The Ood Cast

So, our namesakes arrive… and this was a bit of a masterclass in sci-fi staple elements. An ice planet, a future inter-galactic human empire, a slave race in revolt, misuse of science for personal gain and a scientist with slightly mental hair. And that’s not to mention the warehouse chases and planetary landscape scenes filmed in a quarry…

But that’s not to do it down any. This was well done. Well written and slick, this is an interesting story that was really nicely put together.

Donna’s moral side really does something good here – and really does counter the Doctor well. But, like Chris, I really am not sure about Catherine Tate. She’s OK, and she’s fine with me if her character remains interesting next to DT (who wouldn’t?). But every time she speaks, I just hear characters from her sketch show. At the end of every episode she’s been in so far, I have been expecting her to storm off to the TARDIS shouting “F***ing liberty!”… I’m waiting for the Dalek episode where she’ll just look at it as if its a male model on a cold day, cock her head to one side and shout “I ain’t bovvered!”.

I liked this story though – it reminded me very much of a Tom Baker epic. I was wishing for all the world that the Doctor would come out with one of those lines… You know, like, “You humans… Totally clueless, but you can’t help but love that…” There was an almost palpable atmosphere when the Ood were bearing down on them while they were handcuffed that somehow, the Doctor would slip the cuffs, and offer them a jelly baby (which would then, obviously, turn out to be the Ood’s downfall).

As far as the story was concerned, it was a towering 70s rock supergroup of issues… Can you get much bigger than tying together battery farming and slavery? You can if you add Captain Darling from Blackadder…

But I rather liked the guilt trips that the Doctor went on – being reminded of the first time the Ood appeared, and he couldn’t save them because he’d been too busy looking after everyone else. After last week’s moral bitch-slapping from Donna, this was an interestingly Morrissey-kind-of-perspective. It was nice that the Ood were given a history – a place to come from and a place to go, and not just used as a plot device or as some evil git’s tool of destruction. It was nice that they were a victim, is what I mean. It means that while they were just the forgotten and thrown away bunch of lads the last time round, this time, they ended the story as likeable and friendly creatures.

Oh, and even though I liked this one a lot, the preview of next week made my day… The Sontarans AND UNIT are back in the same week! Oh what unconfined and childish joy! Roll on the weekend!

At last! Andrew summed all that sentiment up perfectly, so I won’t add to that, except to say that I am glad its back, if a little nervous.

I have several gripes with Catherine Tate. Not least the idea that The Guardian put out there on the same day as episode 1 was broadcast that she’s “Britain’s best-loved woman comic”… I don’t particularly find her sketch show all that funny and there are characters on that which make me want to put my foot through the telly.

But in 2006, whether I liked it or not, she encroached on my ground… She was in Doctor Who. And she was, well, alright. It wasn’t a great story, and the character was pretty unlikeable. But it was alright. It was watchable – but having David Tennant in the cast does that to a programme…

So what on earth was this going to be like with the grating Donna by DT’s side, combatting what looked to be the least-threatening menace since the half-painted Myrka stumbled into the Sea Station in Warriors of the Deep? Its so much harder to get away with crap monsters these days. It was much easier when it was very clear to all that this hideous alien/creature was obviously a man in a half-painted suit – because Doctor Who fans didn’t care – its about getting lost in the fantasy of it all, letting your brain compute this as real for 20 minutes a week. Now, though, CGI has added it’s double-edged twopenneth in. On the one hand, they’re able to create the most stunning things I’ve seen on UK telly. On the other hand, there isn’t anything to be left to the imagination. So how were they going to pull this off?

The answer, came from the mind and keyboard of RTD. This wasn’t a sparkling story by any means. It had the required numerous pointless chases (I’m not saying that’s a bad thing) that it takes to be an RTD script. But there is so clearly a chemistry between Tate and Tennant that is such a winning formula that its impossible to misfire (it seems). Incidentally, I agree, Andrew – RTD’s opening episodes have tended to be up and down – the first season’s Rose was stunning. The second season’s New Earth was a huge disappointment to me – I found it all rather boring, to be honest. Last year’s Smith and Jones was just about perfect in pitch, script, acting and drama. And this year, well, it hit a nice middle ground. A concern that nagged at me was that Tim’s comment about Star Trek films in the majestic series Spaced (“Sure as night follows day, sure as eggs is eggs, sure as every odd numbered Star Trek movie is s**t.”) would become true for RTD’s season openers. It had been so far, with season two being a real fly in the ointment. Sure it wasn’t s**t, but it wasn’t all that good either. If cat nurses can’t save the thing, its a wonder the doctor managed to.

