Masterpiece Theatre: Galaxy 4

Masterpiece Theatre

Number 12: Galaxy 4

Galaxy 4 has always been one of those stories in which I have never been interested. Like The Savages, The Myth Makers and The Massacre of St Bartholemew’s Eve, it has long since been lost to the archives. Very few images of Galaxy 4 survive, and those that exist do very little to pique the interest and stimulate the imagination. It doesn’t help that the Target novelisation of the story, by the serial’s author William Emms, is perfunctory at best, offering very little in terms of world-building and character development. Even the people who worked on it struggle to remember too much about it, and that’s never a good sign.

 

 

When it was announced that the third episode, Airlock, had been returned to the archives, the general consensus was that, although it was good to see that horrible number of missing episodes inch ever closer to a double figure total, most fans would have cheerfully swapped Airlock for any of the missing episodes of Power of the Daleks or The Web of Fear for example. So when the recovered episode was announced as one of the special features on the DVD special edition of The Aztecs, I certainly approached it as a curiosity piece and nothing more; just another orphaned episode amongst way too many others.

How wrong I was. Galaxy 4 is, for the most part, extremely enjoyable and thematically interesting. In many ways it’s a prime example of sixties sci-fi and deserves a fast and radical re-evaluation. In the Doctor Who Magazine Mighty 200 survey of 2008, Galaxy 4 placed 172, thanks in no small part to some of the elements listed above. Nobody remembered it; ergo it was unmemorable and average. Yet Galaxy 4 is so much better than that. One can only imagine that it will chart so much higher when the next survey is carried out. Certainly it is far superior to fellow Hartnell tales Planet of Giants, The Chase and The Celestial Toymaker, all of which feature much higher than Galaxy 4.

The main reason for this reappraisal, and indeed the main reason for seeking out a copy of The Aztecs to watch the superb reconstruction of the missing episodes of Galaxy 4, is Stephanie Bidmead as the main villain, Maaga. If there is any justice in the world, Bidmead’s world-weary portrayal of a superior intellect surrounded by idiots will be remembered as one of the best villain turns in the entire history of Doctor Who. Her annoyance and frustration at the lack of imagination in her Drahvin soldiers hides a sadistic and malevolent blood-lust that is chilling to behold. Tellingly, the Doctor and companions Steven and Vicki see through her smiling facade immediately. Vicki’s observation that Maaga would enjoy killing them, within minutes of meeting her, has a power that very few character interactions possess. Make no mistake; Maaga is lethal. She is a psychopath on the verge of detonating, and all the characters know it. The Drahvin clone-drones are terrified of Maaga, and for a group of soldiers bred to kill to be afraid of their leader is a frightening prospect, leaving the viewer in no doubt about the threat Maaga poses. For a long time, it is debatable which will explode first: the unnamed planet or Maaga. That threat is not even diminished by the last episode where Maaga’s potential is squandered in a show of underwritten impotence. Her grandstand moment comes in Airlock, when she delivers a speech about what the end of the planet will look like, straight to camera, a smile playing on her lips as she tells her soldiers that her final moments will be spent gleefully watching her enemies die.

 

 

The Drahvins are well-served by now properly existing in moving footage. Far from the dolly-bird window-dressing they have sometimes been described as, Maaga’s subordinates demonstrate rather touching child-like qualities, always looking to Maaga for the approval they will never receive. When one Drahvin questions why she is not allowed to go on patrol, she is told that she is not allowed. Her bewilderment at the order, because patrolling is what she always does at this time, is reminiscent of a small child struggling to come to terms with a unexpected change in routine. Carrying on this theme, we are told that only Maaga is allowed to carry a gun, because she is leader. This draws comparisons with children’s games, where one child is in charge of the game because they happen to have the correct prop or because it is their house, and the others docilely accept this as being how the world works. The Drahvins are children caught up in a game that they do not understand, and it is difficult not to have some sympathy for their plight. The way they look to Maaga for comfort or reassurance reinforces the concept that they are nothing more than children. They are a peculiarly touching and therefore interesting race.

 

 

The most shocking moment in Airlock flashes back to just after the Rill and Drahvin ships have crash-landed. From a Rill’s point of view, we see a wounded Drahvin soldier, face covered in blood (highly unusual for any Doctor Who not written by Eric Saward), reaching out for help, before Maaga puts her out of her misery with a callous blast from her gun. She doesn’t even attempt to help her soldier or to ascertain her injuries. Maaga’s first instinct is to kill, and her drone dies not understanding what is happening to her. It’s a powerful moment, mostly because it is so unexpected. The soundtrack gives no indication of what has happened. It is only through viewing the episode that we understand how horrific Maaga’s casual execution truly is.

 

 

 

Vicki comes across very well in the story. The scene where she tests her theory about the Chumblies (the oddly cute robot servants of the Rills) is as amusing a scene as sixties Doctor Who ever offered. Bunging a rock at the Chumbley, she ducks down like a naughty child, listening to the Doctor’s splutters of outrage. Then she calmly tells the Doctor: ‘I noted, observed, collated and concluded. And then I threw a rock.’ The Doctor, oddly enough, is unable to muster a reply. It’s practically modern Doctor Who in its execution.

 

The Doctor gets his own moment of childishness when, dismantling the Rill’s ammonia production unit in an act of ill-considered vandalism, he is stopped by Vicki and then told off by the Rills. When a Chumbley moves off and the Doctor asks where it is going, we get a lovely moment where the Rill tells him it is going to repair the damage he caused, making the Doctor glance at his feet in embarrassment. By this point, William Hartnell’s mannerisms are well-established, with little harrumphs and constant clutches at his lapels, but this only endears him to us. In his second season, Hartnell owns the Doctor.

