Simon Fernandes

Doctor Who: 2023 Special #1 – The Star Beast

“Why did this face come back? To say goodbye?”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Now that was more like it.

Don’t get me wrong, I know showrunners are all a matter of taste, and some people really loved Chris Chibnall’s run on Doctor Who. Even I had episodes that I really loved, and moments that stirred my feelings. But generally, for me, it was often clumsy, and incoherent (☹) and too satisfied with cramming in spectacle when character-driven stories would have worked better. And Steven Moffat (who I did enjoy while others didn’t) had his failings too – chiefly that his delight in timey-wimey puzzles often overshadowed his characters, and sometimes drowned the emotional beats of stories.

Happy 60th birthday Doctor Who!

“It all started out as a mild curiosity in the junkyard, and now it’s turned out to be quite a great spirit of adventure…”

And so, on the 23^rd of November, the TV show that has been such a huge part of my life – and of so many of my friends – turned 60. Now, I’ll grant you, ‘60’ seems somewhat less momentous than ‘50’ (despite being a bigger number), but the celebration of what’s now one of the BBC’s tentpole brands was far from diminished.

Doctor Who: Destination Skaro (Children in Need)

“I was never here!”

The smorgasbord of Doctor Who laid on for its 60^th birthday continued last night with a 5 minute skit on the BBC’s annual charity telethon, Children in Need. Monsieur BBC, with these Who specials you are really spoiling us!

Doctor Who at 60 – and me at 54!

“Time is memory, and memory is time.”

When I was a kid, Doctor Who seemed like a really old show. It started before I was born, six whole years before in fact. And to a kid, six years is an eternity.

I first got into it very, very young. Literally the earliest memory I have is of my mother sitting the three-year-old me in front of the big, rented colour TV in our Durham suburban home, presumably in an attempt to get some time off from me, and my being enthralled by what I now know to be Planet of the Daleks episode 4 (it was the bit where Jon Pertwee and Bernard Horsfall shove a Dalek into a lake).

The Last of Us: season 1, episode 9 – Look for the Light

“You can’t keep her safe forever. No matter how hard you try, no matter how many people you kill, she’s gonna grow up, Joel.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Season finales, especially in big budget genre shows, tend to be things of spectacle, with all the budget thrown at the screen to keep the audience on tenterhooks for the next year. In a Walking Dead season finale, you could pretty much guarantee hordes of zombies invading the heroes’ sanctuary, with action, explosions and headshots aplenty.

The Last of Us: season 1, episode 8 – When We Are in Need

“I’m a shepherd surrounded by sheep – and all I want is an equal.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

It was back to the main plot for this week’s penultimate ep of The Last of Us, and back to another one of those well-worn post-apocalyptic tropes – the seemingly nice community with a Dark Secret. And it was a Dark Secret that we’ve seen many, many times before.

The Last of Us: season 1, episode 7 – Left Behind

“It ends this way sooner or later for everyone, right? Some of us just get there faster than others. But we don’t quit.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

This week’s ep is another example of what sets The Last of Us apart from other post-apocalyptic dramas – it’s not an action piece driven by plot, but a character piece that happens to be set after the end of the world. Hearkening back to the heights of ep3, Left Behind is another virtual two-hander, featuring basically only two characters. But unlike the heartrending story of Bill and Frank, this tale unfolds not over twenty years but the course of a single night – a night that changed Ellie’s life in more ways than one.

The Last of Us: season 1, episode 6 – Kin

“Be careful who you put your faith in. The only people who can betray us, are the ones we trust.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

After last week’s sturm und drang of action and emotion, it’s a much quieter ep for The Last of Us this week. As the title suggests, it’s all about family – both blood and adoptive. We’ve seen Joel and Ellie’s relationship thawing into something like an ersatz father-daughter relationship throughout, and this ep brings that front and centre as both are forced to confront how they feel about each other. Without an Infected anywhere in sight, which might displease some of the game fans watching.

The Last of Us: season 1, episode 5 – Endure and Survive

“They raped and tortured and murdered people for twenty years. And you know what happens when you do that to people? The moment they get a chance, they do it right back to you.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Following on from last week’s cliffhanger, this week’s Last of Us was again a fairly conventional post-apocalypse tale, nothing we hadn’t seen before. But this story of revolution against oppression and personal grudges unable to be left behind was well told, and had this show’s now trademark thoughtful focus on character rather than action. Not that there wasn’t action – we may have been here before, but Jeremy Webb’s assured direction handled the story well from a well-structured script by Craig Mazin.

The Last of Us: season 1, episode 4 – Please Hold to My Hand

“If you don’t believe there’s any hope for the world, why bother going on?”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

After last week’s hugely acclaimed sidetrip to tell other survivors’ stories, this week The Last of Us was squarely back to its main story, with a far more conventional episode. I’ve said before that, however handsomely produced and earnestly written, this is not a show that’s particularly original. The obvious, and inevitable, comparison is to AMC’s The Walking Dead, which, let’s not forget, predated the Last of Us game by several years. Yet even that relied on tried and trusted post-apocalypse tropes going back decades, ones aficionados will have seen/read in the likes of Day of the Triffids, or 1970s BBC classic Survivors.