What saved Partners In Crime, though, was the script and the acting performances. Sarah Lancashire and Bernard Cribbins (I hope he’s a regular occurance!) really added brilliant depth to it all, and the sparks between the Doctor and Donna were gloriously not romantic, but oh-so-funny! To avoid quoting the “mouthing” scene again, I’ll go for the confrontation with Mrs Foster in the building – it was tense, climactic and ended with a moment of comic brilliance from Tennant (“Do you know what happens when you put two sonic devices together? [Mrs Foster: No] Neither do I – let’s find out!”)

My instinct was that I hated the aliens. But after a second watch, actually I didn’t. It wasn’t that I hated them – I hated what they stood for. Yes, they were a deceptively clever conception with the name and some of their reasonings for coming to earth, but I’m always uneasy at social comment in Doctor Who. And this felt clunky and not at all suited. It has happened before – the whole Slitheen saga in Season one had huge echoes of the debates surrounding the Iraq war – but that was more used for comic effect really. This seemed and felt more like comment on society. I guess its fair game, and you never know, it might convince some youngsters to shed a few pounds to avoid dissipating into a bundle of cute aliens. But it just felt wrong to me.

It was OK. I really did enjoy it, and I watched it twice without balking, but there were too many things that rankle slightly. And coming back to a point Andrew made… yes – I sat there at the end and thought that Rememberance of the Daleks was a better season opener. In fact, in the week since, I’ve seen some of Spearhead From Space and Robot… Both excellent openers. My goodness, I sound like a fan. When did that happen?!

And Tate? You’re alright by me if things carry on like that. I can only see it getting better and it didn’t start in a bad place…

New Doctor Who! Quite simply, Doctor Who is the best and most extraordinary format ever devised for television. It can go anywhere in the Universe, at any time. It can tell almost any kind of story and cover almost any genre. Because of this it is endlessly surprising and watchable so the anticipation of any new series is in some way like looking forward to Christmas Day. The potential for it to be something really special must not be disappointed. You want surprising and unexpected presents. Some that blow you away, some that make you go, ‘Oh, that’s good. Actually the more I think about it, it’s just brilliant’. On the whole you want them to be things you would never have expected but what you have really really always wanted.

As ever one or two intriguiging scenes were released early – one in particular that elicited a ‘Wooooaaah’ (a woman disintegrates into a load of cute aliens. On BBC1 on Saturday. At tea time. Oi,‘Alien’! Ha! You ain’t got nothing on this!*).

So. Episode one. ‘Partners in Crime’. Any good?

Russell T Davies has consistently written some rather breezy opening stories. They’ve been episodes that I have generally quite enjoyed but been under whelmed by. Anyone else agree? They have been scene setters for the new companion (or in the case of series two the new Doctor). A chance for the Doctor and his companion to meet each other, find they work well together and like each other because they have overcome extraordinary odds. The challenges in their relationship and its subsequent development come in the following episodes as they get to know each other and work together more. This is probably a realistic way of developing each series – that’s what we should expect from Russell T Davies who above all else knows how to write character. But I do gag for something that feels like a proper kick off. Something to make you boggle. Remember the old days? Series openers like Spearhead from Space, The Masque of Mandragora, The Leisure Hive.

What we got was the usual opener. But this time I loved it. Run around and defeat a quirky threat and imbue with plenty of comedy. Thing is with Partners in Crime it has enough depth to make you think about it for a few days afterwards and go, ‘Oh, that’s clever’. Monsters called the Adipose (look it up) – tiny cute alien babies formed from fat in overweight people (‘We’ve travelled a long way to find a country as suitable as this’!). It seems to be a win win because earthlings lose wait and the Adipose family grows in number. But something goes wrong and people literally start falling apart to create these little bubbas. RTD is interesting on the moral side of things. It ends with a memorable line. The Doc is asked if he will blow the Adipose up. ‘No, they’re babies. They can’t help where they came from.’ There’s one to ponder.

But there’s more to this than a tale of human hosts and ruthless aliens. There’s Catherine Tate. Goodness, who’d have thought it. Especially as when we first met her in the Christmas special a couple of years back her character was dreadfully irritating. I liked her then though, Tate gave a great performance and did what was on the tin: irritating one-off companion to show just what a companion can’t be. Thankfully she was changed by her encounter by the Doctor, and really wants to find him again. I like that. I mean you would wouldn’t you? She devotes her herself to being in places that the Doctor might turn up. And when they finally meet we are treated to a scene that really deserves an award. Come on there must be a gong for that one! A scary interrogation scene that is also a central piece of plot exposition is cut off for a glorious comic interchange between David Tennant and Catherine Tate – mouthed through a window. A perfect example of superb writing, pitch perfect acting, direction and music. Just glorious. And then they get spotted and its back to the plot; plenty of running away, delving into complex computer systems and saving the human race through quick thinking wit. While she may be the Marmite of companions I think I’m gonna like her. The Doc needs to be challenged. Bring it on!