For many, many years, as long as I can remember, it was received wisdom that the Rills are the only monster for which there was no visual record. Not entirely true, as some of the delegates in Mission to the Unknown, to my knowledge, have no photographic representation. Regardless of the truth of this widespread claim, it was not without a degree of trepidation that fans gazed upon the Rills for the first time in fifty years. They needn’t have worried. Looking like an early design for Jabba the Hutt crossed with a walrus, and voiced like a Star Trek monster, the Rills are quite competent. Obviously they are too ambitious for Doctor Who’s budget, but they suit Galaxy 4’s parable themes of beauty and the beast. That they spend much of their time swathed in smoke hides some of their shortcomings, although it is a pity they weren’t shown in little glimpses, like the 456 in Torchwood: Children of Earth. There’s one great image of them in the reconstruction that finally settles once and for all what they look like.

 

 

In a way, the most thrilling bit is the last thirty seconds when, safely aboard the TARDIS, the three travellers survey a nearby planet. Then the camera moves in on that planet and we see Garvey sprawled out on the ground, repeating the same phrase over and over again: ‘Kill, kill, kill.’ It’s as tantalisingly close as we perhaps will ever get to seeing Mission to the Unknown, the ultimate ‘Doctor-lite’ story. It almost makes you weep when you know you can’t watch more.

 

 

Galaxy 4 is a much better story than I could possibly have imagined. Once again, it’s painfully obvious just how much of a loss those missing 106 episodes are to the world of television. If a story like Galaxy 4 is deserving of re-evaluation, what of tales like The Savages or The Smugglers? How many real bona-fide classics have we been denied? Maybe we will never know, but what is very clear indeed is that, no matter how good a job the soundtracks and John Cura telesnaps do of filling in the gaps, only the moving images reveal the true measure of a story’s quality. Take a trip to Galaxy 4 – it’s a surprising entertaining place.

 

 

Lost in the Time Vortex

New Trailer

 

It’s been a long time. I got lost in the time vortex. The TARDIS brought me home. Or maybe it was a new job that just sucked up all my time. One or the other...

Anyhow, it’s nearly Easter. Time for chocolate eggs and frisky bunnies and hopefully a bit of sun in rainy old England. Oh, and it’s nearly time for Doctor Who!

The Series Seven Part Two trailer was broadcast on BBC One last night. If you click on this link, you can view its majesty with your own two eyes. In the meantime, here are some screengrabs for you to feast upon.

 

 

Ice Warrior!

Scary abandoned funfair!

A living planet!

Mummy-thing!

Ice Warrior!!

New Cybermen, with a new creepier design!

Clara in a pretty dress!

The Doctor in a space-suit!

Ice Warrior!!!

Freaky top hat monsters!

Freaky Silence thing!

The Doctor climbing into the time vortex!

Ice Warrior!!!!

And so many questions to answer. Hold onto your hats (unless you’re a freaky top hat monster), the ride’s just about to start!

Doctor Who returns on Saturday 30th March with The Bells of St John by Steven Moffat.

Review: The Angels Take Manhattan

The Angels Take Manhattan Review

Immediate Reaction (After First Viewing)

And that’s that. Goodbye Amy and Rory. Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who has been criticised in some quarters for lacking the heart and soul that Russell T Davies’ iteration had in buckets. The Angels Take Manhattan sets that particular record straight. Amy’s departure at the hands of a Weeping Angel rivals Rose’s exit from the show, and I suspect resonated with a rapt audience in the same way. The Doctor’s heart-breaking reaction to her disappearance matches the tears he shed for the loss of Rose, showing that Amy meant just as much to him as she did. Matt Smith continues to extend his range as the Doctor, and makes the Doctor’s loss all too real. For the first time in the Eleventh Doctor’s era, I was properly moved. I might even have cried a bit. But don’t tell anyone.

The Angels Take Manhattan was a typical Moffat creation, in that it threw invention after invention onto the screen, seemingly without abandon, and managed to surprise and shock on a regular basis. Moffat seems to have settled down from overdoing the convoluted plot threads and time travel cheats that he used at first, and his two tales this year so far have had a pleasingly linear structure that has placed character higher than some of his recent stories. What it also had, with the knowledge that this was the story where Amy and Rory leave, was a sense of doom and death lingering over it. The threat felt real, because it was very possible one or both of them could die. That feeling doesn’t come along very often in Doctor Who and Moffat utilised it with his customary brilliance.

The use of detective imagery and tropes allowed Nick Hurran to show New York off to good effect, although I could have done without seeing River Song again. The shadowy backgrounds and darkened rooms were perfect environments for the Angels to inhabit, and there were one or two moments of sublime horror, such as the little girl in the window imitating the Angels gestures, and Rory’s descent into the cellar to meet the Cherubs.

The Weeping Angels themselves showed the law of diminishing returns in full effect. There were some nice wrinkles to their presentation, some more successful than others, but overall the fact is that they are no longer scary. The Weeping Cherubs were deeply disturbing, particularly that little child laugh they possessed. The Weeping Angel of Liberty was clearly an irresistible image, although it didn’t really seem to serve any purpose beyond its initial amusing appearance. Similarly the mother and son Angels seemed to only be there to provide Mike McShane’s mob boss with an off-screen death. However the main issue is that, with the whole don’t blink/ actually do blink issue raised in The Time of Angels/ Flesh and Stone has muddied the waters so much now that characters can go minutes at a time without actually looking at the Angels. Dramatic licence yes, but a severe weakening of a once terrifying villain. Leave the Angels alone now, Steven.

