Good, but not great.  Looking forward to Number Eleven …

Doctor Who – Winter Specials 2009 – Waters of Mars and The End of Time [DVD] is available from Amazon.

I was more than a bit disappointed by the first part of the finale of David Tenants reign.  It seemed very disjointed and hard for people who do not know Who, to follow.  In fact as we all sat around watching it on Christmas Day I felt a bit embarrassed at making my Mother (not a Who fan) watch all this stuff.  I am pretty sure that most of went straight past her, although she is a very polite person and did not complain.

It was nice to see Wilf back of course, and I liked the cafe scene.  However who were this Naismith couple?  We had no explanation of why they were millionaires, how they knew of the immortality gate, and where the daughter got the idea from that she could become immortal.  It all added to the confusion.

In fact I rather felt as if Russell, the writer, knowing that this was the end of his Dr Who writing, had cast aside all restraint and piled in everything pel mel, with no particular order or cohesion between the various parts.  Sorry Russell, but that is what it felt like watching it for the first time.

Although it was exciting to see the Time Lords at the end.  I was not expecting that.  It was a good moment.

I have watched the episode since of course and it does improve on a second viewing. I understand it a bit better.  I think it will take a few more viewings though before I get it all, plus I expect parts of it will only be clear once we have seen the final part.  Due in a few days.

I am looking forward to Part 2, but my enthusiasm has been dented a bit by the deficiencies of Part 1.   Although I should make it clear that I thought all the *actors* was great, and I have no complaints at all about the quality of the acting. It was, as always, superb.

Doctor Who – Winter Specials 2009 – Waters of Mars and The End of Time [DVD] is available from Amazon.

I bought myself the box set of the Doctor Who – The Key to Time recently as an extra Christmas present for myself.  It is one of my favourite Doctor series.

So far I have just re-watched the first two.  The Ribos Operation is, for me, made by the wonderful performance of Ian Cuthbertson as Garron.  He is just perfect as the confidence trickster who loves his work.

Then the Pirate Planet is such a wonderful explosion of inventiveness from Douglas Adams, so clever the subtle way he introduces the nurse and the whole idea of planets mining planets.

To come, the excitements of earth and the Kaliad, the Androids of Tara and the rest.  People are often a bit disparaging about the power or Kroll and the Armagedden Factor, but I have always enjoyed them.  The whole series is great, with the wonderful Tom Baker, the marvellous Mary Tamm (the perfect ice queen) and the brilliant K9.

Excuse me, I must go now.  I have a series to watch.

So.  I’ve seen the Waters of Mars twice and have had a bit of time to ponder on it.  What do I think?

Well its good. Of course its good, they all are.  And Lindsey Duncan is of course wonderful as Adelaide Brook, the commander.  The make up is amazing, and the effects brilliant.  But.

I didn’t really like the Doctor going off the rails at the end. I really didn’t like that.  I quite understand that its great for David to act, and as always he did a fabulous job.  But the Doctor doesn’t do that.  Or shouldn’t.  I don’t want him to go mental and upset time.  I prefer him as he was.

Call me old  fashioned but I prefer the Doctor to be right, the one who sorts things out, the one thing that is dependable  I don’t want him going off the rails.

We will have to see what will happen over Christmas and the New Year.  It looks pretty amazing so I am really looking forward to it.

Lets hope the Doctor has got over his delusions by then.

Doctor Who – Winter Specials 2009 – Waters of Mars and The End of Time [DVD] is available from Amazon.

Prior to watching Delta and the Bannerman I had not really understood why some Who fans were so negative about Sylvester McCoy, or indeed why Dr Who the program was held is such disdain at the end of the classic period.  Then I watched Delta and the Bannerman.

I suppose it is not the worst thing I have ever seen, but there is no getting away from it  It is dire.

Sylvester McCoy himself is more or less all right.  I like Sylvester McCoy. But:

1. Mel is truly awful (although she is quite good at screaming)
2. The actress playing  Delta is incredibly wooden
3. Billy is pretty dire too

For example, I find it impossible to believe that he could accept a green baby coming out of an egg and growing up within 24 hours without a blink, even if he had fallen desperately in love with Delta.  And whats all this about him changing his species just by sucking on a tube?

I think that the fault probably lies mainly with the dreadful script.  However the whole thing is completely unbelievable, and the only way you can make sense of it is to treat it as nonsense, and just enjoy it as that.  It is not completely unenjoyable, but it is not good Who.

Although, strange to say, Ken Dodd, compared to the rest of it, is really not that bad. At least he gets killed off early on.  Would that the same fate could have befallen Mel.

Doctor Who – Delta And The Bannermen [DVD] [1987] can be bought online from Amazon.