There’s plenty to enjoy and each character is three dimensional, (gotta love Miss ‘Health’ and the Doctor’s reaction to her pick up attempt; very Doctor Who… ‘Ah, no. That would er contravene paragraph four subsection three. Sorry…’. Actually, I rather liked her.). The running gag with the journalist getting tied to a chair is funny (but should probably be irritating, love that. Doctor Who can be all sorts of genres at once). Miss Foster (Sarah Lancashire) is great and has a nice Mary Poppins moment just before her demise – surely they could have got an umbrella in there? Sylvester McCoy’s perhaps? Then there’s Donna’s family. When I was a boy the companion was just the companion and we knew no more about them. These days it’s all so much more real; and lovingly done. And: B.e.r.n.a.r.d C.r.i.b.b.i.n.s. how about that!

But as ever with a RTD story there were things that niggled me. It’s always little things that he puts in to move the plot along or to resolve the story. There’s a moment where the Doctor (somehow, but how??) electrifies a doorway to stun the guards. Then the Adipose are prevented from turning a million humans into alien babies because the Doctor can neutralise the signal that is causing it. It so happens Donna has the gizmo that makes this possible. Let’s flick a switch and make it all ok. That’s way too simple – it’s a real let down if a big threat is just switched off. Come on, Doctor Who has a proud history of characters fighting against the odds and cobbling together a plan from little more than wit, bravery, pieces of string and a teaspoon.

Then there was Rose. Well that was unexpected! The surprise was completely ruined by a friend who texted me after the program aired (but while I was hastening back home to watch it on video) going ‘Woah, Rose!’. So wot’s going on there then? The web forums are no doubt bursting with theories, all of which I am refusing to read. All I know is that while I get frustrated by some of RTD’s plot resolutions I do trust and admire what he does with the series overall, and especially with the characters. Let’s wait and see. Let’s have no idea whatsoever and be so stunned that we have to spend ages going on about it. Hooray!

All in all this was bright, inventive, thoughtful tv with two leads at the top of their game, a splendid supporting cast, lovingly and fearlessly put together. We know from previous years that the best is still to come and my goodness next week looks GOOD!!

* Some have wondered if Alien was inspired by the 1970s Doctor Who story The Ark in Space.

I had three beginnings.

Of course I didn’t but wouldn’t it have been ever so elegant if I had? In actual fact I had five beginnings, one after the other in the space of an hour. Yes, my first experience of Dr Who was Terrence Dick’s “The Five Doctors” which is by any measure a crazy ass episode for anyone to enter the Whoniverse.

For one thing it follows none of the rules of the series as a whole, imagine watching that thing if you had no idea about the history of the show. Right, so this guy’s the Doctor and he travels to different planets in a blue box. Wait a minute, that guy’s also a Doctor, I wonder what his deal is? Oh, it’s exactly the same as the first guy’s, they haven’t even bothered to invent another back story. More questions followed: Why do those two seem to be acting in an entirely different show? Why does she keep spraining her ankle? Couldn’t she have just walked up that slope?

And yet … and yet … I was enthralled. Which meant that when in 1989 Dr Who burst (then limped) back into regular programming, I was beside myself. No behind the sofa for me, I had my face pressed up against the screen. It was ‘Ace give me one of those Nitro-9s you’re not carrying’ BOOM! and I was in love.

Favourite Doctor:

Will always be Sylvester McCoy. Not because he was all I knew, not because I didn’t know any better. He was just MY Doctor – dark, strange, clownish and complex. His Doctor was like nothing else on TV, not just the good guy but multi-faceted, a master-manipulator, so alien, so other when he wanted to be. I think I just instinctively knew that I wasn’t being pandered to with this one – 9 years old and something was speaking to me in all the glorious greys and half-tones of the real world. So yes, I firmly believe Dr Who had it’s own little renaissance at the fag-end of the century with stories like Remembrance, Ghostlight, and Fenric earning their place as really top-flight Who. Then came the New Adventures which went that one step further into territory I’d certainly never been before. I still remember the gist of the blurb on the back cover of one of the first novels (Timewyrm? Cat’s Cradle?) ‘Only the Doctor can save them. But the Doctor was destroyed years ago. Before time began …’ I couldn’t keep it in my head, couldn’t contain the worlds conjured up to dance before me, the ideas, the scale, the complexity of the continuum and through it all the rich seam of the McCoy Doctor – impish and strange, clever and comical – the grinning, winking tip of a cold, alien intelligence that spread out like a glacier beneath the surface.