In a way it’s a pity Moffat chose 1938 rather than, say, 1965 for the past setting. It would have been nice to have imagined Amy and Rory finding little baby Melody in an alley, freshly regenerated, and raising her in the way that the events at Demons Run denied them in the first place. But then, I suppose life is not about completely happy endings and all threads tied up in a neat bow.

But the episode lives or dies on the strength of its main selling point; the departure of a companion, or in this case two. The inclusion of the Weeping Angels was a big clue about how the Ponds would leave us and so it came to pass. However, there was real power in their scenes in the graveyard, and also in the Ponds suicide pact to create the paradox. Whilst one Angel surviving and waiting in the graveyard was a bit convenient, it was the right exit for Amy and Rory. I agree with Steven when he says that companions shouldn’t die, and these days it seems that they have to leave in the most final way possible, short of death. The Ponds and the Doctor have reached the end of their book, and it’s sad to see them go, but also time. The show goes ever onward, and while we mourn the end of Amy and Rory, the post-credits mini-trailer promises new glories to come.

 

 

Written in memory of Rory Arthur Williams (Died aged 82) and his loving wife Amelia (Died aged 87).

Review: The Power of Three

The Power of Three Review

 

Immediate Reaction

Credit where it’s due – Chris Chibnall has managed to stretch Doctor Who’s format in a fresh new direction. The idea of an invasion that lasts a year, forcing the Doctor to take the slow path lends the episode a sense of magnitude lacking in others that take place in a more condensed timeframe. Chibnall has in two episodes eradicated all fears that his writing isn’t up to Doctor Who standard. The Power of Three is his best effort so far, and I would look forward to any future contributions from him.

For three quarters of its duration, The Power of Three is an engaging mystery framed within a beautiful investigation of just how the Doctor and the Ponds work as a relationship. It sheds new light onto how companions view the Doctor, painting him as a force of nature who disrupts normality and leaves his friends unable to rejoin the real world without difficulty. We’ve seen this difficulty in Sarah Jane Smith in her spin-off series and here that theme is put firmly under the microscope.

There is a beautiful scene just outside the Tower of London where the Doctor explains why it is he keeps running. It’s not, as Davros once claimed, because he is scared of looking back, but more because he is scared of missing out on the wonders the universe holds. The Doctor’s speech here rivals any justification the series has ever offered for his desire to travel and in many ways gives us the definitive reason.

The episode is packed to the rafters with little moments of pleasure. The fan-pleasing references are weaved into the narrative nicely, from the teasing mention of the Zygons (who are long-overdue an onscreen return)to the salute that the Doctor offers  Kate Stewart, poignantly referencing his parting gesture to the Brigadier in so many of his past incarnations. The revelation that Kate is the Brigadier’s daughter provides the series with a great way of preserving Nicholas Courtney’s legacy and honouring him. Now we need to see Clyde and Rani in some way to honour Elisabeth Sladen in the same way.

The standout character is again Brian, whose thoughtful ways and diligent approach mark him out as one of the great companions-who-never-was. He is as endearing a creation as Wilfred Mott and I sorely hope they can find some way to bring him back, although I get the growing sense that after next week, there’s no way back for the Ponds.

As I said at the top, The Power of Three is most of a brilliant story. What lets it down is the slightly fluffed resolution to the whole cube mystery. The Doctor’s recognition of the alien force behind the invasion and the way he is able to destroy the spaceship with no resistance whatsoever comes too easily. What happened to the two cube-mouthed orderlies? They seem to just vanish. It’s also a shame that Steven Berkoff wasn’t given more time, as he is one of my favourite actors. He creates a great impression in short space of time. Maybe availability was the issue. After all, he’s a very busy actor.

As a last hurrah for Amy and Rory, the story shows them at their best, resourceful and brave and able to carry on the Doctor’s work in his absence. Their decision at the end not to give up travelling with the Doctor is going to cost them dearly though, and I have a horrible suspicion about how next week’s Angel spectacular will pay out.

We’re in uncharted territory for modern Doctor Who, with four successes out of four. This season is shaping up to be the best in a very long time, and The Power of Three continues Doctor Who’s rich vein of form. Another good ‘un, I reckon.

 

'And with dress sense like that, you must be the Doctor.'

 

 

 

 

Considered Opinion (After Second Viewing)

 

Sadly for The Power of Three, it’s the first story of Series Seven that in part doesn’t stand up so well to a repeat viewing. That’s not to say it’s not good. Far from it, Three is packed with sparkling dialogue, laugh-out-loud moments and a surprising amount of heart. So what’s changed my opinion of The Power of Three then?

The main criticism of the story, and this is in no way the fault of Chris Chibnall, is that the first half is virtually a rerun of The Lodger, with Rory and Amy replacing Craig as the hapless foils for the Doctor’s impatience with being trapped in one place and one time. The structure of both stories is almost identical at times, and Three suffers greatly from being the later of the two tales. Matt Smith clearly enjoys the fish out of water stories, but The Power of Three is the third time in three seasons we’ve seen the Doctor having to blend in and try to be normal, if you count Closing Time alongside The Lodger. Despite Chibnall’s best efforts, that particular plot idea is starting to get a bit stale.

I think Chris Chibnall knew this, and that’s why we get a great interlude in the middle of the episode when the Doctor whisks Amy and Rory off to celebrate their anniversary and inadvertently runs into trouble on two separate occasions. It’s telling that for some viewers, the off-screen adventures are actually better than the one we are watching, particularly the Zygons under the Savoy Hotel.

 

'Bit of a shock. Zygon ship under the Savoy. Half the staff imposters.'

 

Adding to this seen-it-all-before feeling is the reuse of celebrity cameos for the first time in an age. Russell T Davies used them effectively to ground Doctor Who in reality, but Steven Moffat’s vision for Who is much more based in fairytale imagery, so the cameos in this case, although nicely observed and portrayed, are slightly out of step with current Doctor Who.

It’s a fine line between using elements the series has employed successfully in the past and merely reheating old ideas, but Chibnall gets the balance right all the way through. The UNIT base under the Tower of London makes a reappearance here without a fanfare, but is really a backdrop to allow the touching conversation between the Doctor and Kate about her recently-deceased father. The reuse of the Tower in this respect is good continuity rather than unnecessary stealing from the past. It also moves UNIT along, giving them a much-needed modern face and ideology, although the grunts are as faceless as ever.

The central cube mystery is still engaging though. The little black boxes pose a very different kind of threat to Earth than we have ever seen before, and it is quite incredible to think that Doctor Who has never depicted an invasion by such stealthy means before. The revelation of what the cubes were actually doing and how they are being used to wipe out mankind is a neat one, if scientifically flawed. That the Shakri go for the heart allows Chibnall to pass comment on humanity’s biggest weakness and also its greatest strength.

 

'You just married Henry the Eighth. On our anniversary.'

 

In a way it would have been perfectly acceptable for the story to have concluded with no threat from the cubes at all, merely a huge cosmic practical joke. But instead we have an ending that has too many ideas to fit into its timeframe and is therefore rushed, trite and worst of all, morally wrong in part.

The Shakri’s role as universal tally-keepers for the universe is a new twist on alien aggressors. Steven Berkoff’s role is small but very effective and the fact that he wasn’t actually there leads me to hope that one day he can return in a much fuller role and reveal more about this fascinating new race. The Shakri’s ‘look’ is a little generic though, which is a shame.

The Doctor’s ‘one wave of the magic sonic screwdriver and everything is alright again’ scene is a weak resolution to the story, yet we must remember that The Power of Three is about the Doctor, Amy and Rory, not the actual black cube invasion, so it makes sense for that threat to be eliminated summarily. After all, there’s no complaint about similar scenes in The Christmas Invasion or indeed Human Nature/ The Family of Blood (which incidentally is my favourite modern Doctor Who story and quite possibly my favourite of all time, so that’s placing The Power of Three in very auspicious company). In all three cases, the plot is ancillary to the characters, and that’s perfectly acceptable.

What’s not so acceptable is the apparent ignoring of the fate of the other hostages on the Shakri spaceship. Rory and Amy save and rescue Brian, but there are quite clearly others in the background moments before the Doctor destroys the ship. Why didn’t Rory and Amy help them too? A simple line about them being beyond help would have solved this problem, but as it is, we are left with the uncomfortable thought that the Doctor and his friends merely left these people to die. I’m certain that wasn’t intentional, but there’s the unfortunate connotation that the TARDIS trio are a little bit self-serving here.

If this analysis comes across as nitpicking, it’s worth remembering that The Power of Three is still Chris Chibnall’s strongest script for the series so far. In any other season, this story would be near the top of the pile, instead of around the middle, but that’s a testament to the strength of Series Seven so far. And it’s worth remembering that The Power of Three contains what may be the finest scene of Matt’s Smith’s tenure to this point and possibly the greatest rationale for the Doctor’s continuing travels in Doctor Who’s nigh-on fifty year history. And it’s miles better than The Lodger ever was.

 

'Where's the Doctor?' 'On the Wii again.'

 

The Power of Three’s ten brilliant bits

1.       There are two notable celebrity cameos in the episode. Sir Alan Sugar’s is a witty use of The Apprentice, but it is the scene featuring Professor Brian Cox that’s the best. It doesn’t hurt that Cox is so personable and nice anyway; nevertheless his cameo is one of the most entertaining the series has yet produced. ‘They’re not space debris,’ Cox tells us with a knowing twinkle in his eye. ‘Are they extra-terrestrial in origin? Well, you’ll have to ask a better man than me.’ I really hope Cox is a Doctor Who fan (he is!), because his sheer delight at appearing in the series is obvious and infectious.

 

2.       Mark Williams once again shines as Rory’s Dad Brian. His quiet and careful appraisal of the Doctor and his thorough approach to the cubes bring him to the Doctor’s attention enough for the Time Lord to consider him worthy enough to be offered a place aboard the TARDIS. He gets a multitude of brilliant moments, from the realisation that he has been watching a cube on board the TARDIS for four days straight to his Brian’s Log video journal, ignoring the laughter of his son. His conversation with the Doctor is celebrated further on, but I sincerely hope his decision to encourage Rory and Amy back onto the TARDIS doesn’t come back to hurt him. I rather think it might.