Of course, all that said, David Tennant is beyond fantastic and the only other Doctor that convinces me the guy is operating on a completely different level to everyone else. The Doctor is not human, lest me forget, he’s not just really, really ridiculously clever – he perceives things differently to us, he can see time in the same way we can see length, width, height, volume – all that possibility, all those choices slowly solidifying around him, fixing future history in place just by his presence (and brilliantly realised and articulated in ‘Fires of Pompeii’ might I say [YES - first mention of Series 4 - and all because my colleagues have been gracious enough to wait for me to catch up, what a rotter!]). Tennant sells the hell out of the character and it is his obvious, joyous, infectious love for the role that ultimately lifts the current iteration of the show to a level that precious few programmes can match.

The last word should be left to Sylvester though in probably my favourite Dr Who quote of all time – ‘I can’t stand burnt toast. I loathe bus stations – terrible places, full of lost luggage and lost souls. And then there’s unrequited love, and tyranny, and cruelty. We all have a world of our own terrors to face.’

Perfect.

Favourite story:

I have loads. Apart from the McCoy classics mentioned above I would also like to give massive shout outs to City of Death, The Time Meddler, Caves of Androzani, The Green Death, Genesis of the Daleks, The Empty Child, Girl in the Fireplace and most of the latter half of Season 3. It really is a stellar time to be a Dr Who fan, isn’t it?

Oh and Dimensions in Time.

Kidding.

Monster/ enemy:

Not to be the contrarian of the group (which I am unfortunately) but I love the Daleks. They work and it’s crazy because it’s like Terry Nation just threw a load of concepts at a wall (like they were spaghetti that he wasn’t sure was quite done) and the bits that stuck he went with. The stupid wheeled design, the one eye, the plunger, the spots, the car grill, the weedy laser, the voice – it’s like the worse designed monster ever both in practicality and menace and yet when you put it together it’s a dalek and it’s ultimately cool. I was bouncing off the walls in the Ecelston episode – when the eyes flashed in the darkness. Awesome.

Also the Raston Assassin Robot thing. Take that you rubbish Cybermen idiots. You don’t like that cold steel up you, do you? Thought you were only vulnerable to gold? Well prepare to be retconned you motherf***ers coz it looks like you’ll also go down like a bitch when faced with the might of normal metal arrows. Hahahahahaha!

Which companion did you either want to be or fancy:

Peri … in the regeneration scene. No one was looking at you, Peter.

No one.

What are you looking forward to?:

I’m going to be honest here – absolutely everything. I can’t wait. But especially Moffet shenanigans.

Dreading:

Catherine Tate. She’s alright but I’m not a fan and she doesn’t make my heart go pitter patter like Rose did.

I should now go on and talk about episode 1 and 2 but I think I’ll leave the honour of commencing the geekathon to one of my esteemed colleagues that deserve it oh so very much more than me.

Go for your life, guys.

One of my very first memories is a recurring nightmare about a scary green man with tentacles running into a hut in the snow. The hut blows up and I wake up terrified. Years and years later a friend lent me the video (remember them?) of The Seeds of Doom and there was my nightmare, on screen at the end of part two. Yikes. That was quite a surprise. It seems therefore that I have been watching Doctor Who since before I can remember, but perhaps that is how it should be. Kids love a good story and that is what Doctor Who is.

Doctor Who challenged my imagination and the way I think about the world. It was a big influence for me. Tom Baker grinning at an adversary and offering them a jelly baby was such a unique way of dealing with trouble that you couldn’t help but love it. The series inspired me to become an actor, work in telly, the media, anything really that would get me making programmes like Who. If I may be deep for a moment it fed into my ideas of what is right and wrong and the challenges of the bits between the two.

Favourite Doctor:

Well this is so hard these days. A few years back that was such an easy question. The answer was Tom Baker. But these days how do you choose between Tom and David Tennant? Tennant has really got it nailed now. He’s angry, he’s lonely, he’s an old, old man in a young man’s body. He can be brilliantly funny too. Full of compassion, never allowing the end justify the means but making the means fit the end (is that an oo-er?). And, I’m told by countless women who watch it becasue he’s in it, rather hot… Doctor Who? Hot? Who’d have thought it.