 

3.       Jemma Redgrave as Kate Stewart is a prime example of the series celebrating its past and using it to build for the future. Her role is chiefly designed as the most effective way possible of honouring the late Nicholas Courtney. Yet Redgrave does more with it than that. She manages to portray a sense of quiet effectiveness and also to give UNIT a new face to lead it in future stories, in a way that Colonel Mace couldn’t quite manage in The Sontaran Stratagem/ The Poison Sky. Her highlight is the scene where the Doctor reveals he knows she is the Brigadier’s daughter. ‘Don’t despair, Kate,’ he says. ‘Your Dad never did.’ Kate reacts with pleasurable surprise as the Doctor tells her it was obvious who she was. ‘When did you drop Lethbridge?’ he asks her. ‘I didn’t want any favours,’ she tells him. ‘Though he guided me, even at the end. Science leads, he always told me. Said he learned that from an old friend.’ The Doctor smiles at this acknowledgement. ‘We don’t let him down,’ he decides. In this little exchange we get the backstory for the Brigadier that we’ll sadly never see. It’s all the backstory we need. The Brigadier gave his all until the end, and that’s how we would want it to be. He’s passed the mantle to his daughter, keeping the Lethbridge-Stewart legacy deservedly alive– let’s see her again soon.

 

4.       The jaunts to other adventures are inspired. Taking Amy and Rory to an anniversary meal at the Savoy Hotel in 1890, the Doctor discovers, off-screen, a Zygon ship under the hotel and half the staff already replaced. We cut to the end of the mini-adventure, with the three regulars sitting in front of the remains of the Savoy, teasingly deprived of even a glimpse of the much-loved monsters. Then we see Amy, Rory and the Doctor under a bed as Henry VIII comes in. Amy has accidentally married him on her wedding anniversary, much to Rory’s annoyance. These little vignettes are fabulous and it’s a shame we’ll never see them in their entirety.

 

5.       Brian’s little talk with the Doctor reveals the heart of both characters. Brian has been quietly assessing the Doctor for a while. At the Ponds’ anniversary party, he finally corners the Doctor. ‘What happened to the other people who travelled with you?’ he asks pointedly, not making eye contact with the Time Lord. Already respecting Brian, the Doctor is uncharacteristically honest with Rory’s father: ‘Some left me. Some got left behind. And some – not many but some – died. Not them. Not them, Brian. Never them.’ That plays two ways. For newer viewers, that means Astrid and possibly Donna, whilst for older viewers that means Adric. Thank God the Doctor stopped short of naming the latter. I would hate to think of curious kids searching out his stories and discovering an alarmingly camp plank of wood in a set of pyjamas.

 

6.       The heart of the episode is the Doctor’s conversation with Amy, in front of the Tower of London. As I stated earlier, this speech represents some of the finest writing the series has ever seen, and for that reason alone Chris Chibnall deserves future episodes. ‘You’re thinking of running away,’ the Doctor states matter-of-factly. After some initial bluster, Amy tells him that the travelling is starting to feel like running away. The Doctor replies with one of the all-time great monologues. ‘I’m not running away. But this is one corner of one country in one continent on one planet in one corner of the galaxy that’s one corner of a universe that’s forever growing and shrinking and destroying and never remaining the same for a single millisecond. And there’s so much to see, Amy. Because it goes so fast. I’m not running away from things. I’m running to them before they flare and fade forever.’ ‘So why do you keep coming back for us?’ Amy asks him. ‘Because you were the first,’ the Doctor says, a sad smile on his face. ‘The first face this face saw. And you were seared onto my hearts. Amelia Pond. I’m running to you and Rory before you fade from me.’ In one screen minute we get the best explanation for why the Doctor stole a TARDIS in the first place and one of the most poignant explorations of what it is like to live for so long and love so much. Sublime writing. Completely sublime.

 

7.       The cubes all perform different actions designed to explore humanity to the fullest. So when Amy comes across the cube that blares out The Birdie Song over and over again, her reaction to it is priceless, all widening eyes and pout of disgust. The laugh-out-loud moment of the season.

 

'On a loop!'

 

 

8.       Steven Berkoff has long been one of my favourite actors. While I am slightly disappointed he wasn’t given more screen time, what we do get is wonderful. The rhythms of his speech patterns and that little laugh could only come from him: ‘The human contagion ONLY... must be el-im-in-at-ed. The Shakri SERVES the TALLY!’ Coupled with those mad, mad eyes, it’s a rich and fruity delivery by a great actor. Let’s have him back alongside Christopher Walken as another Shakri, please.

 

9.       The salute the Doctor gives Kate at the end of the story, continuing the long-held tradition, brought a lump to my throat that had a lot to do with this Doctor Whoah! cartoon from Baxter published just after Nicholas Courtney’s death.

 

 

 

10.   The direction by Douglas MacKinnon may have been less showy than Nick Hurran’s, but the use of different ways of showing the passing months was great. The letters of each month were formed from a digital clock face, the lights at a party, Christmas lights, sparkles from a cake and a camera record button. My personal favourite was the letters made from meat on the barbecue, slightly charred and browned by the heat. A lovely and easily missed touch.

 

Although my opinion of the story has dropped slightly since the initial broadcast, there is so much to love in The Power of Three. Its place in the season is to provide the final hurrah for the Ponds, before they leave next week. It sets up that finale extremely well, showing just how much the Doctor is about to lose. Amy’s departure in particular will rival Rose’s in the impact it has on younger viewers. The Power of Three takes a chance and tries to tell a fresh story. For that it deserves a lot of praise. It’s just a pity it relies in part on tropes that the series has adopted too often in recent years.

 

'I'm running to you and Rory before you fade from me.'

 

Overall Rating: 7 ½ out of 10

 

 

And Remember...

And Remember...

 

Series Seven is seeing a very definite theme emerging at this point, and it is one that builds on a key Steven Moffat trope from his first two seasons as show-runner.

That theme is memory.

Series Five’s main plot arc concerned the crack in time caused by the destruction of the TARDIS. The crack erased people from time and thus made all those who knew them forget they ever existed. This was illustrated most obviously by the heartbreaking (second) death of Rory, and Amy’s doomed attempts to hang onto her memories of him. When the Doctor himself was erased from time, it was only Amy’s memory of him, planted in her head by the Doctor when she was eleven years old, that brought him back.

 

The many deaths of Rory Williams (Part Two).

 

Series Six introduced the Silence, a race who had long-since invaded Earth, whose modus operandi involved making people forget they had ever seen them the moment they turned away from the freaky-fingered felons. Even the Doctor was unable to picture them the moment they left his sight. Only through a subliminal message could the Doctor order mankind to kill the Silents, an order that could well have caused the aliens’ genocide and started the Doctor down his current path of letting his foes die rather than offering them a way to save themselves. Fast forward to the end of the season, and we discover that Madame Kovarian’s eyepatch was in fact a way of externally storing her memories of the Silents. The only way to remember the Silence is to store them on a computer drive. Once all the drives are destroyed who will remember the Silence then? Yes, they and Madame Kovarian are eventually defeated, but only in a parallel reality where time has stopped. For all we know, they are still out there, waiting for their moment of revenge, forgotten by the Doctor and his friends.

 

The Silence often abused their powers by lurking in women's toilets.

 

The Silence were revealed to be a religious order devoted to the stopping of a question that must never be asked. Namely ‘Doctor Who?’ In the very final moments of Series Six, the Doctor made the decision to step back into the shadows and become a myth once more. Did this choice put the Doctor onto the path to where that question will be answered? The answer appears to be yes.

Series Seven has brought us three stories so far, and each one has in some way touched upon this theme of memory. Asylum of the Daleks has Oswin, a girl who has forgotten, or rather is suppressing the memory, that she had been converted into a Dalek. She is no longer the person she thinks she is, a condition which may or may not apply to the Doctor at this point. Certainly it is to the Doctor we need to look. Oswin wipes all knowledge of the Doctor from the Dalek pathweb, so that when he returns to the Dalek saucer at the end of the story, the Daleks have no idea who he is. And what do they ask? ‘Doctor Who?’ of course, a question repeated over and over and celebrated by the Doctor. But this is the question that, according to the Silence, must never be asked; a question that terrified them so much they attempted to kill him (and in the eyes of the universe succeeded). Oswin’s last words, said directly to the camera are ‘And remember...’ Remember what exactly? Has she manipulated the Doctor’s memory too? Is she aware of the Doctor having memory problems? After all, she did scan him earlier in the episode. Then we have the slightly odd line as the TARDIS team prepare to face the Parliament of the Daleks. ‘What do we do?’ Amy asks. ‘Make them remember you,’ the Doctor tells her. Amy’s puzzled expression shows that this line makes no more sense to her as it does to the audience. It’s too strange a line not to mean something further down the line as Moffat’s arc starts to reveal itself properly.

 

'And remember...'

 

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship teases us with the belief that Solomon knew who the Doctor was on three occasions. Firstly we hear him perk up when he hears the word ‘Doctor’, but this turns out to be because he has been badly wounded by velociraptors and is in need of medical attention to keep his mangled legs. The second moment is when Solomon has his computer scan the Doctor, only to discover that he doesn’t exist. We fully expect the Doctor’s identity to be revealed here, and that absence of information again causes Solomon to question who he is; although Solomon doesn’t actually ask the forbidden question in this instance, we can assume that he at least thought it. The third tease occurs when Solomon discovers something else on board more precious than the dinosaurs, something unique. All indications are that he is talking about the TARDIS, but in fact he means Nefertiti. The Doctor and the TARDIS have been forgotten by the universe, but not by everybody. Riddell, Amy and Rory clearly know who he is, and quite probably the Indian Space Agency, although it is equally likely that, after monitoring the space news service, the Doctor simply inveigles his way into their confidence in his usual manner.

 

'You don't exist...'

 

In A Town Called Mercy, the Doctor reveals his age as 1200, indicating that a lot of time has passed since the events of Series Six, and in all that time the Time Lord has hidden in the shadows. We can imagine that he has used the better part of half a century proactively wiping himself from the history books rather than merely hiding away. Again the idea of memory comes to the fore when Isaac says of the Doctor (and Kahler-Jex): ‘You’re both good men. You just forget it sometimes.’ That’s a mighty perceptive comment from a man who has only just met the Doctor, so is it part of the theme? What leads Isaac to believe the Doctor has forgotten he is a good man?  At this time, we can’t be sure. However, it is Amy’s confrontation with her lifelong friend that is most revealing. ‘What have you turned into?’ she asks him at gunpoint, essentially asking ‘Doctor Who?’ If his most loyal companion doesn’t know who he is, then nobody does. The Doctor’s response is ambiguous; he appears for a moment not to know himself either.

 

'What have you turned into?'

 

The question has been asked three times now in three episodes. That isn’t coincidence. The signs are beginning to point to a future revelation that the Doctor has forgotten who he is as well. His merciless behaviour is at odds with his previous moral code. Could it be that two encounters in close order with memory-altering beings and space-time events have damaged his memory, as well as that of the universe as a whole? Could this be leading us into the anniversary year with the Doctor forgetting his identity and requiring the help of his former selves to restore it? Could this be a way of setting up a general reset of the series to allow it to continue for another fifty years? Are we leading to the forbidden question being asked by the Doctor himself?

One thing is clear; the imminent departure of Amy and Rory is only going to accelerate this process, as another two of the Doctor’s closest friends are lost to him and consigned to memory, and a new friend, already met, is remembered...