I grew up with Tom’s Doctor so choosing David would be like disowning an uncle or something. Tom was sooo alien. Dangerous and surprising. Wildly funny;‘You know, you’re the classic example of the inverse ratio between the size of the mouth and the size of the brain!’. Deadly serious; ‘When I say I’m afraid, Sarah, I’m not making jokes’. (Actually are there any really good quotes like that in the new series?) Amazing company, the best friend you could want and the worst enemy.

Hmmm, you can’t compare the two. But David may have the edge at the mo. Never before has there been a Doctor you can feel for, and that dimension is something the new series does really well. We felt his loss at the end of The Girl in the Fireplace and when the Master died. Goodness I had something in my eye on both occasions. Tennant is such a good actor that those big character pieces can really hit you between the eyes. But to be fair to Tom that happened in his time too. That bit in Logopolis where he spots the Watcher for the first time is surprisingly disarming and likewise when Sarah Jane leaves at the end of The Hand of Fear (my first Who memory). He draws his coat up around his shoulders and looks sooo alone.

Favourite Story:

That’s an impossible question! Come on this is Doctor Who! Oh, all right. If you must! Hmmmmm. No. Well. I guess. At a push, if I really must.

It would be City of Death. I suppose it has something to do with being on at the time when I was just getting into Doc Who, but it is brilliant. It’s all there really. An audacious and fascinating plot which is all to do with the Jagoroth wanting to survive (can’t blame him for that) but at the cost of humanity never having existed. A great monster/villain. Tom Baker at the height of his performance and one of the greatest Doctor / companion relationships with Romana (my first TV crush!). A sparkling script by Douglas Adams that gives Steven Moffat a run for his money. Some really scary bits (end of parts one and three – they were really scary to a kid). Julian Glover, Catherine Schell and Tom Chadbon amongst others. And John Cleese!! And Paris!!

Monster/enemy:

Well again there are so many. The Daleks though I have always found rather dull. Creepy yes and unquestionably a design classic. But they are just a bit slow. For me it is the Cybermen. When I was a boy you couldn’t put a scratch on them, not like today (what WAS Russell T Davies thinking of?). They were impassive, invulnerable, totally remorseless and really chilling. Somehow they are really tragic, but of course they’d not understand the word. Watch Earthshock, it still holds up!

But the monster that had the biggest impact on me was Kroll. Terrifying. Yeah, I know the story is dull, but this thing was a mile across. And that wasn’t including it’s tentacles. It could cut through marsh land like a hot knife through butter and pick off anyone at will. Watch those scenes where it attacks the refinery and you will see what I mean. I had nightmares for weeks and wouldn’t go anywhere near the deep end of a swimming pool. It was my one truly behind the sofa moment, and I found to my horror that it was too close to the wall. So I hung onto my dad for dear life.

Which companion did you either want to be or fancy:

Lalla Ward!! Yum!

If I’d been born a few years earlier I suspect it would have been Elisabeth Sladen or, indeed, Katy Manning. Then of course Nicola Bryant. How DID they get away with Planet of Fire part one?? Billie Piper too. I saw her play in the West End last year and got her autograph, she’s really nice

I sort of wanted to be Adric. Looking back he’s not the greatest of the bunch, but because he was a kid it was like wow, he’s getting to travel with the Doctor. His moral dilemmas made me think a bit and he was often getting it wrong and I identified with that – I just knew that I would mess things up in such extraordinary circumstances. Nothing prepared us for when he stays on the freighter to stop it hitting the Earth. Then the escape pod detaches, and the cyberleader blows up the console in the TARDIS, and the cyberman blows up the computer on the freighter, and it’s getting closer and closer to the Earth. Just stop a moment and consider how all that looked to a nine year old who had no idea whatsoever which way it was going to go. This was really, really jaw dropping. Then the muffled bang as the freighter blows up. I think there was a national stunned silence. Yeah it’s only a tv show but that was extraordinary. A needless death among so many made even more tragic by the fact that it was poor hapless Adric. We sat there and turned the volume up to full on the tv cos we couldn’t work out why there was no end music. Then it dawned on us. He was really dead. Goodness.

What are you looking forward to:

18.20, Saturday, BBC1. And Catherine Tate. I think she’s gonna be rather good.

Dreading:

I’m rather worried about episode six. I won’t spoil it if you don’t know the title… but as the Doc said in series one ‘I don’t do domestic’.