Review: A Town Called Mercy

A Town Called Mercy Review

 

Immediate Reaction

After last week’s dinosaur romp, A Town Called Mercy was an altogether more thoughtful and measured affair. It’s good to see that, amid the movie-size plot ideas, there’s still room to explore a concept thoroughly. The presentation of Doctor Kahler-Jex as a man haunted by the terrible things he has done in the name of war, seeking redemption in helping others yet forever wracked by the guilt of his atrocities, uncomfortably mirrors the Doctor. Although the presentation of a line that the Doctor crosses by showing Jex no mercy at all is a rather too literal one, we again see a brutal side to the Eleventh Doctor, building on his treatment of Solomon last week. Without a constant companion, he will let his enemies die without even the second chance the Tenth Doctor offered. This darker, crueller Doctor is causing Amy and Rory to grow ever more distant and he seems to know it, but he doesn’t appear to be able to do anything to stop their gradual separation.

Matt Smith is well-served by a script that offers him comedy and dramatic confrontations in equal doses. A Town Called Mercy is tonally more balanced than Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, although it might have been too talky for a casual audience. The western tropes were all present and correct, yet they were merely background details for the studied examination of the two Doctors in the story.

Amy and Rory were given much less to do, although Jex’s observations about Amy’s motherhood were sharp and beautifully written. Rory in particular was sidelined massively with no real standout moment for him.

Oswin aside, Marshall Isaac, Kahler-Jex and the Gunslinger are the most fully-rounded characters this season has offered us so far. Ben Browder is excellent in everything he does, and that run is certainly continued here. He is the conscience of the story and his death forces the Doctor to assume that mantle. Isaac is the only character who believes in redemption; despite all the evidence both Jex and the Doctor provide to the contrary, he believes them both to be good men. Jex and the Gunslinger are both morally ambiguous creations. Both have committed unforgivable crimes but both are also misunderstood and seeking redemption and indeed mercy.

Toby Whithouse has produced a string of thoughtful scripts that have a strong moral centre and incisive character development. That run continues here, meaning that, as it stands, he is fast becoming the heir apparent to the Doctor Who show-runner mantle, should Steven Moffat choose to relinquish it in the future. He is to Moffat’s reign what Moffat himself was to the Russell T Davies era; a writer who will take a given idea and turn it into something much better.

The story was beautifully shot. The town and the desert were totally convincing and it was very easy to accept that the TARDIS crew were genuinely in the Wild West. The image of the Gunslinger phasing in and out of the desert was actually quite scary, particularly the first time when he threatens the Doctor and his intentions have not yet been established.

I very much enjoyed A Town Called Mercy. Much like Whithouse’s The God Complex from last year, Mercy is a story that will certainly benefit from a second viewing, as the maturity of the theme and the character motivations and ambiguities reveal themselves. It’s the most adult of the stories so far this season, and once again proves, as if it ever needed reiterating, that Doctor Who can be anything it wants to be. An excellent adventure, very well-told.

Oh, and I can’t complete a review without mentioning Susan the gender-confused horse. Genius.

 

Considered Opinion (After Second Watch)

I’ve no doubt that some viewers tuned into A Town Called Mercy expecting a pastiche of the Western genre, much like Back to the Future Part Three. What we got instead was a mature study into the Doctor’s darker side and the most ambiguous set of villains that I can remember seeing in Doctor Who. I’m quite certain that Mercy’s talky nature lost a great many of its younger audience, but as I touched on above, Doctor Who is many different things, often at the same time. Therein lies the key to its success and continued longevity.

Toby Whithouse’s intelligent script referenced  all the elements we expect from a cowboy, such as the saloon sequence, the duel at midday, the local gaol and the Marshal/ Sheriff who believes in the good of his town. Yet these elements are merely dressing for the main element of the plot; the Doctor coming face to face with a war criminal who has done terrible things but is seeking redemption for his past sins. In truth, the Doctor is coming face to face with himself.

'You're both good men. You just forget it sometimes.'

 

In a period of Doctor Who where mentions of the Time War are correctly becoming more scarce, it’s good to see that, given the right forum, the subject still has fertile areas to mine. The Doctor’s guilt at his genocide at the end of the Time War comes to the fore as he discovers how Kahler-Jex pretty much became the Josef Mengele of his world, surgically altering people to become cyborg killers.  Jex’s argument that the atrocities he carried out were done in the heat of war and in the name of peace fall on deaf ears. Or rather, they strike a chord a little tto close to home for the Doctor, causing him to drag Jex out to be murdered by the Gunslinger and to eventually aim a gun right at Jex’s head. It’s not many villains (if Jex is indeed a villain in the truest sense) who can unbalance the Doctor to the point where his companion needs to point a gun at him to make him back down.

This exploration of the Doctor’s guilt and rage are new areas for Matt Smith’s Doctor, and he rises to the challenge perfectly, as if there would ever be any doubt about that. This is a Doctor in his prime, able to switch between the emotions at will and deepen our understanding of what’s behind the genial facade. He is given a lot of good material in A Town Called Mercy, and once more he bats it out of the park.

If Mercy has a fault, it’s that it sacrifices its rich background for a lot of scenes of people standing around talking. Rory and Amy feel particularly short-changed by not being given anything heroic to do. There was an opportunity in the middle of the episode for Jex to kidnap Amy at gunpoint, perhaps allowing Rory to rescue her in a shoot-out, but this comes to nothing in the end. After all, Jex is as conflicted an individual as the Doctor, so it would be wrong to paint him in the black of an out-and-out villain even though the story really needs one.

'He's called Susan and he wants you to respect his life choices.'

 

In a similar vein, the Gunslinger moves from unknown force to sympathetic creation a little too quickly. Apart from the opening pre-credits sequence where we see him kill another of the Kahler, the Gunslinger’s potential as an iconic monster is slightly squandered. It would have been good to have seen him remain as the silent threat in the story right up until the moment he spares the little girl and the townsfolk in the chapel.

But these are niggling issues that don’t detract from the sheer quality of Whithouse’s writing. Here is a man who is setting himself up nicely as the Crown Prince to Steven Moffat’s King. If Doctor Who is beginning to look at the possibilities for a new show-runner, they need look no further than here. I would love to see him deal with a returning monster next, just to see how he develops them. His four scripts for the series have seen him move from romps to more serious fare, so as a writer he clearly has the range.

Oh, and there’s definitely a developing theme regarding memory. See here for more on that. And the Doctor’s new-found dark side is only going to lead him into trouble, perhaps when Amy and Rory are no longer there to be the two voices of his conscience...

'Violence doesn't end violence. It extends it.'

 

A Town Called Mercy’s Ten Brilliant Bits

1.       The Doctor has been forcibly ejected from the town of Mercy. Carried aloft and thrown outside the town border line, he stands and dusts himself off. And in the background, the Gunslinger appears, phasing in and out of reality as he teleports ever closer. ‘He’s coming,’ says the Preacher. ‘Oh God, he’s coming.’ The fear on the Doctor’s face is genuine. Like the audience, he has no idea of the threat the Gunslinger poses, only that in this moment, disappearing and reappearing at will, he is genuinely scary.

 

2.       Ben Browder’s Isaac is an instantly likeable creation. In a story centred around characters and relationships, he is a laconic and calming presence. His immediate trust in the Doctor reveals him to be a wise man, seeing the good in others when sometimes they cannot see it themselves. He believes in mercy, both the town and the concept, and his self-sacrifice is the thing that, even more than Amy’s arguments, brings the Doctor back to calmness. In a story where nobody is black or white, Isaac is the voice of reason.

 

3.       Kahler-Jex is beautifully realised by Adrian Scarborough. Initially genial, we see the darker side to him as his secret is revealed and he engages the Doctor in a war of words where neither of them ends up being the moral victor. His conscience is never far from the surface, particularly when the Doctor tells him that he cannot choose when and how to pay his debt. As a mirror image of the war criminal the Doctor believes himself to be, Jex simultaneously earns our pity and our disgust. Scarborough walks this fine line with great confidence, creating one of the most complex villains the series has ever seen.

 

4.       Susan the gender-confused horse is a wonderful creation. He (she?) deserves her own section just for the interactions with the Doctor. Matt Smith responds to every noise his horsey co-star makes, causing me to wonder just how much of his conversation was scripted and how much was ad-libbed by Smith.

 

5.       The moment when the gunslinger bursts into the chapel with the single intention of massacring all the residents of Mercy cowering inside, but sees the little girl who knocked over the books in the first place. He makes eye contact with her and for a fleeting second you see his entire back story play out across his eyes. The Gunslinger used to be a father before he became a parody of a man, and he cannot bring himself to kill her. He powers down and walks away, suddenly a much more complicated creation.

 

6.       The Doctor has found Jex’s spacecraft, but the ship obstinately will not open for him. What follows is a glorious few seconds of jump cuts, as Matt Smith’ physical comedy prowess comes to the fore and the Doctor tries a succession of failed attempts to get inside.

 

7.       The Doctor strides into the Mercy saloon. In time-honoured fashion, everybody stops talking and looks at the newcomer. The Doctor leans nonchalantly against the bar. ‘Tea,’ he growls to the bargirl. ‘But the strong stuff. Leave the bag in.’ At the same time, he is chewing on a matchstick that somehow manages to lodge itself in the roof of his mouth so he can’t get it out. More effortless Doctorish behaviour from Mr Smith.

'Tea. But the strong stuff. Leave the bag in.'

 

8.       The confrontation between Amy and the Doctor, which sees Amy draw a gun against her friend, hints at just how far apart the two of them have grown. He used to be her raggedy Doctor, but now he is the sort of man who will point a gun at a stranger in judgement. In the town of Mercy, there is none to be found in the Doctor.

 

9.       After Isaac’s death, the Doctor has assumed the mantle of Marshal of Mercy. Isaac’s death has shown him the error of his ways, so when he is confronted by a lynch mob, out for Jex’s blood, he defuses the standoff where earlier he caused it. ‘Violence doesn’t end violence,’ he tells Walter, the eighteen year-old kid charged with leading the mob. ‘It extends it.’ This is as true for the Doctor’s earlier actions as it is for how he conducts his life. ‘You really worth the risk?’ asks Walter, swayed by his words. ‘Don’t know,’ admits the Doctor. ‘But you are.’ Once again, the Doctor has found his moral centre.

 

10.   The high noon duel plays on all the clichés of the Western genre, with clock creaking ominously towards twelve, townsfolk in hiding and the Doctor striking his best cowboy pose. After witnessing the Doctor wield a gun earlier on, we are hoping he doesn’t resort to trying to outdraw the Gunslinger. It turns out we needn’t have worried; a fast draw of the trusty sonic screwdriver scrambles the Gunslinger enough to end the standoff.

 

A Town Called Mercy continues Series Seven’s rich vein of form. It occurred to me that I haven’t enjoyed the three opening stories of a season since Series Three and Martha. It may have been talkier than the previous two stories in the season, but it is a tale that rewards repeat viewing, and that can only be a good thing.

When did killing someone become and option?'

 

Overall Rating: 8/10